About eleven o’clock Orme came on watch, and I turned in, having nothing to report.  Soon I was fast asleep, notwithstanding the anxieties that, had I been less weary, might well have kept me wakeful.  For these were many.  On the coming night we must slip through the Fung, and before midday on the morrow we should either have entered Mur, or failed to have entered Mur, which meant—­death, or, what was worse, captivity among barbarians, and subsequent execution, preceded probably by torture of one sort or another.

Of course, however, we might come thither without accident, travelling with good guides on a dark night, for, after all, the place was big, and the road lonely and little used, so that unless we met a watch, which, we were told, would not be there, our little caravan had a good chance to pass unobserved.  Shadrach seemed to think that we should do so, but the worst of it was that, like Quick, I did not trust Shadrach.  Even Maqueda, the Lady of the Abati, she whom they called Child of Kings, had her doubts about him, or so it had seemed to me.

At any rate, she had told me before I left Mur that she chose him for this mission because he was bold and cunning, one of the very few of her people also who, in his youth, had crossed the desert and, therefore, knew the road.  “Yet, Physician,” she added meaningly, “watch him, for is he not named ‘Cat’?  Yes, watch him, for did I not hold his wife and children hostages, and were I not sure that he desires to win the great reward in land which I have promised to him, I would not trust you to this man’s keeping.”

Well, after many experiences in his company, my opinion coincided with Maqueda’s, and so did that of Quick, no mean judge of men.

“Look at him, Doctor,” he said when he came to tell me that I could turn in, for whether it were his watch or not, the Sergeant never seemed to be off duty.  “Look, at him,” and he pointed to Shadrach, who was seated under the shade of a tree, talking earnestly in whispers with two of his subordinates with a very curious and unpleasing smile upon his face.  “If God Almighty ever made a scamp, he’s squatting yonder.  My belief is that he wanted to be rid of us all at Zeu, so that he might steal our goods, and I hope he won’t play the same trick again to-night.  Even the dog can’t abide him.”

Before I could answer, I had proof of this last statement, for the great yellow hound, Pharaoh, that had found us in the desert, hearing our voices, emerged from some corner where it was hidden, and advanced toward us, wagging its tail.  As it passed Shadrach, it stopped and growled, the hair rising on its back, whereon he hurled a stone at it and hit its leg.  Next instant Pharaoh, a beast of enormous power, was on the top of him, and really, I thought, about to tear out his throat.

Well, we got him off before any harm was done, but Shadrach’s face, lined with its livid scars, was a thing to remember.  Between rage and fear, it looked like that of a devil.