Donovan Pasha and Some People of Egypt | Page 4

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