“Young rascal ought to be spanked. Give him my love. Would have let him go if I had known. He can make the trip with you. Thanks for your kindness. Know he is in good hands. Will make matters right with you when you get back.
“Allison.”
Don clasped Teddy in his arms after the reading of the telegram, and the two boys executed a wild dance on the floor of the office, much to the scandal of the native clerks, who looked on open-eyed.
“Glory hallelujah!” cried Don. “You’re going with us, Brick! Old scout, you’re going with us! Do you hear?”
“It’s the reward of virtue,” said Brick, with a shameless grin.
“Virtue!” snorted the captain, trying to look stern, but not succeeding very well. “It simply shows that a young scapegrace can sometimes get by. Come along now. There’s much to do, and we have to hustle.”
They “hustled” to such good purpose that they were able to take the train for Cairo that afternoon. They were agreeably surprised, or at least the boys were, to find that they were in a smart clean train that would compare favorably with anything in Europe, and that the express would cover the hundred and fifty mile trip to Cairo in less than four hours. The lads had expected the ramshackle affair, common in the East, that would simply drag along under all condition of discomfort.
“It’s due to the English occupation,” explained the professor. “They see that everything is good and up-to-date and in accord with Western standards.”
Through the windows of the train, as it sped along, the boys saw a fascinating panorama unfolded. They were in a land that was literally flowing with milk and honey. As far as the eye could see, the soil was unbelievably rich. There were great groves of palm trees, their feathery fronds waving gracefully in the air; fields of dark loam that needed only to be tickled with the hoe to make them laugh; extensive fields of cotton, looking like heaps of drifted snow; and plantations of sugar cane, the stalks crowded so thickly together as to form what seemed almost an impenetrable forest.
The coloring of the landscape was also a dream of beauty. The bright green of the fields, the reddish brown of the Nile, along whose banks they often wound, the mellow tints of yellow rocks under a sky of cerulean blue, formed a picture to delight the eye of an artist.