by G. A. Henty
“Not they,” Edgar said scornfully; “they are wondering what has happened to them, and fear to move, not knowing that their own knives might not be driven into their hearts did they venture to rise. Well, good-bye, Sidi; I will see you off first; and I should advise you, when you ride into the town again, to bring your pistols with you. Like enough these scoundrels will try to get revenge for this defeat.”
“I will do so. I know not why I did not carry them to-day. I will not only bring them, but two of my tribesmen shall ride with me. But methinks that you will be in greater danger than I shall, brother.”
“I shall be on the look-out, and will, for a time, carry pistols with me; but I do not often go out after dark, and have no occasion ever to enter the streets where rogues of this sort live. As to an open attack, I have no fear of it; but I have no doubt that either of those scoundrels would plant a knife between my shoulders if they had a chance to do so.”
Both the lads mounted their horses, and after a few words of farewell rode off in different directions. Not until the sound of the horses’ hoofs died away did the two figures in the road move, then they sat up.
“What has happened, Zeno?”
“I know not, save that my head is ringing. I feel as if my jaws were broken, and my nose is so swelled that it seems as big as my head.”
“And I can scarcely see from my eyes,” the other said. “Cospetto, never before have I been thus handled!”
“We will kill him!” the other said furiously.
“That of course; I know not who he was, but we shall doubtless find out. I can hardly believe even now that it was with his hand that he struck us—it was done so quickly. He was there—then I struck at him, when—paff!—and it seemed to me that the air was full of stars; then, paff again! my jaws cracked, I fell backwards, there was a crash, and the world seemed to have come to an end. And you, Giaccamo, what did he do to you?”
“It was like that, except that I only had one blow, and there was an end of it. I was drawing my knife when it came—how, I know not. My knife flew from my hand—there was a flash of fire from my eyes, and I was on the ground, and thought it best to lie there, lest that accursed young Arab should take it into his head to sheathe my knife in my body. The next time we will give the young fellow no chance to try those strange tricks upon us.”
“You are right, Giaccamo; I would sooner fight against even Thomasso, who is the best knife-player in Alexandria, than face that fellow again. Who can he be, I wonder?”
Edgar rode home, and after seeing his horse taken into the stable, went into the house.
“I have found my boxing of use, father.”
“How is that, Edgar?”
The lad told him what had happened.
“You were quite right to strike, my boy,” his father went on when he had heard the story; “’tis likely enough that those ruffians would have killed the lad. There are fellows here who would do murder for the sake of a few copper coins; and, doubtless, those men thought that the young chief would have some trinkets about him that would pay them for their trouble. I am sorry that you did not let the Arab put his knife into them; it would have been a good riddance, for the town abounds with rascals of that kind—the scum of the Mediterranean, men who have made their native towns too hot to hold them, and have committed crimes untold. As it is, you will have to be careful; fellows of this kind are not of a forgiving nature, and will be patient enough to wait for their revenge, but sooner or later they will attempt to take it.”
“It was so dark, father, that they can scarcely have seen my face.”
“Perhaps not, but no doubt they were able to make out your figure, and there are very few better-class young Europeans here. You will have to be on your guard, lad; you had better always carry pistols with you. Clever as you may be with your fists, if you were attacked by half-a-dozen fellows with knives, you would stand but little chance with them. Don’t be out after dusk; in daylight you are fairly safe. At any rate, you would be, if you avoid the rookeries, where the lower class of European inhabitants live. I have a brace of short-barrelled pistols up-stairs I will give you. I carried them at one time when things were very unsettled here. You have made two bitter enemies, but, on the other hand, you have made a friend who may be useful. These Arabs, when they once form a friendship, are as true as steel, and in the event of any fanatical troubles here, you would find a sure refuge among them. The lad’s father, Aboo Ben Ouafy, I know a little of, as he has made purchases of me. His tribe is not a large one, but he himself is a fine fellow. As the lad told you, their head-quarters are in an oasis some eight or ten miles, I believe, east of the old site of Lake Mareotis. They, of course, like all those people, are frequently absent on hunting or plundering expeditions.”
The next day Sidi and his father, followed by half a dozen tribesmen, halted in front of Mr. Blagrove’s place of business, and the two former dismounted and entered. The Bedouin chief saluted the merchant gravely, while Sidi went up to Edgar, who was sitting at a table, for he now worked for some hours a day in his father’s office, and who rose at the lad’s approach, and held out his hand in English fashion.
“You are none the worse for our scrimmage last night, Sidi?” he said heartily.
“No harm was done,” Sidi replied gravely. “I am glad of what happened, for it has given me a friend, a brother.”
“I am glad too,” Edgar replied, “for I too am happy to have gained a friend.”
In the meantime his father was saying to Mr. Blagrove, “I have come, effendi, to thank you and your son for the assistance he rendered to my boy yesterday. I have no doubt that he saved his life, and that at the peril of his own. It is wonderful what my son tells me, that, with his hands alone he beat to the ground the two men who had attacked him, though they were armed with knives. I know not how it could be done, but since it was done ’tis plain that he must possess skill unknown to us. Sidi has called him brother, and henceforth I shall regard him as a son, and my tribe will be his should he need their services. I doubt not that the attack was made in order to gain the horse my son rode, which is one of famous breed, and would sell at high price at Cairo or any other of the large towns. I feel sure that they would have killed him in order that they might carry the horse away without search being made for it, for before we found that Sidi had been slain the horse would have been a hundred miles away.”
“I know that your tribe is famous for having some of the best Arabian blood in the country, sheik, and I think it probable that you are right. The fellows may have seen your son ride into the town and determined to waylay him on his return.”
“Your son did wrong not to kill them,” the Arab said, “he will be in danger from them. I have called not only to thank him, but to ask him to come and bide with us for a time; he will assuredly be in danger here. Were I governor of the town I would chop off the heads of all those people who breed disorders and are a curse to it. ’Tis well that Franks like yourself should settle among us, and should trade with us, buying our goods and selling to us those of Europe, but these thieves and cut-throats, these ruffians who neither trade nor work, but live by ill-doing, should be rooted out.”
“I should be glad for my son to stay with you for a short time, sheik. I share your opinion that these men will try to avenge themselves, and it were well that he should be away for a time. Doubtless they will watch narrowly to see if they can find the young fellow who interfered with them, but if they meet with no one like him they may well think that he has left the town.”
“It is well!” the Arab said. “I am going now to the governor to lay a complaint against these men. My son will go with me to tell him what they are like; the son of a sheik is not to be assaulted by town ruffians with impunity. We may be kept some time, but when we have done we will return hither. Will your son be ready to ride with us?”
“Certainly, sheik; it will not take him five minutes to make his preparations.”
“He will not need a horse,” the s
heik said; “I have brought one with me for him.”
Edgar had listened with delight to this conversation (which was in Arabic, which his father spoke fluently). The idea of going to stay for a time in an Arab encampment was exciting indeed, for he had already begun to find the life monotonous after the two years spent at school and in the lively companionship of his cousins.
“It were well that you should come out and see your horse,” the sheik said to him, “and make friends with him while we are away, for he is not accustomed to Europeans, and might give you trouble were you to mount him at once.”
Edgar and his father both went out. One of the Arabs was standing at the horse’s head, rubbing its nose and talking to it as if it had been a human being.
“That is the horse,” the sheik said gravely. “Only to one, whom I regard as a son, would I part with him. On his back you may scoff at pursuit by any foes, for outside my encampment there is not a horse in Egypt which it could not distance. Now it is yours to do with as you like, save to sell it, for I would not that his blood should run in any veins save those of the horses of my tribe.”
“This is, indeed, a princely gift, sheik,” the merchant said warmly. “’Tis a noble horse, and one that a king might ride. My son is indeed indebted to you, and will value it beyond all price.”
Edgar was warm in his expressions of gratitude and admiration, although, indeed, he was unable to appreciate at its full value the points of the animal. It was a gray, and, to English eyes, would have looked light and wanting in bone, and fit rather for a lady’s use than for a man’s, with its slender limbs and small head; but one accustomed to Arab horses, as Mr. Blagrove was, could see at once that it was of the purest strain and highest breeding.
“Come with me,” the sheik said to Edgar. “At present, you see, he is not accustomed to your white face, but he will soon come to love you, and answer to your call.”
The horse, indeed, had laid back his ears, distended his dilated nostrils, and stepped back a foot or two; but as the sheik approached it gave a little whinny of pleasure, and, advancing, laid its muzzle against his cheek.
“This is your new master, Beauty,” he said, as he stroked its glossy neck. “He will keep you well, and you will be as one of his children, and you must be a good friend and servant to him.”
Edgar now stroked the animal. A quiver as of fear ran through it as he touched it, but as he continued, this died away; and as Edgar spoke quietly to it in Arabic, it was not long before it responded to his caresses, and after taking a good look at him with its soft liquid eyes, it put its head on his shoulder.
“You are friends now,” the sheik said, with a tone of pleasure. “It is to few, even of my tribesmen, whom he would give such a greeting. He recognizes you already as his friend. Give him a handful of sweetmeats, and the bargain will be sealed.”
The merchant at once sent one of the native boys out to buy a bag of sweetmeats. The sheik waited until he saw the horse taking these out of Edgar’s hands and munching them contentedly, then, leaving one of his tribesmen in charge of the horse, he mounted, and rode off with his son and the rest of his followers. Edgar stood for some time talking to the horse, and then, leaving it to the native, went into the house to make his preparations for the journey.
“You have, indeed, done well for yourself, Edgar,” his father said as he came in. “’Tis in every way fortunate. The Turks love us little, and though they put up with us, as they need the goods that we sell, still there may at any moment be a fanatical rising, and it is well, indeed, to have made friends with one of the desert tribes, among whom you can find a safe refuge. You little know the value of the horse he has given you. The breed is a famous one, and the sheik has been offered a fabulous sum for one of his steeds, but nothing could tempt him to part with one. An Arab prizes a valuable horse beyond all his earthly possessions, and, save under the pressure of the direst want, nothing could persuade him to part with it. In presenting it to you, therefore, the chief has shown his friendship in the most striking manner possible, and that he regards you, as he says, as one of his family.”
CHAPTER II
A BEDOUIN TRIBE
It was two hours before the sheik returned.
“We have been fortunate,” he said, as Mr. Blagrove and Edgar came out into the court-yard as he entered. “The men have had their punishment. The governor, after hearing my story, sent to the head of the police, and charged him to take four men down with him into the quarter where men of this sort are generally to be found. When my son described the men to him, and said that he thought that one of them was a Maltese named Giaccamo, and the other was a Greek called Zeno, he spoke to some of his men, and they said they knew two fellows who generally went about together that answered to the description. They were, he said, notorious ruffians, but except for rioting and wounding among their compatriots, with which the police did not concern themselves, they had been able to find nothing against them, though they strongly suspected that they were concerned in many crimes. We went down with them to that quarter, and the police soon found out the place where they lived, but on enquiry were assured that both men were ill, the old woman who came to the door declaring that they had been in bed for some days. However, the police insisted upon entering, and speedily brought them down. Sidi recognized them at once, and indeed they had scarcely lied in saying that they were ill, for the eyelids of one were so swollen and blackened that he could not see out of them, while the other’s nose was well-nigh as big as the rest of his face.
“They were at once taken before the cadi. He heard my son’s evidence, and then said that had it been proved they attempted to steal the horse, he would have had their heads smitten off, but that though this was doubtless their intention, they had not done so. He sentenced them to a hundred blows with a stick, and to be expelled from the town and neighbourhood, warning them that should they be found near the town again, they would assuredly be punished with death. I waited and saw the blows administered, and although I felt angry that the cadi had not ordered them to execution, I admit that the punishment was severe enough, and the wretches howled like whipped curs. I trust that there will be no more trouble from them. Still, I hope that this will not prevent your son coming to visit us.”
“Certainly not, sheik. He is prepared and ready to go, and he is looking forward to his stay with you with so much pleasure that even did I wish it I could not now deprive him of the enjoyment of it. Still, I am heartily glad that the two fellows have been expelled the town, for I should never have felt easy as to Edgar’s safety so long as they were here.”
A few minutes later the party set out. Edgar’s valise was fastened to the saddle of one of the sheik’s followers. The road ran along the sandy dunes that divided the low country, formerly covered by Lake Mareotis, from the sea, and as soon as they were well out from the town the horses were broke into a gallop. While in point of actual speed even the best Arab horses cannot hold their own against a moderate English race-horse, whose greater height and longer stride gives him an advantage, they are greatly superior in last, and possess extraordinary endurance and stamina. Brought up as if belonging to the family of their owners, their intelligence has been cultivated as has that of dogs. They are exceedingly docile and affectionate. Their pace is a very easy one, and Edgar was delighted indeed at the manner in which his new acquisition flew along without any apparent exertion, continuing the pace without a check until they reached the Arab encampment in an hour and twenty minutes from leaving Alexandria.
Here they leapt from their horses in front of a group of black tents. The oasis was of small extent, extending but two hundred yards across. In the centre was a group of thirty or forty palm-trees. Near these the herbage was thick, gradually dwindling away until it became lost in the sand. In the centre, near the tents, was a well, an irregularly-shaped pit some five-and-twenty feet deep, with a rough path down to it by which the women went to get water both for their own use and for that of the horses. A score of
these were tethered on the grass.
“You are welcome to our tents,” the sheik said; “may your visit be a fortunate one! Mulick,” he called to one of the Arab boys, “take Beauty; but first,” he went on to Edgar, “it were best that you talked to him a little, and gave him some sweets. He will soon get to love you, and it is well that he should hear your voice as often as possible.”
“I will lead him out myself,” Edgar replied, “and then Mulick can tether him. I shall know another time how to do it myself.”
Then he patted the Arab’s glossy neck, rubbed its ears, and praised it, giving it a handful of sweets while he did so. Beauty evidently appreciated the attentions, and replied to him by a low whinny. Then he took off its saddle and led it to a spot Mulick pointed out, and then watched the boy tether it, and took off the bridle and carried it back to the tents. A woman came out from the largest of these. She was not veiled, for except when they go into the towns the Bedouin women seldom conceal their faces.
“Ayala,” the sheik said, “this is the young white lord who saved Sidi from those who attacked him; henceforth he is as one of our tribe.”
“May the blessings of Allah fall upon you!” the woman said. “Sidi is our only child. Had he been taken from us our lives would have been desolate indeed.”
“I am very glad that I happened to come along at the time,” Edgar said. “It has been a most fortunate occurrence for me, as much indeed as for Sidi. I have no friends of my own age, and it will be great pleasure to me to have him as a sort of brother. I am sure that we shall get on capitally together. Besides which, your husband has given me a grand horse, such as I could never have obtained for money. Sidi will be able to teach me Arab ways, and I daresay I shall be able to show him something of our customs and life.”