"Very likely he has some such proposition to make to me. He really believes, I think, that he has a fair claim for what he has lost, or failed to obtain, by the miscarriage of all his plots to make a prisoner of Louis and Miss Blanche. All I desire is to get rid of the villain; and as soon as you inform me that he is off your hands I shall put him on shore."
The captain and the doctor joined the party on the promenade. Mr. Gaskette and his assistant were hanging one of the maps completed on the upper deck, where the conferences were usually held. He had assigned subjects to several members of the party, and he seemed to be anxious to have them disposed of; for he declared that this locality was one of the most interesting corners of the world to him.
On the promenade the mothers had their sons by their side, and Mrs. Blossom had secured possession of Felix in some manner that did not appear; but the good woman seemed to be superlatively happy. The commander did not take a seat, but took a stand in front of the company. He described the two big steamers that were approaching, in answer to a question put by Mrs. Belgrave.
"Of course you all recognize the shore before you," he continued.
"There isn't much shore there, only a strip of sand, with water beyond it," added Mrs. Woolridge.
"What country is it?" asked Miss Blanche in a whisper to Louis, who had his mother on one side of him and the fair maiden on the other.
"Egypt," replied Louis, wondering that she did not know.
"The water you see is Lake Menzaleh," answered the captain. "It is not much of a lake, as Americans would look at it. It is a sort of lagoon, covering from five hundred to a thousand square miles, according to different authorities; but the inundation of the Nile makes varying areas of water. The Damietta branch of the great river empties into the sea about thirty miles to the west of us, and this lagoon covers the region between it and the Suez Canal.
"The lake is separated from the Mediterranean by a narrow strip of land, which you can see, through which are a number of openings, such as we find in the sand-spits along the shore of our own country. But unlike our inlets, they were formerly mouths of the Nile, or at least of streams connected with it; and all of them have names, as the Mendesian Mouth, the Tanitic, the Pelusian, and others.