n't want any more of these joints," Billy was saying vehemently
to his harassed guide. "It's dark as the Styx now--let's be on our
way."

The street they were on was narrow enough for any antiquarian, but
the one into which the Arab guide now turned was so narrow that the
jutting bays of the houses seemed pushing their faces impudently
against their neighbors. A voice in one room could have been heard
as clearly in the one over the way. It was a mean little street,
squalid and poor and pitiful, but it maintained its stripped
dignities of screened windows and isolation. It was better not to
wonder what nights were like in those women's rooms in summer heat.

The lane-like path stopped at a rickety sort of wharf, and at their
approach a black head bobbed quickly up from a waiting boat. It was
the little boy who had shadowed the Captain that day--reporting his
arrival at the Khedivial palace--and he climbed out now and sat on
the wharf, watching curiously while Billy and his guide bestowed
themselves in the long canoe, and pushed silently away.

It was an eerie backwater in which they were paddling, a sluggish
stream which moved between dark houses. Sometimes it scraped against
their sides and lapped their balconies; sometimes it was held in
check by walls and narrow terraces. For Billy the water between the
dark houses, the mirrored stars, the unexpected flare of some oil
lamp and its still reflection, the long windings and the stagnant
smells held their suggestions of Venice for his senses, and he
thought the business he was going about was very similar to the
business which had brought so many of the gentry of Venice to sudden
and undesired ends.

The flies were horribly thick here. They settled upon the faces and
arms of the paddlers, totally unapprehensive of rebuff. Billy's
flesh crawled. He finished the swarm with a ringing slap that
brought a low caution from his guide.

Now the canal was wider and shallower. The houses receded, and a
field or so appeared, and frequent walls hedged the way. Then
suddenly the houses came down again to the water, and the ruins of
old mosques and palaces lined the banks for a time; to be replaced
by walls again. The windings were interminable, and just when he was
thinking that his silent guide was as confused as he was, the man
made a sudden gesture to the right bank where a tiny strip of land
showed above the water clinging to a high brick wall, and with
careful, soundless st