A white prisoner captured a week before close to the wells of El Agia on the great Arbain road, by a party of Arabs, had been brought in during the night and now waited his fate at the Emir's hands.

The news spread quick as a spark through the town; already crowds of men and women and children flocked to this rare and pleasant spectacle.

In front of the palm trees an open space stretched to the gateway of the Emir's house; behind them a slope of sand descended flat and bare to the river.
Harry Feversham was standing under the trees, guarded by four of the Ansar soldiery.

His clothes had been stripped from him; he wore only a torn and ragged jibbeh upon his body and a twist of cotton on his head to shield him from the sun.

His bare shoulders and arms were scorched and blistered.