"I was rather taken aback, but I put an end to my promenade, went down to the Baroness, and had a conversation with her which gave me food for much reflection.
"'I beg your pardon. Miss Poles,' said Madame de Guéran, 'for having interrupted your nocturnal walk, but I thought you would not mind giving me a few moments of your time.'
"'Certainly, madame. I am entirely at your orders,' I hastened to reply. 'It was you, then, whose sleep I was disturbing?'
"'You would most assuredly have disturbed it,' said the Baroness, laughing, 'if I had had the slightest inclination that way; but I am very much preoccupied, and that has kept me awake. Tell me,' she continued brusquely, 'you, who, like myself, have been brought into contact with so many travellers, have you not noticed how very easily all sorts of rumours gain credence about them in Europe? Amongst other things, do you remember what was said about Edward Vogel?'
"'No,' I replied, 'for once my really marvellous memory is at fault.'
"'Well,' continued the Baroness, 'I have collected, on purpose to show them to you, a series of papers relating to that celebrated traveller, who was one of my father's firmest friends. I can only now, as you may imagine, give you the gist of them. On the 14th December, 1857, the English Vice-Consul at Khartoum, Mr. Green, gave his Government the following information.* Dr. Vögel, after reaching the Waday territory, was at first very well received by the Sultan. But in the outskirts of Warra there is a holy mountain, the ascent of which is forbidden to the whole world. This mountain Vögel attempted to ascend, and he was at once arrested and put to death.'
* Vögel, on arriving at Bomon, was anxious to secure the protection of somebody of influence, and he was recommended to apply to the Vizier Germa, a cousin of the Sultan. Scarcely had he been presented to this individual than the latter requested the gift of Vögel's horse, a very valuable animal. Vögel refused, and his death was at once resolved upon. He was accused of having entered the country for the purpose of bewitching it, and of writing with a pen without ink (a pencil, in reality), and on the fifth day after his arrival Germa made an appearance before his house, accompanied by an armed escort, Vögel was summoned to come out, under the pretext that the Sultan had asked for him, and he fell under the blows of these murderers.
"'You see,' said the Baroness, handing me an English newspaper, 'that the news is quite official, and Lord Clarendon informed his Queen of it. But, on the 29th of June, 1860, another account, equally official, was sent to the Humboldt Institution.'
"'What do you say to these two versions?' asked Madame le Guéran.
"'If they do not exactly coincide,' I replied, 'in all their details, they at all events both end after the same fashion.'
"'But there is still a third version, to which in England great importance has been attached for some considerable time, and according to it Vögel is simply a prisoner in Bomon. An expedition has even set out in search of him.'
"'All the same, his death is very plainly proved.'
"'I agree with you, but you must remember that the existence of Livingstone has just been established, and for him we have already worn mourning two or three times, and each time in consequence of reports worthy of all credence.'
"'To what does all this tend?' asked I.
"She looked at me, did not answer a single word, and, a few moments afterwards, without deigning to explain herself more fully, allowed me to retire.
"I resumed my walk on deck, so that I might reflect on the singular interview in which I had just borne a part."
M. de Pommerelle, one of the most popular members of that club where the momentous game of baccarat, which we have already described, took place, seized the opportunity of delivering himself to his three friends, M. de Morin, Périères, and Delange, on the evening before their departure, in something like the following terms—
"My dear friends, I adore travels, I burn to accept your invitation to follow you to Africa, and I would give my whole fortune, as well as the contents of the public exchequer, especially the latter, to pay a visit in your society to those marvellous regions which you are going to traverse. And nothing would be easier for me than to accompany you. I am a bachelor and an orphan, and though I have a few relatives, scattered here and there about the left bank of the Seine, from the Esplanade des Invalides to the Rue du Bac, they are such utter strangers to me that I do not care one jot about them. Friends I have none, except yourselves. I have no incumbrances whatever, and my private income is ample enough to allow or my following you and giving myself up, without the slightest risk of ruin, to any amount of African dissipation. But, notwithstanding all this, I am not going with you. And now for my reasons—
"I am Parisian to the back-bone, and as thoroughly a man about town as it is possible for any human being to be. I had scarcely left Paris, last summer, to go to Trouville, at my doctor's suggestion, for fear of cholera, indeed I had not got beyond Maison-Lafitte, before I was tempted to take a return train. By the time I reached Nantes I was restless and uneasy, and I would have given anything if I could have set eyes on the steps of Tortoni's. At Elbeuf I was a prey to the deepest dejection, and everybody else in the carriage seemed to be similarly affected. You would have thought it was a mourning coach, bringing back from the cemetery a cargo of rightful heirs disinherited by the defunct. At Serquigny the refreshment-room failed to charm. I absolutely refused to go into it. I did not want anything and, if I had, I could not have taken it, for my stomach was as dejected as my heart. The sight of the pastures of Liseaux and the cattle grazing on the plain gave fresh impulse to my melancholy. The silence, the calm, the repose of nature affected my nerves, and my agitation became extreme. My fellow passengers grew uneasy and huddled together in alarm. When I arrived at Trouville, I rushed into my room at the hotel, closed the shutters so that I might not catch sight of the sea, and burst into a flood of tears. I need scarcely tell you that on the following morning I left for Paris by the first train, and that I told the cholera it might seize on me, do whatever it liked with me, on condition that it did not banish me from Paris.
"Say what you like, my dear fellows, I simply cannot do without those wretched Boulevards, which commence at the Madeleine and end just before you come to the Rue da Faubourg-Montmartre. They are dusty, dirty, smoky—I admit all that. In the summer my boots are incrusted with the asphalte which melts under my feet. In the winter I flounder about in a mass of sticky mud, which is at the same time as slippery as ice. At all seasons of the year the gas lamps shed around their sickly light. The trees weep in vain for leaves, but I have been accustomed ever since my birth and theirs to the sight of their trunks alone, and I should be annoyed if they afforded any shade, for then they would not be my trees.
"From noon to 1 a.m. I cannot get away from the sight of those miserable little kiosques where so much silliness goes on, nor from the theatres in which, for the last twenty years, the same actresses have acted the same pieces, nor from those picturesque hired carriages, closed in summer and open in winter, whose horses care as much for their drivers as the drivers do for us. I am bound to jostle and be jostled by the same loungers, male and female, the same poor, the same rich, always the same, beggars, bohemians, men who have, men who have had, and men who never had a name, virtue and vice, honour and disgrace; rags and ermine brush past me in turn, and in turn I take off my hat to the tip-tilted nose, or the modest eyes so bashfully cast down, or the bald-headed ancient. I must shake hands warmly with jolly Mrs. This, or just touch the tips of Miss That's delicate fingers; I must inhale the noisome vapours which steam out of the half-opencafé, and the delicious essence of verbena which ever hangs around the footsteps of the Countess X. In a word, these elbowings to and fro, the bow given or received, the 'how d'ye do?' to one, and 'very well, thank you,' to another, the crowd, the smells, the lights, this life itself—all, all are indispensable to me, and away from them I should droop, and wither, and die.
"And yet, I repeat, I adore travels, in all probability because I have never done any travelling. The New Library in the Boulevard des Italiens never sees any one but me. Achilla Heymann and Ménard, those intelligentemployésat Lévy's, send me, by the cart load, volume upon volume of the adventures of every traveller, known or unknown. An author need only go a hundred leagues from Paris to secure a place in my esteem. I read him attentively, I admire and I revere him. In short, within the walls of my own room I am one of the most remarkable travellers the world ever saw.
"You have now heard my confession, and have by this time learnt, first of all, that you will have to do without me, and, secondly, that you can do me a great service, by giving me a full, true, and particular description of every country through which you pass, by jotting down for me all sorts of information and all kinds of random notes. I shall enter thoroughly into the spirit of your letters, study them, learn them by heart; I shall travel in thought with you, and I will bless you for the pleasant half hours I know you will have in store for me.
"You need not say a word about yourselves, my dear fellows. The fact of your writing to me will be a proof positive that you are well, and that is all I care about, as far as you are concerned. No, I shall like you ever so much better if you will introduce me to the negroes and negresses, the he-savages and she-savages of your acquaintance. I have spoken. Do you swear to do as I ask you?"
And, like the three Horatii, they raised their hands on high and sware.
On the 26th October, 1872, M. de Pommerelle, on reaching his rooms at 3 a.m., found on his bedroom mantel-piece a letter, with the Cairo post-mark.
"Those dear boys!" he exclaimed, gleefully. "They have not forgotten me." And in spite of the late, or rather, early hour, and the fact that he was tired, he lighted a couple of candles so that he might more readily peruse his precious letter without losing a word of it. He very soon saw, from the variations in the handwriting, that the three travellers had worked together in his behalf. M. de Morin opened the ball.
"Ah! my dear de Pommerelle," commenced this epistle, "what a voyage! what an ecstatic voyage!"
M. de Pommerelle put the letter down and rubbed his hands. His imagination went far ahead of his eyesight, and he revelled beforehand in the landscapes about to be unfolded to his view, and the descriptions of manners and customs into which he was to be initiated. He took the letter up again, and found that it went on in the following strain—
"Yes, a delicious voyage! Madame de Guéran is simply adorable. You cannot have an idea of how quickly the time passes in her society. It is now ten days since I left Paris, and it seems but yesterday. Her charm! her exquisite refinement! her gaiety, tempered with an irresistible shade of melancholy! her even temperament! her conversation, at once full of wit and wisdom!"
"When will he have done with all this?" exclaimed M. de Pommerelle, who was becoming impatient over this rhapsody. "The least possible description of Africa would please me far more than any portrait of Madame de Guéran. However, let us see, perhaps he has nearly done, and will continue in another strain."
M. de Morin's letter went on thus—
"And how she exacts obedience from all! If you could only see her ordering about these people whom we have already got together for the expedition!"
"The expedition! Bravo!" said M. de Pommerelle. "Now we have it. It was just about time, I think; but oh! these lovers!"
"The inhabitants of Cairo," resumed the letter, "would not admit that Madame de Guéran is an European. She carries, so they say, her head too high, her movements are too graceful, and her whole appearance too independent. And, besides that, the fanciful garb, fashioned in Paris, but now worn for the first time, becomes her figure so marvellously! It is like nothing else. It is neither Parisian nor Turkish, neither dress nor costume, stamped with an originality of its own, and yet not in the least theatrical. However, when I have said that she invented and designed it herself, I have said all. Add to this that she speaks the true Arabic, and by that I mean high-class Arabic, and you will readily understand that the country people, or fellahs, as they are called, worship her and take her for a sultana. So amongst ourselves we have dubbed her with that title. 'The sultana has come to such and such a conclusion,' Périères will say. Or the Doctor will be heard to remark, 'The sultana is leaving her room.' In my opinion this designation but imperfectly describes her. There is something of the sultana about her, I admit, but there is more of the Parisian. Her wit is keen and original, and there is a certain piquancy about her countenance. And, moreover, there is not a Turkish female in this world who possess thechicyou meet with in a French woman. So, to please all parties, and to bring Europe and Africa together, I proposed to style Madame de Guéran the 'Parisian Sultana,' and the motion was carried.
"Miss Beatrice Poles, of whom I have already made mention to you, would have preferred the 'Flame-Queen,' that being thesoubriquetbestowed on Mdlle. Alexina Tinne by the tribes of the Upper Nile, when they saw the showers of sparks emitted from the funnel of her steam-launch as she descended the river. But we are not quite sure of the steamer, and, in addition to that, we have no idea of dressing our beloved Baroness up in styles and titles borrowed from the Dutch lady traveller. Madame de Guéran deserves a lavish expenditure of imagination all to herself.
"Aproposof Miss Beatrice Poles, I must tell you something that will amuse you. But Madame de Guéran has sent for me—excuse me for a moment—I shall not be long."
"He is quite welcome to stay away altogether," exclaimed M. dePommerelle in a rage. "What do I care for Miss Poles and Madame deGuéran, and all their trivialities? Africa alone has any interest forme, and Africa is conspicuous by its absence."
Nevertheless, impelled by curiosity, and relying on the promise made to him, he resumed his reading.
"You knew Miss Beatrice Poles," continued M. de Morin. "I pointed that female phenomenon out to you one day when we were smoking a cigar in the balcony at the club. She was, you will remember, plunging along the pavement right in front of you at a prodigious rate, for all the world like an express train under full steam. She banged through the various groups of people, however compact they were, with a dig in the ribs to the right, and a resolute shove to the left. She would inevitably have upset every obstacle in her path, had not the children taken to flight, the women squeezed themselves against the houses, and the men taken refuge in the gutter. As the rapidity of her movements prevented your distinguishing her features, I showed you her portrait, which was not overdone in the least particular, I assure you. Nothing was due to any invention—neither the leanness, nor the length, nor the arms, nor the hands, nor the feet, nor the enormous blue spectacles.
"Well, just picture to yourself that this elegant creature believes that Périères, Delange, and myself are in love, over head and ears in love with her. And we are unmerciful enough (one must amuse oneself on board ship) to humour her in that hallucination. I overwhelm her with compliments, and all kinds of delicate attractions; Delange is every moment bestowing on her the most amorous glances, and Périères sighs to such an extent that he might very well pass for a love-sick locomotive. The heart of Miss Beatrice Poles fluctuates between all three of us, and we shall let it do so—to fix it on one of us would be rather too dangerous.
"Apart from her delusion in believing herself young, lovely, and ardently beloved, she is an excellent woman, intelligent, even amusing where she herself is not concerned, an invaluable adviser, courageous, untiring, and exemplary in every way.
"I am sorry to say that I cannot give my servant Joseph such a good character. He is a regular stupid! Imagine his having, instead of putting Joseph on his baggage, which was sent on in advance to Egypt, labelled it Mohammed-Abd-el-Gazal, a fancy name of his own creation, which he has thought proper to adopt. What was the result? At Suez a real Mohammed, for the name is the commonest possible in these parts, claimed Joseph's baggage as if it belonged to him. With that Egyptian mixture of carelessness and knavery, of which we have already had frequently to complain, the baggage was handed over to this claimant, and no doubt by this time it is in the desert.
"Needless to say that it would have been absurd to pay any attention to the lamentations of Joseph, or to make any representations to the police. We called to mind the saying, now almost historical—'The day which witnesses, in Egypt, the recovery of a stolen pocket-handkerchief will see also the settlement of the Eastern Question.' But I am conscious, my dear friend, that I am not carrying out your instructions, for, instead of holding forth about Africa, as you wished, I have simply talked of ourselves, and that you do not care about. You will lose nothing by it. I yield the pen to Périères—he is a literary man—he is! He excels in description. You shall be satisfied."
"And high time, too," said M. de Pommerelle to himself. "Now I shall hear something about Egypt, and something worth hearing into the bargain. I know Périères—he is a remarkably descriptive writer—as good as Gautier."
He hastened to take the second sheet, and this is what he found there—
"Paris, departure, express, 7.15 p.m. Marseilles, arrival, 11.40 a.m. Grand Hôtel, Noailles—luggage. Walk round town. Tuesday left 9 a.m. steamer. Calm sea. Thursday, Naples, Pretty bay; Vesuvius not smoking. Friday, Port Said, very ugly. Left railway. Arrived—Cairo. Picturesque, but no Almehs. Arrange caravan. Kind regards."
"The wretch!" exclaimed M. de Pommerelle, indignantly, "and he calls himself a writer! And this is what literature has come to now-a-days! If you don't pay these gentlemen for their copy, they use the telegraph wire for a pen. And I compared this fellow Périères with that painter of the East, the great Gautier! I shall never forgive myself for it."
He got up in despair, and was pacing up and down his room, when, on passing the mantel-piece, where he had thrown down the letters, his eye suddenly caught sight of another page, written in a small and hurried hand. It was Dr. Delange's contribution.
"At last!" exclaimed he, "I am sure to find some pithy remarks aboutEgypt here—those doctors are such intelligent observers!"
He read as follows:—
"You were a witness, my dear de Pommerelle, of my tortures during the last month of my stay in Paris. Every night I went to the Club. I sat down at the baccarat table, and, obedient to the promise I had given, I contented myself with looking without touching, just as they do in the Public Museums. But, what I suffered! Good Heavens, what I went through! I had but one thought, one dream—to play with de Morin, in accordance with the contract we told you about, and which you thought so original. I won my first fifty louis at carté. De Morin, as the loser, had, consequently, the right on the following day of naming the game. He chose lansquenet, and made his fifty louis at a singlecoup. To play for two seconds only when we had the whole day before us! It was not right, and I had not reckoned on anything of that sort, so I thought I would give my adversary a lesson. We were on board the steamer, and, as I had lost on the previous evening, I was master of the situation. 'This way, if you please,' said I to my friend, and he had nothing to do but obey.
"I took him on deck, about amidships—a few paces from the funnel. The heat was tremendous, and up the hatchway, by the engine-room, came whiffs of stifling foul air, and the almost insupportable stench of hot oil. Then I quietly took the cards out of my pocket, and said— 'Play away!'
"Morin made a grimace, but the treaty was all the more binding, because we had burnt it and stood on our word of honour—so he had to submit.
"We played at Chinese bezique, at a sou a point, for eight mortal hours. I was regularly done, but so was my adversary, and, to pile up his agony, he lost his thousand francs.
"On the following day the opportunity of taking his revenge was not to be lost. I was walking on the poop, when he came up to me and said smilingly, and in his most dulcet tones—
"'Our contract allows us, you know, to substitute a bet for cards.'
"'I know it,' said I, not seeing his drift.
"'Very well, then,' continued de Morin, in the same gracious tone, 'I take advantage of the choice, and I'll bet you that you do not jump into the sea now at once in my presence.'
"'I'll bet you I do,' I replied.
"'A thousand francs on it,' said de Morin.
"'Done!' said I.
"I lighted a cigar very quietly, and stretched myself on a seat.
"'Holloa!' cried my adversary, 'what are you doing?'
"'Resting, you perceive.'
"'And the bet?'
"'Well; I've lost it.'
"'Then why did you take it?'
"'To lose, and take my revenge to-morrow.'
"De Morin groaned, for he saw, by the look on my face, that I was to be feared. The next day we entered the Bay of Naples, and the weather was perfect. De Morin was standing up, leaning against one of the shrouds, telescope in hand, and contemplating, with evident enjoyment, the magnificent panorama which was unrolling itself before his eyes. The unhappy man turned his head, changed colour, and, at the given sign, followed me. But when he saw me wending my way towards the companion-ladder, which led to between-decks, when it became evident that, regardless of the lovely weather, the blue sky, and the splendid view, I was going to make him descend into the depths of the hold, to bury him in those submarine catacombs, he begged for mercy, and proposed an arrangement.
"I condescended to listen to him, and it was there and then agreed upon between us that if I did not insist on too prolongedparties, he on his side, would not cut them too short. So we have agreed to play for two hours each day.
"Au revoir, my dear fellow. De Morin is waiting for me to have a real good game at piquet."
"Well!" exclaimed de Pommerelle, "these three letters have given me an admirable idea of Africa!"
By way of calming his agitation, he took up a pen, and, in his turn, indited the following telegram:—
"If you, false friends, do not keep your promise, I will not send any more cigars, and you will die of despair for want of a smoke. "POMMERELLE."
"Even for a man habitually unjust, you are the most unjust man I know. Our two friends chat to you in the most genial manner possible about all their little affairs; in your society they rest from the cares of the voyage; they do their best to forget their annoyances, and, I may as well confess it, a certain amount of apprehension, which the very bravest of us cannot help experiencing when on the eve of what very probably may turn out to be a series of hazardous adventures. They turn their eyes from the horizon, where already ominous dark clouds are gathering, sit themselves down in spirit once more in your smoking-room, in the very heart of Paris, and, whilst chatting of this, that, and the other, imagine themselves, for the moment, to be there in reality.
"As far as I am concerned, I reasoned with myself that, if you had never travelled, you had read quite enough to make any account of Lyons, Marseilles, Alexandria and Cairo stale news to you, and so, instead of sending you a hash, made up of old scraps, I gave you aresuméof the trip, after the African manner, in order to accustom myself to that facetious style.
"You neither appreciated this delicate attention on my part, nor made any allowances for the exigences of the case as regarded de Morin and Delange. In your inconsiderate way, you snatch up a pen, and hurl the most terrible threats against three poor devils who are about to offer up their lives as a sacrifice to science and geography.
"But, most inexorable of tyrants, you have us in your power. We cannot do without cigars, and so we surrender at discretion.
"Do you know, first of all, where I am at this present moment? I am neither in a hotel, nor in a room, nor under a tent, nor on land, nor on the Nile. I am out at sea—the Red one, on board a steamer belonging to the Medschidieh Company of Egypt, and am on my way to Souakim, a port of some importance, situated midway between Suez and Aden, on the west coast, that is to say, on the same side as Egypt and Nubia, I trust that you will, at all events do me the honour of following me on the map. Get the one by Brué—it is about the best, though it leaves much to be desired. The German map of Stieler, of Gotha, 'Mittel und nord Africa (ostlicher theil)', which, being interpreted, is, 'Nothern and Central Africa (eastern portion),' is far more complete, but you would lose yourself amongst all the German names. It requires a certain amount of skill to understand the French maps, whereon the names of towns, tribes, villages, rivers and mountains are inscribed in half-a-dozen different ways. Sometimes, even, there is not the slightest resemblance between two names given to the same place. For instance, the town of Berber, where we shall once more join the Nile, is called on some maps, El-Mecheref. If you can recognise Berber under that name, you are far cleverer than I am.
"But I am wandering. I was telling you that we were proceeding by sea towards Souakim, whence we shall go by land to Berber, and then up the Nile by Chendy, as far as Khartoum. Why, you will ask, did we select that route? For many reasons, but principally because it is the shortest, and offers great advantages in the way of security. In a week at the most, we may expect, in spite of having to call in at several places on the coast, to be at the first-named port. We shall there be within two or three degrees of the latitude of Khartoum. We shall thus have accomplished in eight days, a distance which, even in good seasons, takes at least six weeks, sometimes even two months, if the journey is made by steamer up the Nile.
"But, you will say, you will have to get from Souakim to Berber before you can talk of Khartoum. You are quite right; but the distance from the sea to the Nile is only about two hundred miles, which we shall do on camels, and it will serve to season us. We shall also have to cross several ranges where the air is most salubrious, and, consequently, we shall reach Berber in good condition, in capital training, as Madame de Guéran would say, and able, by means of these gradual transitions, to stand the heat of Central Africa. That portion of the Nile which we shall have to navigate between Berber and Khartoum is exceedingly interesting, and we shall have the opportunity, not given to all the world, and least of all to you, of gazing upon the famous Pyramids of Meröe and the sixth great cataract. We, you see, commence with the sixth; we suppress the first five; it is a way we have. This part of our journey will occupy fifteen days at the outside, perhaps only eight, if we have the wind with us.
"We shall thus set aside all the wonders of the Egyptian Nile—Siout, the mountains of the Libyan chain, ancient Thebes, Luxor, Karnak, and the island of Philœ. But, then, so many travellers have descanted on these celebrated spots! Let me recommend you to read the 'Valley of the Nile,' a very notable work by Henri Cammas and Andre Lefèvre.
"Excuse me for a moment. The awning over the poop, under which I am now writing, does not shelter me sufficiently from the heat. I am stifled, and I am going to disport myself in a huge tub in the forepart of the ship. If, after that, I feel better, I will take up my pen once more when the sun goes down."
* * * * *
"It was a capital idea of mine to leave you to yourself. My affection for the cold water system has brought me a slice of good luck, for I have just seen—but I am heading the fox. After emerging from my tub, I was just putting the finishing touches to my toilet, when it seemed to me that I heard a sigh, a sort of plaintive breathing, or, rather, the long drawn-out respiration of a woman who is just awaking out of sleep and giving a good stretch. What did it mean? The three female Nubian attendants, whom Madame de Guéran hired at Cairo, sleep below there, near the engine—I can see them now. The Baroness herself, reclining on the poop, is chatting with our companions, and there are no other women on board. Is Africa already exercising a misleading influence over me? Have I come to such a pass that I cannot distinguish between a woman's sigh and the grunt of an able-bodied seaman? Impossible—for a time, at all events, I am in full possession of all my faculties.
"Another sigh. This time I am not mistaken. It came from close to and below me, so that the hold must be inhabited.
"I stoop down, put my ear close to the deck, and listen. Yes, the same sighs, the same gentle breathing, with something about it very sweet and plaintive. I must find out the key to the enigma!
"I look before me and behind me. I seek some opening, some hatchway which will lead from this part of the vessel into the hold. Not a hole of any kind. I see only, a few paces distant, the large hatchway, 18 feet square, opening into the main hold, but the hatches, over which huge tarpaulins are spread, are down, and an entrance by that way is impossible.
"And yet, that there are living souls in that cavern beneath my feet is beyond a doubt. How on earth do they breathe? By the port-holes in the sides of the ship, of course, and I never noticed them when I came on board.
"Now for it. Let me examine the outside of the steamer. It is an exercise worthy of the leading spirit of a Gymnastic Society. Nobody sees me. All the sailors, the Captain included, are either snoozing or sound asleep; the engineers and stokers, half-suffocated in their oven, are not thinking of me, and my friends are watching the sunset. Besides, the screen hung up to hide oural frescobath-room, will hide my movements too.
"In two bounds I was over the netting—I seized hold of a rope, swung myself under the bowsprit, and cast a rapid glance over the sides of the ship. I was right. Two small port-holes were open on each side of me, and from them had escaped the sighs which had reached my ears.
"With my hands I clung to the gunwale of the ship, crept round to the right towards the nearest port-hole, let go of the gunwale in order to grasp a rope which I had taken care to fasten round the capstan, let myself down about a yard, and put my head into the open port-hole.
"Ah! my dear fellow, if you could only have seen the sight that greeted my inquisitive eyes——."
"At first, it is true, I did not see much. My head shut out the day-light, and kept everything in shadow. But, after a moment, my eyes became accustomed to the gloom; through the intervals between the port-hole and my head came the rays of light, and I saw—what? Can you guess? Do you give it up? Of course you do, for who could have supposed——?
"I saw a small space, about five yards by three, right in the centre of the hold. The vessel was not fully laden, and an attempt had evidently been made to utilise the unoccupied space above the cargo, large mats and cloths of brilliant colours having been spread out in order to hide the packages. In the centre of this hastily-improvised and utterly unfurnished cabin, four women lay dozing or asleep, all in different postures. One, lying on her back, with her arms crossed behind her, had made a species of pillow of her hands, which were clasped under the nape of her neck. Another, by way of contrast, was lying at full length, face downwards, on her mat, which served her as a couch. The third, squatting rather than sitting, had placed her elbows on her knees, and had buried her head in her hands. The last, lying at full length, but on her side, slept with her face completely hidden on her bent arm. In these positions the four beings seemed only one and the same woman, whose varied attitudes were reflected in skilfully-disposed mirrors.
"One and all were beautifully-proportioned, and might have served as models for the most celebrated of ancient sculpture. Their long, silky hair, of a deep, rich, black-brown tint, shone, and seemed to grow purple in the golden rays of the setting sun. The velvety texture of their skin is beyond my powers of description, but it recalled to my mind the sheen of those bronzes of which Florence possessed the secret in days gone by, a species of molten metal—brown steel with golden lights in it.
"I could only distinguish the features of one of these women. Her nose was perfectly straight, with strongly defined nostrils; her forehead, rather narrow and receding, was, nevertheless, smooth and without a line on it, the forehead of a girl of fifteen. Sweeping eye-lashes, of the same tint as her hair, veiled her almond-shaped eyes, and between the pouting, carmine lips, I could see her small and pearl-white teeth.
"I have dwelt at some length on this description; but you will scarcely wonder, if you think for a moment of my own position all this time, that the scene is impressed vividly on my recollection. Round one of my arms was wound a rope which my right hand grasped with all its force, with my other hand I laid hold, as best I could, of the ship's side, and my feet were hanging in empty space. My head was stuck in the port-hole, just as in the lunette of a guillotine, and, seen from within, I must have looked as if I had parted with the rest of my body.
"So one of these women evidently thought, the one who was merely dozing, and whose plaintive sighs had attracted my attention and led to my gymnastic exercises. She was the young girl whose face I had been admiring. Her sweeping eye-lashes parted gradually, first I saw a little white, then a little black, and at last the eyes opened, their look hovered round the empty space, and suddenly catching sight of me, shot out a glance like lightning. At the same time, she uttered a cry, and, with a single bound, with a velocity simply marvellous, but fully accounted for later on, she sprang to her feet.
"The cry aroused the other three sleepers. With the same elasticity that their companion had displayed they bounded to their feet, and all four, in a heap, took refuge in the remotest corner of the cabin. Thus huddled together, startled and trembling, they formed one single group.
"Even now, as I write, my imagination recalls the scene and these four beings, but neither in their attitude, nor in their look could I discover a clue to the feelings which agitated them. They did not seem to have any sense of outraged modesty, but merely a species of scare at being thus so unexpectedly taken by surprise, and very natural alarm at the sudden appearance of the head of an apparently decapitated male.
"But T can assure you that none of these reflections passed across my mind at the time. Scarcely had my four unknowns cried out and huddled together, as I have already told you, then I began to think of retreat. It was high time, for my arms and hands were beginning to fail me, and the Red Sea, hankering after an infidel like me, was yawning for its prey.
"However, this was not exactly the moment wherein to give up the ghost. I had a mystery to unravel. What were these women doing on board the ship? Whence came they? I was, I confess, deeply interested, but, nevertheless, as you have perceived, I went on to the poop again to add a few words to my letter, and I did not leave you until night-fall. It is true that only then could I hope to get speech of the Captain, as that individual is all day long in a sort of stupor, caused by heat and tobacco, and possibly a little brandy mixed therewith, and as a rule does not condescend to emerge from his inaction until sunset.
"I joined him on the bridge whence he issues his despotic commands, and said—
"'I believe. Captain, that you have no right to take any passengers on board this ship as far as Souakim, except my friends, myself, and our servants?'
"'Just so,' murmured the Captain, still half asleep.
"'Very well. Then you have broken through your agreement.'
"'Howso? I—'
"'You have on board four female passengers unknown to us.'
"After a useless attempt at denial, he was obliged to give me a full, true, and particular account of the whole business, which I epitomize for your benefit.
"The four mysterious creatures are dancers. You possibly suspected as much when I mentioned the celerity of their movements, and the suppleness of their limbs. The famous Almehs of Egypt are thus suddenly brought before you. You have been labouring under the impression that the Captain had given a free passage to some runaways from Cairo, who were making for Khartoum, the usual refuge for that destitute tide, which for some time past has been ebbing towards upper Egypt. Well, you are wrong. These women have no connection whatever with the Almehs. I do not wish to say a single word against these latter creatures, whom I hope to bring to your notice some day, but they are palpably inferior to my unknowns, both in reputation, beauty, and the science of dancing.
"'I thought,' you will say, 'that Egypt had no dancers but theAlmehs.'
"Quite so, but those of whom I speak are not natives of Egypt. They spring from India.
"'From India? Then, they are—'
"'Yes, my friend, the bayaderes—neither more nor less.'
"'Bayaderes returning from Egypt, and on passage through the Red Sea?I do not understand.'
"Then write to the Captain for an explanation. I have had to content myself with what he told me. His passengers are bayaderes; not those spurious dancing girls whom the waiters in anycaféin Bombay, Calcutta, or Singapore can induce to disport themselves before strangers for a guinea or so, but genuine bayaderes, brought up by the priests and nurtured in the temple. They had been to Europe in the suite of a Rajah, who died suddenly at Cairo, and they did not deem it prudent to continue their journey, more especially as their resources had disappeared with the Rajah. Our Captain had offered to take them back to their own country, but as his contract with us precluded him from taking other passengers, he exacted from them an engagement that they would not show themselves outside their little cell.
"'The unfortunate creatures would have been suffocated in that hole,'I exclaimed.
"'They feel the heat so little,' replied the Captain, 'that only yesterday they asked me for some extra wraps. Just consider, we are at this moment in 20 degrees north latitude, and they were born close to the equator. What these dancing girls want is exercise and activity.'
"I began to reflect once more. Suppose I were to take a mean advantage of the situation—if in exchange for a little ease and liberty, these sweet creatures would consent to initiate me into the secret of their mysterious dances—if, not content with studying the customs of Africa, I might, whilst grazing the Asiatic coast, get an idea of the manners of India!
"I sounded the Captain on the subject. He remonstrated at once.
"'Bayaderes dance in public? It is not to be thought of. They belong to a religious sect.'
"'Captain,' said I, interrupting him, 'we may possibly shut our eyes to any little irregularity which you have committed in taking these passengers on board in defiance or your agreement with us, if, on your part, you will contrive to arrange this little entertainment, this novel spectacle for us. Think it over. In our religion we can enter into an arrangement with Heaven itself—surely you can do as much with the bayaderes.'
"My glowing account and my projected evening's entertainment made de Morin and Delange as excited as I was; but, of course, we could not do anything without the consent of Madame de Guéran, a consent which she was most graciously pleased to accord. She, however, declined to be present, not from any motives of prudery, but because, as she herself said, the presence of ladies generally acted as a restraint in the case of such exhibitions. She, nevertheless, instructed us to inform the bayaderes that the deck of the vessel was as free to them as to ourselves.
"My arguments have prevailed with the Captain, and his passengers will dance for us to-night. I am off to see to the refreshments and the lights."
"In order that you may thoroughly enter into the spirit of our littlefête, my dear fellow, I must, in your behalf, remove some of the obscurity in which the bayaderes are shrouded.
"In Europe the most ridiculous ideas prevail about these priestesses of the dance, obtained chiefly from the tales of conscientious, but easily imposed-upon travellers. As a matter of fact, they have scarcely set foot in India before they make known to the inhabitants their wishes to see the famous dancing girls who have for so long excited their curiosity. A so-called cicerone, whose sole occupation really consists in providing a supply of the spurious article, hastens to introduce to the notice of the unsophisticated European a few women passably pretty, and tolerably well-made, who give themselves out to be bayaderes with the same facility as with us a man announces himself as a landed proprietor or a contributor to the newspapers.
"To the sound of a kind of tambourine and brazen cymbals, these ladies step forward, raise their arms in the air, indulge without any preface in a variety of those contortions of trunk and shoulders which are the fundamental principle of all Oriental dances, and cast on their patron glances which, they do their best to make appear ardent. He, on the contrary, quite insensible to all these manoeuvres, gets rid of his visitors as quickly as possible, and on his return to Europe, exclaims, 'Don't believe in the bayadere—she is a regular sell.'
"The real fact is that he never had a glimpse of the genuine article, and it is quite a mistake to suppose that it is to be found incafésor hotels, or to imagine that a bayadere is to be had for the asking. Just as poets are born, and not made, so you must absolutely be born a bayadere or resign all pretensions to the title.
"The origin of this race dates from the most remote antiquity. Amongst the countless Hindoo divinities to be found in our curiosity shops, you may have remarked a four-armed figure perched on an elephant. He is one of the eight gods of Brahminism; he is called Indra and, according to the legend, the bayaderes, or celestial dancing girls, inhabited his kingdom. One of these was enamoured of a mortal, and gave birth to a daughter, who, on account of her semi-terrestrial origin, could not be brought up in heaven, and was in consequence confided to the care of the priests called Brahmins. They placed her in a pagoda, where, by way of proving the truth of the saying that every well-bred dog has a good nose, she displayed from her earliest years the greatest aptitude and liking for dancing. She, in her turn, had seven daughters who, gifted in like manner as their mother and their grandmother, became dancers of renown.
"In the present day they are connected with the worship of the gods, and might be called the vestals of their religion, if its rules, whilst forbidding them to marry, did not place them entirely at the mercy and in the hands of the Brahmins. In a word, they are a species of religious harem of which the priests of Brahma are the Sultans. The bayadere, therefore, still lives, but exclusively in the temple or pagoda where, on the days of religious ceremonial, she executes the prescribed dances before the idols. Occasionally, too, she is to be found in the palace of some Rajah who has purchased her on her attaining maturity for a fabulous price from the Brahmins, for she is their property, and a very handsome revenue they manage to secure out of her and her fellows.
"This race of women would have long ago become extinct, if several castes in India, the weavers amongst others, did not look upon it as a pious duty to devote their daughters to the service of the temples. To be accepted they must not be more than five years old, must be possessed of sufficiently good looks to give promise of future beauty, and their family must renounce all idea of ever seeing them again. If they fulfil the required conditions they are handed over to the care of some aged matron, herself a graduated priestess, to whom is entrusted the task of instructing them in their new duties, and of initiating them into all the mysteries of a dance, which, whilst it partakes of the nature of all Oriental dances, yet actually resembles no one of them, and is, moreover, invested with decidedly mystic characteristics.
"Such is the information, a little hazy, perhaps, but quite correct as far as it goes, which I am enabled to give you on the subject of the genuine bayadere. If you want a more detailed account, refer to that very instructive work, Jacolliot's "Voyage au pays des Bayadères."
"The first idea of Delange, de Morin and myself, was to hold ourfêtein the open air, and invite our dancers to come on the poop. The night was lovely—so luminous was the sky, and so bright was the star shine, that it gave one the idea of a prolonged twilight. Not a breath of air was there to raise a ripple on the water. Our engine alone disturbed the calm that reigned around, and its throbs were the only sound that broke the perfect stillness that had fallen on all. Never was there a night more propitious for a spectacle in the open sea. But the Captain, who, in order to make us forget his shortcomings, had placed himself entirely at our disposition and was doing his very best to help us, pointed out that thefêtewe were preparing would certainly lose much of its originality, and would be much less natural if it took place on the poop; because the Hindoos would object to being exposed to the gaze of all the common sailors, and would in consequence not give us any real idea of their dancing powers, He advised us to select as our theatre the apology for a cabin, already occupied by his female passengers, and he undertook to enlarge it by removing some of the largest packages, and rolling up the mats which now served for curtains. His opinion and advice prevailed.
"About eleven o'clock in the evening, as we were creeping along the eastern shore of the Red Sea, the Captain, who had run in as near land as possible, stopped the engines, and cast anchor right in the centre of a perfect little bay, formed by some of the banks of coral so numerous in these parts. This manoeuvre had scarcely been completed, when the trusty Joseph-Mohammed, in a black coat and a white tie, as correct "on duty" as he had promised to be, announced to us that all was ready. We descended from the poop, and, going a little way along the deck, reached the main hatchway, down which we went with the aid of a ladder.
"The little cabin had been made about seven yards long, its width remaining the same as before. We took our places at one end, just underneath an opening which had been made by removing the hatches, and we thus had the clear sky above our heads. Four lanterns of coloured glass, ornamented with arabesques, were suspended from the sides of the ship, two on either hand, but the moon, after dallying with the sea, peeped in through the open ports, and spread around us all the light she thought we needed.
"We had no sooner seated ourselves on a kind of low couch, made of cushions with mats spread over them, than an Arab brought us coffee, served in small cups wreathed with silver filagree-work, and lighted for us chibouks filled with latakia. We looked about us, tolerably surprised, I assure you. All these surroundings, absolutely new to us, excited our curiosity, for thoughblasésas Parisians, as travellers we were without any experience.
"Very soon the draperies which answered the purpose of a drop-curtain were stirred, and a woman appeared, bowed low before us, crept cringingly to our feet, prostrated herself there, sprang up again with a bound, and took refuge in a corner of the cabin, whence we saw her take two large circular plates made of copper, which she began to beat gently, one against the other, with measured, but plaintive and seductive rhythm. In her, I thought, I recognized the one whom I had seen asleep with her knees up and her elbows resting on them. She might have been twenty years of age, but jaded and prematurely worn, as are all Eastern women, she looked older.
"Placed on the retired list as a dancer, she had been converted into a musician for the sake of keeping her employed. Her hair was interwoven with small gold coins strung on a thread; she wore a jacket and skirt of richly embroidered blue satin, and a cashmere bodice served to display her still charming figure. Her large sleepy eyes, whose lustre was but slightly dimmed, gazed vacantly into space.
"Little by little, the cymbals were beaten in quicker time; in lieu of just touching them gently, she struck them against each other, and the rhythm losing its plaintive character, became more animated and more marked. At last the two parts of the instrument, after being held suddenly apart, were brought together with a clash, the curtains were lifted all together, and three girls bounded into the midst of us.
"Their hair, the black-brown hair I described to you, was dishevelled, their shoulders bare, the lower part of their figures was draped in a tightly-fitting scarlet satin garb, and the rest of their bodies was covered with silk-gauze, fringed with gold, through which could be seen the burnished tints of their velvety skin.
"At first, without moving their feet from the Smyrna carpet which had been placed for them on the ground, they wound in and out, their arms extended before them, their heads turned backwards, their almond-shaped eyes half closed, their mouths slightly opened, their nostrils quivering, and their bosoms heaving with a slow, but even and continuous motion. They uttered not a sound, not even a sigh escaped them; their eyes alone grew gradually brighter, and their breasts heaved more quickly.
"They were, all three of them, wonderfully lovely, and though the eldest of them could not have reached fifteen, their figures were fully developed. But, as I have already described them to you, I will only add that the animation which the motion of the dance lent them, served to enhance their beauty.
"After a moment or two, they became more and more animated, their arms were waved convulsively, their hands clutched at the air, and their whole bodies took the undulating movement which up to this time had seemed to be confined to the hips.
"Each of them, without paying the slightest attention to her neighbour, enacted some scene of impassioned comedy or tragic drama. One, like an inspired virgin, raised her eyes to heaven, and appeared to be sending on high a fervent prayer. Another pourtrayed the victim of unrequited love, and the third seemed plunged in a sort of ecstacy.
"It was a ballet, but a ballet of a new order, picturesque and highly coloured, conceived by a librettist born under the equator.
"To make a long story short, this strange, unheard of dance, of which I have given you but an imperfect idea, ended only when the performers sank to the ground, panting and exhausted.
"The stars glittered still over our heads, the moon, more brilliant than ever, enfolded us in her bright, clear rays, and a gentle breeze wafted to us across the water the countless odours of the neighbouring shore."
"No, I shall never share the enthusiasm of my male companions for these three creatures. I maintain that they have not even good figures. Nobody will ever succeed in persuading me that beauty of form in a woman, consists of all those rounded curves, thatembonpoint, that superfluous flesh which is simply fatal to all walking. As for their plump limbs and absurdly tiny feet, they excite my compassion. They are merely useless ornaments. Excuse me, somebody may say, they are of service to them in their dancing. That is the greatest mistake of all. They dance, if you can call it dancing, with everything except their feet, with their knees, their arms, their waists, their heads—their feet have nothing at all to do with it, and that is just where your argument fails, gentlemen all.
"I am not alluding to myself. As you know, my dear Emily, I always keep myself in the background as much as possible. I am thinking of my fellow countrywomen, whose reputation for beauty is world-wide. Look at the swan-like neck, the slender shoulders, the waist which their two hands can span with ease, the hips indistinguishable from the waist, and their long and slim feet. They are women, if you like, genuine women! And our dancers! What grace, what cuts, what capers! I think I see them now, as they raise their discreetly slender arms above the small fair heads. Bah! how infinitely superior they are to all these bayaderes!
"It may be, for I am always frank with you, that my aversion to these bayaderes has something spiteful about it. I was positively disgusted to see those three men, instead of staying on deck with me, shutting themselves up for a whole evening in the society of these so-called dancers. In their defence they allege that it is simply a question of art and æstheticism, and that as observant travellers they are justified in seeing everything, and making notes on all conceivable subjects. I do not approve of this class of study. My idea is that the love of science and art has its limits, and that it should stop at the bayadere.
"But, my dear Emily, I have just awoke to the consciousness—a little late in the day, you will say—that you do not in the least understand this long tirade against the bayaderes of MM. de Morin, Périères and Delange. You are asking, in astonishment, where I am. You are on the verge of the belief that I am on my way to Calcutta, instead of being bound for the centre of Africa. A thousand pardons—I had let my pen and my ever vivid imagination run on, and had forgotten that when I left you last I was at Cairo.
"I must tell you, then, that I am steaming along the Red Sea, but please excuse my entering in detail into the reason why this route has been chosen. The words, Red Sea, or Arabian gulf, if you prefer it, will, however, explain how it happens that I mention Africa and Asia indiscriminately. In reality, I am on neutral ground, equidistant from the two continents. If I stretch out my arm to the left towards the East, I am in Arabia; if to the right towards the West, I am in Nubia. Now you see the position; a very convenient one, is it not?
"At this moment I am on the left, that is to say on the Asiatic side, for our steamer has just called in at Djiddah, which may be regarded as the port of Mecca, that famous resort of pilgrims, whither every true follower of the Prophet should betake himself at least once in his life. Our bales and boxes have been sent on by the Nile to Khartoum; they will not arrive until after us, but quite soon enough, because if we are on the spot, we shall avoid a considerable expense in Customs charges. The Egyptians are adepts in the art of living at the expense of travellers; and, not content with making them pay duty at Suez, levy other contributions on entering and leaving Souakim.
"Ourpersonnelis as yet not very numerous, and consequently gives us no trouble. It is composed of three female Nubians and two male Arabs, who were very strongly recommended to us, and whom we have engaged as attendants and interpreters. These men are named Omar and Ali, besides a string of other appellations which I suppress, purely out of consideration for you. At Souakim we shall secure an escort and a supply of bearers for the indispensable part of our baggage. Not until we reach Khartoum, if we get so far into the interior of Africa, shall we form our caravan.
"The trip along the Red Sea is most interesting. On the morning following our departure from Suez, in magnificent weather, we saw the Sinai ranges and the Holy Mountain standing out in bold and clear relief. We passed, without stopping, by the little town of Tûr, inhabited by the Copts, those descendants of the primitive denizens of Egypt, and, twenty-four hours afterwards, we touched at Cosseir, on the western shore of the gulf.
"From the last-mentioned place we crossed the Red Sea once more for the purpose of putting in for a few moments at Yambo, in Arabian territory, a species of holy land, where Mussulman fanaticism reigns supreme in full force, for, alas! holy land in these parts is only another name for a spot given over entirely to every description of intolerance and barbarism.
"From Yambo we followed the coast as far Djiddah, where, as I have already told you, I am at this moment writing to you. Djiddah, the tour of which place I have just made, consists of an immense street filled with bazaars, where are displayed the products of our own manufacture side by side with samples of Eastern taste. The markets, specially devoted to satisfying the appetite or voracity of the pilgrims to Mecca, are exceedingly curious. In them you see piled up together the fruits and vegetables gathered in Africa and Asia, and conveyed hither by ships or caravans; heaps of water melons, cocoa-nuts, dates, yams, sweet potatoes and chick-peas. On long tables are also ranged pyramids of honey-combs and bowls of couscoussoo, the favourite dish of Arabia.
"These market-halls and places, and the bazaars are crowded with Turks, Egyptians, Indians and Africans, to say nothing of dogs, horses and camels, the latter appearing quite dazed in the midst of all the coming and going, the babel of sounds, and the multitude of things, and picking their steps as if they were afraid of breaking something. Women ventured fearlessly into this crowd, and young Arab girls, very pretty, though often very thin—I mean to say very pretty, because they were so slender—walked to and fro gravely, with uncovered faces, shoulder to shoulder with the hermetically-veiled Turkish women, whose large slippers of yellow leather gave them a shuffling gait. Other Turkish women, of a higher class, passed by here and there, attended by eunuchs and mounted on donkeys.
* * * * *
"Oh! my dear Emily, what an awful calamity, what a terrible misfortune, has befallen us! M. de Morin is lost to us—M. de Morin, the life and soul of our party, has fallen a victim to his own temerity.
"If you only knew—it is frightful—to die at his age—I must leave you—I am going at once with Madame de Guéran to the French Consulate."
The fears of Miss Poles were only too well founded; if M. de Morin still lived, and there were grave reasons for doubting it, he was in very great danger.
What had happened was, briefly, as follows. As soon as the steamer had cast anchor in the port of Djiddah, the travellers, attended by Joseph, went on shore, and after a tolerably long promenade through the bazaars, described by Miss Poles in her letter to her friend Emily, Madame de Guéran and her English companion expressed a desire to return to the ship, MM. Delange and Périères at once offering to escort them. M. de Morin, wishing to make a more minute inspection of the town, remained behind with Joseph, who followed him at a respectful distance, got up in a new bûrnus, purchased in Cairo to replace the one stolen together with the rest of his baggage.
M. de Morin, on leaving the bazaars, turned his steps towards the road to Mecca, and in a short time found himself before a large painted gate, ornamented with horizontal stripes of green and red. He was just passing underneath the archway leading to this gate, when one of the attendants, hired at Cairo and employed as an interpreter, came up to him, and said—
"Master, do not go beyond this archway. It leads to the passage used by the Mussulman pilgrims, and the inhabitants of Djiddah do not like a Christian to go along it. On the wall you can see the iron hooks used in olden times to hang such infidels as might be foolhardy enough to venture this way. Under the rule of Mehemet-Ali, such barbarity, of course, is unknown, but the road to Mecca is dangerous, and you might be roughly handled by some more than usually fanatical band of pilgrims."
The trusty Mohammed-Abd-el-Gazal, in spite of the bûrnus, which ought to have given him courage, turned on his heel on hearing this news, and M. de Morin, after a momentary hesitation, followed his example. The latter recollected that he had engaged to accompany Madame de Guéran to Africa, that his excursion on the Arabian shore was a digression, and that it would be very bad taste in him to expose himself to personal danger from sheer curiosity.
However, his walk was not at an end yet. From the gateway on the Mecca road, the young Frenchman, still followed by Joseph, but this time also by the interpreter, Ali, went towards a second gateway, the one leading to Medina, and, after having left the walls of Djiddah behind him, found himself in front of a mosque.
"It is the tomb of our common mother," said Ali, in answer to a questioning look from de Morin. "According to the Koran, Eve, driven forth from the terrestrial Paradise, took refuge on the site where Mecca now stands, died there and was buried here."
M. de Morin, after casting a profane and contemptuous glance at this tomb, which did not strike him as being very authentic, continued his walk, now across a vast and arid plain bounded by a chain of mountains. In the distance could be seen Djiddah, with its houses surmounted by terraces, thus imparting to it an Italian character, its minarets, its line of walls, and its mosques.
Tired and almost overcome with the heat, he very soon seated himself under the shade of a stunted palm, and was lighting his cigar, when a miniature caravan, consisting of six Arabs, one on horseback and the rest on camels, appeared on the scene, and, passing by him, halted behind the ruins of some old windmills, built by Mehemed-Ali, in 1815, during one of his campaigns against the Wahabees in El-Hejaz.
One of these Bedouins, he with the horse, separated himself from his comrades, rode round the mill, and then dismounted and brought himself to anchor about fifty yards from M. de Morin. The latter at once took out his drawing materials, and made a rapid sketch of the new comer, whose costume appeared to his inexperienced eyes most picturesque. A brown and white striped bûrnus, rather the worse for wear, covered the whole of his body; a camel's hair cord held round his head a black cotton handkerchief which served him as a turban; in one hand he held a match-lock, and in the other a lance, whilst a long knife hung by a piece of string from his girdle.
The young painter had completed his sketch, and was putting away his pencils, when suddenly he heard a shout. He turned quickly round and looked for Joseph and Ali, but neither of them was in sight. Alarmed at their absence, he was preparing to run in the direction of the mill, which doubtless hid his companions from him, when the interpreter appeared. He seemed to be in a state of despair, raised his hands towards Heaven, and entered into an animated conversation with the Bedouin, whose costume the painter had just succeeded in transferring to his sketch-book. M. de Morin hurried to him, and soon learnt all that had occurred.
Whilst his master was sketching, Joseph, curious, no doubt, to know if, on account of his bûrnus, the Arabs would take him for one of themselves, approached them with a smiling air. But very soon his smiling face grew dark, with anger, his eyes, which had been wandering over the scene, fixed themselves on one particular spot, his arm was gradually extended to its full length, and his finger pointed to something or other in front of him. On the back of one of the camels he had just perceived the greater part of the baggage stolen from the custom-house at Suez. Not only did he recognize his favourite portmanteau, but he read on one of packages the name he had himself traced upon it in Paris—Mohammed-Abd-el-Gazal. He had found the thief at last! Unwilling to let him escape he rushed forward towards the Bedouins, but the group thus formed by Joseph, the camels, and their owners was hidden from M. de Morin by the ruins of the mill, and the young painter, absorbed in his sketch, had neither seen nor heard anything.
"My baggage! my baggage!" cried Joseph. "Give me up my baggage, you thieves!"
The Bedouins laughed heartily at the sight of this great, big, fair man, red as a turkey cock, shouting in a foreign language, but, nevertheless, habited like one of themselves. This mirth, all subdued though it was, for the Arabs are never boisterous even in their funniest moods, roused Joseph to a pitch of exasperation. The idea of recovering his lost treasure, whose loss he had so bitterly deplored, gave him courage. He ceased to speak, a very sensible proceeding on his part seeing that nobody understood him, ran to the camel and laid hold of his pet portmanteau.
This time the Bedouins understood him fully and they evidently disapproved of his proceedings, for they came up to him and endeavoured to drive him away. Joseph resisted, repulsed the enemy, and, once more laying hold of his portmanteau, showed signs of decamping with it.
There was no laughing now amongst the Arabs, who held a brief consultation over the state of affairs. Their conclave was of short duration and, rushing suddenly upon Joseph, they took him by the arms and legs, lifted him up and hoisted him on to the back of one of the camels, where they made him fast with a rope alongside his portmanteau. Then they mounted the other camels, and the one which carried Joseph and his little all set off after his companions at full trot.
Such was the scene as described to M. de Morin by his interpreter.
"But why," enquired he of his informant, "did you not resist this abduction, and call me to the rescue of my servant?"
"I did not at first understand what was going on," replied Ali, "and when I did go to his assistance it was too late. It all passed in a second."
"To what tribe do these Bedouins belong?" asked M. de Morin.
"They are Nomads, and do not belong to any particular tribe."
"And who is the man you have brought with you, whose portrait I have just been taking? Why did he not take to flight with his comrades?"
"He was not one of them. He had ridden out with them thus far, to say good-bye, but he was not following them. He had, in fact, just left them."
"Then you do not think him an accomplice of them?"
"No, he was just as much astonished as I was at the whole proceeding."
"Find out from him in what direction they have carried off my servant."
The Bedouin hesitated at first, but in the end declared that he was ignorant of the plans of his whilom companions.
"At all events," said Ali to him, "you know in what direction they went. Were they going to Medina?"
"No," said the Bedouin, "they took the road to the desert."
"Then you think they will cross the frontier of El-Hejaz?"
"I am sure of it."
"Can we overtake them easily?" asked the interpreter, by order of M. de Morin.
"No, their camels are first-rate."
"Good ones, I admit, but overladen," observed Ali.
"True," replied the Bedouin, looking round him on every side, "but I do not see an unladen camel to go in pursuit of them."
Ali translated this reply.
"Tell this man," said the painter, "that if I have not a camel, I have, at all events, a horse."
The interpreter, in astonishment, looked at his master without understanding in the least what he meant.
"Don't you see that horse there, by the ruins ready saddled and bridled?"
"But it does not belong to us; it is this man's property."
"Quite so, and I am going to take it from him."
"Take a horse from an Arab? Don't you believe it, sir! You may take his wife or his children, but his horse, never!"
"Ask him for how much he will sell it to me."
"It is a very handsome, well-bred horse, and he would not part with it at any price."
"Never mind! Ask him."