Transcriber’s Note: Transcriber’s Note: Obvious mis-spellings and printing errors have been corrected and noted by the use of a faint grey dotted line. Missing periods at paragraph-end have silently been supplied. Inconsistencies in hyphenation and accentuation have been retained. The romanization of Arabic is the author’s. The cover image has been digitally edited to repair damages and to restore colors; the author and title was superimposed for the reader’s convenience. “She stood there ... her slim body swaying in a perfect rapture of admiration for her own beauty.” TALES OF SECRET EGYPT By Published February, 1919 1 TALES OF SECRET EGYPT PART I TALES OF ABÛ TABÂH I THE YASHMAK OF PEARLS THE duhr, or noonday call to prayer, had just sounded from the minarets of the Mosques of Kalaûn and En-Nasîr, and I was idly noting the negligible effect of the adan upon the occupants of the neighboring shops—coppersmiths for the most part—when suddenly my errant attention became arrested. T HE A mendicant of unwholesome aspect crouched in the shadow of the narrow gateway at the entrance to the Sûk es-Saîgh, or gold and silver bazaar, having his one serviceable eye fixed in a malevolent stare upon something or someone immediately behind me. It is part and parcel of my difficult profession to subdue all impulses and to think before acting. I sipped my coffee and selected a fresh cigarette from the silver box upon the rug beside me. In this interval I had decided that the one-eyed mendicant cherished in his bosom an implacable and
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