water. The question is, who is going to steal out to the sakkia to-
night, to shut the one sluice and open the other?"

No one replied. No one understood quite what Wyndham meant. Shutting
one sluice and opening the other did not seem to meet the situation.
There was the danger of getting to the sakkia, but there was also an
after. Would it be possible to shut one sluice and open the other
without the man at the wheel knowing? Suppose you killed the man at the
wheel--what then?

The Gippies and the friendlies scowled, but did not speak. The bimbashi
was responsible for all; he was an Englishman, let him get water for
them, or die like the rest of them--perhaps before them!

Wyndham could not travel the sinuosities of their minds, and it would not
have affected his purpose if he could have done so. When no man replied,
he simply said:

"All right, men. You shall have water before morning. Try and hold out
till then." He dismissed them. For a long time he walked up and down
the garden of straggling limes, apparently listless, and smoking hard.
He reckoned carefully how long it would take Hassan to get to Kerbat, and
for relief to come. He was fond of his pipe, and he smoked now as if it
were the thing he most enjoyed in the world. He held the bowl in the
hollow of his hand almost tenderly. He seemed unconscious of the
scowling looks around him. At last he sat down on the ledge of the rude
fountain, with his face towards the Gippies and the Arabs squatted on the
ground, some playing mankalah, others sucking dry lime leaves, many
smoking apathetically.