mudirieh, but knew the story of Soada, the daughter of Wassef the camel-
driver.

Soada was pretty and upright, with a full round breast and a slim figure.
She carried a balass of water on her head as gracefully as a princess a
tiara. This was remarked by occasional inspectors making their official
rounds, and by more than one khowagah putting in with his dahabeah where
the village maidens came to fill their water-jars. Soada's trinkets and
bracelets were perhaps no better than those of her companions, but her
one garment was of the linen of Beni Mazar, as good as that worn by the
Sheikh-Elbeled himself.

Wassef the camel-driver, being proud of Soada, gave her the advantage of
his frequent good fortune in desert loot and Nile backsheesh. But Wassef
was a hard man for all that, and he grew bitter and morose at last,
because he saw that camel-driving must suffer by the coming of the
railway. Besides, as a man gets older he likes the season of Ramadan
less, for he must fast from sunrise to sunset, though his work goes on;
and, with broken sleep, having his meals at night, it is ten to one but
he gets irritable.

So it happened that one evening just at sunset, Wassef came to his hut,
with the sun like the red rim of a huge thumb-nail in the sky behind him,
ready beyond telling for his breakfast, and found nothing. On his way
home he had seen before the houses and cafes silent Mussulmans with
cigarettes and matches in their fingers, cooks with their hands on the
lids of the cooking pots, where the dourha and onions boiled; but here
outside his own doorway there was no odour, and there was silence within.

"Now, by the beard of the Prophet," he muttered, "is it for this I have