A Desert Drama | Page 6

and
with nothing but savagery and bloodshed down there where the
Southern Cross is twinkling so prettily, why, it's like standing on the
beautiful edge of a live volcano."

"Shucks, Sadie, don't talk like that, child," said the older woman,
nervously. "It's enough to scare any one to listen to you."
"Well, but don't you feel it yourself, Auntie? Look at that great desert
stretching away and away until it is lost in the shadows. Hear the sad
whisper of the wind across it! It's just the most solemn thing that ever I
saw in my life."
"I'm glad we've found something that will make you solemn, my dear,"
said her Aunt. "I've sometimes thought---- Sakes alive, what's that?"
From somewhere amongst the hill shadows upon the other side of the
river there had risen a high shrill whimpering, rising and swelling, to
end in a long weary wail.
"It's only a jackal, Miss Adams," said Stephens. "I heard one when we
went out to see the Sphinx by moonlight."
But the American lady had risen, and her face showed that her nerves
had been ruffled.
"If I had my time over again I wouldn't have come past Assouan," said
she. "I can't think what possessed me to bring you all the way up here,
Sadie. Your mother will think that I am clean crazy, and I'd never dare
to look her in the eye if anything went wrong with us. I've seen all I
want to see of this river, and all I ask now is to be back at Cairo again."
"Why, Auntie," cried the girl, "it isn't like you to be faint-hearted."
"Well, I don't know how it is, Sadie, but I feel a bit unstrung, and that
beast caterwauling over yonder was just more than I could put up with.
There's one consolation, we are scheduled to be on our way home
to-morrow, after we've seen this one rock or temple, or whatever it is.
I'm full up of rocks and temples, Mr. Stephens. I shouldn't mope if I
never saw another. Come, Sadie! Good-night!"
"Good-night! Good-night, Miss Adams!" and the two ladies passed
down to their cabins.

Monsieur Fardet was chatting, in a subdued voice, with Headingly, the
young Harvard graduate, bending forward confidentially between the
whiffs of his cigarette.
"Dervishes, Mister Headingly!" said he, speaking excellent English, but
separating his syllables as a Frenchman will. "There are no Dervishes.
They do not exist."
"Why, I thought the woods were full of them," said the American.
Monsieur Fardet glanced across to where the red core of Colonel
Cochrane's cigar was glowing through the darkness.
"You are an American, and you do not like the English," he whispered.
"It is perfectly comprehended upon the Continent that the Americans
are opposed to the English."
"Well," said Headingly, with his slow, deliberate manner, "I won't say
that we have not our tiffs, and there are some of our people--mostly of
Irish stock--who are always mad with England; but the most of us have
a kindly thought for the mother country. You see, they may be
aggravating folk sometimes, but after all they are our own folk, and we
can't wipe that off the slate."
"Eh bien!" said the Frenchman. "At least I can say to you what I could
not without offence say to these others. And I repeat that there are no
Dervishes. They were an invention of Lord Cromer in the year 1885."
"You don't say!" cried Headingly.
"It is well known in Paris, and has been exposed in La Patrie and other
of our so well-informed papers."
"But this is colossal," said Headingly.
"Do you mean to tell me, Monsieur Fardet, that the siege of Khartoum
and the death of Gordon and the rest of it was just one great bluff?"
"I will not deny that there was an emeute, but it was local, you

understand, and now long forgotten. Since then there has been
profound peace in the Soudan."
"But I have heard of raids, Monsieur Fardet, and I've read of battles,
too, when the Arabs tried to invade Egypt. It was only two days ago
that we passed Toski, where the dragoman said there had been a fight.
Is that all bluff also?"
"Pah, my friend, you do not know the English. You look at them as you
see them with their pipes and their contented faces, and you say, 'Now,
these are good, simple folk who will never hurt any one.' But all the
time they are thinking and watching and planning. 'Here is Egypt
weak,' they cry. 'Allons!' and down they swoop like a gull upon a crust.
'You have no right there,' says the world. 'Come out of it!' But England
has already begun to tidy everything, just like the good Miss Adams