stand, was joined with him.

"Here's our last hope gone," he said; and though Feversham did not
openly agree, in spite of himself his heart began to consent.

They piled the bricks one upon the other and mortised them. Each day the
wall rose a foot. With their own hands they closed themselves in. Twelve
feet high the wall stood when they had finished it--twelve feet high,
and smooth and strong. There was never a projection from its surface on
which a foot could rest; it could not be broken through in a night.
Trench and Feversham contemplated it in despair. The very palm trees of
Khartum were now hidden from their eyes. A square of bright blue by day,
a square of dark blue by night, jewelled with points of silver and
flashing gold, limited their world. Trench covered his face with his
hands.

"I daren't look at it," he said in a broken voice. "We have been
building our own coffin, Feversham, that's the truth of it." And then he
cast up his arms and cried aloud: "Will they never come up the Nile, the
gunboats and the soldiers? Have they forgotten us in England? Good God!
have they forgotten us?"

"Hush!" replied Feversham. "We shall find a way of escape, never fear.
We must wait six months. Well, we have both of us waited years. Six
months,--what are they?"

But, though he spoke stoutly for his comrade's sake, his own heart sank
within him.

The details of their life during the six months are not to be dwelt
upon. In that pestilent enclosure only the myriad vermin lived lives of
comfort. No news filtered in from the world outside. They fed upon
their own thoughts, so that the sight of a lizard upon the wall became
an occasion for excitement. They were stung by scorpions at night; they
were at times flogged by their gaolers by day. They lived at the mercy
of the whims of Idris-es-Saier and that peculiar spirit Nebbi Khiddr,
who always reported against them to the Khalifa just at the moment when
Idris was most in need of money for his starving family. Religious men
were sent by the Khalifa to convert them to the only true religion; and
indeed the long theological disputations in the enclosure became events
to which both men looked forward with eagerness. At one time they would
be freed from the heavier shackles and allowed to sleep in the open; at
another, without reason, those privileges would be withdrawn, and they
struggled for their lives within the House of Stone.

The six months came to an end. The seventh be