It was a miserable household and nobody slept much that night. George and Abdal refused to go to bed at all and sat beside Nabul in the big room. Just as George was dozing away at daybreak he was roused up by a terrible bray just outside the door, answered by one from Bobs in the stable.
Like a flash Nabul, who had heard it too, tore open the house door and nearly tumbled over Teddy Pasha, who calmly walked into the middle of the room and stood there as much as to say, "Here I am, at last."
Little Nabul gave a shriek of joy and threw his arms about the little donkey's neck and cried and laughed in the same breath. Abdal called out the good news, and in another moment everybody was petting Teddy Pasha and making as much to-do over him as if he were a long-lost member of the family. As for the little American, he was as happy as could be to see the little companion of his wanderings once more.
But the poor little donkey, wasn't he a sight, all covered with mud! He had evidently been taken away and hidden in the rice swamps; his pretty bridle and saddle were gone, and only a dirty and knotted piece of rope was around his neck. An ugly cut on one of his feet showed where he had been hobbled; his captors had evidently done everything to keep him secure, but in spite of it he had broken away by some means or other, and had come straight back to his master.
After leaving Abdal's family, and just as our party were going on board the dahabeah, Nabul picked up an odd greenish pebble. "What a funny looking stone!" he said. "It looks just like a beetle."
"That is what the learned ones call a scarab,—don't you know there are many of these in the big museum at Cairo?" cried Abdal, as the children bent over the tiny stone.
"Oh! maybe it is old," exclaimed George eagerly, "and worth lots and lots of money."
Just at that moment a party of learned looking men, Europeans, came up the bank from their dahabeah which had tied up just below the Isis. At their head was a Frenchman, an inspector of the Egyptian public monuments. With his party he was going some miles inland to pass judgment upon some newly discovered ruins of which he had recently heard.
"Let us go and ask the great Frenchman, he surely can tell us," and so saying, Nabul ran back to where Mr. Winthrop and the Frenchman were already talking together.
"Please, monsieur, is this old?" said Nabul, in his queer French, holding up the little pebble carved in the form of the sacred beetle of the Egyptians.