said he; "speak slowly, so that I may understand you."

"There are eight of us who wish to go to Egypt. There are also four
men in your party. One of us, Mehemet Ali, has fastened twelve camels
together, which are the fastest of all save only those which are ridden
by the Emirs. There are guards upon watch, but they are scattered in all
directions. The twelve camels are close beside us here,--those twelve
behind the acacia-tree. If we can only get mounted and started, I do not
think that many can overtake us, and we shall have our rifles for them.
The guards are not strong enough to stop so many of us. The waterskins
are all filled, and we may see the Nile again by to-morrow night."

The Colonel could not follow it all, "That is excellent," said he. "But
what are we to do about the three ladies?"

The black soldier shrugged his shoulders.

"Mefeesh!" said he. "One of them is old, and in any case there are
plenty more women if we get back to Egypt. These will not come to any
hurt, but they will be placed in the harem of the Khalija."

"What you say is nonsense," said the Colonel, sternly. "We shall take
our women with us, or we shall not go at all."

"I think it is rather you who talk the thing without sense," the black
man answered, angrily. "How can you ask my companions and me to do that
which must end in failure? For years we have waited for such a chance
as this, and now that it has come, you wish us to throw it away owing to
this foolishness about the women."

He understood enough to set a little spring of hope bubbling in his
heart. The last terrible day had left its mark in his livid face and his
hair, which was turning rapidly to grey. He might have been the father
of the spruce, well-preserved soldier who had paced with straight back
and military stride up and down the saloon deck of the _Korosko_.

"What have we promised you if we come back to Egypt?" asked Cochrane.

"Two hundred Egyptian pounds and promotion in the army,--all upon the
word of an Englishman."

"Very good. Then you shall have three hundred each if you can make some
new plan by which you can take the women with you."

Tippy Tilly scratched his woolly head in his perplexity.

"We might, indeed, upon some excuse, bring three more of the faster
camels round to this place. Indeed, there are three very good camels
among those which are near the cooking-fire. But how are we to get the
women upon them?--and if we had them upon them, we kno