At Aboukir and Acre: A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt

by G. A. Henty

Presently a group of French officers came along and seated themselves at a short distance from the two young Arabs. Having not the slightest idea that these could understand what they said, they talked loudly and unrestrainedly.

"The thing is serious, gentlemen," one of them, who was clearly of superior rank to the rest, said. "Since the news of this most unfortunate affair arrived, there has been a great change in the situation. For the last two days there has not been a single horse brought into the horse-market, and the number of bullocks has fallen off so greatly that the commissariat had difficulty this morning in buying sufficient for the day's rations for the army, but the worst of it is, that assassinations are becoming terribly common, and in the last three days fifty-two men have been killed. There will be a general order out to-morrow that men are not to go beyond certain limits, unless at least four are together, and that they are not, under any pretext whatever, to enter a native house.

"Besides those known to have been killed, there are twenty-three missing, and there is no doubt they too have been murdered, and their bodies buried. The Egyptian head of the police has warned us that there are gatherings in the lower quarters, and that he believes that some of Mourad's emissaries are stirring the people up to revolt. A good many parties of Arabs are reported as having been seen near the city. Altogether I fear that we are going to have serious trouble; not that there is any fear of revolt, we can put that down without difficulty, but this system of assassination is alarming, and if it goes on, the men will never be safe outside their barracks, except in the main thoroughfares. One does not see how to put it down. An open enemy one can fight, but there is no discovering who these fellows are in a large population like this, and it would be of no use inflicting a fine on the city for every French soldier killed; that would affect only the richer class and the traders. There is no doubt, too, that the news that our fleet has been completely destroyed has dispirited the soldiers, who feel that for the present, an any rate, they are completely cut off from France."

"That is certainly serious, general," one of the officers said, "and there seems only the project of the invasion of India or a march to Constantinople. After our march here, though it was but little over a hundred miles, and the greater portion of the way along the bank of the river, with our flotilla with stores abreast of us, neither of these alternatives look as easy as they seemed to us before we set foot in this country."

"No, indeed, colonel; our campaign at home gave us no idea of what the march of our army would be across these deserts, and it certainly seems to me that the idea of twenty thousand men marching from here to India is altogether out of the question. If our fleet had beaten the English, gone back and brought us twenty thousand more men, and had then sailed round the Cape, and come up to Suez to fetch us and land us in India, the thing would have been feasible enough, and in alliance with the Sultan of Mysore we might have cleared the English out altogether, but the land march seems to be impossible; a small body of men could never fight their way there, a large body could not find subsistence."

"No; I fancy that Constantinople will be the place at which we shall emerge. A march to Palestine will, of course, be hard, but it is only three or four days from the Egyptian frontier. I don't fancy that there will be any difficulty on the way up through Syria and Asia Minor, and that almost everywhere we shall find cultivated land, and an abundant supply of provisions for the army. As for the Turks, I have no doubt that we shall thrash them, if they venture to interfere with us, as easily as we did the Egyptians. I have no fear for the safety of the army, and if the Egyptians venture on a rising here, before we start, we shall give them such a lesson that a few thousand men left here should have no difficulty in keeping the country in order."

They chatted for some time longer, and then moved off. Edgar repeated to his friend the substance of their conversation, and they then returned to their tent. The next day they wandered through the poorer portion of the town. Groups of men were assembled in many places, talking excitedly; when, as it sometimes happened, a party of French soldiers came along, they broke up, only to assemble at another spot. Sidi and Edgar mingled with them, and gathered that in a short time there would be trouble. It was agreed that so long as the whole French army remained there nothing could be done, but it was regarded as certain that it would soon break up. It was argued that they could not remain at Cairo. Mourad was gathering a large force higher up on the Nile. The Arabs were moving again. Damietta and Rosetta would have to be occupied. There were numbers of the Mamelukes between Cairo and Suez. The French could not remain quietly until the whole country was in arms against them. No doubt columns would be sent off, and as soon as they were gone, the time for a rising would come.

They were going down a quiet lane when two men came out from a house. One of them looked fixedly at Sidi and exclaimed:

"This is the Arab boy who got us into trouble at Alexandria; now it is our turn."

Paying no attention to Edgar, who was so entirely altered by his disguise as to defy recognition, the two men seized Sidi, and began to drag him into the house. Edgar sprang forward and struck one of them so heavy a blow in the face that he released his hold of Sidi and staggered back against the wall. Then with a shout of fury he drew his knife and rushed at Edgar. The latter also snatched his knife from his girdle, shifted it into his left hand, and threw himself into the usual boxing attitude with his left foot forward. The Maltese paused in his rush. This line of defence was altogether new to him. He had been engaged in many a fierce fray, but his opponents had always, like himself, fought with their knives in their right hands.