For Fortune and Glory. Lewis Hough
and delighting in the glorious pace at which they were going; a great contrast to their sluggish progress earlier in the day, when the river was broad, placid, and leisurely, and there was hardly a breath of wind stirring to urge them on.
He had been entrusted with a trading expedition as far as Dongola, carrying merchandise and exchanging it for gum, and ostrich and marabout feathers. He had been allowed a little venture on his own account, and had embarked it all in the latter article of commerce—marabout feathers—and had been rather lucky in his bargain. On returning to Cairo he expected to go back to England, and that made him none the less glad to be spinning along so quickly.
“I wish we could go like this all the way, Hassib,” he said to the Nubian sitting by him; “we should soon get home then, eh?”
“We shall go faster than this when we come to the cataract,” said Hassib, with a grin; for there was a joke here. Harry on the way up had not shown any liking for the cataracts. In fact, had preferred, under pretence of shooting doves, to walk round while the operation of towing the vessel up took place.
He and Hassib conversed in a queer lingo, for Harry was trying his hardest to learn Arabic, but had to eke it out at present with a good many English and French words. Hassib had a smattering of both those languages, and after a little practice they got on glibly enough.
But I am sure you will pardon my translating the palaver between this supercargo and the reis or captain of the boat. The reis was the proper companion for Harry, being a respectable fellow, and wearing some clothes. Harry himself was dressed in a linen suit of European cut, with a tarboosh or red cap on his head, with a turban twisted round it. Not elegant, but sovereign against sunstroke they told him.
“I wish I could get a crocodile,” he said. “Every day we get lower down the river there is less chance.”
“Plenty of them yet. There is an island near where we stop to-night where there are always many crocodiles.”
“And do you think that I shall get one?”
Hassib thought a bit over this, and then replied gravely—
“If it is the will of Allah that you should get a crocodile, you will get a crocodile. If it is not the will of Allah that you should get a crocodile, you will not get a crocodile.”
There was no gainsaying this. Mohammedan races are fond of propounding truisms with an air of having evolved a new idea out of their unassisted brains, and that is why people often think them so very wise.
“You see,” said Harry, after bowing his head in assent to the last proposition, “I promised my mother a crocodile, and it seems so absurd to go up the Nile and not be able to get one. Then they are all white, and I expected them to be black.”
“White men call the devil and crocodiles black; black men call them white,” replied Hassib, who was a wag. “You now see which is right.”
“Good again; that is one for me!” laughed Harry. “But I should really like to get one if I could.”
“And the English think the crocodile such a pretty ornament!” said Hassib. “It is a strange taste.”
And then Harry thought for the first time where on earth would they put the crocodile if they got it. But that was a future consideration.
“Shall we shoot the cataract to-night?” he asked, presently.
“No,” said Hassib, “there will not be light enough. We shall anchor for the night soon, and start at daybreak.”
The river soon grew broader and calmer, and in half an hour they came to the place where they were to remain, and cast anchor.
Harry went ashore with his rifle, in hopes of a shot at the amphibious creatures, and his fishing tackle to keep him in patience while he was waiting for it. Hassib accompanied him to point out the place he had mentioned where the monsters were wont to lie.
For some time he got neither a shot nor a bite; but presently there came a tremendous tug at his line. The fish tugged, and Harry tugged, and the line being strong enough to hold a whale nearly, it seemed to be a question whether Harry pulled the fish out, or the fish pulled Harry in. In fact it was a regular tug of war.
Harry was the victor, and his opponent came to bank with a bound and flop.
“By jove! I have got a crocodile after all!” cried Harry, jumping back, as a hideous thing four feet long, and having the same number of legs, and a tail, seemed making towards him. The reis, laughing in a manner most contrary to our notions of the staid impassive Arab, began hammering the creature with a stick, until it lay quiet enough.
“What is it?” asked the captor, approaching cautiously.
“A big lizard,” replied Hassib, “so your learned white men say; ‘alligator lizard’ I heard one call it. But it is really a thing that comes out of an addled crocodile’s egg.”
Harry looked up quickly, but the reis was perfectly grave. And on such occasions he always pretended to believe, whether he did or no. Hassib was quite confident of the correctness of his information, and how could it be disproved, or, for that matter, why should it be?
The sun was now very low on the horizon, and would soon take its sand-bath. Hassib laid his hand on Forsyth’s arm and ducked behind a mound on the edge of the bank. Harry did the same.
“One, two, five, seven,” counted Hassib. Harry peeped, and saw that mystic number of grey crocodiles lying on the island where he had been looking for them.
The nearest was about two hundred yards off. By stalking him along the bank, as he was not quite opposite, he got perhaps thirty yards nearer. As has been said, he was a really first-rate rifle-shot, and the prospects of that crocodile could not be considered rosy.
Scales are hard, but so are conical bullets. Harry took a steady aim at what he had been taught to consider the most vulnerable part get-at-able, and pulled. Crack! Smack! He heard the ball tell as plainly as if it were on an iron target. But the absurd crocodile acted as all the others he had shot at had done: he rolled over into the water and disappeared, and the other six kept him company.
“He is killed! Oh, he is killed!” cried the reis, much excited. “He will float soon, you will see. When they are shot dead their bodies soon float.”
Whether this creature was an exception, or was not shot dead, or was carried down to the cataract before he got to the floating stage, and so came up where no one wanted him, cannot be said. But they saw him no more, and he was numbered among the partridges who have gone away to die, and the rabbits that were hit so hard, but crept away into holes!
Going back to where the boat lay they found another lying near her, which had been dragged up the last bit of the cataract and brought up so far since their arrival, while the crew had gone ashore and lit a fire, round which they were gathered.
Forsyth and Hassib went up to them for news, but there was not much. Alexandria was being rebuilt after the bombardment; Arabi’s insurrection was quite over, and Mohammed Tewfik Pasha firmly established. The English soldiers were leaving, and the country would soon be quit of them entirely.
“Not it,” said one of the new-comers, who seemed to be a passenger. Certainly not a sailor, for his hands were delicate, and he lacked manliness when compared with the others of the party. “The English will not be so easy to get rid of, make sure of that.”
And one of the others said to Hassib, alluding to the speaker—
“You knew his father; this is Daireh.”
“And I knew him as a boy,” said Hassib.
“It is years since I left,” said Daireh.
Here Reouf the pilot joined the group, and he, too, was a friend of the family, and was made known.