ree days," he said, "so ill, indeed, that I
dared not move you. Now, however, that you have got your senses back,
you will make rapid progress. I can assure you I shall not be sorry, for
events have occurred which necessitate my immediate return to Europe.
You on your part, I presume, will not regret saying farewell to Egypt?"

"I would leave to-day, if such a thing were possible," I answered. "Weak
as I am I think I could find strength enough for that. Indeed, I feel
stronger already, and as a proof of it my appetite is returning. Where
is the Arab who brought me my broth this morning?"

"Dead," said Pharos laconically. "He held you in his arms and died two
hours afterward. They've no stamina, these Arabs, the least thing kills
them. But you need have no fear. You have passed the critical point and
your recovery is certain."

But I scarcely heard him. "Dead! dead!" I was saying over and over again
to myself as if I did not understand it. "Surely the man cannot be
dead?" He had died through helping me. What then was this terrible
disease of which I had been the victim?

CHAPTER XIV.

In travelling either with Pharos or in search of him it was necessary to
accustom oneself to rapid movement. I was in London on June 7th, and had
found him in Naples three days later; had reached Cairo in his company
on the 18th of the same month, and was four hundred and fifty miles up
the Nile by the 27th. I had explored the mysteries of the great Temple
of Ammon as no other Englishman, I feel convinced, had ever done; had
been taken seriously ill, recovered, returned to Cairo, travelled thence
to rejoin the yacht at Port Said; had crossed in her to Constantinople,
journeyed by the Orient Express to Vienna, and on the morning of July
15th stood at the entrance to the Teyn Kirche in the wonderful old
Bohemian city of Prague.

From this itinerary it will be seen that the grass was not allowed to
grow under our feet. Indeed, we had scarcely arrived in any one place
before our remorseless leader hurried us away again. His anxiety to
return to Europe was as great as it had been to reach Egypt. On land the
trains could not travel fast enough; on board the yacht his one cry was,
"Push on, push on!" What this meant to a man like myself, who had lately
come so perilously near death, I must leave you to imagine. Indeed,
looking back upon it now, I wonder that I emerged from it alive. Looked
at from another light, I believe I could not