The bride’s youth and beauty, her jewels, her robes, the general’s infatuation, and the general’s grief, the reports of these ran through the city like wildfire.  And from the particular channel of the kitchen maid and the old aunt and the brother in the bazaars came news of the very especial means that Allah had taken to preserve the general from destruction.

For he had been in the bride’s apartments just before the fire.  But the power of Allah, the Allseeing, had sent a thief, a prowler, by night, upon the palace roofs, and the screams of a girl in the upper story had called the general to that direction.

And so his preservation had been accomplished.

It was that rumor of the thief upon the roofs which sent the chill of apprehension down McLean’s spine.  For though the bazaars knew nothing of the thief’s identity and it was reported he had escaped by the river yet McLean felt the sinister finger of suspicion.  If the thief had not been a thief—­unless of brides!—­and if he had not escaped—?

Impatiently the young Scotchman clapped his heels against the donkey’s sides, enhancing the efforts of the runner with the gesticulating stick.

Suppose, now, that he should not find Jack at the excavations?

It was encouraging, somehow, to hear the monotonous rise and fall of the labor song proceeding as usual, although McLean immediately told himself that the work would naturally be going on under Thatcher’s direction whether Ryder were there or not.  The camp knew nothing of Cairo.  The camp would be as usual.

And yet, after his first moment’s survey, he had an indefinite but uneasy idea that the camp was not as usual.

True, the tatterdemalion frieze of basket bearers still wove its rhythmic way over the mounds to the siftings where Thatcher was presiding as was his wont, but in the native part of the encampment there appeared a sly stir and excitement.

The unoccupied, of all ages and sexes, that usually were squatting interminably about some fire or sleeping like mummies in hermetically wrapped black mantles, now were gathered in little whispering knots whose backward glances betrayed a sense of uneasiness, and as McLean rode past, a young Arab who had been the center of attention drew back with such carefulness to escape observation that McLean’s shrewd eyes marked him closely.

It might be that his nerves were deceiving him, but there did seem to be something surreptitious in the air.

Over his shoulder he glimpsed the young Arab hurrying out of the camp.

It might be anything or nothing, he told himself.  The man might be going shopping to the village and the others giving him their commissions, or he might be an illicit dealer in curios trying to pick up some dishonest treasure.  In native diggings those hangers on were thick as flies.

He dismounted and hurried forward to meet Thatcher’s advance.  The men had rarely met and Thatcher’s air of hesitation and absent-mindedness made McLean proffer his name promptly with a sense of speeding through the preliminaries.  Then with a manner he strove to make casual he put his question.