Page:Harris Dickson--Old Reliable in Africa.djvu/136



EVER before in his life had Old Reliable possessed a servant of his own—and the bossing of Said kept him busy. In Cairo the Colonel enjoyed three days of comparative peace, for the groveling Said sneaked along behind his master, and Zack did little else but strut the streets. Their business being finished in Cairo, the Colonel's party left by rail for Luxor, thence on the narrow-gauge railroad to Shellal, where they must take a boat—moving always southward, deeper and deeper into the country of the sun.

Morning on the Nile, near the Sudan frontier.

The sun arose and for an instant hung midway of the horizon—like the opening of a fiery furnace door, which glared over the edge of the world. Out flowed its molten blast—a ravenous, consuming stream that sizzled across the desert. Widening as it came, the scarlet-yellow torrent rushed on and on, scorched the grim, brown knolls, filled the hollows with lakes of quivering 122