He waked from his dream at the homely sound. There were to be no more
journeys for him; affliction had caged him and soldered a chain about
his leg. He felt his way by the balustrade up the stairs to his bed. He
fell asleep as the sun rose.
* * * * *
But at Dongola, on the great curve of the Nile southwards of Wadi Halfa,
the sun was already blazing and its inhabitants were awake. There was
sport prepared for them this morning under the few palm trees before the
house of the Emir Wad El Nejoumi. A white prisoner captured a week
before close to the wells of El Agia on the great Arbain road, by a
party of Arabs, had been brought in during the night and now waited his
fate at the Emir's hands. The news spread quick as a spark through the
town; already crowds of men and women and children flocked to this rare
and pleasant spectacle. In front of the palm trees an open space
stretched to the gateway of the Emir's house; behind them a slope of
sand descended flat and bare to the river.
Harry Feversham was standing under the trees, guarded by four of the
Ansar soldiery. His clothes had been stripped from him; he wore only a
torn and ragged jibbeh upon his body and a twist of cotton on his head
to shield him from the sun.
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