A ROMANCE OF CAIRO.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 8, 20 February 1892, Page 174

A ROMANCE OF CAIRO.

r is more than thirty years ago since Bevil Brereton arrived in Cairo and found there the fate or fortune of which this is the only complete or authentic history. The printed accounts are scrappy and misrepresent the main facts. I have collected, I think, all the newspaper paragraphs that appeared at the time on the subject. They are very meagre, and I believe an Alexandrian journal published in trench was fined for mentioning the subject at all. The best account appeared in a Smyrna newspaper, but the next week’s issue gave a contradic-

tion of the story, evidently ‘ inspired.’ The whole business was hushed up by the authorities, and there are one or tw’o incidents in it so romantic that I have found them received with incredulity when mentioned in conversation. A visit to Egypt was, at the time of which I am writing, an uncommon thing, as it was a longer and costlier tripthan it is now. Brereton was a man of leisure and money who had, or fancied he had, a weak lung. He had read ‘Eothen, and * The Crescent and the Cross,’ and ‘ Palm Leaves,’ by Monckton Milnes, and he was drawn to take a passage on board a P. and < >. steamer bound for Alexandria. He was the only passenger for Egypt; the other travellers were all booked for India. He reached Cairo on a pleasant day in November and was driven to Shepheard’s Hotel. He had seen a dioramic picture of its verandah in Albert Smith’s Eastern entertainment, and a caricature by Richard Doyle of the newcomer, or griffin, in the clutches of Arab dragomans and donkey-boys was the last thing he had seen in a London print-shop. He found both the picture of the place and the illustration of manners perfectly accurate. He had an introduction to the Consul and to the resident doctor, and was fortunate in making a few congenial acquaintances. The first was Keith Grey, an artist ; the other two, Sir David and Lady Brabazon, were breaking their homeward journey from India by lingering a couple of months in Egypt. The four kept together, had places at table next to each other, and planned excursions in company. Lady Brabazon, a clever and sympathetic woman, obtained Brereton ’s confidence early in the day, and discovered that he was in love; in this she was right. She decided that the course of his love was not running smoothly, and that this accounted for his visit to Egypt ; in this she was wrong. Really the girl he loved, loved him in return. The match was suitable, and there was a chance of pretty Vera Cathcart coming with her parents to Egypt if they could make a rendezvous with a certain uncle w ho held a legal appointment in the Straits Settlements, and who thought of wintering in Cairo. One other point about Brereton Lady Brabazon discovered —he had no relations. He was an only son of an only son. He had no real estate, but money invested in Government and other securities. He often called himself ‘a waif and a stray,’ and spoke of buying a property and settling on his return. These are all the circumstances that are necessary to be known in order to explain the subsequent action or inaction of the little group of persons who were associated with Brereton in these days at Cairo. Cairo in the last days of Said Pasha, and in the early days of Ismail, was very different from the Cairo of to-day. The large Europeanized quarter which bears the name of the first Khedive did not exist. There was no lion-guarded bridge over the Nile ; the palaces at Gezireh and Gizeh were not built ; and the long avenues of lebbek trees that are now’ the favourite afternoon drives of residents were unplanted. The Muski was an Eastern bazaar, covered with a roof of matting and full of shops piled with carpets, brasswork, many-socketed lamps and tables inlaid with mother-of-pearl ; now it is a vulgar street, disfigured by the hideous dummies of advertising tailors. The Ezbekieh was the most Europeanized quarter, but there was no enclosed garden, only an open space shaded by tufts of umbrageous trees. Napoleon’s headquarters were still standing, and there was no straight Boulevard Mohammed Ali, but a network of narrow streets, with windows latticed with mushrebiuehs of intricate tracery, occupying all the space between Ezbekieh and the citadel. The Shu bra Road was the one drive, the avenue de Boulogne of Cairo, and this stretched from the railway station to the disused palace of Mohammed Ali. It was then on Sundays and Fridays the universal resort, and it is now, though unfrequented and unfashionable, a place full of fascination. The lights that glint on the gnarled and twisted sycamore steins, the thick canopy of leaves overhead, the fields to the right with their yokes of buttaloes, groups of turbaned peasants, and Hocks of goats, perplex the artist by the variety of subjects they otter to his pencil. For w hen he has selected one and begun the outline of a solemn sheikh under his palm tree, a line of swinging camels passes across the scene and lies down to be unladen, and he finds he has begun half unconsciously to sketch the arching necks and heavy trappings which seem all you want for a foreground, until a cluster of women, balancing water pitchers on erect heads and bearing luscious stems of sugar-cane, occupy the place and give new motive to the picture. Brereton daily frequented this road, and found pleasure in watching the figures that travelled along it. But his inteiest was not that of a painter. Grey sketched, and was always looking out for sketches, but Bevil sought to guess the characters of the men who reclined languidly in their carriages, and to discern what manner of women they were whose faces were half hidden by muslin veils and blinded carriage windows. This at least was the state of his mind one evening as he looked with more curiosity than was quite well-bred into a cairiage that drove slowly past him down the sycamore avenue. He bad seen the carriage in the same place on six successive evenings. Every Sunday and Friday for three weeks it had passed him at the same slow pace close to the same spot. The carriage was well appointed, with a coro-

net and a crescent on the panel; the black horses were carefully groomed, the syces, or running footmen, wore jackets ablaze with gold, and the. coachman was trim in European livery and red fez. On a bay horse, which kept pace with the brougham, was a tall, gaunt eunuch, who never seemed to keep his eyes off the carriage. Neither did Brereton. Directly it entered the avenue it seemed to possess a peculiar fascination tor him. It is impossible to say what first attracted his attention. There were a dozen other carriages on the road just like this one, but for some mysterious reason this was the only one he ever saw. If it be urged that this interest was inconsistent, improper, even unjustifiable, seeing that he was in love with V era Cathcart, I can only say that experience proves every day that men and women do inconsistent, improper and even unjustifiable things. He was young and idle, and disposed to gather his rosebuds from any bush that showed pretty flowers. The occupant of the brougham, a lady with large, soft eyes and cream-white forehead and mysterious veil of gauze, had magnetic power and drew him every week to the Shubra Road, and bade him pause near the particular sycamore, under the shade of which she regularly stopped. At last, as was natural, the eunuch noticed his persistency and seemed annoyed thereby. At all events the carriage did not stop on the fourth Friday at all. Now there was at that time among the many mendicants of Cairo a certain dwarf called Idris. He was a favourite, for he had a roguish smile and a funny appealing look, and he never pestered passengers for baksheesh but took a shake of the head for a negative, thereby contrasting with the blind Captain and the man with a fin instead of a hand, and the legless cripple who dragged himself along the pavement, and all the ghastly shapes that seemed to have been emptied out of Milton's lazar-house into the dusty road whenever and wheiever the rich were gathered together. Brereton often gave a piastre to the dwarf, and an acquaintance grew up between them. Perhaps the fact that Idris was also a pensioner of the mysterious lady secured the Englishman’s interest in him. Every week, the dwarf received alms from the lady, who threw it from the carriage window just before she signalled thecoachman to drive home. She usuallystayed late, and on receiving her gift Idris made his salaams, and trotted off at a wonderful pace to his hut in the Fagalla. This programme had been punctually carried out for more than a month. No word had ever passed between the four actors in the odd drama, but they seemed obliged to go through the performance as if under a spell. They drove to the same place ; they looked at each other for the same time with the same expression ; but none of them save the dwarf, who earned four piastres a week, was the better for the performance. 11. Thus time passed until the end of January, when Brereton received a letter from England. It announced that Miss ' Cathcart’s father had heard that his brother, the Straits Settlements official, had resolved to stay in Cairo for three months, and so they were all coming out. They asked Brereton to take rooms for them at Shepheard’s, and gave the date of their arrival. Some engagements and a slight attack of fever kept Bevil from going to the Shubra between the time of the arrival of the letter and the appearance of the Cathcarts. Vera had improved since he had seen her. She was just at the age when time seems busiest in enhancing a girl’s attractions. The sea voyage and the frank enjoyment of new scenes and experiences had given vivacity to her eyes and a rose flush to her cheek—the outward signs of that sense of interest and happiness in life that glorifies beauty of colour and feature with that magical gift of the fairies we call by the name of charm. Bevil and Vera had been neighbours in England, and had enough home subjects in common to give them comparisons, allusions and reminiscences wherewithal to enhance the pleasure of foreign sight-seeing. When people can say often, ‘ Is not that like so and so ?’ and ‘ Does not that remind you of such and such a place ?’ they have links which make them enjoy each other’s society. So it happened that for a short time the Eastern wife was forgotten and the Western maid reigned in her stead. But Friday came, and the Rotten Row of Cairo had to be shown to the new comers. With an odd feeling of uneasiness Bevil took his seat in the carriage with Vera and her mother. He pointed out the scenes and figures they passed ; he was amusing on the gaudy dresses of the Levantine ladies, and the airs of the young natives who were just then beginning to coat themselves with French varnish ; but he was looking all the time eagerly for the brougham. It was not there. They came to the sycamore he knew so well. There was neither carriage nor eunuch, but there was Idris the dwarf. ‘ What a quaint creature ! He would do for the “ Hunchback ” in the “ Arabian Nights,” or “ Nectabanus ” in “ The Talisman.” Thirty years ago English ladies knew Scott. The dwarf seeing the party were new comers began his usual performance, a song and dance ending by balancing his staff on his chin. During these antics he managed to come close to Bevil and thrust a letter into bis hand. This done he stopped quickly, and held his open palm for baksheesh. Directly he had received his piastres he disappeared, and as it was near sundown the party drove quickly homeward. Directly he was in his room Bevil locked the door and took out the note. It was in French, and contained only these words : * You can save me from prison, and perhaps death, if you come to the garden of the Gem Palace to morrow at 10 o’clock.’ The handwriting was disguised and [one word was misspelt, but Bevel never questioned the fact that it came from the veiled lady’. He read it and re read it, utterly puzzled and weaving a dozen theories and romances. A servant roused him by knocking at his door and telling him the gong had sounded ten minutes ago. He dressed and went to dinnei with rather inconsistent explanations of his dilatoriness. Once with Vera Cathcart, however, the message was forgotten. He had been growing more and more attached to

her during the recent days, and she had never looked more beautiful than on that evening. Brereton was coming to himself. The fancy that mystery and romance had woven had been torn to pieces and had vanished to the limboof vanities. When he said ‘ good night ’ that evening he felt that he loved Vera as he had never loved before, and that he must ask her to be his wife the next day. In a mood compact of hope and distrust he strolled out on the terrace and Hung himself on a long chair. The moonlight was raining a shower of silver radiance over everything. The terrace and the knotted sycamores which rose in groups in the open space that then stretched in front of the hotel to the Ezbekieh, the high white houses in the distance, the minaret circled with a coronet of light in honour of some festival—all blended to form a picture of repose which lulled the lover into a reverie. He was roused by the voices of two men who had taken their seats at a table close by. They spoke French and had talked some time before he heard them at all. Then he only had a vague impression that their words jarred on the subject of his thoughts. After a time he disentangled them from his own fancies, and found how they recalled that which he had been pleased to forget. When he began to attach a meaning to their speech he naturally looked round to see what manner of men they were. , They were moustached, swarthy persons in Stambouli coats and fezzes, men cut to the Egyptian official pattern and in no wise remarkable. * I tell you,’ said one, ‘ Effendina knows all. He is unwilling while the Delegate Ingleeze is here to make public scandal; but she has gone too far ’ ‘ Which means,’ said the other, ‘ that a certain friend of ours has set his heart on the Gem Palace. The scandals have been told by him and have lost nothing in the telling. The Pasha has determined that she shall drink a cup of coffee, and that he shall have three palaces instead of two. But let him take care ; if she suspects him she will bring him down with her !’ ‘ Impossible ! What can she do ’ She is closely watched. The dwarf, Idris, whom she employs, is in the Pasha’s pay ’ • And in everybody’s else. I have known her for twenty years. She has never failed in any of her plans. There was Hassan Makmud Pasha, who would not sell her the estate at Tanta. He died suddenly. There was the Greek Consul whose wife said she was looking old. He was recalled. There was Haig Agopian, the sharpest Armenian in Egypt. He refused to lend her the usual £5,000 on her diamonds after they had gone to Yusef Ben Issachar the Jew to be reset. The bank had a run on it and was ruined in six months. All those who have thwarted her have been disgraced or have died. The last story is that she has declared it to be her ambition to have an Englishman at her feet.’ ‘ That would not be difficult, I should think.’ ‘ Hush ! speak lower.’ The rest of the conversation was inaudible, but Bevil had heard enough to keep him from sleeping for some hours. He turned the matter over and over. Could the wicked Princess be the veiled lady ? The mention of the dwarf Idris seemed to favour the idea, but Idris was employed by many. Then the second clue came to his mind. The Princess lived in the Gem Palace ; so did the writer of the note he had received that evening. What could be the object of that summons ’ An obvious suggestion occurred to him. He wondered if a month ago he should have been fool enough to have followed up the adventure. The reply to the question was merged in other and pleasanter visions. What did he care for this Cairene Lucrezia Borgia and her plots ’ To-morrow he was to receive an answer which would decide his future from the sweetest lips in the world, and busy in imagining the smile that would accompany that answer, he fell asleep. 111. The dream came true. The next day in the orchard of palms hard by the hotel, he proposed and was accepted. The happiness of both seemed secure. In many ways, beside equality of age and fortune, the match seemed promising. Bevil and Vera were alike in tastes and had many common interests. The isolation ot Bevil’s position had prevented him from becoming coloured and moulded by family life, and some softer traits were lacking. But marriage with a woman like Vera seemed likely to prevent the lovable side of his character from hardening. The day was spent in making pleasant plans, and in those mutual questionings and discoveries of sympathy in the past which are new cords of attachment. There was then little society in the modern sense in Cairo, and the engagement was not buzzed about and commented upon. Only two or three of the closer acquaintances of the Cathcarts were told of it and offered congratulations. In the afternoon the betrothed lovers drove out together, and of course went to the Shubra Road. From the moment when he asked Vera to take a stroll in the palm orchard that morning Bevil had thought of nothing save his victorious love, but now the familiar avenue, the gnarled sycamores, the canopy of foliage, the alternating sun and shadow, and the gioups of gay cariiages (for it was Friday), brought back the other memory. They drove almost to the palace gate, then turned. A few yards from the usual spot he saw Idris. The dwarf evidently expected him to stop, and, he fancied, made a signal to him. The next moment he came up with the brougham, and perhaps by accident, perhaps at a sign to the native coachman, his own open victoria stopped. He looked instinctively into the window, and met the full gaze of the Princess. She had the slightest film of muslin over her mouth, and he saw her whole face. The eyes were blazing with passion, the nostrils distended, the teeth set, the great lips shut tight. As Bevil caught sight of the mask he instinctively put up his hand to shelter his Vera. The Princess saw the protecting action. He scarcely knew whether it was fancy or fact, but he thought she made a counter gesture with her henna-tipped fingers as if drawing something from her bosom. • What a strange face looked out of that carriage window,’ said Vera. *lt reminded me of one of Le Brun’s prints in the study at home.’ ‘ Our dwarf does not seem as cheerful as usual to-night,’ said Bevil, shrinking from the subject. • He looked keen enough as he passed us in the orchard of palms this morning,’ said Vera. ‘ Did he pass us there ’’ asked Bevil. ‘ I did not see him.* • I thought you did not,’ said Vera archly.

IV. The next day there were unmistakable signs of something wrong at the hotel. The waiters were clustered in groups in the passages, not marshalled at their posts. The manager, usually oiled and curled, was standing on the terrace running his hands wildly through his hair. Two janissaries from the English Consulate were stationed at the door, and two more were standing sentry over a line of native servants who were drawn up in the garden. The guests were talking vociferously on the terrace and the word ‘ suspected,’ * robbery,’ ‘immense value,’ were, bandied about. In brief, a serious robbery had been committed and Lady Brabazon’s jewels had been stolen. The topic occupied everybody for the day, and the wildest and most unlikely conjectures were hazarded as to the nationality of the thief and the method of his procedure. A little later the reports were absurdly contradictory. * This was the first robbery that had ever taken place at the hotel—’ * There was a robbery regularly every season—’ ‘ Lady Brabazon's parure was worth £2,000 —’ ‘ Lady Brabazon’s parure was entirely paste.’ The usual nine days passed, however, and the interest of all but the plundered lady and the hotel-keepers cooled. Cairo was soon to find a more absorbing topic of conversation.

One evening Vera had retired early, tired with a long ride to the Mokattam Hills, and Bevil was intending to sit on the terrace. To avoid a twentieth description of the robbery from Sir David, whom he saw bearing down upon him, he strolled down the steps into the open [dace. He had not gone far when he was accosted by a thin man in a black coat and a red fez. Thinking he was one of the usual crowd of applicants for baksheesh, Bevil hurried on, but hearing the man say something about the robbery and mention the name of Lady Brabazon, he stopped. • Does the kha-wa gah Ingleeze (English gentleman) want to find all the things for the sitt (lady) ? If be will come with me he can,’ said the man. ‘ Look here ’ —and he showed a bracelet of sparkling diamonds. There was no mistake about this action. Bevil, thinking he might be on the scent, stepped under one of the oil lamps which were suspended from the branches of the trees few and far between. He now saw that the speaker was a negro, and that he undoubtedly had some superb diamonds in his black fingers. ‘ Give me those,’ said the Englishman. He laid them in Bevil's hand and beckoned him to come a little farther, pointing to a small booth near a clump of trees where there were some other figures. Assured by the man’s readiness to give him up the jewels, he followed, but directly he stepped out of the ring of the lamplight he was struck down with a violent blow from a stick which laid him stunned on the ground. Two strong slaves caught him up, muffled his head in ashawl, and carried him to a carriage which stood waiting. The man who had accosted him took the bracelets from his hand with a quiet laugh, and gave a few directions to the coachman and the slaves. Then he got into another carriage in which a dwarf was seated, and the two carriages drove away into the darkness. V. The particulars of Bereton’s seizure were obtained long afterwards from a pencil narrative written by himself. Neither his friends nor the authorities had anything to go upon. A waiter at the hotel saw him light a cigar and go down the steps about ten o’clock. Nothing more was known. The open space before Shepheard's was ill-lighted, and was not considered very safe after dark ; but no disappearance like this had ever been recorded, and, indeed, robberies of Englishmen were not frequent. The police arrangements at Cairo were slovenly, but they had a certain vigour of procedure which detected crime when it was understood that the Government was in earnest. The English Foreign office wrote despatches, and the Consul-General had interviews with the Pasha. The native authorities were pressed so bard that they were shaken out of their apathy, and spared neither threats, bribes, nor beatings, but nothing could be ascertained. From that February night Bevil Brereton vanished, and all record of him was obliterated. I have read all the official correspondence which passed relating to * the remarkable disappearance of an Englishman,’ and examined files of newspapers to find all the printed information on the subject, but, as I said before, it is inaccurate and inconsistent. A draft of a will was found in his letter-ease, leaving all his property to Vera Cathcart, but it was unsigned. His money, I believe, reverted to the Crown, failing kin. The names of Sir David Brabazon and Keith Grey are prominent in the correspondence about him. Some urgent business took the Cathcarts away from Egypt a month after the disappearance. I will not write that the wretchedness of Vera can be imagined, because grief like hers is precisely what cannot be imagined. She did not fall into a fever or suffer any injury to the brain, only the wearying disappointment—the daily hope, and the daily baffling of that hope—ate away her power of feeling happiness, and at last she learned the lesson so many have to learn from the stern schooling of trial (but few from a stroke so ghastly and sharp as hers), that * existence could be cherished, strengthened and fed without the aid of joy.’ She did her daily duties, interested herself in the interests of those about her. Then, at last, when her parents died, she joined a nursing sisterhood, and worked in a London hospital. VI. IT was the summer of 1883. Ismail had reigned and been deposed. Arabi’s rebellion had been crushed, and England was occupying Egypt. She had a hard task to bring order into chaos, and now her reforms were thrown back by a violent epidemic of cholera. Since Bevil and Vera plighted their troth to each other, a new Cairo had arisen, and boulevards and wide streets had taken the place of the groves of palms and sycamores. But the huge houses were deserted. The long colonnades, usually crowded with loungers, dining, or smoking, or gambling, were empty. The cafes were tenantless, save where a solitary waiter cowered behind his bar expecting not customers, "but grim death. Fires were lighted in the streets and rolled volumes of smoke over the town. The dirge-like chants of the native mourners, hurrying their kinsfolk to the cemeteries, were almost the only sounds audible. The English had established a hospital for wounded soldiers shortly after the war, and a call had been made for

experienced nurses. Vera had answered the call, and was now once more in Cairo. She could not account for the eagerness with which she read the summons to go out at once. Half an hour after seeing the appeal she sent a telegram to offer herself as a candidate, and now a pale, grey-haired woman, as different from the joyous girl of thirty years ago as Constance is from Beatrice, she moved about the little hospital, which was crowded with cholera patients, doing her duty accurately and sympathetically from long training, but with a feeling of the dreaminess of all the surroundings and an expectation of being drawn ever nearer and nearer to an end, that combined to make her begin every day with a sort of awe. But no weird imagination had fashioned and no nightmare vision foreshown any end so dreadful as that which came. Several English doctors had arrived in Cairo to study the epidemic and to treat the patients. Their attention was called naturally to the general state of sanitary science or nescience in Egypt, and they had full powers to examine and report. Among these was a certain Dr. Markland, who belonged to the London hospital where Vera had nursed. He came to see her directly he arrived, and thinking she was looking overworked he told her to come at once for a drive with him. They hurried through the deserted streets, baking in the hot. pestilence laden air, and, hoping for a taste of purer and cooler breath, turned off’toward Ahbasiyeh. They got clear of the houses, and at last were fairly in the desert.

‘Doyou know what that red building.is?’ asked Markland. ‘ No,’ said Vera. ‘ I have never been here before, but we can ask that gentleman. He is an army-chaplain, just come from burying some poor fellow in the desert.’ They stopped the clergyman and learned that the building was an Arab lunatic asylum. ■‘ I should like to see it,’ said Markland. ‘We wili try and get in. ’ They drove up to the gate, which was shut, but not barred. The porter refused admission at first, but gave way when he saw Markland meant to get it. Then it turned out that there were at that moment an English doctor and a high official compelling the place to disclose its secrets. They met Markland and the sister in the first corridor. ‘ Markland thank God you have come ! Sir Charles and I have just found something which seems too ghastly to be true. This place is hell.’ And it was. In another moment they heard from above yells, shrieks and laughter, and, pushing aside a few quaking warders, went upstairs and entered the largest of the wards. There were lines of half-naked men sitting on their bedsteads, some chained, all filthy, diseased and halfstarved. The stench was loathsome, the air fotid. The doctor inquired through an Arab interpreter who had accompanied Sir Charles some particulars of the cases, but little was known. The patients had all been brought into the palace five years ago from an asylum at Bulak, now disused. L'p to that time the place had been called the Gem Palace, and had been occupied by a Royal Princess who was now dead. The interpreter spoke of her with a lowered voice and a look around as if he half expected she would punish him for mentioning her name. Sir Charles asked if they saw all the inmates. ‘ No ; there was another room.’ They crossed and found opposite the men’s ward a similar room containing about forty women. Here again were chains, nakedness, and dirt. Then came a court yard, where the less violent patients herded. A sheikh, repeating hundreds of times over one verse from the Koran, sat in the midst of his circle of wondering worshippers, while a hideous swollen-headed boy gibbered and mowed at him. A deformed man twisted and writhed along on the ground fancying himself a snake. A huge negro chained to a tree kept up all day a loud, monotonous roar. Again Sir Charles asked if he had seen all. ‘ Yes ; all but the man below.’ • Take us to him.’ They went down to the basement story and passed through several large rooms. Many of them showed on the walls patches of gold and painting, and were furnished with divans, covered with magenta satin, once splendid, but now mouldy and tattered. Some of the palace furniture had been left to rot in the mad-house. At last they reached a barred dungeon-cell. The key at first was not to be found, but after much delay the special warder, a one - eyed Soudanese, was, hunted up and forced to unlock the door. The room was very high, lighted by a grated aperture close to the ceiling. Through this streamed a struggling ray of the afterglow which was then suffusing the Red Mountain with a magic light. The ray fell on a man’s face, very haggard and thin and nearly hidden by an overgrowth of white beard and moustache. His body was clothed in a ragged silk dressing-gown, and he lay on a native bedstead of palm twigs. A red leather cushion from one of the palace divans was placed under bis head. There were staples and rings in the walls, to which chains had been affixed, and the red marks of fetters showed on his wrist and ankles. ‘ It is a dead man,’ said Sir Charles. The doctors felt the pulse. * No—not yet. Send for some wine.’ ‘ I have a flask with some brandy.’ The sister had followed them in and approached the bed. She bent over it and put away the long white hair from the features of the prisoner. ‘ He looks like an Englishman,’ said Markland. A cry, bitter with the bitterness of the utmost suffering, came from the kneeling woman : ‘ Oh, my God ! my I lod ! Bevil ! Bevil !’ He lived for a month, tended by Vera with passionate care, but he never recovered consciousness nor ever recognised his faithful love. A pocketbook and diary containing a few entries were found in the room. From these 1 have put together the facts connected with his disappearance. There were a few lines describing an interview with the Princess, from which her motive in having him seized could be gathered. After this discovery the huge rambling Gem Palace was thoroughly searched, and abundant evidences of strange deeds done and ghastly sufferings endured were found in its secret cells and winding galleries. In a disused well choked with brambles and hidden by a hedge of prickly pear the workmen found the bones of a dwarf. Idris hail probably been detected in playing false to his terrible mistress anti had been summarily punished. The last time I was in Egypt I found the grave of Bevil Brereton in the beautiful little English cemetery near the aqueduct of Salaheddin in old Cairo. —C. H. Butcher.