nd waterless,
until one day he was snapped up by a Mahdist caravan and dragged to
Dongola as a spy. And at Dongola things had happened of which the mere
mention made Trench shake. He heard of leather cords which had been
bound about the prisoner's wrists, and upon which water had been poured
until the cords swelled and the wrists burst, but this was among the
minor brutalities. Trench waited for the morning as he listened,
wondering whether indeed it would ever come.

He heard the bolts dragged back at the last; he saw the door open and
the good daylight. He stood up and with Ibrahim's help protected this
new comrade until the eager rush was past. Then he supported him out
into the zareeba. Worn, wasted in body and face, with a rough beard
straggled upon his chin, and his eyes all sunk and very bright, it was
still Harry Feversham. Trench laid him down in a corner of the zareeba
where there would be shade; and in a few hours shade would be needed.
Then with the rest he scrambled to the Nile for water and brought it
back. As he poured it down Feversham's throat, Feversham seemed for a
moment to recognise him. But it was only for a moment, and the
incoherent tale of his adventures began again. Thus, after five years,
and for the first time since Trench had dined as Feversham's guest in
the high rooms overlooking St. James's Park, the two men met in the
House of Stone.

CHAPTER XXVIII

PLANS OF ESCAPE

For three days Feversham rambled and wandered in his talk, and for three
days Trench fetched him water from the Nile, shared his food with him,
and ministered to his wants; for three nights, too, he stood with
Ibrahim and fought in front of Feversham in the House of Stone. But on
the fourth morning Feversham waked to his senses and, looking up, with
his own eyes saw bending over him the face of Trench. At first the face
seemed part of his delirium. It was one of those nightmare faces which
had used to grow big and had come so horribly close to him in the dark
nights of his boyhood as he lay in bed. He put out a weak arm and thrust
it aside. But he gazed about him. He was lying in the shadow of the
prison house, and the hard blue sky above him, the brown bare trampled
soil on which he lay, and the figures of his fellow-prisoners dragging
their chains or lying prone upon the ground in some extremity of
sickness gradually conveyed their meaning to him. He turned to Trench,
caught at him as if he feared the next mom