smaller one, where a number of Egyptian standards, relics of the war of '82, were unrolled for our inspection. While we were examining them, our guide, who had for a moment left us, returned with a scared face to inform us that there were a number of English tourists in the mosque who had refused to take their boots off, and were evidently bent on making trouble. As he spoke the ominous hum of angry voices drifted in to us, increasing in volume as we listened. Our guide pricked up his ears and looked anxiously at the door.
"There will be trouble directly," he said solemnly, "if those young men do not behave themselves. If messieurs will be guided by me, they will be going. I can show them the backway out."
For a moment I felt inclined to follow his advice, but Beckenham's next speech decided me to stay.
"You will not go away and leave those stupid fellows to be killed?" he said, moving towards the door into the mosque. "However foolish they may have been, they're still our countrymen, and whatever happens we ought to stand by them."
"If you think so, of course, we will," I answered, "but remember it may cost us our lives. You still want to stay? Very good, then, come along, but stick close to me."
We left the small ante-room, in which we had been examining the flags and passed back into the mosque itself. Here an extraordinary scene presented itself.
In the furthest corner, completely hemmed in by a crowd of furious Arabs, were three young Englishmen, whose faces plainly showed how well they understood the dangerous position into which their own impudence and folly had drawn them.
Elbowing our way through the crowd, we reached
