Monsieur Fardet was leaning against the rail, and arguing about the remissness of the British Government in not taking a more complete control of the Egyptian frontier, while the Colonel stood very erect in front of him, with the red end of a cigar-stump protruding from under his moustache.

But what was the matter with the Colonel?  Who would have recognised him who had only seen the broken old man in the Libyan Desert?  There might be some little grizzling about the moustache, but the hair was back once more at the fine glossy black which had been so much admired upon the voyage up.  With a stony face and an unsympathetic manner he had received, upon his return to Halfa, all the commiserations about the dreadful way in which his privations had blanched him, and then diving into his cabin, he had reappeared within an hour exactly as he had been before that fatal moment when he had been cut off from the manifold resources of civilisation.  And he looked in such a sternly questioning manner at every one who stared at him, that no one had the moral courage to make any remark about this modern miracle.  It was observed from that time forward that, if the Colonel had only to ride a hundred yards into the desert, he always began his preparations by putting a small black bottle with a pink label into the side-pocket of his coat.  But those who knew him best at times when a man may best be known, said that the old soldier had a young man’s heart and a young man’s spirit—­ so that if he wished to keep a young man’s colour also it was not very unreasonable after all.

It was very soothing and restful up there on the saloon deck, with no sound but the gentle lipping of the water as it rippled against the sides of the steamer.  The red after-glow was in the western sky, and it mottled the broad, smooth river with crimson.  Dimly they could discern the tall figures of herons standing upon the sand-banks, and farther off the line of riverside date-palms glided past them in a majestic procession.  Once more the silver stars were twinkling out, the same clear, placid, inexorable stars to which their weary eyes had been so often upturned during the long nights of their desert martyrdom.

“Where do you put up in Cairo, Miss Adams?” asked Mrs. Belmont at last.

“Shepheard’s, I think.”

“And you, Mr. Stephens?”

“Oh, Shepheard’s, decidedly.”

“We are staying at the Continental.  I hope we shall not lose sight of you.”

“I don’t want ever to lose sight of you, Mrs. Belmont,” cried Sadie.  “Oh, you must come to the States, and we’ll give you just a lovely time.”

Mrs. Belmont laughed, in her pleasant, mellow fashion.

“We have our duty to do in Ireland, and we have been too long away from it already.  My husband has his business, and I have my home, and they are both going to rack and ruin.  Besides,” she added slyly, “it is just possible that if we did come to the States we might not find you there.”