Playing with Fire: A Story of the Soudan War

by James Grant

At this time several peculiar duties, exciting enough, though not orthodox soldiering, devolved on the troops, and more than once Malcolm Skene, as a subaltern, found himself with a part of the picket aiding the miserable Egyptian police in the now nightly task of closing and clearing out the Assommoirs and Brasseries, gambling and other dens, which were kept open with flaring lamps till gun-fire—a task often achieved by the fixed bayonet and clubbed rifle; and in the course of these duties he had more than once come unpleasantly in almost personal contact with Pietro Girolamo, a leading promoter and frequenter of such places, and one of the greatest ruffians in Cairo or Alexandria, under what is now known as the Band system.

One result of the leniency shown to the followers of Arabi Pacha, who were allowed to escape or disperse after Tel-el-Kebir, was a flooding of the country with armed banditti, by whom some districts were absolutely devastated, and with whom it was suspected that the native authorities were in league, as the police always disappeared with a curious rapidity whenever they were most required. A 'Flying Commission' was appointed to deal with these brigands, but without much avail, though certainly some were captured, tried, and hanged—even on the Shoubra Road, the 'Rotten Row' of the fashionable Cairenes.

The Band system, in which Pietro Girolamo figured so prominently, is a murdering one by no means stamped out by the presence even of our army of occupation, and is a result of the pernicious habit of carrying weapons among the lower class of Greeks and Italians; thus scarcely a week passes without a stabbing affray.

In the Esbekeyeh Gardens, outside the theatre, some high words passed one evening about a girl artiste, during one of the entr'actes, between an Italian and Girolamo, who laid the former dead by one blow of his poniard. For this he was tried before his Consulate and merely punished by a nominal fine, while nightly the actress appeared on the stage, draped in black for her lover, to sing her comic songs.

'Cairo and all the large towns' (says the Globe) 'are infested by the refuse of the Levant—hordes of Greeks of the criminal class and of the most desperate character, with no more respect for the sanctity of human life than a Thug. These men come here to spoil Egypt, and some of them are, in addition, retained by private persons as bullies, if not assassins. Appeal to the Greek Consul, and he will tell you that he can do nothing in regard to these idle and disorderly characters, though the French, Italian, and German authorities deport the same class of their own countrymen on the first complaint.'

The reason of Pietro Girolamo transferring the scene of his life, or operations, from Alexandria to Cairo was an outrage in which he had been concerned a year or two before this period.

In a café near the Place des Consuls were two respectable and very beautiful girls who served as waitresses, till one evening several carriages drove up and a number of ruffians, armed with yataghan, pistol, and poniard, entered, and instead of opposing them, every man in the café made his escape.

'This girl's smiles would inspire a flame in marble!' cried Girolamo, seizing one of the waitresses, whom his companions carried off to the Rosetta Gate, where she was savagely treated and left for dead by the wayside; and—according to a writer in the Standard—only one of her murderers—an Egyptian Bey—was punished by a fine.

'Life is short—what is the use of fussing about anything?' was the philosophic remark of Pietro Girolamo, who was a native of Cerigo (the Cythera of classical antiquity), and latterly the 'Botany Bay' of the Ionian Isles.

All unaware that this personage was in league with the proprietors—if not actually one—of a handsome roulette saloon, in a thoroughfare near the Esbekeyeh Gardens—a place from where it was said no man ever got home alive with his winnings—Malcolm Skene, then in the mood to do anything to teach him to forget, if possible, Hester Maule and that night in the conservatory at Earlshaugh, had spent on hour or so watching the fatal revolving ball, and risking a few coins thereon, after which he seated himself to enjoy a cigar, a glass of wine, and a London newspaper, at a little marble table, under a flower-decorated awning, in front of the edifice.