ection, and meant to return whether we
went with them or not."

"You should have gone with them," said Trench. For himself he did not at
that moment care whether he was to live in the prison all his life, so
long as he was allowed quietly to lie where he was for a long time; and
it was without any expression of despair that he added, "So our one
chance is lost."

"No, deferred," replied Feversham. "The man who watched by the river in
the blue gown brought me paper, a pen, and some wood-soot mixed with
water. He was able to drop them by my side as I lay upon the ground. I
hid them beneath my jibbeh, and last night--there was a moon last
night--I wrote to a Greek merchant who keeps a _cafe_ at Wadi Halfa. I
gave him the letter this afternoon, and he has gone. He will deliver it
and receive money. In six months, in a year at the latest, he will be
back in Omdurman."

"Very likely," said Trench. "He will ask for another letter, so that he
may receive more money, and again he will say that in six months or a
year he will be back in Omdurman. I know these people."

"You do not know Abou Fatma. He was Gordon's servant over there before
Khartum fell; he has been mine since. He came with me to Obak, and
waited there while I went down to Berber. He risked his life in coming
to Omdurman at all. Within six months he will be back, you may be very
sure."

Trench did not continue the argument. He let his eyes wander about the
enclosure, and they settled at last upon a pile of newly turned earth
which lay in one corner.

"What are they digging?" he asked.

"A well," answered Feversham.

"A well?" said Trench, fretfully, "and so close to the Nile! Why? What's
the object?"

"I don't know," said Feversham. Indeed he did not know, but he
suspected. With a great fear at his heart he suspected the reason why
the well was being dug in the enclosure of the prison. He would not,
however, reveal his suspicion until his companion was strong enough to
bear the disappointment which belief in it would entail. But within a
few days his suspicion was proved true. It was openly announced that a
high wall was to be built about the House of Stone. Too many prisoners
had escaped in their fetters along the Nile bank. Henceforward they were
to be kept from year's beginning to year's end within the wall. The
prisoners built it themselves of mud-bricks dried in the sun. Feversham
took his share in the work, and Trench, as soon almost as he could