into a deeper
gloom.

The Moolah looked from one to the other, and the kindly expression began
to fade away from his large, baggy face. His mouth drew down at the
corners, and became hard and severe.

"Have these infidels been playing with us, then?" said he to the
dragoman. "Why is it that they talk among themselves and have nothing
to say to me?"

"He's getting impatient about it," said Cochrane. "Perhaps I had better
do what I can, Belmont, since this damned fellow has left us in the
lurch."

But the ready wit of a woman saved the situation.

"I am sure, Monsieur Fardet," said Mrs. Belmont, "that you, who are a
Frenchman, and therefore a man of gallantry and honour, would not permit
your own wounded feelings to interfere with the fulfilment of your
promise and your duty towards three helpless ladies."

Fardet was on his feet in an instant, with his hand over his heart.

"You understand my nature, madame," he cried. "I am incapable of
abandoning a lady. I will do all that I can in this matter. Now,
Mansoor, you may tell the holy man that I am ready to discuss through
you the high matters of his faith with him."

And he did it with an ingenuity which amazed his companions. He took
the tone of a man who is strongly attracted, and yet has one single
remaining shred of doubt to hold him back. Yet as that one shred was
torn away by the Moolah, there was always some other stubborn little
point which prevented his absolute acceptance of the faith of Islam.
And his questions were all so mixed up with personal compliments to the
priest and self-congratulations that they should have come under the
teachings of so wise a man and so profound a theologian, that the
hanging pouches under the Moolah's eyes quivered with his satisfaction,
and he was led happily and hopefully onwards from explanation to
explanation, while the blue overhead turned into violet, and the green
leaves into black, until the great serene stars shone out once more
between the crowns of the palm-trees.

"As to the learning of which you speak, my lamb," said the Moolah, in
answer to some argument of Fardet's, "I have myself studied at the
University of El Azhar at Cairo, and I know that to which you allude.
But the learning of the faithful is not as the learning of the
unbeliever, and it is not fitting that we pry too deeply into the ways
of Allah. Some stars have tails, oh my sweet lamb, and some have not;
but what does it profit us to kn