make an excursion, even though
such a tiny bit of a one?" asked the girl.

And she began to show on her finger about how little an excursion she
was concerned. The parents in the end agreed that they could ride on
donkeys, not on camels, and not to ruins, where they might easily fall
into some hole, but over roads of adjacent fields and towards the
gardens beyond the city. The dragoman, together with other Cook
servants, was always to accompany the children.

After this both gentlemen departed, but they left for a place near by,
Hanaret el-Matka, so that after ten hours they returned to pass the
night in Medinet. This was repeated the succeeding few days until they
had inspected all the nearest work. Afterwards, when their employment
required their presence at more distant places, Chamis arrived in the
night time, and early in the following morning took Stas and Nell to
those little cities, in which their parents wanted to show them
something of interest. The children spent the greater part of the day
with their parents and before sunset returned to the camp at Medinet.
There were, however, days on which Chamis did not come, and then Nell,
notwithstanding the society of Stas, and Saba in whom she continually
discovered some new traits, looked with longing for a messenger. In
this manner the time passed until Twelfth Night, on the day of which
festival both engineers returned to Medinet.

Two days later they went away again, announcing that they left this
time for a longer period and in all probability would reach as far as
Benisueif, and from there to El-Fachn, where a canal of the same name
begins, going far south alongside of the Nile.

Great, therefore, was the astonishment of the children, when on the
third day at eleven o'clock in the morning Chamis appeared in Medinet.
Stas met him first as he went to the pasturage to look at the camels.
Chamis conversed with Idris, and only told Stas that he came for him
and Nell and that he would come immediately to the camp to inform them
where they, at the request of the older gentlemen, were to go. Stas ran
at once with the good news to Nell, whom he found playing with Saba
before the tent.

"Do you know--Chamis is here!" he cried from a distance.

And Nell began at once to hop, holding both feet together, as little
girls do when skipping the rope.

"We shall go! We shall go!"

"Yes. We shall go, and far."

"Where?" she asked, brushing aside with her little hands