So that he did not offer his hand again, but his eyes shone with all the affection, which might be termed love, he had had at Harrow for the man who had met him so often as opponent in the cricket-field, and as a friend in his rooms.

He stood quite still for a minute just outside the tent, the moon shining down upon his splendid six-foot-two, and a little shadow of doubt swept across the face of the Eastern as, so strong was the moonlight, he noticed the set of the jaw and the honesty of purpose in the steady grey eyes.

This Englishman might make a mistake, might blunder in the slowness of his deliberate way—­there was the faintest suspicion of a smile on Hugh Carden Ali’s face as he remembered, even at this critical moment, how, having won the toss, it had taken Ben Kelham so long to decide, at the foot of the Hill, whether to put his side in or not—­but that he would deliberately behave like a cad to anything so beautiful and desirable as Damaris, or in fact to any man, woman, child or beast on earth, no! that thought was not to be entertained for one moment.

Come to think of it, what a blessing it is that the cad cannot efface the mark of Nature’s branding-iron.

He may be an Adonis, a diplomat, a bon viveur, a good sort, a real sport; he may have a brain and a personality and a gift for choosing and wearing his clothes; his blood may be cerulean, red or merely muddy; but just watch out.  One day he will forget to shoot his linen, and you will catch a glimpse of the mark of the beast.

And in the second of time which it took this little analysis of his friend to flash across his mind the hands of Life moved slowly towards the hour.

He put his hand to his turban, then stood on one side.

“Come in, Kelham.  Who ever would have thought of seeing you!  Jolly decent of you coming all this way out to see me.  I thought you were after lion, but I see you have no gun.  I’m afraid I can only offer you coffee.  No pegs in a Mohammedan’s tent, you see.”

They each advanced one step and their hands met and gripped across the little dividing-line, on one side of which, one of the two stood under the stars which belong to all men, and the other inside the desert dwelling.

Such a faint line, this one of racial distinction, yet which rises as a barrier higher than the Himalayas, deeper than the ocean, and stronger than steel between the men of the East and the men of the West.

Kelham laughed as he sat down at the end of the wooden couch to which, without making any apology for the bareness of the tent, his host had pointed.

“Jolly seeing you again, Carden.  I had an idea you were travelling round the world, and only discovered through the morning paper that you were quite near.  The paragraph gave a full description of you and these tents, so I took the first train—­I was in Cairo—­enquired about you when I arrived at Luxor station, where they seemed to know all about you, hired that horse which has just gone off on a survey into the middle of the desert, got ferried across, and came straight here.  I don’t mind telling you that lion is rather a sore point with me at present.”  He laughed again as he took his automatic Colt, which lay cosily in the palm of his big hand, from his pocket and released the safety-catch.