Corkran, as a soldier, had to guide a band to Aboukir, and chat about Nelson; point out the medieval fort of Kait Bey, and dash with hired motors to Adjemi, where Napoleon landed. Kruger took a few studious pilgrims to that unspoiled Oriental Nile town where the Rosetta Stone gave the secrets of Ancient Egypt to the world. It was mine to pilot the "frivolous lot"; to escort them in carriages round the Italian-looking city when they had absorbed its two chief sights; to give them a glimpse of the Museum, and to let them see the beauty and fashion of Alexandria driving out to San Stefano in the late afternoon. Still I had no chance to read my letters; but, thought I at the hotel, "Now at last, it has come!" Not at all! People's trunks were missing, or in the wrong rooms. It was I who had to sooth alarms, and calm rising storms. It was I who must assure Mrs. Harlow that her room was really preferable to that of Lady Biddell; and Lady Biddell that she, and not Miss Hassett-Bean, had the best in the hotel. Still, I had ten minutes to dress for dinner. Like Mr. Gladstone, I could do it in five, and have five left for my letters. But hardly had I slipped a paper knife under the flap of Monny's envelope (I should have felt a vandal to tear it) when one of the hotel managers knocked at my door. A gentleman was being very angry in the dining-room. He insisted on seeing me. He said he had been Lord Mayor of London, and ought to have a window-table. All these were previously engaged. What was to be done? Would I kindly come at once?

I persuaded Sir John that window-tables were the least desirable, owing to draughts, and returning to my room, had four minutes to dress or risk further rows. After dinner Miss Hassett-Bean burst into tears because she was alone in the world owing to the marmoset's death from seasickness; and now that she was growing old nobody cared to talk to her. I argued that people were shy because she was more important than they, and had a reputation for satire. It took half an hour for the lady's nose to go from red to pink (I think she had papier poudre in her handkerchief); and then I was obliged to walk on the beach with Miss Enid Biddell to keep Mr. Watts from proposing. As Snell relieved me from sentry duty, I was called by Kruger to discuss certain details of next morning's start for Cairo; and at midnight, when I crawled to my room a shattered wreck, the letters were still unread.

"I'm incapable of caring now," I groaned, "what has happened to any of them. If an earthquake has swallowed up our mountain, and Anthony's married Monny, and Brigit's been abducted, or vice versa, and Miss Guest has gone off with the jewels, it will leave me calm."

That was the spirit in which I tossed up a coin to see which letter to read first. Heads, Monny's; tails, Anthony's; but the penny rolled away, far under the bed where collar-buttons go, and so—I opened Biddy's. She began:

MY DEAR GOOD DUFFER!

For any sake hurry back. Make an excuse to leave your pilgrims the minute you get this, and take the first train to Cairo. Surely the late conductor can be your understudy, and trot the people round Alexandria for a day? We need you more than they do. I picture you reading this early in the morning, with Alexandria still in the distance; for you said you'd arrange to have letters come out to the yacht by the pilot. I shall expect a telegram saying by what train you'll arrive here in the afternoon. You'll understand when I've told you everything, why it's necessary for you to hurry.

We have done and seen so many things, it seems years instead of days since you left us in care of that handsome Hadji of yours. I wonder if really you didn't suspect that I guessed who he was; or did you suspect; and didn't care? I caught the look in your eyes, when you first saw him standing under the terrace at Shepheard's, and then, when the name "Antoun Effendi" came up in the conversation, I put two and two together. Mrs. East guesses, also. I don't know if she did from the first, but she does now. It isn't a question of "guessing" with either of us, really. It's a certainty. Not that she's said anything to me or I to her. That is the malady of us all since you went. We are boiling with secret thoughts, and keeping them to ourselves, which is bad for us and for each other in the long run. I haven't told Monny that the "Egyptian Prince," as Rachel Guest has nicknamed him, is your friend Captain Anthony Fenton playing some deep game, partly connected with us, partly connected with a secret of his and yours; the secret you said was a "dusty" one in which women would not be interested. I haven't told her, because I don't want her to know. She is always talking and thinking about him, and is vexed with herself for doing so. She tries to stop, but can't. If she knew who he was, she wouldn't try to stop. She'd let herself go, and feel she was living in a beautiful romance. So she is living in a romance, but I want you to be the hero of it, not your Anthony Fenton. That's why I don't open her eyes to the game that's going on. The man is a perfect devil. Not a bad devil, but a wild devil.

Mrs. East doesn't tell Monny that Antoun is "Anthony with an h" because she is enjoying the thought that she alone knows the wonderful truth. She imagines that she is in love with him. She believes Fate has brought them together—that he is a "reincarnation," as she is, and that they ought to belong to each other. Well, let them! She isn't more than six or seven years older than he, and she's rich (though poor compared to Monny, of course), and every day she grows handsomer. So does Monny. As for Rachel Guest—but she is in another part of my story. Yet no, come to think of it, I'll bring her in now, because if it weren't for developments concerning that young woman, I might be able to wait one more day without begging you to come to us. She is taking Monny away from me; and something odd is going on, I can't make out what. Anyhow, that horrid Bedr el Gemaly is in it. And there's to be a climax, I'm sure, to-morrow night. You'll get this letter to-morrow morning, for I'm writing it early, with my hair down my back, and my coffee not ordered, though I'm starving. We've left Shepheard's because Monny wanted to live for a few days in a hotel close to the Nile; and we were all pleased with the plan, for this was once a palace of Khedive Ismael, and his furniture's still in it, the wildest mixture of Orientalized French taste. There's a garden, with paths of vermilion sand brought from somewhere in the desert. But the most convulsive things live along the Nile Valley and spend their nights braying, hooting, cooing, whining, bellowing, and barking. If only the donkeys and dogs and birds and a few other sacred animals of Egypt would be a little more reticent, especially after dark, the country would be faultless. But what with worrying myself, and listening to furred and feathered creatures worrying themselves, I couldn't sleep last night, and I want you to help me! You'll be here to-morrow afternoon, and I shall stay in to receive you instead of going to the bazaars with the others, chaperoned by that dark-eyed devil of yours, "Antoun." I was there all yesterday, watching crowds of tourists buy beautiful expensive things for themselves, and horrid inexpensive things to take to their friends. Cleopatra purchased some disgracefully cheap pearls no self-respecting mummy would be seen in; and my prophetic soul tells me that she's going to try and dissolve them in wine.

There's to be a fancy dress ball at this hotel to-morrow night—or rather in the adjacent Casino, which is one reason we migrated here; and praise the saints you'll be in time for it because if anything's going to happen, you'll be able to stop whatever it is. If I were supposed to know that Antoun was Anthony Fenton, I might take him into my counsels. As it is, I can't. And anyhow, it wouldn't do much good, at present, because a silent duel is going on between him and Monny. He is bent on compelling her to acknowledge his authority. She is bent on resisting it—which is a great compliment to his power—but he doesn't know that, for he doesn't know Monny yet. It would be fun to watch them together, if I hadn't your interests to think of.

He hasn't got rid of Bedr el Gemaly; but he would have done so, I'm sure, if it hadn't been for an unexpected turn of the wheel, by the hand of Fate in the person of Rachel Guest. Her hand is never off the wheel just now! The few days since you have been away have brought out the true inwardness of her. Felis Domestica with very little Domestica! Perhaps it's the air of Egypt which is having a really extraordinary effect on all of us; perhaps it's the fact that Monny has given Rachel a lot of lovely clothes which have rejuvenated and apparently revitalized her. But you will see for yourself, and talk things over with Your old friend, Biddy.

This was a nice letter to read, heaven knew how many hours too late!

My fatigue had slipped off like the skin off a grape. I felt energetic enough to start out and walk to Cairo. What could be in Biddy's mind? And what must she have thought when afternoon and evening passed without even a telegram? The evening paper, if she had happened to look, would have told her that the Candace had reached Alexandria in the morning, as she expected; and she could neither have guessed nor believed that the whole day would pass without my having a chance to read her letter. I ransacked the writing-table drawers for a telegraph form; and finding one had begun to address it, when I stopped. The message could not go out until morning. Meanwhile there were Monny's and Anthony's letters to read. One or both might give me some clue to the "climax" Biddy feared for to-night at the ball. I cut open Monny's envelope, which had on it an alluring sunset picture of the Pyramids and the name of the hotel. Hastily I ran through the pages. Not a hint of anything disquieting! If I had read her letter instead of Brigit's I might have gone to my well-earned rest without a qualm.

"Dear Lord Ernest," Miss Gilder addressed me, in a handwriting which to any "expert" would reveal some originality, more pride, still more conscientiousness, any amount of self-will, and singularly little conceit. An odd combination! But the Gilded Rose is that. She went on:

You asked me to write to you while you were away, and tell you the news, and what I thought about things. But I'm thinking so much and so fast that I can't sort out my thoughts. I suppose it must be so with every one who comes to Egypt for the first time. Everything fascinates and absorbs me, even more than I had hoped it would—almost too much, I feel sometimes. Your Antoun Effendi is a very good guide, and I am not sorry that we have him—except once in a while. And now and then I'm glad. We're proud of his looks when we go about, for every one stares at him and envies us for having him to take us about, instead of being condemned to a mere dragoman. Oh, talking of dragomen (you see I will call them that!), we still have Bedr, though I know you thought we ought to give him up, and I don't see how we are ever to discharge him now, for he has attached himself to Rachel G. in the most wonderful way. It is pathetic. It began with a talk they had the day you left, about his having been in America, and about religion. She found him half inclined to be converted, and of course, her goodness and unselfishness made her long to snatch him like a brand from the burning. He thinks no one ever talked so wonderfully about religion as she does, which she, dear thing, attributes to the fact that she taught Sunday-school in Salem. She says, if she can have him to work upon even for a few weeks, she is sure to make him a convert.

We haven't wasted a minute since you went away, but have seen sights from morning till night, so as not to have missed anything when we leave Cairo on the Enchantress Isis. I hope you'll be pleased that I've given up my dream of having a private dahabeah, and that we shall be with you on Sir Marcus Lark's boat. She is really a beauty. Antoun took us over her, and on board we met Sir Marcus, who was showing some friends round. Antoun introduced him to us. I think Sir M. asked him to do it. We had great fun, for Sir Marcus seemed to take the most violent fancy to Aunt Clara, who didn't like him at all. She says now that she believes when she was Cleopatra he was Caesar, and that it's a pity he can't wear a wreath to hide his baldness, as she remembers his doing then. It's only a very little bald spot, really, and Rachel Guest says it reminds her of a tonsure on the head of a fine-looking monk. Aunt C. quite resents Sir Marcus being able to engage the services of you and Antoun. She wants you both to be there, but she doesn't like Sir M. to have a superior position to Antoun's. That day on the Enchantress Isis Sir M. invited us to have tea on the deck, and it really was enchanting; a deck like a huge open-air drawingroom, or one of our biggest verandas at Newport, or somewhere, with jolly green wicker chairs and tables and sofas with heaps of cushions. But I forgot—you've seen the boat. The best rooms were engaged, but when we talked to Sir Marcus, he called a man who can speak many languages in bits—broken English, cracked German, fractured French, and goodness knows what all. Between them, they arranged it somehow that we should have our choice, and the other people were to take what was left. I would have refused, because it didn't seem fair, but it was for Aunt Clara's sake, evidently, that Sir M. wanted to make the exchange, and she accepted. She was as haughty as a queen, but in rather a fascinating, soft way that I think men like. And she was looking beautiful. So is Rachel, as even Biddy admits. I do believe Rachel looks younger than I do, in some new dresses and hats she has. I never noticed before, but I fancy now that we're rather alike. I'm so delighted to see her enjoying herself so much, for you know, she's wonderful. Think what courage it must have taken to break with her tiresome old life, because she felt she must see the glory of the world, when a tiny legacy gave her the chance she'd longed for. She wouldn't have had a penny left, after she'd finished her trip, if Aunt C. and I hadn't been able to help her out. It's a privilege to do anything for such a brave creature. And I can't bear to think of her having to go back when this is over, to the dull round. Perhaps some way out will be found for her.

I've fallen in love with Cairo, although—or perhaps because—I still feel as if I were moving in a marvellous picture. Antoun does make it live for us! I will say that for him, though he can be so annoying that at times he spoils everything, and makes me wish you'd won my hat instead of my winning his green turban. I'm dying to find out how you got it. But, of course, I can't ask him: it would be infra dig. You must tell me when you come. I think the one he wears now is handsomer though. I wish I could change it for mine.

We have been to heaps of mosques, and I can't help wishing we were the only tourists in Cairo. Of course, this is a selfish wish; and as dear Biddy says, it's quite funny to think how each tourist feels that he is the only spiritual-minded, imaginative person travelling—that he alone has the right to be in Egypt—that all the others are offensive, vulgar creatures, who desecrate the beautiful places with their presence. But really, you know, it gets on one's nerves, meeting droves of silly men in pith helmets with little white lambrequins looped up, when it would be so much more appropriate to wear the kind of hats they have at home. And some of the women are weird! They have the queerest ideas of what is suitable for Egypt. One friend of Bedr's refused to go about and be seen with the ladies who'd engaged him, as he was the smartest dragoman in Cairo and had his reputation to keep up. Don't you like that? Even Antoun laughed—which he hardly ever does. He's so dignified I wish his turban would blow off or something. I wonder how he'd look without it, and if most of the charm would be gone? Almost, I hope so. One doesn't like to catch one's self feeling toward an Egyptian, even for a minute, as one does toward men of one's own blood —I mean, on the same level, or even as if a person like that were above one. It's just the picturesque dignity of the costume, and the pose, perhaps. And then, this strange glamour of the East is over everybody and everything, here. I used to wonder why people wrote and spoke of the East as mysterious. Why should it be more mysterious than the West? I would ask. Nobody could explain exactly. They said only, "It is." Now I know why—at least I feel why. Without his green turban, or in European coat instead of his graceful silk robe, and away from these luminous sunsets of pale rose and gold and emerald, Antoun would be nothing extraordinary, would he? He says he is considered old fashioned in his way of dress. Most of his friends wear European clothes, and the tarboosh which Egyptians love because it never blows away or falls off when they pray. He does make me angry, because he wants to banish the beggars and poor men who sell things in the street, instead of letting me give and buy. What am I for, with all my money, except to do things for people? And it's such fun making them happy by saying "I want a cat-necklace—" or a scarab, or whatever they have, instead of pushing past with a stony glare as if they were dust under our feet. Of course we're attended by great crowds whereever we go, because it's got round that we don't refuse any one, consequently it takes a little long to arrive anywhere. But what does that matter in Egypt? Already I'm losing my American hustle. I want to eat lotuses, which seem out of season in Egypt now! I've asked for them everywhere but can't get them. I want to feel back in the Middle Ages, in Cairo, which, as Antoun says, is an Oriental and Medieval Gateway to the Egypt older than history. And how I am looking forward to the Desert! Sir Marcus tells us that you are to take the people of the Candace for a desert trip before they go up the Nile; so of course you must count us among your "trippers," and Mr. Willis and Mr. Sheridan, who have settled to go on the Isis. You didn't mention the desert plan before you went away!

No news of that poor, beautiful child, Wretched Bey's wife though I've written twice. I'm worried about her. Mabel she used to be. Now she's Mabella Hanem! Biddy says you'll arrive for the ball to-morrow night. But somehow I don't feel you will. I don't know why you should. Men don't care for such things much. And of course I shall not dance, as I'm still in half mourning. I shall only look on, and then—Rachel and I have an amusing plan for the end of the evening. But even if you came, we couldn't let you into the secret, as you would think it silly.

Yours sincerely,

ROSAMOND GILDER.

Mine "sincerely, Rosamond Gilder!" So she ended her letter, with youthful and characteristic dignity, childishly unaware, apparently, that there was more to read between the lines than in the lines themselves.

Had I read this Rosamond letter first, the last four or five sentences would have meant little for me. As it was, I would have given a month out of my future for the gift of an astral body which could go this minute to the ball at the Ghezireh Palace. I was lost in the mystery of that "amusing plan."

In Anthony's letter lay my last hope of a clue. But in it there was none. He did not even mention Monny's name. It was all about that "desert trip" which, from her, I hadn't taken seriously. Sir Marcus was actually planning it. Kruger had written that some of the passengers were clamouring for a few days' camping, and the idea was to send them off in my care, after three days in Cairo, while the others remained in charge of Antoun, who wasn't yet ready to leave. Fenton said:

Somebody's trying to defeat my scheme for getting the sheikh's tomb moved. I don't know who it is yet. Meanwhile my time and my head are so full, that in the few hours of the night I put aside for sleep, I dream queerer dreams than the visits of ghostly sheikhs. Apropos of dreams, do you know by chance a man who answers this description: elderly, stoutish, red face, gray hair, black moustache, pale eyes with sharp look in them. Sounds commonplace, doesn't it?

But I have a recurring dream of such a man, whose face I never saw elsewhere. For the last three nights, as soon as I shut my eyes, he comes. He seems to interrupt some scene between you and Lark, and myself, and I see him looking over Lark's shoulder. Then he turns quickly away, and tiptoes off to a very low, closed door in a deep recess. There he disappears into shadow—and I wake up with a jump, or slide off into another dream—but generally this rouses me, for there's an impression of something stealthy in the shadow round the door. That so ordinary a type of person should be in a dream. You'll laugh at my asking if you've ever known such a man, and say that I'm back at my old tricks again, as a dreamer of dreams. Never mind, I scored, dreaming of our Mountain of the Golden Pyramid the night before I got your letter with Ferlini's papers. I can't help feeling that there may be something in dreams—in mine, anyhow, though I never have any except in Egypt. This one about the red-faced man and the closed door in the deep recess is getting a bit on my nerves.

Excited as I was over the patchwork of news, I laughed scornfully at Anthony's dream. For the man he described might be Colonel Corkran.



CHAPTER X

THE SECRET MONNY KEPT

Cairo at last! My watch said that the journey took only three hours; but my nerves said six.

I had telegraphed Biddy first thing in the morning the hour of my arrival with the "Candace crowd," and I half expected to see her at the big white and red station, but there was no familiar form in the throng, the gay throng which excited my charges. Everything interested them; the black face of the Sudanese engine driver who looked down from his huge British locomotive, the display of English, French and German literature mingled with Greek, Italian, Arab, or Turkish papers on the bookstall; the ebony and copper-coloured luggage carriers who seemed eager to take one another's lives, but in reality desired no more than to snatch each other's jobs, under the eyes of the uniformed hotel-porters. To me, the busy place was a desert, lacking one face.

Even outside the station-yard, and in the streets and squares where silent camels looked their contempt of electric trams, soldiers in khaki uniforms jostled Bedouins in khaki robes, and drivers of arabeahs made the way one long procession of shrieks, I still glanced at passing carriages in hopes of a belated Biddy. All in vain! And destitute of news I resigned myself to the task of piloting the Set out to Mena House. The moon would be full that night—and it's "the thing" to be a neighbour of the Sphinx while the moon feeds her with honey.

The Flock, under the guidance of Mr. Watts, had now definitely parted from the Set, chieftained by me. They went meekly off to the cheaper hotels, where they would live before boarding the Candace again for Palestine, and Colonel Corkran, who was supposed to have joined that party, had announced that he was "bound for a long talk with Mark the Lark." Mr. Watts, refused by Enid Biddell and separated from her, had relapsed into melancholia. He had ceased to brilliantine his once sleek hair, and dust and crumbs were allowed to collect in each fold of his clerical waistcoat. As we of the Set buzzed richly away in taxicabs, I saw him in a shabby arabeah between two old ladies, gazing wistfully after us. He was envying me Enid!

It is a wonderful drive through Cairo to the Pyramids, whether you spin out there in a motor, or trot on a donkey, or lilt on a camel, squatting cross-legged on a load of green bersim. Past the great swinging bridge, and the Island of Ghezireh (the word that in itself means "island") begins the six-mile dyke, which is the road made by Ismail to please the Empress Eugenie. Since her visit, in the days when the Suez Canal was opened, it has pleased two empresses, and more queens than I have time to count. Under the deep shade of lebbek trees it goes on and on, toward the Pyramids, a dark cool avenue, high above cultivated fields flooded by the Nile when the river is "up." The emerald waves of grain flow like green water to the foot of the broad dyke-road, and canals like long, tight-drawn blue ribbons are threaded through it, their ends lost to sight at the shimmering horizon.

Even at this noon hour when the world should have been eating lotuses or luncheon, the interminable arbour was crowded with strings of camels, forever going both ways, into Cairo and out, one wondered why —and there were flocks of woolly brown sheep, and donkeys drawing sideless carts in which whole families of veiled women and half-naked children were seated tailor fashion. On we spun, past the Zoo, past scattered villas of Frenchified, Oriental fashion which might have been designed by a confectioner: past azure lakes left by the ebbing Nile, and so into sudden dazzling sight of three geometric mountains in a tawny desert—two, monsters in size, and one a baby trying to catch up with them.

"Oh!" everybody breathed. For these things were beyond words.

Then in a moment more the Great Pyramid had grown so big that it loomed over us, and ate up half the sky—a pyre of yellow flame against a flame of blue.

We were at the end of the shadowy road that leads like a causeway to the desert, and on the verge of the golden, billowing sea which flows round the Pyramids and engulfs the distant Sphinx. Oriental life encircled us, in the foreground of the picture—a long row of waiting camels gaily saddled and tasselled, delicately nibbling bersim green as heaped emeralds—donkeys white and gray, beribboned and beaded—small yellow sandcarts; little white, desert horses and tall brown, desert men; camels snarling, donkeys braying, horses whinnying, and men touting. "Very nice sandcarts—very nice camels! Take ladies and gentlemen quick to Pyramids and Sphinx or Petrified Forest!" Farther on, the big, modern hotel, rather like an overgrown Swiss chalet built by Arabs—a vast, confused building the colour of sand or brown heather honey, with carved mushrbiyeh work lending an Eastern charm to windows, balconies, and loggias, and enough green, flowery garden to give a sensational effect of contrast with the tidal wave of desert poised ready, it would seem, to overwhelm palms and roses. Clustered near, the tiny mushroom village which huddles under the shelter of Cheops' Pyramid. Beyond, the immense upward sweep of golden dunes, culminating in the Great Pyramid itself.

I stayed in the picture only long enough to settle my big children into their quarters, and to see most of them making for the dining-room, agreeably Oriental with its white and red walls, its dome and windows of mushrbiyeh work. Then I darted back to Cairo, in a taxi driven by a Nubian youth, so black that he was almost blue, like a whortleberry. He wore a scarlet tarboosh, a livery of violet, and the holes for silver rings in the tops of his ears were so large that the light shining through gave the effect of inserted diamonds. Unconsciously he made a nice contrast with his modern motor.

He drove with such reckless speed that camels "rubber-necked" to look at us—and whirled me past the fat black gate-keeper into the Ghezireh Palace garden of scarlet paths, moonlike lamps, Khedivial statues, and spreading banyans where each tree continued itself in its own "next number," like an endless serial romance.

I nearly asked for Mrs. O'Brien, but turned her into Jones at the danger point. The face of the concierge, as he said that she was at home, conveyed nothing, yet I could not resist adding, "Are the ladies well?"

"Mrs. East is not very well to-day," he replied. "We have had the doctor; but the young ladies have been out spending the night with friends, I believe. They have not yet returned."

It was a long five minutes before Biddy and I were wildly shaking hands in a huge private sitting-room all red-and-gold brocade and crystal chandeliers, as it had been in the days of Ismail. I knew I should be delighted to see her, but I didn't realize that it was going to be quite as good as it was.

"Anyhow, you're all right and safe," I heard myself blurt out.

"I'm safe, but not all right!" she reproached me. "My messenger who went to the train didn't find you from my description, I know, because he came back with my note——"

"Too flattering, was your description, or the other way?" I asked, trying to buoy her up with frivolity.

"You wouldn't joke if you'd read the note. Oh, Ernest, Monny and Rachel have disappeared!"

"Good gracious! But Anthony——"

"He went to look for them, of course; and he's disappeared, too."

"By Jove!" The exclamation sounded inadequate, but I was so taken aback that I had nothing else to say. It seemed impossible that Anthony, instead of averting danger, could be involved in it himself. It was unlike his resourcefulness. I could not believe it of him, and so, when I had time to control mind and tongue, I said as much to Biddy.

"Yes, I felt like that, too, at first," she admitted. "He gives one the impression of being so infallible in any emergency, somehow, as if he'd be above it, and look down on it from his height. But it's more than twelve hours since he went, and he promised to send me word how things were going on if he couldn't get to me himself. No word has come."

"What have you done?" I asked. "Have you communicated with the police?"

"Sir Marcus Lark has. He was at the ball, and has been very good. But it's for Mrs. East's sake, mostly. One feels he's glad it happened, to give him the chance to win her gratitude—or something. He's been back and forth all day; and I'm expecting him any minute. Mrs. East has been fainting and hysterical, and everything early Edwardian, so I sent for a doctor. But she's better on the strength of sal volatile and eggnog, and she's promised to see Sir Marcus."

"Now tell me what happened, from the beginning," I said, when I had made Biddy sit down by me on the sofa, and was trying to warm a cold little hand in mine.

What it all amounted to, told disjointedly, was this: Since Monny had had an inspiration the day after our arrival in Cairo, to give Rachel Guest a lot of her new unworn clothes, Rachel had become quite girlish and "flighty." She had lost her puritan primness, and behaved more in accordance with her slanting eyes than with her bringing up. She giggled like a schoolgirl rather than a schoolmistress, tried to make herself look young, and copied Monny in the way she tilted her hat and dressed her hair. No harm in this; but it had seemed to Biddy that Rachel deliberately incited the girl to do things which "Antoun" disapproved. Brigit fancied that Bedr's influence had been at work, for knowing as he did that "Antoun" would gladly have given him marching orders, he took pleasure in thwarting his superior when he could do so with safety. Bedr had been clever in enlisting the girls' sympathy for his soul. As for Biddy, she had disliked him from the first, and imagined that he had tacked himself onto our party as a spy, upon the receipt of orders from America, he having learned most of his English there. The idea appeared so far-fetched that she had abandoned it. Now, however, it was again hovering at the back of her mind.

Bedr had told Rachel stories of the fascination of hasheesh smoking, and had said that no stranger knew Cairo who did not visit one of the "best houses" where hasheesh, though forbidden, was still secretly smoked. He had assured her that there were several which were "perfectly respectable," even for the "nicest ladies and gentlemen;" and Rachel, probably at his suggestion, had tried to persuade Monny to make the expedition. Monny had mentioned it to "Antoun," in the presence of everybody; and as Rachel and Bedr had looked guilty, Biddy guessed that they had wished to keep the plan a secret.

"Antoun" had perhaps too brusquely vetoed the idea. He said that there were no such houses, which could be visited by ladies, and that it was absurd to think of going. That word "absurd" stung Monny. She began to protest that Bedr knew Cairo as well as Antoun did, and was as likely to be right. "I don't see why we shouldn't go, if others do," she persisted, "and I've always longed to know what a hasheesh dream was like, ever since I read De Quincey. A little, just once, could do us no harm, and Rachel says——"

But what Rachel had said was evidently not for publication. Miss Guest stopped her with a hand on hers, and a "Dear Monny, please don't let us think of it any more, if Antoun Effendi disapproves. Maybe it was a silly idea, and we've plenty of amusing things to do every minute."

Monny was apparently contented to let the idea slip, and Brigit had thought that, in the excitement of getting ready for the ball, she and Rachel had really forgotten it. Then, before writing me, she had overheard Rachel say to her friend, "It's for twelve o'clock sharp." And Monny had answered, "Won't it be great! Does Bedr think——" But she had stopped short at sight of Brigit.

Even this did not suggest to Biddy a visit to a "hasheesh den," for various other plans had been broached and discouraged by "Antoun." She did not feel that, as she was not supposed to know his real status, she could go "blabbing" to him; and fearing that mischief was on foot, she had wished for me. When I didn't arrive, she soothed herself by reflecting that, after all, she need only keep a sharp watch over Monny when midnight drew near. None of the party intended to dance, and so it would be easy, Brigit thought, to "have an eye upon the girls."

Monny had bought Oriental costumes for herself and Rachel. They were rather conspicuous, luckily for Biddy's plan, for among the many gorgeous dresses in the Casino she had no difficulty in tracking those two. Until half past eleven, she told herself, she need not be on the alert every instant; but therein had lain her mistake. Sir Marcus Lark had appeared, dressed (more or less) as a Roman officer of the Occupation days, he having heard Mrs. East remark that, "whatever anybody said, it was her favourite period." The lady, of course, had not missed such an opportunity to appear as Cleopatra. She had brought a costume with her from New York; and while Biddy "lost herself" in watching the effect of this magnificence on Sir Marcus, the girls vanished.

Without alarming Mrs. East, Brigit had begun to search. She asked everybody she knew in the ballroom if the girls had gone out, and inquired in the cloakroom; but the two had been seen by nobody. It was as if they had melted into air; and Brigit began to suspect that they must have covered up their brilliant dresses with dominoes smuggled into the Casino. Willis Bailey was at the ball, but he had developed a flirtation with Miss Guest, and Biddy felt that he was not to be trusted as a confidant. Perhaps, too, he had helped the girls to disappear. It seemed cruel to frighten Mrs. East, when the scheme, whatever it was, might be no more than an innocent freak; so Biddy said nothing to Queen Cleopatra or her Roman attendant. She slipped across the garden to the hotel, and sent an Arab messenger off in a taxi with a note to the address "Antoun" had told her would find him. In less than an hour he arrived, and when he had listened to her account of what had happened, he said after a minute's reflection that the ladies had almost surely gone with Bedr to some hasheesh den, or a place masquerading as such. "Antoun" consoled Biddy as well as he could, by saying that no harm would come to Miss Gilder or Miss Guest. Bedr would know too well on which side his bread was buttered to take his clients where insult or danger could reach them. Off "Antoun" went to look for the missing ones though, and assured Biddy that she should have news as soon as possible.

It was not till three o'clock that she had begun to be very anxious, and had disturbed the harmony of Sir Marcus Lark's duet with Mrs. East. Even then she would not have spoken had she not feared that the ball would break up, and there would be no man to appeal to!

Sir Marcus had been inclined to smile at the notion of danger; but he, like Anthony Fenton, was ignorant of any private qualms which troubled Brigit O'Brien. She could not tell him who she was, and that she considered herself far from being a "mascot" to her fellow-travellers. If she had told, and added that she feared enemies who might for certain reasons make a mistake in Monny's identity, he would have laughed his hearty laugh, and said that such melodramatic things didn't happen, even in Egypt.

"But you know," Biddy appealed to me, "that melodramatic things have happened to me and those near me. I'm not even sure that poor Richard's death was natural, though I watched over him like a hawk in those dreadful days when he was fearing every shadow, and we were flitting from pillar to post, with Esme. Through Richard two men were electrocuted. He used to get threatening letters forwarded from place to place, always signed with the same initials, and he wouldn't tell me what they meant. It was because of them that he hid Esme in a convent-school before he died; for she was threatened as well as he. I, too, for the matter of that! Not that the child or I had done the organization any harm; but Esme is of his blood, and they may have thought I had more of their secrets than I really have. I've not used the name of O'Brien for years now, and I've moved about so much that sometimes I have felt I must be safe. Still, I ought perhaps not to have gone to visit Esme, though she wrote and begged me to, for special reasons I needn't bother you with: a curious little love romance which I fear must end badly. I didn't think of danger to Monny; but you see, as I've told you, the convent isn't far from Monaco. I got off the Laconia there, to visit Esme, and when I came on board again, Monny and Mrs. East and Rachel came with me. They'd been in Italy and France, and had picked up Miss Guest, who was only too enchanted to batten on Monny's kindness and dollars. It was I who had engaged their staterooms, on a cable from Monny, long before. And if there were a spy anywhere, he might have the idea that I wanted to smuggle Esme out of her convent by a trick, and—"

"But almost every one must know Miss Gilder's face from her photographs in newspapers," I broke in, on a stifled sob of Biddy's. "She couldn't be mistaken for another girl, as an unimportant young person might."

"I'm not sure. Those photographs were snapshots, and very bad, as you must know if you've ever seen any. Monny never gave a portrait of herself to a newspaper, and it's years since they got hold of a good one. Besides, if she weren't mistaken for Esme O'Brien, that wretched Bedr might have made up a plot to have her kidnapped for ransom. It was the thing Monny's father was always afraid of—absurdly afraid of, I used to think."

"I think so still," I said. "Such things don't happen—anywhere, to a grown-up girl."

"What about Raisuli in Tangier?" Biddy challenged me. "He used to kidnap people whenever he liked. And so do lots of brigands."

"We haven't to do with brigands."

"Oh, what's in a name? And I wouldn't put anything past that horrid Bedr."

"As Anthony said to you, he knows which side his bread's buttered."

"But if he hopes some one will give him more butter for being wicked than he can get from us for being good?"

"Let's not think of far-fetched contingencies, dear," said I. "Now you've told me all, I will try to do something—"

"May I come in?" boomed a big voice at the door. "I knocked and nobody answered, so I thought the room would be empty—"

Biddy dropped my hand like a hot potato. She had jumped up so quickly from our sofa that Sir Marcus Lark's observant eyes could hardly have seen us sitting there together.

"Of course, come in," she said. "Have you anything to tell? But I'll call Mrs. East. She won't like you to begin without her."

Biddy darted off to an adjoining room, leaving me alone with my employer.

"What do you think of this affair?" I wanted to know. "Well," said he, "I can only judge other men by myself. If I had such a chance to appear a hero in the eyes of a pretty woman as Fenton has, I'm afraid I'd be tempted to take advantage of it, even if I had to play some trick to make myself indispensable. Now you see in a nutshell what I think. Captain Fenton will certainly rescue those young ladies from a trap if he has to make the trap himself."

I was disgusted, and shrugged my shoulders. "You have a poor opinion of Fenton," I said.

"On the contrary, I think very highly of his intelligence. I'm not worrying about any one of the three, though don't mention it to Mrs. East or Mrs. Jones that I said so. I've come to tell them that my men have searched Cairo and found nothing. Not the police, you know; I haven't applied to the police after all. I thought Fenton would be furious. And anyhow it might make talk. But I've paid the best dragomans in town to look sharp; and they know as much about this old place as the police do, if not more. By the way, Lord Ernest, did Corkran say anything to you about an intention to throw over his job on the Candace?"

"No. He said he was going to call on you, that's all."

"He did call. I was out—on this business, as it happens. He waited, and I found him, making himself at home in my sitting-room—which I use as a kind of office. I wish I knew how many of my letters and papers he'd had time to read."

"Surely he wouldn't—"

"I shouldn't say 'surely' was the word. I'd gone out in a hurry and left things scattered about—which isn't my habit. When I came back, it struck me that my desk looked a bit tempting for a man with a retired conscience. I was going to keep him on the Candace, rather than fuss, because it wasn't so much his fault as mine that he was the wrong man in the place. He couldn't do any harm in Jerusalem, it seemed. Let him wail in the Jews' Wailing Place, if he'd any complaints, said I to myself. I thought he was too keen on money to resign because his silly pride was hurt. But to my surprise, he informed me that he'd come to 'hand in his papers,' as he called it. So much the worse for his pocket and the better for mine! Only it struck me as d—d queer, considering Corkran's character. I wanted to ask if he'd spit out any venom to you."

"Not a drop," said I. But I, too, thought it queer, considering Corkran's character, and the fact that having resigned of his own free will, he could hardly expect Lark to pay his way home. It even occurred to me to wonder if the resignation were not a sudden thought of the Colonel's. He had spoken several times of going on to Palestine, and had mentioned the trip that morning. Had Sir Marcus said something inadvertently, which had so piqued Corkran that he threw over his appointment on the impulse? Or had he perhaps been dishonourable enough to glance at a letter, in which Lark referred to him in terms uncomplimentary?

As I asked myself these questions, Mrs. East came in with Brigit, and Sir Marcus forgot me. His face said "What a woman!" And anxiety was becoming to Cleopatra. It gave to her that thrilling look which only beautiful Jewesses or women of Latin race ever wear: a look of all the tragedy and mystery of womanhood since Eve. "What news of them?" she asked Sir Marcus, when she had given a ringed hand and an almond-eyed glance to me.

"No news exactly," said the big man, "but I feel sure your niece and her friend are safe—"

"My niece and her friend!" exclaimed Cleopatra, ungratefully frowning. "Why do you say nothing of 'Antoun?' Does nobody care what becomes of him?"

As she spoke, there was a knock at the door. One of the Arab servants of the hotel announced that a man had a letter for Mrs. Jones.

"Mrs. Jones?" cried Biddy. "I am Mrs. Jones. Where's the letter?"

"That man not give it to us. He say he see you or not give it at all."

"Well, why didn't you send him up?"

"Arab mans not let in hotel, if peoples don't ask for them."

"An Arab! Not—not—is he a stranger?"

"Yes, Missis. Very low man. Never comed before."

"Bring him here—quick!"

Five minutes passed. We tried to talk, but could think of nothing to say. Then the servant returned, ushering in a dwarfish Arab in a dirty white turban, and the shabby black galabeah worn only by the poor who cannot afford good materials and the bright colours loved by Egyptians.

"From Antoun Effendi?" asked Biddy, in excitement, as he held out a piece of folded paper, not in an envelope.

The man shook his head. "He spik no English," explained the servant who waited.

"You talk to him," Biddy appealed to me, while Cleopatra told the hotel footman that he might go. But I had no time to question the messenger. Biddy cried out as she unfolded the paper. "Why, Duffer, inside it's addressed to you! It says:

"'For Lord Ernest Borrow. To be opened by Mrs. Jones in his absence.'"

Within the outer wrapping was a second folded paper, of the same kind. They looked like sheets torn from a notebook. And I saw that the address, scrawled in pencil, was in Anthony's handwriting.



CHAPTER XI

THE HOUSE OF THE CROCODILE

The letter had evidently been dashed off in a great hurry. It was short and written in French, the language in which "Antoun" chose to talk with foreigners.

Give the bearer two hundred piastres and let him go. Don't try to make him speak. I have promised this. Then quick to Jarvis Pasha and get him to raid the House of the Crocodile. Question of hasheesh. We must be smuggled out when arrests are made—also Bedr, to save scandal.

Not a word as to whether all were safe, or in danger! But I realized that, for some reason, each instant had been of value. And each instant was of value now.

Anthony was one who knew precisely what he wanted and why he wanted it. I obeyed his instructions implicitly. Two hundred piastres went from my pocket into the hand of the withered Arab, and he was allowed to take his departure despite a burst of protest from my companions, who naturally wished the man to be catechised. Once the door had shut behind the bent blue back, I handed round the letter, which had to be translated for Sir Marcus, who professed contempt for "foreign gibberish."

Jarvis Pasha is at the head of the police, has been for many years, and is the most interesting man in Egypt after the well-beloved "K." Leaving Sir Marcus to go on with his task of consoling Mrs. East, I dashed off in my waiting taxi with the Nubian of the silver earrings. We drove to the Governorat, a big house in a square near what was once known as the Guarded City, the very heart and birthspot of Cairo: Masrel Kahira, the Martial, founded under the planet Mars.

I scribbled a line to Jarvis Pasha, and sent it to him in an envelope with my card. This combination opened doors for me; and three minutes later I was shaking hands with a tall, thin, white moustached, hawk-featured Englishman who looked all muscle and bones and brain. Jarvis Pasha being in the secret of "Antoun's" identity and business in Cairo, simplified the explanation, and did away with the necessity for a preface. All I had to tell was the brief story of the girls' disappearance with Bedr el Gemaly, and Fenton's following them into space; then, how word had come after fourteen hours.

"The House of the Crocodile," Jarvis Pasha said, when he had taken and read the letter. "H'm! Do you know anything about that house?"

"I know the old stories connected with it," I answered. "If it's reputation to-day is as sinister as ever——."

"Not at all. Figuratively speaking it has been whitewashed. It's become a show place—a monument historique. This is interesting information which Fenton sends, but if it came from any one else, I should say he had dreamed it. He may be giving us the chance of an important coup. Wait a few minutes, and I'll have this thing attended to, Lord Ernest. But you look upset. Is it that you haven't had lunch, or are you worrying about the ladies?" "Both," I answered with a sickly grin. "Not that I mind about lunch. I couldn't have eaten if I'd had the time."

"You haven't as much belief as I have, in your friend," remarked Jarvis Pasha, "if you think he'd let them come to harm." "They're all in the same box, apparently," I excused my lack of faith.

"Trust Fenton!" said the Head of the Police. "He was sharp enough to find the needles in the haystack, and he's smart enough and strong enough to take care of them when they're found."

On this, Jarvis Pasha went out and left me to my reflections, which rushed to the House of the Crocodile. Every one who has read or heard stories of native Cairo, knows the House of the Crocodile, in the Street of the Sisters, and how, in the later days of Mohammed Ali, people scarcely dared to name it aloud. The "Tiger" Defterdar Ahmed built it, for that beautiful Tigress, Princess Zohra, favourite daughter of Mohammed Ali, who married her off to the fierce soldier when she became too troublesome at home. Zohra had loved a young Irish officer who was murdered for her sake, and had no true affection to give Ahmed or any other. She hated all men because of the murderer, her own nephew, and vowed that since her love had cost the life of the one who had her heart, others who dared to love her must pay the same price. When Ahmed died suddenly, soon after the wedding, those who had heard of Zohra's vow (and there were many in the harems) whispered "poison." Never again did the Princess drive out to see the women she knew; and those who had been her friends were sent away from the door of the dead Ahmed's palace, over which he had suspended for "luck," a huge crocodile killed in the far south. But Zohra was beautiful, with strange eyes which drew love whether she asked for it or not; and sometimes a small lattice would open in a bay of one of those windows of wooden lace whose carving was known as mushrbiyeh work because shirib, or sherbet, used to be placed there to cool. Out of the lattice would look a wonderful face, as thinly veiled as the moon by a mist, and then it would vanish so quickly that a man who saw, half believed that he had dreamed. But the eyes of the dream seemed to call, and could not be forgotten, any more than the song of a siren can cease to echo in ears which once have heard.

After the beginning of Zohra's widowhood, the noblest and handsomest youths of Cairo began mysteriously to disappear. They would be well and happy one day, and the next they would be gone from the places that knew them. By and by their bodies would be found in a canal; always the same canal, near the water gate of the House of the Crocodile. Then the vow of the Princess was remembered: but there was no English rule in those days, and the police shut their ears and eyes where a daughter of Mohammed Ali was concerned. Mothers and sisters of handsome young men shuddered and begged those they loved never to pass through the dark Street of the Sisters (Sharia el Benat) where the crocodile grinned over the door, and the vision of a face looked down from a latticed window. The women thought of the water gate at the back of the house; the little children, who had heard secret words spoken, thought of the crocodile, and ran crying past the house; but the handsome young men thought only of the face, and each one said to himself, "She will not make me pay the price." Still, as years went on, bodies were seen in the water from time to time, with a tiny purple spot over the heart to show the curious that death had not come from drowning. And some, who looked for lost ones, could not reclaim them from the canal, for bodies were not always found. As time passed, it seemed to people who hurried by the house in the narrow street, that the crocodile grew larger and larger. It was said that it had been fed on the children of men Tiger Ahmed had murdered in Sennaar.

None dared to say what they believed of Princess Zohra, but when, after a long imprisonment by her nephew Abbas, in the House of the Crocodile, she escaped to Constantinople, nobody would live where she had lived, and the palace fell almost into ruin.

This was the story of the house where Monny Gilder and Rachel Guest and Anthony Fenton were now. I had heard it talked about by our Arab servants when I was a child, and had never forgotten, though scarcely since then had I thought of the tale, until the remembered name and the horrors attached to it jumped into my mind on reading Anthony's letter. What had happened in the House of the Crocodile since Zohra's day, I did not know; but because of the old story it seemed more sinister that my friends should appeal for help from that place than from any other in Cairo.

I was not left long alone. Five minutes after Jarvis Pasha went out of the room to "arrange things" according to Fenton's request, he sent me a man with whiskey and soda, and biscuits. I drank gladly, and ate rather than seem ungrateful. But there was a lump in my throat which would stick there, I knew, until those three were away from the House of the Crocodile. I was still crumbling biscuits when Jarvis Pasha came briskly back.

"Well," he asked, "are you braced up now? If you'd like to be in this business, you can. I'm sending a white superintendent with my police to raid the house, on the strength of Fenton's letter to you, though until now the place hasn't been suspected. As I said, it's been a 'show' house, for some years—ground floor and first story in repair, just as in Zohra's day—upper floors ruinous, and the public not admitted there. If anything queer's going on, it must be in the forbidden part: and the caretaker is mixed up in the show. A pity you felt bound to let Fenton's messenger off! You can go with my superintendent, Allen, and reach your friends as soon as my men do. Allen has instructions to let Fenton and the ladies, if they're found there, slip away, and it's best for you to be on the spot to save mistakes in identification. Also I've ordered a closed arabeah to wait for you, as near as possible—my men will show you where. You'll know it for certain by a red camellia on the Arab driver's European coat. And by the way, take this Browning, in case of an attack; which I don't anticipate."

As Jarvis Pasha spoke, he opened the door, and summoned in a brown young Britisher wearing the tarboosh which denotes "Gyppy" officialdom. Evidently Allen was prepared for me as I for him, and we started off together on foot, for it seemed that our destination was not far away. We walked swiftly through the crowded Mousky (once the fashionable part of Cairo, before the tide flowed to the modern Isma'iliya quarter), and after a few intricate turnings plunged into a still, twilight region. The streets through which we passed were so narrow, and the old houses so far overhung the path that the strip of sky at the top of the dark canyon was a mere line of inlaid blue enamel flecked with gold. The splendid mushrbiyeh windows thrust out toward each other big and little bays, across the ten or twelve feet of distance which parted them, as if to whisper secrets; yet the delicate wooden carvings skilfully hid all that they wished to hide, and only suggested their secrets.

"Now we'll soon be coming to the House of the Crocodile," said Allen. "By Jove, it's a joke on us, and a smart one, if it's been turned into a hasheesh den, under our noses. But it must be something new, or we should have got onto it. The Chief thinks already he can guess who's at the bottom of the business and who has put the money up: a certain Bey, in whose service the caretaker was—a rich old Johnny, very old fashioned, who lives not far off in a beautiful house of the best Cairene period. He's keen on antiquities, and has been of service to the government in several ways, though he's a reformed smuggler; and his only son, dead now, was a hopeless hashash; that's what they call slaves of the hasheesh habit. I suppose you've read all about the 'Hashashseyn' of the Crusaders' days, whom we speak of as Assassins? Well, ever since then the Hashasheyn have had a bad reputation; but this old man I speak of has been pitied for his son's failings, which he pretends to think a 'judgment for his own past, repented sins.' Now, Lord Ernest, saunter, please, as if you were a tourist in my charge, admiring the old doorways."

Two native workmen appeared in front of us, with pickaxes on their shoulders. Stopping, they threw down their tools. One produced a cord which he stretched across the street from house to house; and in the middle he hung a small red flag. Then the pair began to pick in a leisurely way at the surface of the road, and before we reached the barrier, an Arab policeman stationed himself by the cord. Glancing ahead, I saw that the farther end of the narrow lane was blocked in the same manner.

"This is one trick we have of doing our work quietly," said Allen. "It always answers pretty well."

I said nothing, but used my eyes. Coming from nowhere apparently, there were twenty men in the street. A few had crowbars in their hands. Others, native policemen, carried the canes with which they control the movements of the people. From the shaded doorway of a large house a native sergeant of police stepped out as we approached, and saluted Allen. Over the closed door, a large, dryly smiling, ancient crocodile hung.

"Have our men come and taken their places?" asked my companion in Arabic.

"Yes, Effendi," the sergeant answered. "All has been done according to order. The back entrance which was the water gate before the old canal was filled up, is surrounded, and the adjoining houses with which some communication may have been established are watched. Not a rat could have crawled out since we came, nor could one have gone in. To-day is the feast of a saint, and these people have their excuse not to open the house to visitors, for so it is with other show places. Look, it is written up, that until to-morrow there is no admission." As the man pointed to a card hanging from a hook, he and Allen smiled at the cleverness of this pretext for closing the door. In English, French, and Arabic, the reason was announced in neat print. Probably this was not the first time the same excuse had been used in the same way.

"They must have taken alarm at something, and thought they were being watched," Allen said to me. "That's why they've sported their oak. I expect we shall make a haul, as—for everybody's sake concerned—they wouldn't dare let their clients out, to fall into a trap. Yes, that's why! Or else—"

He stopped, and I did not ask him to go on, for I knew that to ask would be useless. Yet I guessed what he had meant to say, and why he had stopped. He didn't wish to alarm me, but it was in his mind that the house had teen closed because of something planned to happen inside. And that something might be connected with my friends. We should soon know!

My first thought was that we were to get through the door, by breaking it in, or by forcing those on the other side to open for us. In an instant, however, I realized that my idea was absurd. It would take an hour to batter down that thick slab of old cedarwood, and Allen had said that he wanted to do things quietly. No, the brown sergeant was not here to open the door, but to see that it did not open unless for our benefit.

Two of Allen's men were unfolding a curious ladder like a lattice, which they made secure with screws when they had stretched it to full length. Then, up it went to one of the beautiful mushrbiyeh windows which, on the level of the story above the ground floor, bayed graciously, overhanging the street. One man standing below held the ladder firmly in place, while another, small and lithe as a monkey and enjoying the task as a monkey might, ran up to the top that leaned against the window. Evidently he was a skilled worker, for before I knew what he would be at, he had with some small, sharp instrument, prized out without breaking it, one of the sections of carved lattice. This he tossed lightly down to a man who caught it, and as he and four others after him slipped through the opening, the sergeant knocked on the closed door, under the swinging form of the crocodile. Nobody answered. But three minutes passed, and then suddenly there was the sound of a falling bar, and a very old, very dark man, with a white turban and a white beard, peeped out.

"Thieves!" he cried in Arabic. "Thieves break in at the windows!"

He was making the best of a bad business, I guessed, and hoped somehow to justify himself to the police. But though he was gray with fright, he forgot to look surprised.

My Arabic was not equal to the strain of catching all the gabble that followed: the old man protesting that it was right to close the house to-day; that if it were the police and not thieves who broke in, it was unjust, it was cruel, and his son Mansoor, the caretaker, would appeal to all the Powers. Before he had come to the end of his first breath, he was hushed and handcuffed, and hustled away; and another man sprang forward from behind the angle of a screen-wall inside the entrance. He was young, and looked strong and fierce as an angry giant, but at sight of Allen and the rest of us, he stopped as if we had shot him. Perhaps he had not expected so many. In any case, he saw that there was nothing he could hope to gain by violence or bluster. All he could do was to protest as his father had done, that this visit was a violation of his right to close the house on a holiday.

"Don't be a fool, Mansoor," said Allen, who evidently knew him. "You understand very well that isn't why we are here. You've jot a hasheesh den upstairs, above the public show rooms. A nice trick you thought you'd played us, but you see you didn't bring it off."

By this time we were inside the house, having thrust the caretaker in again, and passing the three tortuous screen walls of the entrance, into a courtyard. Several young Arabs dressed as servants stood there, large-eyed, and stricken at sight of their giant master held by four policemen. But there was not a sign of our men who had crawled through the window, and I was impatient to go where they had gone.

There was no sound of scuffling, no sound at all, except the crying of some startled doves, and Mansoor's voice, swearing by the Prophet's sacred beard that if anything were wrong he was not the one to blame. There were those above him who must be obeyed or he and all that were his would be put out of life; but I cared too little for him, or what might become of him and his, to listen much. I looked up and saw at the left of the courtyard, with its several closed doors, a short flight of steps with a mounting-block, and a doorway leading to a winding staircase. Round the court went a gallery, supported with old marble pillars, and underneath on one side was a large recess, the takhtabosh, raised slightly above the level of the courtyard, and having a row of wooden benches round its three walls. Here the caretaker and his male relatives and friends had evidently been smoking their nargilehs and drinking coffee; our arrival had disturbed them in the midst.

Suddenly, into the frightened mourning of the doves, broke a sharp sound of cracking wood. "Come along!" cried Allen. "They'll be past the barrier in a minute!" And leaving Mansoor and the others to be dealt with by subordinates, he led the way up the steep stairs, at a run.

We did not stop at the first story, the "show" part of the House of the Crocodile; but catching a glimpse of a latticed balcony off the landing, all lovely mushrbiyeh work, and a great room of Persian tiled walls and coloured marble floor, beyond, we dashed up another flight of stairs to the story above. These stairs were of common wood, and somewhat out of repair. At the top was a door of carved cedarwood like those below, but rough in execution, faded, and with here and there a starpoint or triangle of the pattern missing, leaving a hole in the thick wood. On this door was nailed a large card with the notice in English, French, and Arabic, "Forbidden to the Public."

"What a grand idea to install a hasheesh den here!" I could not help thinking as I followed at Allen's heels to the head of the stairs, where two of his men worked with crowbars to prize open that theatrically dilapidated door. Behind the pair who worked were the others who had entered by the window below; and hardly had we taken our places in the strange queue, when with a loud groan the door gave way. The couple in front almost fell into a dark passage on the other side, and my heart leaped, for I half expected to see them driven back upon us by an attack with knives or pistols. But the dim vista seemed to hold only silence and emptiness as I peered over men's shoulders; and as we crowded in, Allen pushing ahead to take the lead, nothing stirred.

The passage was but a gallery, like that below, but instead of being open, it was closed in with lattice of mushrbiyeh work, so that, though those within could look through, it was as secret for those outside as if it had been enclosed by a solid wall.

The darkness was patterned with light, like ebony thinly inlaid with gold, for the afternoon sunlight trickled into the delicate loopholes of the carvings, and we began to see what Enterprise had made of this ruinous upper story. The floor had been dilapidated and unsafe; but new boards had been placed over it, covered with Egyptian-made matting and rugs to deaden sound and give an appearance of comfort. We walked quickly along to the end where this closed gallery turned at right angles, and there found another door, new and rough, evidently but lately put up. It was not so strong as the old one; and it yielded in a few minutes to the furious industry of our men with their crowbars. They lifted the door from its broken hinges, leaning it against a wall; and as we passed through, an Arab pulled aside a thick curtain which filled in a doorway. He was evidently a servant, and seeing the police, showed no sign of surprise, but only of a most humble resignation which disclaimed responsibility and begged for mercy.

In silence the man was taken into custody; and Allen and I, with three of the four policemen, passed into the region behind the portiere. There, all was dusk, save for the faint light sifting down from a carved wooden dome in the ceiling, partly curtained; and a dark lantern flashed out a long revealing ray. The men ran to pull back heavy cloth hangings which entirely covered the latticed windows, and would allow lamps to be lit at night without being seen from street or courtyard. Instantly sunshine pierced the carved interstices, and let us see what Enterprise had done for his clients. We were in the antechamber of a long, beautiful room. The old, coloured marble of the durkaah—the lower level of floor nearest the entrance—had been repaired with new; the dilapidations of a fountain were almost hidden by pink azaleas in pots; the liwan, on the next level, had a good rug or two; and the diwaan, at the farthest and highest end, was furnished with red-covered mattresses and pillows. The low wall-benches of marble were set here and there with glass bowls of roses and syringa; and tiny cedarwood cupboards high in the tiled walls were open to show coffee cups, tobacco jars, and pipes made of cocoanut shells with long stems of cane.

Four men, who had apparently been lying on the mattresses, stood up and faced us, not fiercely, but with something of the attendant's resignation. Two were in European clothes, with the inevitable tarboosh; and two, equally well dressed, were old fashioned and picturesque in the long, silk gown and turban style which "Antoun" and other lovers of the ancient ways affected. They were of the "Effendi class," and might be merchants or professional persons. A turbaned man with a black beard Allen knew, and greeted in Arabic, "Hussein Effendi! Who would have thought to see you here!"

"Why not?" answered the other, with a melancholy smile and shrug of the shoulders. "There is no harm, really, but only in the eyes of the English. We are caught, and we cannot complain, for we have had true delight: and we have known, since the alarm came last night, that we might have to pay for our pleasure."

"So you had the alarm last night?" said Allen, looking as if there were nothing surprising or puzzling in that.

"Yes, why should we not admit it now? Word came that a watch had been set outside, both back and front, and none of us dared leave the house. We consented to be locked in, though there is one in another room who wished to get out and run the risk. That was not permitted, for the sake of others; and to prevent him from taking his own way in spite of prudence, we let ourselves be shut in, with only one attendant who took through the holes in the door such little food as we needed. We had begun to hope that it had been a false alarm, or, since no inquiries seemed to have been made below, that the watchers had gone and would not come again. We planned as soon as night fell to go to our homes; but it was not to be. And if any are to blame, it is not those who come to take pleasures provided for them, but rather they who cheat the coastguard of the swift-running camels, and bring what is forbidden into Egypt."

"The blame will be rightfully apportioned," said Allen. "Meanwhile, I am sorry to say, Hussein Effendi, that you and those in your company are subject to the law. I must now leave you, and go farther to see what others we have to deal with."

The four Effendis were politely left in charge of two policemen who would have been equal to twice their number, and our one remaining man went on with Allen and me.

"Your friends, and perhaps two or three who can afford to pay big prices, will have had their smoke in private rooms," Allen explained. "We can guess who it was, who wanted to break out! There are probably no more doors, only curtains, so we shall have no trouble. But don't forget that, if anything unexpected should happen, you have a pistol. Of course, you understand that it could be used only in an extreme case."

A curtained doorway led out from the diwaan into a small anteroom, and there, on the floor, sat Bedr el Gemaly, the picture of dejection. Had I raised my voice in the next room, he would perhaps have ventured in to see what I could do to help him; for now, at sight of me, he scrambled up in shamefaced eagerness.

"Oh, my lordship!" he began to cackle. "Praise be to Allah you are come! I was persuaded to bring the young ladies here. They would make me do it. Yes, sir. It is not my fault. They pay me. I have to obey. Then we get caught, like we was some rats. No fair to punish me. The ladies all right. No harm come, except a little sick."

"If no harm has come, that's not due to you, but to a very different man, as you well know," I said. And as I spoke, the man I had in my mind appeared before my eyes. "Hullo!" I exclaimed, joyously.

Anthony's eyes and Allen's met; but I could not tell if they knew each other, nor could I ask then. It was enough for Allen in any case, however, that this magnificent Hadji was one of the friends for whom I searched. He turned to Bedr. "You brought two ladies here, I understand," he said quickly and sharply. "Then you must have acquaintance with the place. For good reasons which have nothing to do with you, I shall not arrest you, but you will have to report at the Governorat inside the hour, or you will regret it. Do you know the way out at the back of the house?"

"I do, gracious one," Bedr responded with businesslike promptness.

"Then take these gentlemen, and the ladies, whom I do not need to see, out by that door, and you will all be allowed to go, because my men who are there have seen Lord Ernest Borrow, and they have my instructions."

We waited for no more, but followed Anthony, who made a dash through the further room, and into another. There, on a mattress, crouched two forlorn figures, veiled as if in haste, and muffled in black satin habberahs such as Turkish ladies wear in the street.

"Lord Ernest! Oh, how glad I am!" cried one of these creatures, while the other, less vital or more miserable, whimpered and gurgled a little behind her veil.

"Come along, quick!" I said; and they came. Bedr led the way, thankful to show himself of use. Anthony followed as if to protect or screen the girls from sight. I brought up the rear, and so, scuttling through a rabbit warren of little unfurnished, dilapidated rooms, we found a narrow side staircase, and tumbled down it, anyhow, in dust and dimness. Then two more staircases, and we were in a cellar which looked as if it might once have been used as a prison. Up again, and rattling at a chained door. Then out, into light and air, into the midst of a group, which for an instant, closed threateningly round us. But the sergeant I had seen was among the alert brown men. A glance, a gesture, and we were allowed to pass, a youth running with us, to show the promised carriage and the Arab driver with the red camellia. So it was over, this adventure!

Yet was it over?

That remained to be seen. And remained also, to see what it meant, if indeed there were a meaning underneath the surface.



CHAPTER XII

THE NIGHT OF THE FULL MOON

"It seems too good to be true that it should end like this," said Monny.

She said it on the roof of Mena House, in the kiosk-room made of mushrbiyeh work, which I had engaged for a little private dinner-party that night. You see, it was the night of the full moon, the magic night of the Sphinx-spell, which must not be wasted, no matter how tired you may be or how many excitements you may have lived through.

Anthony and I had had our explanations. He had told me that one night in a cafe, where he was spreading the news of his dream, he had heard two men talking in low voices about the House of the Crocodile. The word "hasheesh" had not been mentioned, but Anthony had imbibed a vague impression of something secret, and had wondered, and been interested. Then the matter had slipped his mind; but, summoned in the night from the writing of letters, to advise Mrs. Jones, he had recalled Monny's wish to visit a hasheesh den. He knew of none, but suspected the existence of one or two. How to find out in a hurry? he had asked himself. And with that, the remembrance of those few whispered words in the cafe had come echoing back to his brain. He acted upon the suggestion; went to the door of the swinging crocodile, knocked, and knocked again; had the door opened to him as if in surprise by an apparently sleepy man. Announced the motive of his coming as if it were a foregone conclusion that hasheesh could be smoked in that house by the initiated. His disguise was not suspected. It never was, when he played the Egyptian; and when asked who had sent him, he had the inspiration to utter the name of that Bey who had been Mansoor's master. This gave him entrance. He was taken upstairs, passed through the door "Forbidden to the Public"; and the first person he saw in the long room as he entered, was Bedr smoking a gozeh, one of those cocoanut, cane-stemmed pipes in which hasheesh is mingled with the Persian tobacco called tumbak.

Bedr was accused of treachery, and defended himself. The ladies had insisted. It was his place to obey. He had done no wrong in engaging a carriage to wait outside the Ghezireh Palace gardens, and bringing his employers to the best place in Cairo for the hasheesh smoking. The ladies were safe and happy, in a private room where they had tried their little experiment, and now they were sleeping. As soon as they waked and felt like going home, he was ready to take them. It was for Miss Gilder, not for Bedr, to beg pardon of her friends if they were frightened. And all the time, it had seemed to Anthony, that the man was expecting some one to arrive. He watched the doorway half eagerly, half anxiously; when a servant came or went, he started, and betrayed emotion which might have been disappointment or relief. But when Anthony questioned him, he said, "I expect no one, Effendi. It is only that I shall not be easy till we get the ladies home, now you tell me their people are alarmed."

Just then, and before Anthony saw the girls, a servant had come running in to say that there was an alarm. Something had happened in the street, and the police were there. Mansoor feared that it was a ruse, and that the house was being watched, back and front. Where the forbidden thing is, no precaution can be too great. For their own sakes, and Mansoor's sake, no one must go out, perhaps not till the next night; but luckily a saint's day would give peace for the morrow, and all doors could be shut without causing remark. The news that there was no escape for many hours to come distressed no one apparently, except "Antoun." He had gone to the door, and tried to open it, but found that already it was locked on the other side. Then he knew that it was useless to struggle, for he was unarmed, the door was thick, and no one outside could hear if he shouted. He must use his wits; but first he must make sure that the two girls were safe. He forced, rather than induced Bedr to show him the room they had engaged—a small one, closed only with a portiere, and looking over the court, down into the open-fronted recess where Mansoor's family-life went on, like a watch dog's in his kennel.

It was true, as Bedr had said; the girls slept on a cushioned mattress, wrapped in black habberahs, their faces turned to the wall. As they could not be taken out, Anthony did not wake them, but let them get, in peace, their money's worth of dreaming. His next thought was to try and bribe the Arab attendant to smuggle out a letter; but acceptable as a bribe would have been, the man explained his helplessness to earn it, at least for the time being. He could do nothing till one of his fellow-servants came up from below, to pass the food for the imprisoned smokers through a hole in the door, made purposely in case of just such an emergency. Probably no one would appear till morning, for who would be hungry before then? Even with the morning, it might be Mansoor himself who would bring the food, and inquire again at the door if all were well within. But if the noble Hadji wrote the letter, it should be sent when opportunity arose. One of the servants below stairs, said the man, was his father, who might during the next day be able to slip out as if on some errand. Then he would perhaps take a letter, if he could be sure of good pay, and that he would not be delivered up to the police. So Anthony had written on a sheet torn from his notebook, and made an envelope of another sheet. The address of the Ghezireh Palace had helped the man to believe that no evil would reach his father; and a "sweetener" in the shape of all Anthony's ready money had done the rest. But evidently the old man had not succeeded in finding an excuse for an errand until after the noon hour, and meanwhile time had seemed long in the House of the Crocodile. When the girls waked, wanting to go home, they were ill. They found the game not worth the candle—but Anthony's presence had given them comfort. They were humble, and remorseful; and Bedr was so conspicuously a worm that Monny consented to his discharge. "It would take more time than we've got to make him worth converting," she said to Rachel when the Armenian had carefully laid all the blame of the expedition upon her shoulders.

Never were two runaway children more glad to be found and restored to their anxious relatives than Monny Gilder and Rachel Guest. As for Bedr, he took his dismissal, with a week's wages, submissively; but the gravest question concerning him still lacked an answer. Had he merely been officious and indiscreet in guiding the girls secretly to the House of the Crocodile, and there procuring hasheesh to buy them dreams, or had he wanted something to happen, in that house, which had not happened? A certain amount of browbeating from "Antoun," and bullying from me, dragged nothing out of him. And perhaps there was nothing to be dragged. Perhaps it was through oversensitiveness that Brigit and I dwelt suspiciously upon Bedr's motives, and asked each other who it was he had expected at the House of the Crocodile. Even Anthony did not accuse the Armenian of anything worse than slyness and cowardice, according to him the two worst vices of a man; but he volunteered to find out what mysterious night-disturbance in the street had caused the sudden closing of the doors. It was Biddy's thought that the person Bedr wished to meet might fortunately have been prevented by this very disturbance from keeping his appointment, and Monny saved a serious ending to her adventure. It began to seem rather a worry, travelling with so important a young woman as Miss Gilder: and a vague dread of the future hung over me, as it hung over Brigit, who loved the girl. We felt, dimly, as if we had had a "warning," and did not yet know how to profit by it. The atmosphere was charged with electricity, as before an earthquake; and we felt that the affair of the hasheesh den might be but a preface to some chapter yet unwritten. Still, it was impossible not to forgive Monny her indiscretion. Indeed, she became so honey-sweet and childlike in her desire to "make up" for what we had suffered, that the difficulty was not to like her better.

She besought us to forget the episode. If we only knew how sick she and Rachel had been, we'd see why they never wanted to think of those hours again! And when I chanced to mention that to-night would be full moon—the night of nights when the Sphinx and the Ghizeh Pyramids held their court—Monny begged to have the bad taste of her naughtiness taken out of her mouth by a dinner at Mena House. We might dine early, and plunge into the desert later, when the moon was high. Of course, I proposed that all should be my guests—all except "Antoun" who, though recognized as a gentleman of Egypt, was considered by Miss Gilder an alien, not exactly on "dining terms." He was supposed to go home, "to his own address." At eight-thirty he was to take a taxi to Mena House, where he would arrive before nine, in time to help me organize my expedition.

I explained to Monny that, though we should dine privately, it would be my duty to see that the Candace people paid their respects to the Sphinx, and gazed upon her as she ate moon-honey. If they missed this sight, or if anything went wrong with their way of seeing it, I should never be forgiven. But the much chastened Monny graciously "did not mind." She thought it would be fun to watch the sheep-dog rounding up his flock. Useless to explain to her the subtle social distinction between a "Flock" and a "Set" (both with capitals)! To her, the blaze of the Set's smartness was but the flicker of a penny dip. We could drive the crowd on ahead, and look at our moon when they were out of its light.

So there's the explanation of Monny's presence in the mushrbiyeh kiosk on the roof of Mena House, on the night following the great adventure, which would have put most girls to bed with nervous prostration!

Part of our programme, to be sure, had failed; but it was not a part which could interfere with my selfish enjoyment. Mrs. East had changed her mind at the last moment, and had decided not to dine, although I had invited Sir Marcus on purpose for her. According to Biddy, Cleopatra had "something up her sleeve," something her excuse of "seediness" was meant to cover. Maybe it was only a flirtatious wish to disappoint Sir Marcus—maybe it was something more subtle. But it did not matter much to anybody except Lark, who was obliged to put up with Mrs. Jones in place of Mrs. East; for Rachel Guest and the sculptor, whom we nicknamed "Bill Bailey" were to be paired off: and, urged by Biddy, I intended to monopolize Monny.

I suppose there could scarcely be a more ideal room for an intimate dinner-party on a moonlight night than that kiosk on the flat roof of Mena House. Through the wide open doors, and the openwork walls like a canopy of black lace lined with silver, the moonlight filtered, sketching exquisite designs upon the white floor and bringing out jewelled flecks of colour on the covering and cushions of the divans. There was no electricity in this kiosk, and we aided the moonlight only with red-shaded candles, and ruby domed "fairy lamps," the exact shade of the crimson ramblers which decorated the table. For the corners by the open doors, I had ordered pots of Madonna lilies, which gave up their perfume to the moon, and looked, in the mingling radiance of rose and silver, like hovering doves.

"Oh, I could hug and kiss that moon!" sighed Monny, tall and fair in her white dress as the lilies I had chosen for her.

I was relieved that the Man in the Moon has now been superseded by a Gibson Girl; for Monny was beautiful at that moment as a vision met in the secret garden which lies on the other side of sleep.

"And the stars," Monny said, as I watched her uplifted face, wondering just how much I was in love with it, "the little stars high up at the zenith twinkle like silver bees. Those that sit on the edge of the horizon are huge and golden, like desert watch-fires. Oh, do you know, Lord Ernest, if quite a dull, uninteresting man, or—or one that it would be madness even to think of—proposed to me on such a night, I should have to say yes. It would seem so prosaic and such a waste, of moonlight, not to. Wouldn't you feel like that if you were a girl?"

"I'm sure I should," I replied with extraordinary sympathy. "I do feel like it, even as a man. I warn you not to propose, or I shall snap at you."

She laughed; but I was wondering if I were dull and uninteresting enough to stand a chance. It seemed as if Providence were actually handing it to me. But just then Biddy and Sir Marcus came to the doorway which so becomingly framed Monny's form and mine. Naturally that put the idea out of my head; and two such opportunities don't come to a man in a single night.

Dinner was not ready yet, and we sauntered about on the flat roof, white as marble in the moonlight. The sky was milk—the desert, honey —far off Cairo with its crowned citadel, pale opal veined with light, and faintly streaked with misty greens and purples; the cultivated land a deep indigo sea. The fantastically built hotel (in its ancient beginnings the palace of a Pasha) was like a closely huddled group of chalets, looked down on from its central roof. On the fringe of the oasis-garden the cafes and curiosity-shops buzzed with life, and glittered like lighted beehives. Outside the gateway, donkey-boys and camel-men and drivers of sandcarts chattered. To-night, and on a few moonlight nights to come they would reap their monthly harvest. They were all ready to start off anywhere at a moment's notice; but apart from them and their clamour, reposed a row of camels previously engaged, free, therefore, to enjoy themselves until after dinner. As we gazed down as if from a captive balloon, at the line of sitting forms, they looked immense, like giant, newborn birds, with their huge egg-shaped bodies and thin necks. Along the arboured road from Cairo, flashed motor-car after motor-car, their lights winking in and out between the dark trees, now blazing, now invisible, their occupants all intent on doing the right thing: dining at Mena House, and seeing the full moon feed honey to the Sphinx. Some, wishing to save time, or to dine later in town, or to take a train, for somewhere, later, did not turn in at the hotel gate, but swept past with siren shrieks, and tore on, hoping to "rush" the steep hill to the Pyramid platform at top speed. Only a few of the strongest succeeded, and, with a dash instead of an ignominious crawl, triumphantly fanned their lights along the base of that vast monument in which King Cheops vainly sought eternal privacy. What would he say, we wondered, could he see the crowds of tourists tearing out to pay him a call, on their way to the Sphinx? Would he blight them with a curse, or would he remember pearly nights of old, when his subjects assembled in multitudes for the feast of the Goddess Neith when the moon was full, and all the white, brightly painted houses along the Nile reflected their flowerlike illuminations in the water? Anyhow (as Sir John Biddell would have said), this was helping to keep his name before the public; and nothing could succeed in vulgarizing his mountain of gold in its gleaming waves of desert, under pulsing stars and creamy floods of moonlight.

Anthony had told me that the great "tip" was to go out while the less instructed sightseers ate their dinner. Then, the desert was comparatively empty; and, more important still, instead of having the moon on her head, and her face in shadow, the Sphinx received its full blaze in her farseeing eyes. Of this advice I meant to avail myself, feeling vaguely guilty as I thought of the giver, who was absent from the feast: Anthony Fenton, one of the finest young soldiers in Egypt, who could be lionized in drawing-rooms at home if he would "stand for it"! Anthony who, would he but accept the repentant overtures of that tyrannical old prince, his maternal grandfather, might inherit a fortune and a palace at Constantinople! Yet as Ahmed Antoun in his green turban, he was "taboo" at our little party.

He was due later, however, and I rather expected to find him waiting below, when I excused myself to descend to the Set. But I had not left the roof when a note for Monny was brought up by an ebony person in livery. I watched her as she read, one side of her face turned to marble by the moon, the other stained rose by the red-shaded candles. I thought that the rosy side grew more rosy as she finished the letter.

"There's a—message for you, Lord Ernest," she said. "Aunt Clara wants me to tell you that 'Antoun' can't meet you at the hotel, because she —changed her mind about not coming out, and sent for him. She felt better, it seems, and got thinking what a pity it would be to miss the full moon, so she suddenly remembered that 'Antoun' wasn't with us, and decided to invite him. She writes in a hurry and didn't know where they would dine, but says anyhow they'll meet us by the Sphinx between nine and ten."

"Where 'they'd' dine!" echoed Sir Marcus, pricked to interest. "Was she going to let Fe—I mean 'Antoun,' take her out to dinner?"

"Apparently she was," replied Monny, rather dryly.

"Why not?" asked Brigit. "He's perfectly splendid. And Mrs. East—not that she isn't a young woman, of course—is old enough to go about without a chaperon."

"If we're to meet them between nine and ten at the Sphinx," said Monny briskly, "don't you think, Lord Ernest, you'd better hurry and get your people off, so we can set out ourselves?"

"I'm going," I assured her. "But I thought we planned to give them a long start, in hopes that they might be ready to come back by the time we arrived?"

"Oh, well," she said, "that will make it very late, won't it, and we may miss Aunt Clara? Anyhow, lots of other creatures just as bad as yours will be there, for we can't engage the desert like a private sitting-room."

That settled it. I dashed downstairs and sorted out my charges. They had got themselves up in all kinds of costumes, for this "act." One man had on a folding opera-hat, which he had thought just the right thing for Egypt, as it was so easy to pack! Girls in evening dress; men young and old in helmets and straw hats, ancient maidens, and fat married ladies, in dust cloaks or ball gowns, climbed or leaped or scrambled onto camels, with shrieks of joy or moans of horror: or else they tumbled onto donkeys which bounded away before the riders were well on their backs. And men, women, and animals were shouting, giggling, groaning, gabbling, snarling, and squeaking; an extraordinary procession to pay honour to the Pyramids and the lonely Sphinx.

We of the roof-party considered ourselves, figuratively speaking, above camels, far above donkeys, and scornful of motor-cars, in which it was irreverent to charge up to the Great Pyramid as if to the door of a cafe. We walked, and Monny still lent herself to me; but she no longer bubbled over with delight at everything. A subdued mood was upon her, and her eyes looked sad, even anxious, in the translucent light which was not so much like earthly moonlight as the beginning of sunrise in some far, magic dreamland. She had the pathetic air of a spoiled child who begins suddenly, if only vaguely, to realize that it cannot have everything it wants in the world. And she merely smiled when I told her how, to insure the peace of the desert, I had offered a prize of a large blue scarab as big as a paperweight, for that member of the Set who did not even say "Oh!" to the Sphinx. "Antoun" had "vetted" the alleged scarab and pronounced it a modern forgery; but nobody else knew that, and as a prize it was popular.