The Tragedy of the Korosko | Page 8

Egyptian
fortified camp of Sarras about forty miles to the south of us. Beyond
that are sixty miles of very wild country before you would come to the
Dervish post at Akasheh. On this other side, however, there is nothing
between us and them."
"Abousir is on this side, is it not?"

"Yes. That is why the excursion to the Abousir Rock has been
forbidden for the last year. But things are quieter now."
"What is to prevent them from coming down on that side?"
"Absolutely nothing," said Cecil Brown, in his listless voice.
"Nothing, except their fears. The coming of course would be perfectly
simple. The difficulty would lie in the return. They might find it hard to
get back if their camels were spent, and the Halfa garrison with their
beasts fresh got on their track. They know it as well as we do, and it has
kept them from trying."
"It isn't safe to reckon upon a Dervish's fears," remarked Brown. "We
must always bear in mind that they are not amenable to the same
motives as other people. Many of them are anxious to meet death, and
all of them are absolute, uncompromising believers in destiny. They
exist as a reductio ad absurdum of all bigotry--a proof of how surely it
leads towards blank barbarism."
"You think these people are a real menace to Egypt?" asked the
American. "There seems from what I have heard to be some difference
of opinion about it. Monsieur Fardet, for example, does not seem to
think that the danger is a very pressing one."
"I am not a rich man," Colonel Cochrane answered after a little pause,
"but I am prepared to lay all I am worth, that within three years of the
British officers being withdrawn, the Dervishes would be upon the
Mediterranean. Where would the civilisation of Egypt be? Where
would the hundreds of millions which have been invested in this
country? Where the monuments which all nations look upon as most
precious memorials of the past?"
"Come now, Colonel," cried Headingly, laughing, "surely you don't
mean that they would shift the pyramids?"
"You cannot foretell what they would do. There is no iconoclast in the
world like an extreme Mohammedan. Last time they overran this

country they burned the Alexandrian Library. You know that all
representations of the human features are against the letter of the Koran.
A statue is always an irreligious object in their eyes. What do these
fellows care for the sentiment of Europe? The more they could offend it,
the more delighted they would be. Down would go the Sphinx, the
Colossi, the Statues of Abou-Simbel--as the saints went down in
England before Cromwell's troopers."
"Well now," said Headingly, in his slow, thoughtful fashion, "suppose I
grant you that the Dervishes could overrun Egypt, and suppose also that
you English are holding them out, what I'm never done asking is, what
reason have you for spending all these millions of dollars and the lives
of so many of your men? What do you get out of it, more than France
gets, or Germany, or any other country, that runs no risk and never lays
out a cent?"
"There are a good many Englishmen who are asking themselves that
question," remarked Cecil Brown. "It's my opinion that we have been
the policemen of the world long enough. We policed the seas for pirates
and slavers. Now we police the land for Dervishes and brigands and
every sort of danger to civilisation. There is never a mad priest or a
witch doctor, or a firebrand of any sort on this planet, who does not
report his appearance by sniping the nearest British officer. One tires of
it at last. If a Kurd breaks loose in Asia Minor, the world wants to
know why Great Britain does not keep him in order. If there is a
military mutiny in Egypt, or a Jehad in the Soudan, it is still Great
Britain who has to set it right. And all to an accompaniment of curses
such as the policeman gets when he seizes a ruffian among his pals. We
get hard knocks and no thanks, and why should we do it? Let Europe
do its own dirty work."
"Well," said Colonel Cochrane, crossing his legs and leaning forward
with the decision of n man who has definite opinions, "I don't at all
agree with you, Brown, and I think that to advocate such a course is to
take a very limited view of our national duties. I think that behind
national interests and diplomacy and all that there lies a great guiding
force--a Providence, in fact--which is for ever getting the best out of

each nation and using it for the good of the whole. When a nation
ceases to