shi; not because he was Wyndham bimbashi, but because the heathen
in these men cried out for sacrifice; and what so agreeable a sacrifice
as the Englishman who had led them into this disaster and would die so
well--had they ever seen an Englishman who did not die well?

Wyndham was quiet and watchful, and he cudgelled his bullet-head, and
looked down his long nose in meditation all the day, while his tongue
became dry and thick, and his throat seemed to crack like roasting
leather. At length he worked the problem out. Then he took action.

He summoned his troop before him, and said briefly: "Men, we must
have water. The question is, who is going to steal out to the sakkia
to-night, to shut the one sluice and open the other?"

No one replied. No one understood quite what Wyndham meant. Shutting one
sluice and opening the other did not seem to meet the situation. There
was the danger of getting to the sakkia, but there was also an after.
Would it be possible to shut one sluice and open the other without the
man at the wheel knowing? Suppose you killed the man at the wheel--what
then?

The Gippies and the friendlies scowled, but did not speak. The bimbashi
was responsible for all; he was an Englishman, let him get water for
them, or die like the rest of them--perhaps before them!

Wyndham could not travel the sinuosities of their minds, and it would
not have affected his purpose if he could have done so. When no man
replied, he simply said:

"All right, men. You shall have water before morning. Try and hold out
till then." He dismissed them. For a long time he walked up and down the
garden of straggling limes, apparently listless, and smoking hard. He
reckoned carefully how long it would take Hassan to get to Kerbat, and
for relief to come. He was fond of his pipe, and he smoked now as if
it were the thing he most enjoyed in the world. He held the bowl in
the hollow of his hand almost tenderly. He seemed unconscious of the
scowling looks around him. At last he sat down on the ledge of the rude
fountain, with his face towards the Gippies and the Arabs squatted on
the ground, some playing mankalah, others sucking dry lime leaves, many
smoking apathetically.

One man with the flicker of insanity in his eyes suddenly ran forward
and threw himself on the ground before Wyndham.

"In the name of God the Compassionate, the Merciful--water!" he cried.
"Water--I am dying, effendi whom God preserve!"

"Nile water is sweet;