Chapter XIX

WE travelled after the manner described by Abd er Rahman as that of the Arabs when in difficulties in the desert. We rested, that is, in the middle of the day, marching throughout the morning and through most of the night.

At our last noon halt before reaching the bushes I overhauled the caravan. With the exception of the one big camel the whole of the beasts by this time were in a deplorable condition. My _hagin_ was so weak that he was unable even to carry my _hurj_. Another brute that Abd er Rahman called the “rather _meskin_” (feeble) camel, was very emaciated; while one that he called _the meskin_ beast, par excellence, was so excessively attenuated, that, in the photograph I took of him, only the desert appeared!

It was the big camel that pulled us through. The loads of the _meskin_ and the “rather _meskin_” camels were both put on to his back, in addition to his ordinary burden, and my _hurj_ was added to the pile. Moreover, whenever any of us wanted a lift we rode him—and he seemed to like it!

Ibrahim was two days overdue, and, as nothing had been seen of him, I was beginning to feel rather anxious and to fear he had passed us in the dark without our seeing him. During one noon halt, however, Abdulla, who was still rather jumpy, raised the alarm of _haramin_ (robbers). We immediately collected our ironmongery and turned out to receive them. But to our great relief we found it was only Ibrahim approaching with three camels and another man.

Dahab and one of my camels, we found, had knocked up on the journey to Mut and had had to be left behind. It had taken Ibrahim two days to get more beasts and someone to fill Dahab’s place. The new-comer was an elderly Sudani, who had been at Qasr Dakhl with two camels on Ibrahim’s arrival at Mut. He went by the name of Abeh Abdulla.

I was considerably prejudiced in his favour by hearing him invoke the aid of a certain “Sidi Mahmed,” or Mahmed ben Abd er Rahman Bu Zian, to give him his full name, the founder of the Ziania dervishes, a branch of the great Shadhlia order, that plays the rôle of protector of travellers. It is, I believe, better known in north-west Africa than on the Egyptian side. In the Western Sahara “Sidi Bu Zian,” as he is sometimes called, may almost be termed the patron saint of wayfarers in the desert.

Abdulla, when he got into difficulties, used to invoke a certain “Sidi Abd el Jaud,” whose identity I was never able to discover.

Ibrahim had done his job splendidly. During the two days in Mut, he had had the leaking tanks repaired and had borrowed some others from the native officials. He had brought them all out filled to the brim. We watered all the camels, and, when we had given them time to absorb their drink, made a fresh start for the bushes.

When we reached Mut it was evening, and I walked to my lodgings through the quaint old town, stumbling over the uneven surface of the tunnelled street, whose darkness in the gathering dusk was only broken here and there by a gleam of firelight, through some half-opened door. The familiar smell of wood fires, whose smoke hung heavily in the streets, the scraping drone of the small hand-mills that the women were using to grind their flour, and the monotonous thudding as they pounded their rice inside their houses, had a wonderful effect in making me feel at home.

Soon after my arrival the usual boring deputation of the Government officials turned up to felicitate me in conventional terms on my safe return. After thanking them for the loan of the tanks, I asked the _mamur_ whether anything had been heard of Qway. He professed to a total ignorance on the subject and wanted to have full details of what he had been doing. I gave him an account of Qway’s conduct as shown by his tracks and the empty tanks and asked, as he had nearly done for Abdulla, that he should be immediately arrested.

The _mamur_ hesitated for a moment, then burst out with a passionate “Never! Qway is a _gada_” (sportsman). I pointed out the _gada_ had, at any rate, walked off with a rifle and telescope of mine, and that I felt certain he had come into the oasis and was hiding. The _mamur_ did not think he was hiding, but that he would turn up as soon as he heard I had got back—and anyway he declined to send out men to look for him or to have him arrested. I insisted that it was his duty both to find and arrest him, and, after a considerable amount of pressing, he at length gave way to the extent of promising, if Qway did not turn up, to send _a_ man to look for him “the day after to-morrow.”

This must have constituted a record in energy for an oasis official, and seemed to exhaust his powers altogether. He refused to send a message round to the _’omdas_ to have him detained if he appeared, and shortly after said something about supper and departed.

I was left to reflections that were not over-pleasant. There was no doubt that I had made a great mistake in asking to have Qway arrested, for, even if I could get him tried for the offence, I should have to find some motive for his actions, and I could not see how that could be done without raising the Senussi question in an oasis where, though their numbers were few, they possessed enormous influence. I decided it would be best to confine my accusation against him to that of stealing the rifle and telescope.

The possibility of my being able to secure him seemed extremely remote. The attitude towards me of the natives of the oasis left no doubt in my mind that they would all shield him. The Government officials were obviously of the same frame of mind, and though they might make some show of attempting to arrest him, I felt certain that they would be surreptitiously endeavouring to aid him in his escape. In the background I knew would be the Senussi, using all the great influence they possessed in the oasis, in order to shield their puppet, Qway, and to prevent his capture.

With only three Sudanese and an old Berberine cook at my back, it was difficult to see what I could do. Still, as I had foolishly insisted on his being brought to justice, I had to see it done. The task was not altogether hopeless, for in cases of this description one Sudani is worth a thousand _fellahin_. But for the time being the only thing to be done in the circumstances was to lie low and await developments.

They soon came. As is often the case when dealing with natives they were rather of the comic opera type. I first located Qway as staying in the Senussi _zawia_ in Smint. But the clerk to the _qadi_ in Mut, Sheykh Senussi, whom Qway had told me was “like a brother to him,” finding that I was hot on his trail, and fearing that the Senussia might become involved, moved him on to Rashida, and then, like the mean sneak that he was, came round, and, to curry favour with me, told me where he was.

I went off at once and saw the _mamur_; told him I had heard that Qway was in Rashida, reminded him that this was “the day after to-morrow,” on which he had promised to send “_a_ man” to look for him, and called on him to carry out his promise.

The _mamur_ endeavoured to avoid doing so; but after some trouble, I at length managed to get him to send a man at once.

I was in the _merkaz_ the next day when he returned. He rode pattering up on a donkey, dismounted, shuffled into the room, saluted clumsily and made his report. According to instructions he had gone to Rashida and seen Qway, and given him the _mamur’s_ message that he was to come into Mut. But Qway had said that he did not want to come. The man had argued with him, and had done his best to persuade him to come; but Qway had stuck to it that he really did not want to, so he had climbed again on to his donkey and ridden back to Mut to report progress.

The _mamur_ was greatly relieved. He had done everything I had asked him to do. He had sent a man on a Government donkey to fetch Qway; but Qway did not want to come. What more could he do? It was of no use asking Qway to come if he did not wish to. He was very sorry, but he had done the most he could.

I suggested that perhaps he might send a policeman—a real policeman in uniform with a rifle, not a _ghaffir_—and give him instructions that, if Qway again refused to come, he was to BRING him. But the _mamur_ did not see his way to doing this. Why should he arrest Qway? What had he done? Stolen a rifle had he? Had he any cartridges? He still had twenty cartridges and a rifle had he? No, he could not possibly arrest him. Qway might be old, but the Arabs were very wild fellows, and he had no troops—only a few armed police.

A long discussion followed, and at last a solution of the difficulty occurred to the _mamur_. He said he could not arrest Qway, but he would send a policeman to bring back the rifle and cartridges. Did that satisfy me? It didn’t. I said I must have Qway as well. After a long discussion he at last agreed to send to fetch him, if I would send a message by the policeman to tell Qway that he was not to shoot him!

The next day the _mamur_ came round to see me, looking immensely relieved. He said that the policeman had gone to Rashida to fetch Qway, but found that he had left the village, so now there was nothing more to be done. He evidently felt that he was now clear of all responsibility in the matter.

I had thus lost track of Qway, and began to despair of ever being able to get hold of him. But the next day Abd er Rahman, who all along had been indefatigable in trying to pick up information of his whereabouts, told me that Qway had been seen near Tenida dressed up as a _fellah_[4]—a fact that caused the little Sudani the keenest amusement.

So I sent Abdulla to go off on his _hagin_ to Tenida, under pretence of buying barley, and to try and find Qway, and, if he succeeded, to tell him from me to come at once to Mut.

The next day I went down to the _merkaz_ to enquire whether there was any news. I saw the police officer, who told me that he had just had certain news that Qway had left the oasis and taken the road to the Nile Valley. So, as he was now out of his jurisdiction—which seemed to greatly relieve him—he was in a position to draw up the _proces verbal_ about the telescope and gun that he had stolen, a piece of information that was distinctly depressing. I began to wonder what was the best thing to do next.

This problem, however, solved itself. I had just finished lunch when a timid knock came at the door, and in walked Qway!

The old brute had evidently had a terrible time of it. He had allowed himself to become the tool of the Senussi, but his plans having miscarried, he had got lost and nearly died of thirst in the desert, for, as I afterwards discovered, he had been nearly two days without any water—and two very hot days they had been—and it had only been the excellence of his camel that had pulled him through.

He looked ten years older. His eyes were bleary and bloodshot, his cheeks sunken, his lips parched and cracked, his beard untrimmed, and he had an unkempt, almost dirty, appearance.

He laid the rifle and telescope on my bed, fumbled in his voluminous clothing and produced a handful of cartridges, took some more out of his pocket, from which he also produced a rosary—the Senussi mostly carry their beads in this way and not round their neck as in the case of most Moslems. He then unknotted a corner of his handkerchief and took out two or three more cartridges and laid them all on the table.

“Count them, Your Excellency,” he said. “They are all there.” I found that the tale of them was complete.

He looked sadly down to the ground and sighed profoundly. “I have been working very badly,” he said, “very badly indeed. I am a broken thing. I am the flesh and you are the knife.” It certainly looked remarkably like it.

I asked him what excuse he had to make for his conduct. He looked at me for a moment to see what line he had better take, and the one that he took was not particularly complimentary to my intelligence.

“It was very hot, Your Excellency—very hot indeed. And I was alone and an _afrit_ climbed up on to my camel.”

At this point I thought it might be advisable to have a witness, so I sang out for Dahab.

“No, Effendim, not Dahab. Don’t call Dahab,” said Qway in a much perturbed voice. Presumably he thought Dahab would be less likely to be convinced by his story than I would. Dahab entered the room with surprising promptness—the doors in the oasis are not sound-proof.

I told Qway to get on with his story of the _afrit_, which promised to be a good one.

“There was an _afrit_, Your Excellency, that got up behind me on my camel and kept on telling me to go there and to do this, and I had to do it. It was not my fault the water was upset. It was the _afrit_. I had to do what he told me.” Then, hearing a snort from Dahab, he added that there was not only one _afrit_, but many, and that that part of the desert was full of them.

I thought it time to stop him. I told him I had heard quite enough, and that he had to come round with me to the _merkaz_. This upset him terribly.

“No, not the _merkaz_, Your Excellency. Not the _merkaz_. In the name of Allah do not take me to the _merkaz_. Take everything I have got, but do not take me to the _merkaz_.”

But to the _merkaz_ he had to go. We called in at the camel yard to pick up the other men, as they might be wanted as witnesses, and then proceeded in a body to the Government office, Qway all the way attempting to bribe me to let him off by offering me his belongings, among which, with an obvious pang, he expressly offered me his camel.

We met the _mamur_ at the door of the _merkaz_, and Qway immediately rushed forward to try and kiss his hand. The _mamur_, however, would have nothing to do with him. Like nearly all the _fellahin_ he backed the winner, and I for the moment had come out on top.

“This man is a traitor, a regular traitor,” said the judge, who had not yet tried him and who had previously told me he was a sportsman; but I had got the best of the deal, and, moreover, was shortly returning to Egypt and might report on him to one of the inspectors; so he determined to show me how an Egyptian official can do justice when he takes off his coat for the job. He bustled in to the office and began arranging the papers fussily on his table. The police officer also came in and prepared to take down the depositions.

Having got things to his satisfaction, the _mamur_ ordered the prisoner to be brought in. He arrived between two wooden-looking policemen.

“Well, traitor, what have you got to say for yourself?” Then, as it occurred to him that he had overlooked one of the formalities, he asked Qway his name.

“Qway, Effendim.”

“Qway what?” asked the _mamur_ irritably.

“Qway Hassan Qway, Your Presence. My grandfather was a Bey.”

“A Bey?” snorted the _mamur_.

“Yes, Your Excellency.”

“Where did he live?”

“Near Assiut, Your Excellency. Perhaps he wasn’t a Bey. I don’t know. Perhaps he was a _mamur_ or a police officer. I don’t quite know what he was, but he worked for the Government.”

“Bey!” repeated the _mamur_ contemptuously. “Mr. Harden Keen says you upset some water. What do you say to it?”

“Yes, I upset the water. But I could not help it. It was a very hot day . . .”

“Liar!” said the _mamur_.

“_Na’am?_” said Qway, rather taken aback.

“I said liar,” shouted the _mamur_, thumping the table. Qway, who was a high-spirited old fellow, found this more than he could stand, and began to get nettled. It was entirely characteristic of our position in Egypt at that time that at this juncture, Qway, the accused, should turn to me, the accuser, for protection from the judge.

“It _was_ a hot day, Effendim, wasn’t it?”

Badly as he had behaved, I was getting to be very sorry for him, and I had taken a strong dislike to that _mamur_. So I replied that it was one of the hottest days that I ever remembered.

The _mamur_ could not contradict me, but looked distinctly uncomfortable and shifted uneasily in his chair. He told Qway to go on. Qway, who was beginning to recover his composure, proceeded to make the most of the victory he had gained over him.

“As I said, Effendim, it was a hot day—_very_ hot, and I am an old man and perhaps it was the sun. I don’t know what it was, but an _afrit_—”

“Allah!” said the _mamur_, spreading out his hands, “an _afrit_?” Qway began to get a bit flurried.

“Yes, Effendim, an _afrit_.”

“Liar,” repeated the _mamur_. “I _said_ you were a liar.”

Qway looked round again for help, but I was not going to bolster up that statement. The _mamur_ began to examine him as to the exact nature of that _afrit_. Qway broke down, stammered and generally got into a terrible mess. At the last the _mamur_, having elicited from him in turn the fact that there was one _afrit_, that there were two, that there had been a crowd of them, and finally that there were none at all, went on to the next stage and asked what had happened afterwards.

Qway explained that after leaving the depot he had ridden for two days to the south-west, and then had turned back and circled round Jebel el Bayed and finally ridden off to the east.

“The east?” said the _mamur_. “I thought Dakhla lay to the north.”

“The north-east, Effendim,” corrected Qway. “Rather north of north-east.”

“Then why did you go to the east? Were you lost?”

Qway stammered worse than ever. The _mamur_ repeated his question. Two tears began to roll down Qway’s cheeks and his great gnarled hand went up to hide his twitching lips.

“Yes,” he said, with a great effort. “I was lost.” Being an Arab he did not lie—at least not often.

“But you are a guide. And you got lost!”

“Yes,” stammered Qway. To have to own to a mere _fellah_ that he, the great desert guide, had lost his way, must have been most intensely humiliating; for the favourite gibe of the _bedawin_ to the _fellahin_ is that they are “like women,” and get lost directly they go in the desert.

No Egyptian could have resisted such a chance. The _mamur_ began to question Qway minutely as to where, how and when he had got lost, and to the exact degree of lostness at each stage of the proceedings; and Qway, to his credit be it said, answered quite truthfully.

When he could rub it in no further, the _mamur_ began to question him as to the remainder of his journey. Qway described how he had had to go two days without water and had almost ridden his camel to death in order to get back to our tracks, and how he and his camel had eventually managed to get back to Dakhla more dead than alive.

“You were hiding when you got back. Where did you hide?”

Qway hesitated a moment, then asked him in a low voice if he need answer. The _mamur_ did not press that question. It was a distinctly ill-advised one. Qway had been in the Senussi _zawia_ at Smint. He put a few more questions to him, then told him again that he was a traitor and that his work had been “like pitch,” and asked me what I wanted done next. I suggested that he might perhaps call a few witnesses, so Abdulla was brought in.

Abdulla had entirely recovered from the scare he had had in the desert, and, though Qway had tried to let him down, the _mamur’s_ treatment of him seemed to have softened his views towards him. There _is_ a bond of union between those who “know the _nijem_” and Qway, too, was in difficulties, and Mohammedans are usually sympathetic towards each other in those circumstances, so Abdulla tried to get Qway off.

The _mamur_ asked him what he knew about the case.

“Effendim,” he said, “I think Qway went mad.”

The _mamur_ flung himself back in his chair and spread out his hands.

“Allah!” he exclaimed. “Are you a doctor?”

This little pantomime was completely thrown away on the stolid Abdulla. He looked at the _mamur_ with the amused curiosity that he would have shown to a performing monkey.

“No,” he said, in his slow stupid way. “I am not a doctor, of course—but I know a fool when I see one!”

The _mamur_ concluded that he had heard enough of Abdulla’s evidence. I began to wonder if the Sudani was quite so “feeble in the head” as he had been represented!

“I find that Qway is a traitor. His work has been like pitch. What do you want me to do with him?” asked the judge.

I suggested, as delicately as I could, that that was a question to be decided by the court, and not by the accuser. After a whispered conversation with the police officer across the table, the _mamur_ announced that he intended to put him in prison and send him, when the camel-postman went, in about a week’s time, to Assiut to be tried.

The attitude of the men towards Qway changed completely after his trial. There was no longer any need to be afraid of him. Their resentment at his conduct in the desert had had time to cool down. He had been bullied by a _fellah mamur_, been forced to confess in public that he had disgraced himself by getting lost in the desert, had been arrested by a Sudani and publicly paraded through the oasis dressed as a _fellah_. His humiliation was complete and could scarcely have been more thorough. The _bedawin_ instinct for revenge had been amply satisfied. Hatred is generally largely composed of fear, or jealousy, and there was certainly no room for either where Qway was concerned. Moreover, the men had the usual feeling of compassion for those in adversity that forms one of the finest traits in the Mohammedan character.

So far as I was concerned, I was feeling rather sorry for my erring guide, to whom I had taken a strong liking from the start, for he had only been made a tool by the Senussi, who were the real culprits. So having once got him convicted, I told the _mamur_ I did not want him to be severely punished, provided that “the quality of mercy was not strained.”

Dahab told me Qway was confined in irons and being fed only on bread and water. So I sent him some tea and sugar, with a message to the police that they might take the irons off and that I would “see them” before I left the oasis. Dahab asked for money to buy a quite unnecessary number of eggs for my consumption. I never enquired what became of them all; but the same evening he asked for leave to go to the doctor’s house, and started off with bulging pockets in the direction of the _merkaz_. He came back again with them empty shortly afterwards, saying that he had been told that Qway was resigned and very prayerful. The Sudanese, as I afterwards heard, sent him some cheese and lentils, to which Abdulla added a handful of onions, so altogether Qway must have rather enjoyed himself in prison.