"What do you say, Jack?" Tucker asked. "I suppose we may as well go there as anywhere else."

"Well, we will go there later, Tucker. One does get shade in the narrow streets; but there would be no fun in driving with this sun blazing down on us. By five o'clock, when the sun gets a bit lower, it will be pleasant enough. I vote we go into the narrow streets, where we shall get shade, and see the natives in their own quarters."

The others agreed, and turning out of the square they were soon in the lanes.

"This is not half as amusing as the Indian towns," Tucker said. "Last voyage I went to Calcutta, and it is jolly in the natives' town there, seeing the natives squatting in their little shops, tinkering and tailoring, and all sorts of things. And such a crowd of them in the streets! This is a poor place in comparison, and most of the shops you see have European names over them. However, one gets the shade; that is something."

CHAPTER IX.

THE RIOT IN ALEXANDRIA.

FOR half an hour the lads sauntered on, interested in the people rather than the shops. They bought a few things. Jack invested in half a pound of Egyptian tobacco and a gaily-decorated pipe for his Uncle Ben, two little filigree brooches, and a couple of very large silk handkerchiefs of many colours, with knotted fringes, for his mother and sister.

"I do not know what they will do with them," he said; "but they will do to put on the back of a sofa or something of that sort."

The others also made some purchases, both expending a good deal more than Jack did; but the latter said that he would keep his money for Smyrna, where probably he would get all sorts of pretty things.

They were walking quietly along, when they saw a commotion in front of them. A number of men were shouting and gesticulating angrily, and blows were exchanged.

"Let us get out of this," Jack said. "It is no good running the risk of getting our heads broken."

People were now running from the shops, while from side streets the natives poured down.

"This is a regular row!" Jim Tucker exclaimed. "Look! those fellows are all armed with big sticks. Listen! there are pistols going off somewhere else."

A moment later the natives fell suddenly upon some Europeans standing close to the boys. These drew knives and pistols, and a fierce combat at once raged.

"Come out of this!" Jim exclaimed, running into a shop close by. "We must make a bolt for it somewhere."

At that moment an Italian, armed with a pistol, rushed in from behind the shop.

On seeing the three lads he exclaimed in broken English, "Shut the door, they mean to kill us all!"

The boys closed the door, and the owner piled some boxes and other goods against it; but there was no fastening up the window, for the fastenings were outside.

"Come upstairs," the man said, and the lads followed him to the floor above.

The battle was still raging in the street. Groups of Greeks and Italians stood together, defending themselves with their knives from the heavy sticks of their a.s.sailants, but were being fast beaten down. The shrieks of women rose loud above the shouting of the combatants, while from the upper windows the cracks of revolvers sounded out as the Greek, Maltese, and Italian shopkeepers who had not sallied out into the streets tried to aid their comrades below.

"Now, have you got any arms you can give us?" Tucker asked. "This looks like a regular rising of the natives. They would never all have their sticks handy if they hadn't prepared for it."

"There are some long knives in that cupboard," the man said, "and there is another pistol my brother Antonio has got. He is sick in bed."

Just at this moment the door opened and another Italian came in in trousers and shirt.

"What is it, Joseph?"

"The natives have risen and are ma.s.sacring all the Europeans."

The sick man made his way to the window.

"I am not surprised," he said, as he discharged his pistol and brought down a native who was in the act of battering in the head of a fallen man. "You said only yesterday, you thought there was mischief brewing--that the natives were surly and insolent; but I did not think they would dare to do this."

"Well, brother, we will sell our lives as dearly as we can."

The conflict was now pretty nearly over, and the two men withdrew from the window and closed the jalousies.

"Most of them are making off," Antonio said, peeping cautiously out through the lattice-work. "I suppose they are going to attack somewhere else. What are the police doing? They ought to be here soon."

But the time went on, and there were no signs of the police. The natives now began to break open the shops and plunder the contents. The two men placed themselves at the top of the stairs. It was not long before they heard a crashing of gla.s.s and a breaking of wood, then a number of men rushed into the shop.

"Don't fire, Joseph," Antonio said, "so long as they do not try to come up here. They may take away the soap and candles and other things if they choose, if they will but leave us alone."

The stairs were straight and narrow, and led direct from the shop itself to the floor above. After plundering the shop the natives departed laden with their spoil, without attempting to ascend the stairs.

"We are in an awful fix here," Jim Tucker said. "What do you think we had better do? Shall we get out at the back of the house and try and make a bolt of it?"

"I do not think that is any good," Jack replied. "I was at the back window just now, and could hear shouts and the report of firearms all over the place. No; if we go out into the streets we are safe to be murdered, if we stop here they may not search the house. Anyhow, at the worst we can make a better fight here than in the streets."

Two hours pa.s.sed. At times large bodies of natives rushed along the streets, brandishing their sticks and shouting triumphantly. Some few of them had firearms, and these they discharged at the windows as they pa.s.sed along.

"We ought to have had some troops here long before this," Antonio said to his brother.

The latter, who was sitting on a chair evidently exhausted by his exertions, shrugged his shoulders.

"They were more likely to help the mob than to interfere with them. The troops are at the bottom of the whole trouble."

A clock on the mantel-piece struck five, just as a fresh body of natives came down the street. They were evidently bent upon pillage, as they broke up and turned into the shops. Shouts and pistol-shots were again heard.

"They are sacking the houses this time, Joseph. Now the hour has come."

The two brothers knelt together before the figure of a saint in a little niche in the wall. The boys glanced at each other, and each, following the example of the Italians, knelt down by a chair and prayed for a minute or two. As they rose to their feet there was a sudden din below. Pistol in hand, the brothers rushed out on the landing.

"Do not try to come up!" Antonio shouted in Egyptian. "You are welcome to what you can find below, but you shall not come up here. We are desperate men, and well armed."

The natives, who were just about to ascend the stairs, drew back at the sight of the brothers standing pistol in hand at the top, with the three lads behind them. The stairs were only wide enough for one to advance at a time, and the natives, eager as they were for blood and plunder, shrank from making the attempt. Some of those who were farthest back began to slink out of the shop, and the others followed their example.

There was a loud talking outside for some time, then several of them again entered. Some of them began to pull out the drawers, as if in the hopes of finding something that former searchers had overlooked, others pa.s.sed on into an inner room.

"What are they up to now, I wonder?" Arthur Hill said.

"No good, I will be bound," Jim Tucker replied. "There! They seem to be going out again now."

Just as the last man pa.s.sed out Antonio exclaimed in Italian, "I smell smoke, Joseph; they have fired the house! They have set fire to the room below," he translated to the lads; but even before he spoke the boys understood what had taken place, for a light smoke poured out from the inner room, and a smell of burning wood came to their nostrils.

"The beggars have done us," Jim Tucker said bitterly. "We could have held these stairs against them for an hour, but this fire will turn us out in no time."