looking in a man's face they could judge whether he was friendly to
their cause or not. Mabel had wired to her friend, and was met at the
station, so we had nothing to worry over for the present on her score.
Our own troubles began when we reached the only hotel and found it
crowded. The proprietor, a little wizened, pockmarked Arab in a black
alpaca jacket and yellow pants, with a tarboosh balanced forward at a
pessimistic angle, suggested that there might be guests in the hotel who
would let us share their beds...

"Although there will be no reduction of the price to either party in
that event," he hastened to explain.

It was a wonder of an hotel. You could smell the bugs and the sanitary
arrangements from the front-door step, and although the whole place had
been lime-washed, dirt from all over the Near East was accumulating on
the dead white, making it look leprous and depressing.

The place fronted on a main street, with its back toward the Bay of Acre
at a point where scavengers used the beach for a dumping place. There
was a hostel of British officers about a mile away, where Grim might
have been able to procure beds for the whole party; but I noticed no
less than five men who followed us up from the station and seemed to be
keeping a watchful eye on Yussuf Dakmar and it was a sure bet that if we
should show our hands so far as to mess with British officers, the train
next day would be packed with men to whom murder would be simple
amusement.

Yet Grim and Jeremy needed sleep and so did Narayan Singh. We offered
to rent an outhouse for the night--a cellar--the roof, but there was
nothing doing, and it was Yussuf Dakmar at last who solved the problem