But it could not last: very gently he reined in, saying 'Come, my dear, this ain't sober, responsible conduct. We have a long way to go.' She whinnied again, and to his astonishment he found that she was scarcely breathing faster than before.

When the others came up (Hairabedian labouring heavily) he asked her name. 'Yamina,' said the boy.

'If we bring this caper off,' thought Jack, 'and if money can tempt the great enormous fat man of the wilderness, I shall take her home and keep her as a pet. She would teach all the children to ride, one after another; and she would even reconcile Sophie with horses.'

They rode on at a sober, responsible pace, and his thoughts moved forward to his meeting with Murad. He knew, from his experience in the Ionian, that there was often a wide difference between the interests of the Sublime Porte and those of local Turkish commanders, a wide difference between what the one ordered and the other performed. He turned over various lines of approach in his mind, but dismissed them all. 'If he is a straightforward candid Turk we shall agree directly: if he is a devious brute, I shall have to find out the nature of his deviousness. And if I cannot deal with it, I shall make the passage on my own, even though that would be a damned bad beginning.'

Now that this somewhat remote and hypothetical scheme had more nearly become a possibility, he longed for its success with his whole being. The treasure that the gallery was said to be bringing up to Mubara entered into the line of count of course: but it was not the whole reason for his eagerness, nor anything like it. For some time now he had been dissatisfied with himself and although as a result of his being sent into the Ionian the French had been turned out of Marga he knew very well how much had depended on luck and on the excellent conduct of his Turkish and Albanian allies. He had also sunk the Torgud. But that was more in the nature of a massacre than an evenly-fought battle, and mere slaughter could not cure that deep dissatisfaction. It seemed to him that his reputation in the service (and with himself as one who watched Jack Aubrey's doings from a certain distance and with an almost perfect knowledge of his motives) was based on two or three fortunate actions, sea-fights that he could look back upon with real pleasure, small though they were; but they belonged to the past; they had all happened long ago; and now there were several men who stood far higher in the esteem of those whose opinion he valued. Young Hoste, for example, had done wonders in the Adriatic, and Hoste was junior to him on the post-captain's list. It was as though he were running a race: a race in which he had done fairly well for a while, after a slow start, but one in which he could not hold his lead and was being overtaken, perhaps from lack of bottom, perhaps from lack of judgment, perhaps from lack of that particularly nameless quality that brought some men success when it just eluded others, though they might take equal pains. He could not put his finger on the fault with any certainty, and there were days when he could say with real conviction that the whole thing was mere fatality, the other side of the good luck that had attended him in his twenties and early thirties, the restoration of the average. But there were other days when he felt that his profound uneasiness was an undeniable proof of the fault's existence, and that although he himself might not be able to name_it, it was clear enough to others, particularly those in power: at all events they had given many of the good appointments to other men, not to him.

'Sir,' said Hairabedian. 'Here is Katia.'

Jack looked up. He had been riding so easy, with such a perfect rhythm under him, that he had sunk deep in his reflection, and he was surprised to see a small town quite close, with groves of date-palms to the left, apparently springing directly from the sand, and the turquoise-blue dome of a mosque to the right, and white-walled, flat-roofed houses in between. Their path had already joined the caravan route to Syria, a broad track running as straight as a stretched cord eastwards, and far ahead a string of laden camels striding away towards Palestine.

As they rode into the town they passed a great heap of rubbish just by the wells, and a mixed flock of vultures rose from it. 'What are those birds?' asked Jack.

'The boy says the black and white ones are Pharaoh's hens,' said Hairabedian, 'and the large dark kinds are all called the Sons of Filth.'

'I hope the Doctor sees them,' said Jack. 'He loves a singular bird, whatever its parentage. God help us, what an oven,' he added to himself, for now that they had slowed to a walk the air was still, and the heat reverberated from the shimmering walls of the town, while the declining sun, low in the west but still ferociously strong, beat full on his back.

Katia was small, but it possessed an unusually fine coffee-house: the boy led them through the narrow, empty, sleeping streets to its inner courtyard and called for grooms in a shrill authoritative voice. Jack was glad to see that the horses were well known here: indeed, Yamina was treated with what he would have thought an extravagant degree of respect if he had not ridden her.

They walked into a large dim high-ceilinged room with a fountain in the middle; a broad padded bench ran round three sides, under latticed, unglazed windows, shaded with green fronds outside; and on this bench, cross-legged, sat two or three small groups of men, silently smoking hookahs or conversing in low voices. The talk stopped dead at their coming in, but in scarcely a second it carried on, still in the same low tone. There was a delicious coolness in the air, and as the boy led them to a secluded corner Jack said to himself, 'If I sit here without moving, perhaps in time the sweat will stop running down my back.'

'The child is going to tell the Bey that you are here,' said Hairabedian. 'He says that he is the only person who could disturb him at such a time without danger: he also observes that as we are only Christians we may call for food and drink, if we choose.'

Jack checked the words that came naturally to his mind and coolly replied that he preferred to wait. It would not only be uncivil to these bearded gentlemen to eat and drink when they could not, but it might quite reasonably vex the Bey to come in and find him swallowing the pints of sherbet that he longed for. He sat there listening to the fountain, and the coolness flowed into him; as the daylight faded his mind dwelt with pleasure on that glorious horse, and it was not until he saw the boy come running back that he felt a stab of anxiety. The boy had evidently been eating: he swallowed hastily, brushed crumbs from round his mouth, and cried 'He comes!'

He came indeed, a small trim figure with a cropped white beard and moustache, a close-wrapped turban and a plain uniform, the only glory being his jade-hilted yataghan and his fine red boots. He came straight across to Jack and shook his hand in the European manner, and Jack saw with great pleasure that he might have been own brother to Sciahan, his former ally, a candid, straightforward Turk.

'The Bey welcomes you and asks, are you here already?' said Hairabedian.

A soldierly question of this kind made Jack feel quite at home: he said that he was; that he thanked the Bey for his welcome; and that he was very happy to see him.

'The Bey asks, will you take some refreshment?'

'Tell the Bey that I shall be happy to drink sherbet whenever he sees fit to do so himself.'

'The Bey says he was at Acre with Lord Smith when Buonaparte was defeated: he recognized your uniform directly. He desires you will walk into the kiosk and smoke tobacco with him.'

Around the bubbling water-pipe in a small green privacy the interview went on in the direct, uncomplicated way that Jack had longed for. Murad urged Captain Aubrey to wait until the new moon and the end of Ramadan, since the escort, being janissaries and strict observers, could hardly march long stages fasting in the heat of the day; and it would only be a little while until Sheker Bairam, the feast at the end of the fast, when the Captain and the Bey could eat together all day long. But when Jack very earnestly represented to him that there was not a minute to be lost, that delay must have the most unfortunate effects on the whole expedition, and that his plan was to march by night, he smiled and said 'You young men are always impatient to be doing. Well, I will ride back with you this evening and give orders for your escort. I will give you my odabashi: he is stupid, but he is as brave as a bear and obedient to command and he beats his men into equal obedience; and I believe he has notions of the Low Dutch. He will pick three or four men, if they can be found, who are not afraid of spirits or the night-demon -the desert is full of them, you know. But I am an old man, and I have been fasting all day; I need some sustenance before the ride. You will not mind waiting until the sun has set?'