of long black lashes; his brown face was a
pure clear-cut oval. He tramped barefoot through the desert with a step
which made one think of those dances of warriors of which the Bible
speaks. His every movement was graceful; his young animal-like gaiety
was charming. As he prodded Rameses' back with the point of his stick,
he would chatter to me in a limited vocabulary in which English, French
and Arabic were intermingled; he enjoyed telling me of the travellers
whom he had escorted and who, he believed, were all princes or
princesses; but if I asked him about his relations or his companions he
remained silent, and assumed an air of indifference and boredom. When
cadging for a promise of substantial baksheesh, the nasal twang of his
voice assumed caressing inflexions. He thought out subtle stratagems and
expended whole treasuries of prayers in order to obtain a cigarette.
Noticing that I liked to see the donkey-boys treat their beasts with
kindness, he used, in my presence, to kiss Rameses on the nostrils, and
when we halted he would waltz with him. He often displayed real
ingenuity in getting what he wanted. But he was far too short-sighted
ever to show the slightest gratitude for what he had obtained. Greedy of
piastres, he coveted still more eagerly such small glittering articles
as one cannot keep covered--gold scarf-pins, rings, sleeve-links, or
nickel cigar-lighters; and when he saw a gold chain his face would
light up with a gleam of pleasure.

"The following summer was the hardest time of my life. An epidemic of
cholera had broken out in Lower Egypt. I was running about the town all
day long in a scorching atmosphere. Cairo summers are overpowering to
Europeans. We were going through the hottest weeks I had ever known. I
heard one day that Selim, brought before the native court of Cairo, had
been sentenced to death. He had murdered the daughter of some fellaheen,
a little girl nine years old, in order to rob her of her ear-rings, and
had thrown her into a cistern. The rings, stained with blood, had been
found under a big stone in the Valley of the Kings. They were the crude
jewels which the Nubian nomads hammer out of shillings or two-franc
pieces, I was told that Selim would certainly be hanged, because the
little girl's mother refused the tendered blood-money. Now, the Khedive
does not enjoy the prerogative of mercy, and the murderer, according to
Moslem law, can redeem his life only if the parents of the victim