We began to pass men laboring to make the canal banks ready against attack, but mostly they had no news to give us.  Yet at one place, where we tied to the bank because of delay ahead, a man shouted from a sand-dune that the kaiser of Germany has turned Muhammadan and now summons all Islam to destroy the French and British.  Doubtless he mistook us for Muhammadans, being neither the first nor the last to make that mistake.

So we answered him we were on our way to Berlin to teach the kaiser his new creed.  One man threw a lump of coal at him and he disappeared, but presently we heard him shouting to the men on the ship behind.  They truly were Muhammadans, but they jeered at him as loud as we.

After that our officers set us to leading horses up and down the deck in relays, partly, no doubt, to keep us from talking with other men on shore, but also for the horses’ sake.  I remember how flies came on board and troubled the horses very much.  At sea we had forgotten there were such things as flies, and they left us again when we left the canal.

At Port Said, which looks like a mean place, we stopped again for coal.  Naked Egyptians—­big black men, as tall as I and as straight—­ carried it up an inclined plank from a float and cast it by basketfuls through openings in the ship’s side.  We made up a purse of money for them, both officers and men contributing, and I was told there was a coaling record broken.

After that we steamed at great speed along another sea, one ship at a time, just as we left the canal, our ship leading all those that bore Indian troops.  And now there were other war-ships—­little ones, each of many funnels—­low in the water, yet high at the nose—­most swift, that guarded us on every hand, coming and going as the sharks do when they search the seas for food.

A wonder of a sight, sahib!  Blue water—­blue water—­bluest ever I saw, who have seen lake water in the Hills!  And all the ships belching black smoke, and throwing up pure white foam—­and the last ship so far behind that only masts and smoke were visible above the sky-line—­but more, we knew, behind that again, and yet more coming!  I watched for hours at a stretch without weariness, and thought again of Ranjoor Singh.  Surely, thought I, his three campaigns entitled him to this.  Surely he was a better man than I. Yet here was I, and no man knew where he was.  But when I spoke of Ranjoor Singh men spat, so I said nothing.

After a time I begged leave to descend an iron ladder to the bowels of the ship, and I sat on the lowest rung watching the British firemen at the furnaces.  They cursed me in the name of God, their teeth and the whites of their eyes gleaming, but their skin black as night with coal dust.  The sweat ran down in rivers between ridges of grime on the skin of their naked bellies.  When a bell rang and the fire doors opened they glowed like pictures I have seen of devils.  They were shadows when the doors clanged shut again.  Considering them, I judged that they and we were one.