From Abu Hamed their road
lay across the great Nubian Desert.
Nowadays the traveller may journey through the two hundred and forty
miles of that waterless plain of coal-black rocks and yellow sand, and
sleep in his berth upon the way. The morning will show to him, perhaps,
a tent, a great pile of coal, a water tank, and a number painted on a
white signboard, and the stoppage of the train will inform him that he
has come to a station. Let him put his head from the window, he will see
the long line of telegraph poles reaching from the sky's rim behind him
to the sky's rim in front, and huddling together, as it seems, with less
and less space between them the farther they are away. Twelve hours will
enclose the beginning and the end of his journey, unless the engine
break down or the rail be blocked. But in the days when Feversham and
Trench escaped from Omdurman progression was not so easy a matter. They
kept eastward of the present railway and along the line of wells among
the hills. And on the second night of this stage of their journey Trench
shook Feversham by the shoulders and waked him up.
"Look," he said, and he pointed to the south. "To-night there's no
Southern Cross.
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