That was a very pleasant day--so pleasant that I felt almost inclined to echo Lady Olive's words whispered to me as we lounged about on the Marina, pretending to listen to the band, and call it one of the happiest of my life. I had never seen my father so thoroughly interested as he was with Mr. Leigh, and as we rode home together in the moonlight I asked him about it. "I never met a man to whom I took such a liking, or in whom I was more interested," my father declared. "He has lived for a long time amongst the Arabs, and seems to have been much impressed by them. He is a disciple of a very curious Calvinistic doctrine of fatalism, which has a good deal of resemblance to the creed of the nomad Arabs. I don't think it ever struck him till I pointed it out." "He is going back to Egypt, isn't he?" I asked. "He is. There is a storm brewing there, and he is going to try and see what he can do to prevent mischief. He has asked me to go with him, Hugh," my father added, quietly. "But you won't go?" I cried. He looked at me with one of his old sweet smiles, which it filled me with joy to see again, and he rested his arm for a moment on my shoulder. "Hugh, I have promised to think it over. Before I decide, we will have a talk about it; but not to-night." CHAPTER XXXVII CUT DOWN It must have been a little before six o'clock on the following morning, when I was suddenly aroused from sleep, and, opening my eyes, saw my father, half-dressed, bending over me with his hand on my shoulder. "Wake up, Hugh!" he cried, "wake up!" I sat up in bed, bewildered and amazed. My father, with an anxious face, was rapidly putting on his boots. "What has happened?" I asked, springing out of bed. "Is there anything wrong?" "Dress yourself quick, and follow me. I am going to José's. Pietro has just come, and says that there was some desperate fighting last night between the brigands and some travellers on their way to Palermo. Two of the brigands were killed, but they have captured the man who killed them. Pietro thinks he was an Englishman. They will hang him this morning unless we can prevent it. Hurry, Hugh, and come after me. You don't know what those fellows are if they can lay their hands on any one who has killed one of their band. Sure as fate they'll hang him. I fear that we may be too late now. I shall take the mountain road." All the time my father had been talking he had been completing a hasty toilet, and, now he had finished, he hurried from the room, and directly afterwards I heard Jacko cantering down the avenue. In a very few minutes I too was dressed and following him on foot.