“Do you think, then, that we shall add our British bones to this interesting collection?” I asked.
“No, I don’t, Mark. But I think that after we have had a night’s rest we shall follow this path, which obviously leads southward to that distant range of hills.”
“About another twenty miles?”
“Behind it lies the land of wheat and barley of ancient Kamt.”
I looked across the horizon, where the crests of those distant hills caught the last rays of the setting sun, and again I could smell the strange and pungent odour of lotus blossoms, which brought back to my memory visions of the great people in gorgeous garments and gems, and of palaces and temples, such as sober, twentieth-century moderns can hardly conceive.
I wanted to start at once, the path seemed so clear.
“Am I to be the cautious one this time, Mark?” said Hugh, with a smile. “We are not going to jeopardise success, just when it lies so near.”
“That’s so, old man,” I replied with my old flippancy. “I had better occupy myself with brushing up those Egyptian prepositions and personal pronouns. I feel I shall have need of them soon, if I don’t want to disgrace myself.”
I am afraid that that night we spent a considerable amount of time in foolish vanity. We dared not waste our minute provision of water, but we indulged in a shave with the patent cream, brushed our clothes, and generally endeavoured to assume a respectable appearance. The poor camels were very sick, and we were much afraid that one of them at least might not manage another day’s march. However, neither of us felt as if we could leave the poor creature behind, and lightening its load as much as possible, we all four started to walk southward in the early morning. I must say it was not cheerful walking on the road: skulls and skeletons lay in great numbers, and black ravens and vultures, disturbed in their grim meal by our footsteps, hovered over our heads, filling the air with their dismal croaking; but, against that, each step brought us nearer to that range of hills behind which, both our convictions told us, there lived the people who used the wilderness as a burying-place for their dead.
Hugh felt convinced that those people would appear before us in all the glory of ancient Egypt: I, less sanguine, dared hope no more than that they would prove to be a friendly desert tribe, who would give us the means of returning to civilisation once more.