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"No, not Iris" Unconsciously Anstice breathed a sigh of relief and the older lanced at him curiously "It is Bruce--my son-in-laho's ill; and I've coet one in Cairo--it see their pet cholera along with theot a scare--so I ca to bribe the ship's surgeon to come back into the desert with me If he wouldn't respond to bakshish I should have tried kidnapping," finished Sir Richard grimly, and Anstice smiled

"No need to do that, sir I' to do all you require But first, hadn't I better put in a clais? It see off with all the lot!"

"Yes--better let me see to it for you," said Sir Richard quickly "We've not too o and bespeak an arabeah I'll get your baggage"

And as Anstice moved to obey, a very tumult in his heart, Sir Richard turned back to the wildly-shouting crowd and succeeded in reclai froht one another for its possession

When they were clear of the quay, driving behind the two long-tailed little horses along the glaring streets, beneath the thinly-leaved and dusty trees, Anstice turned to Sir Richard interrogatively

"Now, sir, can you tell ? Mr Cheniston is ill, you say Do you know the nature of his illness?"

"Enteric, I'ravely "He went on a shooting expedition a week or two ago with the rich Egyptian for whoation job, and one day, when, through a miscalculation, the wine and provisions did not turn up, the party lunched at aparticularly thirsty Bruce indulged in a sh the host's servants swore by the Beard of the Prophet and so on through all their most sacred oaths that they had boiled the water first, the odds are that they had not, and that it caht from the river or sori habit of dropping a little of their precious 'holy' water into the wells they meet, some of those wells are absolute hotbeds of infection, so to speak"