"Be seated, my master," Benshi said, ignoring the question for the moment. "Let Esbul place food before you; and to-morrow he will lead you to that place where Douglas Pasha is imprisoned. Is it not so, Esbul? You who have watched over the German, were you not on your way hither to give me tidings of this von Hildemaller and of his movements on the morrow?" A glance at the young Armenian proved indeed that that must be the case, though how Benshi had learned of that also was beyond him. Amazement was written on every feature; he gasped with astonishment, and then smiled at our hero. "It is even so," he told him. "Men come and go, but Benshi sits here or in the Bazaar, seeing nothing it would seem, hearing no news, merely existing the day through, and yet--and yet, news reaches him." "Aye! Reaches me, my friend, in a manner that I will not explain; news sometimes small and petty, sometimes of great doings, of great events. Listen now, whilst Esbul brings food before you. My master, you desire news of your friends, of your expedition which has come to Mesopotamia, which fought its way to Basra and Kurnah, and from thence advanced up the Tigris to Amara? You desire tidings of those friends whom you accompanied to Nasiriyeh, and of those others who struck to the north-east and seized Ahwaz? Then, I will tell you. "Amara fell to them as easily as a ripe orange falls to the hands of the plucker. Then came an advance up the river to Kut-el-Amara, while Turks waited the coming of the British and the Indians in full force, in positions prepared most carefully for them under the leading of Germans--men of the same cunning and skill as this von Hildemaller. Yet they were defeated." "Defeated!" exclaimed Geoff; "you mean that the Expeditionary Force has captured Kut, really?" "They stormed those positions; they outflanked the Turks," the Jew told him, his listless eyes wandering for one moment from the wall opposite to our hero's face and to Philip's, and then back to the old position. "They captured the town of Kut-el-Amara and pursued the fleeing Turks. And then, my masters, they followed----" "Followed towards Bagdad?" asked Geoff, rising to his feet in his eagerness. "Followed in this direction? Then they are near already?" Benshi waved him back to his seat with a listless movement of one hand, and went on with his story.