“Do not fear,” said Daniel to him, “I mean you no harm. If God is willing I shall meet some of your friends, and we shall be able to talk over this matter.”
Once during the journey, when their carriage had come to a momentary standstill, in the crowded Mousky, Daniel observed a certain tension in his companion’s attitude which indicated that he was contemplating flight; and he was prepared, therefore, when the man made a sudden leap forward.
“Ass!” he exclaimed, pulling him down on to the seat. The meaning of the expression in Arabic is much the same as it is in English.
For the rest of the way Daniel kept an eye upon the injured man; but the sharp twinge of pain consequent upon his attempted flight had led him once more to prefer a condition of fatalistic apathy, and he made no second effort to escape.
A turning off the Mousky brought them into a winding native street, where a few low-class Greeks were the only European pedestrians to be observed in the crowd of Orientals; and at last the driver steered his carriage into a quiet alley, and pulled up before the arched doorway of a whitewashed house, the upper storeys of which projected outwards until they abutted those of the buildings on the opposite side.
Daniel assisted the Egyptian to alight, and, as they passed through the archway into the stone-flagged hall beyond, where the light was dim, warned him against treachery.
“I still have your loaded revolver in my pocket,” he reminded him. “I have come to speak to your friends, and if they are here you must lead me to them.”
For a moment the man hesitated, but Daniel accelerated matters by clapping his hands loudly, which is the Egyptian method of summoning a servant; and thereupon a door was opened at the head of the crazy flight of wooden stairs, and an untidy figure of a man in a blue-cotton shirt appeared before them.
“Are the others here?” asked Daniel, seeing that his companion was recognized.
“Upstairs,” the man answered, shortly, pointing to the gallery above him, and therewith returned whence he came, his slouching attitude displaying all the indifference of which the untrained Egyptian servant is so eminently capable.