mber of the native
police was making his menacing way towards her, she quieted down and
limped to where she saw, standing, the station porter of Shepheard's
Hotel.

Strange is that power which has led so many a criminal to the gallows
by dragging him irresistibly back to the scene of the crime.

It was some such force which had held Zulannah throughout the day. She
had nothing further to gain by looking upon the man who had
unconsciously been the cause of her ruin; she had done her best to
retaliate by blighting the love she had herself tried to gain; but she
had been mastered by a morbid desire to look just once more upon Ben
Kelham, hoping to be able to trace in his face some sign of his mental
hurt.

The suffering of innocent people and animals had always given her
intense pleasure. How much greater, therefore, her satisfaction if she
could bring, and gloat over, bodily or mental pain to someone who had
made her suffer?

She hung about until she saw Ben Kelham arrive, and stood quite close
to him, chuckling inwardly at the tale told by the grim set of his
mouth.

Zulannah was dirty; her hands were ill-kempt; her fine muslin veils
filthy and torn; but there still hung about her the faint odour of the
perfume she had always used in the hey-day of her success. The passing
of a barrow piled high with luggage disturbed her veils, and as the
rush of some excited natives disturbed the air Ben Kelham swung around.

He had suddenly scented the perfume of Zulannah the courtesan.

He looked to right, to left and all about him, eyed with disfavour the
dirty woman so close to him, who stood crookedly, with an evil leer to
one eye; frowned and walked away to the platform from which the train
starts for Luxor. All stations in the East are invariably and most
uncomfortably crowded with natives who either stray hopelessly after
the manner of lost sheep, or stand stock-still, as hopelessly incapable
of movement, or rush pell-mell hither-thither at the sound of clanging
bell, or shriek from locomotive; but the station was unduly crowded
this evening, owing to the return of hundreds of pilgrims from a visit
to a certain shrine in the countryside and an influx of their friends
and relations from the bazaar to greet them.

The strong electric lights were blazing, intensifying the vivid colours
and modifying the dirt upon what was intended to be the white portions
of the natives' picturesque raiment; they shone down also upon