CHAPTER V.

IN THE PALACE OF PASHA.

A SAIL up the Nile! How full of interest are the very words! El Kahireh, Cairo, the "Gate of the East," lies behind the traveler, and before him stretches the Sudan -- Beled es Sudan, the "Land of the Blacks," interesting even in those days before gallant Gordon had linked his name with it, and put an end to the infamous slave-trade. The Sudan was then the land of mystery; going there one made a journey into the unknown. To-day one can go by rail from Cairo, the locomotive leaving its black trail of smoke over the sacred river, like a profanation.

I prefer the deck of a ship to the stuffy railway car. Here one sits on his mat, or pillow, a pipe in his hand, and his fragrant coffee before him. The great Nile, more than two thousand feet wide, spreads out like a sea before him, apparently shoreless. The north wind fills the sails, the sailors squat about staring vacantly into space, or amusing themselves with childish games. The eyes of the traveler grow weary, they droop, and he dozes and dreams until be is aroused by the cry: "Come to prayer, ye faithful." Then all the sailors kneel, bending toward Mecca and crying: "I confess there is no God but God; I confess that Mohamed is his Prophet." Then they resume their play or sleep, and the night closes in.

So the days passed peacefully for me, and at last we reached Siout, my destination. Two sailors carried my luggage ashore, the lieutenant accompanying to establish

44

IN THE PALACE OF PASHA. 45

me in comfortable lodgings. When I asked him where I was to lodge he replied: "Where else than with the pasha? Such a man as you must be his guest only, and I was instructed by the emir to introduce you into the palace in his name."

"And you mean to say I shall be welcome?"

"Certainly; he will receive you as a friend."

I had to be content with this answer, but I would rather have gone to an inn, where I could have paid my reckoning and been independent. We entered an inner court from which several doors opened. In one of them stood a thickset, shapeless Negro, looking toward us forbiddingly. As soon as he recognized the emir's lieutenant his expression changed; he bent his broad back, crossed his arms on his breast and said: "Forgive me for standing here. Had I suspected your noble presence I would have come out to receive you."

Rude treatment frequently seems to call forth respect, which fact the lieutenant appreciated, for he answered sharply: "See that you do not fail in your duty now that you know it is I. Conduct me to your lord, the pasha."

"Forgive me that I cannot do so; the exalted lawgiver has gone away for a week with many attendants."

I took the shapeless Negro for a servant, perhaps an attendant of the women, since he was clad in silk, but I discovered my mistake by the lieutenant saying: "Then I will explain to you my desire, which you, as his steward, will carry out. This gentleman is a learned and famous Effendi from the New World, from America, who will spend a few days in Siout. I meant to ask the pasha to receive him as his guest, but since he is away I will request you to take care of him as if he were one of your lord's kindred."

So the Negro occupied the important post of steward!

46 IN THE PALACE OF PASHA.

He surveyed me with an unfriendly look, but replied: "It shall be as you desire, sir. I will conduct the stranger to an apartment worthy of his rank."

"Good!" said the lieutenant. Then turning to me with his hand outstretched he added: "And now farewell. Here is an address in Khartum through which you can communicate with the Reis Effendina. May Allah bless you, and grant us a happy meeting in the future."

He departed, and the steward conducted me to a great room, its blue walls adorned with texts from the Koran in golden letters, which he signified was to be mine, and left me without a word.

For fully an hour I sat on a cushion and smoked before any one came near me. Then the steward returned; he stood looking down on me with positive dislike. "How long have you known the Reis Effendina?" he asked at last,

"Only a little while," I replied.

"Yet he sends you here to the palace of the pasha? Are you a Moslem?"

"No; I am a Christian."

"Allah, Allah! A Christian, and I have given you a room with its walls covered with golden texts from the Koran! What a sin I have committed! You must leave this apartment, and follow me to another where your presence will not outrage the sanctity of our faith."

"I will leave this room, but not to go into another. It is you who disgrace Islam, which teaches hospitality to guests. I will send a servant after my luggage, and here is backsheesh for the trouble I have given you." I rose, gave him an abundant "tip" and quitted the room without any attempt on his part to detain me. As I came into the court I heard wailing; a door on the left opened, and two servants came forth, bearing a young man bleeding from a wound in his forehead. Some other persons followed, and

IN THE PALACE OF PASHA. 47

behind them a disheveled woman imploring for a surgeon. As the group approached me I asked what had happened. A well-dressed man of about sixty years replied: "His horse threw him against the wall, and now his life is fleeing through his brow. Run, run, and fetch a 'haggahm'; perhaps help is still possible."

He started to carry out his own desire, but I laid a detaining hand on his arm and said: "It may not be necessary to fetch a surgeon; I will examine him."

He seized both my hands, crying: "You are a surgeon? Come, come; hasten. If you save my son I will give you ten times what you ask." He pulled me along toward the door through which the bearers had disappeared, and I saw the youth lying on a divan, beside which the woman knelt wailing.

"Here is a surgeon," said the father, going over to her and taking both her hands. "Perhaps Allah will restore him." I, too, knelt by the young man and examined his wound it was not dangerous, though he was still unconscious I had a little flask of sal volatile in my pocket, which I opened, and held to his nose. Its effect was instantaneous; the patient moved, sneezed and opened his eyes. Immediately the mother had him in her arms, weeping aloud for joy. But his father folded his hands saying: "Allah be thanked! Death has flown and life returns." "Life returns, Allah il Allah," echoed all the others. "How shall we repay you, Effendi?" cried the father. "Without you the soul of my son had never found its way back info his body." "You are mistaken; your son would have wakened five minutes later, that is all." "No, no; I know better. I have never seen you; are you a stranger?"

48 IN THE PALACE OF PASHA.

"I arrived here to-day and shall only stay a few days."

"Then stay with us, Effendi; be our guest."

"I cannot accept your offer. You do not know who or what I am. I am a Christian."

"That does not matter; you are my son's deliverer. The flask of life in your hands saved my son. I beg you stay with us. I will speak to the steward, who will give you the best room in the palace, and be grateful if you will help him, for he, too, is ill, suffering horribly in the stomach."

"I think you are mistaken, for he has just dismissed me from the house," I said.

"You! Impossible!"

"It is not only possible, but actually so. I was sent here to be the pasha's guest by the Reis Effendina, Achmed Abd el Iusaf."

"By him? Oh, the steward hates him, because he treats him rudely. Had any one else sent you the steward would have behaved quite differently. Forgive me if I am too insistent, but I beg you to honor my dwelling by your presence."

He said this in such a tone that I felt it would insult him to insist on going to an inn, and when his son wailed: "Effendi, stay here! My head is in agony, and you will help me if it gets worse," and the wife raised her clasped hands imploringly, I yielded.

"Very well, I will stay," I said, "if you are sure it will not incommode you to have a guest."

"Ah, no," replied the man. "I am not poor; I am the Emir Achor, the pasha's Master of Horse. Let me show you to your apartment, and you," he added to his servants, "hasten to the steward and fetch the Effendi's luggage."

When I was most comfortably established in my new quarters the Master of Horse said to me: "Effendi, we must tell the steward what a great physician you are. When

IN THE PALACE OF PASHA. 49

he hears that you have an elixir of life in your pocket he will repent his rudeness to you, and beg you to help him. Our own physician had told him he was in danger of his life, and it may be that Allah has sent you as the only one who can save him."

"Very well, bid him come here." I had not long to wait after giving this permission before the shapeless figure of the steward rolled in, and I really pitied him when I saw his downcast face.

"Effendi, forgive me," he said. "Had I guessed that such a --"

"Say no more," I interrupted him. "I have nothing to forgive. The Reis Effendina's manner to you in the past and his lieutenant's yesterday was the cause of the mistake."

"You are very good. May I sit down?"

"I beg you do so."

He took his place opposite me, and as I looked at him closely he said: "You mistake, Effendi, if you think I am well. Flesh is not health."

"No, indeed," I said. "The physicians of the west know the fatter a man is often the nearer death he is. Tell me your symptoms."

"I have dreadful suffering here," he said, laying his hand on his stomach. "I feel as though I had no body, and chiefly before meal-time, so that I have to eat at once."

"Oh, that is very bad, very bad indeed," I said gravely.

"Is it a fatal trouble ?" he asked, turning pale, I am sure, only he was too black to show it.

"Surely fatal, unless help is found," I replied.

"And what is the name of the disease?" whimpered the frightened fellow.

"In English we call it hunger, or gigantic appetite; it does not matter about the Turkish word."

50 IN THE PALACE OF PASHA.

"And can you save me? I am the pasha's steward, and have gold in abundance. Cure me, and I will give you a fortune."

"What did your own physician order?"

"Fasting. He said my stomach was weak." "

The deuce! I say just the contrary. We doctors call your disease a rhinoceros stomach, or an alligator stomach. Eat, I say, eat much, only before each meal you must bow nine times toward Mecca, so profoundly that your head touches the floor."

"I can't."

"You must; try it." He rose obediently, and made the attempt; a wonderful sight to see. Failing he went on all fours, lost his balance and rolled over, but rising quickly he went at it again, and finally succeeded in bringing his forehead to the rug. It was a question whether his dull contortions or profound gravity was funnier. "I can, I can," he panted, pulling himself up, "but I must do it alone, or else the servants will lose regard for my dignity. What else, Effendi?"

"You are rich; make an act of thanksgiving every day by giving two piasters to fifty of the wretched blind children who set by the wayside begging in this town."

"I will do it, for I am sure you are a great physician. And you say I may eat, eat! O Mohamed, O great caliphs! This is a physician to whom all my heart goes out. May I go now and eat, Effendi?"

"Certainly, but do not forget the genuflections nor the almsgiving."

"You are a Christian, but I hope the gates of paradise may open for you," said the big black starvling, departing.

The Master of Horse had listened and watched this scene soberly, but as the sufferer disappeared he laughed softly, and said: "Effendi, you are not only a skilful physician,

IN THE PALACE OF PASHA. 51

but a good man, for you have provided for the poor and blind."

We said good night, and I had made two friends in the palace of the pasha.

The next morning I went out alone for a walk, and as I wandered along the crooked streets I came to the plastered grave of a sheik, from which a bridge ran over the canal. As I started to cross it I stopped short in amazement. I saw a very long and very slender white-clad figure, surmounted by an immense turban, coming toward me with a swinging, swaggering gait. Could I be seeig straight? It certainly looked like Murad Nassyr's spindlelegged steward in Cairo. He saw me, and stopped also.

"Selim, is it really you?" I cried.

"Right, very right," he answered in his old way, in the same thin, querulous voice, making me one of his neck-breaking salaams. "And, Effendi, is it you? Allah be thanked, for I seek you."

"Seek me! I thought you were with Murad Nassyr in Cairo," I said. "What has happened that he has come to Siout?"

"He is not here; I have come only to seek you, for my master did not wish you to be here alone.''

"Does Murad Nassyr think I am afraid?"

"No, not that, but in any case it is better fair me to be with you. I was the most renowned warrior of my tribe, and, as you know, considered the greatest hero in the universe --"

"Except in the case of ghosts," I suggested.

"Jest not, Effendi; no man can fight with knives and pistols against a spirit; prayer is the only weapon then."

"Even when you know it is a man and no ghost you prefer it," I remarked. "However, I fear you will weary in Siout, where you will have nothing to do."

52 IN THE PALACE OF PASHA.

"Nothing to do! Why, I shall protect you; I dare not leave you a moment, for Murad Nassyr has ordered me to guard you."

"Ah, that is true; I hadn't thought how busy you would be protecting me," I said. "Well, come with me, and I will see whether they will receive you also in the palace of the pasha where I am lodged."

"Of course they will, for unfortunately you are an unbeliever, while I am a faithful Moslem, and you do not know that Islam commands hospitality toward each other among its followers. They will be glad to have me with them, furthermore, when they learn my renown and courage."

"Which you will tell them. Possibly, but let us make sure. Let us go at once to the palace and inform the Master of Horse that you have arrived."

"Right, very right! I follow in the print of your feet. Let us go."

And richer by a servant, or a guardian, I was not sure which, I returned to the palace, followed by Selim, like Don Quixote with Sancho Panza, only my squire was far from round or jolly.

Chapter 6


Contents


Introduction