' This is the most accursed country. I managed to escape from it once. When next a chance comes for me to do so I'll take it, and never, never will I return. Not even wild horses shall drag me back to it again.'
Three days later it so happened that he was given a. chance to leave Egypt. The fortnight he had spent working in Marmont's office had proved no undue strain upon him. On the contrary, he was inclined to think that, before it, he had allowed Zanthe and the Sarodopulouses to pamper him too much; for on his return to the villa he felt considerably fitter. In the early mornings, before the sun got too hot, he was going out riding on his own and ever further afield.
On the morning of July 30th, having ridden some five miles along the coast to the west, he trotted to the top of a big sand-dune and saw below, in the little bay, a group of men. A British sloop-of-war was lying about half a mile off-shore and the men had obviously landed from her. At a glance he saw what they were about.
The coast of Egypt was far too long for the French, with their limited number of troops, to patrol the whole of it regularly; so at times the blockading ships landed parties on deserted stretches of coast to collect springwater. Such sources were too small for the larger ships to pick up the hundreds of gallons they required, so from time to time they had to water at Crete or Cyprus; but even half a barrel of fresh springwater was a great luxury so now and then, in order to obtain it, blockading vessels took the risk of their parties being surprised by the French.
Down in the bay a semi-circle of half a dozen sailors with muskets kept guard some distance from a cluster of rocks above the tide-line. Among the rocks, under the supervision of an officer, others were filling three small casks from the spring with pannikins while, a hundred yards away, a boat was being kept in readiness to take them off.
As Roger brought his mount to a halt on the top of the dune, the sailors spotted him, gave the alarm and raised their muskets. Before they could draw a bead on him he swung his horse round, put spurs to it and, crouching low in the saddle, cantered off back down the slope. But as soon as he was well under cover of the crest he pulled up.
Wild thoughts were racing through his mind. He was alone; so if he appeared again, waving his white handkerchief, the men would not fire upon him. He had only to ride down to them and give himself up to be taken aboard the British sloop. Within a few days he could get himself transferred to Tigre and be again with Sir Sidney Smith. After all he had been through he had no doubt at all that the Commodore would take the first opportunity to send him home.
It was seventeen months since he had left England. During that time he had twice secured important despatches from Bonaparte, and had also sent back from Naples a very full report on the resources of the French Army in Egypt. Meanwhile, he had suffered grievously and several times had narrowly escaped losing his life. No one, with the possible exception of the fanatically patriotic Nelson, could possibly contend that he was not now entitled to give up the desperately dangerous double life that he had been leading for so long.
If he did not take this chance, in a few weeks he must return to duty in Cairo. And what then? On re-entering Egypt Bonaparte had issued a proclamation containing more flagrant lies than even he had ever before given out. He claimed that he had totally destroyed Acre and that this had been his only object in invading Syria. He declared his total casualties to number a mere five hundred, when everyone in the Army knew that they ran into thousands. With superb effrontery he had organized a triumphant entry into Cairo, with the captured Turkish standards being carried before him, and claimed to have returned from a campaign of victories equalling those he had achieved in Italy.
This unscrupulous propaganda had deceived the greater part of the Egyptian people and had even, to some extent, been swallowed by the French regiments which had not taken part in the Syrian campaign. But Roger knew the truth.
During its thirteen months in Egypt the French Army had been reduced, by casualties and pestilence, to little more than half its original number. It had not received a single reinforcement from home and, as long as the British blockade continued could not hope to do so. Even with the regiments of Mamelukes and other natives who had been enlisted, it was now barely strong enough to hold Egypt, let alone undertake other campaigns further afield. All prospect of raising the Arab races against their overlord, the Sultan, had vanished with the failure to take Acre. Gone, too, was the dream of capturing the Red Sea ports and from them invading India as a prelude to creating a great Empire in the East. Now the French were like a garrison in a besieged city that had no hope of relief, and in which the population was hostile. From attacks on their convoys by Bedouin, knifings by night in the streets, accident and disease, they must gradually be weakened to a point at which the Egyptians felt strong enough to rise and massacre them.
As Roger thought of those months ahead during which, if he remained in Egypt, he must continue to suffer from the sweltering heat, myriads of flies, possibility of being killed by an Arab or stung by a poisonous reptile, and living all his time among companions growing daily more desperate with fear about their future, he had never before so greatly longed to be back in the green fields of England.
Only the thought of Zanthd deterred him from galloping back over the crest, pulling out his white handkerchief and waving it aloft for the little party of seamen who meant home and safety to him. She had given him intense pleasure. She loved and needed him. She had twice saved his life and had nursed him back to health. Could he possibly desert her? Still worse, could he simply disappear without a word, leaving her to months of misery, wondering whether he were dead or alive and what had happened to him? She was very beautiful and he would soon be strong enough to become again her lover in the fullest sense. But there were other women as beautiful, even if in a different way, and as passionate in England. In a few years she would look middle-aged and have become fat and unwieldy. Why should he sacrifice every other thing for which he craved to saddle himself with a half-Asiatic girl whom he would have to take with him as his wife wherever they went, whether they actually married or not?
For a few agonizing minutes he wrestled with the most terrible temptation that had ever beset him. Then he knew that he could not give in to it. The shame of having left her, after all she had been to him, would haunt him all his days. He must remain in Egypt and share the lot of Bonaparte's ill-fated Army. Sadly, he kneed his horse into a walk and rode back to Alexandria.
Having resolved not to abandon Zanthe, he committed himself to her still further that evening. It chanced that the Patriarch of Alexandria called at the villa to solicit a large sum from Sarodopulous for a charity. He was a big, jolly man with a fine, curly black beard and, while they were all consuming coffee and cakes, the talk turned to different faiths.
When Roger was in St. Petersburg he found that, under Catherine the Great, Russia was then the most tolerant country in the world with reg'ard to religious matters. Priests of all denominations were encouraged by the Empress to establish churches there, and every year the Metropolitan gave a reception to which he invited Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists as well as brethren of his own Church. Three kinds of wine were served at these receptions, and it was his custom to welcome his guests with the words: ' Gentlemen, these wines are different; but all of them are good, and so are the different faiths which we follow.'