the Sinai Desert," he pursued, "and I stuck it all right. We did only two miles an hour, and not more of that than was good for us. I enjoyed this part of the business; perfect weather, only one sand-storm. The two young officers were pretty decent and did n't worry us except when we got in other people's way. Most of us stuck it; only three or four fell out. You ought to read the story of Napoleon's army on this same excursion: makes your flesh creep. Those who fell out were finished, worse than finished. We marched all night, and slept in the middle of the day. It was clean and fresh, no flies worth mentioning, no mosquitos, a scorpion or two every once in a while, and lots of sandrats-jerboas, I think they call 'em and lizards; and we saw gazelle, and there were hawks and eagles. It's an up-anddown country of sand shaped by the wind, with shifting hills and valleys, all one color of desolate brown under a sky that 's blue all over. And then you 're never very far from the sea; that 's sapphire and emerald, with a white edge. where it breaks in little waves. night everything comes closer.

At

"We watered at wells or off the pipeline, they 'd laid the Nile-water clean through to Palestine, and there were oases, with Bedouin and mangy camels and date-palms and ripe dates at Katia and Romani and El Arish. At El Arish we got a bathe in the sea, camels and all, and it did us good. I'd got a sort of a grizzled beard by then, and my own mother would n't have known me. We met all kinds of things on the way, and there was a wire-road. They 'd put down that as well- a net of wire, five or six yards wide, pegged down on the sand the whole way through the desert. You could march or drive a car on it, just like on a metaled road. The Londoners and the Irish came along and said all sorts of rude things to us poor devils plodding in the sand; but, I lay, we said ruder. And Anzacs and Aussies on horseback. We could n't match what they said; big-hearted chaps, though. And the yeomanry, my old lot, they let us alone. Gad! what would n't I have given to have been along with them again! I looked out for my old charger, but could n't find

her. But we 'll let that go and return to the procession.

"There were Indian cavalry and the real Camel Corps, and some of our old oonts started getting affectionate when the ladies came along. Confounded nuisance they are when they go magnoon and throw up their heads and lash with their ridiculous tails. My two gentlemen behaved themselves. And so we tumbled into Rafa and out again as far as Karm and Jasus; but I was dead beat. I'd walked the whole breadth of Sinai and a bit over; but I'm glad I've seen it. We kicked up coins and broken pottery in some places; there must have been water and cities out there years and years ago. I'd had the sand and the stars and an air like milk and the prologue of an immortal story, and I'd seen old Allenby dodging about in his big car. He even took the trouble to look at us and gave us a better salute than we gave him. Well, I'd had all that, and nothing much to do but admire it all.

"We 'd stayed two days at Rafa, at the advanced depot, and there we were resorted and pooled along with a tribe of others; so that, when I went out on the last stage, I was among fresh men and animals. Not one of our old lot in the whole caboodle! We were in Palestine now, or over against it. Palestine is a green place, with trees and cactushedges, if one comes upon it out of the desert. But just then it was all burnt up, really. You should see it in the spring. And there were hills in the distance, and the Holy Bible. It 's the landscape you read of and get read to you in church or when you 're a kid, and there are wells all along the sanddunes on the edge of the sea. I think the sea-water gets filtered somehow and the salt taken out of it as it passes through the sand into the wells."

He paused for a moment here to fill a pipe, an ancient brier that he had fished out of his pocket. His cigar had come to an end, and he had declined a fresh one; and then I, seizing on the opportunity and rather curious about these fellaheen camel-men that he had so taken for granted, said:

"What do the Gyppos talk about among themselves when they get going?

I've often wondered." And, indeed, I had, as, deaf and dumb myself, so to put it, I had seen these drivers squatting before their tents for hours and keeping up an eternal conversation, always dramatic, always eloquent, as though they were laying bare high secrets of state or expounding the mysteries of the universe. Vignolles laughed.

prayers just to clinch matters. If he could have made the world stand still and be exactly the same in London as in Mecca, in Tokio as in the Yemen; if he could have canceled the renaissance, the Roman Church, and the discovery of America, I omit a dozen similar trifles,-Mohammed would have been all right. And if you 're still living in the seventh century, and the climate 's

"And the war?" I asked next. "What it was being fought for and why; and democracy and the League of Nations?" Vignolles laughed again.

"They did n't know and they did n't care; no business of theirs. They got their keep and so many piasters a day; that was all they thought about the war. I've met staff-officers who thought no further."

"And aeroplanes and tractors and the pipe-line and the railways and all our other devilments-what about these?"

"Magic; magic of the unbeliever. Satan's always in league with the unbeliever, and Allah protects the faithful. The Koran makes no mention of aëroplanes, so they despise them."

"And what about their religion?" I asked. "You 've just mentioned Allah and the Koran, and people are always gassing about Islam and Mohammed." Vignolles hesitated.

"That 's rather a poser," he said at last. "You see, it 's a habit, a state of mind, rather than a faith. And there's not much love in it; that 's where Christianity has them beat. We 're always in love or about to be in love; they 're not troubled that way; they get too much of it, if anything. And so they fall back on a code; it 's very good for one if one sticks to it. Mohammed was something of a physician as well as a man of the world, and so he prescribes cold water and physical drill-they call it ablutions and prostrations and fasts and continence and no alcohol, and a few

sufficient, then Mohammed's a prophet. Our men were seventh century; one or two of them were bloody-minded fanatics, especially when they quarreled about the direction of Mecca. You turn your face that way when you pray. They had a fight about it, and Ibrahim bit off the end of Khalil's nose. Most religions seem to tend in that direction if one 's properly aroused." Vignolles ruminated, lingering for a moment, so it seemed, with his own God, the compassionate, the merciful enskied above the rancors of our little creeds.

"Well, you'd got as far as Palestine," I prompted him at last. "And what happened after that?"

"The show came off all right; you've read about it, and so have most people. And I was in it. One show 's very like another, but this was rather an uncommon and romantic business. I suppose I'm one of those moths that can't keep out of the flame; and so are you, and so are most of us. I 've often thought that if the Belgians and the French had just sat tight and let the Hun march on and on and on, and smoked their pipes and looked at the fools marching, even the Hun would have seen the joke at last and turned to the kaiser and said, 'What the hell are we doing here?' Instead of looking on and smoking their pipes, the French fought 'em. Very natural and human thing to do; I 'd have done it myself. But if we were angels instead of men and women, we'd just sit tight and leave war to the fools." "But the Turk was something more than a fool," I ventured.

"Quite right," answered Vignolles, thoughtfully. "He's got a certain point of view. It does n't square with ours; it can't live in the same street with ours. So I don't blame him as much as I blame the Hun. Nothing the

Hun loves better than living in our street; can't keep him out of it. If you chuck him out at the door, in he comes by the window.

"Well, I carried on, and saw the Turk take the knock," he resumed; "and as he belongs to the Dark Ages and I don't, I was n't sorry for him. It was a fine sight, lots of cavalry; a good, open, honest show it was after the first good biff; and when we 'd got 'em fairly on the run, and the rains came down and slowed the pace and washed us out, so to speak, we 'd have finished them off then and there instead of a year later if we could have used the whole of our army instead of the half of it. I began to feel that I was an old, old man, and that I'd have done better to have gone down to Cairo like a good boy and relieved some younger fellow, if they could have found one. I stuck it out, though. I remember two of our Gyppos got killed by a bomb; they ought to have thrown themselves flat on their bellies instead of sprinting. There was one on the right of me and one on the left of me. I envied the poor devils. They were at peace; it was all over. One of 'em twitched a bit, but he could n't feel anything. I envied them. And next I thought of the women in the mud village on the Nile, and the children and the howl they would set up till God comforted them. It's these people that war hits, not proud fellows like you and me.

"I stuck it out," he pursued; "and, well, we camel-drivers saved the situation. It had been difficult enough in the dry weather, when half the army had to stand by because there was n't enough water; but when the rains came, it looked as though the other half would have to shut up shop as well. The whole country had turned into a quaking bog, and all the wheeled transport went to blazes. Armies are n't like voters; they can't live on air and promises. The navy carried on along the coast, but the horse transport and the regimental limbers had got stuck in the sand before we started; and now the tractors and lorries were all stuck in the mud. But we camels kept it up somehow, thousands and thousands of us there were, working in three echelons, each lot doing a stage; and though lots of the poor brutes split

when they slipped up in it, and lots laid down and went to pot from sheer exhaustion, the most of us hung on. I had about fourteen different kinds of fever when we started for Jerusalem.

"We'd carried water and we'd carried forage and we 'd carried beef and biscuit; we'd carried all sorts of truck, and now we were on ammunition. The last day I was out and about the Jacko guns had found us, and one of the camels took a direct hit and went up like a packet of fireworks. I told you I had about sixteen kinds of fever: I suppose it was that made me stand fast when the others ran. Can't expect a Gyppo to stand fast with a camel-load of eighteenpounder shells going off like a bunch of rockets. There was the officer and me getting a move on the convoy; the camels stood like heroes and did as they were told. The officer cursed in English, and it did me good to hear him; and I suppose I cursed one better, but he must have been too busy to notice. I don't remember any more of it till I woke up in a Gyppo hospital, with a hole down one side of me and no temperature to speak of. Lord! but I was happy to be warm and cozy and well out of it!

"There was a Syrian doctor and an Armenian dresser and a Jew and lots of Copts and Moslems, and they all looked after me like angels; seemed they had special orders. I'd behaved rather decently, it appeared, and I was Ali Selim el Tantawi, so they said, having read the number off my identity disk or some nominal roll or other, or maybe it 's what I told 'em. And they had n't pinched my money, either. It was all O. K. with the other disk inside my belt, and the fag-end of my check-book and half a dozen odd papers.

"The officer looked in-the same kid who 'd been in charge of that last convoy. He could n't say much, but he had lots of baccy and cigarettes, and said there was plenty more where these came from. I felt rather a cad for letting him quaess away in Arabic, when he 'd got nothing out of the show, not even a mention. I found a Gazette one day and hunted about for him; but all the officewallahs had n't forgotten their noble selves, you bet your boots on it.

"They let me out in the spring, and I was sent to the advanced depot. It had moved north to Ludd, somewhere between Jaffa and Jerusalem, out on the plain, with the blue sea on one side and blue hills on the other. Nothing much to do there except eat and drink and sleep. They'd a sort of infirmary for us to get well in. I got well. It was a wonderful place, all among orangegroves in blossom; smelt like a thousand brides, and I 'd just missed the almonds. There were scarlet tulips and beds of dusky iris and banks of great yellow daisies. They let us wander where we liked, and the smell of it and the sight of it made me feel new and beautiful. Most of the men sat still and basked and would n't go out except when there was a girl calling; but I found Bedouin camps and Jew colonies and black Jews from the Yemen. There was a Moslem bailiff in one of the farms who wanted me to marry his daughter, a widow, going cheap; and I met a woman who asked me to sell her a camel

she had twenty pounds Turkish in gold that she brought out of her bosom, -and there was a Jew farmer who offered me a job of hoeing in his vineyard. And I met jackals and pi-dogs and a harlot from Surafend. It was just

like living in the Bible except for Allenby and his men and the banging of guns beyond Jaffa, and the aëroplanes that came and went, and the railwayline that had come up and the new ones they were building.

"I got as far as the sea at Jaffa and saw a street of shops again, and took a shuf at the Jewish suburb packed with Zionists. Intellectual-looking lot of blokes; too much brains and not enough beef. It'll take 'em three generations to get going. And I hopped on a lorry one fine morning and wound up into the hills and landed plumb in Jerusalem. It smelt like a 'jakes,' I think that 's what Shakspere calls it, but when you got on the Mount of Olives and looked down on the city and over to the Dead Sea and the Mountains of Moab, you forgot all your troubles and even forgave the Turk and how he 'd failed on sanitation. I suppose Jerusalem grows on one. I could n't give it a fair chance. They let me in at the mosque. Omar, is n't it? A perfect place. I sat in the sun like a lizard, in one corner of the big square where the women come for water, and time seems to have left off, and present, past, and future are all one. Ever read Josephus? The Old Testament 's poetry, and Josephus is the

prose of it. They tried to kick me out of the church when I went up the hill again; but I told the priests that I was a Copt, and then it seemed to be all right. I followed a party of reverent Tommies in charge of a padre and heard all about it. They said it was 'a bit thick'; but who was I to contradict them? Religion 's rather an industry up at Jerusalem, same as in Rome, same as in Mecca. When I'd done, I squatted down at the corner outside and waited for the lorry. The crowd did one good. I 've never seen anything like it, a human menagerie. Licked all the zoos. Bedouin, Australians, all sorts of Jews, Indians, West Indians, Gyppos, and real live female Yankees dishing out money or medicine or something. I 've left out priests and nuns and such-like. Some came from Abyssinia, and were long and black and bony. I forgot all about the lorry, and had to get a lift on a van. Very decent fellow in it; Intelligence, I believe. He took me as far as Ramleh, and then I walked. They called me into the office three days later and told me that my time was up and that I could go back to my home whenever I wanted; but if I liked to sign on again, they'd be glad to have me. They'd give me a reis's job and a reis's pay.

"There was a wad of money owing to Ali Selim, and I got that. He'd had my twenty pounds and done nothing for it; and he 'd had the fantasia and the henna and the high-breasted virgin into the bargain, which I had n't, not by a long chalk. And there was my own pay, all dried up, I supposed, and me posted as missing or something worse. I've a sister, she 'd hear about it,-a good sort, though married to a stockbroker who dresses every night for dinner and can't talk anything but shop and golf and auction. I sent her a picture post-card from Jerusalem and signed it "Tonino.' She 'd know it was from me. She 's forgiven me all right, though my brother-in-law can't get over it. But he 's built that way, bless him!

"Well, I'd got a wad of money and a paper to take me home to Abu Zeid," Vignolles pursued, reverting once more to the main argument, "and a squad of

us time-expireds and crocks and whatnots was marched down to the station, and back we went to Egypt in an open truck, all very friendly and rejoicing and full of plans and wickedness, and packed like herrings in a tin.

"I did n't see much, because it grew dark soon after we started, but we left the scent of the orange-groves behind us and the twisted olive-trees, and the miles of barley you come to lower down. I saw all that, and then it was night, and we were making for the desert. I slept through it this time instead of walking. At Kantara East we got out and were marched over the canal to Kantara West, and I could see the depot where I had started from about six months back. Had n't changed much; the men were getting their breakfast.

"They gave me a ticket to Zagazig, third-class on the state railway, but I did n't get there. I wanted to see Cairo again and the Pyramids and the wonders of Memphis. Sakkara they call it nowadays; it's a better period than Thebes. I went down to the stables at Kasr-El-Nil and Abu Ella, and asked the drivers if they knew you, an old officerkadim.

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"The fat one with the red face? He came and went,' they answered. So I knew you'd got out of it.

"And when I'd done Cairo and Sakkara and the Pyramids and the two museums," Vignolles resumed, "and all the cinemas and the Mille et Un Nuits, and the theaters in Emad el Din, and refused a job at a mosque and another at a brothel, I powdered myself more than usual and paid my bill at the hotel in Clot Bey where I 'd lodged, and went off to the Fayoum. It's the only green bit of Egypt that is n't hand-made and flat-ironed. And after that I got a passage on a boat or two,- or was it three?—and sailed down the Nile to all the tombs and temples. It was growing warm and oveny, but in a dirty galabiah and next to no underwear you don't feel it. I had a six-week's holiday that passed like a dream, doing just what I liked and sleeping mostly under stars and moonlight. The fellaheen Gyppos are much the same as other peasantry. If they 're decently governed by honest men, they 're like little