THE CURTAIN RISES	7
to the Hadhramaut if you can find the people to whom I have
addressed these letters—Saif ibn Tannaf and Ibn Kalut, I
forget his name, and others. See that you avoid danger, but
take him whither he would go. For his life you answer with
yours. Forget not that. And when you are come thither
your return is across the desert, even the Empty Quarter, to
Wadi Dawasir. Your companions are already gone out to
Dulaiqiya. You yourselves will ride with this man to-morrow
in the motors. So in the keeping of God, but see that you do
all my bidding, and more. As he ended two men strode into
the audience-chamber, messengers from the King. They
smiled knowingly, sympathetically at me. They were
Ibrahim ibn Jumai'a and Sa'd al Yumaini, who had con-
ducted me down to Wadi Dawasir in 1918. A good omen !
I thought as I rose to bid the governor farewell, kissing him
on the forehead and grasping the hand that had thus launched
us on the great adventure of my dreams.
We went out from the presence and, making a tryst for
the morrow, parted. Everything was ready. Before lying
down to sleep I skinned a Gerbil captured at 'Uqair. It was
my last night under a roof and my slumbers were disturbed
by vague nightmare visions of ill-skinned rats and refractory
theodolites.
I awoke at chilly dawn. Nobody else seemed to be up, but
very soon messengers began to pester me at ten-minute
intervals, bidding me in the governor's name to make haste.
The cars allotted to myself, my companions and my baggage
were wanted to carry others as soon as possible to the Bang's
camp in Wadi Faruq. The final details of my packing did
not take long, and then there was breakfast to get through.
The necessary bounties had then to be distributed among
those who had served me during my sojourn at Hufuf, while
my boxes were being carried out to the lorry. At 9 a.m. a
small party of friends had assembled around the cars to bid
us farewell, rather dismally and forebodingly. They scarcely
expected to see us again, but that was no business of theirs.
They soon passed out of sight as we rounded a corner of the
narrow main street of the Kut.
It was a cold, raw morning ; and a low fog hung over the