"Oh, _do_ look for him!" broke in Monny. "Leave us to take care of ourselves. I'm sure we can. There are enough of us. And Mr. Bronson is a _Consul_. Go and get the police."
"I can't leave you," I said. "Antoun would be the last one to forgive me if I did that. But I'll start off the party, now. The arabeahs and donkeys are waiting. Listen to the stentorian voice of the Conductor, announcing--"
I tried to speak gayly; but the announcement, which I opened my mouth to roar through the temple, was never made. There came instead, at that instant, a rival roar from outside. Mine would have been the roar of a sucking dove. This other was a wild bull roar of rage. What it was for, who was making it, and whether it concerned us, we did not know; but it was the sound of many voices, and flowing to us on the wind, driving nearer out of distance, it was startling and caused the heart to miss a beat.
Suddenly the thought sprang into my mind that this was like something in a theatre. We were on the stage, in a play of Ancient Egypt, and a mob of supers was yelling for our lives in the wings. They would pour out upon the stage and attack us. Only the hero and heroine would be saved. All the villains and other unnecessary people would be polished off.
Everybody had stopped talking. Involuntarily groups drew together. We looked over our smoking candles, past the standing statues and the fallen statues, away toward the columns of the temple entrance.
Mr. and Mrs. Bronson, and the girl in Biddy's veiled hood and cloak, walked across the court and joined our party of three. Neill Sheridan was at a distance. His prophetic soul told him nothing. "I hope that fellow Rechid Bey hasn't worked up any trouble against us," the American Consul from Asiut said in a low, somewhat worried tone.
Instantly I was certain that what he hoped had not happened, was indeed the thing that had happened. I seemed to see Rechid stirring up a crowd of his fellow Mussulmans, telling them that dogs of Christians had robbed him of his foreign wife, who was on the point of accepting Islam. Nothing easier than for Rechid to find us. All Luxor knew we were in the Temple of Mût. These men of Luxor and other Nile towns of Upper Egypt, had not yet settled down after the outburst against Christian insults which had alarmed the authorities in Cairo. In three days Anthony Fenton had discovered the dregs at the bottom of the teapot and had doubtless done something toward calming the tempest in it, but the troubled water had not time to cool. It could easily be brought to the boil again; and the despoiling of a harem by Europeans --the harem of an important man--would be oil thrown onto the dying fire under the tempestuous teapot.