Treasure Hunt Tales: The Star of the South & Captain Antifer. Жюль Верн

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СКАЧАТЬ he would find an outlet for the activity so natural to his age in long and distant voyages.

      But if Kamylk Pasha was not to have any direct heir for his enormous fortune, were there not collaterals ready to receive it?

      A certain Mourad, born in 1786, six years younger than he was, was his cousin. Differing in their political opinions, they never saw each other, although they both lived at Cairo. Kamylk was devoted to the Turkish interest, and as we have seen had proved his devotion to the cause. Mourad opposed the Ottoman influence by his words and actions, and became the most ardent adviser of Mehemet Ali in his enterprises against Sultan Mahmoud.

      This Mourad, the only relative of Kamylk Pasha, as poor as the other was rich, could not depend on his cousin’s fortune unless a reconciliation took place. This was not likely. On the contrary, animosity, violent hate even, had made the abyss deeper between the only two members of this family.

      Eighteen years elapsed, from 1806 to 1824, during which the reign of Mehemet Ali was untroubled by foreign war. He had however to struggle against the increasing influence and formidable agitation of the Mamelukes, his accomplices, to whom he owed his throne. A general massacre throughout Egypt in 1811 delivered him from this troublesome militia. Thenceforth long years of tranquillity were assured to the subjects of the Viceroy, whose relations with the Divan continued excellent—in appearance at least, for the Sultan distrusted his vassal, and not without reason.

      Kamylk was often the mark of Mourad’s ill-will. Mourad, taking advantage of the testimonies of sympathy he received from the Viceroy, was continually inciting his master against the rich Egyptian. He reminded him that he was a partisan of Mahmoud, a friend of the Turks, and that he had shed his blood for them. According to his account he was a dangerous personage, a man to be watched—perhaps a spy. This enormous fortune in one man’s hand was a danger. In short he said all he could to awaken the greed of a potentate without principle and without scruple.

      Kamylk would have taken no notice of this. At Cairo he lived alone, and it would have been difficult to devise a plot to catch him. When he left Egypt it was on a long voyage. Then, on a ship that belonged to him, commanded by Captain Zo—five years his junior, and entirely devoted to him—he cruised on the seas of Asia, Africa and Europe, his life without an object, and marked by a haughty indifference to humanity.

      We may even ask if he had forgotten the sailor to whom he owed his escape from the fusillades of Bonaparte? Certainly not. Such services he did not forget. But had these services received their reward? That was not likely. Would it enter the thoughts of Kamylk Pasha to recognize them later on, waiting an opportunity of doing so until one of his maritime expeditions took him into French waters? Who could tell?

      In process of time the rich Egyptian could not hide from himself that he was narrowly watched during his stay in Cairo. Several journeys he wished to undertake, were forbidden by order of the Viceroy. Owing to the incessant suggestions of his cousin, his liberty was in danger.

      In 1823, Mourad, at the age of thirty-seven, married, in a way that did not promise to improve his position in the world. He had espoused a young fellah, almost a slave. There is no room for astonishment then that he continued the tortuous proceedings by which he hoped to ruin Kamylk, by means of the influence he possessed with Mehemet Ali and his son Ibrahim.

      Egypt, however, was about to begin a period of military activity in which its arms were to have brilliant success. In 1824, Greece was against Mahmoud, who called on his vassal to aid him in putting down the rebellion. Ibrahim, at the head of a hundred and twenty sail, started for the Morea, and landed there.

      The opportunity had come for Kamylk to have an object in life; to venture in the perilous enterprizes which for twenty years he had abandoned, and with all the more ardour as it was to maintain the rights of the Porte, menaced by the rising in the Peloponnesus. He would have joined Ibrahim’s army; he was refused. He would have served as an officer in the Sultan’s troops; he was again refused. Was this not in consequence of the ill-omened influence of those whose interest it was not to lose sight of their millionaire relative?

      The struggle of the Greeks for independence was to end in the victory of that heroic nation. After three years, during which they were inhumanly treated by Ibrahim’s troops, the combined action of the allied fleets destroyed the Ottoman navy at the battle of Navarino in 1827, and obliged the Viceroy to recall his vessels and army to Egypt. Ibrahim then returned to Cairo, followed by Mourad, who had been through the Peloponnesian campaign.

      From that day Kamylk’s position grew worse. Mourad’s hatred became all the more violent in 1829 owing to his having a son born of his marriage with the young fellah. His family was increasing and not his fortune. Evidently his cousin’s fortune must find its way into his hands. The Viceroy would not refuse to sanction this spoliation. Such readiness to oblige is not unknown in Egypt nor in other less oriental civilized countries.

      Saouk, it may be as well to remember, was the name of Mourad’s child.

      Under these circumstances, Kamylk saw that there was only one thing to do; to get his fortune together, the greater part of it being in diamonds and precious stones, and depart with it out of Egypt. This he did with as much prudence as ability, thanks to the assistance of some foreigners at Alexandria, in whom the Egyptian did not hesitate to trust. His confidence was well placed, and the operation was accomplished in the utmost secrecy. Who were these foreigners, to what nation did they belong? Kamylk Pasha alone knew.

      Three casks of double staves hooped with iron, similar to those in which Spanish wines are put, sufficed to contain all his wealth. They were secretly placed on board a Neapolitan speronare, and their owner, accompanied by Captain Zo, went with them as a passenger, not without escaping many dangers, for he had been followed from Cairo to Alexandria, and kept under observation all the time he was in that town.

      Five days afterwards the speronare landed him at Latakia, and thence he gained Aleppo, which he had chosen for his new residence. Now he was in Syria, what had he to fear from Mourad under the protection of his old general, Abdallah, now Pasha of Acre? Would Mehemet Ali, however daring he might be, venture to seize him in a province over which the Sublime Porte extended its all-powerful jurisdiction?

      And yet this was possible.

      In fact, this very year, 1830, Mehemet Ali broke off his relations with the Sultan. To break the bond of vassalage which attached him to Mahmoud, to add Syria to his Egyptian possessions, perhaps to become sovereign of the Ottoman empire, were ideas not too high for the Viceroy’s ambition. The pretext was not difficult to find.

      Fellahs, ill-treated by the agents of Mehemet Ali, had sought refuge in Syria, under Abdallah’s protection. The Viceroy demanded the extradition of these peasants. The Pasha of Acre refused. Mehemet Ali requested the Sultan’s permission to reduce Abdallah by force of arms. Mahmoud replied at first that the fellahs being Turkish subjects he had no intention of handing them over to the Viceroy of Egypt. But a little time after, desirous of securing the aid of Mehemet Ali, or at least his neutrality, at the outbreak of the revolt of the Pasha of Scutari, he gave the required permission.

      Several events—among others, the appearance of the cholera in the ports of the Levant—delayed the departure of Ibrahim at the head of thirty-two thousand men and twenty-two ships of war. Kamylk had time to think of the danger to him of a landing of Egyptians in Syria.

      He was then fifty-one, and fifty-one years of a life troubled as his had been brings a man almost to the threshold of old age. Wearied, discouraged, his illusions dispelled, longing only for the rest he had hoped to find in this quiet town of Aleppo, here had events again turned against him.

      Was it prudent for him to remain at Aleppo, while Ibrahim was preparing to invade Syria? Admittedly СКАЧАТЬ