overnment?"

"The Government will say to the Mahdi,--'Give us the prisoners and we
will surrender Fatma'--"

For the time the conversation was interrupted because the attention of
Stas was attracted by birds flying from the direction of Echtum om
Farag towards Lake Menzaleh. They flew quite low and in the clear
atmosphere could be plainly seen some pelicans with curved napes,
slowly moving immense wings. Stas at once began to imitate their
flight. So with head upraised, he ran a score of paces along the dyke,
waving his outstretched arms.

"Look!" suddenly exclaimed Nell. "Flamingoes are also flying."

Stas stood still in a moment, as actually behind the pelicans, but
somewhat higher, could be seen, suspended in the sky, two great red and
purple flowers, as it were.

"Flamingoes! flamingoes! Before night they return to their haunts on
the little islands," the boy said. "Oh, if I only had a rifle!"

"Why should you want to shoot at them?"

"Girls don't understand such things. But let us go farther; we may see
more of them."

Saying this he took the girl's hand and together they strolled towards
the first wharf beyond Port Said. Dinah, a negress and at one time
nurse of little Nell, closely followed them. They walked on the
embankment which separated the waters of Lake Menzaleh from the Canal,
through which at that time a big English steamer, in charge of a pilot,
floated. The night was approaching. The sun still stood quite high but
was rolling in the direction of the lake. The salty waters of the
latter began to glitter with gold and throb with the reflection of
peacock feathers. On the Arabian bank as far as the eye could reach,
stretched a tawny, sandy desert--dull, portentous, lifeless. Between
the glassy, as if half-dead, heaven and the immense, wrinkled sands
there was not a trace of a living being. While on the Canal life
seethed, boats bustled about, the whistles of steamers resounded, and
above Menzaleh flocks of mews and wild ducks scintillated in the
sunlight, yonder, on the Arabian bank, it appeared as if it were the
region of death. Only in proportion as the sun, descending, became
ruddier and ruddier did the sands begin to assume that lily hue which
the heath in Polish forests has in autumn.

The children, walking towards the wharf, saw a few more flamingoes,
which pleased their eyes. After this Dinah announced that Nell must
return home. In Egypt, after days which even in winter are often
scorc