Chapter II: Part 2

His companion on these bathing excursions was Ahmed, the chief clerk’s son, a lad of some twenty years of age, to whom, notwithstanding the difference in their characters, Hassan became much attached. He was short and slight in figure, with a pale but intelligent countenance, and remarkable for his studious and industrious habits. Having been for some time employed as a junior clerk of an English mercantile house (there were only two at that time in Alexandria), he had not only become a very good English scholar, but had acquired a fair knowledge of Greek and Italian. He was a bold and practised swimmer; but on one or two occasions when he had followed Hassan to enjoy his favourite pastime in the surf, he had received contusions which stunned him for the moment, and might have cost him dear, had not the powerful arm of his athletic comrade been always near and ready to assist him.

This companionship, which soon ripened into friendship, was not without its corresponding advantage to Hassan. His eager imagination had already drunk in with avidity the feats of Antar, Sindebad, and other heroes of Arab story; but his new friend could tell him yet stranger tales of the regions beyond the sea—regions where from cold the waters grew as hard as stone, and bore the passage of loaded waggons; where ships, by the aid of fire, sailed against the wind and stream, and where the inhabitants of one small island possessed and ruled at a distance of many thousand miles possessions five times larger and more populous than those of the great Sultan of Islam.

These narrations, and especially the last, excited so forcibly the ardent imagination of Hassan, that he was never weary of listening, and he prevailed upon his new friend one day to take him to the counting-house where he was employed, that he might see some of these wonderful islanders. Probably he expected to find in them marvellous beings, like the giants or jinns of Arab fiction; but after accompanying his friend to the house of Mr ——, whom he saw through an open door at the extremity of the counting-house, seated at a table writing letters and tying up papers, he went out again, with disappointment evidently written upon his countenance.

“What tales are these which you have been telling me, Ahmed?” said he to his companion; “by Allah, that is no man at all! He is smaller than I am; he has not the beard of Hadji, and he has not even a scribe to write his letters!”

“Hassan,” replied his friend, smiling, “the habits of these islanders are different from those of Turks and Arabs. The pen is their sword in commerce, and they like to wield it themselves. Our chief writes on matters of importance with his own hand; it is good, for no scribe can betray him; but in the adjoining room he has two or three clerks who write on his affairs from morning till night.”

Hassan shook his head, thought of the swift horse and the open desert, and said, “Allah be praised, I am not a merchant of these islanders.” Nevertheless there was something mysterious about their history which continued to excite his fancy, and as weeks and months passed on, they found him, during the leisure hours of evening, employed in learning English from his friend.

As Turkish was the language habitually spoken in the family of Mohammed Aga and in other places which Hassan’s avocations led him to frequent, he soon acquired a sufficient knowledge of it to enable him to understand and converse in it with tolerable fluency.

During the next three years of our hero’s life he remained in the employment of Hadji Ismael, who never repented having trusted him implicitly in every commission with which he had been charged, and had procured for him a teacher under whose instructions he had learnt to read Arabic and to write a legible hand; but Hassan, though ready and quick of apprehension, did not evince any fondness for the study of books; his pleasures were a ride on the back of a fiery horse or a crested wave, and listening after sunset to the popular Arab romances of old, recited by some wandering _ràwi_.[19]

Of these last he was so fond that he knew many of them by heart. Stories of princes and princesses in disguise, mingled with the mystery hanging over his own birth, floated in his imaginative brain, but the mystery remained unravelled. He had kept the secret confined to his own breast, never even communicating it to his friend Ahmed; nevertheless from him, from his father, and from all his acquaintance, he had diligently inquired into the early history of all the Turkish pashas, beys, and officers in Alexandria, but no known episode of their lives threw any light upon the object of his search. His passions were strong and turbulent, but he generally kept them under the control of a determined will, and the secret conviction that he was the son of “somebody” imparted to his character a certain pride and reserve which assorted better with his form and features than with his outward condition of life.

Connected with the mystery of his birth and with the events related in the wild tales with which he had fed his youthful imagination, was the image of a lovely princess whom he had clothed with all the attributes of beauty ascribed by Arab poetry to such damsels; waking or dreaming, she was constantly before his eyes: he had given her a name, and he loved this creature of his imagination with all the ardent fondness of a young and passionate heart.

If it be true that such visionary dreams of youth are necessarily followed by disappointment on awaking to the rude realities of life, it is also true that in some cases, as in his, they preserve those who are under their influence from the temptations to which that age is exposed. It is one of the evils of modern education in what we are pleased to call highly civilised countries to cultivate the understanding at the expense of the heart. The simplicity, the trusting confidence, the warm imagination, the love of all that is pure and high and holy, which are the proper attributes of youth, are sacrificed to what is termed a practical knowledge of the world, and the result is, that there is now many a young gentleman at Eton and Oxford who would listen with a sneer of contempt to a sentiment or a trait of character which would have drawn a tear of sympathy and admiration from the eye of a Burke or a Fox, a Pascal or a Newton.

To return from this digression. Hassan loved his imaginary princess; nevertheless, like a true lover, he put her in the deepest corner of his heart, and never spoke of her.

A short time afterwards Hassan was sent by the Hadji, in company with Mohammed Aga, to collect a debt of considerable amount due to him in Damanhour, a large village distant a day’s journey from the city.

This affair occupied some little time, and might not, perhaps, have been settled at all had not Mohammed Aga been provided with a handsome Cashmere shawl and a pretty Damascus handkerchief, in one corner of which a few gold pieces were secured by a silken cord. The former of these presents found its way to the Governor, and the latter to his chief scribe, after which the justice of the claim became as clear as day, and the debtor was ordered to pay up without delay.

While this affair was in progress, and Mohammed Aga was busy in the Governor’s divan, Hassan was one day strolling near the village to pass the time when his ear was arrested by the sound of female cries and lamentations. Turning his head to the quarter whence the sounds proceeded, he saw a man with his hands chained together walking between two soldiers, who occasionally hastened his steps by blows from the butt-ends of their muskets. Behind them were two women and two children screaming at the top of their voices—

“Oh! mercy, mercy! Oh! my brother! Oh! my husband! Oh! my father! Mercy, mercy!”

In front of this lamenting group, and by the side of one of the soldiers, walked an individual with a paper in his hand, who seemed to be the man under whose authority the prisoner had been seized, and who bore the appearance of being one of the _kawàsses_ of the Governor.[20]

“May your day be fortunate, O Aga,” said Hassan, addressing him in the Turkish language.[21] “What is the fault of this man, and whither are you taking him?”

“Happily met, Aga,” said the _kawàss_, impressed by the commanding figure of the young stranger. “This vagabond is now nearly two years in arrears of his taxes due to the Government; his tents are near the edge of the desert, and we never could find him. Praise be to Allah, I have got him now, and to-morrow we shall see whether five hundred good blows on the soles of his feet will help him to find the two thousand piastres that he owes.”[22]

The prisoner maintained a dogged silence, never even raising his eyes to look at the _kawàss_ while speaking; but his wife now rushed forward, and, throwing herself at Hassan’s feet, cried out—

“Mercy, mercy, young Aga! I and my children—our sister—we are all ruined. We have none to depend on but him. The sluices of the canal were not opened; our lands were dried up. We had no crop; we sold our animals; everything is gone. Speak to the Governor, young Aga; let him give us time and we will pay all.”

Hassan turned aside his head to hide his emotion, for to misery, and to woman’s misery above all, his heart was soft as a child’s. Recovering himself, however, in a moment, he turned to the _kawàss_, saying—

“Would the Governor not excuse or delay the payment of this sum?”

“Surely not,” said the other decidedly. “His Excellency is very angry with him for the trouble he has already given: the amount is entered in the accounts, and it must be paid. You are young, sir, and a stranger here; you do not know the marvellous power of the sticks in bringing to light hidden money; they are more powerful than the rods of the Cairo magicians.”

“By Allah!—by the life of your mother!” screamed the poor woman, still at Hassan’s feet, “we have nothing; they may kill us, but we have no money to give. For weeks past we have seen no bread, and eaten nothing but a few dates. We are miserable, O Aga!—look at us—mercy, mercy!” The emaciated appearance of the whole family bore witness to this part of the woman’s statement.

“My friend,” said Hassan, turning to the _kawàss_, “I know a merchant in Damanhour who will perhaps advance this money, and take a bond for repayment in one or two years. Promise me that you will not report this man’s seizure till to-morrow at noon: the Governor will be better pleased with your zeal if you are then able to present him with the money required than if you beat the man to death without perhaps obtaining a third of it. Promise, then, that you will wait till to-morrow at noon.”

“I will wait as you desire,” replied the _kawàss_; “and if you come to the guard-house where this fellow will be confined, ask for Ibrahim the _kawàss_.”

During all this time the eyes of the unhappy wife were fixed upon Hassan’s countenance with an expression of intense anxiety. She had not understood a syllable of the conversation that had passed between him and the _kawàss_, but instinct taught her that in some way he was befriending her husband’s cause; and as the latter moved on with his guards, she continued to overwhelm him with blessings and prayers mingled with tears.

“Be of good cheer,” he said to her, now speaking in his own language. “Inshallah! all will yet go well. Meanwhile take this, and buy some bread this evening for your children and yourselves;” and as he spoke he slipped a piece of silver into her hand and turned hastily away.

When the poor woman heard herself addressed in the deep and not-to-be-mistaken tones of a Bedouin Arab, and felt the money, surprise and gratitude deprived her for a moment of the powers of speech; and Hassan was already at some distance when she recovered them, and throwing herself into her sister’s arms, she exclaimed—

“He will save us!—he will save us!—he is not a Turk!—why did I call him Aga?—he is of the Sons of the Tent[23]—surely my husband and he have met before in the desert and been friends—he will save us—the blessing of Allah be on his head!”

That same evening, at sunset, Mohammed Aga and Hassan were smoking their pipes and drinking their coffee in front of their lodging, when the former said to his companion—

“Inshallah! we will return in a day or two to Alexandria. Our affair is proceeding well: I have collected half the money, and the remainder is to be paid to-morrow.”

Hassan made no direct reply to this address, but after a pause of a few minutes he abruptly asked the chief clerk—

“Do you remember how much of my salary is still due to me, in your hands?”

“Assuredly I do, my son,” said the methodical clerk. “At the beginning of the year the arrears of salary, added to what the Hadji allowed of percentage on purchases, amounted to four thousand piastres (£40); then at the feast you sent a present of a bale of tobacco and a Persian dagger to your father the Sheik, two pieces of Syrian silk and some embroidered napkins to your mother, two pieces—”

“Enough, enough!” interrupted Hassan, distressed at this enumeration of the mementoes which he had sent to his foster-parents; “how much remained after these presents were paid for?”

“They cost fifteen hundred piastres; so you still have two thousand five hundred left.”

“That is well,” said Hassan. “I want that money here. Will you give it me, Mohammed, and repay yourself from the chest in Alexandria?”

“The boy is mad,” said the old clerk, opening his eyes wide with astonishment. “By the head of your father, tell me for what purpose can you require all that money at once, here at Damanhour? Are you going to buy beans and wheat for the market?”

“No,” replied Hassan, with some confusion, “it is not my trade to purchase grain; but indeed I require that money, and hope you will let me have it.”

“Allah-Allah!” said the old clerk, as a sudden suspicion shot across his mind, “you have seen some Damanhour girl who has set your heart on fire! The songs tell us that the girls are famed for their beauty here: you have seen a moon-faced one behind a curtain, and you are going to be married! Wallah-Billah! brimstone and tinder are like wet clay when compared to the heart of a youth.”

“Indeed,” said Hassan, laughing, “I have seen no moon-faced houri here, and I have no thoughts of marriage.” He added more gravely, “I want the money for a purpose which I cannot tell you, though if I did you could not disapprove it.”

Mohammed Aga, seeing that opposition was useless, and feeling that he had in truth no right to keep back from Hassan what was his own, counted out the money to him the same evening, and took his receipt, to be presented to Hadji Ismael.

The following morning, about three hours after sunrise, when Hassan had made sure that the chief clerk was busily employed in the Governor’s divan, he bent his steps to the guard-house, and on asking for Ibrahim the _kawàss_, was at once admitted to the presence of that important official.

After the customary salutations, Hassan informed him that the merchant to whom he had yesterday alluded had agreed to advance the money, and that he was now prepared to pay the two thousand piastres due by the Arab, on receiving a discharge in full for the debt, sealed by the proper officer in the divan.

“That is easily done,” said the _kawàss_; “take a pipe and a cup of coffee, and in five minutes the paper will be here.”

Having given the requisite instructions to one of his subordinates, he resumed the conversation with Hassan upon general topics, it being indifferent to him to know what merchant in Damanhour could be so foolish as to advance money of which he would never be repaid a farthing.

In a few minutes the messenger returned, bringing a paper bearing the seals of the treasurer and chief scribe of the Governor’s divan, and setting forth that Abou-Hamedi, of the Gemeâl tribe, having discharged all the taxes and charges due by him up to date, was free to return to his place of abode.

Hassan having paid the money and placed the document in his girdle, inquired of the _kawàss_ where the prisoner was confined, and whether he could see him alone.

“He is in the room at the back of that small yard,” replied the _kawàss_, “where you see the sentry walking before the door. I will tell him to open it and come away, as his service is no longer required. You will not find the Arab alone, because, as you had taken an interest in him, I allowed his family to remain with him.”

“May your honour increase and your days be long,” said Hassan, saluting him, and going towards the door of the cell, which the sentry, by desire of the _kawàss_, opened, and then came away.

On entering the chamber, Hassan found that it was more spacious than he had expected, and was partially lighted by two apertures near the roof, secured by cross-bars of iron. The place being considered sufficiently secure, the manacles had been removed from the hands of the Arab, and he was seated on the floor, his sister and wife beside him, and his children at his feet.

No sooner did Hassan enter the room than the wife sprang from her sitting posture, crying aloud—

“It is he! it is he! we shall be saved yet.”

Abou-Hamedi also arose, and all the rest of the family came crowding towards Hassan. The Arab, who had been informed the preceding evening by his wife of our hero’s generous intentions, as well as of his having provided them with the bread on which they had supped, now expressed to him with much emotion the gratitude which he felt for the sympathy he had shown him.

“You are of the desert blood,” he said; “and whether Allah give success to your endeavours or not, you have our thanks.”

“Brother, you are free,” said Hassan; “free as the winds of the desert. Here is the Government receipt for your debt, and as you have been stripped of all, and must have something wherewith to recommence your toil for a livelihood, here are five hundred piastres; put them in your girdle. Fate is uncertain, Allah only is enduring; I am now rich, some day I may be poor and you rich, then you may repay me.”

Words cannot paint the tumultuous joy of the poor women as they crowded to kiss the hands and feet of Hassan, calling every blessing of heaven on his head. The wife, however, on looking at her husband’s countenance as he almost mechanically took the document and the money which Hassan placed in his hand, was frightened at its strange and wild expression; no word of satisfaction or gratitude escaped from his lips as, seizing Hassan by the arm, he drew him to a part of the cell where a stray sunbeam forced its way through the barred aperture; when it fell on Hassan’s face, the Arab, scanning his features with eyes almost starting from their sockets, said—

“Years have passed; the youth has become a man; the eye, the voice, the form are only his! Speak,” he continued, almost savagely; “do you remember one who strove to stab you in the Meidàn of Alexandria, and whom you threw to the ground by a wrestling trick? ’Twas I! and had you known me yesterday, instead of giving me money and freedom, you would have gone to that cursed Turk’s divan to feast your eyes with a sight of my mangled feet.” So saying, he dashed the paper and the money furiously on the ground.

“Brother,” replied Hassan gravely, “I knew you yesterday at the first glance as well as you know me now. You were in misfortune and misery, and all that had passed before was forgotten.”

The evil passions struggled for the mastery in that wild breast: it was but for a moment; the sight of his children and of the paper which secured his freedom called up the better feelings of his rude nature, and casting himself into Hassan’s arms, he wept like a child.

Without having read or heard of the Scriptures, the generous impulse of Hassan’s heart had taught him how to “heap coals of fire on the head of an enemy”; and the deadly hatred which Abou-Hamedi had entertained against him since the day of their first meeting was melted in a moment.

It was difficult for Hassan to tear himself away from the overflowing gratitude of the Arab’s family. One only, the unmarried sister, had preserved a continuous silence, as became her condition; but she looked upon her brother’s preserver with eyes swimming in tears, and when he bade them farewell and left the room, she felt as if life and sunshine had departed with him.

Little did Abou-Hamedi know when he thrust into his girdle the five hundred piastres given him by Hassan, that the latter had not even a dollar left. He had said, “I am rich,” and in truth rich he was—rich in youth, and strength, and hope—rich in the esteem and affection of his employer—above all, rich in the possession of a heart which felt in giving his all to relieve distress a pleasure unknown to the miser who has found a treasure.

Hassan remained outside the guard-house talking to the _kawàss_ on various subjects until he had seen Abou-Hamedi and his family clear of its precincts, and retiring in the direction of the desert. The Arab, looking back once at the figure of his preserver, muttered to himself: “Allah preserve you, brave youth. If ever you meet Abou-Hamedi again when you are in need, you shall find that he remembers good as well as evil; but we will leave this cursed district, where sorrow and tyranny pursue us; we will go to our cousins who have their tents near Fayoom.”[24]

When Mohammed Aga met his young friend in the evening, he asked whether he had commenced that wonderful speculation which he kept so secret.

“It is all laid out already,” replied Hassan, smiling.

“Hasty bargains lead to repentance,” said the old clerk, shaking his head; “pray, what makseb [profit] do you expect to make?”

“It has paid me a good interest already, and I am quite satisfied. Do not ask me any more about it,” said Hassan, looking rather confused, for concealment was foreign to his nature.

Mohammed Aga refrained from asking any more questions; but, partly from curiosity and partly from the interest which he felt in Hassan’s welfare, he was determined before leaving Damanhour to learn how he had disposed of his little property. Nor was the task by any means difficult; for in small towns in the East as well as in the West everybody knows and talks about everything. The chief clerk, therefore, had no difficulty on the following day in tracing Hassan to the guard-house, where he had been seen talking to Ibrahim the _kawàss_. To find that well-known individual was the work of a few minutes, and a few more spent with him over a cup of coffee and a pipe drew from him all that he knew of the transaction, including the release of the Arab family on Hassan’s paying their debt of two thousand piastres. “You see, Aga,” added the _kawàss_, concluding his narrative, “it was my duty to release them when the money was paid, and not to inquire whence it came; but if you are the merchant whom the young man mentioned as willing to advance it on any security offered by the Arab, why, I fear——” Here he looked very significantly at Mohammed, and threw out a long puff of smoke from his chibouque.

“Then you think the Arab cannot pay back the money?” inquired Mohammed.

“Not a dollar of it,” answered the _kawàss_. “The Governor would have ordered him the bastinado as an example to others, but two bad seasons have left the poor devil’s purse as empty as my pipe.” So saying, he shook out its ashes, and left Mohammed to his own meditations.

“That boy will never have a farthing to bless his grey hairs with! Money in his hand is like water in a sieve, and yet, and yet,”—here the old clerk passed the back of his hand across his eyes,—“Allah bless him an hundredfold.” He walked slowly home, and without saying a word to Hassan of his meeting with the _kawàss_, he told him that, as the affairs for which they had come to Damanhour were now settled, they might return to Alexandria, which they did on the following day.

The morning after their return Mohammed Aga went to the private room of the merchant to deliver the money which he had collected, and give a general account of his mission, in doing which he placed in the Hadji’s hands Hassan’s receipt for two thousand five hundred piastres.

“By your head,” said the merchant to his clerk, “tell me what has the youth done with that money at Damanhour?”

Mohammed then told him the whole story from beginning to end, as related by the _kawàss_.

“And what has he left in your hands?” inquired the merchant, walking up and down the room in evident emotion.

“Nothing,” replied the clerk. “Two thousand five hundred piastres were due to him; two thousand he paid for the liberation of the Arab, and I doubt not that he gave him the remainder.”

“Mohammed,” said the merchant, “as he wished to keep this secret, do not mention it to any one, nor let him know that you have told it to me. If it were spoken about, it would take from the youth the pleasure he now derives from it, and what say the traditions of the Prophet (on whose name be glory and peace!), ‘The good deeds done by the faithful in secret, He shall reward them openly on the day of judgment.’”

During Hassan’s short absence from Alexandria an English family of the name of Thorpe had arrived there—Mr Thorpe being an elderly gentleman of good fortune and education, whose passion for antiquarian pursuit had induced him to visit the land of the Pyramids, together with his wife and their delicate daughter. Mr Thorpe had brought a letter of introduction to the British merchant, who undertook to procure for him a dragoman to accompany the family on their excursion up the Nile. A Greek was recommended, by name Demetri, who possessed a fair smattering of all the languages spoken in the Levant.

Foyster, Mr Thorpe’s valet and confidential servant, having approved of Demetri, he was forthwith engaged. After a short search a dahabiah was found, which belonged to a pasha absent on service, and who had left with his wakeel (agent) a discretionary power to let his boat, which was large and well decorated. The wakeel, being a Greek, was an acquaintance of Demetri, which rendered the bargaining easy and satisfactory to both parties. It was agreed that Mr Thorpe was to pay £250 for the six winter months, the wakeel refunding from that amount £15 to Demetri, and £15 to Foyster. Mr Thorpe was informed by the English merchant that the charge was unusually high; but as in those days there was much difficulty in finding so large and comfortable a boat, the bargain was concluded and the ratification duly exchanged.

A few days after, Foyster and Demetri were walking homeward from the bazaar, where they had been making some purchases for the boat, when they fell in with Hassan, who was returning towards the house of Hadji Ismael.

Hassan was well acquainted with Demetri, who had frequently amused his leisure hours with tales of the countries he had visited, and the wonderful feats he had performed, in which latter branch the Greek had drawn more liberally on his invention than on his memory. The youth had also seen Foyster at the British merchant’s house, and knew him to be an attendant on the rich English family, whose approaching excursion up the Nile was already the theme of general conversation. The place where they met happening to be immediately in front of a coffee-shop, Demetri proposed that they should rest for a few minutes and take a cup of coffee. While they were thus occupied—Demetri’s two companions listening to his flowery description of the wonders of Upper Egypt—a Moghrebi,[25] of gigantic and herculean proportions, who had probably been indulging in a forbidden drink more stimulating than coffee, came up, and his fanaticism being roused at the sight of Foyster’s dress, he cried out to him, in an angry voice—

“Get up, Christian dog, and give me your seat.”

The valet, not understanding a word, looked at Demetri for an explanation. The latter, much alarmed, and evidently not desirous of exhibiting any feat of valour similar to those of which he had often boasted, said to the Moghrebi—

“He is a stranger, and does not understand your speech.”

“Does he not?” replied the other; “then perhaps he will understand this,” and so saying he kicked the seat from under Foyster with such force that the latter fell backwards on the ground.

While this was being enacted, Demetri whispered to Hassan—

“Let us make haste to get away from this place. That is the noted _pehlivan_.[26] He carries four men on his shoulders; he is an elephant.”

“Why do you insult the stranger, and kick his seat from him?” said Hassan to the Moghrebi. “He offered you no offence.”

“Offence!” replied the Moghrebi scornfully; “his presence is an offence. Is he not a dog of an infidel?”

“There is no God but Allah, and Mahomet is his prophet,” said Hassan. “Those who are ignorant of the truth are to be pitied; but our lord (Mohammed Ali) has made friends with these Franks. They buy and sell here in peace, and it is not right to strike or insult them without cause in our streets.”

“And who are you, youngster, who dare to preach to me?” said the athlete contemptuously. “Are you perhaps a sheik, or a mollah, or a kâdi?”

“I am a man, and I fear not a wise one, for wasting my words upon an ox without understanding,” replied Hassan, his eyes kindling with anger.

“You are a bastard (Ebn-Haram),” shouted the athlete; “and if you had half a beard I would spit upon it.”

Hearing this abusive epithet now applied to him before a score of spectators, Hassan’s fury was no longer to be controlled. Springing upon the Moghrebi with the bound of a tiger, he seized him by the throat, and a fearful struggle ensued.

Although the athlete was the heavier and more bulky man, it soon appeared that Hassan was his equal in strength, and far his superior in activity. After a contest of some minutes, in which each displayed a complete mastery of all the sleights of wrestling, Hassan succeeded in passing his hand under the leg of his gigantic opponent, and lifting him fairly in his arms, dashed him with terrific force on the ground. Hassan stood for a moment looking on his fallen opponent, from whose mouth and nostrils flowed a stream of blood. The people from the coffee-shop now crowded round him: some threw water on his face, and in a short time he recovered sufficiently to raise himself up; but he was in no condition to renew the struggle, and Hassan walked away with his two companions, followed by the ejaculations of the bystanders—“Mashallah! wonderful!”—the greater part of them being rejoiced at the discomfiture of the athlete, who was indeed a notorious brawler and bully.

The preparations of the dahabiah were now nearly completed. It had been found, however, that after all she was too small to accommodate all the party with comfort, so a second of a smaller size had been hired.

It was about this time that, after receiving a letter from Cairo, Hadji Ismael sent one morning for Hassan and told him that a new commission had arrived, in the execution of which his assistance would be requisite.

“Upon my head and eyes be it,” said the youth.

“I have received a letter from my friend Ali Pasha, commonly called Delì Pasha;[27] he tells me that our lord, Ibrahim Pasha, saw the horses which I sent to Constantinople two or three years ago, and was so much pleased with them that he gave great praise to his servant (me), saying that no horse commission had been so well executed as this. Our lord Ibrahim Pasha has now desired Delì Pasha to write to me and find out who purchased these horses for me, and if possible to send the person up to Cairo, where his services are much required. Now, Hassan, as you had the chief trouble and merit of that purchase, I propose to send you to Delì Pasha on this matter. It may open you a way to fortune.”

“You are my uncle,”[28] replied Hassan; “and I am ready to go where you wish, and my fortune is in the hand of Allah.”

“Nay, my son,” said the good merchant; “it is bitter to my heart to part with you, but you know that it is not consistent with the circumstances of your birth and early youth that you should remain always in this town: you do not wish to go to Cairo? Perhaps, by the blessing of Allah, you may learn things there which concern your happiness?”

Hassan saw at once that his foster-father had communicated to the Hadji some of the mysterious circumstances attending his early childhood, so he replied—

“It is true that I have a weight on my heart, and if I could remove it by a journey to Cairo, it would be a blessed journey indeed.”

“You would seek for a father; is it not so?” said the Hadji.

“It is so,” replied Hassan. “I have made search and inquiry in Alexandria without success; but I am sure I shall find him, for I have taken a _fal_ in the Koran,[29] and the words that I found were, ‘The faithful who seek shall not be disappointed in their hope.’”

“Inshallah! your hope will be fulfilled!” replied the merchant. “Have you anything with you by which a parent, if found, could recognise you?”

Hassan undid his long girdle, and from its inmost folds produced the relics given him by his foster-mother. The merchant examined them attentively.

“These would be sufficient,” he said, “to identify you; but, Hassan, if you go to Cairo, remember that there are many accidents by water and by land; you might be robbed, and could never replace them. You had better leave some of them with me; I will keep them for you in my iron chest; whenever you require them, you can send for them.”

Hassan acquiesced in the proposal of his kind patron, and reserving only the quaintly devised amulet, he gave up the remainder, receiving from the merchant a paper describing them accurately and bearing the merchant’s seal.

The worthy Hadji was grieved to part with his _protégé_, for whom he entertained an affection almost paternal; but having resolved to do so for the youth’s own advantage, his chief anxiety now was to furnish him well for the journey. For this purpose he desired Mohammed Aga to procure a pair of stout saddlebags, into which he put two complete suits of clothes, and also two small Cashmere shawls; with respect to these last the Hadji whispered, “You need not wear these unless you find a father in some great man, but they may be useful to you as presents.” He gave him also a sword of excellent temper, a slight but beautifully worked Persian dagger, and a pair of English pistols: to these he added a well-filled purse; but observing some hesitation in Hassan’s countenance, the kind-hearted Hadji added with a smile, “Nay, it is almost all due to you for past services; but I shall write to Delì Pasha and inform him that your salary is prepaid for three months from this date.” Hassan kissed the hand of his benefactor, his heart was too full for speech, and he could only utter—

“If I find a father, may he be like Hadji Ismael.”

Of personal vanity Hassan was as free as from the foibles which usually attend it; but it cannot be denied that when he walked out in the full dress and equipment proper to a young Bedouin Sheik, it was with a prouder step, and the day-dreams concerning his future destiny took a firmer hold of his imagination.

“Whither bound, my brother?” called out to him Demetri, on meeting him near the door of the merchant’s house. “Mashallah! you have the air and costume of a bridegroom! Who is the moon-faced one whom you have chosen? By our head, Hassan, it is not well to keep these things secret from your friends. When is the wedding to take place?”

“Nay, there is no wedding in the case,” said Hassan, laughing. “The Hadji is going to send me on a commission to Cairo, and he has given me this dress and these arms.”

“May Allah reward him!” said the merry Greek. “To Cairo, said you? Why, the Fates are propitious. We are going there likewise. Inshallah! we will go together.”

“How may that be?” demanded Hassan. “You are going with that rich Frank family, and I hear that your boat will be so crowded with luggage and people that there will not be room for a sparrow on board.”

“Nonsense,” replied the Greek. “There is always room for a friend. The English servant and I can do as we please, for the old Englishman troubles himself about nothing so long as he has his books and a few old bricks and tiles to look at.”

“Bricks and tiles!” said Hassan. “Why, is he going to build a house in Upper Egypt?”

“No; but by my father’s head, he is mad about old bricks. The other day he made me go with him all round the mounds near Pompey’s Pillar, and he brought back with him nearly an ass-load of fragments of stone, bricks, and pottery.”

“Wonderful!” said Hassan. “But why do you think the English servant would be willing to give me a passage in the boat?”

“Why,” replied Demetri, “because ever since the day that you threw down the Moghrebi bully who had kicked his seat from under him, he does nothing but talk of you. Never fear; he will be delighted to have your company; and we will tell the old gentleman that if we have you on board, all the thieves and robbers within twenty miles of the bank will disappear as by magic.”

“Nay,” said Hassan, laughing; “do not tell him anything that might lead him to think me a boasting fool. But you certainly may tell him that if he gives me a passage, and any danger or trouble occurs, I shall be ready to tender the best service in my power.”

On this they parted, and Demetri communicated the plan the same day to the valet, who relished it extremely, being well satisfied to have by him in case of need a stouter heart and arm than that with which Providence had blessed the Greek interpreter. They proceeded together to Mr Thorpe, and explained to him the advantages to be derived from the proposed addition to their party.

“But,” said Mr Thorpe, “I fear we have no cabin vacant.”

“Cabin!” echoed Demetri. “Does your excellency think that a son of the desert like him would go into a cabin? No, no. With his _bornoos_ [cloak] over him, and his _khordj_ [saddle-bags] under his head, he will sleep like a prince on any part of the deck.”

Mr Thorpe having no other objection to make, and the ladies being curious to see the hero of Foyster’s narrative, no further persuasion was requisite, and Hadji Ismael, on his part, was heartily glad that his young _protégé_ had found so convenient and easy a conveyance to Cairo.

It was with sincere and mutual regret that Hassan parted with Mohammed Aga and his son Ahmed, who had shown him such invariable kindness during the three or four years that he had spent in Alexandria. But “destiny had written it,” and it is wonderful to see the composure with which good Mussulmans resign themselves even to the heaviest misfortunes with that phrase on their tongue.

The chief clerk, in bidding adieu to Hassan, put a letter into his hand. “Take this, my son,” he said. “It is addressed to Ahmed Aga, the _mirakhor_[30], and favourite Mameluke of Delì Pasha. I have known him long, and I trust he will be a good friend to you.”

Hassan in quitting the merchant’s house left universal regret behind him. Even the old Berber _bowàb_ [porter] said, “Allah preserve him. He was a good youth. Every Bairam he gave me a dollar, and if I was half asleep and kept him at the door, he never cursed my father.”

On a fine autumnal day, about the middle of October, the Thorpe party embarked on the dahabiahs destined to convey them on their Nile expedition. The boats were moored to the banks of the Mahmoudiah canal, just opposite the pleasant and shady garden then occupied by Moharrem Bey, a relation of the Viceroy’s by marriage.

As donkey followed donkey, and porter followed porter to the place of embarkation, the active Greek distributed the packages in their several places; but the space and his patience were wellnigh exhausted by their variety and multitude. There were Mr Thorpe’s clothes and books and measuring instruments, and a box of tools for excavation. Then endless boxes and books and other sundries, the greater part of which Demetri considered as useless, were all to be added to the well-filled hampers of wine, spirits, tea, sugar, preserves, pickles, and a thousand other things with which his assiduity and Mr Thorpe’s guineas had filled every available bunker and corner of the boats.

Hassan had gone down early to the place of embarkation, not knowing the hour at which the start was to take place; so Demetri availed himself of this circumstance to make him his lieutenant, in urging the porters and the sailors to hasten the stowage of the multifarious baggage.

“By your head, Hassan, you are welcome!” cried the busy Greek; “had you not come, we should not have finished this work to-day, for these fellows are asses and the sons and grandsons of asses. Here—here, you blind dog!” shouted he to a sturdy fellow who was carrying a hamper into the smaller dahabiah, “did I not tell you to put that in the large boat?”

Here he paused, and said in an undertone to Hassan—

“Mr Foyster and I keep the wine-store in this boat, to have it under our own eye. The tutor and the young gentleman are in the small boat, and they cannot require wine.”

“If they are to study,” replied Hassan, smiling, “I doubt not that Nile water would be better for them; but you should know better than I, who am not a student or a drinker of wine.”

“That is the only fault you have, my lad,” said Demetri; “there is nothing like wine to open the heart and brighten the eye. Oh! you pig,” shouted he to another burly fellow going towards the cabin door; “are you going to carry that _kafass_ full of fowls into the ladies’ sleeping cabin?” So saying, he jumped upon the luckless porter, and with a few smart blows of his courbatch sent him forward with his chicken-load.

With the assistance of Hassan, Demetri contrived to get the multifarious boxes into something like order and arrangement by the time that a cloud of dust and the braying of half-a-dozen donkeys announced the approach of the Thorpe party.

Once fairly embarked, the boats, sometimes under easy sail, sometimes tracked from the shore, wound their slow way along the waters of the Mahmoudiah.

The voyage from Alexandria to Atfeh, the point at which the canal joins the Nile, is of itself dull, and is so familiar, either by experience or description, to the world in general, that it scarcely merits a separate notice. Still, as Emily Thorpe kept a journal, as many girls are in the habit of doing, a few pages therefrom may be transcribed, to give a further account of the voyage in the dahabiah:—

“I am surprised to hear that the Mahmoudiah canal, although cut by the present Viceroy at an enormous cost of money and of human life, through a country perfectly flat, is as winding in its course as a path through a labyrinth. On asking Demetri, our dragoman, if he could explain the cause of this, he answered me by a story—for he has a story ready for almost every occasion. The very same question, he says, was lately put to Mohammed Ali by a French engineer travelling through Egypt. The Pasha said to the engineer—

“‘Have you ever seen rivers in Europe?’

“‘Yes, sir, many.’

“‘Are they straight or crooked in their course?’

“‘They are generally crooked, sir.’

“‘Who made the rivers?’ inquired the Pasha.

“‘They were made by Allah,’ said the astonished engineer.

“‘Then, sir,’ concluded the Pasha triumphantly, ‘do you expect me to know and to do better than Allah?’

“The poor engineer had no reply to make to this strange argument, so he took his leave and went his way.

“I hope we shall soon see this extraordinary man, who has raised himself from the position of a subaltern to the viceroyalty of Egypt. He is now staying at a small country-house that he has built on the banks of the Nile, about fifty miles above this place.

“On the first day we had mostly contrary winds, and the tracking a boat of this size is slower than a snail’s gallop. Hassan having seen some wild ducks flying over a marsh at no great distance, went in search of them. In the evening he brought back five or six. But yesterday was our first adventure.

“We were sailing up the canal, the breeze being favourable, though very slight, when at a bend or sharp turn we came suddenly upon a large boat like our own, coming from Atfeh to Alexandria. Whether owing to a sudden change of course, or to some mismanagement on the part of one of the pilots, I know not, but the two boats came together with a fearful crash. The rigging of both was damaged, and for some minutes the vessels were locked to each other near the prow, the men being unable to extricate them. It seemed that the crew of the other boat was far more numerous than ours, and amongst others I noticed a man dressed in a military blue frock, who, Demetri told me afterwards, was a _kawàss_ of the Viceroy.

“The noise, the yells that ensued, and the volumes of (to me unintelligible) abuse that were interchanged, baffle all description; but as no one seemed to think of disengaging the vessels, but all were bent upon gesticulations which became every minute more hostile, I felt seriously alarmed. Hassan, who had been sitting in his usual place behind our divan, seeing my alarm, came up to me and said with a smile (for he speaks English tolerably well)—

“‘Do not be afraid, lady; these fellahs make a great deal of noise, but there is no danger.’

“Even as he was speaking, the man in the blue coat, who seemed to be in a perfect fury, and to be urging his men to board our boat and beat our crew, caught up a stone or brick, which happened to come within his reach. Whether he aimed it at Hassan, or the _rais_, or me, I know not, but it just grazed my head, drawing a little blood from the upper part of my cheek.

“Hassan’s countenance changed in a moment; his eyes shone like lightning; it was terrible to see such concentrated fury in that young face, so gentle in its habitual expression. Calling the _rais_ to hold up his large cloak before me to shield me from further harm, he sprang to the lower deck, and ran forward to the prow where the boat had been entangled. Before he reached the spot they had become disengaged, I know not how, and ours was beginning slowly to resume its course; clearing the intervening space at a bound, he leapt alone upon the deck of the other boat. There he was met and attacked by a man with what they call here a _naboot_, a thick heavy stick. Hassan wrenched it from the man’s grasp, and whirling it round his head, and calling on the others to stand back, he forced his way to the spot where stood the _kawàss_ who had thrown the stone; the latter drew his sword, but Hassan’s blow fell with such terrific force that the sword was shivered, and the man fell senseless on the deck.

“We could see that four or five of the boat’s crew struck at Hassan and grappled with him, endeavouring to throw him down and bind him, but he shook them off by the exertion of his tremendous strength, and plunging overboard into the canal swam to the opposite bank; two of the boat’s crew jumped in and swam after him, but he reached the shore before them. He then ran along the bank till he overtook our boat, which was now going steadily through the water with a fair wind, and plunging into the canal again, caught a rope thrown to him by our _rais_, and in a minute was safely on board.”

The two dahabiahs had passed through the locks of Atfeh, and were just about to commence their course up the broad stream of the Nile when a _kawàss_ from the Governor of the town came to the water’s edge and desired the _rais_ of the larger boat to stay a few minutes, as he had a message to deliver to the English traveller.

On being presented to Mr Thorpe, at whose side stood Demetri as interpreter, the _kawàss_ said he was instructed by the Governor to desire that an Arab on board, charged with assaulting and beating one of the servants of the Viceroy, might be given up to him.

Mr Thorpe, whose experience of Eastern travel was small, but who was at the same time too humane to think of giving up Hassan to the tender mercies of the Atfeh authorities, consulted apart with Demetri, and then replied—

“Tell the Governor that I have a complaint to make against the captain and crew of the boat which ran into and damaged mine; and also against that servant of the Viceroy who, without any right or provocation, threw a brick at my daughter, which struck her, and might have killed her. I am now on my way to Cairo, where the rights of the case will be examined by the English Consul and the Egyptian Government: then if any person in this boat shall be judged to be in fault he can be punished.”

The _kawàss_, not having any reply ready to meet this reasonable proposal, permitted the boats to proceed on their way, and retired to deliver the message to his principal.

Unlike the Rhine, the Rhone, and other great rivers in Europe, which are, as it were, merely beneficial accidents in the countries through which they flow, the Nile is the creator and perpetuator, as well as the fertiliser, of the whole soil of Egypt. Wherever its prolific waters annually irrigate and subside, there spring up in exuberant abundance the grains and herbs of the field, the flowers and fruits of the garden, the almond and pomegranate, the fruitful palm, the fragrant orange and lemon, the cotton-plant and the sugar-cane, and, more frequent than all, the widespread shade of the sycomore.[31] In Egypt it is unnecessary to inquire where vegetation ceases and the desert begins: from the Cataracts to the Mediterranean the answer would be always the same—whatever spot or line the waters of the Nile can reach there is, or may be, cultivation; all beyond that line is desert. The feelings of the party on attaining the fine view of this glorious river were various as their habits and characters.