"Good heavens! You must have changed places at Fustât. That letter couldn't have been for her!"
"It couldn't have been for any one else. 'Beautiful Queen' meant Queen Cleopatra. She said so herself. I don't know what she's going to do about it."
"Do about it?" I echoed desperately. "Why—" and just then my straining eyes saw that on the middle flag in the fluttering row were four large red letters on a white ground. Slaney had betrayed me! Everything depended on getting that flag down before those letters declared themselves to other eyes. "Excuse me," I finished my sentence with a gasp.
Monny must have gasped also, as she saw me suddenly dash away from her at full speed of one-camel power. But I had no time to think about what she might think. I suppose I must have done something to the steering-gear of that camel, which coastguard camels do not permit. Whatever it was, it got me into the midst of camp before I could draw breath; but I have a dim recollection of being caught by Arab arms, and seeing suppressed Arab grins, as mechanically I felt to see how far the end of my spine stuck out at the top of my head.
"That flag! Pull it down!" was my first gasp, pointing convulsively to the banner which shrieked, "Cook!" "Quick—before they come!"
Dazed by my vehemence, several Arabs scuttled to obey the order, but there were too many of them. Each hindered his neighbour, and as I danced about, making matters worse, out pounced our withered chêf from the kitchen-tent.
"It was he brought that flag, wrapped round something," explained one of the men, in Arabic. "When he saw we had other flags, but none of Cook, he gave it to us to put over the biggest tent, because he thought it shameful to have no flag of the master's."
"Cook isn't the master. I'm it," I burbled, with a leap to catch the tell-tale square of white as it reluctantly came down. But I was too late. Sir John Biddell and Harry Snell, the newspaper man, came gallumping up on their camels before I could stuff the flag into my pocket.
"What's the matter?" they asked, as their animals squatted to let them down. "Were you run away with? What are you so mad about? Hullo! What flag's that—C-O-O-K!"
"It should be over the kitchen-tent," I heard myself explaining. "Don't you see? C-O-O-K! It's the cook's special flag. He brought it himself, but these chaps went and flew it over the dining-tent in place of the Union Jack. That's why he and I are mad."