They rode inside the caravanserai, and were allotted a cell which obtained some privacy from a hurdle fixed in the ground in front of it. The gates of the caravanserai were closed, the sunset flushed the blue sky with a hue of rose; the mueddhin came out upon the minaret which rose from the southern wall, and chanted in a monotone his call to prayer; and then a drummer and a bugler advanced into the crowded square. Suddenly there fell upon Stretton's ears, competing with the mueddhin and the uproar of the animals, the "Last Post." Stretton started up, amazed, and most deeply moved. An English officer instructed the Moorish troops. What more natural than that he should introduce the English calls and signals? But to Stretton it seemed most wonderful that here, in this Eastern country, while the Mohammedan priest was chanting from his minaret, he should hear again, after so many years, that familiar tattoo sounded by an Eastern bugle and an Eastern drum. In how many barracks of England, he wondered, would that same "Last Post" ring out to-night? And at once the years slipped away, the hard years of the North Sea and the Sahara. He was carried back among the days when he served in the Coldstream. Then arose in his heart a great longing that something of the happiness of those days might be recaptured still. Warrisden and Stretton crossed the Sebou the next morning, and rode with the boom of the Atlantic in their ears. Hills upon their left hand hid the sea from their eyes, and it was not until the next day, when they mounted on to a high tableland four hours from Larache, that they saw it rolling lazily towards the shore. They caught a steamer at Larache that night. CHAPTER XXIX PAMELA MEETS A STRANGER