Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/153

Rh Meanwhile, there was no sign of any constraint in his relations with the representatives of the law. The grey, wiry, rather humorous-looking Arab peasant of some fifty odd years was chatting and laughing gaily with those around him, by whom he was evidently regarded with the respect due to a prominent citizen of distinguished antecedents.

"Oh, he is mighty proud of the feat, I can tell you," said our informing friend. "He has often talked about it to me with perfect freedom and even complacency, as a soldier fights his battles o'er again. Indeed, he is a little inclined to 'gas' about his knowledge of the treasures hidden under these hills, as though he had had the run of every tomb that they contain. When, for instance, he was told the other day of that magnificent batch of blue scarabs that Professor Flinders Petrie has just turned up he received the news with the ineffably superior smile of the man who could have laid his own hand on