第99章

THE CAMP AT ABOUKIR.

THE life of the Mameluke beys had for months been a continuous festival. Nothing but pleasure and festivity; nothing but assurances of love and friendship on the part of their former enemies, the Turks.

Since the hated Franks, after so many struggles, so many defeats and fruitless shedding of blood, had embarked in their proud ships and returned to Europe, the prospects for peace in the land that was bleeding from a thousand wounds seemed to be bright. Friends and enemies had made these wounds; friends and enemies had torn the once fair form of the beautiful land of the Pharaohs, and converted it into a hideous corpse.

The battle-fields of Aboukir, the Pyramids of Gheezeh, the blood-soaked fields of Syria, the overthrown walls of St. Jean d'Acre, and of the magnifient city of the caliphs, Cairo, tell of the French general, Bonaparte, who, at the head of his army, had entered upon a crusade in order to bless Egypt with civilization. This was his pretext. He intended, with his sans culottes, to carry civilization to the Orient, and, not being able to convert them to Christianity by persuasion or, trickery, he determined to baptize them with blood.

At first the Mameluke beys, who until then had ruled in Egypt, and had, in protracted struggles, endeavored to cast off their allegiance to the grand-sultan, had supposed it would be an easy matter to drive back the French barbarians from the yellow shores of Africa.

Mourad Bey, the chief of all the Mameluke beys, was sitting at a joyous banquet in Alexandria, when several of his officers rushed into the hall to announce that a number of ships were entering the harbor, and that a body of Franks had already landed. The Mameluke chieftain laughed, and, without rising from his seat, said to the messengers, "Give these French beggars a bakshish, and tell them to clear out, or Mourad Bey will compel them to do so.""But," observed the English consul, who had just entered the hall, "excellency, these Franks have come to possess themselves of Egypt.

Hasten to make preparations for your defence."Mourad Bey laughed again. "You take a gloomy view of things, my friend.--Go and give these wretches something to eat, and, as I have already ordered, a little money also, and then advise them to depart with all speed, or I will have them driven off by my servants."But the Franks were not to be driven off so easily. They were bringing civilization, the glory of the French Republic, to Egypt, and were determined to make them happy by force. The republic at home had become too small for the great general. "Europe is a mere mole-hill," he had said; "there never were great kingdoms and great enterprises elsewhere than in the Orient, where six hundred million people live!"And it was indeed a great enterprise that Bonaparte wished to attempt in Egypt, and great things be really did accomplish there.

So great were they, that General Kleber, in secret his enemy and rival, could nevertheless not refrain from saying, after one of the victories:

"You are as great, Bonaparte, as the world, but the world is too small for your glory!"And yet a day had come when the man who was too great for the world had to make himself small before the victorious Mameluke beys, when he secretly, accompanied by a few faithful followers only, departed from Egypt to return to the mole-hill Europe, to seek a crown for himself there. Bonaparte had left behind, in want and misery, the army that had suffered so much, not only from battle and disease, but also from the cruelty of its leaders. Was it not at Jaffa that Bonaparte caused the sick and wounded to be poisoned, in order to shorten their sufferings? And one other deed of cruelty of the general of civilization, who had gone to Egypt to confer happiness upon the unbelievers, stands recorded in the books of history. Was it not in Egypt that the French general caused the prisoners of war who had surrendered to General Desaix to be led down to the seashore and shot, contrary to the usages of warfare? Four thousand Arabian soldiers were assassinated in this manner. This was one of the monuments of civilization erected by the French general in the Orient! And the revolt in Cairo, the massacre of so many French soldiers, and the hatred of the whole people, was the harvest reaped by Bonaparte for this bloody deed.

"Death to the Franks!" was the cry of every Egyptian--the cry that was common to the Mameluke chieftain and the lowest fellah.

"Death to the Franks!" murmured the sheiks and ulemas with each prayer. And when Bonaparte had secretly fled, this ominous cry resounded through all Egypt--"Death to the Franks!"General Kleber, Bonaparte's successor, was the first victim sacrificed. At Cairo, on the grand square of the Esbekieh, under the large sycamore at a corner of the harem of one of the Mameluke beys, he was stricken down by the dagger of a fanatical Turk. And now terror and dismay possessed itself of the whole army, and not only were the Egyptians glad when the command came from Europe that the French soldiers should embark, but the latter also esteemed themselves happy when, from the decks of their ships, they saw the yellow coast of Africa gradually disappear. Since then, bright, happy days seemed to have come again for the proud Mameluke beys, and happiness appeared to dawn again over the stricken land. The English, who, off the coast of Egypt, had destroyed the French ships, their armada, were now masters of the situation. They united themselves with the Mameluke beys, and undertook to mediate between them and the Turkish ruler.