Zenakis advanced across the room with outstretched hand. ‘The Mamur Zapt again? What a pleasure!’
‘It is indeed!’ agreed Owen. ‘Shall we go into your office?’ Zenakis, once he had taken the measure of the situation, did not seriously attempt to deny responsibility.
‘This is Cairo, after all,’ he said with a shrug of his shoulders. ‘Completion of the railway is important to us. And the Nationalist campaign was gathering momentum.’
‘You leave the Nationalists to me!’
‘Ordinarily we would. But we knew your hands were tied.’
‘ “We”?’
Zenakis hesitated.
‘ “I”, I should have said.’
‘You acted on your own responsibility?’
‘Within the broad remit given me by the committee. But I take full responsibility for what happened the other night and if apologies are called for, I apologize.’
‘How far did the committee know what you were doing?’
‘They have given me, as I say, a broad remit.’
‘Who is on the committee?’
Zenakis gave him several names.
‘A strong committee,’ Owen commented.
The list contained several Pashas and relatives of Pashas-Malik was there-and also two members of the Khedive’s own family. Owen could see now why Zenakis appeared so confident.
‘I take full responsibility,’ said Zenakis. ‘If error there was, it was mine. However, it was done with the best intentions. We felt you needed some help. Sometimes,’ he said, eyes twinkling, ‘one would be glad of help but is unable to ask for it.’
‘If I need help,’ said Owen, ‘I’ll ask for it!’
Inwardly, he fumed. There was nothing he could do. Zenakis had admitted responsibility and yet it would be difficult to take action against him. Breaking up a demonstration, in Cairo, was hardly a crime. Even Mahmoud would hesitate about initiating legal proceedings. And where would it get him? In the unlikely event of Zenakis being found guilty, he would be pardoned at once by the Khedive. And was Zenakis the man really responsible anyway? Wasn’t he just covering up for the committee?
Zenakis took him by the arm.
‘Now that’s over, how about a drink? And have you thought again about membership?’
There was trouble at the Tree. So said Salah-el-Din’s cryptic message. It also said that he would hold the fort until Owen got there. But he suggested that he hurry.
At the Tree, Owen found the rival camps bristling. The Copts, truculent, were drawn up on one side, ostentatiously examining their knives; the Sons of Islam, even more truculent, on the other, holding their daggers up to the setting sun and commenting loudly on the way in which it dyed their blades red. In the middle, not at all truculent, but distinctly apprehensive, were Owen’s guards, presided over temporarily by the determined Salah-el-Din. On the outskirts of it all, for some reason that Owen could not fathom, was Salah-el-Din’s daughter, Amina, sitting on a horse.
‘What’s all this about?’ demanded Owen.
‘He’s going to sell the Tree,’ said one of the Sons of Islam, pointing an accusing finger at Daniel, the Copt, skulking behind the other Copts.
‘It’s my property!’ retorted Daniel. ‘I can do with it as I like!’
‘Selling your birthright!’ jeered the Sons of Islam.
‘It’s not your property!’ cried a loud voice from behind Owen. It was Sheikh Isa, hurrying up on his donkey.
‘It is my property!’ cried Daniel indignantly, emerging from behind the row of Copts and forgetting to skulk.
‘Blackguard!’ cried Sheikh Isa, swinging a bony leg over his donkey and descending to the ground.
‘Villain!’ cried Daniel, and rushed on him.
The Copt and Muslim lines moved forward.
Owen caught hold of Isa and Daniel and thrust them apart.
‘What is all this nonsense?’ he said. ‘No one is selling the Tree!’
‘Well… ’ said Daniel uncomfortably.
‘Ha!’ cried Sheikh Isa.
‘Actually-’ began Salah-el-Din.
Owen turned on him.
‘Do you know anything about this?’
‘The Syndicate has made him an offer.’
‘Which I am considering,’ said Daniel modestly.
‘The bastard’s accepted!’ cried one of the Sons.
‘It’s not his to accept!’ shouted Sheikh Isa.
‘The question of ownership is in the hands of the courts,’ said Owen. ‘That’s why you’re here. Guarding the Tree until the question is resolved. Which won’t be for years.’
‘Why have they made him an offer, then?’ asked Sheikh Isa.
Owen turned again to Salah.
‘The offer is not, strictly speaking, for the Tree, but for any claims he may have for the Tree. The same offer has been made to the descendents of the Empress Eugenie and, indeed, to anyone else who has claims to the Tree-’
‘It hasn’t been made to me!’ cried Sheikh Isa.
‘Legally, you don’t have-’ began Salah.
‘That’s right!’ Daniel interrupted gleefully. ‘You don’t even have a recognizable claim!’
‘We’re pretty recognizable!’ said the Sons of Islam.
‘The Khedive gave the Tree-’ began Salah-el-Din.
‘Gave?’ said Isa incredulously. ‘The Holy Tree? Something that is the property of Islam? It was not his to give. Who is this Khedive? I don’t recognize him!’
‘Death to the Khedive!’ shouted the Sons of Islam.
‘That’s right!’ cried the Copts joyfully. ‘Death to the Khedive!’
The Sons glared at them.
‘And to the Christians!’
‘Who would give away the Tree!’ interrupted Sheikh Isa.
‘Sell it,’ corrected Daniel. ‘Not give it.’
‘Never!’ said Sheikh Isa. ‘Over my dead body!’
‘So be it!’ said Daniel, signalling to the Copts.
‘For Christ’s sake!’ said Owen. ‘Get back, the lot of you! Guards!’
‘Look out!’ cried one of the Sons. ‘He shot down the Faithful in the square the other night!’
‘Shot down the Faithful?’ said Sheikh Isa.
‘Well done!’ chorused the Copts.
Daniel and Isa threw themselves upon one another.
Owen wrestled them apart.
‘Get him away!’ he said to Salah over his shoulder.
Salah hustled Daniel off. Owen caught Sheikh Isa by the folds of his galabeah and heaved him out of earshot of the rival supports. ‘Now you listen to me-’
‘Now you listen to me,’ he said to the assembled company a few minutes later. ‘I have agreed with Sheikh Isa that until the courts have spoken, the Tree cannot be sold.’
Daniel opened his mouth.
‘And have told him that if the Copt takes any action in the meantime I shall confiscate the property on behalf of the Khedive.’
‘I don’t think, actually, that you can-’ began Salah uncomfortably.
Owen silenced him with a baleful look.
‘And I myself will speak with those who would buy the Tree. It may be that they will change their mind. One thing is certain, though: and that is that if I have any more trouble from any of you-’
Copts and Sons listened to the tirade admiringly. Owen made it long to give them time to calm down; and made it funny to restore their good humour. At the end, they stood for a moment or two uncertainly and then sat down.
Daniel came up to Owen and plucked him by the sleeve.
‘Effendi-’
‘And you,’ said Owen, ‘go home.’
‘Go home?’ said Daniel astonished.
‘That’s right. Get on your donkey and go.’
Daniel hesitated, shrugged, then went down among the balsam trees and collected his donkey. They watched him climb on to its back and set off in the direction of Tel-el-Hasan.
‘It’s all right for him,’ said one of the Sons to one of the Copts. ‘You’ve got to stay here.’
‘You know,’ said the Copt, ‘I think that every night when he gets on his donkey and sets off for his comfortable bed.’
‘Comfortable wife, too, I wouldn’t be surprised,’ said the Son of Islam. He looked across at Sheikh Isa. ‘It’s all right for him, too. He just gets on his donkey and off he goes. We’ve got to stay here. And we’ve got wives, too!’