Presently Dicky flashed a look and nodded towards the door, and Fielding
dropped his cigar and went on deck, and called down to Holgate the
engineer:

"Get up steam, and make for Luxor. It's moonlight, and we're safe enough
in this high Nile, eh, Holgate?"

"Safe enough, or aw'm a Dootchman," said Holgate. Then they talked in a
low voice together. Down in the saloon, Dicky sat watching Heatherby.
At last the Lost One raised his head again.

"It's worth more to me, this night, than you fellows know," he said
brokenly.

"That's all right," said Dicky. "Have a cigar?"

He shook his head. "It's come at the right time. I wanted to be treated
like an Englishman once more--just once more."

"Don't worry. Take in a reef and go steady for a bit. The milk's spilt,
but there are other meadows. . . ." Dicky waved an arm up the river,
up towards the Soudan!

The Lost One nodded, then his eyes blazed up and took on a hungry look.
His voice suddenly came in a whisper.

"Gordon was a white man. Gordon said to me three years ago: 'Come with
me, I'll help you on. You don't need to live, if you don't want to.
Most of us will get knocked out up there in the Soudan.' Gordon said