"Now, sheik," Edgar said, after he had put some more sticks upon the fire, "we can chat about our future plans. I have been talking with Sidi. It must be a fortnight or three weeks before you are fit to sit a horse again. It is very fortunate, by the way, that you sent your favourite horse, as well as Sidi's and mine, back by two of your followers from the Pyramids when you decided to enter the town; and that we rode other horses in that charge in Cairo. It would have been a loss, indeed, if those noble steeds of ours had been all killed."