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 wicker chairs whilst drinking Turkish coffee and chatting over their cigarettes—men of the East, and women of the West. Women of the East appear not in public places.

Old Reliable had not yet emerged from his fumigation adventure, and the anxious Colonel awaited him. Colonel Spottiswoode sat in the Rameses smoking-room with the two British officers who had met him at the dock. They represented the New Sudan Syndicate and would conduct him to the proposed plantation. In this experiment, so dear to British hearts, and so close to British pockets, the government lent its active aid and contributed its best men. Lyttleton Bey was fifty, wiry, resolute, tanned; McDonald Bimbashi, somewhat younger, slim, resolute, tanned. Both wore white linens. The American had already put himself upon a cordial footing—there being little difference between them in blood, ideals or traditions. The British officer in the Sudan is a picked man—the pick of picked men—else he will not be assigned to Anglo-Egyptian service. Lyttleton had campaigned with Roberts at Kandahar, and with Kitchener at Khartum. McDonald was a subaltern at Mafeking, and lived in further hopes.

Colonel Spottiswoode leaned across the table, bowing to Gregory Lykoff and Demetrius Gargarin. The hunted and the hunter sat three tables