Allah, thou dost wrong to take this tone with me, who came as a friend
to warn thee!"

"I thank thee," rejoined Iskender loftily. "But have no fear, I say
again, for my Emir esteems and loves me far too well to give ear to
lying tales made up by mischief-makers. Moreover, he abhors the
missionaries with such utter loathing that I think he would defile the
beard of the Father of Ice did the poor wretch dare approach him. Thou
supposest the missionaries to be all-powerful, as I did once. But,
believe me, they are nothing thought of in their own land. My Emir
would hardly deign to notice things so low. Now I must leave thee, O
my dear, for my lord awaits me."

He began the ascent of the sandhill.

"Well, remember I have warned thee!" shouted Asad after him.

Relieved of the irritant of the lank youth's voice and presence,
Iskender felt dismay at his own boastfulness, and repented of it humbly
before Allah. He knew that a jealous eye is fixed upon the heart of
every man to mark when pride leaps up and straightway blight it. To
show elation was to court calamity. However, he repeated divers
formulas reputed potent to avert the evil; and when, from a high point
of the dunes, he saw the minarets and the square roofs of the town
standing forth clear and white with the blue sea for background, beyond
the gardens freshened by the rain, he clean forgot misgivings.

CHAPTER VIII

The love Iskender bore to his Emir transfigured every detail of
familiar life. The walk to the hotel each morning was a joy through
expectation, the return each evening a delight through memory. The
vestibule in which he waited his lord's pleasure, with its marble
pavement and its painted walls, a few cane chairs and tables, and a
great clock ticking steadily, became the entrance-hall of paradise. Of
nights the thought of sitting there next morning caused his pulse to
quicken. The sons of Musa and the negro doorkeeper shared in the
radiance of his loved one's neighbourhood. It was easier for his mind
to pasture on accessories than to conjure up the Emir's own presence,
which left the memory blind as with excess of light. At times he would
recall with a thrill the lofty brow with short fair hair reposing on
its summit as lightly as tamarisks upon the crest of a dune, the
laughing sea-blue eyes with golden lashes, or it might be the smooth
curves of mouth and chin. But the face as a whole escaped him, though
he never tired of stu