he
Engineers. Youth, however, in this instance had no optimism wherewith to
challenge Colonel Dawson.

"He left Halfa eight weeks ago, eh?" he said gloomily.

"Eight weeks to-day," replied the colonel.

It was the third officer, a tall, spare, long-necked major of the Army
Service Corps, who alone hazarded a cheerful prophecy.

"It's early days to conclude Durrance has got scuppered," said he. "One
knows Durrance. Give him a camp-fire in the desert, and a couple of
sheiks to sit round it with him, and he'll buck to them for a month and
never feel bored at the end. While here there are letters, and there's
an office, and there's a desk in the office and everything he loathes
and can't do with. You'll see Durrance will turn up right enough, though
he won't hurry about it."

"He is three weeks overdue," objected the colonel, "and he's methodical
after a fashion. I am afraid."

Major Walters pointed out his arm to the white empty desert across the
river.

"If he had travelled that way, westward, I might agree," he said. "But
Durrance went east through the mountain country toward Berenice and the
Red Sea. The tribes he went to visit were quiet, even in the worst
times, when Osman Digna lay before Suakin."

The colonel, however, took no comfort from Walters's confidence. He
tugged at his moustache and repeated, "He is three weeks overdue."

Lieutenant Calder knocked the ashes from his pipe and refilled it. He
leaned forward in his chair as he pressed the tobacco down with his
thumb, and he said slowly:--

"I wonder. It is just possible that some sort of trap was laid for
Durrance. I am not sure. I never mentioned before what I knew, because
until lately I did not suspect that it could have anything to do with
his delay. But now I begin to wonder. You remember the night before he
started?"

"Yes," said Dawson, and he hitched his chair a little nearer. Calder was
the one man in Wadi Halfa who could claim something like intimacy with
Durrance. Despite their difference in rank there was no great disparity
in age between the two men, and from the first when Calder had come
inexperienced and fresh from England, but with a great ardour to acquire
a comprehensive experience, Durrance in his reticent way had been at
pains to show the newcomer considerable friendship. Calder, therefore,
might be likely to know.

"I too remember that night," said Walters. "Durrance dined at the mess
and went away early to prepare for his