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Then He began at once in that quiet tired voice that his servant knew so well. "Eminences-we are all here, I think. We need lose no more time, then.... Cardinal Corkran has something to communicate " He turned a little. "Father, sit down, if you please. This will occupy a little while."
One after another we entered, crawling on hands and knees, only to come up against a solid wall of rock at the end. Each of these burrows represented just so much toil and disappointment. But Corkran, whose undertaking could be justified even to his own mind only by success, had not been discouraged.
The old gang of criminals allied forces of disorder Corkran" the Slave of the Lamp smiled politely "McTurk" the Irishman scowled "and, of course, the unspeakable Beetle, our friend Gigadibs." Abanazar, the Emperor, and Aladdin had more or less of characters, and King passed them over. "Come forth, my inky buffoon, from behind yonder instrument of music!
Corkran was unctuously sipping his, and had not expected me to receive mine till after the battle. But I got it in spite of him, and mapped out a programme as I drank. Then I ceased to tremble before the confused assemblage or bird-headed gods, cat-faced goddesses, and sacred vultures that danced or flapped in my brain.
And oh, by the way, I've announced that you're to be presented to the passengers at dinner to-night, on coming in, before the soup is served." "As a sort of hors d'oeuvre, I suppose," I murmured weakly. Colonel Corkran stared, without a smile. "As the titled conductor of the Egypt tour," he explained to my dull intelligence, with a slight sneer.
Sixty odd they were, according to Corkran, but they looked like six hundred; a human miracle of loaves and fishes. Yes, the creatures might have appeared harmless enough had there been no retired colonel. But there was a retired colonel, and so deftly had he undermined my courage that almost any shock might cause it to explode in a blue flame of funk.
His room's next to yours, said The Infant, nursing a cobwebbed bottle of Burgundy. Then I found Lieutenant-Colonel A.L. Corkran, I.A., who borrowed a collar-stud and told me about the East and his Sikh regiment. 'And are your subalterns as good as ever? I asked. 'Amazin' simply amazin'! All I've got to do is to find 'em jobs. They keep touchin' their caps to me and askin' for more work.
Nothing you could do would make us think less, after all that has happened to us, together. But could it ever be as it has been as beautiful, as sweet, with all the dearest kind of romance in our thoughts of you? You see, you have the glory of finding the secret. Queen Candace saved it for you. She wouldn't give it to such a man as Colonel Corkran. She knew he wouldn't respect her.
Do you see?" I did see; and accepted the situation, because the dinner bugle began to sound, and I could not be scampering round the saloon like a frightened rabbit as the Set and the Flock began dropping in to dinner. As it happened, they did not drop they poured into the room in a steady stream, which phenomenon, whispered Corkran, was caused by curiosity for a first sight of me.
My whole time between the Piraeus and Alexandria, on board the Candace, must be spent ingratiating myself with the sulky passengers, and obliterating from their memories the crimes of Colonel Corkran. In Sir Marcus' opinion my future charges had taken passage on the Candace, and would go up the Nile, not to see sights, but to be seen doing the right things.
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