As Trench and he passed in the dusk
of one evening between the storehouses and the town wall, a man in the
shadow of one of the narrow alleys which opened from the storehouses
whispered to them to stop. Trench knelt down upon the ground and
examined his foot as though a stone had cut it, and as he kneeled the
man walked past them and dropped a slip of paper at their feet. He was a
Suakin merchant, who had a booth in the grain market of Omdurman. Trench
picked up the paper, hid it in his hand and limped on, with Feversham at
his side. There was no address or name upon the outside, and as soon as
they had left the houses behind, and had only the wall upon their right
and the Nile upon their left, Trench sat down again. There was a crowd
about the water's edge, men passed up and down between the crowd and
them. Trench took his foot into his lap and examined the sole. But at
the same time he unfolded the paper in the hollow of his hand and read
the contents aloud. He could hardly read them, his voice so trembled.
Feversham could hardly hear them, the blood so sang in his ears.
"A man will bring to you a box of matches. When he comes trust
him.--Sutch." And he asked, "Who is Sutch?"
"A great friend of mine," said Feversham.
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