you shall drink it before morning, Mahommed,"
answered Wyndham quietly. "God will preserve your life till the Nile
water cools your throat."

"Before dawn, O effendi?" gasped the Arab. "Before dawn, by the mercy
of God," answered Wyndham; and for the first time in his life he had a
burst of imagination. The Orient had touched him at last.

"Is not the song of the sakkia in thine ear, Mahommed?" he said

"Turn, O Sakkia, turn to the right, and turn to the left.
The Nile floweth by night and the balasses are filled at dawn--
The maid of the village shall bear to thy bed the dewy grey
goolah at dawn
Turn, O Sakkia!"

Wyndham was learning at last the way to the native mind.

The man rose from his knees. A vision of his home in the mirkaz of
Minieh passed before him. He stretched out his hands, and sang in the
vibrating monotone of his people:

"Turn, O Sakkia, turn to the right, and turn to the left:
Who will take care of me, if my father dies?
Who will give me water to drink, and the cucumber vine at my door--
Turn, O Sakkia!"

Then he crept back again to the wall of the house, where he huddled
between a Berberine playing a darabukkeh and a man of the Fayoum who
chanted the fatihah from the Koran.

Wyndham looked at them all and pondered. "If the devils out there would
only attack us," he said between his teeth, "or if we could only attack
them!" he added, and he nervously hastened his footsteps; for to him
this inaction was terrible. "They'd forget their thirst if they were
fighting," he muttered, and then he frowned; for the painful neighing
of the horses behind the house came to his ear. In desperation he went
inside and climbed to the roof, where he could see the circle of the
enemy.

It was no use. They were five to one, and his Gippies were demoralised.
It would be a fine bit of pluck to try and cut his way through the Arabs
to the Nile--but how many would reach it?

No, he had made his full measure of mistakes, he would not add to the
list. If Hassan got through to Kerbat his Gippies here would no doubt
be relieved, and there would be no more blood on his head. Relieved? And
when they were relieved, what of himself, Wyndham bimbashi? He knew what
men would say in Cairo, what men would say at the War Office in London
town, at "The Rag"--everywhere! He could not look his future in the
face. He felt that every man in Egypt, save himself, had known all along
that he was a