They stood under the shade of those palm-trees for perhaps half an hour, watching the hut, watching the smouldering fire, and sniffing enviously at the steam which blew over towards them. If they had never known before what it was to be really hungry, they knew it well that bright morning when so close to food, so eagerly desirous of it, and so far, it seemed, from the likelihood of being able to secure it. It made them almost desperate at last, till they were ready to risk anything; but then, again, common sense--that fund of caution possessed by both of them--held them back, kept them out of sight, and restrained their impatience. A man came out of the hut at last--a tall, bronzed Arab, over whose shoulders was slung an ancient rifle, and in whose hand was borne a long stick which he used to support himself whilst walking. Calling over his shoulder and whistling for a dog, which came bounding out of the hut, he set off along a path which led through the trees within some twenty yards of our heroes, so close, in fact, that it was a wonder that the dog did not discover them; and when he was gone, and they could no longer hear his steps, a woman emerged from the hut--an Arab like her lord and master. Throwing logs on the fire, and replenishing the contents of the iron pot with something she carried in a basket, she closed the door of the somewhat dilapidated house, and took the same path as the man. [Illustration: "THE ARAB SET OFF ALONG A PATH WITHIN SOME TWENTY YARDS OF OUR HEROES"] "Better see where she goes," said Geoff. "We'll slink through the trees and make quite sure that they are both out of sight. Shouldn't wonder if he's a simple shepherd, and has gone to visit his flock somewhere about in this oasis; and it's more than likely that she has gone into Bagdad to buy things for the household. Sounds curious, doesn't it? But you've got to remember that people here are very much the same in many ways as people back in old England. Commodities of every kind don't grow in houses; they have to be bought. And stores and shops don't exist in the country, so Turkish and Arab women, like the folks at home, have to go off on shopping expeditions." Whatever it was that had taken the woman off, it proved, indeed, to be a godsend to these two wandering and hungry subalterns, for the woman disappeared finally down the road leading towards Bagdad, while careful investigation proved that the man had gone off to the left, where he could be seen trudging over the grass-covered land quite a mile distant. As for the hut, it looked lonely enough when they went back, and uninhabited, though the fire still smouldered in front, and that delightful aroma still reached their nostrils.