hed the desperate, troubled, aching heart and
tortured mind of an overworked strong man. It cried to the night its
trouble; but far over in the Cholera Hospital the sick heard it and
turned their faces towards it eagerly. It pierced the apathy of the
dying. It did more, for it gave Fielding five hours' sleep that night;
and though he waked to see one of his own crew dead on the bank, he
tackled the day's labour with more hope than he had had for a fortnight.

As the day wore on, however, his spirits fell, for on every hand was
suspicion, unrest, and opposition, and his native assistants went
sluggishly about their work. It was pathetic and disheartening to see
people refusing to be protected, the sick refusing to be relieved, all
stricken with fear, yet inviting death by disobeying the Inglesi.

Kalamoun was hopeless; yet twenty-four hours earlier Fielding had
fancied there was a little light in the darkness. That night Fielding's
music gave him but two hours' sleep, and he had to begin the day on
a brandy-and-soda. Wherever he went open resistance blocked his way,
hisses and mutterings followed him, the sick were hid in all sorts of
places, and two of his assistants deserted before noon. Things looked
ominous enough, and at five o'clock he made up his mind that Egypt would
be overrun with cholera, and that he should probably have to defend
himself and the Amenhotep from rioters, for the native police would be
useless.

But at five o'clock Dicky Donovan came in a boat, and with him Mustapha
Kali under a native guard of four men. The Mudir's sense of humour had
been touched, and this sense of humour probably saved the Mudir from
trouble, for it played Dicky's game for him.

Mustapha Kali had been sentenced to serve in the Cholera Hospital of
Kalamoun, that he might be cured of his unbelief. At first he had taken
his fate hardly, but Dicky had taunted him and then had suggested that
a man whose conscience was clear and convictions good would carry a high
head in trouble. Dicky challenged him to prove his libels by probing the
business to the bottom, like a true scientist. All the way from Abdallah
Dicky talked to him so, and at last the only answer Mustapha Kali would
make was, "Malaish no matter!"

Mustapha Kali pricked up his ears with hope as he saw the sullen crowds
from Kalamoun gathering on the shore to watch his deportation to the
Cholera Hospital; and, as he stepped from the khiassa, he called out
loudly: