The native servants were closing and fastening the doors. The night was now as black as Erebus, and the wind was howling about the building with the voices of a million lost souls. Cairn glanced back across his shoulder. Men were drawing heavy curtains across the doors and windows. "They have shut him out, Sime!" he said. Sime stared in his dull fashion. "You surely saw him?" persisted Cairn irritably; "the man in the mask of Set--he was coming in just behind me." Sime strode forward, pulled the curtains aside, and peered out into the deserted garden. "Not a soul, old man," he declared. "You must have seen the Efreet!" CHAPTER XIII THE SCORPION WIND This sudden and appalling change of weather had sadly affected the mood of the gathering. That part of the carnival planned to take place in the garden was perforce abandoned, together with the firework display. A halfhearted attempt was made at dancing, but the howling of the wind, and the omnipresent dust, perpetually reminded the pleasure-seekers that _Khamsin_ raged without--raged with a violence unparalleled in the experience of the oldest residents. This was a full-fledged sand-storm, a terror of the Sahara descended upon Cairo. But there were few departures, although many of the visitors who had long distances to go, especially those from Mena House, discussed the advisability of leaving before this unique storm should have grown even worse. The general tendency, though, was markedly gregarious; safety seemed to be with the crowd, amid the gaiety, where music and laughter were, rather than in the sand-swept streets. "Guess we've outstayed our welcome!" confided an American lady to Sime. "Egypt wants to drive us all home now." "Possibly," he replied with a smile. "The season has run very late, this year, and so this sort of thing is more or less to be expected." The orchestra struck up a lively one-step, and a few of the more enthusiastic dancers accepted the invitation, but the bulk of the company thronged around the edge of the floor, acting as spectators. Cairn and Sime wedged a way through the heterogeneous crowd to the American Bar. "I prescribe a 'tango,'" said Sime. "A 'tango' is--?" "A 'tango,'" explained Sime, "is a new kind of cocktail sacred to this buffet. Try it. It will either kill you or cure you." Cairn smiled rather wanly. "I must confess that I need bucking up a bit," he said: "that confounded sand seems to have got me by the throat." Sime briskly gave his orders to the bar attendant. "You know," pursued Cairn, "I cannot get out of my head the idea that there was someone wearing a crocodile mask in the garden a while ago." "Look here," growled Sime, studying the operations of the cocktail manufacturer, "suppose there were--what about it?" "Well, it's odd that nobody else saw him." "I suppose it hasn't occurred to you that the fellow might have removed his mask?" Cairn shook his head slowly.