“When you go out I and three or four of my young men are to attend you with the camels.”
“So much the better, Ibrahim. You will be invaluable to us.”
“Your Excellency is very good to say so,” replied the old man sadly; “but that is not all.”
“Not all?” cried the professor.
“No, Excellency. The Emir Prince says that he feels answerable to the great Hakim for your safety; that you are well known to be the Hakim’s followers, and that there are wise men, Hakims of the people here in Omdurman and Khartoum, who are dogs, he said—fools and pretenders who can do nothing but work ill. These people, he says, hate the great Hakim with a jealous hate, and would gladly injure his servants. Therefore he gives the head of his bodyguard, the Baggara who has charge of us here, orders to attend you everywhere you go.”
“Alone?” said Frank, after a few moments’ display of blank surprise and annoyance.
“No, Excellency; always with eight or ten men; and he is to answer for your safety abroad and here with his head.”
The Sheikh’s words seemed to have robbed the little party of the power of speech. But at last Frank exclaimed—
“Then we have journeyed all this way for naught?”
“To be as badly off as if we had stayed in Cairo and waited for the British and Egyptian advance.”