It was hours before the first students managed to permeate the streets and come to within a hundred yards of the Mar Girgis.
Where Owen was waiting. McPhee had put carts across all the streets leading to the church, barricading them completely. In front of each barricade a row of hefty constables was drawn up with truncheons in their hands. Behind the carts were other men. Owen took care to let the demonstrators see that these were armed.
The demonstrators came to a halt. Because they had arrived independently and in twos and threes they had outstripped their organizers and were at a loss what to do. As their numbers grew they formed a wedge between the barricades and the main body of the procession, which was forced to stop short some way away from the barricades.
Owen could see the head of the procession from where he stood. It appeared to be carrying something.
It was some time before the organizers were able to sort things out. Eventually, however, they managed to open a channel in the wedge and bring the leaders through to the barricades. Among them was Osman.
Owen could see now what they were carrying. It was a stretcher. On it was a pale-faced corpse with an arm flipping over the edge of the stretcher. The corpse was that of a young man. Presumably the student had died.
As it approached, the cries of the students rose to a frenzy. Everywhere now was a sea of raised fists and shouting faces.
Banners tossed and lurched among the faces. The first stone hit the carts.
Osman Rahman pushed his way forward.
“Why have you done this?” he said, pointing to the carts.
“To stop you from going any further,” said Owen. “Tell your people to go home.”
“They have a right,” Osman protested angrily.
“Tell them to exercise their rights peacefully.”
Osman turned round and began to harangue the crowd. He was, of course, telling them no such thing. He was using the opportunity to denounce the British as well as the Copts, bracketing them together as Christians combining against true believers. The voice rose on a wave of passion. Owen could not tell whether this actually was the demonstration, conveniently moved in view of the circumstances, or whether Osman meant to whip thing up to the point when the crowd would storm the barricade. The rhetoric was violent enough. On the other hand Osman was a practised orator and knew what he was doing. The crowd had settled to listen to him. No more stones were being thrown.
The stretcher was being passed over the heads of the crowd. Once or twice as a hand grabbed and missed it lurched and threatened to tilt the corpse onto the crowd. Somehow it always righted itself and reached the front, where new hands seized it and raised it high so that everyone could see it. There was Osman, raised on the knees of his supporters, and the corpse limp on the stretcher beside him.
From time to time Osman turned and gesticulated at the stretcher and every time he did so a cry of anger rose from the crowd. The constables twitched apprehensively.
McPhee slid along in front of them and stood beside Owen.
“Do we wait?” he said. “Or do we hit them before they come to the boil?”
Although McPhee, as Assistant Commandant, was nominally ranked higher than Owen, in operations of this sort the Mamur Zapt, responsible for order in the city, was in control.
Owen was undecided. It was usually best to break up a demonstration in the early stages. It might already be too late. On the other hand it could still all end peacefully.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the stretcher give a great jump. One of the arms holding it was getting tired.
Something about the corpse attracted his attention.
The stretcher jerked again.
The corpse seemed to brace itself against the tilt but that could not be, unless-
Owen watched it carefully and waited for the arm to tire again. When the jerk came he was ready for it.
“Have you a cigarette?” he asked McPhee.
McPhee was surprised.
“Thought you didn’t smoke,” he said.
However, he fumbled in his pocket and produced his usual cheroots.
Owen had seen it done during his time in Alexandria, where hysterical prostitutes were quickly restored to life and reason by an experienced old Austrian police officer of the Labban red-light quarter.
He lit the cheroot and, concealing it in his curved palm, edged towards the stretcher. The corpse’s hand hung stiffly over the side.
Owen pressed the glowing end of the cheroot on to the dead man’s hand. If things were as they seemed it wouldn’t matter.
The “corpse” shot upright with a yell. As it did so the deathlike covering of flour fell from its face.
There was a moment or two of stunned silence. And then the crowd began to laugh.
The next morning the episode was the talk of all the bazaars in Cairo; and the bazaars enjoyed it greatly. From the bazaars the tale passed via servants into households and thence to the clubs, not so dissimilar from bazaars in their capacity to retail and embellish a story. Word came that the Sirdar liked it and Garvin was obliged to pass on to Owen a note of approval from the Consul-General.
“At least no one was killed,” said Garvin sourly.
More to the point, the affair earned Owen a few days’ breathing space. Not everyone in the Old City was an admirer of Sheikh Osman and there were quite a few Moslems as well as Copts who rejoiced in his discomfiture. For a few days Osman could not bring himself to show his face in public and there was a noticeable lull in hostilities.
“It won’t last,” said Georgiades. “Some brainless Copt is sure to attack a Moslem.”
“Or vice versa,” said Nikos.
Meanwhile Yussuf’s affairs were progressing. The go-between had produced some degree of accord. Yussuf’s wife, Fatima, was flattered by Owen’s interest in the state of her marital relationship and after some hard bargaining agreed to return to Yussuf. The only problems now were technical. Here, too, progress was made. A man was found, a friend of one of the bearers, named Suleiman, who agreed-for a consideration-to become the temporary bridegroom. Yussuf applied to Owen, who, after swearing aloud to Allah that never again, under absolutely any circumstances, etc., etc., found the necessary money. And the very next day Yussuf, supported, as was proper, by every bearer in the place, went forth to tie and untie and retie the marital knots.
An hour or so later Owen was working peacefully in his office when the door slammed at the end of the building and feet came running along the corridor.
A bearer burst into the room.
“Effendi! Oh, effendi! Something terrible has happened!”
“Has Suleiman pulled out?”
“Oh no, effendi.”
“The marriage went ahead?”
“Yes, effendi. But afterwards-”
“Yes?”
“He wouldn’t divorce her.”
“Not divorce her?”
“No, effendi. He said he had changed his mind. He said that Fatima’s beauty was like the moon and the stars-”
“Yes, yes. He refused to use the vow?”
“That’s right, effendi. We pleaded with them. We said it was wrong. But Suleiman said that Fatima’s beauty-”
“OK, OK. The upshot is they’re still married?”
“Yes, effendi. Suleiman said-”
“We’ve had that.”
The bearer looked injured.
“-that it wouldn’t have counted anyway because he would not have been able to use the words with a true heart.”
“Of course it would have counted.”
“That’s what we said, effendi. But he wouldn’t listen to us.”
“Bloody hell!” said Owen.
“They went back to Suleiman’s house,” said the bearer, gratified, “and barred themselves in an upper room. We heard them laughing, effendi. And then they made the noises.”
Yussuf was in a state of deep shock. Later in the afternoon Owen went along to the bearer’s room. He found Yussuf squatting on the floor with his back against one of the walls staring dazedly into space. He did not even look up.