e base of the farther
hills and veiled the desert reaches. It was not conducive to comfort
and Andrew McLean was not comfortable. He was hot and sticky and
sandy and abominably harassed.

Not a creature, as far as he could discover, had seen Jack Ryder in
Cairo since the afternoon of that reception at Hamdi Bey's. He had
not been seen at the Museum nor the banks, nor at Cook's, nor the
usual restaurants, nor at the clubs with his friends. And the clever
clerk--with the two brothers in the bazaar--had unearthed quite a
bit of disquieting news about that reception--disquieting, that is,
to one with secret fears.

There had been a fire in the apartments of the bride of Hamdi Bey
and the bride had been killed instantly--that much was known to all
the world. The general had been distracted. He had sat brooding
beside his bride's coffin, allowing no one, not even her father, to
look upon the poor charred remains that he had placed within. He had
been a man out of his mind with grief, gnawing his nails, beating
his slaves,--Oh, assuredly, it had been a calamity of a very high
order!

One of the brothers in the bazaar had himself talked with an old
crone whose sister's child was employed in the general's kitchen,
and the fourth-hand story had lost nothing on the route.

The bride's youth and beauty, her jewels, her robes, the general's
infatuation, and the general's grief, the reports of these ran
through the city like wildfire. And from the particular channel of
the kitchen maid and the old aunt and the brother in the bazaars
came news of the very especial means that Allah had taken to
preserve the general from destruction.

For he had been in the bride's apartments just before the fire. But
the power of Allah, the Allseeing, had sent a thief, a prowler, by
night, upon the palace roofs, and the screams of a girl in the upper
story had called the general to that direction.

And so his preservation had been accomplished.

It was that rumor of the thief upon the roofs which sent the chill
of apprehension down McLean's spine. For though the bazaars knew
nothing of the thief's identity and it was reported he had escaped
by the river yet McLean felt the sinister finger of suspicion. If
the thief had not been a thief--unless of brides!--and if he had
_not_ escaped--?

Impatiently the young Scotchman clapped his heels against the
donkey's sides, enhancing the efforts of the runner with the
gesticulating stick.

Suppose,