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400 Said and listened to the song of the Arab coolies as they tramped up and down the planks with their coal baskets between the barges and the ship's side. The clamour of the streets of the town came across the water to his ears. He pictured to himself the flare of braziers upon the quays, the lighted port-holes, and dark funnels ahead and behind in the procession of the anchored ships. Attended by a servant, he had come back to the East again. Early the next morning the steamer moved through the canal, and towards the time of sunset passed out into the chills of the Gulf of Suez. Kassasin, Tel-el-Kebir, Tamai, Tamanieb, the attack upon McNeill's zareeba—Durrance lived again through the good years of his activity, the years of plenty. Within that country on the west the long preparations were going steadily forward which would one day roll up the Dervish Empire and crush it into dust. Upon the glacis of the ruined fort of Sinkat, Durrance had promised himself to take a hand in that great work, but the desert which he loved had smitten and cast him out. But at all events the boat steamed southwards into the Red Sea. Three nights more, and though he would not see it, the Southern Cross would lift slantwise into the sky.