"Camels? Why, what the deuce.... Ah, of course! What a fool I am! Every station watched! Wonder I never thought of that before! The jackals are all along the line, and if you had gone by train, damn it, man! where should we have been? In Macdonald's mousetraps in no time! Oh, yes, camels, of course. I'll get you camels. Good ones, too. Bedouins always have good camels. Ha, ha! Effendi will go to the place he is fit for, and God increase the might of Islam!"
"I'll want money too, Hafiz."
"Don't trouble about that. I've got a little myself—all you'll want to get away."
"I'll want a good deal, Hafiz. There's a bundle of bank notes in the top drawer of my desk at the barracks. You'll find the key in my trousers' pocket, and if you can only contrive——"
"Of course I can. Your soldier boy has been asking after you ever since you went away. He'll manage it. Macdonald's bloodhounds are beating about the barracks, of course, but Tommy—trust Tommy to get the money for you.... In your trousers' pocket, you say? ... All right. Here's the key! ... Let me see, now—you'll want your berth booked—to Messina, I mean. I'll do that myself and give you whatever's left ... I must keep out of people's way until after Wednesday, though! No calling at the Agency—not if I know it! My mother must be told I've been sent off somewhere, and as for the Consul-General and the telephone—I'll break the blessed receiver, that's what I'll do! ... Never mind about my not seeing you off. Lord alive, that's nothing! Hope to get leave before long, and then I'll slip over to England. So I'll not be saying good-bye to you when you go away, Gordon—not altogether, you know—not for good, I mean. And if all goes well with you and Helena——"
But the chuckling and the crowing and the laughing out loud in savage exultation at the thought of beating Macdonald were beginning to break down, and then Gordon, unable to keep back the truth any longer, said in a voice that chilled the ear of Hafiz—
"Hafiz, old fellow!"
"Well?"
"I don't intend to go back to England."
"You don't intend to go back——"