Gradually it became lighter, and Mahmoud realized that the moon had risen. It shone a silvery light on everything. It was almost as bright as day.
The night now was still warm but the heat was gentle. Mahmoud realized that the lady had been right. It was a much better time to travel.
Mahmoud was thinking about the guns. Although they were not particularly his concern on this occasion, they were of concern to anyone responsible for law and order in Egypt. Owen, he knew, would be interested. The governor kept a close watch on the illicit movement of guns. And this ‘movement’ was surely illicit. He would remember the names and pass them on to Owen. Yakub — it might come in useful.
The soft padding of the donkey’s feet and the slow, regular movement was quite soporific. He felt himself nodding off, and jerked himself awake.
The clerk, he saw, had bent so far forward over the donkey’s neck that he looked in danger of falling off. He was almost certainly asleep. Mahmoud wondered whether to wake him but decided not to. It would pass the night more quickly for him and, on the whole, it looked as if he was not going to actually fall.
Just as Mahmoud thought that, the clerk did fall, but forward over the donkey’s neck. He gave a start and raised himself. When Mahmoud looked again he was inclining forward once more.
Mahmoud himself must have dozed off because when he next took stock of his surroundings, the moonlight had become a drabber grey. He fancied he could see touches of dawn in the sky. He suddenly realized that he was very stiff and more than a little sore. This was the longest ride he had had on a donkey for many years, if ever. And he hoped it would be as long again before he had another one!
The next time he looked up he saw palm trees and buildings. He made out the black water tank of the railway station. Camels. People. Far more camels and people than when he had left, surely?
Owen found the omda hoeing a piece of land at the end of the town. He looked up when he saw Owen and wiped his forehead.
‘Effendi!’ he said, pleased to stop.
‘A question,’ said Owen, ‘about Soraya’s bride box. It was, we all agree, sent after her. But where to? It is said that it was sent to the Pasha’s lady’s house, and that she was angered when she saw it arriving. But I have just been speaking with Mustapha, and Mustapha says that it was the slaver who came for Soraya. And that when Mustapha asked him if he should send the bride box with her, the slaver laughed and said: “Why not?” The slaver said he knew of someone who had his eye on Soraya, and Mustapha understood that Soraya was going to him. And so he sent the bride box. But what happened then? Because the next thing we hear is that Soraya is again with the Pasha’s lady. And so is her bride box. Does this man exist? And if not, why should the slaver say he did? And how comes it that then Soraya and the bride box go to the Pasha’s lady’s house?’
The omda scratched his head. ‘I know not,’ he said.
‘The men who came for Soraya’s box — were they the slaver’s men? Or the Pasha’s lady’s men?’
‘The slaver’s men, surely.’
‘And yet the box turned up in the lady’s house. Did Soraya know that it was going to the lady’s house, or did she think it was going to a man the slaver knew of?’
‘I do not think she thought she was going back to the lady’s house. She thought, and Mustapha thought, that she was going to a man the slaver was acting for. “Leave it to me,” he said, “and I will arrange all.” We all thought that she was going to her marriage. The slaver spoke so. And she herself believed it, so when Mustapha spoke to her about it, she said she would not go to him unless she thought him worthy. And Mustapha was angered and wanted to beat her, but we restrained him.’
‘And yet she finished up at the Pasha’s lady’s house?’
‘It seems so.’
‘I find that hard to understand.’
‘It must be a trick. Men such as the slaver are full of tricks.’
Mahmoud had ridden into Denderah just before dawn. He had discharged the lady’s guide, the station clerk, and the donkeys and then snatched some sleep for himself. Only a little, for there were things to do. But he was good at waking himself up and midway through the morning he went to find Owen. He met him just coming back from talking to the omda. They walked back together to the station, where the stacks of gum arabic were growing all the time, and then out behind the station to what had been, when Mahmoud left, a vast, empty square but which was now brimming with people and camels and donkeys. Some stalls had been set up selling tea and Owen and Mahmoud ordered some from one of them. The man brought it to them sitting on the ground.
They had information to exchange. Owen needed to know about the guns and Mahmoud brought him up to date with the failure to identify any of the Pasha’s men — but also the possible lead with Suleiman. Owen shared with him the conflicting information about the destination of Soraya’s bride box.
In both cases the exchange brought about a switch in thinking. Mahmoud realized that he would have to go back to the Pasha’s estate and the lady’s house; Owen, who had been intending to return to Cairo, thought that in the light of what Mahmoud had told him about the guns — and what he had learned at the temple — he would stay on in Denderah for another couple of days, at least until the caravan had arrived bringing its miscellaneous cargoes.
As they were drinking the tea, Owen heard himself hailed. It was the clerk’s brother, Babikr, and he was moving a slip of paper.
‘For you, Effendi! For you!’
It was a reply to his cable to the Sudan Slavery Bureau. It read:
Abdulla Sardawi known to us. Bugger! Thought he’d retired.
Will keep an eye and nab on return to Suakin.
Macfarlane.
Afterwards, Mahmoud wandered off around the square and Owen went back to the railway station. A train had just come in but it was the passenger train from Luxor, not a goods train and had no effect on the great wall of gum arabic sacks that had sprung up.
Not many people got off the passenger train. This was not yet the tourist season and there were few visitors for Denderah: one or two Levantines in suits, merchants, perhaps, taking advantage of the great cross-over of goods, and a family returning to Denderah to be met by a great gang of relatives. Come for a wedding, perhaps? Or a funeral?
But there was also a tall, thin man in a white suit, a European of sorts. He wore a straw hat, pulled forward over his face against the sun, and dark sunglasses that he kept pulling off to see better. What he seemed to be looking at were the sacks of gum arabic, which he scrutinized very closely.
Some time later Owen had the feeling that he was being watched. This was something about which you developed a sixth sense if you were a Cairo policeman, and Owen, almost as a matter of habit, moved away into the shadows where he was less obvious.
Then he looked around himself. At first he couldn’t spot who had been watching him, but he was sure someone had been. And then he caught sight of him: it was the tall, thin European who had got off the train.
To the best of his knowledge Owen had never seen the man before, so why he should be watching him, he couldn’t think.
The man moved away and Owen almost forgot about him. But not quite.
Sometime later he felt the man’s gaze on him again. He was standing by some camels and he slipped behind him and looked back. It was the man again, the same man. And he was definitely watching Owen. When Owen passed behind the camels the man began to search around for him.
Owen showed himself and walked off. A little later, he looked back — and, yes, there was the man again.
Who was he? What was he doing? And why should he be watching Owen?
He didn’t look, from his clothes, as if he was from Denderah. The train had come from Luxor, but this man looked as if he had come straight from Cairo.