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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/6256.txt b/6256.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d6fd6e3 --- /dev/null +++ b/6256.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2745 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook Donovan Pasha, by Gilbert Parker, v1 +#83 in our series by Gilbert Parker + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + +Title: Donovan Pasha And Some People of Egypt, Volume 1. + +Author: Gilbert Parker + +Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6256] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on November 7, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DONOVAN PASHA, PARKER, V1 *** + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + + + + + +DONOVAN PASHA AND SOME PEOPLE OF EGYPT + +By Gilbert Parker + +Volume 1. + + + +CONTENTS + +Volume 1. +WHILE THE LAMP HOLDS OUT TO BURN +THE PRICE OF THE GRINDSTONE-AND THE DRUM +THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIMON +THE REEF OF NORMAN'S WOE + +Volume 2. +FIELDING HAD AN ORDERLY +THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE +A TREATY OF PEACE +AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS +ALL THE WORLD'S MAD + +Volume 3. +THE MAN AT THE WHEEL +A TYRANT AND A LADY + +Volume 4. +A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN +HE WOULD NOT BE DENIED +THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK +THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS + + + +INTRODUCTION + +To the FOREWORD of this book I have practically nothing to add. It +describes how the book was planned, and how at last it came to be +written. The novel--'The Weavers'--of which it was the herald, as one +might say, was published in 1907. The reception of Donovan Pasha +convinced me beyond peradventure, that the step I took in enlarging my +field of work was as wise in relation to my art as in its effect upon my +mind, temperament and faculty for writing. I knew Egypt by study quite +as well as I knew the Dominion of Canada, the difference being, of +course, that the instinct for the life of Canada was part of my very +being itself; but there are great numbers of people who live their lives +for fifty or seventy or eighty years in a country, and have no real +instinct for understanding. There are numberless Canadians who do not +understand Canada, Englishmen who know nothing of England, and Americans +who do not understand the United States. If it is so that I have some +instinct for the life of Canada, and have expressed it to the world +with some accuracy and fidelity, it is apparent that the capacity for +understanding could not be limited absolutely to one environment. That I +understood Canada could not be established by the fact that I had spent +my boyhood there, but only by the fact that some inner vision permitted +me to see it as it really was. That inner vision, however, if it was +anything at all was not in blinders, seeing only one section of the life +of the world. Relatively it might see more deeply, more intimately in +that place where habit of life had made the man familiar with all its +detail, but the same vision turned elsewhere to fields where study and +sympathy played a devoted part, could not fail to see; though the +workman's craft, which made material the vision, might fail. + +The reception given Donovan Pasha convinced me that neither the vision +nor the craftsmanship had wholly failed, whatever the degree of success +which had been reached. Anglo-Egyptians approved the book. Its pages +passed through the hands of an Englishman who had done over twenty years' +service in the British army in Egypt and in official positions in the +Egyptian administration, and I do not think that he made six corrections +in the whole three hundred pages. He had himself a great gift for both +music and painting; he was essentially exacting where any literature +touching Egypt was concerned; but I am glad to think that, whatever he +thought of the book as fiction, he did not find it necessary to grant +absolution as to the facts and the details of incidents in character and +life pourtrayed in Donovan Pasha. + +Who the original of 'Donovan Pasha' was I shall never say, but he was +real. There is, however, in the House of Commons today a young and +active politician once in the Egyptian service, and who bears a most +striking resemblance to the purely imaginary portrait which Mr. Talbot +Kelly, the artist, drew of the Dicky Donovan of the book. This young +politician, with his experience in the diplomatic service, is in manner, +disposition, capacity, and in his neat, fine, and alert physical frame, +the very image of Dicky Donovan, as in my mind I perceived him; and when +I first saw him I was almost thunderstruck, because he was to me Dicky +Donovan come to life. There was nothing Dicky Donovan did or said or saw +or heard which had not its counterpart in actual things in Egypt. The +germ of most of the stories was got from things told me, or things that I +saw, heard of, or experienced in Egypt itself. The first story of the +book--'While the Lamp Holds out to Burn'--was suggested to me by an +incident which I saw at a certain village on the Nile, which I will not +name. Suffice it to say that the story in the main was true. Also the +chief incident of the story, called 'The Price of the Grindstone--and the +Drum', is true. The Mahommed Seti of that story was the servant of a +friend of mine, and he did in life what I made him do in the tale. +'On the Reef of Norman's Woe', which more than one journal singled out as +showing what extraordinary work was being done in Egypt by a handful of +British officials, had its origin in something told me by my friend Sir +John Rogers, who at one time was at the head of the Sanitary Department +of the Government of Egypt. + +I could take the stories one by one, and show the seeds from which this +little plantation of fiction sprang, but I will not go further than to +refer to a story called 'Fielding Had an Orderly', the idea of which was +contained in the experience of a British official whose courage was as +cool as his wit, and both were extremely dangerous weapons, used at times +against those who were opposed to him. When I read a book like 'Said the +Fisherman', however, with its wonderfully intimate knowledge of Oriental +life and the thousand nuances which only the born Orientalist can give, +I look with tempered pride upon Donovan Pasha. Still I think that it +caught and held some phases of Egyptian life which the author of 'Said +the Fisherman' might perhaps miss, since the observation of every artist +has its own idiosyncrasy, and what strikes one observer will not strike +another. + + + + +A FOREWORD + +It is now twelve years since I began giving to the public tales of life +in lands well known to me. The first of them were drawn from Australia +and the Islands of the Southern Pacific, where I had lived and roamed in +the middle and late Eighties. They appeared in various English +magazines, and were written in London far from the scenes which suggested +them. None of them were written on the spot, as it were. I did not +think then, and I do not think now, that this was perilous to their +truthfulness. After many years of travel and home-staying observation +I have found that all worth remembrance, the salient things and scenes, +emerge clearly out of myriad impressions, and become permanent in mind +and memory. Things so emerging are typical at least, and probably true. + +Those tales of the Far South were given out with some prodigality. They +did not appear in book form, however; for, at the time I was sending out +these Antipodean sketches, I was also writing--far from the scenes where +they were laid--a series of Canadian tales, many of which appeared in the +'Independent' of New York, in the 'National Observer', edited by Mr. +Henley, and in the 'Illustrated London News'. By accident, and on the +suggestion of my friend Mr. Henley, the Canadian tales 'Pierre and his +People' were published first; with the result that the stories of the +Southern Hemisphere were withheld from publication, though they have been +privately printed and duly copyrighted. Some day I may send them forth, +but meanwhile I am content to keep them in my own care. + +Moved always by deep interest in the varied manifestations of life in +different portions of the Empire, five or six years ago I was attracted +to the Island of Jersey, in the Channel Sea, by the likeness of the +origin of her people with that of the French-Canadians. I went to live +at St. Heliers for a time, and there wrote a novel called 'The Battle of +the Strong'. + +Nor would it be thought strange that, having visited another and newer +sphere of England's influence, Egypt to wit, in 1889, I should then +determine that, when I could study the country at leisure, I should try +to write of the life there, so full of splendour and of primitive +simplicity; of mystery and guilt; of cruel indolence and beautiful +industry; of tyranny and devoted slavery; of the high elements of a true +democracy and the shameful practices of a false autocracy; all touched +off by the majesty of an ancient charm, the nobility of the remotest +history. + +The years went by, and, four times visiting Egypt, at last I began to +write of her. That is now five years ago. From time to time the stories +which I offer to the public in this volume were given forth. It is +likely that the old Anglo-Egyptian and the historical student may find +some anachronisms and other things to criticise; but the anachronisms are +deliberate, and even as in writing of Canada and Australia, which I know +very well, I have here, perhaps, sacrificed superficial exactness while +trying to give the more intimate meaning and spirit. I have never +thought it necessary to apologise for this disregard of photographic +accuracy,--that may be found in my note-books,--and I shall not begin to +do so now. I shall be sufficiently grateful if this series of tales does +no more than make ready the way for the novel of Egyptian life on which I +have been working for some years. It is an avant courier. I hope, +however, that it may be welcomed for its own sake. + G. P. + + +NOTE: A Glossary will be found at the end of the volume. + + + + +WHILE THE LAMP HOLDS OUT TO BURN + +There is a town on the Nile which Fielding Bey called Hasha, meaning +"Heaven Forbid!" He loathed inspecting it. Going up the Nile, he would +put off visiting it till he came down; coming down, he thanked his fates +if accident carried him beyond it. Convenient accidents sometimes did +occur: a murder at one of the villages below it, asking his immediate +presence; a telegram from his Minister at Cairo, requiring his return; +or a very low Nile, when Hasha suddenly found itself a mile away from the +channel and there was no good place to land. So it was that Hasha, with +little inspection, was the least reputable and almost the dirtiest town +on the Nile; for even in those far-off days the official Englishman had +his influence, especially when Kubar Pasha was behind him. Kubar had his +good points. + +There were certain definite reasons, however, why Fielding Bey shrank +from visiting Hasha. Donovan Pasha saw something was wrong from the +first moment Hasha was mentioned. + +On a particular day they were lying below at another village, on the +Amenhotep. Hasha was the next place marked red on the map, and that +meant inspection. When Dicky Donovan mentioned Hasha, Fielding Bey +twisted a shoulder and walked nervously up and down the deck. He stayed +here for hours: to wait for the next post, he said-serious matters +expected from head quarters. He appeared not to realise that letters +would get to Hasha by rail as quickly as by the Amenhotep. + +Every man has a weak spot in his character, a sub-rosa, as it were, in +his business of life; and Dicky fancied he had found Fielding Bey's. +While they waited, Fielding made a pretence of working hard--for he +really was conscientious--sending his orderly for the mamour-- +[magistrate]--and the omdah--[head of a village]--, and holding fatuous +conferences; turning the hose on the local dairymen and butchers and +dategrowers, who came with backsheesh in kind; burying his nose in +official papers; or sending for Holgate, the Yorkshire engineer, to find +out what the run would be to the next stopping-place beyond Hasha. Twice +he did this; which was very little like Fielding Bey. The second time, +when Holgate came below to his engine, Dicky was there playing with a +Farshoot dog. + +"We don't stop at Hasha, then?" Dicky asked, and let the Farshoot fasten +on his leggings. + +Holgate swung round and eyed Dicky curiously, a queer smile at his lips. + +"Not if Goovnur can 'elp, aw give ye ma woord, sir," answered Holgate. + +Fielding was affectionately called "the Governor" by his subordinates and +friends. + +"We all have our likes and dislikes," rejoined Dicky casually, and blew +smoke in the eyes of the Farshoot. "Aye, aw've seen places that bad! +but Hasha has taaste of its own in Goovnur's mouth, ma life on't!" +"Never can tell when a thing'll pall on the taste. Hasha's turn with the +Governor now, eh?" rejoined Dicky. + +Dicky's way of getting information seemed guileless, and Holgate opened +his basket as wide as he knew. "Toorn, didst tha sway" (Holgate talked +broadly to Dicky always, for Dicky had told him of his aunt, Lady +Carmichael, who lived near Halifax in Yorkshire), "toorn, aw warrant! +It be reg'lar as kitchen-fire, this Hasha business, for three years, ever +sin' aw been scrapin' mud o' Nile River." + +"That was a nasty row they had over the cemetery three years ago, the +Governor against the lot, from mamour to wekeel!" + +Holgate's eyes flashed, and he looked almost angrily down at Dicky, whose +hand was between the teeth of the playful Farshoot. + +"Doost think--noa, tha canst not think that Goovnur be 'feared o' Hasha +fook. Thinks't tha, a man that told 'em all--a thousand therr--that he'd +hang on nearest tree the foorst that disobeyed him, thinks't tha that +Goovnur's lost his nerve by that?" + +"The Governor never loses his nerve, Holgate," said Dicky, smiling and +offering a cigar. "There's such a thing as a man being afraid to trust +himself where he's been in a mess, lest he hit out, and doesn't want to." + +Holgate, being excited, was in a fit state to tell the truth, if he knew +it; which was what Dicky had worked for; but Holgate only said: + +"It bean't fear, and it bean't milk o' human kindness. It be soort o' +thing a man gets. Aw had it once i' Bradford, in Little Cornish Street. +Aw saw a faace look out o' window o' hoose by tinsmith's shop, an' that +faace was like hell's picture-aye, 'twas a killiagous faace that! Aw +never again could pass that house. 'Twas a woman's faace. Horrible +'twas, an' sore sad an' flootered aw were, for t' faace was like a lass +aw loved when aw wur a lad." + +"I should think it was something like that," answered Dicky, his eyes +wandering over the peninsula beyond which lay Hasha. + +"Summat, aw be sure," answered Holgate, "an' ma woord on't . . . ah, +yon coomes orderly wi' post for Goovnur. Now it be Hasha, or it be not +Hasha, it be time for steam oop." + +Holgate turned to his engine as Dicky mounted the stairs and went to +Fielding's cabin, where the orderly was untying a handkerchief +overflowing with letters. + +As Fielding read his official letters his face fell more and more. When +he had read the last, he sat for a minute without speaking, his brow very +black. There was no excuse for pushing past Hasha. He had not been +there for over a year. It was his duty to inspect the place: he had a +conscience; there was time to get to Hasha that afternoon. With an +effort he rose, hurried along the deck, and called down to Holgate: +"Full-steam to Hasha!" + +Then, with a quick command to the reis, who was already at the wheel, he +lighted a cigar, and, joining Dicky Donovan, began to smoke and talk +furiously. But he did not talk of Hasha. + +At sunset the Amenhotep drew in to the bank by Hasha, and, from the deck, +Fielding Bey saluted the mamour, the omdah and his own subordinates, who, +buttoning up their coats as they came, hurried to the bank to make +salaams to him. Behind them, at a distance, came villagers, a dozen +ghaffirs armed with naboots of dom-wood, and a brace of well-mounted, +badly-dressed policemen, with seats like a monkey on a stick. The +conferences with the mamour and omdah were short, in keeping with the +temper of "Fielding Saadat"; and long into the night Dicky lay and looked +out of his cabin window to the fires on the banks, where sat Mahommed +Seti the servant, the orderly, and some attendant ghaffirs, who, feasting +on the remains of the effendi's supper, kept watch. For Hasha was noted +for its robbers. It was even rumoured that the egregious Selamlik Pasha, +with the sugar plantation near by--"Trousers," Dicky called him when he +saw him on the morrow, because of the elephantine breeks he wore--was not +averse to sending his Abyssinian slaves through the sugar-cane to waylay +and rob, and worse, maybe. + +By five o'clock next day the inspection was over. The streets had been +swept for the Excellency--which is to say Saadat--the first time in a +year. The prison had been cleaned of visible horrors, the first time in +a month. The last time it was ordered there had been a riot among the +starving, infested prisoners; earth had been thrown over the protruding +bones of the dear lamented dead in the cemetery; the water of the +ablution places in the mosque had been changed; the ragged policemen had +new putties; the kourbashes of the tax-gatherers were hid in their +yeleks; the egregious Pasha wore a greasy smile, and the submudir, as he +conducted Fielding--"whom God preserve and honour!"--through the prison +and through the hospital, where goat's milk had been laid on for this +especial day, smirked gently through the bazaar above his Parisian +waistcoat. + +But Fielding, as he rode on Selamlik Pasha's gorgeous black donkey from +Assiout, with its crimson trappings, knew what proportion of improvement +this "hankypanky," as Dicky called it, bore to the condition of things at +the last inspection. He had spoken little all day, and Dicky had noticed +that his eye was constantly turning here and there, as though looking for +an unwelcome something or somebody. + +At last the thing was over, and they were just crossing the canal, the +old Bahr-el-Yusef, which cuts the town in twain as the river Abana does +Damascus, when Dicky saw nearing them a heavily-laden boat, a cross +between a Thames house-boat and an Italian gondola, being drawn by one +poor raw-bone--raw-bone in truth, for there was on each shoulder a round +red place, made raw by the unsheathed ropes used as harness. The beast's +sides were scraped as a tree is barked, and the hind quarters gored as +though by a harrow. Dicky was riding with the mamour of the district, +Fielding was a distance behind with Trousers and the Mudir. Dicky pulled +up his donkey, got off and ran towards the horse, pale with fury; for he +loved animals better than men, and had wasted his strength beating +donkey-boys with the sticks they used on their victims. The boat had now +reached a point opposite the mudirieh, its stopping-place; and the raw- +bone, reeking with sweat and blood, stood still and trembled, its knees +shaking with the strain just taken off them, its head sunk nearly to the +ground. + +Dicky had hardly reached the spot when a figure came running to the poor +waler with a quick stumbling motion. Dicky drew back in wonder, for +never had he seen eyes so painful as these that glanced from the tortured +beast to himself--staring, bulbous, bloodshot, hunted eyes; but they were +blue, a sickly, faded blue; and they were English! Dicky's hand was, on +his pistol, for his first impulse had been to shoot the rawbone; but it +dropped away in sheer astonishment at the sight of this strange figure in +threadbare dirty clothes and riding-breeches made by shearing the legs of +a long pair--cut with an unsteady hand, for the edges were jagged and +uneven, and the man's bare leg showed above the cast-off putties of a +policeman. The coat was an old khaki jacket of a Gippy soldier, and, +being scant of buttons, doubtful linen showed beneath. Above the hook- +nose, once aristocratic, now vulture-like and shrunken like that of +Rameses in his glass case at Ghizeh, was a tarboosh tilting forward over +the eyes, nearly covering the forehead. The figure must have been very +tall once, but it was stooped now, though the height was still well above +medium. Hunted, haunted, ravaged and lost, was the face, and the long +grey moustache, covering the chin almost, seemed to cover an immeasurable +depravity. + +Dicky took it all in at a glance, and wondered with a bitter wonder; for +this was an Englishman, and behind him and around him, though not very +near him, were Arabs, Soudanese, and Fellaheen, with sneering yet +apprehensive faces. + +As Dicky's hand dropped away from his pistol, the other shot out +trembling, graceful, eager fingers, the one inexpressibly gentlemanly +thing about him. + +"Give it to me--quick!" he said, and he threw a backward glance towards +the approaching group--Fielding, the egregious Pasha, and the rest. + +Dicky did not hesitate; he passed the pistol over. The Lost One took the +pistol, cocked it, and held it to the head of the waler, which feebly +turned to him in recognition. + +"Good-bye, old man!" he said, and fired. + +The horse dropped, kicked, struggled once or twice, and was gone. + +"If you know the right spot, there's hardly a kick," said the Lost One, +and turned to face the Pasha, who had whipped his donkey forward on them, +and sat now livid with rage, before the two. He stood speechless for a +moment, for his anger had forced the fat of his neck up into his throat. + +But Dicky did not notice the Pasha. His eye was fixed on Fielding Bey, +and the eye of Fielding Bey was on the Lost One. All at once Dicky +understood why it was that Fielding Bey had shrunk from coming to Hasha. +Fielding might have offered many reasons, but this figure before them was +the true one. Trouble, pity, anxiety, pride, all were in Fielding's +face. Because the Lost One was an Englishman, and the race was shamed +and injured by this outcast? Not that alone. Fielding had the natural +pride of his race, but this look was personal. He glanced at the dead +horse, at the scarred sides, the raw shoulders, the corrugated haunches, +he saw the pistol in the Lost One's hand, and then, as a thread of light +steals between the black trees of a jungle, a light stole across +Fielding's face for a moment. He saw the Lost One hand the pistol back +to Dicky and fix his debauched blue eyes on the Pasha. These blue eyes +did not once look at Fielding, though they were aware of his presence. + +"Son of a dog!" said the Pasha, and his fat forefinger convulsively +pointed to the horse. + +The Lost One's eyes wavered a second, as though their owner had not the +courage to abide the effect of his action, then they quickened to a point +of steadiness, as a lash suddenly knots for a crack in the hand of a +postilion. + +"Swine!" said the Lost One into the Pasha's face, and his round +shoulders drew up a little farther, so that he seemed more like a man +among men. His hands fell on his hips as, in his mess, an officer with +no pockets drops his knuckles on his waist-line for a stand-at-ease. + +The egregious Selamlik Pasha stood high in favour with the Khedive: was +it not he who had suggested a tax on the earnings of the dancing girls, +the Ghazeeyehs, and did he not himself act as the first tax-gatherer? +Was it not Selamlik Pasha also who whispered into the ear of the +Mouffetish that a birth-tax and a burial-tax should be instituted? +And had he not seen them carried out in the mudiriehs under his own +supervision? Had he not himself made the Fellaheen pay thrice over for +water for their onion-fields? Had he not flogged an Arab to death with +his own hand, the day before Fielding's and Dicky's arrival, and had he +not tried to get this same Arab's daughter into his harem--this Selamlik +Pasha! + +The voice of the Lost One suddenly rose shrill and excited, and he +shouted at the Pasha. "Swine! swine! swine! . . . Kill your slaves +with a kourbash if you like, but a bullet's the thing for a waler!--Swine +of a leper!" + +The whole frame of the Lost One was still, but the voice was shaking, +querulous, half hysterical; the eyes were lighted with a terrible +excitement, the lips under the grey moustache twitched; the nervous +slipshod dignity of carriage was in curious contrast to the disordered +patchwork dress. + +The trouble on Fielding's face glimmered with a little ray of hope now. +Dicky came over to him, and was about to speak, but a motion of +Fielding's hand stopped him. The hand said: "Let them fight it out." + +In a paroxysm of passion Selamlik Pasha called two Abyssinian slaves +standing behind. "This brother of a toad to prison!" he said. + +The Lost One's eyes sought Dicky like a flash. Without a word, and as +quick as the tick of a clock, Dicky tossed over his pistol to the Lost +One, who caught it smoothly, turned it in his hand, and levelled it at +the Abyssinians. + +"No more of this damned nonsense, Pasha," said Fielding suddenly. "He +doesn't put a high price on his life, and you do on yours. I'd be +careful!" + +"Steady, Trousers!" said Dicky in a soft voice, and smiled his girlish +smile. + +Selamlik Pasha stared for a moment in black anger, then stuttered forth: +"Will you speak for a dog of a slave that his own country vomits out?" + +"Your mother was a slave of Darfur, Pasha," answered Fielding, in a low +voice; "your father lost his life stealing slaves. Let's have no airs +and graces." + +Dicky's eyes had been fixed on the Lost One, and his voice now said in +its quaint treble: "Don't get into a perspiration. He's from where we +get our bad manners, and he messes with us to-night, Pasha." + +The effect of these words was curious. Fielding's face was a blank +surprise, and his mouth opened to say no, but he caught Dicky's look and +the word was not uttered. The Pasha's face showed curious incredulity; +under the pallor of the Lost One's a purplish flush crept, stayed a +moment, then faded away, and left it paler than before. + +"We've no more business, I think, Pasha," said Fielding brusquely, and +turned his donkey towards the river. The Pasha salaamed without a word, +his Abyssinian slaves helped him on his great white donkey, and he +trotted away towards the palace, the trousers flapping about his huge +legs. The Lost One stood fingering the revolver. Presently he looked up +at Dicky, and, standing still, held out the pistol. + +"Better keep it," said Dicky; "I'll give you some peas for it to-night. +Speak to the poor devil, Fielding," he added quickly, in a low tone. + +Fielding turned in his saddle. "Seven's the hour," he said, and rode on. + +"Thanks, you fellows," said the Lost One, and walked swiftly away. + +As they rode to the Amenhotep Dicky did not speak, but once he turned +round to look after the outcast, who was shambling along the bank of the +canal. + +When Fielding and Dicky reached the deck of the Amenhotep, and Mahommed +Seti had brought refreshment, Dicky said: "What did he do?" + +Fielding's voice was constrained and hard: "Cheated at cards." + +Dicky's lips tightened. "Where?" + +"At Hong Kong." + +"Officer?" + +"In the Buffs." + +Dicky drew a long breath. "He's paid the piper." + +"Naturally. He cheated twice." + +"Cheated twice--at cards!" Dicky's voice was hard now. "Who was he?" + +"Heatherby--Bob Heatherby!" + +"Bob Heatherby--gad! Fielding, I'm sorry--I couldn't have guessed, old +man. Mrs. Henshaw's brother!" + +Fielding nodded. Dicky turned his head away; for Fielding was in love +with Mrs. Henshaw, the widow of Henshaw of the Buffs. He realised now +why Fielding loathed Hasha so. + +"Forgive me for asking him to mess, guv'nor." + +Fielding laughed a little uneasily. "Never mind. You see, it isn't the +old scores only that bar him. He's been a sweep out here. Nothing he +hasn't done. Gone lower and lower and lower. Tax-gatherer with a +kourbash for old Selamlik the beast. Panderer for the same. Sweep of +the lowest sort!" + +Dicky's eyes flashed. "I say, Fielding, it would be rather strange if he +hadn't gone down, down, down. A man that's cheated at cards never finds +anybody to help him up, up, up. The chances are dead against him. But +he stood up well to-day, eh?" + +"I suppose blood will tell at last in the very worst." + + "'And while the lamp holds out to burn + The vilest sinner may return--'" + +hummed Dicky musingly. Then he added slowly: "Fielding, fellows of that +kind always flare up a bit according to Cavendish, just before the end. +I've seen it once or twice before. It's the last clutch at the grass as +they go slip--slip--slipping down. Take my word for it, Heatherby's near +the finish." + +"I shouldn't wonder. Selamlik, the old leper, 'll lay in wait for him. +He'll get lost in the sugar-cane one of these evenings soon." + +"Couldn't we . . ." Dicky paused. + +Fielding started, looked at Dicky intently, and then shook his head +sadly. "It's no good, Dicky. It never is." + +"'While the lamp holds out to burn . . .'" said Dicky, and lighted +another cigarette. + +Precisely at seven o'clock Heatherby appeared. He had on a dress-suit, +brown and rusty, a white tie made of a handkerchief torn in two, and a +pair of patent leather shoes, scraggy and cracked. + +Fielding behaved well, Dicky was amiable and attentive, and the dinner +being ready to the instant, there was no waiting, there were no awkward +pauses. No names of English people were mentioned, England was not +named; nor Cairo, nor anything that English people abroad love to +discuss. The fellah, the pasha, the Soudan were the only topics. Under +Fielding's courtesy and Dicky's acute suggestions, Heatherby's weakened +brain awaked, and he talked intelligently, till the moment coffee was +brought in. Then, as Mahommed Seti retired, Heatherby suddenly threw +himself forward, his arms on the table, and burst into sobs. + +"Oh, you fellows, you fellows!" he said. There was silence for a +minute, then he sobbed out again: "It's the first time I've been treated +like a gentleman by men that knew me, these fifteen years. It--it gets +me in the throat!" + +His body shook with sobs. Fielding and Dicky were uncomfortable, for +these were not the sobs of a driveller or a drunkard. Behind them was +the blank failure of a life--fifteen years of miserable torture, of +degradation, of a daily descent lower into the pit, of the servitude of +shame. When at last he raised his streaming eyes, Fielding and Dicky +could see the haunting terror of the soul, at whose elbow, as it were, +every man cried: "You are without the pale!" That look told them how +Heatherby of the Buffs had gone from table d'hote to table d'hote of +Europe, from town to town, from village to village, to make acquaintances +who repulsed him when they discovered who he really was. + +Shady Heatherby, who cheated at cards! + +Once Fielding made as if to put a hand on his shoulder and speak to him, +but Dicky intervened with a look. The two drank their coffee, Fielding +a little uneasily; but yet in his face there was a new look: of inquiry, +of kindness, even of hope. + +Presently Dicky flashed a look and nodded towards the door, and Fielding +dropped his cigar and went on deck, and called down to Holgate the +engineer: + +"Get up steam, and make for Luxor. It's moonlight, and we're safe enough +in this high Nile, eh, Holgate?" + +"Safe enough, or aw'm a Dootchman," said Holgate. Then they talked in a +low voice together. Down in the saloon, Dicky sat watching Heatherby. +At last the Lost One raised his head again. + +"It's worth more to me, this night, than you fellows know," he said +brokenly. + +"That's all right," said Dicky. "Have a cigar?" + +He shook his head. "It's come at the right time. I wanted to be treated +like an Englishman once more--just once more." + +"Don't worry. Take in a reef and go steady for a bit. The milk's spilt, +but there are other meadows. . . ." Dicky waved an arm up the river, +up towards the Soudan! + +The Lost One nodded, then his eyes blazed up and took on a hungry look. +His voice suddenly came in a whisper. + +"Gordon was a white man. Gordon said to me three years ago: 'Come with +me, I'll help you on. You don't need to live, if you don't want to. +Most of us will get knocked out up there in the Soudan.' Gordon said +that to me. But there was another fellow with Gordon who knew me, +and I couldn't face it. So I stayed behind here. I've been everything, +anything, to that swine, Selamlik Pasha; but when he told me yesterday to +bring him the daughter of the Arab he killed with his kourbash, I jibbed. +I couldn't stand that. Her father had fed me more than once. I jibbed +--by God, I jibbed! I said I was an Englishman, and I'd see him damned +first. I said it, and I shot the horse, and I'd have shot him--what's +that?" + +There was a churning below. The Amenhotep was moving from the bank. + +"She's going--the boat's going," said the Lost One, trembling to his +feet. + +"Sit down," said Dicky, and gripped him by the arm. "Where are you +taking me?" asked Heatherby, a strange, excited look in his face. + +"Up the river." + +He seemed to read Dicky's thoughts--the clairvoyance of an overwrought +mind: "To--to Assouan?" The voice had a curious far-away sound. + +"You shall go beyond Assouan," said Dicky. "To--to Gordon?" Heatherby's +voice was husky and indistinct. + +"Yes, here's Fielding; he'll give you the tip. Sit down." Dicky gently +forced him down into a chair. Six months later, a letter came to Dicky +from an Egyptian officer, saying that Heatherby of the Buffs had died +gallantly fighting in a sortie sent by Gordon into the desert. + +"He had a lot of luck," mused Dicky as he read. "They don't end that way +as a rule." + +Then he went to Fielding, humming a certain stave from one of Watts's +hymns. + + + + + + +THE PRICE OF THE GRINDSTONE--AND THE DRUM + +He lived in the days of Ismail the Khedive, and was familiarly known as +the Murderer. He had earned his name, and he had no repentance. From +the roof of a hut in his native village of Manfaloot he had dropped a +grindstone on the head of Ebn Haroun, who contended with him for the +affections of Ahassa, the daughter of Haleel the barber, and Ebn Haroun's +head was flattened like the cover of a pie. Then he had broken a cake of +dourha bread on the roof for the pigeons above him, and had come down +grinning to the street, where a hesitating mounted policeman fumbled with +his weapon, and four ghaffirs waited for him with their naboots. + +Seti then had weighed his chances, had seen the avenging friends of Ebn +Haroun behind the ghaffirs, and therefore permitted himself to be marched +off to the mudirieh. There the Mudir glared at him and had him loaded +with chains and flung into the prison, where two hundred convicts arrayed +themselves against myriad tribes which, killed individually, made a spot +on the wall no bigger than a threepenny-bit! The carnage was great, and +though Seti was sleepless night after night it was not because of his +crime. He found some solace, however, in provoking his fellow-prisoners +to assaults upon each other; and every morning he grinned as he saw the +dead and wounded dragged out into the clear sunshine. + +The end to this came when the father of Seti, Abou Seti, went at night to +the Mudir and said deceitfully: "Effendi, by the mercy of Heaven I have +been spared even to this day; for is it not written in the Koran that a +man shall render to his neighbour what is his neighbour's? What should +Abou Seti do with ten feddans of land, while the servant of Allah, the +Effendi Insagi, lives? What is honestly mine is eight feddans, and the +rest, by the grace of God, is thine, O effendi." + +Every feddan he had he had honestly earned, but this was his way of +offering backsheesh. + +And the Mudir had due anger and said: "No better are ye than a Frank to +have hidden the truth so long and waxed fat as the Nile rises and falls. +The two feddans, as thou sayest, are mine." + +Abou Seti bowed low, and rejoined, "Now shall I sleep in peace, by the +grace of Heaven, and all my people under my date-trees--and all my +people?" he added, with an upward look at the Mudir. + +"But the rentals of the two feddans of land these ten years--thou hast +eased thy soul by bringing the rentals thereof?" + +Abou Seti's glance fell and his hands twitched. His fingers fumbled with +his robe of striped silk. He cursed the Mudir in his heart for his +bitter humour; but was not his son in prison, and did it not lie with the +Mudir whether he lived or died? So he answered: + +"All-seeing and all-knowing art thou, O effendi, and I have reckoned the +rentals even to this hour for the ten years--fifty piastres for each +feddan--" + +"A hundred for the five years of high Nile," interposed the Mudir. + +"Fifty for the five lean years, and a hundred for the five fat years," +said Abou Seti, and wished that his words were poisoned arrows, that they +might give the Mudir many deaths at once. "And may Allah give thee +greatness upon thy greatness!" + +"God prosper thee also, Abou Seti, and see that thou keep only what is +thine own henceforth. Get thee gone in peace." + +"At what hour shall I see the face of my son alive?" asked Abou Seti in +a low voice, placing his hand upon his turban in humility. + +"To-morrow at even, when the Muezzin calls from the mosque of El Hassan, +be thou at the west wall of the prison by the Gate of the Prophet's +Sorrow, with thy fastest camel. Your son shall ride for me through the +desert even to Farafreh, and bear a letter to the bimbashi there. If he +bear it safely, his life is his own; if he fail, look to thy feddans of +land!" + +"God is merciful, and Seti is bone of my bone," said Abou Seti, and laid +his hand again upon his turban. That was how Mahommed Seti did not at +once pay the price of the grindstone, but rode into the desert bearing +the message of the Mudir and returned safely with the answer, and was +again seen in the cafes of Manfaloot. And none of Ebn Haroun's friends +did aught, for the world knew through whom it was that Seti lived--and +land was hard to keep in Manfaloot and the prison near. + +But one day a kavass of the Khedive swooped down on Manfaloot, and twenty +young men were carried off in conscription. Among them was Seti, now +married to Ahassa, the fellah maid for whom the grindstone had fallen on +Ebn Haroun's head. When the fatal number fell to him and it was ordained +that he must go to Dongola to serve in the Khedive's legions, he went to +his father, with Ahassa wailing behind him. + +"Save thyself," said the old man with a frown. + +"I have done what I could--I have sold my wife's jewels," answered Seti. + +"Ten piastres!" said old Abou Seti grimly. "Twelve," said Seti, grinning +from ear to ear. Thou wilt add four feddans of land to that I will +answer for the Mudir." + +"Thy life only cost me two feddans. Shall I pay four to free thee of +serving thy master the Khedive? Get thee gone into the Soudan. I do not +fear for thee: thou wilt live on. Allah is thy friend. Peace be with +thee!" + + + +II + +So it was that the broad-shouldered Seti went to be a soldier, with all +the women of the village wailing behind him, and Ahassa his wife covering +her head with dust and weeping by his side as he stepped out towards +Dongola. For himself, Seti was a philosopher; that is to say, he was a +true Egyptian. Whatever was, was to be; and Seti had a good digestion, +which is a great thing in the desert. Moreover, he had a capacity for +foraging--or foray. The calmness with which he risked his life for an +onion or a water-bag would have done credit to a prince of buccaneers. +He was never flustered. He had dropped a grindstone on the head of his +rival, but the smile that he smiled then was the same smile with which he +suffered and forayed and fought and filched in the desert. With a back +like a door, and arms as long and strong as a gorilla's, with no moral +character to speak of, and an imperturbable selfishness, even an ignorant +Arab like Seti may go far. More than once his bimbashi drew a sword to +cut him down for the peaceful insolent grin with which he heard himself +suddenly charged with very original crimes; but even the officer put his +sword up again, because he remembered that though Seti was the curse of +the regiment on the march, there was no man like him in the day of +battle. Covered with desert sand and blood, and fighting and raging +after the manner of a Sikh, he could hold ten companies together like a +wall against a charge of Dervishes. The bimbashi rejoiced at this, for +he was a coward; likewise his captain was a coward, and so was his +lieutenant: for they were half Turks, half Gippies, who had seen Paris +and had not the decency to die there. Also it had been discovered that +no man made so good a spy or envoy as Seti. His gift for lying was +inexpressible: confusion never touched him; for the flattest +contradictions in the matter of levying backsheesh he always found an +excuse. Where the bimbashi and his officers were afraid to go lest the +bald-headed eagle and the vulture should carry away their heads as tit- +bits to the Libyan hills, Seti was sent. In more than one way he always +kept his head. He was at once the curse and the pride of the regiment. +For his sins he could not be punished, and his virtues were of value only +to save his life. + +In this fashion, while his regiment thinned out by disease, famine, +fighting, and the midnight knife, Seti came on to Dongola, to Berber, to +Khartoum; and he grinned with satisfaction when he heard that they would +make even for Kordofan. He had outlived all the officers who left +Manfaloot with the regiment save the bimbashi, and the bimbashi was +superstitious and believed that while Seti lived he would live. +Therefore, no clansman ever watched his standard flying in the van as the +bimbashi--from behind--watched the long arm of Seti slaying, and heard +his voice like a brass horn above all others shouting his war-cry. + +But at Khartoum came Seti's fall. Many sorts of original sin had been +his, with profit and prodigious pleasure, but when, by the supposed +orders of the bimbashi, he went through Khartoum levying a tax upon every +dancing-girl in the place and making her pay upon the spot at the point +of a merciless tongue, he went one step too far. For his genius had +preceded that of Selamlik Pasha, the friend of the Mouffetish at Cairo, +by one day only. Selamlik himself had collected taxes on dancing-girls +all the way from Cairo to Khartoum; and to be hoist by an Arab in a foot +regiment having no authority and only a limitless insolence, was more +than the Excellency could bear. + +To Selamlik Pasha the bimbashi hastily disowned all knowledge of Seti's +perfidy, but both were brought out to have their hands and feet and heads +cut off in the Beit-el-Mal, in the presence of the dancing-girls and the +populace. In the appointed place, when Seti saw how the bimbashi wept-- +for he had been to Paris and had no Arab blood in him; how he wrung his +hands--for had not absinthe weakened his nerves in the cafes of St. +Michel?--when Seti saw that he was no Arab and was afraid to die, then he +told the truth to Selamlik Pasha. He even boldly offered to tell the +pasha where half his own ill-gotten gains were hid, if he would let the +bimbashi go. Now, Selamlik Pasha was an Egyptian, and is it not written +in the Book of Egypt that no man without the most dangerous reason may +refuse backsheesh? So it was that Selamlik talked to the Ulema, the holy +men, who were there, and they urged him to clemency, as holy men will, +even in Egypt--at a price. + +So it was also that the bimbashi went back to his regiment with all his +limbs intact. Seti and the other half of his ill-gotten gains were left. +His hands were about to be struck off, when he realised of how little +account his gold would be without them; so he offered it to Selamlik +Pasha for their sake. The pasha promised, and then, having found the +money, serenely prepared the execution. For his anger was great. Was +not the idea of taxing the dancing-girls his very own, the most original +tax ever levied in Egypt? And to have the honour of it filched from him +by a soldier of Manfaloot--no, Mahommed Seti should be crucified! + +And Seti, the pride and the curse of his regiment, would have been +crucified between two palms on the banks of the river had it not been for +Fielding Bey, the Englishman--Fielding of St. Bartholomew's--who had +burned gloriously to reform Egypt root and branch, and had seen the fire +of his desires die down. Fielding Bey saved Seti, but not with +backsheesh. + +Fielding intervened. He knew Selamlik Pasha well, and the secret of his +influence over him is for telling elsewhere. But whatever its source, it +gave Mahommed Seti his life. It gave him much more, for it expelled him +from the Khedive's army. Now soldiers without number, gladly risking +death, had deserted from the army of the Khedive; they had bought +themselves out with enormous backsheesh, they had been thieves, +murderers, panderers, that they might be freed from service by some +corrupt pasha or bimbashi; but no one in the knowledge of the world had +ever been expelled from the army of the Khedive. + +There was a satanic humour in the situation pleasant to the soul of +Mahommed Seti, if soul his subconsciousness might be called. In the +presence of his regiment, drawn up in the Beit-el-Mal, before his +trembling bimbashi, whose lips were now pale with terror at the loss of +his mascot, Mahommed Seti was drummed out of line, out of his regiment, +out of the Beit-el-Mal. It was opera boufe, and though Seti could not +know what opera boufe was, he did know that it was a ridiculous fantasia, +and he grinned his insolent grin all the way, even to the corner of the +camel-market, where the drummer and the sergeant and his squad turned +back from ministering a disgrace they would gladly have shared. + +Left at the corner of the camel-market, Mahommed Seti planned his future. +At first it was to steal a camel and take the desert for Berber. Then he +thought of the English hakim, Fielding Bey, who had saved his life. Now, +a man who has saved your life once may do it again; one favour is always +the promise of another. So Seti, with a sudden inspiration, went +straight to the house of Fielding Bey and sat down before it on his mat. + +With the setting of the sun came a clatter of tins and a savoury odour +throughout Khartoum to its farthest precincts, for it was Ramadan, and no +man ate till sunset. Seti smiled an avid smile, and waited. At last he +got up, turned his face towards Mecca, and said his prayers. Then he +lifted the latch of Fielding's hut, entered, eyed the medicine bottles +and the surgical case with childish apprehension, and made his way to the +kitchen. There he foraged. He built a fire; his courage grew; he ran to +the bazaar, and came back with an armful of meats and vegetables. + +So it was that when Fielding returned he found Mahommed Seti and a +savoury mess awaiting him. Also there was coffee and a bottle of brandy +which Seti had looted in the bazaar. In one doorway stood Fielding; in +another stood Mahommed Seti, with the same grin which had served his +purpose all the way from Cairo, his ugly face behind it, and his +prodigious shoulders below it, and the huge chest from which came forth, +like the voice of a dove: + +"God give thee long life, saadat el bey!" + +Now an M.D. degree and a course in St. Bartholomew's Hospital do not +necessarily give a knowledge of the human soul, though the outlying lands +of the earth have been fattened by those who thought there was knowledge +and salvation in a conquered curriculum. Fielding Bey, however, had +never made pretence of understanding the Oriental mind, so he discreetly +took his seat and made no remarks. From sheer instinct, however, when he +came to the coffee he threw a boot which caught Mahommed Seti in the +middle of the chest, and said roughly: "French, not Turkish, idiot!" + +Then Mahommed Seti grinned, and he knew that he was happy; for it was +deep in his mind that that was the Inglesi's way of offering a long +engagement. In any case Seti had come to stay. Three times he made +French coffee that night before it suited, and the language of Fielding +was appropriate in each case. At last a boot, a native drum, and a wood +sculpture of Pabst the lion-headed goddess, established perfect relations +between them. They fell into their places of master and man as +accurately as though the one had smitten and the other served +for twenty years. + +The only acute differences they had were upon two points--the cleaning of +the medicine bottles and surgical instruments, and the looting. But it +was wonderful to see how Mahommed Seti took the kourbash at the hands of +Fielding, when he shied from the medicine bottles. He could have broken, +or bent double with one twist, the weedy, thin-chested Fielding. But +though he saw a deadly magic and the evil eye in every stopper, and +though to him the surgical instruments were torturing steels which the +devil had forged for his purposes, he conquered his own prejudices so far +as to assist in certain bad cases which came in Fielding's way on the +journey down the Nile. + +The looting was a different matter. Had not Mahommed Seti looted all his +life--looted from his native village to the borders of Kordofan? Did he +not take to foray as a wild ass to bersim? Moreover, as little Dicky +Donovan said humorously yet shamelessly when he joined them at Korosko: +"What should a native do but loot who came from Manfaloot?" + +Dicky had a prejudice against the Murderer, because he was a murderer; +and Mahommed Seti viewed with scorn any white man who was not Fielding; +much more so one who was only five feet and a trifle over. So for a time +there was no sympathy between the two. But each conquered the other in +the end. Seti was conquered first. + +One day Dicky, with a sudden burst of generosity--for he had a button to +his pocket--gave Mahommed Seti a handful of cigarettes. The next day +Seti said to Fielding: "Behold, God has given thee strong men for +friends. Thou hast Mahommed Seti"--his chest blew out like a bellows-- +"and thou hast Donovan Pasha." + +Fielding grunted. He was not a fluent man, save in forbidden language, +and Seti added: + +"Behold thou, saadat el bey, who opens a man's body and turns over his +heart with a sword-point, and sewing him up with silken cords bids him +live again, greatness is in thy house! Last night thy friend, Donovan +Pasha, gave into my hands a score of those cigarettes which are like the +smell of a camel-yard. In the evening, having broken bread and prayed, +I sat down at the door of the barber in peace to smoke, as becomes a man +who loves God and His benefits. Five times I puffed, and then I stayed +my lips, for why should a man die of smoke when he can die by the sword? +But there are many men in Korosko whose lives are not as clean linen. +These I did not love. I placed in their hands one by one the cigarettes, +and with their blessings following me I lost myself in the dusk and +waited." + +Mahommed Seti paused. On his face was a smile of sardonic retrospection. + +"Go on, you fool!" grunted Fielding. + +"Nineteen sick men, unworthy followers of the Prophet, thanked Allah in +the mosque to-day that their lives were spared. Donovan Pasha is a great +man and a strong, effendi! We be three strong men together." + +Dicky Donovan's conversion to a lasting belief in Mahommed Seti came a +year later. + +The thing happened at a little sortie from the Nile. Fielding was chief +medical officer, and Dicky, for the moment, was unattached. When the +time came for starting, Mahommed Seti brought round Fielding's horse and +also Dicky Donovan's. Now, Mahommed Seti loved a horse as well as a +Bagarra Arab, and he had come to love Fielding's waler Bashi-Bazouk as a +Farshoot dog loves his master. And Bashi-Bazouk was worthy of Seti's +love. The sand of the desert, Seti's breath and the tail of his yelek +made the coat of Bashi-Bazouk like silk. It was the joy of the regiment, +and the regiment knew that Seti had added a new chapter to the Koran +concerning horses, in keeping with Mahomet's own famous passage + + "By the CHARGERS that pant, + And the hoofs that strike fire, + And the scourers at dawn, + Who stir up the dust with it, + And cleave through a host with it!" + +But Mahomet's phrases were recited in the mosque, and Seti's, as he +rubbed Bashi-Bazouk with the tail of his yelek. + +There was one thing, however, that Seti loved more than horses, or at +least as much. Life to him was one long possible Donnybrook Fair. That +was why, although he was no longer in the army, when Fielding and Dicky +mounted for the sortie he said to Fielding: + +"Oh, brother of Joshua and all the fighters of Israel, I have a bobtailed +Arab. Permit me to ride with thee." And Fielding replied: "You will +fight the barn-yard fowl for dinner; get back to your stew-pots." + +But Seti was not to be fobbed off. "It is written that the Lord, the +Great One, is compassionate and merciful. Wilt thou then, O saadat." + +Fielding interrupted: "Go, harry the onion-field for dinner. You're a +dog of a slave, and a murderer too: you must pay the price of that +grindstone!" + +But Seti hung by the skin of his teeth to the fringe of Fielding's good- +nature--Fielding's words only were sour and wrathful. So Seti grinned +and said: "For the grindstone, behold it sent Ebn Haroun to the mercy of +God. Let him rest, praise be to God!" + +"You were drummed out of the army. You can't fight," said Fielding +again; but he was smiling under his long moustache. + +"Is not a bobtailed nag sufficient shame? Let thy friend ride the +bobtailed nag and pay the price of the grindstone and the drum," said +Seti. + +"Fall in!" rang the colonel's command, and Fielding, giving Seti a +friendly kick in the ribs, galloped away to the troop. + +Seti turned to the little onion-garden. His eye harried it for a moment, +and he grinned. He turned to the doorway where a stew-pot rested, and +his mind dwelt cheerfully on the lamb he had looted for Fielding's +dinner. But last of all his eye rested upon his bobtailed Arab, the +shameless thing in an Arab country, where every horse rears his tail as a +peacock spreads his feathers, as a marching Albanian lifts his foot. The +bobtailed Arab's nose was up, his stump was high. A hundred times he had +been in battle; he was welted and scarred like a shoe-maker's apron. He +snorted his cry towards the dust rising like a surf behind the heels of +the colonel's troop. + +Suddenly Seti answered the cry--he answered the cry and sprang forward. + +That was how in the midst of a desperate melee twenty miles away on the +road to Dongola little Dicky Donovan saw Seti riding into the thick of +the fight armed only with a naboot of domwood, his call, "Allala-Akbar!" +rising like a hoarse-throated bugle, as it had risen many a time in the +old days on the road from Manfaloot. Seti and his bobtailed Arab, two +shameless ones, worked their way to the front. Not Seti's strong right +arm alone and his naboot were at work, but the bobtailed Arab, like an +iron-handed razor toothed shrew, struck and bit his way, his eyes +bloodred like Seti's. The superstitious Dervishes fell back before this +pair of demons; for their madness was like the madness of those who at +the Dosah throw themselves beneath the feet of the Sheikh's horse by the +mosque of El Hassan in Cairo. The bobtailed Arab's lips were drawn back +over his assaulting teeth in a horrible grin. Seti grinned too, the grin +of fury and of death. + +Fielding did not know how it was that, falling wounded from his horse, +he was caught by strong arms, as Bashi-Bazouk cleared him at a bound and +broke into the desert. But Dicky Donovan, with his own horse lanced +under him, knew that Seti made him mount the bobtailed Arab with Fielding +in front of him, and that a moment later they had joined the little band +retreating to Korosko, having left sixty of their own dead on the field, +and six times that number of Dervishes. + +It was Dicky Donovan who cooked Fielding's supper that night, having +harried the onion-field and fought the barn-yard fowl, as Fielding had +commanded Seti. + +But next evening at sunset Mahommed Seti came into the fort, slashed and +bleeding, with Bashi-Bazouk limping heavily after him. + +Fielding said that Seti's was the good old game for which V.C.'s were the +reward--to run terrible risks to save a life in the face of the enemy; +but, heretofore, it had always been the life of a man, not of a horse. +To this day the Gippies of that regiment still alive do not understand +why Seti should have stayed behind and risked his life to save a horse +and bring him wounded back to his master. But little Dicky Donovan +understood, and Fielding understood; and Fielding never afterwards +mounted Bashi-Bazouk but he remembered. It was Mahommed Seti who taught +him the cry of Mahomet: + + "By the CHARGERS that pant, + And the hoofs that strike fire, + And the scourers at dawn, + Who stir up the dust with it, + And cleave through a host with it!" + +And in the course of time Mahommed Seti managed to pay the price of the +grindstone and also of the drum. + + + + + + +THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIM + +The business began during Ramadan; how it ended and where was in the +mouth of every soldier between Beni Souef and Dongola, and there was not +a mud hut or a mosque within thirty miles of Mahommed Selim's home, not a +khiassa or felucca dropping anchor for gossip and garlic below the +mudirieh, but knew the story of Soada, the daughter of Wassef the camel- +driver. + +Soada was pretty and upright, with a full round breast and a slim figure. +She carried a balass of water on her head as gracefully as a princess a +tiara. This was remarked by occasional inspectors making their official +rounds, and by more than one khowagah putting in with his dahabeah where +the village maidens came to fill their water-jars. Soada's trinkets and +bracelets were perhaps no better than those of her companions, but her +one garment was of the linen of Beni Mazar, as good as that worn by the +Sheikh-Elbeled himself. + +Wassef the camel-driver, being proud of Soada, gave her the advantage of +his frequent good fortune in desert loot and Nile backsheesh. But Wassef +was a hard man for all that, and he grew bitter and morose at last, +because he saw that camel-driving must suffer by the coming of the +railway. Besides, as a man gets older he likes the season of Ramadan +less, for he must fast from sunrise to sunset, though his work goes on; +and, with broken sleep, having his meals at night, it is ten to one but +he gets irritable. + +So it happened that one evening just at sunset, Wassef came to his hut, +with the sun like the red rim of a huge thumb-nail in the sky behind him, +ready beyond telling for his breakfast, and found nothing. On his way +home he had seen before the houses and cafes silent Mussulmans with +cigarettes and matches in their fingers, cooks with their hands on the +lids of the cooking pots, where the dourha and onions boiled; but here +outside his own doorway there was no odour, and there was silence within. + +"Now, by the beard of the Prophet," he muttered, "is it for this I have +fed the girl and clothed her with linen from Beni Mazar all these years!" +And he turned upon his heel, and kicked a yellow cur in the ribs; then he +went to the nearest cafe, and making huge rolls of forcemeat with his +fingers crammed them into his mouth, grunting like a Berkshire boar. Nor +did his anger cease thereafter, for this meal of meat had cost him five +piastres--the second meal of meat in a week. + +As Wassef sat on the mastaba of the cafe sullen and angry, the village +barber whispered in his ear that Mahommed Selim and Soada had been +hunting jackals in the desert all afternoon. Hardly had the barber fled +from the anger of Wassef, when a glittering kavass of the Mouffetish at +Cairo passed by on a black errand of conscription. With a curse Wassef +felt in his vest for his purse, and called to the kavass--the being more +dreaded in Egypt than the plague. + +That very night the conscription descended upon Mahommed Selim, and by +sunrise he was standing in front of the house of the Mamour with twelve +others, to begin the march to Dongola. Though the young man's father +went secretly to the Mamour, and offered him backsheesh, even to the tune +of a feddan of land, the Mamour refused to accept it. That was a very +peculiar thing, because every Egyptian official, from the Khedive down to +the ghafhr of the cane-fields, took backsheesh in the name of Allah. + +Wassef the camel-driver was the cause. He was a deep man and a strong; +and it was through him the conscription descended upon Mahommed Selim-- +"son of a burnt father," as he called him--who had gone shooting jackals +in the desert with his daughter, and had lost him his breakfast. +Wassef's rage was quiet but effective, for he had whispered to some +purpose in the ear of the Mamour as well as in that of the dreaded kavass +of conscription. Afterwards, he had gone home and smiled at Soada his +daughter when she lied to him about the sunset breakfast. + +With a placid smile and lips that murmured, "Praise be to God," the +malignant camel-driver watched the shrieking women of the village +throwing dust on their heads and lamenting loudly for the thirteen young +men of Beni Souef who were going forth never to return--or so it seemed +to them; for of all the herd of human kine driven into the desert before +whips and swords, but a moiety ever returned, and that moiety so battered +that their mothers did not know them. Therefore, at Beni Souef that +morning women wept, and men looked sullenly upon the ground--all but +Wassef the camel-driver. + +It troubled the mind of Wassef that Mahommed Selim made no outcry at his +fate. He was still more puzzled when the Mamour whispered to him that +Mahommed Selim had told the kavass and his own father that since it was +the will of God, then the will of God was his will, and he would go. +Wassef replied that the Mamour did well not to accept the backsheesh of +Mahommed Selim's father, for the Mouffetish at the palace of Ismail would +have heard of it, and there would have been an end to the Mamour. It was +quite a different matter when it was backsheesh for sending Mahommed +Selim to the Soudan. + +With a shameless delight Wassef went to the door of his own home, and, +calling to Soada, told her that Mahommed Selim was among the conscripts. +He also told her that the young man was willing to go, and that the +Mamour would take no backsheesh from his father. He looked to see her +burst into tears and wailing, but she only stood and looked at him like +one stricken blind. Wassef laughed, and turned on his heel; and went +out: for what should he know of the look in a woman's face--he to whom +most women were alike, he who had taken dancing-girls with his camels +into the desert many a time? What should he know of that love which +springs once in every woman's heart, be she fellah or Pharaoh's daughter? + +When he had gone, Soada groped her way blindly to the door and out into +the roadway. Her lips moved, but she only said: "Mahommed--Mahommed +Selim!" Her father's words knelled in her ear that her lover was willing +to go, and she kept saying brokenly: "Mahommed--Mahommed Selim!" As the +mist left her eyes she saw the conscripts go by, and Mahommed Selim was +in the rear rank. He saw her also, but he kept his head turned away, +taking a cigarette from young Yusef, the drunken ghaffir, as they passed +on. + +Unlike the manner of her people, Soada turned and went back into her +house, and threw herself upon the mud floor, and put the folds of her +garment in her mouth lest she should cry out in her agony. A whole day +she lay there and did not stir, save to drink from the water-bottle which +old Fatima, the maker of mats, had placed by her side. For Fatima +thought of the far-off time when she loved Hassan the potter, who had +been dragged from his wheel by a kavass of conscription and lost among +the sands of the Libyan desert; and she read the girl's story. + +That evening, as Wassef the camel-driver went to the mosque to pray, +Fatima cursed him, because now all the village laughed secretly at the +revenge that Wassef had taken upon the lover of his daughter. A few +laughed the harder because they knew Wassef would come to feel it had +been better to have chained Mahommed Selim to a barren fig-tree and kept +him there until he married Soada, than to let him go. He had +mischievously sent him into that furnace which eats the Fellaheen to the +bones, and these bones thereafter mark white the road of the Red Sea +caravans and the track of the Khedive's soldiers in the yellow sands. + +When Fatima cursed Wassef he turned and spat at her; and she went back +and sat on the ground beside Soada, and mumbled tags from the Koran above +her for comfort. Then she ate greedily the food which Soada should have +eaten; snatching scraps of consolation in return for the sympathy she +gave. + +The long night went, the next day came, and Soada got up and began to +work again. And the months went by. + + + + +II + +One evening, on a day which had been almost too hot for even the seller +of liquorice-water to go by calling and clanging, Wassef the camel-driver +sat at the door of a malodorous cafe and listened to a wandering welee +chanting the Koran. Wassef was in an ill-humour: first, because the day +had been so hot; secondly, because he had sold his ten-months' camel at a +price almost within the bounds of honesty; and thirdly, because a score +of railway contractors and subs. were camped outside the town. Also, +Soada had scarcely spoken to him for three days past. + +In spite of all, Soada had been the apple of his eye, although he had +sworn again and again that next to a firman of the Sultan, a ten-months' +camel was the most beautiful thing on earth. He was in a bitter humour. +This had been an intermittent disease with him almost since the day +Mahommed Selim had been swallowed up by the Soudan; for, like her mother +before her, Soada had no mind to be a mat for his feet. Was it not even +said that Soada's mother was descended from an English slave with red +hair, who in the terrible disaster at Damietta in 1805 had been carried +away into captivity on the Nile, where he married a fellah woman and died +a good Mussulman? + +Soada's mother had had red-brown hair, and not black as becomes a fellah +woman; but Wassef was proud of this ancient heritage of red hair, which +belonged to a field-marshal of Great Britain--so he swore by the beard of +the Prophet. That is why he had not beaten Soada these months past when +she refused to answer him, when with cold stubbornness she gave him +his meals or withheld them at her will. He was even a little awed by her +silent force of will, and at last he had to ask her humbly for a savoury +dish which her mother had taught her to make--a dish he always ate upon +the birthday of Mahomet Ali, who had done him the honour to flog him with +his own kourbash for filching the rations of his Arab charger. + +But this particular night Wassef was bitter, and watched with stolid +indifference the going down of the sun, the time when he usually said his +prayers. He was in so ill a humour that he would willingly have met his +old enemy, Yusef, the drunken ghaffir, and settled their long-standing +dispute for ever. But Yusef came not that way. He was lying drunk with +hashish outside the mosque El Hassan, with a letter from Mahommed Selim +in his green turban--for Yusef had been a pilgrimage to Mecca and might +wear the green turban. + +But if Yusef came not by the cafe where Wassef sat glooming, some one +else came who quickly roused Wassef from his phlegm. It was Donovan +Pasha, the young English official, who had sat with him many a time at +the door of his but and asked him questions about Dongola and Berber and +the Soudanese. And because Dicky spoke Arabic, and was never known to +have aught to do with the women of Beni Souef, he had been welcome; and +none the less because he never frowned when an Arab told a lie. + +"Nehar-ak koom said, Mahommed Wassef," said Dicky; and sat upon a bench +and drew a narghileh to him, wiping the ivory mouthpiece with his +handkerchief. + +"Nehar-ak said, saadat el Pasha," answered Wassef, and touched lips, +breast, and forehead with his hand. Then they shook hands, thumbs up, +after the ancient custom. And once more, Wassef touched his breast, his +lips, and his forehead. + +They sat silent too long for Wassef's pleasure, for he took pride in what +he was pleased to call his friendship with Donovan Pasha, and he could +see his watchful neighbours gathering at a little distance. It did not +suit his book that they two should not talk together. + +"May Allah take them to his mercy!--A regiment was cut to pieces by the +Dervishes at Dongola last quarter of the moon," he said. + +"It was not the regiment of Mahommed Selim," Dicky answered slowly, with +a curious hard note in his voice. + +"All blessings do not come at once--such is the will of God!" answered +Wassef with a sneer. + +"You brother of asses," said Dicky, showing his teeth a little, "you +brother of asses of Bagdad!" + +"Saadat el basha!" exclaimed Wassef, angry and dumfounded. + +"You had better have gone yourself, and left Mahommed Selim your camels +and your daughter," continued Dicky, his eyes straight upon Wassef's. + +"God knows your meaning," said Wassef in a sudden fright; for the +Englishman's tongue was straight, as he well knew. + +"They sneer at you behind your back, Mahommed Wassef. No man in the +village dare tell you, for you have no friends, but I tell you, that you +may save Soada before it is too late. Mahommed Selim lives; or lived +last quarter of the moon, so says Yusef the ghaffir. Sell your ten- +months' camel, buy the lad out, and bring him back to Soada." + +"Saadat!" said Wassef, in a quick fear, and dropped the stem of the +narghileh, and got to his feet. "Saadat el basha!" + +"Before the Nile falls and you may plant yonder field with onions," +answered Dicky, jerking his head towards the flooded valley, "her time +will be come!" + +Wassef's lips were drawn, like shrivelled parchment over his red gums, +the fingers of his right hand fumbled in his robe. + +"There's no one to kill--keep quiet!" said Dicky, But Wassef saw near by +the faces of the villagers, and on every face he thought he read a smile, +a sneer; though in truth none sneered, for they were afraid of his +terrible anger. Mad with fury he snatched the turban from his head and +threw it on the ground. Then suddenly he gave one cry, "Allah!" a +vibrant clack like a pistol-shot, for he saw Yusef, the drunken ghaffir, +coming down the road. + +Yusef heard that cry of "Allah!" and he knew that the hour had come for +settling old scores. The hashish clouds lifted from his brain, and he +gripped his naboot of the hard wood of the dom-palm, and, with a cry like +a wolf, came on. + +It would have been well for Wassef the camel-driver if he had not taken +the turban from his head, for before he could reach Yusef with his +dagger, he went down, his skull cracking like the top of an egg under a +spoon. + + + + +III + +Thus it was that Soada was left to fight her battle alone. She did not +weep or wail when Wassef's body was brought home and the moghassil and +hanouti came to do their offices. She did not smear her hair with mud, +nor was she moved by the wailing of the mourning women nor the chanters +of the Koran. She only said to Fatima when all was over: "It is well; +he is gone from my woe to the mercy of God! Praise be to God!" And she +held her head high in the village still, though her heart was in the +dust. + +She would have borne her trouble alone to the end, but that she was +bitten on the arm by one of her father's camels the day they were sold in +the marketplace. Then, helpless and suffering and fevered, she yielded +to the thrice-repeated request of Dicky Donovan, and was taken to the +hospital at Assiout, which Fielding Bey, Dicky's friend, had helped to +found. + +But Soada, as her time drew near and the terror of it stirred her heart, +cast restless eyes upon the whitewashed walls and rough floors of the +hospital. She longed for the mud hut at Beni Souef, and the smell of the +river and the little field of onions she planted every year. Day by day +she grew harder of heart against those who held her in the hospital--for +to her it was but a prison. She would not look when the doctor came, and +she would not answer, but kept her eyes closed; and she did not shrink +when they dressed the arm so cruelly wounded by the camel's teeth, but +lay still and dumb. + +Now, a strange thing happened, for her hair which had been so black +turned brown, and grew browner and browner till it was like the hair of +her mother, who, so the Niline folk said, was descended from the English +soldier-slave with red hair. + +Fielding Bey and Dicky came to see her in hospital once before they +returned to Cairo; but Soada would not even speak to them, though she +smiled when they spoke to her; and no one else ever saw her smile during +the days she spent in that hospital with the red floor and white walls +and the lazy watchman walking up and down before the door. She kept her +eyes closed in the daytime; but at night they were always open--always. +Pictures of all she had lived and seen came back to her then--pictures of +days long before Mahommed Selim came into her life. Mahommed Selim! She +never spoke the words now, but whenever she thought them her heart shrank +in pain. Mahommed Selim had gone like a coward into the desert, leaving +her alone. + +Her mind dwelt on the little mud hut and the onion field, and she saw +down by the foreshore of the river the great khiassas from Assouan and +Luxor laden with cotton or dourha or sugar-cane, their bent prows hooked +in the Nile mud. She saw again the little fires built along the shore +and atop of the piles of grain, round which sat the white, the black, and +the yellow-robed riverine folk in the crimson glare; while from the banks +came the cry: "Alla-haly, 'm alla-haly!" as stalwart young Arabs drew in +from the current to the bank some stubborn, overloaded khiassa. She +heard the snarl of the camels as they knelt down before her father's but +to rest before the journey into the yellow plains of sand beyond. She +saw the seller of sweetmeats go by calling--calling. She heard the +droning of the children in the village school behind the hut, the dull +clatter of Arabic consonants galloping through the Koran. She saw the +moon--the full moon-upon the Nile, the wide acreage of silver water +before the golden-yellow and yellow-purple of the Libyan hills behind. + +She saw through her tears the sweet mirage of home, and her heart +rebelled against the prison where she lay. What should she know of +hospitals--she whose medicaments had been herbs got from the Nile valley +and the cool Nile mud? Was it not the will of God if we lived or the +will of God if we died? Did we not all lie in the great mantle of the +mercy of God, ready to be lifted up or to be set down as He willed? They +had prisoned her here; there were bars upon the windows, there were +watchmen at the door. + +At last she could bear it no longer; the end of it all came. She stole +out over the bodies of the sleeping watchmen, out into the dusty road +under the palms, down to the waterside, to the Nile--the path leading +homewards. She must go down the Nile, hiding by day, travelling by +night--the homing bird with a broken wing-back to the but where she had +lived so long with Wassef the camel-driver; back where she could lie in +the dusk of her windowless home, shutting out the world from her +solitude. There she could bear the agony of her hour. + +Drinking the water of the Nile, eating the crumbs of dourha bread she had +brought from the hospital, getting an onion from a field, chewing shreds +of sugarcane, hiding by day and trudging on by night, hourly growing +weaker, she struggled towards Beni Souef. Fifty--forty--thirty--ten-- +five miles! Oh! the last two days, her head so hot and her brain +bursting, and a thousand fancies swimming before her eyes, her heart +fluttering, fluttering--stopping, going on--stopping, going on. + +It was only the sound of the river--the Nile, Mother of Egypt, crooning +to her disordered spirit, which kept her on her feet. Five miles, four +miles, three miles, two, and then--she never quite remembered how she +came to the hut where she was born. Two miles--two hours of incredible +agony, now running, now leaning against a palm tree, now dropping to her +knees, now fighting on and on, she came at last to the one spot in the +world where she could die in peace. + +As she staggered, stumbled, through the village, Yusef, the drunken +ghaffir, saw her. He did not dare speak to her, for had he not killed +her father, and had he not bought himself free of punishment from the +Mudir? So he ran to old Fatima and knocked upon her door with his +naboot, crying: "In the name of Allah get thee to the hut of Wassef the +camel-driver!" + +Thus it was that Soada, in her agony, heard a voice say out of the +infinite distance: "All praise to Allah, he hath even now the strength of +a year-old child!" + + + + +IV + +That night at sunset, as Soada lay upon the sheepskin spread for her, +with the child nestled between her arm and her breast, a figure darkened +the doorway, and old Fatima cried out: + +"Mahommed Selim!" + +With a gasping sound Soada gathered the child quickly to her breast, and +shrank back to the wall. This surely was the ghost of Mahommed Selim-- +this gaunt, stooping figure covered with dust. + +"Soada, in the name of Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful, Soada, +beautiful one!" + +Mahommed Selim, once the lithe, the straight, the graceful, now bent, +awkward, fevered, all the old daring gone from him, stood still in the +middle of the room, humbled before the motherhood in his sight. + +"Brother of jackals," cried old Fatima, "what dost thou here? What dost +thou here, dog of dogs!" She spat at him. + +He took no notice. "Soada," he said eagerly, prayerfully, and his voice, +though hoarse, was softer than she had ever heard it. "Soada, I have +come through death to thee--Listen, Soada! At night, when sleep was upon +the barrack-house, I stole out to come to thee. My heart had been hard. +I had not known how much I loved thee--" + +Soada interrupted him. "What dost thou know of love, Mahommed Selim? +The blood of the dead cries from the ground." + +He came a step nearer. "The blood of Wassef the camel-driver is upon my +head," he said. "In the desert there came news of it. In the desert, +even while we fought the wild tribes, one to ten, a voice kept crying in +my ear, even as thou hast cried, 'What didst thou know of love, Mahommed +Selim!' One by one the men of Beni Souef fell round me; one by one they +spoke of their village and of their women, and begged for a drop of +water, and died. And my heart grew hot within me, and a spirit kept +whispering in my ear: 'Mahommed Selim, think of the village thou hast +shamed, of Soada thou hast wronged! No drop of water shall cheer thy +soul in dying!'" + +Fatima and Soada listened now with bated breath, for this was the voice +of one who had drunk the vinegar and gall of life. + +"When the day was done, and sleep was upon the barrack-house, my heart +waked up and I knew that I loved Soada as I had never loved her. I ran +into the desert, and the jackals flew before me--outcasts of the desert, +they and I. Coming to the tomb of Amshar the sheikh, by which was a +well, there I found a train of camels. One of these I stole, and again I +ran into the desert, and left the jackals behind. Hour after hour, day +and night, I rode on. But faintness was upon me, and dreams came. For +though only the sands were before me, I seemed to watch the Nile running- +-running, and thou beside it, hastening with it, hastening, hastening +towards thy home. And Allah put a thorn into my heart, that a sharp pain +went through my body--and at last I fell." + +Soada's eyes were on him now with a strange, swimming brilliancy. + +"Mahommed--Mahommed Selim, Allah touched thine eyes that thou didst see +truly," she said eagerly. "Speak not till I have done," he answered. +"When I waked again I was alone in the desert, no food, no water, and the +dead camel beside me. But I had no fear. 'If it be God's will,' said I, +'then I shall come unto Soada. If it be not God's will, so be it: for +are we not on the cushion of His mercy, to sleep or to wake, to live or +to die?'" + +He paused, tottering, and presently sank upon the ground, his hands +drooped before him, his head bent down. Old Fatima touched him on the +shoulder. + +"Brother of vultures didst thou go forth; brother of eagles dost thou +return," she said. "Eat, drink, in the house of thy child and its +mother." + +"Shall the unforgiven eat or drink?" he asked, and he rocked his body to +and fro, like one who chants the Koran in a corner of El Azhar, +forgetting and forgotten. + +Soada's eyes were on him now as though they might never leave him again; +and she dragged herself little by little towards him, herself and the +child--little by little, until at last she touched his feet, and the +child's face was turned towards him from its mother's breast. + +"Thou art my love, Mahommed Selim," she said. He raised his head from +his hands, a hunger of desire in his face. + +"Thou art my lord," she added: "art thou not forgiven? The little one is +thine and mine," she whispered. "Wilt thou not speak to him?" + +"Lest Allah should strike me with blindness and dry up the juice of my +veins, I will not touch thee or the child until all be righted. Food +will I not eat, nor water drink until thou art mine--by the law of the +Prophet, mine." + +Laying down the water-jar, and the plate of dourha bread, old Fatima +gathered her robe about her, and cried as she ran from the house: +"Marriage and fantasia thou shalt have this hour." + +The stiffness seemed to pass from her bones as she ran through the +village to the house of the Omdah. Her voice, lifting shrilly, sang the +Song of Haleel, the song of the newly married, till it met the chant of +the Muezzin on the tower of the mosque El Hassan, and mingled with it, +dying away over the fields of bersim and the swift-flowing Nile. + +That night Mahommed Selim and Soada the daughter of Wassef the camel- +driver were married, but the only fantasia they held was their own low +laughter over the child. In the village, however, people were little +moved to smile, for they knew that Mahommed Selim was a deserter from the +army of the Khedive at Dongola, and that meant death. But no one told +Soada this, and she did not think; she was content to rest in the +fleeting dream. + +"Give them twenty-four hours," said the black-visaged fat sergeant of +cavalry come to arrest Mahommed Selim for desertion. + +The father of Mahommed Selim again offered the Mamour a feddan of land if +the young man might go free, and to the sergeant he offered a she-camel +and a buffalo. To no purpose. It was Mahommed Selim himself who saved +his father's goods to him. He sent this word to the sergeant by Yusef +the drunken ghaffir: "Give me to another sunset and sunrise, and what I +have is thine--three black donkeys of Assiout rented to old Abdullah the +sarraf." + +Because with this offer he should not only have backsheesh but the man +also, the fat sergeant gave him leave. When the time was up, and +Mahommed Selim drew Soada's face to his breast, he knew that it was the +last look and last embrace. + +"I am going back," he said; "my place is empty at Dongola." + +"No, no, thou shalt not go," she cried. "See how the little one loves +thee," she urged, and, sobbing, she held the child up to him. + +But he spoke softly to her, and at last she said: "Kiss me, Mahommed +Selim. Behold now thy discharge shall be bought from the palace of the +Khedive, and soon thou wilt return," she cried. + +"If it be the will of God," he answered; "but the look of thine eyes I +will take with me, and the face of the child here." He thrust a finger +into the palm of the child, and the little dark hand closed round it. +But when he would have taken it away, the little hand still clung, though +the eyes were scarce opened upon life. + +"See, Mahommed Selim," Soada cried, "he would go with thee." + +"He shall come to me one day, by the mercy of God," answered Mahommed +Selim. + +Then he went out into the market-place and gave himself up to the fat +sergeant. As they reached the outskirts of the village a sorry camel +came with a sprawling gallop after them, and swaying and rolling above it +was Yusef, the drunken ghaffir, his naboot of dom-wood across his knees. + +"What dost thou come for, friend of the mercy of God?" asked Mahommed +Selim. + +"To be thy messenger, praise be to God!" answered Yusef, swinging his +water-bottle clear for a drink. + + + + +V + +In Egypt, the longest way round is not the shortest way home, and that +was why Mahommed Selim's court-martial took just three minutes and a +half; and the bimbashi who judged him found even that too long, for he +yawned in the deserter's face as he condemned him to death. + +Mahommed Selim showed no feeling when the sentence was pronounced. His +face had an apathetic look. It seemed as if it were all one to him. But +when they had turned him round to march to the shed where he was to be +kept, till hung like a pig at sunrise, his eyes glanced about restlessly. +For even as the sentence had been pronounced a new idea had come into his +mind. Over the heads of the Gippy soldiers, with their pipestem legs, +his look flashed eagerly, then a little painfully--then suddenly stayed, +for it rested on the green turban of Yusef, the drunken ghaffir. Yusef's +eyes were almost shut; his face had the grey look of fresh-killed veal, +for he had come from an awful debauch of hashish. + +"Allah! Allah!" cried Mahommed Selim, for that was the sound which +always waked the torpid brain of Yusef since Wassef the camel-driver's +skull had crackled under his naboot. + +Yusef's wide shoulders straightened back, his tongue licked his lips, his +eyes stared before him, his throat was dry. He licked his lips again. +"Allah!" he cried and ran forward. + +The soldiers thrust Yusef back. Mahommed Selim turned and whispered to +the sergeant. + +"Backsheesh!" he said; "my grey Arab for a word with Yusef the ghaffir." + +"Malaish!" said the sergeant; and the soldiers cleared a way for Yusef. + +The palms of the men from Beni Souef met once, twice, thrice; they +touched their lips, their breasts, their foreheads, with their hands, +three times. Then Mahommed Selim fell upon the breast of Yusef and +embraced him. Doing so he whispered in his ear: + +"In the name of Allah, tell Soada I died fighting the Dervishes!" + +"So be it, in God's name!" said Yusef. "A safe journey to you, brother +of giants." + +Next morning at sunrise, between two dom-palms, stood Mahommed Selim; but +scarce a handful of the soldiers sent to see him die laughed when the +rope was thrown over his head. For his story had gone abroad, and it was +said that he was mad--none but a madman would throw away his life for a +fellah woman. And was it not written that a madman was one beloved of +Allah, who had taken his spirit up into heaven, leaving only the +disordered body behind? + +If, at the last moment, Mahommed Selim had but cried out: "I am mad; with +my eyes I have seen God!" no man would have touched the rope that hanged +him up that day. + +But, according to the sacred custom, he only asked for a bowl of water, +drank it, said "Allah!" and bowed his head three times towards Mecca-- +and bowed his head no more. + +Before another quarter was added to the moon, Yusef, the drunken ghaffir, +at the door of Soada's hut in Beni Souef, told old Fatima the most +wonderful tale, how Mahommed Selim had died on his sheepskin, having +killed ten Dervishes with his own hand; and that a whole regiment had +attended his funeral. + +This is to the credit of Yusef's account, that the last half of his +statement was no lie. + + + + + + +ON THE REEF OF NORMAN'S WOE + + "It was the schooner Hesperus + That sailed the wintry sea; + And the skipper had taken his little daughter + To bear him company. + ------------------- + Such was the wreck of the Hesperus + In the midnight and the snow! + Christ save us all from a death like this, + On the reef of Norman's woe!" + +Only it was not the schooner Hesperus, and she did not sail the wintry +sea. It was the stern-wheeled tub Amenhotep, which churned her way up +and down the Nile, scraping over sand banks, butting the shores with +gaiety embarrassing--for it was the time of cholera, just before the +annual rise of the Nile. Fielding Bey, the skipper, had not taken his +little daughter, for he had none; but he had taken little Dicky Donovan, +who had been in at least three departments of the Government, with +advantage to all. + +Dicky was dining with Fielding at the Turf Club, when a telegram came +saying that cholera had appeared at a certain village on the Nile. +Fielding had dreaded this, had tried to make preparation for it, had +begged of the Government this reform and that--to no purpose. He knew +that the saving of the country from an epidemic lay with his handful of +Englishmen and the faithful native officials; but chiefly with the +Englishmen. He was prepared only as a forlorn hope is prepared, with +energy, with personal courage, with knowledge; and never were these more +needed. + +With the telegram in his hand, he thought of his few English assistants, +and sighed; for the game they would play was the game of Hercules and +Death over the body of Alcestis. + +Dicky noted the sigh, read the telegram, drank another glass of claret, +lighted a cigarette, drew his coffee to him, and said: "The Khedive is +away--I'm off duty; take me." + +Fielding looked surprised, yet with an eye of hope. If there was one man +in Egypt who could do useful work in the business, it was little Dicky +Donovan, who had a way with natives such as no man ever had in Egypt; who +knew no fear of anything mortal; who was as tireless as a beaver, as +keen-minded as a lynx is sharp-eyed. It was said to Dicky's discredit +that he had no heart, but Fielding knew better. When Dicky offered +himself now, Fielding said, almost feverishly: "But, dear old D., you +don't see--" + +"Don't I?--Well, then, + + "'What are the blessings of the sight?-- + Oh, tell your poor blind boy!'" + +What Fielding told him did not alter his intention, nor was it Fielding's +wish that it should, though he felt it right to warn the little man what +sort of thing was in store for them. + +"As if I don't know, old lime-burner!" answered Dicky coolly. + +In an hour they were on the Amenhotep, and in two hours they were on the +way--a floating hospital--to the infected district of Kalamoun. There +the troubles began. It wasn't the heat, and it wasn't the work, and it +wasn't the everlasting care of the sick: it was the ceaseless hunt for +the disease-stricken, the still, tireless opposition of the natives, the +remorseless deception, the hopeless struggle against the covert odds. +With nothing behind: no support from the Government, no adequate +supplies, few capable men; and all the time the dead, inert, dust- +powdered air; the offices of policeman, doctor, apothecary, even +undertaker and gravedigger, to perform; and the endless weeks of it all. +A handful of good men under two leaders of nerve, conscience and ability, +to fight an invisible enemy, which, gaining headway, would destroy its +scores of thousands! + +At the end of the first two months Fielding Bey became hopeless. + +"We can't throttle it," he said to Dicky Donovan. "They don't give us +the ghost of a chance. To-day I found a dead-un hid in an oven under a +heap of flour to be used for to-morrow's baking; I found another doubled +up in a cupboard, and another under a pile of dourha which will be ground +into flour." + +"With twenty ghaffirs I beat five cane and dourha fields this morning," +said Dicky. "Found three cases. They'd been taken out of the village +during the night." + +"Bad ones?" + +"So so. They'll be worse before they're better. That was my morning's +flutter. This afternoon I found the huts these gentlemen call their +homes. I knocked holes in the roofs per usual, burnt everything that +wasn't wood, let in the light o' heaven, and splashed about limewash and +perchloride. That's my day's tot-up. Any particular trouble?" he +added, eyeing Fielding closely. + +Fielding fretfully jerked his foot on the floor, and lighted his pipe, +the first that day. + +"Heaps. I've put the barber in prison, and given the sarraf twenty +lashes for certifying that the death of the son of the Mamour was el +aadah--the ordinary. It was one of the worst cases I've ever seen. He +fell ill at ten and was dead at two, the permis d'inhumation was given at +four, and the usual thing occurred: the bodywashers got the bedding and +clothing, and the others the coverlet. God only knows who'll wear that +clothing, who'll sleep in that bed!" + +"If the Lord would only send them sense, we'd supply sublimate solution-- +douche and spray, and zinc for their little long boxes of bones," mused +Dicky, his eyes half shut, as he turned over in his hands some scarabs a +place-hunting official had brought him that day. "Well, that isn't all?" +he added, with a quick upward glance and a quizzical smile. His eyes, +however, as they fell on Fielding's, softened in a peculiar way, and a +troubled look flashed through them; for Fielding's face was drawn and +cold, though the eyes were feverish, and a bright spot burned on his high +cheek-bones. + +"No, it isn't all, Dicky. The devil's in the whole business. Steady, +sullen opposition meets us at every hand. Norman's been here--rode over +from Abdallah--twenty-five miles. A report's going through the native +villages, started at Abdallah, that our sanitary agents are throwing +yellow handkerchiefs in the faces of those they're going to isolate." + +"That's Hoskai Bey's yellow handkerchief. He's a good man, but he blows +his nose too much, and blows it with a flourish. . . . Has Norman +gone back?" + +"No, I've made him lie down in my cabin. He says he can't sleep, says he +can only work. He looks ten years older. Abdallah's an awful place, and +it's a heavy district. The Mamour there's a scoundrel. He has +influenced the whole district against Norman and our men. Norman--you +know what an Alexander-Hannibal baby it is, all the head of him good for +the best sort of work anywhere, all the fat heart of him dripping +sentiment--gave a youngster a comfit the other day. By some infernal +accident the child fell ill two days afterwards--it had been sucking its +father's old shoe--and Norman just saved its life by the skin of his +teeth. If the child had died, there'd have been a riot probably. As it +is, there's talk that we're scattering poisoned sweetmeats to spread the +disease. He's done a plucky thing, though. . . ." He paused. Dicky +looked up inquiringly, and Fielding continued. "There's a fellow called +Mustapha Kali, a hanger-on of the Mudir of the province. He spread a +report that this business was only a scare got up by us; that we poisoned +the people and buried them alive. What does Norman do? He promptly +arrests him, takes him to the Mudir, and says that the brute must be +punished or he'll carry the matter to the Khedive." + +"Here's to you, Mr. Norman!" said Dicky, with a little laugh. "What +does the Mudir do?" + +"Doesn't know what to do. He tells Norman to say to me that if he puts +the fellow in prison there'll be a riot, for they'll make a martyr of +him. If he fines him it won't improve matters. So he asks me to name +a punishment which'll suit our case. He promises to give it 'his most +distinguished consideration.'" + +"And what's your particular poison for him?" asked Dicky, with his eyes +on the Cholera Hospital a few hundred yards away. + +"I don't know. If he's punished in the ordinary way it will only make +matters worse, as the Mudir says. Something's needed that will play our +game and turn the tables on the reptile too." + +"A sort of bite himself with his own fangs, eh?" Dicky seemed only idly +watching the moving figures by the hospital. + +"Yes, but what is it? I can't inoculate him with bacilli. That's what'd +do the work, I fancy." + +"Pocket your fancy, Fielding," answered Dicky. "Let me have a throw." + +"Go on. If you can't hit it off, it's no good, for my head doesn't think +these days: it only sees, and hears, and burns." + +Dicky eyed Fielding keenly, and then, pouring out some whiskey for +himself, put the bottle on the floor beside him, casually as it were. +Then he said, with his girlish laugh, not quite so girlish these days: +"I've got his sentence pat--it'll meet the case, or you may say, 'Cassio, +never more be officer of mine.'" + +He drew over a piece of paper lying on the piano--for there was a piano +on the Amenhotep, and with what seemed an audacious levity Fielding +played in those rare moments when they were not working or sleeping; and +Fielding could really play! As Dicky wrote he read aloud in a kind of +legal monotone: + + The citizen Mustapha Kali having asserted that there is no cholera, + and circulated various false statements concerning the treatment of + patients, is hereby appointed as hospital-assistant for three + months, in the Cholera Hospital of Kalamoun, that he may have + opportunity of correcting his opinions. + --Signed Ebn ben Hari, Mudir of Abdallah. + +Fielding lay back and laughed--the first laugh on his lips for a +fortnight. He laughed till his dry, fevered lips took on a natural +moisture, and he said at last: "You've pulled it off, D. That's +masterly. You and Norman have the only brains in this show. I get +worse every day; I do--upon my soul!" + +There was a curious anxious look in Dicky's eyes, but he only said: "You +like it? Think it fills the bill, eh?" + +"If the Mudir doesn't pass the sentence I'll shut up shop." He leaned +over anxiously to Dicky and gripped his arm. "I tell you this pressure +of opposition has got to be removed, or we'll never get this beast of an +epidemic under, but we'll go under instead, my boy." + +"Oh, we're doing all right," Dicky answered, with only apparent +carelessness. "We've got inspection of the trains, we've got some sort +of command of the foreshores, we've got the water changed in the mosques, +we've closed the fountains, we've stopped the markets, we've put +Sublimate Pasha and Limewash Effendi on the war-path, and--" + +"And the natives believe in lighted tar-barrels and a cordon sanitaire! +No, D., things must take a turn, or the game's lost and we'll go with it. +Success is the only thing that'll save their lives--and ours: we couldn't +stand failure in this. A man can walk to the gates of hell to do the +hardest trick, and he'll come back one great blister and live, if he's +done the thing he set out for; but if he doesn't do it, he falls into the +furnace. He never comes back. Dicky, things must be pulled our way, or +we go to deep damnation." + +Dicky turned a little pale, for there was high nervous excitement in +Fielding's words; and for a moment he found it hard to speak. He was +about to say something, however, when Fielding continued. + +"Norman there,"--he pointed to the deck-cabin, "Norman's the same. He +says it's do or die; and he looks it. It isn't like a few fellows +besieged by a host. For in that case you wait to die, and you fight to +the last, and you only have your own lives. But this is different. +We're fighting to save these people from themselves; and this slow, +quiet, deadly work, day in, day out, in the sickening sun and smell- +faugh! the awful smell in the air--it kills in the end, if you don't +pull your game off. You know it's true." + +His eyes had an eager, almost prayerful look; he was like a child in his +simple earnestness. His fingers moved over the maps on the table, in +which were little red and white and yellow flags, the white flags to mark +the towns and villages where they had mastered the disease, the red flags +to mark the new ones attacked, the yellow to indicate those where the +disease was raging. His fingers touched one of the flags, and he looked +down. + +"See, D. Here are two new places attacked to-day. + +"I must ride over to Abdallah when Norman goes. It's all so hopeless!" + +"Things will take a turn," rejoined Dicky, with a forced gaiety. "You +needn't ride over to Abdallah. I'll go with Norman, and what's more I'll +come back here with Mustapha Kali." + +"You'll go to the Mudir?" asked Fielding eagerly. He seemed to set so +much store by this particular business. + +"I'll bring the Mudir too, if there's any trouble," said Dicky grimly; +though it is possible he did not mean what he said. + +Two hours later Fielding, Dicky, and Norman were in conference, extending +their plans of campaign. Fielding and Norman were eager and nervous, and +their hands and faces seemed to have taken on the arid nature of the +desert. Before they sat down Dicky had put the bottle of whiskey out of +easy reach; for Fielding, under ordinary circumstances the most +abstemious of men, had lately, in his great fatigue and overstrain, +unconsciously emptied his glass more often than was wise for a campaign +of long endurance. Dicky noticed now, as they sat round the table, that +Norman's hand went to the coffee-pot as Fielding's had gone to his glass. +What struck him as odd also was that Fielding seemed to have caught +something of Norman's manner. There was the same fever in the eyes, +though Norman's face was more worn and the eyes more sunken. He looked +like a man that was haunted. There was, too, a certain air of +helplessness about him, a primitive intensity almost painful. Dicky saw +Fielding respond to this in a curious way--it was the kind of fever that +passes quickly from brain to brain when there is not sound bodily health +commanded by a cool intelligence to insulate it. Fielding had done the +work of four men for over two months, and, like most large men, his +nerves had given in before Dicky's, who had done six men's work at least, +and, by his power of organisation and his labour-saving intelligence, +conserved the work of another fifty. + +The three were sitting silent, having arranged certain measures, when +Norman sprang to his feet excitedly and struck the table with his hand. + +"It's no use, sir," he said to Fielding, "I'll have to go. I'm no good. +I neglect my duty. I was to be back at Abdallah at five. I forgot all +about it. A most important thing. A load of fessikh was landed at +Minkari, five miles beyond Abdallah. We've prohibited fessikh. I was +going to seize it. . . . It's no good. It's all so hopeless here." + +Dicky knew now that the beginning of the end had come for Norman. There +were only two things to do: get him away shooting somewhere, or humour +him here. But there was no chance for shooting till things got very much +better. The authorities in Cairo would never understand, and the +babbling social-military folk would say that they had calmly gone +shooting while pretending to stay the cholera epidemic. It wouldn't be +possible to explain that Norman was in a bad way, and that it was done to +give him half a chance of life. + +Fielding also ought to have a few days clear away from this constant +pressure and fighting, and the sounds and the smells of death; but it +could not be yet. Therefore, to humour them both was the only thing, +and Norman's was the worse case. After all, they had got a system of +sanitary supervision, they had the disease by the throat, and even in +Cairo the administration was waking up a little. The crisis would soon +pass perhaps, if a riot could be stayed and the natives give up their +awful fictions of yellow handkerchiefs, poisoned sweetmeats, deadly +limewash, and all such nonsense. + +So Dicky said now, "All right, Norman; come along. You'll seize that +fessikh, and I'll bring back Mustapha Kali. We'll work him as he has +never worked in his life. He'll be a living object-lesson. We'll have +all Upper Egypt on the banks of the Nile waiting to see what happens to +Mustapha." + +Dicky laughed, and Fielding responded feebly; but Norman was looking at +the hospital with a look too bright for joy, too intense for despair. + +"I found ten in a corner of a cane-field yesterday," he said dreamily. +"Four were dead, and the others had taken the dead men's smocks as +covering." He shuddered. "I see nothing but limewash, smell nothing but +carbolic. It's got into my head. Look here, old man, I can't stand it. +I'm no use," he added pathetically to Fielding. + +"You're right enough, if you'll not take yourself so seriously," said +Dicky jauntily. "You mustn't try to say, 'Alone I did it.' Come along. +Fill your tobacco-pouch. There are the horses. I'm ready." + +He turned to Fielding. + +"It's going to be a stiff ride, Fielding. But I'll do it in twenty-four +hours, and bring Mustapha Kali too--for a consideration." + +He paused, and Fielding said, with an attempt at playfulness: "Name your +price." + +"That you play for me, when I get back, the overture of 'Tannhauser'. +Play it, mind; no tuning-up sort of thing, like last Sunday's +performance. Practise it, my son! Is it a bargain? I'm not going to +work for nothing a day." + +He watched the effect of his words anxiously, for he saw how needful +it was to divert Fielding's mind in the midst of all this "plague, +pestilence, and famine." For days Fielding had not touched the piano, +the piano which Mrs. Henshaw, widow of Henshaw of the Buffs, had insisted +on his taking with him a year before, saying that it would be a cure for +loneliness when away from her. During the first of these black days +Fielding had played intermittently for a few moments at a time, and Dicky +had noticed that after playing he seemed in better spirits. But lately +the disease of a ceaseless unrest, of constant sleepless work, was on +him. He had not played for near a week, saying, in response to Dicky's +urging, that there was no time for music. And Dicky knew that presently +there would be no time to eat, and then no time to sleep; and then, the +worst! + +Dicky had pinned his faith and his friendship to Fielding, and he saw no +reason why he should lose his friend because Madame Cholera was stalking +the native villages, driving the fellaheen before her like sheep to the +slaughter. + +"Is it a bargain?" he added, as Fielding did not at once reply. If +Fielding would but play it would take the strain off his mind at times. + +"All right, D., I'll see what I can do with it," said Fielding, and with +a nod turned to the map with the little red and white and yellow flags, +and began to study it. + +He did not notice that one of his crew abaft near the wheel was watching +him closely, while creeping along the railing on the pretence of cleaning +it. Fielding was absorbed in making notes upon a piece of paper and +moving the little flags about. Now he lit a cigar and began walking up +and down the deck. + +The Arab disappeared, but a few minutes afterwards returned. The deck +was empty. Fielding had ridden away to the village. The map was still +on the table. With a frightened face the Arab peered at it, then going +to the side he called down softly, and there came up from the lower deck +a Copt, the sarraf of the village, who could read English fairly. The +Arab pointed to the map, and the Copt approached cautiously. A few feet +away he tried to read what was on the map, but, unable to do so, drew +closer, pale-faced and knockkneed, and stared at the map and the little +flags. An instant after he drew back, and turned to the Arab. "May God +burn his eyes! He sends the death to the village by moving the flags. +May God change him into a dog to be beaten to death! The red is to +begin, the white flag is for more death, the yellow is for enough. +See--may God cut off his hand!--he has moved the white flag to our +village." He pointed in a trembling fear, half real, half assumed-- +for he was of a nation of liars. + +During the next half-hour at least a dozen Arabs came to look at the map, +but they disappeared like rats in a hole when, near midnight, Fielding's +tall form appeared on the bank above. + +It was counted to him as a devil's incantation, the music that he played +that night, remembering his promise to Dicky Donovan. It was music +through which breathed the desperate, troubled, aching heart and tortured +mind of an overworked strong man. It cried to the night its trouble; but +far over in the Cholera Hospital the sick heard it and turned their faces +towards it eagerly. It pierced the apathy of the dying. It did more, +for it gave Fielding five hours' sleep that night; and though he waked to +see one of his own crew dead on the bank, he tackled the day's labour +with more hope than he had had for a fortnight. + +As the day wore on, however, his spirits fell, for on every hand was +suspicion, unrest, and opposition, and his native assistants went +sluggishly about their work. It was pathetic and disheartening to see +people refusing to be protected, the sick refusing to be relieved, all +stricken with fear, yet inviting death by disobeying the Inglesi. + +Kalamoun was hopeless; yet twenty-four hours earlier Fielding had fancied +there was a little light in the darkness. That night Fielding's music +gave him but two hours' sleep, and he had to begin the day on a brandy- +and-soda. Wherever he went open resistance blocked his way, hisses and +mutterings followed him, the sick were hid in all sorts of places, and +two of his assistants deserted before noon. Things looked ominous +enough, and at five o'clock he made up his mind that Egypt would be +overrun with cholera, and that he should probably have to defend himself +and the Amenhotep from rioters, for the native police would be useless. + +But at five o'clock Dicky Donovan came in a boat, and with him Mustapha +Kali under a native guard of four men. The Mudir's sense of humour had +been touched, and this sense of humour probably saved the Mudir from +trouble, for it played Dicky's game for him. + +Mustapha Kali had been sentenced to serve in the Cholera Hospital of +Kalamoun, that he might be cured of his unbelief. At first he had taken +his fate hardly, but Dicky had taunted him and then had suggested that a +man whose conscience was clear and convictions good would carry a high +head in trouble. Dicky challenged him to prove his libels by probing the +business to the bottom, like a true scientist. All the way from Abdallah +Dicky talked to him so, and at last the only answer Mustapha Kali would +make was, "Malaish no matter!" + +Mustapha Kali pricked up his ears with hope as he saw the sullen crowds +from Kalamoun gathering on the shore to watch his deportation to the +Cholera Hospital; and, as he stepped from the khiassa, he called out +loudly: + +"They are all dogs and sons of dogs, and dogs were their grandsires. No +good is in a dog the offspring of a dog. Whenever these dogs scratch the +ground the dust of poison is in the air, and we die." + +"You are impolite, Mustapha Kali," said Dicky coolly, and offered him a +cigarette. + +The next three days were the darkest in Dicky Donovan's career. On the +first day there came word that Norman, overwrought, had shot himself. On +the next, Mustapha Kali in a fit of anger threw a native policeman into +the river, and when his head appeared struck it with a barge-pole, and +the man sank to rise no more. The three remaining policemen, two of whom +were Soudanese, and true to Dicky, bound him and shut him up in a hut. +When that evening Fielding refused to play, Dicky knew that Norman's fate +had taken hold of him, and that he must watch his friend every minute-- +that awful vigilance which kills the watcher in the end. Dicky said to +himself more than once that day: + + "Christ save us all from a death like this, + On the reef of Norman's woe!" + +But it was not Dicky who saved Fielding. On the third day the long- +deferred riot broke out. The Copt and the Arab had spread the report +that Fielding brought death to the villages by moving the little flags +on his map. The populace rose. + +Fielding was busy with the map at the dreaded moment that hundreds of the +villagers appeared upon the bank and rushed the Amenhotep. Fielding and +Dicky were both armed, but Fielding would not fire until he saw that his +own crew had joined the rioters on the bank. Then, amid a shower of +missiles, he shot the Arab who had first spread the report about the map +and the flags. + +Now Dicky and he were joined by Holgate, the Yorkshire engineer of the +Amenhotep, and together the three tried to hold the boat. Every native +had left them. They were obliged to retreat aft to the deckcabin. +Placing their backs against it, they prepared to die hard. No one could +reach them from behind, at least. + +It was an unequal fight. All three had received slight wounds, but the +blood-letting did them all good. Fielding was once more himself; nervous +anxiety, unrest, had gone from him. He was as cool as a cucumber. He +would not go shipwreck now "on the reef of Norman's woe." Here was a +better sort of death. No men ever faced it with quieter minds than did +the three. Every instant brought it nearer. + +All at once there was a cry and a stampede in the rear of the attacking +natives. The crowd suddenly parted like two waves, and retreated; and +Mustapha Kali, almost naked, and supported by a stolid Soudanese, stood +before the three. He was pallid, his hands and brow were dripping sweat, +and there was a look of death in his eyes. + +"I have cholera, effendi!" he cried. "Take me to Abdallah to die, that +I may be buried with my people and from mine own house." + +"Is it not poison?" asked Fielding grimly, yet seeing now a ray of hope +in the sickening business. + +"It is cholera, effendi. Take me home to die." + +"Very well. Tell the people so, and I will take you home, and I will +bury you with your fathers," said Fielding. + +Mustapha Kali turned slowly. "I am sick of cholera," he said as loudly +as he could to the awe-stricken crowd. "May God not cool my resting- +place if it be not so!" + +"Tell the people to go to their homes and obey us," said Dicky, putting +away his pistol. + +"These be good men, I have seen with mine own eyes," said Mustapha +hoarsely to the crowd. "It is for your good they do all. Have I not +seen? Let God fill both my hands with dust if it be not so! God hath +stricken me, and behold I give myself into the hands of the Inglesi, for +I believe!" + +He would have fallen to the ground, but Dicky and the Soudanese caught +him and carried him down to the bank, while the crowd scuttled from the +boat, and Fielding made ready to bear the dying man to Abdallah--a race +against death. + +Fielding brought Mustapha Kali to Abdallah in time to die there, and +buried him with his fathers; and Dicky stayed behind to cleanse Kalamoun +with perchloride and limewash. + +The story went abroad and travelled fast, and the words of Mustapha Kali, +oft repeated, became as the speech of a holy man; and the people no +longer hid their dead, but brought them to the Amenhotep. + +This was the beginning of better things; the disease was stayed. + +And for all the things that these men did--Fielding Bey and Donovan +Pasha--they got naught but an Egyptian ribbon to wear on the breast and +a laboured censure from the Administration for overrunning the budget +allowance. + +Dicky, however, seemed satisfied, for Fielding's little barque of life +had not gone down "On the reef of Norman's woe." Mrs. Henshaw felt so +also when she was told all, and she disconcerted Dicky by bursting into +tears. + +"Why those tears?" said Dicky to Fielding afterwards; "I wasn't +eloquent." + + + +GLOSSARY + +Aiwa, effendi----Yea, noble sir. +Allah----God. +Allah-haly 'm alla-haly----A singsong of river-workers. +Allah Kerim----God is bountiful. +Allshu Akbar----God is most Great. +A'l'meh----Female professional singers +Antichi----Antiquities. + +Backsheesh----Tip, douceur, bribe. +Balass----Earthen vessel for carrying water. +Basha----Pasha. +Bersim----Grass. +Bimbashi----Major. +Bishareen----A native tribe. +Bismillah----In the name of God. +Bowab----A doorkeeper. + +Corvee----Forced labour. + +Dahabeah----A Nile houseboat with large lateen sails. +Darabukkeh----A drum made of a skin stretched over an earthenware funnel. +Doash----(Literally) Treading. A ceremony performed on the return of the + Holy Carpet from Mecca. +Dourha----Maize. + +Effendina----Highness. +El aadah----The ordinary. +El Azhar----The Arab University at Cairo. +Fantasia----Celebration with music, dancing, and processions. +Farshoot----The name of a native tribe. +Fatihah----The opening chapter of the Koran, recited at weddings, etc. + +Feddan----The most common measure of land--a little less than an acre. + Also dried hay. +Fellah (plu. fellaheen)----The Egyptian peasant. +Felucca----A small boat, propelled by oars or sails. +Fessikh----Salted fish. +Ghaffirs----Humble village officials. +Ghawdzee----The tribe of public dancing-girls. A female of this tribe is + called "Ghazeeyeh," and a man "Ghazee," but the plural + Ghawazee is generally understood as applying to the female. +Ghimah----The Mahommedan Sunday. + +Gippy----Colloquial name for an Egyptian soldier. +Goolah----Porous water-jar of Nile mud. +Hakim----Doctor. +Hanouti----Funeral attendants. +Hari-kari----An Oriental form of suicide. +Hashish----Leaves of hemp. +Inshallah----God willing. +Jibbeh----Long coat or smock, worn by dervishes. +Kavass----An orderly. +Kemengeh----A cocoanut fiddle. +Khamsin----A hot wind of Egypt and the Soudan. +Khedive----The title granted in 1867 by the Sultan of Turkey to the ruler + of Egypt. +Khiassa----Small boat. +Khowagah----Gentleman. +Koran----The Scriptures of the Mahommedans. +Kourbash----A stick, a whip. + +La ilaha illa-llah----There is no God but God. +Mafish----Nothing. +Magnoon----Fool. +Malaish----No matter. +Mamour----A magistrate. +Mankalah----A game. +Mastaba----A bench. +Mejidieh----A Turkish Order. +Mirkaz----District. +Moghassils----Washers of the dead. +Moufetish----High steward. +Mudir----A Governor of a Mudirieh or province. +Muezzin----The sheikh of the mosque who calls to prayer. +Mushrabieh----Lattice window. + +Naboot----Quarter staff. +Narghileh----The Oriental tobacco-pipe. +Nehar-ak koom said----Greeting to you. +Omdah----The head of a village. +Ooster----One of the best sort. + +Ramadan----The Mahommedan season of fasting. +Reis----Pilot. + +Saadat el basha----Excellency. +Sais----Groom. +Sakkia----Persian water-wheel. +Salaam----A salutation of the East; an obeisance, performed by bowing + very low and placing the right palm on the forehead and on the + breast. +Sarraf----An accountant. +Shadoof----Bucket and pole used by natives for lifting water. +Sha'er----A reciter. (The singular of Sho'ara, properly signifying a + poet.) +Sheikh-el-beled----Head of a village. +Shintiyan----Very wide trousers, worn by the women of the middle and + higher orders. +Sitt----"The Lady." + +Tarboosh----Fez or native turban. +Tarah----A veil for the head. +Ulema----Learned men. + +Waled----A boy. +Wekeel----A deputy. +Welee----A favourite of Heaven; colloquially a saint. + +Yashmak----A veil for the lower part of the face. +Yelek----A long vest or smock, worn over the shirt and shintiyan. + +Zeriba----A palisade. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +A look too bright for joy, too intense for despair +His gift for lying was inexpressible +One favour is always the promise of another + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DONOVAN PASHA, PARKER, V1 *** + +******* This file should be named 6256.txt or 6256.zip ******* + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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