Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/141

Rh two years and a half. But, on one exquisite spring morning at the close of this period, just as the first shaft of sunrise darted across the Nile from the broken sky-line of the Arabian desert and smote his songless lips he spoke again.

"I suppose you accept the scientific explanation, then?" he said, in a somewhat embarrassed tone.

"Of course I do," replied Shama, quoting briskly from Baedeker. "The sounds which used formerly to proceed from you are on no account to be attributed to any mere priestly trick, for, in the opinion of eminent physicists it is perfectly possible that a hard resonant stone, heated by the warm sunshine suddenly following upon the cold nights in Egypt, might emit a sound in the early morning. Perhaps you are not aware that a similar phenomenon has been observed under the porphyry cliffs in the Sinai Mountains, though you might be expected to know that it has been also met with as near home