'Holy One, the thin fool who looks like a camel says that I am the
son of a Sahib.'

'But how?'

'Oh, it is true. I knew it since my birth, but he could only find
it out by rending the amulet from my neck and reading all the
papers. He thinks that once a Sahib is always a Sahib, and between
the two of them they purpose to keep me in this Regiment or to send
me to a madrissah [a school]. It has happened before. I have always
avoided it. The fat fool is of one mind and the camel-like one of
another. But that is no odds. I may spend one night here and
perhaps the next. It has happened before. Then I will run away and
return to thee.'

'But tell them that thou art my chela. Tell them how thou didst
come to me when I was faint and bewildered. Tell them of our
Search, and they will surely let thee go now.'

'I have already told them. They laugh, and they talk of the
police.'

'What are you saying?' asked Mr Bennett.

'Oah. He only says that if you do not let me go it will stop him in
his business - his ur-gent private af-fairs.' This last was a
reminiscence of some talk with a Eurasian clerk in the Canal
Department, but it only drew a smile, which nettled him. 'And if
you did know what his business was you would not be in such a