Mr. Blandhorn, wakened by the voice, stood up heavily. “Harry Spink! Is it possible you are amongst us?” “Why, yes, sir—I’m amongst. Didn’t Willard tell you? I guess Willard Bent’s ashamed of me.” Spink, with a laugh, shook Mr. Blandhorn’s hand, and glanced about the empty room. “I’m only here for a day or so—on business. Willard’ll explain. But I wanted to come round to meeting—like old times. Sorry it’s over.” The missionary looked at him with a grave candour. “It’s not over—it has not begun. The overwhelming heat has probably kept away our little flock.” “I see,” interpolated Spink. “But now,” continued Mr. Blandhorn with majesty, “that two or three are gathered together in His name, there is no reason why we should wait.—Myriem! Ayoub!” He took his place behind the lectern and began: “Almighty and merciful Father—” IV The night was exceedingly close. Willard Bent, after Spink’s departure, had undressed and stretched himself on his camp bed; but the mosquitoes roared like lions, and lying down made him more wakeful. “In any Christian country,” he mused, “this would mean a thunderstorm and a cool-off. Here it just means months and months more of the same thing.” And he thought enviously of Spink, who, in two or three days, his “deal” concluded, would be at sea again, heading for the north. Bent was honestly distressed at his own state of mind: he had feared that Harry Spink would “unsettle” Mr. Blandhorn, and, instead, it was he himself who had been unsettled. Old slumbering distrusts and doubts, bursting through his surface-apathy, had shot up under the drummer’s ironic eye. It was not so much Spink, individually, who had loosened the crust of Bent’s indifference; it was the fact of feeling his whole problem suddenly viewed and judged from the outside. At Eloued, he was aware, nobody, for a long time, had thought much about the missionaries. The French authorities were friendly, the Pacha was tolerant, the American Consul at Mogador had always stood by them in any small difficulties. But beyond that they were virtually non-existent. Nobody’s view of life was really affected by their presence in the great swarming mysterious city: if they should pack up and leave that night, the story-tellers of the market would not interrupt their tales, or one less bargain be struck in the bazaar. Ayoub would still doze in the door, and old Myriem continue her secret life on the roofs.... The roofs were of course forbidden to the missionaries, as they are to men in all Moslem cities. But the Mission-house stood close to the walls, and Mr. Blandhorn’s room, across the passage, gave on a small terrace overhanging the court of a caravansary upon which it was no sin to look. Willard wondered if it were any cooler on the terrace. Some one tapped on his open door, and Mr. Blandhorn, in turban and caftan, entered the room, shading a small lamp. “My dear Willard—can you sleep?”