Nefret and I quickly retreated from the door and Emerson propelled Ramses through it with a hard shove. “Now,” he said loudly, in Arabic, “make your excuses to your mistress.”

He slammed the door and Ramses looked quizzically from me to Nefret. “Which?”

“Me,” Nefret said breathlessly. “I’m the new favorite, aren’t I?”

“Speak French,” I said warningly.

Neither of them heard me, I believe. Nefret was staring at him as if she had never seen him before – which, in a way, she had not, for to the best of my knowledge this was a new role for Ramses, and when Ramses played a part he did it thoroughly. He was wearing only a pair of dirty cotton drawers and he had stained his body a rich dark brown. I observed several raw marks across his bare back, and remembered that I had heard one of the officers explain that “a few cuts of the whip” were advisable when dealing with recalcitrant members of the Labour Corps.

Nefret had seen them too. She let out a little cry and threw herself into his arms.

They made a picturesque tableau as they clung to one another, framed by the pointed arch of the alcove – his dark, muscular body and her slender, yielding form in its gold-embroidered blue velvet gibbeh. “Story pictures” were popular with a certain school of painting, and it was not difficult to think of a title for this one. “The Slave and the Sultan’s Favorite,” or “A Tryst with Death,” or -

Emerson let out a sound rather like one the sultan might have made if he had come upon such a scene, and the two drew apart.

“Careless,” I said softly. “I stopped up several peepholes in the walls, but I doubt I found them all.”

Ramses dropped to his knees in front of me and clasped his hands. “Your forgiveness, honored lady.”

“Yes, all right, just don’t do it again.” I added, just as softly, “I, too, am relieved to see you, my dear. What next?”

“I can’t stay. You had better send me on an errand – and find me some clothes,” he added, looking up at me with a smile. His thin dark face and cheerful grin and the curls clustering untidily round his forehead filled me with a strong desire to shake him. Men actually enjoy this sort of thing! So do I, if truth be told, but only when I am allowed to take an active part. It is the waiting I find so difficult, particularly when one waits for news of a loved one.

“When will we see you again?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I am to rendezvous with Chetwode this evening and go on to Gaza with him. Two days, perhaps three. I’ll come here as soon as we’ve finished the job, I promise.”

He kissed my hands and my feet and rose. “Is there a bab-sirr?” he asked Emerson. “I may want to use it next time.”

“A secret door? Oh, yes. Mahmud has too many enemies to do without that little convenience. I’ll show you, and get you some clothes.”

Ramses nodded. He turned to his wife. She stood as still as a prettily dressed doll, lips parted and braceleted arms folded over her breast. Ramses knelt and bowed his head.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered. “It will be all right.”

She put out her hand, as if to touch his hair, but stopped herself in time. “Come straight here after…”

“As soon as I can.” He took her hands and raised them to his lips.

FROM MANUSCRIPT H

Ramses hadn’t told her the part that worried him most. He shared that information with his father, as they tried to find him something to wear.

“I met Chetwode in Rafah, as we had arranged. He’s not awfully good at this sort of thing; his jaw dropped down to his chest when a filthy ‘Gyppie’ edged up to him and gave him the word we’d agreed upon.”

“Curse it,” said Emerson. “Can’t you go off on your own – leave him behind?”

“They’d stop me before I got out of Khan Yunus. You haven’t heard the worst of it. General Chetwode, the commander of the Desert Column, is our lad’s uncle. I was dragged off to his office, where I was required to report to him and his chief of field intelligence.”

“Hell and damnation! Who else knows about your ‘secret’ mission?”

“God knows.” Ramses picked up a shirt, grinned, and put it aside. “Mother would say He does. If the word has come down the chain of command, Chetwode’s superior Dobell must also have been informed. There’s nothing here I can use, Father.”

“What about that parcel you asked me to bring along?”

“I’ll take it with me, but I don’t want to wear those things in Khan Yunus. Selim must have a change of clothing he’ll lend me.”

“You mean to let him in on this?” Emerson asked.

“How much does he know?”

“Only that we are obviously bent on mischief of some sort. Selim doesn’t ask questions.”

“He deserves to be told – some of it, at any rate. It’s a poor return for his friendship and loyalty to be treated as if he were not completely trustworthy. Especially,” Ramses added bitterly, “when every idiot and his bloody uncle knows. I think Selim may have spotted me when I arrived; he gave me a very fishy look when I was arguing with the doorman.”

Selim had spotted him, but not, as he was careful to explain, because of any inadequacy in Ramses’s disguise. “Who else could it be, though?” he demanded. “I do not ask questions of the Father of Curses, but I expected you would join the others sooner or later.”

“You must have wondered what this is all about, though.” The clothes Selim had given him would suit well enough; Arab garments were not designed to be form-fitting.

Selim folded his arms and said stiffly, “It is not my place to wonder.”

Ramses grinned and slapped him on the back. “You sound exactly like your father. I and another man are going into Gaza, Selim. There have been rumors about a certain Ismail Pasha – that he’s a British agent who has gone over to the enemy. Since I am, er, acquainted with the gentleman in question, they are sending me to get a look at Ismail and find out whether the rumors are true.”

“Acquainted,” Selim repeated. “Ah. Is it possible, Ramses, that I am also, er, acquainted with him?”

“You can’t go with me,” Ramses said. He hadn’t answered the question. Selim accepted this with a shrug and a nod, and Ramses went on, “Thank you for the clothes. I’ll try to return them in good condition.”

“Tonight’s the night, then,” Emerson said.

“Yes. Chetwode – our Chetwode – and I are meeting after nightfall in an abandoned house in Dir el Balah, just north of here. I hope to God he can find it. It will take me a while to get there by roundabout ways, since I don’t want to be recruited by some lad looking for laborers. I had better go. Do you want to send me on my way with a few curses and kicks, Selim?”

Selim did not return his smile. “If you say I should. Be careful. Do not take foolish chances.”

“As your father would have said. I’ll try not to. Watch over them, Selim.”

Chetwode was late. He stood squinting into the darkness of the half-ruined building, his form outlined against the starry sky. Ramses waited only long enough to make sure the other man was alone before he moved out of the shadows.

“Didn’t they teach you not to make a target of yourself in an open doorway?” he asked caustically.

“Since it was you -”

“You hoped it was me. Get out of that uniform and put these on.”

He made certain he had covered Chetwode’s face, neck, hands, and forearms with the dark dye, and got all his hair concealed under the turban. There wasn’t anything he could do about the blue eyes that looked trustingly into his, but when the boy grinned, cheerful as a hound pup, the expanse of healthy white teeth was another reason to remind him to keep his mouth shut. Patiently Ramses went over it again.

“If anybody speaks to you, drool and babble and bob your head. Idiots are under the protection of God. Stick close to me…” He hesitated, gripped by one of those illogical premonitions – or maybe it wasn’t so illogical, under the circumstances. “Stick close unless I tell you otherwise. If I tell you to run, do it, without arguing and without looking back. That’s an order. If you disobey I’ll see that you face a court-martial.”