CHAPTER XVIII
C AIRO station. An illumination of livid blue. A horde of brown-legged turbaned figures wearing red jerseys on which flaunted in white the names of hotels, and reconstructing Babel. An urbane official, lifting a gold-banded cap in the middle of a small oasis of silence and inviting Martin in the name of the Semiramis Hotel, to surrender luggage and all other cares to his keeping, and to follow the stream through the exit to the hotel motor. A phantasmagoria of East and West rendered more fantastic by the shadows cast by the high arc-lamps. He had lost sight of Fortinbras, who bag in hand—his impedimenta being of the scantiest—had disappeared in quest of the palm-tree against whose trunk he presumably was to pass the night. Martin emerged from the station, entered the automo
