Donovan Pasha And Some People Of Egypt, Complete - Gilbert Parker
DONOVAN PASHA AND SOME PEOPLE OF EGYPT, Complete
By Gilbert Parker
CONTENTS
Volume 1.
WHILE THE LAMP HOLDS OUT TO BURN
THE PRICE OF THE GRINDSTONE-AND THE DRUM
THE DESERTION OF MAHOMMED SELIMON
THE REEF OF NORMAN'S WOE
Volume 2.
FIELDING HAD AN ORDERLY
THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE
A TREATY OF PEACE
AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS
ALL THE WORLD'S MAD
Volume 3.
THE MAN AT THE WHEEL
A TYRANT AND A LADY
Volume 4.
A YOUNG LION OF DEDAN
HE WOULD NOT BE DENIED
THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS
INTRODUCTION
To the FOREWORD of this book I have practically nothing to add. It
describes how the book was planned, and how at last it came to be
written. The novel--'The Weavers'--of which it was the herald, as one
might say, was published in 1907. The reception of Donovan Pasha
convinced me beyond peradventure, that the step I took in enlarging my
field of work was as wise in relation to my art as in its effect upon my
mind, temperament and faculty for writing. I knew Egypt by study quite as
well as I knew the Dominion of Canada, the difference being, of course,
that the instinct for the life of Canada was part of my very being
itself; but there are great numbers of people who live their lives for
fifty or seventy or eighty years in a country, and have no real instinct
for understanding. There are numberless Canadians who do not understand
Canada, Englishmen who know nothing of England, and Americans who do not
understand the United States. If it is so that I have some instinct for
the life of Canada, and have expressed it to the world with some accuracy
and fidelity, it is apparent that the capacity for understanding could
not be limited absolutely to one environment. That I understood Canada
could not be established by the fact that I had spent my boyhood there,
but only by the fact that some inner vision permitted me to see it as it
really was. That inner vision, however, if it was anything at all was not
in blinders, seeing only one section of the life of the world. Relatively
it might see more deeply, more intimately in that place where habit of
life had made the man familiar with all its detail, but the same vision
turned elsewhere to fields where study and sympathy played a devoted
part, could not fail to see; though the workman's craft, which made
material the vision, might fail.
The reception given Donovan Pasha convinced me that neither the vision
nor the craftsmanship had wholly failed, whatever the degree of success
which had been reached. Anglo-Egyptians approved the book. Its pages
passed through the hands of an Englishman who had done over twenty years'
service in the British army in Egypt and in official positions in the
Egyptian administration, and I do not think that he made six corrections
in the whole three hundred pages. He had himself a great gift for both
music and painting; he was essentially exacting where any literature
touching Egypt was concerned; but I am glad to think that, whatever he
thought of the book as fiction, he did not find it necessary to grant
absolution as to the facts and the details of incidents in character and
life pourtrayed in Donovan Pasha.
Who the original of 'Donovan Pasha' was I shall never say, but he was
real. There is, however, in the House of Commons today a young and active
politician once in the Egyptian service, and who bears a most striking
resemblance to the purely imaginary portrait which Mr. Talbot Kelly, the
artist, drew of the Dicky Donovan of the book. This young politician,
with his experience in the diplomatic service, is in manner, disposition,
capacity, and in his neat, fine, and alert physical frame, the very image
of Dicky Donovan, as in my mind I perceived him; and when I first saw him
I was almost thunderstruck, because he was to me Dicky Donovan come to
life. There was nothing Dicky Donovan did or said or saw or heard which
had not its counterpart in actual things in Egypt. The germ of most of
the stories was got from things told me, or things that I saw, heard of,
or experienced in Egypt itself. The first story of the book--'While the
Lamp Holds out to Burn'--was suggested to me by an incident which I saw
at a certain village on the Nile, which I will not name. Suffice it to
say that the story in the main was true. Also the chief incident of the
story, called 'The Price of the Grindstone--and the Drum', is true. The
Mahommed Seti of that story was the servant of a friend of mine, and he
did in life what I made him do in the tale. 'On the Reef of Norman's
Woe', which more than one journal singled out as showing what
extraordinary work was being done in Egypt by a handful of British
officials, had its origin in something told me by my friend Sir John
Rogers, who at one time was at the head of the Sanitary Department of the
Government of Egypt.
I could take the stories one by one, and show the seeds from which this
little plantation of fiction sprang, but I will not go further than to
refer to a story called 'Fielding Had an Orderly', the idea of which was
contained in the experience of a British official whose courage was as
cool as his wit, and both were extremely dangerous weapons, used at times
against those who were opposed to him. When I read a book like 'Said the
Fisherman', however, with its wonderfully intimate knowledge of Oriental
life and the thousand nuances which only the born Orientalist can give, I
look with tempered pride upon Donovan Pasha. Still I think that it caught
and held some phases of Egyptian life which the author of 'Said the
Fisherman' might perhaps miss, since the observation of every artist has
its own idiosyncrasy, and what strikes one observer will not strike
another.
A FOREWORD
It is now twelve years since I began giving to the public tales of life
in lands well known to me. The first of them were drawn from Australia
and the Islands of the Southern Pacific, where I had lived and roamed in
the middle and late Eighties. They appeared in various English magazines,
and were written in London far from the scenes which suggested them. None
of them were written on the spot, as it were. I did not think then, and I
do not think now, that this was perilous to their truthfulness. After
many years of travel and home-staying observation I have found that all
worth remembrance, the salient things and scenes, emerge clearly out of
myriad impressions, and become permanent in mind and memory. Things so
emerging are typical at least, and probably true.
Those tales of the Far South were given out with some prodigality. They
did not appear in book form, however; for, at the time I was sending out
these Antipodean sketches, I was also writing--far from the scenes where
they were laid--a series of Canadian tales, many of which appeared in the
'Independent' of New York, in the 'National Observer', edited by Mr.
Henley, and in the 'Illustrated London News'. By accident, and on the
suggestion of my friend Mr. Henley, the Canadian tales 'Pierre and his
People' were published first; with the result that the stories of the
Southern Hemisphere were withheld from publication, though they have been
privately printed and duly copyrighted. Some day I may send them forth,
but meanwhile I am content to keep them in my own care.
Moved always by deep interest in the varied manifestations of life in
different portions of the Empire, five or six years ago I was attracted
to the Island of Jersey, in the Channel Sea, by the likeness of the
origin of her people with that of the French-Canadians. I went to live at
St. Heliers for a time, and there wrote a novel called 'The Battle of the
Strong'.
Nor would it be thought strange that, having visited another and newer
sphere of England's influence, Egypt to wit, in 1889, I should then
determine that, when I could study the country at leisure, I should try
to write of the life there, so full of splendour and of primitive
simplicity; of mystery and guilt; of cruel indolence and beautiful
industry; of tyranny and devoted slavery; of the high elements of a true
democracy and the shameful practices of a false autocracy; all touched
off by the majesty of an ancient charm, the nobility of the remotest
history.
The years went by, and, four times visiting Egypt, at last I began to
write of her. That is now five years ago. From time to time the stories
which I offer to the public in this volume were given forth. It is
likely that the old Anglo-Egyptian and the historical student may find
some anachronisms and other things to criticise; but the anachronisms are
deliberate, and even as in writing of Canada and Australia, which I know
very well, I have here, perhaps, sacrificed superficial exactness while
trying to give the more intimate meaning and spirit. I have never
thought it necessary to apologise for this disregard of photographic
accuracy,--that may be found in my note-books,--and I shall not begin to
do so now. I shall be sufficiently grateful if this series of tales does
no more than make ready the way for the novel of Egyptian life on which I
have been working for some years. It is an avant courier. I hope,
however, that it may be welcomed for its own sake.
G. P.
NOTE: A Glossary will be found at the end of the volume.
WHILE THE LAMP HOLDS OUT TO BURN
There is a town on the Nile which Fielding Bey called Hasha, meaning
"Heaven Forbid!" He loathed inspecting it. Going up the Nile, he would
put off visiting it till he came down; coming down, he thanked his fates
if accident carried him beyond it. Convenient accidents sometimes did
occur: a murder at one of the villages below it, asking his immediate
presence; a telegram from his Minister at Cairo, requiring his return; or
a very low Nile, when Hasha suddenly found itself a mile away from the
channel and there was no good place to land. So it was that Hasha, with
little inspection, was the least reputable and almost the dirtiest town
on the Nile; for even in those far-off days the official Englishman had
his influence, especially when Kubar Pasha was behind him. Kubar had his
good points.
There were certain definite reasons, however, why Fielding Bey shrank
from visiting Hasha. Donovan Pasha saw something was wrong from the first
moment Hasha was mentioned.
On a particular day they were lying below at another village, on the
Amenhotep. Hasha was the next place marked red on the map, and that meant
inspection. When Dicky Donovan mentioned Hasha, Fielding Bey twisted a
shoulder and walked nervously up and down the deck. He stayed here for
hours: to wait for the next post, he said-serious matters expected from
head quarters. He appeared not to realise that letters would get to Hasha
by rail as quickly as by the Amenhotep.
Every man has a weak spot in his character, a sub-rosa, as it were, in
his business of life; and Dicky fancied he had found Fielding Bey's.
While they waited, Fielding made a pretence of working hard--for
he really was conscientious--sending his orderly for the
mamour--[magistrate]--and the omdah--[head of a village]--, and holding
fatuous conferences; turning the hose on the local dairymen and butchers
and dategrowers, who came with backsheesh in kind; burying his nose in
official papers; or sending for Holgate, the Yorkshire engineer, to find
out what the run would be to the next stopping-place beyond Hasha. Twice
he did this; which was very little like Fielding Bey. The second time,
when Holgate came below to his engine, Dicky was there playing with a
Farshoot dog.
"We don't stop at Hasha, then?" Dicky asked, and let the Farshoot fasten
on his leggings.
Holgate swung round and eyed Dicky curiously, a queer smile at his lips.
"Not if Goovnur can 'elp, aw give ye ma woord, sir," answered Holgate.
Fielding was affectionately called "the Governor" by his subordinates and
friends.
"We all have our likes and dislikes," rejoined Dicky casually, and blew
smoke in the eyes of the Farshoot. "Aye, aw've seen places that bad! but
Hasha has taaste of its own in Goovnur's mouth, ma life on't!"
"Never can tell when a thing'll pall on the taste. Hasha's turn with the
Governor now, eh?" rejoined Dicky.
Dicky's way of getting information seemed guileless, and Holgate opened
his basket as wide as he knew. "Toorn, didst tha sway" (Holgate talked
broadly to Dicky always, for Dicky had told him of his aunt, Lady
Carmichael, who lived near Halifax in Yorkshire), "toorn, aw warrant! It
be reg'lar as kitchen-fire, this Hasha business, for three years, ever
sin' aw been scrapin' mud o' Nile River."
"That was a nasty row they had over the cemetery three years ago, the
Governor against the lot, from mamour to wekeel!"
Holgate's eyes flashed, and he looked almost angrily down at Dicky, whose
hand was between the teeth of the playful Farshoot.
"Doost think--noa, tha canst not think that Goovnur be 'feared o' Hasha
fook. Thinks't tha, a man that told 'em all--a thousand therr--that he'd
hang on nearest tree the foorst that disobeyed him, thinks't tha that
Goovnur's lost his nerve by that?"
"The Governor never loses his nerve, Holgate," said Dicky, smiling and
offering a cigar. "There's such a thing as a man being afraid to trust
himself where he's been in a mess, lest he hit out, and doesn't want to."
Holgate, being excited, was in a fit state to tell the truth, if he knew
it; which was what Dicky had worked for; but Holgate only said:
"It bean't fear, and it bean't milk o' human kindness. It be soort o'
thing a man gets. Aw had it once i' Bradford, in Little Cornish Street.
Aw saw a faace look out o' window o' hoose by tinsmith's shop, an' that
faace was like hell's picture-aye, 'twas a killiagous faace that! Aw
never again could pass that house. 'Twas a woman's faace. Horrible 'twas,
an' sore sad an' flootered aw were, for t' faace was like a lass aw loved
when aw wur a lad."
"I should think it was something like that," answered Dicky, his eyes
wandering over the peninsula beyond which lay Hasha.
"Summat, aw be sure," answered Holgate, "an' ma woord on't . . . ah, yon
coomes orderly wi' post for Goovnur. Now it be Hasha, or it be not Hasha,
it be time for steam oop."
Holgate turned to his engine as Dicky mounted the stairs and went to
Fielding's cabin, where the orderly was untying a handkerchief
overflowing with letters.
As Fielding read his official letters his face fell more and more. When
he had read the last, he sat for a minute without speaking, his brow very
black. There was no excuse for pushing past Hasha. He had not been there
for over a year. It was his duty to inspect the place: he had a
conscience; there was time to get to Hasha that afternoon. With an effort
he rose, hurried along the deck, and called down to Holgate: "Full-steam
to Hasha!"
Then, with a quick command to the reis, who was already at the wheel, he
lighted a cigar, and, joining Dicky Donovan, began to smoke and talk
furiously. But he did not talk of Hasha.
At sunset the Amenhotep drew in to the bank by Hasha, and, from the deck,
Fielding Bey saluted the mamour, the omdah and his own subordinates, who,
buttoning up their coats as they came, hurried to the bank to make
salaams to him. Behind them, at a distance, came villagers, a dozen
ghaffirs armed with naboots of dom-wood, and a brace of well-mounted,
badly-dressed policemen, with seats like a monkey on a stick. The
conferences with the mamour and omdah were short, in keeping with the
temper of "Fielding Saadat"; and long into the night Dicky lay and looked
out of his cabin window to the fires on the banks, where sat Mahommed
Seti the servant, the orderly, and some attendant ghaffirs, who, feasting
on the remains of the effendi's supper, kept watch. For Hasha was noted
for its robbers. It was even rumoured that the egregious Selamlik Pasha,
with the sugar plantation near by--"Trousers," Dicky called him when he
saw him on the morrow, because of the elephantine breeks he wore--was not
averse to sending his Abyssinian slaves through the sugar-cane to waylay
and rob, and worse, maybe.
By five o'clock next day the inspection was over. The streets had been
swept for the Excellency--which is to say Saadat--the first time in a
year. The prison had been cleaned of visible horrors, the first time in a
month. The last time it was ordered there had been a riot among the
starving, infested prisoners; earth had been thrown over the protruding
bones of the dear lamented dead in the cemetery; the water of the
ablution places in the mosque had been changed; the ragged policemen had
new putties; the kourbashes of the tax-gatherers were hid in their
yeleks; the egregious Pasha wore a greasy smile, and the submudir, as he
conducted Fielding--"whom God preserve and honour!"--through the prison
and through the hospital, where goat's milk had been laid on for this
especial day, smirked gently through the bazaar above his Parisian
waistcoat.
But Fielding, as he rode on Selamlik Pasha's gorgeous black donkey from
Assiout, with its crimson trappings, knew what proportion of improvement
this "hankypanky," as Dicky called it, bore to the condition of things at
the last inspection. He had spoken little all day, and Dicky had noticed
that his eye was constantly turning here and there, as though looking for
an unwelcome something or somebody.
At last the thing was over, and they were just crossing the canal, the
old Bahr-el-Yusef, which cuts the town in twain as the river Abana does
Damascus, when Dicky saw nearing them a heavily-laden boat, a cross
between a Thames house-boat and an Italian gondola, being drawn by one
poor raw-bone--raw-bone in truth, for there was on each shoulder a round
red place, made raw by the unsheathed ropes used as harness. The beast's
sides were scraped as a tree is barked, and the hind quarters gored as
though by a harrow. Dicky was riding with the mamour of the district,
Fielding was a distance behind with Trousers and the Mudir. Dicky pulled
up his donkey, got off and ran towards the horse, pale with fury; for he
loved animals better than men, and had wasted his strength beating
donkey-boys with the sticks they used on their victims. The boat had now
reached a point opposite the mudirieh, its stopping-place; and the
raw-bone, reeking with sweat and blood, stood still and trembled, its
knees shaking with the strain just taken off them, its head sunk nearly
to the ground.
Dicky had hardly reached the spot when a figure came running to the poor
waler with a quick stumbling motion. Dicky drew back in wonder, for never
had he seen eyes so painful as these that glanced from the tortured beast
to himself--staring, bulbous, bloodshot, hunted eyes; but they were blue,
a sickly, faded blue; and they were English! Dicky's hand was, on his
pistol, for his first impulse had been to shoot the rawbone; but it
dropped away in sheer astonishment at the sight of this strange figure in
threadbare dirty clothes and riding-breeches made by shearing the legs of
a long pair--cut with an unsteady hand, for the edges were jagged and
uneven, and the man's bare leg showed above the cast-off putties of a
policeman. The coat was an old khaki jacket of a Gippy soldier, and,
being scant of buttons, doubtful linen showed beneath. Above the
hook-nose, once aristocratic, now vulture-like and shrunken like that of
Rameses in his glass case at Ghizeh, was a tarboosh tilting forward over
the eyes, nearly covering the forehead. The figure must have been very
tall once, but it was stooped now, though the height was still well above
medium. Hunted, haunted, ravaged and lost, was the face, and the long
grey moustache, covering the chin almost, seemed to cover an immeasurable
depravity.
Dicky took it all in at a glance, and wondered with a bitter wonder; for
this was an Englishman, and behind him and around him, though not very
near him, were Arabs, Soudanese, and Fellaheen, with sneering yet
apprehensive faces.
As Dicky's hand dropped away from his pistol, the other shot out
trembling, graceful, eager fingers, the one inexpressibly gentlemanly
thing about him.
"Give it to me--quick!" he said, and he threw a backward glance towards
the approaching group--Fielding, the egregious Pasha, and the rest.
Dicky did not hesitate; he passed the pistol over. The Lost One took the
pistol, cocked it, and held it to the head of the waler, which feebly
turned to him in recognition.
"Good-bye, old man!" he said, and fired.
The horse dropped, kicked, struggled once or twice, and was gone.
"If you know the right spot, there's hardly a kick," said the Lost One,
and turned to face the Pasha, who had whipped his donkey forward on them,
and sat now livid with rage, before the two. He stood speechless for a
moment, for his anger had forced the fat of his neck up into his throat.
But Dicky did not notice the Pasha. His eye was fixed on Fielding Bey,
and the eye of Fielding Bey was on the Lost One. All at once Dicky
understood why it was that Fielding Bey had shrunk from coming to Hasha.
Fielding might have offered many reasons, but this figure before them was
the true one. Trouble, pity, anxiety, pride, all were in Fielding's face.
Because the Lost One was an Englishman, and the race was shamed and
injured by this outcast? Not that alone. Fielding had the natural pride
of his race, but this look was personal. He glanced at the dead horse, at
the scarred sides, the raw shoulders, the corrugated haunches, he saw the
pistol in the Lost One's hand, and then, as a thread of light steals
between the black trees of a jungle, a light stole across Fielding's face
for a moment. He saw the Lost One hand the pistol back to Dicky and fix
his debauched blue eyes on the Pasha. These blue eyes did not once look
at Fielding, though they were aware of his presence.
"Son of a dog!" said the Pasha, and his fat forefinger convulsively
pointed to the horse.
The Lost One's eyes wavered a second, as though their owner had not the
courage to abide the effect of his action, then they quickened to a point
of steadiness, as a lash suddenly knots for a crack in the hand of a
postilion.
"Swine!" said the Lost One into the Pasha's face, and his round shoulders
drew up a little farther, so that he seemed more like a man among men.
His hands fell on his hips as, in his mess, an officer with no pockets
drops his knuckles on his waist-line for a stand-at-ease.
The egregious Selamlik Pasha stood high in favour with the Khedive: was
it not he who had suggested a tax on the earnings of the dancing girls,
the Ghazeeyehs, and did he not himself act as the first tax-gatherer? Was
it not Selamlik Pasha also who whispered into the ear of the Mouffetish
that a birth-tax and a burial-tax should be instituted? And had he not
seen them carried out in the mudiriehs under his own supervision? Had he
not himself made the Fellaheen pay thrice over for water for their
onion-fields? Had he not flogged an Arab to death with his own hand, the
day before Fielding's and Dicky's arrival, and had he not tried to get
this same Arab's daughter into his harem--this Selamlik Pasha!
The voice of the Lost One suddenly rose shrill and excited, and he
shouted at the Pasha. "Swine! swine! swine! . . . Kill your slaves with a
kourbash if you like, but a bullet's the thing for a waler!--Swine of a
leper!"
The whole frame of the Lost One was still, but the voice was shaking,
querulous, half hysterical; the eyes were lighted with a terrible
excitement, the lips under the grey moustache twitched; the nervous
slipshod dignity of carriage was in curious contrast to the disordered
patchwork dress.
The trouble on Fielding's face glimmered with a little ray of hope now.
Dicky came over to him, and was about to speak, but a motion of
Fielding's hand stopped him. The hand said: "Let them fight it out."
In a paroxysm of passion Selamlik Pasha called two Abyssinian slaves
standing behind. "This brother of a toad to prison!" he said.
The Lost One's eyes sought Dicky like a flash. Without a word, and as
quick as the tick of a clock, Dicky tossed over his pistol to the Lost
One, who caught it smoothly, turned it in his hand, and levelled it at
the Abyssinians.
"No more of this damned nonsense, Pasha," said Fielding suddenly. "He
doesn't put a high price on his life, and you do on yours. I'd be
careful!"
"Steady, Trousers!" said Dicky in a soft voice, and smiled his girlish
smile.
Selamlik Pasha stared for a moment in black anger, then stuttered forth:
"Will you speak for a dog of a slave that his own country vomits out?"
"Your mother was a slave of Darfur, Pasha," answered Fielding, in a low
voice; "your father lost his life stealing slaves. Let's have no airs and
graces."
Dicky's eyes had been fixed on the Lost One, and his voice now said in
its quaint treble: "Don't get into a perspiration. He's from where we get
our bad manners, and he messes with us to-night, Pasha."
The effect of these words was curious. Fielding's face was a blank
surprise, and his mouth opened to say no, but he caught Dicky's look and
the word was not uttered. The Pasha's face showed curious incredulity;
under the pallor of the Lost One's a purplish flush crept, stayed a
moment, then faded away, and left it paler than before.