very mixed
people, of Arab, Egyptian, and Negro blood. So that as far as it goes my
language will pass, and of course every day I travel I shall improve. I
intend, as I have said, to pretend to be dumb whenever we come across
strong parties of strangers, and my sheik will shield me as much as
possible by sending me out to look after the camels and to gather wood
and to fetch water, or on other business, whenever we are with
strangers. I really think, Easton, I have a very fair chance of getting
through it without being found out. Major Kitchener tells me that the
sheik only has two or three of his tribesmen with him, and that he has
no doubt picked men he can trust to hold their tongues, otherwise he
would get into a mess when he went back again among his people. Of
course the men will be promised a reward also if I get safely through.
The trouble on my mind is more the difficulty there will be in finding
Edgar and getting him off than about myself. In the first place there is
no saying as to the direction in which the men who have got him have
gone. They have probably gone to some out-of-the-way place, so as to be
out of the way of the Mahdi's people.

"Ibrahim tells me that there are no people more pig-headed than these
Arabs, and if they once make up their mind to a thing nothing will turn
them. That is all the better, as far as the risk of Edgar falling into
the hands of the Mahdi is concerned, only it makes it all the more
difficult to find him. There is no saying where he may have moved to; he
may have gone far south of Khartoum, he may have pushed away near the
borders of Abyssinia, he may be within a few miles of Suakim, he may be
in the desert we crossed. I don't disguise from myself that it is likely
to be a long search; but that is nothing if I am but successful at last.
Of course the great thing will be to endeavour to pick up a clue near
Metemmeh.

"The tribe is a very scattered one, and is to be found dispersed among
other tribes all the way from Berber to Khartoum on the eastern side of
the river, and I hear that there is a branch of it who live in the
desert to the west. Well, it is likely that Edgar's master will have
stopped in some of these villages among his own people, if only for a
few hours, and it is from them I hope to get some clue as to the general
direction at least in which they were travelling. Unless they disguised
Edgar, and wrapped him up as a woman, or something of that sort, the
fact