Going back to where the boat lay they found another lying near her, which had been dragged up the last bit of the cataract and brought up so far since their arrival, while the crew had gone ashore and lit a fire, round which they were gathered.
Forsyth and Hassib went up to them for news, but there was not much. Alexandria was being rebuilt after the bombardment; Arabi’s insurrection was quite over, and Mohammed Tewfik Pasha firmly established. The English soldiers were leaving, and the country would soon be quit of them entirely.
“Not it,” said one of the new-comers, who seemed to be a passenger. Certainly not a sailor, for his hands were delicate, and he lacked manliness when compared with the others of the party. “The English will not be so easy to get rid of, make sure of that.”
And one of the others said to Hassib, alluding to the speaker—
“You knew his father; this is Daireh.”
“And I knew him as a boy,” said Hassib.
“It is years since I left,” said Daireh.
Here Reouf the pilot joined the group, and he, too, was a friend of the family, and was made known.
Harry Forsyth, seeing that old acquaintances had met after an absence, kept in the background, and lit his pipe. He listened indeed, but simply to try what words of Arabic, in which the conversation was being held, he could pick up, not from any interest or curiosity which he felt in the subject of their talk.
“Quite a boy when you went to England,” said Reouf; “and yet I think I can recognise you. Do you remember you went in my diabeheeh from Berber home to Alexandria?”