remembering your luck. I've seen a blue funk evaporate by thinking of
how things always come your way just when the worst seems at the worst."

David smiled as he caught up a small cane and prepared to go. Looking
out of a window, he stroked his thin, clean-shaven face with a lean
finger. Presently a movement in the desert arrested his attention. He
put a field-glass to his eyes, and scanned the field of operations
closely once more.

"Good-good!" he burst out cheerfully. "Achmet has done the one thing
possible. The way to the north will be still open. He has flung his men
between the Nile and the enemy, and now the batteries are at work."
Opening the door, they passed out. "He has anticipated my orders," he
added. "Come, Lacey, it will be an anxious night. The moon is full, and
Ebn Ezra Bey has his work cut out--sharp work for all of us, and . . ."

Lacey could not hear the rest of his words in the roar of the artillery.
David's steamers in the river were pouring shot into the desert where the
enemy lay, and Achmet's "friendlies" and the Egyptians were making good
their new position. As David and Lacey, fearlessly exposing themselves
to rifle fire, and taking the shortest and most dangerous route to where
Achmet fought, rode swiftly from the palace, Ebn Ezra's three steamers
appeared up the river, and came slowly down to where David's gunboats
lay. Their appearance was greeted by desperate discharges of artillery
from the forces under Ali Wad Hei, who had received word of their coming
two hours before, and had accordingly redisposed his attacking forces.
But for Achmet's sharp initiative, the boldness of the attempt to cut off
the way north and south would have succeeded, and the circle of fire and
sword would have been complete. Achmet's new position had not been
occupied before, for men were too few, and the position he had just left