till. He was shrouded in a
black abayeh.

"Hamza!"

Mrs. Armine had called to him softly from the tent-door.

"Hamza!"

He flitted across the open space that divided the tents, and stood
beside her.

She had never had any conversation with Hamza. She had never heard him
say any English word yet but "yes." But to-night she had an uneasy
longing to get upon terms with him. For he was Baroudi's emissary in the
camp of the Fayyum.

"Are you glad to be in my service, Hamza?" she said. "Are you glad to
come with us to the Fayyum?"

"Yes," he said.

She hesitated. There was always something in his appearance, in his
manner, which seemed to fend her off from him. She always felt as if
with his mind and soul he was pushing her away. At last she said:

"Do you like me, Hamza?"

"Yes," he replied.

"You have been to Mecca, haven't you, with Mahmoud Baroudi?"

"Yes."

He muttered the word this time. His hands had been hanging at his sides,
concealed in his loose sleeves, but now they were moved, and one went
quickly up to his breast, and stayed there.

"What are you doing?" Mrs. Armine said, with a sudden sharpness; and,
moved by an impulse she could not have explained, she seized the hand at
his heart, and pulled it towards her. By the light of the young moon she
saw that it was grasping tightly a sort of tassel made of cowries which
hung round his neck by a string. He covered the shells with his fingers,
and showed his teeth. She let his hand go.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered.

She turned and went into the tent, and he flitted away like a shadow.

That night, when Nigel came in from Sennoures, she said to him:

"What is the meaning of those tassels made of shells that Egyptians
sometimes wear round their necks?"

"What sort of shells?" he asked.

"Cowries."

"Cowries--oh, they're supposed to be a charm against the evil eye and
bad spirits. Where have you seen one?"

"On a donkey-boy up the Nile, at Luxor."

She changed the conversation.

They were sitting at dinner on either side of a folding table that
rested on iron legs. Beneath their feet was a gaudy carpet, very thick
and of a woolly texture, and so large that it completely concealed the
hard earth within the circle of the canvas, which had a lining of deep
red, covered with an elaborate pattern in black, white, yellow, blue,
and green. The tent was lit up by an oil-lamp, round which several night
moths revolved, occasional