his
friend to flash across his mind the hands of Life moved slowly towards
the hour.

He put his hand to his turban, then stood on one side.

"Come in, Kelham. Who ever would have thought of seeing you! Jolly
decent of you coming all this way out to see me. I thought you were
after lion, but I see you have no gun. I'm afraid I can only offer you
coffee. No pegs in a Mohammedan's tent, you see."

They each advanced one step and their hands met and gripped across the
little dividing-line, on one side of which, one of the two stood under
the stars which belong to all men, and the other inside the desert
dwelling.

Such a faint line, this one of racial distinction, yet which rises as a
barrier higher than the Himalayas, deeper than the ocean, and stronger
than steel between the men of the East and the men of the West.

Kelham laughed as he sat down at the end of the wooden couch to which,
without making any apology for the bareness of the tent, his host had
pointed.

"Jolly seeing you again, Carden. I had an idea you were travelling
round the world, and only discovered through the morning paper that you
were quite near. The paragraph gave a full description of you and
these tents, so I took the first train--I was in Cairo--enquired about
you when I arrived at Luxor station, where they seemed to know all
about you, hired that horse which has just gone off on a survey into
the middle of the desert, got ferried across, and came straight here.
I don't mind telling you that lion is rather a sore point with me at
present." He laughed again as he took his automatic Colt, which lay
cosily in the palm of his big hand, from his pocket and released the
safety-catch.

"I'm like darling old Aunt Olivia; she refuses to be parted from hers,
once she has sighted Port Said. By Jove, Carden, you've absolutely got
to meet her, if you haven't met her already. She knew your mother
well. But of course you stayed at the Castle--no! you didn't though;
you had measles. Well, you've got to meet----"

He stopped suddenly as the thought of the abominable anonymous letter
flashed across his mind; turned a dull red under his tan, and looked
round the strange tent, and then at the man who sat on the opposite end
of the wooden couch, dressed in all the picturesque simplicity of the
East, with the stars and the far-reaching desert as a background.

He sat quite silent, staring at his friend, who yet in some indefinable
way seemed s