A LAND OF WONDERS
“And now, Teddy,” said the captain, “we’ll send a cablegram to that
father of yours and tell him all about his prodigal son and ask him
whether you can go with us or whether we’ll have to bundle you back
home.”
“Oh, please ask him to let me stay with you, now that I’m here,” begged
Teddy.
He noted with pleasure that the captain no longer addressed him as
“young man.” As a matter of fact, the captain, who was extremely fond
of the boy, had long ago forgiven him, and the way Teddy had borne
himself in the encounter with the rascals aboard the steamer had fully
reinstated him in the good graces of his temporary guardian.
The cablegram was dispatched, and then, after some inquiries at a
shipping office, the party made their way back to the hotel.
Don and his mother were delighted at the news they had secured.
“I might have known that things would be all right as soon as you got
here,” said Mrs. Sturdy gratefully.
“Oh, we old hounds are still some good when it comes to picking up a
trail,” replied her husband’s brother, with a grin.
“And now we must get busy and start at once,” said the professor.
“Every hour is precious.”
“I can start at almost a minute’s notice,” declared Mrs. Sturdy.
The captain hesitated.
“I know just how you feel, Alice,” he said slowly. “But, really, I
think it would be better for you not to go with us. The desert is
no place for a woman, and it’s going to be a very hard and trying
expedition.”
“Oh, but I want to go!” exclaimed Mrs. Sturdy, disappointment coming
into her face.
“Of course, you naturally would,” rejoined her brother-in-law. “But all
the same I don’t think it would be wise. You agree with me, don’t you,
Amos?” he asked, turning to Mrs. Sturdy’s brother.
“I certainly do,” rejoined the latter. “You see, Alice, with all
you’ve gone through, you’ve nearly reached the breaking point. Even
if you were perfectly well and strong, it would be inadvisable; and
as things stand, it would be almost suicidal. We’ve made inquiries at
the shipping office, and a liner is sailing to-morrow. You need to
recuperate in the rest and quiet of home. And then, too, Ruth needs
you.”
The last proved the strongest argument in breaking down Mrs. Sturdy’s
reluctance, and she finally consented.
The few hours she still had left with Don were golden ones for both
mother and son, and they spent every moment they could together before
the vessel sailed.
Her family saw her provided with every possible comfort on the vessel
that was to bear her to the waiting arms of Ruth, and after loving
leave-takings, stood on the shore and waved to her until her dear form
at the steamer’s rail could no longer be distinguished.
Don’s eyes were wet as he turned to go back to the hotel after the
parting from his mother, but there was a measure of peace and happiness
in his heart to which it had been a stranger for years. At least, he
had found his mother and held her in his embrace.
God had been good and restored to him his mother and sister. Surely
he could depend on Him to help him find his father. The boy took new
courage and mentally girded up his loins for the coming struggle.
Those left behind stopped at the telegraph office on their way back to
the hotel and found a cablegram awaiting them from Mr. Allison. Captain
Sturdy tore it open while Don and Teddy waited with bated breath.
The captain read the message aloud:
“Young rascal ought to be spanked. Give him my love. Would have let
him go if I had known. He can make the trip with you. Thanks for your
kindness. Know he is in good hands. Will make matters right with you
when you get back.
“ALLISON.”
Don clasped Teddy in his arms after the reading of the telegram, and
the two boys executed a wild dance on the floor of the office, much to
the scandal of the native clerks, who looked on open-eyed.
“Glory hallelujah!” cried Don. “You’re going with us, Brick! Old scout,
you’re going with us! Do you hear?”
“It’s the reward of virtue,” said Brick, with a shameless grin.
“Virtue!” snorted the captain, trying to look stern, but not succeeding
very well. “It simply shows that a young scapegrace can sometimes get
by. Come along now. There’s much to do, and we have to hustle.”
They “hustled” to such good purpose that they were able to take the
train for Cairo that afternoon. They were agreeably surprised, or at
least the boys were, to find that they were in a smart clean train that
would compare favorably with anything in Europe, and that the express
would cover the hundred and fifty mile trip to Cairo in less than four
hours. The lads had expected the ramshackle affair, common in the
East, that would simply drag along under all condition of discomfort.
“It’s due to the English occupation,” explained the professor. “They
see that everything is good and up-to-date and in accord with Western
standards.”
Through the windows of the train, as it sped along, the boys saw a
fascinating panorama unfolded. They were in a land that was literally
flowing with milk and honey. As far as the eye could see, the soil
was unbelievably rich. There were great groves of palm trees, their
feathery fronds waving gracefully in the air; fields of dark loam that
needed only to be tickled with the hoe to make them laugh; extensive
fields of cotton, looking like heaps of drifted snow; and plantations
of sugar cane, the stalks crowded so thickly together as to form what
seemed almost an impenetrable forest.
The coloring of the landscape was also a dream of beauty. The bright
green of the fields, the reddish brown of the Nile, along whose banks
they often wound, the mellow tints of yellow rocks under a sky of
cerulean blue, formed a picture to delight the eye of an artist.
“A wonderful country,” remarked the professor. “Rich beyond
imagination, even after centuries of Turkish misrule. We can imagine
what it must have been in the days of the Pharaohs, when every inch
of ground was carefully cultivated and when this valley of the Nile
supported an immense population.”
“What makes it so rich?” asked Teddy.
“The River Nile,” was the answer. “The annual overflow of the river
leaves a rich deposit of mud that has gradually grown deeper with the
passage of centuries. Dry up the Nile, and Egypt would no longer exist.
It would be just like the Sahara. The old Egyptians used to worship the
Nile as a god and pay sacrifices to it, because they knew their very
lives depended upon it. The priests had pillars, on which they marked
each year the rising of the waters. If the waters were high there would
be an abundant harvest. If they were low the crops would be very poor.
If unusually low, the country would be threatened with famine. In a
very real sense the Nile is Egypt. Even now, beyond the limits of the
spread of the water the country is practically a desert.”
The old and the new were in perpetual contact all through the
train journey. The railroad stations were neat and well-kept, with
well-uniformed attendants and English clerks in spotless white. Around
them clustered scores of beggars extending their skinny hands toward
the car windows and clamoring for baksheesh. The train passed handsome
villas surrounded by beautiful gardens. These were within a stone’s
throw of squalid mud huts, with ragged dirty children playing about
the doors. Donkeys, so heavily laden with sugar cane that the very
heads of the patient animals were hidden, were prodded along with
sticks in the hands of their drivers. These ancient burden-bearers
disputed the road with modern motor cars, whose honking horns seemed
strangely out of place in that Oriental setting.
It was a fascinating study of contrasts, and it so engrossed the
attention of the boys that it was with a sensation of regret they found
that they were approaching Cairo, the capital of the kingdom and the
greatest city of Africa.
They had telegraphed to Zeta Phalos that they were coming, and they
found him waiting for them with a handsome touring car and a uniformed
chauffeur. He waved aside all their suggestions that they might be
taxing his hospitality too much, and insisted on conveying them to his
home, to be his guests until they set out on their search.
There was no denying such friendliness, and they stepped into the car
and were rapidly whirled to the home of Phalos, which proved to be a
palatial one in the suburbs of the city, not far from the banks of the
Nile.
It was a beautiful structure, built in harmony with the climate
and surroundings. There were many rooms opening on balconies that
overlooked a courtyard in which were plashing fountains, and everything
indicated that their host was a man of wealth, as well as of breeding
and culture.
After a dinner so good that Don and Teddy ate till for very shame’s
sake they had to stop, the party adjourned to a balcony which fronted
on the river.
“Gee! pinch me somebody,” exclaimed Teddy, as he sank into a chair and
took in the full glory of the sunset. “I feel as if I were living in
the days of the Arabian Nights.”
Don promptly obliged him with a vigorous pinch.
“Ouch!” cried Teddy, rubbing the stinging flesh. “You needn’t be so
mighty literal.”
“A friend will always do what another friend asks him to,” replied Don
virtuously.
From the Nile came the sound of native music, as a felucca glided down
the stream with a wide ripple spreading from her bows, the oars of her
crew swaying to the faint sounds of a chantey, such perhaps as may have
been sung in the days of the Pharaohs. The white sails of a dahabiyeh
gleamed with a rosy tint in the last rays of the sinking sun. It was
a scene of measureless peace and enchantment, as far apart from the
hubbub and bustle of the modern world as though it were on another
planet.
The Americans roused themselves at last from the trance into which they
had fallen. Phalos was speaking.
“I cannot tell you how glad I am to have you with me,” he was assuring
Don’s uncles. “The more glad because it is in some sort a compensation
for some bad news that I received from Alexandria just a few minutes
before you came.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Professor Bruce, straightening up in his
chair. “May I ask what it is? That is, if it’s nothing personal and
private.”
“In a sense I suppose it concerns all of us,” Phalos answered slowly,
toying with his glasses. “Tezra and Nepahak have landed in Alexandria!”