They now made rapid progress. Joy over their regained freedom drove from Stasch’s breast the nightmare that had frightened him during the night. Now he was only disturbed by the thought as to what course he should take and how he could guide Nell and himself out of this place, in which a new imprisonment by the Dervishes threatened them, what course they could plan to aid them during the long journey through the desert to keep them from perishing of hunger and thirst, and lastly, in what direction they should direct their steps. Stasch remembered that, when with Hatim, he heard that the distance from Fashoda to the frontier of Abyssinia was not more than five days’ journey as the bird flies, and he reckoned that this would be about one hundred English miles. But it was now two weeks since
