command. They must all die here, if they were not relieved.

The nearest garrison was at Kerbat, sixty miles away, where five hundred
men were stationed. Now that his cup of mistakes was full, Wyndham
bimbashi would willingly have made the attempt to carry word to the
garrison there. But he had no right to leave his post. He called for
a volunteer. No man responded. Panic was upon the Gippies. Though
Wyndham's heart sickened within him, his lips did not frame a word of
reproach; but a blush of shame came into his face, and crept up to his
eyes, dimming them. For there flashed through his mind what men at home
would think of him when this thing, such an end to his whole career,
was known. As he stood still, upright and confounded, some one touched
his arm.

It was Hassan, his Soudanese servant. Hassan was the one person in Egypt
who thoroughly believed in him. Wyndham was as a god to Hassan, though
this same god had given him a taste of a belt more than once. Hassan
had not resented the belt, though once, in a moment of affectionate
confidence, he had said to Wyndham that when his master got old and died
he would be the servant of an American or a missionary, "which no whack
Mahommed."

It was Hassan who now volunteered to carry word to the garrison at
Kerbat.

"If I no carry, you whack me with belt, Saadat," said Hassan, whose logic
and reason were like his master's, neither better nor worse.

"If you do, you shall have fifty pounds--and the missionary," answered
Wyndham, his eyes still cloudy and his voice thick; for it touched him in