of the Mahdi, who would like to go over to his side if they dared. They include all fanatics, all followers of Arabi Pasha, and many of the poorer classes. They are at outs with the government for having submitted to English influence, and pretend their religion suffers in consequence. Heaven knows how many have already fled by way of the desert, and by so doing have avoided the usual water route to Suakim, and as the government found out that Fatima had attempted to escape also, it ordered her to be placed under guard. Only by exchanging her and her children—as they are related to the Mahdi—for our men captured by them may we hope to get them back.”
“Do the lower classes in Egypt really sympathize with the Mahdi?”
“The Mahdi has followers even among our soldiers, and perhaps that is the reason they fight so badly.”
“But how can the Sudanese escape by way of the desert? It is thousands of miles long.”
“And yet slaves have been brought into Egypt that way.”
“I do not believe that Fatima’s children could stand a journey like that.”
“But she will make it shorter by crossing over to Suakim.”
“All the same, she is a poor woman.”
Thus the conversation ended.
And twelve hours later, after the “poor woman” had carefully locked herself in her house with the son of the overseer Chadigi, with raised eyebrows and a lowering glance in her lovely eyes, she whispered:
“Chamis, son of Chadigi, take this money; start to-day for Medinet, and give Idris this writing, which, at my request, the holy Dervish Ballali wrote to him. The children of these Mehendisi are good (i.e., good material to be used to further our ends)—there is no other way—if I can not gain permission to travel. I know that you will not betray me. … Remember that you and your father belong to the Dangali tribe, the same tribe to which the Mahdi belongs.”
CHAPTER III
On the following day the two engineers left for Cairo to visit the English residents, and also to have an audience with the viceroy. Stasch calculated that this might take two days; he was right, for on the evening of the third day he received the following telegram, sent from Medinet by his father: “The tents are ready. Start when your holidays begin. Send word to Fatima by Chadigi that we were unable to do anything for her.” Mrs. Olivier received a similar telegram, and so she, assisted by Dinah, began at once to prepare for the journey. The children were overjoyed to see the packing going on, but suddenly something occurred that upset all their plans and came near preventing their departure. For during the first day of Stasch’s winter vacation, on the evening of which they had planned to make their departure, Mrs. Olivier, when taking her afternoon nap in the garden, was bitten by a scorpion, and although the bite of this poisonous creature is not so dangerous in Egypt, in this case it might prove very serious. The scorpion had crept over the back of a canvas chair and bitten her in the neck just as she had mashed it with her head; and as she had formerly suffered from erysipelas, it was feared that she might have a relapse. A doctor was immediately summoned, but as he was busy elsewhere, he did not arrive for two hours. By this time her neck and even her face were swollen, and she had a fever accompanied by the usual symptoms of poison. The doctor explained that under these circumstances she must not dream of going, and he ordered her to bed; and so it seemed as though the children would have to spend their Christmas at home. But to Nell’s credit be it said, she thought more—especially at first—about the sufferings of her governess than the pleasures she would miss by not going to Medinet. But when she realized that she could not see her father again for several weeks she wept in secret. Stasch did not take the matter so philosophically, and so he sent a telegram followed by a letter asking what was to be done. Mr. Rawlison, after having communicated with the doctor and learning from him that there was no immediate danger and that he had only forbidden Mrs. Olivier to leave Port Said because he feared the erysipelas might set in again, first arranged for her to have every care and comfort and then gave the children permission to start on the journey with Dinah. But as Dinah, notwithstanding her boundless affection for Nell, was scarcely competent to take charge of the journey and make arrangements for them in the hotel, Stasch was to be guide and cashier. One can readily imagine how proud he was of this rôle, and with what lordly pride he assured Nell that not a hair of her head would be touched, as if the road to Cairo and Medinet presented no difficulties or dangers.
As everything was now ready, the children left that very day, traveling by the canal to Ismailia, and from there by train to Cairo, where they were to spend the night and be ready to go on to Medinet the following day. When they left Ismailia they saw Timsah Lake, which Stasch had seen before; for Mr. Tarkowski, who was a very enthusiastic hunter in his leisure hours, sometimes took him along to shoot water-birds. Then the road followed the Wadi Tumilat, close by the fresh-water canal which connects the Nile with Ismailia and Suez. This canal was dug before the Suez Canal; if it had not been, the workmen employed in Lesseps’ great undertaking would not have had a drop of water to drink. The digging of this canal had another good result: the stretch of land, which had been a barren waste before, now blossomed once more when the wide and rapid stream of fresh water flowed through it. From the car windows the children saw a large belt of vegetation on the left side, consisting of meadows on which horses, camels, and sheep were grazing, and plowed fields, Turkish wheat, millet, alfa, and other species of grain and field plants. On the bank of the canal could be seen all kinds of wells, above which were large wheels fitted up with pails or ordinary cranes that drew up the water, which the fellahs assiduously spread over the beds or carried away in barrels on little wagons drawn by buffaloes. Over the sprouting grain-seeds hovered doves and sometimes flocks of quail. On the edges of the canal storks and cranes walked gravely up and down. In the distance, over the clay huts of the fellahs, towered crowns of date-palms that looked like large feather dusters.
On the other hand, north of the railway lay a wilderness, but it did not resemble the one on the other side of the Suez Canal. That looked like the flat sandy bed of a dried-up sea, while here the sand was more yellow, and was piled up into large hillocks covered with scanty vegetation. Between these hillocks, which in places attained a great height, lay broad valleys, through which now and then caravans were seen passing.
From the car windows the children saw loaded camels walking single file in a long line. In front of each camel strode an Arab in black coat and white turban. Little Nell remembered the pictures she had seen in the Bible at home, which represented the Israelites and described how they journeyed to Egypt in the time of Joseph. They seemed just like these men. Unfortunately, she could not get a very good look at the caravans, because two English officers sat near the windows, which obstructed her view.
She had no sooner told Stasch of this than, turning to the officers, very seriously, and touching his hat, he said:
“Gentlemen, would you mind making room for this little lady, who would like to look at the camels?”
The two officers listened with all due seriousness, and one of them not only made room for the curious “little lady,” but lifted her up and put her on the seat next the window.
Stasch immediately began to lecture.
“That is the old district of Gessen,” said Stasch, “that Pharao gave Joseph for his brethren, the Israelites. Once, in fact very long ago, there was a fresh-water canal here, so that this new one is only the old one rebuilt. Later it was destroyed and the country became a desert. Now the ground is becoming fertile again.”
“How does the gentleman
