"_Tout va bien, n'est ce pas_, Colonel?
Ah, _canaille! Vivent la croix et les Chretiens!_" He was incoherent in his delight.
The Colonel, too, was as enthusiastic as his Anglo-Saxon standard would permit.

He could not gesticulate, but he laughed in the nervous crackling way which was his top-note of emotion.
"My dear boy, I am deuced glad to see you all again.

I gave you up for lost.

Never was as pleased at anything in my life! How did you get away ?" "It was all your doing." "Mine ?" "Yes, my friend, and I have been quarrelling with you--ungrateful wretch that I am!" "But how did I save you ?" "It was you who arranged with this excellent Tippy Tilly and the others that they should have so much if they brought us alive into Egypt again.
They slipped away in the darkness and hid themselves in the grove.
Then, when we were left, they crept up with their rifles and shot the men who were about to murder us.

That cursed Moolah, I am sorry they shot him, for I believe that I could have persuaded him to be a Christian.