d died
suddenly, as one falls in battle; not as a slave, worn out by grief and
suffering.

As he left his hut, he said to Zaki:

"I shall not want you again this evening; but mind, we must be on the
move at daylight."

"You did not say whether we were to take the horses, Master; but I
suppose you will do so?"

"Oh, I forgot to tell you that we are going to have camels. They are to
be put on board for us, tonight. They are fast camels and, as the
distance from the point where we shall land to the Atbara will not be
more than seventy or eighty miles, we shall be able to do it in a day."

"That will be very good, master. Camels are much better than horses,
for the desert. I have got everything else ready."

After dinner was over, the party broke up quickly, as many of the
officers had preparations to make. Gregory went off to the tent of the
officer with whom he was best acquainted in the Soudanese regiment.

"I thought that I would come and have a chat with you, if you happened
to be in."

"I shall be very glad, but I bar Fashoda. One is quite sick of the
name."

"No, it was not Fashoda that I was going to talk to you about. I want
to ask you something about England. I know really nothing about it, for
I was born in Alexandria, shortly after my parents came out from
England.

"Is it easy for anyone who has been well educated, and who is a
gentleman, to get employment there? I mean some sort of appointment,
say, in India or the West Indies."

"Easy! My dear Hilliard, the camel in the eye of a needle is a joke to
it. If a fellow is eighteen, and has had a first-rate education and a
good private coach, that is, a tutor, he may pass through his
examination either for the army, or the civil service, or the Indian
service. There are about five hundred go up to each examination, and
seventy or eighty at the outside get in. The other four hundred or so
are chucked. Some examinations are for fellows under nineteen, others
are open for a year or two longer. Suppose, finally, you don't get in;
that is to say, when you are two-and-twenty, your chance of getting any
appointment, whatever, in the public service is at an end."

"Then interest has nothing to do with it?"

"Well, yes. There are a few berths in the Foreign Office, for example,
in which a man has to get a nomination before going in for the exam;
but of course the age limit tells there, as well as in any other."

"And if a man fails altogether, what is the