to lands unseen.

Through other arched doors, even at night, there is a glimpse of
blindfold camels going round and round in ancient gloom at the
oil-press. There are no sounds of revelry. The Arab takes his
pleasures stately fashion, and the Jew has learned from history
that the safest way to enjoy life is to keep quiet about it. Now
and then you can hear an Arab singing a desert song, not very
musical but utterly descriptive of the life he leads. We
caught the sound of a flute played wistfully in an upper room
by some Jew returned from the West to take up anew the thread
of ancient history.

Grim nudged me sharply in one shadowy place, where the street
went down in twenty-foot-long steps between the high walls of
windowless harems. Another narrow street crossed ours thirty
feet ahead of us, and our two guides were hurrying, only glancing
back at intervals to make sure we had not given them the slip.
The cross-street was between us and them, and as Grim nudged me
two men--a bulky, bearded big one and one of rather less than
middle height, both in Arab dress--passed in front of us. There
was no chance of being overheard, and Grim spoke in a low voice:

"Do you recognize them?" "I shook my head.

"Scharnhoff and Noureddin Ali!"

I don't see now how he recognized them. But I suppose a man who
works long enough at Grim's business acquires a sixth sense.
They were walking swiftly, arguing in low tones, much too busy
with their own affairs to pay attention to us. Our two guides
glanced back a moment later, but they had vanished by then into
the gloom of the cross-street.

There was a dim lamp at one corner of that crossing. As we
passed through its pale circle of light I noticed a man who
looked like an Arab lurking in the shadow just beyond it. I
thought he made a sign to Grim, but I did not see Grim return it.

Grim watched his chance, then spoke again:

"That man in the shadow is a Sikh--Narayan Singh's sidekick--
keeping tabs on Scharnhoff. I'll bet old Scharnhoff has cold
feet and went to find Noureddin Ali to try and talk him out of
it. Might as well try to pretty-pussy a bob-cat away from a hen-
yard! Poor old Scharnhoff's in the soup!"

Quite suddenly after that we reached a fairly wide street and the
arched Byzantine gateway of the Haram-es-Sheriff, through which
we could see tall cypress trees against the moonlit sky and the
dome of the mosque beyond them. They do say the Taj Mahal at
Ag