red, drenched with two more bottles, and let loose to
wander wherever his tottery legs would carry him. The donk swayed and
stumbled, his ears cocked at all angles, and his expression happy and
foolish. The gathered soldiers laughed till their sides were sore, and
when tired of this fun they let the Arabs take away, as best they
could, their ill-used, though happy, ass.

The hour had grown late. To the station the trooper and the gunner
wended their way. A short sleep in the train, a tired walk campwards
in the clear coolness of the Egyptian night, and to bed on the open
sand beneath a starry vault. "Lights out" sounded clearly in their
camp, and echoed more beautifully and faintly from other camps along
the desert's edge.

CHAPTER VIII

MAC TOURS IN COMFORT

Mac sighed appreciatively. If Egypt was to be seen, this was
undoubtedly the way to see it. On the whole it had been an exceedingly
profitable little bit of diplomacy, coupled with good luck, that had
attached him to a party of distinguished people, whose privilege it was
to be shown Egypt as the Government chose to show it. He lay
comfortably in his bed smoking. Travelling in this manner appealed to
him. His first tastes of Egyptian railway travelling, in dirty,
clanking boxes, which required disinfecting, had not been pleasant.
Now, from the darkened cabin of a saloon car on the Cairo-Luxor express
de luxe, he watched the fleeting vista of moonlit palms, sleeping
villages, and silhouetted hills.

He had left New Zealand some six months before with the intention of
slaying Germans, not of touring in luxury in Egypt, but he was not
averse to these interim enjoyments. The war could wait, and anyhow at
that particular moment it was hardly showing any inclination of
stopping, and neither was Zeitoun Camp a place of unmixed blessings.
Arrived at this state of mental satisfaction, he threw the remnants of
his cigarette out of the window and went to sleep.

When he awoke, they were rattling over a Nile bridge, and the sun shone
full in upon him. The early morning scene of industrious blue-robed
fellaheen at work in the green fields, the graceful palms, desert
hills, and blue sky thrilled the one artistic fibre which had strayed
into his soul. He shaved at leisure, bathed luxuriously, dressed, and
met the other four members of the party in the saloon for breakfast.
Towards the end of the meal they steamed into Luxor, where once stood
the ancient