l on earth, I may be
weak enough to treat with thee."

"I have brought proof that the boy is gone," returned Stephen. For the
moment, he tacitly accepted the attitude which the marabout chose to
take up. "Let the fellow save his face by pretending to yield entirely
for the boy's sake," he said to himself. "What can it matter so long as
he does yield?"

In the pocket with the revolver was a letter which Sabine had induced
Hassan ben Saad to write, and now Stephen produced it. The writing was
in Arabic, of course; but Sabine, who knew the language well, had
translated every word for him before he started from Oued Tolga. Stephen
knew, therefore, that the boy's uncle, without confessing how he had
strayed from duty, admitted that, "by an incredible misfortune," the
young Mohammed had been enticed away from him. He feared, Hassan ben
Saad added, to make a disturbance, as an influential friend--Captain
Sabine--advised him to inform the marabout of what had happened before
taking public action which the child's father might disapprove.

The Arab frowned as he read on, not wholly because of his anger with the
boy's guardian, though that burned in his heart, hot as a new-kindled
fire, and could be extinguished only by revenge.

"This Captain Sabine," he said slowly, "I know slightly. He called upon
me at a time when he made a well in the neighbourhood. Was it he who put
into thine head these ridiculous notions concerning a dead man? I warn
thee to answer truly if thou wouldst gain anything from me."

"My countrymen don't, as a rule, transact business by telling
diplomatic lies," said Stephen smiling, as he felt that he could now
afford to smile. "Captain Sabine did not put the notion into my head."

"Hast thou spoken of it to him?"

Stephen shrugged his shoulders slightly. "I do not see that I'm called
upon to answer that question. All I will say is, you need have no fear
of Captain Sabine or of any one else, once Miss Ray is safely out of
this place."

The marabout turned this answer over quickly in his mind. He knew that,
if Sabine or any Frenchman suspected his identity and his plans for the
future, he was irretrievably lost. No private consideration would induce
a French officer to spare him, if aware that he hoped eventually to
overthrow the rule of France in North Africa. This being the case (and
believing that Knight had learned of the plot), he reflected that Sabine
could not have been taken into the secret, ot