Part 6 (2/2)

Only it was not the schooner Hesperus, and she did not sail the wintry sea. It was the stern-wheeled tub Amenhotep, which churned her way up and down the Nile, sc.r.a.ping over sand banks, b.u.t.ting the sh.o.r.es with gaiety embarra.s.sing--for it was the time of cholera, just before the annual rise of the Nile. Fielding Bey, the skipper, had not taken his little daughter, for he had none; but he had taken little d.i.c.ky Donovan, who had been in at least three departments of the Government, with advantage to all.

d.i.c.ky was dining with Fielding at the Turf Club, when a telegram came saying that cholera had appeared at a certain village on the Nile.

Fielding had dreaded this, had tried to make preparation for it, had begged of the Government this reform and that--to no purpose. He knew that the saving of the country from an epidemic lay with his handful of Englishmen and the faithful native officials; but chiefly with the Englishmen. He was prepared only as a forlorn hope is prepared, with energy, with personal courage, with knowledge; and never were these more needed.

With the telegram in his hand, he thought of his few English a.s.sistants, and sighed; for the game they would play was the game of Hercules and Death over the body of Alcestis.

d.i.c.ky noted the sigh, read the telegram, drank another gla.s.s of claret, lighted a cigarette, drew his coffee to him, and said: ”The Khedive is away--I'm off duty; take me.”

Fielding looked surprised, yet with an eye of hope. If there was one man in Egypt who could do useful work in the business, it was little d.i.c.ky Donovan, who had a way with natives such as no man ever had in Egypt; who knew no fear of anything mortal; who was as tireless as a beaver, as keen-minded as a lynx is sharp-eyed. It was said to d.i.c.ky's discredit that he had no heart, but Fielding knew better. When d.i.c.ky offered himself now, Fielding said, almost feverishly: ”But, dear old D., you don't see--”

”Don't I?--Well, then,

”'What are the blessings of the sight?-- Oh, tell your poor blind boy!'”

What Fielding told him did not alter his intention, nor was it Fielding's wish that it should, though he felt it right to warn the little man what sort of thing was in store for them.

”As if I don't know, old lime-burner!” answered d.i.c.ky coolly.

In an hour they were on the Amenhotep, and in two hours they were on the way--a floating hospital--to the infected district of Kalamoun. There the troubles began. It wasn't the heat, and it wasn't the work, and it wasn't the everlasting care of the sick: it was the ceaseless hunt for the disease-stricken, the still, tireless opposition of the natives, the remorseless deception, the hopeless struggle against the covert odds.

With nothing behind: no support from the Government, no adequate supplies, few capable men; and all the time the dead, inert, dust-powdered air; the offices of policeman, doctor, apothecary, even undertaker and gravedigger, to perform; and the endless weeks of it all. A handful of good men under two leaders of nerve, conscience and ability, to fight an invisible enemy, which, gaining headway, would destroy its scores of thousands!

At the end of the first two months Fielding Bey became hopeless.

”We can't throttle it,” he said to d.i.c.ky Donovan. ”They don't give us the ghost of a chance. To-day I found a dead-un hid in an oven under a heap of flour to be used for to-morrow's baking; I found another doubled up in a cupboard, and another under a pile of dourha which will be ground into flour.”

”With twenty ghaffirs I beat five cane and dourha fields this morning,”

said d.i.c.ky. ”Found three cases. They'd been taken out of the village during the night.”

”Bad ones?”

”So so. They'll be worse before they're better. That was my morning's flutter. This afternoon I found the huts these gentlemen call their homes. I knocked holes in the roofs per usual, burnt everything that wasn't wood, let in the light o' heaven, and splashed about limewash and perchloride. That's my day's tot-up. Any particular trouble?” he added, eyeing Fielding closely.

Fielding fretfully jerked his foot on the floor, and lighted his pipe, the first that day.

”Heaps. I've put the barber in prison, and given the sarraf twenty lashes for certifying that the death of the son of the Mamour was el aadah--the ordinary. It was one of the worst cases I've ever seen. He fell ill at ten and was dead at two, the permis d'inhumation was given at four, and the usual thing occurred: the bodywashers got the bedding and clothing, and the others the coverlet. G.o.d only knows who'll wear that clothing, who'll sleep in that bed!”

”If the Lord would only send them sense, we'd supply sublimate solution--douche and spray, and zinc for their little long boxes of bones,” mused d.i.c.ky, his eyes half shut, as he turned over in his hands some scarabs a place-hunting official had brought him that day. ”Well, that isn't all?” he added, with a quick upward glance and a quizzical smile. His eyes, however, as they fell on Fielding's, softened in a peculiar way, and a troubled look flashed through them; for Fielding's face was drawn and cold, though the eyes were feverish, and a bright spot burned on his high cheek-bones.

”No, it isn't all, d.i.c.ky. The devil's in the whole business. Steady, sullen opposition meets us at every hand. Norman's been here--rode over from Abdallah--twenty-five miles. A report's going through the native villages, started at Abdallah, that our sanitary agents are throwing yellow handkerchiefs in the faces of those they're going to isolate.”

”That's Hoskai Bey's yellow handkerchief. He's a good man, but he blows his nose too much, and blows it with a flourish.... Has Norman gone back?”

”No, I've made him lie down in my cabin. He says he can't sleep, says he can only work. He looks ten years older. Abdallah's an awful place, and it's a heavy district. The Mamour there's a scoundrel. He has influenced the whole district against Norman and our men. Norman--you know what an Alexander-Hannibal baby it is, all the head of him good for the best sort of work anywhere, all the fat heart of him dripping sentiment--gave a youngster a comfit the other day. By some infernal accident the child fell ill two days afterwards--it had been sucking its father's old shoe--and Norman just saved its life by the skin of his teeth. If the child had died, there'd have been a riot probably. As it is, there's talk that we're scattering poisoned sweetmeats to spread the disease.

He's done a plucky thing, though....” He paused. d.i.c.ky looked up inquiringly, and Fielding continued. ”There's a fellow called Mustapha Kali, a hanger-on of the Mudir of the province. He spread a report that this business was only a scare got up by us; that we poisoned the people and buried them alive. What does Norman do? He promptly arrests him, takes him to the Mudir, and says that the brute must be punished or he'll carry the matter to the Khedive.”

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