natives. The crowd suddenly parted like two waves, and retreated; and
Mustapha Kali, almost naked, and supported by a stolid Soudanese, stood
before the three. He was pallid, his hands and brow were dripping sweat,
and there was a look of death in his eyes.

"I have cholera, effendi!" he cried. "Take me to Abdallah to die, that I
may be buried with my people and from mine own house."

"Is it not poison?" asked Fielding grimly, yet seeing now a ray of hope
in the sickening business.

"It is cholera, effendi. Take me home to die."

"Very well. Tell the people so, and I will take you home, and I will
bury you with your fathers," said Fielding.

Mustapha Kali turned slowly. "I am sick of cholera," he said as
loudly as he could to the awe-stricken crowd. "May God not cool my
resting-place if it be not so!"

"Tell the people to go to their homes and obey us," said Dicky, putting
away his pistol.

"These be good men, I have seen with mine own eyes," said Mustapha
hoarsely to the crowd. "It is for your good they do all. Have I not
seen? Let God fill both my hands with dust if it be not so! God hath
stricken me, and behold I give myself into the hands of the Inglesi, for
I believe!"

He would have fallen to the ground, but Dicky and the Soudanese caught
him and carried him down to the bank, while the crowd scuttled from the
boat, and Fielding made ready to bear the dying man to Abdallah--a race
against death.

Fielding brought Mustapha Kali to Abdallah in time to die there, and
buried him with his fathers; and Dicky stayed behind to cleanse Kalamoun
with perchloride and limewash.

The story went abroad and travelled fast, and the words of Mustapha
Kali, oft repeated, became as the speech of a holy man; and the people
no longer hid their dead, but brought them to the Amenhotep.

This was the beginning of better things; the disease was stayed.

And for all the things that these men did--Fielding Bey and Donovan
Pasha--they got naught but an Egyptian ribbon to wear on the breast and
a laboured censure from the Administration for overrunning the budget
allowance.

Dicky, however, seemed satisfied, for Fielding's little barque of life
had not gone down "On the reef of Norman's woe." Mrs. Henshaw felt so
also when she was told all, and she disconcerted Dicky by bursting into
tears.

"Why those tears?" said Dicky to Fielding afterwards; "I wasn't
eloquent."

FIELDING HAD AN ORDERLY

His legs were like pipe