a
Bimbashi when we got him back into Egypt. I think he's willing enough
if he only had the power. By Jove, Belmont, do look back at the river."

Their route, which had lain through sand-strewn khors with jagged, black
edges--places up which one would hardly think it possible that a camel
could climb--opened out now on to a hard, rolling plain, covered thickly
with rounded pebbles, dipping and rising to the violet hills upon the
horizon. So regular were the long, brown pebble-strewn curves, that
they looked like the dark rollers of some monstrous ground-swell. Here
and there a little straggling sage-green tuft of camel-grass sprouted up
between the stones. Brown plains and violet hills--nothing else in
front of them! Behind lay the black jagged rocks through which they had
passed with orange slopes of sand, and then far away a thin line of
green to mark the course of the river. How cool and beautiful that
green looked in the stark, abominable wilderness! On one side they
could see the high rock--the accursed rock which had tempted them to
their ruin. On the other the river curved, and the sun gleamed upon the
water. Oh, that liquid gleam, and the insurgent animal cravings, the
brutal primitive longings, which for the instant took the soul out of
all of them! They had lost families, countries, liberty, everything,
but it was only of water, water, water, that they could think. Mr.
Stuart in his delirium began roaring for oranges, and it was
insufferable for them to have to listen to him. Only the rough, sturdy
Irishman rose superior to that bodily craving. That gleam of river must
be somewhere near Halfa, and his wife might be upon the very water at
which he looked. He pulled his hat over his eyes, and rode in gloomy
silence, biting at his strong, iron-grey moustache.

Slowly the sun sank towards the west, and their shadows began to trail
along the path where their hearts would go. It was cooler, and a desert
breeze had sprung up, whispering over the rolling, stone-strewed plain.
The Emir at their head had called his lieutenant to his side, and the
pair had peered about, their eyes shaded by their hands, looking for
some landmark. Then, with a satisfied grunt, the chief's camel had
seemed to break short off at its knees, and then at its hocks, going
down in three curious, broken-jointed jerks until its stomach was
stretched upon the ground. As each succeeding camel reached the spot it
lay down also, un