For the rest our position was good, being on high desert beyond the cultivated land which bordered the eastern bank.  But in front of us, separating us from the southern army of the King, stretched a swamp hard to cross, so that we could not hope to make an attack by night as there was no moon.  Lastly, the main Eastern strength, to the number of two hundred thousand or more, lay to the north beyond Amada.

All these things we considered, talking low and earnestly there in the tent, till it grew so dark that we could not see each other’s faces while behind us slumbered our army that now numbered some seventy thousand men.

“We are in a trap,” said Bes at length.  “If we await attack they will weigh us down with numbers.  If we flee they have camels and horses and will overtake us; also ships of which we have none.  If we attack it must be without cover through swamp where we shall be bogged.

“Meanwhile Pharaoh is perishing within yonder walls of Amada which the engines batter down.  By the Grasshopper!  I know not what to do.  It seems that our journey is vain and that few of us will see Ethiopia more; also that Egypt is sped.”

I made no answer, for here my generalship failed me and I had nothing to say.  The captains, too, were silent, only woman-like, Karema wept a little, and I too went near to weeping who thought of Amada penned in yonder temple like a lamb that awaits the butcher’s knife.

Suddenly, coming from the door of the tent which I thought was closed, I heard a deep voice say,

“I have ever noted that those of Ethiopian blood are melancholy after sundown, though of Egyptians I had thought better things.”

Now about this voice there was something familiar to me, still I said nothing, nor did the others, for to speak the truth, all of us were frightened and thought that we must dream.  For how could any thing that breathed approach this tent through a triple line of sentries?  So we sat still, staring at the darkness, till presently in that darkness appeared a glow of light, such as comes from the fire-flies of Ethiopia.  It grew and grew while we gasped with fear, till presently it took shape, and the shape it took was that of the ancient withered face, the sightless eyes, and the white beard of the holy Tanofir.  Yes, there not two feet from the ground seemed to float the head of the holy Tanofir, limned in faint flame, which I suppose must have been reflected on to it from the light of some camp-fire without.

“O my beloved master!” cried Karema, and threw herself towards him.

“O my beloved Cup!” answered Tanofir.  “Glad am I to know you well and unshattered.”

Then a torch was lit and lo! there before us, wrapped in his dark cloak sat the holy Tanofir.

“Whence come you, my Great-uncle?” I asked amazed.

“From less far than you do, Nephew,” he answered.  “Namely out of Amada yonder.  Oh! ask me not how.  It is easy if you are a blind old beggar who knows the path.  And by the way, if you have aught to eat I should be glad of a bite and a sup, since in Amada food has been scarce for this last month, and to-night there is little left.”