At Aboukir and Acre | Page 2

cannon-balls stood between the guns, half-covered
with the drifting sand, which formed slopes half-way up the walls of
the range of barracks behind, and filled up the rooms on the lower floor.
Behind rose the city of Alexandria, with its minarets and mosques, its
palaces and its low mud-built huts. Seaward lay a fleet of noble ships
with their long lines of port-holes, their lofty masts, and network of
rigging.
"What do you think of it, Sidi?"
"It is wonderful!" his companion replied. "How huge they are, what
lines of cannon, what great masts, as tall and as straight as palm-trees!
Truly you Franks know many things of which we in the desert are
ignorant. Think you that they could batter these forts to pieces?"

The other laughed as he looked round. "One of them could do that now,
Sidi, seeing that there is scarce a gun on the rampart that could be fired
in return; but were all in good order, and with British artillerists, the
whole fleet would stand but a poor chance against them, for while their
shot would do but little injury to these solid walls, these cannon would
drill the ships through and through, and if they did not sheer off, would
sink them."
"But why British artillerists, brother, why not our own people?"
"Because you have no properly trained gunners. You know how strong
Algiers was, and yet it was attacked with success, twice by the French,
twice by ourselves, and once by us and the Dutch; but it is a rule that a
strongly defended fort cannot be attacked successfully by ships. If these
forts were in proper condition and well manned, I don't think that even
Nelson would attack them, though he might land somewhere along the
coast, attack and capture the town from the land side, and then carry the
batteries. Successful as he has been at sea, he has had some experience
as to the difficulty of taking forts. He was beaten off at Teneriffe, and
although he did succeed in getting the Danes to surrender at
Copenhagen, it's well known now that his ships really got the worst of
the fight, and that if the Danes had held on, he must have drawn off
with the loss of many of his vessels."
"I know nothing of these things, brother, nor where the towns you name
are, nor who are the Danes; but it seems to me that those great ships
with all their guns would be terrible assailants. As you say, these forts
are not fit for fighting; but this is because no foes have ever come
against us by sea for so many years. What could an enemy do if they
landed?"
"The Mamelukes are grand horsemen, Sidi, but horsemen alone cannot
win a battle; there are the artillery and infantry to be counted with, and
it is with these that battles are won in our days, though I say not that
cavalry do not bear their share, but alone they are nothing. One infantry
square, if it be steady, can repulse a host of them; but you may ere long
see the matter put to proof, for I hear that the officers who came on
shore this morning asked if aught had been heard of the French fleet,

which had, they say, sailed from Toulon to conquer Egypt. It is for this
that the English fleet has come here."
"Their bones will whiten the plains should they attempt it," the other
said scornfully. "But why should they want to interfere with us, and
why should you care to prevent them doing so if they are strong
enough?"
"Because, in the first place, we are at war with them, and would prevent
them gaining any advantage. In the second place, because Egypt is a
step on the way to India. There we are fighting with one of the great
native princes, who has, they say, been promised help by the French,
who are most jealous of us, since we have destroyed their influence
there, and deprived them of their chance of becoming masters of a large
portion of the country."
The conversation had been carried on in Arabic. The speakers were of
about the same age, but Edgar Blagrove was half a head taller than his
Arab friend. His father was a merchant settled in Alexandria, where
Edgar had been born sixteen years before, and except that he had spent
some two years and a half at school in England, he had never been out
of Egypt. Brought up in a polyglot household, where the nurses were
French or Italian, the grooms Arab, the gardeners Egyptians drawn
from the fellah class, and the clerks and others engaged in his father's
business for the most part Turks, Edgar had from childhood