“That man with him isn’t English!” Domini exclaimed.     

       She had wondered what the traveller’s nationality was, but it had never occurred to her that it might be the same as her own.     

       “Yes, he is. And he is going to the Hotel du Desert. You and he are the only English here, and almost the only travellers. It is too early for many travellers yet. They fear the heat. And besides, few English come here now. What a pity! They spend money, and like to see everything. Hadj is very anxious to buy a costume at Tunis for the great fete at the       end of Ramadan. It will cost fifty or sixty francs. He hopes the Englishman is rich. But all the English are rich and generous.”      

       Here Batouch looked steadily at Domini with his large, unconcerned eyes.     

       “This one speaks Arabic a little.”      

       Domini made no reply. She was surprised by this piece of information. There was something, she thought, essentially un-English about the stranger. He was certainly not dressed by an English tailor. But it was not only that which had caused her mistake. His whole air and look, his manner of holding himself, of sitting, of walking—yes, especially of walking—were surely foreign. Yet, when she came to think about it, she could not say that they were characteristic of any other country. Idly she had said to herself that the stranger might be an Austrian or a Russian. But she had been thinking of his colouring. It happened that two attaches of those two nations, whom she had met frequently in London, had hair of that shade of rather warm brown.     

       “He does not look like an Englishman,” she said presently.     

       “He can talk in French and in Arabic, but Hadj says he is English.”      

       “How should Hadj know?”      

       “Because he has the eyes of the jackal, and has been with many English. We are getting near to the Catholic church, Madame. You will see it through the trees. And there is Monsieur the Cure coming towards us. He is coming from his house, which is near the hotel.”      

       At some distance in the twilight of the tunnel Domini saw a black figure in a soutane walking very slowly towards them. The 

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