'They told him the simple truth. But it is now quite certain that Mehemet Ali is playing a double game with the Sultan, and naturally the Egyptians expect the Turks to do the same by them. Some people here think we took the French treasure or at least some of it; some think we took long-sunk treasure from the depths; some think we took pearls in those waters where they are known to exist but where no man dares dive; and some think we failed; though I believe every reasoning two-legged creature in the town is convinced that the bell was taken for the purpose of material gain. Where the governor belongs in this array of opinion I know not; but Hassan warned me not to trust him. Apart from anything else, since an open breach between Mehemet Ali and the Sublime Porte is very probable, he need not fear Turkish resentment if he treats us ill. I shall tell Martin to take particular care of his echinoderms.'
'I will not say a fig for the governor,' said Jack, 'nor that since he has no troops he has no teeth, because that might be unlucky; but in any case we shall be shot of him tomorrow. And I must say this for him: he has been mighty civil, gathering a good train of camels for us. If I understood him aright they will be here at dawn. Then three or four days later, if we take it easier this time, marching in the morning and evening and resting at midday and night, and if all goes well, we shall be shot of this horrible country too. We shall be aboard that blessed Dromedary, sailing down the Mediterranean like Christians; and all I shall have to do will be to write my official letter. God help us, Stephen, I had rather be flogged round the fleet.'
Jack Aubrey had always disliked writing official letters, even those in which he had a victory to announce: the prospect of writing one which must speak of total failure in every respect, without the least alleviating feature or favourable circumstance - no chance prize taken, no valuable ally acquired - depressed him extremely.
His depression lifted with the appearance of.a visitor, however, the Coptic physician, Dr. Simaika, come to call on Stephen and to talk about European politics, ophthalmia, and Lady Hester Stanhope; he had brought a basket of fresh khat, and as they chewed it, to find whether in fact it made the heat seem less, he branched off to Egyptian adultery, fornication and paederasty - Sodom itself was only a few days march east-north-east, behind the Wells of Moses - in their less tragic aspects, and he was so droll, so intensely amused, that although Jack did not follow a great deal of what he said and often had to have the point explained, he spent a very pleasant evening, laughing much of the time. Suez seemed a much less revolting place; the changing breeze wafted the stench out to sea; the heat was certainly more bearable; and when the governor's secretary came to say that on second thoughts it might be better if Captain Aubrey were not to start tomorrow after all he received him with a fine equanimity. Fortunately Dr Simaika was still there and the position was soon clarified: as the governor had been disappointed of even the half-platoon of guards he had been promised, he thought it advisable to send to Tina, so that a body of Turks might return with the messenger, thus providing Captain Aubrey with an escort across the desert. It would only take ten days or so, and during that time the governor would have the pleasure of Captain Aubrey's much- valued company.
'God forbid,' said Jack. 'Please to tell him that we know the way perfectly well, that we have no need of an escort, since the men will march with their weapons, and that although nothing would give me deeper satisfaction than sitting with his Excellency, duty calls me away.'
The secretary asked whether in that case Captain Aubrey would assume full responsibility, and hold the governor blamelesss if for example one of his men were bitten by a camel, or if thieves picked his pocket at one of the wells?
'Oh yes,' said Jack. 'On my own head be it - best compliments to his Excellency, and should be happy to keep to our former agreement - camels at dawn.'
'Shall we ever see them, I wonder?' said Jack, when the secretary had gone.
'Perhaps you may,' said Dr Simaika with a very significant look; but before its significance could become explicit the purser came to ask for instructions about victualling and Mowett for Captain Aubrey's views on liberty - liberty in the technical sense - while at the same time a fight broke out in the square below, a fight between Davis and the bear, which resented his familiarity in chucking it under the chin.
The Copt bowed and departed. Stephen hurried down to repair the bear, and Jack, having dealt with the question of provisions, said that there was to be no liberty -there was a possibility of their getting under way in the morning, and he did not choose to spend all day combing the brothels of Suez for stragglers. The one great gate into the caravanserai was to be locked, and Wardle and Pomfret, two misogynistic, puritanical, ill-favoured old quartermasters, the grizzled fathers of seventeen children between them, and perfectly reliable when sober, were to guard it. 'For my part,' he added, 'I must go down and see the last of the Niobe', she sails on the first of the ebb. But I shall turn in very early, in case the camels appear.'
The camels appeared, noisy, smelly, grumbling; and as the great gateway opened they strode through in the first grey light; and dodging among their legs, bent low to pass unseen and led by Wardle and Pomfret, came a discreditable number of Surprises who had crept out by night, now pale, hollow-eyed and weary. However, there was nobody missing, and after a brief inspection Mowett could report 'All present and sober, sir, if you please,' without more falsehood than could be borne, since the few hands who were still drunk by naval standards did not fall until after the inspection; and they were quietly slung on to camels' backs among the tents and seamen's bags.
While the few stores that remained from the voyage - a little biscuit, a little tobacco, a quarter keg of rum, and a few barrel hoops that Mr Adams had saved (he was accountable for every one of them) - the seamen's bags, the officers' chests and Stephen's belongings were being loaded, Killick stripped Jack of all his finery, packed it into his sea-chest and lashed the chest, triple-locked and covered with sailcloth, on to a particularly docile, reliable she-camel led by a black man with an honest face, allowing his captain no more than a pair of old nankeen pantaloons, a linen shirt, a broad-brimmed sailor's hat, made of straw, a pair of common ship's pistols, and the shabby sword he used for boarding - these to be hung on the chest when they were out of the town.
Yet plain though he was, Captain Aubrey marched in state, coming first, with Mowett on his right, a midshipman on his left, and his coxswain immediately behind him; then came the Surprises with their officers, forecastlemen in front, then foretopmen, maintopmen and afterguard, and then the baggage-train. They left Suez in quite good style, escorted by a cloud of excited yellow curs and little boys, for although those seamen who started in step soon fell out of it they did at least keep in recognizable groups until they were well out into the desert.
But presently there came a long stretch of heavy going, sand so soft that unless a man had feet like a camel he sank to the ankles; furthermore the whole party had been long enough at sea to grow quite unused to walking, and by the time Jack gave the order to halt for breakfast the column was a long straggling line.
'I see that there are some camels with nothing on their backs but drunken sailors and a few tents,' said Martin. 'Army officers generally ride, even in the foot regiments.'
'So they do in the Navy, sometimes,' said Stephen, 'and an eminently comic spectacle it is, on occasion. But there is a tedious and I fear increasingly powerful sentiment that when something exceptionally arduous and disagreeable is to be done, like walking over a hot, shadowless desert, then all hands must share alike, ton for ton and man for man. It seems to me foolish, inconsistent, ostentatious, useless, illogical. I have often represented to Captain Aubrey that no one expects him to join in cleaning the filth from the ship's heads, nor in many other vile offices, and that it is therefore mere froth and showing away, spiritual pride, nay downright sin, voluntarily to strut
