CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR 5122.D6 1902 
 
 Donovan Pasha, and some people of Egypt, 
 
 3 1924 013 531 920 
 
a Cornell University 
 y Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 3531 920 
 
DONOVAN 
 PASHA 
 
 AND SOME 
 PEOPLE OF EGYPT 
 
 BY 
 
 GILBERT PARKER 
 
 D. APPLETON & COMPANY 
 NEW YORK:::::::::::::::::1902 
 
COPTKIHHT, 1902, BT 
 
 GILBERT PAEKEK 
 
 PuilisTied September, 1302 
 
SIR JOHN ROGERS 
 
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 Aus- 
 tralia and the Islands of the Southern Pacific, 
 where I had lived and roamed in the middle and 
 late Eighties. They appeared in various Eng- 
 lish 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 observa- 
 tion 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 
 
 vii 
 
A FOREWORD 
 
 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 at- 
 tracted 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, hav- 
 viii 
 
A FOREWORD 
 
 ing visited another and newer sphere of Eng- 
 lands influence, Egypt to wit, in 1889, 1 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 primi- 
 tive simplicity ; of viystery 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, sacri- 
 ficed superficial exactness while trying to give 
 the more intimate meaning and spirit. I have 
 never thought it necessary to apologise for this 
 
 ix 
 
A FOREWORD 
 
 disregard of photographic accuracy, — that may 
 he found in my note-hooks — and I shall not 
 begin to do so now. I shall he 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 heen working for some 
 years. It is an " avant courier." I hope, how- 
 ever, that it may be welcomed for its own sake. 
 
 G.P. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 While the Lamp Holds Out to Buen ... 1 
 The Price of the Grindstone — and the Drum 22 
 The Desertion of Mahommed Selim .... 42 
 
 On the Reef of Norman's Woe 69 
 
 Fielding had an Orderly 93 
 
 The Eye of the Needle 113 
 
 A Treaty of Peace 133 
 
 At the Mercy of Tiberius 155 
 
 All the World's Mad 173 
 
 The Man at the Wheel 191 
 
 A Tyrant and a Lady 208 
 
 A Young Lion of Dedan 292 
 
 He would not be Denied 320 
 
 The Flower of the Flock 341 
 
 The Light of Other Days 367 
 
WHILE THE LAMP HOLDS 
 OUT TO BURN 
 
 lHERE is a town on the Nile 
 which Fielding Bey called 
 Hasha, meaning " Heaven For- 
 bid ! " 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. Con- 
 venient 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-oflf 
 days the official Englishman had his influence, 
 
 1 
 
WHILE THE LAMP HOLDS OUT TO BURN 
 
 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 Avienhotep. 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 ap- 
 peared 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 hfe; and 
 Dicky fancied he had found Fielding Bey's. 
 While they waited. Fielding made a pretence 
 of working hard — for he reaUy was conscien- 
 tious — sending his orderly for the mamour* 
 and the omdah, and holding fatuous confer- 
 ences ; turning the hose on the local dairymen 
 and butchers and date-growers, who came with 
 backsheesh in kind; burying his nose in official 
 papers ; or sending for Holgate, the Yorkshire 
 
 * A Glossary will be found at the end of the book. 
 
WHILE THE LAMP HOLDS OUT TO BURN 
 
 engineer, to find out what tlie 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 Hol- 
 gate came below to his engine, Dicky was 
 there playing with a Farshoot dog. 
 
 " We don't stop at Hasha, then ? " Dicky 
 said, and let the Farshoot fasten on his leg- 
 gings. 
 
 Holgate swung round and eyed Dicky curi- 
 ously, a queer smile at his lips. 
 
 " Not if Goovnur can 'elp, aw give ye ma 
 woord, sir," answered Holgate. 
 
 Fielding was affectionately called " the Gov- 
 ernor " by his subordinates and friends. 
 
 " We all have our likes and dislikes," re- 
 joined 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'U 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 saay " (Holgate talked 
 broadly to Dicky always, for Dicky had told 
 
WHILE THE LAMP HOLDS OUT TO BURN 
 
 him of his aunt, Lady Carmichael, who lived 
 near HaUfax, in Yorkshire), "toorn, aw war- 
 rant ! 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 I " 
 
 Holgate's eyes flashed, and he looked almost 
 angrily down at Dicky, whose hand was be- 
 tween 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 theer 
 — ^that he'd hang on nearest tree the foorst 
 that disobeyed him, thinks't tha that Goov- 
 nur's lost his nerve by that ? " 
 
 " The Governor never loses his nerve, Hol- 
 gate," said Dicky, smiMng 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 
 
 4 
 
WHILE THE LAMP HOLDS OUT TO BURN 
 
 o' hoose by tinsmith's shop, an' that faace was 
 like hell's picture — aye, 'twas a killingous faace 
 that ! Aw never again could pass that hoose. 
 '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 hand- 
 kerchief 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 effiart 
 he rose, hurried along the deck, and called 
 down to Holgate : 
 
 " Full-steam to Hasha ! " 
 3 5 
 
WHILE THE LAMP HOLDS OUT TO BURN 
 
 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, Field- 
 ing 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 dis- 
 tance, 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 rob- 
 bers. It was even rumoured that the egre- 
 gious Selamlik Pasha, with the sugar planta- 
 tion 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 
 
 6 
 
WHn.E THE LAMP HOLDS OUT TO BURN 
 
 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 Ex- 
 cellency — 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 sub-mudir, 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 "hanky-panky," 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 con- 
 stantly turning here and there, as though look- 
 
 7 
 
WHILE THE LAMP HOLDS OUT TO BURN 
 
 ing for an unwelcome something or some- 
 body. 
 
 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 near- 
 ing them a heavily-laden boat, a cross between 
 a Thames houseboat and an Italian gondola, 
 being drawn by one poor rawbone — rawbone 
 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 quar- 
 ters gored as though by a harrow. Dicky was 
 riding with the mamour of the district, Field- 
 ing 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 rawbone, 
 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 
 
 8 
 
WHILE THE LAMP HOLDS OUT TO BURN 
 
 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 fig- 
 ure 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 po- 
 liceman. The coat was an old khaki jacket 
 of a Gippy soldier, and, being scant of buttons, 
 doubtful linen sjiowed 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 
 gray moustache, covering the chin almost, 
 seemed to cover an immeasurable depravity. 
 
 Dicky took it all in at a glance, and won- 
 dered with a bitter wonder ; for this was an 
 
 9 
 
WHILE THE LAMP HOLDS OUT TO BURN 
 
 Englishman, and behind him and around him, 
 though not very near him, were Arabs, Sou- 
 danese, and Fellaheen, with sneering yet ap- 
 prehensive faces. 
 
 As Dicky's hand dropped away from his 
 pistol, the other shot out trembling, graceful, 
 eager fingers, the one inexpressibly gentle- 
 manly thing about him. 
 
 " Give it to me — quick ! " he said, and he 
 threw a backward glance towards the approach- 
 ing 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 for- 
 ward 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 
 
 10 
 
WHILE THE LAMP HOLDS OUT TO BURN 
 
 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 quick- 
 ened to a point of steadiness, as a lash sudden- 
 ly knots for a crack in the hand of a postilion. 
 
 " Swine ! " said the Lost One into the 
 11 
 
WHILE THE LAMP HOLDS OUT TO BURN 
 
 Pasha's face, and his round shoulders drew up 
 a httle 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 SelamMk Pasha stood high in 
 favour with the Khedive : was it not he who had 
 suggested a tax on the earnings of the danc- 
 ing girls, the Ghazeeyehs, and did he not him- 
 self 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 him- 
 self 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 hke, but a 
 bullet's the thing for a waler ! — Swine of a 
 leper ! " 
 
 The whole frame of the Lost One was still, 
 12 
 
WHILE THE LAMP HOLDS OUT TO BURN 
 
 but the voice was shaking, querulous, half 
 hysterical; the eyes were lighted with a ter- 
 rible excitement, the lips under the gray mous- 
 tache twitched ; the nervous shpshod dignity 
 of carriage was in curious contrast to the dis- 
 ordered 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? " 
 
 13 
 
WHn.E THE LAMP HOLDS OUT TO BURN 
 
 " 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 don- 
 key 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 stUl, held out the 
 pistol. 
 
 " Better keep it," said Dicky ; " I'll give 
 you some peas for it to-night. Speak to the 
 
 14 
 
WHILE THE LAMP HOLDS OUT TO BURN 
 
 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 hurrying 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 ! " 
 
 15 
 
WHILE THE LAMP HOLDS OUT TO BURN 
 
 Fielding nodded. Dicky turned his head 
 away ; for Fielding was in love with Mrs. Hen- 
 shaw, 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 kour- 
 bash 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 wUl teU 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 al- 
 ways 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 
 
 16 
 
WHILE THE LAMP HOLDS OUT TO BURN 
 
 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, '11 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 Ughted another cigarette. 
 
 Precisely at seven o'clock Heatherby ap- 
 peared. 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 
 
 17 
 
WHILE THE LAMP HOLDS OUT TO BURN 
 
 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 servi- 
 tude of shame. When at last he raised his 
 streaming eyes Fielding and Dicky could see 
 the haunting terror of the soul, at whose el- 
 bow, as it were, every man cried, "You are 
 without the pale ! " That look told them how 
 Heatherby of the Buffs had gone from table 
 dJiote to table dhote of Europe, from town to 
 town, from village to village, to make ac- 
 quaintances who repulsed him when they dis- 
 covered 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 in- 
 tervened with a look. 
 
 The two drank their coffee. Fielding a little 
 18 
 
WHILE THE LAMP HOLDS OUT TO BURN 
 
 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 
 moonhght, 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 English- 
 man 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. 
 
 19 
 
WHILE THE LAMP HOLDS OUT TO BURN 
 
 " 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 EngUshman, 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 Amen- 
 hotep 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 ? " said Heather- 
 by, 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. 
 
 20 
 
WHILE THE LAMP HOLDS OUT TO BURN 
 
 " 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 Heather- 
 by 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 cer- 
 tain stave fi-om one of Watts' hymns. 
 
 81 
 
THE PRICE OF THE GRIND- 
 STONE-AND THE DRUM 
 
 |E lived in the days ot 
 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 Ha- 
 roun, 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 
 22 
 
THE PRICE OF THE GRINDSTONE 
 
 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 be- 
 cause 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, hves? 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. 
 
THE PRICE OF THE GRINDSTONE— 
 
 And the Mudir had due angei* and said: 
 " No better are ye than a Frank to havq hidden 
 the truth so long and waxed fat as the Nile 
 rises and falls. The two feddans, as thou 
 say est, are mine." 
 
 Abou Seti bowed low, and rejoined : " Now 
 shaU 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 
 
AND THE DRUM 
 
 at once. " And may Allah give thee great- 
 ness upon thy greatness 1 " 
 
 " God prosper thee also, Abou Seti, and see 
 that thou keep only what is thine own hence- 
 forth. Get thee gone in peace." 
 
 " At what hour shall I see the face of my 
 son alive?" said Abou Seti in a low voice, 
 placing his hand upon his turban in humihty. 
 
 " 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. 
 He shall ride for me through the desert even 
 to Farafreh, and bear a letter to the bimhashi 
 there. If he bear it safely, his life is his own ; 
 if he fail, look to thy feddans of land I " 
 
 " 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 Man- 
 faloot, and the prison near. 
 
 But one day a kavass of the Khedive 
 25 
 
THE PRICE OF THE GRINDSTONE— 
 
 swooped down on Manfaloot, and twenty 
 young men were carried off in conscription. 
 Among them was Seti, now married to Ahas- 
 sa, the fellah maid for whom the grindstone 
 had fallen on Ebn Haroun's head. When the 
 fatal number feU 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. " If 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. Al- 
 lah 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 
 
 g6 
 
AND THE DRUM 
 
 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. More- 
 over, 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 flus- 
 tered. 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 hke 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 
 hke 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 
 
 27 
 
THE PRICE OF THE GRINDSTONE— 
 
 of Dervishes. The bimbashi rejoiced at this, 
 for he was a coward ; likewise his captain was 
 a coward, and so was his heutenant : 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-head- 
 ed eagle and the vulture should carry away 
 their heads as titbits to the Libyan hUls, 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, whUe his regiment thinned 
 out by disease, famine, fighting, and the mid- 
 night knife, Seti came on to Dongola, to Ber- 
 ber, to Khartoum ; and he grinned with satis- 
 faction 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 su- 
 perstitious and believed that while Seti hved 
 he would live. Thererefore, no clansman ever 
 
 28 
 
AND THE DRUM 
 
 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 faU. Many 
 sorts of original sin had been his, with profit 
 and prodigious pleasure, but when, by the sup- 
 posed 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 danc- 
 ing-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 hmitless inso- 
 lence, was more than the Excellency could bear. 
 
 To Selamhk Pasha the bimbashi hastily dis- 
 owned all knowledge of Seti's pei-fidy, 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 
 
 29 
 
THE PRICE OF THE GRINDSTONE— 
 
 nerves in the ccifes of St. Michel ? — when Seti 
 saw that he was no Arab and was afraid to die, 
 then he told the truth to Selamhk 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 wiU, 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 iU-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 origi- 
 nal tax ever levied in Egypt ? And to have 
 the honour of it filched from him by a soldier 
 of Manfaloot — no, Mohammed Seti should be 
 crucified ! 
 
 And Seti, the pride and the curse of his regi- 
 30 
 
AND THE DRUM 
 
 ment, 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 teUing 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 back- 
 sheesh, they had been thieves, murderers, pan- 
 derers, 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- 
 
 31 
 
THE PRICE OF THE GRINDSTONE— 
 
 Mai. It was opera bouffe, and though Seti 
 could not know what op^ra bouffe 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 administering a disgrace they would 
 gladly have shared. 
 
 Left at the corner of the camel-market, Ma- 
 hommed Seti planned his future. At first it 
 was to steal a camel and take the desert for 
 Berber. Then he thought of the EngUsh ha- 
 kim, Fielding Bey, who had saved his life. 
 Now, a man who has saved your hfe once may 
 do it again ; one favour is always the promise 
 of another. So Seti, with a sudden inspira- 
 tion, 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 Khar- 
 toum to its farthest precincts, for it was Ram- 
 adan, 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 for- 
 
AND THE DRUM 
 
 aged. He built a iire ; his courage grew ; he 
 ran to the bazaar, and came back with an arm- 
 ful 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 an- 
 other stood Mahommed Seti, with the same 
 grin which had served his purpose all the way 
 from Cairo, his ugly face behind it, and his pro- 
 digious 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 
 outlpng 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 pre- 
 tence of understanding the Oriental mind, so 
 he discreetly took his seat and made no re- 
 marks. 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 Turk- 
 ish, idiot ! " 
 
 83 
 
THE PRICE OF THE GRINDSTONE— 
 
 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 diflferences they had were 
 upon two points — the cleaning of the medi- 
 cine 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. 
 
 34 
 
AND THE DRUM 
 
 The looting was a different matter. Had 
 not Mahommed Seti looted aU his life — looted 
 from his native village to the borders of Kor- 
 dofan ? Did he not take to foray as a wild ass 
 to bersim ? Moreover, as little Dicky Dono- 
 van said humorously yet scornfully when he 
 joined them at Korosko : " What should a 
 native do but loot who came from Manfa- 
 loot?" 
 
 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 cigar- 
 ettes. The next day Seti said to Fielding: 
 " Behold, efFendi, God has given thee strong 
 men for friends. Thou hast Mahommed Seti " 
 — his chest blew out Uke 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 
 
 35 
 
THE PRICE OF THE GRINDSTONE— 
 
 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 puifed, 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 1 " grunted Fielding. 
 
 " Nineteen sick men, unworthy followers of 
 the Prophet, thanked Allah in the Mosque 
 t.o-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. 
 
 36 
 
AND THE DRUM 
 
 When the time came for starting, Mahommed 
 Seti brought round Fielding's horse and 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 regi- 
 ment 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 fighter? 
 4 37 
 
THE PRICE OF THE GRINDSTONE— 
 
 of Israel, I have a bobtailed Arab. Permit 
 me to ride with thee." 
 
 And Fielding replied : " You will fight the 
 barnyard fowl for dinner ; get back to your 
 stewpots." 
 
 But Seti was not to be fobbed off. " It is 
 written that the Lord, the Great One, is com- 
 passionate 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 1 " 
 
 But Seti hung by the skin of his teeth to 
 the firinge of Fielding's good-nature— Fielding's 
 words only were sour and wrathful. So Seti 
 grintied 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 Mend 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. 
 
 38 
 
AND THE DRUM 
 
 Seti turned to the little onion-garden. His 
 eye harried it for a moment, and he grinned. 
 He turned to the doorway where a stewpot 
 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 bobtaUed 
 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 shoemaker'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 an- 
 swered the cry and sprang forward. 
 
 That was how in the midst of a desperate 
 melee twenty miles away on the road to Don- 
 gola little Dicky Donovan saw Seti riding 
 into the thick of the fight armed only with a 
 naboot of dom-wood, his call, "Allah 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 
 fi-ont. Not Seti's strong right arm alone and his 
 naboot were at work, but the bobtailed Arab, 
 
THE PRICE OF THE GRINDSTONE— 
 
 like an iron-handed razor-toothed shrew, struck 
 and bit his way, his eyes blood-red like Seti's. 
 The superstitious Dervishes feU 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 Ups were drawn 
 back over his assaulting teeth in a horrible 
 grin. And 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 Field- 
 ing's supper that night, having harried the 
 onion-field and fought the barnyard 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. 
 
 40 
 
AND THE DRUM 
 
 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 
 hfe of a man, not of a horse. To this day the 
 Gippies of that regiment still alive do not un- 
 derstand why Seti should have stayed behind 
 and risked his hfe to save a horse and bring him 
 wounded back to his master. But little Dicky 
 Donovan understood, and Fielding understood ; 
 and Fielding never afterward mounted Bashi- 
 Bazouk but he remembered. It was Mahom- 
 med 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. 
 
 41 
 
THE DESERTION OF MAHOM- 
 MED SELIM 
 
 lHE 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 occa- 
 sional 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 
 
 4.2 
 
THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIM 
 
 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-el-beled himself. 
 
 Wassef the camel-driver, being proud of 
 Soada, gave her the advantage of his frequent 
 good fortune in desert loot and Nile back- 
 sheesh. 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 he gets irritable. 
 
 So it happened that one evening just at sun- 
 set, 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 break- 
 fast, 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 
 hds of the cooking pots, where the dourha and 
 onions boiled ; but here outside his own door- 
 way there was no odour, and there was silence 
 within. 
 
 "Now, by the beard of the Prophet," he 
 43 
 
THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIM 
 
 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 forced meat 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 cafi, 
 sullen and angry, the village barber whispered 
 in his ear that Mahommed Selim and Soada 
 had beeh hunting jackals in the desert all 
 afternoon. Hardly had the barber fled from 
 the anger of Wassef, when a ghttering 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 — that being more dreaded in Egypt 
 than the plague. 
 
 That very night the conscription descended 
 upon Mahommed Sehm, 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 
 
 44 
 
THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELiM 
 
 was a very peculiar thing, because every Egyp- 
 tian official, from the Khedive down to the 
 ghafflr 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 la- 
 menting loudly for the thirteen young men of 
 Beni Souef who were going forth never to re- 
 turn — or so it seemed to them; for of all the 
 herd of human kine driven into the desert be- 
 fore whips and swords, but a moiety ever re- 
 turned, and that moiety so battered that their 
 mothers did not know them. Therefore, at 
 Beni Souef that morning women wept, and 
 
 45 
 
THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIM 
 
 men looked sullenly upon the ground — all but 
 Wassef the camel-driver. 
 
 It troubled the mind of Wassef that Ma- 
 hommed 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 re- 
 plied 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 dif- 
 ferent matter when it was backsheesh for send- 
 ing Mahommed Selim to the Soudan. 
 
 With a shameless dehght 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 waiUng, 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 wo- 
 man's face — -he to whom most women were 
 aUke, he who had taken dancing-girls with his 
 
 46 
 
THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIM 
 
 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, " Mahom- 
 med — Mahommed Selim ! " Her father's words 
 knelled in her ear that her lover was willing 
 to go, and she kept saying brokenly, " Ma- 
 hommed — Mahommed SeUm ! " 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. 
 
 Unhke 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. 
 
 47 
 
THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIM 
 
 That evening, as Wassef the camel-driver 
 went to the mosque to pray, Fatima cursed 
 him, because now all the village laughed se- 
 cretly 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 Fel- 
 laheen to the bones, and these bones there- 
 after mark white the road of the Red Sea 
 caravans and the track of the Khedive's sol- 
 diers in the yeUow 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 re- 
 turn 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. 
 
 48 
 
THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIM 
 
 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 ; sec- 
 ondly, because he had sold his ten-months' 
 camel at a price almost within the bounds of 
 honesty ; and thirdly, because a score of rail- 
 way contractors and subs, were camped out- 
 side 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 Daraietta in 1805 had 
 
 49 
 
THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIM 
 
 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 wUl, 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 stoHd indifference the going 
 down of the sun, the time when he usually 
 said his prayers. He was in so Ul a humour 
 that he would willingly have met his old en- 
 emy, 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 
 
 SO 
 
THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIM 
 
 Hassan, with a letter from Mahommed Selim 
 in his green turban — for Yusef had been a pil- 
 grimage 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 hut 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 he. 
 
 " 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 basha" answered 
 Wassef, and touched lips, breast, and fore- 
 head, 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 pleas- 
 ure, for he took pride in what he was pleased 
 to call his friendship with Donovan Pasha 
 
 61 
 
THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIM 
 
 and he could see his watchful neighbours gath- 
 ering 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 
 Sehm," 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, show- 
 ing his teeth a little, " you brother of asses of 
 Bagdad 1 " 
 
 " Saadat el basha !" exclaimed Wassef, angry 
 and dumbfounded. 
 
 "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 EngUshman's 
 tongue was straight, as he well knew. 
 
 " They sneer at you behind your back, Ma- 
 hommed 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 
 
THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIM 
 
 late. Mahommed Selim lives; or lived last 
 quarter of the moon, so says Yusef, the ghafiir. 
 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 I " 
 
 " Before the Nile falls and you may plant 
 yonder fields 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 kiU — keep quiet I " 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 afi-aid of his terrible anger. Mad 
 with fury he snatched the turban from his head 
 and threw it on the ground. Then suddenly 
 he igp-ve 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 set- 
 tling old scores. The hashish clouds lifted 
 fi-om his brain, and he gripped his naboot of 
 5 53 
 
THE DESERTION OF M.AHOMMED SELIM 
 
 the hard wood of the dom-palm, and, with a 
 cry hke 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 crack- 
 ing like the top of an egg under a spoon. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Thus it was that Soada was left to fight her 
 battle alone. She did not weep nor waU when 
 Wassef 's body was brought home and the mo- 
 ghassil 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 market-place. 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 
 
 541 
 
THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIM 
 
 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 tiU it was hke 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 watch- 
 
 55 
 
THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIM 
 
 man walking up and down before the door. 
 She kept her eyes closed in the daytime ; but at 
 night they were always open — always. Pict- 
 ures of all she had lived and seen came back 
 to her then — pictures of days long before Ma- 
 hommed Selim came into her life. Mahom- 
 med Sehm ! 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 fore- 
 shore of the river the great khiassas from As- 
 souan and Luxor laden with cotton or dourha 
 or sugar-cane, their bent prows ,hooked in the 
 Nile mud. She saw again the little fires buUt 
 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 fi-om the current to the bank some 
 stubborn, overloaded khiassa. She heard the 
 snarl of the camels as they knelt down before 
 her father's hut 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 
 
 m 
 
THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIM 
 
 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 beyond. 
 
 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 water 
 side, 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 hut 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 
 
 57 
 
THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIM 
 
 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 sugar-cane, 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 swim- 
 ming before her eyes, her heart fluttering, 
 fluttering — stopping, going on — stopping, go- 
 ing on. 
 
 It was only the sound of the river — the 
 Nile, Mother of Egypt, crooning to her dis- 
 ordered 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 him- 
 
 68 
 
THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIM 
 
 self 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 1 " 
 
 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 1 " 
 
 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 dark- 
 ened the doorway, and old Fatima cried out : 
 
 " Mahommed Selim! " 
 
 With a gasping sound Soada gathered the 
 chUd quickly to her breast, and shrank back 
 to the wall. This surely was the ghost of 
 Mahommed SeUm — this gaunt, stooping figure 
 covered with dust ! 
 
 " Soada, in the name of Allah the Compas- 
 sionate, 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. 
 
 59 
 
THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIM 
 
 "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 SeUm ? 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 SeUm ! ' 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, ' Ma- 
 hommed Selim, think of the vUlage thou hast 
 shamed, of Soada thou hast wronged ! No 
 drop of water shall cheer thy soul in dying ! ' " 
 
 60 
 
THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIM 
 
 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, hasten- 
 ing 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 des- 
 ert, no food, no w^ater, and the dead camel be- 
 
 61 
 
THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIM 
 
 side 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 dropped 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 
 said, 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 — Uttle by httle, 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 Sehm," 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 httle one is thine and 
 
 62 
 
THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIM 
 
 mine," she whispered. " Wilt thou not speak 
 to him ? " 
 
 "Lest Allah should strike me with blind- 
 ness and dry up the juice of my veins, I will 
 not touch thee or the child until aU be righted. 
 Food wiU 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 Sehm and Soada the 
 daughter of Wassef the camel-driver were mar- 
 ried, but the only fantasia they held was their 
 own low laughter over the child. In the vil- 
 lage, however, people were httle 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 
 
 63 
 
THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIM 
 
 was content to rest in the fleeting dream un- 
 disturbed. 
 
 "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 of- 
 fered 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 
 ghafiir : " Give me to another sunset and sun- 
 rise, and what I have is thine : three black 
 donkeys of Assiout rented to old AbduUah 
 the sarraf." 
 
 Because with this offer he should not only 
 have backsheesh but the man also, the fat ser- 
 geant 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," and, sobbing, she 
 held the child up to him. 
 
 But he spoke softly to her, and at last she 
 said; 
 
 64 
 
THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIM 
 
 " 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 wiU 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 lit- 
 tle 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 Sehm. 
 
 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 roUing above it was Yusef 
 the drunken ghaflfir, his naboot of dom-wood 
 across his knees. 
 
 " What dost thou come for, friend of the 
 mercy of God ? " asked Mahommed SeUm. 
 
 " To be thy messenger, praise be to God 1 " 
 answered Yusef, swinging his water-bottle clear 
 for a drink. 
 
 65 
 
THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIM 
 
 In Egypt, the longest way round is not the 
 shortest way home, and that was why Ma- 
 hommed SeHm'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 Sehm showed no feehng 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 Hke 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 gray 
 look of fresh-kiUed 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 
 
 66 
 
THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIM 
 
 camel-driver's skull had crackled under his 
 naboot. 
 
 Yusef s wide shoulders straightened back, his 
 tongue licked his hps, 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. Mahom- 
 med Selim turned and whispered to the ser- 
 geant. 
 
 " Backsheesh ! " he said ; " my gray Arab 
 for a word with Yusef the ghaffir." 
 
 " Malaish!" said the sergeant ; and the sol- 
 diers 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, teU 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 
 
 67 
 
THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIM 
 
 was said that he was mad — none but a mad- 
 man would throw away his hfe for a fellah 
 woman. And was it not written that a mad- 
 man was one beloved of Allah, who had taken 
 his spirit up into heaven, leaving only the dis- 
 ordered 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 "Al- 
 lah / " 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 Se- 
 Um 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. 
 
 68 
 
ON THE REEF OF NORMAN'S 
 WOE 
 
 not 
 but 
 
 ' It was the schooner Hesperus 
 That sailed the wintry sea ; 
 And the skipper had taken his Uttle 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 1 " 
 
 NLY it was not the schooner 
 Hesperus, and she did not 
 sail the wintry sea. It was 
 the stern- wheeled tub Amen- 
 hotep, who churned her way 
 up and down the Nile, scrap- 
 ing over sandbanks, butting 
 shores with gaiety embar- 
 rassing — for it was the time of chol- 
 era, just before the annual rise of the 
 Nile. Fielding Bey, the skipper, had 
 taken his little daughter, for he had none ; 
 he had taken little Dicky Donovan, who 
 6 69 
 
ON THE REEF OF NORMAN'S WOE 
 
 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 chol- 
 era 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 pur- 
 pose. He knew that the saving of the coun- 
 try from an epidernic lay with his handful of 
 Englishmen and the faithful native officials ; 
 but chiefly with the Enghshmen. He was pre- 
 pared 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 Al- 
 cestis. 
 
 Dicky noted the sigh, read the telegram, 
 drank another glass of claret, lighted a cig- 
 arette, 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 
 
 70 
 
ON THE REEF OF NORMAN'S WOE 
 
 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 1 ' " 
 
 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 liraeburner 1 " an- 
 swered Dicky* coolly. 
 
 In an hour they were on the Amenhotep, 
 and in two hours they were on their 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 be- 
 
 71 
 
ON THE REEF OF NORMAN'S WOE 
 
 hind: no support from the Government, no 
 adequate supphes, few capable men; and all 
 the time the dead, inert, dust-powdered air; 
 the offices of policeman, doctor, apothecary, 
 even undertaker and grave-digger, to perform; 
 and the endless weeks of it all. A handful of 
 good men under two leaders of nerve, con- 
 science, and ability, to fight an invisible enemy, 
 which, gaining headway, would destroy its 
 scores of thousands I 
 
 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, 
 
 72 
 
ON THE REEF OF NORMAN'S WOE 
 
 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 fretfuUy 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 feU ill at ten 
 and was dead at two, the permis dinhumation 
 was given at four, and the usual thing oc- 
 curred : the body- washers 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 subKmate solution — douche and 
 spray, and zinc for their Uttle 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 feU on Fielding's, soft- 
 ened in a peculiar way, and a troubled look 
 flashed through them ; for Fielding's face was 
 drawn and cold, though the eyes were feverish, 
 
 73 
 
ON THE REEF OF NORMAN'S WOE 
 
 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 AbdaUah — 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. AbdaUah 's an 
 awful place, and it's a heavy district. The 
 mamour there's a scoundrel. He has influ- 
 enced the whole district against Norman and 
 our men. Norman — you know what an Alex- 
 ander-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 af- 
 terward — it had been sucking its father's old 
 shoe — and Norman just saved its hfe by the 
 skin of his teeth. If the child had died, there'd 
 
 74 
 
ON THE REEF OF NORMAN'S WOE 
 
 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 
 Kah, 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 teUs Nor- 
 man to say to me that if he puts the feUow in 
 prison there'll be a riot, for they'll make a mar- 
 tyr of him. If he fines him it won't improve 
 matters. So he asks me to name a punish- 
 ment which'U suit our case. He promises 
 to give it 'his most distinguished considera- 
 tion.' " 
 
 "And what's your particular poison for him?" 
 asked Dicky, with his eyes on the Cholera Hos- 
 pital a few hundred yards away. 
 
 " I don't know. If he's punished in the or- 
 75 
 
ON THE REEF OF NORMAN'S WOE 
 
 dinary way it will only make matters worse, 
 as the Mudir says. Something's needed that 
 wiU 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 Barge-Hospital. 
 
 " Yes, but what is it? I can't inoculate him 
 with hacilli. 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, pour- 
 ing out some whisky for himself, put the bot- 
 tle on the floor beside him, casually as it were. 
 Then he said, with his girhsh laugh, not quite 
 so girhsh these days, "I've got his sentence 
 pat — it'U meet the case, or you may say, ' Cas- 
 sio, 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 Field- 
 ing could reaUy play ! As Dicky wrote he 
 read aloud in a kind of legal monotone : 
 
 76 
 
ON THE REEF OF NORMAN'S WOE 
 
 " 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 Abdullah." 
 
 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 
 
 77 
 
ON THE REEF OF NORMAN'S WOE 
 
 the fountains, we've stopped the markets, 
 we've put Subhmate Pasha and Limewash 
 EfFendi on the war-path, and " 
 
 "And the natives believe in hghted 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 heU to do the hardest trick, and he'U 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 Uttle 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 sa,ve these people 
 from themselves ; and this slow, quiet, deadly 
 work, day in day out, in the sickening sun and 
 
 78 
 
ON THE REEF OF NORMAN'S WOE 
 
 smell — faugh I the awful smell in the air — it 
 kills in the end, if you don't puU your game 
 off. You know it's true ! " 
 
 His eyes had an eager, almost prayerful 
 look ; he was Uke a child in his simple earnest- 
 ness. 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 Kah." 
 
 " 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 pos- 
 sible he did not mean what he said. 
 
 Two hours later Fielding, Dicky, and Nor- 
 man were in conference, extending their plans 
 
 79 
 
ON THE REEF OF NORMAN'S WOE 
 
 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 whisky 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 in- 
 tensity 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 bodUy 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 
 
 80 
 
ON THE REEF OF NORMAN'S WOE 
 
 power of organisation and his labour-saving in- 
 telligence, 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 for- 
 got 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 aU 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 white 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 
 
 81 
 
ON THE REEF OF NORMAN'S WOE 
 
 it could not be yet. Therefore, to humour 
 them both was the only thing, and Norman's 
 was the worse case. After aU, they had got a 
 system of sanitary supervision, they had the 
 disease by the throat, and even in Cairo the ad- 
 ministration was waking up a little. The crisis 
 would soon pass perhaps, if a riot could be 
 stayed and the natives give up their awful fic- 
 tions of yellow handkerchiefs, poisoned sweet- 
 meats, deadly limewash, and aU such nonsense. 
 
 So Dicky said now: "AU 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'U have aU 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 Barge- 
 Hospital with a look too bright for joy, too 
 intense for despair. 
 
 " I found ten in a corner of a cane-field yes- 
 terday," 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 car- 
 bohc. It's got into my head. Look here, old 
 man, I can't stand it. I'm no use," he added 
 pathetically to Fielding. 
 
 82 
 
ON THE REEF OF NORMAN'S WOE 
 
 "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 Mus- 
 tapha Kah too — for a consideration." 
 
 He paused, and Fielding said, with an at- 
 tempt at playfulness, " Name your price." 
 
 " That you play for me, when I get back, 
 the overture of Tannhduser. 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 Field- 
 ing's mind in the midst of aU 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 
 
 83 
 
ON THE REEF OF NORMAN'S WOE 
 
 seemed in better spirits. But lately the dis- 
 ease 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 vil- 
 lages, 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. 
 
 " AU 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 be- 
 gan walking up and down the deck. 
 
 The Arab disappeared, but a few minutes 
 afterward returned. The deck was empty. 
 
 84. 
 
ON THE REEF OF NORMAN'S WOE 
 
 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 ap- 
 proached cautiously. A few feet away he 
 tried to read what was on the map, but, unable 
 to do so, drew closer, pale-faced and knock- 
 kneed, and stared at the map and the little 
 flags. An instant afterward 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 1 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 vUlage." 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 dis- 
 appeared like rats in a hole when, near mid- 
 night, Fielding's tall form appeared on the 
 bank above. 
 
 It was counted to him as a devil's incanta- 
 tion, the music that he played that night, re- 
 7 85 
 
ON THE REEF OF NORMAN'S WOE 
 
 membering his promise to Dicky Donovan. 
 It was music through which breathed the des- 
 perate, 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 fort- 
 night. 
 
 As the day wore on, however, his spirits fell, 
 for on every hand was suspicion, unrest, and 
 opposition, and his native assistants went slug- 
 gishly about their work. It was pathetic and 
 disheartening to see people refusing to be pro- 
 tected, the sick refusing to be reheved, all 
 stricken with fear, yet inviting death by dis- 
 obeying the Inglesi. 
 
 Kalamoun was hopeless; yet twenty-four 
 hours earlier Fielding had fancied there was a 
 little light in the darkness. That night Field- 
 ing'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 
 
 86 
 
ON THE REEF OF NORMAN'S WOE 
 
 his assistants deserted before noon. Things 
 looked ominous enough, and at five o'clock he 
 made up his mind that Egypt would be over- 
 run vs^ith cholera, and that he should probably 
 have to defend himself and the Amenhotep 
 from rioters, for the native police w^ould 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 convic- 
 tions 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 
 
 87 
 
ON THE REEF OF NORMAN'S WOE 
 
 gathering on the shore to watch his deporta- 
 tation 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 
 Kah in a fit of anger threw a native pohceman 
 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 pohce- 
 men, two of whom were Soudanese and true to 
 Dicky, bound him and shut him up in a hut. 
 When Fielding refused to play that evening 
 Dicky knew that Norman's fate had taken 
 hold of him, and that he must watch his friend 
 every minute — that avvrful vigilance which kills 
 the watcher in the end. Dicky said to him- 
 self more than once that day : 
 
 "Christ save us all from a death like this, 
 On the reef of Norman's woe ! " 
 
 88 
 
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 vil- 
 lages 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 vil- 
 lagers appeared upon the bank and rushed the 
 Amenhotep. Fielding and Dicky were both 
 armed, but Fielding would not fire untU he 
 saw that his own crew had joined the rioters 
 on the bank. Then, amid a shower ^of mis- 
 siles, he shot the Arab who had first spread 
 the report about the map and the flags. 
 
 Now Dicky and he were joined by Hol- 
 gate, the Yorkshire engineer of the Amenho- 
 tep, and together the three tried to hold the 
 boat. Every native had left them. They 
 were obliged to retreat aft to the deck-cabin. 
 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 re- 
 ceived slight wounds, but the blood-letting did 
 them all good. Fielding was once more him- 
 self : nervous anxiety, unrest, had gone from 
 him. He was as cool as a cucumber. He 
 would not go shipwreck now " On the reef of 
 
 89 
 
ON THE REEF OF NORMAN'S WOE 
 
 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 said. " Take 
 me to Abdallah to die, that I may be buried 
 with my people and from mine own house." 
 
 " Is it not poison ? " said 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 wUl 
 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. 
 
 90 
 
ON THE REEF OF NORMAN'S WOE 
 
 " 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 Ab- 
 dallah in time to die there, and buried him 
 with his fathers ; and Dicky stayed behind to 
 cleanse Kalamoun with perchloride and lime- 
 wash. 
 
 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 
 
 91 
 
ON THE REEF OF NORMAN'S WOE 
 
 the breast and a laboured censure from the 
 Administration for overrunning the budget 
 allowance. 
 
 Dicky, however, seemed satisfied, for Field- 
 ing's little barque of life had not gone down 
 " On the reef of Norman's woe." Mrs. Hen- 
 shaw felt so also when she was told aU, and 
 she disconcerted Dicky by bursting into tears. 
 
 " Why those tears ? " said Dicky to Field- 
 ing afterward; " I wasn't eloquent." 
 
 92 
 
FIELDING HAD AN ORDERLY 
 
 'IS legs were like pipe-stems, his 
 body was like a board, but he 
 was straight enough, not un- 
 soldierly, nor so bad to look at 
 when his back was on you ; 
 but when he showed his face 
 you had httle pleasure in him. 
 It seemed made of brown 
 putty, the nose was like india- 
 rubber, and the eyes had that 
 dull sullen look of a mongrel got of a fox- 
 terrier and a bull-dog. Like this sort of mon- 
 grel also his eyes turned a brownish-red when 
 he was excited. 
 
 You could always tell when something had 
 gone wrong with Ibrahim the Orderly, by 
 that curious duU glare in his eyes. Selamhk 
 Pasha said to Fielding that it was hashish; 
 Fielding said it was a cross breed of Soudan- 
 ese and Fellah. But little Dicky Donovan 
 said it was something else, and he kept his 
 
 93 
 
FIELDING HAD AN ORDERLY 
 
 eye upon Ibrahim. And Dicky, with all his 
 faults, could screw his way from the front of 
 a thing to the back thereof like no other civ- 
 ilised man you ever knew. But he did not 
 press his opinions upon Fielding, who was an 
 able administrator and a very clever fellow 
 also, with a genial habit of believing in people 
 who served him : and that is bad in the Orient. 
 
 As an orderly Ibrahim was hke a clock; 
 stiff in his gait as a pendulum, regular as a 
 minute. He had no tongue for gossip either, 
 so far as Fielding knew. Also, five times a 
 day he said his prayers — an unusual thing for 
 a Gippy soldier-servant; for as the Gippy's 
 rank increases he soils his knees and puts his 
 forehead in the dust with discretion. This 
 was another reason why Dicky suspected him. 
 
 It was supposed that Ibrahim could not 
 speak a word of English ; and he seemed so 
 stupid, he looked so blank, when EngHsh was 
 spoken, that Fielding had no doubt the Eng- 
 lish language was a Tablet of Abydos to him. 
 But Dicky was more wary, and waited. He 
 could be very patient and simple, and his del- 
 icate face seemed as innocent as a girl's when 
 he said to Ibrahim one morning : " Ibrahim, 
 brother of scorpions, I'm going to teach you 
 English!" and, squatting like a Turk on the 
 deck of the Amenhotep, the stern- wheeled tub 
 
 94 
 
FIELDING HAD AN ORDERLY 
 
 which Fielding called a steamer, he began to 
 teach Ibrahim. 
 
 " Say ' Good morning, kind sir ! ' " he drawled. 
 
 No tongue was ever so thick, no throat so 
 guttural, as Ibrahim's when he obeyed this 
 command. That was why suspicion grew the 
 more in the mind of Dicky. But he made 
 the Gippy say " Good morning, kind sir ! " 
 over and over again. Now, it was a peculiar 
 thing that Ibrahim's pronunciation grew worse 
 every time ; which goes to show that a com- 
 bination of Soudanese and Fellah doesn't make 
 a really clever villain. Twice, three times, 
 Dicky gave him other words and phrases to 
 say, and practice made Ibrahim more perfect 
 in error. 
 
 Dicky suddenly enlarged the vocabulary 
 thus : " An old man had three sons : one was 
 a thief, another a rogue, and the worst of them 
 aU was a soldier. But the soldier died first ! " 
 
 As he said these words he kept his eyes 
 fixed on Ibrahim in a smiling, juvenile sort of 
 way; and he saw the colour — the brownish- 
 red colour — creep slowly into Ibrahim's eyes. 
 For Ibrahim's father had three sons : and cer- 
 tainly one was a thief, for he had been a tax- 
 gatherer; and one was a rogue, for he had 
 been the servant of a Greek money-lender; 
 and Ibrahim was a soldier ! 
 
 95 
 
FIELDING HAD AN ORDERLY 
 
 Ibrahim was made to say these words over 
 and over again, and the red fire in his eyes 
 deepened as Dicky's face lighted up with what 
 seemed a mere mocking pleasure, a sort of 
 impish delight in teasing, like that of a mad- 
 cap girl with a yokel. Each time Ibrahim 
 said the words he jumbled them worse than 
 before. Then Dicky asked him if he knew 
 what an old man was, and Ibrahim said no. 
 Dicky said softly in Arabic that the old man 
 was a fool to have three such sons^a thief, 
 and a rogue, and a soldier. With a tender 
 patience he explained what a thief and a rogue 
 were, and his voice was curiously soft when he 
 added, in Arabic, " And the third son was hke 
 you, Mahommed — and he died first." 
 
 Ibrahim's eyes gloomed under the raillery — 
 under what he thought the cackle of a de- 
 tested Inglesi with a face like a girl, of an in- 
 fidel who had a tongue that handed you honey 
 on the point of a two-edged sword. In his 
 heart he hated this slim small exquisite as he 
 had never hated Fielding. His eyes became 
 like little pots of simmering blood, and he 
 showed his teeth in a hateful way, because he 
 was sure he should glut his hatred before the 
 moon came full. 
 
 Little Dicky Donovan knew, as he sleepily 
 told Ibrahim to go, that for months the Or- 
 
 96 
 
FIELDING HAD AN ORDERLY 
 
 derly had listened to the wholesome but scath- 
 ing talk of Fielding and himself on the Egyp- 
 tian Government, and had reported it to those 
 whose tool and spy he was. 
 
 That night, the stern-wheeled tub, the 
 Amenhotep, lurched like a turtle on its back 
 into the sands by Beni Hassan. Of all the 
 villages of Upper Egypt, from the time of 
 Rameses, none has been so bad as Beni Has- 
 san. Every ruler of Egypt, at one time or 
 another, has raided it and razed it to the 
 ground. It was not for pleasure that Fielding 
 sojourned there. 
 
 This day, and for three days past. Field- 
 ing had been abed in his cabin with a touch 
 of Nilotic fever. His heart was sick for 
 Cairo, for he had been three months on the 
 river ; and Mrs. Henshaw was in Cairo — Mrs. 
 Henshaw, the widow of Henshaw of the 
 Buffs, who lived with her brother, a stone's- 
 throw from the Esbekieh Gardens. Fielding 
 longed for Cairo, but Beni Hassan intervened. 
 The little man who worried Ibrahim urged 
 him the way his private inclinations ran, but 
 he was obdurate : duty must be done. 
 
 Dicky Donovan had reasons other than pri- 
 vate ones for making haste to Cairo. During 
 the last three days they had stopped at five 
 villages on the Nile, and in each place Dicky, 
 
 97 
 
FIELDING HAD AN ORDERLY 
 
 who had done Fielding's work of inspection 
 for him, had been met with unusual insolence 
 from the Arabs and Fellaheen, officials and 
 others ; and the prompt chastisement he ren- 
 dered with his riding-whip in return did not 
 tend to ease his mind, though it soothed his 
 feehngs. There had been flying up the river 
 strange rumours of trouble down in Cairo, 
 black threats of rebellion — of a seditious army 
 in the palm of one man's hand. At the cafes 
 on the Nile, Dicky himself had seen strange 
 gatherings, which dispersed as he came on 
 them. For, somehow, his smUe had the same 
 effect as other men's frowns. 
 
 This evening he added a whistle to his smile 
 as he made his inspection of the engine-room 
 and the galley and every corner of the Amen- 
 hotep, according to his custom. What he 
 whistled no man knew, not even himself. It 
 was ready-made. It might have been a med- 
 ley, but, as things happened, it was an over- 
 ture ; and by the eyes, the red-htten windows 
 of the mind of Mahommed Ibrahim, who 
 squatted beside the Yorkshire engineer at the 
 wheel, playing Mankalah, he knew it was an 
 overture. 
 
 As he went to his cabin he murmured to 
 himself, "There's the devil to pay: now I 
 wonder who pays ? " 
 
 98 
 
FIELDING HAD AN ORDERLY 
 
 Because he was planning things of moment, 
 he took a native drum down to Fielding's 
 cabin, and made Fielding play it, native fash- 
 ion, as he thrummed his own banjo and sang 
 the airy ballad "The Dragoons of Enniskil- 
 len." Yet Dicky was thinking hard all the 
 time. 
 
 Now there was in Beni Hassan a Ghdzeeyeh, 
 a dancing- woman of the Ghawazee tribe, of 
 whom, in the phrase of the moralists, the less 
 said the better. What her name was does not 
 matter. She was well-to-do. She had a hus- 
 band who played the kemengeh for her danc- 
 ing. She had as good a house as the Omdah, 
 and she had two female slaves. 
 
 Dicky Donovan was of that rare type of 
 man who has the keenest desire to know all 
 things, good or evil, though he was fastidious 
 when it came to doing them. He had a gift 
 of keeping his own commandments. If he 
 had been a six-footer and riding eighteen 
 stone — if he hadn't been, as Fielding often 
 said, so "damned finnicky," he might easily 
 have come a cropper. For, being absolutely 
 without fear, he did what he listed and went 
 where he listed. An insatiable curiosity was 
 his strongest point, save one. If he had had 
 a headache — though he never had — he would 
 at once have made an inquiry into the various 
 
 99 
 
FIELDING HAD AN ORDERLY 
 
 kinds of headache possible to mortal man, with 
 pungent deductions from his demonstrations. 
 So it was that when he first saw a dancing-girl 
 in the streets of Cairo he could not rest until 
 by circuitous routes he had traced the history 
 of dancing-girls back through the ages, through 
 Greece and the ruby East, even to the days 
 when the beautiful bad ones were invited to 
 the feasts of the mighty, to charm the eyes of 
 King Seti or Queen Hatsu. 
 
 He was an authority on the tribe of the 
 Ghawazee, proving, to their satisfaction and 
 his own, their descent from the household of 
 Haroon al Rashid. He was, therefore, wel- 
 come among them. But he had found also, 
 as many another wise man has found in " fiir- 
 rin parts," that your greatest safety lies in 
 bringing tobacco to the men and leaving the 
 women alone. For, in those distant lands, a 
 man may sell you his nuptial bed, but he will 
 pin the price of it to your back one day with 
 the point of a lance or the wedge of a hatchet. 
 
 Herebefore will be found the reason why 
 Dicky Donovan — twenty-five " and no mous- 
 tache, pink-cheeked and rosy-hearted, and no 
 white spots on his liver " — went straight, that 
 particular night, to the house of the chief 
 dancing-girl of Beni Hassan for help in his 
 trouble. From her he had learned to dance 
 
 100 
 
FIELDING HAD AN ORDERLY 
 
 the dance of the Ghawdzee. He had learned 
 it so that, with his insatiable curiosity, his 
 archasological instinct, he should be able to 
 compare it with the Nautch dance of India, 
 the Hula- Hula of the Sandwich Islanders, the 
 Siva of the Samoans. 
 
 A half-hour from the time he set his foot in 
 Beni Hassan two dancing-girls issued from the 
 house of the Ghazeeyeh, dressed in shintiyan 
 and mushn tarah, anklets and bracelets, with 
 gold coins about the forehead — and one was 
 Dicky Donovan. He had done the rare 
 thing : he had trusted absolutely that class of 
 woman who is called a " rag " in that far coun- 
 try, and a " drab " in ours. But he was a 
 judge of human nature, and judges of human 
 nature know you are pretty safe to trust a 
 woman who never trusts, no matter how bad 
 she is, if she has no influence over you. He 
 used to say that the better you are and the 
 worse she us, the more you can trust her. 
 Other men may talk, but Dicky Donovan 
 knows. 
 
 What Dicky's aunt, the Dowager Lady 
 Carmichael, would have said to have seen 
 Dicky flaunting it in the clothes of a dancing- 
 girl through the streets of vile Beni Hassan, 
 must not be considered. None would have 
 beheved that his pink-and- white face and slim 
 8 101 
 
FIELDING HAD AN ORDERLY 
 
 hands and staringly white ankles could have 
 been made to look so boldly handsome, so im- 
 peachable. But henna in itself seems to have 
 certain quaUties of viciousness in its brownish- 
 red stain, and Dicky looked sufficiently aban- 
 doned. The risk Was great, however, for his 
 Arabic was too good and he had to depend 
 upon the Ghazeeyah's adroitness, on the pecu- 
 liar advantage of being under the protection 
 of the mistress of the house as large as the 
 Omdah's. 
 
 From one cafe to another they went. Here 
 a snake-charmer gathered a meagre crowd 
 about him ; there an 'A'l'meh, or singing-girl, 
 hlted a ribald song ; elsewhere hashish-smokers 
 stretched out gaunt, loathsome fingers towards 
 them ; and a Sha'er recited the romance of 
 Aboo Zeyd. But Dicky noticed that none of 
 the sheikhs, none of the great men of the vil- 
 lage, were at these cafes ; only the very young, 
 the useless, the licentious, or the decrepit. But 
 by flickering fires under the palm-trees were 
 groups of men talking and gesticulating; and 
 now and then an Arab galloped through the 
 street, the point of his long lance shining. 
 Dicky felt a secret, like a troubled wind, stir- 
 ring through the place, a movement not ex- 
 plainable by his own inner tremulousness. 
 
 At last they went to the largest caf^ beside 
 102 
 
FIELDING HAD AN ORDERLY 
 
 the Mosque of Hoseyn. He saw the Sheikh- 
 el-beled sitting on his bench, and, grouped 
 round him, smoking, several sheikhs and the 
 young men of the village. Here he and the 
 Ghazeeyeh danced. Few noticed them; for 
 which Dicky was thankful ; and he risked dis- 
 covery by coming nearer the circle. He could, 
 however, catch little that they said, for they 
 spoke in low tones, the Sheikh-el-beled talking 
 seldom, but hstening closely. 
 
 The crowd around the cafe grew. Occa- 
 sionally an Arab would throw back his head 
 and cry, "Alldhu Akhar!" Another drew a 
 sword and waved it in the air. Some one in 
 front of him whispered one starthng word to a 
 camel-driver. 
 
 Dicky had got his cue. To him that whis- 
 per was as loud and clear as the "La ildha 
 iUa-lldh!" called from the top of a mosque. 
 He understood Ibrahim the Orderly now ; he 
 guessed all : rebeUion, anarchy, massacre. A 
 hundred thoughts ran through his head : what 
 was Ibrahim's particular part in the swagger- 
 ing scheme was the first and the last of them. 
 
 Ibrahim answered for himself, for at that 
 moment he entered the burning circle. A 
 movement of applause ran round, then there 
 was sudden silence. The dancing-girls were 
 bid to stop their dancing, were told to be 
 
 103 
 
FIELDING HAD AN ORDERLY 
 
 gone. The Ghazeeyeh spat at them in an 
 assumed anger, and said that none but swine 
 of Beni Hassan would send a woman away 
 hungry. And because the dancing-girl has 
 power in the land, the Sheikh-el-beled waved 
 his hand towards the caf^, hastily calling the 
 name of a favourite dish. Eyes turned un- 
 concernedly towards the brown clattering 
 ankles of the two as they entered the cafe 
 and seated themselves immediately behind 
 where the Sheikh-el-beled squatted. Present- 
 ly Dicky listened to as sombre a tale as ever 
 was told in the darkest night. The voice of 
 the tale-teller was that of Ibrahim, and the 
 story: that the citadel at Cairo was to be 
 seized, that the streets of Alexandria were to 
 be swept free of Europeans, and that every 
 English official between Cairo and Kordofan 
 was to be slain. Mahommed Ibrahim, the 
 spy, who knew Enghsh as well as Donovan 
 Pasha knew Arabic, was this very night to kill 
 Fielding Bey with his own hand I 
 
 This night was always associated in Dicky's 
 mind with the memory of stewed camel's- 
 meat. At Ibrahim's words he turned his head 
 from the rank steam, and fingered his pistol 
 in the loose folds of his Arab trousers. The 
 dancing-girl saw the gesture and laid a hand 
 upon his arm. 
 
 104 
 
FIELDING HAD AN ORDERLY 
 
 "Thou art one against a thousand," she 
 whispered; "wait till thou art one against 
 one." 
 
 He dipped his nose in the camel-stew, for 
 some one poked a head in at the door — every 
 sense in him was alert, every instinct alive. 
 
 "To-night," said Mahommed Ibrahim, in 
 the hoarse gutturals of the Bishareen, " it is 
 ordered that Fielding Bey shall die — and by 
 my hand, mine own, by the mercy of God ! 
 And after Fielding Bey the clean-faced ape 
 that cast the evil eye upon me yesterday, and 
 bade me die. ' An old man had three sons,' 
 said he, the infidel dog ! ' one was a thief, an- 
 other a rogue, and the third a soldier — and 
 the soldier died first.' ' A camel of Bagdad,' 
 he called me. Into the belly of a dead camel 
 shall he go, be sewn up like a cat's liver in a 
 pudding, and cast into the Nile before God 
 gives to-morrow a sun." 
 
 Dicky pushed away the camel-stew. " It is 
 time to go," he said. 
 
 The Ghazeeyeh rose with a laugh, caught 
 Dicky by the hand, sprang out among the 
 Arabs, and leapt over the head of the village 
 barber, calling them all " useless, sodden grey- 
 beards, with no more blood than a Nile shad, 
 poorer than monkeys, beggars of Beni Has- 
 san ! " Taking from her pocket a handful of 
 
 105 
 
FIELDING HAD AN ORDERLY 
 
 quarter-piastres, she turned on her heels and 
 tossed them among the Arabs with a con- 
 temptuous laugh. Then she and Dicky dis- 
 appeared into the night. 
 
 II 
 
 When Dicky left her house, clothed in his 
 own garments once more, but the stains of 
 henna still on his face and hands and ankles, 
 he pressed into the Ghazeeyeh's hand ten gold- 
 pieces. She let them fall to the ground. 
 
 " Love is love, effendi," she said. " Money 
 do they give me for what is no love. She 
 who gives freely for love takes naught in re- 
 turn but love, by the will of God I " And she 
 laid a hand upon his arm. 
 
 " There is work to do 1 " said Dicky ; and 
 his hand dropped to where his pistol lay — 
 but not to threaten her. He was thinking of 
 others. 
 
 "To-morrow," she said; "to-morrow for 
 that, effendi," and her beautiful eyes hung 
 upon his. 
 
 " There's corn in Egypt, but who knows 
 who'll reap it to-morrow ? And I shall be in 
 Cairo to-morrow." 
 
 " I also shall be in Cairo to-morrow, O my 
 lord and master 1 " she answered. 
 
 106 
 
FIELDING HAD AN ORDERLY 
 
 " God give you safe journey," answered 
 Dicky, for he knew it was useless to argue 
 with a woman. He was wont to say that 
 you can resolve all women into the same 
 simple elements in the end. 
 
 Dicky gave a long perplexed whistle as he 
 ran softly under the palms towards the Amen- 
 hotep, lounging on the mud bank. Then he 
 dismissed the dancing-girl from his mind, for 
 there was other work to do. How he should 
 do it he planned as he opened the door of 
 Fielding's cabin softly, and saw him in a deep 
 sleep. 
 
 He was about to make haste on deck again, 
 where his own nest was, when, glancing through 
 the window, he saw Mahommed Ibrahim steal- 
 ing down the bank to the boat's side. He 
 softly drew-to the httle curtain of the cabin 
 window, leaving only one smaU space through 
 which the moonlight streamed. This ray of 
 light fell just across the door through which 
 Mahommed Ibrahim would enter. The cabin 
 was a large one, the bed was in the middle. 
 At the head was a curtain slung to protect 
 the sleeper from the cold draughts of the night. 
 
 Dicky heard a soft footstep in the compan- 
 ionway, then before the door. He crept be- 
 hind the curtain. Mahommed Ibrahim was 
 listening without. Now the door opened very 
 
 107 
 
FIELDING HAD AN ORDERLY 
 
 gently, for this careful Orderly had oiled the 
 hinges that very day. The long flabby face, 
 with the venomous eyes, showed in the streak 
 of moonlight. Mahommed Ibrahim shd inside, 
 took a step forward and drew a long knife from 
 his sleeve. Another move towards the sleep- 
 ing man, and he was near the bed ; another, 
 and he was beside it, stooping over . . . . ! 
 
 Now, a cold pistol suddenly thrust in your 
 face is disconcerting, no matter how well laid 
 your plans. It was useless for the Orderly to 
 raise his hand : a bullet is quicker than the 
 muscles of the arm and the stroke of a knife. 
 
 The two stood silent an instant, the sleep- 
 ing man peaceful between them. Dicky made 
 a motion of his head towards the door. Ma- 
 hommed Ibrahim turned. Dicky did not lower 
 his pistol as the Orderly, obeying, softly went 
 as he had softly come. Out through the door- 
 way, up the stairs, then upon the moonht deck, 
 the cold muzzle of the pistol at the head of 
 Mahommed Ibrahim. 
 
 Dicky turned now, and faced him, the pistol 
 still pointed. 
 
 Then Mahommed Ibrahim spoke. " Ma- 
 laish / " he said. That was contempt. It was 
 Mahommedan resignation ; it was the inevi- 
 table. " Malaish — no matter I " he said again ; 
 and " no matter " was in good English. 
 
 108 
 
FIELDING HAD AN ORDERLY 
 
 Dicky's back was to the light, the Orderly's 
 face in the full glow of it. Dicky was stand- 
 ing beside the wire communicating with the 
 engineer's cabin. He reached out his hand 
 and pulled the hook. The bell rang below. 
 The two above stood silent, motionless, the 
 the pistol still levelled. 
 
 Holgate, the young Yorkshire engineer, 
 pulled himself up to the deck two steps of the 
 ladder at a time. 
 
 " Yes, sir," he said, coming forward quickly, 
 but stopping short when he saw the levelled 
 pistol. 
 
 " Drop the knife, Ibrahim," said Dicky in a 
 low voice. The Orderly dropped the knife. 
 
 "Get it, Holgate," said Dicky; and Hol- 
 gate stooped and picked it up. Then he told 
 Holgate the story in a few words. The en- 
 gineer's fingers tightened on the knife. 
 
 "Put it where it wiU be useful, Holgate," 
 said Dicky. Holgate dropped it inside his 
 belt. 
 
 "Full steam, and turn her nose to Cairo. 
 No time to lose ! " He had told Holgate 
 earlier in the evening to keep up steam. 
 
 He could see a crowd slowly gathering 
 under the palm trees between the shore and 
 Beni Hassan. They were waiting for Ma- 
 hommed Ibrahim's signal. 
 
 109 
 
FIELDING HAD AN ORDERLY 
 
 Holgate was below, the sailors were at the 
 cables. 
 
 "Let go ropes I " Dicky called. 
 
 A minute later the engine was quietly 
 churning away below ; two minutes later the 
 ropes were drawn in ; half a minute later still 
 the nose of the Amenhotep moved in the water. 
 She backed from the Nile mud, lunged free. 
 
 "An old man had three sons; one was a 
 thief, another a rogue, and the worst of the 
 three was a soldier — and he dies first ! What 
 have you got to say before you say your pray- 
 ers ? " said Dicky to the Orderly. 
 
 "Majish!" answered Mahommed Ibrahim, 
 moveless. " Majish — nothing ! " And he said 
 " nothing " in good Enghsh. 
 
 " Say your prayers then, Mahommed Ibra- 
 him," said Dicky in that voice like a girl's; 
 and he backed a little till he rested a shoulder 
 against the binnacle. 
 
 Mahommed Ibrahim turned sUghtly tiU his 
 face was towards the east. The pistol now 
 fell in range with his ear. The Orderly took 
 off his shoes, and, standing with his face towards 
 the moon, and towards Mecca, he murmured 
 the fatihah from the Koran. Three times he 
 bowed, afterwards he knelt and touched the 
 deck with his forehead three times also. Then 
 he stood up. 
 
 110 
 
FIELDING HAD AN ORDERLY 
 
 " Are you ready ? " asked Dicky. 
 
 "Water!" answered Mahommed Ibrahim 
 in English. 
 
 Dicky had forgotten that final act of devo- 
 tion of the good Mahommedan. There was a 
 filter of Nile- water near. He had heard it go 
 drip — drip, drip — drip, as Mahommed Ibra- 
 him prayed. 
 
 " Drink," he said, and pointed with his 
 finger. 
 
 Mahommed Ibrahim took the httle tin cup 
 hanging by the tap, half filled it, drank it off, 
 and noiselessly put the cup back again. Then 
 he stood with his face towards the pistol. 
 
 " The game is with the English all the time," 
 said Dicky softly. 
 
 " Malaish ! " said Mahommed. 
 
 " Jump," said Dicky. 
 
 One instant's pause, and then, without a 
 sound, Ibrahim sprang out over the railing 
 into the hard-running current, and struck out 
 for the shore. The Amenhotep passed him. 
 He was in the grasp of a whirlpool so strong 
 that it twisted the Amenhotep in her course. 
 His head spun round like a water-fly, and out 
 of the range of Dicky's pistol he shrieked to 
 the crowd on the shore. They burst from the 
 palm-trees and rushed down to the banks with 
 cries of rage, murder, and death ; for now they 
 
 111 
 
FIELDING HAD AN ORDERLY 
 
 saw him fighting for his life. But the Amen- 
 hotep's nose was towards Cairo, and steam was 
 full on, and she was going fast. Holgate be- 
 low had his men within range of a pistol too. 
 Dicky looked back at the hopeless fight as long 
 as he could see. 
 
 Down in his cabin Fielding Bey slept peace- 
 fully, and dreamed of a woman in Cairo. 
 
 112 
 
THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE 
 
 N spite of being an Englishman 
 with an Irish name and a Ut- 
 tle Irish blood, Dicky Donovan 
 had risen high in the favour of 
 the Khedive, remaining still the 
 same Dicky Donovan he had 
 always been — astute but incor- 
 ruptible. While he was favourite he 
 used his power wisely, and it was a 
 power which had life and death be- 
 hind it. When therefore, one day, 
 he asked permission to take a jour- 
 ney upon a certain deadly business 
 of justice, the Khedive assented to all he asked, 
 but, fearing for his safety, gave him his own 
 ring to wear and a line under his seal. 
 
 With these Dicky set forth for El Medineh 
 in the Fayoum, where his important business 
 lay. As he cantered away from El Wasta, out 
 through the green valley and on into the desert 
 where stands the Pyramid of Maydoum, he 
 turned his business over and over in his mind, 
 
 113 
 
THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE 
 
 that he might study it from a hundred sides. 
 For miles he did not see a human being: only 
 a caravan of camels in the distance, some vult- 
 ures overhead, and the smoke of the train be- 
 hind him by the great river. Suddenly, how- 
 ever, as he cantered over the crest of a hill, 
 he saw in the desert-trail before him a foot- 
 traveller, who turned round hastily, almost 
 nervously, at the sound of his horse's feet. 
 
 It was the figure of a shm, handsome youth, 
 perhaps twenty, perhaps thirty. The face was 
 clean-shaven, and though the body seemed 
 young and the face was unhned, the eyes were 
 terribly old. Pathos and fanaticism were in 
 the look, so Dicky Donovan thought. He 
 judged the young Arab to be one of the Holy 
 Men who lived by the gifts of the people, and 
 who do strange acts of devotion ; such as sitting 
 in one place for twenty years, or going without 
 clothes, or chanting the Koran ten hours a 
 day, or cutting themselves vdth knives. But 
 this young man was clothed in the plain blue 
 calico of the fellah, and on his head was a 
 coarse brown fez of raw wool. Yet round the 
 brown fez was a green cloth, which may only 
 be worn by one who has been a pilgrimage to 
 Mecca. 
 
 " Nehar-ak hoom said — God be with you ! " 
 said Dicky in Arabic. 
 
 114 
 
THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE 
 
 " Nehar-ak said, effendi — God prosper thy 
 greatness!" was the reply, in a voice as full 
 as a man's, but as soft as a woman's — an un- 
 usual thing in an Arab. 
 
 " Have you travelled far ? " asked Dicky. 
 
 " From the Pyramid of Maydoum, effendi," 
 was the quiet reply. 
 
 Dicky laughed. " A poor tavern ; cold 
 sleeping there, Mahommed." 
 
 " The breath of AUah is warm," answered 
 the Arab. 
 
 Dicky Hked the lad's answer. Putting a 
 hand in his saddle-bag, he drew out a cake of 
 dourha bread and some onions — for he made 
 shift to hve as the people lived, lest he should 
 be caught unawares some time, and die of the 
 remembrance of too much luxury in the midst 
 of frugal fare. 
 
 " Plenty be in your home, Mahommed 1 " he 
 said, and held out the bread and onions. 
 
 The slim hands came up at once and took 
 the food, the eyes flashed a strange look at 
 Dicky. " God give you plenty upon your 
 plenty, effendi, and save your soul and the 
 souls of your wife and children, if it be your 
 will, effendi ! " 
 
 "I have no wife, praise be to God," said 
 Dicky; " but if I had, her soul would be saved 
 before my own, or I'm a Dutchman ! " Then 
 
 115 
 
THE EYE OP THE NEEDLE 
 
 something moved him further, and he unbut- 
 toned his pocket — for there really was a button 
 to Dicky's pocket. He drew out a five-piastre 
 piece, and held it down to the young Arab. 
 " For the home-coming after Mecca," he said, 
 and smiled. 
 
 The young Arab drew back. "I wiU eat 
 thy bread, but no more, effendi," he said 
 quickly. 
 
 "Then you're not what I thought you 
 were," said Dicky under his breath, and, with 
 a quick good-bye, struck a heel into the horse's 
 side and galloped away towards El Medineh. 
 
 In El Medineh Dicky went about his busi- 
 ness — a bitter business it was, as all Egypt 
 came to know. For four days he pursued it, 
 without halting and in some danger, for, dis- 
 guise himself as he would in his frequenting of 
 the cafes, his Arabic was not yet wholly perfect. 
 Sometimes he went about in European dress, 
 and that was equally dangerous, for in those 
 days the Fayoum was a nest of brigandage and 
 murder, and an European — an infidel dog — 
 was fair game. 
 
 But Dicky had two friends : the village bar- 
 ber, and the moghassil of the dead, or body- 
 washer, who were in his pay; and for the 
 moment they were loyal to him. For his 
 
 116 
 
THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE 
 
 purpose, too, they were the most useful of 
 mercenaries : for the duties of a barber are 
 those of a vcdet-de-chambre, a doctor, registrar 
 and sanitary officer combined; and his coadju- 
 tor in information and gossip was the mog- 
 hassil, who sits and waits for some one to die, 
 as a raven on a housetop waits for carrion. 
 
 Dicky was patient, but as the days went by 
 and nothing came of all his searching, his hps 
 tightened and his eyes became more restless. 
 One day, as he sat in his doorway twisting 
 and turning things in his mind, with an ugly 
 knot in his temper, the barber came to him 
 quickly. 
 
 " Saadat el basha, I have found the Eng- 
 Ushwoman, by the mercy of Allah ! " 
 
 Dicky looked at Achmed Hariri for a mo- 
 ment without stirring or speaking; his hps 
 relaxed, his eyes softening with satisfaction. 
 
 " She is hving ? " 
 
 " But hving, saadat el basha." 
 
 Dicky started to his feet. " At the mudir- 
 ieh?" 
 
 " At the house of Azra, the seller of sherbet, 
 saadat el basha." 
 
 " When did she leave the mudirieh ? " 
 
 " A week past, eififendi." 
 
 " Why did she leave ? " 
 
 " None knows save the sister of Azra, who 
 9 117 
 
THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE 
 
 is in the harem. The Englishwoman was kind 
 to her when she was ill, and she gave her aid." 
 
 " The Mudir has not tried to find her ? " 
 
 " Will the robber make a noise if the horse 
 he has stolen breaks free, effendi ? " 
 
 " Why has she not flown the place ? " 
 
 "Effendi, shall the broken- winged bird 
 fly!" 
 
 " She is ill ? " He caught the barber by the 
 arm. 
 
 " As a gazelle with an arrow in its breast." 
 
 Dicky's small hand tightened like a vice on 
 the barber's thin arm. "And he who sped the 
 arrow, Achmed Hariri ? " 
 
 Achmed Hariri was silent. 
 
 " Shall he not die the death ? " 
 
 Achmed Hariri shrank back. 
 
 Dicky drew from his pocket a paper with 
 seals, and held it up to the barber's eyes. The 
 barber stared, drew back, salaamed, bowed his 
 head, and put a hand upon his turban as a 
 slave to his master. 
 
 " Show me the way, Mahommed," said 
 Dicky, and stepped out. 
 
 Two hours later Dicky, with pale face, and 
 fingers clutching his heavy riding- whip fiercely, 
 came quickly towards the bridge where he 
 must cross to go to the mudirieh. Suddenly 
 
 118 
 
THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE 
 
 he heard an uproar, and saw men hurrying on 
 in front of him. He quickened his footsteps, 
 and presently came to a house on which had 
 been freshly painted those rough, staring pict- 
 ures of " accidents by flood and field," which 
 Mecca pilgrims paint on their houses like 
 hatchments, on their safe return — proclamation 
 of their prestige. 
 
 Presently he saw in the grasp of an infuri- 
 ated crowd the Arab youth he had met in the 
 desert, near the Pyramid of Maydoum. Exe- 
 crations, murderous cries arose from the mob. 
 The youth's face was deathly pale, but it had 
 no fear. Upon the outskirts of the crowd 
 hung women, their robes drawn half over their 
 faces, crying out for the young man's death. 
 Dicky asked the ghaffir standing by what the 
 youth had done. 
 
 " It is no youth, but a woman," he answered : 
 "the last wife of the Mudir. In a man's 
 clothes " 
 
 He paused, for the head sheikh of El Me- 
 dineh, with two Ulema, entered the throng. 
 The crowd fell back. Presently the Sheikh- 
 el-beled mounted the mastaba by the house, 
 the holy men beside him, and pointing to the 
 Arab youth, spoke loudly : 
 
 " This sister of scorpions and crocodiles has 
 earned a thousand deaths. She was a daughter 
 
 119 
 
THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE 
 
 of a pasha, and was lifted high. She was made 
 the wife of Abbas Bey, our Mudir. Like a wan- 
 ton beast she cut off her hair, clothed herself 
 as a man, journeyed to Mecca, and desecrated 
 the tomb of Mahomet, who hath written that 
 no woman, save her husband of his goodness 
 bring her, shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven." 
 
 He paused, and pointed to the rough pict- 
 ures on the walls. " This morning, dressed as 
 a man, she went in secret to the sacred pur- 
 ple pillar for barren women in the Mosque of 
 Amrar, by the Bahr-el-Yusef, and was found 
 there with her tongue to it. What shall be 
 done to this accursed tree in the garden of Ma- 
 homet?" 
 
 " Cut it down ! " shouted the crowd ; and 
 the Ulema standing beside the Sheikh-el-beled 
 said, " Cut down forever the accursed tree." 
 
 " To-morrow, at sunrise, she shall die as a 
 blasphemer, this daughter of Sheitan the Evil 
 One," continued the holy men. 
 
 " What saith the Mudir ? " cried a tax-gath- 
 erer. 
 
 " The Mudir himself shall see her die at 
 sunrise," said the chief of the Ulema. 
 
 Shouts of hideous joy went up. At that 
 moment the woman's eyes met Dicky's, and 
 they suddenly lighted. Dicky picked his way 
 through the crowd, and stood before the 
 
 120 
 
THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE 
 
 Sheikh-el-beled. With an Arab salute, he 
 said : 
 
 " I am, as you know, my brother, a friend 
 of our master the Khedive, and I carry his ring 
 on my finger." 
 
 The Sheikh-el-beled salaamed as Dicky held 
 up his hand, and a murmur ran through the 
 crowd. " What you have done to the woman 
 is well done, and according to your law she 
 should die. But wUl ye not let her tell her 
 story, so it may be written down, that when 
 perchance evil voices carry the tale to the 
 Khedive he shall have her own words for her 
 condemnation ? " 
 
 The Ulema looked at the Sheikh-el-beled, 
 and he made answer : " It is well said ; let 
 the woman speak, and her words be written 
 down." 
 
 " Is it meet that all should hear ? " asked 
 Dicky, for he saw the look in the woman's 
 eyes. " WiU she not speak more freely if we 
 be few?" 
 
 " Let her be taken into the house," said the 
 Sheikh-el-beled. Turning to the holy men, he 
 added, " Ye and the Inglesi shall hear." 
 
 When they were within the house, the 
 woman was brought in and stood before them. 
 
 "Speak," said the Sheikh-el-beled to her 
 roughly. 
 
 121 
 
THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE 
 
 She kept her eyes fixed on Dicky as she 
 spoke : 
 
 " For the thing I have done I shall answer. 
 I had no joy in the harem. I gave no child to 
 my lord, though often I put my tongue to the 
 sacred pillar of porphyry in the Mosque of 
 Amrar, My lord's love went from me. I was 
 placed beneath another in the harem. . . . 
 Was it well ? Did I not love my lord ? — was 
 the sin mine that no chUd was born to him ? 
 It is written that a woman's prayers are of no 
 avail, that her lord must save her at the last, 
 if she hath a soul to be saved. . . , Was the 
 love of my lord mine ? " She paused, caught 
 a corner of her robe and covered her face. 
 
 "Speak on, O woman of many sorrows," 
 said Dicky. 
 
 She partly uncovered her face, and spoke 
 again : 
 
 " In the long night, when he came not and 
 I was lonely and I cried aloud, and only the 
 jackals beyond my window answered, I thought 
 and thought. My brain was wild, and at last 
 I said, ' Behold, I will go to Mecca as the men 
 go, and when the fire rises from the Prophet's 
 tomb, bringing blessing and hfe to all, it may 
 be that I shall have peace, and win heaven as 
 men win it. For behold ! what is my body 
 but a man's body, for it beareth no child. And 
 
 122 
 
THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE 
 
 what is my soul but a man's soul, that dares 
 to do this thing 1' . . ." 
 
 " Thou art a blasphemer," broke in the chief 
 of the Ulema. 
 
 She gave no heed, but with her eyes on 
 Dicky continued : 
 
 " So I stole forth in the night with an old 
 slave, who was my father's slave, and together 
 we went to Cairo. . . . Behold, I have done 
 all that Dervishes do : I have cut myself with 
 knives, I have walked the desert alone, I have 
 lain beneath the feet of the Sheikh's horse 
 when he makes his ride over the bodies of the 
 faithful, I have done all that a woman may do 
 and all that a man may do, for the love I bore 
 my lord. Now judge me as ye will, for I may 
 do no more." 
 
 When she had finished, Dicky turned to 
 the Sheikh-el-beled and said, " She is mad. 
 Behold, Allah hath taken her wits ! She 
 is no more than a wild bird in the wilder- 
 ness." 
 
 It was his one way to save her; for among 
 her people the mad, the blind, and the idiot 
 are reputed highly favoured of God. 
 
 The Sheikh-el-beled shook his head. " She 
 is a blasphemer. Her words are as the words 
 of one who holds the sacred sword and speaks 
 from the high pulpit," he said sternly ; and his 
 
 123 
 
THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE 
 
 dry lean face hungered like a wolfs for the 
 blood of the woman. 
 
 " She has blasphemed," said the Ulema. 
 
 Outside the house, quietness had given place 
 to murmuring, murmuring to a noise, and a 
 noise to a tumult, through which the yelping 
 and howhng of the village dogs streamed. 
 
 " She shall be torn to pieces by wild dogs," 
 said the Sheikh-el-beled. 
 
 *' Let her choose her own death," said Dicky 
 softly ; and, lighting a cigarette, he puffed it 
 indolently into the face of the Arab sitting 
 beside him. For Dicky had many ways of 
 showing hatred, and his tobacco was strong. 
 The sea has its victims, so had Dicky's to- 
 bacco. 
 
 " The way of her death shall be as we 
 choose," said the Sheikh-el-beled, his face 
 growing blacker, his eyes enlarging in fury. 
 
 Dicky yawned shghtly, his eyes half closed. 
 He drew in a long breath of excoriating 
 caporal, held it for a moment, and then 
 softly ejected it in a cloud which brought 
 water to the eyes of the Sheikh-el-beled. 
 Dicky was very angry, but he did not look it. 
 His voice was meditative, almost languid as 
 he said : 
 
 " That the woman should die seems just and 
 right — if by your kindness and the mercy of 
 
THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE 
 
 God ye will let me speak. But this is no court, 
 it is no law: it is mere justice ye would do." 
 
 " It is the will of the people," the chief of 
 the Ulema inteijected. "It is the will of 
 Mussulmans, of our religion, of Mahomet," he 
 said. 
 
 " True, O beloved of Heaven, who shall live 
 for ever," said Dicky, his lips lost in an odor- 
 ous cloud of " ordinaire." " But there be evil 
 tongues and evU hearts ; and if some son of 
 liars, some brother of fooUsh tales, should bear 
 false witness upon this thing before our master 
 the Khedive, or his gentle MouiFetish " 
 
 " His gentle Mouflfetish " was scarcely the 
 name to apply to Sadik Pasha, the terrible 
 right-hand of the Khedive. But Dicky's 
 tongue was in his cheek. 
 
 " There is the Mudir," said the Sheikh-el- 
 beled : " he hath said that the woman should 
 die, if she were found." 
 
 " True ; but if the Mudir should die, where 
 would be his testimony ? " said Dicky, and his 
 eyes half closed, as though in idle contempla- 
 tion of a pleasing theme. " Now," he added, 
 stiU more negligently, " I shall see our master 
 the Khedive before the moon is full. Were 
 it not well that I should be satisfied for my 
 friends ? " 
 
 Dicky smiled, and looked into the eyes of the 
 125 
 
THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE 
 
 Mussulmans with an incorruptible innocence ; 
 he ostentatiously waved the cigarette smoke 
 away with the hand on which was the ring the 
 Khedive had given him. 
 
 " Thy tongue is as the light of a star," said 
 the bright-eyed Sheikh-el-beled ; "wisdom 
 dweUeth with thee." 
 
 The woman took no notice of what they 
 said. Her face showed no sign of what she 
 thought ; her eyes were unwaveringly fixed on 
 the distance. 
 
 " She shall choose her own death," said the 
 Sheikh-el-beled ; " and I will bear word to the 
 Mudir." 
 
 "I dine with the Mudir to-night; I will 
 carry the word," said Dicky; "and the death 
 that the woman shall die will be the death he 
 will choose." 
 
 The woman's eyes came like Ughtning from 
 the distance, and fastened upon his face. Then 
 he said, with the back of his hand to his 
 mouth to hide a yawn : 
 
 " The manner of her death will please the 
 Mudir. It must please him." 
 
 " What death does this vulture among 
 women choose to die ? " said the Sheikh-el- 
 beled. 
 
 Her answer could scarcely be heard in the 
 roar and the riot surrounding the hut. 
 
 126 
 
THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE 
 
 A half-hour later Dicky entered the room 
 where the Mudir sat on his divan drinking his 
 coifee. The great man looked up in angry as- 
 tonishment — for Dicky had come unannounced 
 — and his fat hands twitched on his breast, 
 where they had been folded. His saUow face 
 turned a little green. Dicky made no saluta- 
 tion. 
 
 " Dog of an infidel ! " said the Mudir under 
 his breath. 
 
 Dicky heard, but did no more than fasten 
 his eyes upon the Mudir for a moment. 
 
 " Your business ? " said the Mudir. 
 
 "The business of the Khedive," answered 
 Dicky, and his riding-whip tapped his leg- 
 gings. " I have come about the English girl." 
 As he said this, he lighted a cigarette slowly, 
 looking, as it were casually, into the Mudir's 
 eyes. 
 
 The Mudir's hand ran out like a snake to- 
 wards a bell on the cushions, but Dicky shot 
 forward and caught the wrist in his slim, steel- 
 like fingers. There was a hard gUtter in his 
 eyes as he looked down into the eyes of the 
 master of a hundred slaves, the ruler of a 
 province. 
 
 " I have a command of the Khedive to bring 
 you to Cairo, and to kill you if you resist," 
 said Dicky. "Sit still — you had better sit 
 
 127 
 
THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE 
 
 still," he added, in a soothing voice behind 
 which was a deadly authority. 
 
 The Mudir licked his dry, colourless Ups, 
 and gasped ; for he might make an outcry, but 
 he saw that Dicky would be quicker. He had 
 been too long enervated by indulgence to make 
 a fight. 
 
 " You'd better take a drink of water," said 
 Dicky, seating himself upon a Louis Quinze 
 chair, a relic of civihsation brought by the 
 Mudir from Paris into an antique barbarism. 
 Then he added sternly, " What have you done 
 with the English girl ? " 
 
 " I know nothing of an English girl," an- 
 swered the Mudu". 
 
 Dicky's words were chosen as a jeweller 
 chooses stones for the ring of a betrothed 
 woman. " You had a friend in London, a 
 brother of hell like yourself He, like you, 
 had Uved in Paris; and that is why this thing 
 happened. You had your own women slaves 
 from Kordofan, from Circassia, from Syria, 
 from your own land. It was not enough: 
 you must have an English girl in your harem. 
 You knew you could not buy her, you knew 
 that none would come to you for love, neither 
 the drab nor the lady. None would lay her 
 hand in that of a leprous dog like yourself. 
 So you lied, your friend lied for you — sons of 
 
 128 
 
THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE 
 
 dogs of liars all of you, beasts begotten of 
 beasts ! You must have a governess for your 
 children, forsooth 1 And the girl was told she 
 would come to a palace. She came to a stable, 
 and to shame and murder." 
 
 Dicky paused. 
 
 The fat, greasy hands of the Mudir fumbled 
 towards the water-glass. It was empty, but 
 he raised it to his lips and drained the air. 
 
 Dicky's eyes fastened him Uke arrows. 
 " The girl died an hour ago," he continued. 
 " I was with her when she died. You must 
 pay the price. Abbas Bey." He paused. 
 
 There was a moment's silence, and then a 
 voice, dry Uke that of one who comes out of 
 chloroform, said, " What is the price ? " 
 
 The Uttle touch of cruelty in Dicky's nat- 
 ure, working with a sense of justice and an 
 ever ingenious mind, gave a pleasant quietness 
 to the inveterate hate that possessed him. He 
 thought of another woman — of her who was 
 to die to-morrow. 
 
 "There was another woman," said Dicky: 
 " one of your own people. She was given a mind 
 and a soul. You deserted her in your harem 
 — what was there left for her to think of but 
 death ? She had no child. But death was a 
 black prospect ; for you would go to heaven, 
 and she would be in the outer darkness ; and 
 
 139 
 
THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE 
 
 she loved you ! A woman's brain thinks wild 
 things. She fled from you, and went the pil- 
 grimage to Mecca. She did all that a man 
 might do to save her soul, according to Ma- 
 homet. She is to die to-morrow by the will 
 of the people — and the Mudir of the Fay- 
 oum." 
 
 Dicky paused once more. He did not look 
 at the Mudir, but out of the window towards 
 the Bahr-el- Yusef, where the Fellaheen of the 
 Mudir's estate toiled like beasts of burden with 
 the barges and the great khiassas laden with 
 cotton and sugar-cane. 
 
 " God make your words merciful 1 " said the 
 Mudir. " What would you have me do ? " 
 
 " The Khedive, our master, has given me 
 your life," said Dicky. " I will ma:ke your end 
 easy. The woman has done much to save her 
 soul. She buries her face in the dust because 
 she hath no salvation. It is written in the 
 Koran that a man may save the soul of his 
 wife. You have your choice : will you come 
 to Cairo to Sadik Pasha, and be crucified like 
 a bandit of your own province, or will you die 
 with the woman in the Birket-el-Kurun to- 
 morrow at sunrise, and walk with her into the 
 Presence and save her soul, and pay the price 
 of the English Hfe?" 
 
 " Malaish ! " answered the Mudir. " Water," 
 130 
 
THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE 
 
 he added quickly. He had no power to move, 
 for fear had paralysed him. Dicky brought 
 him a goolah of water. 
 
 The next morning, at sunrise, a strange 
 procession drew near to the Birket-el-Kurun. 
 Twenty ghaflBrs went ahead with their na- 
 boots; then came the kavasses, then the 
 ;Mudir mounted, with Dicky riding beside, his 
 hand upon the holster where his pistol was. 
 The face of the Mudir was like a wrinkled 
 skin of lard, his eyes had the look of one 
 drunk with hashish. Behind them came the 
 woman, and now upon her face there was only 
 a look of peace. The distracted gaze had gone 
 from her eyes, and she listened without a 
 tremor to the voices of the wailers behind. 
 
 Twenty yards from the lake, Dicky called 
 a halt — Dicky, not the Mudir. The soldiers 
 came forward and put heavy chains and a ball 
 upon the woman's ankles. The woman car- 
 ried the ball in her arms to the very verge of 
 the lake, by the deep pool called " The Pool 
 of the Slaughtered One." 
 
 Dickey turned to the Mudir. "Are you 
 ready ? " he said. 
 
 " Inshallah / " said the Mudir. 
 
 The soldiers made a hne, but the crowd 
 overlapped the line. The Fellaheen and Bed- 
 
 131 
 
THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE 
 
 ouins looked to see the Mudir summon the 
 Ulema to condemn the woman to shame and 
 darkness everlasting. But suddenly Abbas 
 Bey turned and took the woman's right hand 
 in his left. 
 
 Her eyes opened in an ecstasy. " O lord 
 and master, I go to heaven with thee ! " she 
 said, and threw herself forward. 
 
 Without a sound the heavy body of the 
 Mudir lurched forward with her, and they 
 sank into the water together. A cry of horror 
 and wonder burst from the crowd. 
 
 Dicky turned to them, and raised both 
 hands. 
 
 " In the name of our Master the Khedive 1 " 
 he cried. 
 
 Above the spot where the two had sunk 
 floated the red tarboosh of the Mudir of the 
 Fayoum. 
 
A TREATY OF PEACE 
 
 'R WILLIAM SOWERBY, 
 
 lieutenant in the Mounted 
 Infantry, was in a difficult 
 situation, out of which he 
 was httle likely to come 
 with credit — or his life. It is 
 a dangerous thing to play with 
 fire, so it is said ; it is a more dan- 
 gerous thing to walk rough-shod 
 over Oriental customs. A man 
 ere this has lost his life by carrying 
 his shoe-leather across the thresh- 
 old of a mosque, and this sort of thing Will- 
 iam Sowerby knew, and of his knowledge he 
 heeded. He did not heed another thing, how- 
 ever ; which is, that Oriental ladies are at 
 home to but one man in all the world, and 
 that your acquaintance with them must be 
 modified by a mushrabieh screen, a yashmak, 
 a shaded, fast-driving brougham, and a hideous 
 eunuch. 
 
 10 133 
 
A TREATY OF PEACE 
 
 William Sowerby had not been long in 
 Egypt, and he had not travelled very far or 
 very wide in the Orient ; and he vi^as an im- 
 pressionable and harmless young man v^^hose 
 bark and bite were of equal value. His ideas 
 of a harem were inaccurately based on the leg- 
 end that it is necessarily the habitation of 
 many wives and concubines and slaves. It 
 had never occurred to him that there might be 
 a sort of family life in a harem ; that a pasha 
 or a bey might have daughters as well as 
 wives ; or might have only one wife — which is 
 less expensive ; and that a harem is not neces- 
 sarily the heaven of a voluptuary, an elysium 
 of rosy-petalled love and passion. Yet he 
 might have known it all, and should have 
 known it all, if he had taken one-fifth of the 
 time to observe and study Egyptian life which 
 he gave to polo and golf and racquets. Yet 
 even if he had known the life from many stand- 
 points he would still have cherished illusions, 
 for, as Dicky Donovan, who had a sense of 
 satire, said in some satirical lines, the cher- 
 ished amusement of more than one dinner- 
 table : 
 
 " Oh, William William Sowerby 
 Has come out for to see 
 The way of a bimbasht 
 With Egyptian Cavalrec 
 134i 
 
A TREATY OF PEACE 
 
 But William William Sowerby 
 
 His eyes do open wide 
 When he sees the Pasha's chosen 
 In her " bruggam " and her pride. 
 And William William Sowerby, 
 
 He has a tender smile. 
 Which will bring him in due season 
 
 To the waters of the Nile — 
 
 And the cheery crocodile ! " 
 
 It can scarcely be said that Dicky was 
 greatly surprised when Mahommed Yeleb, the 
 servant of " William WUliam Sowerby," came 
 rapping at his door one hot noonday with a 
 dark tale of disaster to his master. This was 
 the heart of the thing — A languid, bored, in- 
 viting face, and two dark curious eyes in a 
 slow-driving brougham out on the Pyramid 
 Road ; William's tender, answering smile ; his 
 horse gaUopmg behind to within a discreet dis- 
 tance of the palace, where the lady alighted, 
 shadowed by the black-coated eunuch. The 
 same thing for several days, then a device to 
 let the lady Know his name, then a little note 
 half in Arabic, half in French, so mysterious, 
 so fascinating — William Sowerby walked on 
 air! Then, a nocturnal going forth, followed 
 by his frightened servant, who dared not give a 
 warning, for fear of the ever-ready belt which 
 had scarred his back erstwhile ; the palace wall, 
 an opening door, the figure of his master pass- 
 
 135 
 
A TREATY OF PEACE 
 
 ing through, the closing gate; and then no 
 more — nothing more, for a long thirty-six 
 hours ! 
 
 Mahommed Yeleb's face would have been 
 white if his skin had permitted — it was a 
 sickly yellow; his throat was guttural with 
 anxiety, his eyes furtive and strained, for was 
 he not the servant of his master, and might 
 not he be marked for the early tomb if, as he 
 was sure, his master was gone that way ? 
 
 " Aiwa, effendi, it is sure," he said to Dicky 
 Donovan, who never was surprised at anything 
 that happened. He had no fear of anything 
 that breathed; and he kept his place with 
 Ismail because he told the truth pitilessly, was 
 a poorer man than the Khedive's barber, and a 
 beggar beside the Chief Eunuch ; also, because 
 he had a real understanding of the Oriental 
 mind, together with a rich sense of humour. 
 
 " What is sure ? " said Dicky to the Arab 
 with assumed composure ; for it was important 
 that he should show neither anxiety nor as- 
 tonishment, lest panic seize the man, and he 
 rush abroad with grave scandal streaming from 
 his mouth, and the English fat be in the 
 Egyptian fire for ever. " What is sure, Ma- 
 hommed Yeleb ? " repeated Dicky, Ughting a 
 cigarette idly. 
 
 " It is as God wills ; but as the tongue of 
 136 
 
A TREATY OF PEACE 
 
 man speaks, so is he— Bimbashi Sowerby my 
 master — swallowed up these thirty-six hours 
 in the tomb prepared for him by Selamlik 
 Pasha." 
 
 Dicky felt his eyelids twitch, and he almost 
 gave a choking groan of anxiety, for Selamlik 
 Pasha would not spare the invader of his ha- 
 rem ; an English invader would be a delicate 
 morsel for his pitiless soul. He shuddered in- 
 wardly at the thought of what might have oc- 
 curred, what might occur still. 
 
 If Sowerby had been trapped and was 
 abeady dead, the knowledge would creep 
 through the bazaars like a soft wind of the 
 night, and all the Arab world would rejoice 
 that a cursed Inglesi, making the unpardon- 
 able breach of their code, had been given to 
 the crocodiles, been smothered, or stabbed, or 
 tortured to death with fire. And, if it were so, 
 what could be done ? Could England make a 
 case of it, avenge the life of this young fool 
 who had disgraced her in the eyes of the 
 world, of the envious French in Cairo, and of 
 that population of the palaces who hated her 
 because EngUshmen were the enemies of 
 backsheesh, corruption, tyranny, and slavery ? 
 And to what good the attempt ? Exists the 
 personal law of the Oriental palace, and who 
 may punish any there save by that personal 
 
 131 
 
A TREATY OF PEACE 
 
 law? What outside law shall apply to any- 
 thing that happens within those mysterious 
 walls ? Who shall bear true witness, when the 
 only judge is he whose palace it is? Though 
 twenty nations should unite to judge, where 
 might proof be found ? — Inside the palace, 
 where all men lie and bear false witness ? 
 
 If Sowerby was not dead, then resort to 
 force ? Go to Selamlik Pasha the malignant, 
 and demand the young officer? How easy 
 for Selamlik Pasha to deny all knowledge of 
 his existence ! Threaten Selamlik — and raise a 
 Mahommedan crusade ? That would not do. 
 
 Say nought, then, and let Sowerby, who 
 had thrust his head into the jaws of the tiger, 
 get it out as best he might, or not get it out, 
 as the case might be? 
 
 Neither was that possible to Dicky Dono- 
 van, even if it were the more politic thing to 
 do, even if it were better for England's name.' 
 Sowerby was his friend, as men of the same 
 race are friends together in a foreign country. 
 Dicky had a poor opinion of Sowerby 's sense 
 or ability, and yet he knew that if he were in 
 Sowerby's present situation — living or dead — 
 Sowerby would spill his blood a hundred use- 
 less times, if need be, to save him. 
 
 He had no idea of leaving Sowerby where 
 he was, if alive ; or of not avenging him one 
 
 138 
 
A TREATY OF PEACE 
 
 way or another if dead. But how that might 
 be he was not on the instant sure. He had 
 been struck as with a sudden blindness by the 
 news, though he showed nothing of this to 
 Mahommed Yeleb. His chief object was to 
 inspire the Arab with confidence, since he was 
 probably the only man outside Selamlik's pal- 
 ace who knew the thing as yet. It was likely 
 that Selamlik Pasha would be secret till he 
 saw whether Sowerby would be missed and 
 what inquiry was made for him. It was im- 
 portant to Dicky, in the first place, that this 
 Mahommed Yeleb be kept quiet, by being 
 made a confidant of his purposes so far as 
 need be, an accomplice in his efforts whatever 
 they should be. Kept busy, with a promise 
 of success and backsheesh when the matter 
 was completed, the Arab would probably re- 
 main secret. Besides, as Dicky said to him- 
 self, while Mahommed kept his head, he would 
 not risk parading himself as the servant of the 
 infidel who had invaded the Pasha's harem. 
 Again, it was certain that he had an adequate 
 devotion to his master, who had given him as 
 many ha'pence as kicks, and many cast-ofF 
 underclothes and cigarettes. 
 
 Thus it was that before Dicky had arranged 
 what he should do, though plans were fusing 
 an his brain, he said to Mahommed Yeleb seri- 
 
 139 
 
A TREATY OF PEACE 
 
 ously, as befitting the crime Sowerby had com- 
 mitted — evenly, as befitted the influence he 
 wished to have over the Arab : " Keep your 
 tongue between your teeth, Mahommed. We 
 will pull him through all right." 
 
 " But, effendi, whom God honour, for great- 
 ness is in all thy ways, friend of the Com- 
 mander of the Faithful as thou art — but, 
 saadat el basha, if he be dead ? " 
 
 " He is not dead. I know it by the eyes of 
 my mind, Mahommed — yea, by the hairs of 
 my head, he is not dead ! " 
 
 " Saadat el basha, thou art known as the 
 truth-teller and the incorruptible — this is the 
 word of the Egjrptian and of the infidel con- 
 cerning thee. I kiss thy feet. For it is true 
 he hath deserved death, but woe be to him 
 by whom his death cometh ! And am I not 
 his servant to be with him while he hath life, 
 and hath need of me ? If thou sayest he is 
 alive, then is he alive, and my heart rejoices." 
 
 Dicky scarcely heard what the Arab said, 
 for the quick conviction he had had that 
 Sowerby was aUve was based on the fact, 
 suddenly remembered, that Selamlik Pasha 
 had only returned from the Fayoum this very 
 morning, and that therefore he could not as 
 yet have had any share in the fate of Sowerby, 
 but had probably been sent for by the Chief 
 
 14.0 
 
A TREATY OF PEACE 
 
 Eunuch. It was but an hour since that he 
 had seen Selamhk Pasha driving hastily towards 
 his palace. 
 
 His mind was instantly made up, his plans 
 formed to his purpose. 
 
 " Listen, Mahommed," he said to the Arab. 
 " Listen to each word I say, as though it were 
 the prayer to take thee into Paradise. Go at 
 once to Selamlik Pasha. Carry this ring the 
 Khedive gave to me — he will know it. Do 
 not be denied his presence. Say that it is 
 more than life and death; that it is all he 
 values in the world. Once admitted, say 
 these words — ' Donovan Pasha knows all, and 
 asks an audience at midnight in this palace. 
 Until that hour Donovan Pasha desires peace. 
 For is it not the law, an eye for an eye and a 
 tooth for a tooth ? Is not a market a place to 
 buy and sell? ' " 
 
 Four times did Dicky make the Arab re- 
 peat the words after him, till they ran like 
 water from his tongue, and dismissed him 
 upon the secret errand with a handful of 
 silver. 
 
 Immediately the Arab had gone, Dicky's 
 face flushed with excitement, in the reaction 
 from his lately assumed composure. For five 
 minutes he walked up and down, using lan- 
 guage scarcely printable, reviling Sowerby, 
 
 141 
 
A TREATY OF PEACE 
 
 and setting his teeth in anger. But he sud- 
 denly composed himself, and, sitting down, 
 stared straight before him for a long time 
 without stirring a muscle. There was urgent 
 need of action, but there was more urgent 
 need of his making no mistake, of his doing 
 the one thing necessary, for Sowerby could 
 only be saved in one way, not many. 
 
 It was useless to ask the Khedive's inter- 
 vention — Ismail dared not go against Selamlik 
 in this. Whatever was done must be done 
 between Selamhk Pasha the tigerish libertine 
 and Richard Donovan, the little man who, at 
 the tail end of Ismail's reign, was helping him 
 hold things together against the black day of 
 reckoning, " prepared for the devil and all his 
 angels," as Dicky had said to Ismail on this 
 very momentous morning, when warning him 
 of the perils in his path. Now Dicky had 
 been at war with SelamUk ever since, one day 
 long ago on the Nile, he and Fielding had 
 thwarted his purposes ; and Dicky had earned 
 the Pasha's changeless hatred by caUing him 
 " Trousers " — for this name had gone up and 
 down throughout Egypt as a doubtful story 
 travels, drawing easy credit everywhere. Those 
 were the days when Dicky was irresponsible. 
 Of all in Egypt who hated him most, Selam- 
 lik Pasha was the chief. But most people 
 
 142 
 
A TREATY OF PEACE 
 
 hated Selamlik, so the world was not con- 
 founded by the great man's rage, nor did they 
 dishke Dicky simply because the Pasha chose 
 to do so. Through years Selamlik had built 
 up his power, until even the Khedive feared 
 him, and would have been glad to tie a stone 
 round his neck and drop him into the Nile. 
 But Ismail could no longer do this sort of 
 thing without some show of reason: Europe 
 was hanging on his actions, waiting for the 
 apt moment to depose him. 
 
 All this Dicky knew, and five minutes from 
 the time Mahommed Yeleb had left him he 
 was on his way to Ismail's palace, with his 
 kavass behind him, cool and ruminating as 
 usual, now answering a salute in Turkish fash- 
 ion, now in English, as Egyptians or Euro- 
 peans passed him. 
 
 II 
 
 There was one being in the Khedive's pal- 
 ace whose admiration for Dicky was a kind 
 of fetish, and Dicky loathed him. Twice had 
 Dicky saved this Chief Eunuch's hfe from Is- 
 mail's anger, and once had he saved his fort- 
 une — not even from compassion, but out of 
 his inherent love of justice. As Dicky had 
 said : " Let him die for what he has done, not 
 
 143 
 
A TREATY OF PEACE 
 
 for something he has not done. Send him to 
 the devil with a true bill of crime." 
 
 So it was that Dicky, who shrank from the 
 creature whom Ministers and Pashas fawned 
 upon — so powerful was his unique position in 
 the palace — went straight to him now to get 
 his quid-pro-quo, his measure for measure. 
 
 The tall, black-cOated, smooth-faced creat- 
 ure, sUent and watchful and lean, stepped 
 through the doorway with the footfall of a 
 cat. He slid forward, salaamed to the floor — 
 Dicky wondered how a body could open and 
 shut so like the blade of a knife — and, catch- 
 ing Dicky's hand, kissed it. 
 
 " May thy days be watered with the dew of 
 heaven, saadat el basha," said the Chief 
 Eunuch. 
 
 " Mine eyes have not seen since thy last with- 
 drawal," answered Dicky blandly, in the high- 
 flown Oriental way. 
 
 " Thou hast sent for me. I am thy slave." 
 
 " I have sent for thee, Mizraim. And thou 
 shalt prove thyself, once for all, whether thy 
 hand moves as thy tongue speaks." 
 
 " To serve thee I will lay down my life — I 
 will blow it from me as the wind bloweth the 
 cotton flower. Have I not spoken thus since 
 the Feast of Beiram, now two years gone ? " 
 
 Dicky lowered his voice. " Doth Mustapha 
 144 
 
A TREATY OF PEACE 
 
 Bey, that son of the he-wolf Selamhk Pasha, 
 still foUow the carriage of the Khedive's fa- 
 vourite, and hang about the walls, and seek 
 to corrupt thee with gold, Mohammed Miz- 
 raim? 
 
 " Saadat el basha, but for thy word to wait, 
 the Khedive had been told long since." 
 
 " It is the sport to strike when the sword 
 cuts with the longest arm, O son of Egjrpt ! " 
 
 The face of Mizraim was ugly with the un- 
 natural cruelty of an unnatural man. " Is the 
 time at hand, saadat el basha? " 
 
 " You hate Selamlik Pasha? " 
 
 " As the hon the jackal." 
 
 Dicky would have laughed in scorn if he 
 might have dared — this being to class himself 
 with hons I But the time was not fit for 
 laughter ! " And the son of Selamhk Pasha, 
 the vile Mustapha Bey? " he asked. 
 
 " I would grind him hke corn between the 
 stones! Hath he not sent messages by the 
 women of the bazaar to the harem of my 
 royal master, to whom God give glory in 
 heaven? Hath he not sought to enter the 
 harem as a weazel crawls under a wall? 
 Hath he not sought to steal what I hoard by 
 a mighty hand and the eye of an eagle for Is- 
 mail the Great ? Shall I love him more than 
 the dog that tears the throat of a gazelle ? " 
 
 145 
 
A TREATY OF PEACE 
 
 The gesture of cruelty he made was disgust- 
 ing to the eyes of Dicky Donovan, but he had 
 in his mind the peril to Sowerby, and he nod- 
 ded his head in careless approval, as it were. 
 
 "Then, Mizraim, thou son of secrecy and 
 keeper of the door, take heed to what I say, 
 and for thine honour and my need do as I will. 
 Thou shalt to-night admit Mustapha Bey to 
 the harem — at the hour of nine o'clock ! " 
 
 " Saadat el basha 1 " The Eunuch's face 
 was sickly in its terrified wonder. 
 
 " Even so. At nine." 
 
 "But, saadat " 
 
 " Bring him secretly, even to the door of the 
 favourite's room; then, have him seized and 
 carried to a safe place till I send for him." 
 
 " Ah, saadat el basha " The lean face 
 
 of the creature smUed, and the smUe was not 
 nice to see. 
 
 " Let no harm be done him, but await my 
 messenger, Mahommed Yeleb, and whatsoever 
 he bids you to do, do it; for I speak." 
 
 "Ah, saadat el basha, you would strike 
 Selamlik Pasha so — the great beast, the black 
 river pig, the serpent of the sUme . . . !" 
 
 " You will do this thing, Mizraim ? " 
 
 " I shall lure him as the mirage the pilgrim. 
 With joy I will do this, and a hundred times 
 more." 
 
 146 
 
A TREATY OF PEACE 
 
 " Even if I asked of thee the keys of the 
 harem? " said Dicky grimly. 
 
 " EfFendi, thou wouldst not ask. All the 
 world knows thee. For thee the harem hath 
 no lure. Thou goest not by dark ways to 
 deeds for thine own self. Thou hast honour. 
 Ismail himself would not fear thee." 
 
 " See, thou master of many, squeak not thy 
 voice so high. Ismail will take thy head and 
 mine, if he discovers to-night's business. Go 
 then with a soft tread, Mizraim. Let thy 
 hand be quick on his mouth, and beware that 
 no one sees I " 
 
 III 
 
 Upon the stroke of midnight Dicky entered 
 the room where Selamlik Pasha awaited him 
 with a malicious and greasy smile, in which 
 wanton cruelty was uppermost. Selamlik 
 Pasha knew well the object of this meeting. 
 He had accurately interpreted the message 
 brought by Mahommed Yeleb. He knew his 
 power; he knew that the Enghshman's life 
 was in his hands to do with it what he chose, for 
 the law of the harem which defies all outside 
 law was on his side. But here he was come 
 to Usten to Dicky Donovan, the arrogant lit- 
 tle favourite, pleading for the life of the Eng- 
 
 147 
 
A TREATY OF PEACE 
 
 lish boy who had done the thing for which the 
 only penalty was death. 
 
 Dicky showed no emotion as he entered the 
 room, but salaamed, and said: "Your excel- 
 lency is prompt. Honour and peace be upon 
 your excellency ! " 
 
 " Honour and the bounty of the stars be 
 upon thee, saadat el basha ! " 
 
 There was a slight pause, in which Dicky 
 seated himself, Ughted a cigarette, and sum- 
 moned a servant, of whom he ordered coffee. 
 They did not speak meantime, but Dicky sat 
 calmly, almost drowsily, smoking, and Selam- 
 Uk Pasha sat with greasy hands clasping and 
 unclasping, his yellow eyes fixed on Dicky 
 with malevolent scrutiny. 
 
 When the coffee was brought, the door had 
 been shut, and Dicky had drawn the curtain 
 across, Selamhk Pasha said : " What great af- 
 fair brings us together here, saadat el basha ? " 
 
 " The matter of the Englishman you hold a 
 prisoner, excellency." 
 
 "It is painful, but he is dead," said the 
 Pasha, with a grimace of cruelty. 
 
 Dicky's eyes twitched slightly, but he an- 
 swered with coolness, thrusting his elbow into 
 the cushions and smoking hard : " But, no, he 
 is not dead. Selamlik Pasha has as great an 
 instinct for a bargain as for revenge. Also 
 
 14.8 
 
A TREATY OF PEACE 
 
 Selamlik Pasha would torture before he kills. 
 Is it not so ? " 
 
 " What is your wish ? " 
 
 " That the man be set free, excellency." 
 
 " He has trespassed. He has stolen his way 
 into the harem. The infidel dog has defiled 
 the house of my wives." 
 
 " He will marry the woman, with your per- 
 mission, excellency. He loved her — so it 
 would seem." 
 
 " He shall die — the dog of an infidel ! " 
 
 Dicky was now satisfied that Sowerby was 
 alive, and that the game was fairly begun. He 
 moved slowly towards his purpose. 
 
 " I ask his life, as a favour to me. The 
 Khedive honours me, and I can serve you 
 betimes, excellency." 
 
 " You called me ' Trousers,' and all Egypt 
 laughed," answered the Pasha malignantly. 
 
 " I might have called you worse, but I did 
 not. You may call me what you wUl — I will 
 laugh." 
 
 " I will call you a fool for bringing me here 
 to laugh at you, who now would kiss Selamlik 
 Pasha's shoe. I would he were your brother. 
 I would tear out his finger-nails, pierce his 
 eyes, burn him with hot irons, pour boiling oil 
 over him and red cinders down his throat — if 
 he were your brother." 
 
 n 149 
 
A TREATY OF PEACE 
 
 " Remember I am in the confidence of the 
 Khedive, pasha." 
 
 " Ismail ! What dare he do ? Every Egyp- 
 tian in the land would call him infidel. Ismail 
 would dare do nothing." His voice was angrily 
 guttural with triumph. 
 
 " England will ask the price of the young 
 man's life of you, excellency." 
 
 " England dare not move : is thy servant a 
 fool ? Every Mussulman in the land would 
 raise the green flag — the Jehad would be upon 
 
 ye!" 
 
 " He is so young. He meant no ill. The 
 face of your daughter drew him on. He did 
 not realise his crime — nor its penalty." 
 
 " It is a fool's reasoning. Because he was a 
 stranger and an infidel, so has he been told of 
 dark things done to those who desecrate our 
 faith." 
 
 " Had he been an Egyptian or a Turk " 
 
 " I should slay him, were he Ismail himself. 
 Mine own is mine own, as Mahomet hath said. 
 The man shall die — and who shall save him ? 
 Not even the Sultan himself" 
 
 " There are concessions in the Fayoum ; you 
 have sought them long." 
 
 "Bahl" 
 
 " There is the Grand Cordon of the Mejid- 
 ieh; there is a way to it, excellency." 
 
 150 
 
A TREATY OF PEACE 
 
 " The man's blood 1 " 
 
 " There is a high office to be vacant soon, 
 near to the person of the Khedive, with divers 
 moneys and loans " 
 
 " To see Donovan Pasha cringe and beg is 
 better." 
 
 "There is that mercy which one day you 
 may have to ask for yourself or for your 
 own " 
 
 "The fool shall die. And who shall save 
 him?" 
 
 " WeU, I will save him," said Dicky, rising 
 slowly to his feet. 
 
 " Pish ! Go to the Khedive with the tale, 
 and I will kiU the man within the hour, and 
 teU it abroad, and we shall see where Donovan 
 Pasha wUl stand to-morrow. The Khedive is 
 not stronger than his people — and there are 
 the French, and others 1 " He spat upon the 
 floor at Dicky's feet. " Go, tell the Khedive 
 what you wUl, dog of an Englishman, son of a 
 dog with a dog's heart ! " 
 
 Dicky took a step forward, with an ominous 
 flare of colour in his cheek. There was a 
 table between him and SelamUk Pasha. He 
 put both hands upon it, and leaning over said 
 in a voice of steel : 
 
 " So be it, then. Shall I go to the Khedive 
 and say that this night Mustapha Bey, eldest 
 
 15-1 
 
A TREATY OF PEACE 
 
 and chosen son of Selamlik Pasha, the dar- 
 hng of his fat heart, was seized by the Chief 
 Eunuch, the gentle Mizraim, in the harem of 
 His Highness ? ShaU I teU him that. Trou- 
 sers ? " 
 
 As Dicky spoke, slowly, calmly, SelamUk 
 Pasha turned a greenish-yellow, his eyes started 
 from his head, his hand chafed the air. 
 
 " Mustapha Bey — Khedive's harem ! " he 
 stammered in a husky voice. 
 
 " By the gentle Mizraim, I said," answered 
 Dicky. " Is Mustapha Bey's hfe worth an 
 hour's purchase ? Is Selamlik Pasha safe ? " 
 
 " Is — is he dead ? " gasped the cowardly 
 Egyptian, furtively glancing towards the door. 
 Suddenly he fell back fainting, and Dicky 
 threw some water in his face, then set a cup of 
 it beside him. 
 
 " Drink, and pull yourself together, if you 
 would save yourself," said Dicky. 
 
 " Save — save myself," said Selamhk Pasha, 
 recovering ; then, with quick suspicion, and to 
 gain time, added quickly, " Ah, it is a trick ! 
 He is not a prisoner — you lie ! " 
 
 " I have not a reputation for lying," rejoined 
 Dicky quietly. " But see I " he added ; and 
 throwi^ig open a door, pointed to where the 
 Chief Eunuch stood with Mahommed Yeleb, 
 Mustapha Bey gagged and bound between 
 
 152 
 
A TREATY OF PEACE 
 
 them. Dicky shut the door again, as Selam- 
 lik Pasha shrank back among the cushions, 
 cowardice incarnate. 
 
 "You thought," said Dicky with a soft 
 fierceness, "you thought that I would stoop 
 to bargain with Selamlik Pasha and not know 
 my way out of the bargain ? You thought an 
 Enghshman would beg, even for a life, of such 
 as you ! You thought me, Donovan Pasha, 
 such a fool ! " 
 
 " Mercy, excellency 1 " said Selamlik, spread- 
 ing out his hands. 
 
 Dicky laughed. "You called me names, 
 Selamlik — a dog, and the son of a dog with a 
 dog's heart. Was it wise ? " 
 
 " Is there no way ? Can no bargain be 
 made ? " 
 
 Dicky sat down, Ughting a cigarette. 
 
 " To save a scandal in Egypt," answered 
 Dicky drily, ' ' I am ready to grant you terms." 
 
 " Speak — excellency." 
 
 " The life of the Enghshman for the hfe of 
 your son and your own. Also, the freedom of 
 the six Circassian slaves whom you house now 
 at Beni Hassan, ready to bring to your palace. 
 Also, for these slaves two hundred Turkish 
 pounds apiece. Also, your written word that 
 you will bring no more slaves into Egypt. Is 
 the bargain fair ? " 
 
 153 
 
A TREATY OF PEACE 
 
 " Mizraim may still betray us," said Selam- 
 lik, trembling, with relief, but yet apprehen- 
 sive. 
 
 " Mizraim is in my power — he acts for me," 
 said Dicky. " Whose hfe is safe here save my 
 own ? " 
 
 " Malaish ! It shall be as your will is, excel- 
 lency," answered Selamlik Pasha, in a shaking 
 voice ; and he had time to wonder even then 
 how an Englishman could so outwit an Ori- 
 ental. It was no matter how Mustapha Bey, 
 his son, was lured ; he had been seized in the 
 harem, and all truth can be forsworn in Egypt, 
 and the game was with this Donovan Pasha. 
 
 "Send to your palace, commanding that 
 the Englishman be brought here," said Dicky. 
 Selamlik Pasha did so. 
 
 Sowerby of the Mounted Infantry was freed 
 that night, and the next day Dicky Donovan 
 had six Circassian slaves upon his hands. He 
 passed them over to the wife of Fielding Bey 
 with whom he had shared past secrets and past 
 dangers. 
 
 Selamlik Pasha held his peace in fear ; and 
 the Khedive and Cairo never knew why there 
 was a truce to battle between Dicky Donovan 
 and that vile Pasha called Trousers. 
 
 154 
 
AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS 
 
 'N a certain year when Dicky- 
 Donovan was the one being 
 in Egypt who had any re- 
 straining influence on the 
 Khedive, he suddenly asked 
 leave of absence to visit 
 England. Ismail granted it 
 vfith. reluctance, chiefly be- 
 cause he disliked any inter- 
 ference with his comforts, 
 and Dicky was one of them — in some respects 
 the most important. 
 
 "My friend," he said half petulantly to 
 Dicky, as he tossed the plans for a new palace 
 to his secretary and dismissed him, " are you 
 not happy here ? Have you not all a prince 
 can give ? " 
 
 " Highness, " answered Dicky, " I have kith 
 and kin in England. Shall a man forget his 
 native land ? " 
 
 The Khedive yawned, lighted a cigarette, 
 and murmured through the smoke : " Inshal- 
 lah ! It might be pleasant — betimes." 
 
 155 
 
AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS 
 
 "I have your Highness' leave to go?" 
 asked Dicky. 
 
 " May God preserve your head from harm!" 
 answered Ismail in farewell salutation, and, 
 taking a ring from his finger set with a large 
 emerald, he gave it to Dicky, " Gold is scarce 
 in Egypt," he went on, "but there are jewels 
 still in the palace — and the Khedive's promises- 
 to-pay with every money-barber of Europe I " 
 he added, with a cynical sneer, and touched 
 his forehead and his breast courteously as 
 Dicky retired. 
 
 Outside the presence Dicky unbuttoned his 
 coat like an EngUshman again, and ten min- 
 utes later flung his tarboosh into a corner of 
 the room ; for the tarboosh was the sign of offi- 
 cial servitude, and Dicky was never the per- 
 fect official. Initiative was his strong point, 
 independence his life ; he loathed the machine 
 of system in so far as he could not command 
 it; he revolted at being a cog in the wheel. 
 Ismail had discovered this, and Dicky had 
 been made a kind of confidential secretary who 
 seldom wrote a hne. By his influence with 
 Ismail he had even more power at last than 
 the chief eunuch or the valet-de-chambre, be- 
 fore whom the highest officials bowed low. He 
 was hated profoundly by many of the house- 
 hold, cultivated by certain of the Ministers, 
 
 156 
 
AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS 
 
 fawned upon by outsiders, trusted by the 
 Khedive, and entirely beUeved in by the few 
 Enghshmen and Frenchmen who worked for 
 decent administration faithfully, but without 
 hope and sometimes with nausea. 
 
 It was nausea that had seized upon Dicky 
 at last, nausea and one other thing : the spirit 
 of adventure, an inveterate curiosity. His 
 was the instinct of the explorer, his feet were 
 the feet of the Wandering Jew. He knew 
 things behind closed doors by instinct ; he was 
 like a thought-reader in the sure touch of dis- 
 covery ; the Khedive looked upon him as oc- 
 cult almost, and laughed in the face of the 
 MoufFetish Sadik when he said some evil things 
 of Dicky. Also, the Khedive told the Mouf- 
 fetish that if any harm came to Dicky there 
 would come harm to him. The Khedive loved 
 to play one man off against another, and the 
 death of Sadik or the death of Dicky would 
 have given him no pain, if either seemed nec- 
 essary. For the moment, however, he loved 
 them both after his fashion : for Sadik lied to 
 him, and squeezed the land dry, and flailed it 
 with kourbashes for gold for his august master 
 and himself; and Dicky told him the truth 
 about everything — which gave the Khedive 
 knowledge of how he really stood all round. 
 
 Dicky told the great spendthrift the truth 
 15T 
 
AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS 
 
 about himself; but he did not tell the truth 
 when he said he was going to England on a 
 visit to his kith and kin. Seized by the most 
 irresistible curiosity of his hfe, moved by a de- 
 sire for knowledge, that a certain plan in his 
 mind might be successfully advanced he went 
 south and east, not west and north. 
 
 For four months Egypt knew him not. 
 For four months the Khedive was never told 
 the truth save by European financiers, when 
 truths were obvious facts ; for four long months 
 he never saw a fearless or an honest eyeln his 
 own household. Not that it mattered in one 
 sense ; but Ismail was a man of ideas, a sports- 
 man of a sort, an Iniquity with points ; a man 
 who chose the broad way because it was easier, 
 not because he was remorseless. At the start 
 he meant well by his people, but he meant 
 better by himself; and not being able to sat- 
 isfy both sides of the equation, he satisfied 
 one at the expense of the other and of that x 
 quantity otherwise known as Europe. And 
 Europe was heckling him ; the settling of ac- 
 counts was near. Commissioners had been 
 sent to find where were the ninety millions he 
 had borrowed. Only Ismail and Sadik the 
 Mouffetish, once slave and foster-brother, could 
 reply. The Khedive could not long stave off 
 the evil day when he must " pay the debt of 
 
 158 
 
AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS 
 
 the lobster," and Sadik give account of his 
 stewardship. MeanwhLle> his mind turned to 
 the resourceful httle Englishman with the face 
 of a girl and the tongue of an honest man. 
 
 But the day Dicky had set for his return 
 had come and gone, and Dicky himself had 
 not appeared. With a grim sort of satisfac- 
 tion, harmonious with his irritation, Ismail 
 went forth with his retinue to the D6sahj the 
 gruesome celebration of the Prophet's birth- 
 day, following on the return of the pilgrimage 
 from Mecca. At noon he entered his splendid 
 tent at one side of a square made of splendid 
 tents, and looked out listlessly, yet sourly, upon 
 the vast crowds assembled — upon the lines of 
 banners, the red and green pennons embroid- 
 ered with phrases from the Koran. His half- 
 shut, stormy eyes fell upon the tent of the 
 chief of the dervishes, and he scarcely checked 
 a sneer, for the ceremony to be performed ap- 
 pealed to nothing in him save a barbaric in- 
 stinct, and this barbaric instinct had been 
 veneered by French civilisation and pierced 
 by the criticism of one honest man. His look 
 fell upon the long pathway whereon, for three 
 hundred yards, matting had been spread. A 
 field of the cloth of blood ; for on this cloth 
 dervishes back from Mecca, mad with fanat- 
 icism and hashish, would lie packed like her- 
 
 159 
 
AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS 
 
 rings, while the Sheikh of the D6sah rode his 
 horse over their bodies, a pavement of human 
 flesh and bone. 
 
 As the Khedive looked, his lip curled a lit- 
 tle, for he recalled what Dicky Donovan had 
 said about it ; how he had pleaded against it, 
 describing sickening wounds and pilgrims done 
 to death. Dicky had ended his brief homily 
 by saying — " And isn't that a pretty dish to 
 set before a king ! " To Ismail's amusement; 
 for he was no good Mussulman, no Mussul- 
 man at all, in fact, save in occasional violent 
 prejudices got of inheritance and association. 
 
 To-day, however, Ismail was in a bad hu- 
 mour with Dicky and with the world. He had 
 that very morning flogged a soldier senseless 
 with his own hand; he had handed over his 
 favourite Circassian slave to a ruffian Bey, who 
 would drown her or sell her within a month ; 
 and he had dishonoured his own note of hand 
 for fifty thousand pounds to a great merchant 
 who had served him not wisely but too well. 
 He was not taking his troubles quietly, and 
 woe be to the man or woman who crossed him 
 this day I Tiberius was an hungered for a 
 victim to his temper. His entourage knew it 
 well, and many a man trembled that day for 
 his place, or his head, or his home. Even 
 Sadik Pasha the Mouffetish — Sadik, who had 
 
 160 
 
AT THE MERCY OF TIBERroS 
 
 four hundred women slaves dressed in purple 
 and fine linen — Sadik, whose kitchen alone 
 cost him sixty thousand pounds a year, the 
 price of whose cigarette ash-trays was equal 
 to the salary of an English consul — even 
 Sadik, foster-brother, panderer, the Barabbas 
 of his master, was silent and watchful to-day. 
 
 And Sadik, silent and watchful and fearful, 
 was also a dangerous man. As Sadik's look 
 wandered over the packed crowds, his faded 
 eyes scarce realising the bright-coloured gar- 
 ments of the men, the crimson silk tents and 
 banners and pennons, the gorgeous canopies 
 and trappings and plumes of the approaching 
 dervishes, led by the Amir-el-Haj or Prince of 
 the Pilgrims, returned fi-om ]\Iecca, he won- 
 dered what lamb for the sacrifice might be 
 provided to soothe the mind of his master. 
 He looked at the matting in the long lane 
 before them, and he knew that the bodies 
 which would he here presently, yielding to the 
 hoofs of the Sheikh's horse, were not sufficient 
 to appease the rabid spirit tearing at the Khe- 
 dive's soul. He himself had been flouted by 
 one ugly look this morning, and one fi-om Is- 
 mail was enough. 
 
 It did his own sovd good now to see the 
 dervish fanatics foaming at the mouth, their 
 eyes rolling, as they crushed glass in their 
 
 161 
 
AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS 
 
 mouths and ate it, as they swallowed fire, as 
 they tore live serpents to pieces with their 
 teeth and devoured them, as they thrust dag- 
 gers and spikes of steel through their cheeks, 
 and gashed their breasts with knives and 
 swords. He watched the effect of it on the 
 Khedive ; but Ismail had seen aU this before, 
 and he took it in the stride. This was not 
 sufficient. 
 
 Sadik racked his brain to think who in the 
 palace or in official life might be made the 
 scapegoat, upon whom the dark spirit in 
 the heart of the Khedive might be turned. 
 His mean, colourless eyes wandered inquir- 
 ingly over the crowd, as the mad dervishes, 
 half-naked, some with masses of dishevelled 
 hair, some with no hair at all, bleached, hag- 
 gard, moaning and shrieking, threw themselves 
 to the ground on the matting, while attendants 
 pulled off their slippers and placed them under 
 their heads, which lay face downwards. At 
 last Sadik's eyes were arrested by a group of 
 ten dervishes, among them one short in stat- 
 ure and very shght, whose gestures were not 
 so excited as those of his fellows. He also 
 saw that one or two of the dervishes watched 
 the slight man covertly. 
 
 Five of the little group suddenly threw 
 themselves upon the matting, adding their 
 
 162 
 
AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS 
 
 bodies to the highway of bones and flesh. 
 Then another and another did the same, leav- 
 ing three who, with the little man, made a 
 fanatical chorus. Now the three near the lit- 
 tle man began to cut themselves with steel and 
 knives, and one set fire to his jibbeh and be- 
 gan to chew the flames. Yet the faces of all 
 three were turned towards the little man, who 
 did no more than shriek and gesticulate and 
 sway his body wUdly up and down. He was 
 tanned and ragged and bearded and thin, and 
 there was a weird brilUance in his eyes, which 
 watched his companions closely. 
 
 So fierce and frenzied were the actions of 
 those with him, that the attention of the Khe- 
 dive was drawn; and Sadik, looking at his 
 master, saw that his eyes also were intently 
 fixed on the little man. At that instant the 
 little man himself caught the eye of the Khe- 
 dive, and Ismail involuntarily dropped a hand 
 upon his sword, for some gesture of this der- 
 vish, some familiar turn of his body, startled 
 him. Where had he seen the gesture before ? 
 Who was this pilgrim who did not cut and 
 wound himself hke his companions? Sud- 
 denly the three mad dervishes waved their 
 hands towards the matting and shrieked some- 
 thing into his ear. The little man's eyes shot 
 a look at the Khedive. Ismail's ferret eye 
 
 163 
 
AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS 
 
 fastened on him, and a quick fear, as of assas- 
 sination, crossed his face as the small dervish 
 ran forward with the other three to the lane of 
 human flesh, where there was still a gap to be 
 filled, and the cry rose up that the Sheikh of 
 the D6sah had left his tent and was about to 
 begin his direful ride. 
 
 Sadik the Mouffetish saw the Khedive's 
 face, and suddenly said in his ear: "Shall 
 my slave seize him. Highness whom God pre- 
 serve? " 
 
 The Khedive did not reply, for at that mo- 
 ment he recognised the dervish; and now he 
 understood that Dicky Donovan had made the 
 pilgrimage to Mecca with the Mahmal cara- 
 van; that an infidel had desecrated the holy 
 city ; and that his Englishman had hed to him. 
 His first impulse was to have Dicky seized 
 and cast to the crowd, to be torn to pieces. 
 Dicky's eyes met his without wavering — a des- 
 perate yet resolute look — and Ismail knew 
 that the httle man would sell his life dearly, 
 if he had but half a chance. He also saw 
 in Dicky's eyes the old honesty, the fearless 
 straightforwardness — and an appeal too, not 
 humble, but still eager and downright. Ismail's 
 fury was great, for the blue devils had him by 
 the heels that day; but on the instant he saw 
 the eyes of Sadik the Mouffetish, and their 
 
 164 
 
AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS 
 
 cunning, cruelty and soulless depravity, their 
 present search for a victim to his master's bad 
 temper, acted at once on Ismail's sense of hu- 
 mour. He saw that Sadik half suspected 
 something, he saw that Dicky's three compan- 
 ions suspected, and his mind was made up on 
 the instant — things should take their course: 
 he would not interfere. He looked Dicky 
 squarely in the face, and Dicky knew that the 
 Khedive's glance said as plainly as words : 
 
 " Fool of an Englishman, go on ! I will not 
 kiU you, but I will not save you. The game 
 is in your hands alone. You can only avert 
 suspicion by letting the Sheikh of the Dosah 
 make a bridge of your back. Mecca is a jest 
 you must pay for." 
 
 With the wild cry of a dervish fanatic Dicky 
 threw himself down, his head on his arms, and 
 the vengeful three threw themselves down be- 
 side him. The attendants pulled off their 
 slippers and thrust them under their faces, and 
 now the sdis of the Sheikh ran over their bod- 
 ies lightly, calling out for all to lie still — ^the 
 Sheikh was coming on his horse. 
 
 Dicky weighed his chances with a little 
 shrinking, but with no fear: he had been in 
 imminent danger for four long months, he was 
 little likely to give way now. The three men 
 lying beside him had only suspected him for 
 12 165 
 
AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS 
 
 the last three days, and during that time they 
 had never let him out of their sight. What 
 had roused their suspicion he did not know : 
 probably a hesitation concerning some Arab 
 custom or the pronunciation of some Arab 
 word — the timbre of the Arab voice was rougher 
 and heavier. There had been no chance of es- 
 cape during these three days, for his three 
 friends had never left his side, and now they 
 were beside him. His chances were not brill- 
 iant. If he escaped from the iron hoofs of the 
 Sheikh's horse, if the weight did not crush the 
 life out of his small body, there was a fair 
 chance ; for to escape unhurt from the D6sah is 
 to prove yourself for ever a good Mussulman, 
 who has undergone the final test and is saved 
 evermore by the promise of the Prophet. But 
 even if he escaped unhurt, and the suspicions 
 of his comrades were allayed, what would the 
 Khedive do? The Khedive had recognised 
 him, and had done nothing — so far. Yet Is- 
 mail, the chief Mussulman in Egypt, should 
 have thrown him Mke a rat to the terriers ! 
 Why he had acted otherwise he was not cer- 
 tain : perhaps to avoid a horrible sensation at 
 the Ddsah and the outcry of the newspapers of 
 Europe ; perhaps to have him assassinated pri- 
 vately; perhaps, after all, to pardon him. Yet 
 this last alternative was not reasonable, save 
 
 166 
 
AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS 
 
 from the standpoint that Ismail had no relig- 
 ion at all. 
 
 Whatever it was to be, his fate would soon 
 come, and in any case he had done what only 
 one European before him had done : he had 
 penetrated to the tomb of Mahomet at Mec- 
 ca. Whatever should come, he had crowded 
 into his short life a thousand unusual and in- 
 teresting things. His inveterate curiosity had 
 served him well, and he had paid fairly for the 
 candles of his game. He was ready. 
 
 Low moans came to his ears. He could 
 hear the treading hoofs of the Sheikh's horse. 
 Nearer and nearer the frightened animal came ; 
 the shout of those who led the horse was in 
 his ears : " Lie close and still, O brothers of 
 giants 1 " he heard the ribs of a man but two 
 from his break, — he heard the gurgle in the 
 throat of another into whose neck the horse's 
 hoof had sunk. He braced himself and drew 
 his breast close to the ground. 
 
 He could hear now the heavy breathing of 
 the Sheikh of the Dosah, who, to strengthen 
 himself for his ride, had taken a heavy dose 
 of hashish. The toe of the Arab leading the 
 horse touched his head, then a hoof was on 
 him — between the shoulders, pressing — press- 
 ing down, the iron crushing into the flesh — 
 down — down — down, till his eyes seemed to 
 
 167 
 
AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS 
 
 fill with blood. Then another hoof— and this 
 would crush the life out of him. He gasped, 
 and nerved himself. The iron shoe came 
 down, slipped a httle, grazed his side roughly, 
 and sank between himself and the dervish next 
 him, who had shrunk away at the last moment. 
 
 A mad att ; for the horse stumbled, and in 
 recovering himself plunged forward heavily. 
 Dicky expected the hind hoofs to crush down 
 on his back or neck, and drew in his breath ; 
 but the horse, excited by the cries of the peo- 
 ple, drove clear of him, and the hind hoofs fell 
 with a sickening thud on the back and neck 
 of the dervish who had been the cause of the 
 disaster. 
 
 Dicky lay stiU for a moment to get his 
 breath, then sprang to his feet lightly, cast a 
 swift glance of triumph towards the Kliedive, 
 and turned to the dervishes who had lain be- 
 side him. The man who had shrunk away 
 from the horse's hoofs was dead, the one on 
 the other side was badly wounded, and the 
 last, bruised and dazed, got slowly to his feet. 
 
 " God is great," said Dicky to him : " I have 
 no hurt, Mahommed." 
 
 "It is the will of God. Extolled be Hun who 
 created thee ! " answered the dervish, all suspi- 
 cion gone, and admiration in his eyes, as Dicky 
 cried his Allah Kerim — " God is bountiful 1 " 
 
 168 
 
AT THE IMERCY OF TIBERIUS 
 
 A kavass touched Dicky on the arm. 
 
 " His Highness would speak with you," he 
 said. 
 
 Dicky gladly turned his back on the long 
 lane of frantic immolation and the sight of the 
 wounded and dead being carried away. Com- 
 ing over to the Khedive he salaamed, and 
 kneeling on the ground touched the toe of Is- 
 mail's boot with his forehead. 
 
 Ismail smiled, and his eyes dropped with 
 satisfaction upon the prostrate Dicky. Never 
 before had an Englishman done this, and that 
 Dicky of all EngUshmen should do it gave 
 him an ironical pleasure which chased his black 
 humour away. 
 
 "It is written that the true believer shall 
 come unscathed from the hoofe of the horse. 
 Thou hast no hurt, INIahommed ? " 
 
 " None, Highness, whose life God preserve," 
 said Dicky in faultless Arabic, with the eyes 
 of Sadik upon him searching his mystery. 
 
 " May the dogs bite the heart of thine ene- 
 mies ! What is thy name ? " said Ismail. 
 
 " Rekab, so God wills. Highness." 
 
 " Thine occupation? " 
 
 "I am a poor scribe. Highness," answered 
 Dicky with a dangerous humour, though he 
 had seen a look in the Khedive's face which 
 boded only safety. 
 
 169 
 
AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS 
 
 " I have need of scribes. Get you to the 
 Palace of Abdin, and wait upon me at sunset 
 after prayers," said Ismail. 
 
 " I am the slave of your Highness. Peace 
 be on thee, O Prince of the Faithful ! " 
 
 " A moment, Mahommed. Hast thou wife 
 or child? " 
 
 " None, Highness." 
 
 "Nor kith nor kin?" Ismail's smile was 
 grim. 
 
 " They be far away, beyond the blessed rule 
 of your Highness." 
 
 " Thou wilt desire to return to them. How 
 long wilt thou serve me?" asked Ismail slowly. 
 
 " Till the two Karadh-gatherers return," an- 
 swered Dicky, quoting the old Arabic saying 
 which means for ever, since the two Karadh- 
 gatherers who went to gather the fruit of the 
 sant and the leaves of the selem never returned. 
 
 " So be it," said the Khedive, and, rising, 
 waved Dicky away. " At sunset." 
 
 "At sunset after prayers, Highness," an- 
 swered Dicky, and was instantly lost in the 
 throng which now crowded upon the tent to 
 see the Sheikh of the D&sah arrive to make 
 obeisance to Ismail. 
 
 That night at sunset, Dicky, once more 
 clothed and shaven and well appointed, but 
 
 170 
 
AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS 
 
 bronzed and weather-beaten, was shown into 
 the presence of the Khedive, whose face showed 
 neither pleasure nor displeasure. 
 
 ' ' You have returned from your kith and 
 kin in England ? " said Ismail, with mahcious 
 irony. 
 
 " I have no excuses. Highness. I have done 
 what I set out to do." 
 
 " If I had given you to death as an infidel 
 who had defiled the holy tomb and the sacred 
 city " 
 
 " Your Highness would have lost a faith- 
 ful servant," answered Dicky. " I took my 
 chances." 
 
 " Even now it would be easy to furnish — 
 accidents for you." 
 
 "But not wise. Highness, till my story is 
 told." 
 
 " Sadik Pasha suspects you." 
 
 " I suspect Sadik Pasha," answered Dicky. 
 
 " Of what? " said Ismail, starting. " He is 
 true to me — Sadik is true to me? " he urged, 
 with a shudder; for if Sadik was false in this 
 crisis, with Europe clamouring for the pay- 
 ment of debts and for reforms, where should 
 he look for faithftil knavery ? 
 
 " He will desert your Highness in the last 
 ditch. Let me tell your Highness the truth, 
 in return for saving my life. Your only salva- 
 
 171 
 
AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS 
 
 tion lies in giving up to the creditors of Egypt 
 your own wealth, and Sadik's, which is twice 
 your own." 
 
 " Sadik will not give it up." 
 
 " Is not Ismail the Khedive master in 
 Egypt?" 
 
 " Sit down and smoke," said Ismail eagerly, 
 handing Dicky a cigarette. 
 
 When Dicky left the Khedive at midnight, 
 he thought he saw a better day dawning for 
 Egypt. He felt also that he had done the 
 land a good turn in trying to break the shame- 
 less contract between Ismail and Sadik the 
 MoufFetish ; and he had the Khedive's promise 
 that it should be broken, given as Ismail 
 pinned on his breast the Order of the Me- 
 jidieh. 
 
 He was not, however, prepared to hear of 
 the arrest of the Mouifetish before another 
 sunset, and then of his hugger-mugger death, 
 of which the world talks to this day ; though 
 the manner of it is only known to a few, and 
 to them it is an ugly memory. 
 
 172 
 
ALL THE WORLD'S MAD 
 
 'P to thirty-two years of age 
 David Hyam, of the village 
 of Framley, in Staffordshire, 
 was not a man of surprises. 
 With enough of this world's 
 goods to give him comfort of 
 body and suave gravity of man- 
 ner, the figure he cut was becoming 
 to his Quaker origin and profession. 
 No one suspected the dynamic pos- 
 sibilities of his nature tiU a momentous 
 day in August, in the middle Victorian 
 period, when news from Bristol came that an 
 uncle in chocolate had died and left him the 
 third of a large fortune, without condition or 
 proviso. 
 
 This was of a Friday, and on the Saturday 
 following David did his first startling act : he 
 offered marriage to Faith Marlowe, the only 
 Quaker girl in Framley who had ever dared to 
 discard the poke bonnet even for a day, and 
 who had been publicly reproved for laughing 
 in meeting — for Mistress Faith had a curious, 
 
 173 
 
ALL THE WORLD'S MAD 
 
 albeit demure and suggestive, sense of humour; 
 she was, in truth, a kind of sacred minuet in 
 gray. Faith had promptly accepted David, at 
 the same time taunting him softly with the 
 fact that he had recklessly declared he would 
 never marry, even saying profanely that upon 
 his word and honour he never would I She 
 repeated to him what his own mother once re- 
 plied to his audacious worldly protests : 
 
 " If thee say thee will never, never, never 
 do a thing, thee will some day surely do it." 
 
 Then, seeing that David was a bit chagrined, 
 Faith slipped one hand into his, drew him back 
 within the door, hfted the shovel hat off his 
 forehead, and whispered with a coquetry un- 
 worthy a Quaker maid : 
 
 " But thee did not say. Friend David, thee 
 would never, never, never smite thy friend on 
 both cheeks after she had flouted thee." 
 
 Having smitten her on both cheeks, after 
 the manner of foolish men, David gravely got 
 him to his home and to a sound sleep that 
 night. Next morning, the remembrance of 
 the pleasant smiting roused him to an out- 
 wardly sedate and inwardly vainglorious cour- 
 age. Going with steady steps to the Friends' 
 meeting-house at the appointed time, the 
 spirit moved him, after a decorous pause, to 
 announce his intended marriage to the pret- 
 
 174 
 
ALL THE WORLD'S MAD 
 
 tiest Quaker in Framley, even the maid who 
 had shocked the community's sense of deco- 
 rum and had been written down a rebel — 
 though these things he did not say. 
 
 From the recesses of her poke bonnet Faith 
 watched the effect of David's words upon the 
 meeting; but when the elders turned and 
 looked at her, as became her judges before 
 the Lord, her eyes dropped; also her heart 
 thumped so hard she could hear it; and in the 
 silence that followed it seemed to beat time to 
 the words like the pendulum of a clock, " Fear 
 not — Love on I Fear not — Love on I " But 
 the heart beat faster still, the eyes came up 
 quickly, and the face flushed a deep, excited 
 red when David, rising again, said that, with 
 the consent of the community — a consent 
 which his voice subtly insisted upon — he 
 would take a long journey into the Holy Land, 
 into Syria, travelling to Baalbec and Damas- 
 cus, and even beyond as far as the desolate 
 city of Palmyra; and then, afterwards, into 
 Egypt, where Joseph and the sons of Israel 
 were captive aforetime. He would fain visit 
 the Red Sea, and likewise confer with the 
 Coptic Christians in Eg5rpt, " of whom thee 
 and me have read to our comfort," he added 
 piously, looking at Friend Fairley, the oldest 
 
 176 
 
ALL THE WORLD'S MAD 
 
 and heretofore the richest man in the com- 
 munity. 
 
 Friend Fairley rejoiced now that he had in 
 bygone days lent David books to read ; but he 
 rejoiced secretly, for though his old bookman's 
 heart warmed at the thought that he should 
 in good time hear, from one who had seen 
 with his own eyes, of the wonders of the East, 
 it became him to assume a ponderous placid- 
 ity — for Framley had always been doubtful of 
 his bookishness and its influence on such as 
 David. They said it boded no good; there 
 were those even who called Fairley "a new 
 light," that schism in a sect. 
 
 These God-fearing, duU folk were present 
 now, and, disapproving of David's choice in 
 marriage, disapproved far more of its conse- 
 quence; for so they considered the projected 
 journey into the tumultuous world and the 
 garish Orient. In the end, however, an 
 austere approval was promised, should the 
 solemn commission of men and women ap- 
 pointed to confer with and examine the can- 
 didates find in their favour — as in this case 
 they would certainly do; for thirty thousand 
 pounds bulked potently even in this commu- 
 nity of unworldly folk, though smacking some- 
 what of the world, the flesh and the devil. 
 
 If David, however, would stand to the 
 176 
 
ALL THE WORLD'S MAD 
 
 shovel hat, and if Faith would be faithful for- 
 ever to the poke bonnet and gray cloth, all 
 might yet be well. At the same time, they 
 considered that Friend David's mind was dis- 
 tracted by the things of this world, and they 
 reasoned with the Lord in prayer upon the 
 point in David's presence. 
 
 In worldly but rehgiously controlled dudg- 
 eon David left the meeting-house, and inside 
 the door of Faith's cottage said to his own 
 mother and to hers some bitter and un-Quak- 
 erlike things against the stupid world — for to 
 him as yet the world was Framley, though he 
 would soon mend o' that. 
 
 When he had done speaking against " the 
 mad wits that would not see," Faith laid her 
 cool fingers on his arm and said, with a de- 
 mure humour, " All the world's mad but thee 
 and me, David — and thee's a bit mad 1 " 
 
 So pleased was David's mother with this 
 speech that then and there she was reconciled 
 to Faith's rebellious instincts, and saw safety 
 for her son in the hands of the quaint, clear- 
 minded daughter of her old friend and kins- 
 woman, Mercy Marlowe. 
 
 m 
 
ALL THE WORLD'S MAD 
 
 II 
 
 Within three months David and Faith had 
 seen the hills of Moab from the top of the 
 Mount of Olives; watched the sun go down 
 over the Sea of Galilee; plucked green boughs 
 from the cedars on Lebanon ; broke into placid 
 exclamations of delight in the wild orchard of 
 nectarine blossoms by the lofty ruins of Baal- 
 bec; walked in that street called Straight at 
 Damascus ; journeyed through the desert with 
 a caravan to Palmyra when the Druses were 
 up ; and, at last, looked upon the spot where 
 lived that Pharaoh who knew not JosepL 
 
 In this land they stayed; and even now far 
 up the Nile you wUl hear of the Two Strange 
 People who travelled the river even to Don- 
 gola and some way back — for a long time, 
 only some way back. In particular you will 
 hear of them from an old dragoman called 
 Mohammed Ramadan Saggara, and a white- 
 haired jeweller of Assiout, called Abdul Hu- 
 seyn. 
 
 These two men still tell the tale of the two 
 mad English folk with faces hke no EngUsh 
 people ever seen in Egypt, who refused pro- 
 tection in their travels, but went fearlessly 
 among the Arabs everywhere, to do good and 
 
 178 
 
ALL THE WORLD'S MAD 
 
 fear not. The Quaker hat and saddened drab 
 worked upon the Arab mind to advantage. 
 
 In Eg5rpt, David and Faith found their 
 pious mission — though historians have since 
 called it ** whimsical and unpractical": David's 
 to import the great S5rrian donkey, which was 
 to banish the shame of grossly burdening the 
 small donkey of the land of Pharaoh; and 
 Faith's to build schools where English should 
 be taught, to exclude "that language of 
 Belial," as David called French. When their 
 schemes came home to Framley, with an order 
 on David's bankers for ten thousand pounds, 
 gray-garbed consternation walked abroad, and 
 in meeting the following First Day no one 
 prayed or spoke for an hour or more. At last, 
 however. Friend Fairley rose in his place and 
 said: 
 
 " The Lord shall deliver the heathen into 
 their hands." 
 
 Then the spirit moved freely and severely 
 among them all, and Friend Fairley was, as he 
 said himself, "crowded upon the rails by the 
 yearlings of the flock." For he alone of all 
 Framley believed that David and Faith had 
 not thrown away the Quaker drab, the shovel 
 hat and the poke bonnet, and gone forth fash- 
 ionable, worldly and an hungered, among the 
 fleshpots of Egypt. There was talk of ^ded 
 
 179 
 
ALL THE WORLD'S MAD 
 
 palaces, Saracenic splendours and dark sug- 
 gestions from the Arabian Nights. 
 
 StiU, the ten thousand pounds went to 
 David and Faith where they smilingly la- 
 boured through the time of High NUe and 
 Low Nile, and khamsin and sirocco, and 
 cholera, and, worse than all, the banishments 
 to the hot Siberia of Fazougli. 
 
 But Mohammed Ramadan Saggara babbles 
 yet of the time when, for one day, David 
 threw away his shovel hat; and Abdul 
 Huseyn, the jeweller, tells how, on the same 
 day, the Sitt — ^that is. Faith — bought of him a 
 ring of turquoises and put it on her finger 
 with a curious smile. 
 
 That day David and Faith, the one in a pith 
 helmet, the other with a turquoise ring on her 
 left hand, went to dine with Kahoum Pasha, 
 the Armenian Governor of the province, a 
 man of varied talents, not least of which was 
 deceit of an artistic kind. For, being an Ar- 
 menian, he said he was a true Christian, and 
 David believed him, though Faith did not; 
 and being an Oriental, he said he told the 
 truth ; and agam David believed him, though 
 Faith did not. He had a red beard, an eye 
 that glinted red also, and fat, smooth fingers 
 which kept playing with a string of beads as 
 though it were a rosary. 
 
 1I8Q 
 
ALL THE WORLD'S MAD 
 
 As hard as he worked to destroy the Quaker 
 in David, she worked against him ; and she did 
 not fear the end, for she beheved in David 
 Hyam of Framley. It was Kahoum Pasha's 
 influence, persistently and adroitly used for 
 two years, which made Friend David at last 
 put aside for this one day his Quaker hat. 
 And the Pasha rejoiced ; for, knowing human 
 nature after a fashion, he understood that 
 when you throw the outer sign away — the 
 sign to you since your birth, like the fingers 
 of your hand — the inner grace begins deca- 
 dence and in due time disappears. 
 
 Kahoum Pasha had awaited this with Ori- 
 ental patience, for he was sure that if David 
 gave way in one thing he would give way in 
 all — and with a rush, some day. Now, at last, 
 he had got David and Faith to dine with him; 
 he had his meshes of deceit around them. 
 
 When they came to dinner Kahoum Pasha 
 saw the turquoise ring upon the finger of Friend 
 Faith, and this startled him and pleased him. 
 Here, he knew, was his greatest enemy where 
 David was concerned, and yet this pretty Saint 
 Elizabeth was wearing a fine turquoise ring 
 with a poke bonnet, in a very worldly fashion. 
 He almost rubbed his eyes, it was so hard to 
 believe ; for time and again he had offered 
 antichi in bracelets, rings and scarabs, and 
 13 181 
 
ALL THE WORLD'S MAD 
 
 fine cottons from Beni-Mazar; and had been 
 promptly and firmly told that the Friends 
 wore no jewellery nor gay attire. Kahoum 
 Pasha, being a Christian — after the Armenian 
 fashion — then desired to learn of this strange 
 religion, that his own nature might be bet- 
 tered, for, alas ! snares for the soul are many 
 in the Orient. For this Faith had quietly but 
 firmly referred him to David. 
 
 Then he had tried another tack: he had 
 thrown in his interest with her first school in 
 his mudirieh; he got her Arab teachers from 
 Cairo who could speak EngUsh ; he opened 
 the large schoolhouse himself with great cere- 
 mony, and with many kavasses in blue and 
 gold. He said to himself that you never 
 could tell what would happen in this world, 
 and it was well to wait, and to watch the ap- 
 proach of that good angel Opportunity. 
 
 With all his devices, however, he could not 
 quite understand Faith, and he walked warily, 
 lest through his lack of understanding he 
 should, by some mischance, come suddenly 
 upon a reef, and his plans go shipwreck. Yet 
 all the time he laughed in his sleeve, for he 
 foresaw the day when all this money the Two 
 Strange People were spending in his mudirieh 
 should become his own. If he could not get 
 their goods and estates peaceably, riots were 
 
 182 
 
ALL THE WORLD'S MAD 
 
 so easy to arrange; he had arranged them be- 
 fore. Then, when the Two Strange People 
 had been struck with panic, the Syrian don- 
 key-market, and the five hundred feddans of 
 American cotton, and the new schools would 
 be his for a song — or a curse. 
 
 Wlien he saw the turquoise ring on the fin- 
 ger of the little Quaker lady he fancied he 
 could almost hear the accompaniment of the 
 song. He tore away tender portions of roast- 
 ed lamb with his fingers, and crammed them 
 into his mouth, rejoicing. With the same 
 greasy fingers he put upon Faith's plate a 
 stuffed cucumber, and would have added a 
 clammy sweet and a tumbler of sickly sherbet 
 at the same moment ; but Faith ate nothing 
 save a cake of dourha bread, and drank only a 
 cup of coffee. 
 
 Meanwhile, Kahoum Pasha talked of the 
 school, of the donkey-market, the monopoly of 
 which the Khedive had granted David ; and 
 of the new prosperous era opening up in 
 Egypt, due to the cotton David had intro- 
 duced as an experiment. David's heart waxed 
 proud within him that he had walked out of 
 Framley to the regeneration of a country. 
 He likened himself to Joseph, son of Jacob; 
 and at once the fineness of his first purposes 
 became blunted. 
 
 183 
 
ALL THE WORLD'S MAD 
 
 As Kahoum Pasha talked on, of schools, of 
 taxes, of laws, of government, to David, with 
 no hat on — Samson without his hair — Faith's 
 mind was working as it had never worked be- 
 fore. She realised what a prodigious liar Ka- 
 houm Pasha was; for, talking benignly of 
 equitable administration as he did, she re- 
 called the dark stories she had heard of ra- 
 pine and cruel imprisonment in this same 
 mudirieh. 
 
 Suddenly Kahoum Pasha saw the dark blue 
 eyes fastened upon his face with a curious in- 
 tentness, a strange questioning ; and the blue 
 of the turquoise on the hand folded over the 
 other in the gray lap did not quite reassure 
 him. He stopped talking, and spoke in a low 
 voice to his kavass, who presently brought a 
 bottle of champagne — a final proof that Ka- 
 houm Pasha was not an ascetic or a Turk. 
 As the bottle was being opened the Pasha 
 took up his string of beads and began to fin- 
 ger them, for the blue eyes in the poke bonnet 
 were disconcerting. He was about to speak 
 when Faith said, in a clear voice : 
 
 " Thee has a strange people beneath thee. 
 Thee rules by the sword, or the word of peace, 
 friend?" 
 
 The fat, smooth hands fingered the beads 
 swiftly. Kahoum Pasha was disturbed, as he 
 
 184 
 
ALL THE WORLD'S MAD 
 
 proved by replying in French — he had spent 
 years of his youth in France : 
 
 "Par la fcyrce, morale, toujours, madame — 
 by moral force, always," he hastened to add in 
 Enghsh. Then, casting down his eyes with 
 truly Armenian modesty, he continued in 
 Arabic : " By the word of peace, oh, woman 
 of the clear eyes — to whom God give length 
 of days 1" 
 
 Kahoum Pasha smiled a greasy smile, and 
 held the bottle of champagne over the glass 
 set for Friend David. 
 
 Never in his life had David the Quaker 
 tasted champagne. In his eyes, in the eyes of 
 Framley, it had been the brew especially pre- 
 pared by Sheitan to tempt to ruin the feeble 
 ones of the earth. But the doublet of David's 
 mind was all unbraced now; his hat was off, 
 his Quaker drab was spotted with the grease 
 of a roasted lamb. He had tasted freedom: 
 he was near to license now. 
 
 He took his hand from the top of the glass, 
 and the amber liquid and the jfroth poured in. 
 At that instant he saw Faith's eyes upon his, 
 he saw her hand go to the poke bonnet, as it 
 were to unloosen the strings. He saw for the 
 first time the turquoise ring; he saw the eyes 
 of Kahoum Pasha on Faith with a look proph- 
 esjdng several kinds of triumph, none pala- 
 
 185 
 
ALL THE WORLD'S MAD 
 
 table to him; and he stopped short on that 
 road easy of gradient, which Kahoum Pasha 
 was macadamising for him. He put his hand 
 up as though to pull his hat down over his 
 eyes, as was his fashion when troubled or 
 when he was setting his mind to a task. 
 
 The hat was not there; but Faith's eyes 
 were on his, and there were a hundred Quaker 
 hats or Cardinals' hats in them. He reached 
 out quickly and caught Faith's hand as it un- 
 did the strings of her gray bonnet. 
 
 " Will thee be mad. Faith ? " 
 
 "All the world's mad but thee and me, 
 David, and thee's a bit mad," she answered 
 in the tongue of Framley. 
 
 " The gaud upon thy hand ? " he asked 
 sternly ; and his eyes flashed from her to Ka- 
 houm Pasha, for a horrible suspicion crept into 
 his brain — a shameless suspicion; but even a 
 Quaker may be human and foolish, as history 
 has shown. 
 
 " The wine at thine elbow, David, and thine 
 hat 1 " she answered steadily. 
 
 David, the friend of peace, was bitterly an- 
 gry. He caught up the glass of champagne 
 and dashed it upon the fine prayer-rug which 
 Kahoum Pasha had, with a kourbash, collected 
 for taxes from a Greek merchant back from 
 Tiflis — the rug worth five hundred Eng- 
 
 186 
 
ALL THE WORLD'S MAD 
 
 lish pounds, the taxes but twenty Turkish 
 pounds. 
 
 "Thee is a villain, friend," he said to Ka- 
 houm Pasha in a voice Uke a noise in a barrel ; 
 " I read thee as a book." 
 
 "Through the eyes of your wife, effendi; 
 she read me first — we understand each other ! " 
 answered the Governor with a hateful smile, 
 knowing the end of one game was at hand, 
 and instantly beginning another with an in- 
 telligent malice. 
 
 Against all Quaker principles David's sinful 
 arm was Ufted to strike, but Faith's hand pre- 
 vented him, and Kahoum Pasha motioned 
 back the Abyssinian slaves who had sprung 
 forward menacingly from behind a screen. 
 
 Faith led the outraged David, hatless, into 
 the street. 
 
 Ill 
 
 That evening the Two Strange People went 
 to Abdul Huseyn, the jeweller, and talked with 
 him for more than an hour ; for Abdul Hu- 
 seyn, as Egyptians go, was a kindly man. He 
 had taught Arabic to David and Faith. He 
 would have asked more than twelve pieces of 
 silver to betray them. 
 
 The next afternoon a riot occurred around 
 187 
 
ALL THE WORLD'S MAD 
 
 the house of the Two Strange People and the 
 school they had built; and Kahoum Pasha 
 would have had his spite of them, and his will 
 of the donkey-market, the school, and the cot- 
 ton-fields, but for Abdul Huseyn and three 
 Sheikhs, friends of his — at a price — who ad- 
 dressed the crowd and quieted them. They 
 declared that the Two were mad folk with 
 whom even the English folk would have 
 naught to do; that they were of those from 
 whom God had taken the souls, leaving their 
 foolish bodies on earth, and were therefore to 
 be cared for and protected, as the Koran said, 
 be they infidel or the Faithful. 
 
 Furthermore, said Abdul Huseyn, in proof 
 of their madness and a certain sort of holiness, 
 they wore hats always, as Arabs wore their 
 turbans, and were as like good Mohammedans 
 as could be, sitting down to speak and stand- 
 ing up to pray. He also added that they 
 could not be enemies of the Faithful, or a 
 Christian Mudir would not have turned 
 against them. And Abdul Huseyn prevailed 
 against Kahoum Pasha — at a price ; for Faith, 
 seeing no need for martyrdom, had not hesi- 
 tated to open her purse. 
 
 Three days afterward, David, with Abdul 
 Huseyn, went to the Palace of the Khedive at 
 
 188 
 
ALL THE WORLD'S MAD 
 
 Cairo, and within a week Kahoum Pasha was 
 on his way to Fazougli, the hot Siberia. For 
 the rage of the Khedive was great when he 
 heard what David and Abdul Huseyn told 
 him of the murderous riot Kahoum Pasha 
 had planned. David being an honest Quaker 
 — for now again he wore his shovel hat — did 
 not realise that the Khedive had only hun- 
 gered for this chance to confiscate the goods 
 of Kahoum Pasha. Was it not justice to 
 take for the chosen ruler of the Faithful the 
 goods an Armenian Christian had stolen from 
 the poor? Before David left the Palace the 
 Khedive gave him the Order of the Mejidieh, 
 in token of what he had done for Egypt. 
 
 In the end, however, David took three 
 things only out of Egypt : his wife, the Order 
 of the Mejidieh, and Kahoum Pasha's pardon, 
 which he strove for as hard as he had striven 
 for his punishment, when he came to know 
 the Khedive had sent the Mudir to Fazougli 
 merely that he might despoil him. He only 
 achieved this at last, again on the advice of 
 Abdul Huseyn, by giving the Khedive as 
 backsheesh the Syrian donkey-market, the 
 five hundred feddans of cotton, and Faith's 
 new school. Then, believing in no one in 
 Egypt any more, he himself went with an 
 armed escort and his Quaker hat, and the 
 
 189 
 
ALL THE WORLD'S MAD 
 
 Order of the Khedive, to Fazougli, and 
 brought Kahoum Pasha penniless to Cairo. 
 
 Nowadays, on the mastaba before his grand- 
 son's door, Abdul Huseyn, over ninety " by 
 the grace of Allah," stUl tells of the back- 
 sheesh he secured from the Two Strange Peo- 
 ple for his help on a certain day. 
 
 In Framley, where the whole truth never 
 came, David and Faith occasionally take from 
 a secret drawer the Order of the Mejidieh to 
 look at it, and, as David says, to " learn the 
 lesson of Egypt once again." Having learned 
 it to some purpose — and to the hfelong edifi- 
 cation of old Friend Fairley, the only one who 
 knew the whole truth — they founded three 
 great schools for Quaker children. They were 
 wont to say to each other, as the hurrying 
 world made inroads on the strict Quaker life 
 to which they had returned : " AU the world's 
 mad but thee and me, and thee's a bit mad." 
 
 190 
 
THE MAN AT THE WHEEL 
 
 YNDHAM BIMBASHI'S 
 
 career in Egypt had been a 
 series of mistakes. In the 
 first place he was opinion- 
 ated, in the second place he 
 never seemed to have any 
 luck; and, worst of all, he 
 had a little habit of doing 
 grave things on his own 
 lightsome responsibility. 
 This last quality was natural 
 to him, but he added to it a supreme contempt 
 for the native mind and an unhealthy scorn of 
 the native official. He had not that rare qual- 
 ity, constantly found among his fellow-coun- 
 trymen, of working the native up through his 
 own medium, as it were, through his own cus- 
 toms and predispositions, to the soundness of 
 Western methods of government. Therefore, 
 in due time he made some dangerous mis- 
 takes. 
 
 By virtue of certain high-handed actions he 
 191 
 
THE MAN AT THE WHEEL 
 
 was the cause of several riots in native villages, 
 and he had himself been attacked at more than 
 one village as he rode between the fields of 
 sugar-cane. On these occasions he had be- 
 haved very well — certainly no one could pos- 
 sibly doubt his bravery ; but that was a small 
 offset to the fact that his want of tact and his 
 overbearing manner had been the means of 
 turning a certain tribe of Arabs loose upon 
 the country, raiding and killing. 
 
 But he could not, or would not, see his own 
 vain stupidity. The climax came in a foolish 
 sortie against the Arab tribe he had offended. 
 In that unauthorised milee, in covert disobe- 
 dience to a general order not to attack, unless 
 at advantage — for the Gippies under him were 
 raw levies — his troop was diminished by half; 
 and, cut off from the Nile by a flank move- 
 ment of the Arabs, he was obliged to retreat 
 and take refuge in the well-fortified and waUed 
 house, which had previously been a Coptic 
 monastery. 
 
 Here, at last, the truth came home to 
 Wyndham Bimbashi. He realised that though 
 in his six years' residence in the land he had 
 acquired a command of Arabic equal to that 
 of others who had been in the country twice 
 that time, he had acquired little else. He 
 awoke to the fact that in his cocksure schemes 
 
 192 
 
THE MAN AT THE WHEEL 
 
 for the civil and military life of Egypt, there 
 was not one element of sound sense; that he 
 had been all along an egregious failure. It 
 did not come home to him with clear, accu- 
 rate conviction — his brain was not a first-rate 
 medium for illumination; but the facts struck 
 him now with a blind sort of force; and he 
 accepted the blank sensation of failure. Also, 
 he read in the faces of those round him an 
 alien spirit, a chasm of black misunderstand- 
 ing which his knowledge of Arabic could 
 never bridge over. 
 
 Here he was, shut up with Gippies who had 
 no real faith in him, in the house of a Sheikh 
 whose servants would cut his throat on no 
 provocation at all ; and not an eighth of a mile 
 away was a horde of Arabs — a circle of death 
 through which it was impossible to break with 
 the men in his command. They must aU die 
 here, if they were not relieved. 
 
 The nearest garrison was at Kerbat, sixty 
 miles away, where five hundred men were 
 stationed. Now that his cup of mistakes was 
 full, Wyndham Bimbashi would wilhngly 
 have made the attempt to carry word to the 
 garrison there. But he had no right to leave 
 his post. He called for a volunteer. No 
 man responded. Panic was upon the Gippies. 
 Though Wyndham's heart sickened within 
 
 193 
 
THE MAN AT THE WHEEL 
 
 him, his hps did not frame a word of reproach ; 
 but a blush of shame came into his face, and 
 crept up to his eyes, dimming them. For 
 there flashed through his mind what men at 
 Home would think of him when this thing, 
 such an end to his whole career, was known. 
 As he stood still, upright and confounded, 
 some one touched his arm. 
 
 It was Hassan, his Soudanese servant. 
 Hassan was the one person in Egypt who 
 thoroughly believed in him. Wyndham was 
 as a god to Hassan, though this same god had 
 given him a taste of a belt more than once. 
 Hassan had not resented the belt, though 
 once, in a moment of affectionate confidence, 
 he had said to Wyndham that when his mas- 
 ter got old and died he would be the servant 
 of an American or a missionary, "who no 
 whack Mahommed." 
 
 It was Hassan who now volunteered to 
 carry word to the garrison at Kerbat. 
 
 " If I no carry, you whack me with belt, 
 pasha," said Hassan, whose logic and reason 
 were like his master's, neither better nor 
 worse. 
 
 " If you do, you shall have fifty pounds — 
 and the missionary," answered Wyndham, his 
 eyes still cloudy and his voice thick ; for it 
 touched him in a tender nerve that this one 
 
 194! 
 
THE MAN AT THE WHEEL 
 
 Soudanese boy should believe in him and do 
 for him what he would give much to do for 
 the men under him. For his own life he did 
 not care, his confusion and shame were too 
 great. 
 
 He watched Hassan steal out into the white 
 brilliance of the night. 
 
 " Mind you keep a whole skin, Hassan," he 
 said, as the slim lad with the white teeth, oily 
 hair, and legs like ivory, stole along the wall, 
 to drop presently on his belly and make for 
 some palm-trees a hundred yards away. 
 
 The minutes went by in silence; an hour 
 went by; the whole night went by; Has- 
 san had got beyond the circle of trenchant 
 steel. 
 
 They must now abide Hassan's fate; but 
 another peril was upon them. There was not 
 a goolah of water within the walls ! 
 
 It was the time of low Nile when all the 
 land is baked Uke a crust of bread, when the 
 creaking of the shadoofs and the singing croak 
 of the sakkia are heard the night long like 
 untiring crickets with throats of frogs. It was 
 the time succeeding the khamsin, when the 
 skin dries hke slaked lime and the face is for 
 ever powdered with dust; and the fellaheen, 
 in the slavery of superstition, strain their eyes 
 day and night for the Sacred Drop, which 
 
 195 
 
THE MAN AT THE WHEEL 
 
 tells that the flood is flowing fast from the 
 hUls of Abyssinia. 
 
 It was like the Egyptian that nothing 
 should be said to Wyndham about the dearth 
 of water until it was all gone. The house of 
 the Sheikh, and its garden, where were a pool 
 and a fountain, were supplied from the great 
 Persian wheel at the waterside. On this par- 
 ticular sakkia had been wont to sit all day a 
 patient fellah, driving the bhndfolded buffa- 
 loes in their turn. It was hke the patient 
 fellah, when the Arabs, in pursuit of WjTid- 
 ham and his Gippies, suddenly cut in between 
 him and the house, to deliver himself over to 
 the conqueror, with his hand upon his head in 
 sign of obedience. 
 
 It was also like the gentle Egyptian that he 
 eagerly showed the besiegers how the water 
 could be cut off" from the house by dropping 
 one of the sluice-gates ; while, opening an- 
 other, all the land around the Arab encamp- 
 ments might be well watered, the pools well 
 filled, and the grass kept green for horses and 
 camels. This was the reason that Wyndham 
 Bimbashi and his Gippies, and the Sheikh and 
 his household, faced the fact, the morning 
 after Hassan left, that there was scarce a goo- 
 lah of water for a hundred burning throats. 
 Wyndham understood now why the Arabs 
 
 196 
 
THE MAN AT THE WHEEL 
 
 sat down and waited, that torture might be 
 added to the oncoming death of the English- 
 man, his natives, and the " friendlies." 
 
 All that day terror and ghastly hate hung 
 like a miasma over the besieged house and 
 garden. Fifty eyes hungered for the blood of 
 Wyndham Bimbashi; not because he was 
 Wyndham Bimbashi, but because the heathen 
 in these men cried out for sacrifice ; and what 
 so agreeable a sacrifice as the Englishman who 
 had led them into this disaster and would die 
 so weU — had they ever seen an Englishman 
 who did not die well? 
 
 Wyndham was quiet and watchful, and he 
 cudgelled his bullet-head, and looked down 
 his long nose in meditation aU the day, whUe 
 his tongue became dry and thick, and his 
 throat seemed to crack like roasting leather. 
 At length he worked the problem out. Then 
 he took action. 
 
 He summoned his troop before him, and said 
 briefly : 
 
 " Men, we must have water. The question 
 is, who is going to steal out to the sakkia to- 
 night, to shut the one sluice and open the 
 other?" 
 
 No one replied. No one understood quite 
 what Wyndham meant. Shutting one sluice 
 and opening the other did not seem to meet 
 14 197 
 
THE MAN AT THE WHEEL 
 
 the situation. There was the danger of get- 
 ting to the sakkia, but there was also an after. 
 Would it be possible to shut one sluice and 
 open the other without the man at the wheel 
 knowing ? Suppose you killed the man at the 
 wheel — what then ? 
 
 The Gippies and the friendlies scowled, but 
 did not speak. The Bimbashi was responsi- 
 ble for all ; he was an Enghshman, let him get 
 water for them, or die like the rest of them — • 
 perhaps before them ! 
 
 Wyndham could not travel the sinuosities 
 of their minds, and it would not have affected 
 his purposes if he could have done so. When 
 no man rephed, he simply said : 
 
 " All right, men. You shall have water be- 
 fore morning. Try and hold out till then." 
 He dismissed them 
 
 For a long time he walked up and down the 
 garden of straggling hmes, apparently listless, 
 and smoking hard. He reckoned carefully 
 how long it would take Hassan to get to Ker- 
 bat, and for relief to come. He was fond of 
 his pipe, and he smoked now as if it were the 
 thing he most enjoyed in the world. He 
 held the bowl in the hollow of his hand al- 
 most tenderly. He seemed unconscious of 
 the scowling looks around him. At last he 
 sat down on the ledge of the rude fountain, 
 
 198 
 
THE MAN AT THE WHEEL 
 
 with his face towards the Gippies and the 
 Arabs squatted on the ground, some playing 
 mankalah, others sucking dry hme leaves, 
 many smoking apathetically. 
 
 One man with the flicker of insanity in his 
 eyes suddenly ran forward and threw himself 
 on the ground before Wyndham. 
 
 " In the name of God the Compassionate, 
 the Merciful — ^water 1 " he cried. " Water — I 
 am dying, effendi whom God preserve I " 
 
 " Nile water is sweet ; you shall drink it be- 
 fore morning, Mahommed," answered Wynd- 
 ham quietly. " God will preserve your life till 
 the Nile water cools your throat." 
 
 "Before dawn, O effendi? " gasped the Arab. 
 
 " Before dawn, by the mercy of God," an- 
 swered Wyndham; and for the first time in 
 his life he had a burst of imagination. The 
 Orient had touched him at last. 
 
 " Is not the song of the sakkia in thine ear, 
 Mahommed? " he said. 
 
 " Turn, O Sakkia, turn to the right, and turn to the left. 
 The Nile floweth by night and the balasses are filled at 
 
 dawn — • 
 The maid of the village shall bear to thy bed, the dewy 
 gray goolah at dawn, — 
 
 Turn, O Sakkia ! " 
 
 Wyndham was learning at last the way to 
 the native mind. 
 
 199 
 
THE MAN AT THE WHEEL 
 
 The man rose from his knees. A vision of 
 his home in the mirkaz of Minieh passed be- 
 fore him. He stretched out his hands, and 
 sang in the vibrating monotone of his people : 
 
 " Turn, O Sakkia, turn to the right, and turn to the left : 
 Who will take care of me, if my father dies ! 
 Who will give me water to drink, and the cucumber 
 vine at my door- 
 Turn O, Sakkia ! " "" 
 
 Then he crept back again to the wall of the 
 house, where he huddled between a Berberine 
 plajdng a darabukkeh and a man of the Fay- 
 oum who chanted the Jutihah from the Koran. 
 
 Wyndham looked at them all and pondered. 
 " If the devils out there would only attack 
 us," he said between his teeth, "or if we could 
 only attack them!" he added, and he nerv- 
 ously hastened his footsteps ; for to him this 
 inaction was terrible. "They'd forget their 
 thirst if they were fighting," he muttered, and 
 then he frowned ; for the painful neighing of 
 the horses behind the house came to his ear. 
 In desperation he went inside and climbed to 
 the roof, where he could see the circle of the 
 enemy. 
 
 It was no use. They were five to one, and 
 his Gippies were demoralised. It would be a 
 fine bit of pluck to try and cut his way 
 
 200 
 
THE MAN AT THE WHEEL 
 
 through the Arabs to the Nile — but how 
 many would reach it? 
 
 No, he had made his full measure of mis- 
 takes, he would not add to the list. If Has- 
 san got through to Kerbat his Gippies here 
 would no doubt be relieved, and there would 
 be no more blood on his head. ReUeved? 
 And when they were relieved, what of himself, 
 Wyndham Bimbashi? He knew what men 
 would say in Cairo, what men would say at the 
 War Office in London town, at " The Rag " — 
 everywhere ! He could not look his future in 
 the face. He felt that every man in Egj^t, 
 save himself, had known all along that he was 
 a complete failure. 
 
 It did not matter while he himself was not 
 conscious of it ; but now that the armour- 
 plate of conceit protecting his honest mind 
 had been torn away on the reefs of foolish 
 deeds, it mattered everything. For when his 
 conceit was peeled away, there was left a crim- 
 son cuticle of the Wyndham pride. Certainly 
 he could not attack the Arabs : he had had his 
 eternal fill of sorties. 
 
 Also he could not wait for the relief party, 
 for his Gippies and the friendlies were famish- 
 ing, dying of thirst. He prayed for night. 
 How slowly the minutes, the hours passed; 
 and how bright was the moon when it rose! 
 
 201 
 
THE MAN AT THE WHEEL 
 
 brighter even than it was when Hassan crept 
 out to steal through the Arab lines. 
 
 At midnight, Wyndham stole softly out of 
 a gate in the garden wall, and, like Hassan, 
 dropping to the ground, crept towards a patch 
 of maize lying between the house and the 
 river. He was dressed like a fellah, with the 
 long blue yelek, and a poor wool fez, and 
 round the fez was a white cloth, as it were to 
 protect his mouth from the night air, after the 
 manner of the peasant. 
 
 The fires of the enemy were dying down, 
 and only here and there Arabs gossiped or 
 drank coffee by the embers. At last Wynd- 
 ham was able to drop into the narrow channel, 
 now dry, through which, when the sluice was 
 open and the sakkia turned, the water flowed 
 to the house. All went well till he was with- 
 in a hundred yards of the wheel, though now 
 and again he could hear sentries snoring or 
 talking just above him. Suddenly he heard 
 breathing an arm's length before him, then a 
 figure raised itself and a head turned towards 
 him. The Arab had been asleep, but his hand 
 ran to his knife by instinct — too late, for 
 Wyndham's fingers were at his throat, and he 
 had neither time nor chance to cry Allah! be- 
 fore the breath left him. 
 
 203 
 
THE MAN AT THE WHEEL 
 
 Wyndham crept on. The sound of the sak- 
 kia was in his ears — the long, creaking, crying 
 song, filhng the night. And now there arose 
 the Song of the Sakkia from the man at the 
 wheel : 
 
 " Turn, O Sakkia, turn to the right, and turn to the left ; 
 The heron feeds by the water side — shall I starve in my 
 
 onion-fields ! 
 Shall the Lord of the World withhold his tears that 
 water the land — 
 
 Turn, O Sakkia 1 " 
 
 . . . The hard white stars, the cold blue sky, 
 the far-off Libyan hills in a gold and opal 
 glow, the smeU of the desert, the deep swish of 
 the Nile, the Song of the Sakkia. . . . 
 
 Wyndham's heart beat faster, his blood 
 flowed quicker, he strangled a sigh in his 
 breast. Here, with death on every hand, with 
 immediate and fearful peril before him, out of 
 the smell of the desert and the ghostly glow of 
 the Libyan hills there came a memory — the 
 memory of a mistake he had made years be- 
 fore with a woman. She had never forgiven 
 him for the mistake — he knew it at last. He 
 knew that no woman could ever forgive the 
 blunder he had made ; not a blunder of love 
 but a blunder of self- will and an unmanly, un- 
 mannerly conceit. It had nearly wrecked her 
 life : and he only realised it now, in the mo- 
 
 203 
 
THE MAN AT THE WHEEL 
 
 ment of clear-seeing which comes to every 
 being once in a lifetime. Well, it was some- 
 thing to have seen the mistake at last. 
 
 He had come to the sluice-gate. It was 
 impossible to open it without the feUah on the 
 water-wheel seeing him. 
 
 There was another way. He crept close 
 and closer to the wheel. The breath of the 
 bUndfolded buffalo was in his face, he drew 
 himself up hghtly and quickly beside the buf- 
 falo — he was making no blunder now. 
 
 Suddenly he leapt from behind the buffalo 
 upon the fellah and smothered his mouth in 
 the white cloth he had brought. There was a 
 moment's struggle, then, as the wheel went 
 slower and slower, and the patient buflFalo 
 stopped, Wyndham dropped the gagged, but 
 living, fellah into a trench by the sakkia and, 
 caUing to the buffalo, shd over swiftly, opened 
 the sluice-gate of the channel which fed the 
 house, and closed that leading to the Arab 
 encampment. 
 
 Then he sat down where the fellah had sat, 
 and the sakkia drowned its mystic music over 
 the river, the desert and the plain. But the 
 buffalo moved slowly — the fellah's song had 
 been a spur to its travel, as the camel-driver's 
 song is to the caravan in the waste of sands. 
 Wyndham hesitated an instant, then, as the 
 
 204. 
 
THE MAN AT THE WHEEL 
 
 first trickle of water entered the garden of the 
 house where his Gippies and the friendUes 
 were, his voice rose in the Song of the Sakkia : 
 
 " Tunij O Sakkia^ turn to the right, and turn to the left : 
 Who will take care of me, if my father dies ? 
 Who will give me water to drink, and the cucumber 
 vine at my door — 
 
 Turn, O Sakkia ! " 
 
 If he had but one hour longer there would 
 be enough water for men and horses for days, 
 twenty jars of water pouring all the time ! 
 
 Now and again a figure came towards the 
 wheel, but not close enough to see that the 
 one sluice-gate had been shut and the other 
 opened. A half hour passed, an hour, and 
 then the end came. 
 
 The gagged feUah had managed to free his 
 mouth, and though his feet were bound also 
 and he could not loose them, he gave a loud 
 call for help. From dying fires here and 
 there Arab sentries sprang to their feet with 
 rifles and lances. 
 
 Wyndham's work was done. He leapt from 
 the sakkia, and ran towards the house. Shot 
 after shot was fired at him, lances were thrown, 
 and once an Arab barred his way suddenly. 
 He pistolled him and ran on. A lance caught 
 him in the left arm. He tore it out and 
 pushed forward. Stooping once, he caught up 
 
 205 
 
THE MAN AT THE WHEEL 
 
 a sword from the ground. When he was 
 within fifty yards of the house, four Arabs in- 
 tercepted him. He slashed through, then 
 turned with his pistol and fired as he ran 
 quickly towards the now open gate. He was 
 within ten yards of it, and had fired his last 
 shot, when a bullet crashed through his jaw. 
 
 A dozen Gippies ran out, dragged him in, 
 and closed the gate. 
 
 The last thing Wyndham did before he died 
 in the gray of dawn — and this is told of him 
 by the Gippies themselves — was to cough up 
 the bullet fi*om his throat, and spit it out upon 
 the ground. The Gippies thought it a mirac- 
 ulous feat and that he had done it in scorn 
 of the Arab foe. 
 
 Before another sunrise and sunset had come, 
 Wyndham Bimbashi's men were relieved by 
 the garrison of Kerbat, after a hard fight. 
 
 There are Enghshmen in Egypt who still 
 speak slightingly of Wyndham Bimbashi, but 
 the British officer who buried him, hushed a 
 gossiping dinner-party a few months ago in 
 Cairo by saying : 
 
 " Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone. 
 And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him ; 
 But httle he'll reck, if they let him sleep on 
 In the grave where his Gippies have laid him." 
 206 
 
THE MAN AT THE WHEEL 
 
 And he did not apologise for paraphrasing 
 the famous ballad. He has shamed Egypt 
 at last into a sort of admiration for Wyndham 
 Bimbashi : to the deep satisfaction of Hassan, 
 the Soudanese boy, who received his fifty 
 pounds, and to this day wears the belt which 
 once kept him in the narrow path of duty. 
 
 207 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 'HEN Donovan Pasha discov- 
 ered the facts for the first 
 time, he found more difficulty 
 in keeping the thing to himself 
 than he had ever found with 
 any other matter in Egypt. 
 He had unearthed one of 
 those paradoxes, which make 
 for laughter — and for tears. 
 It gave him both ; he laughed 
 tiU he cried. Then he went 
 to the Khedivial Club and ordered him- 
 self four courses, a pint of champagne and a 
 glass of '48 port, his usual dinner being one 
 course, double portion, and a pint of claret. 
 As he sat eating he kept reading a letter over 
 and over, and each time he read he grinned — 
 he did not smile Uke a well-behaved man of 
 the world, he did not giggle Uke a well- 
 veneered Egyptian back from Paris, he chuc- 
 kled like a cabman, responding to a liberal 
 
 208 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 fare and a good joke. A more unconven- 
 tional little man never lived. Simplicity was 
 his very life, and yet he had a gift for follow- 
 ing the sinuosities of the Oriental mind ; he 
 had a quality almost clairvoyant, which came, 
 perhaps, from his Irish forbears. The cross- 
 strain of English blood had done him good 
 too; it made him punctilious, and kept his 
 impulses within secure bounds. It also made 
 him very polite when he was angry, and very 
 angry when any one tried to impose upon him, 
 or flatter him. 
 
 The letter he read so often was from Kings- 
 ley Bey, the Englishman, who, coming to 
 Egypt penniless, and leaving estates behind 
 him encumbered beyond release, as it would 
 seem, had made a fortune and a name in a 
 curious way. For years he had done no good 
 for himself, trying his hand at many things, 
 — sugar, salt, cotton, cattle, but always just 
 failing to succeed, though he came out of his 
 enterprises owing no one. Yet he had held to 
 his belief that he would make a fortune, and 
 he allowed his estates to become still more 
 encumbered, against the advice of his solicitors, 
 who grew more irritable as interest increased 
 and rents further declined. The only Eu- 
 ropean in Egypt who shared his own belief 
 in himself was Dicky Donovan. Something 
 
 209 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 in the unfailing good-humour, the buoyant 
 energy, the wide imagination of the man 
 seized Dicky, warranted the conviction that 
 he would yet make a success. There were 
 reasons why sugar, salt, cotton, cattle and 
 other things had not done well. Taxes, the 
 corvee, " undue influence " in favour of Pashas 
 who could put his water on their land without 
 compensation, or unearthed old unpaid mort- 
 gages on his land, or absorbed his special salt 
 concession in the Government monopoly, or 
 suddenly put a tax on all horses and cattle 
 not of native breed; — all these and various 
 other imposts, exactions or interferences engi- 
 neered by the wily mamour, the agent of the 
 mouffetish, or the intriguing pasha, killed his 
 efforts, in spite of labours unbelievable. The 
 venture before the last had been sugar, and 
 when he arrived in Cairo, having seen his 
 fields and factories absorbed in the Khedive's 
 domains, he had but one ten pounds to his 
 name. 
 
 He went to Dicky Donovan and asked the 
 loan of a thousand pounds. It took Dicky's 
 breath away. His own banking account sel- 
 dom saw a thousand-deposit. Dicky told 
 Kjngsley he hadn't got it. Kingsley asked 
 him to get it — he had credit, could borrow it 
 from the bank, from the Khedive himself! 
 
 210 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 The proposal was audacious — Kingsley could 
 offer no security worth having. His enthusi- 
 asm and courage were so infectious however, 
 though his ventures had been so fruitless, that 
 Dicky laughed in his face. Kingsley's man- 
 ner then suddenly changed, and he assured 
 Dicky that he would receive five thousand 
 pounds for the thousand within a year. Now, 
 Dicky knew that Kingsley never made a 
 promise to any one that he did not fulfil. He 
 gave Kingsley the thousand pounds. He did 
 more. He went to the Khedive with Kings- 
 ley's whole case. He spoke as he had seldom 
 spoken, and he secured a bond from Ismail, 
 which might not be broken. He also secured 
 three thousand pounds of the Khedive's bor- 
 rowings firom Europe, on Kingsley's promise 
 that it should be returned fivefold. 
 
 That was how Kingsley got started in the 
 world again, how he went mining in the des- 
 ert afar, where pashas and mamours could 
 not worry him. The secret of his success was 
 purely Oriental. He became a slave-owner. 
 He built up a city of the desert round him. 
 He was its ruler. Slavery gave him steady 
 untaxed labour. A rifle-magazine gave him 
 security against marauding tribes, his cara- 
 vans were never overpowered ; his blacks were 
 his own. He had a way with them; they 
 
 211 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 thought him the greatest man in the world. 
 Now, at last, he was rich enough. His mines 
 were worked out, too, and the market was not 
 so good; he had supphed it too well. Dicky's 
 thousand had brought him five thousand, and 
 Ismail's three thousand had become fifteen 
 thousand, and another twenty thousand be- 
 sides. For once the Khedive had found a 
 kind of taxation, of which he got the whole 
 proceeds, not divided among many as hereto- 
 fore. He got it all. He made Kingsley a 
 Bey, and gave him immunity from all other 
 imposts or taxation. Nothing but an Egyp- 
 tian army could have removed him from his 
 desert city. 
 
 Now, he was coming back, — ^to-night at ten 
 o'clock he would appear at the Khedivial Club, 
 the first time in seven years. But this was 
 not aU. He was coming back to be married 
 as soon as might be. 
 
 This was the thing which convulsed Dicky. 
 
 Upon the Nile at Assiout lived a young 
 English lady, whose life was devoted to agi- 
 tation against slavery in Egypt. Perhaps the 
 Civil War in America, not so many years be- 
 fore, had fired her spirit ; perhaps it was pious 
 enthusiasm ; perhaps it was some altruistic 
 sentiment in her which must find expression ; 
 perhaps, as people said, she had had a love 
 
 212 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 affair in England which had turned out badly. 
 At any rate she had come over to Egypt with 
 an elderly companion, and, after a short stay 
 at the Consulate, had begun the career of 
 the evangel. She had now and then created 
 international difficulty, and Ismail, tolerant 
 enough, had been tempted to compel her to 
 leave the country, but, with a zeal which took 
 on an aspect of self-opinionated audacity, she 
 had kept on. Perhaps her beauty helped her 
 on her course — perhaps the fact that her su- 
 perb egotism kept her from being timorous, 
 made her career possible. In any case, there 
 she was at Assiout, and there she had been 
 for years, and no accident had come to her; 
 and, during the three months she was at Cairo 
 every year, pleading against slavery and the 
 corvee, she increased steadily the respect in 
 which she was held; but she was considered 
 mad as Gordon. So delighted had IsmaU 
 been with a quiet, personal attack she made 
 upon him, that without malice, and with an 
 obtuse and impulsive kindness, he sent her the 
 next morning a young Circassian slave, as a 
 mark of his esteem, begging her through the 
 sweUing rhetoric of his messenger to keep the 
 girl, and more than hinting at her value. It 
 stupefied her, and the laughter of Cairo added 
 to her momentary embarrassment ; but she 
 15 213 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 kept the girl, and prepared to send her back to 
 her people. 
 
 The girl said she had no people, and would 
 not go ; she would stay with " my lady " — she 
 would stay for ever with " my lady." It was 
 confusing, but the girl stayed, worshipping the 
 ground " my lady " walked on. In vain " my 
 lady" educated her. Out of hearing, she 
 proudly told whoever would Usten that she 
 was " my lady's slave." It was an Egyptian 
 paradox ; it was in line with everything else 
 in the country, part of the moral opera bouffe. 
 
 In due course, the lady came to hear of the 
 English slave- owner, who ruled the desert city, 
 and was making a great fortune out of the 
 labours of his slaves. The desert Arabs who 
 came down the long caravan road, white with 
 bleached bones, to Assiout, told her he had a 
 thousand slaves. Against this Englishman 
 her anger was great. She unceasingly con- 
 demned him, and whenever she met Dicky 
 Donovan she dehvered her attack with deli- 
 cate violence. Did Dicky know him ? Why 
 did not he, in favour with Ismail, and with 
 great influence, stop this dreadful and humil- 
 iating business ? It was a disgrace to the 
 English name. How could we preach free- 
 dom and a higher civilisation to the Egyptians, 
 while an Englishman enriched himself and 
 
 214 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 ruled a province by slavery ? Dicky's inva- 
 riable reply was that we couldn't, and that 
 things weren't moving very much towards a 
 higher civUisation in Egypt. But he asked 
 her if she ever heard of a slave runnmg away 
 from Kingsley Bey, or had she ever heard of a 
 case of cruelty on his part? Her reply was 
 that he had given slaves the kourbash, and had 
 even shot them. Dicky thereupon suggested 
 that Kingsley Bey was a government, and 
 that the kourbash was not yet abolished in the 
 Enghsh navy, for instance ; also that men had 
 to be shot sometimes. 
 
 At last she had made a direct appeal to 
 Kingsley Bey. She sent an embassy to him 
 — only Dicky prevented her from going her- 
 self; he said he would have her deported 
 straightway, if she attempted it. She was not 
 in such deadly earnest that she did not know 
 he would keep his word, and that the Consul- 
 ate could not help her — would have no time 
 to do so. So, she confined herself to an elab- 
 orate letter, written in admirable Enghsh and 
 inspired by most noble sentiments. The beau- 
 ty that was in her face was in her letter in 
 even a greater degree. It was very adroit, 
 too, very ably argued, and the moral appeal 
 was delicate and touching, put with an elo- 
 quence at once direct and arresting. The in- 
 
 216 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 vocation with which the letter ended was, as 
 Kingsley Bey afterward put it, " a pitch of 
 poetry and humanity never reached except by 
 a Wagner opera," 
 
 Kingsley Bey's response to the appeal was 
 a letter to the lady, brought by a sarraf, a 
 mamour and six slaves, beautifully mounted 
 and armed, saying that he had been deeply 
 moved by her appeal, and as a proof of the 
 effect of her letter, she might free the six 
 slaves of his embassy. This she straightway 
 did joyfully, and when they said they wished 
 to go to Cairo, she saw them and their 
 horses off on the boat with gladness, and she 
 shook them each by the hand and prayed 
 Heaven in their language to give them long 
 plumes of hfe and happiness. Arrived at 
 Cairo these freemen of Assiout did as they 
 had been ordered by Kingsley : found Don- 
 ovan Pasha, dehvered a certain letter to him, 
 and then proceeded, also as they had been or- 
 dered, to a certain place in the city, even to 
 Ismail's stables, to await their master's com- 
 ing. 
 
 This letter was now in Dicky's hand, and 
 his mirth was caused by the statement that 
 Kingsley Bey had declared that he was com- 
 ing to marry " my lady " — she really was " my 
 lady," the Lady May Harley; that he was 
 
 216 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 coining by a diiFerent route from "his nig- 
 gers," and would be there the same day. 
 Dicky would find him at ten o'clock at the 
 Khedivial Club. 
 
 " My lady " hated slavery — and unconscious- 
 ly she kept a slave; she regarded Kingsley 
 Bey as an enemy to civilisation and to Egypt, 
 she detested him as strongly as an idealistic 
 nature could and should — and hq had set out 
 to marry her, the woman who had bitterly ar- 
 raigned him at the bar of her judgment. All 
 this play was in Dicky's hands for himself to 
 enjoy, in a perfect dress rehearsal ere ever one 
 of the Cairene public or the English world 
 could pay for admission and take their seats. 
 Dicky had in more senses than one got his 
 money's worth out of Kingsley Bey. He 
 wished he might let the Khedive into the se- 
 cret at once, for he had an opinion of Ismail's 
 sense of humour; had he not said that very 
 day in the presence of the French Consul, 
 " Shut the window, quick ! If the consul 
 sneezes, France wiU demand compensation I " 
 But Dicky was satisfied that things should be 
 as they were. He looked at the clock — it was 
 five minutes to ten. He rose from the table, 
 and went to the smoking-room. In vain it 
 was sought to draw him into the friendly cir- 
 cles of gossiping idlers and officials. He took 
 
 217 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 a chair at the very end of the room and oppo- 
 site the door, and waited, watching. 
 
 Precisely at ten the door opened and a tall, 
 thin, loose-knit figure entered. He glanced 
 quickly round, saw Dicky, and swung down 
 the room, nodding to men who sprang to their 
 feet to greet him. Some of the Egyptians 
 looked darkly at him, but he smiled all round, 
 caught at one or two hands thrust out to him, 
 said, " Business — business first ! " in a deep 
 bass voice, and, hastening on, seized both of 
 Dicky's hands in his, then his shoulders, and 
 almost roared : " Well, what do you think of 
 it ? Isn't it all right ? Am I, or am I not, 
 Dicky Pasha? " 
 
 "You very much are," answered Dicky, 
 thrust a cigar at him, and set him down in the 
 deepest chair he could find. He sprawled 
 wide, and lighted his cigar, then lay back and 
 looked down his long nose at his friend. 
 
 " I mean it, too," he said after a minute, and 
 reached for a glass of water the waiter brought. 
 "No, thanks, no whiskey — ^never touch it — 
 good example to the slaves I " He laughed 
 long and low, and looked at Dicky out of the 
 corner of his eye. " Good-looking lot I sent 
 you, eh ? " 
 
 " Oosters, every one of 'em. Butter wouldn't 
 melt in their mouths. I learnt their grin, it 
 
 218 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 suits my style of beauty." Dicky fitted the 
 action to the word. 
 
 "You'll start with me in the morning to 
 Assiout?" 
 
 " 1 can start, but hfe and time are short." 
 
 •' You think I can't and won't marry her? " 
 
 " This isn't the day of Lochinvar." 
 
 " This is the day of Kingsley Bey, Dicky 
 Pasha." 
 
 Dicky frowned. He had a rare and fine 
 sense where women were concerned, were they 
 absent or present. "How very artless — and 
 in so short a time, too ! " he said tartly. 
 
 Kingsley laughed quietly. "Art is long, 
 but tempers are short ! " he retorted. 
 
 Dicky liked a Roland for his Oliver. " It's 
 good to see you back again," he said, chang- 
 ing the subject. " How long do you mean to 
 stay?" 
 
 "Here?" 
 
 Dicky nodded. 
 
 " Till I'm married." 
 
 Dicky became very quiet, a httle formal, and 
 his voice took on a curious smoothness, through 
 which sharp suggestion pierced. 
 
 "So long? — Enter our Kingsley Bey into 
 the underground Levantine world." 
 
 This was biting enough. To be swallowed 
 up by Cairo hfe and all that it involves, was 
 
 219 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 no fate to suggest to an Englishman, whose 
 opinion of the Levantine needs no defining. 
 " Try again, Dicky," said Kingsley, refusing 
 to be drawn. " This is not one huge joke, or 
 one vast impertinence, so far as the lady is 
 concerned. I've come back — b-a-c-k" (he 
 spelled the word out), "with all that it in- 
 volves. I've come hack, Dicky." 
 
 He quieted all at once, and leaned over to- 
 wards his friend. " You know the fight I've 
 had. You know the hfe I've Uved in Egypt. 
 You know what I left behind me in England 
 — nearly all. You've seen the white man 
 work. You've seen the black ooster save him. 
 You've seen the ten-times-a-failure pull out. 
 Have I played the game? Have I acted 
 squarely? Have I given kindness for kind- 
 ness, blow for blow? Have I treated my 
 slaves like human beings? Have I — have I 
 won my way back to life — hfe? " He spread 
 out a hand with a little grasping motion. 
 "Have I saved the old stand off there in 
 Cumberland by the sea, where you can see the 
 snow on Skaw Fell ? Have I ? Do you won- 
 der that I laugh? Ye gods and httle fishes 1 
 I've had to wear a long face years enough — 
 seven hard years, seven fearful years, when I 
 might be murdered by a slave, and I and my 
 slaves might be murdered by some stray bri- 
 
 220 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 gade, under some general of Ismail's, working 
 without orders, without orders, of course — oh, 
 very much of course ! Why shouldn't I play 
 the boy to-day, little Dicky Donovan ? I am 
 a Mahomedan come Christian again. I am a 
 navvy again come gentleman. I am an Arab 
 come Enghshman once more. I am an out- 
 cast come home. I am a dead man come to 
 life." 
 
 Dicky leaned over and laid a hand on his 
 knee. " You are a credit to Cumberland," he 
 said. " No other man could have done it. I 
 won't ask any more questions. Anything you 
 want of me, I am with you, to do, or say, or 
 be." 
 
 " Good, I want you to go to Assiout to- 
 morrow." 
 
 "Will you see Ismail first? It might be 
 safer — good policy." 
 
 " I will see My Lady first. . . . Trust me. 
 I know what I'm doing. You will laugh 
 as I do." Laughter broke from his lips. It 
 was as though his heart was ten years old. 
 Dicky's eyes moistened. He had never seen 
 anjrthing like it — such happiness, such boyish 
 confidence. And what had not this man ex- 
 perienced ! How had he drunk misfortune to 
 the dregs ! What unbelievable optimism had 
 been his I How had he been at once hard and 
 
 221 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 kind, tyrannical and human, defiant and peace- 
 ful, daring yet submissive, fierce yet just ! 
 And now, here, with so much done, with a 
 great fortune and great power, a very boy, he 
 was planning to win the heart of, and marry, 
 his avowed foe, the woman who had con- 
 demned him without stint. 
 
 II 
 
 On her wide verandah, a stone's-throw from 
 the banks of the Nile, My Lady sat pen in 
 hand and paper-pad upon her knee. She had 
 written steadily for an hour, and now she 
 raised her head to look out on the swift flow- 
 ing, muddy water, where broad khiassas 
 floated down the stream, laden with bersim; 
 where feluccas covered the river, bearing 
 natives and donkeys ; where faithful Moslems 
 performed their ablutions, and other faithful 
 Moslems, their sandals laid aside, said their 
 prayers with their faces towards Mecca, oblivi- 
 ous of all around ; where blue-robed women 
 filled their goolahs with water, and bore them 
 away, steady and stately; where a gang of 
 conscripts, chained ankle to ankle, followed by 
 a crowd of weeping and wailing women, were 
 being driven to the anchorage of the stern- 
 wheeled transport-steamer. All these sights 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 she had seen how many hundred times I To 
 her it was all slavery. The laden khiassas 
 represented the fruits of enforced labour; the 
 ablutions and prayers were but signs of sub- 
 mission to the tyranny of a religion designed 
 for the benefit of the few at the expense of the 
 many, a creed and code of gross selfishness — 
 were not women only admitted to Heaven by 
 the intercession of their husbands and after 
 unceasing prayer? Whether beasts of bur- 
 den, the girl with the goolah, women in the 
 harem, or servants of pleasure, they were all 
 in the bonds of slavery, and the land was in 
 moral darkness. So it seemed to her. 
 
 How many times had she written these 
 things in different forms and to different peo- 
 ple — so often, too often, to the British Consul 
 at Cairo, whose patience waned. At first, the 
 seizure of conscripts, with all that it involved, 
 had excited her greatly. It had required all 
 her common sense to prevent her, then and 
 there, protesting, pleading, with the kavass, 
 who did the duty of Ismail's Sidar. She had 
 confined herself, however, to asking for per- 
 mission to give the men cigarettes and sUp- 
 pers, dates and bread, and bags of lentils for 
 soup. Even this was not unaccompanied by 
 danger, for the Mohammedan mind could not 
 at first tolerate the idea of a lady going un- 
 
 223 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 veiled; only fellah women, domestic cattle, 
 bared their faces to the world. The con- 
 scripts, too, going to their death — for how few 
 of them ever returned? — cleaving behind all 
 hope, all freedom, passing to starvation and 
 cruelty, at last to be cut down by the Arab, 
 or left dying of illness in the desert, they took 
 her gifts with sullen faces. Her beautiful 
 freedom was in such contrast to- their torture, 
 slavery of a direful kind. But as again and 
 again the kavasses came and opened midnight 
 doors and snatched away the young men, her 
 influence had grown so fast, that her presence 
 brought comfort, and she helped to assuage 
 the gi'ief of the wailing women. She even 
 urged upon them that philosophy of their 
 own, which said " MalaisJi " to all things, — ^the 
 " It is no matter," of the fated Hamlet. In 
 time she began to be grateful that an apathet- 
 ic resignation, akin to the quiet of despair, 
 was the possession of their race. She was far 
 from aware that something in then' life, of 
 their philosophy, was affecting her under- 
 standing. She had a strong brain and a 
 stronger will, but she had a capacity for feel- 
 ing greater still, and this gave her imagina- 
 tion, temperament, and — though it would 
 have shocked her to know it — a certain cre- 
 dulity, easily transmutable into superstition. 
 
 224 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 Yet, as her sympathies were, to some extent, 
 rationalised by stern fact and everlasting cus- 
 tom, her opposition to some things became 
 more active and more fervid. 
 
 Looking into the distance, she saw two or 
 three hundred men at work on a canal, drain- 
 ing the property of Selamlik Pasha, whose 
 tyrannies, robberies and intrigues were famil- 
 iar to all Egypt, whose palaces were almost as 
 many as those of the notorious Mouffetish. 
 These men she saw now working in the dread 
 corvee, had been forced from their homes by a 
 counterfeit Khedivial order. They had been 
 compelled to bring their own tools, and to 
 feed and clothe and house themselves, without 
 pay or reward, having left behind them their 
 own fields untUled, their own dourha un- 
 reaped, their date-palms, which the tax-gath- 
 erer confiscated. Many and many a time — 
 unless she was prevented, and this at first had 
 been often — she had sent food and blankets to 
 these poor creatures who, their day's work 
 done, prayed to God as became good Mo- 
 hammedans, and, without covering, stretched 
 themselves out on the bare ground to sleep. 
 
 It suggested that other slavery, which did 
 not hide itself under the forms of conscription 
 and corvee. It was on this slavery her mind 
 had been concentrated, and against it she had 
 
 225 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 turned her energies and her life. As she now 
 sat, pen in hand, the thought of how little she 
 had done, how futile had been aU her crusade, 
 came to her. Yet there was, too, a look of 
 triumph in her eyes. Until three days ago 
 she had seen little result from her labours. 
 Then had come a promise of better things. 
 From the Englishman, against whom she had 
 inveighed, had been sent an ohve branch, a 
 token — of conversion? Had he not sent six 
 slaves for her to free, and had she not freed 
 them? That was a step. She pictured to 
 herself this harsh expatriated adventurer, this 
 desert ruler, this slave-holder, — had he been a 
 slaxe-dealer she could herself have gladly been 
 his executioner — surrounded by his black serfs, 
 receiving her letter. In her mind's eye she 
 saw his face flush as he read her burning 
 phrases, then turn a little pale, then grow 
 stern. 
 
 She saw him, after a sleepless night, haunted 
 by her warnings, her appeal to his English 
 manhood. She saw him rise, meditative and 
 relenting, and send forthwith these slaves for 
 her to free. Her eye gUstened again, as it had 
 shone while she had written of this thing to 
 the British Consul at Cairo, to her father in 
 England, who approved of her sympathies and 
 lamented her actions. Had her crusade been 
 
 226 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 altogether fruitless, she asked herself. Ismail's 
 freed Circassian was in her household, being 
 educated Uke an English girl, lifted out of her 
 former degradation, made to understand " a 
 higher life " ; and yesterday she had sent away 
 six liberated slaves, with a gold-piece each, as 
 a gift from a free woman to free men. It 
 seemed to her for a moment now, as she sat 
 musing and looking, that her thirty years of 
 hfe had not been — rather, might not be — in 
 vain. 
 
 There was one other letter she would write 
 — ^to Donovan Pasha, who had not been ar- 
 dent in her cause, yet who might have done 
 so much through his influence with Ismail, 
 who, it was said, liked him better than any 
 Englishman he had known, save Gordon. 
 True, Donovan Pasha had steadily worked for 
 the reduction of the corvee, and had, in the 
 name of the Khedive, steadily reduced private 
 corvee, but he had never set his face against 
 slavery, save to see that no slave-dealing was 
 permitted below Assouan, Yet, with her 
 own eyes she had seen Abyssinian slaves sold 
 in the market-place of Assiout. True, when 
 she appealed to him, Donovan Pasha had seen 
 to it that the slave-dealers were severely pun- 
 ished, but the fact remained that he was un- 
 sympathetic on the large issue. When ap- 
 
 227 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 pealed to, the British Consul had petulantly 
 told her that Donovan Pasha was doing more 
 important work. Yet she could only think of 
 England as the engine of civilisation, as an 
 evangelising power, as the John the Baptist of 
 the nations — a country with a mission. For 
 so beautiful a woman, of so worldly a stock, of 
 a society so in front of things, she had some 
 PhiUstine notions, some quite middle -class 
 ideals. It was like a duchess taking to Exe- 
 ter Hall ; but few duchesses so afflicted had 
 been so beautiful and so young, so much of 
 the worldly world — her father was high in 
 the household of an illustrious person. . . . 
 If she could but make any headway against 
 slavery — she had as disciples ten Armenian 
 pashas, several wealthy Copts, a number of 
 Arab sheikhs, and three Egyptian princes, 
 sympathetic rather than active — perhaps, 
 through her father, she might be able to move 
 the illustrious person, and so, in time, the 
 Government of England. 
 
 It was a delightful dream — the best she had 
 imagined for many a day. She was roused 
 from it by the scream of a whistle, and the 
 hoonch-hoonch of a stern-wheel steamer. A 
 Government boat was hastening into the 
 bank, almost opposite her house. She picked 
 up the field-glass from the window-sill behind 
 
 228 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 her, and swept the deck of the steamer. There 
 were two figures in EngUsh dress, though one 
 wore the tarboosh. The figure shorter and 
 smaller than the other she recognized. This 
 was Donovan Pasha. She need not write her 
 letter to him, then. He would be sure to 
 visit her. Disapprove of him as she did from 
 one standpoint, he always excited in her feel- 
 ings of home-sickness, of an old life, full of in- 
 terests — music, drama, art, politics, diplomacy, 
 the court, the hunting-field, the quiet house- 
 party. He troubled her in a way too, for his 
 sane certainty, set against her aspiring credu- 
 lity, arrested, even commanded, her some- 
 times. 
 
 Instinctively, she put out her hand to gather 
 in flying threads of hair, she felt at the pearl 
 fastening of her collar, she looked at her brown 
 shoes and her dress, and was satisfied. She 
 was spotless. And never had her face shone 
 — really shone — to such advantage. It had 
 not now the brilliant colours of the first years. 
 The climate, her work in hospital building, her 
 labours against slavery, had touched her with 
 a little whiteness. She was none the less good 
 to see. 
 
 Who was this striding along with Donovan 
 Pasha, straight towards her house ? No one 
 she had ever seen in Egypt, and yet in man- 
 16 229 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 ner like some one she had seen before — a long 
 time before. Her mind flashed back through 
 the years to the time when she was a girl, and 
 visted old friends of her father in a castle look- 
 ing towards Skaw Fell, above the long valley 
 of the Nidd. A kind of mist came before her 
 eyes now. 
 
 When she really saw again, they were at the 
 steps of the verandah, and Donovan Pasha's 
 voice was greeting her. Then, as without a 
 word, but with a welcoming smile, she shook 
 hands with Dicky her look was held, first by a 
 blank arrest of memory, then by surprise. 
 
 Dicky turned for his office of introduction 
 but was stayed by the look of amusement in 
 his friend's face, and by the amazed recogni- 
 tion in that of My Lady. He stepped back 
 with an exclamation, partly of chagrin. He 
 saw that this recognition was no coincidence, 
 so far as the man was concerned, though the 
 woman had been surprised in a double sense. 
 He resented the fact that Kingsley Bey had 
 kept this from him — he had the weakness of 
 small-statured men and of diplomatic people 
 who have reputations for knowing and doing. 
 The man, all smiling, held out his hand, and 
 his look was quizzically humourous as he said : 
 
 " You scarcely looked to see me here. Lady 
 May?" 
 
 230 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 Her voice trembled with pleasure. " No, of 
 course. When did you come, Lord Selden ? 
 . . . Won't you sit down ? " 
 
 That high green terrace of Cumberland, the 
 mist on Skaw Fell, the sun out over the sea, 
 they were in her eyes. So much water had 
 gone under the bridges since ! 
 
 "I was such a young girl then — in short 
 frocks — it was a long time ago, I fear," she 
 added, as if in continuation of the thought 
 flashing through her mind. " Let me see," 
 she went on fearlessly; "I am thirty; that 
 was thirteen years ago." 
 
 " I am thirty-seven, and still it is thirteen 
 years ago." 
 
 "You look older, when you don't smile," 
 she added, and glanced at his gray hair. 
 
 He laughed now. She was far, far franker 
 than she was those many years ago, and it 
 was very agreeable and refreshing. " Dono- 
 van, there, reproved tne last night for frivol- 
 ity," he said. 
 
 " If Donovan Pasha has become grave, then 
 there is hope for Egypt," she said, turning to 
 Dicky with a new brightness. 
 
 "When there's hope for Egypt, I'll have 
 lost my situation, and there'll be reason for 
 drawing a long face," said Dicky, and got the 
 two at such an angle that he could watch 
 
 231 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 them to advantage. " I thrive while it's opira 
 houffe. Give us the legitimate drama, and I 
 go with Ismail." 
 
 The lady shrank a little. " If it weren't 
 you, Donovan Pasha, I should say that, as- 
 sociated with Ismail, as you are, you are as 
 criminal as he." 
 
 " What is crime in one country, is virtue in 
 another," answered Dicky. " I clamp the 
 wheel sometimes to keep it from spinning too 
 fast. That's my only duty. I am neither 
 Don Quixote nor Alexander Imperator." 
 
 She thought he was referring obliquely to 
 the corvee and the other thing in which her 
 life-work was involved. She became severe. 
 " It is compromising with evil," she said. 
 
 " No. It's getting a breakfast roll instead 
 of the whole bakery," he answered. 
 
 " What do you think ? " she exclaimed, turn- 
 ing to Kingsley. 
 
 "I think there's one man in Egjrpt, who 
 keeps the boiler from bursting," he answered. 
 
 " Oh, don't think I undervalue his excel- 
 lency," she said with a little laugh. " It is 
 because he is strong, because he matters so 
 much, that one feels he could do more. Is- 
 mail thinks there is no one like him in the 
 world." 
 
 " Except Gordon," interrupted Kingsley. 
 232 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 " Except Gordon, of course ; only Gordon 
 isn't in Egypt. And he would do no good in 
 Egypt. The officials would block his way. 
 It is only in the Soudan that he could have a 
 free hand, be of real use. There, a man, a real 
 man, like Gordon, could show the world how 
 civilisation can be accepted by desert races, 
 despite a crude and cruel religion and low 
 standards of morality." 
 
 " All races have their social codes — what 
 they call civilisation," rejoined Kingsley. " It 
 takes a long time to get custom out of the 
 blood, especially when it is part of the religion. 
 I'm afraid that expediency isn't the motto of 
 those who try to civilise the Orient and the 
 East." 
 
 " I believe in struggUng openly for princi- 
 ple," she observed a little acidly. 
 
 "Have you succeeded?" he asked, trying 
 to keep his gravity. " How about your own 
 household, for instance ? Have you christian- 
 ised and civiUsed your people — your niggers, 
 and the others ? " 
 
 She flushed indignantly, but held herself in 
 control. She rang a bell. " I have no ' nig- 
 gers,' " she answered quietly. " I have some 
 Berberine servants, two fellah boatmen, an 
 Egyptian gardener, an Arab cook, and a Circas- 
 sian maid. They are, I think, devoted to me." 
 
 233 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 A Berberine servant appeared. " Tea, Ma- 
 hommed," she said. "And tell Madame that 
 Donovan Pasha is here. My cousin admires 
 his excellency so much," she added to Kings- 
 ley, laughing. " I have never had any real 
 trouble with them," she continued with a little 
 gesture of pride towards the disappearing Ber- 
 berine. 
 
 " There was the Armenian," put in Dicky 
 slyly ; " and the Copt sarraf. They were no 
 credit to their Christian religion, were they ? " 
 
 " That was not the fault of the religion, but 
 of the generations of oppression — they he as a 
 child Hes, to escape consequences. Had they 
 not been oppressed they would have been good 
 Christians in practice as in precept." 
 
 " They don't steal as a child steals," laughed 
 Dicky. "Armenians are Oriental through 
 and through. They no more understand the 
 Christian religion, than the Soudanese under- 
 stand freedom." 
 
 He touched the right note this time. Kings- 
 ley flashed a half-startled, half-humourous look 
 at him ; the face of the lady became set, her 
 manner deUcately frigid. She was about to 
 make a quiet, severe reply, but something 
 overcame her, and her eyes, her face, sud- 
 denly glowed. She leaned forward, her hands 
 clasped tightly on her knees — Kingsley could 
 
 234 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 not but note how beautiful and brown they 
 were, capable, handsome, confident hands — 
 and, in a voice thrilling with feeling, said : 
 
 " What is there in the life here that gets 
 into the eyes of Europeans and blinds them? 
 The United States spent scores of thousands 
 of hves to free the African slave. England 
 paid nuUions, and sacrificed ministries and 
 men, to free the slave; and in England, you 
 — you, Donovan Pasha, and men like you, 
 would be in the van against slavery. Yet 
 here, where England has more influence than 
 any other nation " 
 
 " More power, not influence," Dicky inter- 
 rupted smiling. 
 
 "Here, you endure, you encourage, you 
 approve of it. Here, an Enghshman rules a 
 city of slaves in the desert and grows rich out 
 of their labour. What can we say to the rest 
 of the world, while out there in the desert " — 
 her eyes swept over the gray and violet hills — 
 "that man, Kingsley Bey, sets at defiance his 
 race, his country, civiMsation, aU those things 
 in which he was educated. Egjrpt wiU not 
 believe in English civihsation, Europe will not 
 believe in her humanity and honesty, so long 
 as he pursues his wicked course." 
 
 She turned with a gesture of impatience, 
 and in silence began to pour the tea the ser- 
 
 235 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 vant had brought, with a message that Ma- 
 dame had a headache. Kingsley Bey was 
 about to speak — it was so unfair to hsten, and 
 she would forgive this no more readily than 
 she would forgive slavery. Dicky intervened, 
 however. 
 
 " He isn't so black as he's painted, person- 
 ally. He's a rash, inflammable sort of fellow, 
 who has a way with the native — treats him 
 well, too, I believe. Very flamboyant, doomed 
 to failure, so far as his merit is concerned, but 
 with an incredible luck. He gambled, and he 
 lost a dozen times ; and then gambled again, 
 and won. That's the truth, I fancy. No real 
 stuff in him whatever." 
 
 Their hostess put down her tea-cup, and 
 looked at Dicky in blank surprise. Not a 
 muscle in his face moved. She looked at 
 Kingsley. He had difficulty in restraining 
 himself, but by stooping to give her fox-terrier 
 a piece of cake, he was able to conceal his 
 consternation. 
 
 " I cannot — cannot believe it," she said 
 slowly. " The British Consul does not speak 
 of him like that." 
 
 "He is a cousin of the Consul," urged 
 Dicky. 
 
 " Cousin ! What cousin ? I never heard — 
 he never told me that." 
 
 236 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 " Oh, nobody tells anything in Egypt, un- 
 less he's kourbashed or thumb-screwed. It's 
 safer to teU nothing, you know." 
 
 " Cousin 1 I didn't know there were Kings- 
 leys in that family. What reason could the 
 Consul have for hiding the relationship ? " 
 
 " Oh, I don't know, you must ask Kingsley. 
 Flamboyant and garrulous as he is, he proba- 
 bly won't tell you that." 
 
 " If I saw Kingsley Bey, I should ask him 
 questions which interest me more. I should 
 prefer, however, to ask them through a lawyer 
 — ^to him in the prisoner's dock." 
 
 "You dislike him intensely? " 
 
 " I detest him for what he has done ; but I 
 do not despise him as you suggest I should. 
 Flamboyant, garrulous — I don't beUeve that! 
 I think him, feel him, to be a hard man, a 
 strong man, and a bad man — if not wholly 
 bad." 
 
 "Yet you would put him in the prison- 
 er's dock," interposed Kingsley musingly, and 
 wondering how he was to tell her that Lord 
 Selden and Kingsley Bey were one and the 
 same person. 
 
 "Certainly. A man who commits public 
 wrongs should be punished. Yet I am sorry 
 that a man so capable should be so inhuman." 
 
 " Ah, your grandfather was inhuman," put 
 237 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 in Kingsley. " He owned great West Indian 
 slave properties." 
 
 "He was culpable, and should have been 
 punished — and was; for we are all poor at 
 last. The world has higher, better standards, 
 now, and we should live up to them. Kings- 
 ley Bey should hve up to them." 
 
 " I suppose we might be able to punish him 
 yet," said Dicky meditatively. "If Ismail 
 turned rusty, we could soon settle him, I 
 fancy. Certainly, you present a strong case." 
 He peered innocently into the distance. 
 
 " But could it be done — but would you ? " 
 she asked, suddenly leaning forward. "If 
 you would, you could — you could 1 " 
 
 " If I did it at all, if I could make up my 
 mind to it, it should be done thoroughly — no 
 half measures." 
 
 " What would be the whole measures ? " 
 she asked eagerly, but with a certain faint 
 shrinking, for Dicky seemed cold-blooded. 
 
 " Of course you never could tell what would 
 happen when Ismail throws the shpper. This 
 isn't a country where things are cut and dried, 
 and done according to Hoyle. You get a 
 new combination every time you puU a string. 
 Where there's no system and a thousand 
 methods you have to run risks. Kingsley 
 Bey might get mangled in the machinery." 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 She shrank a httle. " It is all barbarous." 
 
 " Oh, I don't know. He is guilty, isn't he? 
 You said you would like to see him in the 
 prisoner's dock. You would probably convict 
 him of killing as weU as slavery. You would 
 torture him with prison, and then hang him in 
 the end. Ismail would probably get into a 
 rage — pretended, of course — and send an army 
 against him. Kingsley would make a fight 
 for it, and lose his head — all in the interest of 
 a sudden sense of duty on the part of the 
 Khedive. All Europe would applaud — aU 
 save England, and what could she do ? Can 
 she defend slavery? There'll be no kid-gloved 
 justice meted out to Kingsley by the Khedive, if 
 he starts a campaign against him. He will have 
 to take it on the devil's pitchfork. You must 
 be logical, you know. You can't have it both 
 ways. If he is to be punished, it must be after 
 the custom of the place. This isn't England." 
 
 She shuddered slightly, and Dicky went on : 
 "Then, when his head's off, and his desert- 
 city and his mines are no more, and his slaves 
 change masters, comes a nice question. Who 
 gets his money ? Not that there's any doubt 
 about who'll get it, but, from your standpoint, 
 who should get it ? " 
 
 She shook her head in something hke em- 
 barrassment. 
 
 239 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 "Money got by slavery — yes; who should 
 get it ? " interposed Kingsley carefully, for her 
 eyes had turned to him for help. "Would 
 you favour his heirs getting it ? Should it 
 go to the State ? Should it go to the slaves ? 
 Should it go to a fund for agitation against 
 slavery ? . . . You, for instance, could make 
 use of a fortune like his in a cause like that, 
 could you not? " he asked with what seemed 
 boyish simplicity. 
 
 The question startled her. "I — I don't 
 know. . . . Oh, certainly not," she hastened 
 to add ; " I couldn't touch the money. It is 
 absurd — impossible." 
 
 " I can't see that," steadily persisted Kings- 
 ley. " This money was made out of the work 
 of slaves. Certainly they were paid — ^they 
 were, weren't they ? " he said with mock ig- 
 norance, turning to Dicky, who nodded as- 
 sent. " They were paid wages by Kingsley — 
 in kind, I suppose, but that's aU that's needed 
 in a country like the Soudan. But stiU they 
 had to work, and their Uves and bodies were 
 Kingsley 's for the time being, and the fort- 
 une wouldn't have been made without them ; 
 therefore, according to the most finely ad- 
 vanced theories of labour and ownership, the 
 fortune is theirs as much as Kingsley's. But, 
 in the nature of things, they couldn't have 
 
 240 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 the fortune. What would they do with it ? 
 Wandering tribes don't need money. Bar- 
 ter and exchange of things in kind is the one 
 form of finance in the Soudan. Besides, 
 they'd cut each other's throats the very first 
 day they got the fortune, and it would strew 
 the desert sands. It's all illogical and im- 
 possible " 
 
 " Oh, yes, I quite see that," she interposed. 
 
 " But you surely can see how the fortune 
 could be applied to saving those races from 
 slavery. What was wrung from the few by 
 forced labour and loss of freedom could be re- 
 turned to the many by a sort of national sal- 
 vation. You could spend the fortune wisely 
 — agents and missionaries everywhere ; in the 
 cafes, in the bazaars, in the palace, at court. 
 Judicious gifts : and, at last, would come a 
 firman or decree putting down slavery, on 
 penalty of death. The fortune would all go, 
 of course, but think of the good accom- 
 plished ! " 
 
 " You mean that the fortune should be 
 spent in buying the decree — in backsheesh ? " 
 she asked bewildered, yet becoming indig- 
 nant. 
 
 " Well, it's like company promoting," Dicky 
 interposed, hugely enjoying the comedy, and 
 thinking that Kingsley had put the case 
 
 241 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 shrewdly. It was sure to confuse her. " You 
 have to clear the way, as it were. The pre- 
 Uminaries cost a good deal, and those who 
 put the machinery in working order have to 
 be paid. Then there's always some important 
 person who holds the key of the situation; 
 his counsel has to be asked. Advice is very 
 expensive." 
 
 " It is gross and wicked 1 " she flashed out. 
 
 " But if you got your way ? If you sup- 
 pressed Kingsley Bey, rid the world of him — 
 oh, well, say, banished him," he quickly add- 
 ed, as he saw her fingers tremble — " and get 
 your decree, wouldn't it be worth while? Fire 
 is fought with fire, and you would be using 
 all possible means to do what you esteem a 
 great good. Think of it — slavery abolished, 
 your work accomplished, Kingsley Bey blotted 
 out ! " 
 
 Light and darkness were in her face at once. 
 Her eyes were bright, her brows became knit- 
 ted, her foot tapped the floor. Of course it 
 was all make-believe, this possibility, but it 
 seemed too wonderful to think of — slavery 
 abohshed, and through her; and Kingsley Bey, 
 the renegade Englishman, the disgrace to his 
 country, blotted out. 
 
 "Your argument is not sound in many 
 ways," she said at last, trying to feel her 
 
 242 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 course. " We must be just before all. The 
 whole of the fortune was not earned by slaves. 
 Kingsley Bey's abiUty and power were the 
 original cause of its existence. Without him 
 there would have been no fortune. There- 
 fore, it would not be justice to give it, even 
 indirectly, to the slaves for their cause." 
 
 " It would be penalty — Kingsley Bey's pun- 
 ishment," said Dicky slyly. 
 
 " Oh, I thought he was to be blotted out," 
 she said ironically, yet brightening, for it 
 seemed to her that she was proving herself 
 statesmanhke, and justifying her woman's 
 feelings as well. 
 
 " When he is blotted out, his fortune 
 should go where it can remedy the evil of his 
 life." 
 
 " He may have been working for some good 
 cause," quietly put in Kingsley. "Should 
 not that cause get the advantage of his ' abil- 
 ity and power,' as you have called it, even 
 though he was mistaken, or perverted, or 
 cruel? Shouldn't an average be struck be- 
 tween the wrong his ' ability and power ' did 
 and the right that same ' ability and power ' 
 was intended to advance ? " 
 
 She turned with admiration to Kingsley. 
 " How well you argue — I remember you did 
 years ago. I hate slavery and despise and 
 
 243 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 hate slave-dealers and slave-keepers, but I 
 wovdd be just, too, even to Kingsley Bey. 
 But what cause, save his own comfort and 
 fortune, would he be hkely to serve ? Do 
 you know him ? " she added eagerly. 
 
 " Since I can remember," answered Kings- 
 ley, looking through the field-glasses at a 
 steamer coming up the river. 
 
 " Would you have thought that he would 
 turn out as he has ? " she asked simply. " You 
 see, he appears to me so dark and baleful a 
 figure that I cannot quite regard him as I re- 
 gard you, for instance. I could not realise 
 knowing such a man." 
 
 " He had always a lot of audacity," Kings- 
 ley replied slowly, "and he certainly was a 
 schemer in his way, but that came from his 
 helpless poverty." 
 
 " Was he very poor ? " she asked eagerly. 
 
 " Always. And he got his estates heavily 
 encumbered. Then there were people — old 
 ladies — to have annuities, and many to be pro- 
 vided for, and there was little chance in Eng- 
 land for him. Good-temper and brawn weren't 
 enough." 
 
 "Egj^t's the place for mother- wit," broke 
 in Dicky. " He had that anyhow. As to 
 his unscrupulousness, of course that's as you 
 may look at it." 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 " Was he always unscrupulous ? " she asked. 
 " I have thought him cruel and wicked na- 
 tionally — un-English, shamefully culpable ; but 
 a man who is unscrupulous would do mean, 
 low things, and I should Uke to think that 
 Kingsley is a villain with good points. I be- 
 lieve he has them, and I believe that deep 
 down in him is something English and hon- 
 ourable after all — something to be reckoned 
 with, worked on, developed. See, here is a 
 letter I had from him two days ago," — she 
 drew it from her pocket and handed it over 
 to Dicky. " I cannot think him hopeless al- 
 together ... I freed the slaves who brought 
 the letter, and sent them on to Cairo. Do 
 you not feel it is hopeful?" she urged, as 
 Dicky read the letter slowly, making sotto voce 
 remarks meanwhile. 
 
 "Brigands and tyrants can be gallant — 
 there are plenty of instances on record. What 
 are six slaves to him? " 
 
 "He has a thousand to your one," said 
 Kingsley slowly, and as if not realising his 
 words. 
 
 She started, sat up straight in her chair, 
 and looked at him indignantly. " I have no 
 slaves," she said, 
 
 Kingsley Bey had been watching the Cir- 
 cassian girl, Mata, in the garden for some 
 17 245 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 time, and he had not been able to resist the 
 temptation to make the suggestion that roused 
 her now. 
 
 " I think the letter rather high-flown," said 
 Dicky, turning the point, and handing the 
 open page to Kingsley. " It looks to me as 
 though written with a purpose." 
 
 " What a cryptic remark I " said Kingsley 
 laughing, yet a little chagrined. " What you 
 probably wish to convey is that it says one 
 thing and means another." 
 
 " Suppose it does," interposed the lady. 
 " The fact remains that he answered my ap- 
 peal, which did not mince words, in most 
 diplomatic and gentlemanly language. What 
 do you think of the letter ? " she said, turning 
 to Kingsley, and reaching a hand for it. 
 
 " I'll guarantee our friend here could do no 
 better, if he sat up all night," put in Dicky 
 satirically. 
 
 " You are safe in saying so, the opportu- 
 nity being lacking." She laughed, and folded 
 it up. 
 
 " I believe Kingsley Bey means what he 
 says in that letter. Whatever his purpose, I 
 honestly think that you might have great 
 influence over him," mused Dicky, and, get- 
 ting up, stepped from the verandah, as though 
 to go to the bank where an incoming steamer 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 they had been watching was casting anchor. 
 He turned presently, however, came back a 
 step and said : 
 
 "You see, all our argument resolves itself 
 into this : if Kingsley is to be smashed only 
 Ismail can do it. If Ismail does it, Kingsley 
 will have the desert for a bed, for he'll not 
 run, and Ismail daren't spare him. Sequel, 
 all his fortune will go to the Khedive. Ques- 
 tion, what are we going to do about it ? " 
 
 So saying he left them, laughing, and went 
 down the garden-path to the riverside. The 
 two on the verandah sat silent for a moment, 
 then Kingsley spoke. 
 
 " These weren't the things we talked about 
 when we saw the clouds gather over Skaw 
 Fell and the sun shine on the Irish Sea. 
 We've done and seen much since then. Mul- 
 titudes have come and gone in the world — and 
 I have grown gray I " he added with a laugh, 
 
 "I've done little — nothing, and I meant 
 and hoped to do much," she almost pleaded. 
 " I've grown gi'ay too." 
 
 " Not one gray hair," he said, with an ad- 
 miring look. 
 
 " Gray in spirit sometimes," she reflected 
 with a tired air. " But you — forgive me, if I 
 haven't known what you've done. I've lived 
 out of England so long. You may be at the 
 
 24T 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 head of the Government, for all I know. You 
 look to me as though you'd been a success. 
 Don't smile. I mean it. You look as though 
 you'd climbed. You haven't the air of an 
 eldest son whose way is cut out for him, with 
 fifty thousand a year for compensation. What 
 have you been doing ? What has been your 
 work in life ? " 
 
 " The opposite of yours." 
 
 He felt himself a ruffian, but he consoled 
 himself with the thought that the end at 
 which he aimed was good. It seemed un- 
 generous to meet her simple honesty by such 
 obvious repartee, but he held on to see where 
 the trail would lead. 
 
 " That doesn't seem very clear," she said in 
 answer. " Since I came out here I've been a 
 sort of riverine missionary, an apostle with no 
 followers, a reformer with a plan of salvation 
 no one will accept." 
 
 " We are not stronger than tradition, than 
 the long custom of ages bred in the bone and 
 practised by the flesh. You cannot change a 
 people by firmans ; you must educate them. 
 Meanwhile, things go on pretty much the 
 same. You are a generation before your 
 time. It is a pity, for you have saddened 
 your youth, and you may never live to see 
 accomplished what you have toiled for." 
 
 248 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 " Oh, as to that — as to that . . ." She 
 smoothed back her hair lightly, and her eyes 
 wandered over the distant hUls — mauve and 
 saffron and opal, and tender with the mist of 
 evening. " What does it matter ! " she added. 
 " There are a hundred ways to hve, a hundred 
 things to which one might devote one's life. 
 And as the years went on we'd reahse how 
 every form of success was offset by something 
 undone in another direction, something which 
 would have given us joy and memory and 
 content — so it seems. But — but we can only 
 really work out one dream, and it is the work- 
 ing out — a little or a great distance — ^which 
 satisfies. I have no sympathy with those 
 who, living out their dreams, turn regretfully 
 to another course or another aim, and wonder 
 — wonder, if a mistake hasn't been made. 
 Nothing is a mistake which comes of a good 
 aim, of the desire for wrongs righted, the 
 crooked places made straight. Nothing 
 matters so that the dream was a good one 
 and the heart approves, and the eyes see 
 far." 
 
 She spoke as though herself in a dream, 
 her look intent on the glowing distance, as 
 though unconscious of his presence. 
 
 " It's good to have lived among mountains 
 and climbed them when you were young. It 
 
 S49 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 gives you bigger ideas of things. You could 
 see a long way with the sun behind you, from 
 Skaw Fell." 
 
 He spoke in a low voice, and her eyes drew 
 back from the distance and turned on him. 
 She smiled. 
 
 " I don't know. I suppose it gives one pro- 
 portion, though I've been told by Donovan 
 Pasha and the Consul that I have no sense of 
 proportion. What difference does it make? 
 It is the mdtier of some people of this world 
 to tell the truth, letting it fall as it will, and 
 offend where it will, to be a little unjust maybe, 
 measure wrongly here and there, lest the day 
 pass and nothing be done. It is for the world 
 to correct, to adjust, to organise, to regulate 
 the working of the truth. One person cannot 
 do all." 
 
 Every minute made him more and more 
 regretful, while it deepened his feehngs for 
 her. He saw how far removed was her mind 
 from the sordid views of things, and how sin- 
 cere a philosophy governed her actions and 
 her mission. 
 
 He was about to speak, but she continued : 
 " I suppose I've done unwise things from a 
 worldly, a diplomatic, and a poUtical point of 
 view. I've — I've broken my heart on the rock 
 of the impossible, so my father says. . . . 
 
 250 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 But, no, I haven't broken my heart. I have 
 only given it a Uttle too much hope some- 
 times, too much disappointment at others. 
 In any case — can one be pardoned for quoting 
 poetry in these days? I don't know, I've been 
 so long out of the world : 
 
 Bruised hearts when all is ended. 
 Bear the better all after-stings ; 
 
 Broken once, the citadel mended 
 Standeth through all things. 
 
 I'm not — ^not hopeless, though I've had a long 
 hard fight here in Egypt; and I've done so 
 little." . . . She kept smoothing out the let- 
 ter she had had from Kingsley Bey, as though 
 unconsciously. " But it is coming, the better 
 day. I know it. Some one will come who 
 will do all that I have pleaded for — stop the 
 corvee and give the peasants a chance; stop 
 slavery, and purify the harem and start the 
 social life on a higher basis ; remove a dis- 
 grace from the commerce of an afflicted land ; 
 remove — remove once for all such men as 
 Kingsley Bey; make it impossible for fortunes 
 to be made out of human flesh and blood." 
 She had the rapt look of the dreamer. Sud- 
 denly she recovered her more worldly mood : 
 " What are you doing here ? " she added. 
 " Have you come to take up official life ? 
 
 251 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 Have you some public position — of responsi- 
 bility? Oh, perhaps," — she laughed almost 
 merrily — "you are the very man; the great 
 reformer. Perhaps you think and feel as I 
 do, though you've argued against me. Per- 
 haps you only wanted to see how real my 
 devotion to this cause is. Tell me, are you 
 only a tourist — 1 was going to say idler, but 
 I know you are not ; you have the face of 
 a man who does things — are you tourist or 
 worker here? What does Egypt mean to 
 you ? That sounds rather nonconformist, but 
 Egypt, to me, is the saddest, most beautiful, 
 most mysterious place in the world. All 
 other nations, all other races, every person in 
 the world should be interested in Egypt. 
 Egypt is the lost child of Creation — the dear, 
 pitiful waif of genius and mystery of the 
 world. She has kept the calendar of the ages 
 — ^has outlasted all other nations, and remains 
 the same as they change and pass. She has 
 been the watcher of the world, the one who 
 looks on, and suffers, as the rest of the na- 
 tions struggle for and wound her in their 
 turn. What does Egypt mean to you ? What 
 would you do for her — anything? " 
 
 There was no more satirical laughter in his 
 eyes. He was deeply in earnest, disturbed, 
 even excited. 
 
 252 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 " Egypt means everything in the world to 
 me. I would do what I could for her." 
 
 " What has she done for you ? " 
 
 " She has brought me to you again — to 
 make me know that what you were by Skaw 
 Feu all those years ago, you are now, and a 
 thousand times more." 
 
 She parried the dangerous meaning in his 
 voice, refused to see the tenderness in his man- 
 ner. 
 
 " I'm very sorry to hear that," she added in 
 a tone vainly trying to be unconcerned. " It 
 is a pity that our youth pursues us in forms 
 so little desirable. . . . Who are they ? " she 
 added quickly, nodding towards the shore, 
 from which Dicky was coming with an Egyp- 
 tian officer and a squad of soldiers. 
 
 " H'm," he responded laughing, "it looks 
 Uke a matter of consequence. A pasha, I 
 should think, to travel with an escort like 
 that." 
 
 " They're coming here," she added, and, call- 
 ing to her servant, ordered coffee. 
 
 Suddenly Kingsley got to his feet, with a 
 cry of consternation ; but sat down again smil- 
 ing with a shrug of the shoulders. 
 
 "What is it?" she asked, with something 
 like anxiety, for she had seen the fleeting sus- 
 picion in his look. 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 " I don't know," he answered lightly, and as 
 though the suspicion had gone. He watched 
 Dicky and his companions closely, however, 
 though he chatted unconcernedly while they 
 stood in apparent debate, and presently came 
 on. Dicky was whistling softly, but with an 
 air of perplexity, and he walked with a precision 
 of step which told Kingsley of difficulty ahead. 
 
 He had not long to wait, and as Dicky 
 drew nearer and looked him in the eyes, he 
 came to his feet again, his long body gathering 
 itself slowly up, as though for dehberate action. 
 He felt trouble in the air, matters of moment, 
 danger for himself, though of precisely what 
 sort was not clear. He took a step forward, 
 as though to shield the lady from possible af- 
 front. 
 
 " I fancy they want to see me," he said. 
 He recognized the officer — Foulik Pasha, of 
 the Khedive's household. 
 
 The Pasha salaamed. Dicky drew over to 
 the lady, with a keen warning glance at Kings- 
 ley. The Pasha salaamed again, and Kingsley 
 responded in kind. 
 
 " Good-day to you. Pasha," he said. 
 
 " May the dew of the morning bring flowers 
 to your hfe, excellency," was the reply. He 
 salaamed now towards the lady, and Kingsley 
 murmured his name to her. 
 
 254 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 "Will you not be seated?" she said, and 
 touched a chair as though to sit down, yet 
 casting a doubtful glance at the squad of men 
 and the brilliant kavass drawn up near by. 
 The Pasha looked from one to the other, and 
 Kingsley spoke. 
 
 " What is it, Pasha? Her ladyship doesn't 
 know why she should be honoured." 
 
 " Ah, that makes no difference," she inter- 
 posed. " Here is coffee — ah, that's right, cig- 
 arettes too ! But, yes, you will take my cof- 
 fee, Pasha," she urged. 
 
 The insolent look which had gathered in 
 the man's face cleared away. He salaamed, 
 hesitated, and took the coffee, then salaamed 
 again to her. 
 
 She had caught at a difficulty ; an instinctive 
 sense of peril had taken possession of her; and, 
 feeling that the danger was for the Englishman 
 who had come to her out of her old life, she 
 had interposed a diplomatic moment. She 
 wanted to gain time before the mystery broke 
 over her. She felt something at stake for her- 
 self. Premonition, a troubling of the spirit 
 told her that she was in the presence of a crisis 
 out of which she would not come unchanged. 
 
 Dicky was talking now, helping her— asking 
 the Pasha questions of his journey up the 
 river, of the last news from Europe, of the 
 
 255 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 Khedive's health, though he and Kingsley had 
 only left Cairo a half-day before the Pasha. 
 
 The officer thanked the lady and salaamed 
 again, then turned towards Kingsley. 
 
 "You wished to speak with me, perhaps, 
 Pasha," said Kingsley. 
 
 " If a moment of your time may have so 
 little honour, saadat el bey." 
 
 Kingsley moved down the verandah shoul- 
 der to shoulder with the Pasha, and the lat- 
 ter's men, responding to a glance, moved down 
 also. Kingsley saw, but gave no heed. 
 
 "What's up. Pasha?" he asked in a low 
 voice. 
 
 "The Khedive commands your return to 
 Cairo." 
 
 "With you?" 
 
 " So, efFendi." 
 
 "Compulsion, eh? I don't see quite. I'm 
 an Englishman, not a fellah." 
 
 " But I have my commands, saadat el 
 bey." 
 
 "What's the row, Pasha ? " 
 
 "Is it for the servant to know the mind of 
 his master ? " 
 
 "And if I don't go?" 
 
 The Pasha pointed to his men, and motioned 
 towards the boat where forty or fifty others 
 showed. 
 
 S56 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 "Bosh, Pasha! That's no reason. That's 
 flummery, and you know and the Highness 
 knows it. That would have been all very 
 well in the desert, but this is not the desert, 
 and I'm not doing business with the Highness 
 any more. What's the penalty if I don't go? " 
 
 " Twenty men will lose their heads to-mor- 
 row morning, a riot will occur, the bank where 
 much gold is will be broken into, some one 
 wiU be made poor, and " 
 
 " Oh, never mind twaddle about my money 
 — ^we'U see about that. Those twenty men — 
 my men ? " 
 
 " Your men, saadat." 
 
 " They're seized ? " 
 
 " They are in prison." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " At Abdin Palace." 
 
 Kingsley Bey had had a blow, but he was 
 not dumfounded. In Egypt, the wise man is 
 never surprised at an5rthing, and Kingsley had 
 gone from experience to experience without 
 dismay. He realised the situation at once. 
 The Khedive had been worked upon by some 
 one in the circle, and had put on this pressure, 
 for purposes of backsheesh, or blackmail, or 
 whatever it might be called. His mind was 
 made up at once. 
 
 "Very well. Pasha. Though there's no 
 267 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 reason why I should go with you except to 
 suit myself. You'll excuse me for a mo- 
 ment? " He turned back. 
 
 Meanwhile, Dicky had been distracting the 
 mind of the lady with evasive and cheerful 
 suggestion of urgent business calling Kingsley 
 to Cairo. He saw the plot that had been laid, 
 and it made him very angry, but nothing could 
 be done until he met the Khedive. He 
 guessed who had filled the Khedive's mind 
 with cupidity. He had seen old SelamUk 
 Pasha, who had lent the Khedive much 
 money, entering the Palace as he left with 
 Kingsley Bey thirty-six hours before. He 
 had hoped that he could save the situation, 
 but meanwhile, he was concerned for the new 
 situation created here at Assiout. What 
 would Kingsley do? He knew what he him- 
 self would do in the circumstances, but in 
 crises few men of character do the necessary 
 thing in exactly the same way. Here was 
 comedy of a high order, a mystery and nec- 
 essary revelation of singular piquancy. To 
 his thinking the revelation was now over- 
 due. 
 
 He looked at the woman beside him, and 
 he saw in her face a look it never had had be- 
 fore. Revelation of a kind was there ; beauty, 
 imagination, solicitude, delicate wonder were 
 
 268 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 there. It touched him. He had never been 
 arrested on his way of Ufe by any dream of 
 fair women, or any dream of any woman. It 
 did not seem necessary — ^no one was necessary 
 to him ; he lived his real hfe alone, never shar- 
 ing with any one that of himself which was 
 not part of the life he hved before the world. 
 Yet he had always been liked by men, and he 
 had been agreeable in the sight of more women 
 than he knew, this httle man with a wUl of 
 iron and a friendly heart. But he laughed 
 silently now as he saw Kingsley approaching ; 
 the situation was so beautifully invented. It 
 did not seem quite hke a thing in real life. 
 In any other country than Egypt, it would 
 have been comic opera — Foulik Pasha and his 
 men so egregiously important ; Kingsley so 
 overwhelmed by the duty that lay before him; 
 the woman in a whimsically embarrassing po- 
 sition with the odds, the laugh, against her, 
 yet httle Ukely to take the obvious view of 
 things and so make possible a commonplace 
 end. What would she do? What would 
 Kingsley do ? What would he, Dicky Dono- 
 van, do ? He knew by the look in Kingsley 's 
 eyes that it was time for him to go. He 
 moved down to Foulik Pasha, and, taking his 
 arm, urged him towards the shore with a 
 whispered word. The Pasha responded, fol- 
 
 ?59 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 lowed by his men, but presently turned and, 
 before Dicky could intervene — for he wanted 
 Kingsley to make his own revelation — said 
 courteously : 
 
 "May the truth of Allah be with you, I 
 will await you at the boat, Kingsley Bey." 
 
 Dicky did not turn round, but, with a sharp 
 exclamation of profanity, drew Foulik Pasha 
 on his imbecile way. 
 
 As for Kingsley Bey, he faced a woman 
 who, as the truth dawned upon her, stared at 
 him in a painful silence for a moment, and 
 then drew back to the doorway of the house 
 as though to find sudden refuge. 
 
 Kingsley's head went round. Nothing had 
 gone according to his anticipations. Foulik 
 Pasha had upset things. 
 
 " Now you know — I wished to tell you my- 
 self," he said. 
 
 She answered at once, quietly, coldly, and 
 with an even formal voice : " I did not know 
 your name was Kingsley." 
 
 " It was my grandmother's name." 
 
 " I had forgotten — that is of no conse- 
 quence, however ; but " she stopped. 
 
 " You realise that I am " 
 
 " Oh, of course, Kingsley Bey — I quite un- 
 derstand. I thought you Lord Selden, an 
 
 English gentleman. You are " she made 
 
 260 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 an impatient gesture — " well, you are English 
 stiU ! " 
 
 He was hit hard. The suggestion of her 
 voice was difficult to bear. 
 
 " I am not so ungentlemanly as you think. 
 I meant to tell you — almost at once. I 
 thought that as an old friend I might wait a 
 moment or two. The conversation got in- 
 volved, and it grew harder every minute. 
 Then Foulik Pasha came — and now " 
 
 She showed no signs of relenting. " It was 
 taking advantage of an old — acquaintance. 
 Against your evil influence here I have been 
 working for years, while you have grown rich 
 out of the slavery I detest. You will pardon 
 my plain speaking, but this is not London, 
 and one has had to learn new ways in this 
 life here. I do not care for the acquaintance 
 of slave-drivers, I have no wish to offer them 
 hospitality. The world is large and it belongs 
 to other people, and one has to endure much 
 when one walks abroad ; but this house is my 
 own place, a little spot all my own, and I 
 cherish it. There are those who come to the 
 back-door, and they are fed and clothed and 
 sent away by the hand of charity ; there are 
 those who come to the front-door, and I wel- 
 come them gladly — all that I have is theirs ; 
 there are those who come to a side-door, when 
 18 261 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 no one sees, and take me unawares, and of 
 them I am afraid, their presence I resent. My 
 doors are not open to slave-drivers." 
 
 " What is the difference between the letter 
 from the slave-driver's hand and the slave- 
 driver himself? " 
 
 She started and flushed deeply. She took 
 the letter slowly from her pocket and laid it 
 on the table. 
 
 " I thought it a letter from a man who was 
 openly doing wrong, and who repented a little 
 of his wrong-doing. I thought it a letter from 
 a stranger, from an EngUshman who, perhaps, 
 had not had such advantages of birth and ed- 
 ucation as came to you." 
 
 " Yet you had a good opinion of the letter. 
 There seemed no want of education and aU 
 that there — won't you be reasonable, and let 
 me explain? Give me half a chance." 
 
 " I do not see that explanation can mend 
 anything. The men you sent me tq free: that 
 was a — well, call it a manoeuvre, to achieve 
 what, I cannot tell. Is it not so? The men 
 are not free. Is it not so? " 
 
 "I am afraid they are not free," he an- 
 swered, smiling in spite of himself. i 
 
 " Your coming here was a manoeuvre also — 
 for what purpose I do not know. Yet it was 
 a manoeuvre, and I am — or was to be — the 
 
 262 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 victim of the plot." She smiled scornfully. 
 " I trust you may yet be the victim of your 
 own conduct." 
 
 " In more ways than one, maybe. Don't 
 you think, now that the tables are turned, that 
 you might have mercy on ' a prisoner and a 
 captive ' ? " 
 
 She looked at him inquiringly, then glanced 
 towards the shore where Dicky stood talking 
 with Foulik Pasha. Her eyes came back 
 slowly and again asked a question. All at 
 once intelligence flashed into them. 
 
 " You wished to see Kingsley Bey a pris- 
 oner; you have your wish," he said smil- 
 ing. 
 
 " Whose prisoner ? " she asked, stiU coldly. 
 
 " The Khedive's." 
 
 A flash of triumph crossed her face. Her 
 heart beat hard. Had it come at last, the 
 edict to put down slavery? Had the Kie- 
 dive determined to put an end to the work 
 of Kingsley Bey in his desert city — and 
 to Kingsley Bey himself? . . . Her heart 
 stopped beating now. She glanced towards 
 Dicky Donovan, and her pulses ran more 
 evenly again. Would the Khedive have 
 taken such a step unless under pressure? 
 And who in Egjrpt could have, would have, 
 persuaded him, save Dicky Donovan? Yet 
 
 263 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 Dicky was here with his friend Kingsley Bey. 
 The mystery troubled her, and the trouble got 
 into her eyes. 
 
 " You are going to Cairo? " she said, glanc- 
 ing towards the boat. 
 
 " It would seem so." 
 
 "And Donovan Pasha goes too? " 
 
 " I hope so. I am not sure." 
 
 " But he must go," she said a little sharply. 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " He — you must have somebody, and he has 
 great power." 
 
 " That might or might not be to my bene- 
 fit. After all, what does it matter ? " — He saw 
 that she was perturbed, and he pressed his 
 advantage. 
 
 She saw, however, and retreated. " We 
 reap as we sow," she said, and made as if to 
 go inside the house. "You have had the 
 game, you must pay for the candles out of 
 your earnings." 
 
 " I don't mind paying what's fair. I don't 
 want other people to pay." 
 
 She turned angrily on him, he could not tell 
 why. " You don't want others to pay ! As 
 if you could do anything that doesn't affect 
 others. Did you learn that selfishness at 
 Skaw Fell, or was it born with you? You 
 are of those who think they earn all their own 
 
 264) 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 success and happiness, and then, when they 
 earn defeat and despair, are surprised that 
 others suffer. As if our penalties were only 
 paid by ourselves! Egotism, vanity! So 
 long as you have your dance, it matters httle 
 to you who pays for the tune." 
 
 " I am sorry." He was bewildered ; he had 
 not expected this. 
 
 " Does a man stoop to do in a foreign land 
 what he would not do in his own country — 
 dare not do? — One is so helpless — a woman ! 
 Under cover of an old friendship — ah I " She 
 suddenly turned, and, before he could say a 
 word, disappeared inside the house. He spoke 
 her name once, twice ; he ventured inside the 
 house, and called, but she did not come. He 
 made his way to the verandah, and was about 
 to leave for the shore, when he heard a step 
 behind him. He turned quickly. It was the 
 Circassian girl, Mata. 
 
 He spoke to her in Arabic, and she smiled 
 at him. 
 
 " What is it ? " he said, for he saw she had 
 come from her mistress. 
 
 " My lady begs to excuse — but she is tired," 
 she said in English, which she loved to use. 
 
 " I am to go on — ^to prison, then? " 
 
 " I suppose. It has no matter. My lady is 
 angry. She has to say, ' Thank you, good-bye.' 
 
 265 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 So, good-bye," she added naively, and held out 
 her hand. 
 
 Kingsley laughed, in spite of his discomfit- 
 ure, and shook it. 
 
 " Who are you?" he asked. 
 
 " I am my lady's slave," she said proudly. 
 
 " Oh, no — her servant. You can come and 
 go as you like. You have wages." 
 
 "I am Mata, the slave — my lady's slave. 
 All the world knows that I am her slave. 
 Was I not given her by the Khedive whose 
 slave I was ? May the leaves of life be green 
 always, but I am Mata, the slave," she said 
 stubbornly, shaking her head. 
 
 "Do you tell my lady so ? " 
 
 " Wherefore should I tell my lady what she 
 knows ? Is not the truth the truth ? — good- 
 night 1 I had a brother who went to prison. 
 His grave is by Stamboul. Good-night, effen- 
 di. He was too young to die, but he had 
 gold, and the Captain of the Citadel needed 
 money. So, he had to die. Malaish ! He is 
 in the bosom of God, and prison does not last 
 for ever. Good-night, effendi. If you, effendi, 
 are poor, it is well ; no man will desire your 
 Ufe. Then you can be a slave, and have quiet 
 nights. If you are rich, effendi, remember my 
 brother. Good-night, effendi. May sacrifices 
 be yours . . . and my lady says good-night." 
 
 266 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 Kingsley gave her a gold-piece and went 
 down to Foulik Pasha. 
 
 As they steamed away Kingsley looked in 
 vain to the house on the shore. There was 
 no face at window or door, no sign of life 
 about the place. 
 
 " WeU, my bold Bey," said Donovan Pasha 
 to him at last. " What do you think of 
 Egypt now ? " 
 
 '* I'm not thinking of Egypt now." 
 
 " Did the lady deeply sympathise ? Did 
 your prescription work ? " 
 
 "You know it didn't. Nothing worked. 
 This fool Foulik came at the wrong moment." 
 
 " It wouldn't have made any difference. 
 You see you were playing with marked cards, 
 and that is embarrassing. You got a certifi- 
 cate of character by " 
 
 "Oh, I know. That's what she said. 
 Never mind. I've played as I meant to play, 
 and I'll abide the result. I said I'd marry 
 her, and I mean to, though she gently showed 
 me the door — beautiful, proud person ! " 
 
 " She is much too good for you." 
 
 " What does that matter, if she doesn't 
 think so ? " 
 
 " My opinion is she'U never touch you or 
 your slave-gold with a mile-measure." 
 
 Dicky did not think this, but it was his way 
 267 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 of easing his own mind. Inwardly he was 
 studying the situation, and wondering how 
 he could put Kingsley's business straight. 
 
 " She thinks I'm still a ' slave-driver,' as she 
 calls it — women are so innocent. You did 
 your part, as weU as could be expected, I'm 
 bound to say. I only wish I wasn't so much 
 trouble to you. I owe you a lot, Dicky Pasha 
 — everything! You got me the golden shil- 
 lings to start with ; you had faith in me ; you 
 opened the way to fortune, to the thing that's 
 more than fortune, to success." 
 
 " I'm not altogether proud of you. You've 
 messed things to-day." 
 
 " I'll set them right to-morrow — ^with your 
 help. Ismail is going a bit large this time." 
 
 " He is an Oriental. A hfe or two — think 
 of Sadik Pasha. You're men " 
 
 " Well ? You think he'd do it— think he'd 
 dare to do it?" 
 
 " Suppose they disappeared ? Who could 
 prove that Ismail did it ? And if it could be 
 proved — they're his own subjects, and the 
 Nile is near 1 Who can say him nay ? " 
 
 " I fancy you could — and I would." 
 
 " I can do something. I've done a little in 
 my day ; but my day, like Ismail's, is declin- 
 ing. They are his subjects, and he needs 
 money, and he puts a price on their heads — 
 
 268 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 that's about the size of it. Question : how 
 much will you have to pay? How much 
 have you in Cairo at the bank ? " 
 
 " Only about ten thousand pounds." 
 
 " He'd take your draft on England, but 
 he'll have that ten thousand pounds, if he can 
 get it." 
 
 " That doesn't matter, but as for my ar- 
 rest " 
 
 " A trick, on some trumped-up charge. If 
 he can hold you long enough to get some of 
 your cash, that's all he wants. He knows 
 he's got no jurisdiction over you — not a day's 
 hold. He knows you'd give a good deal to 
 save your men." 
 
 " Poor devils 1 But to be beaten by this 
 Egyptian bull-dozer — not if I know it, Dicky 1 " 
 
 " Still, it may be expensive." 
 
 " Ah ! " Kingsley Bey sighed, and his face 
 was clouded, but Dicky knew he was not 
 thinking of Ismail or the blackmail. His eyes 
 were on the house by the shore, now disap- 
 pearing, as they rounded a point of land. 
 
 " Ah ! " said Donovan Pasha, but he did not 
 sigh. 
 
 269 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 III 
 
 " Ah 1 " said a lady, in a dirty pink house at 
 Assiout, with an accent which betrayed a dis- 
 covery and a resolution, " I will do it, I may 
 be of use some way or another. The Khedive 
 won't dare — but still the times are desperate. 
 As Donovan Pasha said, it isn't easy holding 
 down the safety-valve all the time, and when 
 it flies off, there will be dark days for all of 
 us. . . . An old friend — bad as he is I Yes, I 
 will go." 
 
 Within forty-eight hours of Donovan Pa- 
 sha's and Kingsley Bey's arrival in Cairo, 
 the lady appeared there, and made inquiries of 
 her friends. No one knew an5rthing. She 
 went to the Consulate, and was told that 
 Kingsley Bey was still in prison, that the Con- 
 sulate had not yet taken action. 
 
 She went to Donovan Pasha, and he ap- 
 peared far more mysterious and troubled than 
 he really was. Kingsley Bey was as cheerful 
 as might be expected, he said, but the matter 
 was grave. He was charged with the de- 
 struction of the desert-city, and maintaining 
 an army of slaves in the Khedive's dominions 
 — a menace to the country. 
 
 " But it was with the Khedive's connivance," 
 she said. 
 
 210 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 " Who can prove that ? It's a difficult 
 matter for England to handle, as you can 
 see." 
 
 This was very wily of Dicky Donovan, for 
 he was endeavouring to create alarm and sym- 
 pathy in the woman's mind, by exaggerating 
 the charge. He knew that in a few days at 
 most Kingsley Bey would be free. He had 
 himself given Ismail a fright, and had even 
 gone so far as to suggest inside knowledge of 
 the plans of Europe concerning Egypt. But 
 if he could deepen the roots of this comedy for 
 Kingsley's benefit — and for the lady's — it was 
 his duty so to do. 
 
 " Of course," he made haste to add, " you 
 cannot be expected to feel sympathy for him. 
 In your eyes, he is a criminal. He had a long 
 innings, and made a mint of money. We 
 must do all we can, and, of course, we'll save 
 his hfe — ah, I'm sure you wouldn't exact the 
 fullest penalty on him 1 " 
 
 Dicky was more than wily; he was some- 
 thing wicked. The suggestion of danger to 
 Kingsley's life had made her wince, and he 
 had added another httle barbed arrow to keep 
 the first company. The cause was a good one. 
 Hurt now to heal afterwards — and Kingsley 
 was an old friend, and a good fellow. Any- 
 how, this work was wasting her life, and she 
 
 271 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 would be much better back in England, living 
 a civilised life, riding in the Row, and slum- 
 ming a httle, in the East End, perhaps, and 
 presiding at meetings for the amelioration of 
 the unameUorated. He was rather old-fash- 
 ioned in his views. He saw the faint trouble 
 in her eyes and face, and he made up his mind 
 that he would work while it was yet the day. 
 He was about to speak, but she suddenly 
 interposed a question. 
 
 " Is he comfortable ? How does he take it ? " 
 "Oh, aU right. You know the kind of 
 thing: mud- walls and floor — quite dry, of 
 course — and a sleeping-mat, and a balass of 
 water, and cakes of dourha, and plenty of time 
 to think. After all, he's used to primitive fare." 
 Donovan Pasha was drawing an imaginary 
 picture, and drawing it with effect. He al- 
 most believed it as his artist's mind fashioned 
 it. She beUeved it, and it tried her. Kings- 
 ley Bey was a criminal, of course, but he was 
 an old friend ; he had offended her deeply also, 
 but that was no reason why he should be pun- 
 ished by any one save herself. Her regimen 
 of punishments would not necessarily include 
 mud-walls and floor, and a sleeping-mat and a 
 balass of water; and whatever it included it 
 should not be administered by any hand save 
 her own. She therefore resented, not quite 
 
 272 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 unselfishly, this indignity and punishment the 
 Khedive had commanded. 
 
 " When is he to be tried ? " 
 
 "Well, that is hardly the way to put it. 
 When he can squeeze the Khedive into a 
 corner he'll be free, but it takes time. We 
 have to go carefully, for it isn't the slave- 
 master alone, it's those twenty slaves of his, 
 including the six you freed. Their heads are 
 worth a good deal to the Khedive, he thinks." 
 
 She was dumfounded. " I don't under- 
 stand," she said helplessly. 
 
 " Oh, the Khedive put your six and four- 
 teen others in prison for treason or something 
 — ^it doesn't matter much here what it is. His 
 game is to squeeze Kingsley's gold orange dry, 
 if he can." 
 
 A light broke over her face. " Oh, now I 
 see," she said, and her face flushed deeply with 
 anger and indignation. "And you — Dono- 
 van Pasha, you who are supposed to have 
 influence with the Khedive, who are supposed 
 to be an English influence over him, you can 
 speak of this quietly, patiently, as a matter 
 possible to your understanding. This barbar- 
 ous, hideous blackmail ! This cruel, dreadful 
 tyranny ! You, an EngUshman, remain in the 
 service of the man who is guilty of such a 
 crime ! " Her breath came hard. 
 
 273 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 " Well, it seems the wisest thing to do as 
 yet. You have lived a long time in Egypt, 
 you should know what Oriental rule is. Ques- 
 tion — is a bite of a cherry better than no bite 
 of a cherry ? Egypt is like a circus, but there 
 are wild horses in the ring, and you can't ride 
 them just as you like. If you keep them in- 
 side the barriers, that's something. Of course, 
 Kingsley made a mistake in a way. He didn't 
 start his desert-city and his slavery without 
 the consent of the Khedive ; he shouldn't have 
 stopped it and gone out of business without 
 the same consent. It cut down the Eifen- 
 dina's tribute." 
 
 He spoke slowly, counting every word, 
 watching the effect upon her. He had much 
 to watch, and he would have seen more if he 
 had known women better. 
 
 " He has abandoned the mines — his city — 
 and slavery ? " she said chokingly, confusedly. 
 It seemed hard for her to speak. 
 
 " Oh, yes, didn't you know ? Didn't he tell 
 you?" 
 
 She shook her head. She was thinking back 
 — remembering their last conversation, remem- 
 bering how sharp and unfriendly she had been 
 with him. He had even then freed his slaves, 
 had given her slaves to free. 
 
 " I wonder what made him do it ? " added 
 874 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 Dicky. " He had made a great fortune — poor 
 devil, he needed it, for the estates were sweat- 
 ing under the load. I wonder what made him 
 doit?" 
 
 She looked at him bewilderedly for a mo- 
 ment, then, suddenly, some faint suspicion 
 struck her. 
 
 "You should know. You joined with him 
 in deceiving me at Assiout." 
 
 " Oh, no," he responded quickly, and with 
 rare innocence, "the situation was difficult. 
 You already knew him very well, and it was 
 the force of circumstances — simply the force 
 of circumstances. Bad luck — no more. He 
 was innocent, mine was the guilt. I confess I 
 was enjo)dng the thing, because — because, you 
 see, he had deceived me, actually deceived me, 
 his best friend. I didn't know he knew you 
 personally, till you two met on that verandah 
 at Assiout, and " 
 
 " And you made it difficult for him to ex- 
 plain at once — I remember." 
 
 " I'm afraid I did. I've got a nasty little 
 temper at times, and I had a chance to get 
 even. Then things got mixed, and FouUk 
 Pasha upset the whole basket of plums. Be- 
 sides, you see, I'm a jealous man, an envious 
 man, and you never looked so well as you did 
 that day, unless it's to-day." 
 
 275 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 She was about to interrupt him, but he went 
 on. 
 
 " I had begun to feel that we might have 
 been better friends, you and I; that — that I 
 might have helped you more; that you had 
 not had the sympathy you deserved; that civ- 
 ilisation was your debtor, and that I " 
 
 " No, no, no, you must not speak that way 
 to me," she interposed with agitation. " It — 
 it is not necessary. It doesn't bear on the 
 matter. And you've always been a good 
 friend — always a good friend," she added with 
 a little friendly quiver in her voice, for she was 
 not quite sure of herself. 
 
 Dicky had come out in a new r&le, one 
 wherein he would not have been recognised. 
 It was probably the first time he had ever 
 tried the delicate social art of playing with 
 fire of this sort. It was aU true in a way, but 
 only in a way. The truest thing about it was 
 that it was genuine comedy, in which there were 
 two villains, and no hero, and one heroine. 
 
 " But there it is," he repeated, having gone 
 as far as his cue warranted. " I didn't know 
 he had given up his desert-city till two days 
 before you did, and I didn't know he knew 
 you, and I don't know why he gave up his 
 desert-city — do you ? " 
 
 There was a new light in her eyes, a new 
 876 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 look in her face. She was not sure but that 
 she had a glimmering of the reason. It was a 
 woman's reason, and it was not without a cer- 
 tain exquisite egotism and vanity, for she re- 
 membered so well the letter she had written 
 him, — every word was etched into her mind ; 
 and she knew by heart every word of his re- 
 ply. Then there were the six slaves he sent 
 to her — and his coming immediately after- 
 wards. . . . For a moment she seemed to 
 glow, and then the colour slowly faded and 
 left her face rather gray and very quiet. 
 
 He might not be a slave-driver now, but he 
 had been one — and the world of difference it 
 made to her ! He had made his great fort- 
 une out of the work of the men employed as 
 slaves, and— she turned away to the window 
 with a dejected air. For the first time the 
 real weight of the problem pressed upon her 
 heavily. 
 
 " Perhaps you would Uke to see him," said 
 Dicky. " It might show that you were mag- 
 nanimous." 
 
 " Magnanimous ! It will look like that — 
 in a mud-cell, with mud floor, and a piece of 
 matting." 
 
 " And a balass of water and dourha-cakes," 
 said Dicky in a chUdlike way, and not daring 
 to meet her eyes. 
 
 19 277 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 He stroked his moustache with his thumb- 
 nail in a way he had when perplexed. Kings- 
 ley Bey was not in a mud-cell, with a mat and 
 a balass of water, but in a very decent apart- 
 ment indeed, and Dicky was trpng to work 
 the new situation out in his mind. The only 
 thing to do was to have Kingsley removed to 
 a mud-cell, and not let him know the author 
 of his temporary misfortune and this new in- 
 dignity. She was ready to visit him now — he 
 could see that. He made difficulties, how- 
 ever, which would prevent their going at once, 
 and he arranged with her to go to Kingsley in 
 the late afternoon. 
 
 Her mind was in conftision, but one thing 
 shone clear through the confusion, and it 
 was the iniquity of the Khedive. It gave 
 her a foot-hold. She was deeply grateM 
 for it. She could not have moved without 
 it. So shameful was the Khedive in her 
 eyes that the prisoner seemed Criminal made 
 Martyr. 
 
 She went back to her hotel flaming with in- 
 dignation against Ismail. It was very com- 
 forting to her to have this resource. The six 
 slaves whom she had freed — the first-fruits of 
 her labours : that they should be murdered I 
 The others who had done no harm, who had 
 been slaves by Ismail's consent, that they 
 
 278 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 should be now in danger of their hves through 
 the same tyrant ! That Kingsley Bey, who 
 had been a slave-master with Ismail's own ap- 
 proval and to his advantage, should now — she 
 glowed with pained anger. . . . She would 
 not wait till she had seen Kingsley Bey, or 
 Donovan Pasha again ; she herself would go 
 to Ismail at once. 
 
 So, she went to Ismail, and she was ad- 
 mitted, after long waiting in an anteroom. 
 She would not have been admitted at all, if 
 it had not been for Dicky who, arriving just 
 before her on the same mission, had seen her 
 coming, and guessed her intention. He had 
 then gone in to the Khedive with a new turn 
 to his purposes, a new argument and a new 
 suggestion, which widened the scope of the 
 comedy now being played. He had had a 
 struggle with Ismail, and his own place and 
 influence had been in something Uke real 
 danger, but he had not minded that. He had 
 suggested that he might be of service to 
 Egypt in London and Paris. That was very 
 like a threat, but it was veiled by a look of 
 genial innocence which Ismail admired greatly. 
 He knew that Donovan Pasha could hasten 
 the crisis coming on him. He did not beheve 
 that Donovan Pasha would, but that did not 
 alter the astuteness and value of the move ; 
 
 279 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 and, besides, it was well to run no foolish 
 risks and take no chances. Also, he believed 
 in Donovan Pasha's honesty. He despised 
 him in a worldly kind of way, because he 
 might have been rich and splendid, and he 
 was poor and unassuming. He wanted Kings- 
 ley Bey's fortune, or a great shce of it, but 
 he wanted it without a struggle with Dicky 
 Donovan, and with the British Consulate — for 
 that would come, too, directly. It gave him 
 no security to know that the French would be 
 with him — he knew which country would win 
 in the end. He was preying on Kingsley 
 Bey's humanity, and he hoped to make it well 
 worth while. And all he thought and planned 
 was well understood by Dicky. 
 
 Over their coffee they both talked from 
 long distances towards the point of attack 
 and struggle, Ismail carelessly throwing in 
 glowing descriptions of the palaces he was 
 building. Dicky never failed to show illusive 
 interest, and both knew that they were not 
 deceiving the other, and both came nearer 
 to the issue by devious processes, as though 
 these processes were inevitable. At last 
 Dicky suddenly changed his manner and came 
 straight to the naked crisis. 
 
 " Highness, I have an invitation for Kings- 
 ley Bey to dine at the British Consul- 
 
 280 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 ate to-night. You can spare his pres- 
 ence?" 
 
 "My table is not despicable. Is he not 
 comfortable here ? " 
 
 " Is a mud floor, with bread and water and 
 a sleeping-mat, comfortable ? " 
 
 " He is lodged like a friend." 
 
 " He is lodged like a slave — in a cell." 
 
 " They were not my orders." 
 
 " EfFendina, the orders were mine." 
 
 " Excellency ! " 
 
 " Because there were no orders and Foulik 
 Pasha was sleepless with anxiety lest the pris- 
 oner should escape, fearing your Highness' 
 anger, I gave orders and trusted your High- 
 ness to approve." 
 
 Ismail saw a mystery in the words, and 
 knew that it was all to be part of Dicky's 
 argument in the end. 
 
 "So be it, excellency," he said, "thou hast 
 breathed the air of knowledge, thine actions 
 shine. In what quarter of the Palace rests 
 he ? And Foulik Pasha ? " 
 
 " Foulik Pasha sits by his door, and the 
 room is by the doorway where the sarrafs keep 
 the accounts for the palaces your Highness 
 builds. Also, abides near, the Greek, who 
 toils upon the usury paid by your Highness 
 to Europe." 
 
 281 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 Ismail smiled. The allusions were subtle 
 and piercing. There was a short pause. 
 Each was waiting. 
 
 Dicky changed the attack. "It is a pity 
 we should be in danger of riot at this moment. 
 Highness." 
 
 " If riots come, they come. It is the wiU 
 of God, excellency. But in our hand lies 
 order. We wUl quiet the storm, if a storm 
 fall." 
 
 " There will be wreck somewhere." 
 
 " So be it. There wiU be salvage." 
 
 " Nothing worth a riot. Highness." 
 
 The Khedive eyed Dicky with a sudden 
 malice and a desire to slay — to slay even 
 Donovan Pasha. He did not speak, and 
 Dicky continued negligently : " Prevention is 
 better than cure." 
 
 The Khedive understood perfectly. He 
 knew that Dicky had circumvented him, and 
 had warned the Bank. 
 
 Still the Khedive did not speak. Dicky 
 went on. " Kingsley Bey deposited ten thou- 
 sand pounds — no more. But the gold is not 
 there; only Kingsley Bey's credit." 
 
 " His slaves shall die to-morrow morning." 
 
 " Not so. Highness." 
 
 The Khedive's fingers twisted round the 
 chair-arm savagely. 
 
 282 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 " Who will prevent it?" 
 
 "Your Highness wilL Your Highness 
 could not permit it — ^the time is far past. 
 Suppose Kingsley Bey gave you his whole 
 fortune, would it save one palace or pay one 
 tithe of your responsibUities ? Would it 
 lengthen the chain of safety ? " 
 
 " I am safe." 
 
 " No, Highness. In peril — here with your 
 own people, in Europe with the nations. 
 Money will not save you." 
 
 "What then?" 
 
 "Prestige, Power — the Soudan. Estab- 
 lish yourself in the Soudan with a real army. 
 Let your name be carried to the Abyssinian 
 mountains as the voice of the eagle." 
 
 " Who will carry it? " He laughed disdain- 
 fully, with a bitter, hopeless kind of pride. 
 " Who will carry it? " 
 
 " Gordon — again." 
 
 The Khedive started from his chair, and his 
 sullen eye lighted to laughter. He paced ex- 
 citedly to and fro for a minute, and then broke 
 out. 
 
 " Thou hast said it ! Gk)rdon — Gordon — if 
 he would but come again ! — But it shall be 
 so, by the beard of God's prophet 1 It shall. 
 Thou hast said the thing that has lain in my 
 heart. Have I had honour in the Soudan 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 since his feet were withdrawn? Where is 
 honour and tribute and gold since his hand 
 ruled — alone without an army. It is so — 
 Inshalldk ! but it is so. He shall come again, 
 and the people's eyes will turn to Khartoum 
 and Darfur and Kordofan, and the greedy na- 
 tions wUl wait. Ah, my friend, but the true 
 inspiration is thine. I will send for Gordon 
 to-night — even to-night. Thou shalt go — ^no, 
 no, not so. Who can tell — I might look for 
 thy return in vain ! But who — ^who, to carry 
 my word to Gordon ? " 
 
 " Your messenger is in the anteroom," said 
 Dicky with a sudden thought, 
 
 " Who is it, son of the high hills ? " 
 
 " The lady at Assiout — she who is such a 
 friend to Gordon as I am to thee. High- 
 ness." 
 
 "She whose voice and hand are against 
 slavery." 
 
 "Even so. It is good that she return to 
 England — ^there to remain. Send her." 
 
 " Why is she here ? " The Khedive looked 
 suspiciously at Dicky, for it seemed that a plot 
 had been laid. 
 
 Thereupon, Dicky told the Khedive the 
 whole story, and not in years had Ismail's face 
 shown such abandon of humour. 
 
 " By the will of God, but it shall be," he 
 284 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 said. [' She shall marry Kingsley Bey, and he 
 shall go free." 
 
 " But not till she has seen him and mourned 
 over him in his cell, with the mud floor and 
 the balass of water." 
 
 The Khedive laughed outright and swore 
 in French. " And the cakes of dourha 1 I 
 will give her as a parting gift the twenty 
 slaves, and she shall bring her great work to a 
 close in the arms of a slaver. It is worth a 
 fortune." 
 
 " It is worth exactly ten thousand pounds 
 to your Highness — ten thousand pounds 
 neither more nor less." 
 
 Ismail questioned. 
 
 " Kingsley Bey would make last tribute of 
 thus much to your Highness." 
 
 IsmaU would not have dechned ten thou- 
 sand centimes. "Malaishf" he said, and 
 called for coffee, while they planned what 
 should be said to his Ambassadress from 
 Assiout. 
 
 She came trembling, yet determined, and 
 she left with her eyes fuU of joyful tears. She 
 was to carry the news of his freedom and the 
 freedom of his slaves to Kingsley Bey, and 
 she — she, was to bear to Gordon, the foe of 
 slavery, the world's benefactor, the message 
 that he was to come and save the Soudan. 
 
 285 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 Her vision was enlarged, and never went 
 from any prince a more grateful applicant 
 and envoy. 
 
 Donovan Pasha went with her to the room 
 with the mud floor where Kingsley Bey was 
 confined, 
 
 " I owe it all to you," she said as they hast- 
 ened across the sunswept square. " Ah, but 
 you have atoned ! You have done it all at 
 once, after these long years." 
 
 "Ah, well, the time, is ripe," said Dicky 
 piously. 
 
 They found Kingsley Bey reading the last 
 issue of the French newspaper published in 
 Cairo. He was laughing at some article in 
 it abusive of the English, and seemed not 
 very downcast ; but at a warning sign and 
 look from Dicky, he became as grave as he 
 was inwardly delighted at seeing the lady of 
 Assiout. 
 
 As Kingsley Bey and the Ambassadress 
 shook hands, Dicky said to her: "I'll tell 
 him, and then go." 
 
 Forthwith he said : " Kingsley Bey, son 
 of the desert, and unhappy prisoner, the prison 
 opens its doors. No more for you the cold 
 earth for a bed — relieved though it be by a 
 sleeping-mat. No more the cake of dourha 
 and the balass of Nile water. InshaUah, you 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 are as free as a bird on the mountain top, to 
 soar to far lands and none to say thee nay." 
 
 Kingsley Bey caught instantly at the mean- 
 ing lying beneath Dicky's whimsical phrases, 
 and he deported himself accordingly. He 
 looked inquiringly at the Ambassadress, and 
 she responded. 
 
 "We come from the Khedive, and he bids 
 us carry you his high considerations " 
 
 "Yes, 'high considerations,' he said," inter- 
 jected Dicky with his eye towards a fly on the 
 ceiling. 
 
 " And to beg your company at dinner to- 
 night." 
 
 " And the price ? " asked Kingsley, feeling 
 his way carefully, for he wished no more mis- 
 takes where this lady was concerned. At 
 Assiout he had erred ; he had no desire to be 
 deceived at Cairo. He did not know how he 
 stood with her, though her visit gave him 
 audacious hopes. Her face was ruled to quiet- 
 ness now, and only in the eyes resolutely 
 turned away was there any look which gave 
 him assurance. He seemed to hear her talk- 
 ing from the verandah that last day at Assi- 
 out; and it made him discreet at least. 
 
 " Oh, the price ! " murmured Dicky, and he 
 seemed to study the sleepy sarraf who pored 
 over his accounts in the garden. " The price 
 
 287 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 is ' England, home and beauty.' Also, to 
 prop up the falling towers of Khedivia — ten 
 thousand pounds ! Also, Gordon." 
 
 Kingsley Bey appeared, as he was, mysti- 
 fied, but he was not inclined to spoil things by 
 too much speaking. He looked inquiry. 
 
 At that moment an orderly came running 
 towards the door — Dicky had arranged for 
 that. Dicky started, and turned to the lady. 
 "You tell him. This fellow is coming for 
 me. I'll be back in a quarter of an hour." 
 He nodded to them both and went out to the 
 orderly, who followed his footsteps to the 
 Palace. 
 
 "You've forgiven me for everything — for 
 ever5rthing at Assiout, I mean? " he said. 
 
 " I have no desire to remember," she an- 
 swered. 
 
 " About Gordon— what is it ? " 
 
 " Ah, yes, about Gordon." She drew her- 
 self up a little. " I am to go to England — for 
 the Khedive, to ask Gordon to save the Sou- 
 dan." 
 
 "Then you've forgiven the Khedive?" he 
 said with apparent innocence. 
 
 " I've no wish to prevent him showing prac- 
 tical repentance," she answered, keenly alive to 
 his suggestion, and a little nettled. " It means 
 no more slavery. Gordon will prevent that." 
 
 288 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 " Will he ? " asked Kingsley, again with 
 muffled mockery. 
 
 "He is the foe of slavery. How many, 
 many letters I have had from him ! He wUl 
 save the Soudan — and Egypt too. " 
 
 " He wUl be badly paid — the Government 
 wiU stint him. And he will give away his 
 pay — ^if he gets any." 
 
 She did not see his aim, and her face fell. 
 " He will succeed for all that." 
 
 " He can levy taxes, of course." 
 
 " But he will not — for himself" 
 
 " I will give him twenty thousand pounds, 
 if he will take it." 
 
 " You — you ! — will give him " Her eyes 
 
 swam with pleasure. " Ah, that is noble ! That 
 makes wealth a glory, to give it to those who 
 need it. To save those who are down-trodden, 
 to help those who labour for the good of the 
 
 world, to " she stopped short, for all at 
 
 once she remembered — remembered whence 
 his money came. Her face suffused. She 
 turned to the door. Confusion over-mastered 
 her for the moment. Then, anger at herself 
 possessed her. On what enterprise was she 
 now embarked? Where was her conscience ? 
 For what was she doing all this ? What was 
 the true meaning of her actions ? Had it been 
 to circumvent the Khedive ? To prevent him 
 
 289 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 from doing an unjust, a despicable, and a 
 dreadful thing? Was it only to help the 
 Soudan? Was it but to serve a high ideal, 
 through an ideal life — through Gordon ? 
 
 It came upon her with embarrassing force. 
 For none of these things was she striving. 
 She was doing aU for this man, against whose 
 influence she had laboured, whom she had 
 bitterly condemned, and whose fortune she 
 had called blood -money and worse. And 
 now . . . ! 
 
 She knew the truth, and it filled her heart with 
 joy and also pain. Then she caught at a straw : 
 he was no slave-driver now. He had 
 
 " May I not help you — go with you to 
 England ? " he said over her shoulder. 
 
 " Like Alexander Selkirk ' I shall finish my 
 journey alone,' " she said, with sudden but im- 
 perfectly assumed acerbity. 
 
 " Will you not help me, then? " he asked. 
 " We could write a book together." 
 
 " Oh, a book ! " she said. 
 
 " A book of life," he whispered. 
 
 " Oh, no, no, no — can't you see ? — oh, you 
 are playing me like a ball ! " 
 
 " Only to catch you," he said, in a happier 
 tone. 
 
 " To jest, when I am so unhappy ! " she 
 murmured. 
 
A TYRANT AND A LADY 
 
 " My jest is the true word." 
 
 She made a last rally. " Your fortune was 
 made out of slave labour." 
 
 " I have given up the slaves." 
 
 " You have the fortune." 
 
 " I will give it all to you — to have your 
 will with it. Now it is won, I would give it 
 up and a hundred times as much to hear you 
 say, ' Come to Skaw Fell again.' " 
 
 Did he really mean it? She thought he 
 did. And it seemed the only way out of the 
 difficulty. It broke the impasse. 
 
 It was not necessary, however, to spend 
 the future in the way first suggested to her 
 mind. They discussed all that at Skaw Fell 
 months later. 
 
 Human nature is weak and she has become 
 a slave-driver, after all. But he is her only 
 slave, and he hugs his bondage. 
 
 291 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 'WOOKING from the minaret the 
 I Two could see, far off, the Pjnra- 
 Sl mids of Ghizeh and Sakkara, the 
 '^MLmm^ wells of Helouan, the Mok- 
 attam Hills, the tombs of 
 the Caliphs, the Khedive's 
 palace at distant Abbasiyeh. 
 Nearer by, the life of the city 
 was spread out. Little green 
 oases of palms emerged from the noisy 
 desert of white stone and plaster. The 
 roofs of the houses, turned into gardens and 
 promenades, made of the huge superficial city 
 one broken irregular pavement. Minarets of 
 mosques stood up like giant lamp-posts along 
 these vast, meandering streets. Shiftless house- 
 wives lolled with unkempt hair on the house- 
 tops ; women of the harem looked out of the 
 little mushrabieh panels in the clattering, nar- 
 row bazaars. 
 
 Just at their feet was a mosque — one of the 
 thousand nameless mosques of Cairo. It was 
 
 292 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 the season of Ramadan, and a Friday, the 
 Sunday of the Mahommedan — ^the Ghimah. 
 
 The "Two" were Donovan Pasha, then 
 English Secretary to the Khedive, generally 
 known as " Little Dicky Donovan," and Cap- 
 tain Renshaw, of the American Consulate. 
 There was no man in Egypt of so much im- 
 portance as Donovan Pasha. It was an im- 
 portance which could neither be bought nor 
 sold. 
 
 Presently Dicky touched the arm of his 
 companion. " There it comes ! " he said. 
 
 His friend followed the nod of Dicky's head, 
 and saw, passing slowly through a street be- 
 low, a funeral procession. Near a hundred 
 blind men preceded the bier, chailting the 
 death-phrases. The bier was covered by a 
 faded Persian shawl, and it was carried by the 
 poorest of the Fellaheen, though in the crowd 
 following were many richly-attired merchants 
 of the bazaars. On a cart laden with bread 
 and rice two Fellaheen stood and handed, or 
 tossed out, food to the crowd — ^token of a 
 death in high places. Vast numbers of people 
 rambled behind chanting, and a few women, 
 near the bier, tore their garments, put dust on 
 their heads, and kept crying : "Salem ala 
 ahali ! — Remember us to our friends ! " 
 
 Walking immediately behind the bier was 
 20 293 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 one conspicuous figure, and there was a space 
 around him which none invaded. He was 
 dressed in white, Uke an Arabian Mahom- 
 medan, and he wore the green turban of one 
 who has been the pilgrimage to Mecca. 
 
 At sight of him Dicky straightened him- 
 self with a little jerk, and his tongue clicked 
 with satisfaction. " Isn't he, though ? isn't 
 he?" he said, after a moment. His lips, 
 pressed together, curled in with a trick they 
 had when he was thinking hard, planning 
 things. 
 
 The other forbore to question. The not- 
 able figure had instantly arrested his attention, 
 and held it until it passed from view. 
 
 "Isn't he, though, Yankee?" Dicky re- 
 peated, and pressed a knuckle tightly in the 
 other's waistcoat. 
 
 " Isn't he what ? " 
 
 " Isn't he bully — in your own language? " 
 
 " In figure ; but I couldn't see his face dis- 
 tinctly." 
 
 " You'll see that presently. You could cut 
 a whole Egyptian Ministry out of that face, 
 and have enough left for an American presi- 
 dent or the head of the Salvation Army. In 
 all the years I've spent here I've never seen 
 one that could compare with him in nature, 
 character, and force. A few like him in 
 
 £94 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 Egypt, and there'd be no need for the money- 
 barbers of Europe." 
 
 " He seems an ooster here — ^you know 
 him?" 
 
 "Do I!" Dicky paused and squinted up 
 at the tall Southerner. " What do you sup- 
 pose I brought you out from your Consulate 
 for to see? — the view from Ebn Mahmoud? 
 And you call yourself a cute Yankee ? " 
 
 " I'm no more a Yankee than you are, as 
 I've told you before," answered the American 
 with a touch of impatience, yet smilingly. 
 " I'm from South Carolina, the first State that 
 seceded." 
 
 "Anyhow, I'm going to call you Yankee, 
 to keep you nicely disguised. This is the land 
 of disguises." 
 
 "Then we did not come out to see the 
 view ? " the other drawled. There was a 
 quickening of the eye, a drooping of the lid, 
 which betrayed a sudden interest, a sense of 
 adventure. 
 
 Dicky laid his head back and laughed noise-^ 
 lessly. " My dear Renshaw, with aU^ Europe 
 worrying Ismail, with France in the butler's 
 pantry and England at the front door, do the 
 bowab and the sarraf go out to take air on the 
 housetops, and watch the sun set on the Pjrra- 
 mids and make a rainbow of the desert ? I 
 
 295 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 am the bowab and the sarraf, the man-of-all- 
 work, the Jack-of-all-trades, the * confidential ' 
 to the Oriental spendthrift. Am I a dog to 
 bay at the moon ? — have I the soul of a tourist 
 from Liverpool or Poughkeepsie ? " 
 
 The lanky Southerner gripped his arm. 
 " There's a hunting song of the South," he said, 
 " and the last line is, ' The hound that never 
 tires.' You are that, Donovan Pasha " 
 
 " I am ' little Dicky Donovan,' so they say," 
 interrupted the other. 
 
 " You are the weight that steadies things in 
 this shaky Egypt. You are you, and you've 
 brought me out here because there's work of 
 some kind to do, and because " 
 
 " And because you're an American, and we 
 speak the same language." 
 
 " And our Consulate is all right, if needed, 
 whatever it is. You've played a square game 
 in Egypt. You're the only man in office who 
 hasn't got rich out of her, and " 
 
 " I'm not in office." 
 
 "You're the power behind the throne, 
 you're " 
 
 " I'm helpless — worse than helpless, Yankee. 
 I've spent years of my life here. I've tried to 
 be of some use, and play a good game for 
 England; and keep a conscience too, but it's 
 been no real good. I've only staved off the 
 
 296 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 crash. I'm helpless now. That's why I'm 
 here." 
 
 He leaned forward, and looked out of the 
 minaret and down towards the great locked 
 gates of the empty mosque. 
 
 Renshaw put his hand on Dicky's shoulder. 
 " It's the man in white yonder you're after ? " 
 
 Dicky nodded. " It was no use as long as 
 she hved. But she's dead — her face was under 
 that old Persian shawl — and I'm going to try 
 it on." 
 
 " Try what on ? " 
 
 " Last night I heard she was sick. I heard 
 at noon to-day that she was gone; and then I 
 got you to come out and see the view ! " 
 
 " What are you going to do with him ? " 
 
 " Make him come back." 
 
 " From where ? " 
 
 " From the native quarter and the bazaars. 
 He was for years in Abdin Palace." 
 
 " What do you want him for ? " 
 
 " It's a httle gamble for Egypt. There's 
 no man in Egypt Ismail loves and fears so 
 much " 
 
 " Except little Dicky Donovan 1 " 
 
 " That's all twaddle. There's no man Is- 
 mail fears so much, because he's the idol of 
 the cafes and the bazaars. He's the Egyptian 
 in Egypt to-day. You talk about me ? Why, 
 
 297 . 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 I'm the foreigner, the Turk, the robber, the 
 man that holds the lash over Egypt. I'd go 
 like a wisp of straw if there was an uprising." 
 
 " Will there be an uprising ? " The South- 
 erner's fingers moved as though they were 
 feeling a pistol. 
 
 "As sure as that pyramid stands. Every- 
 thing depends on the kind of uprising. I 
 want one kind. There may be another." 
 
 " That's what you are here for ? " 
 
 " Exactly." 
 
 " Who is he ? " 
 
 "Wait." 
 
 "What is his story?" 
 
 " She was." He nodded towards the fu- 
 neral procession. 
 
 " Who was she ? " 
 
 " She was a slave." Then, after a pause, 
 " She was a genius too. She saw what was in 
 him. She was waiting — but death couldn't 
 wait, so . . . Everything depends. What 
 she asked him to do, he'll do." 
 
 " But if she didn't ask ? " 
 
 "That's it. She was sick only seventeen 
 hours — sick unto death. If she didn't ask, he 
 may come my way." 
 
 Again Dicky leaned out of the minaret, and 
 looked down towards the gates of the mosque, 
 where the old gatekeeper lounged half-asleep. 
 
 298 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 The noise of the procession had died away 
 almost, had then revived, and from beyond 
 the gates of the mosque could be heard the 
 cry of the mourners : " Salem ala ahali ! " 
 
 There came a knocking, and the old porter 
 rose up, shuffled to the great gates, and opened. 
 For a moment he barred the way, but when 
 the bearers pointed to the figure in white he 
 stepped aside and salaamed low. 
 
 " He's stone deaf, and hasn't heard, or he'd 
 have let her in fast enough," said Dicky. 
 
 " It's a new thing for a woman to be of im- 
 portance in an Oriental country," said Ren- 
 shaw. 
 
 "Ah, that's it! That's where her power 
 was. She, with him, could do anything. He, 
 with her, could have done anything. . . . 
 Stand back there, where you can't be seen — 
 quick ! " added Dicky hurriedly. 
 
 They both drew into a corner. 
 
 " I'm afraid it was too late. He saw me," 
 added Dicky. 
 
 " I'm afraid he did," said Renshaw. 
 
 "Never mind. It's all in the day's work. 
 He and I are all right. The only danger 
 would lie in the crowd discovering us in this 
 holy spot, where the Muezzin caUs to prayer, 
 and giving us what for, before he could inter- 
 fere." 
 
 299 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 "I'm going down from this 'holy spot,'" 
 said Renshaw, and suited the action to the 
 word. 
 
 "Me too, Yankee," said Dicky, and they 
 came half way down the tower. From this 
 point they watched the burial, still well above 
 the heads of the vast crowd, through which 
 the sweetmeat and sherbet-sellers ran, calling 
 their wares and jangling their brass cups. 
 
 " What is his name? " said Renshaw. 
 
 "Abdalla." 
 
 "Hers?" 
 
 " Noor-ala-Noor." 
 
 " What does that mean ? " 
 
 " Light from the Light." 
 
 II 
 
 The burial was over. Hundreds had touched 
 the coffin, taking a last farewell. The bhnd 
 men had made a circle round the grave, hid- 
 ing the last act of ritual from the multitude. 
 The needful leaves, the graceful pebbles, had 
 been deposited, the myrtle leaves and flowers 
 had been thrown, and rice, dates, bread, meat, 
 and silver pieces were scattered among the 
 people. Some poor men came near to the 
 chief mourner. 
 
 "Oh, effendi; may our souls be thy sacri- 
 300 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 fice, and may God give coolness to thine eyes, 
 speak to us by the will of God ! " 
 
 For a moment the white-robed figure stood 
 looking at them in silence ; then he raised his 
 hand and motioned towards the high pulpit, 
 which was almost underneath the place where 
 Dicky and Renshaw stood. Going over, he 
 mounted the steps, and the people followed 
 and crowded upon the pulpit. 
 
 "A nice jack-pot that," said Renshaw, as 
 he scanned the upturned faces through the 
 opening in the wall. "A pretty one-eyed 
 lot." 
 
 "Shows how they love their country. 
 Their eyes were put out by their mothers 
 when they were babes, to avoid conscription. 
 . . . Listen, Yankee : Egypt is talking. Now, 
 we'll see!" 
 
 Dicky's lips were pressed tight together, 
 and he stroked his faint moustache with a 
 thumb-nail meditatively. His eyes were not 
 on the speaker, but on the distant sky, the 
 Mokattam HiUs and the forts Napoleon had 
 built there. He was listening intently to Ab- 
 dalla's high, clear voice, which rang through 
 the courts of the ruined mosque. 
 
 " In the name of God the Compassionate, 
 the Merciful, children of Egypt, listen. Me 
 ye have known years without number, and ye 
 
 301 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 know that I am of you, as ye are of me. Our 
 feet are in the same shoes, we gather from the 
 same date-palm, of the same goolah we drink. 
 My father's father — now in the bosom of God, 
 praise be to God ! — builded this mosque ; and 
 my father, whose soul abides in peace with 
 God, he cherished it tiU evil days came upon 
 this land. ' Be your gifts to this mosque neither 
 of silver nor copper, but of tears and prayers,' 
 said my father, Ebn Abdalla, e'er he unroUed 
 his green turban and wound himself in it for 
 his winding-sheet. * Though it be till the Ka- 
 radh-gatherers return, yet shall ye replace nor 
 stone nor piece of wood, save in the gates there- 
 of till good days come once more, and the infi- 
 del and the Turk be driven from the land' 
 Thus spake my father. ..." 
 
 There came a stir and a murmuring among 
 the crowd, and cries of Allah Akbar ! " Peace, 
 peace ! " urged the figure in white. " Nay, 
 make no noise. This is the house of the dead, 
 of one who hath seen God. . . . 'Nothing 
 shall be repaired, save the gates of the mosque 
 of Ebn Mahmoud, the mosque of my father's 
 father,' so said my father. Also said he, * And 
 one shall stand at the gates and watch, though 
 the walls crumble away, till the day when the 
 land shall again be our land, and the chains of 
 the stranger be forged in every doorway.' . . . 
 
 302 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 But no, ye shall not lift up your voices in 
 anger. This is the abode of peace, and the 
 mosque is my mosque, and the dead my 
 dead." 
 
 " The dead is our dead, efFendi — ^may God 
 give thee everlasting years ! " called a blind 
 man from the crowd. 
 
 Up in the tower Dicky had listened intent- 
 ly, and as the speech proceeded his features 
 contracted ; once he gripped the arm of Ren- 
 shaw. 
 
 " It's coming on to blow," he said, in the 
 pause made by the blind man's interruption. 
 " There'll be shipwreck somewhere." 
 
 " Ye know the way by which I came," con- 
 tinued Abdalla loudly. " Nothing is hid from 
 you. I came near to the person of the Prince, 
 whom God make wise while yet the stars of 
 his hfe give light! In the palace of Abdin 
 none was preferred before me. I was much 
 in the sun, and mine eyes were dazzled. Yet 
 in season I spake the truth, and for you I 
 laboured. But not as one hath a hfe to give 
 and seeks to give it. For the dazzle that was 
 in mine eyes hid from me the fulness of your 
 trials. But an end there was to these things. 
 She came to the palace a slave — Noor-ala- 
 Noor. . . . Nay, nay, be silent still, my 
 brothers. Her soul was the soul of one born 
 
 303 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 free. On her lips was wisdom. In her heart 
 was truth hke a flaming sword. To the Prince 
 she spoke not as a slave to a slave, but in high 
 level terms. He would have married her, but 
 her life lay in the hollow of her hand, and the 
 hand was a hand to open and shut according 
 as the soul willed. She was ready to close it 
 so that none save AUah might open it again. 
 Then in anger the Prince would have given 
 her to his bowab at the gates, or to the Nile, 
 after the manner of a Turk or a Persian ty- 
 rant — may God purge him of his loathsome- 
 ness ! . . ." 
 
 He paused, as though choking with passion 
 and grief, and waved a hand over the crowd 
 in agitated command. 
 
 "Here's the old sore open at last — which 
 way now ? " said Dicky in ,a whisper. " It's 
 the toss of a penny where he'll pull up. As I 
 thought . . . 'Sh ! " he added, as Renshaw 
 was about to speak. 
 
 AbdaUa continued. "Then did I stretch 
 forth my hand, and, because I loved her, a 
 slave with the freedom of God in her soul and 
 on her face, I said, ' Come with me,' and be- 
 hold 1 she came, without a word, for our souls 
 spake to each other, as it was in the olden 
 world, ere the hearts of men were darkened. 
 I, an Egyptian of a despised and down-trod- 
 
 304. 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 den land, where all men save the rich are 
 slaves, and the rich go in the fear of their 
 lives ; she, a woman from afar, of that ancient 
 tribe who conquered Egypt long ago — we 
 went forth from the palace alone and penni- 
 less. He, the Prince, dared not foUow to do 
 me harm, for my father's father ye knew, and 
 my father ye knew, and me ye knew since I 
 came into the world, and in all that we had ye 
 shared while yet we had to give ; yea, and he 
 feared ye. We hved among ye, poor as ye 
 are poor, yet rich for that Egypt was no 
 poorer because of us." He waved his hand as 
 though to stUl the storm he was raising. . . . 
 "If ye call aloud, I will drive ye from this 
 place of peace, this garden of her who was 
 called Light from the Light. It hath been so 
 until yesterday, when God stooped and drew 
 the veil from her face, and she dropped the 
 garment of Ufe and fled from the world. . . . 
 Go, go hence," he added, his voice thick with 
 sorrow. " But ere ye go, answer me, as ye 
 have souls that desire God and the joys of 
 Paradise, will ye follow where I go, when I 
 come to call ye forth ? Will ye obey, if I 
 command ? " 
 
 " By the will of God, thou hast purchased 
 our hearts ; we will do thy will for ever," was 
 the answer of the throng. 
 
 305 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 " Go then, bring down the infidels that have 
 stood in the minaret above, where the Muez- 
 zin calls to prayer;" sharply called AbdaUa, 
 and waved an arm towards the tower where 
 Dicky and Renshaw were. 
 
 An oath broke from the lips of the South- 
 erner; but Dicky smiled. "He's done it in 
 style," he said. " Come along." He bounded 
 down the steps to the doorway before the 
 crowd had blocked the way. "They might 
 toss us out of that minaret," he added, as they 
 both pushed their way into the open. 
 
 " You take too many risks, effendi," he 
 called up to Abdalla in French, as excited 
 Arabs laid hands upon them, and were shak- 
 en off. "Call away these fools!" he added 
 cooUy to the motionless figure watching from 
 the pulpit stairs. 
 
 Cries of «KiU! kill the infidels!" re- 
 sounded on all sides ; but Dicky caUed up 
 again to Abdalla. " Stop this nonsense, 
 effendi." Then, without awaiting an answer, 
 he shouted to the crowd: "I am Donovan 
 Pasha. Touch me, and you touch Ismail. I 
 haven't come to spy, but to sorrow with you 
 for Noor-ala-Noor, whose soul is with God, 
 praise be to God, and may God give her spirit 
 to you! I have come to weep for him in 
 whom greatness speaks ; I have come for love 
 
 306 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 of Abdalla the Egyptian. ... Is it a sin 
 to stand apart in silence and to weep un- 
 seen ? Was it a sin against the Moslem faith 
 that in this minaret I prayed God to comfort 
 AbdaUa, grandson of Ebn Mahmoud, Egyp- 
 tian of the Egyptians ? Was it not I who 
 held Ismail's hand, when he — being in an 
 anger — ^would have scoured the bazaars with 
 his horsemen for Abdalla and Noor-ala-Noor ? 
 This is known to AbdaUa, whom God pre- 
 serve and exalt. Is not Abdalla friend to 
 Donovan Pasha? " 
 
 Dicky was known to hundreds present. 
 There was not a merchant from the bazaars 
 but had had reason to appreciate his presence, 
 either by friendly gossip over a cup of coffee, 
 or by biting remarks in Arabic, when they 
 lied to him, or by the sweep of his stick over 
 the mastaba and through the chattels of some 
 vile-mouthed pedlar who insulted English 
 ladies whom he was escorting through the 
 bazaar. They knew his face, his tongue, and 
 the weight and style of his arm ; and though 
 they would cheerfully have seen him the sacri- 
 fice of the Jehad to the cry of Alldhu Ahhar ! 
 they respected him for himself, and they 
 feared him because he was near to the person 
 of Ismail. 
 
 He was the more impressive because in the 
 307 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 midst of wealth and splendour he remained 
 poor : he had more than once bought tur- 
 quoises and opals and horses and saddlery, 
 which he paid for in instalments, Uke any 
 little merchant. These, therefore, who knew 
 him, were well inclined to leave him alone, 
 and those who did not know him were im- 
 pressed by his speech. If it was true that he 
 was friend to Abdalla, then his fate was in 
 the hand of God, not theirs. They all had 
 heard of little Donovan Pasha, whom Ismail 
 counted only less than Gordon Pasha, the 
 mad Englishman, who emptied his pocket for 
 an old servant, gave his coat to a beggar, and 
 rode in the desert so fast that no Arab could 
 overtake him. 
 
 " Call off your terriers, effendi," said Dicky 
 again in French ; for Renshaw was restive 
 under the hands that were laid on his arm, 
 and the naboots that threatened him. " My 
 friend here is American. He stands for the 
 United States in Egypt." 
 
 Abdalla had not moved a muscle during the 
 disturbance, or during Dicky's speech. He 
 seemed but the impassive spectator, though 
 his silence and the look in his eyes were 
 ominous. It would appear as though he 
 waited to see whether the Enghshman and 
 his friend could free themselves from danger. 
 
 808 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 If they could, then it was God's will ; if they 
 could not, Malaish! Dicky understood. In 
 this he read Abdalla like a parchment, and 
 though he had occasion to be resentful, he 
 kept his nerves and his tongue in an equable 
 mood. He knew that AbdaUa would speak 
 now. The Egyptian raised his hand. 
 
 " In the name of Allah the Compassionate, 
 the Merciful, go your ways," he said loudly. 
 " It is as Donovan Pasha says, he stayed the 
 hand of Ismail for my sake. Noor-ala-Noor, 
 the Light from the Light, saw into his heart, 
 and it was the honest heart of a fool. And 
 these are the words of the Koran, That the 
 fool is one whom God has made His temple 
 for a season, thereafter withdrawing. None 
 shall injure the temple. Were not your hearts 
 bitter against him, and when he spoke did ye 
 not soften ? He hath no inheritance of Para- 
 dise, but God shall blot him out in His own 
 time. Bismillah ! God cool his resting-place 
 in that day. Donovan Pasha's hand is for 
 Egypt, not against her. We are brothers, 
 though the friendship of man is like the shade 
 of the acacia. Yet while the friendship lives, it 
 lives. When God wills it to die, it dies. . . ." 
 He waved his hand towards the gateway, and 
 came slowly down the steep steps. 
 
 With a curious look in his eyes, Dicky 
 31 309 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 watched the people go. Another curious look 
 displaced it and stayed, as Abdallah silently 
 touched his forehead, his lips and his heart 
 three times, and then reached out a hand to 
 Dicky and touched his palm. Three times 
 they touched palms, and then Abdalla saluted 
 Renshaw in the same fashion, making the gest- 
 ures once only. 
 
 From the citadel came the boom of the 
 evening gun. Without a word Abdalla left 
 them, and, going apart, he turned his face 
 toward Mecca and began his prayers. The 
 courtyard of the mosque was now empty, save 
 for themselves alone. 
 
 The two walked apart near the deserted 
 fountain in the middle of the courtyard. 
 "The friendship ofvian is like the shade of the 
 acacia. Yet while the friendship lives, it lives. 
 When God wills it to die, it dies/" mused 
 Dicky with a significant smile. " Friendship 
 walks on thin ice in the East, Yankee." 
 
 " See here, Donovan Pasha, I don't like taking 
 this kind of risk without a gun," said Renshaw. 
 
 "You're an official, a diplomat; you can't 
 carry a gun." 
 
 " It's aU very fine, but it was a close shave 
 for both of us. You've got an object — want to 
 get something out of it. But what do I get 
 for my money ? " 
 
 310 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 "Perhaps the peace of Europe, Perhaps 
 a page of reminiscences for the New York 
 World. Perhaps some limehght chapters of 
 Egyptian history. Perhaps a little hari-kari. 
 Don't you feel it in the air? " Dicky drew in 
 a sibilant breath. "All this in any other 
 country would make you think you were hav- 
 ing a devil of a time. It's on the regular 
 ' menoo' here, and you don't get a thrill." 
 
 " The peace of Europe — Abdalla has some- 
 thing to do with that ? " 
 
 " Multiply the crowd here a thousand times 
 as much, and that's what he could represent in 
 one day. Give him a month, and every man 
 in Egypt would be collecting his own taxes 
 where he could find 'em. Abdalla there could 
 be prophet and patriot to-morrow, and so he 
 will be soon, and to evil ends, if things don't 
 take a turn. That Egyptian- Arab has a 
 tongue, he has brains, he has sorrow, he loved 
 Noor-ala-Noor. Give a man the egotism of 
 grief, and eloquence, and popularity, and he'll 
 cut as sharp as the khamsin wind. The dust 
 he'll raise will blind more eyes than you can 
 see in a day's march, Yankee. You may take 
 my word for it." 
 
 Renshaw looked at. Dicky thoughtfully. 
 "You're wasting your life here. You'll get 
 nothing out of it. You're a great man, Don- 
 
 311 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 ovan Pasha, but others '11 reap where you 
 sowed." 
 
 Dicky laughed softly. " I've had more fun 
 for my money than most men of my height 
 
 and hair " he stroked his beardless chin 
 
 humourously. " And the best is to come, 
 Yankee. This show is cracking. The au- 
 dience are going to rush it." 
 
 Renshaw laid a hand on his shoulder. 
 "Pasha, to tell you God's truth, I wouldn't 
 have missed this for anything; but what I 
 can't make out is, why you brought me here. 
 You don't do things hke that for nothing. 
 You bet you don't. You'd not put another 
 man in danger, unless he was going to get 
 something out of it, or somebody was. It looks 
 so damned useless. You've done your little 
 job by your lonesome, anyhow. I was no use." 
 
 " Your turn comes," said Dicky, flashing a 
 look of friendly humour at him. "America 
 is putting her hand in the dough— through 
 you. You'll know, and your country '11 know, 
 what's going on here in the hum of the dim 
 bazaars. Ismail's got to see how things stand, 
 and you've got to help me tell him. You've 
 got to say I tell the truth, when the French 
 gentlemen, who have their several spokes in 
 the Egyptian wheel, pohtely say I he. liS it 
 too much, or too little, Yankee ? " 
 
 312 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 Renshaw almost gulped. " By Jerusalem ! " 
 was all he could say. " And we wonder why 
 the English swing things as they do ! " he 
 growled, when his breath came freely. 
 
 Abdalla had finished his prayers; he was 
 coming towards them. Dicky went to meet 
 him. 
 
 "Abdalla, I'm hungry," he said; "so are 
 you. You've eaten nothing since sunset, two 
 days ago." 
 
 " I am thirsty, saadat el basha," he an- 
 swered, and his voice was husky. " Come, I 
 will give you to eat, by the goodness of God." 
 
 It was the time of Ramadan, when no 
 Mahommedan eats food or touches Uquid 
 fi-om the rising to the going down of the sun. 
 As the sunset-gun boomed from the citadel, 
 lids had been snatched off millions of cooking- 
 pots throughout the land, and fingers had been 
 thrust into the meat and rice of the evening 
 feast, and their owner had gulped down a 
 bowl of water. The smell of a thousand 
 cooking-pots now came to them over the 
 walls of the mosque. Because of it, Abdalla's 
 command to the crowd to leave had been 
 easier of acceptance. Their hunger had made 
 them dangerous. Danger was in the air. The 
 tax-gatherers had lately gone their rounds, and 
 the agents of the Mouffetish had wielded the 
 
 313 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 kourbash without mercy and to some purpose. 
 It was perhaps lucky that the incident had 
 occurred within smell of the evening feasts 
 and near the sounding of the sunset-gun. 
 
 Ill 
 
 A HALF-HOUR later, as Abdalla thrust his 
 fingers into the dish and handed Dicky a suc- 
 culent cucumber filled with fried meat, the 
 latter said to him : "It is the wish of the 
 Effendina, my friend. It comes as the wiU 
 of God ; for even as Noor-ala-Noor journeyed 
 to the bosom of God by your will, and by 
 your prayers, being descended from Mahomet 
 as you are, even then Ismail, who knew naught 
 of your sorrow, said to me, ' In all Egypt there 
 is one man, and one only, for whom my soul 
 calls to go into the desert with Gordon,' and I 
 answered him and said, ' Inshallah, Effendina, 
 it is Abdalla, the Eg5rptian.' And he laid his 
 hand upon his head — I have seen him do that 
 for no man since I came into his presence 
 — and said : ' My soul calls for him. Find 
 him and bid him to come. Here is my 
 ring.' " 
 
 Dicky took from his pocket a signet-ring, 
 which bore a passage from the Koran, and 
 laid it beside Abdalla's drinking-bowl. 
 
 314- 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 " What is Ismail to me — or the far tribes of 
 the Soudan ! Here are my people," was the 
 reply. Abdalla motioned to the next room, 
 where the blind men ate their evening meal, 
 and out to the dimly lighted streets where 
 thousands of narghilehs and cigarettes made 
 little smoky clouds that floated around white 
 turbans and dark faces. "When they need 
 me, I wUl speak ; when they cry to me, I will 
 unsheathe the sword of Ebn Mahmoud, who 
 fought with Mahomet AU and saved the land 
 from the Turk." 
 
 Renshaw watched the game with an eager- 
 ness unnoticeable in his manner. He saw 
 how difficult was the task before Dicky. 
 He saw an Oriental conscious of his power, 
 whose heart was bitter, and whose soul, in its 
 solitude, revolted and longed for action. It 
 was not moved by a pure patriotism, but what 
 it was moved by served. That dangerous 
 temper, which would have let Dicky whom he 
 called friend, and himself go down under the 
 naboots of the funeral multitude, with a Ma- 
 laish on his tongue, was now in leash, ready to 
 spring forth in the inspired hour; and the 
 justification need not be a great one. Some 
 slight incident might set him at the head of a 
 rabble which would sweep Cairo like a storm. 
 Yet Renshaw saw, too, that once immersed in 
 
 815 
 
A YOUNG LION OP DEDAN 
 
 the work his mind determined on, the Egyp- 
 tian would go forward with relentless force. 
 In the excitement of the moment it seemed 
 to him that Egypt was hanging in the balance. 
 
 Dicky was eating sweetmeats like a girl. 
 He selected them with great care. Suddenly 
 Abdalla touched his hand. " Speak on. Let 
 all thy thoughts be open — stay not to choose, 
 as thou dost with the sweetmeats. I wiU 
 choose : do thou oflFer without fear. I would 
 not listen to IsmaU ; to thee I am but as a 
 waled to bear thy shoes in my hand." 
 
 Dicky said nothing for a moment, but ap- 
 peared to enjoy the comfit he was eating. He 
 rolled it over his tongue, and his eyes dwelt 
 with a remarkable simplicity and childlike 
 friendliness on AbdaUa. It was as though 
 there was really nothing vital at stake. . . . 
 Yet he was probing, probing without avail, 
 into Abdalla's mind and heart, and was never 
 more at sea in his life. It was not even 
 for Donovan Pasha to read the Oriental 
 thoroughly. This man before him had the 
 duplicity or evasion of the Oriental ; delicately 
 in proportion to his great ability, yet it was 
 there — ^though in less degree than in any Arab 
 he had ever known. It was the more danger- 
 ous because so subtle. It held surprise — ^it 
 was an unknown quantity. The most that 
 
 316 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 Dicky could do was to feel subtly before him 
 a certain cloud of the unexpected. He was 
 not sure that he deceived Abdalla by his sim- 
 ple manner, yet that made little difference. 
 The Oriental would think not less of him for 
 dissimulation, but rather more. He reached 
 over and put a comfit in the hand of Ab- 
 dalla. 
 
 " Let us eat together," he said, and dropped 
 a comfit into his own mouth. 
 
 Abdalla ate, and Dicky dipped his fingers in 
 the basin before them, saying, as he hfted 
 them again : " I will speak as to my brother. 
 Ismail has staked all on the Soudan. If, in 
 the will of God, he is driven from Berber, 
 from Dongola, from Khartoum, from Darfur, 
 from Kassala, his power is gone. Egypt goes 
 down like the sun at evening. Ismail will be 
 like a withered gourd. To establish order and 
 peace and revenue there, he is sending the 
 man his soul loves, whom the nations trust, to 
 the cities of the desert. If it be well with 
 Gordon, it will be well with the desert-cities. 
 But Gordon asks for one man — an Egjrptian 
 — who loves the land and is of the people, to 
 speak for him, to counsel with him, to show 
 the desert tribes that Eg5rpt gives her noblest 
 to rule and serve them. There is but one 
 man — AbdaUa, the Egyptian. A few years 
 
 317 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 yonder in the desert — ^power, glory, wealth 
 won for Egypt, the strength of thine arms 
 known, the piety of thy spirit proven, thy 
 name upon every tongue — on thy return, who 
 then should fear for Egypt? " 
 
 Dicky was playing a dangerous game, and 
 Renshaw almost shrank from his words. He 
 was firing the Egyptian's mind, but to what 
 course he knew not. If to the Soudan, well ; 
 if to remain, what conflagration might not 
 occur I Dicky staked all. 
 
 " Here, once more, among thy people, re- 
 turned from conquest and the years of pilgrim- 
 age in the desert, Uke a prophet of old, thy 
 zeal would lead the people, and once more 
 Egypt should bloom Uke the rose. Thou 
 wouldst be sirdar, mouffetish, pasha, all things 
 soever. This thou wouldst be and do, thou, 
 Abdalla the Egyptian." 
 
 Dicky had made his great throw; and he 
 sat back, perhaps a little paler than was his 
 wont, but apparently serene, and earnest and 
 steady.. 
 
 The effect upon Abdalla could only be 
 judged by his eyes, which burned like fire as 
 they fixed upon Dicky's face. The suspense 
 was painful, for he did not speak for a long 
 time. Renshaw could have shrieked with 
 excitement. Dicky lighted a cigarette and 
 
 318 
 
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN 
 
 tossed a comfit at a pariah dog. At last Ab- 
 dalla rose. Dicky rose with him. 
 
 " Thou, too, hast a great soul, or mine eyes 
 are liars," Abdalla said. " Thou lovest Egypt 
 also. This Gordon — I am not his friend. I 
 wiU not go with him. But if thou goest also 
 with Gordon, then I wiU go with thee. If 
 thou dost mean well by Egypt, and thy words 
 are true, thou also wilt go. As thou speakest, 
 let it be." 
 
 A mist came before Dicky's eyes — ^the world 
 seemed falling into space, his soul was in a 
 crucible. The struggle was hke that of a man 
 with death, for this must change the course 
 of his life, to what end God only knew. All 
 that he had been to Egypt, all that Egypt had 
 been to him came to him. But he knew that 
 he must not pause. Now was his moment, 
 and now only. Before the mist had cleared 
 from his eyes he gave his hand into Abdalla's. 
 
 " In God's name, so be it. I also will go 
 with Gordon, and thou with me," he said. 
 
 319 
 
HE WOULD NOT BE DENIED 
 
 E was achin' for it — tumble 
 achin' for it — ^an' he would 
 not be denied ! " said Ser- 
 geant William Connor, of 
 the Berkshire Regiment, in 
 the sergeants' mess at Suakim, 
 two nights before the attack 
 on McNeill's zeriba at Tofrik. 
 " Serve ' im right. Janders 
 was too bloomin' suddint," 
 skirled Henry Withers of the Sick Horse 
 Dep6t from the bottom of the table. 
 
 ' ' Too momentary, I believe you," said Cor- 
 poral BiUy Bagshot. 
 
 At the Sick Horse Dep&t Connor had, with- 
 out good cause, made some disparaging re- 
 marks upon the charger ridden by Subadar 
 Goordit Singh at the fight at Dihilbat HiU, 
 which towers over the village of Hashin. 
 Subadar Goordit Singh heard the remarks, 
 and, loving his welted, gibbet-headed charger 
 as WiUiam Connor loved any woman who 
 came his way, he spat upon the ground the ser- 
 
 320 
 
HE WOULD NOT BE DENIED 
 
 geant's foot covered, and made an evil- smiling 
 remark. Thereupon Connor laid siege to the 
 white-toothed, wild-bearded Sikh with words 
 which suddenly came to renown, and left not 
 a shred of glory to the garment of vanity the 
 hillman wore. 
 
 He insinuated that the Sikh's horse was 
 wounded at Hashin from behind by backing 
 too far on the Guards' Brigade on one side 
 and on the Royal Mounted Infantry on the 
 other. This was ungenerous and it was not 
 true, for Wilham Connor knew well the repu- 
 tation of the Sikhs ; but William's blood was 
 up, and the smile of the Subadar was hateful 
 in his eyes. The truth was that the Berkshire 
 Regiment had had its chance at Dihilbat Hill 
 and the Sikhs had not. But Wilham Connor 
 refused to make a distinction between two 
 squadrons of Bengal Cavalry which had been 
 driven back upon the Guards' square and the 
 Sikhs who fretted on their bits, as it were. 
 
 The Berkshire Regiment had done its work 
 in gallant style up the steep slopes of Dihilbat, 
 had cleared the summit of Osman Digna's men, 
 and followed them with a raking fire as they 
 retreated wildly into the mimosa bushes on 
 the plain. The Berkshires were not by nature 
 proud of stomach, but Connor was a popu- 
 lar man, and the incident of the Sick Horse 
 
 321 
 
HE WOULD NOT BE DENIED 
 
 Depot, as reported by Corporal Bagshot, who 
 kept a diary and a dictionary, tickled their 
 imagination, and they went forth and swag- 
 gered before the Indian Native Contingent, 
 singing a song made by Bagshot and trans- 
 lated into Irish idiom by William Connor. 
 The song was meant to humiliate the Indian 
 Native Contingent, and the Sikhs writhed 
 under the raiUery and looked black — so black 
 that word was carried to McNeill himself, 
 who sent orders to the officers of the Berk- 
 shire Regiment to give the offenders a dress- 
 ing down ; for the Sikhs were not Fellaheen, 
 to be heckled with impunity. 
 
 That was why, twenty-four hours after the 
 offending song was made, it was suppressed; 
 and in the sergeants' mess WiUiam Connor 
 told the story how, an hour before, he had 
 met Subadar Goordit Singh in the encamp- 
 ment, and the Subadar in a rage at the grin 
 on Connor's face had made a rush at him, 
 which the Irishman met with his foot, spoil- 
 ing his wind. That had ended the incident 
 for the moment, for the Sikh remembered in 
 time, and WiUiam Connor had been escorted 
 " Berkshire way " by Corporal Bagshot and 
 Henry Withers. As the tale was told over 
 and over again, there came softly from the 
 lips of the only other Irishman in the regi- 
 
HE WOULD NOT BE DENIED 
 
 ment, Jimmy Coolin, a variant verse of the 
 song that the great McNeill had stopped : 
 
 " Where is the shame of it^ 
 Where was the blame of it, 
 William Connor dear ? " 
 
 It was well for Graham, Hunter, McNeill, 
 and their brigades that William Connor and 
 the Berkshires and the Subadar Goordit Singh 
 had no idle time in which to sear their difficul- 
 ties, for, before another khamsin gorged the 
 day with cutting dust, every department of 
 the Service, from the Commissariat to the Bal- 
 loon Detachment, was filling marching orders. 
 There was a collision, but it was the agreeable 
 collision of preparation for a fight, for it was 
 ordained that the Berkshires and the Sikhs 
 should go shoulder to shoulder to establish a 
 post in the desert between Suakim and Tamai. 
 
 " D'ye hear that, William Connor dear ? " 
 said Private Coolin when the orders came. 
 " An' y'll have Subadar Goordit Singh with 
 his kahars and his bhistis and his dhooly bearers 
 an' his Lushai dandies an' his bloomin' bullock- 
 carts steppin' on y'r tail as ye travel, Misther 
 Connor I " 
 
 "Me tail is the tail of a kangaroo; I'm 
 strongest where they tread on me, Coolin," 
 answered Connor. "An' drinkin' the divil's 
 
 323 
 
HE WOULD NOT BE DENIED 
 
 chlorides from the tins of the mangy dhrome- 
 dairy has turned me insides into a foundry. 
 I'm metal-plated, Coolin." 
 
 " So ye'U need if ye meet the Subadar be- 
 tjine the wars ! " 
 
 " Go back to y'r condinsation, Coolin. 
 Bring water to the thirsty be gravitation an' a 
 four-inch main, an' shtrengthen the sowl of the 
 Subadar wid hay cake, for he'U want it agin 
 the day he laves Tamai behind ! Go back to 
 y'r condinsation, Coolin, an' take truth to y'r 
 soul that there's many ways to die, an' one o' 
 thim's in the commysariat, Coolin — shame for 
 ye!" 
 
 Coolin had been drafted into the Commis- 
 sariat and was now variously employed, but 
 chiefly at the Sandbag Redoubt, where the 
 condensing ship did duty, sometimes at the 
 south-east end of the harbour where the Indian 
 Contingent watered. Coolin hated the duty, 
 and because he was in a bitter mood his tongue 
 was like a leaf of aloe. 
 
 " I'll be drinkin' condinsed spirits an' 'atin' 
 hay cake whin the vultures do be peckin' at 
 what's lift uv ye whin the Subadar's done wid 
 ye. I'd a drame about ye last noight, WiUiam 
 Connor dear — ^three times I dramed it." 
 
 Suddenly Connor's face was clouded. 
 " Whist, thin, Coolin," said he hoarsely. " Ha- 
 
HE WOULD NOT BE DENIED 
 
 dendowas I've no fear uv, an' Subadars are 
 Injy nagurs anyhow, though fellow-soldiers uv 
 the Quane that's good to shtand befront uv 
 biscuit- boxes or behoind thim; an' wan has no 
 fear of the thing that's widout fear, an' death's 
 iron enters in aisy whin mortial strength's be- 
 hoind it. But drames — I've had enough uv 
 drames in me toime, I have that, Coolin ! " 
 He shuddered a Uttle. " What was it ye 
 dramed agin, CooMn? Was there anything 
 but the dramin' — anny noise, or sound, or 
 spakin' ? " 
 
 Coolin lied freely, for to disturb William 
 Connor was little enough compensation for 
 being held back at Suakim while the Berk- 
 shires and the Sikhs were off for a scrimmage 
 in the desert. 
 
 "Nothin' saw I wid open eye, an' nothin' 
 heard," he answered ; " but I dramed twice 
 that I saw ye lyin' wid y'r head on y'r arm 
 and a hole in y'r jacket. Thin I waked sud- 
 din', an' I felt a cold wind goin' over me — 
 three toimes ; an' a hand was laid on me own 
 face, an' it was cold an' smooth — ^like the hand 
 uv a Sikh, William Connor dear." 
 
 Connor suddenly caught Coolin's arm. 
 
 " D'ye say that ! " said he. " Shure, I'll tell 
 
 ye now why the chills rin down me back whin 
 
 I hear uv y'r drame. Thrue things are 
 
 33 3^5 
 
HE WOULD NOT BE DENIED 
 
 drames, as I'll prove to ye — as quare as con- 
 dinsation an' as thrue, Coolin; fer condinsa- 
 tion comes out uv nothin', and so do drames 
 . . . There was Mary Haggarty, Coolin — 
 yell not be knowin' Mary Haggarty. It was 
 momin' an' evenin' an' the first day uv the 
 world where she were. That was Mary Hag- 
 garty. An' ivery shtep she tuk had the spring 
 uv the first sod of Adin. Shure no, ye didn't 
 know Mary Haggarty, an' ye niver will, 
 Coolin, fer the sod she trod she's lyin' under, 
 an' she'U niver rise up no more." 
 
 " Fer choice I'll take the sod uv Erin to the 
 sand uv the Soudan," said Coolin. 
 
 " Ye'U take what ye can get, Coolin ; fer 
 wid a splinterin' buUet in y'r gizzard ye lie 
 where ye fall." 
 
 " But Mary Haggarty, Connor? " 
 
 " I was drinkin' hard, ye understand, Coolin 
 — drinkin', loike a dhromedairy — ivery day 
 enough to last a wake, an' Mary tryin' to stop 
 me betoimes. At last I tuk the pledge — an' 
 her on promise. An' purty, purty she looked 
 thin, an' shtepping loight an' foine, an' the 
 weddin' was coming an. But wan day there 
 was a foire, an' the police coort was burned 
 down, an' the gaol was that singed they let 
 the b'ys out, an' we rushed the poUce an' 
 
 carried off the b'ys, an' " 
 
 326 
 
HE WOULD NOT BE DENIED 
 
 " An' ye sweltered in the juice ! " broke in 
 Coolin with flashing eyes, proud to have 
 roused Connor to this secret tale, which he 
 would tell to the Berkshires as long as they 
 would listen, that it should go down through 
 a long line of Berkshires, as Coolin's tale of 
 William Connor. 
 
 "An' I sweltered in the swill," said Connor, 
 his eye with a east quite shut with emotion, 
 and the other nearly so. "An' wance broke 
 out agin afther tin months' goin' wake and 
 watery, was like a steer in the corn. There 
 was no shtoppin' me, an' " 
 
 " Not Mary Haggarty aither ? " 
 
 "Not Mary Haggarty aither." 
 
 " O, WiUiam Connor dear ! " 
 
 " Ye may well say, ' O, William Connor 
 dear.' 'Twas what she said day by day, an' 
 the heart uv me loike Phararyoh's. Thrue it 
 is, Coolin, that the hand uv mortial man has 
 an ugly way uv squazin' a woman's heart dry 
 whin, at last, to his coaxin' she lays it tinder 
 an' ansuspectin' on the inside grip uv it." 
 
 " But the heart uv Mary Haggarty, Connor." 
 
 " 'Twas loike a flower under y'r fut, Coohn, 
 an' a hea\'y fiit is to you. She says to me wan 
 day, ' Ye're breakin' me heart, WiUiam Con- 
 nor,' says she. ' Thin I'U sodder it up agin wid 
 the help uv the priest,' says I. ' That ye will 
 
 327 
 
HE WOUI>D NOT BE DENIED 
 
 not do,' says she; 'wance broken, 'tis broke 
 beyond mendin'.' 'Go an wid ye, Mary 
 Haggarty darlin',' says I, laugKin' in her face, 
 'hivin is y'r home.' 'Oh, I'll be goin' there, 
 WilUam Connor,' says she, ' I'll be goin' there 
 betimes, I hope.' ' How wiU it be ? ' says I ; 
 ' be foire or wather, Mary darlin' ? ' says I. 
 ' Ye shall know whin it comes,' says she, wid a 
 quare look in her eye." 
 
 " An' ye did ? " asked CooUn, open-mouthed 
 and staring; for never had he seen Connor 
 with aught on his face but a devil-may-care 
 smile. 
 
 " Ordered away we was next avenin', an' 
 sorra the glimpse of Mary Haggarty to me — 
 for Headquarters is a lady that will not be 
 denied. Away we wint overseas. Shlapin' I 
 was wan noight in a troop-ship in the Bay uv 
 Biscay; an' I dramed I saw Mary walkin' 
 along the cliff by^well, 'tis no matter, fer 
 ye've niver been there, an' 'tis no place to go 
 to unheedin'. Manny an' manny a toime I'd 
 walked wid Mary Haggarty there. There's a 
 steep hill betune two pints uv land. If ye go 
 low on't ye're safe enough — if you go high it 
 crumbles, an' down ye shUp a hunder fut into 
 the say. In me drame I saw Mary onthinkin', 
 or thinkin' maybe about me an' not about the 
 high path or the low— though 'tis only the low 
 
HE WOULD NOT BE DENIED 
 
 that's used these twinty years. Her head was 
 down. I tried to call her. She didn't hear, 
 but wint an an' an. All at wanst I saw the 
 ground give way. She shlipped an' snatched 
 at the spinifex. Wan minnit she held, an' 
 thin slid down, down into the say. An' I 
 woke callin' Mary, Mary in me throat." 
 
 " Ye dramed it wance only, Connor ? " said 
 Coolin, with the insolent grin gone out of his 
 eyes. 
 
 " I dramed it three toimes, an' the last toime, 
 whin I waked, I felt a cold wind go over me. 
 Thin a hand touched me face — the same as 
 you, Coolin, the same as you. Drames are 
 thrue things, Coohn." 
 
 " It was thrue, thin, Connor ? " 
 
 A look of shame and a curious look of fear 
 crept into Coolin's face; for though it was not 
 true he had dreamed of the hand on his face 
 and the cold wind blowing over him, it was 
 true he had dreamed he saw Connor lying on 
 the ground with a buUet-hole in his tunic. 
 But Coolin, being industrious at his trencher, 
 often had dreams, and one more or less horri- 
 ble about Connor had not seemed to him to 
 matter at aU. It had sufficed, however, to 
 give him a cue to chaff the man who had 
 knocked the wind out of Subadar Goordit 
 Singh, and who must pay for it one hour or 
 
HE WOULD NOT BE DENIED 
 
 another in due course, as Coolin and the Berk- 
 shires knew full well. 
 
 " It was thrue, thin, William Connor ? " re- 
 peated Coolin. 
 
 " As thrue as that yander tripod pump kills 
 one man out uv ivery fifty. As thrue as that 
 y'r corn beef from y'r commysariat tins gives 
 William Connor thirst, Coolin." 
 
 " She was drownded, Connor ? " said Coolin 
 in a whisper. 
 
 " As I dramed it, an' allowin' fer difference 
 uv toime, at the very hour, Coolin. 'Tis five 
 years ago, an' I take it hard that Mary Hag- 
 garty spakes to me through you. 'Tis a 
 warnin', Coolin." 
 
 " 'Twas a lie I told you, Connor — 'twas a 
 lie ! " And Coolin tried to grin. 
 
 Connor's voice was like a woman's, soft and 
 quiet, as he answered : " Ye'll lie fast enough, 
 Coolin, whin the truth won't sarve ; but the 
 truth has sarved its turn this toime." 
 
 " Aw, Connor dear, only wan half's thrue. 
 As I'm a man — only wan half." 
 
 " Go an to y'r condinsation, Coolin, fer the 
 face uv ye's not fit fer dacint company, wan 
 side paralytic wid lyin', an' the other struck 
 simple wid tellin' the truth. An' see, Coolin, 
 fer the warnin' she give ye fer me, the kit I 
 lave is yours, an' what more, be the will uv 
 
 330 
 
HE WOULD NOT BE DENIED 
 
 God ! An' what yeVe told me ye'U kape to 
 y'self, Coolin, or hell shall be your portion." 
 
 " He tuk it fer truth an' a warnin', an' he 
 would not be denied," said Coolin to Henry 
 Withers, of the Sick Horse Depot, two hours 
 afterwards, when the Berkshires and the Sikhs 
 and the Bengalese were on the march towards 
 Tamai. 
 
 " The bloomin' trick is between the Haden- 
 dowas and the Subadar," answered he of the 
 Sick Horse Depot. 
 
 " Ye take it fer a warnin', thin ? " asked 
 Coolin uneasily. 
 
 " I believe you," answered Henry Withers. 
 
 As for William Connor, when he left Sua- 
 kim, his foot was light, his figure straight, and 
 he sent a running fire of laughter through his 
 company by one or two " insinsible remarks," 
 as Coolin called them. 
 
 Three hours' marching in the Soudan will 
 usually draw off the froth of a man's cheerful- 
 ness, but William Connor was as hght of 
 heart at Tofrik as at Suakim, and he saw with 
 pleasure two sights — the enemy in the distance 
 and the 15th Sikhs on their right flank, with 
 Subadar Goordit Singh in view. 
 
 331 
 
HE WOULD NOT BE DENIED 
 
 " There's work 'ere to-day for whoever likes 
 it on the 'op ! " said Henry Withers, of the 
 Sick Horse Dep6t, as he dragged his load of 
 mimosa to the zeriba; for he had got leave 
 to come on with his regiment. 
 
 " You'll find it 'otter still when the vedettes 
 and Cossack Posts come leadin' in the Osnum 
 Digners. If there ain't hoscillations on that 
 rectangle, strike me in the night-Ughts ! " said 
 Corporal Bagshot, with his eye on the Ben- 
 galese. " Blyme, if the whole bloomin' paral- 
 logram don't shiver ! " he added ; " for them 
 Osnum Digners 'as the needle, and they're 
 ten to one, or I'm a bloater ! " 
 
 " There's Gardner guns fer the inimy an' 
 Lushai dandies fer us," broke in Connor, as he 
 drove a stake in the ground, wet without and 
 dry within — " an' Gardner guns are divils on 
 the randan. Whin they get to work it's loike 
 a self-actin' abbatoir." 
 
 " I 'opes ye like it, Connor. Bloomin' pic- 
 nic for you when the Osnum Digners eat sand. 
 What ho ! " 
 
 " I have no swarms of conscience there, 
 Billy Bagshot. For the bones uv me frinds 
 that's lyin' in this haythen land, I'll clane as 
 fur as I can reach. An' I'll have the run uv 
 
 me belt to-day, an " he added, then stopped 
 
 short as the order came from McNeill that 
 
 332 
 
HE WOULD NOT BE DENIED 
 
 the Berkshires should receive dinner by half- 
 battalions. 
 
 " An' 'igh time," said Corporal Bagshot. 
 " What with marchin' and zeribakin' and the 
 sun upon me tank since four this mornin', I'm 
 dead for food and buried for water. I ain't 
 no bloomin' salanianker to be grilled and say 
 thank-ye, and I ain't no bloomin' camomile 
 to bring up me larder and tap me tank 
 when Coolin's commissaryat hasn't no or- 
 ders." 
 
 " Shure ye'U run better impty, Billy boy," 
 said Connor. " An' what fer do ye need food 
 before y'r execution ? " he added, with a twist 
 of his mouth. 
 
 " Before execution, ye turkey cock — before 
 execution is the time to eat and drink. How 
 shaU the bloomin' carnage gore the Libyan 
 sands, if there ain't no refreshment for the 
 vitals and the diagrams ? " 
 
 " Come an wid ye to y'r forage-cake, thin — 
 an' take this to ye," added Connor slyly, as he 
 slipped a little nickel-plated flask into Billy 
 Bagshot's hand. 
 
 " With a Woking crematory in y'r own 
 throat. See you bloomin' furder ! " answered 
 BiUy Bagshot. 
 
 "I'm not drinkin' to-day," answered Con- 
 nor, with a curious look in the eye that 
 
 333 
 
HE WOULD NOT BE DENIED 
 
 had no cast. " I'm not drinkin', you under- 
 stand." 
 
 " Ain't it a bit momentary ? " said Bagshot, 
 as they sat down. 
 
 " Momentary be toimes," answered Connor 
 evasively. 
 
 "Are you eatin' at this bloomin' swaree, 
 then?" 
 
 " I'm niver aff me forage-cake ! " answered 
 Connor, and he ate as if he had had his tooth 
 in nothing for a month. 
 
 A quarter of an hour later, the Sikhs were 
 passing the Berkshire zeriba, and the Berk- 
 shu-es, filing out, joined them to cut brush- 
 wood. A dozen times the Subadar Goordit 
 Singh almost touched shoulders with Connor, 
 but neither spoke, and neither saw directly; for 
 if once they saw each other's eyes the end might 
 come too soon, to the disgrace of two regiments. 
 
 Suddenly, the forbidden song on William 
 Connor and the Subadar arose among the 
 Berkshires. No one knew who started it, but 
 it probably was BiUy Bagshot, who had had 
 more than a double portion of drink, and was 
 seized with a desire to celebrate his thanks to 
 Connor thus. 
 
 In any case the words ran along the line, 
 and were carried up in a shout amid the 
 crackling of the brushwood — ■ 
 
HE WOUI.D NOT BE DENIED 
 
 " Where was the shame of it. 
 Where was the blame of it, 
 William Connor dear ? " 
 
 That sort of special providence which seems 
 to shelter the unworthy, gave India and the 
 Berkshires honour that hour when the barom- 
 eter registered shame; for never was mer- 
 cury more stormy than shot up in the artery 
 of two men's wills when that song rose over 
 the zeriba at Tofrik. They were not fifty feet 
 apart at the time, and at the lilt of that chorus 
 they swung towards each other like two horses 
 to the bugle on parade. 
 
 "A guinea to a brown but Janders goes 
 large I " said BiUy Bagshot under his breath, 
 his eye on the Subadar and repenting him of 
 the song. 
 
 But Janders did not go large ; for at that 
 very moment there came the bugle-caU for the 
 working parties to get into the zeriba, as from 
 the mimosa scrub came hundreds upon hun- 
 dreds of "Osnum Digners " hard upon the 
 heels of the vedettes. 
 
 "The Hadendowas 'as the privilege," said 
 Billy Bagshot, as the Berkshires and the Sikhs 
 swung round and made for the zeriba. 
 
 " What's that ye say ? " said Connor, as the 
 men stood to their arms. 
 
 "Looked as if the bloomin' hontray was 
 335 
 
HE WOUI.D NOT BE DENIED 
 
 with the Subadar, but the Hadendowas 'as the 
 honour to hinvite sweet WiUiam ! " 
 
 "Murther uv man — look — look, ye Berk- 
 shire boar ! The Bengals is breakin' hne ! " 
 
 " Hoseillations 'as begun!" said Bagshot, 
 as, disorganised by the vedettes riding through 
 their flank into the zeriba, the Bengalese wa- 
 vered. 
 
 " 'Tis your turn now — go an to y'r gruel ! " 
 said Connor, as Bagshot with his company 
 and others were ordered to move over to the 
 Bengalese and steady them, 
 
 "An' no bloomin' sugar either," Bagshot 
 called back as he ran. 
 
 "Here's to ye thin!" shouted Connor, as 
 the enemy poured down on their zeriba on the 
 west and the Bengalese retreated on them 
 from the east, the Billy Bagshot detachment 
 of Berkshires rallying them and firing steadily, 
 the enemy swarming after and stampeding 
 the mules and camels. Over the low bush 
 fence, over the unfinished sandbag parapet at 
 the southwest salient, spread the shrieking 
 enemy like ants, stabbing and cutting. The 
 Gardner guns, as Connor had said, were "fer 
 the inimy," but the Lushai dandies were for 
 the men that managed them that day ; for the 
 enemy came too soon — in shrieking masses to 
 a hand-to-hand melee. 
 
 336 
 
HE WOULD NOT BE DENIED 
 
 What India lost that hour by the Benga- 
 lese the Sikhs won back. Side by side with 
 them the Berkshires cursed and raged and had 
 their way; and when the Sikhs drew over and 
 laid themselves along the English hnes a wild 
 cheer went up from the Berkshires. Wounded 
 men spluttered their shouts from mouths filled 
 with blood, and to the welcoming roars of the 
 Berkshires the Sikhs showed their teeth in 
 grim smiles, " and done things," as Billy Bag- 
 shot said when it was all over. 
 
 But by consent of every man who fought 
 under McNeill that day, the biggest thing 
 done among the Sikhs happened in the fiercest 
 moment of the rush on the Berkshire zeriba. 
 BiUy Bagshot told the story that night, after 
 the Lushai dandies had carried off" the wounded 
 and the sands of the desert had taken in the 
 dead. 
 
 " Tyke it or leave it, 'e 'ad the honours of 
 the day," said Bagshot, " 'e and Janders — old 
 Subadar Goordit Singh. It myde me sick to 
 see them Bengalesey, some of 'em 'ookin it to 
 Suakim, some of 'em retirin' on the seraphim, 
 which is another name for Berkshires. It 
 ain't no sweet levee a-tryin' to rally 'eathen 
 'ands to do their dooty. So we 'ad to cover 
 'em back into the zeriba of the seraphim — 
 which is our glorious selves. A bloomin' 
 
 337 
 
HE WOULD NOT BE DENIED 
 
 'asty puddin' was that tournamong, but it 
 wasn't so bloomin' 'asty that the Subadar and 
 William Connor didn't finish what they 
 started for to do when the day was young." 
 
 "Did Janders stick the b'y?" said Coolin, 
 who had just come in from Suakim with the 
 Commissariat camels. " Shure, 1 hope to God 
 he didn't! " He was pale and wild of eye. 
 
 " Did a bloomin' sparrow give you 'is brains 
 when you was changed at birth ? Stick Will- 
 iam Connor — I believe you not! This is what 
 'appened, me bloomin' sanitary. When I got 
 back be'ind the 'eavenly parapet, there was 
 WUliam Connor in a nice little slaughter-house 
 of 'is own. 'E was doin' of 'isself proud — too 
 busy to talk. AU at once 'e spies a flag the 
 Osnum Digners 'ad planted on the 'eavenly 
 parapet. 'E opens 'is mouth and gives one 
 yell, and makes for that bit of cotton. 'E got 
 there, for 'e would not be denied. 'E got there 
 an' 'e couldn't get back. But 'e made a rush 
 for it " 
 
 " A divil he was on rushes," broke in Pri- 
 vate Coolin, wiping his mouth nervously. 
 
 " 'E's the pride of 'is 'ome and the bloomin' 
 brigade, bar one, which is the Subadar Goordit 
 Singh. For w'en the Subadar sees Connor in 
 'is 'ole, a cut across 'is jaw, doin' of 'is trick 
 alone, away goes Subadar Goordit Singh and 
 
 338 
 
HE WOULD NOT BE DENIED 
 
 two of 'is company be'ind 'im for to rescue. 
 'E cut with 'is sword like a bloomin' picture. 
 'E didn't spare 'is strength, and 'e didn't spare 
 the Osnum Digners. An' 'e come back, an' he 
 brought with him William Connor^ — that's all 
 what come back." 
 
 " How long did Wilhara live ? " said Coohn. 
 " He was a good frind to me was Connor, a 
 thrue frind he was to me. How long did the 
 b'yUve?" 
 
 " 'E lived long enough to 'ave McNeill shake 
 'im by the 'and. 'E lived long enough to say 
 to the Subadar Goordit Singh, ' I would take 
 scorn uv me to lave widout askin' y'r pardon, 
 Subadar.' And the Subadar took 'is 'and and 
 salaamed, and showed 'is teeth, which was 
 meant friendly." 
 
 " What else did Connor say ? " asked Coolin, 
 eagerly. 
 
 " 'E said 'is kit was for you that's spoilin' a 
 good name in the condinsation of the commis- 
 saryat, Coolin." 
 
 " But what else ? " said Coohn. " Nothin' 
 about a drame at all ? " 
 
 " Who's talkin' about dreams ? " said Bag- 
 shot. " 'E wasn't no bloomin' poet. 'E was a 
 man. What 'e said 'e said like a man. 'E 
 said 'e'd got word from Mary — which is proper 
 that a man should do when 'e's a-chuckin' of 
 
 339 
 
HE WOULD NOT BE DENIED 
 
 'is tent-pegs. If 'e ain't got no mother — an' 
 Connor 'adn't — 'is wife or 'is sweetheart 'as the 
 honour." 
 
 " Oh, blessed God," said Coohn, " I wish I 
 hadn't towld him — I wish I hadn't towld the 
 
 by." 
 
 " Told 'im wot ? " said Bagshot. 
 
 But Coolin of the Commissariat did not an- 
 swer; his head was on his arms, and his arms 
 were on his knees. 
 
 340 
 
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK 
 
 WAS a flower," said Henry 
 Withers of the Sick Horse 
 Dep6t. 
 
 " A floower in front gar- 
 den ! " ironically responded 
 Holgate the Yorkshire engi- 
 neer, as he lay on his back on 
 the lower deck of the Osiris, 
 waiting for Fielding Pasha's 
 ,^^^ orders to steam up the river. 
 '^"- # " 'E was the bloomin' flower of 
 the flock," said Henry Withers, with a cross 
 between a yawn and a sigh, and refusing to 
 notice Holgate's sarcasm. 
 
 " Aw've heered on 'era, the floowers o' the 
 flock — they coom to a bad end mostwise in 
 Yarkshire — nipped in t' bood loike ! Was 
 tha friend nipped untimely ? " 
 
 " I'd give a bloomin' camomile to know ! " 
 " Deserted or summat ? " 
 " Ow yus, 'e deserted — to Khartoum, " an- 
 swered Withers with a sneer. " The 'owlin' 
 23 341 
 
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK 
 
 sneak went in 'idin' with Gordon at Khar- 
 toum ! " 
 
 "Aye, aw've heerd o' Gordon a bit," said 
 Holgate dubiously, intent to further anger 
 the Beetle, as Henry Withers was called. 
 
 " Ow yus, ow verily yus 1 An' yVe 'ear 
 do' Julius Cassar, an' Nebucha'nezzar, an' 
 Florence Noightingale, 'aven't you — you wich 
 is chiefly bellyband and gullet." 
 
 " Aye, aw've eaten too mooch to-day," re- 
 joined Holgate placidly, refusing to see insult. 
 " Aw don't see what tha friend was doin' at 
 Khartoum wi' Goordon." 
 
 " 'E was makin' Perry Davis' Pain KiUer 
 for them at 'ome who wouldn't send Gordon 
 'elp when the 'eathen was at 'is doors a 'underd 
 to one. 'E was makin' it for them to soothe 
 their bloomin' pains an' sorrers when Gordon 
 an' Macnamara 'ad cried 'elp! for thk.lawst 
 toime ! " 
 
 "Aw've taken off ma hat to Goordon's 
 nevvy — he be a fine man — head for macheens 
 he has," — Holgate's eyes dwelt on his engine 
 lovingly ; " but aw've heerd nowt o' Macna- 
 mara — never nowt o' him. Who was Macna- 
 mara ? " 
 
 " 'E was the bloomin' flower of the flock — 'e 
 was my pal as took service in the Leave-me- 
 alone-to-die Regiment at Khartoum." 
 
 342 
 
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK 
 
 "Aw've never read o' Macnamara. Dost 
 think tha'll ever know how he went ? " 
 
 " I ain't sayin' 'as 'e went, an' I ain't thinkin' 
 as 'e went. I'm waitin' hke a bloomin' tele- 
 garpher at the end of a wire. 'E was the 
 pick o' fifteen 'underd men, was Macnamara." 
 
 " What sent t' laad to Goordon? " 
 
 " A-talkin' of 'isself silly to two lydies at 
 onct." 
 
 "Aye, theer's the floower o' the flock. 
 Breakin' hearts an' spoilin' lives — aw've seen 
 them floowers bloomin'." 
 
 " 'E didn't break no witherin' 'earts, an' 'e 
 didn't spoil no lives. The lydies was both 
 married afore Macnamara got as far as Wady 
 Halfar. 'E break 'earts — not much ! 'E went 
 to Khartoum to be quiet." 
 
 " Aw'm pityin' the laads that married them 
 lassesr' 
 
 " 'Ere, keep your bloomin' pity. I wuz one. 
 An' if your pity's 'urtin' yer, think of 'im as 
 'adn't no wife nor kid to say when 'ee's dead, 
 ' Poor Peter Macnamara, 'e is gone.' " 
 
 " A good job too, aw'm thinkin'." 
 
 "An' a bloomin' 'ard 'eart y' 'ave. Wantin' 
 of a man to die without leavin' 'is mark — 'is 
 bleedin' 'all-mark on the world. I 'ave two — 
 two kids I 'ave; an' so 'elp me Gawd, things 
 bein' as they are, I wouldn't say nothin' if one 
 
 343 
 
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK 
 
 of 'em was Macnamara's — wich it ain't — no 
 fear!" 
 
 " Was Macnamara here you wouldn't say 
 thaat to his faace, aw'm thinkin'." 
 
 " I'd break 'is 'ulkin' neck first. I ain't put- 
 tin' these things on the 'oardins, an' I ain't 
 thinkin' 'em, if 'ee's alive in the clutches of the 
 'eathen KaHfer at Homdurman. There's them 
 as says 'e is, an' there's them as says 'e was cut 
 down after Gordon. But it's only Gawd- 
 forsaken Arabs as says it, an' they'll lie wich- 
 ever way you want 'em." 
 
 " Aye, laad, but what be great foolks doin' 
 at Cairo ? They be sendin' goold for Slatin 
 an' Ohrwalder by sooch-Uke heathen as lie to 
 you. If Macnamara be alive, what be Mac- 
 namara doin'? An' what be Wingate an' 
 Kitchener an' great foolks at Cairo doin' ? " 
 
 " They're sayin', * Macnamara, 'oos 'e ? 'E 
 ain't no class. 'Oo wants Macnamara ! ' " 
 
 Holgate raised himself on his elbow, a look 
 of interest in his face, which he tried to dis- 
 guise. " See, laad," he said, " why does tha 
 not send messenger thaself — a troosty mes- 
 senger ? " 
 
 " 'Ere, do you think I'm a bloomin' Crosus ? 
 I've done the trick twice — ten pounds o' loot 
 once, an' ten golden shillins another. Bloomin' 
 thieves both of 'em — said they wuz goin' to 
 
 344- 
 
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK 
 
 Homdurman, and didn't — not much I But 
 one of 'em went to 'eaven with eholery, an' 
 one is hvin' yet with a crooked leg, wich is 
 less than I wuz workin' for." 
 
 Holgate was sitting bolt upright now. 
 " Didst tha save them ten sooverins to get 
 news o' Macnamara, laad ? " 
 
 " Think I bloomin' well looted 'em — go to 
 'ell ! " said Henry Withers of the Sick Horse 
 Depot, and left the lower deck of the Osiris 
 in a fit of sudden anger. 
 
 II 
 
 Up in Omdurman Peter Macnamara knew 
 naught of this. He ran behind his master's 
 horse, he sat on his master's mat, he stood in 
 the sun before his master's door, barefooted 
 and silent and vengeful in his heart, but with 
 a grin on his face. When Khartoum fell he 
 and Slatin had been thrown into the Saier 
 loaded with irons. Then, when the Mahdi 
 died he had been made the slave of the Kha- 
 lifa's brother, whose vanity was flattered by 
 having a European servant. The Khalifa 
 Abdullah being angry one day with his 
 brother, vented his spite by ordering Mac- 
 namara back to prison again. Later the 
 Khalifa gave him to a favourite Emir for a 
 
 345 
 
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK 
 
 servant; but that service was of short dura- 
 tion, for on a certain morning Macnamara's 
 patience gave way under the brutality of his 
 master, and he refused to help him on his 
 horse. This was in the presence of the Kha- 
 lifa, and Abdullah was so delighted at the dis- 
 comfiture of the Emir that he saved the Irish- 
 man's life, and gave him to Osman Wad 
 Adam, after he had been in irons three 
 months and looked no better than a dead 
 man. Henceforth things went better, for 
 Osman Wad Adam was an Arab with a sense 
 of humour, very lazy and very licentious, and 
 Macnamara's Arabic was a source of enjoy- 
 ment to him in those hours when he did noth- 
 ing but smoke and drink bad coffee. Also 
 Macnamara was an expert with horses, and 
 had taught the waler, which Osman Wad 
 Adam had looted from Khartoum, a number 
 of admired tricks. 
 
 Macnamara wished many a time that he 
 could take to the desert with the waler ; but 
 the ride that he must ride to Wady, Haifa 
 was not for a horse. None but a camel could 
 do it. Besides, he must have guides, and 
 how was he to pay guides? More than once 
 he had tried to get a word with Slatin, but 
 that was dangerous for them both — most 
 dangerous for Slatin, who was now the ser- 
 
 346 
 
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK 
 
 vant of the Khalifa Abdullah himself. Sla- 
 tin was always suspected, and was therefore 
 watched carefully ; but the Khalifa knew that 
 Macnamara had no chance to escape, for he 
 had no friends in Cairo, no money, and no 
 more could have bought a camel than a king- 
 dom. Escaping from the city itself, he could 
 but die in the desert. 
 
 He had only one Arab friend — little Ma- 
 hommed Nafar the shoemaker. The shoe- 
 maker was friendly to him for a great kind- 
 ness done in the days when they both Uved 
 in Khartoum and ere the Arab deserted to 
 the camp of the Mahdi. But what help could 
 Mahommed Nafar give him unless he had 
 money? With plenty of money the shoe- 
 maker might be induced to negotiate with 
 Arab merchants coming from Dongola or 
 Berber into Omdurman to get camels, and 
 arrange an escape down the desert to Wady 
 Haifa ; but where was the money to come 
 from? 
 
 One day, at a great review, when the roar 
 of the drums rivalled the hoarse shouts of the 
 Mahdists, and the Baggaras, for a diversion, 
 looted one quarter of the town, Macnamara 
 was told by his master that Slatin had been 
 given by the Khalifa to Mahommed Sherif, 
 and was going to Darfur. As a kind of fare- 
 
 347 
 
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK 
 
 well barbecue, whether or not intended by the 
 KhaUfa as a warning to his departing general, 
 ten prisoners had their feet and hands cut oif 
 in the Beit-el-Mal, and five lost their heads as 
 well as their hands and feet. 
 
 " It makes my blood run cold," said Slatin 
 softly in English, as Macnamara passed him, 
 walking at his master's stirrup. 
 
 " Mine's boilin', sir ! " answered Macnamara. 
 
 Slatin's eyes took on a more cheerful look 
 than they usually carried, for it was many a 
 day since he had been addressed with respect, 
 and the "sir" touched a mellow chord within 
 him — memory of the days when he was Gov- 
 ernor of Darfur. Suddenly he saw the Kha- 
 lifa's eyes fixed on Macnamara, and the look, 
 for a wonder, was not unfriendly. It came to 
 him that perhaps the KhaUfa meant to take 
 Macnamara for his own servant, for it flat- 
 tered his vanity to have a white man at his 
 stirrup and on his mat. He knew that the 
 Khalifa was only sending himself to Darfur 
 that he might be a check upon Mahommed 
 Sherif He did not think that Macnamara's 
 position would be greatly bettered, save per- 
 haps in bread and onions, by being taken into 
 the employ of the Khalifa. His life would 
 certainly not be safer. But, if it was to be, 
 perhaps he could do a good turn to Mac- 
 
 348 
 
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK 
 
 namara by warning him, by planting deep in 
 the Khalifa's mind the Irishman's simple- 
 minded trustworthiness. When, therefore, 
 the KhaUfa suddenly turned and asked him 
 about Macnamara he chose his words dis- 
 creetly. The Khahfa, ever suspicious, said 
 that Macnamara had been thrown into prison 
 twice for insubordination. To this Slatin re- 
 plied : 
 
 "Sire, what greater proof could be had of 
 the man's simphcity? His hfe is in your 
 hands, sire. Would he have risked it, had he 
 not been the most simple-minded of men? 
 But you who read men's hearts, sire, as others 
 read a book, you know if I speak truth." 
 Slatin bent his head in humUity. 
 
 The flattery pleased the Khalifa, 
 
 " Summon Osman Wad Adam and the man 
 to me," he said. 
 
 In the questioning that followed, JVIacna- 
 mara's Arabic and his understanding of it was 
 so bad that it was necessary for Slatin to ask 
 him questions in English. This was a test of 
 Macnamara, for Slatin said some things in 
 English which were not for the KhaUfa's 
 knowing. If Macnamara's face changed, if 
 he started, Abdullah's suspicions, ever ready, 
 would have taken form. 
 
 But Macnamara's wits were not wool-gath- 
 349 
 
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK 
 
 ering, and when Slatin said to him, " If I 
 escape, I will try to arrange yours," Macna- 
 mara replied, with a respectful but placid 
 stolidity: "Right, sir. Where does the old 
 sinner keep his spoof? " 
 
 It was now for Slatin to keep a hold on 
 himself, for Macnamara's reply was unex- 
 pected. Ruling his face to composure, how- 
 ever, he turned to the Khalifa and said that 
 up to this moment, Macnamara had not been 
 willing to become a Mahommedan, but his 
 veneration for the Mahdi's successor was so 
 great, that he would embrace the true faith by 
 the mercy of God and the permission of the 
 Khalifa. When the KhaUfa replied that he 
 would accept the convert into the true faith 
 at once, Slatin then said to Macnamara : 
 
 "Come now, my man, I've promised that 
 you will become a Mahommedan — it's your 
 best chance of safety." 
 
 "I'll see him on the devil's pitchfork first," 
 said Macnamara; but he did not change 
 countenance. " I'm a Protestant and I'll 
 stand be me baptism." 
 
 "You'll lose your head, man," answered 
 Slatin. " Don't be a fool." 
 
 "I'm keepin' to what me godfathers and 
 godmothers swore for me," answered Mac- 
 namara stubbornly. 
 
 350 
 
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK 
 
 " You must pretend for a while, or you'll be 
 dead in an hour — and myself too." 
 
 "You ! — that's a different nose on me face," 
 answered Macnamara. "But suppose I buck 
 when I get into the mosque ? — ^no, begobs, I'll 
 not be doin' it ! " 
 
 " I'll say to him that you'll do it with tears 
 of joy, if you can have a month for prepara- 
 tion." 
 
 " Make it two an' I'm your man, seein' as 
 you've Ued for me, sir. But on wan condition : 
 where does he keep his coin? " 
 
 " If you try that on, you'll die bit by bit Uke 
 the men in the Beit-el-Mal to-day," answered 
 Slatin quickly. 
 
 " I'm carvin' me own mutton, thank ye 
 kindly, sir," answered Macnamara. 
 
 " I've heard that part of his treasure is under 
 his own room," went on Slatin quickly, for he 
 saw that the Khahfa's eyes had a sinister look 
 — the conversation had been too long. 
 
 " Speak no more ! " said Abdullah sharply. 
 " What is it you say, my son ? " he added to 
 Slatin. 
 
 " He has been telling me that he is without 
 education even in his own faith, and that he 
 cannot learn things quickly. Also he does 
 not understand what to do in the mosque, or 
 how to pray, and needs to be taught. He 
 
 351 
 
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK 
 
 then asked what was impossible, and I had to 
 argue with him, sire." 
 
 " What did he ask? " asked the Khahfa, his 
 fierce gaze on Macnamara. 
 
 " He wished to be taught by yourself, sire. 
 He said that if you taught him he would un- 
 derstand. I said that you were the chosen 
 Emperor of the Faithful, the coming king 
 of the world, but he replied that the prophets 
 of old taught their disciples with their own 
 tongues." 
 
 It was a bold lie, but the Khalifa was flat- 
 tered, and made a motion of assent. Slatin, 
 seeing his advantage, added : 
 
 " I told him that you could not spare the 
 time to teach him, sire; but he said that 
 if you would talk to him for a Mttle whUe 
 every day for a month, after he had studied 
 Arabic for two months, he would be ready 
 to follow your majesty through life and 
 death." 
 
 "Approach, my son," said the Khalifa to 
 Macnamara suddenly. Macnamara came near. 
 He understood Arabic better than he had ad- 
 mitted, and he saw in this three months' res- 
 pite, if it were granted, the chance to carry 
 out a plan that was in his mind. The Khalifa 
 held out a hand to him, and Macnamara, boil- 
 ing with rage inwardly and his face flushing — 
 
 35a 
 
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK 
 
 which the Khalifa mistook for modesty — 
 kissed it. 
 
 " You shall have two moons to learn Arabic 
 of a good teacher every day, and then for one 
 moon I myself wiU instruct you in the truth," 
 said AbduUah. " You shall wait at my door 
 and walk by my stirrup and teach my horse as 
 you have taught the English horse of Osman 
 Wad Adam. Thy faithful service I will re- 
 ward, and thy unfaithfulness I will punish with 
 torture and death." 
 
 " I'll cut the price of the kiss on those dirty 
 fingers from a Dervish joint," muttered Mac- 
 namara to himself, as he took his place that 
 evening at the KhaUfa's door. 
 
 One thing Macnamara was determined on. 
 He would never pray in a Mahommedan 
 mosque, he would never turn Mahommedan 
 even for a day. The time had come when he 
 must make a break for liberty. He must have 
 money. With money Mahommed Nafar, who 
 was now his teacher — Slatin had managed that 
 — would move for him. 
 
 Under the spur of his purpose Macnamara 
 rapidly acquired Arabic, and steadfastly tried 
 to make Mahommed Nafar his friend, for he 
 liked the little man, and this same little man 
 was the only Arab, save one, from first to last, 
 whom he would not have spitted on a bayonet. 
 
 353 
 
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK 
 
 At first he chafed under the hourly duplicity 
 necessary in his service to the Khalifa, then he 
 took an interest in it, and at last he wept tears 
 of joy over his dangerous proficiency. Day 
 after day Macnamara waited in the hope of 
 making sure that the Khalifa's treasure was 
 under the room where he slept. Upon the 
 chance of a successful haul, he had made fervid 
 promises, after the fashion of his race, to the 
 shoemaker Mahommed Nafar. At first the 
 shoemaker would have nothing to do with it : 
 helping prisoners to escape meant torture and 
 decapitation ; but then he hated the Khalifa, 
 whose Baggaras had seized his property, and 
 killed his wife and children ; and in the end 
 Macnamara prevailed. Mahommed Nafar 
 found some friendly natives from the hills of 
 Gilif, who hated the Khalifa and his tyrannous 
 governments, and at last they agreed to at- 
 tempt the escape. 
 
 Ill 
 
 A MONTH went by. Lust, robbery, and mur- 
 der ruled in Omdurman. The river thickened 
 with its pollution, the trees within the walls 
 sickened of its poison, the bones of the un- 
 buried dead lay in the moat beyond the gates, 
 and, on the other side of the river, desolate 
 
 354 
 
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK 
 
 Khartoum crumbled over the streets and 
 paths and gardens where Gordon had walked. 
 The city was a pit of infamy, where struggled, 
 or wallowed, or died to the bellowing of the 
 Khahfa's drum and the hideous mirth of his 
 Baggaras, the victims of Abdullah. But out 
 in the desert — ^the Bayuda desert — between 
 Omdurman and Old Dongola, there was only 
 peace. Here and there was " a valley of dry 
 bones," but the sand had washed the bones 
 clean, the vultures had had their hour and 
 flown away, the debris of deserted villages 
 had been covered by desert storms, and the 
 clear blue sky and ardent sun were over all, 
 joyous and immaculate. Out in the desert 
 there was only the life-giving air, the opal 
 sands, the plaintive evening sky, the eager 
 morning breeze, the desolated villages, and 
 now and then in the vast expanse, stretching 
 hundreds and hundreds of miles south, an 
 oasis as a gem set in a cloth of faded gold. 
 
 It would have seemed to any natural man 
 better to die in the desert than to live in Om- 
 durman. So thought a fugitive who fled day 
 and night through the Bayuda desert, into 
 the sandy wastes, beyond whose utmost limits 
 lay Wady Haifa, where the English were. 
 
 Macnamara had conquered. He had watched 
 his chance when two of the black guard were 
 
 355 
 
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK 
 
 asleep, and the Khalifa was in a stupor of 
 opium in the harem, had looted Abdullah's 
 treasure, and carried the price of the camels 
 and the pay of the guides to Mahommed 
 Nafar the shoemaker. 
 
 His great sprawling camel, the best that 
 Mahommed Nafar could buy of Ebn Haraf, 
 the sheikh in the Gilif Hills, swung down the 
 wind with a long, reaching stride, to the point 
 where the sheikh would meet him, and send 
 him on his way with a guide. If he reached 
 the rendezvous safely, there was a fair chance 
 of final escape. 
 
 Moonlight, and the sand swishing from un- 
 der the velvet hoofs of the camel, the silence 
 like a filmy cloak, sleep everywhere, save at 
 the eyes of the fugitive. Hour after hour 
 they sprawled down the waste, and for num- 
 berless hours they must go on and on, sleep- 
 less, tireless, alert, if the man was to be saved 
 at all. As morning broke he turned his eye 
 here and there, fearful of discovery and pur- 
 suit. Nothing. He was alone with the sky 
 and the desert and his fate. Another two 
 hours and he would be at the rendezvous, in 
 the cover of the hiUs, where he would be safe 
 for a moment at least. But he must keep 
 ahead of all pursuit, for if Abdullah's people 
 should get in front of him he would be cut 
 
 856 
 
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK 
 
 off from all hope. There is little chance to 
 run the blockade of the desert where a man 
 may not hide, where there is neither water, 
 nor feed, nor rest, once in a hundred mUes or 
 more. 
 
 For an hour his eyes were fixed, now on 
 the desert behind him, whence pursuit should 
 come, now on the golden-pink hills before 
 him, where was sanctuary for a moment, at 
 least. . . . Nothing in all the vast space but 
 blue and gray — the sky and the sand, nothing 
 that seemed of the world he had left ; nothing 
 save the rank smell of the camel, and the 
 Arab song he sang to hasten the tired beast's 
 footsteps. Mahommed Nafar had taught him 
 the song, saying that it was as good to him as 
 another camel on a long journey. His Ara- 
 bic, touched off with the soft brogue of Erin, 
 made a little shrill by weariness and peril, was 
 not the Arabic of Abdin Palace, but yet, 
 under the spell, the camel's head ceased sway- 
 ing nervously, the long neck stretched out 
 bravely, and they came on together to the 
 GUif Hills, comrades in distress, gallant and 
 unafraid. . . . Now the rider looked back less 
 than before, for the hills were near, he was 
 crossing a ridge which would hide him from 
 sight for a few miles, and he kept his eyes on 
 the o{)ening in the range where a few dom- 
 24 357 
 
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK 
 
 trees marked the rendezvous. His throat was 
 dry, for before the night was half over he had 
 drunk the httle water he carried; but the 
 Arab song still came from his hps : 
 
 " Doos ya lellee ! Doos ya lellee ! 
 Tread, O joy of my life, tread lightly / 
 Thy feet are the wings of a dove, 
 And thy heart is of fire. On thy wounds 
 I will pour the king's salve. I will hang 
 On thy neck the long chain of wrought gold. 
 When the gates of Bagdad are before us — 
 Doos ya lellee ! Doos ya lellee ! " 
 
 He did not cease singing it untU the camel 
 had staggered in beneath the dom-trees where 
 Ebn Mazar waited. Macnamara threw him- 
 self on the ground beside the prostrate camel 
 which had carried him so well, and gasped, 
 "Water ! " He drank so long from Ebn Ha- 
 raf s water-bag that the Arab took it from 
 him. Then he lay on the sands hugging the 
 ground close hke a dog, till the sheikh roused 
 him with the word that he must mount an- 
 other camel, this time with a guide, Mah- 
 moud, a kinsman of his own, who must risk 
 his life — at a price. Half the price was paid 
 by Macnamara to the sheikh before they left 
 the shade of the palm-trees, and, striking 
 through the hiUs, emerged again into the 
 desert farther north. 
 
 358 
 
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK 
 
 In the open waste the strain and the peril 
 began again, but Mahmoud, though a boy in 
 years, was a man in wisdom and a " brother 
 of eagles " in endurance : and he was the 
 second Arab who won Macnamara's heart. 
 
 It was Mahmoud's voice now that quavered 
 over the heads of the camels and drove them 
 on ; it was his eye which watched the horizon. 
 The hours went by, and no living thing ap- 
 peared in the desert, save a small cloud of 
 vultures, heavy from feasting on a camel dead 
 in the waste, and a dark brown snake flitting 
 across their path. Nothing all day save these, 
 and nothing all the sleepless night, save a 
 desert wolf stealing down the sands. Mac- 
 namara's eyes burned in his head with weari- 
 ness, his body became numb, but Mahommed 
 Mahmoud would allow no pause. They must 
 get so far ahead the first two days that Ab- 
 dullah's pursuers might not overtake them, he 
 said. Beyond Dongola, at a place appointed, 
 other camels would await them, if Mahmoud's 
 tribesmen there kept faith. 
 
 For two days and nights Macnamara had 
 not slept, for forty-six hours he had been con- 
 stantly in the saddle, but Mahommed Mah- 
 moud allowed him neither sleep nor rest. 
 
 Dongola came at last, lying far away on 
 their right. With Dongola, fresh camels; 
 
 359 
 
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK 
 
 and the desert flight began again. Hour after 
 hour, and not a hving thing; and then, at last, 
 a group of three Arabs on camels going south, 
 far over to their right. These suddenly turned 
 and rode down on them. 
 
 "We must fight," said Mahmoud; "for 
 they see you are no Arab." 
 
 "I'll take the one with the jibbeh," said 
 Macnamara coolly, with a pistol in his left 
 hand and a sword in his right. " I'll take him 
 first. Here's the tap off yer head, me dar- 
 lins ! " he added as they turned and faced the 
 dervishes. 
 
 " We must kill them aU, or be killed," said 
 Mahmoud, as the dervishes suddenly stopped, 
 and the one with the jibbeh called to Mah- 
 moud : 
 
 " Whither do you fly with the white Egyp- 
 tian ? " 
 
 " If you come and see you will know, by 
 the mercy of God I " answered Mahmoud. 
 
 The next instant the dervishes charged. 
 Macnamara marked his man, and the man 
 with the jibbeh fell from his camel. Mah- 
 moud fired his carbine, missed, and closed 
 with his enemy. Macnamara, late of the 7th 
 Hussars, swung his Arab sword as though it 
 were the regulation blade and he in sword 
 practice at Aldershot, and catching the blade 
 
 360 
 
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK 
 
 of his desert foe, saved his own neck and gave 
 the chance of a fair hand-to-hand combat. 
 
 He met the swift strokes of the dervish with 
 a cool certainty. His weariness passed from 
 him; the joy of battle was on him. He 
 was wounded twice — in the shoulder and the 
 head. Now he took the offensive. Once or 
 twice he circled slowly round the dervish, 
 whose eyes blazed, whose mouth was foaming 
 with fury; then he came on him with aU the 
 knowledge and the skill he had got in little 
 Indian wars. He came on him, and the der- 
 vish fell, his head cut through like a cheese. 
 
 Then Macnamara turned, to see Mahmoud 
 and the third dervish on the ground, strug- 
 gUng in each other's arms. He started for- 
 ward, but before he could reach the two, 
 Mahmoud jumped to his feet with a reeking 
 knife, and waved it in the air. 
 
 "He was a kinsman, but he had to die," 
 said Mahmoud as they mounted. He turned 
 towards the bodies, then looked at the camels 
 flying down the desert towards Dongola. 
 
 " It is as God wills now," he said. " Their 
 tribesmen will follow when they see the camels. 
 See, my camel is wounded ! " he added, with 
 a gasp. 
 
 361 
 
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK 
 
 IV 
 
 Two days following, towards evening, two 
 wounded men on foot trudged through the 
 desert haggard and bent. The feet of one — 
 an Arab — had on a pair of red slippers, the 
 feet of the other were bare. Mahmoud and 
 Maenamara were in a bad way. They were 
 in very truth " walking against time." Their 
 tongues were thick in their mouths, their feet 
 were lacerated and bleeding, they carried noth- 
 ing now save their pistols and their swords, 
 and a small bag of dates hanging at Macna- 
 mara's belt. Prepared for the worst, they 
 trudged on with blind hope, eager to die fight- 
 ing if they must die, rather than to perish of 
 hunger and thirst in the desert. Another day, 
 and they would be beyond the radius of the 
 Khalifa's power : but would they see another 
 day? 
 
 They thought that question answered, when, 
 out of the evening pink and opal and the 
 golden sand behind them, they saw three 
 Arabs riding. The friends of the slain Der- 
 vishes were come to take revenge, it seemed. 
 The two men looked at each other, but they 
 did not try to speak. Maenamara took from 
 his shirt a bag of gold and offered it to Mah- 
 
 362 
 
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK 
 
 moud. It was the balance of the payment 
 promised to Ebn Mazar. Mahmoud salaamed 
 and shook his head, then in a thick voice said : 
 " It is my life and thy life. If thou diest I 
 die. If thou livest, the gold is Ebn Haraf 's. 
 At Wady Haifa I will claim it, if it be the 
 will of God." 
 
 The words were thick and broken, but Mac- 
 namara understood him, and they turned and 
 faced their pursuers, ready for life or death, 
 intent to kill — and met the friends of Ebn 
 Haraf, who had been hired to take them on 
 to Wady Haifa! Their rescuers had been 
 pursued, and had made a detour and forced 
 march, thus coming on them before the time 
 appointed. In three days more they were at 
 Wady Haifa. 
 
 Mahmoud lived to take back to Ebn Mazar 
 the other hundred pounds of the gold Mac- 
 namara had looted from the Khalifa ; and he 
 also took something for himself from the Brit- 
 ish officers at Wady Haifa. For him nothing 
 remained of the desperate journey but a couple 
 of scars. 
 
 It was different with Macnamara. He had 
 to take a longer journey still. He was not 
 glad to do it, for he liked the look of the Eng- 
 lish faces round him, and he liked what they 
 said to him. Also, he was young enough to 
 
 363 
 
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK 
 
 "go a-roaming still," as he said to Henry 
 Withers. Besides, it sorely hurt his pride 
 that no woman or child of his would be left 
 behind to lament him. StUl, when Henry 
 told him he had to go, he took it like a man. 
 
 "'Ere, it ain't no use," said Henry to him 
 the day he got to Wady Haifa. " 'Ere, old 
 pal, it ain't no use. You 'ave to take your 
 gruel, an' you 'ave to take it alone. What I 
 want to tell yer quiet and friendly, old pal, is 
 that yer drawfted out — all the way out — for 
 good ! " 
 
 " Sh — did ye think I wasn't knowin' it, me 
 b'y ? " Macnamara's face clouded. "Did ye 
 think I wasn't knowin' it? Go an' lave me 
 alone," he added quickly. 
 
 Henry Withers went out pondering, for he 
 was sure it was not mere dying that fretted 
 Macnamara. 
 
 The next day the end of it aU came. Henry 
 Withers had pondered, and his mind was made 
 up to do a certain thing. Towards evening he 
 sat alone in the room where Macnamara lay 
 asleep — almost his very last sleep. All at 
 once Macnamara's eyes opened wide. 
 
 " Kitty, Kitty, me darlin'," he murmured 
 vaguely. Then he saw Henry Withers. 
 
 " I'm dyin'," he said, breathing heavily. 
 "Don't call anny one, Hinry," he added 
 
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK 
 
 brokenly. " Dyin's that aisy — aisy enough, 
 but for wan thing." 
 
 " 'Ere, speak out, Pete." 
 
 " Sure, there's no wan but you. Withers, 
 not a wife nor a child av me own to say, 
 ' Poor Peter Macnamara, he is gone.' " 
 
 " There's one," said Henry Withers firmly. 
 "There's one, old pal." 
 
 " Who's that ? " said Macnamara huskily. 
 
 « Kitty." 
 
 " She's no wife," said Macnamara, shaking 
 his head. " Though she'd ha' been that, if it 
 hadn't been for Mary Malone." 
 
 " She's mine, an' she 'as the marriage lines," 
 said Henry Withers. " An' there's a kid — 
 wich ain't mine — born six months after! 'Oo 
 says no kid won't remark, ' Poor Macnamara, 
 'ee is gone, wich 'ee was my fader ! ' " 
 
 Macnamara trembled; the death-sweat 
 dropped from his forehead as he raised him- 
 self up. 
 
 " Kitty — a kid av mine — and she mar- 
 ried to Hinry Withers! — an' you saved me, 
 too " Macnamara's eyes were wild. 
 
 Henry Withers took his hand. 
 
 " 'Ere, it's all right, old pal," he said cheer- 
 fully. 
 
 " What's the kid's name ? " said Mac- 
 namara. 
 
 365 
 
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK 
 
 " Peter — same as yours." 
 
 The voice was scarce above a breath. 
 " Sure, I didn't know at all. An' you forgive 
 me, Hinry darlin', you forgive me ? " 
 
 "I've nothing to forgive," said Henry 
 Withers. 
 
 A smile lighted the blanched face of the 
 dying man. ' ' Give me love to the b'y — ^to 
 Peter Macnamara," he said, and fell back with 
 a smile on his face. 
 
 " I'd do it again. Wot's a lie so long as it 
 does good?" said Henry Withers afterwards 
 to Holgate the engineer. "But teU 'er — tell 
 Kitty ? no fear ! I ain't no bloomin' fool. 'E's 
 'appy — that's enough. She'd cut me 'eart out, 
 if she knowed I'd Ued that lie." 
 
 366 
 
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS 
 
 IMSDALE'S prospects had 
 suddenly ceased by the pro- 
 ductive mamage of a rich 
 uncle late in hfe ; and then 
 = his career began. He went 
 
 to Egypt at the time when 
 men who knew things had their 
 chance to do things. His in- 
 ' formation was general and dis- 
 cursive, but he had a real gift 
 for science : an inheritance from 
 a grandfather who received a peerage for ab- 
 struse political letters written to the Times and 
 lectures before the Royal Institution. Besides, 
 he had known well and loved inadvertently 
 the Hon, Lucy Gray, who kept a kind of so- 
 cial kindergarten for confiding man, whose 
 wisdom was as accurate as her face was fair, 
 her manners simple, and her tongue demure 
 and biting. 
 
 367 
 
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS 
 
 Egypt offered an opportunity for a man like 
 Dimsdale, and he always said that his going 
 there was the one inspiration of his life. He 
 did not know that this inspiration came from 
 Lucy Gray. She had purposely thrown him 
 in the way of General Duncan Pasha, who, mak- 
 ing a reputation in Egypt, had been rewarded 
 by a good command in England and a K.C.B. 
 
 After a talk with the General, who had 
 spent his Egyptian days in the agreeable strife 
 with native premiers and hesitating Khedives, 
 Dimsdale rose elated, with his mission in his 
 hand. After the knock-down blow his uncle 
 had given him, he was in a fighting mood. 
 General Duncan's tale had come at the psy- 
 chological moment, and hot wdth inspiration 
 he had gone straight off to Lucy Gray with 
 his steamship ticket in his pocket, and told her 
 he was going to spend his life in the service of 
 the pasha and the fellah. When she asked 
 him a little bitingly what form his disciplined 
 energy would take, he promptly answered : 
 
 " Irrigation." 
 
 She laughed in his face softly. " What do 
 you know about irrigation ? " she asked. 
 
 " I can learn it — it's the game to play out 
 there, I'm sure of that," he answered. 
 
 "It doesn't sound distinguished," she re- 
 marked drily. 
 
 368 
 
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS 
 
 Because she smiled satirically at him, and 
 was unresponsive to his enthusiasm, and gave 
 him no chance to tell her of the nobiUty of the 
 work in which he was going to put his life ; of 
 the work of the Pharaohs in their day, the hope 
 of Napoleon in his, and the creed Mahomet 
 Ali held and practised, that the Nile was 
 Egypt and Egypt was irrigation — because of 
 this he became angry, said unkind things, 
 drew acid comments upon himself, and left her 
 with a last good-bye. He did not realise that 
 he had played into the hands of Lucy Gray in 
 a very childish manner. For in scheming that 
 he should go to Eg5rpt she had planned also 
 that he should break with her; for she never 
 had any real intention of marrying him, and 
 yet it was difficult to make him turn his back 
 on her, while at the same time she was too 
 tender of his feelings to turn her back on him. 
 She held that anger was the least injurious of 
 all grounds for separation. In anger there 
 was no humiliation. There was something 
 dignified and brave about a quarrel, while a 
 growing coolness which must end in what the 
 world called "jilting" was humiUating. Be- 
 sides, people who quarrel and separate may 
 meet again and begin over again : impossible 
 in the other circumstance. 
 
 369 
 
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS 
 
 II 
 
 In Egypt Dimsdale made a reputation; not 
 at once, but he did make it. The first two 
 years of his stay he had plenty to do. At the 
 end of the time he coiild have drawn a map 
 of the Nile from Uganda to the Barrages ; he 
 knew the rains in each district from the region 
 of the Sadds to the Little BoriUos ; there was 
 not a canal, from the small Bahr Shebin to the 
 big Ray eh Menoufieh or the majestic Ibrahi- 
 mieh, whose slope, mean velocity, and dis- 
 charge he did not know; and he carried in 
 his mind every drainage cut and contour from 
 Tamis to Damanhur, from Cairo to Beltim. 
 He knew neither amusement nor society, for 
 every waking hour was spent in the study of 
 the Nile and what the Nile might do. 
 
 After one of his journeys up the Nile, 
 Imshi Pasha, the Minister of the Interior, 
 said to him : " Ah, my dear friend, with whom 
 be peace and power, what have you seen as 
 you travel ? " 
 
 " I saw a fellah yesterday who has worked 
 nine months on the corvee — six months for 
 the Government and three for a pasha the 
 friend of the Government. He supplied his 
 own spades and baskets; his lantern was at 
 
 370 
 
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS 
 
 the service of the Khedive; he got his own 
 food as best he could. He had one feddan of 
 land in his own village, but he had no time to 
 work it or harvest it. Yet he had to pay a 
 house-tax of five piastres, a war-tax of five 
 piastres, a camel-tax of five piastres, a palm- 
 tax of five piastres, a salt-tax of nine piastres, 
 a poll-tax of thirty piastres, a land-tax of 
 ninety piastres. The canal for which he was 
 taxed gave his feddan of land no water, for 
 the pasha, the Mend of the Government, took 
 all the water for his own land," 
 
 Prince Imshi stifled a yawn. "I have 
 never seen so much at one breath, my friend. 
 And having seen, you feel now that Egypt 
 must be saved — eh? " 
 
 This Pasha was an Egjrptian of the Egyp- 
 tians — a Turk of the Turks, Oriental in mind 
 with the polish of a Frenchman. He did not 
 Uke Dimsdale, but he did not say so. He 
 knew it was better to let a man have his fling 
 and come a cropper over his own work than 
 to have him unoccupied, excited, and trouble- 
 some, especially when he was an Englishman 
 and knew about what he was talking. Imshi 
 Pasha saw that Dimsdale was a dangerous 
 man, as all enthusiasts are, no matter how 
 right-headed; but it comforted him to think 
 that many a reformer, from Amenhotep down, 
 
 871 
 
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS 
 
 had, as it were, cut his own throat in the Irri- 
 gation Department. Some had tried to dis- 
 tribute water fairly, efficiently, and scientifical- 
 ly, but most of them had got lost in the 
 underbrush of officialdom, and never got out 
 of the wood again. This wood is called Back- 
 sheesh. Reformers like Dimsdale had drawn 
 straight lines of purpose for the salvation of 
 the country, and they had seen these straight 
 lines go crooked under their very eyes, with a 
 devilish smoothness. Therefore Imshi Pasha, 
 being a wise man and a deep-dyed official who 
 had never yet seen the triumph of the reformer 
 and the honest Aryan, took Dimsdale's hands 
 and said suddenly, with a sorrowful break in 
 his voice : 
 
 " Ah, my friend, to tell the whole truth as 
 God gives it, it is time you have come. 
 Egypt has waited for you — the man who sees 
 and knows. I have watched you for two 
 years. I have waited, but now the time is 
 ripe. You shall stretch your arm over Egypt 
 and it will rise to you. You shall have paper 
 for plans, and men and money for travel and 
 works — cuttings, and pumps, and sand-bags 
 for banks and barrages. You shall be second 
 in your department — ^but fii'st in fact, for 
 shall not I, your friend, be your chief? And 
 you shall say * Go there,' and they shall go, 
 
 372 
 
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS 
 
 and * Come here/ and they shall come. For 
 my soul is with you for Egypt, O friend of 
 the fellah and saviour of the land. Have I 
 not heard of the great reservoirs you would 
 make in the Fayoum, of the great dam at As- 
 souan ? Have I not heard, and waited, and 
 watched ? and now . . ." 
 
 He paused and touched his breast and his 
 forehead in respect. 
 
 Dimsdale was weU-nigh taken off his feet. 
 It seemed too wonderful to be true : a free 
 hand in Egypt, and under Imshi Pasha, the 
 one able Minister of them all, who had, it 
 was said, always before resisted the irrigation 
 schemes of the foreigners, who beUeved only 
 in the corvee and fate ! 
 
 Dimsdale rejoiced that at the beginning of 
 his career he had so inspired the powerful one 
 with confidence. With something very Uke 
 emotion he thanked the Minister. 
 
 " Ah, my dear friend," answered the Pasha, 
 " the love of Egypt has helped us to under- 
 stand each other. And we shall know each 
 other better still by-and-by — by-and-by. . . . 
 You shall be gazetted to-morrow. Allah pre- 
 serve you from all error 1 " 
 
 25 373 
 
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS 
 
 III 
 
 This began the second period of Dimsdale's 
 career. As he went forth from Cairo up the 
 Nile with great designs in his mind, and an 
 approving Ministry behind him, he had the 
 feehng of a hunter with a sure quarry before 
 him. Now he remembered Lucy Gray; and 
 he flushed with a dehghtful and victorious in- 
 dignation remembering his last hour with her. 
 He even sentimentally recalled a song he once 
 wrote for her sympathetic voice. The song 
 was called " No Man's Land." He recited 
 two of the verses to himself now, with a kind 
 of imction : 
 
 " And we have wandered far, my dear, and we have loved 
 apace ; 
 A httle hut we built upon the sand ; 
 The sun without to brighten it — within your golden 
 face : 
 O happy dream, O happy No Man's Land ! 
 
 " The pleasant furniture of spring was set in all the fields. 
 And sweet and wholesome all the herbs and flowers ; 
 Our simple cloth, my dear, was spread with all the or- 
 - chard yields. 
 And frugal only were the passing hours." 
 
 A wave of feehng passed, over him sud- 
 denly. Those verses were youth, and youth 
 
 374 
 
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS 
 
 was gone, with all its flushed and spirited dal- 
 liance and reckless expenditure of feeling. 
 Youth was behind him, and love was none of 
 his, nor any cares of home, nor wife nor chil- 
 dren; nothing but ambition now, and the 
 vanity of successful labour. 
 
 Sitting on the deck of the Sefi at El Wasta, 
 he looked round him. In the far distance was 
 the Maydoum Pyramid, " the Imperfect One," 
 unexplored by man these thousands of years, 
 and all around it the soft yellowish desert, 
 with a mirage quivering over it in the distance, 
 a mirage of trees and water and green hills. 
 A caravan lounged its way slowly into the 
 waste. At the waterside, here and there de- 
 vout Mahommedans were saying their prayers, 
 now standing, now bowing towards the east, 
 now kneeling and touching the ground with the 
 forehead. Then, piercing and painfully musi- 
 cal, came the call of the muezzin from the 
 turret of the mosque a quarter of a mile away. 
 Near by the fellah worked in his onion-field ; 
 and on the khiassas loaded with feddan at the 
 shore, just out of the current, and tied up for 
 the night, sat the riverine folk eating their 
 dourha and drinking black coffee. Now Dims- 
 dale noticed that, nearer still, just below the 
 Sefi, on the shore, sat a singing-girl, an a'l'meh, 
 with a dark-faced Arab beside her, a kemengeh 
 
 375 
 
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS 
 
 in his lap. Looking down, Dimsdale caught 
 their eyes, nodded to them, and the singing- 
 girl and the kemengeh-player got to their feet 
 and salaamed. The girl's face was in the light 
 of evening. Her dark skin took on a curious 
 reddish radiance, her eyes were lustrous and 
 her figure beautiful. The kemengeh-player 
 stood with his instrument ready, and he hfted 
 it in a kind of appeal. Dimsdale beckoned 
 them up on deck. Lighting a cigarette, he 
 asked the a'l'meh to sing. Her voice had the 
 curious vibrant note of the Arab, and the 
 words were in singular sympathy with Dims- 
 dale's thoughts : 
 
 " I have a journey to make, and perils are in hiding. 
 Many moons must I travel, many foes meet ; 
 A morsel of bread my food, a goolah of water for drink- 
 
 Desert sand for my bed, the moonlight my sheet. . . 
 Come, my love, to the scented pahns : 
 Behold, the hour of remembrance ! " 
 
 For the moment Dimsdale ceased to be the 
 practical scientist — he was all sentimentalist. 
 He gave himself the luxury of retrospection, 
 he enjoyed languorous moment; the music, 
 the voice, the tinkle of the tambourine, the 
 girl herself, sinuous, sensuous. It struck him 
 that he had never seen an aTmeh so cleanly 
 and so finely dressed, so graceful, so deUcate 
 
 376 
 
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS 
 
 in manner. It struck him also that the ke- 
 mengeh-player was a better-class Arab than he 
 had ever met. The man's face attracted him, 
 fascinated him. As he looked it seemed famil- 
 iar. He studied it, he racked his brain to re- 
 call it. Suddenly he remembered that it was 
 Hke the face of a servant of Imshi Pasha — a 
 kind of mouffetish of his household. Now he 
 studied the girl. He had never seen her be- 
 fore; of that he was sure. He ordered them 
 coffee, and handed the girl a gold-piece. As 
 he did so, he noticed that among several paste 
 rings she wore one of value. All at once the 
 suspicion struck him: Imshi Pasha had sent 
 the girl — to try him perhaps, to gain power 
 over him maybe, as women had gained power 
 over strong men before. But why should 
 Imshi Pasha send the girl and his mouffetish 
 on this miserable mission ? Was not Imshi 
 Pasha his friend ? 
 
 Quietly smoking his cigarette, he said to the 
 man: "You may go, Mahommed Melik; I 
 have had enough. Take your harem with 
 you," he added quickly. 
 
 The man scarcely stirred a muscle, the 
 woman flushed deeply. 
 
 " So be it, effendi," answered the man, ris- 
 ing unmoved, for his sort know not shame. 
 He beckoned to the girl. For an instant she 
 
 377 
 
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS 
 
 stood hesitating, then with sudden fury she 
 threw on the table beside him the gold-piece 
 Dimsdale had given her. 
 
 " Magnoon ! " she said, with blazing eyes, 
 and ran after the man. 
 
 " I may be a fool, my dear," he said after 
 her; "but you might say the same of the 
 pasha who sent you here." 
 
 Dimsdale was angry for a moment, and he 
 said some hard words of Imshi Pasha as he 
 watched the two decoys hurry away into the 
 dusk. He thought it nothing more serious 
 than an attempt to know of what stuff he was 
 made. He went to bed with dreams of vast 
 new areas watered for summer rice, of pump- 
 ing-stations lifting milUons of cubic metres of 
 water per day; of dykes to be protected by 
 bulrushes and birriya weeds; of great desert 
 areas washed free of carbonates and sulphates 
 and seUing at twenty pounds an acre ; of a 
 green Egypt with three crops, and himself the 
 Regenerator, the Friend of the Fellah. 
 
 In this way he soon forgot that he had re- 
 membered Lucy Gray, and the incident of 
 the girl ceased to trouble. His progress up 
 the river, however, was marked by incidents 
 whose significance he did not at once see. 
 Everywhere his steamer stopped people came 
 with backsheesh in the shape of butter, cream, 
 
 S78 
 
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS 
 
 flour, eggs, fowls, cloths, and a myriad things. 
 Jewels from mummy cases, antichi, donkeys, 
 were offered him : all of which he steadfastly 
 refused, sometimes with contumely. Officials 
 besought his services with indehcate bribes, 
 and by devious hospitalities and attentions 
 more than one governor sought to bring his 
 projects for irrigation in line with their own 
 particular duplicities. 
 
 " Behold, effendi," said one to whom Dims- 
 dale's honesty was monstrous, " may God pre- 
 serve you from harm — the thing has not been 
 known, that all men shall fare aUke. It is 
 not the will of God." 
 
 "It is the will of God that water shall be 
 distributed as I am going to distribute it ; and 
 that is, according to every man's just claim," 
 answered Dimsdale stubbornly, and he did not 
 understand the vague smile which met his 
 remark. 
 
 It took him a long time to realise that his 
 plans approved by Imshi Pasha, were con- 
 stantly coming to naught; that after three 
 years' work, and extensive invention and 
 travel, and long reports to the Ministry, and 
 encouragement on paper, he had accomplished 
 nothing; and that he had no money with 
 which to accompUsh anything. Day in, day 
 out, week in, week out, month in, month out, 
 
 379 
 
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS 
 
 when the whole land lay sweltering with the 
 moist heat of flood-time, in the period of the 
 khamsin, in the dry heat which turned the 
 hair gray and chapped the skin hke a bitter 
 wind, he slaved and schemed, the unconquer- 
 able enthusiast, who built houses which im- 
 mediately fell down. 
 
 Fifty times his schemes seemed marching 
 to fulfilment; but something always inter- 
 vened. He wrote reams of protest, he made 
 many arid journeys to Cairo, he talked him- 
 self hoarse ; and always he was met by the 
 sympathetic smiling of Imshi Pasha, by his 
 encouraging approval. 
 
 " Ah, my dear friend, may Heaven smooth 
 your path 1 It is coming right. AU will be 
 weU. Time is man's friend. The dam shall 
 be built. The reservoirs shall be made. But 
 we are in the hands of the nations. Poor 
 Egypt cannot act alone — our Egypt that we 
 love. The Council sits to-morrow — ^we shall 
 see." This was the fashion of the Pasha's 
 speech. 
 
 After the sitting of the Council, Dimsdale 
 would be sent away with unfruitful promises. 
 
 Futility was written over the Temple of 
 Endeavour, and by-and-by Dimsdale lost hope 
 and health and heart. He had Nilotic fever, 
 he had ophthalmia ; and hot with indomitable 
 
 380 
 
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS 
 
 will, he had striven to save one great basin 
 from destruction, for one whole week, with- 
 out sleeping or resting night and day : work- 
 ing like a navvy, sleeping like a fellah, eating 
 like a Bedouin, 
 
 Then the end came. He was stricken 
 down, and lay above Assouan in a hut by the 
 shore, from which he could see the Temple of 
 Philae, and Pharaoh's Bed, and the great rocks, 
 and the swift-flowing Nile. Here lay his great- 
 est hope, the splendid design of his life — the 
 great barrage of Assouan. With it he could 
 add to the wealth of Egypt one-half. He 
 had believed in it, had worked for it and how 
 much else! and his dreams and his working 
 had come to naught. He was sick to death — 
 not with ilbiess alone, but with disappointment 
 and broken hopes and a burden beyond the 
 powers of any one man. 
 
 He saw all now : aU the falsehood and 
 treachery and corruption. He realised that 
 Imshi Pasha had given him his hand that he 
 might ruin himself, that his own schemes 
 might overwhelm him in the end. At every 
 turn he had been frustrated — by Imshi Pasha: 
 three years of underground circumvention, 
 with a superficial approval and a mock sup- 
 port. 
 
 He lay and looked at the glow, the sunset 
 381 
 
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS 
 
 glow of pink and gold on the Libyan Hills, 
 and his fevered eyes scarcely saw them ; they 
 were only a part of this last helpless, senseless 
 dream. Life itself was very far away — ^prac- 
 tical, generous, hot-blooded life. This dis- 
 tance was so ample and full and quiet, this 
 mystery of the desert and the sky was so im- 
 mense, the spirit of it so boundless, that in the 
 judgment of his soul nothing mattered now. 
 As he lay in reverie, he heard his ■ servant 
 talking: it was the tale of the Mahdi and 
 British valour and hopeless fighting, and a red 
 martyrdom set like a fixed star in a sunless 
 sky. What did it matter — ^what did it all 
 matter, in this grave tremendous quiet wherein 
 his soul was hasting on? 
 
 The voices receded ; he was alone with the 
 immeasurable world ; he fell asleep. 
 
 IV 
 
 When he woke again it was to find at his bed- 
 side a kavass from Imshi Pasha at Cairo. He 
 shrank inwardly. The thought of the Pasha 
 merely nauseated him, but to the kavass he 
 said : " What do you want, Mahommed ? " 
 
 The kavass smiled ; his look was agreeably 
 mysterious, his manner humbly confidential, 
 his tongue officially deliberate. 
 
 382 
 
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS 
 
 " Effendina chok yasha — May the great lord 
 live for ever ! I bring good news." 
 
 " Leave of absence, eh ? " — answered Dims- 
 dale feebly, yet ironically ; for that was the 
 thing he expected now of the Minister, who 
 had played him like a ball on a racquet these 
 three years past. 
 
 The kavass handed him a huge blue en- 
 velope, salaaming impressively. 
 
 " May my life be thy sacrifice, effendi," he 
 said, and salaamed again. " It is my joy to 
 be near you." 
 
 " We have tasted your absence and found 
 it bitter, Mahommed," Dimsdale answered in 
 kind, with a touch of plaintive humour, let- 
 ting the envelope fall from his fingers on the 
 bed, so little was he interested in any fresh 
 move of Imshi Pasha. " More tricks," he said 
 to himself between his teeth. 
 
 " Shall I open it, effendi ? It is the word 
 that thy hfe shall carry large plumes." 
 
 " What a blitherer you are, Mahommed ! 
 Rip it open and let's have it over." 
 
 The kavass handed him a large letter, 
 pedantically and rhetorically written ; and 
 Dimsdale, scarce glancing at it, sleepily said : 
 "Read it out, Mahommed. Skip the flum- 
 mery in it, if you know how. " 
 
 Two minutes later Dimsdale sat up aghast 
 
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS 
 
 with a surprise that made his heart thump 
 painfully, made his head go round. For the 
 letter conveyed to him the fact that there had 
 been placed to the credit of his department, 
 subject to his own disposal for irrigation works, 
 the sum of eight hundred thousand pounds ; 
 and appended was the copy of a letter from 
 the Caisse de la Dette granting three-fourths 
 of this sum, and authorising its expenditure. 
 Added to all was a short scrawl from Imshi 
 Pasha himself, beginning, " God is with the 
 patient, my dear friend," and ending with the 
 remarkable statement : " Inshallah, we shall 
 now reap the reward of our labours in seeing 
 these great works accomplished at last, in spite 
 of the suffering thrust upon us by our enemies 
 — ^to whom perdition come." 
 
 Eight hundred thousand pounds ! 
 
 In a week Dimsdale was at work again. In 
 another month he was at Cairo, and the night 
 after his arrival he attended a ball at the 
 Khedive's Palace. To Fielding Bey he poured 
 out the wonder of his soul at the chance that 
 had been given him at last. He seemed to 
 think it was his own indomitable patience, 
 the work that he had done, and his reports, 
 which had at last shamed the Egyptian Gov- 
 ernment and the Caisse de la Dette into 
 
 384 
 
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS 
 
 doing the right thing for the country and to 
 him. 
 
 He was dumfounded when Fielding replied : 
 " Not much, my Belisarius. As Imshi Pasha 
 always was, so he wLU be to the end. It 
 wasn't Imshi Pasha, and it wasn't EngUsh in- 
 fluence, and it wasn't the Caisse de la Dette, 
 each by its lonesome, or all together by initia- 
 tive." 
 
 "What was it — who was it, then?" said 
 Dimsdale breathlessly. " Was it you ? — I 
 know you've worked for me. It wasn't ha^Tc- 
 sheesh anyhow. But Imshi Pasha didn't turn 
 honest and patriotic for nothing — I know that." 
 
 Fielding, who had known him all his life, 
 looked at him curiously for a moment, and 
 then, in a far-away sort of voice, made recita- 
 tive : 
 
 " ' Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray ; 
 And when I crossed the wild, 
 I chanced to see at break of day 
 The solitary child.' " 
 
 Dimsdale gasped. "Lucy Grayl" he said 
 falteringly. 
 
 Fielding nodded. "You didn't know, of 
 course. She's been here for six months — has 
 more influence than the whole diplomatic 
 corps. Twists old Imshi Pasha round her lit- 
 tle finger. She has played your game hand- 
 
 385 
 
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS 
 
 somely — I've been in her confidence. Words- 
 worth was wrong when he wrote : 
 
 * No mate, no comrade Lucy knew ; 
 She dwelt on a wide moor : 
 The sweetest thing that ever grew 
 Beside a human door ' 
 
 For my wife's been her comrade. And her 
 mate — would you hke to know her mate? — 
 she's married, you know." 
 
 Dimsdale's face was pale. He was about to 
 reply, when a lady came into view, leaning on 
 the arm of an Agency Secretary. At first she 
 did not see Dimsdale, then within a foot or 
 two of him she suddenly stopped. The Secre- 
 tary felt her hand twitch on his arm ; then she 
 clenched the fingers firmly on her fan. 
 
 " Ah, Dimsdale," Fielding said, " you must 
 let me introduce you to Mrs. St. John." 
 
 Dimsdale behaved very weU, the lady per- 
 fectly. She held out both her hands to him. 
 
 " We are old, old friends, Mr. Dimsdale and 
 I. I have kept the next dance for him," she 
 added, turning to Fielding, who smiled placidly 
 and left with the Secretary. 
 
 For a moment there was silence, then she 
 said quietly: "Let me congratulate you on 
 all you have done. Everybody is talking 
 about you. They say it is wonderful how you 
 
 386 
 
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS 
 
 have made things come your way. ... I am 
 very, very glad." 
 
 Dimsdale was stuhborn and indignant and 
 anything a man can be whose amour propre 
 has had a shock. 
 
 " I know all," he said bluntly. " I know 
 what you've done for me." 
 
 "Well, are you as sorry I did it as I am to 
 know you know it ? " she asked, just a Uttle 
 faintly, for she had her own sort of heart, and it 
 worked in its own sort of way. 
 
 " Why this sudden interest in my affairs ? 
 You laughed at me when I made up my mind 
 to come to Egypt." 
 
 "That was to your face. I sent you to 
 Egypt." 
 
 " You sent me ? " 
 
 " I made old General Duncan talk to you. 
 The inspiration was mine. I also wrote to 
 Fielding Pasha — and at last he wrote to me 
 to come." 
 
 " You— why " 
 
 " I know more about irrigation than any 
 one in England," she continued iUogically, 
 "I've studied it. I have all your reports. 
 That's why I could help you here. They saw 
 I Jcnew" 
 
 Dimsdale shook a Uttle. " I didn't under- 
 stand," he said. 
 
 387 
 
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS 
 
 " You don't know my husband, I think," 
 she added, rising slowly. " He is coming yon- 
 der with Imshi Pasha." 
 
 " I know of him as a — millionaire," he an- 
 swered in a tone of mingled emotions. 
 
 " I must introduce you," she said, and seemed 
 to make an effort to hold herself firmly. " He 
 will have great power here. Come and see 
 me to-morrow," she added in an even voice. 
 " Please come — Harry." 
 
 In anqther minute Dimsdale heard the 
 great financier Mr. St. John say that the name 
 of Dimsdale would be for ever honoured in 
 Egypt. 
 
 388 
 
GLOSSARY 
 
 Jiwa, effendi — Yes, noble sir. 
 
 Allah — God. 
 
 Alldh-haly ""m alla-haly — A singsong of river-workers. 
 
 Allah Kerim — God is bountifiil. 
 
 Allahu Akbar — God is most Great. 
 
 ATmeh — Female professional singers, signifying "a 
 
 learned female." 
 A ntichi — Antiquities. 
 
 Backsheesh — Tip, doueem*, bribe. 
 
 Balass — ^Earthen vessel for carrying water. 
 
 Basha — Pasha. 
 
 Berskn — Grass. 
 
 Bimbashi — Maj or. 
 
 Bishareen — ^A native tribe. 
 
 Bismallah — In the name of God. 
 
 Bowab — A doorkeeper. 
 
 CorvSe — ^Forced labour. 
 
 Dahaheah — A Nile houseboat with large lateen sails. 
 Darahikheh — 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. 
 Dmirha — Maize. 
 
 26 389 
 
GLOSSARY 
 
 Effendina — Highness. 
 
 El aadah — The ordinary. 
 
 El Azhar — ^The Arab University at Cairo. 
 
 Fantasia — Celebration with music, dancing and pro- 
 cessions. 
 
 Farshoot — ^The name of a native tribe. 
 
 Fatihdh — ^The opening chapter of the Koran, recited at 
 weddings, &c. 
 
 Feddan — ^The most common measure of land — a little 
 less than an acre. 
 
 FeUah, (Plu.) Fellaheen — ^The Egyptian peasant. 
 
 FeliKca — ^A small boat, propelled by oars or sails. 
 
 Fessikh — Salted fish. 
 
 Ghaffirs — Humble village officials. 
 
 Ghawazee — ^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. 
 
 GhimaJi — ^The Mahommedan Sunday. 
 
 Gippy — Colloquial name for an Egyptian soldier. 
 
 Gooldh — ^Porous water-jar of Nile mud. 
 
 HaJmm — Doctor. 
 Hanmiti — ^Funeral attendants. 
 Hari-kari — ^An Oriental form of suicide. 
 Hashish — Leaves of hemp. 
 
 Inshallah — God willing. 
 
 Jibbeh — ^Long coat or smock, worn by dervishes. 
 
 390 
 
GLOSSARY 
 
 Kavass — An orderly. 
 
 Kemengeh — A cocoanut fiddle. 
 
 Khamsin — A hot wind of Egypt and the Soudan. 
 
 Khedive— The title gi-anted in 1867 by the Sultan of 
 
 Turkey to the ruler of Egypt. 
 Khiassa — Small boat. 
 Khowagah — Gentleman. 
 Koran-^T!he Scriptures of the Mahommedans. 
 Kourbash — ^A stick, a whip. 
 
 La Uaha illa-llah — ^There is no deity but God. 
 
 Mqflsh — ^Nothing. 
 
 Magnoon — Fool. 
 
 Malaish — No matter. 
 
 Mamcur — A magistrate. 
 
 Mankalah — ^A game. 
 
 Mastaha — ^A bench. 
 
 Mejidieh — ^A Tui-kish Order. 
 
 Mirkaz — ^District. 
 
 MoghassUs — Washers of the dead. 
 
 Mouffetish — High steward. 
 
 Mudir — ^A Governor of a Mudirieh or province. 
 
 Muezzin — The sheikh of the mosque who calls to prayer. 
 
 Mushraiiehr—'L.a.ttice. window. 
 
 Nahoot — Quarter staff. 
 
 NarghUeh — ^The Oriental tobacco-pipe. 
 
 Nehar-ak Jcoom said — Greeting to you. 
 
 Omdah — ^The head of a village. 
 Ooster — One of the best sort. 
 
 391 
 
GLOSSARY 
 
 Ramadan — Mahommedan season of fasting. 
 Reis — Pilot. 
 
 Saadat el basha — Excellency. 
 
 Sdis — Groom. 
 
 Sakkia — Persian water-wheel. 
 
 Salaam — A salutation of the East ; an obeisance, per- 
 formed by bowing very low and placing the right 
 palm on the forehead and on the breast. 
 
 Sarrqf- — An accountant. 
 
 Shadoof- — Bucket and pole used by natives for lifting 
 water. 
 
 ShSer — ^A reciter. (The singular of Sho"'ara, properly 
 signifying a poet.) 
 
 Sheihh-el-beled — Head of a village. 
 
 Shintiyan — Very wide trousers, worn by the women of 
 the middle and higher orders. 
 
 Sitt—" The Lady." 
 
 Tarah — A veil for the head. 
 Tarboosh — Fez or native turban. 
 
 Ulema — Learned men. 
 
 Waled — A boy. 
 
 WeTceel—K deputy. 
 
 Welee — A favoui-ite of Heaven ; colloquially a saint. 
 
 VashmaJc — A veil for the lower part of the face. 
 Yelek — A long vest or smock, worn over the shirt and 
 shintiyAn. 
 
 Zeriba — A palisade. 
 
 S92 
 
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 the book, and its forceful style will appeal strongly to the reader."— C/^w- 
 land World. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 
 
RECENT FICTIOR 
 
 Heralds of Empire, 
 
 By A. C. Laut, Author of ''Lords of the North." izmo. 
 Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 A story Aat tells of the days of Charles II, of the refugees of Boston Town, of Puri- 
 tanism and Witchcraft, and of Radisson, that picturesque adventurer who juggled 
 empires and who changed allegiance as readily as he would change his coat. There is 
 a tender love romance running through the tale that reaches a satis&ctory conclusion. 
 The language is the quaint English of the period, making the book all the more charm- 
 ing on that account. 
 
 Deep-Sea Plunderings. 
 
 By Frank T, Bullen, Author of ** The Cruise of the 
 Cachalot," "The Apostles of the Southeast," etc. Illustrated. 
 i2mo. Cloth, $i*S^. 
 
 Mr. Bullen, who has proved himself a past master of deep-water literature, affords 
 in these pages a series of brilliant and often dramatic pictures of the sailor's life and 
 adventures. While the picturesque enters into his book, he deals also with the stem 
 verities of fo'c'sle life, and he brings before the reader strange and bewildering phases 
 of deep-water adventuring which will lay firm hold upon the imagination. _ The thrill- 
 ing experiences that the unknown sailor faces as a mere incident of his daily life, and 
 the hardships he encounters, are pictured with the vividness and insight that the author 
 of " The Cruise of the Cachalot " always realizes so forcibly and inevitably in his bril- 
 liant pages. 
 
 Many Waters. 
 
 A Story of New York. By Robert Shackleton. i zrao. 
 Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 "An exciting tale, and its hold on one^s interest is quite mzgnctic.''^--PAiiadel^A£a 
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 " Written in good newspaper English; terse, dramatic,and plunging straight ahead, 
 with none of the sweet-scented labyrinths of soliloquy in which the average professionsd 
 litterateur halts to rest." — Bostofi Advertiser. 
 
 A Damsel or Two. 
 
 A Novel. By F. Frankfort Moore, Author of "The 
 Jessamy Bride," "A Nestof Lmnets,"etc. izmo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 An ofhcer and a gentleman and a Napoleon of finance are two types contrasted in 
 this interesting story of modem London, suggesting some of the "promotions" and 
 consequent entanglements of recent years and involving a tale of love and loyal friend- 
 ship. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 
 
By MAARTEN MAARTENS. 
 
 Each, (2mo, cloth, $).50. Uniform Edition. 
 
 Some Women I have Known. 
 
 " Maarten Maartens is one of the best novel writers of this or 
 any day." — Chicago Times-Herald. 
 
 " Maarten Maartens stands head and shoulders above the 
 average noveHst of the day in intellectual subtlety and imaginative 
 power." — Boston Beacon. 
 
 Her Memory. With Photogravure Portrait. 
 
 " Maarten Maartens took us all by storm some time ago with 
 his fine story christened ' God's Fool.' He established himself 
 at once in our affections as a unique creature who had something 
 to say and knew how to say it in the most fascinating way. He is 
 a serious story writer, who sprang into prominence when he first 
 put his pen to paper, and who has ever since kept his work up to 
 the standard of excellence which he raised in the beginning." — 
 New York Herald. 
 
 The Greater Glory. A Story of High Life. 
 
 " It would take several columns to give any adequate idea of 
 the superb way in which the Dutch novelist has developed his 
 theme and wrought out one of the most impressive stories of the 
 period. ... It belongs to the small class of novels which one 
 can not afford to neglect." — San Francisco Chronicle. 
 
 God's Fool. 
 
 "Throughout there is an epigrammatic force which would 
 make palatable a less interesting story of human lives or one less 
 deftly told." — London Saturday Review. 
 
 Joost Avelingh. 
 
 " Aside from the masterly handling of the principal characters 
 and general interest in the story, the series of pictures of Dutch 
 life give the book a charm peculiarly its own." — New York 
 Herald. 
 
 APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 
 
BOOKS BY ANTHONY HOPE. 
 
 The King's Mirror. 
 
 Illustrated. izmo. Cloth, ^1.50. 
 
 "Mr. Hope has never given more sustained proof of his cleverness than in 
 'The King's Mirror." In elegance, delicacy, and tact it ranks writh the best of 
 his previous novels, while in the wide range of its portraiture and the subtlety 
 of its analysis it surpasses all his earlier ventures." — Lsndon Spectatar. 
 
 "Mr. Anthony Hope is at his best in this new novel. He returns in some 
 measure to the color and atmosphere of 'The Prisoner of Zenda." ... A 
 strong book, charged with close analysis and exquisite irony; a book full of 
 pathos and moral fiber — in short, a book to be read." — London Chronicle. 
 
 " A story of absorbing interest and one that will add greatly to the author's 
 reputation. . . . Told with all the brilliancy and charm which we have come 
 to associate with Mr. Anthony Hope's work." — London Literary World. 
 
 The Chronicles of Count Antonio. 
 
 With Photogravure Frontispiece by S. W. Van Schaick. 1 2mo. 
 Cloth, gi.50. 
 
 " No adventures were ever better worth recounting than are those of Antonio 
 «f Monte Velluto, a very Bayard among outlaws. . . . To all those whose 
 pulses still stir at the recital of deeds of high courage, we may recommend this 
 book. . . . The chronicle conveys the emotion of heroic adventure, and is 
 picturesquely written." — London Daily Neivs. 
 
 " It has literary merits all its own, of a deliberate and rather deep order. . . . 
 In point of execution ' The Chronicles of Count Antonio ' is the best work 
 that Mr. Hope has yet done. The design is clearer, the workmanship more 
 elaborate, the style more colored." — Westminster Gazette. 
 
 The God in the Car. 
 
 New edition, uniform with " The Chronicles of Count Antonio." 
 i2mo. Cloth, ^1.25. 
 
 " 'The God in the Car' is just as clever, just as distinguished in style, 
 just as full of wit, and.'of what nowadays some persons like better than wit — • 
 ailusiveness — as any of his stories. It i^ saturated with the modern atmos- 
 phere ; is not only a very clever but a very strong story ; in some respects, we 
 think, the strongest Mr. Hope has yet written." — London Speaker. 
 
 " A very remarkable book, deserving of critical analyas impassible within 
 our limit; brilliant, but not superficial; well considered, but not elaborated; 
 constructed with the proverbial art that conceals, but yet allows itself to be 
 enjoyed by readers to whom fine literary method is a keen pleasure." — London 
 World. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 
 
By ELLEN THORNEYCROFT FOWLER, 
 
 Each, iltno, cloth, $1^. 
 Sirius. 
 
 A new book by the author of " Concerning Isabel Camaby " and "The 
 Faningdons " needs no introduction. AH readers of the best fiction know 
 her epigrammatic quality and humor, her adroitness in the suggestion of 
 character, and her command of original situations and unexpected social 
 climaxes. Her new book is a gallery of vivid miniature of various phases of 
 English life. Its unfailing interest will increase the author's well-earned 
 reputation. 
 
 Cupid's Garden. With new portrait of the Author. 
 
 " Whatever this author sends out has freshness and originality, and her 
 sketches of people are so deftly drawn that one wonders at the versatility. 
 ' Cupid's Garden ' is a collection of stories of love, not all of which run 
 smooth, but which all exhibit some noble trait of the tender passion." 
 ■^Indianapolis News. 
 
 The Farringdons. 
 
 " Miss Fowler makes her own audience, which, large as it is in England, 
 must be even larger in this country. There is a deeper note in this story than 
 any she has yet sounded. . . . ' The Farringdons ' is, above all else, a procla- 
 mation to the world that the religion which Christ brought to humanity is a 
 living power, undiminished in strength, the mainspring of the actions and 
 aspirations of millions of Anglo-Saxons." — New York Mail and Express, 
 
 Concerning Isabel Camaby. New edition, with 
 
 Portrait and Biographical Sketch of the Author. 
 
 " No one who reads it will regret it or forget \V— Chicago Tribune. 
 
 " For brilliant conversations, epigrammatic bits of philosophy, keenness 
 of wit, and full insight into human nature, ' Concerning Isabel Camaby ' is 
 a remarkable success," — Bos/on Transcript. 
 
 A Double Thread. 
 
 "The excellence of her writing makes her book delightful reading. She 
 Js genial and sympathetic without being futile, and witty without being 
 cynical." — Literature, London. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK 
 
BOOKS BY E. F. BENSON. 
 
 Scarlet and Hyssop. 
 
 i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 Mr. Benson has returned to the field which he developed with such signal 
 luccess in " Dodo," and his new novel reveals a brilliancy, social knowledge, 
 and worldly wisdom that show how much the author has grown in force 
 and pungency since the appearance of his first book. 
 
 The Luck of the Vails. 
 
 A Romance. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " If Mr. Benson continues to write novels as interesting as this latest 
 product from his pen — stories that will hold the attention of the reader as 
 absorbingly as this one is sure to do — he is very likely to win a name among 
 English fiction writers that shall be as lasting as— say, the name of Wilkie 
 Collins." — Brooklyn Eagle. 
 
 Mammon & Co. 
 
 lanio. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 "Mr. Benson writes from intimate knowledge and the inside. He is a 
 part of the very society which he openly censures. . . . His novel stands out 
 as a strong bit of work in which he is very much at home. Its brilliant 
 sayings and clever epigrams give it a finish and polish which are even 
 more effective than the setting itself. What is more, Mr. Benson sees with 
 a great deal of heart the tragedy of human experience, and writes of it 
 feelingly." — Boston Herald. 
 
 Dodo. 
 
 A Detail of the Day. i2mo. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 
 50 cents. 
 
 ' ' ' Dodo ' is a delightfully witty sketch of the ' smart ' people of society. 
 . . . The writer is a true artist." — London Spectator. 
 
 The Rubicon. 
 
 izmo. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cents. 
 
 "The anticipations which must have been formed by all readers of 
 ' Dodo' will in no wise be disappointed by ' The Rubicon.' The new work 
 is well written, stimulating, unconventional, and, in a word, characteristic. 
 Intellectual force is never absent, and the keen observation and knowledge 
 of character, of which there is abundant evidence, are aided by real literary 
 power." — Birmingham Post. 
 
 D. APPL'ETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 
 
BOOKS BY FRANK T, BULLEN. 
 
 Deep-Sea Plunderings. 
 
 Illustrated, izmo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 Mr. Bullen, who has proved himself a past master of deep-water litera- 
 ture, affords in these pages a series of brilliant and often dramatic pictures 
 of the sailor's life and adventures. While the picturesque enters into his 
 book, he deals also with the stem verities of fo'c*sle life, and he brings 
 before the reader strange and bewildering phases of deep-water adventuring 
 which will lay firm hold upon the imagination. 
 
 The Apostles of the Southeast. 
 
 i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " Mr. Bullen's characters are living ones, his scenes full of life and real- 
 ism, and there is not a page in the whole book which is not brimful of 
 deepest interest." — Philadelfhia Item, 
 
 The Log of a Sea- Waif. 
 
 Being Recollections of the First Four Years of my Sea 
 Life. Illustrated, izmo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " So strong, original, and thrilling as to hold captive the attention of 
 the mature as well as of the youthful reader. " — Philadelphia Public Ledger. 
 
 The Cruise of the Cachalot, 
 
 Round the World after Sperm Whales. Illustrated. i2mo. 
 Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " It is immense — there is no other word. I've never read anything that 
 equals it in its deep-sea wonder and mystery, nor do I think that any book 
 before has so completely covered the whole business of whale-fishing, and, at 
 the same time, given such real and new sea pictures. I congratulate you most 
 heartily. It's a new world you've opened the door to." — Rudyard Kipling. 
 
 Idylls of the Sea. 
 
 i2mo. Cloth, $1.25. 
 
 "Amplifies and intensifies the picture of the sea which Mr. Bullen had 
 already produced. . . . Calm, shipwreck, the surface and depths of the sea, 
 the monsters of the deep, superstitions and tales of the sailors — all find a 
 place in this strange and exciting book." — Chicago Times-Herald. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 
 
BY EDWARD NOYES WESTCOTT. 
 
 David Harum. a story of American Life. 
 Illustrated Edition. With 70 full-page and text pictures by B. 
 West Clinedinst, and other text designs by C. D. Farrand, and a bi- 
 ography of the author by Forbes Heermans. i2nio. Gilt top, uncut, 
 $2.00. 
 
 Edition de Luxe. Printed in tints, with copperplate photogravures 
 and other illustrations. Large paper, uncut, 8vo. $10.00 net. 
 l2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " The newsboys on the street can talk of ' David Harum,' but scarcely a 
 week ago we heard an intelligent girl of fifteen, in a house which entertains 
 the best of the daily papers and the weekly reviews, ask, ' Who is Kip- 
 ling?'" — The Literary World, Boston. 
 
 "We give Edward Noyes Westcott his true place in American letters — 
 placing him as a humorist next to Mark Twain, as a master of dialect above 
 Lowell, as a descriptive writer equal to Bret Harte, and, on the whole, as a 
 novelist on a par with the best of those who live and have their being in the 
 heart of hearts of American readers. If the author is dead — lamentable 
 fact — his book will live." — Philadelphia Item. 
 
 The Teller. 
 
 Illustrated. i2mo. Cloth, $1.00. 
 
 The publishers of " David Harum" have the pleasure of presenting the 
 only other story written by the lamented Edward Noyes Westcott. Mr. 
 Westcott's business life lay with practical financial matters, and in " The 
 Teller" he has drawn upon his knowledge of life in a bank. It is unneces- 
 sary to emphasize the interest attaching to the only other work in fiction 
 done by the author of " David Harum." 
 
 Fortunately for the readers of this masterpiece, Mr. Westcott wrote sev- 
 eral letters in regard to the book while he was engaged upon the manuscript, 
 and these, with other letters, have been preserved. They have been edited 
 for publication by his sister, and are included in this volume. A biography 
 of Mr. Westcott is added by his friend, Mr. Forbes Heermans, v/ho describes 
 the manner in which " David Harum " was written. Some peculiarly inter- 
 esting portraits of Mr. Westcott and a picture of his home illustrate the 
 book. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 
 
HAMLIN GARLAND'S BOOKS. 
 
 UNIFORM EDITION. 
 
 'Each, }2mo^ cloih, $t.25. 
 
 Wayside Courtships. 
 
 *' A faithful and an entertaining portrayal of village and rural life in the West. . . . 
 No one can read this collection of short stories without feeling that he b master of the 
 subject." — Chicago Joumat. 
 
 Jason Edwards. 
 
 An Average Man. 
 
 *' The average man in the industrial ranks is presented in this story in as lifelike a 
 manner as Mr. Bret Harte presented the men in the California mining camps thirty 
 years ago. ... A story which will be read with absorbing interest by hundreds of 
 workingmen." — Boston Herald. 
 
 A Member of the Third House. 
 
 A Story of Political Warfare. 
 
 ''The work is, in brief, a keen and searching study of lobbies and lobbyists. At 
 least it is the lobbies that furnish its motive. For the rest, the story is narrated with 
 much power, and the characters of Brennan the smart wire-puller, the millionaire Davis, 
 the reformer Tuttle, and Evelyn Ward are skillfully individualized. . . . Mr. Garland^s 
 people have this peculiar characteristic, that they have not had a literary world made 
 for them to live in. They seem to move and act in the cold gray light of reality, and 
 in that trying light they are evidently human." — Chicago Record. 
 
 A Spoil of Office. 
 
 A Story of the Modem West, 
 
 "It awakens in the mind a tremendous admiration for an artist who could so find 
 his way through the mists of famDiarity to an artistic haven. ... In reading * A Spoil 
 of Office ' one feels a continuation of interest extending from the fictional into the actual, 
 with no break or divergence. And it seems to be only a question of waiting a day or 
 two ere one will run up against the characters in real life." 
 
 The Eagle's Heart. 
 
 A Story of the West. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " A story told with all the fidelity of observation, the sincerity and the insight which 
 mark his work at its best. The clear, open atmosphere of the farther West is in the 
 book."— CAzira^i? Record. 
 
 *' Fresh and absorbing in its interest. A novel of red blood and vigorous life."— * 
 Detroit Free Press. 
 
 A Little Norsk ; 
 
 Or, or Pap's Flaxen. i6mo. Boards, 50 cents. 
 
 " True feeling, the modesty of Nature, and the sure touch of art are the marks ol 
 this pure and graphic storj', which has added a bright leaf to the author's laurels."—' 
 Chicago Tribune. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 
 
BOOKS BY J. A. ALTSHELER. 
 My Captive. 
 
 i2mo. Cloth, $1.25. 
 
 "A mightily interesting little tale of the Revolution. ... By all odds 
 the cleverest tale Mr. Altsheler has written." — Philadelphia Item. 
 
 The Wilderness Road. 
 
 A Romance of St. Clair's Defeat and Wayne's Victory. lamo. 
 Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " That Mr. Altsheler has caught the wild, free spirit of the life which he 
 depicts is evident on every page, and nowhere more so than in one of his final 
 chapters, ' The Meeting of the Chiefs,' where he vitalizes the Ufe-and-death 
 gtruggle of a friendly and a hostile Indian." — New York Mail and Express. 
 
 In Circling Camps. 
 
 A. Romance of the American Civil War. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " We do not often get as fine a picture as that which Mr. Altsheler paints. 
 The tale covers the period from the election and the inauguration of Lincoln 
 until the surrender of Lee and the entrance of the Northern army into Rich- 
 mond . . . Every good American who enjoys the smell of powder and the 
 crack of the rifle vrill appreciate the chapters that describe the battle of 
 Gettysburg." — The Bookman. 
 
 A Herald of the West. 
 
 An American Story of 1811-1815. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 "A rattling good story, and unrivalled in fiction for its presentation of 
 the American feeling toward England during our second conflict." — Boston 
 Herald. 
 
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 And his Adventures at Ticonderoga and Quebec, i2mo. 
 Cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cents. 
 
 "The story is told in such a simple, direct way that it holds the reader's 
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 A Romance of Burgoyne's Surrender. i2mo. Cloth, $1.00; 
 paper, 50 cents. 
 
 "Taken altogether, 'The Sun of Saratoga' is the best historical novel of 
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 York Mail and Express. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 
 
NOVELS BY HALL CAINE. 
 
 Uniform Edition. Each, }2ino, cloth. 
 
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 " One of the very strongest productions in fiction that the present age has been 
 privileged to enjoy." — Philadelphia Hem. 
 
 " The novel is wonderful in its power, its wealth of dramatic incident, and its rich- 
 ness of diction."— ^(pc^w^^r Democrat and Chronicle. 
 
 " A powerful novel, inspired by a lofty conception, and carried out with unusual 
 force. It is the greatest thing that Hall Caine has ever zXXe,Ta:gl^6."—BrooklynEagU. 
 
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 ** A book of wonderful power and force.'' — Brooklyn Eagle. 
 
 " Its strength grasps you at the beginning and holds you to the end. There is in it 
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 " The public is hardly prepared for so remarkable a performance as ' The Chris- 
 tian.' ... A permanent addition to English literature. . . . Above and beyond any 
 popularity that is merely temporary," — Boston Herald. 
 
 The Manxman. $1.50. 
 
 " May easily challenge comparison with the best novels of the latter part of the 
 century. ' — San Francisco Call. 
 
 " Hall Caine has the art of being human and humane, and his characters have the 
 strength of elemental things. In * The Manxman * he handles large human questions — 
 the questions of lawful and lawless love." — Neix) York Cojmnercial Advertiser, 
 
 The Deemster. $1.50. 
 
 New copyright edition^ revised by the author. 
 " Hall Caine has already given us some very strong and fine work, and * The 
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 nowadays in literature." — The Critic. 
 
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 New copyright edition, revised by the author. 
 " A story of Iceland and Icelanders at an early era. Our author throws a charm 
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 the mind a rest." — Chicago Inter-Ocean. 
 
 The Scapegoat, fi.so. 
 
 New copyright edition^ revised by the author. 
 
 Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon. 
 The Little Manx Nation. 
 
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 h.oo 
 
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