be nothing visible but some whitening bones. Look yonder
without the glass. Look straight past the leading camel, low down at
the horizon, and now raise your eyes. What can you see?"

"Glare," said Frank.

"Try again."

"Nothing but more glare, and the atmosphere quivering as it rises from
the sand."

"Try once more," said the professor. "I can see one--two--three. Look
higher."

"Ah, I've got it now; a mere speck," said Frank eagerly--"a crow."

"Make it vulture, and you will be right. I can make out three--four of
the loathsome creatures on their way to the feast. They are making a
circuit so as to drop down after we have gone by."

"They fulfil a duty, though, I suppose," said Frank.

"Yes, and a very necessary one," replied the professor; and this was
evident a short time after, although the leading camel passed to
windward of the heap, and it seemed to Frank that the animal he rode
turned up the corners of its pendulous lips with a look of the most
supreme disgust, as it turned its head slightly in the other direction.

"That's fancy, Frank," said the professor, as the young man drew his
attention to the camel's aspect. "I believe the poor beasts are so
accustomed to the sight that they take it as a matter of course."

"Is it so common, then?"

"Horribly common, and I hope we shall encounter nothing worse, but from
what has been going on farther south I have my doubts."

Frank rode on silently, and the professor did not speak for a few
minutes. Then--

"Human life has always been held cheap out here. If we were travelling
to examine the old records I could show you them cut in stone, as you
can see them in the museums in Cairo, or in London when we return, the
bragging, boasting blasphemies of this or that conquering king, all to
the same tune--`I came, I saw, I conquered; I slew so many thousands of
the people--I took so many thousands into captivity--I built this temple
to the gods--I raised this obelisk or that pyramid'--and all by hand
labour, with the miserable, belaboured slaves dying by their thousands
upon thousands under their taskmasters' lashes, to be cast afterwards
into the Nile, or left to the jackals and vultures. These and the
crocodiles have always been wanted here, Frank, and as it has been so it
is now. There is always an `I'--a very, very big capital `I'--who is
glorifying himself with slaughter."

"No conquering king now, though," said Frank, "to leave his victorie