"They have shut him out, Sime!" he said.
Sime stared in his dull fashion.
"You surely saw him?" persisted Cairn irritably; "the man in the mask of Set—he was coming in just behind me."
Sime strode forward, pulled the curtains aside, and peered out into the deserted garden.
"Not a soul, old man," he declared. "You must have seen the Efreet!"
CHAPTER XIII
THE SCORPION WIND
This sudden and appalling change of weather had sadly affected the mood of the gathering. That part of the carnival planned to take place in the garden was perforce abandoned, together with the firework display. A halfhearted attempt was made at dancing, but the howling of the wind, and the omnipresent dust, perpetually reminded the pleasure-seekers that Khamsîn raged without—raged with a violence unparalleled in the experience of the oldest residents. This was a full-fledged sand-storm, a terror of the Sahara descended upon Cairo.