.

I strove to dispel this obsessing thought, resolutely fixing my
attention upon a tall Etruscan vase in the corner of the window, near
to the shop door. Was I losing my senses indeed? A doubt of my own
sanity momentarily possessed me. For, struggle as I would to dispel
the illusion--there, looking out at me over that ancient piece of
pottery, was the bewitching face of the slave-girl!

Probably I was glaring madly, and possibly I attracted the notice of
the passers-by; but of this I cannot be certain, for all my attention
was centred upon that phantasmal face, with the cloudy hair, slightly
parted red lips, and the brilliant dark eyes which looked into mine
out of the shadows of the shop.

It was bewildering--it was uncanny; for, delusion or verity, the
glamour prevailed. I exerted a great mental effort, stepped to the
door, turned the handle, and entered the shop with as great a show of
composure as I could muster.

A curtain draped in a little door at the back of one counter swayed
slightly, with no greater violence than may have been occasioned by
the draught. But I fixed my eyes upon this swaying curtain almost
fiercely ... as an impassive half-caste of some kind who appeared to
be a strange cross between a Graeco-Hebrew and a Japanese, entered and
quite unemotionally faced me, with a slight bow.

So wholly unexpected was this apparition that I started back.

"Can I show you anything, sir?" inquired the new arrival, with a
second slight inclination of the head.

I looked at him for a moment in silence. Then:

"I thought I saw a lady of my acquaintance here a moment ago," I said.
"Was I mistaken?"

"Quite mistaken, sir," replied the shopman, raising his black eyebrows
ever so slightly; "a mistake possibly due to a reflection in the
window. Will you take a look around now that you are here?"

"Thank you," I replied, staring him hard in the face; "at some other
time."

I turned and quitted the shop abruptly. Either I was mad, or Karamaneh
was concealed somewhere therein.

However, realizing my helplessness in the matter, I contented myself
with making a mental note of the name which appeared above the
establishment--J. Salaman--and walked on, my mind in a chaotic
condition and my heart beating with unusual rapidity.

CHAPTER XVI

THE QUESTING HANDS

Within my view, from the corner of the room where I sat in deepest
shadow, through the partly opened window (it was screwed, like our
own) we