ly the never-ending masquerade-ball going on in the street
under the divans where we sat and smoked.

'I can't tell you how it happened, but after very small cups of very
black coffee and a pousse cafe, in the officer's room, of genuine
kirschwasser and good curacoa, I was mounted on a bay horse; there was a
dapple-gray alongside of me; and running ahead of us, to clear the way,
the officer's _sais_ afoot, ready to hold our horses when we halted. We
were quickly mounted and off like the wind, past turbans, flowing
bournouses, tarbooshes, past grand old mosques, petty cafes, where the
faithful were squatting on bamboo-seats, smoking pipes or drinking
coffee-grounds, while listening to a storyteller, possibly relating some
story in the _Arabian Nights_; then we were through the bazaars, all
closed now and silent; then up in the citadel, and through the mosque of
Yusef; then down and scouring over the flying sand among the grand old
tombs of the Mamelukes and of the caliphs; then off at break-neck speed
toward the Mokatamma mountains, from a rise on the lower spur of one of
which we saw, in the shadow of the coming night, the Pyramids and the
slow-flowing Nile.

'Again we were in Cairo, and now threading narrow street after street,
the fall of our horses' hoofs hardly heard on the unpaved ways, as we
were passing under overhanging balconies covered with lace-work
lattices. As it grew darker, our _sais_ preceded us with lighted
lantern, shouting to pedestrians, blind and halt, to clear the road for
the coming effendis.

'_Halte la!_

'My foaming bay was reined in with a strong hand, I leaped from the
saddle, and found the _sais_ at hand to hold our horses, while we saw
the seventh heaven of the Koran, and by no means _al Hotama_.

'With a foresight indicating an old campaigner, the officer produced a
couple of bottles of sherry from the capacious folds of the _sais_'
mantle, and unlocking the door of the house in front of which we stood,
invited me to enter. Two or three turns, a court-yard full of
rose-bushes, and an enormous palm-tree, a fountain shooting up its
sparkling waters in the moonlight, a clapping of hands, chibouks, sherry
cooled in the fountain.

'Then, in the moonlight, the gleam of white flowing garments, the
nervous thrill breathed in from perfumes filling the evening air; the
great swimming eyes; the kiss; the ah!--other bottles of sherry. The
fingans of coffee, the pipe of Latakiah tobacco, the blo