The pirogue now seemed to have stopped. They had realized the danger. But instead of remaining in the same position she veered round and presented her broadside to the land. This time she was clearly visible; we were lost. The two camels passed a bare fifteen yards behind us. I heard the soldiers clicking their tongues to encourage their camels, which started to trot. The pirogue continued to swing round until she was just a vague speck in the night. She had taken up a position at right angles to the shore. The meharists had now passed us. They trotted off, and in a few seconds the sounds of drumming hoofs died away, and there was silence again.
‘We certainly are lucky,’ I said to Djebeli; ‘it’s a miracle they did not see the pirogue.’
‘Nocib!’ replied Djebeli, ‘but I think they did see it, only they were afraid they were surrounded by armed men hidden in the bushes and they preferred to trot off as quickly as they could. When the frontier guards are in detached pairs they are not very dangerous. But we’ll have to hurry, for they will give the alarm at the first post which has a telephone, and before morning there will be a whole army here. It’s rather a nuisance
While he was speaking he searched for fire to relight his cigarette, but he hadn’t any more and my matches were damp. Those stupid details can sometimes start the most tragic and far-reaching dramas. Somebody has called these infinitesimal beginnings of great convulsions ‘the conjuration of imponderables’. I should be obliged to call the pirogue. It was most imprudent, but there was nothing else to be done. Making a megaphone of my hands I stooped down and sent a call softly over the water. By this means those who are near the surface of the water can hear at great distances. Perhaps the vibrations are transmitted by the mass of water, or the elasticity of the surface; the superficial tension acts as a membrane. But at this moment I was far from indulging in speculations about acoustics; I contented myself with doing as I had seen fishermen do.
But the pirogue did not seem to hear, so, throwing prudence to the wind, I shouted. Let come what might. At last I heard the dip of the paddles, and the pirogue grounded on the beach. We threw ourselves feverishly on the bundles and carried them off instantly in a sort of frenzy, as if avenging ourselves on them for the anxiety they had made us endure for three-quarters of an hour.
At last everything was gathered in a sort of little ravine at the foot of these hills which had served us as guides. Still our Bedouin had not come tack. The dawn was near, the morning star had just risen out of the sea and was rapidly climbing the sky. How quickly it seemed to go up today. I thought of the stormy nights when I had sighed after its appearance and when it had seemed to linger on purpose. But now when it was a few degrees higher the sky would begin to pale.
Djebeli was worried too. He said nothing, but I could follow his thoughts. This night patrol, the distance at which the camels had remained, all that was not reassuring. If anything happened here our merchandise was spread out in full view and there was no chance of hiding it in this rocky ground. In less than an hour we should be forced to beat a retreat, abandoning everything.
I cursed Gorgis and Stavro who had so lightly led me into this scrape. If I had been in their place I should rather have died than go back on my word. And I thought of Gorgis’ palace with its pink marble staircase and his ostentatious spending. What did he risk? His customers’ money, that was all. No doubt he was sleeping at this moment and snoring like a brute. All Stavro did was to burn candles and dream dreams. Nice mess I had got myself into, thinking I was plunging into a romantic adventure. I had wanted to play at smuggling and act for my own benefit. Up to the present I had adventured alone, counting only on myself, but now I had to depend on others. That was where I had made the mistake and I was to pay dearly for it. But it served me right. I was well punished for having neglected the Arab proverb which says: ‘Think always that everybody depends on thee, but do thou depend only on thyself.’ When one forgot this proverb one raved of ingratitude, injustice, persecution and so on, and one became morose and soured. I tried to whip up my courage by such reasoning to give me the strength to go through with this disastrous abandon without complete despair.
Just at that moment, when I had resigned myself to the worst, shadows suddenly and silently began to flit between the rocks round us. They undulated and crouched. I could see the gleam of rifle barrels. Then they stood abruptly upright. One of them came forward; it was our Bedouin guide. A score of others advanced as soon as he had recognized us. All my philosophy was forgotten; only one thing existed in the world; that was the necessity of loading our merchandise on the camels at lightning speed.
Without a word each Arab seized a double bundle and vanished into the ravine. Djebeli held a low conversation with four hefty fellows armed with Remingtons. His first words had been to ask for matches, for he could not remain a single hour without smoking. I admired his imperturbable calm; he seemed to be a blasé spectator of all this feverish activity. This strange being never showed the slightest emotion. I had to ask him to interpret for me, for I could not understand a word of the dialect of these mountaineers. They had been forced to leave the camels six miles away because all the patrols had been doubled the last three days, and the presence of this herd of camels would have aroused suspicion. Nobody knew yet the reason for this extra vigilance.
The leader of the caravan had thought it would be more prudent to put the affair off until another day, and had sent a man to warn us that he would not be there. Our Bedouin had happened to meet him halfway, and had explained that as all the cargo had already been landed there could be no question of putting off till next day, for if we did we should lose everything. Thanks to this chance meeting, which was almost miraculous when one reflects that it was very dark and that neither man followed any definite path, the camel-drivers had come themselves to transport the bundles while the camels advanced slowly to meet them. When they had all disappeared with their loads, the four armed Arabs who had been the advance guard now closed the rear.
When I saw these grimly determined men I realized that their way of earning their living is a most dangerous one. Once they had started on an expedition human life was cheap indeed in their eyes; they became primitives ready to kill an adversary without the slightest hesitation or scruple. That is what happened to us in the war, though we were alleged to be civilized and had been brought up to venerate human life. After a little training we massacred men who had done us no harm, with as little hesitation as we might have shot a pheasant before the war. I also realized that the job of frontier guard was no sinecure when they went out after these desperate men, and I quite understood the haste with which the two soldiers of the patrol had spurred on their mounts when they saw on the sea what they had taken for a boat.
THIRTY-FOUR
Footprints in the Sand
Words cannot describe our lightness of heart as we made our way back to the sea; it was almost worth all the worry to have such a glorious feeling. The most urgent thing to do was to efface the marks of our bare feet in the sand. I realized that we should never manage to restore its virginal appearance to the trampled sand, but on the contrary, any attempt would simply point to a guilty conscience. If an innocent fisherman had landed there he would never think of trying to efface his footprints. So I stopped my men levelling the sand, and sent them to pick up driftwood. I was lucky enough to find some fairly big branches, and I set up three stones to make a primitive hearth, as the fishermen do. Thanks to the matches Djebeli had luckily thought of asking, I contrived to light a fire in the shelter of a rock. I piled up the wood so as to get as much ash as possible. If a patrol came to inspect the beach next day this fire would explain the footprints. Since the camels had remained several miles inland, there were no suspicious traces to upset the theory that a peaceful fisherman had been here in the night.
We quickly entered the water to look for the pirogue, which we had taken the precaution to sink. Only her two tips stood above the surface like pebbles. If we hadn’t known she was there we should ne
ver have seen her. In a few seconds she was afloat, still half-full of water. We climbed aboard, half of us paddling and the rest baling out. At last we reached the Fat-el-Rahman, whose mast stood out against the already paling sky. We unfurled the sail which we had left rolled round the lateen yard so that we could be off at very short notice. When finally dawn flamed in the sky we were two or three miles from land.
The hills we had just left, these black cones dimly seen through the darkness, these gloomy ravines where we had lived such anxious hours, all this stretch of country which our terrors had peopled with hostile shadows — all this became suddenly rosy and smiling in the glory of the rising sun and when the big red sun appeared over the purple plateaux of Asia, spreading a shining veil over all nature, the anguish vanished from our thoughts as if it had never been, leaving us joyous and carefree.
Djebeli had decided to remain ashore, first because his presence on the bouire was superfluous and even dangerous if it were known, but also because he wanted to be at Suez as rapidly as possible, to find out, from one of his numerous friends in native circles, why the patrols had been doubled.
The wind blew from the north as always in this gulf. We had to tack, but I had never so enjoyed a tedious piece of navigation. Now we were really free from all care. I didn’t care if misfortune did overtake the caravan; I should have sacrificed the rest of my money with a light heart; the fact of having succeeded was reward enough, and the sum I had already received was nearly double the small capital with which I had set out. Instead of going back and anchoring in the roads I went on to the little harbour at Old Suez, at the end of the tortuous channel that wound across the lagoons to the left of the canal. The tide was rising and bore us in rapidly. The agency of the Messageries Maritimes was on the quay of this old harbour, to which nowadays only an occasional bouire came. The Helen, the only steamer which ever deigned to put in here, was drowsing with banked fires opposite the entrance.
There we were within the customs’ waters, and when the customs officer who was on duty perceived us he came on board and had a conscientious rummage. I was delighted to have him poke his nose into every corner. I could not wait till evening before seeing Stavro. The sooner I told him about the night’s adventures the better; he was the only man who could draw a plausible conclusion from these happenings. He was at home, for he had seen my boutre and was expecting a visit from me.
‘You have had unheard-of luck,’ he said to me. ‘I spent a ghastly night for I thought all was up with you. I had sent a man to warn you of the danger and tell you not to go, but you had already set sail and I couldn’t lay hands on Djebeli. A fisherman has been arrested with your two okes of hashish in his possession. To save himself he invented a long story about a caravan coming from Syria, and if you had been captured on the Asiatic coast your goose was cooked.
‘For my part, I had some of my agents report that they had seen a herd of camels beside Ras Sudr. This fixed the attention of the police on this shore of the gulf, but once the police is alarmed it is like setting fire to a heap of straw; everything burns. Encouraged by the hope of making a profitable capture the frontier guards on the African coast also showed abnormal zeal, and that was why I feared for you.’
At this moment there came a knock at the door. Stavro’s face became the colour of paper. I was surprised to see how jumpy this colossal creature was. We held our breath, waiting for the visitor to knock again, but the minutes passed without anything happening; so it was one of the band.
The sister-in-law went and opened the door. It was Djebeli. Stavro’s hands were trembling slightly and beads of perspiration stood on his brow. His eyes were two points of interrogation. Djebeli saluted, unruffled as ever.
‘Well, what is it? Speak, for heaven’s sake.’
‘Everything’s all right, at least things might have been much worse.’
‘So there is something?’
‘Yes, the pirogue was seen yesterday, but the guards did not recognize it. They called it a boutre, probably to excuse their flight. This morning, an officer and twenty men went to examine the spot where the alleged boutre had been seen.’
Djebeli stopped and searched in his pockets for a cigarette.
‘Well then? Go on, for heaven’s sake,’ implored Stavro, white as a sheet.
Djebeli cast him an ironic glance from his solitary eye, which seemed to laugh in the reflection of the candle at whose flame he was lighting his cigarette. Stavro clenched his fists as if he could hardly refrain from striking him.
‘Well’, continued Djebeli tranquilly, ‘they found the hearth. Though the ashes were cold, it was obvious that there had been a fire there only the previous night. This detail put the guards out of countenance. They were immediately asked how it was they had not noticed this fire. The details they had invented to justify their cowardly flight seemed ridiculous. This cooking in the open air, those footprints innocently left on the sand, not the slightest trace of camels, everything showed that the nocturnal visitors had been merely fishermen who had landed there to warm themselves and heat their supper while waiting till it should be time to lift their lines. The officer was furious, and condemned the guards to a week’s imprisonment to teach them to run away from fishermen.’
As Djebeli spoke, Stavro’s face cleared; he seemed to be breathing in new life. The portrait of the old fighter hanging on the wall above his rifle seemed to look down pityingly on this colossal son of his, who hid such a timorous soul in his huge body. Fire brings forth ashes, as the Arabs say. Stavro was quite reassured now and became his normal self. He reassumed his imposing air and his grey eyes had once more their eagle gleam. He escorted me to the door, rubbing his hands together gleefully. We made an appointment for the morrow in Cairo, when I should receive the rest of my money, if all went well.
THIRTY-FIVE
The Jews
I was now at ease and could leave my boutre without being haunted by fears of disaster. The same evening I set out for Alexandria. I wanted to see Jacques Schouchana (see Secrets of the Red Sea) and if possible sell him the pearls I had left. Last time I had seen him at Massawa he had given me his brother’s address.
When I reached Alexandria I took one of these old horse-cabs at the station, and drove to it. It was a very fine jeweller’s shop in the Rue Sesostris, in the richest part of the town. I was received with great cordiality, after the Jewish fashion. Jacques had spoken about me, and immediately they called me Mr Henri and treated me as an old friend.
‘Yes, Jacques is here. He arrived from Massawa ten days ago. He will be here presently, but it is only nine o’clock yet; that’s a little early for him. Did you being any pearls?’
They lost no time in getting down to brass tacks. I showed all I had left. They made disparaging faces and began bargaining discreetly, as was seemly, with a friend.
‘But I’m not at all anxious to sell them,’ I said; ‘I’m simply showing you them in order to have your opinion about them.’
‘You’re wrong, upon my word, you’re wrong. Look what Jacques brought with him.’
And he opened a safe and showed me some magnificent pearls. Naturally mine looked very measly by contrast.
‘Well,’ went on the brother, ‘what do you think he paid for these?’
And he named a ridiculously small sum. I was completely crushed.
‘Pearls are getting cheaper every day,’ he went on after a moment’s silence; ‘diamonds are what are in demand. Look, I have a splendid stone here. I got it cheap – it was left as security for a loan. You ought to take it and get rid of your pearls, that would be a good spec, for you.’
I felt as a mutton-bone overrun by ants must feel, that I should be cleaned to the last fragment of meat. Luckily, Jacques arrived. A messenger had gone to tell him I was here. He had got up in my honour and greeted me affectionately, saying ‘thou’ to show what an old friend he was. I was very pleased to see him again, for he was a frank, loyal and good fellow, honest as the day, and he recalled the good
old days when I had started pearl fishing. And then we had an inexhaustible subject of conversation in the death of Saïd Ali, for at this time I had not yet solved that mystery. (See Secrets of the Red Sea.) I could not think of lying to him, so told him frankly what had brought me to Egypt. He looked absolutely terrified; his eyes started out of his head.
‘Four hundred okes? But that is an enormous quantity. How much did you get the oke?’
‘Three pounds.’
‘What, you have been robbed. Hashish is worth more than thirty pounds just now. Ah, if you had only come to me; you must have fallen into most unscrupulous hands.’
I explained that in the deal I had made all the risks of smuggling had been eliminated as well as all the tiresome formalities and heavy dues of the customs.
‘But there’s no danger whatever,’ he exclaimed; ‘at least for those who are not under suspicion, for those who have a genuine profession, as I do, and a clean reputation.’
“What, Jacques, you would have dared?’
‘Oh, you don’t know me. I look like a softy; you are always poking fun at my ties and my perfumes, but I’m bold enough, yes, yes, you needn’t laugh, I’m bold enough.’
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