"Now there's a nice game to play!" said Mrs. Gainsborough, indignantly. "'All right,' he says, and 'boomph'! What's he think I'm made of? Well, of course here we shall have to sit now until some one comes along with a step-ladder. If you'd have let me ride on a camel," she added, reproachfully, to Sylvia, "this wouldn't have occurred. I'm not sitting on myself any more; I'm sitting on bumps like eggs. I feel like a hen. It's all very fine for Mr. Alfonso to go on gabbling, 'All right,' but it's all wrong, and if you'll have the goodness to tell him so in his own unnatural language I'll be highly obliged." The Moorish soldier sat regarding the scene from his horse with immutable gravity. "I reckon he'd like nothing better than to get a good jab at me now," said Mrs. Gainsborough. "Yes, I dare say I look very inviting sitting here on the ground. Well, it's to be hoped they'll have the 'Forty Thieves' or 'Aladdin' for the next pantomime at Drury Lane. I shall certainly invite Mrs. Marsham and Mrs. Beardmore to come with me into the upper boxes so as I can explain what it's all about. Mrs. Ewings doesn't like panto, or I'd have taken her too. She likes a good cry when she goes to the theater." Mrs. Gainsborough was settling down to spend the rest of the morning in amiable reminiscence and planning, but she was at last persuaded to get up and mount her mule again after the strictest assurances had been given to her of Mohammed's good behavior for the rest of the journey. "He's not to bellow in the poor animal's ear," she stipulated. Sylvia promised. "And he's not to go screeching, '_Arrassy_,' or whatever it is, behind, so as the poor animal thinks it's a lion galloping after him." Mrs. Gainsborough was transferring all consideration for herself to the mule. "And he's to throw away that stick." This clause was only accepted by the other side with a good deal of protestation. "And he's to keep his hands and feet to himself, and not to throw stones or nothing at the poor beast, who's got quite enough to do to carry me." "And Ali Baba's to ride in front." She indicated the trooper. "It gets me on the blink when he's behind me, as if I was in a shooting-gallery. If he's going to be any use to us, _which_ I doubt, he'll be more useful in front than hiding behind me." "All right," said Don Alfonso, who was anxious to get on, because they had a long way to go. "And that's enough of 'all right' from him," said Mrs. Gainsborough. "I don't want to hear any more 'all rights.'" At midday they reached a khan, where they ate lunch and rested for two hours in the shade. Soon after they had started again, they met a small caravan with veiled women and mules loaded with oranges. "Quite pleasant-looking people," Mrs. Gainsborough beamed. "I should have waved my hand if I could have been sure of not falling off again. Funny trick, wearing that stuff round their faces. I suppose they're ashamed of being so black."