_ CHAPTER XXIII. THE MYSTERIOUS ARAB IN A NEW SUIT
The cabin party of the Guardian-Mother were on the promenade in time to observe the entrance into Lake Timsah. It is near the seventy-five kilometre post from Port Said, or half way through the canal to the head of the Gulf of Suez, the most northern portion of the Red Sea. The city of Suez is several miles to the south-west of this point; for Lesseps, for some reason said to be political, avoided the old town, and carried the canal to the other side of the inlet, and below it.
Lake Timsah has an area of about six square miles. It is not a deep body of water, and the canal had to be built through it as through Lake Menzaleh. Its water is now of a pale blue, very pretty to look at. Before any work was done here, it was a mere pond, filled with reeds; but it has been cleaned out and made more healthy for the surrounding country.
On its northern shore is the town of Ismailia, having about two thousand inhabitants, which has become a place of some importance. The railroad from Cairo is extended to it by a branch, the main line following the canal to Suez. It has a couple of hotels; and its principal square, on which the best one is situated, has the name of Place Champollion, showing that the French remember their learned men.
While the canal was in process of construction, Ismailia was the centre of operations. It was handsomely laid out, not unlike the city of Washington, which is one of the handsomest in the world; but, like the new places in our great West, it was built in a hurry, under the pressure of a drive of business, and the sanitary conditions were neglected. The important fresh-water canal, which is near the railroad all the way from the Nile, furnishes the only drinking-water of this town and of Suez; but the sewers of the new town had no other outlet.
Of course the town was soon invaded by fever, which caused it to be deserted; and it has never recovered its former prosperity, though not wholly for this reason, for the completion of the canal destroyed its business basis. Ismailia was the focal point of the great ceremonials at the opening of the canal. The Empress Eugenie of France, the Emperor Frederick of Germany, then crown-prince, and other noted persons, were present; and the celebration is said to have cost the Khedive twenty million dollars.
The town has improved somewhat of late; the viceroy's chateau, which had become much dilapidated, has been restored, and portions of the desert, irrigated from the canal, have been transformed into fine gardens. Though the climate is agreeable and the air dry, it is not likely to become a pleasure resort. A couple of small steamers run from this port to Port Said, while the railroad connects it with Suez.
The steamer remained a couple of hours at the station, as did the Ophir; and the commander obtained permission for the ladies to pay her a visit. She is a magnificent specimen of naval architecture. Her saloon, staterooms, drawing-room on the upper deck, were magnificent apartments, most luxuriously furnished. Her appointments for second-class passengers were extensive and very comfortable, far better than on many Atlantic steamers.
The ubiquitous donkey, and especially the donkey-boy, were here; and the "Big Four," with the exception of Louis Belgrave, who attended Miss Blanche on the visit to the Ophir, accompanied by Don, went on a frolic to the town. They made a great noise and waked up the place, but they committed no excesses. When they returned to the ship, they found Louis and Miss Blanche showing the captain and the surgeon of the big steamer over the Guardian-Mother. The beautiful young lady had evidently fascinated them, and they had been extremely polite to the party, perhaps on her account. They appeared to be interested in the steam-yacht, and expressed their belief that nothing more comfortable and elegant floated.
The steamers got under way again, and proceeded through one of the two channels through the blue lake. The ladies waved their handkerchiefs to the officers and passengers of the Ophir; and their greetings were heartily reciprocated, for the American party had plainly made an impression upon the English people, partly perhaps by the style in which they travelled, but probably more by the beauty of the ladies, with Miss Blanche as princess, and the others were under forty and still good-looking. The lake is only five miles long, and the steamers soon passed into the cut at the south of it.
"Along this region many ruins have been found, some of them of Persian structures," said the commander after the ship had left the lake. "Pharaoh-Necho, 600 B.C., built a canal from Suez to Lake Timsah, with gates, which Herodotus describes, and informs us that the vessels of the period went through it in four days."
"I wish you would tell us something about Herodotus, Captain, for his name has been frequently mentioned in Egypt," said Mrs. Woolridge.
"And about Diodorus and Strabo, also mentioned in the lectures," added the magnate. "I have forgotten all that I ever knew about these gentlemen."
"I am in the same boat, Captain," the doctor responded.
"I shall leave those subjects to the professor. But we are approaching some objects of interest, and we will defer the matter to another time," replied the commander. "Do you see a white dome on the starboard? That is the tomb of Shekh Ennedek; and it is rather a picturesque affair here in the midst of the desert."
"Was he a fighting character?" asked Mrs. Belgrave.
"Not at all; far from it. He was a wealthy Arab chief. He made the pilgrimage to Mecca, which is the duty of every faithful Mohammedan; and he seems to have been greatly impressed by it, for he gave his cattle and his lands to the poor, and spent the rest of his life on the greenish territory we have just passed through, in religious meditation."
"He was a good man if he was a Mohammedan," added the lady.
"We don't believe that all the good people in the world belong to our church," added the captain. "Do you all remember who Miriam was?"
More than half the party could not remember.
"She was the sister of Moses; and she first appears, doubtless as a young girl, watching the Nile-cradle of her infant brother. The land next south of Lake Timsah, made green by the water, is called Gebel Maryam, probably after the sister of Moses. She was a prophetess; but she found fault with the marriage of her brother, for which she was afflicted with Egyptian leprosy. As you find it in the Bible (Numbers xii.), Moses asked the Lord: 'Let her be shut out of the camp seven days, and after that let her be received in again. And Miriam was shut out from the camp seven days.' An Arab legend points out this spot as the place where she spent that time, and from which it gets the name of Maryam."
"That's nice, Captain Ringgold!" exclaimed Mrs. Blossom. "I wish you would tell us more Bible stories."
"Some people believe that the Mediterranean and the Red Seas were connected in some remote age of the world, or at least that the latter extended to the north as far as Lake Timsah," continued the commander, without noticing the suggestion of the amiable lady. "In proof of this supposition, certain shells found in the Mediterranean, but not in the Red Sea, have been thrown up in digging for the canal through Lake Timsah.
"We are approaching what is called the Serapeum," said the captain.
"What! more of them here? I thought we had used up all the Serapeums," said the magnate with a laugh.
"The present one is of a different sort," answered the commander. "But the ruins found in this vicinity were supposed to belong to a Serapeum such as several we have seen on the Nile; but Lepsius says they could not have been a part of a temple to Serapis, but were monuments built on the ancient canal by Darius.
"It is high ground here, comparatively speaking; and you observe that the cutting of the water-way is through a rocky formation, with rather high banks on each side. There is quite a little village above; and, as it is getting dark, we shall pass the night here in the siding-basin."
"Who is that man on the forecastle of the Maud?" asked Captain Scott as the little steamer came into the basin.
"I don't know," replied Captain Ringgold. "I had not noticed him before. He looks like an Arab, though he is taller than most of them."
A flight of steps ascended to the top of the embankment at the station of the little town. The Maud passed close to them on her way to her berth for the night. Abreast of them the Arab on the forecastle leaped ashore, but made a gesture as though the movement had given him pain. He went up the steps and disappeared.
"Who was that man, Knott?" asked the captain when the seaman came on board of the ship.
"I don't know, sir; I called upon him to give an account of himself as we were crossing Lake Timsah; but he could not understand me, pointed to his mouth, and shook his head, meaning that he could not speak English. He did not do any harm, so I let him alone; for Don was running the engine, and I did not like to call him from his duty. He kept his face covered up with a sort of veil, and would not say anything. I thought I would let him alone till we came to a stopping-place, and I could report to you."
"When did he go on board of the Maud?" asked the captain.
"I don't know, sir. The first time I saw him was on the lake. Spinner had the wheel, Don was in the engine-room, and the rest of the ship's company were on the upper deck looking at the sights. I inquired, but no one had seen him."
"Did you ever see him before?"
"I don't think I ever did, sir. He had on what looked like a new suit of Arab togs, and he kept his face covered up, as I said."
If Captain Ringgold was not troubled, he was perplexed. He had observed the stranger distinctly as he went up the steps, but he could not identify him as a person he had ever seen before. Of course it came into his head at once that the tall Arab was Captain Mazagan, and he said as much to Scott.
"We left him at the hotel at Port Said; how could he be here?" asked the captain of the Maud.
"He must have smuggled himself on board of the little steamer when we were at Ismailia; for he was first seen out in the lake."
"How could he have been at Ismailia?" Scott inquired.
The commander went to his cabin, and looked over his "Bradshaw," in which he found that a steamer left Port Said at seven o'clock every morning, and arrived at Ismailia at noon. It was possible that Mazagan had come by this conveyance; and he gave Scott the information.
"Probably he stopped at the station while we were on board of the Ophir, or your party had gone to the town," said the commander. "It was easy enough for him to stow himself away in the cabin of the Maud while no one but Philip was on board of her."
"I supposed we had got to the end of the pirate when I saw him trotted on shore to the hotel," added Scott.
"So did I, though he made some huge but very indefinite threats when I saw him last," mused the commander. "But why did he go on board of the Maud, when he could have gone to Suez by the railroad?"
"I don't see," replied Scott. "He is a Moor, and must be as revengeful as his 'noble master,' as he calls him. It was the Maud that did his business for him, and I was at the wheel of her when she smashed into the side of the Fatime. I only hope his grudge is against me and not against Louis Belgrave."
"You mention the idea I had in my mind when I asked why he went on board of the Maud, Captain Scott," said the commander. "Perhaps it is a lucky chance that I sent for the 'Big Four' so that they might hear all that was said about the scenes through which we were passing."
"You mean that it may have been a lucky chance for Louis or for me; but I believe it is a luckier chance for the pirate, for I think I should have thrown him overboard if I had seen him on our deck," said Scott.
"Then there would probably have been a fight on board of the Maud, and work made for our surgeon in your party. It may have been lucky for all that you were called on board of the ship. But we must take care that he does not resume his voyage in the morning with us."
Captain Ringgold took all necessary precautions. A watch was kept on board of both vessels; and when they started on the remainder of the trip through the canal in the morning, nothing had been seen or heard of Mazagan. It was agreed that nothing had better be said about the matter; and when the cabin party, with the "Big Four," gathered on the promenade at five o'clock in the morning, not one of them, except the big and the little captain, suspected that an enemy was near, if the stranger really was Mazagan, of which they could not be sure. _