elves, bought oranges
from the natives, and settled down in third-class carriages of a filthy
and uncomfortable kind. Each horse truck bore a chalked date of when
it had last been disinfected, but the carriages had no such reassuring
legend. As darkness fell, the train started with a series of crashes,
and clanked unpromisingly away into the gloom. It was a weary journey,
and bitterly cold. Mac could not sleep and watched, by the silver
light of the waning moon, a not displeasing vista of palm trees, crops,
houses and villages which went jogging steadily by. Twice they crossed
great rivers, and the whole carriage bestirred itself to see its first
of what might be the Nile. Then there were many railway junctions and
tall houses and a tram-car or two, and again country. At midnight the
train jolted finally to a halt. They led their horses out into a sandy
square surrounded by houses and palm-trees. Mac noticed that they were
wandering unaware over what apparently were Nile mud bricks set out to
dry in the sun. Some poor native, he thought, would curse the war next
day.

The column of tired horses and tired men wandered vaguely off to find
the camp, barracks or what-not which should prove to be their
destination. No one knew who it was, where it was or what it was, and
there was no guide. They took a turning to the right, passed a
convent, took other turnings and found nothing but shuttered houses
among trees peacefully asleep in the moonlight. There was no living
thing, and the hollow echo of their own clatter was the only sound.
They were all more or less asleep, and just wandered along, not caring
a hang whether they walked or halted, or stood on their heads. In due
course they passed the same old convent, which, in Mac's sleepy mind,
did not seem to be quite the right thing to be doing, though he did not
mind much. Eventually the column encountered a high iron railing
barring its path--a great iron railing stretching for miles and inside
it a camp. They found troughs and watered the horses, and picketed
them along the railings. There was some one in the camp, and the
squadron was told to stay by its horses till morning.

It was colder than Mac had ever felt it. A great stillness held
everything, and the moon lit the sleeping camp with a clear soft light.
But it was cold! After the warm tropic weeks, the keen Egyptian winter
night went right to the marrow. Mac tried to bury himself in the sand
by s