Azim Bey

“ When this conclusion was reached, Azim Bey turned a meaning glance on Cecil.
“This case must go before my father, mademoiselle,” he said; “it is too much for me to deal with. No doubt he would much prefer that I should settle it for myself and not involve him in trouble with my grandmother, but it is too serious. An example must be made. Take the woman away, O Masûd, and keep her safely until the Pasha can give thee orders about her.”
“Upon my head be it, O my lord,” responded Masûd, with a grin, and dragged away the miserable Salimeh, shrieking and praying for mercy. ”

“ Azim Bey could always take care of himself, and Cecil had spirit enough to secure tolerable respect towards her in her presence, but the treatment which their household received from that of Jamileh Khanum was galling in the extreme. Headed by the Levantine Mdlle. Katrina, who had been lent to her daughter-in-law by the Um-ul-Pasha in view of this journey, the harem attendants did everything in their power to insult and injure the servants of the Bey. ”

“ Still, he found life very weary and perplexing while he tried to think of the right person to employ as his instrument in effecting his purpose.
Masûd and the rest of the servants he dismissed from his thoughts at once, they were too stolid, and would not make good intriguers. But Azim Bey had not been brought up in an atmosphere of intrigue for nothing; he knew exactly the kind of person who was fitted to undertake what Charlie Egerton called “dirty work,” and the consuls, more euphemistically, “secret missions.” ”

“ Ah, mademoiselle, if your people want to make us good and happy, they must teach the women as well as the men, and begin at the heart with both.”
And Cecil could gain no more from her, the rather as they had very little time for private conversation. Azim Bey’s lessons were going on just as if they were still at Baghdad, and Said Bey displayed a disposition to keep his wife from having much to say to the Frangi woman. ”

“ Ahmed Khémi is, as you, mademoiselle, have heard, a man of liberal and enlightened opinions, and as soon as he sent for his household to Baghdad, trouble began. Whatever the Pasha did was bitterly opposed by his son, who was supported by the influence of the palace harem. At length things became so bad that Hussein Bey was banished, but he is still concerned in every plot which is set on foot by the more fanatical among the Moslems to get rid of the Pasha, and he hates, perhaps not unnaturally, his half-brother, Azim Bey. ”

“ They would be afraid of your making her a Christian.”
“But Azim Bey is always with me,” objected Cecil.
“That is different,” said Azim Bey’s sister; “he is a boy. They know that there is no danger for him. But what has Islam for a woman?”
“Have you felt this, Khanum?” asked Cecil, in surprise.
“How can I help it? I have read your books, I have seen the difference between your life and ours,” said Naimeh Khanum. “Our people think justly that there is little need for fear in the case of boys like my brother. ”

“ There were still two or three large cases containing the books and school-appliances which had been ordered for Azim Bey to be unpacked, and she went with Um Yusuf, attended by her admiring train, to see whether there was any place for their contents in the room pointed out by Basmeh Kalfa as the Bey’s “study.” Here there was a raised dais, occupying about half the floor, and covered with a rich Kurdish carpet, the lower part of the room being matted. On the dais was the divan, covered with thick silk, and amply furnished with cushions of various sizes. ”

“ The men who had been squabbling over the battering-ram seemed all at once to determine to unite against this new foe, and turned to oppose them, whereupon a scene began which made Lady Haigh retreat down the stairs into the court in horror, but which caused Azim Bey to clap his hands and shout. The soldiers, with their heavy sabres, mowed down the mob as they advanced, until the few who were left broke their ranks and did their best to shrink close to the walls on either side and slip past the horses. ”

“ The position she enjoyed in the Palace was constantly attributed to witchcraft; and there were even those who said that things would never be right in Baghdad until Azim Bey and his governess were—well, disposed of. By degrees matters went from bad to worse. Riotous mobs beset unpopular officials in the streets, and more than one house was attacked and rifled. The Pasha shut himself up in the Palace, with a strong guard on duty night and day, and none of the household ventured out without an escort. ”

“ Not a word was to be breathed of the matter to any one but the parties immediately concerned; there was to be no military escort, no long train of servants, only the two nurses and the donkey-boys to attend upon Cecil and himself, and Masûd to give an air of respectability to the outing. All were to wear their plainest clothes, even the donkeys were not to be decked with their State trappings, and the route was strictly to be limited to unfrequented streets. Was there ever such a poor and mean caricature of the gorgeous pageant Azim Bey had proposed to himself? ”

“ He can’t bear to think of your slaving, as he calls it, with Azim Bey all day; he wants you to be raised above the necessity of working for your family. He need not stay out here, you know, if it were not that he loves the East so much, he has a good property at home,—and he is a generous fellow. I am sure I may say that your little brothers would not suffer from the change. I might talk to you about a good position, and all that sort of thing, but I don’t believe it would affect you. ”

“ Azim Bey is at the door, and Sir Dugald was asking for you. If you don’t put in an appearance, there’ll be trouble. Do go at once.”
“That abominable child!” cried Charlie, and obeyed.
CHAPTER XVI.
A MURDEROUS INTENT. “Well, dear?” cried Mrs Hagopidan, rushing to Cecil’s side, as Charlie precipitated himself down the stairs, hurried across the courtyard, and arrived at the gate just in time to take his place behind Sir Dugald as the great doors were thrown open for Azim Bey’s entrance, “is it all settled? You are glad now that I brought you here on false pretences? ”

“ It is not merely on the side of the French that curious intrigues are just now in full progress under one’s very eyes. The Bey, as I have said, is practically a prisoner in his palace at Goletta, utterly dejected and heartbroken, and so completely devoid of spirit that he has just conferred—need I say at whose bidding?—his highest decoration upon the French general commanding the troops in occupation of Tunis—an occupation which every Arab resents as an insult to his nationality and his creed. ”

“ His eyes sparkled even more lustrously than the gems in the agraffe of the crescent on the sultan's turban. In the sash that encircled his waist glittered a pair of pistols and the jewelled hilt of a dagger, and whoever beheld Osman Bey said to himself:" This is a man! a hero who recoils from nothing!" Lightly bounding, his nostrils expanded, his eyes glowing, he now rode his steed around the wide circle of Mamelukes and Turks. With uplifted sword he then approached the horse that stood tied to a stake in the middle of the circle. ”

“ Darkness frightens him. Therefore a light is always kept burning in his chamber, and [76] Ismet Bey, grand master of the imperial wardrobe, always sleeps in the same room. Ismet Bey is his foster brother, and probably possesses his confidence more fully than any other man. Because he resembles the Sultan so closely in appearance, it is believed among the gossips of Constantinople that he often impersonates His Majesty at ceremonies and on other occasions where the latter is likely to be exposed to the danger of assassination. ”

“ Osman Bey shook his head proudly; and his countenance, before troubled, was now radiant with courage and joy. "Sitta Nefysseh, your noble heart is concerned for your friends, and I thank you in the name of all of us. But what your womanly sensitiveness fears, Osman Bey may not fear, and he must not show the Turks that he distrusts them! Allah watches over us all, and his will must be fulfilled! Why should we fear?" ”

“ A word from thee—would one open his mouth? Would not the shadow of thy hand, of the swift doom, be over them? Would not a handful of gold bind them to me? Is not the man dead? Are they not mine—mine to bind or break as I will?”
“So be it! Wisdom is of thee as the breath of man is his life. I will drive Foorgat Bey to his home.”
A few moments later all that was left of Foorgat Bey was sitting in his carriage beside Mizraim the Chief Eunuch—sitting upright, stony, and still, and in such wise was driven swiftly to his palace. ”

“ He shrugged, dangled his pistols, glanced at Gizzler,—or rather through Gizzler as though, the wretched creature were not there,—and his eyes encountered the interested jet black orbs of Eddin Bey.
Both smiled, Eddin in the face of death; Raoul with the generous grin of a man who recognizes in his enemy a peer.
"Eddin Bey," he said, still smiling, "the Osmanli fight fairly. Ask the British Tommy.... And your fool of a Sultan is dead. And what do you think of affairs at present?"
"They are not any too gay," replied Eddin Bey, laughing, "especially in the Alps." ”

“ The Bey escaped to the Thebaid, and the disappointed Sheikh presented himself to his employer. Osman passionately demanded of him if it was true that his wife had saved the life of his deadliest enemy, when in her power. "Most true, praised be Allah!" replied the Sheikh, drawing himself proudly up, and presenting a jewel-hilted dagger to the old Bey; "this weapon," he continued, "was your gift to me in the hour of your favour; had I met Elfy Bey, it should have freed you from your enemy. Had my wife betrayed the hospitality of the tent, it should have drank her blood ”

“ Much as the Mussulman despised the race, still, in the hope of benefiting his child by the man's medical skill, he desired the Armenian physician to send the Jew, as he proposed, on the following day, and paying the heavy fee that these leeches know so well how to charge the rich old Turks, the Bey departed once more to his palace. ”

“ Others took their places, Turkish peasants like himself, middle aged, bearded, solemn—but from districts farther South and West.
They, too, had heard that Islam was in danger, that the Russian was at the door.
Came more fighting, through many, weary months. Then a defeat, a rout, a debacle; the ground littered with their dead and dying, amongst them the colonel of the Seventeenth, Moustaffa Sheffket Bey; and talk of treason in exalted places, of a renegade Saloniki Jew by the name of Enver Bey throttling the ancient Osmanli Empire and handing it over, tied hand and foot, to a Potsdam usurper. ”

“ But latterly his manners, from his intercourse with Europeans, have been somewhat polished, and in deference to them, he has displayed both clemency and dignity—in fact, Ibrahim is excessively anxious to acquire the good opinion of Europe. He possesses all that strong common-sense that so distinguishes the Turks, rather than an elevated intelligence of mind. Soliman Bey, a renegade Frenchman, formerly an officer on the staff of Marshal Grouchy, was associated with him, and it is to him that the success of the Egyptian army may be chiefly attributed. ”

“ Because a woman would suffer an unmerited scandal and shame. Nothing could recall Foorgat Bey; but for that silence I gave my life, for the land which was his land. Do you betray it, then? “And now, Nahoum, the gulf in which you sought to plunge me when you had ruined all I did is here before me. The long deception has nearly done its work. I know from Ebn Ezra Bey what passed between you. They are out against me—the slave-dealers—from Senaar to where I am. The dominion of Egypt is over here. ”

“ Carlo Rozetti, a Venetian merchant, a young man of capacity and intrigue, had for some years governed the Bey absolutely. Had such a man been on board the fleet with a commission, after receiving instructions from Petersburgh, the Ottoman empire in Egypt was at an end.
The Bey, with all his good sense and understanding, was still a mamaluke, and had the principles of a slave. Three men of different religions possessed his confidence and governed his councils all at a time. The one was a Greek, the other a Jew, and the third an Egyptian Copht, his secretary. ”

“ At this moment Osman Bey, Delì Pasha’s wakeel, who thought the preceding game beneath his dignity, entered the arena, followed by several of his Mamelukes. He was dressed in a rich costume which was well calculated to show off the proportions of his strong and muscular figure, and mounted on a grey Arab, which for the first two years of its life had been fed on camels’ milk in the deserts of the Nejd, and though not remarkable for size, was compactly and beautifully proportioned. ”

“ I don’t think that any prisoners could have expected to have a juster man to deal with than our new Commandant, Zeir Bey. Just think what an opportunity of regeneration Turkey lost in this war. Had the Ottoman 203 Government selected men like Zeir Bey to command each camp, they would have made friends for themselves not only all over the British Empire, but in France and her colonies, in Russia, in Italy and in Rumania. Instead of which they have made bitter enemies.
Our Indians had the greatest contempt and hatred for the Turks, all but a few who were traitors. ”