CHAPTER I

“Nell, do you know,” said Stasch Tarkowski to his friend, an English
girl, “that yesterday the Sabties (policemen) arrested the wife and
children of Overseer Smain—the same Fatima who often visited our
fathers’ offices?”

Little Nell, as pretty as a picture, looked up at Stasch (Stanislaus)
with her greenish eyes, and half astonished, half afraid, asked:

“Have they put them in prison?”

“No, but they would not allow them to travel to Sudan, and an officer
has been stationed to watch them so as to prevent their taking a step
outside of Port Said.”

“Why?”

Stasch, who was now fourteen years of age, was much attached to his
eight-year-old comrade. He regarded her merely as a child, and assuming
a very superior air answered:

“When you are as old as I am you will know everything—what is taking
place on the canal from Port Said to Suez, and all over Egypt.”

“Have you heard anything about the Mahdi? I’ve heard that he is ugly and
naughty.”

The boy smiled condescendingly. “I don’t know whether he is ugly or not.
The Sudanese think he is handsome; but to call a man who has killed so
many people ‘naughty’—that is a word only a little girl, with short
dresses reaching down to her knees, would use.”

“Papa told me so, and papa knows best.”

“He used that word in speaking to you because you would not have
understood anything else. He would not have used it in speaking to me.
The Mahdi is worse than a hundred crocodiles. Do you understand what I
say? The word ‘naughty’ is a good word to use when talking to little
children.”

But when he saw the troubled look on the child’s face he said: “Nell,
you know that I don’t want to vex you. The time is coming when you will
be fourteen, too.”

“Yes,” she answered, with an anxious expression. “What if the Mahdi
should take Port Said, and eat me?”

“The Mahdi is not a cannibal and therefore does not eat people; he
murders them instead. Besides, he will never take Port Said; even if he
did capture it, and were to try to kill you, he would have me to deal
with.”

This assertion he made in a snarling tone, which augured no good to the
Mahdi, but it had the effect of apparently quieting Nell on the subject.
“I know,” she answered, “that you would protect me. But why won’t they
allow Fatima to leave Port Said?”

“Because Fatima is the Mahdi’s cousin. Her husband told the Egyptian
Government at Cairo that he would travel to Sudan, where the Mahdi was
staying, for the purpose of freeing all the Europeans who had fallen
into his hands.”

“So Smain is good, then?”

“Listen! Our fathers, who knew Smain very well, had no confidence in
him, and they warned Nubar Pasha not to trust him. But the government
was willing to send Smain there, and he has been six months with the
Mahdi. Still, not only did the captives not return, but, according to
reports from Khartum, the Mahdists are treating them most cruelly; and
Smain, after having received money from the government, has turned
traitor. He commanded the artillery of the Mahdi in the dreadful battle
in which General Hicks fell, and he taught the Mahdists to use cannon,
of which these savages knew nothing before. But Smain is now making
every effort to get his wife and children out of Egypt. Fatima, who knew
beforehand what Smain was trying to do, is said to have attempted to
leave Port Said secretly, and that is why the government has imprisoned
her and her children.”

“What does the government want with Fatima and her children?”

“The government intends to say to the Mahdi: ‘If you return those of our
people you have taken prisoners, we will give up Fatima.’ ” After this
they stopped talking, for birds flying in the direction from Echtum
om-Farag toward Lake Menzaleh attracted Stasch’s attention. They flew
rather low down in the clear air, and many pelicans could be seen
stretching out their necks and slowly flapping their tremendous wings.
Stasch imitated their flight by raising his head very high, running
along the dam, and waving his outstretched arms.

“Look! The flamingoes also are flying!” Nell suddenly exclaimed.

Stasch stopped a moment, for just behind the pelicans, but hovering a
little higher in the air, might be seen two large objects, like red and
rose-colored flowers.

“Toward evening they fly to their home on the small island,” said the
boy. “Oh, if I only had a gun!”

“Why do you want to shoot them?”

“Women never understand such things, but let us go on; perhaps we shall
see some more of them.”

With those words he took the little girl by the hand, and they went
along the first canal path behind Port Said, followed by Dinah, a
negress, who was formerly little Nell’s nurse. They went along the
embankment that confines the waters of Lake Menzaleh, through which a
pilot had just taken an English steamer.

[Illustration: The sun soon set below the lake, whose salt water began
to glimmer like gold. ]

Evening was approaching. The sun was still rather high, but it soon set
below the lake, whose salt water began to glimmer like gold and assume
the shimmering hues of a peacock’s plume. On the Arabian shore, as far
as eye could see, stretched the gloomy, menacing, dead desert. Between
the glassy and motionless sky and the shoreless, furrowed stretch of
sand there was not a sign of any living creature. While the canal
presented a scene of great commercial activity—boats gliding past,
steamers whistling, and over the surface of Lake Menzaleh flocks of
sea-gulls and wild ducks glistening in the moonlight—on the Arabian
shore it was as desolate as a city of the dead. But the lower the sun
sank, the redder the west became; even the sand-dunes were tinted with
lilac color, resembling the heather found in the autumn woods of Poland.

Walking toward the landing, the children saw several more flamingoes,
and their eyes fairly danced with joy. Then Dinah said that Nell must go
home. In Egypt the days, which even in winter are very warm, are
followed by cold nights, and as Nell’s health required great care, Mr.
Rawlison, her father, did not allow the child to remain near the water
after sundown; so they returned to the Rawlison villa, at the extreme
end of the town, near the canal. Mr. Tarkowski, the father of Stasch,
had been invited to dine; he came in soon after, and then the whole
company, including the French woman, Mrs. Olivier, Nell’s governess, sat
down to dinner.

Mr. Rawlison, a director of the Suez Canal Company, and Vladislaw
Tarkowski, chief engineer of the same company, had been very intimate
for many years. Both were widowers. Mrs. Tarkowski, a French lady, had
died giving birth to Stasch thirteen years before. Nell’s mother had
died of consumption in Heluan when her little girl was three years old.
The two widowers lived close by each other, and their business in Port
Said brought them in daily contact. Their mutual sorrows also cemented
their old friendship. Mr. Rawlison loved Stasch as though he had been
his own son, and Mr. Tarkowski would have gone through fire and water
for little Nell. After their day’s work was done their greatest pleasure
was to talk about the education and the future of their children. While
they were conversing thus Mr. Rawlison would praise the capability,
energy, and precocity of Stasch, and Mr. Tarkowski express himself
enthusiastically about Nell’s charm and her little angel face.

Both were correct in their views. Stasch was somewhat conceited and
boastful, but quick in his studies, and the teachers of the English
school in Port Said prophesied a great future for him. He had inherited
aptitude and courage from his father, for Mr. Tarkowski possessed these
qualities in a marked degree, and to them he owed his present high
position. He had taken an active part in the Polish revolution for
eleven months, then, being wounded and taken prisoner, he was banished
to Siberia, from which he escaped and fled to a foreign country.

Before joining the insurrectionists he was graduated as an engineer. A
year after his escape he spent all his time studying hydraulics; then he
obtained a position on the canal, and after several years, when his
thorough knowledge, energy, and industry had become known, he was
promoted to the position of chief engineer.

Stasch was born at Port Said, on the banks of the canal, was brought up
there, and had now attained his fourteenth year. For this reason the
engineers and his father’s colleague called him “The Child of the
Desert.” Later, in his school life, at vacation time, he often
accompanied his father and Mr. Rawlison when they went on short business
trips from Port Said to Suez, which they were obliged to do in order to
superintend the workmen on the dam and to direct the excavation of the
canal bed. He knew all the engineers and the custom-house officers, as
well as the workmen, the Arabs, and the negroes.

He went everywhere, even where no one would think of looking for him; he
made long excursions on the embankments, rowed his small boat on Lake
Menzaleh, and often wandered far away. He would row across to the
Arabian shore and catch a horse, or not finding one, he would take a
camel, or even a donkey, to aid him in playing the fakir in the desert.
In a word, as Mr. Tarkowski would say, he ferreted into everything, and
every moment he had free from his studies he spent on the water. His
father did not remonstrate with him, for he knew that rowing, riding,
and outdoor life would make the boy more robust and develop his
energies. Stasch was taller and stronger than most boys of his age. One
glance at his eyes was enough to convince any one that he was more
courageous than cowardly.

In his fourteenth year he was the best swimmer in Port Said, which is
saying a great deal, for the Arabs and the negroes swim like fish. In
shooting wild ducks and Egyptian geese with his small gun he had
acquired a steady hand and a true eye.

His ambition was to shoot big game in Central Africa, and he listened
eagerly to the tales told by the Sudanese working on the canal, who
hunted wild beasts in their native country. This intermingling with the
Sudanese gave him the advantage of learning their languages.

The Suez Canal had not only to be dug, but also to be constantly
watched; otherwise the sand on either shore would fill it up within a
year. Lesseps’ great work demands continual vigilance and care, and
therefore powerful machines and thousands of men under the supervision
of skilful engineers are still laboring daily, deepening its bed.

In excavating the canal twenty-five thousand workmen were employed, but
now that it is completed and machinery is so much improved, fewer men
are necessary. There are, however, a considerable number still employed,
chiefly natives, including Nubians, Sudanese, Somalis, and negroes of
different tribes living on the White and Blue Nile, over whom the
Egyptian Government had ruled before the revolt of the Mahdi. Stasch
lived on friendly terms with all of them, and, as is usually the case
with the Poles, he had a great gift for languages; thus he had picked up
many of their dialects without knowing when and where. Born in Egypt, he
spoke Arabian like an Arab. From the natives of Zanzibar, who served as
firemen on the engines, he had learned the language which is spoken
throughout the greater part of Africa—the Ki-swahili dialect—and he
could make himself understood by the negroes of the Dinka and Schilluk
tribes, who inhabit the upper half of Fashoda, on the Nile. He also
spoke English, French, and Polish fluently; his father, an ardent
patriot, had taken great care that his boy should be familiar with his
own tongue. Stasch also considered this the most beautiful of all
languages, and he was successful in teaching it to little Nell. But he
was never able to make her pronounce his name correctly. She would
always say “Stes” instead of Stasch, and this often caused a
misunderstanding, which only lasted until the little girl’s eyes filled
with tears, then “Stes” would ask her forgiveness, and was usually very
angry with himself. But he had a disagreeable habit of referring
disdainfully to her eight years, and of contrasting his age and
experience with her youth. He asserted that a boy who had completed his
thirteenth year, even if he were not entirely grown up, was at least no
longer a child, that he was capable of accomplishing all kinds of heroic
exploits, especially if he had Polish and French blood in his veins, and
that he ardently wished for an opportunity to do such deeds, especially
in Nell’s defense. Both children imagined all sorts of dangers, and
Stasch always knew how to meet her difficulties. For instance, what he
would do were a crocodile a dozen yards long, or a scorpion as large as
a dog, to creep into the house through the window. Neither of them had
the least idea that the terrible reality was soon to exceed their most
fantastic conjectures.