by Oliver Optic
CHAPTER XXIII
THE MYSTERIOUS ARAB IN A NEW SUIT
The cabin party of the Guardian-Mother were on the promenade in time toobserve the entrance into Lake Timsah. It is near the seventy-fivekilometre post from Port Said, or half way through the canal to the headof the Gulf of Suez, the most northern portion of the Red Sea. The cityof Suez is several miles to the south-west of this point; for Lesseps,for some reason said to be political, avoided the old town, and carriedthe canal to the other side of the inlet, and below it.
Lake Timsah has an area of about six square miles. It is not a deep bodyof water, and the canal had to be built through it as through LakeMenzaleh. Its water is now of a pale blue, very pretty to look at.Before any work was done here, it was a mere pond, filled with reeds;but it has been cleaned out and made more healthy for the surroundingcountry.
On its northern shore is the town of Ismailia, having about two thousandinhabitants, which has become a place of some importance. The railroadfrom Cairo is extended to it by a branch, the main line following thecanal to Suez. It has a couple of hotels; and its principal square, onwhich the best one is situated, has the name of Place Champollion,showing that the French remember their learned men.
While the canal was in process of construction, Ismailia was the centreof operations. It was handsomely laid out, not unlike the city ofWashington, which is one of the handsomest in the world; but, like thenew places in our great West, it was built in a hurry, under thepressure of a drive of business, and the sanitary conditions wereneglected. The important fresh-water canal, which is near the railroadall the way from the Nile, furnishes the only drinking-water of thistown and of Suez; but the sewers of the new town had no other outlet.
Of course the town was soon invaded by fever, which caused it to bedeserted; and it has never recovered its former prosperity, though notwholly for this reason, for the completion of the canal destroyed itsbusiness basis. Ismailia was the focal point of the great ceremonials atthe opening of the canal. The Empress Eugenie of France, the EmperorFrederick of Germany, then crown-prince, and other noted persons, werepresent; and the celebration is said to have cost the Khedive twentymillion dollars.
The town has improved somewhat of late; the viceroy's chateau, which hadbecome much dilapidated, has been restored, and portions of the desert,irrigated from the canal, have been transformed into fine gardens.Though the climate is agreeable and the air dry, it is not likely tobecome a pleasure resort. A couple of small steamers run from this portto Port Said, while the railroad connects it with Suez.
The steamer remained a couple of hours at the station, as did the Ophir;and the commander obtained permission for the ladies to pay her a visit.She is a magnificent specimen of naval architecture. Her saloon,staterooms, drawing-room on the upper deck, were magnificent apartments,most luxuriously furnished. Her appointments for second-class passengerswere extensive and very comfortable, far better than on many Atlanticsteamers.
The ubiquitous donkey, and especially the donkey-boy, were here; and the"Big Four," with the exception of Louis Belgrave, who attended MissBlanche on the visit to the Ophir, accompanied by Don, went on a frolicto the town. They made a great noise and waked up the place, but theycommitted no excesses. When they returned to the ship, they found Louisand Miss Blanche showing the captain and the surgeon of the big steamerover the Guardian-Mother. The beautiful young lady had evidentlyfascinated them, and they had been extremely polite to the party,perhaps on her account. They appeared to be interested in thesteam-yacht, and expressed their belief that nothing more comfortableand elegant floated.
The steamers got under way again, and proceeded through one of the twochannels through the blue lake. The ladies waved their handkerchiefs tothe officers and passengers of the Ophir; and their greetings wereheartily reciprocated, for the American party had plainly made animpression upon the English people, partly perhaps by the style in whichthey travelled, but probably more by the beauty of the ladies, with MissBlanche as princess, and the others were under forty and stillgood-looking. The lake is only five miles long, and the steamers soonpassed into the cut at the south of it.
"Along this region many ruins have been found, some of them of Persianstructures," said the commander after the ship had left the lake."Pharaoh-Necho, 600 B.C., built a canal from Suez to Lake Timsah, withgates, which Herodotus describes, and informs us that the vessels of theperiod went through it in four days."
"I wish you would tell us something about Herodotus, Captain, for hisname has been frequently mentioned in Egypt," said Mrs. Woolridge.
"And about Diodorus and Strabo, also mentioned in the lectures," addedthe magnate. "I have forgotten all that I ever knew about thesegentlemen."
"I am in the same boat, Captain," the doctor responded.
"I shall leave those subjects to the professor. But we are approachingsome objects of interest, and we will defer the matter to another time,"replied the commander. "Do you see a white dome on the starboard? Thatis the tomb of Shekh Ennedek; and it is rather a picturesque affair herein the midst of the desert."
"Was he a fighting character?" asked Mrs. Belgrave.
"Not at all; far from it. He was a wealthy Arab chief. He made thepilgrimage to Mecca, which is the duty of every faithful Mohammedan; andhe seems to have been greatly impressed by it, for he gave his cattleand his lands to the poor, and spent the rest of his life on thegreenish territory we have just passed through, in religiousmeditation."
"He was a good man if he was a Mohammedan," added the lady.
"We don't believe that all the good people in the world belong to ourchurch," added the captain. "Do you all remember who Miriam was?"
More than half the party could not remember.
"She was the sister of Moses; and she first appears, doubtless as ayoung girl, watching the Nile-cradle of her infant brother. The landnext south of Lake Timsah, made green by the water, is called GebelMaryam, probably after the sister of Moses. She was a prophetess; butshe found fault with the marriage of her brother, for which she wasafflicted with Egyptian leprosy. As you find it in the Bible (Numbersxii.), Moses asked the Lord: 'Let her be shut out of the camp sevendays, and after that let her be received in again. And Miriam was shutout from the camp seven days.' An Arab legend points out this spot asthe place where she spent that time, and from which it gets the name ofMaryam."
"That's nice, Captain Ringgold!" exclaimed Mrs. Blossom. "I wish youwould tell us more Bible stories."
"Some people believe that the Mediterranean and the Red Seas wereconnected in some remote age of the world, or at least that the latterextended to the north as far as Lake Timsah," continued the commander,without noticing the suggestion of the amiable lady. "In proof of thissupposition, certain shells found in the Mediterranean, but not in theRed Sea, have been thrown up in digging for the canal through LakeTimsah.
"We are approaching what is called the Serapeum," said the captain.
"What! more of them here? I thought we had used up all the Serapeums,"said the magnate with a laugh.
"The present one is of a different sort," answered the commander. "Butthe ruins found in this vicinity were supposed to belong to a Serapeumsuch as several we have seen on the Nile; but Lepsius says they couldnot have been a part of a temple to Serapis, but were monuments built onthe ancient canal by Darius.
"It is high ground here, comparatively speaking; and you observe thatthe cutting of the water-way is through a rocky formation, with ratherhigh banks on each side. There is quite a little village above; and, asit is getting dark, we shall pass the night here in the siding-basin."
"Who is that man on the forecastle of the Maud?" asked Captain Scott asthe little steamer came into the basin.
"I don't know," replied Captain Ringgold. "I had not noticed him before.He looks like an Arab, though he is taller than most of them."
A flight of steps ascended to the top of the embankment at the stationof the little town. The Maud passed close to them on her way to herberth for
the night. Abreast of them the Arab on the forecastle leapedashore, but made a gesture as though the movement had given him pain. Hewent up the steps and disappeared.
"Who was that man, Knott?" asked the captain when the seaman came onboard of the ship.
"I don't know, sir; I called upon him to give an account of himself aswe were crossing Lake Timsah; but he could not understand me, pointed tohis mouth, and shook his head, meaning that he could not speak English.He did not do any harm, so I let him alone; for Don was running theengine, and I did not like to call him from his duty. He kept his facecovered up with a sort of veil, and would not say anything. I thought Iwould let him alone till we came to a stopping-place, and I could reportto you."
"When did he go on board of the Maud?" asked the captain.
"I don't know, sir. The first time I saw him was on the lake. Spinnerhad the wheel, Don was in the engine-room, and the rest of the ship'scompany were on the upper deck looking at the sights. I inquired, butno one had seen him."
"Did you ever see him before?"
"I don't think I ever did, sir. He had on what looked like a new suit ofArab togs, and he kept his face covered up, as I said."
If Captain Ringgold was not troubled, he was perplexed. He had observedthe stranger distinctly as he went up the steps, but he could notidentify him as a person he had ever seen before. Of course it came intohis head at once that the tall Arab was Captain Mazagan, and he said asmuch to Scott.
"We left him at the hotel at Port Said; how could he be here?" asked thecaptain of the Maud.
"He must have smuggled himself on board of the little steamer when wewere at Ismailia; for he was first seen out in the lake."
"How could he have been at Ismailia?" Scott inquired.
The commander went to his cabin, and looked over his "Bradshaw," inwhich he found that a steamer left Port Said at seven o'clock everymorning, and arrived at Ismailia at noon. It was possible that Mazaganhad come by this conveyance; and he gave Scott the information.
"Probably he stopped at the station while we were on board of the Ophir,or your party had gone to the town," said the commander. "It was easyenough for him to stow himself away in the cabin of the Maud while noone but Philip was on board of her."
"I supposed we had got to the end of the pirate when I saw him trottedon shore to the hotel," added Scott.
"So did I, though he made some huge but very indefinite threats when Isaw him last," mused the commander. "But why did he go on board of theMaud, when he could have gone to Suez by the railroad?"
"I don't see," replied Scott. "He is a Moor, and must be as revengefulas his 'noble master,' as he calls him. It was the Maud that did hisbusiness for him, and I was at the wheel of her when she smashed intothe side of the Fatime. I only hope his grudge is against me and notagainst Louis Belgrave."
"You mention the idea I had in my mind when I asked why he went on boardof the Maud, Captain Scott," said the commander. "Perhaps it is a luckychance that I sent for the 'Big Four' so that they might hear all thatwas said about the scenes through which we were passing."
"You mean that it may have been a lucky chance for Louis or for me; butI believe it is a luckier chance for the pirate, for I think I shouldhave thrown him overboard if I had seen him on our deck," said Scott.
"Then there would probably have been a fight on board of the Maud, andwork made for our surgeon in your party. It may have been lucky for allthat you were called on board of the ship. But we must take care thathe does not resume his voyage in the morning with us."
Captain Ringgold took all necessary precautions. A watch was kept onboard of both vessels; and when they started on the remainder of thetrip through the canal in the morning, nothing had been seen or heard ofMazagan. It was agreed that nothing had better be said about the matter;and when the cabin party, with the "Big Four," gathered on the promenadeat five o'clock in the morning, not one of them, except the big and thelittle captain, suspected that an enemy was near, if the stranger reallywas Mazagan, of which they could not be sure.
