Johnson. He is detached for duty with us from the Hussars. He will, of
course, share your tent."

"All right, sergeant! I will put him up to the ropes. What's your name,
mate?"

"I go as Ned Smith," Edgar said.

"So you are going in for being a heavy at present."

"I don't care whether I am a heavy or a light, so that I can go up the
river."

"Have you been out here long?"

"About a year; we were through the fighting at Suakim, you know. It was
pretty hot down there, I can tell you."

"It is hot enough here for me--a good deal too hot, in fact; and as for
the dust, it is awful!"

"Yes, it is pretty dusty out here," Edgar agreed; "and of course, with
these little tents, the wind and dust sweep right through them. Over
there in Cairo we have comfortable barracks, and as we keep close during
the day we don't feel the heat. Besides, it is getting cooler now. In
August it was really hot for a bit even there."

"Where are we going to get these camels, do you know?"

"Up the river at Assouan, I believe; but I don't know very much about
it. It was only yesterday afternoon I got orders that I was to go with
you, to take the place of one of your men who had fallen sick, so I have
not paid much attention as to what was going on. It has been rather a
sore subject with us, you see. It did seem very hard that the regiments
here that have stood the heat and dust of this climate all along should
be left behind now that there is something exciting to do, and that
fresh troops from England should go up."

"Well, I should not like it myself, lad. Still I am precious glad I got
the chance. I am one of the 5th Dragoon Guards, and you know we don't
take a turn of foreign service--though why we shouldn't I am sure I
don't know--and we are precious glad to get a change from Aldershot and
Birmingham and Brighton, and all those home stations. You are a lot
younger than any of us here. The orders were that no one under
twenty-two was to come."

"So I heard; but of course as we are out here, and we have got
accustomed to it, age makes no difference."

"What do they send us out here for?"

"There are no barracks empty in the town, no open spaces where you could
be comfortably encamped nearer. Besides, this gives you the chance of
seeing the Pyramids."

"It is a big lump of stone, isn't it?" Willcox said, staring at the
Great Pyramid. "The chaps who built that must have been very hard up for
a job. When I first saw it I was down