or Fielding Bey, the Englishman--Fielding of St. Bartholomew's--who had
burned gloriously to reform Egypt root and branch, and had seen the
fire of his desires die down. Fielding Bey saved Seti, but not with
backsheesh.

Fielding intervened. He knew Selamlik Pasha well, and the secret of his
influence over him is for telling elsewhere. But whatever its source, it
gave Mahommed Seti his life. It gave him much more, for it expelled him
from the Khedive's army. Now soldiers without number, gladly risking
death, had deserted from the army of the Khedive; they had bought
themselves out with enormous backsheesh, they had been thieves,
murderers, panderers, that they might be freed from service by some
corrupt pasha or bimbashi; but no one in the knowledge of the world had
ever been expelled from the army of the Khedive.

There was a satanic humour in the situation pleasant to the soul of
Mahommed Seti, if soul his subconsciousness might be called. In the
presence of his regiment, drawn up in the Beit-el-Mal, before his
trembling bimbashi, whose lips were now pale with terror at the loss of
his mascot, Mahommed Seti was drummed out of line, out of his regiment,
out of the Beit-el-Mal. It was opera boufe, and though Seti could
not know what opera boufe was, he did know that it was a ridiculous
fantasia, and he grinned his insolent grin all the way, even to the
corner of the camel-market, where the drummer and the sergeant and his
squad turned back from ministering a disgrace they would gladly have
shared.

Left at the corner of the camel-market, Mahommed Seti planned his
future. At first it was to steal a camel and take the desert for Berber.
Then he thought of the English hakim, Fielding Bey, who had saved his
life. Now, a man who has saved your life once may do it again; one
favour is always the promise of another. So Seti, with a sudden
inspiration, went straight to the house of Fielding Bey and sat down
before it on his mat.

With the setting of the sun came a clatter of tins and a savoury odour
throughout Khartoum to its farthest precincts, for it was Ramadan, and
no man ate till sunset. Seti smiled an avid smile, and waited. At last
he got up, turned his face towards Mecca, and said his prayers. Then he
lifted the latch of Fielding's hut, entered, eyed the medicine bottles
and the surgical case with childish apprehension, and made his way to
the kitchen. There he foraged. He built a fire; his courage grew; he ran
to