It Happened in Egypt

by C. N. Williamson; A. M. Williamson

"Don't split your infinitives till things get desperate," I begged. "It hasn't come to that yet. If you must go back, I'll take it on my shoulders to watch your private interests a bit, as well as the rest. Look out for a telegram one of these fine days, saying 'Come at once.' You'll know what it means."

"I will, bless you, my boy," he said heartily. "Though I am hanged if I know what you mean by a split infinitive. I hope if its improper, I've never inadvertently done it before a lady."

There seemed to be an atmosphere of suspense for everybody who mattered, as we steamed on between strange black mountainettes, and tiger-golden sands toward Wady Halfa. Anthony was in suspense about the way his fate might arrange itself at Khartum. I was in suspense as to Biddy's decision, which nothing I was able to say could wheedle or browbeat out of her. He and I were both in suspense together, about the Mountain of the Golden Pyramid. It would be ours now, we knew that. But what would be in it? Would it be full of treasure, or full of nothing but mountain, just as a crusty baked pudding is full of pudding? The doubt was harder to bear, now that Anthony was in love with a very rich girl, and desired something from the mountain more substantial than the adventure which would once have contented him. Harder to bear for me, too, wanting Biddy and wanting to give her luxury as well as peace, such as she had never known in her life of tragedy and brave laughter.

Monny was in suspense quite equal to Anthony's about Khartum, and what could possibly happen there to give her happiness. Brigit was in suspense about the two men who had so strangely and secretly worked with their spy, Bedr, and whom she expected to meet again later. Rachel was in suspense about Bailey, although I had told her it was "going to be all right," and he had said not a word of the business to her. What she wanted, was to make sure of him, and there was the difficulty at present, since we had failed to arrange for a registry-office or a clergyman on board. Other hearts were no doubt throbbing with the same emotions, but they were of comparatively small importance to me.

Our feelings were all so different and so much more intense than they had been, that the extraordinary difference in the scenery gave us a vague sense of satisfaction. We were in another world, now that we had heard the first cataract's roar, and left it behind; a world utterly unlike any conceptions we had formed of Egypt. But we did not for a long time leave the influence of the Barrage. Black rocks ringed in a blue basin so lake-like that it was hard to realize it as the Nile. Now and then a yellow river of sand poured down to the sapphire sea, and where its bright waves were reflected, the water became liquid gold under a surface of blue glass. The sky was overcast, and through a thick silver veil, the sun shone with a mystic light as of a lamp burning in an alabaster globe; yet the flaming gold of the sand created an illusion as of sunshine. It was as if the treasure of all the lost mines of Nub had been flung out on the black rocks, and lay in a glittering carpet there.

We passed small, submerged temples, with their foreheads just above water; drowning palm groves whose plumes trailed sadly on the blue expanse, and deserted mud-villages where the high Nile looked in at open doors to say, "This is for Egypt's good!"

Then there was the little Temple of Dendur, whose patron goddess was prayed to spit if rain were needed; and so many other ruined temples that we lost count (though one was the largest in Nubia) until we came to Wadi-es-Sabuá, "the Valley of the Lions." This we remembered, not because it was imposing, or because it had a dromos of noble-faced sphinxes—the only hawk-faced ones in Egypt—or because of its prehistoric writings, on dark boulders; or because it had been used as a Christian Church: but owing to the fact that the ladies bought rag dolls from little Nubian girls, who wore their hair in a million greased braids. Here the influence of the Dam faded out of sight. Forlorn trees and houses no longer crawled half out of water. Mountains crowded down to the shore, wild and dark and stately as Nubian warriors of ancient days. Then came Korosko, point of departure for the old caravan route, where kings of forgotten Egyptian dynasties sent for acacia wood, and Englishmen in the Campaign of the Cataracts fought and died; deserted now, with houses dead and decayed, their windows staring like the eye-sockets of skulls; and the black, tortured mountain-shapes behind, lurking in the background as hyenas lurk to prey. More temples, and many sakkeyehs (no shadoofs here, on the Upper Nile) but few boats. The spacious times were past, when loads of pink granite, honey-coloured sandstone, fragrant woods, and spices from the Land of Punt, went floating down the stream!

There were tombs as well as temples which we might have seen, savage gorges and mild green hills. There was the great grim fort of Kasr Ibrim; and at last—there was Abu Simbel.

Somehow I knew that things were bound to happen at Abu Simbel. I didn't know what they would be, but they hovered invisible at my berth-side in the night, and whispered to warn me that I might expect them.

A few people rose stealthily before dawn to prepare for Abu Simbel, because it had been hammered into their intellects by me that this Rock-Temple was the Great Thing of the Upper Nile. Also that every he, she, or it, who did not behold the place at sunrise would be as mean a worm as one who had not read the "Arabian Nights."