thick-set officer, with a gentle voice and a placid expression which covered a remarkably acute and energetic spirit.  With that quiet smile and guileless manner he had undercut and outwitted the most cunning of Orientals.  He stood, a cigarette between his fingers, looking at the newcomer.  “I heard that you had come.  Sorry the chief isn’t here to see you.  Gone up to the frontier, you know.”

“My regiment is at Wady Halfa.  I suppose, sir, that I should report myself there at once?”

“No; I was to give you your orders.”  He led the way to a map upon the wall, and pointed with the end of his cigarette.  “You see this place.  It’s the Oasis of Kurkur—­a little quiet, I am afraid, but excellent air.  You are to get out there as quick as possible.  You’ll find a company of the Ninth, and half a squadron of cavalry.  You will be in command.”

Hilary Joyce looked at the name, printed at the intersection of two black lines without another dot upon the map for several inches around it.  “A village, sir?”

“No, a well.  Not very good water, I’m afraid, but you soon get accustomed to natron.  It’s an important post, as being at the junction of two caravan routes.  All routes are closed now, of course, but still you never know who might come along them.”

“We are there, I presume, to prevent raiding?”

“Well, between you and me, there’s really nothing to raid.  You are there to intercept messengers.  They must call at the wells.  Of course you have only just come out, but you probably understand already enough about the conditions of this country to know that there is a great deal of disaffection about, and that the Khalifa is likely to try and keep in touch with his adherents.  Then, again, Senoussi lives up that way”—­he waved his cigarette to the westward—­“the Khalifa might send a message to him along that route.  Anyhow, your duty is to arrest everyone coming along, and get some account of him before you let him go.  You don’t talk Arabic, I suppose?”

“I am learning, sir.”

“Well, well, you’ll have time enough for study there.  And you’ll have a native officer, Ali something or other, who speaks English, and can interpret for you.  Well, good-bye—­I’ll tell the chief that you reported yourself.  Get on to your post now as quickly as you can.”

Railway to Baliani, the post-boat to Assouan, and then two days on a camel in the Libyan desert, with an Ababdeh guide, and three baggage-camels to tie one down to their own exasperating pace.  However, even two and a half miles an hour mount up in time, and at last, on the third evening, from the blackened slag-heap of a hill which is called the Jebel Kurkur, Hilary Joyce looked down upon a distant clump of palms, and thought that this cool patch of green in the midst of the merciless blacks and yellows was the fairest colour effect that he had ever seen.  An hour later he had ridden into the little camp, the guard