asked Ibrahim about them.  Mrs. Armine remembered the look on his face when, having heard their history, he had said to her, “Those are the women who ruin the Europeans’ prestige out here.”  She had answered, “That is a thing I could never understand!” and had begun to talk of other matters, but she had not forgotten his look.  If—­certain things—­she might be afraid of Nigel.

Dogs barked in the distance.  She heard a faint noise from the runlet of water in front of the camp.  From the heavily-cumbered ground, smothered with growing things except just where the tents were pitched, rose a smell that seemed to her autumnal.  Along the narrow road that led between the palms and the crops to the town, came two of their men leading in riding camels.  A moment later a bitter snarling rose up, mingling with the barking of the dogs and the sound of the water.  The camels were being picketed for the night’s repose.  The atmosphere was not actually cold, but there was no golden warmth in the air, and the wonderful and exquisitely clean dryness of Upper Egypt was replaced by a sort of rich humidity, now that the sun was gone.  The vapour around the moon, the smell of the earth, the distant sound of the dogs and the near sound of the water, the feeling of dew which hung wetly about her, and the gleam of the light from that tent distant among the palm-trees, made Mrs. Armine feel almost unbearably depressed.  She longed with all her soul to be back at Luxor.  And it seemed to her incredible that any one could be happy here.  Yet Nigel was perfectly happy and every Egyptian longed to be in the Fayyum.

The sound of the name seemed to her desolate and sad.

But Baroudi meant something.  Even now she saw Hamza, straight as a reed, coming down the shadowy track from the town.  She must make Nigel happy—­and wait.  She must make Nigel very happy, lest she should fall below Baroudi’s estimate of her, lest she should prove herself less clever, less subtle, than she felt him to be.

Hamza’s shadowy figure crossed a little bridge of palm-wood that spanned the runlet of water, turned and came over the waste ground noiselessly into the camp.  He was walking with naked feet.  He came to the men’s tent, where, in a row, with their faces towards the tent door, the camels were lying, eating barley that had been spread out for them on bits of sacking.  When he reached it he stood still.  He was shrouded in a black abayeh.

“Hamza!”

Mrs. Armine had called to him softly from the tent-door.

“Hamza!”

He flitted across the open space that divided the tents, and stood beside her.

She had never had any conversation with Hamza.  She had never heard him say any English word yet but “yes.”  But to-night she had an uneasy longing to get upon terms with him.  For he was Baroudi’s emissary in the camp of the Fayyum.

“Are you glad to be in my service, Hamza?” she said.  “Are you glad to come with us to the Fayyum?”