Donovan Pasha, and Some People of Egypt — Volume 1

While the Lamp Holds Out to Burn

There is a town on the Nile which Fielding Bey called Hasha, meaning "Heaven Forbid!" He loathed inspecting it. Going up the Nile, he would put off visiting it till he came down; coming down, he thanked his fates if accident carried him beyond it. Convenient accidents sometimes did occur: a murder at one of the villages below it, asking his immediate presence; a telegram from his Minister at Cairo, requiring his return; or a very low Nile, when Hasha suddenly found itself a mile away from the channel and there was no good place to land. So it was that Hasha, with little inspection, was the least reputable and almost the dirtiest town on the Nile; for even in those far-off days the official Englishman had his influence, especially when Kubar Pasha was behind him. Kubar had his good points.

There were certain definite reasons, however, why Fielding Bey shrank from visiting Hasha. Donovan Pasha saw something was wrong from the first moment Hasha was mentioned.

On a particular day they were lying below at another village, on the Amenhotep. Hasha was the next place marked red on the map, and that meant inspection. When Dicky Donovan mentioned Hasha, Fielding Bey twisted a shoulder and walked nervously up and down the deck. He stayed here for hours: to wait for the next post, he said-serious matters expected from head quarters. He appeared not to realise that letters would get to Hasha by rail as quickly as by the Amenhotep.

Every man has a weak spot in his character, a sub-rosa, as it were, in his business of life; and Dicky fancied he had found Fielding Bey's. While they waited, Fielding made a pretence of working hard--for he really was conscientious--sending his orderly for the mamour-- [magistrate]--and the omdah--[head of a village]--, and holding fatuous conferences; turning the hose on the local dairymen and butchers and dategrowers, who came with backsheesh in kind; burying his nose in official papers; or sending for Holgate, the Yorkshire engineer, to find out what the run would be to the next stopping-place beyond Hasha. Twice he did this; which was very little like Fielding Bey. The second time, when Holgate came below to his engine, Dicky was there playing with a Farshoot dog.

"We don't stop at Hasha, then?" Dicky asked, and let the Farshoot fasten on his leggings.

Holgate swung round and eyed Dicky curiously, a queer smile at his lips.

"Not if Goovnur can 'elp, aw give ye ma woord, sir," answered Holgate.

Fielding was affectionately called "the Governor" by his subordinates and friends.

"We all have our likes and dislikes," rejoined Dicky casually, and blew smoke in the eyes of the Farshoot. "Aye, aw've seen places that bad! but Hasha has taaste of its own in Goovnur's mouth, ma life on't!" "Never can tell when a thing'll pall on the taste. Hasha's turn with the Governor now, eh?" rejoined Dicky.

Dicky's way of getting information seemed guileless, and Holgate opened his basket as wide as he knew. "Toorn, didst tha sway" (Holgate talked broadly to Dicky always, for Dicky had told him of his aunt, Lady Carmichael, who lived near Halifax in Yorkshire), "toorn, aw warrant! It be reg'lar as kitchen-fire, this Hasha business, for three years, ever sin' aw been scrapin' mud o' Nile River."

"That was a nasty row they had over the cemetery three years ago, the Governor against the lot, from mamour to wekeel!"

Holgate's eyes flashed, and he looked almost angrily down at Dicky, whose hand was between the teeth of the playful Farshoot.

"Doost think--noa, tha canst not think that Goovnur be 'feared o' Hasha fook. Thinks't tha, a man that told 'em all--a thousand therr--that he'd hang on nearest tree the foorst that disobeyed him, thinks't tha that Goovnur's lost his nerve by that?"

"The Governor never loses his nerve, Holgate," said Dicky, smiling and offering a cigar. "There's such a thing as a man being afraid to trust himself where he's been in a mess, lest he hit out, and doesn't want to."

Holgate, being excited, was in a fit state to tell the truth, if he knew it; which was what Dicky had worked for; but Holgate only said:

"It bean't fear, and it bean't milk o' human kindness. It be soort o' thing a man gets. Aw had it once i' Bradford, in Little Cornish Street. Aw saw a faace look out o' window o' hoose by tinsmith's shop, an' that faace was like hell's picture-aye, 'twas a killiagous faace that! Aw never again could pass that house. 'Twas a woman's faace. Horrible 'twas, an' sore sad an' flootered aw were, for t' faace was like a lass aw loved when aw wur a lad."

"I should think it was something like that," answered Dicky, his eyes wandering over the peninsula beyond which lay Hasha.

"Summat, aw be sure," answered Holgate, "an' ma woord on't . . . ah, yon coomes orderly wi' post for Goovnur. Now it be Hasha, or it be not Hasha, it be time for steam oop."

Holgate turned to his engine as Dicky mounted the stairs and went to Fielding's cabin, where the orderly was untying a handkerchief overflowing with letters.

As Fielding read his official letters his face fell more and more. When he had read the last, he sat for a minute without speaking, his brow very black. There was no excuse for pushing past Hasha. He had not been there for over a year. It was his duty to inspect the place: he had a conscience; there was time to get to Hasha that afternoon. With an effort he rose, hurried along the deck, and called down to Holgate: "Full-steam to Hasha!"

Then, with a quick command to the reis, who was already at the wheel, he lighted a cigar, and, joining Dicky Donovan, began to smoke and talk furiously. But he did not talk of Hasha.

At sunset the Amenhotep drew in to the bank by Hasha, and, from the deck, Fielding Bey saluted the mamour, the omdah and his own subordinates, who, buttoning up their coats as they came, hurried to the bank to make salaams to him. Behind them, at a distance, came villagers, a dozen ghaffirs armed with naboots of dom-wood, and a brace of well-mounted, badly-dressed policemen, with seats like a monkey on a stick. The conferences with the mamour and omdah were short, in keeping with the temper of "Fielding Saadat"; and long into the night Dicky lay and looked out of his cabin window to the fires on the banks, where sat Mahommed Seti the servant, the orderly, and some attendant ghaffirs, who, feasting on the remains of the effendi's supper, kept watch. For Hasha was noted for its robbers. It was even rumoured that the egregious Selamlik Pasha, with the sugar plantation near by--"Trousers," Dicky called him when he saw him on the morrow, because of the elephantine breeks he wore--was not averse to sending his Abyssinian slaves through the sugar-cane to waylay and rob, and worse, maybe.

By five o'clock next day the inspection was over. The streets had been swept for the Excellency--which is to say Saadat--the first time in a year. The prison had been cleaned of visible horrors, the first time in a month. The last time it was ordered there had been a riot among the starving, infested prisoners; earth had been thrown over the protruding bones of the dear lamented dead in the cemetery; the water of the ablution places in the mosque had been changed; the ragged policemen had new putties; the kourbashes of the tax-gatherers were hid in their yeleks; the egregious Pasha wore a greasy smile, and the submudir, as he conducted Fielding--"whom God preserve and honour!"--through the prison and through the hospital, where goat's milk had been laid on for this especial day, smirked gently through the bazaar above his Parisian waistcoat.