CHAPTER XII.
FREE.
FOR two or three hours before the cessation of bombardment flames hadbeen bursting out from several buildings in the neighbourhood of thepalace of Ras-el-tin. These being in the line of fire, had doubtlessbeen struck by shell from the ships passing over the forts in front.
When the fire ceased the Egyptians rose and motioned the boys to returnto their prison.
"Well, you see, my friend," Jack said to the man who spoke English, "youhave not sunk the English vessels in a few minutes, as you talked about.Not even one of the little gun-boats; and as far as I can see from hereyou have not even damaged them."
The man made no reply. To him and his comrades the escape of the Britishships was a mystery. That they were made of iron they understood, buthad no idea of the enormous thickness of their sides; and could not evenimagine that ships could be built sufficiently strong to keep out themissiles discharged by the immense cannons in the forts. That not even amast should have been knocked away seemed to them almost miraculous. Inpoint of fact the ships had been struck but once or twice with theshells from these massive cannon. The Egyptian gunners were unaccustomedto the use of the huge pieces, and had consequently aimed too high, andthe shell had passed either between the masts or far overhead.
Upon the other hand the smaller guns had been worked with accuracy, buttheir missiles had dropped harmless from the iron plates of the ships.The fire of the men-of-war had, in the first place, been directed mainlyagainst these great cannon. The machine-guns in the top had createdterrible havoc among the men who were carrying on the laborious and tothem difficult operation of loading them, while the huge shell from thegreat guns had carried wholesale destruction among them. Thus thepowerful guns upon which the Egyptians had relied to beat off anyattack from the sea, had been fired but seldom, and one by one had beendismounted or rendered unserviceable by the fire from the ships.
The gallantry with which the Egyptian gunners stuck to their work wasthe object of surprise and admiration to the British sailors. It seemedscarce possible that men could work under so tremendous a fire as thatto which they were exposed. The forts were literally torn to pieces, andat the end of the day were little better than heaps of ruins scatteredthickly with the corpses of the Egyptian artillerymen.
"Well, what do you suppose they will be up to next, Jim?" Arthur Hillasked when the door had again closed upon them.
"I suppose they will begin again to-morrow if these fellows have not hadenough of it. You see, they hardly fired a gun for the last three hours,and as far as we could see the forts were pretty well knocked to pieces;the one at the mouth of the harbour blew up, and there were severalother explosions. They held out a lot better than I thought they woulddo, I must say, but I cannot believe they will be fools enough to go onto-morrow."
They chatted for some time as to the chances of surrender or ofresistance to the last, and as to what was likely to befall themselves;then, wearied with the excitement of the day their voices became moreand more drowsy and they dosed off upon their heaps of straw. Jack wasthe first to wake. He sat up and looked round, puzzled for a time.
"I say, wake up, you fellows!" he exclaimed suddenly. "There is atremendous fire somewhere."
The others sat up at once. They had been asleep for some hours andnight had fallen, but there was a red glow of light in the cell.
"Here, Arthur, you jump up on my shoulders," Jim said, standing underthe opening in the wall.
Arthur climbed up, and uttered an exclamation as his eyes became levelwith the opening. "I cannot see the town, but I think it must be all onfire; it is almost as light as day outside, the whole air is full ofsparks and red clouds of smoke. It is tremendous!"
"Jump down and let us have a look," Jim said impatiently, and he andJack had by turns a view of the scene. A quarter of an hour later thedoor opened suddenly and four of their guards ran in.
"Come, quick!" one of them said, and seizing the boys by their wriststhey hurried them up the stairs. The house was in confusion. Men werepacking up bundles and the bey giving directions in an angry voice. Assoon as his eye fell on the boys he gave an order in Egyptian.
"Take off your clothes, quick!" The guard translated the order.
It was evidently no time for hesitation. The boys took off theirwaistcoats, jackets, and trousers, then the guard picked up from abundle lying beside him three women's dresses, and wound them roundthem, bringing an end as usual over the head and falling down to theeyes. Then he put on the thick blue veil, extending across the face justunder the eyes and falling down to the waist. The disguise was thuscompleted, and the three boys were transformed into Egyptian peasantwomen, of whom only the eyes were visible.
Another five minutes all were ready, and the bey with ten or twelve menand the boys started out from the house. Most of the men carriedmuskets, all had large bundles upon their shoulders. As they issued fromthe house the boys obtained a full sight of the city, and uttered asimultaneous exclamation as they did so. Half the city appeared to be inflames. A sea of fire extended from the port over the European quarter,including the great square, while in many other parts separateconflagrations were raging.
There was, however, no time to pause to examine the scene. The partyhurried along until they came down upon the road leading across thenarrow strip of land running between the two inland lakes. It wascrowded with fugitives: mixed up pell-mell together were Egyptiansoldiers in great numbers, and the population of the town--men, women,and children. For four hours they walked along. Then the throng alongthe road thinned; the Egyptian drums were sounding, and the soldiersturned off and lay down in the fields, ready to form into regimentsagain in the morning.
The rest of the fugitives, feeling that they were now beyond danger ofpursuit, soon followed their example. The party to which the boysbelonged kept on for a short distance further and then turned off. Theyfollowed a by-road for a quarter of a mile, and then stopped at a farmbuilding. On their knocking at the door a peasant came out, but at aword from the bey he at once drew aside for the party to enter. The beytook possession of the cottage, and the men leaving their bundles insidethrew themselves down on the ground without and were soon fast asleep.The idea that their captives might escape did not even occur to them.
The boys had thrown themselves down a little apart from the rest.
"This is a nice go," Jim said. "I suppose this chap is taking us off ashostages, and we may be dragged about like this for any time; for untilan army is got together and conquers the whole country, I do not see howwe are going to be released."
"I don't see what there is to prevent us going straight back again,"Jack said; "we have got splendid disguises and might go anywhere."
"That is not a bad idea, Jack; but how are we to do it? Every one iscoming the other way."
"Yes, I don't think we can go back by that road," Jack agreed; "but wemight get round the other side of the lake, I should think."
"But how are we to do that, Jack? We do not know anything about thecountry."
"No, we do not know much about it, Jim; but I remember the day before welanded, when we were looking at that book Mr. Hoare lent us so as to getup something about Alexandria before we landed, there was a map of thetown. I remember that the lake behind it, called Mareotis or some suchname, extended some eight or ten miles to the west of the town, and isonly separated from the sea by the high beach on which the Mex Fortsstand. I do not see why we should not work round there, and get down onto the beach and make our way on to the town. Our fellows are sure toland to-morrow morning and take possession of it. We have passed acrossthe isthmus between the two lakes, so the one we want to get round mustlie somewhere to the north-west. Anyhow, the fire will be a guide to us.If we keep rather to the left of that we must strike the lake, and haveonly got to follow that to keep right."
"I am with you," Jim said. "What do you say, Arthur?"
"I am game," Arthur replied, "but let us be off at once. What time doyou think it is?"
"I have no idea. I don't know how long we slept, but it was quite darkexcept for the fire, so it must certainly have been past eight o'clock.We set out half an hour later. I should say that it must be betweentwelve and one now, if not later. It will begin to get light again soonafter four, so we have no time to lose."
"Well, let us crawl away as quietly as we can," Jack said. "I thinkthose chaps are all asleep, but we cannot be too careful until we get abit away from them."
The boys found it very difficult to crawl in their female garments, butkept on as noiselessly as possible until some distance from the cottage,then they stood up. They followed the lane until they came to the road,crossed the line of railway beyond it and swam the fresh-water canal,and then, guided by the glare of light over Alexandria, made their wayacross the fields. After half an hour's walking they found themselves onthe shore of the lake. It was low and swampy, and they had to keep somedistance from its edge. The reflection of the light on its smoothsurface enabled them to follow its direction as well as if they had beenwalking close to it. They kept on until morning broke, by which timethe glare of light above Alexandria lay due north of them.
"We had better lie up here," Jim said. "There is sure to be a villagenear the lake, and the first person who came across us and questioned uswould find us out."
"I shall not be sorry to stop at all," Jack said, "for these looseyellow slipper things are horrid for walking in. I have tried goingbarefoot for a bit, but there are prickly things in the grass and I soonhad to give that up."
There was no difficulty in finding shelter, for in many places belts ofhigh rushes bordered the lake. Entering one of these for some littledistance, and pressing down a lot of the rushes to make a dry bed on thedamp earth, the lads lay down and were soon fast asleep. The sun wasblazing high overhead when they awoke.
"My eye, isn't it hot!" was Jim Tucker's first exclamation. "It isenough to roast a fellow alive."
"It is hot," Jack agreed; "and the worst of it is there isn't anythingto eat."
"No, and there is not likely to be," Jack replied, "till we get toAlexandria. There are the guns of the fleet still at it. It is evidentthat the forts have not surrendered. I don't see how we can possibly getalong past those forts on the beach to the west as long as they holdout, besides it is not likely that there has been a landing from theships yet, and the rabble of Alexandria will be plundering and killing.We shall be safer anywhere than there."
"So we should," Jack agreed. "But there is one thing quite certain, wecannot stop here without food or water. We might perhaps do withoutgrub for a day or two, but certainly not without water. There is maizeand grain ripe in the fields, so we shall do well enough for eating."
"I suppose they must have wells. People must drink here, Jack."
"I suppose there must be wells," Jack said doubtfully. "But, you see,the water in this lake is salt, and I should say they get no fresh wateranywhere near, because the ground is so sandy. I rather expect they getit in small channels from the fresh-water canal."
"Well, anyhow, we can get water there," Arthur Hill said. "I vote we goback there again. Not of course anywhere near where the Egyptians are;though I do not know whether that would make much difference, for weshould be on one side of the canal and they on the other. Still, we hadbetter go beyond them; then we can, as you say, keep ourselves going bypicking maize or corn or whatever we can find for a day or two, till wehear the firing cease."
"There are sure to be some boats somewhere on this lake," Jack said,"and we might get hold of one and go across to Alexandria some night,and reconnoitre. If we find there are no sailors or troops there, we cantake to our boat and pull back again. I think it would be better to dothat than to try to work round by the sea-shore, for I believe they havefortifications running across from the sea to the lake, so as to preventthe place from being attacked by a force landing beyond the forts."
"Well, I vote we set out at once," Jim Tucker said. "I am frightfullythirsty. There are very few houses as far as I can see; if we keep asharp look-out we ought to be able to manage so as not to meet anyone.If any peasant does run against us and ask questions, so much the worsefor him."
The others agreed, and they at once started across the country, whichwas only cultivated here and there. They laid their course so as tostrike the canal at a point some miles higher up than that at which theyhad left it. They only saw a few peasants in the fields, and madedetours so as not to come near any of these. On the way they picked adozen heads of maize, but were too thirsty to attempt to eat them. Afterthree hours' walking the vegetation became brighter and greener, thecultivated fields thicker, and in another half hour they stood on thebank of the canal. They went down to the edge, knelt down and took along drink.
"Shouldn't I like a dip!" Arthur Hill said.
"We will have one, Arthur, when it gets dark; it would never do to bathenow. I do not see a soul about, but still someone might come up on thefurther bank at any moment, and our white skins would betray us at once.Now we have had a good drink we can hold on. We will go back again now,and sit down among the bushes and eat our corn."
When they had finished their meal the boys agreed that maize eaten rawwas not by any means desirable food; however, it satisfied their hunger,and they sat discussing their plans until evening. They agreed thatArthur Hill's plan was certainly the best.
"We will give them one more day," Jim Tucker said. "I vote we stop hereto-night, then have a good drink in the morning and then start backagain, keeping along the canal here until we are close to the lake; thenwe will have another good drink and start out and walk along the lakeuntil we find a boat, then we will hide away somewhere near it and crossafter it gets dark."
It was agreed that this plan should be carried out, and after a goodnight's rest they started again next morning. They kept down by the footof the bank of the canal, and followed it until they saw the lakestretching away on the left, then they went up and had another drink.
"Hurrah!" Arthur Hill exclaimed, as he picked up a broken earthenwarepot, which had apparently been thrown out by some passing boat; "thiswill hold a quart of water. That will give us a drink each to-night."
As they walked they had heard the heavy guns still booming over the sea,and felt by no means certain that the troops had yet landed. However,they determined not to put off their expedition across the lake if theycould find a boat. Carrying their jar of water carefully with them, theystruck across to the lake and followed it as before, keeping a carefullook-out for boats. They had proceeded about two miles along its edge,when they saw the stern of a boat projecting beyond the rushes thatfringed the water's edge, and pushing more rapidly forward they cameupon a beaten path through the reeds, and following this came upon a lowflat boat, very roughly constructed.
"It is not much of a craft," Jim Tucker said; "but it will do for uscapitally. Now, we have only to lie down and take things quietly untildark. I fancy it is about three o'clock in the afternoon now by thesun."
They lay down among a clump of bushes a short distance from the lake,and as soon as the sun had set went back to the boat again. They hadalready made another meal, and had finished their maize and water. Theystood by the boat waiting until it should become perfectly dark, andlooking across the tranquil sheet of water at the distant town, overwhich the smoke still hung heavily, and as the sky darkened flashes offire could be seen. They were at last just going to get on board whenthey heard an exclamation of surprise behind them. Looking round theysaw two natives, who had evidently come down with the intention of goingout in their boat.