"Oh, my lordship!" he began to cackle. "Praise be to Allah you are come! I was persuaded to bring the young ladies here. They would make me do it. Yes, sir. It is not my fault. They pay me. I have to obey. Then we get caught, like we was some rats. No fair to punish me. The ladies all right. No harm come, except a little sick."
"If no harm has come, that's not due to you, but to a very different man, as you well know," I said. And as I spoke, the man I had in my mind appeared before my eyes. "Hullo!" I exclaimed, joyously.
Anthony's eyes and Allen's met; but I could not tell if they knew each other, nor could I ask then. It was enough for Allen in any case, however, that this magnificent Hadji was one of the friends for whom I searched. He turned to Bedr. "You brought two ladies here, I understand," he said quickly and sharply. "Then you must have acquaintance with the place. For good reasons which have nothing to do with you, I shall not arrest you, but you will have to report at the Governorat inside the hour, or you will regret it. Do you know the way out at the back of the house?"
"I do, gracious one," Bedr responded with businesslike promptness.
"Then take these gentlemen, and the ladies, whom I do not need to see, out by that door, and you will all be allowed to go, because my men who are there have seen Lord Ernest Borrow, and they have my instructions."
We waited for no more, but followed Anthony, who made a dash through the further room, and into another. There, on a mattress, crouched two forlorn figures, veiled as if in haste, and muffled in black satin habberahs such as Turkish ladies wear in the street.
"Lord Ernest! Oh, how glad I am!" cried one of these creatures, while the other, less vital or more miserable, whimpered and gurgled a little behind her veil.
"Come along, quick!" I said; and they came. Bedr led the way, thankful to show himself of use. Anthony followed as if to protect or screen the girls from sight. I brought up the rear, and so, scuttling through a rabbit warren of little unfurnished, dilapidated rooms, we found a narrow side staircase, and tumbled down it, anyhow, in dust and dimness. Then two more staircases, and we were in a cellar which looked as if it might once have been used as a prison. Up again, and rattling at a chained door. Then out, into light and air, into the midst of a group, which for an instant, closed threateningly round us. But the sergeant I had seen was among the alert brown men. A glance, a gesture, and we were allowed to pass, a youth running with us, to show the promised carriage and the Arab driver with the red camellia. So it was over, this adventure!
Yet was it over?
That remained to be seen. And remained also, to see what it meant, if indeed there were a meaning underneath the surface.