12 WITH KITCHENEE IN’ THE SOUDAN

I will get a native dress too ; but you must remember that

though, if possible, I will come to you, I may not be able to

do so ; and in case you hear of any tumult going on, you must

take baby and go down at once to the port. You know

enough of the language now to be able to tell a boatman to

take you off to one of the steamers in the port. As soon as I

get away I shall go round the port, and shall find you without

difficulty. Still, I do not anticipate any trouble arising with-

out our having sufficient warning to allow me to come and

see you settled on board ship, and I can then keep on in the

office until it closes, when I can join you again. Of course,

all this is very remote, and I trust that the occasion will

never arise ; still, there is no doubt that the situation is crit-

ical, and there is no harm in making our preparations for

the worst.

At any rate, dear, I beg that you will not go out alone till

matters have settled down. We will do the shopping together when I come back from the office. There is one thing that

I have reason to be grateful for. Even if the worst comes

to the worst and all Christians have to leave the country, the

object for which I came out here has been attained. I have not heard you cough for months, we have laid by fifty pounds, and I have written some forty stories, long and short, and if we go back I have a fair hope of making my way, for I am

sure that I write better than I used to do ; and as a good many

of the stories are laid in Egypt the local colouring will give them a distinctive character, and they are more likely to be

accepted than those I wrote before. Editors of magazines

like a succession of tales of that kind.

For the present there is no doubt that the arrival of the

fleet will render our position here more comfortable than it

is at present; the mere mob of the town would hesitate to

attack Europeans when they know that three or four thou- sand sailors could land in half an hour. But on the other hand, Arabi and his generals might see that Alexandria was,

after all, the most important position, and that it was here