ed upon the same plane of feasibility.

Outwardly he was extremely calm. Calm and cold and crisp.

At the mouth of the tomb he detained the party of native policemen
with their hangers-on of curious natives and examined, with great
show of circumspection and authority, the perfectly regular search
warrants which had been issued for them at the instigation of an
apparently bereft parent.

He conversed with the alleged parent, a stolid, taciturn native
dignitary whose accusations were confirmed by eagerly assenting
followers. He lived in a small village, not far north of the camp.
He had a young daughter, very beautiful. Three nights ago he had
surprised her with this young American and they had fled upon his
noblest horse.

It was a simple and direct story. And Jack--by his own report--had
been out upon the desert that night, had appeared, upon the next
night, with this unknown and beautiful horse, and had since kept to
the tomb, claiming illness, in a most persistent way.

The camp boys had testified that he had been vividly critical of the
food sent in to him, and that he had required extraordinary amounts
of heated water.

"All of which," McLean said sternly, in the vernacular, "amounts to
nothing--unless you can discover the girl."

"And that, monsieur," said a Turk in the uniform of the Sultan's
guards, appearing beside the desert sheik, "that is exactly what we
are here to do."

McLean found himself looking into a thin, menacing face, capped
with a red fez, a face deeply lined, marked by light, arrogant eyes
and embellished with a huge, blond mustache.

"And your interest in this, monsieur?" he questioned.

"I am a friend of Sheik Hassan's," said the Turk loftily. "I shall
see that my friend obtains his rights."

And in McLean's other ear a distraught Thatcher was murmuring "That
officer chap is Hamdi Bey--a General of the Guards. You know, Mr.
McLean, this really is--you know, it is--"

Hamdi Bey ... Hamdi Bey, two days after his distressing loss,
befriending this sheik and trying to involve Jack Ryder in disgrace.

Mystifying. Mystifying and disquieting--yes, disquieting, in the
face of Jack's alarm. But for that alarm McLean could have believed
the whole thing a farcical attempt of Hamdi's to revenge himself
upon Ryder--supposing that Hamdi had discovered Ryder in his
masquerade or else as the prowler by night--but Jack's furious
anxiety to keep the party out, and his dashing back, ostensibly to