Abousir Rock has been forbidden for the last year. But things are quieter now.”
“What is to prevent them from coming down on that side?”
“Absolutely nothing,” said Cecil Brown, in his listless voice.
“Nothing, except their fears. The coming of course would be perfectly simple. The difficulty would lie in the return. They might find it hard to get back if their camels were spent, and the Halfa garrison with their beasts fresh got on their track. They know it as well as we do, and it has kept them from trying.”
“It isn’t safe to reckon upon a Dervish’s fears,” remarked Brown. “We must always bear in mind that they are not amenable to the same motives as other people. Many of them are anxious to meet death, and all of them are absolute, uncompromising believers in destiny. They exist as a reductio ad absurdum of all bigotry—a proof of how surely it leads towards blank barbarism.”
“You think these people are a real menace to Egypt?” asked the American. “There seems
