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Updated: May 25, 2025
Then the coach from the Gehzireh Palace rolled by in a cloud of dust, and people hurried down the steps of Shepheard's and took their places in our coach, and the dragomans in their gorgeous costumes followed with wraps, and the porters bustled about stowing away hand-luggage, and Arabs crowded near, thrusting their violets and roses and amber necklaces and beaded fly-brushes into your very face, and the old man who sells turquoises made his last effort to sell you a set for shirt-studs, and the Egyptians and East-Indians from the bazaars opposite came to the door and looked on with the perennial interest and friendliness of the Orient, and a swarm of beggars pleaded, with the excitement of a last chance, for backsheesh, and there was a babel of tongues French, English, Italian, German, and Arabic, all hurtling about your ears like so many verbal bullets in a battle, when suddenly the door slammed, the driver cracked his whip, the coach lurched forward, the children scattered and we were off.
When he told of the wicked plot of the dragomans, and how signally it had failed through Allah's mercy, it angered him to see her wag her head with boding looks. She could not realise the victory his words implied. "Think, O my mother!" he cried out impatiently.
Mine eyes were dragomans for my tongue betted * And told full clear the love I fain would hide: When last we met and tears in torrents railed * For tongue struck dumb my glances testified: She signed with eye glance while her lips were mute * I signed with fingers and she kenned th' implied: Our eyebrows did all duty 'twixt us twain; * And we being speechless Love spake loud and plain.
Iskender still had hope to foil the dragomans. He led his patron in a direction opposite to that where he had left Elias. But, looking back, he saw two figures shadowing them, and knew the game was up. In fact, no sooner had they found a cool retreat than Elias and Yuhanna sauntered up, hailing Iskender with delight as loving comrades.
He had not looked at Mrs. Armine. And she had thought of Ibrahim as just a gentle and amiable boy! Could all these people read her mind and follow the track of her distastes and desires, even the dragomans and the donkey-boys?
The brown children of the Nile, the toilers who sing their antique songs by the shadoof and the sakieh, the dragomans, the smiling goblin merchants, the Bedouins who lead your camel into the pale recesses of the dunes these will not trouble themselves about your deep desires, your perhaps yearning hunger of the heart and the imagination. Yet Egypt is not unresponsive.
The fragrance of coffee stewing filled the place, mixed with the peculiar odour of a charcoal fire. Here the English-speaking dragomans used to meet together at the cool of the day, to practise the tongue of their profession and discuss the news. Clad in the gayest Oriental clothing to attract the foreigner, their talk was all of Europe and its social splendours.
When he came at last to his own door, it was to find a crowd awaiting him, anxious to know the truth of strange reports. Several of the dragomans were there, including Abdullah, uncle of Iskender, who questioned Elias in no peaceful tone. Awed by the sternness of so respectable a man, Elias dissembled his rage, and spoke in sorrow: "Alas! it is too true.
She sat below on a fragment of stone, with the three dragomans standing around her as guards; but even with the three dragomans the attacks on her were so frequent, and as she declared afterwards she was so bewildered, that she never had time to remember that she had come there from England to see the Pyramids, and that she was now immediately under them.
Avoid them; lead thy lord away from them. Thy coming here this evening was a fault. Go now and quietly, lest they trap thee somehow. I expect thee at my house at noon to-morrow." Iskender saw the wisdom in these words. He shot a glance over his shoulder at the other dragomans. They were still busy singing to the concertina.
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