Playing with Fire Read Online Free PDF Page B

watch. Midnight. Hesettled back to wait for Tusun.
    Time seemed to pass on leaden feet. The clouds overhead began to thin, and one by one stars appeared. Then the moon slid out of hiding, casting a cool silver light over everything. The Lucina was beating seaward, and come daylight no one would know she had ever been there. Suddenly there came the sound of a horse, a low whicker that was almost lost in the noise of the sea. Martin stiffened warily, and slid a hand toward the pistol inside his robe, but then a voice he knew called out quietly. “Effendi?”
    “Over here, Tusun!”
    Shadows moved as the Mameluke approached, leading two horses, a bay and a chestnut, exquisitely beautiful Arabian mounts of the desert. “Ah, Effendi, God has willed it that you are here safely,” he declared.
    Martin grinned and got up. “Have you any information?”
    “Oh, indeed, Effendi. I had much to impart concerning the movements of the French, but I also have something else to tell you. Three Englishwomen need help.”
    “What in God’s own name are Englishwomen doing here?”
    “They were on a British sloop, the Gower, which was wrecked on the sandbar at the Rosetta mouth of the Nile.”
    Martin knew the Gower, and was acquainted with some of her officers. “You only mention the three women. What of the crew?”
    “I believe they reached the shore, Effendi, but the women were taken by pirates. They came from Constantinople, and that is all I know of them. Now they hide.”
    “How far away are they?”
    “Maybe eight miles, Effendi. It is nothing to these fine mounts.” Tusun patted the horses.
    “Maybe not for just you and me, but if we have three extra to bring back….”
    Tusun gave him a wily grin. “There is a fine canja, Effendi. It is laden with treasure and antiquities stolen by the French.”
    “The French?” Martin repeated guardedly.
    “Indeed so.” The Mameluke shuffled his feet slightly. “You see, the place where they are hiding has become a French encampment. Most of the officers sailed from Cairo in the canja, but the rest—and the men—came across the desert. I was following them, so I know this.”
    “How many altogether?’
    The Mameluke spread his hands again and shrugged. “Oh, not many, Effendi. Maybe two thousand.”
    “Oh, is that all? Good heavens, for a moment you had me worried,” Martin replied dryly. Damn it all, why couldn’t these women have stayed in Constantinople?
    Tusun looked intently at him in the moonlight, then held out a pair of reins. “If we hurry, Effendi, we can accomplish all before dawn, God willing.”
    “Yes, but first I must leave word about the Gower. If there are shipwrecked British seamen ashore, they need to be saved. The Lucina can do that, and will be glad of the extra hands.” Martin searched inside his robe for the notebook and pencil he carried everywhere. He scribbled a message about the location of the wrecked sloop and her stranded crew, and about his intention to rescue the three women if possible. Then he ripped the page from the book and hid it in a cleft in one of the date palms, where Matthews was bound to look if no one was waiting the next morning. Then he and Tusun rode swiftly away along the beach.
     

Chapter 6
     
    Tansy crept to the doorway and peered out past the oleanders. She was very tired but still couldn’t relax enough to sleep. Her skin and hair were still sticky with salt and Nile mud, but at least she had been able to change into the black robes Tusun had purloined from the French. She had eaten too, just wheat cakes and milk, but she felt a good deal better than before. The storm had faded considerably now, and the reeds at the water’s edge swayed occasionally. Beyond the channel the shadowy delta stretched away into a darkness that was briefly pierced by moonlight as the clouds began to break.
    The canja was moored alongside the riverbank. It was long, low, and graceful, with a flat-topped cabin area toward the stern, and