FullReads

“Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman’s woe!”

But it was not Dicky who saved Fielding. On the third day the long-deferred riot broke out. The Copt and the Arab had spread the report that Fielding brought death to the villages by moving the little flags on his map. The populace rose.

Fielding was busy with the map at the dreaded moment that hundreds of the villagers appeared upon the bank and rushed the Amenhotep. Fielding and Dicky were both armed, but Fielding would not fire until he saw that his own crew had joined the rioters on the bank. Then, amid a shower of missiles, he shot the Arab who had first spread the report about the map and the flags.

Now Dicky and he were joined by Holgate, the Yorkshire engineer of the Amenhotep, and together the three tried to hold the boat. Every native had left them. They were obliged to retreat aft to the deckcabin. Placing their backs against it, they prepared to die hard. No one could reach them from behind, at least.

It was an unequal fight. All three had received slight wounds, but the blood-letting did them all good. Fielding was once more himself; nervous anxiety, unrest, had gone from him. He was as cool as a cucumber. He would not go shipwreck now “on the reef of Norman’s woe.” Here was a better sort of death. No men ever faced it with quieter minds than did the three. Every instant brought it nearer.

All at once there was a cry and a stampede in the rear of the attacking natives. The crowd suddenly parted like two waves, and retreated; and Mustapha Kali, almost naked, and supported by a stolid Soudanese, stood before the three. He was pallid, his hands and brow were dripping sweat, and there was a look of death in his eyes.

“I have cholera, effendi!” he cried. “Take me to Abdallah to die, that I may be buried with my people and from mine own house.”

“Is it not poison?” asked Fielding grimly, yet seeing now a ray of hope in the sickening business.

“It is cholera, effendi. Take me home to die.”

“Very well. Tell the people so, and I will take you home, and I will bury you with your fathers,” said Fielding.

Mustapha Kali turned slowly. “I am sick of cholera,” he said as loudly as he could to the awe-stricken crowd. “May God not cool my resting-place if it be not so!”

“Tell the people to go to their homes and obey us,” said Dicky, putting away his pistol.

“These be good men, I have seen with mine own eyes,” said Mustapha hoarsely to the crowd. “It is for your good they do all. Have I not seen? Let God fill both my hands with dust if it be not so! God hath stricken me, and behold I give myself into the hands of the Inglesi, for I believe!”

He would have fallen to the ground, but Dicky and the Soudanese caught him and carried him down to the bank, while the crowd scuttled from the boat, and Fielding made ready to bear the dying man to Abdallah–a race against death.

Fielding brought Mustapha Kali to Abdallah in time to die there, and buried him with his fathers; and Dicky stayed behind to cleanse Kalamoun with perchloride and limewash.

The story went abroad and travelled fast, and the words of Mustapha Kali, oft repeated, became as the speech of a holy man; and the people no longer hid their dead, but brought them to the Amenhotep.

This was the beginning of better things; the disease was stayed.

And for all the things that these men did–Fielding Bey and Donovan Pasha–they got naught but an Egyptian ribbon to wear on the breast and a laboured censure from the Administration for overrunning the budget allowance.

Dicky, however, seemed satisfied, for Fielding’s little barque of life had not gone down “On the reef of Norman’s woe.” Mrs. Henshaw felt so also when she was told all, and she disconcerted Dicky by bursting into tears.