It Happened in Egypt Part 16

The difficulty was that, though I could speak Arabic fairly well, I hardly knew the difference between hieroglyphic, hieratic and demotic forms; but the limited symbols I was able to employ were so strong in themselves that a few would go a long way: and if they were not as correct as the sentiments they expressed, Monny was not herself a mistress of hieroglyphic style. I could find no hieroglyphic suit in which to clothe the name Ernest; but since I had become keeper of men, mice, and morals in Sir Marcus Lark's floating zoo, Monny's craze for Egyptianizing everything had suggested the nickname of Men-Kheper-R.

She sometimes called me R for short, therefore I now ventured to divert to my own uses a sign and cartouche once the property of a "son of the Sun," and King of Egypt:

[Ill.u.s.tration: "The Love Letter"]

Translation: Beautiful Queen, Star (of) My Heart (and) Soul. Give Me (your) Love. Become My Wife (and) G.o.ddess (for) Eternity.

Men-Kheper-(Ka) R.

I patted myself on the back, put the letter in the ground; and the digging party was a wild success; but time pa.s.sed on, and I had no answer. What I expected was a reply in kind, an hieratic acceptance or a demotic refusal; either one would be good practice for Monny. But not a hieroglyph of any description came. I had to go on as if nothing had happened. To be ignored was less tolerable than being refused. Monny's silence began to get upon my nerves; and to make matters worse, there was that desert trip hanging over my head. I knew even less about organizing a desert trip than I knew about hieroglyphics; yet it had to be done. As Sir Marcus said it was "up to me" to do it so well that Cook would look sick. Anthony was absorbed in secret official duties and open, unofficial duties. His was a great "thinking" part, and our occupations kept us apart rather than brought us together. On the one occasion when we were alone, he devoted four out of five minutes to telling me what he had learned of the night disturbance in front of the House of the Crocodile. "A Britisher of sorts" had come into the street, guided by an Arab. There had been some dispute about payment, and the Britisher had slapped the dragoman's face. This had been followed, as he might have known it would, with a stab; a crowd had a.s.sembled, and scattered before the police; the stabbed one had gone to hospital, the stabber to prison. Altogether it was not surprising that Mansoor, the suspicious caretaker, had feared a trap, and closed his doors. Bedr el Gemaly, now one of the great unemployed, had been seen near the hospital where the injured man lay; but he had taken the alarm and departed without inquiring for the invalid's health; or else his being in that neighbourhood was a coincidence. The name of the man knifed was Burke, and London was given as his address. He was between thirty-five and forty, and according to the arrested dragoman was "not a gentleman, but a tourist." His hurt was not severe: and as the Arab had been exasperated by a blow, the punishment would not be excessive.

When at length I had seized the last remaining minute to put the question, "Do you think Miss Gilder has found out who you really are?"

Fenton seemed astonished.

"I hadn't thought of it at all," he answered simply. "She's giving me too many other things to think of."

"What kind of things?" I stealthily inquired.

"Oh,"--with an evasive air--"I don't know what to make of her yet. But I haven't given up my silly scheme."

"What silly scheme?"

"Antoun" looked almost sulky. "Well, if you've forgotten, I won't remind you. It's absurd; it's even brutal; and I'm ashamed of it. But I stick to it."

CHAPTER XIV

THE DESERT DIARY BEGUN

I found out why Monny paid no attention to my buried letter. But the way in which I found it out (and several other things at the same time) is part of the desert trip.

I am not a man whose soul turns to diaries for consolation; but I did keep up a bowing acquaintance with a notebook in Egypt--it helped me with my lectures--and in the desert it relieved my feelings. Looking over the desert pages, I'm tempted to give them as they stand:

_Black Friday_: Morning. The start's for Monday, and nothing done!

Could I develop symptoms of creeping paralysis, and throw the responsibility on Anthony? But too late for that now; and he may have to stay on in Cairo for a day or two. Why did I leave my peaceful home?

It's the lure of the Mountain of the Golden Pyramid. Last night before I went to bed, read over my copy of Ferlini's letters, to gain courage.

Gained it for a little; but when I think of that desert I'm supposed to turn into a happy playground for trippers, and not a tent hired or a prune bought, or an egg laid, for all I know, I wish Anthony and I had let Lark stick to our mountain.

This is Lark's fault anyhow. He sprang the thing on me. Said it would be easy as falling off a log. Said Cairo was full of Arabs whose mission in life was supplying tents and utensils for desert tours.

People would be charmed with simple life, and me as universal provider.

All I had to do was to supply cheap editions of "The Garden of Allah,"

and plenty of dates; and hint that it was considered vulgar in the Best Circles to put on Peche Melba airs in the desert. With a few quotations, I should make them content with a loaf of bread, a cup of wine, and Thing-um-Bob. Why, they'd be falling in love with each other under the desert stars, and my princ.i.p.al occupation would be saying, "Bless you, my children!"

Sounded neat; and I remembered that, according to Brigit, Monny wanted the "desert to take her." Thought it might be useful if I were on in that act. Abyssmal beast of a dragoman who lurks round Mena House buoyed me up with false hopes. Said he had a fine outfit which he let, and threw himself in as guide. Plenty of everything (including cheek) for fifteen people, the exact number who have put down their names to go. (Some girls and parents are staying for a ball at the Semiramis, where I've tearfully persuaded the only soft-hearted officers I know to dance with them--otherwise the lot would have been on my hands in the desert.) Had so much to do yesterday taking the crowd to Matariyeh, where the Holy Family hid in a hollow tree, that I had no time to look at the Arab's outfit. Was inclined to save trouble and trust him, but saw Anthony a minute last night; he urged me to inspect everything. Did so early this morning. Rotten outfit: tents like old patchwork quilts, pots and pans, etc., probably bought job lot from Noah when the Ark was docked. Those keenest on desert "taking" them, will be mad as hatters if it takes them in. Suppose I'll have to interview half the Arabs in Cairo to-day. Wish I had a Ka or Ba or whatever you get for an astral body in Egypt, and I could say to it, "Here, my dear chap, I trust you to do this job while I stay in Cairo and rest my features." Then he'd get the blame, and I'd disappear, never to be seen again. Or if he were a Ka with Cook accomplishments, maybe he'd bring the thing off all right, in which case I could turn up and take the credit and marry Monny. Happy thought! Cook! Why shouldn't I sneak to Cook, and inquire in a careless way if they publish any pamphlet on "How to Do a Desert Tour."

_Later_: Have been to Cook. No pamphlet, but a friend in need. Talk of casting bread on the waters! In Rome I cast a crust which I didn't want, and it's come back in Cairo with b.u.t.ter and sugar on it.

Must have been two years ago in Rome when a young chap wrote to me to the Emba.s.sy. Said he'd been disappointed in getting work he'd come abroad for, had seen my name, recognized it, was from my county; and could I use him as a stenographer or anything? I couldn't; but I found him some one who could; and forgot him till I saw him this morning a fully fledged clerk at Cook's. Checking the impulse to fall on his neatly striped blue and white bosom, I invited him to lunch; and as a reward for what he calls "past and present favours," he had given me new life. What I mean to say is, he's promised to provide me not only with tents, but camels and camel-boys and a camp chef, and waiters and washbowls and a desert dragoman, and thousands of things I'd never thought of. It seems practically certain that since Napoleon no such genius has been born as Slaney. Cleopatra would say that S. is the reincarnation of Napoleon; but neither Cleopatra nor any one else --above all, Sir Marcus Lark--is to know of his existence. Such is the disinterested self-sacrifice of this b.u.t.tered-and-sugared Crust, that it will do everything for me, while keeping itself and the Organization which controls it, completely in the background. The Organization is too great to mind; and the Crust, alias T. Slaney, thinks itself too small.

Lark, Ltd., considers himself a budding rival of the firm of Cook; but a deadly bud. If, however, Sir M. should come to hear that I had flown for succour to the enemy's camp, I fear it would be all over with the bargain for which Anthony and I are selling our souls. T. Slaney says he never shall know. He guarantees that Cook labels and other telltale marks shall be removed from everything, though time is short and there is much to do. He will be the power behind the tents, and I will be in them, absorbing all the credit.

_Sat.u.r.day_: All _couleur de Rose_, thanks to Slaney. Should like to get him canonized. Many less worthy men, now deceased, have been given the right to put Saint before their names. He has handed me a list, something less than a mile long, of articles which Biddy and I, as children, used to call eaties and drinkies. He has told me where the things can be bought, and has written a letter of introduction which secures me "highest consideration and lowest prices." Also he has suggested a medicine-chest, packs of cards, the newest games, cigarettes suited to European and Arab tastes, picture post-cards of desert scenes; ink, pens, and writing paper. "People forget everything they want on these trips, but you mustn't," said he. I have acted on all his suggestions, and feel as proud as if I had originated them myself.

_Sunday:_ My precious friend Slaney has made a large collection of Arabs, camels, tents, etc., and ordered everything, animate and inanimate, to a.s.semble in the neighbourhood of Mena House this afternoon, in order to be inspected by me, and to be ready for a start early to-morrow morning. We are to have a sandcart with a desert horse for Cleopatra, who has tried a camel and found it wanting. I fancy she thinks a sandcart the best modern subst.i.tute for a chariot; and at worst, it ought to be as comfortable. Slaney has promised a yellow one --cart, not horse. The horse, by request, is to be white. The other ladies are having camels. I daren't think of Miss Ha.s.sett-Bean at the end of the week. The men, also, will camel. There is, indeed, no alternative between camelling and sandcarting--sandcarting not recommended by the faculty but insisted upon by Cleopatra. Hope it will work out all right; and am inclined to be optimistic. A week in the desert and the flowery oasis of the Fayum, with the two most charming women in Egypt! There will be others, but there's a man each, and more.

I shall have to look after Monny and Brigit, as Anthony is having his hands full with Cleopatra lately, and, besides, he can't start with us.

Something keeps him in Cairo for two days more, and he will have to join us near Tomieh.

_Sunday Evening:_ Back from Great Pyramid, where I went to inspect the a.s.sembling army. Magnificent is the only word! The camels fine animals, but Anthony has provided the three best, borrowing these aristocrats of the camel world from Major Gunter of the Coast Guard. They have chased hasheesh smugglers, and have seen desert fighting. Were snarling horribly when I was introduced, but a snarl as superior to the common snarls of baggage-camels as their legs are superior in shape. Biddy, Monny, Mrs. East, and Rachel Guest were there with Sir M. and "Antoun,"

having been inside the pyramid and up to the top. Monny on her high horse because "Antoun" says it will be better for the ladies to ride the baggage-camels. The others take his word, meekly, but she persists, and Anthony agrees to give her the camel he had meant to ride, the one supposed to be the most spirited. When he joins us, he will have the animal intended for her. When this bargain was struck between them I thought his eyes looked dangerous, but she didn't notice or didn't care. Fenton tells me he has dreamed again of the red-faced man with the purple moustache. I laughed at his bugbear and flung Colonel Corkran in his teeth. By the way, nothing has been heard of C. by any of us since the day he handed in his resignation. Suppose he has gone back to England in the sulks.

_Monday Night:_ I am writing in my tent, which is to be shared with Anthony when he arrives. I feel years older than when we started this morning. Middle age seems to have overtaken me. If I keep on at this rate, shall be a centenarian by the time we get back to Cairo.

We made a splendid caravan at the start. Besides the train of camels ridden by my party from the _Candace_ and Monny Gilder with her satellites (it goes against the grain, though, to call a bright particular star like Biddy a satellite), there were over thirty gigantic beasts laden with our numerous bedroom, kitchen, luncheon, and dinner-tents, tent-pegs, cooking-stove, food for humans, fodder for animals, casks of water, mattresses, folding-beds, other tent furniture, tourists' luggage, and so on. I was happy till after the baggage-train had got away, each camel with its head roped to the tail of the one ahead, all trailing off toward the distant Pyramids of Sakkhara well in advance of us. Each camel looked like a house-moving.

On top of the kitchen-camel's load was perched the chef, a singularly withered old gentleman with black and blue complexion, clad in a vague, flying blanket. (Has been Turkish-coffee man in Paris hotels.) Many other negroid persons in white with large turbans; a few cafe au lait Arabs; these all counted beforehand by Slaney, for me, and identified as a.s.sistant-cooks, waiters, bed-makers, and camel-men, enough apparently to stock a village. But we had one surprise at the moment of starting in the form of a bright black child, clad in white, with a white skull cap and a flat profile evidently copied from the Sphinx. I don't know yet why this Baby Sphinx has come or who he is; but he rode on the kitchen-camel's tail, hanging on by the bread (our bread!) which was in a bag.

When this cavalcade had wound away, the camels making blue heart-shaped tracks in the yellow sand, it was our turn to start. Not one of us would have changed places with any old Egyptian king or queen, and we did not feel vulgar for doing this trip in luxury, because ancient royalties had done the same, and so do the great sheikhs of the desert even now. As I put Cleopatra into the sandcart with its broad, iron-rimmed wheels, she was recalling the days when she travelled with a train of a.s.ses in order to have milk for her bath. I suggested a modern condensed subst.i.tute, but the offer was not received in the spirit with which it was made. Now to get the ladies on their camels, after which we men would vault upon our animals, and wind away among billowing dunes full of shadowy ripples and high lights, like cream-coloured velvet!

But just here arose the first small cloud in the blue. It was bigger than a man's hand, for it was the exact size and shape of Miss Ha.s.sett-Bean's hat. It was a largish hat of imitation Panama trimmed with green veiling, just the hat for a post-card desert all pink sunset and no wind. As she was about to mount the squatting camel, a breeze blew the flap over her eyes. This prevented Miss H.B. from seeing that the camel had turned its neck to look at her; and so, as she reached the saddle and the hat blew up, lady and camel met face to face. It was a moment of suspense, for neither liked the other at first sight. The camel began to gurgle its throat in a threatening manner, and at the same time to rise. Miss Ha.s.sett-Bean, staring into two quivering nostrils shaped like badly made purses, shrieked, forgot whether she must first bend forward or bend back, bent in the way she ought not to have bent, and fell upon the sand. I don't quite see why I was to blame for this result, but she _saw_, and said I ought to have warned her what a vile creature a camel was. Nothing would induce her to try again. She would go to any extreme rather than ride a beast with a snake for a neck, and a nasty unsympathetic face full of green juice which it spit out at you. She was used to being liked. She simply couldn't go about on a thing which would never love her, and she wouldn't want it to if it did. She would go home or else she would have a sandcart. All the neighbouring sandcarts were engaged; but fortunately "Antoun Effendi"

appeared at that instant (he'd taxied out to see us off), and he persuaded Cleopatra to let Miss Ha.s.sett-Bean drive with her. The desert horse, feeling this extra weight, looked round almost as unsympathetically as the camel had; but n.o.body paid the slightest attention except his attendant, who was to lead him: a type of negro "Nut," who had a sn.o.bbish habit of reddening his nails with henna.

By this time a crowd had a.s.sembled, kept in check by the tall, blue-robed sheikh of the Pyramids. It consisted mostly of Arabs determined to take our photographs or sell us scarabs--which Miss Ha.s.sett-Bean refused on the ground that she disliked things off dead people. But on the fringe lurked a few Europeans, amused to see so large a caravan setting forth; and the men of our party, hitherto proud of their curtained helmets and desert get-up, became self-conscious under a fire of snapshots.

"h.e.l.lo, my Boy Scout!" I was hailed by Sir Marcus, arriving three minutes behind Anthony, and on the same errand. This blow to my self-esteem fell as I was leading Monny to the white camel which was hers and should have been Anthony's. She laughed--I suppose she couldn't help it. I couldn't myself, if it had been Harry Snell or Bill Bailey; but as it was, my pride of khaki helmet, knickers, and puttees collapsed like a burst balloon. I seemed to feel the calves of my legs wither. It was in this mood that I had to put Monny on that coastguard camel, while "Antoun" stood looking on. He did not offer to help the girl, as their talk yesterday on the subject of baggage-camels versus running camels had not conduced to officiousness.

Monny was in white: broad white helmet such as women wear, white suede shoes, white silk stockings, and a lot of lacy, garden-party things that showed frills when she flew, birdlike, onto the cushioned saddle.

"_That's_ the way to do it!" I heard her cry, exultantly--and what happened next I can't say, for the white camel knocked me over as it bounded up, jerking its nose rope from the leader's hand, and the next thing I knew it was making for the horizon. I hadn't been on a camel since I was four, if then, so it was useless to follow. But while I stood spitting out sand, Anthony flung himself onto one of the swift coastguard beasts, and was after her like a streak of four-legged lightning. None of us had the nerve to continue our operations until, a quarter of an hour later, they appeared from behind the Great Pyramid, coming at a walk, "Antoun" holding the bridle of Monny's camel.

I saw by Fenton's face that he intended to make no suggestions, and I guessed that he was practising his chosen method. If Miss Gilder wished for anything she must ask for it, and ask for it humbly if she expected to get it.

Her face, too, was a study. She was pale and even piteous. I thought there were tears in the blue-gray eyes; and if I had been Anthony I could not have hardened my heart. Pride or no pride, I should have begged her to abandon this praiseworthy adventure, and deign to mount the baggage brute. Not so Anthony. He led back the camel, with Monny limply sitting on it, and when it had calmed down at sight of its friends he retired into the background.

"How wonderful that you kept on, darling!" exclaimed Biddy.

"I didn't," said Monny. Then she turned to "Antoun," who remained on his beast, in case of another emergency, or because he did not wish to be looked down upon by her. He was rather glorious enthroned on his camel, the only one of our party who was truly "in" the desert picture.

I didn't blame him for stopping up there on his sheepskin, eye to eye with the girl.

For a moment Monny did not speak. She was evidently hesitating what to do, but common sense and natural sweetness got the better of false pride. "Antoun, you were right, and I was wrong," she admitted. "I said yesterday that you were selfish, keeping the coastguard camels for yourself and Lord Ernest and General Harlow, and giving us women the baggage ones. Now I'm sorry. I was silly and hateful. I wouldn't ride another fifty yards on this demon for fifty thousand dollars. He's nearly broken my back, and if it hadn't been for you, he would quite have done it. Please help me off, and put me on any old baggage thing that n.o.body else wants."

Anthony's eyes lit for an instant, from satisfaction as a man, or from Christian joy in her moral improvement. He sprang off his sky-sc.r.a.ping camel, brought Monny's animal to its knees, helped her off, and motioned to the Arab attendant of the Ugly Duckling of all the other creatures. It gave the effect of being a cross between a camel and an ostrich, and had been chosen by "Antoun" as his own mount, when he surrendered the aristocrat to Monny.

"Oh, dearest, I can't have you ride that gra.s.shopper!" cried Biddy.

"'Antoun' took it for himself very kindly because it's the worst. And I don't care any more than he did. Give the thing to me, and take _my_ one, that dear creature with the blue bead necklace."

But Anthony answered for Monny. "Mademoiselle Gilder made a bargain with me yesterday," he said. "If she failed in what _she_ wanted to do, she was to do what _I_ wanted her to do. I think she will wish to keep her bargain."

"I'm _sure_ I wish to," added Monny.