“Come with me,” I said, detaching my fellow countrymen from the natives. We ran on ahead and soon came in sight of the El-Sali moored by the river bank. She was ominously quiet. Bursting into the salon I gazed upon a picture which was the exact counterpart of my most lurid imagining. The room was a wreck, curtains torn down, vases broken, rugs twisted, chairs and tables overturned. Ab-Domen lay unconscious under the ruins of the victrola. A low moaning from the apartment beyond led us to Lady Sarah’s maid, likewise in the stupor of exhaustion.
When at last the faithful dragoman was partially revived he breathed a harrowing story of assault and abduction.
“Lord Wimpole came ...” he gasped ... “he had twenty men ... Lady El-Sali fought like a tigress ... you see?...” he motioned weakly at the surrounding chaos.... “I, too, did my best....”
“Where did they go?”
He shook his head. “Down river ... where to I do not know.”
There is an excellent highway along the Nile bank from Assouan to the Delta. In half an hour we were on our way, mounted on the best of our horses.
“Sarah!” I screamed in my agony, “it can not be that we have lost each other so soon!”
IN THE SHADOW OF THE PYRAMID
Zaloofa, the slave girl, wearing the costume of the native Awabodas.