“Yes, yes, yes; him gib baksheesh,” said another.
“Him berry good man,” said a third, putting up his filthy hand, and touching Mr. Ingram’s face.
“And young lady berry good, too; she give baksheesh to poor Arab.”
“Yes,” said a fourth, preparing to take a similar liberty with Miss Damer.
This was too much for Mr. Ingram. He had already used very positive language in his endeavour to assure his tormentors that they would not get a piastre from him. But this only changed their soft persuasions into threats. Upon hearing which, and upon seeing what the man attempted to do in his endeavour to get money from Miss Damer, he raised his stick, and struck first one and then the other as violently as he could upon their heads.
Any ordinary civilised men would have been stunned by such blows, for they fell on the bare foreheads of the Arabs; but the objects of the American’s wrath merely skulked away; and the others, convinced by the only arguments which they understood, followed in pursuit of victims who might be less pugnacious.
It is hard for a man to be at once tender and pugnacious—to be sentimental, while he is putting forth his physical strength with all the violence in his power. It is difficult, also, for him to be gentle instantly after having been in a rage. So he changed his tactics at the moment, and came to the point at once in a manner befitting his present state of mind.
“Those vile wretches have put me in such a heat,” he said, “that I hardly know what I am saying. But the fact is this, Miss Damer, I cannot leave Cairo without knowing—. You understand what I mean, Miss Damer.”
“Indeed I do not, Mr. Ingram; except that I am afraid you mean nonsense.”
“Yes, you do; you know that I love you. I am sure you must know it. At any rate you know it now.”
“Mr. Ingram, you should not talk in such a way.”
“Why should I not? But the truth is, Fanny, I can talk in no other way. I do love you dearly. Can you love me well enough to go and be my wife in a country far away from your own?”
Before she left the top of the Pyramid Fanny Damer had said that she would try.
Mr. Ingram was now a proud and happy man, and seemed to think the steps of the Pyramid too small for his elastic energy. But Fanny feared that her troubles were to come. There was papa—that terrible bugbear on all such occasions. What would papa say? She was sure her papa would not allow her to marry and go so far away from her own family and country. For herself, she liked the Americans—always had liked them; so she said;—would desire nothing better than to live among them. But papa! And Fanny sighed as she felt that all the recognised miseries of a young lady in love were about to fall upon her.
Nevertheless, at her lover’s instance, she promised, and declared, in twenty different loving phrases, that nothing on earth should ever make her false to her love or to her lover.
“Fanny, where are you? Why are you not ready to come down?” shouted Mr. Damer, not in the best of tempers. He felt that he had almost been unkind to an unprotected female, and his heart misgave him. And yet it would have misgiven him more had he allowed himself to be entrapped by Miss Dawkins.
“I am quite ready, papa,” said Fanny, running up to him—for it may be understood that there is quite room enough for a young lady to run on the top of the Pyramid.
“I am sure I don’t know where you have been all the time,” said Mr. Damer; “and where are those two boys?”
Fanny pointed to the top of the other Pyramid, and there they were, conspicuous with their red caps.
“And M. Delabordeau?”
“Oh! he has gone down, I think;—no, he is there with Miss Dawkins.” And in truth Miss Dawkins was leaning on his arm most affectionately, as she stooped over and looked down upon the ruins below her.
“And where is that fellow, Ingram?” said Mr. Damer, looking about him. “He is always out of the way when he’s wanted.”
To this Fanny said nothing. Why should she? She was not Mr. Ingram’s keeper.
And then they all descended, each again with his proper number of Arabs to hurry and embarrass him; and they found Mrs. Damer at the bottom, like a piece of sugar covered with flies. She was heard to declare afterwards that she would not go to the Pyramids again, not if they were to be given to her for herself, as ornaments for her garden.
The picnic lunch among the big stones at the foot of the Pyramid was not a very gay affair. Miss Dawkins talked more than anyone else, being determined to show that she bore her defeat gallantly. Her conversation, however, was chiefly addressed to M. Delabordeau, and he seemed to think more of his cold chicken and ham than he did of her wit and attention.
Fanny hardly spoke a word. There was her father before her and she could not eat, much less talk, as she thought of all that she would have to go through. What would he say to the idea of having an American for a son-in-law?
Nor was Mr. Ingram very lively. A young man when he has been just accepted, never is so. His happiness under the present circumstances was, no doubt, intense, but it was of a silent nature.
And then the interior of the building had to be visited. To tell the truth none of the party would have cared to perform this feat had it not been for the honour of the thing. To have come from Paris, New York, or London, to the Pyramids, and then not to have visited the very tomb
