Chapter XVI: Eastward Ho!

Lady Aberfeldie was a Scottish Episcopalian of the first class; one whose boast it was that she always distinguished Christmas and Easter by mince-pies and cheesecakes; and who rather looked down on English Ritualists and Tractarians as 'second chop;' and who never saw a Michaelmas without its goose; but she forgot the Michaelmas of this year, and with good reason too.

The sudden arrival in the hospital at Ismailia of Captain Graham, the missing officer of the Black Watch, who had been carried off by Bedouins at Matarieh, and who was supposed to have shared the terrible fate of Professor Palmer and his companions, was duly 'wired' home, like many other items of Egyptian news, and caused no small excitement among the inmates of Puddicombe Villa, Southsea. The telegram added that he was without a wound, but was supposed to be dying of enteric fever, the result of all he had undergone when in the desert.

'Dying!' exclaimed his mother, pale as a lily; 'oh, it cannot be.'

And Olive looked the picture of mute misery.

Lord Aberfeldie telegraphed to the chief of the medical staff at Ismailia for distinct intelligence, and the reply--waited for with intense anxiety--came in its usual orange-tinted envelope.

'Not dying yet, but recovery very improbable.'

Lord Aberfeldie, with the promptitude of an old soldier, and full of affection and anxiety, wished to start at once for Egypt, and alone; but the three ladies of his family insisted on going also, so he yielded to their tears, entreaties, and importunities--especially those of Olive, whose misery was very great; and he had much sympathy with a young and loving heart. 'Let no one decry the suffering of the young because they are young,' says a writer; as we grow older we get used to pain, both mental and bodily.

Olive passed the hours, previous to departure, pretty much as we do those which precede a funeral; everything was done as a duty, dressing, undressing, sitting down to meals, and so forth--seeming to have no interest in anything, as if for the time, life and all its interests was over and done with.

'Oh, Eveline,' she exclaimed, 'what advantages men have over us in this world.'

'Of course they have,' replied her cousin, 'but to what do you refer in the present instance?'

'Now, if we were men, we could start for Egypt alone; as it is, we can only go with your papa.'

'If you were a man, Olive, you would not think of going at all.'

'Indeed--why?'

'Little goose! If a man, would you be engaged to Allan? Are you going to become an advocate for women's "rights"--whatever they may be?'

'No--but it is tiresome to have to run in the grooves of life that men lay down for us. Poor creatures, we are only in their eyes the weaker vessels after all.'

'But weaker vessels they make a great fuss with; but how we chatter! Oh, heavens, if Allan's peril--dear, dear Allan--should be so great!'

Olive shivered at this exclamation, as she alternated--like all girls of a delicate and nervous organization--between high spirits at the prospect of going eastward and the awful dread of what tidings might await her there.

'Going to the East--actually to Egypt! Darling papa, how shall we ever be able to thank you?' exclaimed Eveline, as in her energy she locked her slender fingers so tightly together that the great diamond in one of her rings--a gift of Sir Paget--was cutting into her delicate skin, and yet she felt it not.

And great was the disgust of Sir Harry Hurdell, when eventually he heard of this sudden disposition to travel, the precise object of which he failed quite to understand.

Apart from anxiety about her brother, Eveline had another thought, and she kept repeating to herself,

'I shall see the land where Evan died--the land that holds his grave! It is a pilgrimage of love--but one that is without deceit to him.'

'Him,' meant Sir Paget, or 'Old Pudd,' as Sir Harry called him.

Allan might die ere they arrived, or after they did so. In either case, the famous will of Olive's father would be as only so much waste paper, so far as the Aberfeldie family was concerned; but at this time of trial no one thought of that feature in the terrible contingency.

Their whole idea was to see him; to be with him; to know the best or worst; to nurse him well, and to bring him home with them to the soft breezes of the Sidlaw Hills, and his native place, Dundargue.

So Tappleton and Mademoiselle Clairette received their orders; packing was proceeded with; the Continental Bradshaw consulted, and all arrangements made for a speedy departure for Egypt, _viâ_ Paris; by rail then to Marseilles; thence by steamer, Messageries Imperiales Company, to Alexandria, when the train could be taken for Suez.

The night before their departure Olive was so excited that she could not go to bed, but sat listening to the booming of the waves as they rolled on the stormy bluffs of Southsea Castle, while all the past returned upon her, and when she had last seen the face of Allan.

As she was heard moving about in her room, Clairette was sent to inquire for her.

'I have a dreadful head-ache,' said Olive.

'Mon Dieu, mademoiselle, why are you not in bed, instead of shivering there in your night-dress, at an open window, too! This will never do; let me coil up your hair and cover you up.'

'Dear little Clairette, I shall be good and go to bed--yes, to bed.'

Clairette, who knew all about it, kissed her lady's hand; but Olive pressed her lips to the cheek of the French girl, who, in the impulsiveness of her nature, burst into tears, and then, instead of leaving her mistress to repose, had a long gossip with her about Allan, for whose safety she said she gave up a prayer every night.

Appliances for travel are so great and ample now that a few hours after soon saw the whole party on board the Marseilles steamer, and traversing the Mediterranean.

Many officers were in the saloon making their way to join the various regiments, and to these Eveline--so young a widow--was an object of no small interest. She seemed to have ripened into the bloom of early womanhood, though all her girlish manner remained with its softness and grace.

Her figure had become more rounded and developed; her step was firm, though elastic as ever; and she carried her head with an air of stateliness that was somewhat belied by the occasional sadness of her expression and lassitude of demeanour.

To her and to Olive, ever-recurring was the thought, when fairly off the coast of Egypt, how strange it was from the steamer's poop to look upon those places of which they had read so much of late in the newspapers--Alexandria, Suez, Port Said, and so forth--all 'household words' at home now.

At the first-named place they saw ample traces of the terrible bombardment, with the details of which they were more familiar than with those of its marble palaces and porphyry temples of the times of old; or of the golden coffin of its young hero, who emulated being a god; of its streets, two thousand feet in width; and its Pharos, whose mirrors of polished steel reflected from afar the galleys of Cleopatra.

Suez, with its mosques and caravansaries, its houses of sun-bricks, amid, or rather bordering on, a desert of rock, slightly covered with sand, and where trees, gardens, and meadows are almost entirely unknown, was soon left behind as the train bore them on by Shalouffe, Geneffe, Faid, Serapium, and Nefishe, to Ismailia, so named after Ismail Pasha, and which deems itself the most aristocratic or respectable place upon the canal, as the Khedive erected a palace for himself at the east end of it, and the houses have all a substantial appearance, with neat and trim gardens; and the appearance of its harbour reminded Lord Aberfeldie of that of Balaclava in the time of the Crimean war; and still the Lake of Timsah was crowded with vessels of all sorts and sizes.

Despite the deep and keen interest of the matter nearest their hearts--the object which had brought them so far from home--it was impossible for Olive and Eveline not to be occasionally drawn from their own thoughts, and impressed by the novelty of the new sights, scenes, and certain memories of the land they looked on, for the crossing of the Red Sea by the children of Israel took place somewhere near where Ismailia stands, and certain it is that, at no great distance therefrom, it was at El-Khantara-el-Khazneh, the Virgin Mother and the Holy Child passed when Joseph arose by night 'and departed into Egypt.'

The wide lake looked now like a land-locked harbour crowded with shipping. Great steamers, magnificent 'troopers,' all painted white, colossal men-of-war lay like leviathans there, while gunboats, launches, and steam-tugs were for ever shooting to and fro.

In the streets invalid soldiers of every kind, in tattered _karkee_ uniforms or red serges, Guardsmen, Highlanders, Dragoons, Artillery, and Rifles, were creeping about, some propped on sticks and crutches, awaiting their transmission home; and there, too, might be seen, occasionally, stalwart Bedouins, dirty Jews, and sable negroes, howling Dervishes, and many breeds of Arabs, Italians, and Frenchmen; the Turk, with his smart scarlet fez; the Egyptian, with tarboosh and a turban twisted round it; and in some instances Moors, with embroidered jackets, white turban, crimson sash, and trousered to the knee, with yellow shoes, a scimitar and antique gun of enormous length; and though last, not least, the English Jack-tar, rollicking about and eyeing curiously the closely-veiled women.

The novelty of these sights and scenes in the minds of Olive and Eveline became merged at last, especially when they saw our wounded redcoats and bluejackets, in absorption about Allan, who, dead or alive, was then in that place, Ismailia.

And, in dread of the tidings that might await her, Olive already began to pray and wrestle, as it were, with anticipated despair and dread of how Allan, if in life, might receive her. Until now this idea had never occurred to her.

'Oh, my lost love--my lost love!' she whispered to herself; 'what shall I say or do to convince you that I love you, and you only? If gone--oh, my God!--no, no, _no_--but if gone, I cannot call you back to me--and I cannot go to you. In another hour we shall know all--all!'

Aware, as an old Crimean campaigner, that shocking scenes might meet their eyes in the vicinity of a military hospital, Lord Aberfeldie took the three ladies of his party to the chief hotel, and then, with a heart full of the liveliest anxiety, set forth to make inquiries about Allan, to whom we shall now return.