t
away?"

"It was all your doing."

"Mine?"

"Yes, my friend, and I have been quarrelling with you--ungrateful wretch
that I am!"

"But how did I save you?"

"It was you who arranged with this excellent Tippy Tilly and the others
that they should have so much if they brought us alive into Egypt again.
They slipped away in the darkness and hid themselves in the grove.
Then, when we were left, they crept up with their rifles and shot the
men who were about to murder us. That cursed Moolah, I am sorry they
shot him, for I believe that I could have persuaded him to be a
Christian. And now, with your permission, I will hurry on and embrace
Miss Adams, for Belmont has his wife, and Stephens has Miss Sadie, so I
think it is very evident that the sympathy of Miss Adams is reserved for
me."

A fortnight had passed away, and the special boat which had been placed
at the disposal of the rescued tourists was already far north of
Assiout. Next morning they would find themselves at Baliani, where one
takes the express for Cairo. It was, therefore, their last evening
together. Mrs. Shlesinger and her child, who had escaped unhurt, had
already been sent down from the frontier. Miss Adams had been very ill
after her privations, and this was the first time that she had been
allowed to come upon deck after dinner. She sat now in a lounge chair,
thinner, sterner, and kindlier than ever, while Sadie stood beside her
and tucked the rugs around her shoulders. Mr. Stephens was carrying
over the coffee and placing it on the wicker table beside them. On the
other side of the deck Belmont and his wife were seated together in
silent sympathy and contentment.

Monsieur Fardet was leaning against the rail, and arguing about the
remissness of the British Government in not taking a more complete
control of the Egyptian frontier, while the Colonel stood very erect in
front of him, with the red end of a cigar-stump protruding from under
his moustache.

But what was the matter with the Colonel? Who would have recognised him
who had only seen the broken old man in the Libyan Desert? There might
be some little grizzling about the moustache, but the hair was back once
more at the fine glossy black which had been so much admired upon the
voyage up. With a stony face and an unsympathetic manner he had
received, upon his return to Halfa, all the commiserations about the
dreadful way in which his privations had blanched him, and then di