Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/302

 "Is this acting?" dumbly wondered O'Rourke. He looked around, engagingly smiling his embarrassment.

The center of the room was held by a table, spread as though for a feast; around it were ranged ten chairs—two unoccupied. Standing behind the others were eight men.

O'Rourke glanced from face to face, recognizing some, passing over others as unknown to him—seeing in all the head and forefront of the great conspiracy. He saw Prince Aziz, tall and straight as an arrow, surveying him through keen, bead-like, black eyes.

He saw, slouching at the foot, or at the head, of the table—fat, gray, heavy of eye and heavily jowled, spineless and plump—a mass of flesh animated by notoriety: the man who had once brought disaster upon Alexandria, and death and defeat to thousands of patriotic Egyptians at Tel-el-Kebir, Ahmed Arabi Pasha.

He saw men high in the ministerial and executive councils of the land, and but two Europeans among the lot, barring himself—Viazma and a French consul-general. As for the others, they were for the most part Egyptians, Arabs, men of Bedouin blood, with one great Greek cigarette manufacturer.

There was a murmur of complimentary applause. O'Rourke bowed. His gaze instinctively sought that of Prince Aziz, whose rival he was suddenly become; and he read therein a temperate hostility.

Arabi's eyes, too, met those of the Irishman. He nodded to him carelessly, in a negligent fashion that made O'Rourke's blood boil.

"We may welcome O'Rourke Pasha, indeed," said the intriguer. "Has he taken the oath, Monsieur le Prince?"

"Not yet," responded the Russian.