“Well, I don’t know how it is, Sadie, but I feel a bit unstrung, and that beast caterwauling over yonder was just more than I could put up with.  There’s one consolation, we are scheduled to be on our way home to-morrow, after we’ve seen this one rock or temple, or whatever it is.  I’m full up of rocks and temples, Mr. Stephens.  I shouldn’t mope if I never saw another.  Come, Sadie!  Good-night!”

“Good-night!  Good-night, Miss Adams!”

And the two ladies passed down to their cabins.

Monsieur Fardet was chatting, in a subdued voice, with Headingly, the young Harvard graduate, bending forward confidentially between the whiffs of his cigarette.

“Dervishes, Mister Headingly!” said he, speaking excellent English, but separating his syllables as d Frenchman will.  “There are no Dervishes.  They do not exist.”

“Why, I thought the woods were full of them,” said the American.

Monsieur Fardet glanced across to where the red core of Colonel Cochrane’s cigar was glowing through the darkness.

“You are an American, and you do not like the English,” he whispered.  “It is perfectly comprehended upon the Continent that the Americans are opposed to the English.”

“Well,” said Headingly, with his slow, deliberate manner, “I won’t say that we have not our tiffs, and there are some of our people—­mostly of Irish stock—­who are always mad with England; but the most of us have a kindly thought for the mother country.  You see they may be aggravating folk sometimes, but after all they are our own folk, and we can’t wipe that off the slate.”

“Eh bien!” said the Frenchman.  “At least I can say to you what I could not without offence say to these others.  And I repeat that there are no Dervishes.  They were an invention of Lord Cromer in the year 1885.”

“You don’t say!” cried Headingly.

“It is well known in Paris, and has been exposed in La Patrie and other of our so well-informed papers.”

“Hut this is colossal,” said Headingly.  “Do you mean to tell me, Monsieur Fardet, that the siege of Khartoum and the death of Gordon and the rest of it was just one great bluff?”

“I will not deny that there was an emeute, but it was local, you understand, and now long forgotten.  Since then there has been profound peace in the Soudan.”

“But I have heard of raids, Monsieur Fardet, and I’ve read of battles, too, when the Arabs tried to invade Egypt.  It was only Two days ago that we passed Toski, where the dragoman said there had been a fight.  Is that all bluff also?”