who stood unattended in the open market. They giggled in the
insufferable Eastern way, and pointed across the Square, where the
whole of the male population surged about two men. But Zulannah, the
recognised beauty of the North of Egypt, shrugged her dimpled shoulders
as she stuffed over-large portions of sweetmeats between her dazzling
teeth and stretched herself upon a divan to watch the scene over the
way.

Abdul, falconer of Shammar, bearded and middle-aged, stood with a
_shahin_ of Jaraza upon his fist and a hooded eyess--which means a
young hawk or nestling taken from the nest--of the same species upon a
padded and spiked perch beside him, whilst hooded or with seeled eyes,
upon perch or bough, were other yellow or dark-eyed birds of prey;
short-winged hawks, a bearded vulture, a hobby, a passage Saker.

But it was not upon Abdul or his stock that the girl's eyes rested,
nor, peradventure, the eyes behind the silken curtains.

The central figure of the glowing picture was that of Hugh Carden Ali,
the eldest and best-beloved son of Hahmed the Sheikh el-Umbar and Jill,
his beautiful, English and one and only wife; the son conceived in a
surpassing love and born upon the desert sands.

"An Englishman," said Damaris softly as she withdrew yet further into
the sheltering doorway and unleashed the dog; and still further back,
when the man suddenly turned and looked across the Square as though in
search of someone. "No! a native," she added, as she noticed the
crimson _tarbusch_. "And yet . . ."

She was by no means the first to wonder as to the nationality of the