e
amphitheatre of hills; they lost their abstraction, they became intently
fixed upon the shrubbery beyond the glacis. He was no longer
recollecting Tewfik Bey and his heroic defence, or speculating upon the
work to be done in the years ahead. Without turning his head, he saw
that Mather was gazing in the same direction as himself.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked suddenly of Mather.

Mather laughed, and answered thoughtfully:--

"I was drawing up the menu of the first dinner I will have when I reach
London. I will eat it alone, I think, quite alone, and at Epitaux. It
will begin with a watermelon. And you?"

"I was wondering why, now that the pigeons have got used to our
presence, they should still be wheeling in and out of one particular
tree. Don't point to it, please! I mean the tree beyond the ditch, and
to the right of two small bushes."

All about them they could see the pigeons quietly perched upon the
branches, spotting the foliage like a purple fruit. Only above the one
tree they circled and timorously called.

"We will draw that covert," said Durrance. "Take a dozen men and
surround it quietly."

He himself remained on the glacis watching the tree and the thick
undergrowth. He saw six soldiers creep round the shrubbery from the
left, six more from the right. But before they could meet and ring the
tree in, he saw the branches violently shaken, and an Arab with a roll
of yellowish dammar wound about his waist, and armed with a flat-headed
spear and a shield of hide, dashed from the shelter and raced out
between the soldiers into the open plain. He ran for a few yards only.
For Mather gave a sharp order to his men, and the Arab, as though he
understood that order, came to a stop before a rifle could be lifted to
a shoulder. He walked quietly back to Mather. He was brought up on to
the glacis, where he stood before Durrance without insolence or
servility.

He explained in Arabic that he was a man of the Kabbabish tribe named
Abou Fatma, and friendly to the English. He was on his way to Suakin.

"Why did you hide?" asked Durrance.

"It was safer. I knew you for my friends. But, my gentleman, did you
know me for yours?"

Then Durrance said quickly, "You speak English," and Durrance spoke in
English.

The answer came without hesitation.

"I know a few words."

"Where did you learn them?"

"In Khartum."

Thereafter he was left alone with Durrance on the glacis, and the two
men talked t