ng to
the world of things actual, Cairn found himself an invalid, who but
yesterday had been a hale man; found himself shipped for Port Said;
found himself entrained for Cairo; and with an awakening to the
realities of life, an emerging from an ill-dream to lively interest in
the novelties of Egypt, found himself following the red-jerseyed
Shepheard's porter along the corridor of the train and out on to the
platform.

A short drive through those singular streets where East meets West and
mingles, in the sudden, violet dusk of Lower Egypt, and he was amid
the bustle of the popular hotel.

Sime was there, whom he had last seen at Oxford, Sime the phlegmatic.
He apologised for not meeting the train, but explained that his duties
had rendered it impossible. Sime was attached temporarily to an
archaeological expedition as medical man, and his athletic and somewhat
bovine appearance contrasted oddly with the unhealthy gauntness of
Cairn.

"I only got in from Wasta ten minutes ago, Cairn. You must come out to
the camp when I return; the desert air will put you on your feet again
in no time."

Sime was unemotional, but there was concern in his voice and in his
glance, for the change in Cairn was very startling. Although he knew
something, if but very little, of certain happenings in
London--gruesome happenings centering around the man called Antony
Ferrara--he avoided any reference to them at the moment.

Seated upon the terrace, Robert Cairn studied the busy life in the
street below with all the interest of a new arrival in the Capital of
the Near East. More than ever, now, his illness and the things which
had led up to it seemed to belong to a remote dream existence. Through
the railings at his feet a hawker was thrusting fly-whisks, and
imploring him in complicated English to purchase one. Vendors of
beads, of fictitious "antiques," of sweetmeats, of what-not;
fortune-tellers--and all that chattering horde which some obscure
process of gravitation seems to hurl against the terrace of
Shepheard's, buzzed about him. Carriages and motor cars, camels and
donkeys mingled, in the Sharia Kamel Pasha. Voices American, voices
Anglo-Saxon, guttural German tones, and softly murmured Arabic merged
into one indescribable chord of sound; but to Robert Cairn it was all
unspeakably restful. He was quite contented to sit there sipping his
whisky and soda, and smoking his pipe. Sheer idleness was good for him
and exactly what he wante