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This was the reason that Wyndham bimbashi and his Gippies, and the Sheikh and his household, faced the fact, the morning after Hassan left, that there was scarce a goolah of water for a hundred burning throats. Wyndham understood now why the Arabs sat down and waited, that torture might be added to the oncoming death of the Englishman, his natives, and the "friendlies."

The Orient had touched him at last. "Is not the song of the sakkia in thine ear, Mahommed?" he said "Turn, O Sakkia, turn to the right, and turn to the left. The Nile floweth by night and the balasses are filled at dawn The maid of the village shall bear to thy bed the dewy grey goolah at dawn Turn, O Sakkia!" Wyndham was learning at last the way to the native mind. The man rose from his knees.

The minutes went by in silence; an hour went by; the whole night went by; Hassan had got beyond the circle of trenchant steel. They must now abide Hassan's fate; but another peril was upon them. There was not a goolah of water within the walls!

Dicky brought him a goolah of water. The next morning, at sunrise, a strange procession drew near to the Birket-el-Kurun. Twenty ghaffirs went ahead with their naboots; then came the kavasses, then the Mudir mounted, with Dicky riding beside, his hand upon the holster where his pistol was. The face of the Mudir was like a wrinkled skin of lard, his eyes had the look of one drunk with hashish.

Whether beasts of burden, the girl with the goolah, women in the harem, or servants of pleasure, they were all in the bonds of slavery, and the land was in moral darkness. So it seemed to her. How many times had she written these things in different forms and to different people so often, too often, to the British Consul at Cairo, whose patience waned.

Bacheeta now assured me that the M'was were so dreaded by the Unyoro people that nothing would induce them to fight; therefore I must not depend upon Kamrasi in any way, but must make independent arrangements: she informed me, that the invasion was caused by accounts given to M'tese by Goobo Goolah, one of Speke's deserters, who had run away from Kamrasi shortly after our arrival in the country, and had reported to M'tese, the king of Uganda, that we were on our way to pay him a visit with many valuable presents, but that Kamrasi had prevented us from proceeding, in order to monopolise the merchandise.