“Never,” he replied. “I learnt indeed that she visited her sister in disguise, who received her kindly, and procured for her, under a feigned name, a home in the harem of one of our pashas; but her sister is dead, and her secret died with her, unless, indeed, it be known to an old woman who was her favourite slave, and whom, if she be yet alive, I will try to find in Cairo.”
“Inshallah!” ejaculated Hassan earnestly, “may we find her.”
He then related to his father the incidents of his own brief but eventful life, which he did with the unassuming simplicity and truthfulness natural to his character. He made no secret of his attachment to Amina, or of the circumstances under which it had been fostered, and renewed hope arose in his breast when he found that his father and Delì Pasha were old companions in arms and intimate friends.
Hassan’s impatience to reach Cairo, in the hope of seeing Amina and tracing his mother, became now so great that Dervish Bey could not long resist it; but before setting out he determined, with the usual energy of his nature, to break up the band of thieves by whom he had been attacked, and who, notwithstanding the severe loss they had sustained, might still be sufficiently strong to do much mischief in the neighbourhood.
A liberal application of the stick to the two who had been captured soon induced them to betray the habitual rendezvous of the band, and Dervish Bey, accompanied by the Governor and a party of fifty horsemen, having made a rapid night march to the indicated spot, came upon them at dawn so unexpectedly that they had not time to make an effectual resistance or escape. A few were killed, and the greater part of the remainder were led back prisoners to Luxor, whence they were forwarded under a guard to Cairo, the galleys at Alexandria being their ultimate destination.
Having accomplished this task, Dervish Bey no longer resisted the urgent entreaties of Hassan that he should proceed to Cairo without delay. Mr Thorpe having brought up with him two tents, which were pitched on the river-bank, and sufficed for the accommodation of his party, he was able to lend his smaller dahabiah to convey Dervish Bey to Keneh, where his own boats awaited him. It was agreed that Abd-hoo should accompany Hassan, while Abou-Hamedi led Shèitan by slow stages to the capital.
Before leaving his kind English friends Dervish Bey testified his gratitude for the care and attention which they had shown to Hassan by giving them two curious relics which he happened to have with him, and which Hassan assured him would afford them the greatest pleasure.
To Mr Thorpe he gave a rare antique scarabæus, attached by a gold chain to a ring of the same metal, with a hieroglyphic inscription: it had been found near Assouan, and though only of the Ptolemaic date, was a very fine specimen. To Müller he gave a very old MS. of the New Testament, found in a ruined Coptic convent in the Said: one-half the page was written in Coptic and the other half in Greek. To Müller the volume was a great prize.
When the hour of leave-taking arrived, Hassan shook hands with all the party after the English fashion, thanking Mr Thorpe and Müller for all their kindness during his illness in few but feeling words.
Dervish Bey, who had followed close by Hassan in his leave-taking, now preceded him into the dahabiah, from whence they accomplished the voyage to Cairo without accident, and proceeded at once to a fine house belonging to the Bey, situated near the centre of the city, adjoining the Birket-et-Fil, or the “Lake of the Elephant.”