But, according to the sacred custom, he only asked for a bowl of water, drank it, said “Allah!” and bowed his head three times towards Mecca—and bowed his head no more.
Before another quarter was added to the moon, Yusef, the drunken ghaffir, at the door of Soada’s hut in Beni Souef, told old Fatima the most wonderful tale, how Mahommed Selim had died on his sheepskin, having killed ten Dervishes with his own hand; and that a whole regiment had attended his funeral.
This is to the credit of Yusef’s account, that the last half of his statement was no lie.
ON THE REEF OF NORMAN’S WOE
“It was the schooner Hesperus
That sailed the wintry sea;
And the skipper had taken his little daughter
To bear him company.
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Such was the wreck of the Hesperus
In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman’s woe!”
Only it was not the schooner Hesperus, and she did not sail the wintry sea. It was the stern-wheeled tub Amenhotep, which churned her way up and down the Nile, scraping over sand banks, butting the shores with gaiety embarrassing—for it was the time of cholera, just before the annual rise of the Nile. Fielding Bey, the skipper, had not taken his little daughter, for he had none; but he had taken little Dicky Donovan, who had been in at least three departments of the Government, with advantage to all.
Dicky was dining with Fielding at the Turf Club, when a telegram came saying that cholera had appeared at a certain village on the Nile. Fielding had dreaded this, had tried to make preparation for it, had begged of the Government this reform and that—to no purpose. He knew that the saving of the country from an epidemic lay with his handful of Englishmen and the faithful native officials; but chiefly with the Englishmen. He was prepared only as a forlorn hope is prepared, with energy, with personal courage, with knowledge; and never were these more needed.
With the telegram in his hand, he thought of his few English assistants, and sighed; for the game they would play was the game of Hercules and Death over the body of Alcestis.
Dicky noted the sigh, read the telegram, drank another glass of claret, lighted a cigarette, drew his coffee to him, and said: “The Khedive is away—I’m off duty; take me.”