Who will give me water to drink, and the cucumber vine at my door--
Turn, O Sakkia!"

Then he crept back again to the wall of the house, where he huddled
between a Berberine playing a darabukkeh and a man of the Fayoum who
chanted the fatihah from the Koran.

Wyndham looked at them all and pondered. "If the devils out there would
only attack us," he said between his teeth, "or if we could only attack
them!" he added, and he nervously hastened his footsteps; for to him
this inaction was terrible. "They'd forget their thirst if they were
fighting," he muttered, and then he frowned; for the painful neighing of
the horses behind the house came to his ear. In desperation he
went inside and climbed to the roof, where he could see the circle of the
enemy.

It was no use. They were five to one, and his Gippies were demoralised.
It would be a fine bit of pluck to try and cut his way through the Arabs
to the Nile--but how many would reach it?

No, he had made his full measure of mistakes, he would not add to the
list. If Hassan got through to Kerbat his Gippies here would no doubt be
relieved, and there would be no more blood on his head. Relieved? And
when they were relieved, what of himself, Wyndham bimbashi? He knew what
men would say in Cairo, what men would say at the War Office in London
town, at "The Rag"--everywhere! He could not look his future in the
face. He felt that every man in Egypt, save himself, had known all along
that he was a complete failure.

It did not matter while he himself was not conscious of it; but now that