Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/283

Rh send it by the quickest way." And the tidings of our safety were soon flying to Egypt, and diving under the sea.

Then for the first time we had a moment of rest, and set off to find an English clergyman, Rev. A. W. Schapira, whom Dr. Post knew. We found him at his school, and he gave us a welcome such as I have never failed to receive from missionaries in any part of the world. "Where are your tents?" he asked. We told him. "Do not stay there, for you will be surrounded by a crowd, and may be subjected to great annoyance. Have them pitched in my garden." We sent back a messenger in haste, who found that the camels had arrived and been unloaded, and that the tents were already up; but at the word they were taken down, and the camels loaded up again, and in an hour they came lumbering into the missionary's "compound," where we could pass a Sabbath in quietness and peace.

When at last our tents were pitched, and the camels were stretched on the ground, chewing the cud of sweet content, and the men were round the camp-fire cooking their food, we felt that we had gained a victory. We had accomplished the object with which we set out from Nukhl on Monday morning; we had reached our destination by a series of forced marches, in spite of discontented men and frightened dragoman; in spite of weather, of lowering clouds, threatening cold and rain; in spite of sickness and of robbers. At last we were safe; we had reached our desired haven, and looked back over the long way as the sailor, hardly escaped from shipwreck, looks back over a stormy ocean.

Our journey ended to our satisfaction, there came the settling of accounts. The old soldier, who was the only one of the Arabs that could read, had been entrusted by his master, the sheikh, with the contract and authority to