An Arab gardener on the estate of the American consul of Cairo, for whom I worked two weeks.
On the evening of the entertainment I helped to look after the dinner. We were separated only by a Japanese screen from the guests of the evening. Among them were Lord Cromer and the ex-Empress Eugénie, once Queen of France, who was driven from the throne by the Germans in 1870; the Crown Prince of Sweden was there, and the brother of the Khedive, ruler of Egypt.
It was long after midnight when I returned to the Asile. Captain Stevenson let me in. I found the inmates there still, all up and awake at that late hour, waiting for me. They were as excited as so many schoolgirls, and asked me question after question about whom I had seen at the party, what they had done, how they had danced, what they had talked about. I was sorry I did not have something interesting to tell them. As it was, the dancing had not been especially graceful, and the conversation of the great people had been commonplace. By arrangement with Tom, I continued to “do it” long after the ball. The food at the servants’ table was excellent, and I kept my cot at the Asile at a cost of two piasters a day.
One evening while sitting in the office at the mission I saw in a Cairo newspaper the following paragraph:
Suez, February 2nd, 1905.
The French troop-ship ——, outward bound to Madagascar with five hundred recruits, reports that while midway between Port Said and Ismailia, on her way through the Canal, five soldiers who had been standing at the rail suddenly sprang overboard and swam for shore. One was carried under and crushed by the ship’s screw. The others landed, and were last seen hurrying away into the desert. All five were Germans.
I showed the paragraph to the superintendent. “Aye,” said Cap; “I’ve seen it; that happens often. They’ll be here for dinner day after to-morrow.”
They arrived exactly at the hour named, the four of them, sunburned and bedraggled from their swim and the tramp across the desert. Two of the four were very friendly fellows. I was soon well acquainted with them. One of the two had spent some months in Egypt before.
On the Friday after they arrived, the one who had been in Egypt on a former occasion met me at the gate of the Asile as I returned from my day’s labor.