departed finally, with a wave of his cigar, as much as to say that
sheet of the ledger had been balanced.

It was a miserable steamer, sahib. We stood about on iron decks and
grew hungry. There were no awnings--nothing but the superstructure
of the bridge, and, although there were but two-hundred-and-thirty-
four of us, including Tugendheim, we could not stow ourselves so
that all could be sheltered from the rain and let the mud cake dry
on our legs and feet. There was a little cabin that Tugendheim took
for himself, but Ranjoor Singh remained with us on deck. He stood in
the rain by the gangway, looking first at one thing, then at
another. I watched him.

Presently he went to the door of the engine-room, opened it, and
looked through. I was about to look, too, but he shut it in my face.

"It is enough that they make steam?" said he; and I looked up at the
funnel and saw steam mingled with the smoke. In a little wheel-house
on the bridge the Turkish captain sat on a shelf, wrapped in his
shawl, smoking a great pipe, and his mate, who was also a Turk, sat
beside him staring at the sky. I asked Ranjoor Singh whether we
might expect to have the whole ship to ourselves. Said I, "It would
not be difficult to overpower those two Turks and their small crew
and make them do our bidding!" But he answered that a regiment of
Kurds was expected to keep us company at dawn. Then he went up to
the bridge to have word with the Turkish captain, and I went to the
ship's side to stare about. Over my shoulder I told the men about
the Kurds who were coming, and they were not pleased.

Peering into the dark and wondering that so great a city as Stamboul