head.

"Our hearts are rejoiced," he said, "that you have come at last to fight
for us against the Franks. I bring you news, my lord. Late yesterday
their general, Menou, with a large force, arrived at Damanhour. I have
been among them. There must be five thousand men. His intentions are to
march to-day and to attack with all his force to-morrow morning."

"This is important news, indeed!" the general said, as Edgar translated
the message. "Ask him if he speaks merely from report or from his own
knowledge."

Sidi then said that some of the tribe had early that morning started
with a number of sheep, intending to bring them round into the British
camp. They were surprised by a body of French cavalry coming from
Damanhour. Several of the tribesmen were killed, but two escaped, being
well mounted, and brought the news to their camp. On the way they met
him, he having started some hours later, knowing that he could easily
overtake them before they reached the British camp. Seeing the
importance of the matter, he told them to tell his father that he should
try and find out how many of the French were at Damanhour, and take the
news to the British. He had then ridden toward that place, and
remembering how he had passed unsuspected before, had left his horse
there, had obtained the loan of a peasant's dress, had bought half a
dozen sheep, and had driven them into the town.

He found it crowded with the French. Having sold his sheep, he had
wandered about among the soldiers, and had entered into conversation
with some of the natives who had been engaged at Cairo as drivers of the
baggage-carts. From them he had learned that the French
general-in-chief, Menou, who had succeeded Kleber on the latter's
assassination at Cairo, was himself there, and that he intended to
attack at once with the troops he had brought, and with those in the
city. As soon as he obtained this news he returned to the village,
changed his dress, mounted, and rode off at full speed.

The party that had been seen chasing him was a cavalry squadron, whom he
had come upon suddenly while they were dismounted and sitting down in
the shade of a grove, and who, judging that he was making for the
British camp, had started in pursuit. Knowing well enough that they
could not catch him, he had amused himself by keeping but a short
distance in advance, and had not put his horse to its full speed until
he saw the mounted party coming out from the French lines to cu