“Sure,” said Daniel, laconically.
“When I came here two years ago, my predecessor said to me ‘When in doubt, send for Daniel Lane.’ Do you remember how worried, indeed how shaken—yes, I may say shaken—I was by the Michael Pasha affair? How you laughed! Dear me, you were positively rude to me; and how right you were! Personally I should have had him deported: it never occurred to me to convert him into a friend.”
His visitor smiled. “‘Bind a brave enemy with the chains of absolution,’” he said.
“Yes, yes, very true,” replied Lord Blair, still hunting about for the cigars. “Very true, very daring: a policy for brave men.” He started into rigidity, as though at a sudden thought: one might have supposed that he had recollected where he had put the cigars. “Daniel!” he exclaimed, “you bring with you an air of the mediæval! That’s it! One always forgets that Egypt is mediæval.”
Daniel blew a cloud of oriental tobacco-smoke through his nostrils, at which his host frenziedly renewed his search for the less pungent cigars. “About this business you want to ask my advice upon ...?” he asked.
“Ah yes, you must be tired,” his Lordship murmured. “You want to go to bed after your long ride. Let me put you up here. I’ll ring and have a room prepared.”
“No thanks,” said Daniel, firmly. “I’ve left my kit at the Orient Hotel. But fire away, and I’ll give you my opinion either at once or in the morning.”
Lord Blair laid his thin fingers upon a document, and handed it to his friend. “Read that,” he said, and therewith leaned back in his chair, his dark eyes glancing anxiously about the room.
The document was written in Arabic, and beneath the flowing script a secretary had pencilled an English translation. “The translation is appended,” remarked his Lordship, as Daniel bent forward to study the paper in the light of the electric reading-lamp.
“I prefer the original,” he replied, with a smile, “I don’t trust translations: they lose the spirit.”