it from the very beginning.

"Lastly, Mr. Blagrove, I should be sorry, indeed, that any naval officer
should evince any feeling whatever with regard to a matter purely
personal to myself. I should therefore take it as a particular favour to
me that you should continue to hold the appointment to which you have
been posted."

"Thank you, Sir Sidney," Edgar said; "of course I will in that case
retain the appointment. Now that I think of it, indeed, I feel that it
was an impertinence to manifest in any way my feeling at General
Hutchinson's conduct; my excuse must be that I only returned from my
trip with the sheik half an hour since, and on hearing the news was so
stirred that I ran down to the landing-place and came off on the impulse
of the moment. You have shown me such extreme kindness, sir, that at the
time it seemed to me a matter almost personal to myself."

"Do not apologize," Sir Sidney Smith said kindly; "the feeling did you
credit as a man, though as an officer personal feelings cannot be
permitted to sway the actions. Now go ashore again and report yourself
as returned from leave."

The advance up the Nile did not take place for some little time, as
great preparations were necessary. Fortunately large numbers of native
craft had been captured from the French, and stores were landed and
placed on board these for the use of the troops. Colonel Stewart was in
command of the British advanced force which accompanied the Capitan
Pasha's division. A large force of gun-boats and rowing-boats were
furnished by the fleet, and following the river banks the expedition
proceeded up the river. The French resistance was very feeble. Detached
parties were taken or driven off, but there was no fighting of a serious
character. For a time Edgar remained with General Hutchinson before
Alexandria, then he accompanied him to Rosetta, and, joining the main
British division, came up with the Turkish army, that had now been
joined by that of the Vizier, and the whole advanced towards Cairo.

They met with no real resistance on the march. There can be little doubt
that the French generals were hampered by the intense longing among the
troops to return to France. Their disasters in Syria had to some extent
been retrieved by the defeat of the Turks at Aboukir, but the appearance
of the great fleet of men-of-war and transports on the coast, followed
by the failure of Menou to drive, as was confidently expected, his
assailants back to