It took more than an hour to pass. Halfway through there was a friendly touch on Owen’s shoulder and somebody produced chairs. The Postlethwaites, unused to the heat, sank into them gratefully.
At intervals the seemingly endless train of carts was broken by items of more direct popular entertainment: troupes of acrobats, jugglers competing against each other, masquerades. Some of the turns were satirical, one of them, for instance, representing a stage Englishman with loud golfing trousers, a Union Jack shirt and a tall top hat, who had the crowd in fits with a continuous stream of what were clearly scurrilous remarks.
“Isn’t that a Union Jack?” asked John Postlethwaite.
“I believe it is,” said Owen.
“These chaps make use of any material that comes to hand,” said Paul.
“Looks a bit of a comic turn to me,” said John Postlethwaite.
“Can’t quite make it out,” said Paul vaguely, who certainly could, and was enjoying it.
Included among the entertainers were various groups of Zikr, which Owen found odd in view of the essentially religious nature of their exercises. The thought came into his mind that Jane Postlethwaite might remark on the fact that for an event ostensibly religious in its inspiration there were singularly few items of specifically religious character, and he hastily pointed out to her that many of the little red and white banners that people were carrying had texts from the Koran inscribed upon them.
“Thank you, Captain Owen,” she said politely, and with a certain dryness.
Fortunately, some gorgeous mediaeval palanquins passed at that moment. They were shaped like the cabins of Venetian gondolas and covered with mosaics of silver, ebony and ivory, as rich as the mosaics on an Indian workbox. Each palanquin was slung between two camels, rather peculiarly slung, since the two camels were fastened so close to each other that the head of the rear camel was right under the palanquin, which guaranteed its occupants a boisterous ride.
The front camel was favoured, doubly so, for not only was its head free and erect but it was crowned with a circlet of silver bells and a splendid plume of scarlet feathers.
“The trappings go right back to the Middle Ages, Miss Postlethwaite,” said McPhee learnedly. “But then, some of the features of the Zeffa are very odd. They antedate both the Moslem and the Christian eras.”
The procession was coming to its climax. The music rose to a new crescendo and along the street came a large cart with a raised platform at the front on which was a royal tableau. “The spring king, possibly,” McPhee suggested. The king was a very young king, about fourteen or fifteen years old, though there was no doubt about his being a king since he wore a crown on his head and was richly, if scantily, dressed. Around him were various courtiers, who alternated obeisances to the king with salutes to the crowd.
As the cart approached, they saw that the king was indeed scantily dressed. He was in fact quite naked below the waist. And, attached to his hips by a sort of harness, was a gigantic dildo, grotesquely painted and about two feet long, which waggled and danced in time to the jolting of the cart, to the great delight and applause of all the spectators.
Well, not all.
“I’m a broad-minded chap,” said John Postlethwaite, “but-” He got to his feet. “Come on, Jane. I’ve had enough. It’s time we went.”
With a wry glance at Owen, Jane Postlethwaite followed him.
“Boy, do you pick them!” said Paul as he set off in pursuit.
The Postlethwaites returned to England on the following day. John Postlethwaite asserted his influence and managed to secure two cancelled bookings.
“I’ll be back,” said Jane Postlethwaite.
Fortunately, the end of John Postlethwaite’s visit did not entirely efface the otherwise good impressions he had formed during his time in Egypt, and in future he was able to defend the Administration’s cause with all the authority of first-hand experience.
The Khedive by then was already in Monte Carlo, obligingly furnished with the resources he needed, and content to leave the management of the realm in the capable hands of his new Prime Minister, who happened to be a Copt.
There was a great deal of pleasure at the new appointment — among the Copts, that was-and Owen was greatly surprised to find that the allocation to the Curbash Compensation Fund rose by a third the following financial year. He was even able to anticipate part of the increase and meet some of his expenses in the current financial year by special arrangement with one of the senior officials in the Ministry of Finance, Ramses.
Sesostris and Andrus both disappeared from the Cairo scene, Andrus for an austere regimen in a Coptic monastery in the desert, where he devoted his time to prayer and fasting, Sesostris for an even more spartan regimen in a less religious but more solid building near Alexandria.
Yussuf remarried Fatima and, much to his surprise after so many barren years, eight months later Fatima gave birth to a baby boy, who, Fatima and Yussuf’s sister both swore blind, was the spitting image of Yussuf.
And Owen was able to put to rest Zeinab’s fears about the growth of Nonconformist influence in Egypt.
For a time.