A Desert Drama: Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko". Артур Конан Дойл

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СКАЧАТЬ system will be our most permanent record, unless they prove a thousand years hence that it was the work of the Hyksos kings,” remarked Cecil Brown. “But here is the shore party come back.”

      Down below they could hear the mellow Irish accents of Mrs. Belmont and the deep voice of her husband, the iron-grey rifleshot. Mr. Stuart, the fat Birmingham clergyman, was thrashing out a question of piastres with a noisy donkey-boy, and the others were joining in with chaff and advice. Then the hubbub died away, the party from above came down the ladder, there were “good-nights,” the shutting of doors, and the little steamer lay silent, dark, and motionless in the shadow of the high Haifa bank. And beyond this one point of civilisation and of comfort there lay the limitless, savage, unchangeable desert, straw-coloured and dream-like in the moonlight, mottled over with the black shadows of the hills.

      CHAPTER III

“Stoppa! Backa!” cried the native pilot to the European engineer

      The bluff bows of the stern-wheeler had squelched into the soft brown mud, and the current had swept the boat alongside the bank. The long gangway was thrown across, and the six tall soldiers of the Soudanese escort filed along it, their light-blue, gold-trimmed zouave uniforms and their jaunty yellow and red forage caps showing up bravely in the clear morning light.

      Above them, on the top of the bank, was ranged the line of donkeys, and the air was full of the clamour of the boys. In shrill, strident voices each was crying out the virtues of his own beast, and abusing that of his neighbour.

      Colonel Cochrane and Mr. Belmont stood together in the bows, each wearing the broad white puggareed hat of the tourist. Miss Adams and her niece leaned against the rail beside them.

      “Sorry your wife isn’t coming, Belmont,” said the Colonel.

      “I think she had a touch of the sun yesterday. Her head aches very badly.”

      His voice was strong and thick like his figure.

      “I should stay to keep her company, Mr. Belmont,” said the little American old maid; “but I learn that Mrs. Shlesinger finds the ride too long for her, and has some letters which she must mail to-day, so Mrs. Belmont will not be lonesome.”

      “You’re very good, Miss Adams. We shall be back, you know, by two o’clock.”

      “Is that certain?”

      “It must be certain, for we are taking no lunch with us, and we shall be famished by then.”

      “Yes, I expect we shall be ready for a hock and seltzer, at any rate,” said the Colonel. “This desert dust gives a flavour to the worst wine.”

      “Now, ladies and gentlemen!” cried Mansoor, the dragoman, moving forward with something of the priest in his flowing garments and smooth, clean-shaven face. “We must start early that we may return before the meridial heat of the weather.” He ran his dark eyes over the little group of his tourists with a paternal expression. “You take your green glasses, Miss Adams, for glare very great out in the desert. Ah, Mr. Stuart, I set aside very fine donkey for you, – prize donkey, sir, always put aside for the gentleman of most weight. Never mind to take your monument ticket to-day. Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you please!”

      Like a grotesque frieze the party moved one by one along the plank gangway and up the brown crumbling bank. Mr. Stephens led them, a thin, dry, serious figure, in an English straw hat. His red “Baedeker” gleamed under his arm, and in one hand he held a little paper of notes, as if it were a brief. He took Miss Sadie by one arm and her aunt by the other as they toiled up the bank, and the young girl’s laughter rang frank and clear in the morning air as “Baedeker” came fluttering down at their feet. Mr. Belmont and Colonel Cochrane followed, the brims of their sun-hats touching as they discussed the relative advantages of the Mauser, the Lebel, and the Lee-Metford. Behind them walked Cecil Brown, listless, cynical, self-contained. The fat clergyman puffed slowly up the bank, with many gasping witticisms at his own defects. “I’m one of those men who carry everything before them,” said he, glancing ruefully at his rotundity, and chuckling wheezily at his own little joke. Last of all came Headingly, slight and tall, with the student stoop about his shoulders, and Fardet, the good-natured, fussy, argumentative Parisian.

      “You see we have an escort to-day,” he whispered to his companion.

      “So I observed.”

      “Pah!” cried the Frenchman, throwing out his arms in derision; “as well have an escort from Paris to Versailles. This is all part of the play, Monsieur Headingly. It deceives no one, but it is part of the play.

      Pourquoi ces drôles de militaires, dragoman, hein?”

      It was the dragoman’s rôle to be all things to all men, so he looked cautiously round before he answered to make sure that the English were mounted and out of earshot.

      “C’est ridicule, monsieur!” said he, shrugging his fat shoulders. “Mais que voulez-vous? C’est l’ordre officiel Egyptien.”

      “Egyptien! Pah, Anglais, Anglais – toujours Anglais!” cried the angry Frenchman.

      The frieze now was more grotesque than ever, but had changed suddenly to an equestrian one, sharply outlined against the deep-blue Egyptian sky. Those who have never ridden before have to ride in Egypt, and when the donkeys break into a canter, and the Nile Irregulars are at full charge, such a scene of flying veils, clutching hands, huddled swaying figures, and anxious faces is nowhere to be seen. Belmont, his square figure balanced upon a small white donkey, was waving his hat to his wife, who had come out upon the saloon-deck of the Korosko. Cochrane sat very erect with a stiff military seat, hands low, head high, and heels down, while beside him rode the young Oxford man, looking about him with drooping eyelids as if he thought the desert hardly respectable, and had his doubts about the Universe. Behind them the whole party was strung along the bank in varying stages of jolting and discomfort, a brown-faced, noisy donkey-boy running after each donkey. Looking back, they could see the little lead-coloured stern-wheeler, with the gleam of Mrs. Belmont’s handkerchief from the deck. Beyond ran the broad, brown river, winding down in long curves to where, five miles off, the square, white block-houses upon the black, ragged hills marked the outskirts of Wady Haifa, which had been their starting-point that morning.

      “Isn’t it just too lovely for anything?” cried Sadie, joyously. “I’ve got a donkey that runs on casters, and the saddle is just elegant. Did you ever see anything so cunning as these beads and things round his neck? You must make a memo, re donkey, Mr. Stephens. Isn’t that correct legal English?”

      Stephens looked at the pretty, animated, boyish face looking up at him from under the coquettish straw hat, and he wished that he had the courage to tell her in her own language that she was just too sweet for anything. But he feared above all things lest he should offend her, and so put an end to their present pleasant intimacy. So his compliment dwindled into a smile.

      “You look very happy,” said he.

      “Well, who could help feeling good with this dry, clear air, and the blue sky and the crisp, yellow sand, and a superb donkey to carry you. I’ve just got everything in the world to make me happy.”

      “Everything?”

      “Well, everything that I have any use for just now.”

      “I suppose you never know what it is to be sad?”

      “Oh, when I am miserable I am just too miserable for words. I’ve sat and cried for days and days at Smith’s College, and the other СКАЧАТЬ