Neither did it escape Amina’s observation that Emily looked more pale than on her former visit; and when her two guests were seated, one on each side of her, with the wife of one of the Italian doctors, who officiated as interpreter, she began to inquire after Emily’s health, and how and where she had passed the summer.
These inquiries having been replied to, and the customary compliments exchanged while they sipped their coffee from lilliputian cups enclosed in finjâns of gold filigree studded with diamonds, the conversation assumed a more general turn; for Amina soon found that neither of her guests could bear the pipe, although the tobacco was of the mildest fragrance and the jewelled amber mouthpieces were such as might tempt the lips of a smoke-abominating admiral.
In the course of the conversation Mrs Thorpe observed—
“How sad it is that young Hassan, who came up with us in the dahabiah last year, and who seemed so gentle and polite, should now be a ferocious captain of outlaws and banditti! I hear that he has become a terror to the whole country.” At these words a burning blush mantled over Amina’s neck and crimsoned her cheek up to the temples.
“The subject is painful,” she said, in a tone in which anger was discernible through embarrassment. “You forget, madam, that he risked his life to save mine, and was afterwards driven from our roof by an act of cruelty never sanctioned by my father. He is now once more a Bedouin in his native desert, and an English lady should know that Bedouins, although wild and warlike in their lives, are not banditti.”
Mrs Thorpe saw by the hurried accent and kindling glance of the Turkish maiden that she had ventured on dangerous ground, and she and her daughter rose to take leave, and rejoined their dahabiah on the Nile. They passed Siout and Keneh, and were already within a day of Thebes. Mr Thorpe held in his hand a volume of Diodorus Siculus, but his eye wandered often from its pages and rested on Emily’s countenance, where he gladly traced the symptoms of improving health which the climate had produced.
Suddenly were heard loud cries for “help” and “mercy” from the boatmen on the shore who had been employed in slowly towing the heavy dahabiahs from the bank against an adverse wind and current. Immediately above the path was a dense copse of low brushwood, from which twenty or twenty-five men, well armed, sprang upon them, and in an instant they were thrown to the ground and secured, whilst the steersman, and the few others who remained on board, exclaiming, “It is the band of Hassan Ebn-el-Heràm,” gave themselves up for lost. The dahabiahs having been hauled up to the bank (during which operation loaded carabines were presented at the helmsman to warn him of the consequence of resistance), the freebooters sprang on board, and having bound all the men of the party, they proceeded to ransack the cabins and collect the spoil with a coolness and deliberation which could only be the result of long practice.
“Quick, my men,” shouted Abou-Hashem, for he it was who led the party; “let us collect the spoil and mount for fear of interruption.”
The last package brought out from the cabin contained Mr Thorpe’s writing-desk, and he called to Demetri, who was likewise tied on the deck, to tell them that he would willingly give them his money, but that the desk contained papers of value to him but of no use to them, for which reason he hoped they would leave it. While Demetri was explaining this to Abou-Hashem a crashing noise was heard among the bushes of the copse on the bank, and in a second Hassan, followed by Abou-Hamedi and Abd-hoo, stood on the deck of the dahabiah. The perspiration that streamed from his face, and the crimsoned foam that stained the lower border of his serwal,[[108]] betokened the furious speed at which he had ridden; the veins on his forehead were swelled, and there was a dangerous fire in his eye, which his habitual self-command was unable at the moment to quell.
“Allah have mercy upon us!” groaned the Arab boatmen, recognising at once by his haughty look and towering stature the terrible outlaw of whose predatory feats they had heard so much; “we are all dead men now.”