The tall Arab obeyed at once. Selina followed him, and the Arab noticed that she never came within reach of his hands. Then he saw the stocky Arab, and winced.
'You will do as I say,' said Selina.
'Assuredly, princess,' said the tall Arab. T am yours to command.'
'You will get me out of here,' said Selina.
The tall Arab said. 'If I do, they will kill me.'
Selina said nothing, but the gun barrel lifted from his heart to a point between his eyes. The tall Arab stared down it, then slowly, careful not to alarm her, he nodded. The telephone rang. 'Answer it,' said Selina. 'Hold it so that I can hear what's said.'
He picked up the phone as she had told him, and an agitated voice from the kitchen asked questions. The tall Arab said smoothly: 'This is Sherif. David has an errand to do for me. He will come back to you when he has finished, in about half an hour. And hsten. I have business with the girl'—he looked at the gun barrel then away— 'important business. I don't want to be disturbed again.' He hung up then, and Selina smiled at him. Even then, as he loathed and feared her, Sherif thought how enchanting her smile was.
'Now I will have to help you,' he said bitterly. 'Do you think your father will protect me?'
Selina said: 'The Tuareg always protect their own.' Sherif winced again.
'It will have to be the roof,' he said at last. 'The doors are guarded all the time. The men on guard never let anyone in or out without a pass. The roof is the only way.' He began to explain, and at last, reluctantly, Selina agreed. Sherif leading, they went out again to the corridor, to the stairs, up and up to a row of attic rooms. Sherif hesitated before one of them and the girl whispered: 'My father cannot protect you if you are dead.' Sherif shuddered, took a key from his pocket, and went in.
The attic was a wireless room, lit by a skylight. Sherif clambered on a table, and opened the skylight, then hauled himself through. As he got halfway, the girl said: 'Stay there.' Sherif sat in sulky silence as Selina put a chair on top of the table. 'Now crawl away,' she said. 'Don't walk. Crawl. And count aloud as you go.' Sherif thought of the gun barrel and obeyed. When he got to five he heard a low clatter behind him, and turned. The girl was coming through. He rose then, but she was as fast as a cat and was up before him, the gun rock steady in her hand.
'What now?' she asked.
They were in a deep gutter that ran between the twin roofs of the house. Sherif walked cautiously down it, Selina close behind him. Sherif crouched down and took out a cigarette, lit it with a hand that shook. 'In a little while it will be dark,' he said. 'Then you can escape.'
'Then
Sherif groaned.
When darkness came he led the way to where, at the edge of the tower, he pointed to a fire escape. Selina moved closer to him, and he felt the gun barrel burn into his back. They stepped on the escape together, and the girl stifled a cry as it swung down, counterweighted between the building and the one next to it. When it reached the floor beneath, Sherif reached out an arm, and held on to the rails of a balcony projecting from the house opposite, then stepped across. Selina stayed on the fire escape.
'Now you must let me help you, princess,' said
Sherif.
Selina shook her head, walked back up two steps of the escape, then jumped, clearing the railings, and was beside him once again. Sherif stopped hating her then.
He tried the balcony windows, and found them locked, and spoke to the girl. The gun barrel flashed once, then again, and a pattern of cracks showed on the glass as Sherif flicked his lighter. She jabbed then at a square of cracks near the window latch, and glass made a brittle splash of sound as it fell. Sherif reached in and opened the window. They entered the offices of Stanley East and Partners, Solicitors. For a long time afterward Mr. East was to wonder why nothing was stolen, and why so many policemen came to investigate.
Selina and Sherif went from the solicitors' office to the lift, and Sherif wasted two frantic minutes explaining what a lift was, then they went down to the ground floor, and Sherif opened the main door, reset the catch, and locked up again as they went through.
London boiled in front of her, a long, wide street that seemed an endless river of cars, with here and there a bus, a floating island, moving always past her, cutting off any chance of escape. She squeezed hard on the butt of the Browning, now in her pocket, but it gave her no comfort. Sherif touched her arm gently.
'We must go, princess,' he said.
'We can't,' said the girl. 'We'll be killed. All these cars—' Sherif's hand came round her elbow. Wide-eyed with fear, she faced the impossible task of going over a zebra crossing to enter a tube station, to be carried in a machine that went through a hole in the ground.
e e o
It had been terrible. You went into a great hall like a desert, a hall that contained nothing but machines and people, and the people pushed and scurried, the machines made their noises and vomited tickets and coins. Selina clenched her fists so tightly that the nails broke the skin, and willed herself to go down, down with Sherif, on the staircase that moved, to the empty platform, to stand near the shining serpents of track until the red monster roared up, halted, the doors slid open, and she must go inside. Her legs went rigid then; she could not move, until Sherif had said: 'It is God's will, princess. If you do not do this thing, we shall both die.' She had moved then, endured the alternation of blackness and hght; how beautiful the platforms were—open, spacious, gleaming; how terrible the tunnel, with its blackness so close to her, and the carriage a tube inside a tube. For half an hour she endured it, and then Sherif took her arm once more, the doors opened, and she was free to step outside, to get out of the blackness, up to street level and more cars, which seemed so harmless now, after the enveloping dark.
Sherif had hailed a taxi then, and after that ride they had walked, through streets that were mean and grubby, where the grit crunched under her feet and she could smell the river nearby. They had gone to a boarding- house, and the owner, a Chinese with a permanent smile as meaningless as the register Sherif signed, showed them a room. Sherif took it at once, and paid in advance. The room contained a bed, a chair, a table with a basin and jug of water, a towel hke tissue paper, and a cupboard. The cupboard was locked. The room cost five pounds a day.
'You will be safe here,' said Sherif. 'The Chinaman never betrays his guests. That is why he is so expensive.' He looked in his wallet. 'I paid for three days,' he said. T have only five pounds left. Have you money, princess?'
Selina dug into the pocket of her pants, poured a shining golden stream on to the rickety table.
Sherif said: 'My father used to tell me about the old days. The way the great ones hved. Gold in one hand, death in the other. And they offered both as princes should. You belong in those times, princess.'
'You have served me well,' said Selina. 'Why?'
'First because I feared you,' Sherif said, 'then because I admired you. Also I think that Schiebel will kill me.
'Go on,' Sehna said.
'I believe in everything he has done for Zaarb,' said Sherif. 'But I think the cobalt scheme is wrong—wicked. I do not think he should give the cobalt to China or to
anyone else. I would stop him if I could, and I believe he knows this. What am I to do, princess?'
'Let my father protect you,' said Selina.
'I hate everything about your father,' said Sherif. 'I hate everything about you—except your courage.'
'Go away, then,' said Selina. 'Start again elsewhere. Here.' She picked up a handful of coins, held them out to him. He took them, and mumbled his gratitude.
'It is only money,' said Selina. 'The way you escaped —that was good. It deserves a reward.'
'Schiebel taught me that way,' said Sherif.
She looked at him more closely: a weak man, but gifted, intelligent, and with a sense of
