the last inspection. He had spoken little all day, and Dicky had noticed
that his eye was constantly turning here and there, as though looking for
an unwelcome something or somebody.

At last the thing was over, and they were just crossing the canal, the
old Bahr-el-Yusef, which cuts the town in twain as the river Abana does
Damascus, when Dicky saw nearing them a heavily-laden boat, a cross
between a Thames house-boat and an Italian gondola, being drawn by one
poor raw-bone--raw-bone in truth, for there was on each shoulder a round
red place, made raw by the unsheathed ropes used as harness. The beast's
sides were scraped as a tree is barked, and the hind quarters gored as
though by a harrow. Dicky was riding with the mamour of the district,
Fielding was a distance behind with Trousers and the Mudir. Dicky pulled
up his donkey, got off and ran towards the horse, pale with fury; for he
loved animals better than men, and had wasted his strength beating
donkey-boys with the sticks they used on their victims. The boat had now
reached a point opposite the mudirieh, its stopping-place; and the raw-
bone, reeking with sweat and blood, stood still and trembled, its knees
shaking with the strain just taken off them, its head sunk nearly to the
ground.

Dicky had hardly reached the spot when a figure came running to the poor
waler with a quick stumbling motion. Dicky drew back in wonder, for
never had he seen eyes so painful as these that glanced from the tortured
beast to himself--staring, bulbous, bloodshot, hunted eyes; but they were
blue, a sickly, faded blue; and they were English! Dicky's hand was, on
his pistol, for his first impulse had been to shoot the rawbone; but it
dropped away in sheer astonishment at the sight of this strange figure in
threadbare dirty clothes and riding-breeches made by shearing the legs of
a long pair--cut with an unsteady hand, for the edges were jagged and