m?" said Frank.

"Yes, Excellency, I hear, and the Excellency your brother speaks the
words of truth. The risk would be too great unless the Khalifa's army
had been put to flight."

"But you have heard these two accounts."

"Yes, Excellency. What does your brother think?"

"I think," said Harry Frere, "that the first was invented by some Emir,
jealous of the Khalifa; the second by the Khalifa himself. All false as
the people themselves. We shall have more such tales."

"Then you think you would still defer our start, Hal?" said the Hakim,
who had sat listening in silence.

"Certainly, for we should only be riding to our death. We must accept
our position of prisoners until the Khalifa's men have suffered some
real reverse. Then strike off at once for the desert and make a long
_detour_ upon the camels before trying to reach one of the British
positions on the river."

"Not make for our army at once?" said the Hakim quietly.

"No, for we should come upon them in the first flush of victory, and the
chances are that we should encounter Egyptian regiments, who would take
us for--what do we look like, Frank?"

"So much like the enemy that we have deceived them so far. Look at us,
Morris, Hal and I are as if we were native born; Landon is little
better; then there are Ibrahim and his men; while there is not enough of
the Englishman about you now to save our lives."

"You are right," said the doctor. "Ibrahim, we must wait."

"I think you are right, Excellency; but you bade me be quite prepared,
and I am ready to start at a moment's notice."

"We will wait," said the doctor; "and meantime go on bringing us news."

The old Sheikh bowed and left the place, to return in an hour with
another completely different account of the state of affairs, and by
nightfall he had brought in eight more circumstantial reports, every one
of which was a tissue of fables, invented to support or weaken the new
Mahdi's power.

And so the days wore on in a continuous state of excitement, the
prisoners--for such they were now more than ever, with the exception of
Ibrahim--being fully prepared to start upon their return journey at any
moment when the opportunity should offer, the madness of any attempt as
matters were being only too evident; and finding that the Emir's officer
and the guards were rigorously faithful to the trust placed in their
hands by their master. For as soon as Frank had recovered from his
attack, he deter