“I think I could recognise a brave man without seeing his bravery,” she urged. “But I am a blundering sailor,” he rejoined, “who only believes his eyes.” “You are young yet,” she replied. “I shall be older to-morrow,” was his retort. “Well, perhaps you will see better to-morrow,” she rejoined, with indolent irony. “If I do, I’ll acknowledge it,” he added. Then Hungerford smiled at me inscrutably. We two held a strange secret. CHAPTER VIII. A BRIDGE OF PERIL No more delightful experience may be had than to wake up in the harbour of Aden some fine morning--it is always fine there--and get the first impression of that mighty fortress, with its thousand iron eyes, in strong repose by the Arabian Sea. Overhead was the cloudless sun, and everywhere the tremulous glare of a sandy shore and the creamy wash of the sea, like fusing opals. A tiny Mohammedan mosque stood gracefully where the ocean almost washed its steps, and the Resident’s house, far up the hard hillside, looked down upon the harbour from a green coolness. The place had a massive, war-like character. Here was a battery with earthworks; there, a fort; beyond, a signal-staff. Hospitals, hotels, and stores were incidents in the picture. Beyond the mountain-wall and lofty Jebel Shamsan, rising in fine pink and bronze, and at the end of a high-walled path between the great hills, lay the town of Aden proper. Above the town again were the mighty Tanks, formed out of clefts in the mountains, and built in the times when the Phoenicians made Aden a great mart, the richest spot in all Arabia.