For Fortune and Glory Part 6

"And the English think the crocodile such a pretty ornament!" said Ha.s.sib. "It is a strange taste."

And then Harry thought for the first time where on earth would they put the crocodile if they got it. But that was a future consideration.

"Shall we shoot the cataract to-night?" he asked, presently.

"No," said Ha.s.sib, "there will not be light enough. We shall anchor for the night soon, and start at daybreak."

The river soon grew broader and calmer, and in half an hour they came to the place where they were to remain, and cast anchor.

Harry went ash.o.r.e with his rifle, in hopes of a shot at the amphibious creatures, and his fis.h.i.+ng tackle to keep him in patience while he was waiting for it. Ha.s.sib accompanied him to point out the place he had mentioned where the monsters were wont to lie.

For some time he got neither a shot nor a bite; but presently there came a tremendous tug at his line. The fish tugged, and Harry tugged, and the line being strong enough to hold a whale nearly, it seemed to be a question whether Harry pulled the fish out, or the fish pulled Harry in.

In fact it was a regular tug of war.

Harry was the victor, and his opponent came to bank with a bound and flop.

"By jove! I have got a crocodile after all!" cried Harry, jumping back, as a hideous thing four feet long, and having the same number of legs, and a tail, seemed making towards him. The reis, laughing in a manner most contrary to our notions of the staid impa.s.sive Arab, began hammering the creature with a stick, until it lay quiet enough.

"What is it?" asked the captor, approaching cautiously.

"A big lizard," replied Ha.s.sib, "so your learned white men say; 'alligator lizard' I heard one call it. But it is really a thing that comes out of an addled crocodile's egg."

Harry looked up quickly, but the reis was perfectly grave. And on such occasions he always pretended to believe, whether he did or no. Ha.s.sib was quite confident of the correctness of his information, and how could it be disproved, or, for that matter, why should it be?

The sun was now very low on the horizon, and would soon take its sand- bath. Ha.s.sib laid his hand on Forsyth's arm and ducked behind a mound on the edge of the bank. Harry did the same.

"One, two, five, seven," counted Ha.s.sib. Harry peeped, and saw that mystic number of grey crocodiles lying on the island where he had been looking for them.

The nearest was about two hundred yards off. By stalking him along the bank, as he was not quite opposite, he got perhaps thirty yards nearer.

As has been said, he was a really first-rate rifle-shot, and the prospects of that crocodile could not be considered rosy.

Scales are hard, but so are conical bullets. Harry took a steady aim at what he had been taught to consider the most vulnerable part get-at- able, and pulled. Crack! Smack! He heard the ball tell as plainly as if it were on an iron target. But the absurd crocodile acted as all the others he had shot at had done: he rolled over into the water and disappeared, and the other six kept him company.

"He is killed! Oh, he is killed!" cried the reis, much excited. "He will float soon, you will see. When they are shot dead their bodies soon float."

Whether this creature was an exception, or was not shot dead, or was carried down to the cataract before he got to the floating stage, and so came up where no one wanted him, cannot be said. But they saw him no more, and he was numbered among the partridges who have gone away to die, and the rabbits that were hit so hard, but crept away into holes!

Going back to where the boat lay they found another lying near her, which had been dragged up the last bit of the cataract and brought up so far since their arrival, while the crew had gone ash.o.r.e and lit a fire, round which they were gathered.

Forsyth and Ha.s.sib went up to them for news, but there was not much.

Alexandria was being rebuilt after the bombardment; Arabi's insurrection was quite over, and Mohammed Tewfik Pasha firmly established. The English soldiers were leaving, and the country would soon be quit of them entirely.

"Not it," said one of the new-comers, who seemed to be a pa.s.senger.

Certainly not a sailor, for his hands were delicate, and he lacked manliness when compared with the others of the party. "The English will not be so easy to get rid of, make sure of that."

And one of the others said to Ha.s.sib, alluding to the speaker--

"You knew his father; this is Daireh."

"And I knew him as a boy," said Ha.s.sib.

"It is years since I left," said Daireh.

Here Reouf the pilot joined the group, and he, too, was a friend of the family, and was made known.

Harry Forsyth, seeing that old acquaintances had met after an absence, kept in the background, and lit his pipe. He listened indeed, but simply to try what words of Arabic, in which the conversation was being held, he could pick up, not from any interest or curiosity which he felt in the subject of their talk.

"Quite a boy when you went to England," said Reouf; "and yet I think I can recognise you. Do you remember you went in my diabeheeh from Berber home to Alexandria?"

"Have you been to Berber lately? Are my people there well?"

"I was there less than a year ago, and all was well with them. You are journeying there now?" said Reouf.

"I am," replied Daireh. "I returned from the land of exile to visit my home, hoping to share my hard-earned gains with my own people, when what did I find? Ruins in the place of my home, my family dispersed, my father slain by the English."

"Not so," said Ha.s.sib. "I heard of the misfortune; but it was by the hand of Arabi's soldiers that he fell; not that of the English. Arabi's soldiers, or plunderers who called themselves such. The English sailors caught them red-handed, and hung them up for it then and there."

"May their graves be defiled, whoever they were," said Daireh. "I have no friends now except at Berber."

Harry made out a good deal of this, and his heart bled for the Egyptian, coming back as he thought to a home, to find nothing but desolation, and to be driven out again from his native land. For there is nothing in common between the Egyptian and the Nubian but religion. The former race affects to despise the latter, and the latter really despises the former. And with reason.

So when he rose to go back to his diabeheeh (Nile boat), he bade him good-night in English, and expressed regret for the grievous disappointment and sorrow he had experienced. And Daireh said of course it was a great affliction, but he hoped to make a new home in the Soudan. And so they parted, courteously enough.

The diabeheeh Daireh was travelling by had sustained some injury from a sharp rock during the process of being hauled up the cataract, and the crew were going to remain where they were for the purpose of repairs.

So when a sudden red flush burst on the eastern horizon, and spread and deepened till it seemed as if a large city was on fire, and Ha.s.sib, recognising this as the dawn, began kicking his lazy sailors into wakefulness, the down-stream boat was the only one which made preparations for a start.

By the time the anchor was up and the sails hoisted, however, there was some movement on board the other diabeheeh, and parting greetings were exchanged. Harry Forsyth, seeing the man who had excited his compa.s.sion the night before on deck, waved his hand to him and shouted good-bye!

And the other returned the salutation. And the local pilot for the second cataract took the helm, and the vessel entered the boiling waters, and was whirled in apparent helplessness, though really guided with great skill amidst innumerable rocks, any one of which would have crushed her like an egg-sh.e.l.l.

And Harry, in the excitement and anxiety of the pa.s.sage, forgot all about the casual traveller from whom he had just parted. Little did he dream that that man carried in his breast the doc.u.ment upon which his fortune depended, and the obtaining of which would establish his mother and sister in comfort, besides changing all the future prospects of his old friend Kavanagh. And Daireh, had he but known that the Englishman he had just parted from was Harry Forsyth, what a lucky opportunity he would have esteemed it for making a bargain, and securing at least some profit out of what threatened to be the barren crime he had committed.

For though it was not to be expected that the poor clerk and agent should have command of sufficient funds to pay even the more moderate ransom which he was now prepared to accept, he had formed all his plans for eventually securing it. Something of course would have to be trusted to the pledged word of the man with whom he treated, but though he had no scruples about breaking his word, or his oath, indeed, for that matter, himself, he knew well that other people had, and had before traded, not without success, on what he considered a foolish weakness.

But the chance was gone both for the robber and the robbed. They had met, and not known it, and now their paths diverged more widely every minute.

Is there any truth in the notion of people having presentiments?

Whether or no, certainly Forsyth had none, for he was only too eager to get back to Cairo. And the boat went well, though not fast enough for his impatience, making a quick trip of it.

His employers were well satisfied with the result of their venture, and Harry himself made as much as he expected out of his marabout feathers.

Shortly afterwards, as had been arranged, he sailed for England, and had a warm greeting from his mother and Trix, though he did not bring the promised crocodile.

And then he learned that his uncle, Richard Burke, was dead, and that his will had mysteriously disappeared, as well as the confidential clerk of the Dublin solicitors who had charge of it, who was therefore supposed to have taken it.

"We would not write to you about it," said Mrs Forsyth, "because you were on your way home, and the will might have been found in the interim. But it hasn't."

CHAPTER SIX.