.

BEYOND THE PALE.
Mahommed Hassan had vowed a vow in the river, and he kept it in so far as was seemly.

His soul hungered for the face of the bridge-opener, and the hunger grew.

He was scarce passed from the shivering Nile into a dry yelek, had hardly taken a juicy piece from the cooking-pot at the house of the village sheikh, before he began to cultivate friends who could help him, including the sheikh himself; for what money Mahommed lacked was supplied by Lacey, who had a reasoned confidence in him, and by the fiercely indignant Kaid himself, to whom Lacey and Mahommed went secretly, hiding their purpose from David.

So, there were a score of villages where every sheikh, eager for gold, listened for the whisper of the doorways, and every slave and villager listened at the sheikh's door.