e play,
Monsieur Headingly. It deceives no one, but it is part of the play.
_Pourquoi ces droles de militaires, dragoman, hein?_"

It was the dragoman's _role_ to be all things to all men, so he looked
cautiously round before he answered, to make sure that the English were
mounted and out of earshot.

"_C'est ridicule, monsieur!_" said he, shrugging his fat shoulders.
"_Mais que voulez-vous? C'est l'ordre official Egyptien._"

"_Egyptien! Pah, Anglais, Anglais--toujours Anglais!_" cried the angry
Frenchman.

The frieze now was more grotesque than ever, but had changed suddenly to
an equestrian one, sharply outlined against the deep-blue Egyptian sky.
Those who have never ridden before have to ride in Egypt, and when the
donkeys break into a canter, and the Nile Irregulars are at full charge,
such a scene of flying veils, clutching hands, huddled swaying figures,
and anxious faces is nowhere to be seen. Belmont, his square figure
balanced upon a small white donkey, was waving his hat to his wife, who
had come out upon the saloon-deck of the _Korosko_. Cochrane sat very
erect with a stiff military seat, hands low, head high, and heels down,
while beside him rode the young Oxford man, looking about him with
drooping eyelids as if he thought the desert hardly respectable, and had
his doubts about the Universe. Behind them the whole party was strung
along the bank in varying stages of jolting and discomfort, a
brown-faced, noisy donkey-boy running after each donkey. Looking back,
they could see the little lead-coloured stern-wheeler, with the gleam of
Mrs. Belmont's handkerchief from the deck. Beyond ran the broad, brown
river, winding down in long curves to where, five miles off, the square,
white block-houses upon the black, ragged hills marked the outskirts of
Wady Halfa, which had been their starting-point that morning.

"Isn't it just too lovely for anything?" cried Sadie joyously. "I've
got a donkey that runs on casters, and the saddle is just elegant.
Did you ever see anything so cunning as these beads and things round his
neck? You must make a memo. _re_ donkey, Mr. Stephens. Isn't that
correct legal English?"

Stephens looked at the pretty, animated, boyish face looking up at him
from under the coquettish straw hat, and he wished that he had the
courage to tell her in her own language that she was just too sweet for
anything. But he feared above all things lest he should offend her, and
so put an