w a group of men whose
gestures showed them to be strangely excited about something.

An Arab, who stalked along, his hand on the hilt of his sword, and
scowling on the bystanders, seemed to be the object of this commotion.

"Stop him!" "Seize him!" "The spy!" "The rebel!" were the cries: but
the Arab passed on like a lion through a crowd of wolves.

Then an Egyptian soldier, bolder than the rest, seized him by the sword-
arm, and in a second half a dozen were upon him. But in the next he had
shaken himself free, and his bright blade flashed in the sunlight, and
down went the first aggressor on the causeway, which was flooded with a
crimson stream.

Pistols were pulled out, carbines unslung, as the motley crowd rushed to
the spot. Pop, pop, pop; at least half a dozen shots were fired. One
bullet whizzed unpleasantly close to Harry's nose, another smashed in
amongst the bottles of an apothecary's stall, from which an assortment
of odours arose, attar of rose and asafoetida being the most prominent.
What billets all the other bullets found I know not, but one severed the
Arab's spine, and avenged the Egyptian.

By the time Harry got up to this latter, he saw that a man in European
clothing was by his side, kneeling on one knee, and trying to check the
flow of blood which pumped out of a wound in his neck.

"Is there a human being here who is not a jabbering idiot?" he cried in
English. "Keep back, you fools, and let the man have a chance to
breathe."

"Can I be of any use?" asked Harry, pushing to him.

"That's right, come on," said the surgeon, as he evidently was. "Lay
hold of this forceps, and hold tight--that's it--while I cut down a bit
and tie it lower down. No good, I fear; there are too many vessels
severed. By George, how sharp those fellows keep their tools!"

He was right; it _was_ no good. In five minutes the Egyptian soldier
died under his hands. Upon which he rose up and walked on to where the
Arab lay, to see if anything could be done for him; but he had hardly
moved since the shot struck him.

"A bad business," said the doctor to Harry, who had followed him. "We
have not got many soldiers in our force brave enough to lay hold of an
Arab, and can ill afford to lose one of them in a stupid affair like
this."

"Are they such cowards?" asked Harry. "But I say," he added, as he
looked in the other's face, "is not your name Howard?"

"Yes, it is."

"Don't you remember Forsyth at Har