“You hear, Ibrahim?” said Frank.
“Yes, Excellency, I hear, and the Excellency your brother speaks the words of truth. The risk would be too great unless the Khalifa’s army had been put to flight.”
“But you have heard these two accounts.”
“Yes, Excellency. What does your brother think?”
“I think,” said Harry Frere, “that the first was invented by some Emir, jealous of the Khalifa; the second by the Khalifa himself. All false as the people themselves. We shall have more such tales.”
“Then you think you would still defer our start, Hal?” said the Hakim, who had sat listening in silence.
“Certainly, for we should only be riding to our death. We must accept our position of prisoners until the Khalifa’s men have suffered some real reverse. Then strike off at once for the desert and make a long détour upon the camels before trying to reach one of the British positions on the river.”
“Not make for our army at once?” said the Hakim quietly.
“No, for we should come upon them in the first flush of victory, and the chances are that we should encounter Egyptian regiments, who would take us for—what do we look like, Frank?”
“So much like the enemy that we have deceived them so far. Look at us, Morris, Hal and I are as if we were native born; Landon is little better; then there are Ibrahim and his men; while there is not enough of the Englishman about you now to save our lives.”