white woman--another. They have come from
Assouan by the boat."

"Not the girl who rode in the desert with------"

She touched the purple angry marks on her cheek.

"Nay, woman; I have told thee, _she_ walks in the blackness of the
ruins, with the man who caused thee thy hurt. She drives with him," he
spat, "she should take thy place in the bazaar, O Zulannah of the
thousand lovers."

The woman paid no heed to the jibe.

"Who told thee?"

"Behold, the night-watchman of the big hotel upon the edge of the water
sent me word."

"Why?"

"That is no business of thine. Tell me what scheme thou hast in thy
head. Dost desire the death of the three?"

Zulannah shook her head and turning it so that the wounds and
distortion were hidden, leant against the wall.

"Not yet!" she said, loosening with filthy hand the uncombed masses of
jet-black hair, which still retained something of the perfume of better
days. "Not _yet_! Let me think awhile."

And she paid no heed to the man, who sat staring at her, breathing
heavily.

The right side of her face, untouched and perfect, showed in all its
beauty against the dirty whiteness of the wall; her hair served as a
mantle to the perfect figure in the soiled satin wrap; her crippled
limbs showed not at all in the foul room lit by a wick floating in a
saucer of oil.

The light went out suddenly.

Oh, Zulannah! surely your cap of misery was full to the brim!

CHAPTER XXV

"_He that has patience may compass anything_."

RABELAIS.

Ben Kelham sat near the balustrade on the verandah of Shepheard's Hotel
just after breakfast, pretending to read the morning paper, whilst
trying to make up his mind.

Sybil Sidmouth and her mother, owing to lack of accommodation, brought
about by the crush of visitors in the huge caravanserai, had gone to
the Savoy; for which the man was secretly thankful.

He wanted to eat out his heart all by himself in the appalling
loneliness which had overwhelmed him when, on ringing up Heliopolis the
night before, he had learned that Damaris and the duchess had
transferred themselves to Luxor.

And you simply cannot indulge in your particular brand of _malaise_ or
dolour with an extreme optimist sitting opposite you at meals, or
adjacent to your elbow at most other times.

He anathematised the postal system of Egypt; his own haste in accepting
the girl's refusal; the oriental imagination which magnified cats into
lions; bu