Chapter XIII

WE reached Dakhla Oasis on 23rd January, and stayed for a day in the scrub-covered area, through which the road runs before entering the inhabited portion of the oasis, on the chance of getting a shot at gazelle. While camped here the _’omda_ of Tenida, the nearest village, who was notorious throughout the oasis for his meanness, sent down over night a _ghaffir_ (night watchman) after dark, to spy out who we were, and, having made sure of our identity, carefully got himself out of the way, in order to avoid having to invite us in to a meal, according to the hospitable custom of the oasis!

As gazelle-hunting, owing to some confounded _bedawin_, who were camping in the neighbourhood and wandering all over the place, seemed likely to prove a waste of energy, I moved on the following day to the village of Belat.

Very little barley is grown in the oasis beyond that required for the use of the inhabitants; but as I heard that the _’omda_ had a large store of it that he had been unsuccessfully trying to sell, I endeavoured to buy some off him.

But unfortunately he “followed the Skeykh,” and Qway continuing his obstructive tactics of Assiut, secretly got hold of him, with the result that, when I approached him on the subject, the _’omda_ declared that there was not a grain left in the village—“not one.”

A distinctly stormy scene followed, which ended in the _’omda_ caving in and producing about a quarter of a ton of the absent grain, which I bought off him at an exorbitant price.

After this I gave him a thorough good dressing down, and then graciously forgave him and we drowned our enmity in the usual tea. I was not altogether dissatisfied with the transaction, for I felt that I had read the _’omda_ a lesson that he would not forget for some time. In this, however, as events turned out, I was to be grievously disappointed—my troubles with regard to the camels’ fodder had only just begun.

On our arrival in Mut, I went at once to the post office for letters, and finding that the upper story of the place was vacant, arranged to rent it during my stay in the oasis. It proved to be far better quarters than the old gloomy, scorpion-haunted store, and I found no reason to regret the change.

The man who tended the garden of the post office was quite a local celebrity. He was no other than the blind drummer who officiated in the band, when there was a wedding in the district. He was also the town crier, and I frequently met him in the streets, where, after beating a roll on his drum to attract attention, he would call out the news that he was engaged to spread.

Curiously, considering that he was totally blind, he had the reputation of being the best grower of vegetables in the neighbourhood, and his services as gardener were in great request in consequence. He was passionately fond of flowers, and was almost invariably seen with a rose, or a sprig of fruit blossom in his hand, which, as he made his way about the streets, he continually smelt. Once, when I happened to meet him, the supply of flowers must have run short, for he was inhaling, with evident gusto, the delicious perfume of an onion!

His sense of locality must have been wonderful, for he made his way about the streets almost as easily as though in full possession of perfect eyesight. Plants of all kinds seemed to be an obsession with him. He would squat down by the side of a bed of young vegetables he had planted, feel for the plants by running his hands rapidly over the soil, and, having found one, would tenderly finger it to see how it was growing. He would in this way rapidly examine each individual plant in the bed, and occasionally comment on the growth of some particular plant since he had last handled it. The loss of his eyesight had evidently greatly quickened his other faculties, for he could find any plant he wished without difficulty, and seemed to have a perfect recollection of the state in which he had last left them, never, I was told, making any mistake in their identity. The gratified smile that lighted up his blind, patient face, when his charges were doing well was quite pathetic.

While staying in the post office my camels were accommodated about a hundred yards away, in an open space under the lea of the high mud-built wall that surrounds the town, close to where a break had been made in it to allow free passage to the cultivation beyond. The choice of this site for the camping ground of the camels turned out to be unfortunate, for the locality was haunted. A man, it was said, had been killed near there while felling a tree, and his ghost—or as some said a _ghul_—frequently appeared there.

A night or two after our arrival, Ibrahim, who was sleeping there alone with the camels, came up to my room, just as I was getting into bed, and announced that he was not a bit afraid—and he did not seem in the least perturbed—but an _afrit_ kept throwing clods of earth at the camels, which prevented them from sleeping, so he thought he had better come and tell me about it.

The clods came from over the wall, and several times he had rushed round the corner, through the gap, to try and see the _afrit_ who was throwing them, but he had been unable to do so, so he wanted me to come down and attend to him.

It is not often that one gets the chance of interviewing a real ghost, so taking a candle and my revolver, I went down to the camel yard. Ibrahim showed me a pile of clods that had been thrown that he had collected—there must at least have been a dozen of them—and showed me the direction from which they had come.

It certainly was rather uncanny. On the other side of the wall was a flat open space, and there was nowhere within stone’s throw where any human being could possibly have hidden. I waited for some time to see if any more clods would be thrown; but as none came, I told Ibrahim in a loud voice to shoot any _afrit_ he saw and gave him my revolver, and then in a lower tone told him that he was on no account to shoot at all, but that if anyone came he might threaten to do so.

Ibrahim was perfectly satisfied. It was not so much the possession of the revolver that reassured him as the fact that it was made of iron, and _afrits_, as of course is well known, are afraid of iron!

No more clods were thrown that night; but they began again on the following evening, and still Ibrahim was unable to see the culprit. The thing was becoming a nuisance and it had to be stopped. It was of no use going to the native officials; they would have been just as ready to believe in the _afrit_ or _ghul_ yarn as any of the natives of the oasis, so I decided to tackle the question myself.

Dahab, carrying a pot of whitewash and a brush, and I, with a sextant and the nautical almanac, repaired to the scene of the haunting in the afternoon. I wrote “Solomon” and “iron” in Arabic on the wall, drew two human eyes squinting diabolically, a little devil and the diagram of the configuration of Jupiter’s Satellites, taken from the nautical almanac—an extremely cabalistic-looking design. I then waved the sextant about and finally touched each of the marks I had drawn on the wall with it in turn.

By this time a small crowd had collected, and were watching the proceedings with considerable interest. A six-inch sextant, fitted with Reeve’s artificial horizon, is as awe-inspiring an instrument as any magician could show.

I told Dahab to explain to the crowd that I had just put a _tulsim_ (talisman) on the wall, and that if it were an _afrit_ that had been throwing the clods, the words, “Solomon” and “iron,” acting in conjunction with Jupiter’s Satellites, would certainly do for him completely. But if it were a human being who had been throwing the clods, the little devil and the eyes would get to work upon him at once.

The devil I explained was a particularly malignant little English imp that I had under my control, and if anyone threw any more clods at my camels, I had so arranged things, that the devil in the form of this tiny little black imp would crawl up his nostrils while he slept, and would stick the forked end of his tail into his brain and keep waggling it about, causing him the greatest suffering, until in a few years’ time he went mad. Then it would stamp with red-hot feet on the backs of his eyeballs till they fell out; after which the culprit would die in horrible agony.

Dahab, on the way back, said he thought my _tulsim_ looked a very good one, but he did not at all believe in the _afrit_ theory.

“_Afrit_,” he said in his funny English. “Never. Ibrahim he very fine man and women in Dakhla all bad, very bad, like pitch. One women he want speak Ibrahim.” This was very likely the size of it.

But I laid the ghost anyway. No more clods were thrown at my camels.