discuss. The fellah, the pasha, the Soudan were the only topics. Under
Fielding's courtesy and Dicky's acute suggestions, Heatherby's weakened
brain awaked, and he talked intelligently, till the moment coffee was
brought in. Then, as Mahommed Seti retired, Heatherby suddenly threw
himself forward, his arms on the table, and burst into sobs.

"Oh, you fellows, you fellows!" he said. There was silence for a minute,
then he sobbed out again: "It's the first time I've been treated like
a gentleman by men that knew me, these fifteen years. It--it gets me in
the throat!"

His body shook with sobs. Fielding and Dicky were uncomfortable, for
these were not the sobs of a driveller or a drunkard. Behind them was
the blank failure of a life--fifteen years of miserable torture, of
degradation, of a daily descent lower into the pit, of the servitude
of shame. When at last he raised his streaming eyes, Fielding and Dicky
could see the haunting terror of the soul, at whose elbow, as it were,
every man cried: "You are without the pale!" That look told them how
Heatherby of the Buffs had gone from table d'hote to table d'hote
of Europe, from town to town, from village to village, to make
acquaintances who repulsed him when they discovered who he really was.

Shady Heatherby, who cheated at cards!

Once Fielding made as if to put a hand on his shoulder and speak to him,
but Dicky intervened with a look. The two drank their coffee, Fielding
a little uneasily; but yet in his face there was a new look: of inquiry,
of kindness, even of hope.

Presently Dicky flashed a look and nodded towards the door, and Fielding
dropped his cigar and went on deck, and called down to Holgate the
engineer:

"Get up steam, and make for Luxor. It's moonlight, and we're safe enough
in this high Nile, eh, Holgate?"

"Safe enough, or aw'm a Dootchman," said Holgate. Then they talked in a
low voice together. Down in the saloon, Dicky sat watching Heatherby. At
last the Lost One raised his head again.

"It's worth more to me, this night, than you fellows know," he said
brokenly.

"That's all right," said Dicky. "Have a cigar?"

He shook his head. "It's come at the right time. I wanted to be treated
like an Englishman once more--just once more."

"Don't worry. Take in a reef and go steady for a bit. The milk's spilt,
but there are other meadows...." Dicky waved an arm up the river, up
towards the Soudan!

The Lost One nodded, then his eyes blazed up a