Through the Desert

“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.”