ch flowery
Orientalism of appeal did he couch his plea for an inspection of his
wares, that Cara was persuaded and turned into the shop. Cut off by
pressure of the crowd, Pagratide, who was following, some paces back,
caught a glimpse of her figure in the door and fought his way to her
side, but Benton, having stopped to price a bracelet of antique silver
set with turquoises, lost sight of them. The girl had become interested
in a quaint, curved dagger thickly studded with semi-precious stones.

Mohammed Abbas urged her to see the rarer and choicer articles which he
kept in an upper room. As they tailed, a half-dozen natives, swarthy and
villainous of face, drifted into the shop to be promptly ordered out by
the proprietor, who used for that purpose a vocabulary of scope and
vividness. The ruffians retreated after a brief conversation in guttural
Arabic, but not by the street door through which they had come. Instead,
they left by a low-arched exit to the rear, concealed from view by the
angle of the screening stairway. Abbas led his customers to an upper
room which they found dark except where he lighted it as he went with
hanging lamps. Its space was generous, broken here and there by piles of
ebony furniture, inlaid with pearl; pieces of Saracenic armor,
Damascened bucklers, and all the gear too large for the narrow confines
below.

Half an hour's searching through the chaos of wares failed to reveal the
choice daggers which Mohammed wished them to see, and with many
apologies for added annoyance he begged _Monsieur_ and _Madame_ to mount
yet another flight, and visit yet another store-room. At the head of
these stairs they encountered absolute darkness and the shopman, with
his ever-ready apologies, paused again to light lamps.

As Pagratide's pupils accustomed themselves to the murk he realized that
this last room was bare except for tapestries hung flat against the
wall, and that at its farther side narrow slits of light showed along
the sills of two doors. Turning, he noted the darker shadow of some
recess in the wall, immediately to his left.

Suddenly Mohammed Abbas closed the door upon the stairs, and sharply
clapped his hands. In all lands where Allah is worshiped, clapping of
the hands is a signal of summons. Thrusting his hand into the pocket
where he had stored an automatic pistol, Karyl found it empty, and
remembered that on the stairway the merchant had apologized for jostling
him. Then simultaneousl