Said by Ben Kelham, who, inwardly kicking at her sage advice, looked as despondent as a camel who considers its strength unequal to its burden.

"Cheer up, lad," she cried as the train moved off. "Cheer up; something is sure to happen before long."

Which was a perfectly safe prophecy to make where Damaris was concerned.

Arrived at Port Said, she put off in a boat with her maid and her parrot, and found her godchild, who did not expect her, on deck, entranced with all she saw.

Yes! of course Port Said is a sink of iniquity and a place of odours and a fold for native wolves in sheep's clothing; also a centre for antiquities made in Birmingham, or by the vendor himself in the hot weather; and a market for things which should not be sold, much less bought.

In fact, in one short sentence, it is a deal of cosmopolitan wrong-doing.

All the same, you need not buy and you need not listen nor look, and if it is the first bit of the Orient you have meet with for the first time in your life, well! it is the East, and jolly exciting and interesting, too.

Damaris rushed at the old lady, and having curtsied to her, gathered her up in her strong arms and hugged her tightly, just as Captain X, who during one trip had had the duchess as passenger and therefore loved her, came along.

As they turned in the direction of the dining-saloon, the girl looked over her shoulder at the two maids, and smiled.

With a great love of their respective mistresses as their sole bond in common they stood, otherwise divided, staring at each other.

"Pleased to meet you again," volunteered country-bred Jane, offering a plump hand.

"Hoping you are in good health," responded Maria Hobson, making a corner in strawberry-leaves as she just touched the finger-tips.

"Wellington, you have met Dekko, I think," laughed the girl.

"Woomph!" grunted the dog disdainfully, as he cocked an eye at the bird, which ruffled its feathers, spread its red tail and looked down sideways and spitefully for a long moment.

"My Gawd!" it suddenly shrieked. "My Gawd!"

And it swung about and rubbed its soft grey pate against its mistress's outrageous golden perruque, then hurled itself onto the captain's shoulder.

CHAPTER V.

"Oh, yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill."

TENNYSON.

After the fight in the bazaar, the ducal party stayed for another fortnight in Cairo, during which time Damaris saw as much of the place and its surroundings as she could in fourteen days and a few hours out of each of the fourteen nights; whilst her godmother played bridge or poker, paid and received visits, took her to dances and parties, and busied her fingers in the tangled threads Fate had tossed into her lap.

It was an understood thing that the girl should be ready to conduct the old aristocrat to the dining-room at the dinner-hour and give her the evening; other than that her time was her own, though, owing to her innate courtesy and her love for her godmother, she never once absented herself without having obtained permission.

"You are a positive tonic, child, in these perplexing days," remarked her grace, when the girl had concluded the recital of the fight in the bazaar. "Only, do remember to come straight to me if ever you get into a real scrape."

And that night, the old lady, who had lost heavily at poker, fairly snapped at Maria Hobson, who, tucking her up in bed, remarked, greatly daring, upon the amount of liberty allowed the child.

"Don't be foolish, my good woman," she said, "and do for goodness' sake mind your business of looking after me. Although my god-daughter may bluff a bit for the fun of the game, and get let down a bit for her own good, yet I shouldn't advise anyone to get seeing her too often. Fate dealt her a royal straight flush in hearts, and better that you can't—no! not even if you hold a full house of intrigue and bad intent t'other end of Life's table."

"Humff!" replied the maid heavily through her nose, not having understood one word of her mistress's admonition.

Each day at breakfast and at dinner a bunch, big or little, of simple or hothouse flowers lay beside the girl's plate, without name or message.

Now, the finding of flowers upon your table does not, in Egypt, necessarily imply that the donor thereof is a son of the desert; the maître d'hôtel has been known to do it out of deference to your rank or purse; and only once had Jane Coop had the mixed pleasure of meeting the deaf-mute Nubian who daily left the posies at the hotel.

Refreshed from her siesta, she had descended to the hall via the stairs instead of the lift, and bumped into the ebony-hued slave as he bent to lay a sheaf of flowers upon the matting outside her mistress's door.

He had straightened himself and salaamed almost to the ground—which had delighted Jane Coop—and had offered the bunch to her.

"Oh, no, my man!" she had said, bridling, "you don't come over me that way. Just you take that trash back to where it came from. My young lady ain't that kind," and had shaken her fist in his face and flounced downstairs to lay a complaint.

What with the militant maids, the parrot and the dog, the ducal party was continually breaking out in some direction or another, but the maître d'hôtel, who simply worshipped the old lady, merely smiled and poured the oil of soothing words upon the troubled waters.

The girl had quite casually recounted the fight in the bazaar, and the wise old woman had made no comment; but, all the same, next day she indifferently asked a few questions of Lady Thistleton, who had a big heart, narrow mind, an ever-wagging tongue and two daughters.

"Oh, that's the son of the Arab and the English girl. You must remember the fuse there was in England over the runaway marriage—what was her name?—how she could, you know——"

"Ah! yes. You must be talking of Jill Carden. I knew her very well. Naughty girl, she refused the invitation I sent them asking them to come to England and stay with me, and gave up writing to me after a while. Does she live in Cairo?"

It seemed that Jill, the wife of the Sheikh el-Umbar, lived in the Flat Oasis t'other side of the Canal, in Arabia proper, but, according to current gossip, was at the moment upon a visit to her son at the House 'an Mahabbha, which had been built for the elder branch of the House el-Umbar on a verdant patch watered by the springs, from the limestone hills which stretch on the desert side of the Oasis of Khargegh.

"He's not in Cairo, then?"

"No; he left to-day," replied the gossip. "You see, his mother is expected any time at his home, if she isn't already there. My maid will chatter so, there's absolutely no stopping her. Funnily enough, I arrived at the station as he was leaving in a special train. Such a handsome man, educated in England, millionaire too. Of course it's a case of a touch of the tarbrush—such a pity, too!"

The duchess suddenly shivered.

"Little Jill!" she said gently. "Little Jill! I must go and see her if she will let me. Ah! General, what about a hand at écarté before dinner?"—and she rose with a stormy rustling of her softly-scented silks, leaving the gossip wondering in what way she had put her foot in it.

That night, as she lay like a little brown mouse under