A. E. W. Mason

“ That night, when the invitations had been sent out from Broad Place, and no longer a light gleamed from any window of the house, a man leaned over the rail of a steamer anchored at Port Said and listened to the song of the Arab coolies as they tramped up and down the planks with their coal baskets between the barges and the ship's side. ”

“ The elder of the two turned over a sheet.
"I see Osman Digna's back at Suakin," said he. "There's likely to be some fighting."
"Oh," said the other, "he will not do much harm." And he laid down his paper. The quiet English country-side vanished from before his eyes. He saw only the white city by the Red Sea shimmering in the heat, the brown plains about it with their tangle of halfa grass, and in the distance the hills towards Khor Gwob.
"A stuffy place Suakin, eh, Sutch?" said General Feversham. ”