 CHAPTER 1 OF THE TRAGEDY OF THE CORROSCO This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Lars Rolander. THE TRAGEDY OF THE CORROSCO by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle CHAPTER 1 The public may possibly wonder why it is that they have never heard in the papers of the fate of the passengers of the Corrosco. In these days of universal press agencies responsive to the slightest stimulus, it may well seem incredible that an international incident of such importance should remain so long uncronicaled. Suffice it that there were very valid reasons both of a personal and of a political nature for holding it back. The facts were well known to a good number of people at the time, and some version of them did actually appear in a provincial paper, but was generally discredited. They have now been thrown into narrative form, the incidents having been collated from the sworn statements of Colonel Cochrane Cochrane of the Army and Navy Club, and from the letters of Miss Adams of Boston, Massachusetts. These have been supplemented by the evidence of Captain Archer of the Egyptian Camel Corps, as given before the secret government inquiry at Cairo. Mr James Stevens has refused to put his version of the matter into writing. But as these proofs have been submitted to him, and no correction or deletion has been made in them, it may be supposed that he has not succeeded in detecting any grave misstatement of fact, and that any objection which he may have to their publication depends rather upon private and personal scruples. The Corosco, a turtle-bottomed round-bought stern-wheeler with a 13-inch draft and the lines of a flat iron, started upon the 13th of February in the year 1895 from Shellal at the head of the first cataract, bound for Wadi-Halfa. I have a passenger card for the trip which I here reproduce. SW Corosco, February 13, Passengers Colonel Cochrane Cochrane London Mr Cecil Brown London John H. Headingley, Boston, USA Miss Adams, Boston, USA Miss S. Adams, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA Mr Fardé, Paris Mr and Mrs Belmont, Dublin James Stevens, Manchester Reverend John Stewart, Birmingham Mrs Schlesinger, Nurse and Child, Florence This was the party as it started from Shellal, with the intention of traveling up the 200 miles of Nubia Nile, which lie between the first and the second cataract. It is a singular country, this Nubia, varying in breadth from a few miles to as many yards, for the name is only applied to the narrow portion, which is capable of cultivation. It extends in a thin green-parned fringe strip upon either side of the broad coffee-colored river. Beyond it, there are stretches on the Libyan bank, a savage and illimitable desert, extending to the whole breadth of Africa. On the other side, unequally desolate wilderness is bounded only by the distant Red Sea. Between these two huge and barren expanses, Nubia rithes like a green sandworm along the course of the river. Here and there it disappears altogether, and the Nile runs between black and sun-cracked hills, with the orange-drift sand lying like glaciers in their valleys. Everywhere one sees traces of vanished races and submerged civilizations. Protest graves dot the hills, or stand up against the skyline, pyramidal graves, tumulus graves, rock graves, everywhere graves. And occasionally, as the boat rounds a rocky point, one sees a deserted city up above, houses, walls, battlements, with the sun shining through the empty window squares. Sometimes you learn that it has been Roman, sometimes Egyptian. Sometimes all record of its name and origin has been absolutely lost. You ask yourself in amazement why any race should build in so uncouth a solitude, and you find it difficult to accept the theory that this has only been of value as a guardhouse to the richer country down below, and that these frequent cities have been so many fortresses to hold off the wild and predatory men of the south. But whatever be their explanation, be it a fierce neighbor, or be it a climatic change, there they stand, these grim and silent cities, and up on the hills you can see the graves of their people, like the portals of a man of war. It is through this weird dead country that the tourists smoke and gossip and flirt as they pass up to the Egyptian frontier. The passengers of the Kurosko formed a merry party, for most of them had travelled up together from Cairo to Aswan, and even Anglo-Saxon ice thaws rapidly upon the Nile. They were fortunate in being without the single disagreeable person who, in these small boats, is sufficient to mar the enjoyment of the whole party. On a vessel which is little more than a large steam launch, the boar, the cynic, or the grumbler holds the company at his mercy. But the Kurosko was free from anything of the kind. Colonel Cochrane Cochrane was one of those officers whom the British government, acting upon a large system of averages, declares at a certain age to be incapable of further service, and who demonstrate the worth of such a system by spending their declining years in exploring Morocco, or shooting lions in Somaliland. He was a dark, straight, aquiline man, with a cautiously differential manner, but a steady, questioning eye, very neat in his dress and precise in his habits, a gentleman to the tips of his trim fingernails. In his Anglo-Saxon dislike to effusiveness, he had cultivated a self-contained manner, which was apt at first acquaintance to be repellent, and he seemed to those who really knew him to be at some pains to conceal the kind heart and human emotions which influenced his actions. It was respect rather than affection which he inspired among his fellow travelers, for they felt like all who had ever met him, that he was a man with whom acquaintance was unlikely to ripen into a friendship, though a friendship, when once attained, would be an unchanging and inseparable part of himself. He wore a grizzled military moustache, but his hair was singularly black for a man of his seers. He made no allusion in his conversation to the numerous campaigns in which he had distinguished himself, and the reason usually given for his reticence was that they dated back to such early Victorian days that he had to sacrifice his military glory at the shrine of his perennial youth. Mr Cecil Brown, to take the name in the chance order in which they appear on the passenger list, was a young diplomatist from a continental embassy, a man slightly tainted with the Oxford manner, and erring upon the side of unnatural and inhuman refinement, but full of interesting talk and cultured thought. He had a sad, handsome face, a small, wax-stipped moustache, a low voice and a listless manner, which was relieved by a charming habit of suddenly lightening up into rapid smile and gleam, when anything caught his fancy. An acquired cynicism was eternally crushing and overlying his natural youthful enthusiasts, and he ignored what was obvious while expressing keen appreciation for what seemed to the average man to be either trivial or unhealthy. He chose Walter Potter for his travelling author, and sat all day, reserved but affable under the awning, with his novel and his sketchbook upon a campstool beside him. His personal dignity prevented him from making advances to others, but if they choose to address him, they found a courteous and amiable companion. The Americans formed a group by themselves. John H. Headingley was a New Englander. A graduate of Harvard was completing his education by a tour round the world. He stood for the best type of young American, quick, observant, serious, eager for knowledge and fairly free from prejudice, with a fine balance of unsectarian but earnest religious feeling, which held him steady amid all the sudden gusts of youth. He had less of the appearance and more of the reality of culture than the young Oxford diplomatist, for he had keener emotions, though less exact knowledge. Miss Adams and Miss Sadie Adams were aunt and niece, the former, a little energetic, hard-featured Bostonian old maid, with a huge surplus of unused love behind her stern and swathe features. She had never been from home before, and she was now busy upon the self-imposed task of bringing the East up to the standard of Massachusetts. She had hardly landed in Egypt before she realized that the country needed putting to rights, and since the conviction struck her, she had been very fully occupied. The saddle-gulled donkeys, the star-paria dogs, the flies round the eyes of the babies, the naked children, the impotuned beggars, the ragged, untidy women, they were all challenges to her conscience, and she plunged in bravely at her work of reformation. As she could not speak a word of the language, however, and was unable to make any of the delinquents understand what it was that she wanted, the passage up the Nile left the immemorial East very much as she had found it, but afforded a good deal of sympathetic amusement to her fellow travelers. No one enjoyed her efforts more than her niece, Sadie, who shared with Mrs. Belmont the distinction of being the most popular person upon the boat. She was very young, fresh from Smith College, and she still possessed many, both of the virtues and of the faults of a child. She had the frankness, the trusting confidence, the innocent straightforwardness, the high spirits, and also the locustity and the want of reverence. But even her faults caused amusement, and if she had preserved many of the characteristics of a clever child, she was nonetheless a tall and handsome woman who looked older than her years on account of that low curb of the hair over the ears, and that fullness of bodies and skirt which Mr. Gibson has either initiated or imitated. The whisk of those skirts and the frank, insistive voice and pleasant, catching laugh were familiar and welcome sounds on board of the Kurosko. Even the rigid colonel softened into geniality, and the Oxford bread diplomatists forgot to be unnatural with Miss Sadie Adams as a companion. The other passengers may be dismissed more briefly. Some were interesting, some neutral, and all amiable. Monsieur Fardy was a good-natured but argumentative Frenchman who held the most decided views as to the deep machinations of Great Britain and the illegality of her position in Egypt. Mr. Belmont was an iron-gray, sturdy Irishman, famous as an astonishing good long-range rifle shop who had carried off nearly every price which Wimbledon or Bisley had to offer. With him was his wife a very charming and refined woman, full of the pleasant playfulness of her country. Mrs. Schlesinger was a middle-aged widow, quiet and soothing, with her thoughts all taken up by her six-year-old child as a mother's thoughts are likely to be in a boat which has an open rail for a bulwark. The Reverend John Stewart was a non-conformist minister from Birmingham, either a Presbyterian or a congressionalist, a man of immense stoutness, slow and torpid in his ways, but blessed with a considerable fund of homely humor, which made him, I am told, a very favorite preacher and an effective speaker from advanced radical platforms. Finally there was Mr. James Stevens, a Manchester solicitor, junior parter of Hickson, Ward and Stevens, who was travelling to shake off the effects of an attack of influenza. Stevens was a man who, in the course of thirty years, had worked himself up from cleaning the firm's windows to managing its business. For most of that long time he had been absolutely immersed in dry technical work living with the one idea of satisfying old clients and attracting new ones until his mind and soul had become as formal and precise as the laws which he expounded. A fine and sensitive nature was in danger of being as warped as a busy city man's is liable to become. His work had become an ingrained habit, and being a bachelor he had hardly an interest in life to draw him away from it, so that his soul was being gradually bricked up like the body of a medieval numb. But at last there came this kindly illness, and nature hustled him Stevens out of his groove and sent him into the broad world far away from roaring Manchester and his shelves full of calfskin authorities. At first he resented it deeply, everything seemed trivial to him compared to his own pity routine. But gradually his eyes were opened, and he began dimly to see that it was his work which was trivial when compared to this wonderful varied inexplicable world of which he was so ignorant. Vaguely he realized that the interruption to his career might be more important than the career itself. All sorts of new interests took possession of him, and the middle-aged lawyer developed an afterglow of that youth which had been wasted among his books. His character was too formed to admit of his being anything but dry and precise in his ways and a trifle pedantic in his mode of speech. But he read and thought and observed, scoring his pedicure with underlinings and annotations as he had once done his pre-dors commentaries. He had traveled up from Cairo with a party, and had contracted a friendship with Miss Adams and her niece. The young American girl with her chatter, her audacity and her constant flow of high spirits amused and interested him, and she in turn felt a mixture of respect and of pity for his knowledge and his limitations. So they became good friends, and people smiled to see his clouded face and her sunny one bending over the same guidebook. The little corosco puffed and splattered her way up the river, kicking up the white water behind her, and making more noise and fuss over her five knots an hour than an Atlantic liner on a record voyage. On deck under the thick awning sat her little family of passengers, and every few hours she eased down and sidled up to the bank to allow them to visit one more of that innumerable succession of temples. The remains, however, grew more modern as one ascends from Cairo, and travelers who have seated themselves at Gise and Sakara with the contemplation of the very oldest buildings, which the hands of man have constructed, becoming patient of temples which are hardly older than the Christian era. Ruins which would be gazed upon with wonder and veneration in any other country are hardly noticed in Egypt. The tourists viewed with languid interest the half-creek art of the Nubian past reliefs. They climbed the hill of corosco to see the sunrise over the savage eastern desert. They were moved to wonder by the great shrine of Abu Simbun, where some old race has hollowed out a mountain as if it were a cheese. And finally upon the evening of the fourth day of their travels they arrived at Wadi Halfa, the frontier garrison town, some few hours after they were due, on account of a small mishap in the engine room. The next morning was to be devoted to an expedition to the famous rock of Abu Sir, from which a great view may be obtained of the second cataract. At 8.30 as the passengers sat on deck after dinner, Mansour, the dragaman half-copped half-syrian, came forward according to the nightly custom to announce the programme for the morrow. Ladies and gentlemen, said he, plunging boldly into the rapid but broken stream of his English. Tomorrow you will remember not to forget to rise when the gong strikes you for to compress the journey before twelve o'clock. Having arrived at the place where the donkeys expect us we shall ride five miles over the desert passing a temple of Amun Ra which dates itself from the eighteenth dynasty upon the way and so reach the celebrated pulpit rock of Abu Sir. The pulpit rock is supposed to have been called so because it is a rock like a pulpit. When you have reached it you will know that you are on the very edge of civilization and that very little morrow will take you into the country of the dervishes which will be obvious to you at the top. Having passed the summit you will perceive the full extremity of the second cataract embracing wild natural beauties of the most dreadful variety. Here all very famous people have carved their names and so you will carve your names also. Mansour waited expectantly for a titter and bowed to it when it arrived. You will then return to Wadi Halfa and there remain two others to suspect the camel corpse including the grooming of the beast and the bazaar before returning so I wish you a very happy good night. There was a gleam of his white teeth in the lamp light and then his long dark petticoats his short English cover coat and his red tarbush vanished successively down the ladder. The low bus of conversation which had been suspended by his coming broke out anew. I am relying on you Mr. Stevens to tell me all about Abusir, said Miss Sadie Adams. I do like to know what I am looking at right there at the time and not six hours afterwards in my stateroom. I haven't got Abus symbol and the wall picture straight in my mind yet though I saw them yesterday. I never hope to keep up with it said around when I am safe back in Commonwealth Avenue and there is no dragamon to hustle me around. I'll have time to read about it all and then I expect I shall begin to enthuse and want to come right back again. But it's just too good of you Mr. Stevens to try and keep us informed. I thought that you might wish precise information and so I prepared a small digest of the matter said Stevens handing a slip of paper to Miss Sadie. She looked at it in the light of the deck lamp and broke into her low hearty laugh. Pre Abusir, she read. Now what do you mean by re Mr. Stevens? You put re re Mrs. the second on the last paper you gave me. It's a habit I have acquired Miss Sadie, said Stevens. It is the custom in the legal profession when they make a memo. Make what Mr. Stevens? A memo. A memorandum you know. We put re so and so to show what it is about. I suppose it is a good short way, said Miss Sadie, but it feels queer somehow when applied to scenery or to dead Egyptian kings. Re Keeops doesn't that strike you as funny? No, I can't say that it does, said Stevens. I wonder if it is true that the English have less humor than the Americans or whether it's just another kind of humor said the girl. She had a quiet, abstracted way of talking as if she were thinking aloud. I used to imagine they had less, and yet when you come to think of it, Dickens and Thackeray and Barry and so many other of the humorists we admire most are Britishers. Besides, I never in all my days heard people laugh so hard as in that London theatre. There was a man behind us and every time he laughed, Auntie looked round to see if a door had opened. He made such a draught, but you have some funny expressions, Mr. Stevens. What else strikes you as funny, Miss Sadie? Well, when you sent me the temple ticket and the little map, you began your letter enclosed, please find, and then at the bottom in brackets you had to enclo. That is the usual form in business. Yes, in business, said Sadie Jimourney, and there was a silence. There is one thing I wish, remarked Miss Adams in the hard metallic voice which she disguised her softness of heart, and that is that I could see the legislator of this country and lay a few cold-drawn facts in front of them. I'd make a platform on my own, Mr. Stevens, and run a party on my ticket, a bill for the compulsory use of eye-wash would be one of my planks, and another would be for the abolition of those jash-muck-wale things which turn a woman into a bale of cotton goods with a pair of eyes looking out of it. I never could think why they wore them, said Sadie, until one day I saw one with her bale lifted. Then I knew. They make me tired, though, swimming, cried Miss Adams wrathfully. One might as well try to preach duty in decency and cleanliness to a line of bolsters. Why, good land, it was only yesterday at Abba's symbol, Mr. Stevens. I was passing one of their houses if you can call a mud-pie like that a house, and I saw two of the children at the door with the usual crust of flies round their eyes and great holes in their poor little blue gowns. So I got off my donkey, and I turned up my sleeves, and I washed their faces well with my handkerchief and sewed up the wrens, for in this country I would soon think of going ashore without my needle-case as without my white umbrella. Mr. Stevens. Then, as I warmed on the job, I got into the room such a room, and I packed the forks out of it, and I fairly did the chores as if I had been the hired help. I've seen no more of that temple of Abba's symbol than if I had never left Boston, but my sakes I saw more dust and mess than you would think they could crowd into house the size of a new port bathing hut. From the time I pinned up my skirt until I came out with my face the color of that smokestack wasn't more than an hour, or maybe an hour and a half, but I had that house as clean and fresh as a new pinewood box. I had a New York Herald with me, and I lined their shelf with paper for them. Well, Mr. Stevens, when I had done washing my hands outside I came past the door again, and there were those two children sitting on the stoop with their eyes full of flies, and all just the same as ever, except that each had a little paper cap made out of the New York Herald upon his head. But, say, Sadie, it's going on to ten o'clock, and tomorrow an early excursion. It's just too beautiful this purple sky and the great silver stars, said Sadie. Look at the silent desert and the black shadows of the hills. It's grand, but it's terrible too, and then when you think that we really are, as that dragon said just now, on the very end of civilization, and with nothing but savagery and bloodshed down there where the Southern Cross is twinkling so prettily. Why? It's like standing on the beautiful edge of a live volcano. Shucks, Sadie, don't talk like that child, said the older woman nervously. It's enough to scare anyone to listen to you. Well, but don't you feel it yourself, Aunty? Look at that great desert stretching away and away until it is lost in the shadows. Hear the sad whisper of the wind across it. It's just the most solemn thing that ever I saw in my life. I'm glad we've found something that will make you solemn, my dear, said her aunt. I've sometimes thought, sakes a lie, what's that? From somewhere amongst the hills, shadows upon the other side of the river that had risen a high shrill, whimpering, rising and swelling to end in a long, wary wail. It's only a shackle, Miss Adams, said Stevens. I heard one of them when we went out to see the swings by moonlight. But the American lady had risen and her face showed that her nerves had been ruffled. If I had my time over again, I wouldn't have come past as one, said she. I can't think what possessed me to bring you all the way up here, Sadie. Your mother will think that I am clean, crazy, and I'd never dare to look her in the eye if anything went wrong with us. I've seen all I want to see of this river, and all I ask now is to be back at Cairo again. Why, auntie, cried the girl, it isn't like you to be faint-hearted. While I don't know how it is, Sadie, but I feel a bit unstrung and that beast-cater running over Donder was just more than I could put up with. There's one consolation we are scheduled to be on our way home tomorrow after we've seen this one rock or temple or whatever it is. I'm full up of rocks and temples, Mr. Stevens. I shouldn't mope if I never saw another. Come, Sadie, good night. Good night. Good night, Miss Adams. And the two ladies passed down to their cabins. Monsieur Fardy was chatting in a subdued voice with, headingly, the young Harvard graduate bending forward confidentially between the whiffs of his cigarette. Darvish's Mr. Headingly said he's speaking excellent English but separating his syllables as a Frenchman will. There are no Darvish's. They do not exist. I thought the woods were full of them, said the American. Monsieur Fardy glanced across to where the red core of Colonel Cochrane's cigar was glowing through the darkness. You are an American and you do not like the English, he whispered. It is perfectly comprehended upon the continent that the Americans are opposed to the English. Well, said Headingly, with his slow, deliberate manner, I won't say that we have not our tiffs and there are some of our people, mostly of Irish, who are always mad with England. But the most of us have a kindly thought for the mother country. You'll see they may be aggravating forks sometimes but after all they are our own fault and we can't wipe that off the sleight. Eh bien, said the Frenchman. At least I can say to you what I could not without offence say to these others and I repeat that there are no dervishes. They were an invention of Lord Cromer in the year 1885. You don't say, cried Headingly. It is well known in Paris and has been exposed in La Patrie and other of our so well-informed papers. Ha, this is colossal, said Headingly. Do you mean to tell me, Monsieur Fardy, that the Siege of Cartoum and the Death of Gordon and the rest of it was just one great bluff? I will not deny that there was an immute but it was local. You understand and now long forgotten since then there has been profound peace in the Sudan. But I have heard of race, Monsieur Fardy, and I've read of battles too when the Arabs tried to invade Egypt. It was only two days ago that we passed Toski where the dragoman said there had been a fight. Is that all bluff also? Ha, my friend, you do not know the English. You look at them as you see them with their pipes and their contended faces and you say, Now these are good simple folk who will never hurt anyone. But all the time they are thinking and watching and planning. Here is Egypt weak, they cry, Alans and down they swoop like a gull upon a crust. You have no right there, says the world. Come out of it. But England has already begun to tidy everything just like the good Miss Adams when she forces her way into the house of an Arab. Come out, says the world. Certainly, says England. Just wait one little minute until I have made everything nice and proper. So the world waits for a year or so and then it says once again. Come out. Just wait a little, says England. There is trouble at Khartoum and when I have said that all right I shall be very glad to come out. So they wait until it is all over and then again they say, Come out. How can I come out, says England, when there are still raids and battles going on? If we were to leave Egypt would be run over. But there are no raids, says the world. Oh, are there not, says England. And then within a week sure enough the papers are full of some new raid of dervishes. We are not all blind, Mr. Headingley. We understand very well how such things can be done. A few bedweens, a little back sheesh, some blank cartridges, and behold, a raid. Well, well, said the American, I'm glad to know the rights of this business for it has often puzzled me. But what does England get out of it? She gets the country, Monsieur. I see. You mean, for example, that there is a favourable tariff for British goods? No, Monsieur, it is the same for all. While then, she gives the contracts to Britishers? Precisely, Monsieur. For example, the raiders that they are building right through the country, the one that runs alongside the river, that would be a valuable contract for the British? Monsieur Fadi was an honest man, if an imaginative one. It is a French company, Monsieur, which holds the railway contract, said he. The American was puzzled. They don't seem to get much for their trouble, said he. Still, of course, there must be some indirect calls somewhere. For example, Egypt, no doubt has to pay and keep all those red coats in Cairo. Egypt, Monsieur, no, they are paid by England. While I suppose they know their own business best, but they seem to me to take a great deal of trouble and to get might a little in exchange. If they don't mind keeping order and guarding the frontier with a constant war against the Dervishes on their hands, I don't know why anyone should object. I suppose no one denies that the prosperity of the country has increased enormously since they came. The revenue returns show that. They tell me also that the poor folks have justice which they never had before. What are they doing here at all? cried the Frenchman angrily. Let them go back to their island. We cannot have them all over the world. Well, certainly to us Americans who live all in our own land, it does seem strange how you European nations are forever slopping over into some other country which was not meant for you. It's easy for us to talk, of course, for we have still got room and to spare for all our people. When we begin pushing each other over the edge we shall have to start annexing also. But at present, just here in the North Africa there is Italy in Abyssinia and England in Egypt and France in Al-Shia. France! cried Monsieur Fadi. Al-Shia belongs to France. You laugh, Monsieur. I have the honour to wish you a very good night. He rose from his seat and walked off, bridged with outraged patriotism to his cabin. End of chapter one read by Lars Rolander. Chapter two of the tragedy of the Corosco. This is a LibriVox recording. Our LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org reading by Lars Rolander. The tragedy of the Corosco by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Chapter two. The young American hesitated for a little debating in his mind whether he should not go down and post up the daily record of his impressions which he kept for his home staying sister. But the cigars of Colonel Cochrane and of Cecil Brown were still twinkling in the far corner of the deck and the student was acquisitive in the search of information. He did not quite know how to lead up to the matter but the Colonel very soon did it for him. Come on, headingly said he pushing a campstool in his direction. This is the place for an antidote. I see that Fardit has been pouring politics into your air. I can always recognize the confidential stoop of his shoulders when he discusses la haute politique, said the dandy diplomatist. But what a sacrilege upon a night like this. What an octurn in blue and silver might be suggested by that moon rising above the desert. There is a movement in one of Mendelssohn's songs which seems to embodied all a sense of vastness of repetition the cry of the wind over an interminable expanse the subtler emotions which cannot be translated into words are still to be hinted at by chords and harmonies. It seems wilder and more savage than ever tonight remarked the American. That gives me the same feeling of pitiless force that the Atlantic does upon a cold dark winter day. Perhaps it is the knowledge that we are right there on the very edge of any kind of law and order. How far do you suppose that we are from any dervish's Colonel Cochrane? Well, on the Arabian side, said the Colonel. We have the Egyptian fortified camp of Saras about forty miles to the south of us. That are sixty miles of very wild country before you would come down to the dervish post at Akashen. On this other side, however, there is nothing between us and them. Abu Sir is on this side, is it not? Yes, that is why the excursion to the Abu Sirok has been forbidden for the last year, but things are quieter now. What is to prevent them from coming down on that side? Absolutely nothing, said Cecil Brown in his listless voice. Nothing except their fears. The coming, of course, would be perfectly simple. The difficulty would lie in the return. They might find it hard to get back if their camels were spent and the half-eyed garrison with their beasts fresh-got on their track. They know it as well as we do and it has kept them from trying. It isn't safe to reckon upon a dervish's fears, remark Brown. We must always bear in mind that they are not amenable to the same motives as other people. Many of them are anxious to meet death and all of them are absolute uncompromising believers in destiny. They exist as a reductio ad absurdum of all bigotry, a proof of how surely it leads towards blank barbarism. You think these people are a real menace to Egypt? Ask the American. There seems from what I have heard to be some difference of opinion about it. Monsieur Fardy, for example, does not seem to think that the danger is a very pressing one. I am not a rich man, Colonel Cochrane answered after a little pause. But I am prepared to lay all I am worth that within three years of the British officers being withdrawn, the dervish's would be upon the Mediterranean. Where would the civilization of Egypt be? Where would the hundreds of millions which have been invested in this country? Where the monuments which all nations look upon as most precious memorials of the past? Come now, Colonel! cried headingly, laughing. Surely you don't mean that they would shift the pyramids. You cannot foretell what they would do. There is no iconoclast in the world like an extreme Mohammedan. Last time they overran this country they burnt the Alexandrian library. You know that all representations of the human features are against the letter of the Quran. A statue is always any religious object in their eyes. What do these fellows care for the sentiment of Europe? The more they could offend it the more delighted they would be. Down would go the swings, the colossi, the statues of Abu Simbal as the saints went down in England before Cromwell's troopers. Well now, said headingly in his slow, thoughtful fashion, suppose I grant you that the dervish's could overrun Egypt and suppose also that you English are holding them out. What I'm never done asking is what reason have you for spending all these millions of dollars and the lives of so many of your men? What do you get out of it more than France gets or Germany or any other country that runs no risk and never lays out a cent? There are a good many Englishmen who are asking themselves that question, remarked Cecil Brown. It is my opinion that we have been the policemen of the world long enough. We police the seas for pirates and slavers. Now we police the land for dervishes and brigands and every sort of danger to civilization. There is never a mad priest or a witch doctor or a firebrand of any sort on this planet who does not report his appearance by sniping the nearest British officer. One tires of it at last. If a curd breaks loose in Asia Minor, the world wants to know why Great Britain does not keep him in order. If there is a military mutant in Egypt or a jihad in the Sudan, it is still Great Britain who has to set it right. And all to an accompaniment of curses such as the policeman gets when he seizes a ruffian among his pals. We get hard knocks and no thanks and why should we do it? Let Europe do its own dirty work. Well, said Colonel Cochrane, crossing his legs and leaning forward with the decision of a man who has definite opinions. I don't at all agree with you, Brown, and I think that to advocate such a course is to take a very limited view of our national duties. I think that behind national interests and diplomacy and all that there lies a great guiding force, a providence in fact, which is for ever getting the best out of each nation and using it for the good of the whole. When a nation ceases to respond, it is time that she went into hospital for a few centuries. Like Spain or Greece, the virtue has gone out of her. A man or a nation is not placed upon this earth to do merely what is pleasant and what is profitable. It is often called upon to carry out what is both unpleasant and unprofitable. But if it is obviously right, it is mere shirking not to undertake it. Headingly, nodding approvingly. Each has its own mission. Germany's predominant in abstract thought. France in literature, art and grace. But we and you, for the English speakers are all in the same boat. However much the New York Sun may scream over it, we and you have among our best men a higher conception of moral sense and public duty than is to be found in any other people. Now these are the two qualities which are needed for directing a weaker race. You can't help them by abstract thought or by graceful art, but only by that moral sense which will hold the scales of justice even and keep itself free from every taint of corruption. That is how we rule India. We came there by a kind of natural law like air rushing into a vacuum. All over the world against our direct interests and our deliberate intentions we are drawn into the same thing and it will happen to you also. The pressure of destiny will force you to administer the whole of America from Mexico to the Horn. Headingly whistled. Our dingus would be pleased to hear you, Colonel Cochran said he. They'd vote you into our senate and make you one of the committee on foreign relations. The world is small and it grows smaller every day. It's a single organic body and one spot of gangrene is enough to vitiate the whole. There's no room upon it for dishonest defaulting tyrannical irresponsible governments. As long as they exist they will always be sources of trouble and of danger. But there are many races which appear to be so incapable of improvement that we can never hope to get a good government out of them. What is to be done then? The former device of providence in such a case was extermination by some more virile stock, an atelier or a tamelain pruned off the weaker branch. Now we have a more merciful substitution of rulers or even of mere advice from a more advanced race. That is the case with the Central Asian canards and with the protected states of India. If the work has to be done and if we are the best fitted for the work then I think that it would be a cowardice and a crime to shirk it. But who is to decide whether it is a fitting case for your interference? Objected the American. A predatory country could grab every other land in the world upon such a pretext. Events, inexorable, inevitable events will decide it. Take this Egyptian business as an example. In 1881 there was nothing in this world further from the minds of our people than any interference with Egypt. And yet, 1882 left us in possession of the country. There was never any choice in the chain of events. A massacre in the streets of Alexandria and the mounting of guns to drive out our fleet, which was there you understand in fulfillment of solemn treaty obligations led to the bombardment. The bombardment led to a landing to save the city from destruction. The landing caused an extension of operations and here we are with the country upon our hands. At the time of travel we begged and implored the French or anyone else to come and help us to put the thing to rights. But they all deserted us when there was work to be done, although they are ready enough to scold and to impede us now. When we tried to get out of it up came this wild dervish movement and we had to sit tighter than ever. We never wanted the task, but now that it has come we must put it through in a workman-like manner. We brought justice into the country and purity of administration and protection for the poor man. It has made more advance in the last twelve years than since the Muslim invasion in the seventh century, except the pay of a couple of hundred men who spend their money in the country. England has neither directly nor indirectly made a shilling out of it. And I don't believe you will find in history a more successful and more disinterested bit of work. Headingly puffed thoughtfully at his cigarette. There is a horse near ours down on the back bay at Boston, which just ruins the whole prospect, said he. It has old chairs littered about the stoop, and the shingles are loose and the garden runs wide. But I don't know that the neighbors are exactly justified in rushing in and stamping around the thing on their own lines. Not if it were on fire, asked the colonel. Headingly laughed and rose from his camp stool. While it doesn't come within the provisions of the Monroe Doctrine colonel, said he, I'm beginning to realize that modern Egypt is every bit as interesting as ancient and that Ramses II wasn't the last live man in the country. Two Englishmen rose and joined. Yes, it is a whimsical freak of fortune which has sent men from a little island in the Atlantic to administer the land of the pharaohs, remarked Cecil Brown. We shall pass away again and never leave a trace among these successive races who have held the country, for it is not an Anglo-Saxon custom to write their deeds upon rocks. I dare say that the remains of a Cairo drainage system would be our most permanent record, unless they prove a thousand years hence that it was the work of the Hyksos kings. But here is the shore party come back. Down below they could hear the mellow Irish accents of Mrs. Belmont and the deep voice of her husband, the iron grey rifle shot. Mr. Stewart, the fat Birmingham clergyman was thrashing out a question of piasters with a noisy donkey boy and the others were joining in with chaff and advice. Then the hubbub died away. The party from above came down the ladder. There were good nights, the shutting of doors, and the little steamer lay silent, dark and motionless in the shadow of the high half a bank. And beyond this one point of civilization and of comfort there lay the limitless savage unchangeable desert, straw-colored and dream-like in the moonlight, mottled over with the black shadows of the hills. End of Chapter 2 Red by Lars Rolander Chapter 3 of the tragedy of the Corosco This is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings are in the link domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Reading by Lars Rolander The Tragedy of the Corosco by Sir Arthur Conandoil Chapter 3 Stoppa, backa! cried the native pilot to the European engineer. The bluff-bows of the stern-wheeler had squelched into the soft-brown mud and the current had swept the boat alongside the bank. The long gangway was thrown across and the six tall soldiers of the Sudanese escort filed along it. Their light blue-gold trimmed suave uniforms and their jaunty yellow and red forage caps showing up bravely in the clear morning light. Above them on the top of the bank was ranged the line of donkeys and the air was full of the clamor of the boys and shrill strident voices each was crying out the virtues of his own beast and abusing that of his neighbor. Colonel Cochrane and Mr. Belmont stood together in the bows, each wearing the broad-white Pogaridu hat of the tourist. Miss Adams and her niece leaned against the rail beside them. Sorry, your wife isn't coming, Belmont, said the Colonel. I think she had a touch of the sun yesterday. Her head aches very badly. His voice was strong and thick like his figure. I should stay to keep her company, Mr. Belmont, said the little American old maid, but I learned that Mrs. Schlesinger finds the ride too long for her and has some letters which she must make today so Mrs. Belmont will not be lonesome. Very good, Miss Adams. We shall be back, you know, by two o'clock. Is that certain? It must be certain, for we are taking no lunch with us, and we shall be famished by then. Yes, I expect we shall be ready for a hawk and seltzer at any rate, said the Colonel. This tessitas gives a flavor to the worst wine. Now, ladies and gentlemen, Prime Mansour the Dragoman moving forward with something of the priest in his flowing garments and smooth, clean, shaven face. We must start early that we may return before the meridial heat of the weather. He ran his dark eyes over the little group of his tourists with a paternal expression. You take your green glasses, Miss Adams, for glare very great out in the desert. Ah, Mr. Stuart, I set aside very fine donkey for you. Price donkey, sir, always put aside for the gentlemen of most weight. Never mind to take your monument ticket today. Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you please. Like a grotesque frieze, the party moved one by one along the plank gangway and up the brown crumbling bank. Mr. Stevens led them a thin, dry, serious figure in an English straw hat. His red beddicker gleamed under his arm, and in one hand he held a little paper of notes, as if it were a brief. He took Miss Sadie by one arm and her aunt by the other, as they toiled up the bank, and the young girls laughed rank frank and clear in the morning air, as beddicker came fluttering down at their feet. Mr. Belmont and Colonel Cochrane followed, the brims of their sun hats touching, as they discussed the relative advantages of the mouser, the table, and the leamed fort. Behind them walked Cecil Brown, listless, cynical, self-contained. The fat clergyman puffed slowly up the bank, with many gasping witticisms at his own defects. I'm one of those men who carry everything before them, Sadie glancing ruefully at his rotundity, and chuckling weasely at his own little Joe. Last of all came headingly, slight and tall, with a student stoop about his shoulders, and far day the good-natured, fussy, argumentative Parisian. You see, we have an escort today, he whispered to his companion. So I observed. Pa! cried the Frenchman, throwing out his arms in derision, as we'll have an escort from Paris to Versailles. This is all part of the play, Monsieur Headingly. It deceives no one, but it is part of the play. For quoi c'est drôle de militaire, dragouman en? It was the dragouman's role to be all things to all men. So he looked cautiously round before he answered, to make sure that the English were mounted and out of air shot. Zeridicule, Monsieur, said he shrugging his fat shoulders. Mais que voulez-vous, c'est l'ordre officiel Égyptien? Égyptien? Pa! Anglès! Anglès! Toujours Anglès! cried the angry Frenchman. The freeze now was more grotesque than ever, but had changed suddenly to an equestrian one, sharply outlined against the deep blue Egyptian sky. Those who have never ridden before have to ride in Egypt, and when the donkeys break into a counter, and the nile irregulars are at full charge, such a scene of flying veils, clutching hands, huddled swaying figures, and anxious faces is nowhere to be seen. Belmont, his square figure balanced upon a small white donkey, was waving his hat to his wife, who had come out upon the saloon deck of the Corosco. Socrates had very erect with a stiff military seat, hands low, head high, and heels down, while beside him rode the young Oxford man, looking about him with drooping eyelids, as if he thought the desert hardly respectable, and had his doubts about the universe. Behind them the whole party was strung along the bank in varying stages of jolting and discomfort, a brown-faced donkey boy running after each donkey. Looking back they could see the little lead-colored stern-wheeler with a gleam of Mrs. Belmont's handkerchief from the deck. Veyon ran the broad brown river, winding down in long curves to where, five miles off, the square white block houses upon the black ragged hills marked the outskirts of Wadi Halfa, which had been their starting morning. Isn't it just too lovely for anything? cried Sadie joyously. I've got a donkey that runs on casters, and the saddle is just elegant. Did you ever see anything so cunning as these beads and things round his neck? You must make a memo. Ray donkey, Mr. Stevens, isn't that correct legal English? Stevens looked at the pretty animated boyish face looking up at him from under the coquettish straw hat, and he wished that he had the courage to tell her in her own language that she was just too sweet for anything. But he feared about all things lest he should offend her, and so put an end to their present pleasant intimacy. So his compliment dwindled into a smile. You look very happy, Sadie. Well, who could help feeling good with this dry clear air and the blue sky and the crisp yellow sand and a superb donkey to carry you. I've just got everything in the world to make me happy. Everything? Well, everything I have any use for just now. I suppose you never know what it is to be sad. Oh, when I am miserable I am just too miserable for words. I've sat and cried for days and days at Smith's College and the other girls were just crazy to know what I was crying about and guessing what the reason was that I wouldn't tell them. When all the time the real true reason was that I didn't know myself. You know how it comes like a great dark shadow over you and you don't know why or where for but you've just got to settle down to it and be miserable. But you never had any real cause? No, Mr. Stevens. I've had such a good time all my life that I really don't think when I look back that I ever had any real cause for sorrow. Well, Miss Sadie I hope with all my heart that you will be able to say the same when you are the same age as your aunt. Surely, I hear her calling. I wish, Mr. Stevens you would strike my donkey boy with your whip if he hits the donkey again. cried Missy Adams jogging up on a high row bone beast. Hi, Dragoban Mansour. You tell this boy that I won't have the animals ill-used and that he ought to be ashamed Yes, you little rascal, you ought. He's grinning at me like an advertisement for a toothpaste. Do you think, Mr. Stevens that if I were to knit that black soldier a pair of woolen stockings he would be allowed to wear them? The poor creature has bandages round his legs. Those are his potties, Miss Adams, said Colonel Cochrane looking back at her. We have found in India that they are the best support to the leg in marching. They are very much better than any stocking. Well, you don't say. They remind me mostly of a sick horse. But it's elegant to have the soldiers with us, though, Mr. Fardee tells me there is nothing for us to be scared about. That is only my opinion, Miss Adams, said the Frenchman hastily. It may be that Colonel Cochrane thinks otherwise. It is Mr. Fardee's opinion against that of the officers who have the responsibility of caring for the safety of the frontier, said the Colonel Cochrane. At least we will all agree that they have the effect of making the scene very much more picturesque. The desert upon their right lay in long curves of sand like the dunes which might have fringe some forgotten primeval sea. Topping them they could see the black craggy lights of the curious volcanic hills which rise upon the Libyan side. On the crest of the low sand hills they would catch a glimpse every now and then of a tall sky blue soldier walking swiftly his rifle at the trail. For a moment the lank warlike figure would be sharply silhouetted against the sky. Then he would dip into a hollow and disappear, while some 100 yards off another would show an instant and vanish. Wherever are they raised asked Sadie, watching the moving figures. They looked to me just about the same tint as the hotel boys in the States. I thought some question might arise about them, said Mr Stevens who was never so happy as when he could anticipate some wish of the pretty American. I made one or two references this morning in the ship's library. It is re that's to say about black soldiers. I have it on my notes that they are from the 10th Sudanese battalion of the Egyptian army. They are recruited from the Dinkas and the Shiloks to Negrid tribes living to the south of the dervish country near the equator. How can the recruits come through the dervishes then? Asked headingly sharply. I dare say there is no such very great difficulty over that, said Mr Fardy, with a wink at the American. The older men are the remains of the old black battalions, some of them served with Gordon at Khartoum, and have his medal to show. The others are many of them deserters from the Mardi's army, said the Colonel. Well, so long as they are not wanted they look right elegant in those blue jackets, Miss Adams said. But if there was any trouble, I guess we would wish they were less ornamental and a bit whiter. I'm not so sure of that, Miss Adams, said the Colonel. I have seen these fellows in the field, and I assure you that I have the utmost confidence in their steadiness. Well, I'll take your word without trying, said Miss Adams, with a decision which made everyone smile. The old men were looking along the side of the river, which was swirling down upon their left hand, deep and strong from the cataracts above. Here and there the rush of the current was broken by a black shining boulder over which the foam was spouting. Higher up they could see the white gleam of the rapids, and the banks grew into rugged cliffs, which were capped by a peculiar outstanding semi-circular rock. It was a great aid to tell the party that this was the famous landmark to which they were bound. A long level stretch lay before them, and the donkeys took it at a counter. At the farther side were scattered rocks, black upon orange, and in the midst of them rose some broken shafts of pillars and a length of engraved wall, looking in its grayness and its solidity more like some work of nature than of man. The fat sleek dragamon had dismounted and stood waiting in his petticoats and his cover coat for the stragglers to gather round him. This temple, ladies and gentlemen, he cried with the air of an auctioner who is about to sell it to the highest bidder. Very fine example from the 18th dynasty. Here is the cartouche of Totmes III. He pointed up with his donkey whip at the rude, deep hieroglyphics upon the wall above him. He lived 1600 years before Christ, and this is made to remember his victorious exhibition into Mesopotamia. Here we have his history from the time that he was with his mother until he returned with captives tied to his chariot. In this you see him crowned with lower Egypt and with upper Egypt offering up sacrifice in honor of his victory to the god Ram. Here he bring his captives before him and he cut off each his right hand. In this corner you see little pile all right hands. My sakes, I shouldn't have liked to be here in those days, said Miss Adams. Why, there is nothing altered, remarked Cecil Brown. The east is still the east. I've no doubt that within a hundred miles or perhaps a good distance from where you stand, shut up, whispered the colonel, and the party shuffled on down the line of the wall with their faces up and their big hats thrown backwards. The sun behind them struck the old gray masonry with a brassy glare and carried on to it the strange black shadows of the tourists mixing them up with the grim high-nosed square shoulder warriors and the grotesque deities who lined it. The broad shadow of the Reverend John Stuart of Birmingham smudged out both the heathen king and the god whom he worshipped. What is this? He was asking in his weasy voice, pointing up with a jello aswan cane. That is a hippopotamus, said the dragaman, and the tourists all tittered for there was just a suspicion of Mr. himself in the carving. But it isn't bigger than a little pig, he protested. You see that the king is putting his spear through it with ease. They make it small to show that it was a very small thing to the king, said the dragaman. So you see that all the king's prisoners do not exceed his knee, which is not because he was so much taller, but so much more powerful. You see that he is bigger than his horse because the other is only a horse. The same way these small women whom you see here and there are just his trivial little wives. Well now, cried Miss Adams indignantly, if they had sculpted that king's soul it would have needed a lens to see it. Fancy is allowing his wives to be put in like that. If he didn't know Miss Adams, said the Frenchman, he would have more fighting than ever in Missopotamia. But time brings revenge. Perhaps the day will soon come when we have the picture of the big strong wife and the trivial little husband, eh? Cecil Brown and Headingley had dropped behind for the glib commons of the dragaman and the empty light-hearted chatter of the tourist jarred upon their sense of solemnity. They stood in silence watching the grotesque procession with its sun hats and green veils as it passed and the vivid sunshine down the front of the old grey wall. About them two crested hoopos were fluttering and calling amid the ruins of the pylon. Isn't it a sacrilege? said the Oxford man at last. Well now, I'm glad you feel that about it, because it's how it always strikes me, Headingley answered with feeling. I'm not quite clear in my own mind how these things should be approached, if they are to be approached at all, but I'm sure this is not the way. On the whole I prefer the ruins that I have not seen to those which I have. The young diplomatist looked up with this peculiarly bright smile, which faded away too soon into his languid blaze mask. I've got a map, said the American, and sometimes far away from anything in the very midst of the waterless trackless desert. I see ruins marked upon it, or remains of a temple, perhaps. For example the temple of Jupiter Ammon, which was one of the most considerable shrines in the world, was hundreds of miles away, back of anywhere. Those are the ruins solitary, unseen, unchanging through the centuries, which appeal to one's imagination. But when I present a check at the door and go in as if it were Barnum's show, all the subtle feeling of romance goes right out of it. Absolutely, said Cecil Brown, looking over the desert with his dark intolerant eyes. If one could come wandering here alone, stumbled upon it by chance it were, and find one's self in absolute solitude in the dim light of the temple, with these grotesque figures all round, it would be perfectly overwhelming. A man would be prostrated with wonder and aid. But when Belmont is puffing his bulldog pipe and Stuart is wheezing and Miss Sadie Adams is laughing. And that J. A. Overdragman speaking his piece, said Headingley, I want to stand and think all the time and I never seem to get the chance. I was right for manslaughter when I stood before the great pyramid and couldn't get a quiet moment because they would boost me on to the top. I took a kick at one man which would have sent him to the top in one jump if I had hit me but fancy travelling all the way from America to see the pyramid and then finding nothing better to do than to kick an Arab in front of it. The Oxford man laughed in his gentle tired fashion. They are starting again, said he, and the two hastened forwards to take their places at the tail of the absurd procession. Their route ran now among large scattered boulders and between shingley hills a narrow winding path curved in and out amongst the rocks. Behind them their view was cut off by similar hills, black and fantastic, like the slag heaps at the shaft of a mine. A silence fell upon the little company and even Sadie's bright face reflected the harshness of nature. The escort had closed in and marched beside them, boats scrunching amongst the loose black rubble. Colonel Cochrane and Belmont were still riding together in the van. Do you know Belmont? said the Colonel in a low voice. You may think me a fool but I don't like this one little bit. Belmont gave a short rough laugh. It seemed all right in the saloon of the Kurosko. But now that we are here we seem rather up in the air, said he. Still you know a party comes here every week and nothing has ever gone wrong. I don't mind taking my chances when I am on the warpath, the Colonel answered. That's all straightforward and in the way of business. But when you have women with you and a helpless crowd like this it becomes really dreadful. Of course the chances are a hundred to one that we have no trouble. But if we should have, well it won't bear thinking about. The wonderful thing is their complete unconsciousness that there is any danger whatever. Well, I like the English tailor-made dresses well enough for walking, Mr. Stevens said Miss Sadie from behind them. But for an afternoon dress I think the French have more style than the English. Your milleners have a more severe cut and they don't do the cunning little ribbons and bows and things in the same way. The Colonel smiled at Belmont. She is quite serene in her mind at any rate, said he. Of course I wouldn't say what I think to anyone but you and I daresay it will all prove to be quite unfounded. Well I could imagine parties of their wishes on the prowl said Belmont, but what I cannot imagine is that it should just happen to come to the pulpit rock on the very morning when we are due there. Considering that our movements have been freely advertised and that everyone knows a week beforehand what our program is, and where we are to be found, it does not strike me as being such a wonderful coincidence. It's a very remote chance, said Belmont's doubly, but he was glad in his heart that his wife was safe and snug on board the steamer. And now they were clear of the rocks again, with a fine stretch of firm yellow sand extending to the very base of the conical hill which lay before them. I ah, I ah, cried the boys. Whack came their sticks upon the flanks of the donkeys which broke into a gallop and away they all streamed over the plain. It was not until they had come to the end of the path which curves up the hill that a dragaman called a halt. Now, ladies and gentlemen, we are a ride for the so famous pulpit rock of Abuzir. From the summit you will presently enjoy a panorama of remarkable fertility. But first you will observe that over the rocky side of the hill are everywhere cut the names of great men who have passed it in their travels, and some of these names are older than the time of Christ. Got Mausers? asked Miss Adams. Aunty, I'm surprised at you, tried Sadie. Well, my dear, he was in Egypt and he was a great man and he may have passed this way. Mausers' name very likely there. And the same with Herodotus, said the dragaman gravely. Both have been long worn away, but there on the brown rock you will see Belsoni and up higher is Cordon. There is hardly any famous in the Sudan which you will not find if you like. And now with your permission we shall take goodbye of our donkeys and walk up the path. And you will see the river and the desert from the summit of the top. A minute or two of climbing brought them out upon the semi-circular platform which crowns the rock. Below them on the far side was a perpendicular black cliff 150 feet high with a swirling foam-streaked river roaring past its base. The swish of the water and the low roar as it surged over the mid-stream boulders boomed through the hot stagnant air. Far up and far down they could see the course of the river, a quarter of a mile in breadth and running very deep and strong with sleek black eddies and occasional spoutings of foam. On the other side was a frightful wilderness of black scattered rocks which were the debris carried down by the river at high flood. In no direction were there any signs of human beings or their dwellings. On the far side said the dragman waving his donkey whip towards the east. It's the military line which conducts Bwadi Halfa to Saras. Saras lies to the south under that hill. Those two blue mountains which you see very far away are in Dongola more than 100 miles from Saras. The railway there is 40 miles long and has been much annoyed by the dervishes who are very glad to turn the rails into spares. The telegraph wires are also much appreciated thereby. Now if you will kindly turn round I will explain also what we see upon the other side. It was a view which when one scene must always haunt the mind. Such an expanse of savage and unreleaved desert might be part of some cold and burned out planet rather than of this fertile and bountiful earth. A way and a way it stretched to die into a soft violet haze in the extreme distance. In the foreground the sand was of a bright golden yellow dazzling in the sunshine. Here and there in a scattered cordon stood the six trusty negro soldiers leaning motionless upon their rifles and each throwing a shadow which looked as solid as himself. But beyond this golden plane lay a low line of those black slag heaps with yellow sand valleys winding between them. These in their turn were topped with clear and more fantastic hills and these by others peeping over each other's shoulders until they blended with that distant violet haze. None of these hills were of any height a few hundred feet at the most but their savage saw-toothed crests and their steep scarps of sun-baked stone gave them a fierce character of their own. The Libyan desert said the dragman with a proud wave of his hand. The greatest desert in the world suppose you travel right west from here and turn neither to the north nor to the south the first houses you would come to would be in America let make your home sick Miss Adams I believe. But the American old maid had her attention drawn away by the conduct of Sadie who had caught her arm by one hand and was pointing over the desert with the other. Well now if that isn't too picturesque for anything she cried with a flash of excitement upon her pretty face do look Mr. Stevens that's just the one only thing we wanted to make it just perfectly grand see the men upon the camels coming out from between those hills they all looked at the long red turbine riders who were winding out of the ravine and there fell such a hush that the buzzing of the flies sounded quite loud upon their ears. Colonel Cochran had lit a match and he stood with it in one hand and the unlit cigarette in the other until the flame licked round his fingers Belmont whistled the dragman stood staring with his mouth half opened and a curious slaty tint in his full red lips the others looked from one to the other with an uneasy sense that there was something wrong it was the colonel who broke the silence by George Belmont I believe the hundred to one Charles has come off said he end of chapter three red large Rolander chapter four of the tragedy of the Corosco this is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org reading by large Rolander the tragedy of the Corosco by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle chapter four what's the meaning of this Mansour? cried Belmont harshly who are these people and why are you standing staring as if you had lost your senses the dragman made an effort to compose himself and licked his dry lips before he answered I do not know who they are said he in a quavering voice who they are cried the Frenchman you can see who they are Abadé, Bicharin, Bedouins in short such as are employed by the government upon the frontier by Joe he might be right Cochrane said Belmont looking inquily at the Colonel why shouldn't it be as he says why shouldn't these fellows be friendlies there are no friendlies upon this side of the river said the Colonel abruptly I'm perfectly certain about that there is no use in mincing matters we must prepare for the worst but in spite of his words they stood stock still in a huddled group staring out over the plane their nerves were numb by the sudden shock and to all of them it was like a scene in a dream vague impersonal and unreal the men upon the camels had streamed out from a gorge which lay a mile or so distant on the side of the path along which they had travelled their retreat therefore was entirely cut off it appeared from the dust and the length of the line to be quite an army which was emerging from the hills for seventy men upon camels cover a considerable stretch of ground having reached the sandy plane they were deliberately formed to the front and then at the harsh call of a bugle they trotted forward in line the party coloured figures all swaying and the sand smoking in a rolling yellow cloud at the heels of their camels at the same moment the six black soldiers doubled in from the front with their martinis at the trail and snuggled down like well trained skirmishers behind the rocks upon the hodge of the hill their breach blocks all snapped together as their corporal gave them the order to load and now finally the first duper of the excursionists passed away and was succeeded by a frantic and impotent energy they all ran about upon the plateau of rock in an aimless foolish flurry like frightened fowls in a yard they could not bring themselves to acknowledge that there was no possible escape for them again and again they rushed to the edge of the great cliff which rose from the river but the jungest most daring of them could never have descended it the two women clung one on each side of the trembling mansour with a feeling that he was officially responsible for their safety when he ran up and down in his desperation his skirts and theirs all fluttered together Stevens the lawyer kept close to Sadie Adams muttering mechanically don't be alarmed Miss Sadie don't be at all alarmed though his own limbs were twitching with agitation Monsieur Fardy stamped about with a guttural rolling of ours glancing angrily at his companions as if they had in some way betrayed him while the fat clergyman stood with his umbrella staring stolidly with big frightened eyes at the camelmen Cecil Brown curled his small prime moustache and looked white but contentious Belmont and the Jang Harvard graduate were the three most cool headed and resourceful members of the party better stick together said the colonel there's no escape for us so we may as well remain united they've halted said Belmont they are reconnoiting us they know very well that there is no escape from them and they are taking their time I don't see what we can do suppose we hide the women heading desuggested they can't know how many of us are here when they have taken us the women can come out of their hiding place and make their way back to the boat admirable admirable this way please miss Adams bring the ladies here mensur there is not an instant to be lost there was a part of the plateau which was invisible from the plane and here in fearish haste they built a little cairn many flaky slabs of stone were lying about and it did not take long to prop the largest of these against the rock so as to make a lean tool and then to put two side pieces to complete it the slabs were of the same color as the rock so that to a causal glance the hiding place was not very visible the two ladies were squeezed into this and they crouched together said his arms thrown round her arms when they had walled them up the men turned with lighter hearts to see what was going on as they did so they rang out the sharp preemptory crack of a rifle shot from the escort followed by another and another but these isolated shots were drowned in the long spattering roll of an irregular volley from the plane and the air was full of the fit fit fit of the bullets the tourists all huddled behind the rocks with an exception of the Frenchman who still stamped angrily about striking his sun hat with his clenched hand. Belmont and Cochrane crawled down to where the Sudanese soldiers were firing slowly and steadily resting their rifles upon the boulders in front of them. The Arabs had halted about 500 yards away and it was evident from their leisurely movements that they were perfectly aware of a possible escape for the travelers they had paused to ascertain their number before closing in upon them. Most of them were firing from the backs of their camels but a few had dismounted and were kneeling here and there, little shimmering white spots against the golden background their shots came sometimes singly in quick sharp throbs and sometimes in a rolling volley with the sound like a boy's dick drawn across iron railings. The hill bust like a beehive and the bullets made a sharp crackling as they struck against the rocks. You do no good by exposing yourself, said Belmont throwing Colonel Cochrane behind a large dagger boulder which already furnished the shelter for three of the Sudanese. A bullet is the best we have to hope for, said Cochrane grimly. What an infernal fool I have been, Belmont, not noticed more energetically against this ridiculous expedition. I deserve whatever I get but it is hard on these poor souls who never knew the danger. I suppose there is no help for us. Not the faintest. Don't you think this firing might bring the troops up from Hulfa? They'll never hear it. It's a good six miles from here to the steamer. From that to Hulfa would be another five. Well when we don't return the steamer will give the alarm. And where shall we be by that time? My poor Nora, my poor little Nora, muttered Belmont in the depth of his grizzled moustache. What do you suppose they will do with us, Cochrane? He asked after pause. They may cut our throats so they may take us as slaves to Khartoum. I don't know that there is much to choose. There's one of us out of his troubles anyhow. The soldier next to them had sat down abruptly and leaned forward over his knees. His movement and attitude were so natural that it was hard to realize that he had been shot through the head. He neither stirred nor groan. His comrades bent over him for a moment and then shrugging their shoulders they turned their dark faces to the Arabs once more. Belmont picked up the dead man's martini and his ammunition pouch. Only three more rounds Cochrane said he, with the little brass cylinders upon the palm of his hand. We've let them shoot too soon and too often. We should have waited for the rush. You're a famous shot, Belmont, cried the colonel. I've heard of you as one of the cracks. Don't you think you could pick up their leader? Which is he? As far as I can make out it is that one on the white camel on their right front. I mean the fellow who is peering at us from under his two hands. Belmont thrust in his cartridge and altered the sights. It's a shocking bad light for judging distance said he. This is where the low point blank trajectory of the limit Ford comes in useful. Well, we'll try him at five hundred. He fired, but there was no change in the white camel or the peering rider. Did you see any sand fly? No, I saw nothing. I fancy I took my sight of trifle too full. Try him again. Man and rifle and rock were equally steady, but again the camel and chief remained unharmed. The third shot must have been nearer for he moved a few paces to the right as if he were on the left. Belmont threw the empty rifle down with an exclamation of disgust. It's this confounded light he cried and his cheeks flushed with annoyance. Think of my wasting three cartridges in that fashion. If I had him at Bisley I'd shoot the turban of him, but this vibrating glare means refraction. What's the matter with the Frenchman? Monsieur Fardier was stamping about a tour with the gestures of a man who has been stung by a wasp. Zakhrenom! Zakhrenom! he shouted, showing his strong white teeth under his black waxed moustache. He wrung his right hand violently, and as he did so he sent a little spray of blood from his fingertips. A bullet had chipped his wrist, headingly ran out from the cover where he had been crouching with the intention of dragging the Frenchman into a place of safety. But he had not taken three paces before he was himself hit in the loins, and fell with a dreadful crash among the stones. He staggered to his feet, and then fell again in the same place, floundering up and down like a horse which has broken its back. I'm done! He whispered as the colonel ran to his aid, and then he lay still with his china white cheek against the black stones. When but a year before he had wandered under the Elms of Cambridge, surely the last fate upon this earth which he could have predicted for himself would be that he should be slain by the bullet of a fanatical Mohammedan in the wilds of the Libyan desert. Meanwhile the fire of the escort had ceased for they had shot away their last cartridge. A second man had been killed, and a third who was the corporal in charge had received a bullet in his thigh. He sat upon a stone tying up his injury with a grave preoccupied look upon his wrinkled black face like an old woman piecing together a broken plate. The three others fastened their binets with a determined metallic rasp and snap and the air of men who intended to sell their lives to the plane. They're coming, cried Belmont looking over the plane. Let them come, the colonel answered, putting his hands into his trouser pockets. Suddenly he pulled one fist out and shook it furiously in the air. Oh, the curds! The confounded curds! he shouted, and his eyes were congested with rage. It was the fate of the poor that led the self-contained soldier out of his usual calm. During the firing they had remained huddled, a pitiful group among the rocks at the base of the hill. Now upon the conviction that the charge of the dervishes must come first upon them, they had sprung upon their animals with shrill in articulated cries of fear, and had galloped off across the plane. A small flanking party of eight or ten camelmen had worked round while the firing had been going on, and these stashed in among the flying donkey boys, hacking and ewing with a cold-blooded, deliberate ferocity. One little boy in a flapping Galabia kept ahead of his pursuers for a time. But the long stride of the camels ran him down, and an Arab thrust his spear into the middle of his stooping back. The white-clad corpses looked like a flock of sheep trailing over the desert. But the people upon the rock had no time to think of the cruel fate of the donkey boys. Even the Colonel, after that first indignant outburst, had forgotten all about them. The advancing camelmen had trotted to the bottom of the hill, had dismounted, and leaving their camel-sneeling had rushed furiously onward. Fifty of them were clamoring up the path and over the rocks together, their red turbans appearing and vanishing again as they scrambled over the boulders. Without a shot or a pause they searched over the three black soldiers, killing one and stamping the other two down under their hurrying feet. So they burst onto the plateau at the top, where an unexpected resistance checked them for an instant. Travellers nestling up against one another had awaited each after his own fashion the coming of the Arabs. The Colonel, with his hands back in his trouser pockets, tried to whistle out of his dry lips. Belmont folded his arms and leaned against the rock with a sulky frown upon his lowering face. So strangely do our minds act that his three successive misses and the tarnish to his reputation as a marksman was troubling him more than his impending fate. Cecil Brown stood erect and plucked nervously at the upturned points of his little prim moustache. Monsieur Fardier groaned over his wounded wrist. Mr. Stevens in somber impotence shook his head slowly the living embodiment of prosaic law and order. Mr. Stewart stood his umbrella still over him with no expression upon his heavy face or in his staring brown eyes. Headingly lay with that china white cheek resting motionless upon the stones. His sun hat had fallen off and he looked quite boyish with his ruffled yellow hair and his unlined clean cut face. The dragomans sat upon a stone and played nervously with his donkey whip. So the Arabs found them and reached the summit of the hill. And then, just as the foremost rushed to lay hands upon them a most unexpected incident arrested them. From the time of the first appearance of the dervishes the fat clergyman of Birmingham had looked like a man in a cataleptic trance. He had neither moved nor spoken but now he suddenly woke at a bound into strenuous and heroic energy. It may have been the mania of fear or it may have been the blood of some berserk ancestor which stirred suddenly in his veins. But he broke into a wild shout and, catching up a stick he struck right and left among the Arabs with a fury which was more savage than their own. One who helped to draw up this narrative has left it upon record that of all the pictures which have been burned into his brain there is none so clear as that of this man his large face shining with perspiration and his great body dancing about with unwieldy agility as he struck at the shrinking snarling savages. Then a spearhead flashed from behind a rock with a quick vicious upward thrust the clergyman fell upon his hands and knees and the horde poured over him to cease resisting victims. Knives glimmered before their eyes rude hands clutched at their wrists and at their throats and then with brutal and unreasoning violence they were hauled and pushed down the steep winding path to where the camels were waiting below. The Frenchman waved his unwounded hand as he walked Vivele califa Vivele madi he shouted until a blow from behind with the butt end of a Remington beat him into silence and now they were herded in at the base of the Abbasir rock this little group of modern types who had fallen into the rough clutch of the seventh century for in all save the rifles in their hands there was nothing to distinguish these men from the desert warriors who first carried the crescent flag out of Arabia. The east does not change and the dervish raiders were not less brave, less cruel or less fanatical than their forebears they stood in a circle leaning upon their guns and spares and looking with exultant eyes at the disheveled group of captives they were clad in some approach to a uniform red turbans gathered around their neck as well as the head so that the fierce face looked out of a scarlet frame yellow untanned shoes and white tunics with square brown patches let into them all carried rifles and one had a small discolored bugle slung over his shoulder half of them were negrous fine muscular men with a glimpse of a jet hercules and the other half were Baghara Arabs small brown and wiry with little vicious eyes and thin cruel lips the chief was also a Baghara but he was a taller man than the others with a black beard which came down over his chest and a pair of hard cold eyes which gleamed like glass from under his thick black brows they were fixed now upon his captives and his features were grave with thought Mr. Stewart had been brought down his hat gone his face still flushed with anger and his trousers sticking in one part to his leg the two surviving Sudanese soldiers their black faces and blue coats splotched with crimson stood silently at attention upon one side of this forlorn group of castaways the chief stood for some minutes stroking his black beard while his fierce eyes glanced from one pale face to another along the miserable line of his captives in a harsh imperious voice something which brought Mansour the dragonman to the front with bent back and outstretched supplicating palms to his employers there had always seemed to be something comic in that flapping skirt and short cover coat above it but now under the glare of the midday sun with those faces gathered round them it appeared rather to add a grotesque horror to the scene the dragonman salound and salound like some ungainly automatic doll and then as the chief grasped out a curt word or two he fell suddenly upon his face rubbing his forehead into the sand and flapping upon it with his hands What's that Cochrane? asked Belmont why is he making an exhibition of himself as far as I can understand it is all up with us the colonel answered but this is absurd the Frenchman excitedly why should these people wish any harm to me? I have never injured them on the other hand I have always been their friend if I could but speak to them I would make them comprehend who the dragonman Mansour the excited gestures of Monsieur Fardais drew the sinister eyes of the Bagara chief upon him again he asked curt question and Mansour kneeling in front of him answered it tell him that I am a Frenchman dragonman tell him that I am a friend of the caliph tell him that my countrymen have never had any quarrel with him but that his enemies are also ours the chief asked what religion you call your own said Mansour the caliph he says has no necessity for any friendship from those who are infidels and unbelievers tell him that in France we look upon all religions as good the chief says that none but a blaspheming dog and the son of a dog would say that all religions are one as good as the other he says that if you are indeed the friend of the caliph you will accept the Quran and become a true believer upon the spot if you will do so he will promise on his side to send you a life to Khartoum and if not you will fare in the same way as the others then you may make my compliments to M. the chief and tell him that it is not the custom for a Frenchman to change the religion under compulsion the chief said a few words and then turned to consult with a short sturdy Arab at his elbow he says M. Ferdin said the dragonman that if you speak again he will make a throw out of you for the dogs to feed from saying nothing to anger him sir we are talking what is to be done with us who is he? asked the colonel it is Ali what Ibrahim the same who raided last year and killed all of the Nubian village I've heard of him said the colonel he has the name of being one of the boldest and the most fanatical of all the caliph's leaders thank God that the women are out of his clutches the two Arabs have been talking in that strange fashion which comes so strangely from a southern race now they both turned to the dragonman who was still kneeling upon the sand they applied him with questions pointing first to one and then to another of their prisoners then they conferred together once more and finally said something to Mansour with a contemptuous wave of the hand to indicate that he might convey it to the others thank heaven gentlemen I think that we are safe for the present time said Mansour wiping away the sand which had stuck to his perspiring forehead Ali what Ibrahim says that though an unbeliever should have only the edge of the sword from one of the sons of the prophet yet it might be a more prophet to debate Elmal at Omdurman if it had the gold which your people will pay for you until it comes you can work as the slaves of the Caliph unless he should decide to put you to death you are to mount yourselves upon the spare camels and to raid with the party the chief had waited for the end of the explanation now he gave a brief order and a nigger stepped forward with a long dull colored sword in his hand the dragonman squealed like a rabbit who sees a ferret and threw himself frantically down upon the sand once more what is it Cochrane asked Cecil Brown for the colonel had served in the east and was the only one of the travelers who had a smattering of Arabic as far as I can make out he says there is no use keeping the dragonman as no one would trouble to pay ransom for him and he is too fat to make a good slave poor devil cried Brown here Cochrane tell them to let him go we can't let him be butchered like they sin front of us say that we will find the money amongst us I will be answerable for any reasonable sum I'll stand in as far as my means will allow cried Belmont we will sign a joint bond or indemnity said the lawyer if I had a paper and pencil I could throw it into shape in an instant and the chief could rely upon its being perfectly correct and valid the colonel's Arabic was insufficient and Mansour himself was too maddened by fear to understand the offer which was being made for him the negro looked a question at the chief and then his long black arm swung upwards and his sword hissed over his shoulder but the dragonman had screamed out something which arrested the blow and which brought the chief and the lieutenant to his side with a new interest upon their swarthy faces the others crowded in also and formed a dense circle around the groveling, pleading man the colonel had not understood this sudden change nor had the others fathomed the reason of it but some instinct flashed it upon Steven's horrified perceptions oh you villain he cried furiously hold your tongue you miserable creature be silent better die a thousand times better die but it was too late and already they could all see the base design by which the coward hoped to save his own life he was about to betray the women they saw the chief with a brave man's contempt upon his stern face make a sign of haughty ascend and then Mansour spoke rapidly and earnestly pointing up the hill at a word from the bagara a dozen raiders rushed up the path and were lost to view upon the top then came a shrill cry a horrible strenuous scream of surprise and terror and an instant later the party streamed into sight again dragging the women in their midst Sadie with her young active limbs kept up with them as they sprang down the slope encouraging her aunt all the while over her shoulder the older lady struggling amid the rushing white figures looked with their thin limbs and open mouth like a chicken being dragged from a coop the chief's dark eyes glanced indifferently at miss Adams but gazed with a smoldering fire at the jungle woman then he gave an abrupt order and the prisoners were hurried in a miserable hopeless drove to the cluster of kneeling camels their pockets had already been ransacked and the contents thrown into one of the camel food bags the neck of which was tied up by Alivat Ibrahim's own hands I say Cochran whispered Belmont looking with smoldering eyes at the wretched Mansour I've got a little hip revolver which they have not discovered shall I shoot that cursed dragon for giving away the women the colonel shook his head you'd better keep it said he with the somber face the women may find some other use for it before all is over End of chapter 4 read by Lars Rolander