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Headingly laughed, and rose from his camp-stool. "Well, it doesn't come within the provisions of the Monroe Doctrine, Colonel," said he. "I'm beginning to realise that modern Egypt is every bit as interesting as ancient, and that Rameses the Second wasn't the last live man in the country." The two Englishmen rose and yawned.
Where would the hundreds of millions which have been invested in this country? Where the monuments which all nations look upon as most precious memorials of the past?" "Come now, Colonel," cried Headingly, laughing, "surely you don't mean that they would shift the pyramids?" "You cannot foretell what they would do. There is no iconoclast in the world like an extreme Mohammedan.
"How hard it is that some should be spared, and some not! If only Mr. Brown and Mr. Headingly were with us, then I should not have one care in the world," cried Sadie. "Why should they have been taken, and we left?" Mr. Stuart had limped on to the deck with an open book in his hand, a thick stick supporting his injured leg.
"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.
So Headingly was gone, and Cecil Brown was gone, and their haggard eyes were turned from one pale face to another, to know which they should lose next of that frieze of light-hearted riders who had stood out so clearly against the blue morning sky, when viewed from the deck-chairs of the Korosko. Two gone out of ten, and a third out of his mind. The pleasure trip was drawing to its climax.
The fact that he seemed to hold the remainder as hostages stirred up the English people living along the Assiniboine. What is usually called the "Portage la Prairie" Expedition was now organized, to secure the release of the remaining prisoners. A body, varying from sixty to one hundred, marched down to Headingly, and were there joined by a number of English-speaking Canadians and others.
What a chasm gaped between their old life and their new! And yet how short was the time and space which divided them! Less than an hour ago they had stood upon the summit of that rock, and had laughed and chattered, or grumbled at the heat and flies, becoming peevish at small discomforts. Headingly had been hypercritical over the tints of Nature.
But the cigars of Colonel Cochrane and of Cecil Brown were still twinkling in the far corner of the deck, and the student was acquisitive in the search of information. He did not quite know how to lead up to the matter, but the Colonel very soon did it for him. "Come on, Headingly," said he, pushing a camp-stool in his direction. "This is the place for an antidote.
Last of all came Headingly, slight and tall, with the student stoop about his shoulders, and Fardet, the good-natured, fussy, argumentative Parisian. "You see we have an escort to-day," he whispered to his companion. "So I observed." "Pah!" cried the Frenchman, throwing out his arms in derision; "as well have an escort from Paris to Versailles. This is all part of the play, Monsieur Headingly.
He wrung his right hand violently, and as he did so he sent a little spray of blood from his finger-tips. A bullet had chipped his wrist. Headingly ran out from the cover where be had been crouching, with the intention of dragging the demented Frenchman into a place of safety, but he had not taken three paces before he was himself hit in the loins, and fell with a dreadful crash among the stones.
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