Only then did he look back. His pursuers had lost him. He could hear the faint, very distant crack of the rifle. Perhaps they were shooting at each other. He did not care.
He dropped down into the street and ran. Within a short distance, the street became an alley. The houses hemming him in had high windows covered over with wooden screens. He saw no more British shops or English signs. Only Egyptians passed him, and for the most part they were old women in pairs, with veils over their faces and their hair. They averted their eyes at once from his bloodstained shirt and torn clothes.
Finally he stepped into a doorway and rested, and then slowly slipped his hand into his coat. The wound was healed on the outside, though he could still feel the throbbing inside. He felt the broad strip of the moneybelt. The vials were intact.
The cursed vials! Would that he had never taken the elixir from its hiding place in London! Or that he had sealed the powder into a clay vessel and sunk the vessel into the sea!
What would the soldiers have done with the liquid if they had got their hands on it? He could not bear to dwell on how close he had come to that possibility.
But the thing now was to return to the museum! He must find her! And to dwell on what had befallen her in the interim was more than he could bear.
PART 2 Chapter 20
Never in ah1 his existence had he" experienced the regret which he was feeling now. But it was done! He had succumbed to the temptation. He had awakened the half-rotted body lying in that case.
And he must find the results of his folly. He must learn whether a spark of intellect existed inside it!
Ah, but whom was he deceiving! She had called his name!
He turned and hurried down the alley. A disguise, that's what he needed. And he had no time to purchase it. He must take it where he could. Laundry, he had seen ropes of laundry. He rushed on, until he saw another such rope sagging across a narrow passageway to his left.
Bedouin garments - the long-sleeved robe and the headdress. He tore these down at once. Discarding his jacket, he put them on, and then cut a bit of the rope itself to tie around his head.
Now he looked like an Arab except for the blue eyes. But then he knew where he might get a pair of dark glasses. He'd seen them in the bazaar. And that was on the way back to the museum. He headed out at a dead run.
Henry had been almost dead drunk since he'd come from Shepheard's the day before. The brief talk with Elliott had had a peculiar effect on him somehow; it had sapped his nerve.
He tried to remind himself that he loathed Elliott Savarell and that he himself was pressing on to America, where he'd never see Elliott or anyone like him again.
Yet the meeting haunted him. Every time he sobered up just a little he saw Elliott again, staring at him with absolute contempt. He heard the cold hatred in Elliott's voice.
A lot of nerve Elliott had, turning on him like this. Years ago, after a brief and stupid affair, Henry had had it in his power to destroy Elliot, but he had not done so for no other reason than it would have been a cruel thing to do. He had always presumed that Elliott was grateful for that; that Elliott's patience and politeness signaled that gratitude. For Elliott had been unfailingly courteous to him over the years.
Not so yesterday. And the awful thing about it was that the hatred Elliot evinced had been a mirror image of the hatred Henry felt for everyone he knew. It had soured Henry and embittered him.
And it had also frightened him.
Have to get away from them, all of them, he reasoned. They do nothing but criticize me and misjudge me when they are not worth a tinker's damn themselves.
When they had left Cairo, he would clean himself up, stop drinking, go back to Shepheard's and sleep in peace for a few days. Then he'd strike the bargain with his father and head out to America with the considerable little fortune he'd saved.
But for the moment, he had no intention of curtailing the parry. There would be no card game today; he would take it easy, and enjoy the Scotch