Produced by David Widger A DESERT DRAMA BEING The Tragedy of the _Korosko_ BY A. CONAN DOYLE WITH THIRTY-TWO FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS BY S. PAGET PHILADELPHIA J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 1898 [Illustration: Frontispiece p78] [Illustration: Titlepage] TO MY FRIEND JAMES PAYN IN TOKEN OF MY AFFECTION AND ESTEEM PREFACE This book has been materially enlarged and altered since its appearance in serial form A. Conan Doyle October 17, 1897 A DESERT DRAMA CHAPTER I The public may possibly wonder why it is that they have never heard in the papers of the fate of the passengers of the __Korosko__. In these days of universal press agencies, responsive to the slightest stimulus, it may well seem incredible that an international incident of such importance should remain so long unchronicled. Suffice it that there were very valid reasons, both of a personal and political nature, for holding it back. The facts were well known to a good number of people at the time, and some version of them did actually appear in a provincial paper, but was generally discredited. They have now been thrown into narrative form, the incidents having been collated from the sworn statements of Colonel Cochrane Cochrane, of the Army and Navy Club, and from the letters of Miss Adams, of Boston, Mass. These have been supplemented by the evidence of Captain Archer, of the Egyptian Camel Corps, as given before the secret Government inquiry at Cairo. Mr. James Stephens has refused to put his version of the matter into writing, but as these proofs have been submitted to him, and no correction or deletion has been made in them, it may be supposed that he has not succeeded in detecting any grave misstatement of fact, and that any objection which he may have to their publication depends rather upon private and personal scruples. The __Korosko__, a turtle-bottomed, round-bowed stern-wheeler, with a 30-inch draught and the lines of a flat-iron, started upon the 13th of February, in the year 1895, from Shellal, at the head of the first cataract, bound for Wady Haifa. I have a passenger card for the trip, which I hereby produce: S. W. “_Korosko_,” February 13TH. PASSENGERS. Colonel Cochrane Cochrane London Mr. Cecil Brown London John H. Headingly Boston, USA Miss Adams Boston, USA Miss S. Adams Worcester, Mass, USA Mons Fardet Paris Mr. and Mrs. Belmont Dublin James Stephens Manchester Rev. John Stuart Birmingham Mrs. Shlesinger, nurse and child Florence This was the party as it started from Shellal with the intention of travelling up the two hundred miles of Nubian Nile which lie between the first and the second cataract.