y on towards the
Southern Cross, which was twinkling just over the skyline in front of
them. Hour after hour the dreadful trot continued, while the fainting
ladies clung on convulsively, and Cochrane, worn out but indomitable,
encouraged them to hold out, and peered backwards over the desert for
the first glad signs of their pursuers. The blood throbbed in his
temples, and he cried that he heard the roll of drums coming out of the
darkness. In his feverish delirium he saw clouds of pursuers at their
very heels, and during the long night he was for ever crying glad
tidings which ended in disappointment and heartache. The rise of the
sun showed the desert stretching away around them with nothing moving
upon its monstrous face except themselves. With dull eyes and heavy
hearts they stared round at that huge and empty expanse. Their hopes
thinned away like the light morning mist upon the horizon.

It was shocking to the ladies to look at their companion, and to think
of the spruce, hale old soldier who had been their fellow-passenger from
Cairo. As in the case of Miss Adams, old age seemed to have pounced
upon him in one spring. His hair, which had grizzled hour by hour
during his privations, was now of a silvery white. White stubble, too,
had obscured the firm, clean line of his chin and throat. The veins of
his face were injected, and his features were shot with heavy wrinkles.
He rode with his back arched and his chin sunk upon his breast, for the
old, time-rotted body was worn out, but in his bright, alert eyes there
was always a trace of the gallant tenant who lived in the shattered
house. Delirious, spent, and dying, he preserved his chivalrous,
protecting air as he turned to the ladies, shot little scraps of advice
and encouragement at them, and peered back continually for the help
which never came.

An hour after sunrise the raiders called a halt, and food and water
were served out to all. Then at a more moderate pace they pursued their
southern journey, their long, straggling line trailing out over a
quarter of a mile of desert. From their more careless bearing and the
way in which they chatted as they rode, it was clear that they thought
that they had shaken off their pursuers. Their direction now was east
as well as south, and it was evidently their intention after this long
detour to strike the Nile again at some point far above the Egyptian
outposts. Already the character of the scenery was chan