d into his small red eyes.

"The Khanum is dead," said the pretended physician.

The negro trembled violently, and throwing up his arms would have
clapped his hands together. But Balsamides stopped him.

"No noise," he said sternly. "Come with me. All may yet be well with
you; but you must be quiet, or it will be the worse for you." He held
the Lala's arm and led him without resistance to the outer hall.

"Mehemet Bey! Mehemet Bey!" I heard him call, and I hastened from the
room where I had waited to join him in the vestibule. He was very pale
and grave. On hearing him enter, the porter appeared, and silently
opened the outer door. Balsamides addressed him as we prepared to leave
the house.

"The Khanum Effendi is dead," he said. "Selim will accompany us to the
palace, and will return in the morning."

The man's face, deeply marked with the small-pox and weather-beaten in
many a campaign, did not change color. Perhaps he had long expected the
news, for he bowed his head as though submitting to a superior order.

"It is the will of Allah," he said in a low voice. In another moment we
had descended the steps, Selim walking between us. The coachman was
standing at the horses' heads in the light of the bright carriage lamps.
Balsamides entered the carriage first, then I made Selim get in, and
last of all I took my seat and closed the door.

"Yildiz-Kioeshk!" shouted Balsamides out of the window to the driver, and
once more we rattled over the pavement and along the rough road. I
imagined that the order had been given only to mislead the porter, who
had stood upon the steps until we drove away. I knew well enough that
Balsamides would not present himself at the palace with me in my present
disguise, and that it was very improbable that he would take Selim
there. I hesitated to speak to him, because I did not know whether I was
to continue to personate the adjutant or to reveal myself in my true
character. I had comprehended the situation when I heard my friend tell
the porter that the Khanum was dead, and I congratulated myself that we
had secured the person of Selim without the smallest struggle or
difficulty of any kind. I argued from this, either that the Khanum had
died without telling her story, or else that she had told it all, and
that Selim was to accompany us to the place where Alexander was buried
or hidden.

At last we turned to the left. Balsamides again put his head out of the
window, and called to the