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This would have been very well if a dozen Arabs had not also followed them. But as this was the case, Mr. Ingram had to play his game under some difficulty. He had no sooner seated himself beside her than they came and stood directly in front of the seat, shutting out the view, and by no means improving the fragrance of the air around them.

“And this, then, Miss Damer, will be our last excursion together,” he said, in his tenderest, softest tone.

“De good Englishman will gib de poor Arab one little backsheish,” said an Arab, putting out his hand and shaking Mr. Ingram’s shoulder.

“Yes, yes, yes; him gib backsheish,” said another.

“Him berry good man,” said a third, putting up his filthy hand, and touching Mr. Ingram’s face.

“And young lady berry good, too; she give backsheish to poor Arab.”

“Yes,” said a fourth, preparing to take a similar liberty with Miss Damer.

This was too much for Mr. Ingram. He had already used very positive language in his endeavour to assure his tormentors that they would not get a piastre from him. But this only changed their soft persuasions into threats. Upon hearing which, and upon seeing what the man attempted to do in his endeavour to get money from Miss Damer, he raised his stick, and struck first one and then the other as violently as he could upon their heads.

Any ordinary civilised men would have been stunned by such blows, for they fell on the bare foreheads of the Arabs; but the objects of the American’s wrath merely skulked away; and the others, convinced by the only arguments which they understood, followed in pursuit of victims who might be less pugnacious.

It is hard for a man to be at once tender and pugnacious–to be sentimental, while he is putting forth his physical strength with all the violence in his power. It is difficult, also, for him to be gentle instantly after having been in a rage. So he changed his tactics at the moment, and came to the point at once in a manner befitting his present state of mind.

“Those vile wretches have put me in such a heat,” he said, “that I hardly know what I am saying. But the fact is this, Miss Damer, I cannot leave Cairo without knowing–. You understand what I mean, Miss Damer.”

“Indeed I do not, Mr. Ingram; except that I am afraid you mean nonsense.”

“Yes, you do; you know that I love you. I am sure you must know it. At any rate you know it now.”

“Mr. Ingram, you should not talk in such a way.”

“Why should I not? But the truth is, Fanny, I can talk in no other way. I do love you dearly. Can you love me well enough to go and be my wife in a country far away from your own?”

Before she left the top of the Pyramid Fanny Damer had said that she would try.

Mr. Ingram was now a proud and happy man, and seemed to think the steps of the Pyramid too small for his elastic energy. But Fanny feared that her troubles were to come. There was papa–that terrible bugbear on all such occasions. What would papa say? She was sure her papa would not allow her to marry and go so far away from her own family and country. For herself, she liked the Americans–always had liked them; so she said;–would desire nothing better than to live among them. But papa! And Fanny sighed as she felt that all the recognised miseries of a young lady in love were about to fall upon her.

Nevertheless, at her lover’s instance, she promised, and declared, in twenty different loving phrases, that nothing on earth should ever make her false to her love or to her lover.

“Fanny, where are you? Why are you not ready to come down?” shouted Mr. Damer, not in the best of tempers. He felt that he had almost been unkind to an unprotected female, and his heart misgave him. And yet it would have misgiven him more had he allowed himself to be entrapped by Miss Dawkins.