Part 16

Poor Fanny! She obeyed, however; doubtless feeling that it would not do as yet to show too plainly that she preferred Mr. Ingram to her mother. She arrested her donkey, therefore, till Mrs. Damer overtook her; and Mr. Ingram, as he paused for a moment with her while she did so, fell into the hands of Miss Dawkins.

“I cannot think, Fanny, how you get on so quick,” said Mrs. Damer. “I’m always last; but then my donkey is such a very nasty one. Look there, now; he’s always trying to get me off.”

“We shall soon be at the Pyramids now, mamma.”

“How on earth I am ever to get back again I cannot think. I am so tired now that I can hardly sit.”

“You’ll be better, mamma, when you get your luncheon and a glass of wine.”

“How on earth we are to eat and drink with those nasty Arab people around us, I can’t conceive. They tell me we shall be eaten up by them. But, Fanny, what has Mr. Ingram been saying to you all the day?”

“What has he been saying, mamma? Oh! I don’t know;--a hundred things, I dare say. But he has not been talking to me all the time.”

“I think he has, Fanny, nearly, since we crossed the river. Oh, dear! oh, dear! this animal does hurt me so! Every time he moves he flings his head about, and that gives me such a bump.” And then Fanny commiserated her mother’s sufferings, and in her commiseration contrived to elude any further questionings as to Mr. Ingram’s conversation.

“Majestic piles, are they not?” said Miss Dawkins, who, having changed her companion, allowed her mind to revert from Mount Sinai to the Pyramids. They were now riding through cultivated ground, with the vast extent of the sands of Libya before them. The two Pyramids were standing on the margin of the sand, with the head of the recumbent sphynx plainly visible between them. But no idea can be formed of the size of this immense figure till it is visited much more closely. The body is covered with sand, and the head and neck alone stand above the surface of the ground. They were still two miles distant, and the sphynx as yet was but an obscure mount between the two vast Pyramids.

“Immense piles!” said Miss Dawkins, repeating her own words.

“Yes, they are large,” said Mr. Ingram, who did not choose to indulge in enthusiasm in the presence of Miss Dawkins.

“Enormous! What a grand idea!--eh, Mr. Ingram? The human race does not create such things as those nowadays!”

“No, indeed,” he answered; “but perhaps we create better things.”

“Better! You do not mean to say, Mr. Ingram, that you are an utilitarian. I do, in truth, hope better things of you than that. Yes! steam mills are better, no doubt, and mechanics’ institutes and penny newspapers. But is nothing to be valued but what is useful?” And Miss Dawkins, in the height of her enthusiasm, switched her donkey severely over the shoulder.

“I might, perhaps, have said also that we create more beautiful things,” said Mr. Ingram.

“But we cannot create older things.”

“No, certainly; we cannot do that.”

“Nor can we imbue what we do create with the grand associations which environ those piles with so intense an interest. Think of the mighty dead, Mr. Ingram, and of their great homes when living. Think of the hands which it took to raise those huge blocks--”

“And of the lives which it cost.”

“Doubtless. The tyranny and invincible power of the royal architects add to the grandeur of the idea. One would not wish to have back the kings of Egypt.”

“Well, no; they would be neither useful nor beautiful.”

“Perhaps not; and I do not wish to be picturesque at the expense of my fellow-creatures.”

“I doubt, even, whether they would be picturesque.”

“You know what I mean, Mr. Ingram. But the associations of such names, and the presence of the stupendous works with which they are connected, fill the soul with awe. Such, at least, is the effect with mine.”

“I fear that my tendencies, Miss Dawkins, are more realistic than your own.”

“You belong to a young country, Mr. Ingram, and are naturally prone to think of material life. The necessity of living looms large before you.”

“Very large, indeed, Miss Dawkins.”

“Whereas with us, with some of us at least, the material aspect has given place to one in which poetry and enthusiasm prevail. To such among us the associations of past times are very dear. Cheops, to me, is more than Napoleon Bonaparte.”

“That is more than most of your countrymen can say, at any rate, just at present.”

“I am a woman,” continued Miss Dawkins.

Mr. Ingram took off his hat in acknowledgment both of the announcement and of the fact.

“And to us it is not given--not given as yet--to share in the great deeds of the present. The envy of your sex has driven us from the paths which lead to honour. But the deeds of the past are as much ours as yours.”

“Oh, quite as much.”

“‘Tis to your country that we look for enfranchisement from this thraldom. Yes, Mr. Ingram, the women of America have that strength of mind which has been wanting to those of Europe. In the United States woman will at last learn to exercise her proper mission.”

Mr. Ingram expressed a sincere wish that such might be the case; and then wondering at the ingenuity with which Miss Dawkins had travelled round from Cheops and his Pyramid to the rights of women in America, he contrived to fall back, under the pretence of asking after the ailments of Mrs. Damer.

And now at last they were on the sand, in the absolute desert, making their way up to the very foot of the most northern of the two Pyramids. They were by this time surrounded by a crowd of Arab guides, or Arabs professing to be guides, who had already ascertained that Mr. Damer was the chief of the party, and were accordingly driving him almost to madness by the offers of their services, and their assurance that he could not possibly see the outside or the inside of either structure, or even remain alive upon the ground, unless he at once accepted their offers made at their own prices.

“Get away, will you?” said he. “I don’t want any of you, and I won’t have you! If you take hold of me I’ll shoot you!” This was said to one specially energetic Arab, who, in his efforts to secure his prey, had caught hold of Mr. Damer by the leg.

“Yes, yes, I say! Englishmen always take me;--me--me, and then no break him leg. Yes--yes--yes;--I go. Master, say yes. Only one leetle ten shillings!”

“Abdallah!” shouted Mr. Damer, “why don’t you take this man away? Why don’t you make him understand that if all the Pyramids depended on it, I would not give him sixpence!”

And then Abdallah, thus invoked, came up, and explained to the man in Arabic that he would gain his object more surely if he would behave himself a little more quietly; a hint which the man took for one minute, and for one minute only.

And then poor Mrs. Damer replied to an application for backsheish by the gift of a sixpence. Unfortunate woman! The word backsheish means, I believe, a gift; but it has come in Egypt to signify money, and is eternally dinned into the ears of strangers by Arab suppliants. Mrs. Damer ought to have known better, as, during the last six weeks she had never shown her face out of Shepheard’s Hotel without being pestered for backsheish; but she was tired and weak, and foolishly thought to rid herself of the man who was annoying her.

No sooner had the coin dropped from her hand into that of the Arab, than she was surrounded by a cluster of beggars, who loudly made their petitions as though they would, each of them, individually be injured if treated with less liberality than that first comer. They took hold of her donkey, her bridle, her saddle, her legs, and at last her arms and hands, screaming for backsheish in voices that were neither sweet nor mild.

In her dismay she did give away sundry small coins--all, probably, that she had about her; but this only made the matter worse. Money was going, and each man, by sufficient energy, might hope to get some of it. They were very energetic, and so frightened the poor lady that she would certainly have fallen, had she not been kept on her seat by the pressure around her.

“Oh, dear! oh, dear! get away,” she cried. “I haven’t got any more; indeed I haven’t. Go away, I tell you! Mr. Damer! oh, Mr. Damer!” and then, in the excess of her agony, she uttered one loud, long, and continuous shriek.

Up came Mr. Damer; up came Abdallah; up came M. Delabordeau; up came Mr. Ingram, and at last she was rescued. “You shouldn’t go away and leave me to the mercy of these nasty people. As to that Abdallah, he is of no use to anybody.”

“Why you bodder de good lady, you dem blackguard?” said Abdallah, raising his stick, as though he were, going to lay them all low with a blow. “Now you get noting, you tief!”

The Arabs for a moment retired to a little distance, like flies driven from a sugar-bowl; but it was easy to see that, like the flies, they would return at the first vacant moment.

And now they had reached the very foot of the Pyramids and proceeded to dismount from their donkeys. Their intention was first to ascend to the top, then to come down to their banquet, and after that to penetrate into the interior. And all this would seem to be easy of performance. The Pyramid is undoubtedly high, but it is so constructed as to admit of climbing without difficulty. A lady mounting it would undoubtedly need some assistance, but any man possessed of moderate activity would require no aid at all.

But our friends were at once imbued with the tremendous nature of the task before them. A sheikh of the Arabs came forth, who communicated with them through Abdallah. The work could be done, no doubt, he said; but a great many men would be wanted to assist. Each lady must have four Arabs, and each gentlemen three; and then, seeing that the work would be peculiarly severe on this special day, each of these numerous Arabs must be remunerated by some very large number of piastres.

Mr. Damer, who was by no means a close man in his money dealings, opened his eyes with surprise, and mildly expostulated; M. Delabordeau, who was rather a close man in his reckonings, immediately buttoned up his breeches pocket and declared that he should decline to mount the Pyramid at all at that price; and then Mr. Ingram descended to the combat.

The protestations of the men were fearful. They declared, with loud voices, eager actions, and manifold English oaths, that an attempt was being made to rob them. They had a right to demand the sums which they were charging, and it was a shame that English gentlemen should come and take the bread out of their mouths. And so they screeched, gesticulated, and swore, and frightened poor Mrs. Damer almost into fits.

But at last it was settled and away they started, the sheikh declaring that the bargain had been made at so low a rate as to leave him not one piastre for himself. Each man had an Arab on each side of him, and Miss Dawkins and Miss Damer had each, in addition, one behind. Mrs. Damer was so frightened as altogether to have lost all ambition to ascend. She sat below on a fragment of stone, with the three dragomans standing around her as guards; but even with the three dragomans the attacks on her were so frequent, and as she declared afterwards she was so bewildered, that she never had time to remember that she had come there from England to see the Pyramids, and that she was now immediately under them.

The boys, utterly ignoring their guides, scrambled up quicker than the Arabs could follow them. Mr. Damer started off at a pace which soon brought him to the end of his tether, and from, that point was dragged up by the sheer strength of his assistants; thereby accomplishing the wishes of the men, who induce their victims to start as rapidly as possible, in order that they may soon find themselves helpless from want of wind. Mr. Ingram endeavoured to attach himself to Fanny, and she would have been nothing loth to have him at her right hand instead of the hideous brown, shrieking, one-eyed Arab who took hold of her. But it was soon found that any such arrangement was impossible. Each guide felt that if he lost his own peculiar hold he would lose his prey, and held on, therefore, with invincible tenacity. Miss Dawkins looked, too, as though she had thought to be attended to by some Christian cavalier, but no Christian cavalier was forthcoming. M. Delabordeau was the wisest, for he took the matter quietly, did as he was bid, and allowed the guides nearly to carry him to the top of the edifice.

“Ha! so this is the top of the Pyramid, is it?” said Mr. Damer, bringing out his words one by one, being terribly out of breath. “Very wonderful, very wonderful, indeed!”

“It is wonderful,” said Miss Dawkins, whose breath had not failed her in the least, “very wonderful, indeed! Only think, Mr. Damer, you might travel on for days and days, till days became months, through those interminable sands, and yet you would never come to the end of them. Is it not quite stupendous?”

“Ah, yes, quite,--puff, puff”--said Mr. Damer striving to regain his breath.

Mr. Damer was now at her disposal; weak and worn with toil and travel, out of breath, and with half his manhood gone; if ever she might prevail over him so as to procure from his mouth an assent to that Nile proposition, it would be now. And after all, that Nile proposition was the best one now before her. She did not quite like the idea of starting off across the Great Desert without any lady, and was not sure that she was prepared to be fallen in love with by M. Delabordeau, even if there should ultimately be any readiness on the part of that gentleman to perform the rôle of lover. With Mr. Ingram the matter was different, nor was she so diffident of her own charms as to think it altogether impossible that she might succeed, in the teeth of that little chit, Fanny Damer. That Mr. Ingram would join the party up the Nile she had very little doubt; and then, there would be one place left for her. She would thus, at any rate, become commingled with a most respectable family, who might be of material service to her.

Thus actuated she commenced an earnest attack upon Mr. Damer.

“Stupendous!” she said again, for she was fond of repeating favourite words. “What a wondrous race must have been those Egyptian kings of old!”

“I dare say they were,” said Mr. Damer, wiping his brow as he sat upon a large loose stone, a fragment lying on the flat top of the Pyramid, one of those stones with which the complete apex was once made, or was once about to be made.

“A magnificent race! so gigantic in their conceptions! Their ideas altogether overwhelm us poor, insignificant, latter-day mortals. They built these vast Pyramids; but for us, it is task enough to climb to their top.”

“Quite enough,” ejaculated Mr. Damer.

But Mr. Damer would not always remain weak and out of breath, and it was absolutely necessary for Miss Dawkins to hurry away from Cheops and his tomb, to Thebes and Karnac.

“After seeing this it is impossible for any one with a spark of imagination to leave Egypt without going farther a-field.”

Mr. Damer merely wiped his brow and grunted. This Miss Dawkins took as a signal of weakness, and went on with her task perseveringly.

“For myself, I have resolved to go up, at any rate, as far as Asouan and the first cataract. I had thought of acceding to the wishes of a party who are going across the Great Desert by Mount Sinai to Jerusalem; but the kindness of yourself and Mrs. Damer is so great, and the prospect of joining in your boat is so pleasurable, that I have made up my mind to accept your very kind offer.”

This, it will be acknowledged, was bold on the part of Miss Dawkins; but what will not audacity effect? To use the slang of modern language, cheek carries everything nowadays. And whatever may have been Miss Dawkins’s deficiencies, in this virtue she was not deficient.

“I have made up my mind to accept your very kind offer,” she said, shining on Mr. Damer with her blandest smile.

What was a stout, breathless, perspiring, middle-aged gentleman to do under such circumstances? Mr. Damer was a man who, in most matters, had his own way. That his wife should have given such an invitation without consulting him, was, he knew, quite impossible. She would as soon have thought of asking all those Arab guides to accompany them. Nor was it to be thought of that he should allow himself to be kidnapped into such an arrangement by the impudence of any Miss Dawkins. But there was, he felt, a difficulty in answering such a proposition from a young lady with a direct negative, especially while he was so scant of breath. So he wiped his brow again, and looked at her.

“But I can only agree to this on one understanding,” continued Miss Dawkins, “and that is, that I am allowed to defray my own full share of the expense of the journey.”

Upon hearing this Mr. Damer thought that he saw his way out of the wood. “Wherever I go, Miss Dawkins, I am always the paymaster myself,” and this he contrived to say with some sternness, palpitating though he still was; and the sternness which was deficient in his voice he endeavoured to put into his countenance.

But he did not know Miss Dawkins. “Oh, Mr. Damer,” she said, and as she spoke her smile became almost blander than it was before; “oh, Mr. Damer, I could not think of suffering you to be so liberal; I could not, indeed. But I shall be quite content that you should pay everything, and let me settle with you in one sum afterwards.”

Mr. Damer’s breath was now rather more under his own command. “I am afraid, Miss Dawkins,” he said, “that Mrs. Damer’s weak state of health will not admit of such an arrangement.”

“What, about the paying?”

“Not only as to that, but we are a family party, Miss Dawkins; and great as would be the benefit of your society to all of us, in Mrs. Damer’s present state of health, I am afraid--in short, you would not find it agreeable.--And therefore--” this he added, seeing that she was still about to persevere--“I fear that we must forego the advantage you offer.”

And then, looking into his face, Miss Dawkins did perceive that even her audacity would not prevail.

“Oh, very well,” she said, and moving from the stone on which she had been sitting, she walked off, carrying her head very high, to a corner of the Pyramid from which she could look forth alone towards the sands of Libya.

In the mean time another little overture was being made on the top of the same Pyramid,--an overture which was not received quite in the same spirit. While Mr. Damer was recovering his breath for the sake of answering Miss Dawkins, Miss Damer had walked to the further corner of the square platform on which they were placed, and there sat herself down with her face turned towards Cairo. Perhaps it was not singular that Mr. Ingram should have followed her.

This would have been very well if a dozen Arabs had not also followed them. But as this was the case, Mr. Ingram had to play his game under some difficulty. He had no sooner seated himself beside her than they came and stood directly in front of the seat, shutting out the view, and by no means improving the fragrance of the air around them.

“And this, then, Miss Damer, will be our last excursion together,” he said, in his tenderest, softest tone.

“De good Englishman will gib de poor Arab one little backsheish,” said an Arab, putting out his hand and shaking Mr. Ingram’s shoulder.

“Yes, yes, yes; him gib backsheish,” said another.

“Him berry good man,” said a third, putting up his filthy hand, and touching Mr. Ingram’s face.

“And young lady berry good, too; she give backsheish to poor Arab.”

“Yes,” said a fourth, preparing to take a similar liberty with Miss Damer.

This was too much for Mr. Ingram. He had already used very positive language in his endeavour to assure his tormentors that they would not get a piastre from him. But this only changed their soft persuasions into threats. Upon hearing which, and upon seeing what the man attempted to do in his endeavour to get money from Miss Damer, he raised his stick, and struck first one and then the other as violently as he could upon their heads.

Any ordinary civilised men would have been stunned by such blows, for they fell on the bare foreheads of the Arabs; but the objects of the American’s wrath merely skulked away; and the others, convinced by the only arguments which they understood, followed in pursuit of victims who might be less pugnacious.

It is hard for a man to be at once tender and pugnacious--to be sentimental, while he is putting forth his physical strength with all the violence in his power. It is difficult, also, for him to be gentle instantly after having been in a rage. So he changed his tactics at the moment, and came to the point at once in a manner befitting his present state of mind.

“Those vile wretches have put me in such a heat,” he said, “that I hardly know what I am saying. But the fact is this, Miss Damer, I cannot leave Cairo without knowing----. You understand what I mean, Miss Damer.”

“Indeed I do not, Mr. Ingram; except that I am afraid you mean nonsense.”

“Yes, you do; you know that I love you. I am sure you must know it. At any rate you know it now.”

“Mr. Ingram, you should not talk in such a way.”

“Why should I not? But the truth is, Fanny, I can talk in no other way. I do love you dearly. Can you love me well enough to go and be my wife in a country far away from your own?”

Before she left the top of the Pyramid Fanny Damer had said that she would try.

Mr. Ingram was now a proud and happy man, and seemed to think the steps of the Pyramid too small for his elastic energy. But Fanny feared that her troubles were to come. There was papa--that terrible bugbear on all such occasions. What would papa say? She was sure her papa would not allow her to marry and go so far away from her own family and country. For herself, she liked the Americans--always had liked them; so she said;--would desire nothing better than to live among them. But papa! And Fanny sighed as she felt that all the recognised miseries of a young lady in love were about to fall upon her.

Nevertheless, at her lover’s instance, she promised, and declared, in twenty different loving phrases, that nothing on earth should ever make her false to her love or to her lover.

“Fanny, where are you? Why are you not ready to come down?” shouted Mr. Damer, not in the best of tempers. He felt that he had almost been unkind to an unprotected female, and his heart misgave him. And yet it would have misgiven him more had he allowed himself to be entrapped by Miss Dawkins.

“I am quite ready, papa,” said Fanny, running up to him--for it may be understood that there is quite room enough for a young lady to run on the top of the Pyramid.

“I am sure I don’t know where you have been all the time,” said Mr. Damer; “and where are those two boys?”

Fanny pointed to the top of the other Pyramid, and there they were, conspicuous with their red caps.

“And M. Delabordeau?”

“Oh! he has gone down, I think;--no, he is there with Miss Dawkins.” And in truth Miss Dawkins was leaning on his arm most affectionately, as she stooped over and looked down upon the ruins below her.

“And where is that fellow, Ingram?” said Mr. Damer, looking about him. “He is always out of the way when he’s wanted.”

To this Fanny said nothing. Why should she? She was not Mr. Ingram’s keeper.

And then they all descended, each again with his proper number of Arabs to hurry and embarrass him; and they found Mrs. Damer at the bottom, like a piece of sugar covered with flies. She was heard to declare afterwards that she would not go to the Pyramids again, not if they were to be given to her for herself, as ornaments for her garden.