, and pointed across the Square, where the
whole of the male population surged about two men. But Zulannah, the
recognised beauty of the North of Egypt, shrugged her dimpled shoulders
as she stuffed over-large portions of sweetmeats between her dazzling
teeth and stretched herself upon a divan to watch the scene over the
way.

Abdul, falconer of Shammar, bearded and middle-aged, stood with a
_shahin_ of Jaraza upon his fist and a hooded eyess--which means a
young hawk or nestling taken from the nest--of the same species upon a
padded and spiked perch beside him, whilst hooded or with seeled eyes,
upon perch or bough, were other yellow or dark-eyed birds of prey;
short-winged hawks, a bearded vulture, a hobby, a passage Saker.

But it was not upon Abdul or his stock that the girl's eyes rested,
nor, peradventure, the eyes behind the silken curtains.

The central figure of the glowing picture was that of Hugh Carden Ali,
the eldest and best-beloved son of Hahmed the Sheikh el-Umbar and Jill,
his beautiful, English and one and only wife; the son conceived in a
surpassing love and born upon the desert sands.

"An Englishman," said Damaris softly as she withdrew yet further into
the sheltering doorway and unleashed the dog; and still further back,
when the man suddenly turned and looked across the Square as though in
search of someone. "No! a native," she added, as she noticed the
crimson _tarbusch_. "And yet . . ."

She was by no means the first to wonder as to the nationality of the
man.

In riding-kit, with boots from Peter Yapp, he looked, except for the
headcovering, exactly like an Englishman.

Certainly the shape of the face was slightly more oval than is common
to the sons of a northern race, but nothing really out of the ordinary,
just as the eyes were an ordinary kind of brown, with a disconcerting
way of looking suddenly into your face, sweeping it in an
all-comprehensive lightning glance and looking indifferently away.

The nose was good and quite straight; the hair thick, brown and
controllable; the mouth covering the perfect teeth was deceptive, or
maybe it was the strength of the jaw which belied the gentleness, just
as the slimness of the six-foot of body, trained to a hair from
babyhood, gave no clue to the steel muscles underlying a skin as white
as and a good deal whiter than that of some Europeans.

He moved with the quickness and quietness of those accustomed to the
far horizon as a backgro