“But I want a pass for this evening’s steamer.”
“We cannot wake the colonel.”
“Is there no one else who can sign the order?”
“Only the colonel. Come this evening.”
Pass or no pass, I would not be cheated out of a journey into the Soudan. I threw my knapsack over my shoulder again, and pranced off for the third time on the ten-mile course between Assuan and Shellal. Night was falling as I rushed through Assuan. When I stepped aside to let the down train pass, my legs wabbled under me like two rubber tires from which half the air had escaped. The screech of a steamboat whistle resounded through the Nile valley as I came in sight of the lights of Shellal. I broke into a run, falling now and then on the uneven ground.
The sky was clear, but there was no moon, and the night was black in spite of the stars. The deck-hands were already casting off the shore lines of the barge, and the steamer was churning the shallow water. I pulled off my coat, threw it over my head after the fashion in which the Egyptian fellah wears his gown after nightfall, and dashed toward the ticket office.
Soudan steamer on the Nile: A Soudanese cavalry soldier with whom I shared a blanket on the way up to Wady Haifa.
“A ticket to Wady Haifa,” I gasped in Arabic, trying to imitate the timid tone of the Egyptian peasant.
For once, I saw a native hurry. The agent glanced at the money, snatched a ticket, and thrust it through the bars, crying: “Hurry up; the boat is go—” But the white hand that clutched the ticket showed him who I was. He sprang to the door with a howl: “Stop! It’s the faranchee! Come back—”