Dahab, on the way back, said he thought my tulsim looked a very good one, but he did not at all believe in the afrit theory.
“Afrit,” he said in his funny English. “Never. Ibrahim he very fine man and women in Dakhla all bad, very bad, like pitch. One women he want speak Ibrahim.” This was very likely the size of it.
But I laid the ghost anyway. No more clods were thrown at my camels.
CHAPTER XIV
THERE had been a complete change in the officials of the oasis since we had last been there. The new doctor—Wissa by name—came round to call the day after my arrival. He was a Copt.
He belonged to a rich family, owning large landed estates in the neighbourhood of Assiut.
He spoke English almost perfectly, for like so many Egyptians he was a born linguist. He was, I believe, almost equally at home with French and German. His people being very well-to-do had given him an excellent education, part of which he had received in England and other European countries.
Like all the Egyptians who have been educated in Europe, he was an interesting mixture of East and West—and a very curious compound it was. He talked most learnedly on the subject of medicine, and appeared to have especially studied such local diseases as “dengue” and “bilharsia.” Whenever I allowed him to do so, he gave me most racy accounts of his life as a medical student in Europe.
But he was an ardent treasure seeker, and his favourite topic of conversation was occultism and magic, in all of which he had the native Egyptian’s profound belief. He, the Senussi sheykh, Ahmed el Mawhub, and the ’omda of Rashida, had formed a sort of partnership to search for treasure, agreeing to divide equally between them anything that they found.