Donovan Pasha, and Some People of Egypt — Volume 3Parker, Gilbert
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Donovan Pasha, and Some People of Egypt — Volume 3
Parker, Gilbert
Egypt -- Fiction; Short stories
Then he sat down where the fellah had sat, and the sakkia droned its
mystic music over the river, the desert, and the plain. But the buffalo
moved slowly-the fellah's song had been a spur to its travel, as the
camel-driver's song is to the caravan in the waste of sands. Wyndham
hesitated an instant, then, as the first trickle of water entered the
garden of the house where his Gippies and the friendlies were, his voice
rose in the Song of the Sakkia:
"Turn, O Sakkia, turn to the right, and turn to the left:
Who will take care of me, if my father dies?
Who will give me water to drink, and the cucumber vine at my door
Turn, O Sakkia!"
If he had but one hour longer there would be enough water for men and
horses for days, twenty jars of water pouring all the time!
Now and again a figure came towards the wheel, but not close enough to
see that the one sluice-gate had been shut and the other opened. A half-
hour passed, an hour, and then the end came.
The gagged fellah had managed to free his mouth, and though his feet were
bound also and he could not loose them, he gave a loud call for help.
From dying fires here and there Arab sentries sprang to their feet with
rifles and lances.
Wyndham's work was done. He leapt from the sakkia, and ran towards the
house. Shot after shot was fired at him, lances were thrown, and once an
Arab barred his way suddenly. He pistoled him and ran on. A lance
caught him in the left arm. He tore it out and pushed forward. Stooping
once, he caught up a sword from the ground. When he was within fifty
yards of the house, four Arabs intercepted him. He slashed through, then
turned with his pistol and fired as he ran quickly towards the now open
gate. He was within ten yards of it, and had fired his last shot, when a
bullet crashed through his jaw.
A dozen Gippies ran out, dragged him in, and closed the gate.
The last thing Wyndham did before he died in the grey of dawn--and this
is told of him by the Gippies themselves-was to cough up the bullet from
his throat, and spit it out upon the ground. The Gippies thought it a
miraculous feat, and that he had done it in scorn of the Arab foe.
Before another sunrise and sunset had come, Wyndham bimbashi's men were
relieved by the garrison of Kerbat, after a hard fight.
There are Englishmen in Egypt who still speak slightingly of Wyndham
bimbashi, but the British officer who buried him hushed a gossiping
dinner-party a few months ago in Cairo by saying:
"Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him;
But little he'll reek, if they let him sleep on
In the grave where his Gippies have laid him."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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