by Lewis Hough
CHAPTER FIVE.
IN PASSING.
The fierce sun was declining towards the west, and it was becomingpossible to breathe and move about with a little more comfort on boardthe somewhat cumbrous vessel, fitted with huge lateen sails, which wentswinging down the Nile between the lofty black rocks near Samneh. I say_fitted_ with the sails, not borne along by them, for the stream justthere took all the carrying power upon itself, rushing along itsnarrowed channel like a mill race.
High above rose a hill, on the top of which was a temple, entire, with abalcony round it, heedless of the lapse of ages. There is some littledifference between the ancient and modern ideas of substantial building.
They had no ninety-nine year leases in the time of the Pharaohs; ifthere were such things at all, nine thousand would probably be nearerthe mark.
Harry Forsyth sat on the deck admiring the different points as they wentby, and delighting in the glorious pace at which they were going; agreat contrast to their sluggish progress earlier in the day, when theriver was broad, placid, and leisurely, and there was hardly a breath ofwind stirring to urge them on.
He had been entrusted with a trading expedition as far as Dongola,carrying merchandise and exchanging it for gum, and ostrich and maraboutfeathers. He had been allowed a little venture on his own account, andhad embarked it all in the latter article of commerce--maraboutfeathers--and had been rather lucky in his bargain. On returning toCairo he expected to go back to England, and that made him none the lessglad to be spinning along so quickly.
"I wish we could go like this all the way, Hassib," he said to theNubian sitting by him; "we should soon get home then, eh?"
"We shall go faster than this when we come to the cataract," saidHassib, with a grin; for there was a joke here. Harry on the way up hadnot shown any liking for the cataracts. In fact, had preferred, underpretence of shooting doves, to walk round while the operation of towingthe vessel up took place.
He and Hassib conversed in a queer lingo, for Harry was trying hishardest to learn Arabic, but had to eke it out at present with a goodmany English and French words. Hassib had a smattering of both thoselanguages, and after a little practice they got on glibly enough.
But I am sure you will pardon my translating the palaver between thissupercargo and the reis or captain of the boat. The reis was the propercompanion for Harry, being a respectable fellow, and wearing someclothes. Harry himself was dressed in a linen suit of European cut,with a tarboosh or red cap on his head, with a turban twisted round it.Not elegant, but sovereign against sunstroke they told him.
"I wish I could get a crocodile," he said. "Every day we get lower downthe river there is less chance."
"Plenty of them yet. There is an island near where we stop to-nightwhere there are always many crocodiles."
"And do you think that I shall get one?"
Hassib thought a bit over this, and then replied gravely--
"If it is the will of Allah that you should get a crocodile, you willget a crocodile. If it is not the will of Allah that you should get acrocodile, you will not get a crocodile."
There was no gainsaying this. Mohammedan races are fond of propoundingtruisms with an air of having evolved a new idea out of their unassistedbrains, and that is why people often think them so very wise.
"You see," said Harry, after bowing his head in assent to the lastproposition, "I promised my mother a crocodile, and it seems so absurdto go up the Nile and not be able to get one. Then they are all white,and I expected them to be black."
"White men call the devil and crocodiles black; black men call themwhite," replied Hassib, who was a wag. "You now see which is right."
"Good again; that is one for me!" laughed Harry. "But I should reallylike to get one if I could."
"And the English think the crocodile such a pretty ornament!" saidHassib. "It is a strange taste."
And then Harry thought for the first time where on earth would they putthe crocodile if they got it. But that was a future consideration.
"Shall we shoot the cataract to-night?" he asked, presently.
"No," said Hassib, "there will not be light enough. We shall anchor forthe night soon, and start at daybreak."
The river soon grew broader and calmer, and in half an hour they came tothe place where they were to remain, and cast anchor.
Harry went ashore with his rifle, in hopes of a shot at the amphibiouscreatures, and his fishing tackle to keep him in patience while he waswaiting for it. Hassib accompanied him to point out the place he hadmentioned where the monsters were wont to lie.
For some time he got neither a shot nor a bite; but presently there camea tremendous tug at his line. The fish tugged, and Harry tugged, andthe line being strong enough to hold a whale nearly, it seemed to be aquestion whether Harry pulled the fish out, or the fish pulled Harry in.In fact it was a regular tug of war.
Harry was the victor, and his opponent came to bank with a bound andflop.
"By jove! I have got a crocodile after all!" cried Harry, jumping back,as a hideous thing four feet long, and having the same number of legs,and a tail, seemed making towards him. The reis, laughing in a mannermost contrary to our notions of the staid impassive Arab, beganhammering the creature with a stick, until it lay quiet enough.
"What is it?" asked the captor, approaching cautiously.
"A big lizard," replied Hassib, "so your learned white men say;`alligator lizard' I heard one call it. But it is really a thing thatcomes out of an addled crocodile's egg."
Harry looked up quickly, but the reis was perfectly grave. And on suchoccasions he always pretended to believe, whether he did or no. Hassibwas quite confident of the correctness of his information, and how couldit be disproved, or, for that matter, why should it be?
The sun was now very low on the horizon, and would soon take its sand-bath. Hassib laid his hand on Forsyth's arm and ducked behind a moundon the edge of the bank. Harry did the same.
"One, two, five, seven," counted Hassib. Harry peeped, and saw thatmystic number of grey crocodiles lying on the island where he had beenlooking for them.
The nearest was about two hundred yards off. By stalking him along thebank, as he was not quite opposite, he got perhaps thirty yards nearer.As has been said, he was a really first-rate rifle-shot, and theprospects of that crocodile could not be considered rosy.
Scales are hard, but so are conical bullets. Harry took a steady aim atwhat he had been taught to consider the most vulnerable part get-at-able, and pulled. Crack! Smack! He heard the ball tell as plainly asif it were on an iron target. But the absurd crocodile acted as all theothers he had shot at had done: he rolled over into the water anddisappeared, and the other six kept him company.
"He is killed! Oh, he is killed!" cried the reis, much excited. "Hewill float soon, you will see. When they are shot dead their bodiessoon float."
Whether this creature was an exception, or was not shot dead, or wascarried down to the cataract before he got to the floating stage, and socame up where no one wanted him, cannot be said. But they saw him nomore, and he was numbered among the partridges who have gone away todie, and the rabbits that were hit so hard, but crept away into holes!
Going back to where the boat lay they found another lying near her,which had been dragged up the last bit of the cataract and brought up sofar since their arrival, while the crew had gone ashore and lit a fire,round which they were gathered.
Forsyth and Hassib went up to them for news, but there was not much.Alexandria was being rebuilt after the bombardment; Arabi's insurrectionwas quite over, and Mohammed Tewfik Pasha firmly established. TheEnglish soldiers were leaving, and the country would soon be quit ofthem entirely.
"Not it," said one of the new-comers, who seemed to be a passenger.Certainly not a sailor, for his hands were delicate, and he lackedmanliness when compared with the others of the party. "The English willnot be so easy to get rid of, make sure of that."
And one of
the others said to Hassib, alluding to the speaker--
"You knew his father; this is Daireh."
"And I knew him as a boy," said Hassib.
"It is years since I left," said Daireh.
Here Reouf the pilot joined the group, and he, too, was a friend of thefamily, and was made known.
Harry Forsyth, seeing that old acquaintances had met after an absence,kept in the background, and lit his pipe. He listened indeed, butsimply to try what words of Arabic, in which the conversation was beingheld, he could pick up, not from any interest or curiosity which he feltin the subject of their talk.
"Quite a boy when you went to England," said Reouf; "and yet I think Ican recognise you. Do you remember you went in my diabeheeh from Berberhome to Alexandria?"
"Have you been to Berber lately? Are my people there well?"
"I was there less than a year ago, and all was well with them. You arejourneying there now?" said Reouf.
"I am," replied Daireh. "I returned from the land of exile to visit myhome, hoping to share my hard-earned gains with my own people, when whatdid I find? Ruins in the place of my home, my family dispersed, myfather slain by the English."
"Not so," said Hassib. "I heard of the misfortune; but it was by thehand of Arabi's soldiers that he fell; not that of the English. Arabi'ssoldiers, or plunderers who called themselves such. The English sailorscaught them red-handed, and hung them up for it then and there."
"May their graves be defiled, whoever they were," said Daireh. "I haveno friends now except at Berber."
Harry made out a good deal of this, and his heart bled for the Egyptian,coming back as he thought to a home, to find nothing but desolation, andto be driven out again from his native land. For there is nothing incommon between the Egyptian and the Nubian but religion. The formerrace affects to despise the latter, and the latter really despises theformer. And with reason.
So when he rose to go back to his diabeheeh (Nile boat), he bade himgood-night in English, and expressed regret for the grievousdisappointment and sorrow he had experienced. And Daireh said of courseit was a great affliction, but he hoped to make a new home in theSoudan. And so they parted, courteously enough.
The diabeheeh Daireh was travelling by had sustained some injury from asharp rock during the process of being hauled up the cataract, and thecrew were going to remain where they were for the purpose of repairs.So when a sudden red flush burst on the eastern horizon, and spread anddeepened till it seemed as if a large city was on fire, and Hassib,recognising this as the dawn, began kicking his lazy sailors intowakefulness, the down-stream boat was the only one which madepreparations for a start.
By the time the anchor was up and the sails hoisted, however, there wassome movement on board the other diabeheeh, and parting greetings wereexchanged. Harry Forsyth, seeing the man who had excited his compassionthe night before on deck, waved his hand to him and shouted good-bye!And the other returned the salutation. And the local pilot for thesecond cataract took the helm, and the vessel entered the boilingwaters, and was whirled in apparent helplessness, though really guidedwith great skill amidst innumerable rocks, any one of which would havecrushed her like an egg-shell.
And Harry, in the excitement and anxiety of the passage, forgot allabout the casual traveller from whom he had just parted. Little did hedream that that man carried in his breast the document upon which hisfortune depended, and the obtaining of which would establish his motherand sister in comfort, besides changing all the future prospects of hisold friend Kavanagh. And Daireh, had he but known that the Englishmanhe had just parted from was Harry Forsyth, what a lucky opportunity hewould have esteemed it for making a bargain, and securing at least someprofit out of what threatened to be the barren crime he had committed.
For though it was not to be expected that the poor clerk and agentshould have command of sufficient funds to pay even the more moderateransom which he was now prepared to accept, he had formed all his plansfor eventually securing it. Something of course would have to betrusted to the pledged word of the man with whom he treated, but thoughhe had no scruples about breaking his word, or his oath, indeed, forthat matter, himself, he knew well that other people had, and had beforetraded, not without success, on what he considered a foolish weakness.
But the chance was gone both for the robber and the robbed. They hadmet, and not known it, and now their paths diverged more widely everyminute.
Is there any truth in the notion of people having presentiments?Whether or no, certainly Forsyth had none, for he was only too eager toget back to Cairo. And the boat went well, though not fast enough forhis impatience, making a quick trip of it.
His employers were well satisfied with the result of their venture, andHarry himself made as much as he expected out of his marabout feathers.
Shortly afterwards, as had been arranged, he sailed for England, and hada warm greeting from his mother and Trix, though he did not bring thepromised crocodile.
And then he learned that his uncle, Richard Burke, was dead, and thathis will had mysteriously disappeared, as well as the confidential clerkof the Dublin solicitors who had charge of it, who was thereforesupposed to have taken it.
"We would not write to you about it," said Mrs Forsyth, "because youwere on your way home, and the will might have been found in theinterim. But it hasn't."