“The Bey Effendi is very wise,” said M. Karalampi, “and it rejoices me to be able to serve him once more. But I must have some token from him to show to the Hajar sheikhs, or they will laugh at my beard, and I shall come back a fool.”
With trembling fingers Azim Bey unfastened the Hajar amulet which his Arab mother had hung round his neck when he was a baby. “It will bring all the tribesmen of the Hajar to thy help if thou art in danger, my son,” she had assured him, and his kinsmen in the tribe had told him the same thing since.
“Take it,” he said, “but give it back to me. No Hajar dare disregard it. But take care not to leave it in the tents, lest Dr Egerton see it, and perceive whose it is. Mademoiselle must never know of this.”
“She never shall,” said M. Karalampi, and he departed with his prize. Fortune had favoured him beyond his hopes, and he saw himself, in imagination, restored to his former place in Azim Bey’s esteem, and able to manipulate his actions in the interest of his other employers. As for Azim Bey himself, he felt quite satisfied with the arrangement he had made, and returned to his governess with a light heart and an unclowded brow.
Cecil’s visits to the Residency that autumn were almost confined to the Sundays. She explained to Lady Haigh that she had arranged a special course of study with her pupil, which must not on any account be interrupted, after the desultory way in which the summer had been spent, and she adhered to this plan with the utmost rigour, never acknowledging, even to herself, that the Residency seemed in some way empty and desolate just now. Sunday by Sunday she said to herself, hopefully, “Perhaps he came back last night,” but the weeks passed on, and he did not come, and Cecil cried herself to sleep at nights, and assured herself all the time that she did not love him, and that it was only because she was disappointed. Thus the days went by quietly enough until Christmas week approached. Still Charlie had not returned, although his letters to Lady Haigh announced that he had started upon the homeward journey. They were rather despondent in their tone, for his medical inquiries had occupied a longer time than he had calculated, but they all breathed a spirit of unconquerable determination to be back by the day before Christmas Eve, or die. Even if he had to tramp from Mohammerah to Baghdad, he would do it. But he reckoned without Azim Bey.