“Have we gone the wrong way to work, after all?”
“No,” said the doctor decisively. “We are here, and Khartoum is so far away. You are hot and weary now, Frank; rest and refresh, my lad; they are grand remedies for despair.”
“Yes,” said the professor; “I feel as much out of heart as you, my boy, but common-sense says that we have only tried once.”
Frank nodded, and rose to go into the room he shared with Sam, too weary and disheartened to notice that his old friend’s servant had followed him, till he was startled by feeling the man’s cool hands busy about him with a brass basin of cool water and a sponge, when he sat up quickly.
“Why, Sam,” he cried, “are you going mad?”
“Hope not, sir,” said the man, “though that hot sun and the dust can’t be good.”
“But what are you doing?”
“What’ll set you right, sir, and ready for your meal.”
“But you forget that I am the Hakim’s slave.”
“Not I, sir. Keep still, the black won’t come off.”