"I was told," said he, "that you would be in the bazaar, but I could not be certain that I had found you. I did not recognise you with the hair absent from your face, and in those clothes."
"But why are you so anxious to find me?" I asked.
"I have come," said the Arab, "from Sheik Faris, who bade me seek you out with all haste, and tell you, in secret, certain words."
"What were they?" I inquired, excitedly.
"I know not their meaning," he replied, "but the words Sheik Faris spoke to me were these: 'Go tell the Hakim's friend that snakes which do poison mankind cower before the eye of the magician; that winged snakes drop their wings at the sound of his coming; and that the shoe of a desert-born mare must needs have a desert home.' Thus spoke Sheik Faris-ibn-Feyzul; I have said it."
I knew what it all meant. This was the message which I had eagerly awaited for many weeks. Faris, brave Faris, had secured the Golden Girdle for me, but he evidently intended that I should go and get it. I wondered why he had not sent it. It would, I thought, have simplified matters considerably.
"Sheik Faris," I asked, "sent, by you, nothing for me?"
"No," answered the man.
"Did he not give you any other message?" I inquired.
"I was to tell the Beg," said he, "that when the moon rises to-night, three Aeniza, with a spare horse, will be on the western bank of the river, opposite the great ruins of Ctesiphon, and will there await you until daybreak to-morrow. The howl of the hyæna repeated three times will cause them to make known their presence."