place for him. Picking up his rein, he made in the direction of a blur
he knew to be the Major, and told him so. The Major had visions of
pleasant refuge in a Cairene hotel, a good dinner, and a cool bath,
instead of a night trek in the desert as originally intended. So he
agreed, and shrill whistling stirred to life more or less comatose
troopers and horses.

Steering, nor'-nor'-west, each following close upon the next ahead,
they rode in deep silence. They crossed wave after wave of sand-hills,
monotonous and bewildering. The khamsin blew in hot, sandy spurts, and
lulled; then came again in hotter, more shrivelling bursts "From Hell!"
thought the troopers, one and all. Sand trickled down their necks, and
filtered down to that place where it neither increased the comfort of
their riding nor diminished the ardour of their revilings against the
weather. With fiercer gusts, gravel rose and stung horse and rider,
while the former stumbled frequently over unseen boulders.

In the latter half of the afternoon they struck the old railway
embankment to Suez, lost it again, but soon found the edge of the
irrigated land and followed it to the camp. Parched, red-eyed,
headachy, and yellow with dust, they made for their lines, watered
their horses, and set about making themselves as comfortable as
circumstances allowed. The happiness of the trooper was not enhanced
when he failed to find a misty blur representing his tent. It had
chosen to give up the unequal contest and had departed down-wind. He
followed, and joined the rest of the tent's company in recovering the
tattered remnants, and towels, and personal property which had strayed
into the domain of the next regiment.

Camp was not a healthy spot in the khamsin days, Mac decided. Coins to
a piastreless cobber smoothed over a horse-picket difficulty, and he
passed out of the camp by back ways. So, in the village of Helmieh, he
spent the night. Gusts bellowed through the swaying date-palms
overhead, and roared round the courtyard, but his bed was comfortable,
and the house of his good French friends proof against the sand-laden
blasts of the spring storm. He was awakened sufficiently early to
allow of his appearance at roll-call next morning. It was not
according to his nature to rise early from so pleasant a bed, but it
was a matter of discretion.

Many days were passed in the desert, none worse and many better. Troop
days were all right; squadron days we