The old man was greatly grieved, but Sidi Mohammed was indisposed and not able to speak with any one. Would Monsieur care to visit the mosque again, and would he drink coffee?
So this was the game! Stephen was not surprised. His face flushed and his jaw squared. He would not drink coffee, and he would not give himself the pleasure of seeing the mosque; but would trouble the interpreter with a message to the marabout; and would await an answer. Then Stephen wrote on one of his visiting cards, in English. "I have important news of your son, which you would regret not hearing. And it can be told to no one but yourself."
In less than ten minutes the messenger came back. The marabout, though not well, would receive Monsieur. Stephen was led through the remembered labyrinth of covered passages, dim and cool, though outside the desert sand flamed under the afternoon sun; and as he walked he was aware of softly padding footsteps behind him. Once, he turned his head quickly, and saw that he was followed by a group of three tall Negroes. They looked away when they met his eyes, as if they were on his heels by accident; but he guessed that they had been told to watch him, and took the caution as a compliment. Yet he realized that he ran some risk in coming to this place on such an errand as his. Already the marabout looked upon him as an enemy, no doubt; and it was not impossible that news of the boy's disappearance had by this time reached the Zaouïa, in spite of his guardian's selfish cowardice. If so, and if the father connected the kidnapping of his son with to-day's visitor, he might let his desire for revenge overcome prudence. To prove his power by murdering an Englishman, his guest, would do the desert potentate more harm than good in the end; yet men of mighty passions do not always stop to think of consequences, and Stephen was not blind to his own danger. If the marabout lost his temper, not a man in the Zaouïa but would be ready to obey a word or gesture, and short work might be made of Victoria Ray's only champion. However, Stephen counted a good deal on Ben Halim's caution, and on the fact that his presence in the Zaouïa was known outside. He meant to acquaint his host with that fact as a preface to their conversation.
"The marabout will come presently," the mild interpreter announced, when he had brought Stephen once more to the reception room adjoining the mosque. So saying, he bowed himself away, and shut the door; but Stephen opened it almost instantly, to look out. It was as he expected. The tall Negroes stood lazily on guard. They scarcely showed surprise at being caught, yet their fixed stare was somewhat strained.
"I wonder if there's to be a signal?" thought Stephen.
It was very still in the reception-room of Sidi Mohammed. The young man sat down opposite the door of that inner room from which the marabout had come to greet him the other day, but he did not turn his back fully upon the door behind which were the watchers. Minutes passed on. Nothing happened, and there was no sound. Stephen grew impatient. He knew, from what he had heard of the great Zaouïa, that manifold and strenuous lives were being lived all around him in this enormous hive, which was university, hospice, mosque, and walled village in one. Yet there was no hum of men talking, of women chatting over their work, or children laughing at play. The silence was so profound that it was emphasized to his ears by the droning of a fly in one of the high, iron-barred windows; and in spite of himself he started when it was suddenly and ferociously broken by a melancholy roar like the thunderous yawn of a bored lion. But still the marabout did not appear. Evidently he intended to show the persistent Roumi that he was not to be intimidated or browbeaten, or else he did not really mean to come at all.
The thought that perhaps, while he waited, he had been quietly made a prisoner, brought Stephen to his feet. He was on the point of trying the inner door, when it opened, and the masked marabout stood looking at him, with keen eyes which the black veil seemed to darken and make sinister.
Without speaking, the Arab closed, but did not latch, the door behind him; and standing still he spoke in the deep voice that was slightly muffled by the thin band of woollen stuff over the lower part of his face.
"Thou hast sent me an urgent summons to hear tidings of my son," he said in his correct, measured French. "What canst thou know, which I do not know already?"
"I began to think you were not very desirous to hear my news," replied Stephen, "as I have been compelled to wait so long that my friends in Oued Tolga will be wondering what detains me in the Zaouïa, or whether any accident has befallen me."