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He was a deep man and a strong; and it was through him the conscription descended upon Mahommed Selim "son of a burnt father," as he called him who had gone shooting jackals in the desert with his daughter, and had lost him his breakfast. Wassef's rage was quiet but effective, for he had whispered to some purpose in the ear of the Mamour as well as in that of the dreaded kavass of conscription.
The secretary gave me a tremendously heavy curved camel-stick of ebony, and the mamour besides a head-scratcher, which he had made me himself from an ibex horn, a stick of ibex horn, and seven and a half pairs of horns. We were weatherbound yet another day, everything damp and sticky.
Wassef replied that the Mamour did well not to accept the backsheesh of Mahommed Selim's father, for the Mouffetish at the palace of Ismail would have heard of it, and there would have been an end to the Mamour. It was quite a different matter when it was backsheesh for sending Mahommed Selim to the Soudan.
There we halted, and bade adieu to the governors and officials of Mohammed Gol, who had accompanied us thus far. Our parting was almost dramatic, and the injunctions to the sheikh to see to our safety were reiterated with ever additional vehemence, the mamour holding my husband's hand all the time.
Besides these head-men we had several minor sheikhs with us, and two soldiers sent by the mamour from his garrison at Mohammed Gol to see that we were well treated. Hence our caravan was of considerable dimensions when we took our departure from Mohammed Gol on February 6.
Taxes, the corvee, undue influence in favour of pashas who could put his water on their land without compensation, or unearthed old unpaid mortgages on his land, or absorbed his special salt concession in the Government monopoly, or suddenly put a tax on all horses and cattle not of native breed; all these and various other imposts, exactions, or interferences engineered by the wily Mamour, the agent of the mouffetish, or the intriguing Pasha, killed his efforts, in spite of labours unbelievable.
Taxes, the corvee, undue influence in favour of pashas who could put his water on their land without compensation, or unearthed old unpaid mortgages on his land, or absorbed his special salt concession in the Government monopoly, or suddenly put a tax on all horses and cattle not of native breed; all these and various other imposts, exactions, or interferences engineered by the wily Mamour, the agent of the mouffetish, or the intriguing Pasha, killed his efforts, in spite of labours unbelievable.
The conferences with the mamour and omdah were short, in keeping with the temper of "Fielding Saadat"; and long into the night Dicky lay and looked out of his cabin window to the fires on the banks, where sat Mahommed Seti the servant, the orderly, and some attendant ghaffirs, who, feasting on the remains of the effendi's supper, kept watch. For Hasha was noted for its robbers.
At sunset the Amenhotep drew in to the bank by Hasha, and, from the deck, Fielding Bey saluted the mamour, the omdah and his own subordinates, who, buttoning up their coats as they came, hurried to the bank to make salaams to him.
But no one told Soada this, and she did not think; she was content to rest in the fleeting dream. "Give them twenty-four hours," said the black-visaged fat sergeant of cavalry come to arrest Mahommed Selim for desertion. The father of Mahommed Selim again offered the Mamour a feddan of land if the young man might go free, and to the sergeant he offered a she-camel and a buffalo. To no purpose.
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