he provisions of the Monroe Doctrine,
Colonel," said he. "I'm beginning to think, that modern Egypt is every
bit as interesting as ancient, and that Rameses the Second wasn't the
last live man in the country."

The two Englishmen rose and yawned.

"Yes, it's a whimsical freak of fortune which has sent men from a little
island in the Atlantic to administer the land of the Pharaohs. We shall
pass away and never leave a trace among the successive races who have
held the country, for it is an Anglo-Saxon custom to write their deeds
upon rocks. I dare say that the remains of a Cairo drainage system will
be our most permanent record, unless they prove a thousand years hence
that it was the work of the Hyksos kings," remarked Cecil Brown. "But
here is the shore party come back."

Down below they could hear the mellow Irish accents of Mrs. Belmont and
the deep voice of her husband, the iron-grey rifleshot. Mr. Stuart, the
fat Birmingham clergyman, was thrashing out a question of piastres
with a noisy donkey-boy, and the others were joining in with chaff and
advice. Then the hubbub died away, the party from above came down the
ladder, there were "good-nights," the shutting of doors, and the little
steamer lay silent, dark, and motionless in the shadow of the high Haifa
bank. And beyond this one point of civilisation and of comfort there
lay the limitless, savage, unchangeable desert, straw-coloured and
dream-like in the moonlight, mottled over with the black shadows of the
hills.

CHAPTER III

"Stoppa! Backa!" cried the native pilot to the European engineer.

The bluff bows of the stern-wheeler had squelched into the soft brown
mud, and the current had swept the boat alongside the bank. The long
gangway was thrown across, and the six tall soldiers of the Soudanese
escort filed along it, their light-blue, gold-trimmed zouave uniforms
and their jaunty yellow and red forage caps showing up bravely in the
clear morning light.

[Illustration: The Soudanese escort filed along p54]

Above them, on the top of the bank, was ranged the line of donkeys, and
the air was full of the clamour of the boys. In shrill, strident voices
each was crying out the virtues of his own beast, and abusing that of
his neighbour.

Colonel Cochrane and Mr. Belmont stood together in the bows, each
wearing the broad white puggareed hat of the tourist. Miss Adams and her
niece leaned against the rail beside them.

"Sorry your wife isn't coming