badly upon stringy lamb and sodden baklava.

Later he wandered restlessly about dark, medieval streets where
squat groups were clustered about some coffee house door, intent
upon a game of checkers or some patriarchal story teller,
recounting, very probably, a bandied narration of the Thousand and
One Nights. Through other open doors drifted the exasperating nasal
twang of Cairene music, and idly pausing, Ryder could see above the
red fezes and turbans that topped the cross-legged audiences the
dark, sleek, slowly-revolving body of some desert dancing girl.

Irresolutely he drifted on to the Esbekeyih quarters, to the streets
where the withdrawn camels and donkeys had left pre-eminent the
carriages and motors of that stream of Continental night life which
sets towards Cairo in the season, Russian dukes and German
millionaires, Viennese actresses and French singers and ladies of no
avowed profession, gamblers, idlers, diplomats, drifters, vivid
flashes of color in the bizarre, kaleidoscopic spectacle.

It was quite dark now. The last pale gleam of the afterglow had
faded, and the blue of the sky, deepening and darkening, was pierced
with the thronging stars. It was very warm; no breeze, but a fitful
stirring in the tops of the feathery palms.

The streets were growing still. Only from some of the hotels came
the sound of music from lighted, open windows.

Jinny would be rather expectant at her hotel. He could, of course,
drop in for a few minutes since he was so near.... He walked past
the hotel.... Jinny would be packing--or ought to be. A pity to