One Felt That If By Any Miracle The Dawn Could Be Delayed A
Second Longer, They Would Tear Themselves Free, And Leap Forth To
Heaven Knows What Sort Of Vengeance.
But that instant the full sun
pinned them in their places - nothing more than statues slashed with
light and shadow - and another day got to work.
A few yards to the left of the great images, close to the statue of an
Egyptian princess, whose face was the very face of 'She,' there was a
marble slab over the grave of an English officer killed in a fight
against dervishes nearly a generation ago.
From Abu Simbel to Wady Halfa the river, escaped from the domination of
the Pharaohs, begins to talk about dead white men. Thirty years ago,
young English officers in India lied and intrigued furiously that they
might be attached to expeditions whose bases were sometimes at Suakim,
sometimes quite in the desert air, but all of whose deeds are now quite
forgotten. Occasionally the dragoman, waving a smooth hand east or
south-easterly, will speak of some fight. Then every one murmurs: 'Oh
yes. That was Gordon, of course,' or 'Was that before or after
Omdurman?' But the river is much more precise. As the boat quarters
the falling stream like a puzzled hound, all the old names spurt
up again under the paddle-wheels - 'Hicks' army - Val Baker - El
Teb - Tokar - Tamai - Tamanieb and Osman Digna!' Her head swings round
for another slant:
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