, "you will employ it better in visiting a very pretty place and
a curious. There is just a gap in the earthworks which protects Suakim,
a regular breach as one may say, which has to be defended by two strong
works, which the sailors have given the names of ships to--Euryalus and
Carysfoot they call them. And why is the gap left? And why are the two
forts made to defend it instead of filling it up? Just because the
rains, which some don't believe in, make a torrent in the proper season,
and this is the watercourse, and everything which barred its passage
would be swept into the sea."

"I recant and apologise," said Green. "The rain quite convinced me of
its existence at Baker's Fort, I promise you. But you know you sold me
so often that I hardly knew what to believe."

"I never practise upon anybody's credulity in matters of that sort,"
said the doctor. "If a young man likes to believe that the moon is made
of green cheese, I may let him; but atmospheric and scientific facts are
above being trifled with. Well, if you go through this gap, which is
barely a mile off, you will find a very pretty place--the wells, and
sycamore trees, and dates. Just the place to spend a happy day. And if
you take a bottle or two of champagne, and a _pate de foie gras_, I
shall not mind if I make one of the party, and show you the objects of
interest."

But such a pic-nic was not destined to come off, nor was there even any
opportunity given for testing the coral theory, for there was plenty of
work to be done at the moment, and on the eleventh the intending
pleasure-seekers started for Baker's zereba at six o'clock in the
evening.

Baker Pasha's Egyptians, though they had not proved much good at
fighting, and had paid the penalty of their cowardice by undergoing a
massacre which made the world thrill with horror, were very useful to
the avenging force which followed so quickly on their traces. The fort
they had constructed near Trinkitat had done much to help the rapid and
successful advance upon Tokar; and now the zereba they had made eight
miles out from Suakim, and in the direction in which Osman Digna lay
with his whole army, made a good first halting-place for the English
troops. A zereba, it should be mentioned, is an enclosed space
surrounded by thorn-covered bushes cut down and packed round it, with
old packing-cases, or anything else which will afford cover to those
inside. This one was particularly strong, being f