is up. Five thousand men from Cairo under a good general would do
it. Will Nahoum send them? Does Kaid, the sick man, know? I'm not
banking on Kaid. I think he's on his last legs. Unless pressure is
put on him, unless some one takes him by the throat and says: If you
don't relieve Claridge Pasha and the people with him, you will go to
the crocodiles, Nahoum won't stir. So, I am writing to you.
England can do it. The lord, your husband, can do it. England will
have a nasty stain on her flag if she sees this man go down without
a hand lifted to save him. He is worth another Alma to her
prestige. She can't afford to see him slaughtered here, where he's
fighting the fight of civilisation. You see right through this
thing, I know, and I don't need to palaver any more about it. It
doesn't matter about me. I've had a lot for my money, and I'm no
use--or I wouldn't be, if anything happened to the Saadat. No one
would drop a knife and fork at the breakfast-table when my obit was
read out--well, yes, there's one, cute as she can be, but she's lost
two husbands already, and you can't be hurt so bad twice in the same
place. But the Saadat, back him, Hylda--I'll call you that at this
distance. Make Nahoum move. Send four or five thousand men before
the day comes when famine does its work and they draw the bowstring
tight.

Salaam and salaam, and the post is going out, and there's nothing in
the morning paper; and, as Aunt Melissa used to say: "Well, so much
for so much!" One thing I forgot. I'm lucky to be writing to you
at all. If the Saadat was an old-fashioned overlord, I shouldn't be
here. I got into a bad corner three days ago with a dozen Arabs--
I'd been doing a little work with a friendly tribe all on my own,
and I almost got caught by this loose lot of fanatics. I shot
three, and galloped for it. I knew the way through the mines