“It is a desperate venture.”
“But I’ll play my part, depend on it. Wait until you see me made up as a girl. If you are not satisfied then you may refuse to go on with the scheme.”
The old Arab seemed to catch some of the boy’s enthusiasm.
“Very well,” he said. “If it costs you your life, I cannot feel that I am to bear the blame. It is your plan. I’ll take you without delay to a place where you may dress and prepare for the deception. But you shall have assistants, hairdressers, dressmakers, anything you need to make your disguise perfect.”
Ras al Had then spoke to Assouan, giving him some directions in regard to the dead man in the shed.
Dick followed his strange companion through a number of crooked streets. Finally they reached the door of a house, to which they were admitted on knocking.
The sheik conferred with a gnarled and crooked old Jew, explaining that he wished the boy to be dressed and made up like a girl. The old Jew seemed puzzled and surprised, but agreed, for a price, to attempt the transformation.
Time was passing, and the sheik did not haggle. He simply insisted that the job should be thoroughly done, and the boy should be made up as carefully and tastily as if he were in truth a girl.
Then he left Dick in the old Jew’s hands, saying he would hasten to complete the necessary arrangements and then return for the transformed boy.
Less than an hour later the aged sheik again knocked at the Jew’s door and was admitted. He was informed that the boy would soon be ready to accompany him, but that he would have to wait a few minutes while the finishing touches of the disguise were being put on.