Donovan Pasha, and Some People of Egypt — Volume 2Parker, Gilbert
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Donovan Pasha, and Some People of Egypt — Volume 2
Parker, Gilbert
Egypt -- Fiction; Short stories
Three days afterward, David, with Abdul Huseyn, went to the Palace of
the Khedive at Cairo, and within a week Shelek Pasha was on his way to
Fazougli, the hot Siberia. For the rage of the Khedive was great when he
heard what David and Abdul Huseyn told him of the murderous riot Shelek
Pasha had planned. David, being an honest Quaker--for now again he wore
his shovel hat--did not realise that the Khedive had only hungered for
this chance to confiscate the goods of Shelek Pasha. Was it not justice
to take for the chosen ruler of the Faithful the goods an Armenian
Christian had stolen from the poor? Before David left the Palace the
Khedive gave him the Order of the Mejidfeh, in token of what he had done
for Egypt.
In the end, however, David took three things only out of Egypt: his wife,
the Order of the Mejidfeh, and Shelek Pasha's pardon, which he strove for
as hard as he had striven for his punishment, when he came to know the
Khedive had sent the Mudir to Fazougli merely that he might despoil him.
He only achieved this at last, again on the advice of Abdul Huseyn, by
giving the Khedive as backsheesh the Syrian donkey-market, the five
hundred feddans of cotton, and Hope's new school. Then, believing in no
one in Egypt any more, he himself went with an armed escort and his
Quaker hat, and the Order of the Khedive, to Fazougli, and brought Shelek
Pasha penniless to Cairo.
Nowadays, on the mastaba before his grandson's door, Abdul Huseyn, over
ninety "by the grace of Allah," still tells of the backsheesh he secured
from the Two Strange People for his help on a certain day.
In Framley, where the whole truth never came, David and Hope occasionally
take from a secret drawer the Order of the Mejidfeh to look at it, and,
as David says, to "learn the lesson of Egypt once again." Having learned
it to some purpose--and to the lifelong edification of old friend
Fairley, the only one who knew the whole truth--they founded three great
schools for Quaker children. They were wont to say to each other, as the
hurrying world made inroads on the strict Quaker life to which they had
returned: "All the world's mad but thee and me, and thee's a bit mad."
GLOSSARY
Aiwa, effendi----Yea, noble sir.
Allah----God.
Allah-haly 'm alla-haly----A singsong of river-workers.
Allah Kerim----God is bountiful.
Allshu Akbar----God is most Great.
A'l'meh----Female professional singers
Antichi----Antiquities.
Backsheesh----Tip, douceur, bribe.
Balass----Earthen vessel for carrying water.
Basha----Pasha.
Bersim----Grass.
Bimbashi----Major.
Bishareen----A native tribe.
Bismillah----In the name of God.
Bowab----A doorkeeper.
Corvee----Forced labour.
Dahabeah----A Nile houseboat with large lateen sails.
Darabukkeh----A drum made of a skin stretched over an earthenware funnel.
Doash----(Literally) Treading. A ceremony performed on the return of the
Holy Carpet from Mecca.
Dourha----Maize.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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