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Ifthe wells are holding I can cut the great S-bend of the river and reachKhartoum in twenty-one days, sir, Penrod answered crisply. He narrowed his eyes and calculated theangles and relative speeds. The smell of bloating human bodies waftedover the enclosure and their nostrils soon accepted this ascommonplace. She could see down on tothe beach where lines of rickety gallows of roughly trimmed poles werebeing hastily erected.

The effectthis had on what lay beneath her bodice was riveting. Their choice fell primarily on the representative of thefifth generation of the Emperor Chuai's descendants. Then a man pushed through the throngs of ululating women. Itwas not an Islamic relic but must once have belonged to a Christiancrusader.