ur eyes
rested on my face there was no recognition in them. I suspected then.
When you came down the steps into the verandah I became almost certain.
When you would not help yourself to food, when you reached out your arm
over your shoulder so that Moussa had to put the brandy-and-soda safely
into your palm, I was sure."

"I was a fool to try and hide it," said Durrance. "Of course I knew all
the time that I couldn't for more than a few hours. But even those few
hours somehow seemed a gain."

"How did it happen?"

"There was a high wind," Durrance explained. "It took my helmet off. It
was eight o'clock in the morning. I did not mean to move my camp that
day, and I was standing outside my tent in my shirt-sleeves. So you see
that I had not even the collar of a coat to protect the nape of my neck.
I was fool enough to run after my helmet; and--you must have seen the
same thing happen a hundred times--each time that I stooped to pick it
up it skipped away; each time that I ran after it, it stopped and waited
for me to catch it up. And before one was aware what one was doing, one
had run a quarter of a mile. I went down, I was told, like a log just
when I had the helmet in my hand. How long ago it happened I don't quite
know, for I was ill for a time, and afterwards it was difficult to keep
count, since one couldn't tell the difference between day and night."

Durrance, in a word, had gone blind. He told the rest of his story. He
had bidden his followers carry him back to Berber, and then, influenced
by the natural wish to hide his calamity as long as he could, he had
enjoined upon them silence. Calder heard the story through to the end,
and then rose at once to his feet.

"There's a doctor. He is clever, and, for a Syrian, knows a good deal. I
will fetch him here privately, and we will hear what he says. Your
blindness may be merely temporary."

The Syrian doctor, however, pursed up his lips and shook his head. He
advised an immediate departure to Cairo. It was a case for a specialist.
He himself would hesitate to pronounce an opinion; though, to be sure,
there was always hope of a cure.

"Have you ever suffered an injury in the head?" he asked. "Were you
ever thrown from your horse? Were you wounded?"

"No," said Durrance.

The Syrian did not disguise his conviction that the case was grave; and
after he had departed both men were silent for some time. Calder had a
feeling that any attempt at consolation would b