"How forgiving Arabs are, even when they're not converted!" remarked
Rachel Guest, by whose side I happened to be riding.

"He isn't an Arab," said I. "He's an Armenian. And both are supposed to
be the reverse of forgiving. But he's found another job quickly, so he
can afford to let bygones be bygones."

"Oh, he would _anyway_!" Miss Guest exclaimed, warmly. "Poor fellow,
you've all done him a great injustice, but I'm thankful he's not going
to suffer for it. I wonder if he and his people are bound the same way
we are?"

I feared that this was likely to be the case, as we were going the
conventional round, sticking--as one might say--to suburban desert, on
our way to the Fayum. But, as Monny observed the other night, we
couldn't engage the desert like a private sitting-room. I would,
however, have preferred sharing it with most people rather than Bedr
and his clients, though the two latter looked singularly harmless,
almost Germanic.

We went on more or less happily, though I noticed that whenever a camel
changed its walk for a trot, each one of the ladies reached back a
desperate hand to clutch the saddle and save her spine from the
bruising bump! bump! which smote the bone with every step. As for me,
that feeling of middle age began to creep on while my coast-guard camel
and I were getting acquainted. I tried to distract my thoughts from the
end of my spine, by concentrating them in admiration upon the scene.
There was the Sphinx welcoming us with an immense smile of benevolence,
as suitable to the sunshine as had been her mysterious solemnity to the
moonlight. There, far away to the left, the spire-crowned Citadel