was bid, and allowed the guides nearly to carry him to the top of the
edifice.

"Ha! so this is the top of the Pyramid, is it?" said Mr. Damer,
bringing out his words one by one, being terribly out of breath. "Very
wonderful, very wonderful, indeed!"

"It is wonderful," said Miss Dawkins, whose breath had not failed her
in the least, "very wonderful, indeed! Only think, Mr. Damer, you
might travel on for days and days, till days became months, through
those interminable sands, and yet you would never come to the end of
them. Is it not quite stupendous?"

"Ah, yes, quite,--puff, puff"--said Mr. Damer striving to regain his
breath.

Mr. Damer was now at her disposal; weak and worn with toil and travel,
out of breath, and with half his manhood gone; if ever she might
prevail over him so as to procure from his mouth an assent to that Nile
proposition, it would be now. And after all, that Nile proposition was
the best one now before her. She did not quite like the idea of
starting off across the Great Desert without any lady, and was not sure
that she was prepared to be fallen in love with by M. Delabordeau, even
if there should ultimately be any readiness on the part of that
gentleman to perform the role of lover. With Mr. Ingram the matter was
different, nor was she so diffident of her own charms as to think it
altogether impossible that she might succeed, in the teeth of that
little chit, Fanny Damer. That Mr. Ingram would join the party up the
Nile she had very little doubt; and then there would be one place left
for her. She would thus, at any rate, become commingled with a most