"I see," said Mr. Mudge; "but I think that I can give you help which no one else can." It was clear from his quiet persistence that he had a definite plan. Pamela stopped and faced him. "Very well," she said. "I leave the whole matter for a little while in your hands." "Thank you," said Mr. Mudge; and he looked up towards the course. "There are the horses going down." A sudden thought occurred to Pamela. She opened the purse she carried on her wrist, and took out a couple of pounds. "Put this on Semiramis for me, please," she said, with a laugh. "Be quick, if you will, and come back." Though she laughed she was still most urgent he should go. Mr. Mudge hurried across the course, made the bet, and returned. Pamela watched the race with an eagerness which astonished Mr. Mudge, so completely did she seem to have forgotten all that had troubled her a minute ago. But he did not understand Pamela. She was, after her custom, seeking for a sign, and when Semiramis galloped in a winner by a neck, she turned with a hopeful smile to her companion-- "We shall win too." "I think so," Mudge replied, and he laughed. "Do you know what I think of Lionel Callon, Miss Mardale? The words are not mine, but the sentiment is unexceptionable. A little may be a good thing, but too much is enough." CHAPTER XVI THE FOREIGN LEGION It was midday at Sidi Bel-Abbès in Algeria. Two French officers were sitting in front of a café at the wide cross-roads in the centre of the town. One of them was Captain Tavernay, a man of forty-seven, tall, thin, with a brown face worn and tired by the campaigns of thirty years, the other a young lieutenant, M. Laurent, fresh and pink, who seemed to hare been passed out but yesterday from the school of St. Cyr. Captain Tavernay picked up his cap from the iron table in front of him and settled it upon his grizzled head. Outside the town trees clustered thickly, farms were half-hidden amongst groves of fig-trees and hedges of aloes. Here there was no foliage. The streets were very quiet, the sunlight lay in dazzling pools of gold upon the sand of the roads, the white houses glittered under a blue, cloudless sky. In front of the two officers, some miles away, the bare cone of Jebel Tessalah sprang upwards from a range of hills dominating the town, and a speck of white upon its shoulder showed where a village perched. Captain Tavernay sat looking out towards the mountain with the lids half-closed upon his eyes. Then he rose deliberately from his chair. "If we walk to the station," he said, "we shall just meet the train from Oran. A batch of thirty recruits is coming in by it. Let us walk to the station, Laurent." Lieutenant Laurent dropped the end of his cigarette on to the ground and stood up reluctantly. "As you will, Captain," he answered. "But we should see the animals soon enough at the barracks."