Don promptly obliged him with a vigorous pinch.
“Ouch!” cried Teddy, rubbing the stinging flesh. “You needn’t be so mighty literal.”
“A friend will always do what another friend asks him to,” replied Don virtuously.
From the Nile came the sound of native music, as a felucca glided down the stream with a wide ripple spreading from her bows, the oars of her crew swaying to the faint sounds of a chantey, such perhaps as may have been sung in the days of the Pharaohs. The white sails of a dahabiyeh gleamed with a rosy tint in the last rays of the sinking sun. It was a scene of measureless peace and enchantment, as far apart from the hubbub and bustle of the modern world as though it were on another planet.
The Americans roused themselves at last from the trance into which they had fallen. Phalos was speaking.
“I cannot tell you how glad I am to have you with me,” he was assuring Don’s uncles. “The more glad because it is in some sort a compensation for some bad news that I received from Alexandria just a few minutes before you came.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Professor Bruce, straightening up in his chair. “May I ask what it is? That is, if it’s nothing personal and private.”
“In a sense I suppose it concerns all of us,” Phalos answered slowly, toying with his glasses. “Tezra and Nepahak have landed in Alexandria!”
CHAPTER IX
Startling News
“Tezra and Nepahak!” exclaimed Don, the faces of the sinister pair coming up before his memory.