"Three more days." Both men fell asleep with these words upon their lips. But the next morning Trench¹ waked up and complained of a fever; and the fever rapidly gained upon him, so that before the afternoon had come he was light-headed, and those services which he had performed for Feversham, Feversham had now to perform for him. The thousand nights of the House of Stone had done their work. But it was no mere² coincidence that Trench should suddenly be struck down by them at the very moment when the door of his prison was opening. The great revulsion of joy which had come to him so unexpectedly had been too much for his exhausted³ body. The actual prospect⁴ of escape had been the crowning trial which he could not endure.  
"In a few days he will be well," said Feversham. "It is nothing."
 
"It is Umm Sabbah," answered Ibrahim, shaking his head, the terrible typhus fever which had struck down so many in that infected gaol⁵ and carried them off upon the seventh day.
 
Feversham refused to believe. "It is nothing," he repeated in a sort of passionate⁶ obstinacy⁷; but in his mind there ran another question, "Will the men with the camels wait?" Each day as he went to the Nile he saw Abou Fatma in the blue robe at his post; each day the man made his sign, and each day Feversham gave no answer. Meanwhile with Ibrahim's help he nursed Trench. The boy came daily to the prison with food; he was sent out to buy tamarinds, dates, and roots, out of which Ibrahim brewed⁸ cooling draughts⁹. Together they carried Trench from shade to shade as the sun moved across the zareeba. Some further assistance was provided for the starving family of Idris, and the forty-pound chains which Trench wore were consequently removed. He was given vegetable marrow¹⁰ soaked in salt water, his mouth was packed with butter, his body anointed and wrapped close in camel-cloths. The fever took its course, and on the seventh day Ibrahim said:—
 
"This is the last. To-night he will die."
 
"No," replied Feversham, "that is impossible. 'In his own parish,' he said, 'beneath the trees he knew.' Not here, no." And he spoke¹¹ again with a passionate obstinacy. He was no longer thinking of the man in the blue robe outside the prison walls, or of the chances of escape. The fear that the third feather would never be brought back to Ethne, that she would never have the opportunity to take back the fourth of her own free will, no longer troubled him. Even that great hope of "the afterwards" was for the moment banished¹² from his mind. He thought only of Trench and the few awkward words he had spoken in the corner of the zareeba on the first night when they lay side by side under the sky. "No," he repeated, "he must not die here." And through all that day and night he watched by Trench's side the long hard battle between life and death. At one moment it seemed that the three years of the House of Stone must win the victory, at another that Trench's strong constitution and wiry frame would get the better of the three years.
 
For that night, at all events, they did, and the struggle was prolonged. The dangerous seventh day was passed. Even Ibrahim began to gain hope; and on the thirteenth day Trench slept and did not ramble¹³ during his sleep, and when he waked it was with a clear head. He found himself alone, and so swathed in camel-cloths that he could not stir; but the heat of the day was past, and the shadow of the House of Stone lay black upon the sand of the zareeba. He had not any wish to stir, and he lay wondering idly how long he had been ill. While he wondered he heard the shouts of the gaolers, the cries of the prisoners outside the zareeba and in the direction of the river. The gate was opened, and the prisoners flocked in. Feversham was among them, and he walked straight to Trench's corner.
 
"Thank God!" he cried. "I would not have left you, but I was compelled. We have been unloading boats all day." And he dropped in fatigue¹⁴ by Trench's side.
 
"How long have I lain ill?" asked Trench.
 
"Thirteen days."
 
"It will be a month before I can travel. You must go, Feversham. You must leave me here, and go while you still can. Perhaps when you come to Assouan you can do something for me. I could not move at present. You will go to-morrow?"
 
"No, I should not go without you in any case," answered Feversham. "As it is, it is too late."
 
"Too late?" Trench repeated. He took in the meaning of the words but slowly; he was almost reluctant to be disturbed by their mere sound; he wished just to lie idle for a long time in the cool of the sunset. But gradually the import of what Feversham had said forced itself into his mind.
 
"Too late? Then the man in the blue gown has gone?"
 
"Yes. He spoke to me yesterday by the river. The camel men would wait no longer. They were afraid of detection, and meant to return whether we went with them or not."
 
"You should have gone with them," said Trench. For himself he did not at that moment care whether he was to live in the prison all his life, so long as he was allowed quietly to lie where he was for a long time; and it was without any expression of despair that he added, "So our one chance is lost."
 
"No, deferred," replied Feversham. "The man who watched by the river in the blue gown brought me paper, a pen, and some wood-soot mixed with water. He was able to drop them by my side as I lay upon the ground. I hid them beneath my jibbeh, and last night—there was a moon last night—I wrote to a Greek merchant who keeps a café at Wadi Halfa. I gave him the letter this afternoon, and he has gone. He will deliver it and receive money. In six months, in a year at the latest, he will be back in Omdurman."
 
"Very likely," said Trench. "He will ask for another letter, so that he may receive more money, and again he will say that in six months or a year he will be back in Omdurman. I know these people."
 
"You do not know Abou Fatma. He was Gordon's servant over there before Khartum fell; he has been mine since. He came with me to Obak, and waited there while I went down to Berber. He risked his life in coming to Omdurman at all. Within six months he will be back, you may be very sure."
 
Trench did not continue the argument. He let his eyes wander about the enclosure, and they settled at last upon a pile of newly turned earth which lay in one corner.
 
"What are they digging?" he asked.
 
"A well," answered Feversham.
 
"A well?" said Trench, fretfully, "and so close to the Nile! Why? What's the object?"
 
"I don't know," said Feversham. Indeed he did not know, but he suspected. With a great fear at his heart he suspected the reason why the well was being dug in the enclosure of the prison. He would not, however, reveal his suspicion until his companion was strong enough to bear the disappointment which belief in it would entail¹⁵. But within a few days his suspicion was proved true. It was openly announced that a high wall was to be built about the House of Stone. Too many prisoners had escaped in their fetters¹⁶ along the Nile bank. Henceforward they were to be kept from year's beginning to year's end within the wall. The prisoners built it themselves of mud-bricks dried in the sun. Feversham took his share in the work, and Trench, as soon almost as he could stand, was joined with him.
 
"Here's our last hope gone," he said; and though Feversham did not openly agree, in spite of himself his heart began to consent.
 
They piled the bricks one upon the other and mortised them. Each day the wall rose a foot. With their own hands they closed themselves in. Twelve feet high the wall stood when they had finished it—twelve feet high, and smooth and strong. There was never a projection¹⁷ from its surface on which a foot could rest; it could not be broken through in a night. Trench and Feversham contemplated¹⁸ it in despair. The very palm trees of Khartum were now hidden from their eyes. A square of bright blue by day, a square of dark blue by night, jewelled with points of silver and flashing gold, limited their world. Trench covered his face with his hands.
 
"I daren't look at it," he said in a broken voice. "We have been building our own coffin¹⁹, Feversham, that's the truth of it." And then he cast up his arms and cried aloud: "Will they never come up the Nile, the gunboats and the soldiers? Have they forgotten us in England? Good God! have they forgotten us?"
 
"Hush²⁰!" replied Feversham. "We shall find a way of escape, never fear. We must wait six months. Well, we have both of us waited years. Six months,—what are they?"
 
But, though he spoke stoutly²¹ for his comrade's sake, his own heart sank within him.
 
The details of their life during the six months are not to be dwelt upon. In that pestilent enclosure only the myriad²² vermin lived lives of comfort. No news filtered in from the world outside. They fed upon their own thoughts, so that the sight of a lizard²³ upon the wall became an occasion for excitement. They were stung by scorpions²⁴ at night; they were at times flogged by their gaolers by day. They lived at the mercy of the whims²⁵ of Idris-es-Saier and that peculiar²⁶ spirit Nebbi Khiddr, who always reported against them to the Khalifa just at the moment when Idris was most in need of money for his starving family. Religious men were sent by the Khalifa to convert them to the only true religion; and indeed the long theological disputations in the enclosure became events to which both men looked forward with eagerness. At one time they would be freed from the heavier shackles²⁷ and allowed to sleep in the open; at another, without reason, those privileges would be withdrawn²⁸, and they struggled for their lives within the House of Stone.
 
The six months came to an end. The seventh began; a fortnight of it passed, and the boy who brought Feversham food could never cheer their hearts with word that Abou Fatma had come back.
 
"He will never come," said Trench, in despair.
 
"Surely he will—if he is alive," said Feversham. "But is he alive?"
 
The seventh month passed, and one morning at the beginning of the eighth there came two of the Khalifa's bodyguard²⁹ to the prison, who talked with Idris. Idris advanced to the two prisoners.
 
"Verily God is good to you, you men from the bad world," he said. "You are to look upon the countenance³⁰ of the Khalifa. How happy you should be!"
 
Trench and Feversham rose up from the ground in no very happy frame of mind. "What does he want with us? Is this the end?" The questions started up clear in both their minds. They followed the two guards out through the door and up the street towards the Khalifa's house.
 
"Does it mean death?" said Feversham.
 
Trench shrugged³¹ his shoulders and laughed sourly. "It is on the cards that Nebbi Khiddr has suggested something of the kind," he said.
 
They were led into the great parade-ground before the mosque³², and thence into the Khalifa's house, where another white man sat in attendance upon the threshold. Within the Khalifa was seated upon an a............