"To get back into a Christian country, sir," said Sam warmly. "We've
found Mr Harry, and he's alive. Let's be off at once, I say. I
haven't grumbled, gentlemen, and I ain't never said a word, but I've
gone to bed every night--if you can say that thing they calls a anger
reb is a bed--every night feeling wondering like that I've got a head
left to put on the pillow. Ugh! It's a horrible place, where no one's
safe for ten minutes together. Hadn't I better begin to pack?"

"When we have my brother safe," said Frank, smiling. "I'm afraid, Sam,"
he added sadly, "that we have a good deal to do yet before we start."

"Yes," said the Sheikh gravely, "and the young Excellency must take more
care than ever. If there was the slightest suspicion that we were here
to take his brother away all our heads would fall."

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.

FRESH GIFTS.

Fortunately for Frank's plans the Emirs who led the late arrivals of
forces took up their residence right at the other end of the city,
outside which their savage followers were for the most part encamped,
and in the various rides about the place which the young man had with
his companion none of them were encountered, though men of another tribe
were. For it was evident that forces were being mustered largely with
Omdurman as a centre--a fact which gave strength to the rumours the
Sheikh brought in daily that the combined English and Egyptian forces
were steadily coming up the Nile.

But to Frank these rumours regarding the army were as if they did not
exist. His whole being was concentrated upon the one aim--to obtain an
interview with his brother; and a week had passed with this apparently
as far off as ever.

The friends obtained a little information through Ibrahim, and, briefly
condensed, it amounted to this: That Harry Frere--no longer kept in
irons--was rather a favoured slave of the Emir he was with, but he was
always jealously guarded, and constantly in close attendance upon his
owner, having in charge the Emir's horses and camels. But though Frank
had seen him once more during a call which the Emir's son had made upon
the chief who had protected him on that special day, he had not been
able to get half so near as before, and, to add to his misery, his
brother had not once turned towards where Frank with throbbing breast
strove for a glance.

Accident, however, often does more than the most carefully devised
plans, and it was so here.

Pending the