“Here, at the Nile landing. His boat will come to-night for the papyrus rolls.”
Many thoughts passed rapidly through the dragoman’s mind. Here was bad news, indeed. He had planned on getting all those wonderful rolls into his own hands, and his disappointment was keen to find that this isolated Egyptian of an out-of-the-way rock village had already been approached and bought up by one of those rascally scientists, before he, the clever dragoman, had even known of the existence of the treasures.
“He will rob you,” he ventured to suggest.
“Very well,” replied Kāra, indifferently.
Tadros was in despair. Yet one thing was plainly evident—if Winston Bey was about to unload fourteen newly found rolls of papyrus upon the directors of the museum in Cairo, it would be well for him, the dragoman, to get his one roll in first, at the highest possible price. That could easily be accomplished. Winston’s dahabeah would consume four or five days on the downward voyage. Tadros could cross the Nile in a small boat and catch the railway on the other bank, which would land him in Cairo the next day. He promptly decided to take the railway.
“I expect,” said Kāra, “to be in Cairo myself shortly. If you are there, I would like to hire your services as dragoman.”
Tadros, aroused from his meditations, gave a start, and wonderingly examined the speaker from his dirty bare feet all the way up his soiled burnous to his strong, calm face and faded turban. He had been a native of Fedah himself, and had known “the royal one,” as he scornfully called Kāra, from boyhood. Until now he had regarded him as a permanent fixture of the little village; a listless, lazy do-nothing, supported in some mysterious way by his grandmother and destined to grow old amid his solitary surroundings.
Some slight importance Kāra had doubtless acquired through his inheritance of the papyri; but that he should think of visiting Cairo and employing the brilliantly appareled dragoman was a marvel that fairly astounded Tadros. Yet, why not? He would have money. Tadros could assuredly teach him how to spend it. Kāra might become an incident in his career—an element in his future prosperity.
“Call upon me at any time,” he said, condescendingly. “You shall have the advantage of my experience and knowledge of the world.”
“That is what I want,” returned the Egyptian, “and I will pay you liberally for it.”