CHAPTER XIV

IN travelling either with Pharos or in search of him, it was necessary to accustom one's self to rapid move- ment. I was in London on June /th, and had found him in Naples three days later ; had reached Cairo in his company on the i8th of the same month, and was four hundred and fifty miles up the Nile by the 2/th. I had explored the mysteries of the great Temple of Ammon as no other Englishman, I feel convinced, had ever done ; had been taken seriously ill, recovered, re- turned to Cairo, travelled thence to rejoin the yacht at Port Said; had crossed in her to Constantinople, journeyed by the Orient Express to Vienna, and on the morning of July I5th stood at the entrance to the Teyn Kirche in the wonderful old Bohemian city of Prague.
From this itinerary it will be seen that the grass was not allowed to grow under our feet. Indeed, we had scarcely arrived in any one place before our re- morseless leader hurried us away again. His anxiety to return to Europe was as great as it had been to reach Egypt. On land the trains could not travel fast enough ; on board the yacht his one cry was, " Push on, push on ! " What this meant to a man like myself, who had lately come so perilously near death, I must leave- you to imagine. Indeed, looking back upon it now, I
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234 PHAROS THE EGYPTIAN
wonder that I emerged from it alive. Looked at from another light, I believe I could not have done so but for Pharos. Callous as he had been to my sufferings hitherto, he could scarcely do enough for me now. His first inquiry in the morning' was as to how I felt, and his last injunction at night was to the effect that, if I felt any return of fever, I was to communicate with him immediately. From this show of consideration on his