will reward, and thy unfaithfulness I will punish
with torture and death."

"I'll cut the price of the kiss on those dirty fingers from a dervish
joint," muttered Macnamara to himself, as he took his place that evening
at the Khalifa's door.

One thing Macnamara was determined on. He would never pray in a
Mahommedan mosque, he would never turn Mahommedan even for a day. The
time had come when he must make a break for liberty. He must have money.
With money Mahommed Nafar, who was now his teacher--Slatin had managed
that--would move for him.

Under the spur of his purpose Macnamara rapidly acquired Arabic, and
steadfastly tried to make Mahommed Nafar his friend, for he liked the
little man, and this same little man was the only Arab, save one, from
first to last, whom he would not have spitted on a bayonet. At first
he chafed under the hourly duplicity necessary in his service to the
Khalifa, then he took an interest in it, and at last he wept tears of
joy over his dangerous proficiency. Day after day Macnamara waited, in
the hope of making sure that the Khalifa's treasure was under the room
where he slept. Upon the chance of a successful haul, he had made fervid
promises, after the fashion of his race, to the shoemaker Mahommed
Nafar. At first the shoemaker would have nothing to do with it: helping
prisoners to escape meant torture and decapitation; but then he hated
the Khalifa, whose Baggaras had seized his property, and killed his wife
and children; and in the end Macnamara prevailed. Mahommed Nafar found
some friendly natives from the hills of Gilif, who hated the Khalifa
and his tyrannous governments, and at last they agreed to attempt the
escape.

III

A month went by. Lust, robbery, and murder ruled in Omdurman. The river
thickened with its pollution, the trees within the walls sickened of its
poison, the bones of the unburied dead lay in the moat beyond the gates,
and, on the other side of the river, desolate Khartoum crumbled over the
streets and paths and gardens where Gordon had walked. The city was a
pit of infamy, where struggled, or wallowed, or died to the bellowing of
the Khalifa's drum and the hideous mirth of his Baggaras, the victims of
Abdullah. But out in the desert--the Bayuda desert--between Omdurman and
Old Dongola, there was only peace. Here and there was "a valley of dry
bones," but the sand had washed the bones clean, the vultures had had
their hour and flown away, the debris of deser