"Then take my advice," said my friend, "and give it up. Kellner, from what the Turkish doctor wrote to me the other day, is too ill to trouble about anything. Faris, I expect, has got other fish to fry. Besides, I believe he is in mortal terror of that Girdle. In any case, even if you did receive news from the desert, you could not go romping about there again."
"Oh, great wet blanket!" I answered, "have you no soul? Wait till I lay out before you, on that very table, the string of twisty-twirly golden serpents!"
"I cannot wait so long, old man," said Edwards irritatingly. "Unfortunately, I shall have to die, like other people."
"Then I suppose," I said, putting out a feeler, "when I go off on my next hunt, you will let me go alone."
"On that point," he replied, "you can be absolutely certain. Nothing that you or anyone else could say would ever persuade me to go on another wild-goose chase with you. Why, the Turks are still saying nasty things about us, and worrying my chief to death."
"That," said I, "is all bluster. Hillah's Governor tried it on when he talked so grandly about compensation. I happen to have discovered from Dimitri that there never was, at any time, any idea of compensation. The mistake I made was getting a firman. I shall make my next trip without one."
"By the way," said Edwards, changing the subject, "did I ever tell you the result of the inquiry after Kellner's Baghdad merchant—I mean the man who, Daud or somebody told us, was going to pay the Shammar for the Girdle?"
"No," said I, "the last news I heard was that he had cleared out of this place, bag and baggage, and no one knew what had become of him."
"Well," said Edwards, "he has been seen in the bazaar at Kerbela."
"Then I suppose that he and Kellner have got some deep scheme in hand again," I said; "but, for the life of me, I cannot fathom it."