sked, "Who is Sutch?"

"A great friend of mine," said Feversham. "He is in Egypt, then! Does he
say where?"

"No; but since Mohammed Ali, the grain merchant, dropped the paper, we
may be sure he is at Suakin. A man with a box of matches! Think, we may
meet him to-night!"

But it was a month later when, in the evening, an Arab pushed past them
on the river-bank and said: "I am the man with the matches. To-morrow by
the storehouse at this hour." And as he walked past them he dropped a
box of coloured matches on the ground. Feversham stooped instantly.

"Don't touch them," said Trench, and he pressed the box into the ground
with his foot and walked on.

"Sutch!" exclaimed Feversham. "So he comes to our help! How did he know
that I was here?"

Trench fairly shook with excitement as he walked. He did not speak of
the great new hope which so suddenly came to them, for he dared not. He
tried even to pretend to himself that no message at all had come. He was
afraid to let his mind dwell upon the subject. Both men slept brokenly
that night, and every time they waked it was with a dim consciousness
that something great and wonderful had happened. Feversham, as he lay
upon his back and gazed upwards at the stars, had a fancy that he had
fallen asleep in the garden of Broad Place, on the Surrey hills, and
that he had but to raise his head to see the dark pines upon his right
hand and his left, and but to look behind to see the gables of the house
against the sky. He fell asleep towards dawn, and within an hour was
waked up by a violent shaking. He saw Trench bending over him with a
great fear on his face.

"Suppose they keep us in the prison to-day," he whispered in a shaking
voice, plucking at Feversham. "It has just occurred to me! Suppose they
did that!"

"Why should they?" answered Feversham; but the same fear caught hold of
him, and they sat dreading the appearance of Idris, lest he should have
some such new order to deliver. But Idris crossed the yard and unbolted
the prison door without a look at them. Fighting, screaming, jammed
together in the entrance, pulled back, thrust forwards, the captives
struggled out into the air, and among them was one who ran, foaming at
the mouth, and dashed his head against the wall.

"He is mad!" said Trench, as the gaolers secured him; and since Trench
was unmanned that morning he began to speak rapidly and almost with
incoherence. "That's what I have feared, Feversham, that I sho