CHAPTER XXV--SUNSET FROM THE CITADEL
Directly across the street from the hotel were gathered forty or moreEgyptian donkeys, saddled, bridled and ready for riders. These donkeyswere guarded by boys, who acted both as guides and drivers when thelittle animals were engaged.
The moment Dick, Brad, Dunbar, and Nadia appeared on the steps of thehotel it seemed that all the boys made a rush across the street, yellingwildly and beckoning with their dusky hands.
"I got good donkey; tak' him!"
"Mine fine donkey, Teddy Rosefelt!"
"Mine best, Cha'ncey Depoo!"
"Tak' mine, G'orge Wash'ton!"
"Tak' mine, Carry Nation!"
"Well, say!" exclaimed Brad; "I'm getting some tired of being calledCha'ncey Depoo!"
Nadia laughed.
"And I'm not Carry Nation," she said.
"They are not calling us names like that," smiled Dick. "Haven't youdiscovered that those are the names other travelers have applied to thedonkeys?"
"Oh, is that it?" said Buckhart, with apparent relief. "Why, I'vehappened to take the same donkey both times before, when I've notwalked, and the driver kept shouting Cha'ncey Depoo, so I thought hemeant me."
"He was talking to the donkey."
"Shall we take the donkeys to the hill?" asked Nadia.
"Of course we will," nodded Dunbar. "Pick your beast."
"Well, I like the looks of this boy," said the girl; "so I'll choosehim."
"Girl-like," chuckled her brother, "she chooses by the looks of the boy,instead of the donkey."
Amid the confusion a man dressed in English clothes, yet with adecidedly Turkish face, came out of the hotel and stood on the steps,watching them.
Brad was assisting Nadia to mount when she saw the watching man andgasped:
"There he is again!"
"Who?" asked the surprised Texan.
"The man who has been watching me lately."
"There on the steps?"
"Yes."
"Has he been annoying you?"
"I feel sure he has been following me and watching me."
The boy from the Pan Handle country flushed and showed that he wasangry.
"Wait a minute," he urged. "I'll just saunter up and inquire of the gentwhatever he means."
Nadia caught his sleeve.
"Don't do that!" she whispered nervously. "Don't do it, Brad!"
"Why not?"
"I don't wish him to know that I have noticed him."
"Well, if the galoot keeps up his little game, he'll find out somebodyhas noticed him!"
She restrained the impulsive chap.
By this time all were ready. The boy drivers seized the chosen donkeyseach by the tail, which they gave a twist, crying:
"Ah-ye, Reglay!"
Away went the little beasts, bearing their human burdens easily, whilethe boy drivers ran behind, clinging to the tails of the donkeys, whichthey seemed to manipulate for the purpose of guiding the animals.
The manner in which the tough little donkeys bore their burdens wasreally wonderful. Nadia was sympathetic toward the sprightly littlebeasts and kept asking her driver not to make the animal go so fast.
They turned from street to street. Some of the streets were very narrow,with picturesque overhanging balconies and latticed windows. They passedseveral mosques, which were adorned with slender and graceful minarets.They encountered Arabs, Egyptians and Turks. They passed handsomecarriages and gayly caparisoned camels.
Suddenly they came upon two barefooted, running black men, who weredressed in flowing garments and carried wands in their hands. Theserunners shouted out something, and waved their wands.
Immediately each donkey driver gave a twist to the tail of his animal,and the faithful little beasts turned aside to permit a handsome landauto pass. The landau contained a very dignified and very pompous Pasha,who did not even deign to waste a glance on the common infidels.
They were glared at by a number of officers, wearing handsome uniformsand displaying silver-mounted weapons. They were scowled at by an Arabsoldier with a musket, mounted on the back of a dromedary.
But their travels in the East had made them accustomed to strangesights, and no expressions of wonderment escaped them. Instead, theylaughed and joked among themselves.
At last they came to the hill of the citadel, where they dismounted. Thedonkeys and their dusky boy drivers waited at the foot of the hill,while our friends climbed toward the huge fortress which towered abovethe city.
This fortress was most imposing in appearance.
The professor was not there to explain how the citadel came to be built,but Dick had posted himself about it and was able to answer all ofNadia's questions. He told her how it was constructed in the seventhcentury by the victorious followers of the Prophet, headed by Saladin,the chivalrous foe of Richard the Lion Hearted. Saladin's architect didnot hesitate to bring thither blocks of stone from the palaces andtemples of old Memphis, and to raze several smaller pyramids, besidesremoving the polished outer stones from the larger pyramids.
"Only for that," said Dick, "it is not likely we would be able to climbthe pyramids now. It robbed them of their greatest beauty."
"That was a shame!" exclaimed Nadia. "What good did the old citadel doafter all?"
"It was a fine place for one of the successors to Saladin, the craftyold viceroy, Mehemet Ali, to butcher the Mamelukes."
"Oh, I've heard something about that. How did it happen?"
"It didn't happen. It was one of the most crafty and cold-bloodedbutcheries known in history. You know the name Mameluke signifies WhiteSlave. The founders of the Mamelukes were originally Circassians, whohad been brought into slavery in this country. They gradually becamefavorites, but finally turned to tyrants. They had helped Mehemet Ali tosecure his position of power, but he feared and distrusted them. Hefinally decided it was expedient to get rid of them. So he invited themto a great banquet, to be held in the citadel. They came withoutsuspecting his bloody and treacherous purpose. There were nearly fivehundred of them, magnificently dressed and mounted. When the great gatehad closed behind them, and they could not retreat, the viceroy's troopsappeared on the walls and poured a withering fire on the entrappedMamelukes. They were mowed down, men and horses, in a most horriblemanner. Of all the Mamelukes only one escaped. He forced his horse tomount the heaped-up bodies of his bleeding comrades and their dyinghorses, and leaped the parapet, followed by a volley of bullets. In somemanner he escaped untouched, although his horse fell beneath him. Hefled into the desert."
Nadia gazed at the grim walls of the citadel and shuddered.
"It seems that every historic spot is stained with crime," she said.
They soon reached the top of the hill and found they were just in timeto witness the glories of an Egyptian sunset.
The view from that elevation was most impressive. Below them, and nearat hand, rose a great mass of delicate and graceful minarets, glitteringin the last rays of the sun. The strange Oriental city huddled beyond,and then, as far as the eye could reach, wound the silver Nile, itsshores on either side green with verdure.
Away to the west the sun was sinking into a violet sea of light. Therelay the mighty desert, brown, barren, desolate--the desert with itsdreaded sand storms and simooms.
On the edge of this desert they could see three mighty shapes,silhouetted against the sky--the Pyramids. They knew that for at leastfive thousand years those mysterious and marvelous monuments had beenstanding thus, casting their lengthening shadows across the easternwaste, as the sun sank to its nightly rest in the bosom of the desert.
Silence fell on them. They watched the sun go down, and it seemed thatthe orb of day had sunk in hopeless despair to rise no more. They wereimpressed by the mightiness of the universe, and they felt themselvesmere ants amid the marvels of creation. It was a place and time to givethem a just understanding of their own insignificance.