ninsula beyond which lay Hasha.

"Summat, aw be sure," answered Holgate, "an' ma woord on't... ah, yon
coomes orderly wi' post for Goovnur. Now it be Hasha, or it be not
Hasha, it be time for steam oop."

Holgate turned to his engine as Dicky mounted the stairs and went
to Fielding's cabin, where the orderly was untying a handkerchief
overflowing with letters.

As Fielding read his official letters his face fell more and more. When
he had read the last, he sat for a minute without speaking, his brow
very black. There was no excuse for pushing past Hasha. He had not been
there for over a year. It was his duty to inspect the place: he had
a conscience; there was time to get to Hasha that afternoon. With an
effort he rose, hurried along the deck, and called down to Holgate:
"Full-steam to Hasha!"

Then, with a quick command to the reis, who was already at the wheel,
he lighted a cigar, and, joining Dicky Donovan, began to smoke and talk
furiously. But he did not talk of Hasha.

At sunset the Amenhotep drew in to the bank by Hasha, and, from
the deck, Fielding Bey saluted the mamour, the omdah and his own
subordinates, who, buttoning up their coats as they came, hurried to the
bank to make salaams to him. Behind them, at a distance, came villagers,
a dozen ghaffirs armed with naboots of dom-wood, and a brace of
well-mounted, badly-dressed policemen, with seats like a monkey on a
stick. The conferences with the mamour and omdah were short, in keeping
with the temper of "Fielding Saadat"; and long into the night Dicky lay
and looked out of his cabin window to the fires on the banks, where sat
Mahommed Seti the servant, the orderly, and some attendant ghaffirs,
who, feasting on the remains of the effendi's supper, kept watch. For
Hasha was noted for its robbers. It was even rumoured that the egregious
Selamlik Pasha, with the sugar plantation near by--"Trousers," Dicky
called him when he saw him on the morrow, because of the elephantine
breeks he wore--was not averse to sending his Abyssinian slaves through
the sugar-cane to waylay and rob, and worse, maybe.

By five o'clock next day the inspection was over. The streets had been
swept for the Excellency--which is to say Saadat--the first time in a
year. The prison had been cleaned of visible horrors, the first time in
a month. The last time it was ordered there had been a riot among the
starving, infested prisoners; earth had been thrown over the protruding
bones of the