"You have already made up your party I suppose, M. Delabordeau?"
M. Delabordeau gave the names of two Frenchmen and one Englishman who
were going with him.
"Upon my word it is a great temptation to join you," said Miss Dawkins,
"only for that horrid Englishman."
"Vat, Mr. Stanley?"
"Oh, I don't mean any disrespect to Mr. Stanley. The horridness I
speak of does not attach to him personally, but to his stiff,
respectable, ungainly, well-behaved, irrational, and uncivilised
country. You see I am not very patriotic."
"Not quite so much as my friend, Mr. Damer."
"Ha! ha! ha! an excellent creature, isn't he? And so they all are,
dear creatures. But then they are so backward. They are most anxious
that I should join them up the Nile, but--," and then Miss Dawkins
shrugged her shoulders gracefully, and, as she flattered herself, like
a Frenchwoman. After that they rode on in silence for a few moments.
"Yes, I must see Mount Sinai," said Miss Dawkins, and then sighed
deeply. M. Delabordeau, notwithstanding that his country does stand at
the head of all human civilisation, was not courteous enough to declare
that if Miss Dawkins would join his party across the desert, nothing
would be wanting to make his beatitude in this world perfect.
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