"No, no, Excellency, not yet. But spies keep coming in, all bringing the same news, that British forces are slowly and surely coming up the river to Khartoum, and the Khalifa is sending out his people to gather in more and more of the wild troops. They are crowding into the city and camping about outside. There will be war before long." "There must not be till we have escaped, Ibrahim," said the professor. "We being respectable singing birds must not be caught in the net along with the black dervish daws." "If the British and Egyptians win the battle, Excellency," said the Sheikh gravely. "We must not shut our eyes to the fact that these wild tribes are very brave, while the Egyptians--well, Excellency, we know that they have not made a very brave stand in the past." "But our British force will be up here in strength?" "Yes, Excellency, and if it depended entirely upon them I should not fear." "Then you do fear?" said the doctor gravely. "Hardly fear, Excellency, but I have my doubts, and I am troubled about our position in any case." "Why?" said the professor. "I have been out all night gathering news from such of the people as I have made my friends. The city is being filled with wild and lawless tribes who have come to fight for the new Mahdi, and whose pay is the plunder that they can gather from anywhere. They are their own friends only, and think of nothing else but what your English officers call loot. Even so soon as this past night there has been murder and outrage with plundering in the lower parts of the city, and the better people here would take flight at once, for their lives are not safe, and their wives and daughters seem marked out at once for the slaves of these savage men. I tremble for our own fate, and would gladly call my men together and risk an escape this very night, before the country round is swarming with the new Mahdi's people and we could not stir." "But you will not do this, Ibrahim? You will not forsake us when we are so near success?" "Alas! Excellency, we have not won success as yet, though we have found the young Excellency's brother." "Does that mean that you mean to escape and leave us?" "His Excellency the great Hakim knows that I have sworn to be faithful even unto death," said the old man proudly. "No, I will not leave you. I only speak out and tell you of our peril. If the prisoner we are trying to save were here I would say, Go this night. But he is not here, and our position is very bad." "What, with the doctor's reputation spread as it is, and such friends about us as the Emirs?"