Suez was an agreeable surprise, with its square white houses clustered among palm trees, the mountain in the background showing rosy red in the sunshine. The vessel came to rest in the roads, and the passengers who were new to the scene welcomed the arrival of a raft of small boats with their various objects for sale. Bedford pointed out the crates of fresh vegetables for consumption on the voyage, which had come by train from the valley of the Nile, but Katrine had no interest to spare for such mundane articles. Her eyes had caught the gleam of shell and coral, and her eager gesture pointed her out as a probable prey. "It's no use saying they are rubbish. I _like_ rubbish!" she declared, brushing aside Bedford's protest, and nodding her head eagerly in reply to an outstretched hand. "I have some money in my pocket, and I'm pining to spend it. I've lived all my life in an English village, remember, and finery goes to my head. Coral suits me, too. Do make him come!" "Don't worry. He'll come fast enough. Do you think you could manage to stand still, and not--prance? He has doubled his prices already, and every additional prance will send them flying still higher. In pity to other buyers--" "Prance? Who's prancing?" Katrine turned an indignant face, but suddenly discovering herself perched on the tops of her toes, abandoned the attempt at dignity, and laughed instead. "Don't preach! This is my holiday. I'm not accustomed to negroes walking up ropes with trays of mysterious gems.--I shall be as excited as ever I please!" Meantime one of the negroes manning the small craft was deftly making his way towards the main deck. The rope grasped firmly between his great toe and the next, he walked up the halyards bearing the tray of gewgaws with an easy balance, the while the Arab trader leaned his weight on the edge of the boat nearest the ship, making it keel over until the climber could step on board. So swiftly, nimbly, and smilingly, was the feat accomplished that the onlookers had hardly time to realise the wonder of it, before the glittering trays were pushed forward, and, while the hardened traveller shook his head and made off in opposite directions, novices to the East gathered thick as flies round a honey pot. Katrine fell in love with half a dozen baubles, but her companion noted that they were among the least costly on the tray, pretty, inexpensive bits of colour, such as would satisfy a girl in her teens; the more costly she fingered admiringly, but laid aside with the trained resignation of years. Only one article seemed to exercise a definite temptation, a dainty model of a banjo, in ivory and tortoise-shell, to which her fingers returned once and again.