For five seconds the other sustained the strange gaze of those big, mysterious eyes, then folded his arms upon his breast, audibly gnashing his large and strong-looking teeth and averting his head from my direction in order that spleen might not consume him. Ab Tabah turned and confronted me.

"Explain the cause of your presence here," he demanded, continuing to speak in Arabic, "and unfold to me the whole truth respecting your case."

"My friend," I replied, steadily regarding him, "I am eternally your debtor; but I decline to utter one word for explanation until these fellows unhand me and until I am offered some suitable excuse for the outrageous attack upon my person."

Ab Tabah performed his curiously Gallic shrug of the shoulders--and pointed, with his ebony cane, to my pinioned arms. In a trice the Nubians fell back, and I was free. The infuriated old man directed upon me a glance that was bloodily ferocious, but--

"O persons of little piety," I said, "is it thus that a true Moslem rewards the generous impulse and the meritorious deed? To-night a damsel in distress, flying from a brutal captor, solicited my aid.

I was treacherously a.s.saulted ere I could escort her to a place of safety, and all but murdered by the man who would appear to be that damsel's natural protector. Alas, I fear to contemplate what may have befallen her as a result of such vile and foolish conduct."

Ab Tabah slightly inclined his body resting his slim, ivory hands upon his cane; his face remained perfectly tranquil as he listened to this correct, though misleading statement; but--

"Ah!" cried the old man of the scimitar, adopting an unpleasant, crouching att.i.tude, "perjured liar that thou art! Did I not see with mine own eyes how she embraced thee? O, son of a mange, that I should have lived to have witnessed so obscene a spectacle. Not content with despoiling me of this jewel of my _harem_, thou dost parade her abandonment and my shame in the public highways of Cairo!..."

In vain Ab Tabah strove to check this tirade. Step by step the Sheikh approached closer; syllable by syllable his voice rose higher.

"What!" he shrieked, "is it for this that I have offered five thousand English pounds to whomsoever shall restore her to me! Faugh! I spit upon her memory!--and though I pursue thee to the Mountains of the Moon, across the Bridge Es-Sirat, and through the valley of Gahennam, lo! my hour will come to slay thee, noisome offal!"

He ceased from lack of breath, and stood quivering before me. But at last I had grasped the clue to this imbroglio into which fate had thrust me.

"O misguided man," I replied, "grief hath upset thine intelligence.

Again I tell thee that I sought to deliver the damsel from her persecutor, and, perceiving an ambush, she clung to me as her only protector. Thou are demented. Let another earn the paltry reward; I will have none of it."

I turned to Ab Tabah, addressing him in English.

"Relieve me of the society of this infatuated old ruffian," I said, "and accompany me to some place where I can quietly explain what I know of the matter."

"a.s.suredly I will accompany you to such a spot," he answered suavely; "for whilst, knowing your character, I do not believe you to be the abductor of the damsel Mizmna, a warrant to search your house was issued an hour ago, on a charge of _hashish_ smuggling!"

IV

There are certain shocks that numb the brain. This was one of them.

My recollection of the period immediately following those words of Ab Tabah is hazy and indistinct. My narrow escape from decapitation at the hands of the ferocious Arab a.s.sa.s.sin and the tangled love-affairs of that aged Oth.e.l.lo became insignificant memories. (I seem to recollect that we left him in tears.)

My next clear-cut memory is that of walking beside the mysterious _imam_ along the Darb el-Ahmar and of stopping before the closed door of my newly acquired premises!

The street was quite deserted again. Those m.u.f.fled Nubians who seemed to const.i.tute a bodyguard for my inscrutable companion had disappeared in company with the bereaved Sheikh.

"This is your house?" said Ab Tabah sweetly.

My habit of thinking before I speak or act a.s.serted itself automatically.

"I recently leased it on another's behalf," I replied.

"In that event," continued the _imam_, "unless the information lodged with me to-night prove to be inaccurate, that other must speedily proclaim himself."

He tested the c.u.mbersome lock, and, as I knew would be the case, since Mizmna had recently entered, found it to be unfastened, opened the door and stepped in.

"Have you a pocket lamp?" he asked.

I pressed the b.u.t.ton of my electric torch and directed its rays fully upon the stack of boxes. It was the great sage, Apollonius of Tyana, who said "loquacity has many pitfalls, but silence none"; therefore I silently watched Ab Tabah consulting the label on the topmost chest.

Presently--

"Ahmed Ben Tawwab," he read aloud; "is that the name of the friend on whose behalf you secured a lease of this house?"

"It is," I answered.

"If you will rest the light upon this box and a.s.sist me to open one of the others, I shall be obliged to you," said Ab Tabah.

Knowing, as I did, that this strange man was in some way connected with the native police and with the guardianship of Egyptian morals, I recognized refusal to be impolitic if not impossible. But, as we set to work to raise the lid of the chest, my mind was more feverishly busy than my fingers.

Ere long our task was successful, and the contents of the chest lay exposed. These were: two hundred Osiris statuettes, twelve one-pound tins of mummy heads ... _and fifty packets of hashish_.

Silence was no effort to me now; I was dumbfounded. The musical voice of my companion broke in upon my painful reverie.

"The information upon which I now am acting," he said, "reached me to-night in the form of a letter, bearing no address and no signature. The suppression of this vile _hashish_ traffic is so near to my heart that I immediately secured the necessary powers to search the premises named, and was on my way hither when I observed you (although I did not at once recognize you) in the act of escaping from a group of my servants who had been detailed, some weeks ago, to trace a missing damsel known to be in Cairo. Concerning your share in that affair I await a full statement from your own lips; concerning your share in this I can only say that unless Ahmed Ben Tawwab comes forward by to-morrow and admits his guilt, I must apply to the British agent for a formal inquiry. Is there anything that you would wish to say, or any action you desire that I should take?"

I turned to him in the dim light. Habitually I am undemonstrative, especially with natives. But there was a n.o.bility and an implacable sense of justice about this singular _religieux_ which conquered me completely.

"Ab Tabah," I said, "I thank you for your friendship. I have committed a grave folly; but I am neither an abductor nor a _hashish_ dealer. This is the work of an unknown enemy, and already I have a theory respecting his ident.i.ty."

"Can I aid you--or do you prefer that I leave you to pursue this clue in your own way?" he asked tactfully.

"I prefer to work alone."

"The affair is truly mysterious," he admitted, "and I purpose to spend the night in meditation respecting it. After the hour of morning prayer, therefore, I will visit you. _Liltak sa'ida_, Kernaby Pasha."

"_Liltak sa'ida_, Ab Tabah," I said, as he stepped out of the door.

Slowly and stately the _imam_ pa.s.sed down the street; and the _ginnee_ of solitude reclaimed that deserted spot. A night watchman, _nebbut_ on shoulder, pa.s.sed along the distant Sukkariya. A dog howled.

I re-entered the doorway conscious of a sudden mental excitement; for an explanation of the anonymous letter had just presented itself to my mind. The owner of the neighboring house must have detected my rendezvous with his lady-love, have investigated the contents of the cases, and denounced me from motives of revenge! That the villainous Joseph Malaglou had been in the habit of smuggling _hashish_ into Egypt in my cases of "cutlery" was evident enough and accounted for his reluctance to fall in with the new arrangement; but my bemused brain utterly failed to grapple with the problem of why, knowing their d.a.m.ning contents, he had permitted these ten cases to be delivered at _my_ address. Moreover, how my worthy neighbor--who had evidently abducted Mizmna from the old man of the scimitar--had learned my real name was another mystery which I found no leisure to examine.

For I had but just set foot again within the ill-omened place when there came a patter of swift, light footsteps--and out from behind the fatal stack of boxes ran Mizmna, and threw herself into my arms!

"Oh, my friend, my protector!" she cried distractedly, "what shall I do? Yssuf has discovered our plot! Fatimah, that mother of calamities, has betrayed me, and I dare not return! I am an outcast; for although I was stolen from the Sheikh Ismail without my consent, how can I hope for his forgiveness?"

Such a flood of sorrows and confidences overwhelmed me, and I placed a silent but deathless curse upon the lapis armlet which had brought me to this pa.s.s. Mizmna sobbed upon my shoulder.

"Yssuf has planned your ruin as well as mine," she said brokenly.

"For it was he who denounced you to the Magician." (As "the Magician"

Ab Tabah was known and feared throughout Lower Egypt.) "Oh that I might return to the house of Ismail where I lived in luxury in a marble pavilion, guarded by Hanna and a hundred negroes, where I possessed the robes of a princess and was laden with costly jewels!"

So very human and natural an ambition met with my hearty approval, and, upon consideration of the word-picture of his domestic state, the old man of the scimitar rose immensely in my esteem. How my malevolent neighbor had succeeded in abducting Mizmna from such a fortress I failed to imagine. But I began to see my way more clearly and hope was reborn in my bosom.

"Fear nothing, child," I said to the weeping girl. "You shall return to your marble pavilion and to the care of that worthy, if somewhat hasty man, from whose arms you were torn. And now inform me--where is Yssuf?"

Mizmna raised her face and looked up at me, her long lashes wet with tears, but the slow, childish smile of the Eastern woman already curving her red lips.