else, and he kept his eye upon Ibrahim. And Dicky, with all his faults,
could screw his way from the front of a thing to the back thereof like no
other civilised man you ever knew. But he did not press his opinions
upon Fielding, who was an able administrator and a very clever fellow
also, with a genial habit of believing in people who served him: and that
is bad in the Orient.

As an orderly Ibrahim was like a clock: stiff in his gait as a pendulum,
regular as a minute. He had no tongue for gossip either, so far as
Fielding knew. Also, five times a day he said his prayers--an unusual
thing for a Gippy soldier-servant; for as the Gippy's rank increases he
soils his knees and puts his forehead in the dust with discretion. This
was another reason why Dicky suspected him.

It was supposed that Ibrahim could not speak a word of English;
and he seemed so stupid, he looked so blank, when English was spoken,
that Fielding had no doubt the English language was a Tablet of Abydos to
him. But Dicky was more wary, and waited. He could be very patient and
simple, and his delicate face seemed as innocent as a girl's when he said
to Ibrahim one morning: "Ibrahim, brother of scorpions, I'm going to
teach you English!" and, squatting like a Turk on the deck of the
Amenhotep, the stern-wheeled tub which Fielding called a steamer, he
began to teach Ibrahim.

"Say 'Good-morning, kind sir,'" he drawled.

No tongue was ever so thick, no throat so guttural, as Ibrahim's when he
obeyed this command. That was why suspicion grew the more in the mind of
Dicky. But he made the Gippy say: "Good-morning, kind sir," over and
over again. Now, it was a peculiar thing that Ibrahim's pronunciation