“Well, I like the English tailor-made dresses well enough for walking, Mr. Stephens,” said Miss Sadie from behind them.  “But for an afternoon dress, I think the French have more style than the English.  Your milliners have a more severe cut, and they don’t do the cunning little ribbons and bows and things in the same way.”

The Colonel smiled at Belmont.

“She is quite serene in her mind, at any rate,” said he.  “Of course, I wouldn’t say what I think to any one but you, and I daresay it will all prove to be quite unfounded.”

“Well, I could imagine parties of Dervishes on the prowl,” said Belmont.  “But what I cannot imagine is that they should just happen to come to the pulpit rock on the very morning when we are due there.”

“Considering that our movements have been freely advertised, and that every one knows a week beforehand what our programme is, and where we are to be found, it does not strike me as being such a wonderful coincidence.”

“It is a very remote chance,” said Belmont stoutly, but he was glad in his heart that his wife was safe and snug on board the steamer.

And now they were clear of the rocks again, with a fine stretch of firm yellow sand extending to the very base of the conical hill which lay before them.  “Ay-ah!  Ay-ah!” cried the boys, whack came their sticks upon the flanks of the donkeys, which broke into a gallop, and away they all streamed over the plain.  It was not until they had come to the end of the path which curves up the hill that the dragoman called a halt.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, we are arrived for the so famous pulpit rock of Abousir.  From the summit you will presently enjoy a panorama of remarkable fertility.  But first you will observe that over the rocky side of the hill are everywhere cut the names of great men who have passed it in their travels, and some of these names are older than the time of Christ.”

“Got Moses?” asked Miss Adams.

“Auntie, I’m surprised at you!” cried Sadie.

“Well, my dear, he was in Egypt, and he was a great man, and he may have passed this way.”

“Moses’s name very likely there, and the same with Herodotus,” said the dragoman gravely.  “Both have been long worn away.  But there on the brown rock you will see Belzoni.  And up higher is Gordon.  There is hardly a name famous in the Soudan which you will not find, if you like.  And now, with your permission, we shall take good-bye of our donkeys and walk up the path, and you will see the river and the desert from the summit of the top.”

A minute or two of climbing brought them out upon the semicircular platform which crowns the rock.  Below them on the far side was a perpendicular black cliff, a hundred and fifty feet high, with the swirling, foam-streaked river roaring past its base.  The swish of the water and the low roar as it surged over the mid-stream boulders boomed through the hot, stagnant air.  Far up and far down they could see the course of the river, a quarter of a mile in breadth, and running very deep and strong, with sleek black eddies and occasional spoutings of foam.  On the other side was a frightful wilderness of black, scattered rocks, which were the debris carried down by the river at high flood.  In no direction were there any signs of human beings or their dwellings.