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If the sorrow of the viceroy were great at this sad news, at least he did not let it appear outwardly, but set to work to make all preparations for taking prompt vengeance upon the Roumis, an appellation which shows the lasting terror attaching to the name of the Romans, and commonly used at this time upon the Malabar coast, for all Mussulman soldiers coming from Byzantium.

"Trust me. I will be as gracious to these Roumis as if they were true believers." "I do trust thee completely," answered the younger man. "While they are at thy gates, or within them, I must wait with patience. I cannot remain here in the open yet I wish to be within sight, that I may see with my own eyes all that happens.

He did not inquire why they wished to have news of Ben Halim, who had once lived in the house for a short time, and had now long been dead. Perhaps he wished to give the Roumis a lesson in discretion; but as their friendliness increased over the dripping sweets, Nevill ventured to ask a crucial question. What had become of Ben Halim's American wife?

"The wind is going down, Batouch-ben-Brahim," responded Ali, calmly. "This evening the Roumis can lie in the tents." Batouch's thick lips curled with sarcasm. He spat into the wind, blew his nose in his burnous, and answered: "You are a child, and can sing a pretty song, but " Ali pointed with his delicate hand towards the south. "Do you not see the light in the sky?"

At the town of Oued Tolga, Stephen had added a third to his escort of two; but though they were good guides, brave, upstanding fellows, he knew they would turn from him if there were any question between Roumis and men of their own religion.

If this affair has to do with Arabs, like as not we might offer all we've got without inducing them to speak except to tell plausible lies and send us farther along the wrong track. It's a point of pride with these brown faces. Their own above the Roumis, and I'm hanged if I can help respecting them for that, lies and all." "But why should they lie?" broke out Stephen. "What can it be to them?"

The amusements of the little Africans of to-day are not very many, nor very various either. They have no inventive imagination. In this matter their French playfellows have taught them a good deal. If they play marbles, or hopscotch, or rounders, it is in imitation of the Roumis. And yet they are great little players. Games of chance attract them above all.

But even if he had, the servants were genuinely enthusiastic in their efforts to make the Roumis at home. The two who had run farthest returned soonest. They staggered under a load of large rugs wrapped in unbleached sheeting, and a great sack stuffed full of cushions which bulged out at the top.

And Picpon had kept his word; he had remembered often, he remembered now; standing on his head and thinking of his hundred Napoleons surrendered because thieving and lying in the regiment gave pain to that oddly prejudiced "ci-devant." This was the sort of loyalty that the Franco-Arabs rendered; this was the sort of influence that the English Guardsman exercised among his Roumis.

The happy soldiers were singing a French song with a chorus for the delectation of the Arabs, who swayed to and fro, wagging their heads and smiling in an effort to show appreciation of the barbarous music of the Roumis. Dreary, terrible Mogar and its influences were being defied by the wanderers halting in it.