And they delighted in pretending not to understand English when he knew they very well could! Their praying came at all times of day and night. Their people swaggered through the streets-mocking England as “that dreary little isle.” Their foods troubled his stomach. Now Egypt was one of the great powers, and Cairo was fast outstripping London, even Paris.

Thirty years past they had been ripe for becoming another conquest in His Majesty’s Empire. He was tired of this miserably hot, dry place. And one thing was certain: he’d had his fill. For ten long years now, Archibald had spent three, four, even six months in the country at a time. The mysterious jewel of the Orient, land of pharaohs, fabled Mamlukes, and countless marvels. At this hour he could still make out the sloping outline of the pyramids, the stone shining beneath a full moon that hung luminous in the black sky.Įgypt. With a sigh, he turned weary eyes to an arched window. It was warm for November, and in this overheated land it seemed his body no longer knew how not to sweat.

Mopping sweat from his forehead, he wished he could reach the dampness lining his back and other unmentionable regions that his dark suit, by fortune, hid away. “All for king, country, and company,” he muttered. He should be settling down for the night with a stiff drink, not trotting up a set of ruddy stairs! It was shameful that someone of his years, having reached sixty and one in this year 1912, should suffer such indignities.

He stopped to rest against a giant replica of a copper teapot with a curving spout like a beak, setting down the burden he’d been carrying. It was criminal in this modern age that stairs should be allowed to yet exist-when lifts could carry passengers in comfort. If these stairs had eyes to see, they would do more than snicker-watching as he huffed through curling auburn whiskers, his short legs wobbling under his rotundity. There were times, he thought, he could even hear them snickering. With their ludicrous lengths, ever leading up, as if in some jest. Archibald James Portendorf disliked stairs.

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