H. C. McNeile

“ There was no mistaking her tone of voice, and the man called Brown looked as if some one had hit him.
“'But, my dear,' he stammered, and then suddenly he began to cough. A dreadful, tearing cough that shook him from head to foot; a cough that stained his handkerchief with scarlet. And into the eyes of the woman there came a look of shrinking fear, which was replaced almost at once by something very different. Her husband, doubled up in the paroxysm, saw nothing—and a bunch of natives didn't count. Hope, triumph, the way out, replaced fear in her eyes. ”

“ To her I was just an Arab guide, and when we arrived that was all I was to the man. I don't think he even recognized me; he had eyes for no one but his wife. She—this wonderful woman—had not failed him! His dreams had come true. And with his arms outstretched he went to her, heedless of every one else.
“'Oh, my dear, I can hardly believe that it's true!' I heard him say.”
Jim paused for a moment, then he went on very gravely:
“HAVE you ever seen a dog jump up suddenly to welcome his master, and get a biff over the head for his pains? ”

“ And his parting injunction to me was a repetition of the fact that there was no danger.
“'She ought to be here in a month,' were his last words, and I left him to his dreams—the man who called himself Brown.”
Jim paused and knocked the ashes out of his pipe.
“I was back in Cairo in about a fortnight, and the first thing I did, of course, was to give in my report. It was to Toby Bretherton I made it, and when I'd finished I got down to the other matter.
“'Mrs. Dallas!' he cried. 'Do I know her? My dear fellow, there's not a man in Cairo who doesn't. She takes very good care of that. ”

“ For Toby Bretherton's description of the lady hardly fitted in with the one given me by the man called Brown. In fact, I didn't quite see her rushing up the White Nile to the back of beyond. And when I finally met the lady the following afternoon still less could I imagine her doing it. I was still disguised as an Arab, and I took stock of her without much difficulty. She was surrounded by a bunch of men, and they were watching some flying out at Heliopolis. And Mr. Hounslow, as he then was, was watching her. ”

“ But I found that every one else who was on the Game knew him, and I also found that Headquarters in Cairo placed great reliance on him. Three years previously he had suddenly appeared on the scene out of the blue, and there he had remained ever since—buried. With the help of a little quinine and a few simple medicines, he had established a big reputation as a doctor among the natives. And the Powers That Be kept him supplied with those medicines—because a reputation of that sort among the natives is a valuable asset when it is held by the right man. ”

“ I've got to cook in the sun, and you can take it from me that I turn into the choicest mahogany you've ever seen. But the red, blistery stage is confoundedly painful, and it's dull cooking alone. So if you don't mind keeping me company, and doing the grub side of the business, I shall be infernally grateful.”
They're pretty thorough—the men who play that game. ”

“ SHE didn't recognize me. As I say, a boiled shirt and an eyeglass alter a man. But she was very charming and very sweet, and quite delightfully modest when Hounslow told me of her trip at great length.
“'It was nothing,' she said. Ibrahim—the wonderful Ibrahim had made everything easy. And she would rather not talk about it—it was all too horrible.
“'I do hope he's better, Major Bretherton,' she said gently. 'He looked so ill when he went into the hospital at Khartum. ”

“ As long as she had believed that her husband was dead—and, to do the woman justice, I have no doubt that she really had believed it—I had nothing to say on the matter. The mere fact that I fully shared Toby Bretherton's opinion of her was beside the point: we don't all think alike. But now the thing was on a different footing altogether.
“'Why is it impossible for a woman to go to her husband?' I demanded.
Illustration: “Throughout the whole journey up the White Nile Mrs. Dallas had hardly spoken to me. To her I was just an Arab guard”
“She literally sprang at me. ”

“ Jim lifted a deprecating hand.
“Let us call it research work among the native population,” he murmured. 'You don't suppose, do you, old man, that the British Government runs five hundred million black men here and in India by distributing tracts to 'em?”
“But why Malta?” I asked, harking back. “What about Alexandria? There's excellent bathing there. And Malta's a deuced unpleasant place at this time of year.”
“One doesn't get that wonderful goat smell at Alexandria,” he remarked, and his eyes were twinkling. “I know the actual rock, Dick, where one can lie and bask in the sun. Coming?” ”

“ But I saw that the staff officer's eyes were gleaming even as Jim's.
TO one who has played the game himself, the call of it is always there. But it wasn't a long interview, and it ended with the officer giving orders that a “Tent Bell., G. 5, one complete with pole,” should be placed at our disposal for as long as we needed it. And an hour later we left the Union Club in a cab with our tent bell and drove away toward the west. ”

“ George Hounslow and his fiancée I was still Ibrahim—a thoroughly reliable Arab.
“The next day we started by train for Khartum. There I got the necessary boys and a fortnight later we came to the place where the man called Brown was awaiting his wife. ”

“ Dallas gave a little cry as I stepped into the summerhouse and bowed deeply before her”
Lady Hounslow's Charity
Jim Maitland Plays “The Great Game” with Human Hearts at Stake
By Major H. C. McNeile
illustrations by G. W. Gage
LADY HOUNSLOW, wife of Sir George Hounslow, is a very wonderful woman, as is only right and proper in the wife of a Cabinet Minister. ”