wall. Nothing happened. The alleyway was empty.
He began to walk deliberately along it, noting in passing anything which might offer protection, but keeping his eyes steadily on the daylight at the other end of the alleyway. If anyone looked into the alley he would see them first and the second or two it would give him, while their eyes got used to the darkness, would be all that he would have to get out of their line of fire.
He himself was unarmed; a situation which, he told himself fervently, he would remedy as speedily as possible, if he ever got out of this.
The light at the other end of the alleyway came nearer. He found himself sweating profusely.
It was getting so close now that if anyone appeared, his best chance was to jump them. He tensed himself in readiness.
He was at the entrance into the alleyway now. Directly ahead was the broad thoroughfare of the Masr el Atika.
For a moment he listened and then cautiously, very cautiously, he stuck his head out and looked up and down the street. At first it seemed deserted. But then, at the very far end, he thought he saw, just for an instant, two men. He had time to notice only that they were in European-style shirts and trousers, and then they were gone.
‘Is this the way,’ demanded the note, ‘that the Khedive’s servants should be treated?’
Privately, Owen suspected it was. However, as the note had come from the Khedive himself he thought it politic to reply soothingly, deploring the insult offered to the Khedive and the injury suffered by his servants, and assuring His Highness that he would do all he could to track down the malefactors.
‘You’d better go, too,’ said Nikos, the Mamur Zapt’s Official Clerk. ‘It won’t do any good but it will look better that way.’
So Owen betook himself to the Khedive’s afflicted servant, Ali Osman Pasha. The previous day, on his way home from an audience with the Khedive, Ali Osman had been set upon by a mob. His arabeah had been overturned and he himself desperately injured. If his driver had not been able to sound the alarm, he would undoubtedly have been killed. He was now at home recovering from his wounds.
Owen walked in past the guardian eunuchs, named according to custom after flowers or precious stones, across the courtyard, his feet crunching in the gravel, and into the reception room, the mandar’ah, with its sunken marble floor and fountain playing. There was a dais at the back with large leather and silk cushions, on which a man was lying.
He groaned as he saw Owen and waved a hand. Slaves rushed to escort Owen across the room.
‘My dear fellow,’ said the recumbent man. ‘Mon très, très cher ami!’
‘I am sorry to see you so afflicted, Pasha,’ said Owen.
‘I was fortunate to escape with my life. They would have killed me.’
‘Outrageous!’
‘Sauvages! Jacobins!’
Like most of the Egyptian upper class, the Pasha habitually spoke French. He looked on the French culture as his own, identifying, however, more with Louis-Philippe than with the present Republic.
‘They shall be tracked down.’
‘And tortured,’ said Ali Osman with relish. ‘Flayed alive and nailed out in the sun.’
‘Severely dealt with.’
‘I would wish to be present myself,’ said the Pasha. ‘In person. Please make arrangements.’
‘Certainly. Of course, it may all take a little time … Legal processes, you know …’
Ali Osman raised himself on one arm.
‘Justice,’ he admonished Owen, ‘should be swift and certain. Then people know what to expect.’
‘Absolutely! But, Pasha, surely you would not wish it to be too soon? Might not your injuries prevent—?’
‘Grievous though they are,’ said Osman, ‘for this I would make a special effort.’
He collapsed on his face again and a eunuch hastily began to massage him.
‘May I inquire into the nature of your wounds?’ asked Owen.
‘Severe.’
‘No doubt. But—’ eyeing the pummelling Ali Osman was receiving from the eunuch—‘confined to the surface?’
‘The bruising goes deep.’
‘Of course. But—bruising only? No stab wounds?’
‘Some of them had knives. It was merely a matter of time.’
‘Yes. It was fortunate that your driver—’
Ali Osman interrupted him. ‘They let him off lightly. Why did they pick on me? Why didn’t they beat him? He’s used to it, after all; he wouldn’t have felt it as much.’
He seemed to be expecting an answer.
‘The great,’ said Owen diplomatically, ‘are the target for the world’s envy.’
‘Ah,’ said Ali Osman Pasha, ‘there you have it.’
He lay silent for a while.
‘Of course,’ he said suddenly, ‘they didn’t think of this themselves. They were put up to it.’
‘You think so?’
‘I am sure of it. And I know who is behind it.’
‘Really?’
‘Abdul Maher.’
‘Abdul Maher?’
‘Yes.’
‘But, Pasha—’
Abdul Maher was a veteran politician, an intimate of the Khedive, a noted public figure. He had occupied some post or other in the last dozen Governments.
The Pasha was looking at him solemnly.
‘I know,’ he said.
‘You must have some reason—’
‘Motive,’ said Ali Osman.
‘Motive?’
‘He wished to take my place. Supplant me in the Khedive’s favour.’
‘I see,’ said Owen, as light began to dawn. ‘And that would be particularly important just at the moment’
‘Yes.’ Ali Osman motioned to him to come closer. ‘This is for your ear alone, my friend,’ he breathed. ‘His Highness is close to making a decision. Very close. It has been difficult. He has had to choose between those he knows are loyal to him, those who have served him well in the past. And those others who claim—’ Ali Osman snorted—‘claim they speak for the new.’
‘But surely Abdul Maher—’
‘Belongs with the old, you think? Because he has been part of every Government for the last twenty years? You would be wrong, my friend. Because there is the cunning of the man. He claims he speaks for the new!’
‘I cannot believe that the Khedive—’
‘Of course not. The Khedive knows him far too well. But he is plausible, you see, not just to the Khedive but to others. He speaks well and some may believe him. So the Khedive—well, over the past week or so the Khedive seems to have been inclining to him. But yesterday he—His Highness, that is—told me personally that Abdul Maher is absolutely out.’
The Pasha looked at Owen triumphantly.
‘So, my friend, if Abdul Maher is out, someone else