ife just
sufficiently to follow me up-street with curious brown eyes.

"That is Narayan Singh," announced Suliman when we had passed
him. "He is Jimgrim's friend."

There was another Sikh just in sight of him at the next corner,
and another beyond him again, all looking rather bored but
awfully capable. None except the first one took the slightest
notice of us.

It was some consolation to know that "Jimgrim's friend" was on
guard outside Yussuf's. I had no means of knowing what weapons
Grim carried, if any, but was positive of one thing: if either
Noureddin Ali or the man with alligator eyes should get an
inkling of his real identity his life would not be worth ten
minutes' purchase. Including Yussuf, who would likely do as he
was told, there would be three to one between those silent walls,
and it seemed to me that Narayan Singh might as well be three
miles away as thirty feet. However, there was nothing I could do
about it.

It was late afternoon already, and the crowd was swarming all one
way, the women carrying the baskets and the men lording it near
enough to keep an eye on them. If Suliman and I were followed,
whoever had that job had his work cut out, for we were swallowed
up in a noisy stream of home-going villagers, whose baskets and
other burdens made an effectual screen behind us as well as
in front.

The hotel stands close by the Jaffa Gate, and there the crowd was
densest, for the outgoing swarm was met by another tide, of city-
folk returning. In the mouth of the hotel arcade stood an
officer whom I knew well enough by sight--Colonel Goodenough,
commander of the Sikhs, a quiet, gray little man with a monocle,
and that air of knowing his own mind that is the real key to
control of Indian troops. Up a side-street there were a dozen
troop-horses standing, and a British subaltern was making himself
as inconspicuous as he could in the doorway of a store. It did
not need much discernment to judge that those in authority were
ready to deal swiftly with any kind of trouble.

But the only glimpse I had of any mob-spirit stirring was when
three obvious Zionist Jews were rather roughly hustled by some
Hebron men, who pride themselves on their willingness to brawl
with any one. Two Sikhs interfered at once, and Goodenough, who
was watching, never batted an eyelash.

I was tired, wanted a whiskey and soda and a bath more than
anything else I could imagine at the moment. I was eager to get
to my