n of low Nile was at hand. To Mac a day or two in
the middle of the river was a matter of little moment. The quarters
were comfortable, and Zeitoun Camp was no place towards which to hurry.
So, unmoved by the skipper's anxieties, he retired to the lower deck,
and praised the engines to the Sudanese engineer until that gentleman
beamed with pride and his teeth glistened white in the dusk.

In the early hours soon after dawn, they went on donkeys to the Temple
of Edfu. The morning was mysterious and foreboding. Over the whole
country a weird silence reigned and wrapped the towering walls of the
ancient temple in eeriness; there were no clouds, but the sun was like
a great red moon, and all the landscape enveloped in an orange gloom.
They rode in silence, awed strangely by Nature's will. Animals were
restive and gloomy too. They returned to breakfast aboard when the
steamer cast off, and proceeded down river. Soon a hot breath of wind
came from the south, on which great columns of sand swept over the
desert. The gale increased, puffs blew as from a fiery furnace; the
sun became obscured altogether, and soon also the river banks. Bored
by the gloom of his fellow-voyagers and depressed, Mac betook himself
to his state-room, and went to sleep. He woke for lunch, went once
more to sleep, awoke again in the evening when Luxor was reached, and
hastened through the squalid streets to board the saloon car for Cairo.
Even in the gale and the fog of sand the skipper had not managed to
find a convenient mud-bank on which to ground his steamer, and Mac told
him he didn't think he was much of a sport.

He had enjoyed Upper Egypt, especially journeying in so comfortable a
manner, but, after all, it wouldn't be bad fun seeing the boys again,
even if they were at Zeitoun Camp.

CHAPTER IX

MAC LUNCHES WITH THE SULTAN

In the glaring heat of the Egyptian high-noon hours a car drew up
outside the large hotel in the Sharia Kamel and a more or less soiled
and weather-beaten trooper alighted. He made his way up the steps,
across the shady terrace and into the dim cool depths of the pillared
hall. He had been to an excessively sandy inspection that morning
somewhere in the Sahara, and now his mien betokened appreciative
anticipation of a refresher to his dusty throat. After that a wash
would go rather well, perhaps a cigarette, and then lunch. But, alas,
no such luck! Apparently something out of the ordinary was afoot.