Just as the veil caught in the wicker he moved a little to one side to escape a group of laughing, joyous pilgrims; swung right round to shout them a greeting and in so doing pulled the struggling woman in front of him, tearing off her veil and exposing the right side of her face which, having escaped injury, was still wonderfully beautiful, in spite of the dirt.  The basket of hens crashed, to the ground and, bursting, liberated the birds, as, with a yell of “Zulannah!” the man leapt straight at the woman, who dived under a porter’s arm and disappeared through the exit.

There was a sudden mad rush to the exit by the inhabitants of the bazaar, who, jamming together in a shouting, yelling pack, gave the woman a few moments’ grace.

“Stand on one side, sir.  Come back, miss!” ordered the station-master, seizing the arm of an indignant Britisher.  “It’s no use trying to stop them; they go like this sometimes, quite mad, generally when they’ve sighted a thief or somebody against whom they have some grudge.  Let them pass, sir; let them pass.”

The station-yard was packed with vehicles, motors, omnibuses, and scores of rattling, racketing native carts.

Straight into the middle of them fled the woman, terror lending her an incredible speed which agonising physical pain augmented.  She dived under horses, she squeezed through vehicles, she twisted and turned, caring naught for the native drivers, who, indifferent to the daily sufferings of their wretched little horses, lashed at her with their whips, with shouts of “Shima-lak!” “U’a-u’a!” “Riglak, riglak!” “U’a-u’a!” and peals of derisive laughter.

Headed by the man who had carried the hens, their eyes blazing, helpless victims of the indescribable blood-lust which sometimes seizes the mob, the inhabitants of the bazaar, with those who, understanding nothing of the cause of the tumult, had joined in merely for the sport, were after the woman like a pack of hounds.

If it had not been for the limp caused by the shortening of one leg, and which became more noticeable the more she ran, she might have escaped in the crowd in the Place Rameses and been alive to-day.  But the pack, as they ran, shouted, “A lame dog, a lame dog!  Who has seen a lame dog?” and those who had rushed to door or window to watch the fun pointed her out with yells of laughter.  She found a few moments’ respite when she tripped and fell over the neck of a recumbent camel indistinguishable in the gloom of the side street into which she had turned as she headed for her own house.