“Remembering,” said the professor, “that we must take only the simplest necessaries. I shall have to overhaul every man’s bag after you have brought it down to the lowest state. There, Sam, I agree to your going fully, for I believe you will not let us repent it.”
“Thank you, sir. Shall we go soon?”
“Within forty-eight hours if it can be managed. Give me my hat and stick. I’ll go at once and see if berths are to be had on a P. and O. boat. You two will begin getting absolute necessaries together in the way of your professional needs, not forgetting your instruments and chemicals, Frank. Take all you said. They will be heavy and bulky, but they will pay for taking. As for me, as soon as I have settled about the boat I will get my own few things together and see to the arms. I have a pretty good selection of Arabian weapons. What more we require can be obtained in the Cairene bazaar.”
Chapter Five.
Sheikh Ibrahim.
Time works wonders, they say; so does money in able and experienced hands.
The professor’s were experienced hands, and he had ample funds at his disposition. The result of his inquiries that morning was that he found he could by starting the next night catch the mail which would bear him and his friends, travelling night and day, to Brindisi—for southern Italy, where the mail steamer would be waiting to take them on to Ismailia. Then in a few days from starting they would have changed into the not very efficient Egyptian railway, to be set down within sight of the pyramids on the borders of the mighty desert, with the south open to them, if all went as they had arranged, for their journey in search of the prisoner gazing northward and hoping still that help might come and his captivity and sufferings at last be ended.
It is wonderful what energy will do.