"I say, sir, you do look rum! I shouldn't have known you. I don't know you now, and I don't believe your own mother would." "Then you think the disguise is perfect enough?" "Disguise, sir? You can't call that a disguise! It's the real thing. Why, you're a downright genuine nigger, that you are!" "That's right, Sam," said Frank, smiling now. "And the best of it is, sir, that you're regular fast colours." "I hope so, Sam." "Think you could bear to wash yourself, sir?" "Oh, yes. It will take weeks to make this look lighter." "Well, I call it amazing, sir. There ain't no need for you to mind where you go. No dervish could take you for a white man, unless he was mad. But am I to be painted that colour?" "No; you will go as you are--the Hakim's white servant." "Well, just as you like, sir; I don't mind. I'll be touched up like you are if you think it will be safer for a man. It's wonderful, sir. And no fear of its showing the dirt. But pst! here's some one coming. The doctor and Mr Landon, sir. I thought you were sitting along with them. Have they seen you like this?" "No, Sam; I was just getting ready for them." "Did they know it, sir?" "No." "Then I'll go in yonder. You stop and let 'em catch you sudden like. Just to try if they'll know you." Frank nodded, and Sam darted into the inner tent, just having disappeared as the professor sauntered in with the doctor, and both drew up short. "Hullo, you, sir!" said the professor gruffly, in Arabic; "what business have you here?" Frank made no reply, but edged a little to one side, while at the same moment the doctor caught sight of the clothes lying on the floor, and uttered an exclamation. "Yes, see!" cried the professor. "Robbers, eh? Help me, and we'll tie this fellow up." "Quick, then," said the doctor. "Look out for his knife. Bah! how absurd!" he added the next moment, calming down from the excitability he had displayed. "What do you mean?" cried the professor sharply. "Don't hold back. Why!--what!--My dear Frank, what a metamorphosis!" "Yes," said Frank quietly. "I have passed muster with three of you, so I suppose it will do." "Do!" cried the professor. "Why, it is simply admirable. Stop a minute, I'll fetch Sam from his tent and try him.--Eh? You here, sir?" he added, as Sam came out of the inner tent.--"You've seen him, then?" "Yes, sir, and felt him too!" said the man, and the newcomers heard what had taken place. CHAPTER THIRTEEN. BEN EDDIN. The Hakim was carefully prepared the next morning for his visit to his patients, Sam making the preparations, even to the extent of having a brass pot of boiling water for the razors. "Seems a pity, sir," he said, as the three gentlemen sat together in the tent, a turned-up case forming the barber's chair, upon which the doctor took his seat; "master's got such a fine, thick head of hair."