opean people settling there at all. As I told you, it is a tiny
settlement--just thirty or so Bedouins who cultivate the land and grow
vegetables, which they hawk to other villages a day's march away. They
daren't openly complain, of course, but I believe they would like to
drive the white folks out; especially young Garnett, who is really
beating them at their own game as a clever agriculturist."

"There is never any trouble, I suppose?" Somehow Anstice felt a vague
uneasiness at the thought of Iris Cheniston shut up in a desert colony
among sullenly hostile neighbours.

"Oh, no, the Bedouins know the English Government won't allow any
hanky-panky." Sir Richard voiced the assertion so emphatically that a
tiny seed of doubt sprang up in his hearer's heart. "I confess I should
rather like to see Iris and Bruce settle down to civilized life again,
but this is only a holiday, and they won't be there long. Unless----" He
paused and Anstice guessed only too surely the ominous nature of the
pause.

With an instinctive desire to reassure the other man he spoke quickly.

"Perhaps when Cheniston is better they will fall in with your advice. No
doubt he will require a change after this illness, and very often, you
know, a man who has been ill takes a dislike to his surroundings, and is
only too ready to exchange them for others."

"Quite so." Sir Richard spoke absently, looking out of the window the
while, and since he was apparently disinclined for conversation, Anstice
followed his example, seeing plenty to interest him in the panorama
spread before his eyes in this strange and fascinating land, this living
frieze of pictures which might have been transplanted bodily from the
pages of the Old Testament itself.

Once, when the train came to a standstill at Ismailia, Sir Richard
roused himself to speech.

"Of course, should the Bedouins ever rise against the strangers in their
midst," he said, repelling with a gesture the attentions of a tall
water-seller who thrust a brass saucer containing a doubtful-looking
liquid through the carriage window, "things might be serious. True,
there are not more than a couple of score of them, and so far, with the
exception of a _fracas_ with Garnett over some vegetables they stole
from him, they have been peaceable enough."

"I see. And, as you say, they know quite well that the British
Government is behind this handful of English people, and knowing that
reprisals would be certain to f