“Only as far as the first village, where we can buy grain—corn, and dhurra. Then we strike away again into the desert, along whose borders we must keep. It is safer, and we are less likely to meet with wandering dervish bands. We only come near the river when it is necessary to refill the sacks and give the camels better feed than they can get near the water-holes and fountains.”
“I see,” said Frank, as he glanced at the professor. “To get to the neighbourhood of the Mahdi’s people quickly we must go slowly.”
“Yes, Excellency, it is better so. We stay here two days while three of the young men and three camels go out to buy corn in the villages yonder. There is generally food to be purchased there, for the Nile floods run out widely a little way beyond, and the Khalifa’s people have not reached so far as yet.”
“Is there not the ruin of a great temple somewhere in this direction?”
“And of a city too, Excellency—El Gaebor,” replied the Sheikh. “Few people have gone there, for it is half a day’s journey from the river bank. But his Excellency will not stay to visit it now?”
“No, Ibrahim; not now,” said the professor. “It is very tempting, but duty first. We must come and see the ruins after we have fetched my friend out of the new Mahdi’s grasp. Not before.”
“Yes, not before,” said the doctor quietly; for he spoke little on the way, passing long hours in a thoughtful silence, as if dreaming over the duties he had to perform, and acting always as if he felt that he really was the learned Hakim he assumed to be.
There was a great charm about the wild, rocky place they had reached, the first rays of the sun as it rose lighting up a most picturesque scene made glorious by that which was so rare. For at the foot of a perpendicular mass of grey, grand, sun-scorched rock, there was a pool of limpid water quite fifty yards across, and below it another into which the surplus ran, forming a place easily accessible for the camels and leaving the upper water unsullied for the use of man.
The tent was soon pitched and a fire made for the coffee and rough cakes that were soon in progress of being made, while after drinking heartily, the camels were left browsing quietly upon the abundant foliage of the low-growing bushes, their burdens being stacked against the rocks which formed the back of their little encampment.
“We ought to find some specimens here, Frank,” said the professor, at the end of an hour, as they sat dallying over the last drops of their coffee.