Two o'clock
His dress coat , trousers , white waistcoat , shirt , undergarments , socks and shoes , lay upon the sand arranged by the disordered mind in the fantastic design of a scarecrow . As I have said , the man himself , naked save for a vest twisted round his waist , sat upon the mound gesticulating violently , whilst keeping up a one-sided , unanswered conversation with the figure on the sand . His bronzed face , burnt almost black even in the few hours of sun beating down upon his unshaded head , turned restlessly to the right and left ; his long fingers plucked without ceasing at the great blisters which the heat drew up upon his body , bursting them , so that the fluid mingled with the sand blown upon him by the light wind , and upon which flies , thousands of them , settled , to buzz away when he rose to run this way and that in an effort to stay the awful irritation . Two o'clock by the clocks in Cairo , the hour when workers and idlers , rich and poor , seek the coolest spot in their vicinity in which to lay them down and sleep a while -- the hour when Mary Bingham drove up to Shepherds , having raced here , there , and everywhere during the morning in a vain endeavour to awaken a little interest in the minds of those who listened , and shrugged , and looked at each other significantly , at the tale of a man who had got lost in Cairo for a night and a morning -- a tale told agitatedly by a charming woman who could give no reason for her agitation . Also she had tried , desperately hard , with the aid of the hotel porter , to make head or tail out of the narrative as recounted by the hirer of camels -- a woebegone tale in which the undercurrent was a dismal foreboding as to the fate of the priceless quadruped ; the fate of an Englishman seemingly being of small account when compared to that of the snarling , unpleasant brute who represented the native 's entire fortune -- at least so he said . `` Yes , the nobleman had hired the camel as he so often did , and being acquainted with the ways of the animal had gone alone as he always did . No !