There was a rattle and gleam of falling ivory, for several of the bowwab’s teeth had been dislodged by the steel barrel. Keeping the weapon firmly thrust into the man’s distended jaws, I circled27 around him, whilst his hands relaxed their hold upon the strangling-cord, and pushed him backward in the direction of the door.

“Open thou black son of offal!” I said, “or I will blow thee a cavity as wide as thy blubber mouth through the back of that fat and greasy neck! This was, no doubt, a stratagem of thy mistress to test my fitness to be entrusted with large sums of money?”

When, a few moments later, I stood in the lane outside the gardens of Yûssuf Bey, and felt with my hand the fat wallet at my waist, I experienced a thrill of professional satisfaction, for had I not successfully negotiated a duplicate veil, embroidered with imitation pearls which the excellent Suleyman Levi by dint of four days of almost ceaseless toil had made for me?...

From the shadows of the opposite wall Abû Tabâh stepped forth, stately.

“Quick!” I said. “I fear pursuit at any moment! Is the arabîyeh waiting?”

“You have it?” he demanded, some faint sign of human animation creeping over his impassive face.

“I have!” I replied. “I will give it to you in the arabîyeh.”

Side by side we passed down the deserted thoroughfare to where, beside a solitary palm, a pair-horse carriage was waiting. Appreciating something of my companion’s natural impatience, I pressed into his hand the famous sandalwood box which once had reposed in the tarbûsh of Ali28 Mohammed. The carriage rolled around a corner and out into the lighted Shâria Mobâdayân. Abû Tabâh opened the sandalwood box, and then, reverently, the inner box of silver. Within shimmered the pearls of the sacred burko. He did not touch the relic with his hands, but reclosed the boxes and concealed the reliquary beneath his black robe. I heard the crackle of notes; and a little packet surrounded by a band of elastic was pressed into my hand.

“Three hundred pounds, English,” said Abû Tabâh. “One hundred pounds in recompense for the commission you returned, and two hundred pounds for the recovery of the relic.”

I thrust the wad into the bag beneath my robe containing the other spoils of the evening. A second and even more grateful glow of professional joy warmed my heart. For in the reliquary which I had 

 Prev. P 17/187 next