“Stop him!” “Seize him!” “The spy!” “The rebel!” were the cries: but the Arab passed on like a lion through a crowd of wolves.
Then an Egyptian soldier, bolder than the rest, seized him by the sword-arm, and in a second half a dozen were upon him. But in the next he had shaken himself free, and his bright blade flashed in the sunlight, and down went the first aggressor on the causeway, which was flooded with a crimson stream.
Pistols were pulled out, carbines unslung, as the motley crowd rushed to the spot. Pop, pop, pop; at least half a dozen shots were fired. One bullet whizzed unpleasantly close to Harry’s nose, another smashed in amongst the bottles of an apothecary’s stall, from which an assortment of odours arose, attar of rose and asafoetida being the most prominent. What billets all the other bullets found I know not, but one severed the Arab’s spine, and avenged the Egyptian.
By the time Harry got up to this latter, he saw that a man in European clothing was by his side, kneeling on one knee, and trying to check the flow of blood which pumped out of a wound in his neck.
“Is there a human being here who is not a jabbering idiot?” he cried in English. “Keep back, you fools, and let the man have a chance to breathe.”
“Can I be of any use?” asked Harry, pushing to him.
“That’s right, come on,” said the surgeon, as he evidently was. “Lay hold of this forceps, and hold tight—that’s it—while I cut down a bit and tie it lower down. No good, I fear; there are too many vessels severed. By George, how sharp those fellows keep their tools!”
He was right; it was no good. In five minutes the Egyptian soldier died under his hands. Upon which he rose up and walked on to where the Arab lay, to see if anything could be done for him; but he had hardly moved since the shot struck him.
“A bad business,” said the doctor to Harry, who had followed him. “We have not got many soldiers in our force brave enough to lay hold of an Arab, and can ill afford to lose one of them in a stupid affair like this.”