THE ESCAPE FROM JEDABIA 45 



feet in length, which is wound round and round till one's 

 waist resembles a mummy and is tied one side with 

 dangling ends. Under this I wore my revolver belt, 

 with two fully loaded Colts and a prismatic compass in 

 a case. 



Glancing round my room as I put on my huge yellow 

 heel-less slippers, I decided it looked a very realistic 

 picture of the abode left temporarily and in haste. My 

 cherished blue tweed hung on one hook and a rose-red 

 sweater on another. A few books and papers, with a 

 hot-water bottle and some stockings, were scattered on 

 convenient chairs. The cases and sacks of stones stood 

 formally round the walls. A bottle of complexion lotion 

 was prominent on a shelf and my European shoes were 

 in their usual row! With a sigh of relief I dragged the 

 sack containing my suit-case to join the disguised camp 

 outfit by the main door and, blowing out the candle in 

 my room, closed the door for the last time. 



My cheerfulness rapily evaporated when I crossed 

 the court to Hassanein's room. The litter was inconceiv- 

 able. Everything that we had shut twenty minutes ago 

 was open. He himself, with ruffled wild hair, was still 

 in shirt and riding-breeches. To a casual observer he 

 appeared to be playing a game of leap frog with the 

 various bundles, in which the object seemed to be to 

 upset as many things as possible. "You have exactly 

 six minutes in which to get ready," I said in an awful 

 voice, A chair fell with a crash, breaking an eau de 

 Cologne bottle and sending a mass of little tubes, bottles 

 and boxes rolling to my feet. Thereafter followed ten 

 minutes' best American hustle. In spite of feeling like 

 a swathed Chinese infant in my cumbersome dress, I 

 attacked that room with a personal venom that surely 

 had effect even on inanimate things, for the suit-case shut 

 almost unprotestingly on a huddled mass in which the 



