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Peck's Bad Boy Abroad, a fiction by George W. Peck |
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Chapter 25. The Bad Boy And His Dad Climb The Pyramids... |
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_ CHAPTER XXV. The Bad Boy and His Dad Climb the Pyramids--The Bad Boy Lights a Cannon Cracker in Rameses' Tomb--They Flee from Egypt in Disguise
There were about a hundred tourists around the stampede of the camels, and I told them my the base of the big pyramid, all looking towards dad, the great American millionaire, was on the runaway camel in advance, and asked them to form a line across the trail and save dad, but when the camel came nearer I was ashamed of dad. He had his arms around the front hump of the camel, and he was yelling for help to stop his menagerie, and his legs were flying in the air, and every time they came down they kicked a hole in the side of the camel. Well, sir, I thought dad was a brave man, but he blatted like a calf, and when the camel stopped and went to eating a clump of grass dad opened his eyes, and when he saw that the procession had stopped he rolled off his camel like a bag of wheat, and stuck in the sand and began to say a prayer, but when he saw me standing there, laughing, he stopped praying, and said to me: "I thought you were blown up when that jackass kicked the can of dynamite. You have more lives than a cat. Now, get a hustle on you and we will climb that pyramid, and then quit this blasted country," and dad sat down on a hummock and began to pull himself together, after the most fearful ride he ever had. He said the camel loped, trotted, galloped, single-footed and shied all at the same time, and when one hump was not jamming him in the back the other hump was kicking him in the stomach, and if he had a gun he would shoot the camel, and the Arabs, and bust up the show. By the time dad got so he could stand up without leaning against a pyramid the Arabs came up and they all talked at once, and drew knives, and it seemed as though they were blaming dad for something. We found an interpreter among the tourists, and he talked with the Arabs, and pointing to the camel dad had ridden, which was stretched out on the sand like he was dead, he told dad the Arabs wanted him to pay for the camel he had ridden to death, and foundered by letting it drink a wagon load of water, and then entered in a race across the desert, and the interpreter said dad better pay, or they would kill him. Dad settled for the camel for a hundred dollars, and a promise of the skin of the camel, which he was going to take home and have stuffed. Then a man who pretended to be a justice of the peace had dad arrested for driving off of a walk, and he was fined $10 and costs for that, and then all the Arabs stuck him for money for one thing and another, and when he had settled all around and paid extra for not riding back to Cairo on the camel, we got ready to climb up the pyramid. Dad said he wouldn't ride that camel back to Cairo for a million dollars, for he was split up so his legs began where his arms left off, and he was lame from Genesis to Revelations. But I never saw such a lot of people to pray as these pirates are. Just before they rob a man they get down on their knees on a rug, and mumble something to some god, and after they have got you robbed good and plenty, they get down and pray while they are concealing the money they took from you. Gee, but when I get home I am going to steer the train robbers and burglars onto the idea of always being on praying grounds. Well, I told dad he hadn't better try to climb up the pyramid, that I would go up, 'cause I could climb like a goat, and when I got up to the top I would fire a salute, so everybody would know that a star spangled American was on deck, but dad said he would go up or quit the tourist business. He said he had come thousands of miles to climb the pyramids, and sit in the shadow of the spinks, and by ginger he was going to do it, and so we started. Well, say, each stone is about four feet high, and dad couldn't get up without help, so an Arab would go up a stone ahead, and take hold of dad's hands, and two more Arabs would get their shoulders under dad's pants, and shove, and he would get up gradually. We got about half way up when dad weakened, and said he didn't care so much about pyramids as he thought he did, and he was ready to quit, but the guide and some of the tourists said we were right near the entrance to the great tomb of the kings, and that we better go in and at least make a formal call on the crowned heads, and so we went in, through dark passages, with little candles that the guides carried, and up and down stairs, until finally we got into a big room that smelled like a morgue, with bats and evil looking things all around, and I felt creepy. The guides got down on their knees to pray, and I thought it was time to be robbed again. I do not know what made me think of making a sensation right there in the bowels of that pyramid, where there were corpses thousands of years old, of Egypt's rulers. I never felt that way at home, when I visited a cemetery, but I though I would shoot my last roman candle and fire my last giant firecracker right there in that moseleum, and take the chances that we would get out alive. So when the tourists were lined up beside a tomb of some Rameses or other, and the guides were praying for strength and endurance, probably, to get away with all the money we had, I picked out a place up toward the roof that seemed full of bats and birds of ill omen, and I sneaked my roman candle out from under my shirt, and touched the fuse to a candle on the turban of a guide who was on his knees, and just as the first fire ball was ready to come out I yelled "Whoop-la-much-a wano, epluribus un-um," and the fire balls lighted up the gloom and knocked the bats gaily west. Holy jumping cats, but you ought to have seen the guides, yelling Allah! Allah! and groveling on the floor, and the bats were flying around in the faces of the tourists, and everybody was simply scared out of their boots. I thought I might as well wind the thing up glorious, so I touched the tail of my last giant firecracker to the sparks that were oozing out of my empty roman candle, and threw it into the middle of the great room, and when it went off you would think a cannon had exploded, and everybody rushed for the door, and we fell over each other getting out through the passage towards the door. I was the first to get out on to the side of the pyramid, and I watched for the crowd to come out. The tourists got out first, and then dad came out, puffing and wheezing, and the last to come out were the Arabs, and they came on their hands and knees, calling to Mr. Allah and every one of them actually pale, and I think they were conscience-stricken, for they began to give back the money they had robbed dad of, and an Arab must be pretty scared to give up any of his hard-earned robberies. I think dad was about the maddest man there was, until he got some of his money back, when he felt better, but he gave me a talking to that I will never forget. He said: "Don't you know better than to go around with explosives, like a train robber, and fire them off in a hole in the ground, where there is no ventilation, and make people's ears ring? Maybe you have woke up those kings and queens in there, and changed a dynasty, you little idiot." The rest of the crowd wanted to throw me down the side of the pyramid, but I got away from them and went up on top of the pyramid and hoisted a small American flag, and left it floating there, and then came back to where the crowd was discussing the explosion in the tomb, and then we all went down the side of the pyramid. The guides got their nerve back after they got out in the air, because they wouldn't help dad down unless he paid them something every stone they helped him climb down, so when he got down he didn't have any money, and hardly any pants, because what pants the Arabs didn't tear were worn off on the stones, so when he showed up in front of the spinks he was a sight, and he bought a turban of a guide and unwound it and wound it around him in place of pants. I was ashamed of dad myself, and it is pretty hard to make me ashamed. We went back to Cairo on the cars, and what do you think, that dead camel that the Arabs made dad pay for was with the caravan going back to town, 'cause we saw him out of the car window with the hair wore off where dad kicked him in the side. The tourists say the Arabs have that camel trained to die every day when they get to the pyramids, and they make some tenderfoot pay for him at the end of each journey. Dad is going to try to get his money back from the Egyptian government, but I guess he will never realize on his claim. Well, sir, after dad had doctored all night to get the camel rheumatism and spinal meningitis out of his system, we took a trip by boat on the Nile, and saw the banks where the people grow crops by irrigation, and where an English syndicate has built a big dam, so the whole valley can be irrigated, and I tell you it will not be long before Egypt will raise everything used in the world on that desert, and every other country that raises food to sell will be busted up in business, but it is disgusting to take a trip on the Nile, 'cause all the natives are dirty and sick with contagious diseases, and they are lazy and crippled, and beg for a living, and if you don't give them something they steal all you got. You are in luck if you get away without having leprosy, or the plague, or cholera, or fleas. So we went back to Cairo, and there was the worst commotion you ever saw, about my fireworks in the tomb. The papers said that an American dynamiter had attempted to blow up the great pyramid, and take possession of the country and place it under the American flag, and that the conspirators were spotted and would be arrested and put in irons as soon as they got back from a trip on the Nile. Well, sir, dad found his career would close right here, and that he would probably spend the balance of his life in an Egyptian prison if wc didn't get out, so we made a sneak and got into our hotel, bought disguises and are going to get out of here tonight, and try to get to Gibraltar, or somewhere in sight of home. Dad is disguised as a shiek, with whiskers and a white robe, like a bath robe, and I am going to travel with him as an Egyptian girl till we get through the Suez canal. Gee, but I wouldn't be a nigger girl only to save dad. Your innocent, Hennery. _ |
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