Dongola. For himself, Seti was a philosopher; that is to say, he was a
true Egyptian. Whatever was, was to be; and Seti had a good digestion,
which is a great thing in the desert. Moreover, he had a capacity for
foraging--or foray. The calmness with which he risked his life for an
onion or a water-bag would have done credit to a prince of buccaneers.
He was never flustered. He had dropped a grindstone on the head of his
rival, but the smile that he smiled then was the same smile with which he
suffered and forayed and fought and filched in the desert. With a back
like a door, and arms as long and strong as a gorilla's, with no moral
character to speak of, and an imperturbable selfishness, even an ignorant
Arab like Seti may go far. More than once his bimbashi drew a sword to
cut him down for the peaceful insolent grin with which he heard himself
suddenly charged with very original crimes; but even the officer put his
sword up again, because he remembered that though Seti was the curse of
the regiment on the march, there was no man like him in the day of
battle. Covered with desert sand and blood, and fighting and raging
after the manner of a Sikh, he could hold ten companies together like a
wall against a charge of Dervishes. The bimbashi rejoiced at this, for
he was a coward; likewise his captain was a coward, and so was his
lieutenant: for they were half Turks, half Gippies, who had seen Paris
and had not the decency to die there. Also it had been discovered that
no man made so good a spy or envoy as Seti. His gift for lying was
inexpressible: confusion never touched him; for the flattest
contradictions in the matter of levying backsheesh he always found an
excuse. Where the bimbashi and his officers were afraid to go lest the
bald-headed eagle and the vulture should carry away their heads as tit-
bits to the Libyan hills, Seti was sent. In more than one way he always
kept his head. He was at once the curse and the pride of the regiment.
For his sins he could not be punished, and his virtues were of value only
to save his life.