tongue,
he has brains, he has sorrow, he loved Noor-ala-Noor. Give a man the
egotism of grief, and eloquence, and popularity, and he'll cut as sharp
as the khamsin wind. The dust he'll raise will blind more eyes than you
can see in a day's march, Yankee. You may take my word for it."

Renshaw looked at Dicky thoughtfully. "You're wasting your life here.
You'll get nothing out of it. You're a great man, Donovan Pasha, but
others'll reap where you sowed."

Dicky laughed softly. "I've had more fun for my money than most men of
my height and hair--" he stroked his beardless chin humorously. "And the
best is to come, Yankee. This show is cracking. The audience are going
to rush it."

Renshaw laid a hand on his shoulder. "Pasha, to tell you God's truth,
I wouldn't have missed this for anything; but what I can't make out is,
why you brought me here. You don't do things like that for nothing. You
bet you don't. You'd not put another man in danger, unless he was going
to get something out of it, or somebody was. It looks so damned useless.
You've done your little job by your lonesome, anyhow. I was no use."

"Your turn comes," said Dicky, flashing a look of friendly humour at
him. "America is putting her hand in the dough--through you. You'll
know, and your country'll know, what's going on here in the hum of the
dim bazaars. Ismail's got to see how things stand, and you've got to
help me tell him. You've got to say I tell the truth, when the French
gentlemen, who have their several spokes in the Egyptian wheel, politely
say I lie. Is it too much, or too little, Yankee?"

Renshaw almost gulped. "By Jerusalem!" was all he could say. "And we
wonder why the English swing things as they do!" he growled, when his
breath came freely.

Abdalla had finished his prayers; he was coming towards them. Dicky went
to meet him.

"Abdalla, I'm hungry," he said; "so are you. You've eaten nothing since
sunset, two days ago."

"I am thirsty, saadat el basha," he answered, and his voice was husky.

"Come, I will give you to eat, by the goodness of God."

It was the time of Ramadan, when no Mahommedan eats food or touches
liquid from the rising to the going down of the sun. As the sunset-gun
boomed from the citadel, lids had been snatched off millions of
cooking-pots throughout the land, and fingers had been thrust into the
meat and rice of the evening feast, and their owner had gulped down a
bowl of water. The smell of a thousand cookin