Gunpowder Treason and Plot, and Other Stories for Boys

"What! a woman-hater?" said the colonel with a twinkle in his eye; "the Sirdar would be none the less pleased – "

"Not exactly that, sir," faltered Jones; "but – "

"Oh, I see," said the colonel, smiling kindly. "Well, I think I may say, Mr. Jones, that the Sirdar will be glad to give you an appointment as bimbashi in one of the native regiments. You will sail – "

And so on; the upshot of the interview being a commission for young Alaric Jones – who was but twenty-three years of age – as bimbashi, which is, being interpreted, major in the Egyptian army.

Know him, then, in future, as Bimbashi Jones, a title which pleased him greatly, and puzzled his people quite as much until they realized that the word stood for major; and when they became aware of this the knowledge acted as a wonderful consolation to them for his departure, for it was clear that the lad was "getting on" in his profession, and that he was destined to do great things. A major at twenty-three! It was glorious – unprecedented.

But Bimbashi Jones had a piece of outrageously bad luck at Cairo. He fell ill of fever, and was delayed for months; first nearly dying, then partially recovering, then suffering a relapse, and then wearily picking up his strength from day to day and week to week, while more fortunate individuals started southwards for the front. And already reports came to hand – from Halfa, from Abu Hamed, from Berber – of troops, English and Egyptian, marching and massing; of the Khalifa's hordes, which were expected at any moment; of Osman Digna, of Mahmoud, lying in wait, Heaven knew where, ready to pounce upon the advancing army, or more likely, some feared, to remain safely in ambush, and pretend to know nothing about the proximity of the Sirdar and his men.

Bimbashi Jones prayed heartily that the enemy might for a while be too frightened to show itself – at any rate until he should be able to join his regiment. After that, let Mahmoud and all his emirs become possessed with a new spirit – that of the irresistible desire to fight.

It was very trying, nay, maddening, for him to be left behind at Cairo; only think of it —left behind, and his regiment, it might be, at any moment distinguishing itself, and reaping glories and honours in which he could have no share.

What a confession to make to his friends in England! There would be a big battle, and, of course, a great victory for the Sirdar, at Berber, some said, or at Fort Atbara. Perhaps the struggle was going on at this very minute, and he must pass the rest of his life explaining how it had happened that he was not present and did not possess this medal and that. Bah! it was too bad!

Still, he was well now, and getting stronger daily, and the doctor had promised him that by the last day of February he should set out for the front, unless anything happened to cause him to modify his permission.

From that hour Jones determined that he would fret no longer, but consent, like a reasonable being, to devote all his energies to quiet recuperation. Soon there was but a week longer of waiting, then three days, then a day. At last the hour of his departure arrived, and with much good advice from the doctor, more good wishes from many friends, and a great quantity of luggage, some of which he hoped to convey, somehow, to the front, Bimbashi Jones launched himself against the Khalifa and all the hosts of evil, as represented by the Dervish masters of the Soudan.

His journey as far as Berber was uneventful. The railway was by that time finished up to this point, or very near it, and there remained but a day or two of camel riding between him and the army at Fort Atbara.

But what with the weakness which was the legacy of fever, or the weariness of the long journey down from Cairo, poor Jones was by the time he reached the terminus of the railway the very wreck of a bimbashi. He ought to have rested a few days at Berber. He was advised to do so by the garrison doctor there, but he laughed the idea to scorn. He had rested long enough at Cairo, he declared; he must go on and join his regiment.

"But there's no hurry, bless the man!" said the garrison doctor; "they haven't found Mahmoud; Heaven knows where he is."

"Mahmoud may find them," said Jones; "and I should like to be on the spot when he does."

"No such luck!" laughed the other; "that's what we should all like, but Mahmoud knows better."

However, Jones would listen to no advice. He hired camels for himself and his servant, and started in the cool of the evening to cover as much of the thirty miles or so which lay between him and the haven of his desires as could be done before the heat of the morning, leaving his kit to follow as quickly as blacks and donkeys would condescend to bring it along.

But more misfortunes attended the bimbashi.

Jones was very weary and half torpid with the heat of the past days. He fell asleep on the top of his billowy, bumpy mount, and presently, sliding off into the sand, lay and snored, with the Soudan for a bed, unconscious as a log, and so remained for some hours. His servant, dozing also on the back of his beast, which followed a score of paces behind that of his master, saw nothing of the bimbashi's collapse into the sand, and jogged past the place in which he lay sleeping, entirely unconscious of the accident.

As for Jones's camel, that sagacious creature was far too clever to say anything about the circumstance. It was pleased to be rid of its load, though recognizing the fact that the journey must be continued without him. Perhaps it had friends or an important engagement at Fort Atbara. At any rate, it continued its journey not less rapidly than before, keeping well ahead of its travelling companion – perhaps anxious to be asked no questions as to the load it had shot into the sand, for fear of being reloaded.

The servant dozed and waked and dozed again till morning, never so soundly asleep as to fall off his beast, yet never wide enough awake to realize that the bimbashi was not on the top of the camel looming in front of him through the darkness. Only when morning light and the on-coming heat thoroughly roused him did he become aware that his master was gone. Then the man, who was an Egyptian soldier, and had been invalided, like Jones, in Cairo, where he came in handily enough to accompany the bimbashi as servant to the front – the man Ali did the wisest thing possible. After weeping copiously and swearing at Jones's camel until that shocked beast careered madly out of earshot, he covered the remainder of the journey to Fort Atbara as fast as his own animal could be induced to go; and, arrived there, he greeted the first English officer he met, weeping and explaining incomprehensibly.

"Stop blubbering, you pig," said the subaltern, "and say what you want."

"O thou effendim," cried Ali, drying his tears with marvellous suddenness, "I have lost my bimbashi – Bimbashi Jones!"

Explanations revealed that the man had, in truth, started from Berber in company with an English bimbashi, and that the bimbashi's camel had certainly arrived, but not the bimbashi.

A search-party was therefore sent back without delay, but unfortunately a high wind had risen during the morning, and a dust storm was now in full blast, so that though the party thoroughly searched the road on both sides as far as Berber, taking two or three days over the job, and duly execrating the object of their search for possibly losing them the chance of being present at the big event – namely, the battle with Mahmoud, now expected daily – they found no trace of poor Bimbashi Jones.

They returned, therefore, empty-handed, and returned, as it chanced, just in time to have a hand in certain great events which were about to take place on Atbara River.

Meanwhile Bimbashi Jones slept very soundly and dreamed very absurdly. He dreamed that he had arrived at Atbara in the nick of time. A terrific battle had raged for many hours, and the result up to the moment of his arrival had been most disastrous to the Anglo-Egyptian forces. The Khalifa himself and two of his emirs, hearing of the bimbashi's approach, had personally pursued the hero almost up to the muzzles of the British guns, in order to prevent the great disaster to their hosts which his arrival among the British and Egyptian forces would be sure to entail. He would lead them, the Khalifa knew, to victory, once he placed himself at their head, and triumph would at the last moment be snatched from his hand. For, indeed, every English officer from the Sirdar to the youngest subaltern of a British regiment was already either killed or incapacitated. Our troops were on the point of collapsing. Already the Soudanese and Egyptian regiments were throwing down their rifles and looking over their shoulders for the safest point of the compass, with an eye to successful flight. Far away on the left a long line of hussars disappeared in the dim distance, pursued by countless hosts of Bagghara horsemen, shouting "Allah," and shaking spears like leaves in the south-west wind. English sergeants went along the lines with tears in their eyes, crying like babies, entreating, imploring, threatening; the Sirdar sat with his back to a gun-carriage, badly wounded.

"Is that you, Bimbashi Jones?" he cried faintly. "Thank Heaven! hurrah! We shall save the show yet. – Orderly, ride round and spread the news quickly; say Bimbashi Jones is here and about to take the field. Let the enemy know it too; let Mahmoud know it – the rascal! He would attack us before Jones could arrive, would he?"

The effect of the news was electric – nay, magic! From company to company, from regiment to regiment, from brigade to brigade, the word went round. Then a low murmur began to spread; it grew and grew; like the sound of the wind in the tree-tops it widened and thickened, until the whole air was cleft and shivered with the mighty roar that spread from end to end of the battle plain. "Bimbashi Jones has arrived! The bimbashi has taken the field! Die, Dervishes, like dogs!"

And a wail, like the cry of a million souls in torment, rose from the Dervish ranks. "The bimbashi has come! We are lost! Run for your lives, ye servants of Mohammed, for your lives!"

The Khalifa heard it as he sat and trembled in his palace at Omdurman, to which he had quickly returned, seeing that the bimbashi had escaped him. (Jones, it will be observed, had, like most dreamers, annihilated time and space.) The Khalifa ordered his best white Arab steed, and mounted it, and rode forth to learn what the noise was about. Jones met him as he and his troops chased the Dervish host towards Khartoum, and shouted to him to yield.

"I surrender to no one but the Sirdar or Bimbashi Jones!" cried Abdullah, who, during the late pursuit, had not caught sight of the hero's face.

"You are too young to be either of these great men. – Allah! Allah! Turn and strike, sons of the Prophet! down with the dogs!"

His followers whispered to the Khalifa.

As when rude Boreas, suddenly remembering that he is due in another portion of the globe, ceases abruptly to beat the tortured sea into foam, and a beauteous calm overspreads the waters of the storm-tossed ocean, so suddenly the countenance of the Khalifa changed from rage and defiance to an expression of timorous incredulity.

"Impossible!" he muttered – "so young, and so great a general!"

"Undoubtedly it is Bimbashi Jones!" said an emir.

Jones heard him quite distinctly.

"Yes, I am Bimbashi Jones," he said; "yield, Abdullah; there is no other course. Yield or perish!"

"You will not cut off my right hand and ear?" asked the Khalifa.

"Certainly not, richly though you deserve it," said Jones.

"Nor my left?" added the Khalifa quickly, glancing cunningly in Jones's face.

The bimbashi disclaimed any such intention.

Then the Khalifa surrendered, placing his sword in Jones's hands with the inimitable grace of a cavalier of olden time; which circumstance, however, did not strike the bimbashi as in any degree strange, but only highly decorous and proper.

And now telegrams of congratulation poured in. Every one of the wounded British officers quickly recovered; even several whom the bimbashi knew to have been killed turned up again (without causing him any surprise) to shake the hero by the hand. In the gilded halls of Omdurman he was the admired of all beholders. The ladies vied to dance with him, though none of them explained how they got there; while the men spoke of impending promotions, peerages, and what not.

As for the Khalifa, he sat next to Bimbashi Jones at supper, and did his very best to convert the young man to Mohammedanism; and to everything that the Khalifa advanced, the Sirdar, sitting on Jones's left, would remark, —

"There's a good deal in what the old boy says."

There was indeed, Jones thought, for – and this was the only circumstance in the whole affair that caused him some surprise – the Khalifa simply preached at him a sermon which Jones's own father (Vicar of Stoke Netherby, Yorkshire, and certainly not a follower of the Prophet) had delivered from his own pulpit on the very last Sunday that the bimbashi had spent in the old home.

"Why," he remarked, when the Khalifa had quite finished, "you are a pious fraud, my good man. Are you aware that you have stolen that sermon, word for word, from my own father, who preached it – "

"Bimbashi Jones – Alaric, my boy – don't you know me?" said the Khalifa very gushingly; and Jones was just about to recognize his parent, whom indeed the Khalifa promptly declared himself to be in very flesh, and to rush to his arms, when he awoke, and the whole thing was spoiled, the dream ending and the curtain falling upon a highly-dramatic situation, somewhat mysterious withal, and left entirely unexplained. Poor Bimbashi Jones was now no longer the victorious preserver of the honour of England and the safety of Egypt; he was but his own unfortunate self, a forlorn piece of jetsam cast ashore upon the sand-ocean of the Soudan, with sand-scud flying like solid sea-spray, and filling his eyes and nose and mouth and clothes, blotting out tracks and directions, and reducing poor Jones to a condition of great misery and wretchedness. He would have felt even more wretched had he realized that, by falling off his camel and sleeping on while it walked away, he had landed himself in a very serious position indeed. He was in the midst of a sand-storm.