Complete works of hall c.., p.428
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 428
“See, that’s what England saved Egypt from — that horde of Allah-intoxicated fanatics who would have cut off the heads of your Khedives, tortured and pillaged your pashas, flogged your effendis, made slaves of your fellaheen, or swept your whole nation into the Nile.”
Every soldier on the field had distinguished himself that day, the British by his bull-dog courage, the Soudanese by fighting as dervishes like demons, the Egyptian by standing his ground like a man; but not even when young Colonel Lord, the most popular Englishman in Egypt, the one officer of English blood who was beloved by the Egyptians, not even when he had come riding back to paddock after a masterly handling of his men, sweating but smiling, his horse blowing and spent, the people on the pavilion receiving him with shouts and cheers, the clapping of hands, and the fluttering of handkerchiefs — not even then had the Cairenes at the edge of the arena made the faintest demonstration. Their opportunity came a few minutes later, and, sullen and grim under the gall of their unfounded suspicion, they seized it in fierce and rather ugly fashion.
Hardly had the last man left the field when a company of mounted police came riding down the fringe of it, followed by a carriage drawn by two high-stepping horses, between a bodyguard of Egyptian soldiers. They drew up in front of the box occupied by the kinsman of the Khedive, and instantly the Cairenes made a rush for it, besieging the barrier on either side, and even clambering on each other’s shoulders as human scaffolding, from which to witness the departure of the Prince.
Then the Prince came out, a rather slack, feeble, ineffectual-looking man, and there were the ordinary salutations prescribed by custom. First the cry from the police in Turkish and in unison, “Long live our Master!” being cheers for the Khedive whose representative the Prince was, and then a cry in Arabic for the Prince himself. The Prince touched his forehead, stepped into his carriage, and was about to drive off when, without sign or premeditation — by one of those mischievous impulses which the devil himself inspires — there came a third cry, never heard on that ground before. In a lusty, guttural voice, a young man standing on the shoulders of another man — both, apparently, students of law or medicine — shouted over the heads of the people, “Long live Egypt!” and in an instant the cry was repeated in a deafening roar from every side.
The Prince signalled to his bodyguard and his carriage started, but all the way down the line of the enclosure, where the red-hatted Egyptians were still standing in solid masses, the words cracked along like fireworks set alight.
The people on the great pavilion watched and listened, and to the larger part of them, who were British subjects, and to the officers, Advisers, and Under-Secretaries, who were British officials, the cry was like a challenge which seemed to say, “Go home to England; we are a nation of ourselves and can do without you.” For a moment the air tingled with expectancy, and everybody knew that something else was going to happen. It happened instantly, with that promptness which the devil alone contrives.
Almost as soon as the Prince’s company had cleared away, a second carriage, that of the British Consul-General, came down the line to the pavilion, with a posse of native police on either side and a sais running in front. Then from his scat in the centre Lord Nuneham rose and stepped down to the arena, shaking hands with people as he passed, gallant to the ladies as befits an English gentleman, but hearing himself with a certain brusque condescension toward the men, all trying to attract his attention — a mediumsized yet massive person, with a stem jaw and steady gray eyes, behind which the cool brain was plainly packed in ice, a man of iron who had clearly passed through the pathway of life with a firm high step.
The posse of native police cleared a way for him, and, under the orders of an officer, rendered military honours, but that was not enough for the British contingent in the fever of their present excitement. They called for three cheers for the King, whose representative the Consul-General was in Egypt, and then three more for Lord Nuneham, giving, not three, but six, with a fierceness that grew more frantic at every shout, and seemed to say, as plainly as words could speak, “Here we are and here we stay.”
The Egyptians listened in silence, some of them spitting as a sign of contempt, until the last cheer was dying down, and then the lusty, guttural voice cried again, “Long live Egypt!” and once more the words rang like a rip-rap down the line.
It was noticed that the stem expression of Lord Nuneham’s face assumed a death-like rigidity, that he took out a pocket-book, wrote some words, tore away a leaf, handed it to a native servant, and then, with an icy smile, stepped into his carriage. Meantime the British contingent were cheering again with yet more deafening clamour, and the rolling sound followed the Consul-General as he drove away. But the shout of the Egyptians followed him, too; and when he reached the high road the one was like muffled drums at a funeral far behind, while the other was like the sharp crack of Maxim guns that were always firing by his side.
The sea of muslin, ribbons, flowers, and feathers in the pavilion had broken up by this time; the light was striking level in people’s eyes, the west was crimsoning with sunset tints, the city was red on the tips of its minarets and ablaze on the bare face of its insurgent hills, and the Nile itself, taking the colouring of the sky, was lying like an old serpent of immense size which had stretched itself along the sand to sleep.
II
GENERAL GRAVES’S daughter had been at the sports that day, sitting in the chair immediately behind Lord Nuneham’s. Her name was Helena, and she was a fine, handsome girl in the early twenties, with coal-black hair, very dark eyes, a speaking face, and a smile like eternal sunshine, well grown, splendidly developed, and carrying herself in perfect equipoise with natural grace and a certain swing when she walked.
Helena Graves was to marry Lord Nuneham’s son, Colonel Gordon Lord, and during the progress of the sham fight she had had eyes for nobody else. She had watched him when he had entered the field, sitting solid on his Irish horse, which was stepping high and snorting audibly; when at the “Fire!” he had stood behind the firing line, and at the “Cease fire!” galloped in front; when he had threaded his forces round and round, north, south, and west, in and out as in a dance, so that they faced the enemy on every side; when somebody had blundered and his cavalry had been caught in a trap, and he had had to ride without sword or revolver through a cloud of dark heads that had sprung up as if out of the ground; and, above all, when his horse had stumbled and he had fallen, and the dervishes, forgetting that the battle was not a real one, had hurled their spears like shafts of forked lightning over his head. At that moment she had forgotten all about the high society gathered in a brilliant throng around her, and had clutched the Consul-General’s chair convulsively, breathing so audibly that he had heard her, and, lowering the glasses through which he had watched the distant scene, had patted her arm and said:
“He’s safe — don’t be afraid, my child!”
When the fight was over her eyes were radiant, her cheeks were like a conflagration, and, notwithstanding the ugly incident attending the departure of the Prince and Lord Nuneham, her face was full of a triumphant joy as she stepped down to the green, where Colonel Lord, who was waiting for her, put on her motor cloak — she had come in her automobile — and helped her to fix the light veil, which in her excitement had fallen back from her hat and showed that she was still blushing up to the roots of her black hair.
Splendid creature as she was, Colonel Lord was a match for her. He was one of the youngest colonels in the British Army, being four-and-thirty, of more than medium height, with crisp brown hair, and eyes of the flickering, steel-like blue that is common among enthusiastic natures, especially when they are soldiers — a man of unmistakable masculinity, yet with that vague suggestion of the woman about him which, sometimes seen in a manly face, makes one say, without knowing any of the circumstances, “That man is like his mother, and whatever her ruling passion is, his own will be, only stronger, more daring, and perhaps more dangerous.”
“They’re a lovely pair,” the women were saying of them as they stood together; and soon they were surrounded by a group of people, some complimenting Helena, others congratulating Gordon, all condemning the demonstration which had cast a certain gloom over the concluding scene.
“It was too exciting, too fascinating, but how shameful that conduct of the natives! It was just like a premeditated insult,” said a fashionable lady, a visitor to Cairo; and then an Englishman — it was the Adviser who had spoken the first unlucky words — said, promptly:
“So it was — it must have been. Didn’t you see how it was all done at a preconcerted signal?”
“I’m not surprised. I’ve always said we English in Egypt are living on the top of a volcano,” said a small, slack, gray-headed man, a judge in the native courts; and then the Commandant of Police, a somewhat pompous person, said, bitterly:
“We saved their country from bankruptcy, their hacks from the lash, and their stomachs from starvation, and now listen: ‘Long live Egypt!’”
At that moment a rather effusive American lady came up to Helena and said:
“Don’t you ever recognise your friends, dear? I tried to catch your eye during the fight, but a certain officer had fallen, and, of course, nobody else existed in the world.”
“Let us make up our minds to it — we are not liked,” the judge was saying. “Naturally we were popular as long as we were plastering the wounds made by tyrannical masters; but the masters are dead and the patient is better, so the doctor is found to be a bore.”
At that moment an Egyptian Princess, famous for her wit and daring, came down the pavilion steps. She was one of the few Egyptian women who frequented mixed society and went about with uncovered face — a large person, with plump, pallid cheeks, very voluble, outspoken, and quick tempered, a friend and admirer of the Consul-General’s, and a champion of the English rule. Making straight for Helena, she said:
“Goodness, child, is it your face I see or the light of the moon? The battle? Oh, yes, it was beautiful, but it was terrible, and thank the Lord, it is over. But tell me about yourself, dear. You are desperately in love, they say, and no wonder. I’m in love with him myself, I really am, and if... Oh, you’re there, are you? Well, I’m telling Helena I’m in love with you. Such strength, such courage — pluck you call it, don’t you?”
Helena had turned to answer the American lady, and Gordon, whose eyes had been on her as if waiting for her to speak, whispered to the Princess:
“Isn’t she looking lovely to-day, Princess?”
“Then why don’t you tell her so?” said the Princess.
“Hush!” said Gordon, whereupon the Princess said:
“My goodness, what ridiculous creatures men are! What cowards, too! As brave as lions before a horde of savages, but before a woman — mon Dieu!”
“Yes,” said the judge, in his slow, shrill voice, “they are fond of talking of the old hook of Egypt, yet the valley of the Nile is strewn with the tombs of Egyptians who have perished under their hard task-masters, from the Pharaohs to the pashas. Can’t they hear the murmur of the past about them? Have they no memory if they have no gratitude?”
At the last words General Graves came up to the group, looking hot and excited, and he said:
“Memory? Gratitude? They’re a nation of ingrates and fools.”
“What’s that?” said the Princess.
“Pardon me, Princess. I say the demonstration of your countrymen to-day is an example of the grossest ingratitude.”
“You’re quite right, General. But ma’aleysh! (no matter). The barking of dogs doesn’t hurt the clouds.”
“And who are the dogs in this instance, Princess?” said a thin-faced Turco-Egyptian with a heavy moustache, who had been congratulating Colonel Lord.
“Your Turco-Egyptian beauties, who would set the country ablaze to light their cigarettes,” said the Princess. “Children I call them. Children, and they deserve the rod. Yes, the rod, and serve them right. Excuse the word. I know! I tell you plainly, pasha.”
“And the clouds are the Consul-General, I suppose?”
“Certainly; and he’s so much above them that they can’t even see he’s the sun in their sky, the stupids.” Whereupon the pasha, who was the Egyptian Prime Minister under a British Adviser, said, with a shrug and a dubious smile:
“Your sentiments are beautiful, but your similes are a little broken, Princess.” —
“Not half so much broken as your Treasury would have been if the English hadn’t helped it,” said the Princess; and when the pasha had gone off with a rather halting laugh, she said:
“Ma’aleysh! When angels come the devils take their leave. I don’t care. I say what I think. I tell the Egyptians the English are the best friends Egypt ever had, and Nuneham is their greatest ruler since the days of Joseph. But Adam himself wasn’t satisfied with Paradise, and it’s no use talking. ‘Don’t throw stones into the well you drink from,’ I say. But serve you right, you English. You shouldn’t have come. He who builds on another’s land brings up another’s child. Everybody is excited about this sedition, and even the harem are asking what the Government is going to do. Nuneham knows best, though. Leave him alone. He’ll deal with these half-educated upstarts. Upstarts — that’s what I call them. Oh, I know! I speak plainly!”
“I agree with the Princess,” chimed the judge. “What is this unrest among the Egyptians due to? The education we ourselves have given them.”
“Yes; teach your dog to snap, and he’ll soon bite you.”
“These are the tares in the harvest we are reaping, and perhaps our Western grain doesn’t suit this Eastern desert.”
“Should think it doesn’t, indeed. ‘Liberty,’
‘Equality,” Fraternity,’
‘Representative Institutions ‘! If you English come talking this nonsense to the Egyptians what can you expect? Socialism, is it? Well, if I am to be Prince and you are to be Prince, who is to drive the donkey? Excuse the word! I know! I tell you plainly. Good-bye, my dear! You are looking perfect to-day. But then you are so happy. I can see when young people are in love by their eyes, and yours are shining like moons. After all, your Western ways are best. We choose the husbands for our girls, thinking the silly things don’t know what is good for them, and the chicken isn’t wiser than the hen; but it’s the young people, not the old ones, who have to live together, so why shouldn’t they choose for themselves?”
At that instant there passed from some remote corner of the grounds a brougham containing two shrouded figures in close white veils, and the Princess said:
“Look at that, now — that relic of barbarism! Shutting our women up like canaries in a cage, while their men are enjoying the sunshine. Life is a dancing girl — let her dance a little for all of us.”
The Princess was about to go, when General Graves appealed to her. The judge had been saying:
“I should call it a religious rather than a political unrest. You may do what you will for the Moslem; but he never forgets that the hand which bestows his benefits is that of an infidel.”
“Yes, we’re aliens here, there’s no getting over it,” said the Adviser.
And the General said: “Especially when professional fanatics are always reminding the Egyptians that we are not Mohammedans. By the way, Princess, have you heard of the new preacher, the new prophet, the new Mahdi, as they say?”
“Prophet! Mahdi! Another of them?”
“Yes, the comet that has just appeared in the firmament of Alexandria.”
“Some holy man, I suppose. Oh, I know! Holy man, indeed! Shake hands with him and count your rings, General! Another impostor riding on the people’s backs — and they can’t see it, the stupids! But the camel never can see his hump — not he! Good-bye, girl. Get married soon, and keep together as long as you can. Stretch your legs to the length of your bed, my dear; why shouldn’t you? Say good-bye to Gordon? Certainly; where is he?”
At that moment Gordon was listening, with head down, to something the General was saying with intense feeling.
“The only way to deal with religious impostors who sow disaffection among the people is to suppress them with a strong hand. Why not? Fear of their followers? They’re fit for nothing but to pray in their mosques, ‘Away with the English, O Lord, but give us water in due measure!’ Fight? Not for an instant. There isn’t an ounce of courage in a hundred of them, and a score of good soldiers would sweep all the native Egyptians of Alexandria into the sea.” Then Gordon, who had not yet spoken, lifted his head and answered, in a rather nervous voice:
“No, no, no, sir! Ill usage may have made these people cowards in the old days, but proper treatment since has made them men, and there wasn’t an Egyptian fellah on the field to-day who wouldn’t have followed me into the jaws of death if I had told him to. As for our being aliens in religion” — the nervous voice became louder, and at the same time more tremulous—” that isn’t everything. We’re aliens in sympathy and brotherhood, and even in common courtesy as well. What is the honest truth about us? Here we are to help the Egyptians to regenerate their country, yet we neither eat nor drink nor associate with them. How can we hope to win their hearts while we hold them at arm’s length? We’ve given them water — yes, water in abundance, but have we given them — love?”
The woman in Gordon had leaped out before he knew it, and he had swung a little aside as if ashamed, while the men cleared their throats, and the Princess, notwithstanding that she had been abusing her own people, suddenly melted in the eyes, muttered to herself, “Oh, our God!” and then, reaching over to kiss Helena, whispered in her ear:
