bolted the door.

"Is the fellow crazy?" said Melton. "What can he mean to do?"

"Crazy?" rejoined Guy. "No; I have a strange faith in that man, Melton.
Do just as he tells you and see what turns up tonight."

With much grumbling Melton assumed the part of a very sick man. He
rather overdid the thing, in fact, for twice the guard opened the door
and looked in. About noon food was brought, and from that time no one
came near them.

The minutes dragged along like hours. They tried to forget the awful
fate that stared them in the face, but in spite of the Greek's
encouraging words the future looked very black.

At last the feeble light in their dungeon began to fade away, and soon
they were in darkness.

"The fellow will never come back," said Melton bitterly. "It's all up
with us, Chutney, so don't try to raise any more false hopes."

But Guy refused to give up, and his faith was rewarded. Quick footsteps
approached the dungeon, the bolts rattled, and Canaris entered with a
rude lamp and a leather case, which he placed carefully on the floor.

Then he pulled a paper from his pocket and waved it gleefully.

"See," he cried, "a permit from Rao Khan, admitting me to the prison at
all times. I told him that your wound was very bad, that the Arab doctor
had failed to help you, and that I knew enough of English surgery to
cure you if he would allow it. Rao Khan reluctantly consented, and here
I am."

He listened intently for a moment, glanced round the dungeon, and then
went on in a low, excited tone:

"Get close together. I have something important to tell you."

They squatted down in a group on the straw, and with a strange, exultant
sparkle in his eyes, Canaris began:

"When I came to Harar two years ago this very cell held a white slave,
like yourselves an Englishman. He was an old man, with long white hair
and beard, and had been so long in slavery that he had forgotten his own
name and could scarcely speak the English tongue.

"My duties then were to carry food and drink to the slaves, and before
long I was on intimate terms with the old Englishman. He was very ill,
and the Arab doctors made him no better. Perhaps it was old age that was
the trouble, but at all events he died two months after I came. At
different times he had told me the story of his life, and that is what I
am going to tell you now.

"He had been thirty years in slavery. How and where he had been captured
he could no longer remember. Hi