A TALE OF BRITISH EGYPT.

Otago Witness, Issue 2371, 10 August 1899, Page 62

A TALE OF BRITISH EGYPT.

iGilbert Parker, in the Canadian Magazine.) Wyndham Bimbashi's career in Egypt had been a series of mistakes. In the first place he was opinionated ; in the second place he | never seemed to have any luck ; and, worst of xll, he had a little habit of doing grave things j on his own responsibility. . . . Bored as I he generally was, Major Wyndham had ideas j of reform — in the arm}-, in the State, every- j where. . . . But he could not, or would : not, see his own vain stupidity. The climax .came in a foolish sortie against the Haden'dowas. In that unauthorised melee, in covert disobedience to a general order not to attack, unless at advantage — for the Gippies under him ■were raw levies — his troop was diminished by ] half, and cut off from the Nile by a flank movement of the Hadendowas. He was obliged to retreat and take refuge ii the wellfortified and walled h/.-u c of a friendly sheikh, •which had previous! been a Coptic monastery. . . Here he was, shut "up with Gippies who had no real faith in ' him, in the house of a sheikh -whose servants would cut his throat on no provocation at all ; and not an eighth of a mile away was a horde of 'Arabs: a circle of death through which it was impossible to break with the men in his command. They must all die here if they were not relieved. The neaiest garrison was at J Berber, fifty miles away. Five hundred men j were stationed there. Now that hia cup of mistakes waa full, Wyndham Bimbashi would .willingly have made the attempt to carry word to the garrison there. But he had no right i to leave his post. He called for a volunteer. No man replied. Panic was upon the Gippies. ... As he stood still, upright and confounded, someone touched his arm. It was Hassan, : his Soudanese servant. Hassan was the one j person in Egypt who thoroughly believed in j .Wyndham Bimbashi. ... It was Has- | Ban that now volunteered to carry word to the j garrison at Berber." "If Ino carry, you j whaok me with the belt, Pssha," said Hassan, , whose logic and reason were like his master's, neither better nor woree. "If you do you ghall have fifty pounds and — the missionary," answered Wyndham, his eyes still cloudy and his voice thick ; for it touched him in a tender nerve that this one Soudanese boy j should believe in him and do -for him what j he would give much to do for the men under ! him. For his own life he did not care, his confusion and shame were so great. He watched Hassan steal out into the white brilliance of the night. " Mind you keep a whole elan, Hassan." he said as the slim lad, with the white teeth, oily hair, and legs like ivory, stole along the wall, to drop presently on his belly and make for some palm trees a himdred yards away. The minutes went by in silence, an hour went by, the whole night went by; Hassan had got beyond the circle of treuehant steel. They must now abide Hassan's fate ; but another peril was upon them. There wa9 not a goolah of water within the walls. . . . The house of the sheikh and its garden, where Were a pool and a fountain, were supplied from the great Persian wheel at the waterBide. On this particular sakkia had been wont to sit all day a 'patient fellah, driving the blindfolded buffaloes in their turn. It was like the patient fellah, when the Arabs tn pursuit of Wyndham and his Gippies suddenly cut iv between him and the house* to deliver himtjslf over to the conqueror, with his hand upon his head in sign of obedience. It was also like the gentle Egyptian that he eagerly showed the Hadendowas how the water could be cut off from the house by dropping one of the sluice gates ; while, opening another, all the land around the Arab quarters might be well watered, the birkets filled, and the bersim kept green for their horses and camels. . . . All that day terror and a ghastly hate hung like a miasma over the besieged house and garden. Fifty eyes hungered for the blood of Wyndham Bimbashi, hot because he was Wyndham Bimbashi, but because the heathen in these men cried out for sacrifice; and what so agreeable a sacrifice as the Englishman who had led them into this disaster, and would die so well? Had they Bver seer an Englishman who did not die well? Wyndham Bimbaehi was quiet and watchful, and he cudgelled his bullet-head and looked down his long nose in meditation all the day, while his tongue became dry and thick, and his throat seemed to crack like roasting leather. At length he worked the problem out ; then be took action. He -summoned his troop before him, and said briefly : " Men, we must _havo water. The question is who is going ■^to steal l>ut to the sakkia to-night to shut the one sluice and open the other?" . . . The Gippies and the frieudlies scowied, but did not speak. The Bimbashi was responsible for all. He was an Englishman ; let him get water for them, or die like the rest of them — perhaps before them 1 Wyndham Bimbashi could not travel the sinuosities of their minds, and if he could have done so it would not .have affected his purposes. When no man replied, he simply said: "All right, men, you shall have water before morning. Try and hold out till then." And he dismissed them. . < . "They'd forget their thirst if they were fighting," Wyndham muttered ; and then he frowned, for Iho groans of the horses behind the house came to his ear. In desperation he went inside -the house and climbed to the roof, where he could see the circle of the enemy. It was no use. They were three to one, and his Gippies were demoralised. It would be a fine bit of pluck to try and cut his way through the Hadendowas to the Nile, but how many would reach it? . . . And he could not wait for the relief party, for his Gippies and the friendlies were famishing, 'dying of thirst. He prayed for night. How slowly the minutes, the hours, passed, and how bright was the moon when it rose; brighter even than it was when Hassan crept out to steal through ,he Arab lines ! At midnight Wyndham Bimbashi stole softly out of a gate- in the garden wall, and, like Hassan, dropping to the ground, crept towards a patch of maize lying 'between the house and the- river. He was dressed like a fellah, with the long blue yelek, a poor wool fez, and round the fez was a white cloth, as it were to protect his mouth from ihe night air, after the manner of the peasant. The fires of the enemy were dying down, and only here and there Arabs" gossiped "or drank coffee by the embers. - At last Wyndham was able to drop into the narrow channel, now dry, through which, when the sluice was open and the sakkia turned, the water flowed to the house. All went well till he was within a hundred yards of the wheel, though now and again he could heai sentries snoring or talking just above him. Suddenly he heard breathing an arm's length before him, then a, figure raised itself and a head turned towards him. The Arab had been asleep, but his hand ran to his knife by instinct — too late, for Wyndham's fingers were at his throat, and he had neither time nor chance to ory "Allah"

before the breath left him ! Wyndham crept on. The sound of the sakkia was in his ; ears, the long creaking, crying song filling the < night. And now there rose the Song of the Sakkia from the man at the wheel : Turn, O Sakkia, to the right, and turn to the left : i The heron feeds hy the water side — shall I starve in mv onion field? Shall the Lord of the World withhold his tears that water the land? i Turn, O Sakkia! ] Wyndham Bimbashi's heart beat faster. ; . . . He was near the sluice-gate now. It ! was impossible to open it without the fellah on the water-wheel seeing him. There was another way. He crept close and closer to [ the wheel. The breath of the blindfolded buffalo was in his face ; he drew himself up lightly and quickly beside the buffalo — he was j making no blunder now ! The fellah still sang : ' Turn, O Sakkia, turn to the right, and turn to the left : i For the chargers that ride the bersim waits " j The great jars on the wheel emptied their splashes of water into the trough for the chau- i nel. Suddenly Wyndham Bimbashi leapt \ from behind the buffalo upon the fellah, and smothered his head and mouth in the white \ cloth he had brought.- was a moment's struggle, -then, as the wheel went slower [ and slower, and the patient buffalo stopped, ' Wyndham Bimbashi dropped the gagged but J living fellah into a trench by the sakkia, and | calling to the buffalo, slid over swiftly, opened the sluice-gate of the channel which fed the house, and closed that leading to the Arab encampment. Then he sat down where the fellah had sat, and the sakkia droned its mystic musio over the river and the desert and the , plain. But the buffalo moved slowly — the j fellah's song had been a spur to its travel, as | the camel-driver's song is to the caravan in the waste of sands. Wyndham Bimbashi hesitated an instant, then, as the first trickle of , water entered the garden of the house where ] his Gippies and the friendlies were, his voice rose in the Song of the Sakkia : ' Turn, O Sakkia, turn to the right, and turn to the left: I Who will take care of me if my father dies? Who will give me water to drink, and the cucumber vine at my door? i Turn, O Sakkia! ; If h<2 had but one hour longer there would be enough water for men and horses for days — ] twenty jars of water pouring — pouring all the ; time ! Now and again a figure came towards '■ the wheel, but not clo&e enough to see that the one sluice-gate had been shut and the other opened. One hour passed, an hour and a-half, : and then *he end came. The gagged fellali j had managed to free his mouth, and though his feet were bound also and he could not , loose them at once, he gave a loud call for help. From the dying fires here and there Arab sentries sprang to their feet with rifle and lances. Wyndham Bimbashi's work was done. He leapt from the sakkia, and ran towards the house. Shot after shot was fired at him, lances were thrown, and once an Arab barred his way-suddenly. He pistolled him and ran on. A lanco caught him in the left^ arm. He tore it out and pushed forward. Stooping once, he caught up an Arab sword from the ground. '-When he was within fifty yards of the house, four Ha-dendowas intercepted him. He slashed through, then turned with his pistol and fired as he ran quickly towards the now open gate. He was within ten yards of it, and had fired his last shot, when a bullet crashed through liis jaw. A dozen Gippies ran out, dragged him in. and closed the gate. The last thing Wyndham Bimbashi "did before he died in the grey of dawn — and this is told of him by the Gippies themselves — was to cough up the bullet from his throat and spit it out upon the ground. The Gippies thought it a miraculous feat and that he had done it in scorn of the Hadendowas.