The Tale of a Trooper Part 4

The gunner voted for the Citadel, and Mac didn't mind, though he had been there once already. They made their way towards a gharry stand, and, spurning clamouring drivers from their path, comfortably seated themselves in the one which appeared to sport the best pair of Arab horses. Their feet supported upon the opposite seat, blue wisps of the best Egyptian tobacco smoke trailing over the hood behind, they set off. Scanning the Oriental life surging round them, criticizing Arab methods of dressing sheep, amused by the scribes and money-changers--dirty though prosperous-looking sharpers--and so on and so forth, they pa.s.sed slowly down the long Sharia-Mahommed Ali, between the frowning walls of two great Mosques, where the cannon b.a.l.l.s of Napoleon are still fast in the stone, and then up the sharp incline into the Citadel itself.

Leaving the Arab driver in a paroxysm of tears because he had received only one-third more than his lawful fare, Jock and Mac pa.s.sed by the sentries, through the cavernous mouth of the main gate into the inner precincts of the Citadel. How powerful a fortress in days gone by it must have been, they thought, but how short lived and unavailing it would prove before modern artillery. They came to a halt before the great Mosque of Mahommed Ali, and the fine, tapering minarets met with their deepest approval. At the entrance they a.s.sumed the apologetic sandals and were taken in hand by an obtrusive dragoman, who, besides impressing them with his own importance, related with small appreciation of truth fabulous facts concerning the edifice. They duly noted his salient p.r.o.nouncements, rewarded him with a few piastres and "ims.h.i.+ yallah'ed" in duet when he demanded more. Then, in the late afternoon sunlight, they stood on the edge of the cliff without. There they talked of many things while looking out over that weird, mysterious city, over its forests of graceful minarets, towards the green delta beyond; across the Nile to the west where the Pyramids of Gizeh stood silhouetted against the setting sun, and down into the gloom in the valley to the east, where, silent and deserted, lay the City of the Dead.

Stirred into activity once more by feelings of emptiness and thoughts of their weekly square meal, they turned their backs upon the glory of the Egyptian evening and wandered down to the depths again. They jostled their way through the throng, human and animal, which made progress difficult and the atmosphere strong. Spotting a couple of donkeys in the charge of one Arab donkey boy, they schemed with each other with a view to his undoing.

"Very gude, Noo Zealand," said the dusky one when approached. "Gib it twenty piastres for stas.h.i.+on."

"All right, ole sport. You'll get it at t'other end, and make your blanky bone-bags go. Savvy?"

They proceeded fairly satisfactorily at first, Ahmed only having to be occasionally reprimanded for not producing sufficient speed on the part of his donks. Then, while the Arab was in front of Mac, vainly endeavouring to persuade Jock's mount to proceed less swiftly, Mac quietly took a turning to the left. The Arab went twenty-five yards farther before he missed him. In violent excitement he tore after him and besought him to stop.

"All right, you black diamond," said Mac cheerfully, and remained standing in the street.

The Arab, his fears at rest, chased the other soldier, but as soon as the native had disappeared round the corner, Mac moved on again. The same thing happened in the case of the gunner, who halted immediately the Arab arrived. The latter wanted to lead the donkey in the direction of the trooper, but the gunner was obstinate and insisted that his was the correct way. In a frame of mind too horrible to contemplate, the Arab disappeared once more in pursuit of the trooper, only to find he had entirely evaporated. In the throes of the greatest dilemma of his life he returned, to learn that the worst had come to pa.s.s and the gunner and his donkey also were gone from his sight.

"Allah! Oh, Allah!" he wailed, and, burying his head in his long blue skirts, he dissolved into tears.

By devious ways Mac and Jock journeyed onwards, until, happy and laughing at having for once done a n.i.g.g.e.r in the eye, they rejoined at the Obelisk Restaurant, where they turned their borrowed steeds adrift.

Coming weekly as it did, dinner in Cairo was an affair of some length, and, between shandies and cigarettes, it was already late when it was _mafeesh_. They strolled along the streets and were about to drop into the Cafe egyptien, when they espied a fellow-countryman struggling with a donkey. They went to his a.s.sistance, to discover that the donk-man was, quite unnecessarily, attempting to stop a bottle of beer being poured down the donk's throat. This promised sport, so Jock quickly procured four more bottles of cheap beer and they joined the third soldier in his estimable effort. Abdul had secured an a.s.sistant against this vile outrage to his animal, but he was temporarily put out of action by having the reins made fast round his lower extremities.

The donk rapidly absorbed three bottles, while the distracted "Gyppies"

tugged and wailed, "No gude! No gude! Finish Noo Zealand!" to which the only reply was "Ims.h.i.+ Yallah, you black devils." At this stage the little beast, an animal of rather miserable dimensions, with a large, rotund centrepiece, escaped and wobbled ridiculously down the street.

He was recaptured, drenched with two more bottles, and let loose to wander wherever his tottery legs would carry him. The donk swayed and stumbled, his ears c.o.c.ked at all angles, and his expression happy and foolish. The gathered soldiers laughed till their sides were sore, and when tired of this fun they let the Arabs take away, as best they could, their ill-used, though happy, a.s.s.

The hour had grown late. To the station the trooper and the gunner wended their way. A short sleep in the train, a tired walk campwards in the clear coolness of the Egyptian night, and to bed on the open sand beneath a starry vault. "Lights out" sounded clearly in their camp, and echoed more beautifully and faintly from other camps along the desert's edge.

CHAPTER VIII

MAC TOURS IN COMFORT

Mac sighed appreciatively. If Egypt was to be seen, this was undoubtedly the way to see it. On the whole it had been an exceedingly profitable little bit of diplomacy, coupled with good luck, that had attached him to a party of distinguished people, whose privilege it was to be shown Egypt as the Government chose to show it. He lay comfortably in his bed smoking. Travelling in this manner appealed to him. His first tastes of Egyptian railway travelling, in dirty, clanking boxes, which required disinfecting, had not been pleasant.

Now, from the darkened cabin of a saloon car on the Cairo-Luxor express de luxe, he watched the fleeting vista of moonlit palms, sleeping villages, and silhouetted hills.

He had left New Zealand some six months before with the intention of slaying Germans, not of touring in luxury in Egypt, but he was not averse to these interim enjoyments. The war could wait, and anyhow at that particular moment it was hardly showing any inclination of stopping, and neither was Zeitoun Camp a place of unmixed blessings.

Arrived at this state of mental satisfaction, he threw the remnants of his cigarette out of the window and went to sleep.

When he awoke, they were rattling over a Nile bridge, and the sun shone full in upon him. The early morning scene of industrious blue-robed fellaheen at work in the green fields, the graceful palms, desert hills, and blue sky thrilled the one artistic fibre which had strayed into his soul. He shaved at leisure, bathed luxuriously, dressed, and met the other four members of the party in the saloon for breakfast.

Towards the end of the meal they steamed into Luxor, where once stood the ancient and wonderful Theban capital.

Here many days were pa.s.sed, investigating tombs and temples of all shapes and sizes; great and wonderful hieroglyphics were explained, though these left the trooper cold. They rode on donkeys deep into the deserts, followed by Sudanese guards on fine Arab steeds.

From Luxor they duly departed in the direction of a.s.suan. The direct distance was not over-long, but the day was blazing hot, the railway was badly constructed, and the sand filtered steadily into the cars.

It was a comic-opera railway, this narrow-gauge line. The contract for its construction was let at an exceedingly profitable rate per mile to a French company. More miles meant more money, so naturally they spun the thing out and consequently for no apparent reason, the line zigzags across perfectly level stretches of desert.

a.s.suan at last. Great nabobs bowed; Mac saluted. The honoured guests would take the State gharries to their hotel? No? Walk! Impossible!

Great people did not walk. It took much gentle persuasion to convey to the Mahmoudieh--the Governor of the Province--that the guests wished to take exercise, now that the cool of the evening was come. His Excellency was a gentleman of portly proportions, who, at some other period, may have walked. Despite his dimensions, he was agile and graceful in his sweeping salaams; when he spoke he emphasized every word with an appropriate sweep of the arm, and his eyebrows arched and his eyes bulged in superlative, ecstatic moments. The ta.s.sel of his tarboosh, a little red inverted flowerpot capping the summit, gyrated violently in moments of excitement. Altogether he was a mighty person.

Perceiving this, the five great ones from the far south paid court to him, addressed him "Your Excellency this" and "Your Excellency that"; and paid tribute to his lands, to his people, and his province, and expressed a desire to see his wives. The Mahmoudieh visibly swelled with pleasure.

a.s.suan was duly investigated. Much like Luxor, it consisted of a terrace along the river-bank, of hotels, some clean and comfortable, some Greek; foreign consulates and banks. Gardens, shaded by palms and lebbak-trees, made this portion of the town quite habitable. Behind, on the rising sand-dunes, lay the crowded, stifling ma.s.s of native dwellings, to visit which one's heart must be strong. Bazaars might be artistic and unique, but as their quaintness and picturesqueness increased so also did the odours of garlic, the uncleanliness, and the flies in their myriads.

Time pa.s.sed pleasantly in a.s.suan, though at length Mac thought they had about exhausted most of its possibilities. There were mosques, temples and bazaars; there was a wild race of desert Bisharin, whose living was precarious in those days of war, since they had existed by dancing weird, wild dances for the enlightenment of tourists; there was a museum, rather a mouldy place like their kind, where were relics of ages untold, and, much to Mac's amus.e.m.e.nt, a mummified sheep. He thought the New Zealand method of freezing much more practicable.

At length, one morning, ere the mist wraiths had vanished, they crawled slowly southwards across the rich golden sand of the lower Sudanese desert. It was pleasantly bracing and clear in the early desert morning, and Mac felt light-hearted and happy, as he gazed across the distant featureless dunes of sand. Successfully accomplis.h.i.+ng a non-stop run of twenty miles in an hour and a half, they arrived at Sh.e.l.lal, a village of a few mud huts and a station, a jetty with a steamer or two, which took travellers farther to the south, to Wadi Haifa and Khartoum. About the place itself there was little of interest; it was a one-horse show with a few Arabs, Bedouins and Sudanese, many flea-bitten mongrels and clouds of flies. But this island-studded expanse of water was the great a.s.suan Dam. The gates had been closed at this season for about a month, and the rising tide had just reached the floor of the beautiful Temple of Isis, which stood, half a mile away, perfectly reflected in the calm waters. They wheezed away over to it in a steam pinnace, got temporarily snagged on the top of a stray pillar, and eventually disembarked from their hissing, modern contraption at the very portals, where oft times Cleopatra and her suite were wont to enter from their state barges.

Mac's rather hazy notions of that lady wrapped her in a halo of romance, and now he walked the lovely aisles which she had trod. Was it, he thought, worth while gradually to spoil this wonderful building for the sake of lucre from twentieth century Egypt?

From the old they went to the new, landing at the eastern end of the great granite wall that bars the Nile at the head of the foaming first cataract. Natives pushed them in trollies along the top of the mile wall. Water roared in great white jets through the sluices, tempering the blistering heat of the midday hours. It was a wonderful work, this dam, a great peaceful desert lake above and a turbulent flood below.

They descended by a flight of locks to the quieter water, and steamed ten or fifteen miles down stream between many islands of red granite, smoothly polished by the rus.h.i.+ng waters of countless centuries. Back again at a.s.suan, they embarked on a luxurious river steamer, the _Sakkara_, and immediately cast off, for down river.

This method of seeing the country took a lot of beating, meditated Mac, as he lounged back in a low chair on the cool deck, with his sleeves rolled up, smoking a cigar. The life of the Nile river-bank was deeply interesting, with a slightly varying background of green fields of berseem, stately palms and rocky desert hills. How cool the palms looked, but he knew from experience that the degree of shade ascribed to them in romantic novels didn't exist in real life. Lulled by the steady reverberations of the paddle-wheels, conscious internally of a satisfying lunch and good wine, he fell asleep. When he awoke, they were manoeuvring carefully up to the bank, and black sailors in Jack Tar uniform quickly extemporized a landing out of planks.

Drawn up on top of the bank, brightly polished and perspiring, stood a line of dusky soldiers, presenting arms. At the end of the gang-plank, his portliness exceeded only by his stateliness, was the great potentate His Excellency the Mahmoudieh of a.s.suan. With sweeping obeisances, he greeted each one in a manner only befitting those who held his provinces in such deep respect. His demeanour demanded rather a setting of pillared palace and crimson velvet than a background of castor-oil bushes and sugar-cane. But he did things properly, did the Mahmoudieh, showed them Kom Ombo Temple, with all the dignity of the proprietor, took them to his sugar-mills in his best donkey-drawn tram-car, and offered them almost everything in his dominions.

Finally, when they re-embarked farther down stream, they warmly bade farewell to the old boy, told him emphatically of the unapproachability of his Province, and bowed and waved handkerchiefs until beyond a bend in the river they lost sight of his memorable shape.

That night the steamer lay moored to the bank near the native town of Edfu. The skipper was considerably concerned, as he explained with violent gesticulations, at the possibility of being stranded on the morrow, as the season of low Nile was at hand. To Mac a day or two in the middle of the river was a matter of little moment. The quarters were comfortable, and Zeitoun Camp was no place towards which to hurry.

So, unmoved by the skipper's anxieties, he retired to the lower deck, and praised the engines to the Sudanese engineer until that gentleman beamed with pride and his teeth glistened white in the dusk.

In the early hours soon after dawn, they went on donkeys to the Temple of Edfu. The morning was mysterious and foreboding. Over the whole country a weird silence reigned and wrapped the towering walls of the ancient temple in eeriness; there were no clouds, but the sun was like a great red moon, and all the landscape enveloped in an orange gloom.

They rode in silence, awed strangely by Nature's will. Animals were restive and gloomy too. They returned to breakfast aboard when the steamer cast off, and proceeded down river. Soon a hot breath of wind came from the south, on which great columns of sand swept over the desert. The gale increased, puffs blew as from a fiery furnace; the sun became obscured altogether, and soon also the river banks. Bored by the gloom of his fellow-voyagers and depressed, Mac betook himself to his state-room, and went to sleep. He woke for lunch, went once more to sleep, awoke again in the evening when Luxor was reached, and hastened through the squalid streets to board the saloon car for Cairo.

Even in the gale and the fog of sand the skipper had not managed to find a convenient mud-bank on which to ground his steamer, and Mac told him he didn't think he was much of a sport.

He had enjoyed Upper Egypt, especially journeying in so comfortable a manner, but, after all, it wouldn't be bad fun seeing the boys again, even if they were at Zeitoun Camp.

CHAPTER IX

MAC LUNCHES WITH THE SULTAN

In the glaring heat of the Egyptian high-noon hours a car drew up outside the large hotel in the Sharia Kamel and a more or less soiled and weather-beaten trooper alighted. He made his way up the steps, across the shady terrace and into the dim cool depths of the pillared hall. He had been to an excessively sandy inspection that morning somewhere in the Sahara, and now his mien betokened appreciative antic.i.p.ation of a refresher to his dusty throat. After that a wash would go rather well, perhaps a cigarette, and then lunch. But, alas, no such luck! Apparently something out of the ordinary was afoot.

Even the dignity of the heavy-weight, superior, self-satisfied, alleged Swiss _maitre d'hotel_ was for the moment disturbed. Native s'fragis, neglecting their work, were voluble, gesticulatory, but quite unintelligible.

Finally, Mac was led to understand that His Serene Highness the Sultan, learning of his presence at the hotel, had made known the Imperial wish that he desired to honour the trooper by entertaining him to lunch.

However, there had been grave difficulties in putting the whole affair in order. Mac had left early for the desert inspection, and several envoys, calling in regular succession, had been unable to learn his Christian name. Moreover, it had been deemed necessary to obtain the a.s.surance of the General Officer Commanding in Egypt that it would be quite in order to invite a trooper to the palace of His Serene Highness. But those small difficulties were duly overcome, and now, twenty minutes before the appointed hour, an extremely gorgeous and majestic person presented Mac with the Serene invitation.

Now, he had considered it an extravagance to arise sufficiently early to permit of his being shaved before the parade. Also his garments, which had wallowed in the mud of Takapau Camp many months ago, were constructed for a person of smaller dimensions, and his generous Government had not taken into consideration such occasions as Sultans'

luncheon parties, when designing the uniform. These were small matters in his mind, and if the Sultan's Imperial wish was to be granted he should have the trooper, beard, uniform and all. So, with the immediate dust of the desert removed and with a borrowed but ancient shako upon his head, he was salaamed down the steps again with unusual pomp and flourish.

The Royal equipage conveyed him with much dignity down the long Sharia Abdin and across the great open square to the palace entrance. As he entered he acknowledged the salute of the gaudy guard in just that off-hand manner befitting a bush-country shepherd. He was much bowed into a great room where there was an epidemic of liveried darkies, a grand chamberlain or so and a few Cabinet Ministers. In common with the rest, he was subjected to a thorough spring-cleaning with feather dusters. Before imperturbable and mighty chamberlains, up to his ankles in crimson carpet and generally struck with the magnificence of his surroundings, Mac for a moment lost his nerve, but speedily recovering himself, informed a tarbooshed individual that it was a fine day. Unfortunately this conversation did not prove fruitful, for, besides the fact that the subject of the weather in Egypt is a quickly exhausted topic, the gentleman to whom the remark had been addressed soon made it evident that he failed to comprehend. However, the trooper soon unearthed a magnificently emblazoned official from the Sudan, who happened to be English, and struck up an acquaintance with him.

A nervous plucking of garments on the part of some of the company indicated that the prelude was near an end. Slowly the a.s.sembly was ushered from the room, along a hall, up a wonderful staircase, and at last into the august presence of His Serene Highness. Mac took note of the contortions through which his predecessors pa.s.sed, made his bow and shook hands with becoming dignity, muttered once more that the day was fine, and backed across the room. All stood round the chamber, and talked about nothing to no one. Others entered and did their gymnastics, until the room contained the whole Cabinet, all portly persons in tarbooshes, the afore-mentioned Sudan gentleman, and a few British people, one in khaki. Now came the real thing. All in order, according to their great greatness or their lesser greatness, filed from the room, Mac bringing up the rear. The dining-room was an apartment of a gorgeousness, the like of which he had not seen before.

He was accorded the gentleman from the Sudan on one side, and a Cabinet Minister with an unp.r.o.nounceable name on the other. The table was oval and loaded with a munificence of delicacies on dishes of gold and silver and a riot of strange exotic flowers.

The epidemic of servants in post-impressionist attire had spread to the dining-hall. Savoury dishes of rare and exceeding excellence appeared and disappeared in rapid procession. Dusky men switched one dish silently away before Mac had half tasted its delights and promptly replaced it by another. Breakfast was some distance in the rear and this food of kings was more to his palate than sand stew "_a la_ Zeitun," and the wine stood high in comparison to the watered beer of Ind, Coope. So all went well. The gentleman from the Sudan talked of many things, and Mac told him nearly all about G.o.d's own country. The Cabinet Minister chipped in occasionally, but scarcely seemed to comprehend the vastness of a sheep station with 200,000 sheep and only a score of shepherds to tend them.

Coffee came, cigars followed, and the trooper made hay while the sun shone.