The soldiers were not allowed to enter the city, except on duty or with a pass, and, as a general rule, the latter was chiefly given to sergeants. This plan did not, of course, apply to officers, thus Allan, Evan Cameron, and some others lost no time in making their way to an European hotel, where something better than the repasts they had partaken of at Belbeis and elsewhere could be procured, and where, amid a somewhat polyglot society, consisting of Greeks and Egyptians, Hungarians and Cypriotes, they supped at an open window on a balcony overlooking a street abounding with bazaars, and lanterns swinging to and fro, crowded by people and innumerable vendors of street goods--turbaned or tarbooshed--the water-seller tinkling his dishes and quoting the Koran; the sellers of melons, of cresses and lily roots, of flowers of henna, wherewith to dye the nails of copper-coloured damsels; little donkeys ambling everywhere, and now and then a huge camel swaying along; and more than once the procession of a harem returning from the evening bath--the women enveloped in black garments and veils, with masks of white linen. Amid the scenes of warfare the organ of wonder becomes blunted considerably, and thus after a time Allan, soothed by the fumes of a fragrant havannah, and weary, perhaps, with the events of a long day--the entraining and detraining of the regiment, its baggage and stores, and so forth--fell sound asleep in his chair, oblivious of the clatter of voices in the large room of the hotel, and the many sounds in the street below; while Cameron, re-entering the room, idled over an album of views of Grand Cairo and its vicinity. Allan's short sleep was a restless one, for there came before him a vivid recollection or vision of Hawke Holcroft, and his pale face, with its last expression of horror and despair, as the waves closed over it and sucked him down. A little cry that escaped him made Cameron look his way, and he saw a man, in the dim light without, regarding Allan with a fixed and hostile expression. He was clad somewhat like a European, but wore a tarboosh, with a blue tassel, and had a voluminous beard; and his eyes seemed savage and sinister in expression. It is said that there is some mysterious and magnetic force in a long and fixed stare or gaze; and there is, it is also said, 'within us some vigilant quality that is only exercised when every other faculty is at rest, that permits all ordinary sounds to pass unheeded while we sleep, but that instinctively sounds the alarm when anything unusual or fraught with danger is at hand.' Be all that as it may, Allan suddenly awoke, and started up, and the watcher as suddenly vanished, but not before his pale and sinister face had been seen by the wakener. Cameron sprang out on the balcony. There was no one there, save his comrade, and it was evident that the lurker must have passed into the hotel by some other window.