As the sun rose higher the three Englishmen gazed wonderingly at the city which lay stretching to right and left--the place into which they were to make their triumphal entry that morning, as soon as the Emir's little force, which seemed to have grown unaccountably during the night, was marshalled; and the professor pretty well expressed the feelings of his two friends as he stood and gazed at the place, their eyes dwelling longest upon a white dome-like structure that towered up, and which they learned was the Mahdi's tomb. "And so this is Omdurman, is it?" he said. "Then I suppose Khartoum will be just such a city of mosques and palaces. Why, there isn't a redeeming feature in the whole spot! It's just a squalid collection of mud-houses and hovels, built anyhow by people accustomed to live in a tent or nothing at all. Why, if you took the trees away--and it wouldn't take long to do that--it would be fit for nothing but to be washed away as so much mud, if the Nile would flood as far." "But surely poor old Harry can't be here!" said the doctor, in a low, troubled voice. "Who knows?" said the professor softly, after glancing at Frank's pained features. "We must see, and--cheer up, everybody--we will, for we shall have splendid chances. Do you hear, O Chief Surgeon and Special Physician to the Emir?" "But look," said the doctor; "I thought the place miserable enough yesterday evening, while now, though the sun does give it a sort of golden glaze, the miserable huddle of shabby huts looks ten times worse, for the light exposes its ruinous state." "Go on," said the professor. "You can't speak evil enough of it, say what you will. But I say, both of you--I won't bother you much with my hobby--what a falling off there is everywhere; what a difference between the cities of the rule of the past, with their magnificent palaces and temples, or even the simple, majestic grandeur of the pyramids, and the buildings of the modern inhabitants! The glory has departed indeed. Ah, here comes Ibrahim again. Well, Sheikh, how goes the world?" "I have seen the Emir this morning, Excellencies, and he sends you greeting. He desires that you ride directly after the mounted men. You are to occupy a place of honour before the camels laden with the spoil taken by his warriors." "As his principal prisoners," said the doctor coldly. "Well, we will try not to disgrace the man who has treated us as his friends. But what about his son? Am I to see and treat him before we start?" "No, Excellency. He will ride in a litter borne by two led camels, and the Emir asks that you will see his son when you reach the rooms he has ordered to be ready for you beside his own palace." "And for my friends as well, Ibrahim?" said the doctor quickly.