Chapter I (3)

"What a queer idea!" said I. "Wouldn't a bullet through its head stop it dead?"

_From a Photograph._]

"Most certainly; but you would waste your powder and shot. The dolphin would sink at once, taking away to the depths of the ocean both your bullet and your five-franc premium. No; you must aim squarely at the belly. Otherwise----Dear me!"

At that very moment the dolphin jumped clear out of the waves quite close to us. Swift as lightning Desmond aimed at the flying monster, shining in the sunlight about a hundred yards ahead, and pulled trigger.

"Well done! A splendid shot!" I shouted enthusiastically, as the bullet took effect and the dolphin disappeared.

"It was _too_ splendid!" grumbled Desmond.

Without another word he jumped into the dinghy, towing astern, where the boy was already waiting for him, a harpoon in his hand.

"Keep an eye upon it as soon as it comes up," he shouted to me, as he scrambled for an oar.

"There it is! I see it, bleeding!" I cried. The wounded dolphin had reappeared a short distance away, the foam of the waves around being tinted red with its life-blood. Pointing out the right direction to the pair in the boat, I shouted a few remarks after them.

"I should say it is sinking. Make haste! _Dépêchez-vous!_ It is turning over on its back; I see only its white underside. Quick! Quick!"

"_Malheur de ma vie!_" I heard Desmond groaning in despair.

Under his very nose, just at the moment when Jean-Marie Le Floch was about to throw his harpoon, the white spot suddenly disappeared; the sea had swallowed the dead dolphin in an instant.

At that moment of bitter disappointment I foresaw the sad _dénouement_ of the venture: our shameful return empty-handed to the little harbour amid the sneers of the old fishermen, who would inquire eagerly:--

"What about the porpoises, gentlemen? How many dolphins are you bringing in?"

Assuredly there must be a special Providence which looks after hunters--especially amateur ones. Just as I was about to sit down, in a fit of despair, a flash caught my eye. Less than sixty yards from the bow, where I was standing, and at about half that distance from the dinghy, a school of dolphins had suddenly appeared!

With a quick motion I seized my gun, and as I raised it to my shoulder my friend's admonitions were clean forgotten.

Bang! bang! bang! A positive frenzy of slaughter appeared to have taken hold of me, and I kept on shooting just as long as the magazine of my rifle held out. Meanwhile the two spectators in the dinghy were frantic with joy. Never in my life have I heard so thick a rain of flattering words as they showered upon me then.

_From a Photograph._]

It is quite likely that several of my victims sank while breathing their last, for I really cannot believe that a single one of my dozen shots missed its mark. Be this as it may, however, I had undoubtedly broken the record in dolphin-hunting, for, as a matter of fact, Desmond and the boy succeeded in harpooning and bringing back half-a-dozen of the creatures.

I am satisfied that Desmond is a sincere and trustworthy friend. Nevertheless, I am not prepared to swear that he was not just a little bit envious when we re-entered the harbour a few minutes after noon. Just think of it! He, the veteran hunter, was coming back as he had gone, empty-handed, whereas his pupil--the man to whom he had had to explain what dolphin-hunting was--would be able to bring to-morrow to the _commissaire des pêches_, the responsible official, six dolphin tails, receiving from that worthy no less a sum than thirty francs! Truly it must have been a sad blow for him.

Later in the afternoon the tide brought in a dying dolphin, too weak to resist the flood and fight its way towards the open sea. Success makes one generous, and I begged of Jean-Marie Le Floch to help himself freely and take possession of the tail of my seventh dolphin, asking him, by way of exchange, to pose as heroically as possible in front of the camera by the side of my last victim.

Such was the _début_ of a Parisian journalist as a dolphin-hunter. Do not ask me if I went out again on a similar quest. My initial exploit has established my reputation as a dead shot, and I do not care to risk the loss of my laurels.

_A Tragedy of the Nile._

+By Major D. G. Prendergast.+

A grim story of love, hate, and relentless vengeance. "The events
occurred in the early 'eighties," writes Major Prendergast. "I
learnt all the facts and met Mahkmoud, the central character, in
the course of my official duties."

The first act of this tragedy of real life took place at a small village a few miles south of Assiout, the chief town of what in the 'eighties was known as Upper Egypt.

It was the end of September, after the Nile had overflowed its banks, and the crops were full and green. The time was evening, and Mahkmoud, one of the principal actors in my story, was sitting on the sun-dried mud wall of one of the _shadoofs_ (irrigation wells) which watered his land. He was at this time a man of some consequence in his village, and for a fellah was counted rich, being the owner of a fair-sized piece of fertile land. He was a man over six feet in height, with the broad sinewy back and shoulders and general physical strength which is the heritage of the fellaheen race of the Nile Valley. His head was large and bullet-shaped, his neck thick-set, his eyes keen and deep-set, while his mouth and chin plainly indicated that he was a man possessed of great determination and of unusually strong passions.

To-night he sat and gazed moodily into the dark, transparent waters of the rushing stream, black thoughts of vengeance crowding into his brain, for he was in sore trouble. Of late the village gossips had been busy connecting the name of his young wife, Rukhia, with one Abdul, the ne'er-do-weel of the place.

In a small community no secret can remain hidden for long, and although, naturally, Mahkmoud would be the last to hear of the scandal, still it was only a matter of time before it reached his ears. Only to-day his friends had hinted to him that his wife was, perhaps, not quite all he thought her to be, and the name of Abdul was at the same time carelessly introduced into the conversation. Now, Abdul had only been back in his native village for six months; for the past seven years, previous to his return, he had been serving his Highness the Khedive as a conscript soldier in the Egyptian army.

The fellaheen of Egypt make docile, tractable soldiers, amenable to discipline, keen on all routine work and peace soldiering, but lacking that _élan_ and dash which are so valuable an asset in time of war. Even in the Egyptian army, however, there are bad characters, and for these there is a special corps--a sort of "Lost Legion." This corps is known as the Discipline Company, and the life led by its members is little better than that of the convict. Their uniform is of a much brighter yellow than khaki, and each man wears an iron ring welded round his right ankle. Abdul had finished the last three years of his service in this ill-starred company. News spreads in a mysterious way from village to village along the hundreds of miles from Cairo to the frontier, and tidings of Abdul's doings during his soldiering career had somehow reached his native village. It was not of a sort which was likely to ensure a warm welcome for him on his return.

During the three years Abdul served out his time in the Discipline Company he became intimately acquainted with many men who were among the scum of the earth. When at length the period of service in this Legion of the Lost was concluded, and its members returned to the world and civil life, as often as not they led lives of crime and infamy which generally brought them within reach of the law, so that most of them ended their days in the convict prisons of Tourah or Tokar, and the very worst of all in the hulk moored in Trinkitat Bay.

Years ago, before the lot of the conscript soldier had fallen on Abdul, Mahkmoud and he had had bitter quarrels over the question of the irrigation of their respective lands, which were adjacent to each other.

The water of the Nile is the very life-blood of the fellaheen, and he who secretly or by stealth diverts the water from his neighbour's land on to his own is guilty of a heinous crime. In days gone by Mahkmoud had more than sufficient reason to suspect that the water from his _shadoofs_ and _sakiehs_ had helped to irrigate his neighbour's land. Many angry words had been exchanged in consequence, and a lifelong feud had been established between the two men.

On the evening of the day this story opens, Mahkmoud sat and brooded over all he had lately heard. Many little incidents in connection with his young wife, to which at the time he had hardly given a passing thought, now seemed to rise up clearly before him. He realized that within the past six months his wife had changed from a pattern of domestic drudgery--the usual lot of a fellah's wife--to a listless, slovenly woman who found work too much for her. Often on his return from a long day's labour in the fields he would find the evening meal not yet ready, the fuel not gathered, and the _ziehs_ (earthen water-jars) only half filled. Even his two little boys, who had hitherto been the joy of their mother's life, did not seem any longer to interest her. Mahkmoud also remembered, now that his jealousy was aroused, how frequently on his return he found his wife out--absent from home at hours when it is unusual for women to be away from their domestic duties. There had even been an occasion when Mahkmoud had come home in the grey dawn from watching his crops by night and scaring away wild animals, when he found her outside the wall which surrounded his house. At the time he thought it strange, but was satisfied with some paltry excuse. Now, all these incidents loomed large before his gaze, and he understood their meaning. To-night he vowed he would take a terrible revenge--revenge upon his hated enemy and on his faithless wife. He would wait and watch; he would bide his time. When it came, the punishment he would mete out to the guilty pair would live in the memory of his village for all time.

About a month before the events just described a stranger arrived in the village, and the first man he met happened to be Mahkmoud. To him the new-comer told a plausible story of how he had worked for the eccentric sawerheen (white travellers) who were always digging amongst the ruins of the ancient temples. Having scraped together enough money to enable him to return to his native village near Wady Halfa, he was on his journey back, when he had fallen amongst thieves and lost all he possessed. He asked Mahkmoud to help him by giving him employment during the season of the crops. For a few pence a day he worked for Mahkmoud--irrigating the fields, watching his flocks of goats by day, and taking his turn in frightening off wild animals from the growing crops at night. He slept in a mud hovel with the goats, inside the sun-baked mud wall which surrounded Mahkmoud's dwelling-houses. He was a taciturn man, with an evil-looking countenance. He spoke to no one, and no one spoke to him. If mentioned in conversation, men referred to him as "ibn el kelp" (son of a dog), and mothers warned their children to flee from his path should they meet him, and on no account whatever to look at him, for he was a man possessed of "the evil eye" and would cast a spell over them.

There was one man in the village, however, who knew this stranger, and the stranger knew him. Abdul and the goatherd had toiled together for many a weary day, with the iron ring on their ankles, in the ranks of the Discipline Company. By tacit consent they never openly recognised one another, and, as far as anyone knew, had never been seen to speak to each other. Both inwardly feared one another and wondered when the other would give him away. As a cat watches a mouse so did this stranger watch Abdul, and it was not very long before he had made himself acquainted with information for which it seemed that either Abdul, his enemy, or Mahkmoud, his master, might think it worth while to pay him handsomely.

One night, when his employer was away keeping watch over his crops, he lay awake in his shed and heard footsteps steal silently past where he lay. Then he heard the door of the walled enclosure quietly opened and shut. Scenting that something was amiss, the goatherd stranger rose and silently went in pursuit. Seeing nothing, he hid himself amongst the mimosa bushes, which grew thick on both sides of the narrow path leading from the door to the river-bank. Presently, from his place of concealment, he beheld two forms walking up from the direction of the river towards the house, and as they slowly passed the spot where he lay hidden the watcher, by the light of the stars, recognised beyond a doubt who the couple were. "Allah is great, and Mohammed is His Prophet," murmured the stranger. "My enemy has now been delivered into my hands. I will demand from the dog the sum of twenty Egyptian pounds, and if he will not give them to me--then my employer knows all."

As the door softly closed, out of the deep shadow of the wall one figure retraced its steps along the path towards the river. It was Abdul. When he arrived at the spot where the path was narrowed by the mimosa bushes, the watcher rose up and, stepping to the path, confronted his man. Speaking in a low, hissing voice, he said, "Abdul, you know me. I am a man of few words, and my words to you this night are few."

Abdul, taken unawares, stood still, trembling, and then, recognising who it was that spoke, answered, "What do you want with me at this hour of night, you offspring of a snake?"

"I will tell you," the stranger replied. "Since my sojourn here I have been employed in watching my master's property; both by day and by night I have driven the noxious animals away. But there is one foul bird of night that I have not driven away, and that, O Abdul, is yourself. Now I will make this compact with you, who are in my power. If you will give me the sum of twenty Egyptian pounds at noon to-morrow I will go forth from here and return no more; and my lips shall be for ever sealed. This I will swear by the beard of the Prophet."

The stranger folded his arms and stood silent, awaiting the reply.

After a pause, which to both men seemed an age, Abdul replied, "And if I refuse this price of blackmail, how then? What can you do--a stranger and a dog? Who, think you, will believe your perjured evidence?"

The goatherd did not immediately reply, and for a space the two men stood confronting each other. Abdul was wearing a _gallibeah_--a long cloak reaching from the neck to the feet, made of thick cotton stuff, with very large loose sleeves. The stranger was dressed, as he slept, in a cotton shirt and drawers. So it happened that Abdul was able, unseen by his foe, to draw his knife from its sheath. (All the natives of this country carry a big knife in a sheath strapped to the left arm, just above the elbow.)

After a few moments had elapsed the stranger laughed a short, derisive laugh, and, putting out his arm, as if to brush Abdul aside, said, "You fool! At the rising of to-morrow's sun Mahkmoud shall know all." With that he moved forward as though to pass his man, when the knife flashed downwards, and with a choking, gurgling sound, followed by a deep sigh, he sank to the earth, never to rise again!

Abdul's knife had been driven home to the hilt through his heart, and the luckless goatherd's life-blood gushed out in a dark red stream, spreading over the pathway. Abdul, having made sure that there was no chance of life remaining, dragged the corpse into the bushes, and hurriedly returned to the door in the shadow of the wall. Here he imitated the cry of the night-bird--the preconcerted signal between himself and Rukhia. After a pause the door was quietly opened once more, and in the dark shadow Abdul hurriedly told her all that had happened. Before they parted it was arranged as to what should be said and done on the morrow. The blood-stained knife was hidden by the wife in Mahkmoud's sleeping apartment. Her part of the crime was that she should gain possession of her husband's knife after he had sunk into the deep sleep which usually came upon him after a night of watching, and throw it into the river.

The sun had scarcely risen above the line of the sand-hills on the eastern bank before the whole village was astir and excitedly discussing what was undoubtedly a murder. The Yushbashi (captain) of police at Assiout was in due course informed. He and his men arrived later, and after much talking and taking down of numerous notes which had little bearing on the subject he ordered the body of the murdered man to be carried to Assiout, almost half the population of the village accompanying him as well.

_From a Photograph._]

"The Mudir (the Egyptian governor) shall decide who is the culprit," said the officer.

The police, of course, had to find a culprit, and also procure sufficient evidence to convict him, and this they proceeded to do. As the result of their investigations the unhappy Mahkmoud was placed on his trial for the murder. He pleaded "Not guilty," but otherwise had no defence, admitting that he was absent from home from nine o'clock on the night of the murder until about half-past four the next morning. The police produced evidence that the murdered man and Mahkmoud were not on good terms, that Mahkmoud's shoes were covered with blood, and that they exactly fitted the footsteps on the path leading from the scene of the murder to the house. It was also hinted that there was an intrigue between the stranger and the wife. Finally, the prosecution produced the blood-stained knife and sheath, which had been discovered in a rat-hole in Mahkmoud's sleeping apartment. In addition, two important witnesses were called. One was Abdul, who swore that on the fatal night he was watching his crops some five hundred yards from the spot where the body was found, and heard voices in angry altercation some two hours before sunrise.

Rukhia, Mahkmoud's wife, then appeared, to everyone's astonishment, and told a graphic story of how she was awakened some little time before sunrise, and heard the voices of the stranger and her husband in a heated argument. Mahkmoud then returned, much excited and swearing fiercely. In the morning she noticed the blood-stained shoes and missed the knife from the shelf where it was usually put. Later it was found by the police who searched the house.

Mahkmoud, in spite of his protestations of innocence, was found guilty--mainly on the circumstantial evidence of his wife and Abdul. He was sentenced to death, which sentence was subsequently commuted to penal servitude for the term of his natural life.

* * * * *

It would take too long to follow this miserable but innocent convict through the weary years he spent working out his awful doom. To be able to realize what an Egyptian convict's life is like one must at least have seen the prisons and the hulk. The first five years were spent in the prison at Tourah. The very fact that this man--so strong willed and passionate by nature--was innocent drove him to the verge of frenzy, and having become known as a dangerous and violent convict he found himself confined first in a solitary cell, and then drafted to the prison at Tokar. Here he was compelled to associate with the very worst criminals in Egypt; and, breaking the rules again, he was sentenced to undergo the remainder of his imprisonment on board the hulk in Trinkitat Bay.

It is enough to say that this bay is on the Red Sea littoral, a terrible place for any living man, white or black, to have to spend his life. It was in this hulk that the writer saw Mahkmoud. Escape from this floating jail is practically impossible. It is moored some seven hundred yards from the shore, and the water teems with sharks, who do not allow much to escape their observant eyes as they continually cruise round the hulk.

Many times poor wretches doomed to this living grave have escaped from Tokar Prison. It is easy, for the prison is only built of mud and wattle, and the warders are very careless. But up to the time I shall describe later no prisoner had been known to get far away.

Nomad tribes of Somalis and Arabs (the "Fuzzy-Wuzzies" of the days of our fierce fights at El Teb and Tamai, Tokar and McNeill's Zareba) live and move all round this part of the bush, occupying the few wells there are, right up to the Erkoweit hills. The Government give the head-men of these tribes substantial rewards for each fugitive they capture and bring in, so that the convict's chance of escape is infinitesimal. They must go to these tribes for food and water, or die of hunger and thirst in the desert.

The Nile is the very life and soul of the Egyptian fellah, and the captives of the Kings of Assyria, who sat down by the waters of Babylon and wept, could not have longed more passionately for their Jewish homes than did these poor outcasts to see once more their native villages and taste "the sweet waters of the Nile."

"If I can but escape and reach those distant hills," they told themselves, "then I can easily walk over them. There may still be a few miles of desert sand to cross, but it will surely at length bring me once again to the great beloved river, our Father Nile." This remark has been made to the writer times without number when visiting the convict gangs at work in the course of his official duties. But one and all of the hapless wretches reckoned without the far-stretching, arid sands or the prowling nomads, ever on the watch for fugitives.

One hot, still, starlight night, towards the end of the seventh year of his penal servitude, whilst the sentry was snugly rolled up in his blanket, Mahkmoud slipped overboard from the hulk and swam shorewards. He had seen the sharks cruising slowly round the hulk for many a long day, but, as he said in after years when telling the story of his escape, "Better become food for sharks than endure a living death." As luck would have it, he reached the beach safely, and after wandering towards the distant hills all that day and night he was overcome with hunger and thirst and, resigning himself to his fate, lay down under the sparse shadow of a thorn-bush to die. But Providence decreed otherwise. He was found by a party of raiding Baggara horsemen, who carried him off to Adharama, the head-quarters of the celebrated Dervish Emir, Osman Digna.

For the next two years Mahkmoud was a household slave in Osman Digna's house. While he was there the Khalifa sent for his Governor of the Eastern Sudan, and Mahkmoud accompanied his master. So once more, after nine long years, he again set eyes on the River Nile.

Even now it was almost impossible to escape, for the wild Arab tribes who at this time held sway over the country from Sarras to Fashoda loathed and despised the Egyptian fellah, and no one would help him. After three more years of bondage, however, spent between the Eastern Sudan and Omdurman, Mahkmoud escaped, joined a caravan which was bringing gum and ostrich feathers to the Egyptian frontier, and at last found himself on the Egyptian Nile at Assouan.

* * * * *

By this time "the murder," as it was generally referred to, had almost been forgotten by the villagers. If it was mentioned at all it was as an historical event, generally to fix the date of some other event which had occurred before or since.

The people, too, had almost forgotten Mahkmoud's existence; he was either dead or as good as dead. Abdul, in due course, had taken Rukhia to his harem as a wife, and she was the mother of his three children. After Mahkmoud's transportation his brother, as is usually the case when a widow re-marries, had taken over the care of his nephews, together with his brother's land and property.

It was again September, and the hour before sunset, when the women of the village had gone to draw water for their households. Abdul was sitting in his house, and his three children were asleep in the adjoining room. Suddenly a shadow was thrown across the room. Abdul turned quickly, half rising as he did so, to see who it was. But in an instant strong hands gripped his throat, and a voice, to him a terrible one, hoarsely hissed into his ear, "It is I, Mahkmoud, who after many years have not forgotten you!" Then a knife flashed for one moment before his terrified eyes, and in another second Abdul lay dead upon the floor, dead as his victim had lain in the path that fateful night twelve years before!

Later Rukhia returned. The room was almost dark and, before she realized that anything out of the ordinary had occurred, unseen hands seized her from the darkness and a voice, as it were of the dead, said, "It is your husband Mahkmoud who speaks to you, you false and perjured woman. Go now to where Abdul has gone!"

* * * * *

At dawn next day Mahkmoud walked calmly into the police-station at Assiout. Here he asked to see the Yushbashi of police, and when brought before him said, very quietly, "My name is Mahkmoud. Twelve years ago I was, through the false and perjured testimony of my wife and her lover, convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Now I _am_ a murderer. Arrest me. I have spoken."

For a second time Mahkmoud was tried for his life in Assiout, found guilty on his own confession, and sentenced to death. His Highness the Khedive once again commuted his sentence to penal servitude for life.

After five years, during which Mahkmoud's character was exemplary, he received a free pardon, and returned once more to his native village, where he died, an old and broken man. There is an Arab proverb, "If once you have tasted the sweet waters of the Nile, you will return to drink of them again."

A White Woman in Cannibal-Land.

+By Annie Ker.+]

Some incidents of a lady's life in the wilds of New Guinea. Miss
Ker went out to Papua--as the country is now called--attached to
a mission, and describes the many strange, amusing, and exciting
experiences she encountered during her seven years' sojourn among
the natives, who, not so very long ago, were always fighting and
much addicted to cannibalism--a practice which still prevails among
the wild tribes of the unexplored interior.