Lark, Ltd., considers himself a budding rival of the firm of Cook; but a deadly bud. If, however, Sir M. should come to hear that I had flown for succour to the enemy's camp, I fear it would be all over with the bargain for which Anthony and I are selling our souls. T. Slaney says he never shall know. He guarantees that Cook labels and other telltale marks shall be removed from everything, though time is short and there is much to do. He will be the power behind the tents, and I will be in them, absorbing all the credit.
Saturday: All couleur de Rose, thanks to Slaney. Should like to get him canonized. Many less worthy men, now deceased, have been given the right to put Saint before their names. He has handed me a list, something less than a mile long, of articles which Biddy and I, as children, used to call eaties and drinkies. He has told me where the things can be bought, and has written a letter of introduction which secures me "highest consideration and lowest prices." Also he has suggested a medicine-chest, packs of cards, the newest games, cigarettes suited to European and Arab tastes, picture post-cards of desert scenes; ink, pens, and writing paper. "People forget everything they want on these trips, but you mustn't," said he. I have acted on all his suggestions, and feel as proud as if I had originated them myself.
Sunday: My precious friend Slaney has made a large collection of Arabs, camels, tents, etc., and ordered everything, animate and inanimate, to assemble in the neighbourhood of Mena House this afternoon, in order to be inspected by me, and to be ready for a start early to-morrow morning. We are to have a sandcart with a desert horse for Cleopatra, who has tried a camel and found it wanting. I fancy she thinks a sandcart the best modern substitute for a chariot; and at worst, it ought to be as comfortable. Slaney has promised a yellow one —cart, not horse. The horse, by request, is to be white. The other ladies are having camels. I daren't think of Miss Hassett-Bean at the end of the week. The men, also, will camel. There is, indeed, no alternative between camelling and sandcarting—sandcarting not recommended by the faculty but insisted upon by Cleopatra. Hope it will work out all right; and am inclined to be optimistic. A week in the desert and the flowery oasis of the Fayum, with the two most charming women in Egypt! There will be others, but there's a man each, and more. I shall have to look after Monny and Brigit, as Anthony is having his hands full with Cleopatra lately, and, besides, he can't start with us. Something keeps him in Cairo for two days more, and he will have to join us near Tomieh.
Sunday Evening: Back from Great Pyramid, where I went to inspect the assembling army. Magnificent is the only word! The camels fine animals, but Anthony has provided the three best, borrowing these aristocrats of the camel world from Major Gunter of the Coast Guard. They have chased hasheesh smugglers, and have seen desert fighting. Were snarling horribly when I was introduced, but a snarl as superior to the common snarls of baggage-camels as their legs are superior in shape. Biddy, Monny, Mrs. East, and Rachel Guest were there with Sir M. and "Antoun," having been inside the pyramid and up to the top. Monny on her high horse because "Antoun" says it will be better for the ladies to ride the baggage-camels. The others take his word, meekly, but she persists, and Anthony agrees to give her the camel he had meant to ride, the one supposed to be the most spirited. When he joins us, he will have the animal intended for her. When this bargain was struck between them I thought his eyes looked dangerous, but she didn't notice or didn't care. Fenton tells me he has dreamed again of the red-faced man with the purple moustache. I laughed at his bugbear and flung Colonel Corkran in his teeth. By the way, nothing has been heard of C. by any of us since the day he handed in his resignation. Suppose he has gone back to England in the sulks.
Monday Night: I am writing in my tent, which is to be shared with Anthony when he arrives. I feel years older than when we started this morning. Middle age seems to have overtaken me. If I keep on at this rate, shall be a centenarian by the time we get back to Cairo.
We made a splendid caravan at the start. Besides the train of camels ridden by my party from the Candace and Monny Gilder with her satellites (it goes against the grain, though, to call a bright particular star like Biddy a satellite), there were over thirty gigantic beasts laden with our numerous bedroom, kitchen, luncheon, and dinner-tents, tent-pegs, cooking-stove, food for humans, fodder for animals, casks of water, mattresses, folding-beds, other tent furniture, tourists' luggage, and so on. I was happy till after the baggage-train had got away, each camel with its head roped to the tail of the one ahead, all trailing off toward the distant Pyramids of Sakkhara well in advance of us. Each camel looked like a house-moving. On top of the kitchen-camel's load was perched the chêf, a singularly withered old gentleman with black and blue complexion, clad in a vague, flying blanket. (Has been Turkish-coffee man in Paris hotels.) Many other negroid persons in white with large turbans; a few café au lait Arabs; these all counted beforehand by Slaney, for me, and identified as assistant-cooks, waiters, bed-makers, and camel-men, enough apparently to stock a village. But we had one surprise at the moment of starting in the form of a bright black child, clad in white, with a white skull cap and a flat profile evidently copied from the Sphinx. I don't know yet why this Baby Sphinx has come or who he is; but he rode on the kitchen-camel's tail, hanging on by the bread (our bread!) which was in a bag.
When this cavalcade had wound away, the camels making blue heart-shaped tracks in the yellow sand, it was our turn to start. Not one of us would have changed places with any old Egyptian king or queen, and we did not feel vulgar for doing this trip in luxury, because ancient royalties had done the same, and so do the great sheikhs of the desert even now. As I put Cleopatra into the sandcart with its broad, iron-rimmed wheels, she was recalling the days when she travelled with a train of asses in order to have milk for her bath. I suggested a modern condensed substitute, but the offer was not received in the spirit with which it was made. Now to get the ladies on their camels, after which we men would vault upon our animals, and wind away among billowing dunes full of shadowy ripples and high lights, like cream-coloured velvet!
But just here arose the first small cloud in the blue. It was bigger than a man's hand, for it was the exact size and shape of Miss Hassett-Bean's hat. It was a largish hat of imitation Panama trimmed with green veiling, just the hat for a post-card desert all pink sunset and no wind. As she was about to mount the squatting camel, a breeze blew the flap over her eyes. This prevented Miss H.B. from seeing that the camel had turned its neck to look at her; and so, as she reached the saddle and the hat blew up, lady and camel met face to face. It was a moment of suspense, for neither liked the other at first sight. The camel began to gurgle its throat in a threatening manner, and at the same time to rise. Miss Hassett-Bean, staring into two quivering nostrils shaped like badly made purses, shrieked, forgot whether she must first bend forward or bend back, bent in the way she ought not to have bent, and fell upon the sand. I don't quite see why I was to blame for this result, but she saw, and said I ought to have warned her what a vile creature a camel was. Nothing would induce her to try again. She would go to any extreme rather than ride a beast with a snake for a neck, and a nasty unsympathetic face full of green juice which it spit out at you. She was used to being liked. She simply couldn't go about on a thing which would never love her, and she wouldn't want it to if it did. She would go home or else she would have a sandcart. All the neighbouring sandcarts were engaged; but fortunately "Antoun Effendi" appeared at that instant (he'd taxied out to see us off), and he persuaded Cleopatra to let Miss Hassett-Bean drive with her. The desert horse, feeling this extra weight, looked round almost as unsympathetically as the camel had; but nobody paid the slightest attention except his attendant, who was to lead him: a type of negro "Nut," who had a snobbish habit of reddening his nails with henna.
By this time a crowd had assembled, kept in check by the tall, blue-robed sheikh of the Pyramids. It consisted mostly of Arabs determined to take our photographs or sell us scarabs—which Miss Hassett-Bean refused on the ground that she disliked things off dead people. But on the fringe lurked a few Europeans, amused to see so large a caravan setting forth; and the men of our party, hitherto proud of their curtained helmets and desert get-up, became self-conscious under a fire of snapshots.
"Hello, my Boy Scout!" I was hailed by Sir Marcus, arriving three minutes behind Anthony, and on the same errand. This blow to my self-esteem fell as I was leading Monny to the white camel which was hers and should have been Anthony's. She laughed—I suppose she couldn't help it. I couldn't myself, if it had been Harry Snell or Bill Bailey; but as it was, my pride of khaki helmet, knickers, and puttees collapsed like a burst balloon. I seemed to feel the calves of my legs wither. It was in this mood that I had to put Monny on that coastguard camel, while "Antoun" stood looking on. He did not offer to help the girl, as their talk yesterday on the subject of baggage-camels versus running camels had not conduced to officiousness.