tell as plainly as
if it were on an iron target. But the absurd crocodile acted as all the
others he had shot at had done: he rolled over into the water and
disappeared, and the other six kept him company.

"He is killed! Oh, he is killed!" cried the reis, much excited. "He
will float soon, you will see. When they are shot dead their bodies
soon float."

Whether this creature was an exception, or was not shot dead, or was
carried down to the cataract before he got to the floating stage, and so
came up where no one wanted him, cannot be said. But they saw him no
more, and he was numbered among the partridges who have gone away to
die, and the rabbits that were hit so hard, but crept away into holes!

Going back to where the boat lay they found another lying near her,
which had been dragged up the last bit of the cataract and brought up so
far since their arrival, while the crew had gone ashore and lit a fire,
round which they were gathered.

Forsyth and Hassib went up to them for news, but there was not much.
Alexandria was being rebuilt after the bombardment; Arabi's insurrection
was quite over, and Mohammed Tewfik Pasha firmly established. The
English soldiers were leaving, and the country would soon be quit of
them entirely.

"Not it," said one of the new-comers, who seemed to be a passenger.
Certainly not a sailor, for his hands were delicate, and he lacked
manliness when compared with the others of the party. "The English will
not be so easy to get rid of, make sure of that."

And one of the others said to Hassib, alluding to the speaker--

"You knew his father; this is Daireh."

"And I knew him as a boy," said Hassib.

"It is years since I left," said Daireh.

Here Reouf the pilot joined the group, and he, too, was a friend of the
family, and was made known.

Harry Forsyth, seeing that old acquaintances had met after an absence,
kept in the background, and lit his pipe. He listened indeed, but
simply to try what words of Arabic, in which the conversation was being
held, he could pick up, not from any interest or curiosity which he felt
in the subject of their talk.

"Quite a boy when you went to England," said Reouf; "and yet I think I
can recognise you. Do you remember you went in my diabeheeh from Berber
home to Alexandria?"

"Have you been to Berber lately? Are my people there well?"

"I was there less than a year ago, and all was well with them. You are
journeying there now?" said