Dodo and I. A novel

Front matter

A NOVEL BY CAPTAIN ANDREW HAGGARD, D.S.O. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCLXXXIX All Rights reserved THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO A. L. Y. PEEFACE. Since the events recorded in 'Dodo and I' took place, some changes have been made in Shepheard's Hotel. There is a new dining-room, and other altera tions have been made. Moreover, that weather-cock, popular taste, having veered round, the Shoobra is no longer so much frequented by the Cairenes as it was a short time ago. The reader will therefore understand that this history refers to Cairo as it was, and not as a few changes may have made it since it was the happy hunting-ground of the Dodo and I. D. C. CONTENTS. CHAP. page I. TAMAl! 1 II. ABOUT THE DODO AND MYSELF 10 III. CAIRO — SHEPHEARD'S HOTEL, . . . .15 IV, "FOR SATAN FINDS SOME MISCHIEF STILL FOR IDLE HANDS TO DO," 34 V. ZULEIKHA, 41 VI.

I HEAR STRANGE TALES, 53 VII. WHICH TREATS OF VARIOUS MATTERS, ... 71 VIII. SEANCE AT ABD EL GHANl'S HOUSE, ... 81 IX. WHAT THE DODO WAS DOING, .... 93 X. WE START ON THE WAR-PATH, .... 103 XI. A NIGHT SURPRISE, 117 XII. WE FIGHT AND WE CONQUER, . . . .128 XIII. ZULEIKHA WELCOMES US BACK, .... 139 XIV. ZULEIKHA DISINTEGRATES, X CONTENTS. XV. SYMPATHY AND ANTIPATHY, 165 XVI. AFFINITIES AND LOVE-MAKING, . . . .175 XVII. ZULEIKHA'S VENGEANCE, 189 XVIII. WHICH STARTLES SOCIETY, 203 XIX. THE CHESTNUTS, 218 XX. A SISTER OF MERCY, 233 XXI. ZULEIKHA SHOWS TEMPER, 244 XXII. LOCH AND MOOR 253 XXIII. BREAKERS AHEAD, 260 XXIV. LAND IN SIGHT, 271 XXV. IN COURT, 286 XXVI. SIR FERDINAND IS SARCASTIC, .... 299 XXVII. " AND THEY'VE ALL GOT A MATE BUT ME," . . 308 XXVIII. INITIATION AND SEPARATION, .... 316 XXIX. HOME IN THE HIMALAYAS,

Chapter I. Tamai

! " Thank ye, Dodo," said I. That was all ; there was no time for more, as we had serious business on hand. Dodo had just saved my life ; my revolver was empty. In desperation I had vainly clicked the empty cartridge-case in the grim face of a fuzzy-wigged Hadendowah, who, furi ous at a wound I had already inflicted, had been in the very act of driving his spear into me, when Dodo killed him by spitting him like a woodcock on his tailor's sword. We had often chaffed him for believ ing this weapon to be asgood as a "Wilkinson." The savage fell on me so that I could not quite avoid the bright broad-bladed spear, but it inflicted only a flesh wound in my left side above the ribs, instead of A passing through the heart, and I scarcely felt it at the time. Yes. " Thank ye, Dodo," was all I had time to say, as with a hurried jerk the dear old fellow pulled me up to my feet from underneath the yet struggling and unsavoury warrior, whose life-blood was most un pleasantly mingling with my own.

" Bolt sharp now," said the Dodo — " there are lots more coming ; quick ! take these," and he thrust into my hand the Arab's spear and shield, the latter per forated by a revolver-bullet of my own. I was sword less, for my weapon had been badly bent by a fall from a camel on the previous evening, and as I did not expect to come to such very close quarters with the enemy, I had left it in the zeriba as useless. There were indeed lots more coming — hundreds more, thousands more, pouring by in a stream, and completely cutting us off from my own company and regiment, which was being slowly driven back by this unexpected assault, delivered from a gloomy ravine. They were running along at a steady jog-trot, giving an occasional spring of about three feet high, and hoarsely muttering "Al-lab. ! Al-lah!

" as they ran. We did bolt as Dodo suggested, and had soon joined two detached and unbroken companies of marines, whose bayonets were brightly gleaming through the smoke and thorn bushes. These two companies were holding their ground firmly alone, where the right face of the square had been five minutes before. TAMAI ! 3 I shall never forget the roar and the rattle of that next half-hour. I have read somewhere of " the joy of a brave man fighting." I often think the brave man would not enjoy it half so much without the noise. Noise encourages one, and is exhilarating in itself. I shall ever remember the way the volleys, the independent firing, the guns, and the bursting shrapnel, rattled and reverberated in the clear morning air through that mountain valley at Tamai. The Dodo says he does not remember a fight that made so much noise.

The Dodo is now rather an authority on fights, so he ought to know. How the bullets whistled and screamed, and banged and pissed, and made the stones fly, and passed within half an inch of one's ear with a noise like " phwt," and knocked some poor chaps over, and fortunately missed more, during that bloody half-hour ! Eor a time every body, friend and foe, seemed to be blazing indiscrimin ately in all directions at once. Bullets were crossing each other like the diameters of a circle. The fact was that the enemy were all round, and plying well their breech-loading Remington rifles ; while both detached parties and the other square which had remained un broken, the rush not having come upon them, naturally had to fire at them wherever they could see them, and, owing to the smoke, generally not until they were pretty close.

Abler pens than mine have described the courage of the Hadendowahs ; but although personally I met them on subsequent occasions, I think they excelled themselves at Tamai. Nothing would stop them but death itself. I saw one man who was shot down three times, pick himself up again and continue his onward route, falling at last while throwing the spear he could not stab with, at the bayonet's point of the man who killed him, and whom he himself wounded. A boy of fifteen years old met with a similar fate. Religion with them was all in all, and death had no terrors for them whatever. They seemed indeed to court it; but their principal aim was to kill at least one of the infidels first. Fortunately for us, they fre quently failed in their endeavour. In the midst of all this din and turmoil, we occasionally caught a glimpse of General Graham riding about with a red flag behind him to denote his presence.

He was as cool as though riding down Rotten Row. Even the savage Arab who jumped up behind him on his horse, and accompanied him a while on his way, did not seem to incommode him in the least. But for coolness give me the brave Hadendowah who, after the two naval gatlings had been temporarily captured in that terrible rush, quietly opened the lid of the limber, took out the oil bottle, and getting on to the top of the limber, poured the oil over and set fire to it as calmly as though lighting a fire in his hut — stopping to watch it burn ing under a hail of bullets with an interested look, as though it were a new kind of dish, and he was not quite sure how his cookery would turn out. I believe that TAMAI ! 5 man eventually got clear off untouched. I hope so, for he deserved to escape harm.

Fiendish was the noise for about half an hour, and then the square re-formed and we took the ravine, as everybody knows. The volleys died away, only drop ping shots were heard, or an occasional shell sent up its white puff of smoke from far away in the mountains, as it hurried the movements of some groups of the fugitives of Osman Digna's gallant but shattered force. The sun shone brightly, and the ground in the jungle round was covered with dead and dying, black and white. The former lay, it seemed to me, in thou sands ; and among the latter, to my great grief, I saw a very old friend of mine in the gallant Black Watch, who had been completely decapitated by one of those old crusaders' swords which have been preserved among the Arab tribes from generation to generation since the time of the Saracens.

Eventually the Dodo and I contrived to rejoin our own corps, a Scotch one, as the pipers were strutting and swaggering up and down, sounding a shrill pæan of victory. But while we were rejoining, and as I was limping wearily along after the Dodo, I was able unexpectedly to repay the debt I owed to my chum by saving his life in turn. It happened as follows : A number of the wounded, and some of the unwounded, Arabs were " foxing dead " under the bushes. They lay quite still, with the waist cloths drawn up over their faces, as though to say, " I am dead and peaceable, don't pay any attention to me." We foolishly took them at their unspoken word, and the consequence was that several of our poor fellows lost their lives, after the action was quite over, owing to this cunning device. The Dodo had a narrow escape.

One of the fuzzy wigs lay under a bush right in our way, and around him were his weapons — a Remington rifle, a fine shield, and a bent knobkerry stick used for throwing. Over his left shoulder, hanging from it by a strap or narrow band of leather, was a magnificent sword, cross-hilted, with a thick silk tassel, half out of a highly orna mented scabbard. The man's right arm and head were covered by the spare folds of his loin-cloth, and a dark-reddish stain in the sand by his side seemed to denote that his life's course was run. We should have passed him as we had done hundreds of others, had not the Dodo been struck by the beauty of the sword, whose blade was engraved on the exposed part with the sun, moon, and stars. " By Jove ! old fel low," cried he to me over his shoulder, as I hobbled after him leaning on my spear, " here's a find, Davy, my boy.

A crusader's sword for the dear old gov ernor, by jingo ! " Dodo pdre, be it known, is a great collector of old arms. He stooped down and began to loosen the straps from the left shoulder of the dead Hadendowah, but no "Jack-in-the-box" ever sprang up with greater suddenness than did that seemingly defunct savage. tamai! 7 He flung the cloth from off him, and in a second his apparently inert left arm was round the Dodo's head, drawing it back with a jerk which nearly dislocated bis sinewy neck ; while in the assailant's right hand flashed one of those horrible curved knives, as sharp as a razor, usually carried in the belt. The race of Dodos was very near to losing its last and noblest representative. It would indeed have become en tirely extinct had it not been for the forethought with which my friend had provided me with a spear, by means of which I was enabled to help him.

Weak though I now was from loss of blood, the excitement gave me back my strength, and in a second, throwing my whole weight upon the spear, I had driven its broad blade right through the savage's back, be tween his brawny shoulder-blades, and out at the other side, with such force that the Dodo, who had received only a slight scratch on the shoulder, had the greatest difficulty in withdrawing and return ing me my weapon. I was too weak to get it out myself. " Thank ye, Davy, old man," said he ; " we are quits now, I think," — and he possessed himself of the coveted sword which had so nearly cost him his life. But by this time I was feeling so sick and faint that I had not a spark of excitement left in me, and it was with the greatest difficulty that he helped me along, until I fell down quite exhausted among a group of those of my brother officers who had survived the battle.

Here, now that I am strong again and well, I can not help making a reflection. What a number of good men who then were at Suakin have since gone over to join the majority ! and how many of them, alas ! are already, I fear, more or less forgotten, except by the few who not only knew them, but admired, respected, or loved them ! Dodo and I sit sometimes and make out a list of our lost friends who were our chums, or kind to us in those days, and who have gone from us for ever — some dead from fever, and many others killed in action, or drowned in father Nile ; and how it wrings both our hearts to think of them ! The Dodo and I always liked the same people, whether male or female, and that has often been the worst of it, for we had a horrible habit of falling in love with the same woman, and, consciously or unconsciously, sometimes cutting one another out in her good graces.

I know that, from the strict moralist's or model novel-writer's point of view, we ought to have been always sacrificing our young affections for one an other; but somehow we didn't, for when we were both attracted by the same candle we would both flutter round it, each eager to be the first silly moth to perish in the flame, and neither displaying the slightest proper anxiety to yield the post of honour to the other. I suppose the fact of the matter is that tamai! 9 the Dodo and I, being real flesh and blood, alive and walking about, have never learnt to behave our selves after the fashion of heroes in books. Not but that the Dodo is my hero after all, and of course he knows it too. He would not be so conceited as he is, if he did not.

Chapter II. About The Dodo And Myself

Alexander James Dunrobin Cuninghame Ross, dis tantly connected with myself, David Cuninghame, is the only son of a certain Sir James Ross of Rosstown, Sutherlandshire. He owes the name of Dunrobin merely to the fortuitous circumstance of his having been born, rather unexpectedly, when his respected parents were on a visit to Golspie. They were not even staying with the Duke at Dunrobin Castle at the time, as one might imagine ; but they were within half a mile of the Castle, and that settled his third name. It was as good a reason as another, I think. His name of Dodo he gained soon after he joined the service, simply because his brother subalterns consid ered him a " rare bird " — a very rare bird indeed ! They said that for cheek he quite " took the cake." Now to give an example of the rare points in the Dodo's character.

He dubbed the senior subaltern "Pongo," after the recently imported gorilla, and ABOUT THE DODO AND MYSELF. 11 called him Pongo to his face frequently, before he had been with the regiment even a week ! Again, not waiting for the honour of being " drawn " in his quarters, he himself led and organised the very row diest drawing party that ever turned the barracks upside down ; and this was before he had got a fortnight's service! He rooked the fellows regularly at pool from the day he joined. He was under arrest and asked for "his reasons in writing" every other week. He had a horrible habit of drawing caricatures of his seniors, which were like them, and he left them about where his seniors would be sure to find them, after having first boldly signed them with his name ! He was a fine good-looking fellow, much too big for his age ; a fair rider, and a remarkably good pigeon-shot.

He sat up late, and he got up early ; and he passed his drill, and was out of the adjutant's hands, long before, considering the rackety life he led, he ought to have been. And yet he seemed to be rather a lazy fellow, too, to us others. But he made no enemies, in spite of all his wild and queer ways ; so no wonder if we looked upon him as a rare bird, a very rare bird indeed in the British or any other army — yes, as one of quite an extinct species ! So therefore, when one day in the mess-room M'Tavish remarked, "Why, confound the fellow, he's a regular dodo ! " a silence fell upon us all, as we gradually took in the appropriateness of M'Tav ish's remark. And Dodo he has been ever since. He is never addressed by any other name even now that he is a captain, unless it be formally as Captain Ross when on parade or other duty.

Even when he is being introduced to ladies, I have often heard his brother officers say, " Oh, Mrs So-and-so, will you allow me to introduce the Dodo; " and it was only if they had never heard of the creature before, and looked puzzled, that the introducer had to explain. As for the Dodo him self, he takes it as a matter of course. And now for his real character. I, who am his sixty seventh cousin on the mother's side, which is rather a near connection in our part of Scotland, think I ought to know it ; and I say that his character is sim ply that of a gentleman. A lady-killer, a masher, a noisy fellow if you like ; but a hot-tempered, inconse quent, plucky fellow, and a good friend through thick and thin, and generous to a degree. Sandy Ross, as we all called him when a boy, could never be any thing else but a gentleman, like his father before him.

Merely to look at him, whether, when his well-made, well-set-up figure, attired in correctest of coats and hats, with flower in button-hole, swaggers along Picca dilly in the season, to the Naval and Military Club or the Row ; or when, on the other hand, clad in a dirty old suit of khakee with a three weeks' old beard upon his chin, he contentedly pegs away into his " bully beef " on the sands of the Soudan — nobody could ever mistake him for anything else. He has only two faults, or perhaps I should say only one, as the one is the outcome of the other. From ABOUT THE DODO AND MYSELF. 13 thinking rather too much of himself, he is selfish at times. I have often told him of this, and he is sorry for it, but cannot help it. I am afraid he will never quite get over this failing, though I believe he tries hard at times to do so, now he has grown older.

His appearance is decidedly prepossessing, tall and dark, with very keen light -blue eyes which women call " fetching." But of that I am no judge — I only know they are good ones for seeing with. He has the same sort of moustache as most other soldiers, and rather fancies it personally, though I think it too slight, and prefer my own, which is equally dark and much hea vier. When, however, it comes to making comparisons between him and myself, I cannot but admit that, taking him all round, I consider him much the better looking fellow of the two. He has also the advantage of being two years younger than I ; but I gain by having those two years' seniority in the service, which often makes a good deal of difference to men in our profession. As regards build, there is only one point in which I have decidedly the better of the Dodo, and that is in my physical strength.

Although I am a couple of inches shorter than he, I am broader across the shoulders ; and sinewy and wiry though he be, I could easily give him a thrashing now, just as I used to be able to do when we were boys together. This I feel to be a decided advantage to possess over my bosom friend, and moreover he accepts it now as a fact, which is a good thing. My superior strength gives me a hold over him which I should never have possessed otherwise. I will give him the credit of owning that he was by no means inclined to recognise it when he first came to the regiment, though many was the licking I had had to give him when at school. As I felt it a duty, however, both to myself and to him, to decide once for all who was henceforth to be the master, I took an opportunity of settling the matter on the first and only occasion, now many years ago, when Master Dodo led a storming-party late one night with a view to " drawing " me in my quarters.

We fought it out before the assembled gallery of subal terns. But it did not take long to decide ; and when, in spite of his superior inches, the scrimmage had ended by my taking him up in my arms and chucking him down the first flight of stairs, the Dodo wisely concluded that the matter was settled for good and all. And so it has remained to our mutual satisfac tion ; for when a question cannot be argued, there can never be any quarrel about it.

Chapter III. Cairo

— SHEPHEARD'S HOTEL. The changes of scene to which the average British soldier is accustomed form one of the chief charms of military life. I have headed this chapter " Cairo," and yet I am writing it on the summit of a pine-clad mountain in the Himalayan range. There was an awful storm last night : for hours the lightning never ceased flashing, while the thunder kept up one contin uous rattle and roar. The rain washed down the mountain-side in a sheet, seething and hissing through the storm over my httle wooden chalet, like the combined hissing of ten thousand snakes being drowned in the roar of mighty surf, resounding through deep caverns on some rock-bound coast. And this morning how lovely the transformation ! Nature is beautiful, and nature is alive all around me. I am gazing down a dell across which many-coloured birds are continually flashing from tree to tree, and I hear their varied song all around.

Close by, a woodpecker is tapping loudly, while farther away I hear the woodman's busy axe. The hill-tops are all showing out clear and distinct in the distance, and I can trace for miles the windings of the ravine, at the head of which I sit and wonder at the beauties that God has scattered with such a liberal hand over some parts of the globe, while leav ing others an arid and waterless waste. The scent of the pines fills all the fresh morning air with a crisp and yet languid perfume. The bees are humming all around a cheerful, busy, happy hum of content ; and above all, to crown the beauties of nature, I have but just left the fairest woman it has ever been my lot to know. The mere fact that she who has, either for good or evil, exercised such a spell over my life, now dwells in this beautiful waste, lends the one touch that would otherwise be wanting to the scene, and adds a zest to the heartfelt prayer which I offer up, with bared head, to thank a merciful Creator that He has hitherto spared me to live through so many dangers, to share her society in a heavenly scene like this.

Oh, may my future efface my past, and may I prove worthy of His goodness in some small measure ! But enough of the influences of the present, be they for good or ill. I will take up once more the story of our fortunes where we left off after the battle of Tamai. As now the Dodo's paths and mine separated for a time, I shall have to chronicle such events as are interesting in the history of each in turn. And as I CAIRO — SHEPHEARD'S HOTEL. 17 have gone to Cairo, I will follow my own course first, which is the more proper, as I left the Dodo behind me at Suakin after the army had advanced, with but little or no opposition, to a place called Tamanieb. As my wound seemed likely to be troublesome in the great Soudan heat, the doctors shipped me off to Suez a few days after the events previously recorded.

Four days in a hot and stuffy little Khedival steamer, crowded with black negro soldiers of Baker Pasha's disbanded force, did not improve my health. But they afforded me much amusement and instruction ; and I believe that my meeting on board that ship the Damanhour, with a black Bash Shawesh or sergeant major, was the indirect cause of many adventures which afterwards befell the Dodo and myself. The man was suffering from a cut on the side of the head received in the late action, but he did not mind that much ; and he had been pointed out to me by the officer under whom he had been employed with the mules which brought up reserve ammunition, as the hero of several hand - to - hand encounters on that eventful day. I myself had witnessed one of his acts of bravery. I will not pause to describe it now, how ever, but pass on to the man himself.

Saeed, or Said, as his name is more correctly written, was a splendid specimen of negro humanity. About thirty years of age, he stood a good six feet two inches in his boots, and was broad and sinewy in proportion. He had a splendid face, lips not very thick, beautiful white B teeth, and eyes expressive of the fearlessness which characterised him. His arms would have been a sculptor's delight, and his general bearing was soldierly in the extreme. Said had learned to be a soldier under General Gordon when that noble officer had been governor general of the Soudan some years previously, and many were the encounters with the slave-kidnapping Arabs in which he had been engaged. For a black, he was remarkably well educated; for having been brought down when a young boy to Cairo as a slave, he had found a good master, who had had him taught all he could learn at the Abbasiyeh military school.

He had, moreover, picked up for himself in the Armenian merchant's house where he served, a good colloquial knowledge of French and Italian, also some Turkish ; and in addition to Arabic, which was his mother tongue, he still recollected the language he had heard spoken as a boy, when he had been a prisoner in the savage Nyam Nyam country. Strangers in Cairo and Alexandria are often astonished at finding them selves addressed by donkey - boys in half - a - dozen different European languages ; but there is nothing unusual in it, and Said's intelligence was far above the average of that possessed by any of the really black races. I found Said a very instructive com panion on the voyage. Both the Dodo and I had been well grounded in modern languages when at school; and during the two years the regiment had CAIRO — SHEPHEARD'S HOTEL. 19 been quartered in Egypt since Tel-el-Kebir, we had improved, in that cosmopolitan Egyptian society, on what we had learned in our youth.

I was therefore good at French, and already know ing how to carry on a conversation in a sort of a way in Arabic, was able to listen with interest to the description of Bash Shawesh Said's wanderings and fightings in the Senaar, Bahr-el-ghazel, and other provinces. But what pleased me most about the man was his intense admiration of General Gordon, whom he looked upon almost as a god, and for whom he inquired most eagerly. " He had," he said, " heard a report that the General was coming out once more to Egypt, and longed to go and salute him as a soldier should; not to kiss his hand, no, — 'Gordone Pasha' never liked hand-kissing : he had seen him once kick a very influential Bey out of the reception-room in the palace at Khartoum, for insisting on attempting that salutation when told angrily to desist.

Ah, Hadrat-el Kaptan," he added, " if all you Christians were like Gordone Pasha, may the blessed Prophet (upon whom be peace) forgive me for saying so, but I think we Moslems would have to change our religion." Said and I parted with mutual regret on our arrival at Cairo, whither I went to try to pick up strength at Shepheard's Hotel, while he repaired to the Egyptian War Office to report himself, and to obtain a short furlough, also on account of his health. It was almost like arriving at home, the welcoming at Shepheard's : such was the warmth of the greeting I received from all the staff, from Luigi, the manager, down to Stefano, the hall-porter ; and especially from that oddest of odd men Sitiri, the old Greek servant. Sitiri, who came originally from Corfu, had passed over twenty-three years in the hotel, during which time, judging from my own experience, he has done more than any one else in the establishment to add to the comfort of those whom good luck has caused to make it their temporary place of sojourn.