journey."

"His preparations were made already," said Calder. "He went away early,
as you say. But he did not go to his quarters. He walked along the
river-bank to Tewfikieh."

Wadi Halfa was the military station, Tewfikieh a little frontier town to
the north separated from Halfa by a mile of river-bank. A few Greeks
kept stores there, a few bare and dirty cafes faced the street between
native cook-shops and tobacconists'; a noisy little town where the negro
from the Dinka country jolted the fellah from the Delta, and the air was
torn with many dialects; a thronged little town, which yet lacked to
European ears one distinctive element of a throng. There was no ring of
footsteps. The crowd walked on sand and for the most part with naked
feet, so that if for a rare moment the sharp high cries and the
perpetual voices ceased, the figures of men and women flitted by
noiseless as ghosts. And even at night, when the streets were most
crowded and the uproar loudest, it seemed that underneath the noise, and
almost appreciable to the ear, there lay a deep and brooding silence,
the silence of deserts and the East.

"Durrance went down to Tewfikieh at ten o'clock that night," said
Calder. "I went to his quarters at eleven. He had not returned. He was
starting eastward at four in the morning, and there was some detail of
business on which I wished to speak to him before he went. So I waited
for his return. He came in about a quarter of an hour afterwards and
told me at once that I must be quick, since he was expecting a visitor.
He spoke quickly and rather restlessly. He seemed to be labouring under
some excitement. He barely listened to what I had to say, and he
answered me at random. It was quite evident that he was moved, and
rather deeply moved, by some unusual feeling, though at the nature of
the feeling I could not guess. For at one moment it seemed certainly to
be anger, and the next moment he relaxed into a laugh, as though in
spite of himself he was glad. However, he bundled me out, and as I went
I heard him telling his servant to go to bed, because, though he
expected a visitor, he would admit the visitor himself."

"Well!" said Dawson, "and who was the visitor?"

"I do not know," answered Calder. "The one thing I do know is that when
Durrance's servant went to call him at four o'clock for his journey, he
found Durrance still sitting on the verandah outside his quarters, as
though he still expected his visitor. The