The Greek took Abou Fatma aside,
and with a promise of much merissa, wherewith to intoxicate himself,
induced him to tell it a fourth time and very slowly.
"Could you find the house again?" asked the Greek.
Abou Fatma had no doubts upon that score. He proceeded to draw diagrams
in the dust, not knowing that during his imprisonment the town of Berber
had been steadily pulled down by the Mahdists and rebuilt to the north.
"It will be wise to speak of this to no one except me," said the Greek,
jingling some significant dollars, and for a long while the two men
talked secretly together. The Greek happened to be Harry Feversham whom
Durrance was proposing to visit in Donegal. Captain Willoughby was
Deputy-Governor of Suakin, and after three years of waiting one of Harry
Feversham's opportunities had come.
CHAPTER VIII
LIEUTENANT SUTCH IS TEMPTED TO LIE
Durrance reached London one morning in June, and on that afternoon took
the first walk of the exile, into Hyde Park, where he sat beneath the
trees marvelling at the grace of his countrywomen and the delicacy of
their apparel, a solitary figure, sunburnt and stamped already with that
indefinable expression of the eyes and face which marks the men set
apart in the distant corners of the world.
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