George Alfred Henty Part 10

Meanwhile the king was allowed till noon the next day to surrender Magdala, otherwise the place would be stormed, and the making of scaling-ladders was begun; long bamboo dhooly poles were utilised for the sides, and handles of pickaxes for the rungs.

Within the next few days Mrs Flad and her children were brought into camp, and several of the princ.i.p.al chiefs came in and showed that Theodore's strength was crumbling away, for they declared their willingness to surrender; but the king held out. The storming parties were arranged, and the cavalry were sent out to cut off the tyrant's retreat. Meanwhile a great exodus of the people was going on, the fortress being cleared of the non-combatants.

During the attack which followed, while the garrison kept up a scattered fire with bullets, none of which reached our troops, there were not wanting signs to indicate the despair of the partly-forsaken monarch.

Driven frantic by his position, the wretched man could be plainly seen galloping about with some half a dozen of his chiefs in a sort of aimless frenzy.

At last the storming party advanced, the defenders of the gate were cleared away after a feeble defence, and the fighting was over, with no killed on the British side and only fifteen wounded. The remaining inhabitants, rejoicing that the days of the tyranny were over, crowded out to offer the conquerors refres.h.i.+ng drink, while Theodore was discovered lying dead.

Henty's task was done, and not choosing to wait for the slow return of the troops, he, together with three others, making with the ten servants, syces and mule-drivers, a formidable and well-armed little company, started on the way down. It was a bold undertaking, nevertheless, for they had to pa.s.s through a disturbed country where convoys were being constantly attacked and muleteers murdered, and where scarcely a day pa.s.sed without outrages being committed by the Gallas, the inhabitants of Northern Abyssinia, who were always upon plunder bent.

Their servants were all armed with spears, the baggage mules were kept in close file, and Henty and another rode in front, the two others in the rear, with c.o.c.ked rifles and revolvers ready to hand. Owing to their state of preparedness, and the fierce look of the well-armed English leader, though they pa.s.sed a party or two of sixty of the Gallas, equipped with spears and s.h.i.+elds, and a desire to use the former if they had the chance, these rogues sneaked off among the bushes, and the war correspondent and his colleagues reached the depot and port in peace. But not entirely, for, to use Henty's own words, "When coming down country from the Abyssinian business the Gallas stopped us on one occasion and proposed to loot the entire caravan, but I was able to half-choke the life out of the gentleman who tackled me personally." In fact, the party had ample opportunity of realising the risk and danger to which a war correspondent is exposed.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

THE SUEZ Ca.n.a.l.

Upon Henty's return from the Abyssinian campaign in 1868 his active busy mind incited him to take a calm home rest from his warlike labours by writing one of his first books, based upon his correspondent letters, and ent.i.tled, _The March to Magdala_. This, published towards the end of the year, was full of vigorous description, and as an epitome of the war it achieved a very fair success. In addition it served to make the reading public better acquainted with a name already familiar to the newspaper world.

Very shortly after this essay now, he wrote and sent out through the same publishers, Messrs. Tinsley Brothers, his second three-volume novel, _All but Lost_. This was in 1869, and long before the days when he devoted himself to the young readers of his works of adventure.

At the end of the year he undertook another expedition. This, however, was of a peaceful nature, to wit, the task of describing the epoch-marking inauguration of M. Ferdinand de Lesseps's _magnum opus_, the Suez Ca.n.a.l. It was a pleasant duty, for the correspondent was practically a privileged visitor, and one of the representatives of civilisation who had come to partake of Ismail Pasha's munificent hospitality, in company with other guests who may fairly be cla.s.sed as representing "the world."

He wrote a series of letters full of vivid word-painting, descriptive of Cairo _en fete_, of ball and banquet, of the illuminations, and of the state of the ancient city--of the Egypt where of old the children of Israel were enslaved, and helped to build the monuments which still remain. He also touched on the homes which were raised and built with the straw-mingled clay that ages ago crumbled into dust, and is now being excavated and basket-borne to spread upon the agricultural land as an extra fertiliser of the almost too fertile earth.

Henty had a great opportunity here for his descriptive pen, and his letters abound with pictures of the Aladdin-like state of the place, of the way in which money was lavished to provide a grand reception for empress and emperor, viceroy and prince, and the rest of the distinguished guests whom the Khedive delighted to honour. Cairo presented such a scene, that the writer felt that he could readily imagine himself transported into the times of the _Arabian Nights_ as it might have been on the occasion of the marriage of Aladdin to the princess of his heart, one Badroulboudour. The illuminations in the soft transparency of an Egyptian atmosphere presented a fairy-like aspect. Flags of all nations hung perfectly still in the soft air, side by side with lanterns and decorations of a more national kind. There were fireworks everywhere; rockets ascended with a hiss and roar in rapid succession, while dazzling fires of every hue that chemistry has won from earth's minerals threw broad floods of colour like nocturnal rainbows, only more iridescent in their mingling, along the street and across the square. Noise was not wanting, for petards exploded with unpleasant frequency; and as the salvoes died out there was constantly arising the peculiar dull subdued roar of the thronging mult.i.tude in ecstasy at the unwonted sight.

In the side streets the crowd was strangely novel to the eyes of the foreign visitor, and as carriages crowded with spectators made their way slowly through the throng of the ordinary Egyptian city dwellers, strongly reinforced by the inhabitants from all the country round, the eyes of the stranger were constantly attracted by the silent, solemn-looking, white-turbaned Mussulman, and the dark, blue-robed, m.u.f.fled, and yashmak-wearing women--all eyes for the looker-on. It was a strange and constant change from light to darkness in the generally ill-lit city. One minute the spectator would be traversing a street that presented the appearance of a long ball-room, with lines of chandeliers running down the centre only a few paces apart. From these hung festoons and garlands of coloured lamps, while several lines of lanterns ran along the houses on either side. Then a few steps and the visitor plunged into a narrow way, sombre, suggestive, and gloomy, possibly illumined only by the glowworm-like rays of a single lamp, with a few slippered people hurrying softly, almost shadow-like, as they made their way towards the line of illuminations.

In the brightly lighted streets the looker-on from any elevation gazed down upon a perfect sea of turbans and also at a long line of carriages, each preceded by its wand-bearing runners shouting boisterously to the crowd to clear the way. It was one long festival for rich and poor alike, and the variety of the scene was wondrous. The occupants of the carriages, whose drivers forced their way through the good-tempered crowd, were often the closely-veiled inhabitants of the harems of the rich, not as a rule the harem of the Eastern story, the word harem now more truly meaning simply the ordinary home. But in many cases these were guarded jealously by attendant eunuchs, and preceded by runners bearing braziers or cressets of flaming wood.

But the houses on either side were not occupied merely by flaming lamps, for from the latticed windows over the shops the female inhabitants of the city, eagerly throwing off the customary reserve, peered down upon the pa.s.sing throng. Colour in the lighted streets and diversity were everywhere in company with rampant irregularity, for each decorator had worked according to his own sweet will. No two streets were alike either in occupants or in decoration. Sombre and sordid buildings crowded close upon palaces, and while one street was dark and empty, with its sporadic lamps, the next was crowded with a dense ma.s.s listening to the plaintive music of the native bands discoursing wild and, possibly to the hearers, delicious strains, but strains containing too much bagpipe and cymbal for the foreign ear. In another, as if it were some gigantic old-world fair, the merry-featured, strangely robed throng was cl.u.s.tering round a knot of dancing girls, Egyptian Terpsich.o.r.eans. These displayed their ideas of the poetry of motion in a singularly wild and picturesque manner, and were evidently frantically admired by the holiday-keeping lookers-on.

By way of change, after hours of wandering through the crowded and illuminated streets, Henty describes one of the palaces where the princ.i.p.al guests were accommodated by the Khedive. This was reached after a quiet drive to its site, a short distance from the town. Here in the soft darkness of the Egyptian night the illuminations were superb, and the description exemplifies the lavish recklessness of the host on behalf of his guests. In front of the palace was a s.p.a.ce forming a parallelogram of considerably over a quarter of a mile long by some three hundred yards wide. This was surrounded by an arched trellis-work, resembling somewhat in its detail the delicate tracery of a cathedral cloister. The wooden structure was literally covered upon both sides with illumination lanterns, and looked like some gnome or fairy fabric of fire. Round it was a carriage drive which pa.s.sed between it and the palace, and against the walls of the palace itself glittering lights were fixed in the same order as upon the wooden framework, so that to the spectator it was as if he gazed down a vista of two interminable walls of fire connected by arches of coloured lamps.

The effect was exquisite, heightened as it was by the ascending rockets which burst and showered down coloured stars in constant succession.

Pyrotechnic fires burned here and there, and threading as it were the falling stars, the strains of band after band of music blended their enchantment with the beauty of the scene.

This is but a slight description of one of the many sights embraced by the enormous fete provided for the Khedive Ismail's world-invited guests, and picture after picture Henty painted of these scenes by night and by day. He also visited the various points of interest in the neighbourhood, notably the Pyramids, going by the road to these ancient monuments which had been slave-constructed by order of the Khedive, as if in a fit of lavish recklessness he had determined to emulate the doings of some Pharaoh of old, so that his French empress visitor should have a special way made smooth across the desert to the old world-famous pyramidal tombs. Visitor and special correspondent Henty was, but he spoke out as the quiet, thoughtful Englishman in translating the words of the wise old Orientals who thoughtfully shook their heads and added their quiet _Cui bono_? over the thriftless wanton expense. There was banqueting and feasting, and all at a time when the treasury was depleted, when the civil and military forces had their payments in arrear, and when national debt heaped upon national debt. All this could only end in the bankruptcy which too surely came.

Most of this renowned spectacle was preliminary to the long-expected opening of the ca.n.a.l, and, ignoring the head-shaking of the thoughtful, the great ma.s.s of the light-hearted Egyptians, rich and poor alike, went to see and share in the festivity, and took no thought of the future.

The world had come to see the opening of the ca.n.a.l, the finish of a stupendous undertaking, the inception of a clever western, but thoroughly Egyptian and Pharaoh-like in its audacity. At last the shovel and basket of the drudging slaves as well as workers for hire, were cast aside, and the waters flowed through what American visitors sardonically styled "the ditch", opening nearly a hundred miles of waterway extending from Suez to Timsah, now re-christened, or Mahommedanised into Ismailia. Along this "ditch" there was a grand procession of state barges, steam launches, and visitor-bearing craft, all made the more imposing by the presence of a squadron of British battles.h.i.+ps, whose approach to the entrance with the saluting thunder of their great guns Henty dwells upon, though, apparently with a grim chuckle of British irony, he relates how two of the marine monsters got aground.

The procession, however, seems to have been petty in comparison with the innate grandeur of M. de Lesseps's enterprise and what it meant to the future of the civilised world. Later, as if to make up for his words respecting the grounding of the huge iron-clads, which were doomed to flounder like whales in a rivulet before they got off, Henty hastens to paint vividly and evidently with a feeling of pride the aspect of the s.h.i.+ps of war of every European nation, the dark line of sailors who manned the yards, cheering vociferously, the clouds of powder smoke mingling with the volumes from the funnels drifting slowly across the water, the lofty lighthouse, and the populous town which had sprung up as if under the wand of a magician. And that magician was M. de Lesseps, the sun of whose greatness sank in sadness years after, when, as if vaulting ambition had overleaped itself, he died half-forgotten and broken-hearted at the temporary failure of his other great venture, the ca.n.a.l to join Pacific and Atlantic, which, these many years after the great man's death, promises to be the accomplished fact of the twentieth century.

George Henty was always a sailor at heart, and never happier than when, hatless in a brisk breeze, he was watching the easing off or the tightening of a sheet, while his hands played with the spokes of the wheel which governed a vessel's course. So it is not surprising that in his description of the grand fetes and rejoicings over the opening of the ca.n.a.l he should find a businesslike corner at the bottom of one of his letters to talk about the chances of a vessel pa.s.sing easily through the sand-bordered ribbon of water which joined the Mediterranean and Red Seas. He says: "I have been favoured with a log of the soundings taken on board the _Cambria_ during her pa.s.sage through the ca.n.a.l,"--he speaks like the man in his element--"and I am bound to say that they are far more favourable than from all other accounts I could have believed possible. The total number of soundings were seventy-six. They were taken, with the exception of the pa.s.sage of the Bitter Lakes, during the whole pa.s.sage at intervals of a nautical mile, and of the seventy-six soundings no fewer than fifty-six gave a depth of twenty-seven feet and over, while of the remaining twenty only four were below twenty-two feet, one only giving as little as nineteen feet of water. This table of soundings shows that the ca.n.a.l is upon the average of a depth of twenty-six feet; and although it is unquestionable that the vessels drawing only eighteen feet did sc.r.a.pe the ground in several places during their pa.s.sage, the soundings taken by Mr Ashbury showed that these must have been, with the exception of the lump of rock at Serapium, mere accidental mounds and banks which had been left in the process of dredging."

And here, too, it will not be out of place to add a few words written after the inauguration, and _finis coronat opus_ had been added to Henty's descriptions of the great event. Just overleaf it was the sailor speaking upon the achievement and the ca.n.a.l's possibilities of carrying out the objects for which it was designed. He is now speaking as the thoughtful leader-writer, and somewhat in these words he begins to count the cost of the entertainment provided by the Khedive.

"Admitting," he says, "that the cost of all this enterprise has been enormous, amounting as they say here to two millions sterling, to what good has this sum been spent? For it is not the viceroy's private money, but the national revenue, and one feels in the position of the guests of the directors of some public company, One says, 'Yes, it is a splendid banquet; but what will the unfortunate shareholders say?' I can reply that the shareholders do not like it at all. Why should French journalists, German professors, and English heads of chambers of commerce be taken up the Nile at the expense of the people of Egypt?"

But it is only fair to say that this was not written in a grudging spirit, for Henty had found time to praise warmly the admirable management and kindly welcome given to the Khedive's guests, and his final remarks were veined with a feeling of sorrow that the hospitality should have been so profuse.

At the dispersal of the crowd of visitors it seems as if it occurred to Henty that this would be a most favourable opportunity, after making himself acquainted with the land of the captivity and the ancient works in Egypt, to take in reverse the journey made of old in the days of famine, and visit the Holy Land. This happy thought he put into execution, and making a tour through the Holy Land, he ended by visiting Jerusalem before his return to England.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR.

There was very little time for rest in this life of work between the Egyptian festivals, Eastern travel, and the terrible European disaster looming ahead, the crisis which culminated in the declaration of war between France and Germany in the June of the year following his return home. But somehow or other, before starting for Berlin Henty contrived to have one of his first boys' books upon the stocks, and this was published at the end of that year--1870--during his absence.

Meanwhile he started for the front, and on his way he writes: "We had a break of nearly two hours at Cologne before the departure of the train for Berlin. Here for the first time I had before me the actual preparation for war. In France, in Brussels, and at various stations along this line, soldiers in uniform had been conspicuously absent.

Here they were everywhere busy. Baggage wagons moved hither and thither loaded with stores; tumbrels with ammunition rumbled along the streets.

Here was a company of soldiers each with two new needle-guns upon his shoulder; there another party was dragging stores in hand carts. Going on to the bridge and looking down on to the river, I saw a steamer with some field-gun carriages packed on her deck, while a gang of men were loading her with countless coils of field-telegraph wire. Upon the walls was a notice that two thousand labourers were required on the following day for work upon the fortifications. Judging by the number of troops I saw about, the garrison of Cologne must at present be very large indeed, and every hour must increase it as the reserves flock in.

All the young men are leaving."

The waiter at the hotel where he dined, a delicate-looking young fellow, told him that he was off directly to join the infantry, while a comrade who came in to say good-bye was on the point of starting for the cavalry. There was no brag or pretence of indifference about any of the young fellows. The country required them, and they were perfectly ready to go, and, if necessary, to die for her.

At the station the confusion was tremendous. Trains had come in, and other trains were starting. The one for Berlin was of enormous length, and literally crammed. Cheers and counter cheers were being exchanged by the occupants and the people on the platform. Hands and handkerchiefs waved adieux, which in many cases would be for long indeed. There was but little weeping on the part of the women, of whom only a few were present. No doubt they had wept over the parting ones, and blessed them when they left, remaining behind to pray rather than shake the confidence of their loved ones at the start. As the train moved slowly out of the station, across the bridge, and out into the level country beyond, the darkness was falling and the mist rising; but on through the night they went, stopping occasionally, taking in men and more men, adding carriage after carriage to an already enormous length, until, had not the line been perfectly level, the two powerful locomotives could not have drawn the load. Trains were waiting at the various junctions, all crowded, and at every halt, as daylight came, labourers were seen gathering to work upon the fortifications, showing that Germany meant to be fully prepared for the worst, while side by side with the manifold preparations for war there was smiling peace, with the crops extending as far as eye could reach. The wheat was ripe and ready for the sickle, the oats and barley coming on, while the ground was covered with the blossoms of the poppy and the bright yellow of the lupins. The crops were unusually heavy over the whole of Prussia, and there were to be no hands to gather them, save those of the women and old men, for the whole country was joining the ranks of the able-bodied and marching for the seat of war.

At length he was in the city which the French antic.i.p.ated entering when in their mad enthusiasm they paraded their own streets, shouting "A Berlin!" and from here, now grown to be one of the band of trusted war correspondents, Henty writes to the journal he was again representing of the wild state of confusion and growing excitement connected with the Prussian preparations.

Matters, moreover, did not work easily for the war correspondent, for he had to pa.s.s his time in Berlin in a series of attempts to obtain permission to accompany the Prussian army to the front. Delays and promises followed each other, and he was kept eager and fretting with disappointment like a hound in the leash, hoping and yet doubting, till at last all he could get was an official reply to his application, stating that it had been decided to follow the example of the French and refuse permission for correspondents to accompany the army, or even to hover after it to pick up information in the rear.

To hesitate and not take action in some shape Henty felt might prove loss of time, and perhaps the missing of some vastly important piece of news for the journal he represented, and this at a time when rumour was quietly whispering that before long a mandate would be issued from head-quarters that postal as well as travelling communication would be almost entirely cut off.

Henty was a thoughtful man of stern determination, and once he had made up his mind he satisfied himself by making a final application to the authorities. All he could learn though was that his requests were under consideration, and that a decision would be given later. This decision, he felt sure, would be in the negative, and he determined to return to England for the purpose of making a fresh start.

He made for the station at once, to find that the difficulties had already begun. A fierce struggle for tickets was going on among those who wished to leave the city, and he was informed by a clerk that tickets were only issued for a short distance on the way. This, of course, meant that the railways were already in the hands of the government for the conveyance of troops, and pretty evident proofs of this change in the state of affairs were all around him in the shape of piled rifles ornamented with _pickelhaubes_, the spiked helmets of the Teutons.

It would be of no use, he felt, to wait the pleasure of the stolid, head-shaking Germans, fretting and worrying, while possibly he would be receiving from his own head-quarters, from an angry editor, letters asking what he was about in keeping him waiting for that which is the very life-blood of a newspaper in time of war.

It was all plain enough, that he had come to a wise decision. The great dislocation of the German railway system had begun, and ordinary pa.s.sengers were having to make way for the movements of troops. In spite of his energy he was stopped again and again, before finally reaching Frankfort, whence he gained England, and in roundabout fas.h.i.+on crossed to France, where after endless difficulties he managed to get pretty close to the French army, and saw what he could of the war.

During his enforced sojourn in Berlin, and while waiting impatiently for his official permit to accompany the German army, the soldier within him was not idle, and, doubtless with a map at hand, he began to make his notes, in the shape of a letter dwelling upon the position, and the possibilities of how the men would fight. He dwelt upon the dash and go of the French in the role of invaders, and came to the conclusion that if France took the offensive, crossed the Rhine, and struck first at Stuttgart and then at Munich, the Prussians would be at their best, for they would be fighting in defence of their native soil.

These conclusions were come to at a time when he was still waiting, for he writes: "To my application to be allowed to accompany the army I have as yet received no reply." In the event of an acquiescence to his request, he says: "I shall have no further difficulty, but shall go where the army goes. In the event of a refusal, my object will be to gain some central point and then wait events."

All these surmises were followed by the stern refusal, as aforesaid, which turned him back, to learn afterwards how futile were the conclusions to which he had come, for, as will be well remembered, the battle-cry of the French, "A Berlin!" proved to be so much vanity, the Germans themselves a.s.suming the offensive and sweeping everything before them almost from the first.

Afterwards he was one of the lookers-on when maddened France was in the throes of those wild scenes which are history now--times of disorder and disorganisation, of brigades being marched here and there in purposeless movements until, when at last they did encounter their foe, defeat followed defeat; the civilised world meanwhile watching with bated breath for the next news of disaster till there came _la debacle_, the crowning horror of Sedan, and the surrender of the emperor.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

THE COMMUNE.

Early in the year 1871, after the signature of peace, Henty in pursuit of his journalistic duties entered Paris, and during the wild days of its occupation by the Commune he pa.s.sed a life of adventure of which volumes might be written, for, in brief, he saw all the fighting very closely. It was a wild time, in which no man's life was safe, and in the absence of law and order an Englishman bound to investigate and report upon the proceedings of the ill-governed city dare hardly call his soul his own.