Some large rats were playing on the uneven stones close to the river;
from a little shed close by there came the dull puffing of an engine.

"Where on earth are we going, Nigel? This is only a donkey track."

"It's all right. Just wait a minute. There's the Dutchman's castle, and
we are just beyond it. Am I walking too fast for you, Ruby?"

"No, no."

She hurried on. Her whole body was clamouring for warm water with a
certain essence dissolved in it, for a change of stockings and shoes,
for a tea-gown, for a sofa with a tea-table beside it, for a hundred and
one things his manhood did not dream of.

"Here it is at last!" he said.

A tall and amiable-looking boy in a flowing gold-coloured robe suddenly
appeared before them, holding open a wooden gate, through which they
passed into a garden.

"Hulloh, Ibrahim!" cried Nigel.

"Hulloh, my gentleman!" returned the boy, inclining his body towards
Mrs. Armine and touching his fez with his hand. "I am Ibrahim Ahmed, my
lady, the special servant called a dragoman of my Lord Arminigel. I can
read the hieroglyphs, and I am always young and cheerful."

He took Nigel's right hand, kissed it and placed it against his forehead
rapidly three times in succession, smiled, and looked sideways on the