trees were groups of men talking and gesticulating; and now and then an
Arab galloped through the street, the point of his long lance shining.
Dicky felt a secret, like a troubled wind, stirring through the place,
a movement not explainable by his own inner tremulousness.

At last they went to the largest cafe beside the Mosque of Hoseyn. He
saw the Sheikh-el-beled sitting on his bench, and, grouped round him,
smoking, several sheikhs and the young men of the village. Here he and
the ghdzeeyeh danced. Few noticed them; for which Dicky was thankful;
and he risked discovery by coming nearer the circle. He could, however,
catch little that they said, for they spoke in low tones, the Sheikh-el-
beled talking seldom, but listening closely.

The crowd around the cafe grew. Occasionally an Arab would throw back
his head and cry: "Allahu Akbar!" Another drew a sword and waved it in
the air. Some one in front of him whispered one startling word to a
camel-driver.

Dicky had got his cue. To him that whisper was as loud and clear as the
"La ilaha illa-llah!" called from the top of a mosque. He understood
Ibrahim the Orderly now; he guessed all--rebellion, anarchy, massacre.
A hundred thoughts ran through his head: what was Ibrahim's particular
part in the swaggering scheme was the first and the last of them.

Ibrahim answered for himself, for at that moment he entered the burning
circle. A movement of applause ran round, then there was sudden silence.
The dancing-girls were bid to stop their dancing, were told to be gone.
The ghazeeyeh spat at them in an assumed anger, and said that none but
swine of Beni Hassan would send a woman away hungry. And because the
dancing-girl has power in the land, the Sheikh-el-beled waved his hand