Suddenly a wave of excitement ran through the crowd. Every head turned in the same direction, and even the camels bent their frowning faces and stretched their necks all one way, as animals do before a storm. A wild hoot had penetrated the bazaar, howling through the long white tunnels and under the reed-woven roofs like a Djinn among dishonoured graves. The heart of the young man began to beat. “It sounds,” he thought, “like a motor....” But a motor at Eloued! There was one, every one knew, in the Sultan’s Palace. It had been brought there years ago by a foreign Ambassador, as a gift from his sovereign, and was variously reported to be made entirely of aluminium, platinum or silver. But the parts had never been put together, the body had long been used for breeding silk-worms—in a not wholly successful experiment—and the acetylene lamps adorned the Pasha’s gardens on state occasions. As for the horn, it had been sent as a gift, with a choice panoply of arms, to the Caïd of the Red Mountain; but as the india-rubber bulb had accidentally been left behind, it was certainly not the Caïd’s visit which the present discordant cries announced.... “Hullo, you old dromedary! How’s the folks up state?” cried a ringing voice. The awestruck populace gave way, and a young man in linen duster and motor cap, slipping under the interwoven necks of the astonished camels, strode down the tunnel with an air of authority and clapped a hand on the dreamer in the doorway. “Harry Spink!” the latter gasped in a startled whisper, and with an intonation as un-African as his friend’s. At the same instant he glanced over his shoulder, and his mild lips formed a cautious: “’sh.” “Who’d you take me for—Gabby Deslys?” asked the newcomer gaily; then, seeing that this topical allusion hung fire: “And what the dickens are you ‘hushing’ for, anyhow? You don’t suppose, do you, that anybody in the bazaar thinks you’re a _native_? D’y’ ever look at your chin? Or that Adam’s apple running up and down you like a bead on a billiard marker’s wire? See here, Willard Bent....” The young man in the caftan blushed distressfully, not so much at the graphic reference to his looks as at the doubt cast on his disguise. “I do assure you, Harry, I pick up a great deal of ... of useful information ... in this way....” “Oh, get out,” said Harry Spink cheerfully. “You believe all that still, do you? What’s the good of it all, anyway?” Willard Bent passed a hand under the other’s arm and led him through the coffee-house into an empty room at the back. They sat down on a shelf covered with matting and looked at each other earnestly. “Don’t _you_ believe any longer, Harry Spink?” asked Willard Bent. “Don’t have to. I’m travelling for rubber now.” “Oh, merciful heaven! Was that your automobile?” “Sure.”