XII.
THE VANISHING.
Early the next morning Seti knocked at the door of our friends. Getting no answer, he repeated the knock. Still hearing nothing, he opened the door and went in. The room was vacant; as was also the sleeping-room adjoining. Plainly the latter had not been occupied during the night. He was alarmed.
Summoning two servants to follow him, he proceeded to the khan with rapid steps. What was his dismay to learn from the landlord that, shortly after Cimon and Aleph came in, the evening before, a body of the city police appeared and demanded to search their room for jewelry stolen from the warehouse of Malus. Permission being readily given, the Cretan agent of Malus, well known in the city, who accompanied the party and conducted the search, went fumbling about on his hands and knees in the darker parts of the room; and finally held up, with an exclamation of delight, a small casket which he declared was the missing article, and had been missing ever since Cimon’s visit to the warehouse. Whereupon the chief of the police showed a warrant for arresting Cimon. The young man protested, and declared that he saw the Cretan slyly whip the casket out of the bosom of his own tunic. But the older man thought that the police were right in claiming that they had no option in the case—he would go with them without resistance, and his friend could take such measures on the morrow for his relief as he might find best. So he went off with the party, leaving the young man standing at the gate.
But this party had scarcely disappeared, when a band of Roman soldiers came up and surrounded Aleph. “Are you Aleph, the Chaldean?” demanded the leader.
“So I am called,” said the young man.
“Then we have been sent to arrest you.”
“For what?” demanded Aleph.
“For assault and battery here last night; and as a suspected enemy of the emperor.”
“Show me your warrant,” demanded the young man.
The leader produced a document bearing what purported to be the seal and signature of the governor. “Is this document genuine?” said Aleph to the landlord, who was standing by. The landlord looked at the paper and nodded.