The Suez caravan—an immense affair—was formed up in the outskirts of
Cairo. In view of the recent murders it included a large guard, and the
journey, which took three days, passed off without disaster. Mr. Fay had
a horse; Eliza, still panting in her Oriental robes, travelled in a
litter insecurely hung between two restive camels. Peeping out through
its blinds she could see the sun and the rocks by day, and the stars by
night. She notes their beauty, her senses seem sharpened by danger, and
she was to look back on the desert with a hint of romance. Above her
head, attached to the roof of the litter, were water-bottles, melons,
and hard-boiled eggs, her provision for the road, rumbling and crashing
together to the grave disturbance of her sleep. “Once I was saluted by a
parcel of hard eggs breaking loose from their net and pelting me
completely. It was fortunate that they were boiled, or I should have
been in a pretty trim.” By her side rode her husband, and near him was a
melancholy figure, followed by a sick greyhound, young Mr. Taylor, who
became so depressed by the heat that he slid off his horse and asked to
be allowed to die. His request was refused, as was his request that she
should receive the greyhound into her litter. Eliza was ever sensible.
She was not going to be immured with a boiling hot dog which might bite
her. “I hope no person will accuse me of inhumanity for refusing to
receive an animal in that condition: self-preservation forbade my
compliance; I felt that it would be weakness instead of compassion to
subject myself to such a risk.” Consequently the greyhound died. An Arab
despatched him with his scimitar, Mr. Taylor protested, the Arab ran at
Mr. Taylor. “You may judge from this incident what wretches we were cast
among.”
They found a boat at Suez and went on board at once. Mr. Fay writes a
line to his father-in-law to tell him that they are safe thus far: a
grandiose little line:
Some are now very ill, but I stood it as well as any Arabian in
the caravan, which consisted of at least five thousand people.
My wife insists on taking the pen out of my hands.
She takes it, to the following effect:
My dear Friends—I have not a moment’s time, for the boat is
waiting, therefore can only beg that you will unite with me in
praising our Heavenly Protector for our escape from the various
dangers of our journey. I never could have thought my
constitution was so strong. I bore the fatigues of the desert
like a lion. We have been pillaged of almost everything by the
Arabs. This is the Paradise of thieves, I think the whole
population may be divided into two classes of them: those who
adopt force and those who effect their purpose by fraud.... I
have not another moment. God bless you! Pray for me, my beloved
friends.
It is not clear when the Fays had been pillaged, or of what; perhaps
they had merely suffered the losses incidental to an Oriental
embarkation. The ship herself had been pillaged, and badly. She had been
connected with the earlier caravan—the ill-fated one—and the Government
had gutted her in its vague embarrassment. Not a chair, not a table was
left. Still they were thankful to be on board. Their cabin was good, the
captain appeared good-natured and polite, and their fellow-passengers, a
Mr. and Mrs. Tulloch, a Mr. Hare, a Mr. Fuller, and a Mr. Manesty,
seemed, together with poor Mr. Taylor from the caravan, to promise
inoffensive companionship down the Red Sea. Calm was the prospect. But
Eliza is Eliza. And we have not yet seen Eliza in close contact with
another lady. Nor have we yet seen Mrs. Tulloch.