Far, far away in the distance Memphis and the Valley of the Nile were lost in haze and obscurity; westward the sun, like a ball of fire--a blood-red disc of enormous proportions--shorn of every ray, was setting amid a sky of gold, crimson, and soft apple-green, all blending through each other, yet with light strong enough to send far along the waste they had traversed the shadows of the two camels of Skene and of Hassan. The former recalled with a grim smile Moore's ballad: 'Fly to the desert, fly with me!' and thought the desert looked far from inviting. His only table appurtenance was the jack-knife hung from his neck by a lanyard, and as issued to all ranks of our troops in Egypt, and with that he cut his sandwiches, now dry indeed by this time, and opened a tiny tin of preserved meat, which he washed down by a mouthful from the hunting-flask, carried in his haversack. As he sat alone eating his frugal meal, which from religious scruples Hassan declined to share with him--or indeed anything save a cigar--Skene, though neither a sybarite nor a gourmand, could not help thinking regretfully of the regimental mess-table in the citadel of Cairo, possessing, like other such tables, all the ease of a kindly family circle, without its probable dulness; of the dressing bugle, and the merry drums and fifes playing the 'Roast Beef of Old England;' the quiet weed after dinner, a stroke at billiards, a rubber of short whist while holding good cards; and just then civilization and all the good things of this earth seemed very far off indeed! When he and Hassan started again to reach the wells--where they were to procure water for themselves and their camels, and were to bivouac for the night, no trace of these could be found, though the travellers wandered several miles in different directions; and, as the sun set with tropical rapidity, Skene--his water-bottle completely empty--with his field-glass swept the horizon in vain for a sight of those gum-trees which were said to indicate the locality of the springs in question; and then he began more than ever to mistrust the good faith, if not the knowledge, of Hassan Abdullah. So far as their camels were concerned, Skene had no cause as yet for any anxiety, as these animals, besides the four stomachs which all ruminating quadrupeds possess, have a fifth, which serves as a reservoir for carrying a supply of water in the parched and sandy deserts they are so often obliged to traverse. A well--one unknown to Hassan, apparently--they certainly did come upon unexpectedly, but, alas! it was dry. Malcolm Skene looked thirstily at the white stones that lined or formed it, glistening in the light of the uprisen moon, and with his tongue parched and lips hard and baked he thought tantalizingly of brooks of cool and limpid water, of iced champagne and bitter beer!