"Spl—en—did!" emphasized Philip, muttering the word over and over again; "food, raiment, and a place in which to sleep safely. Well, it will be good to lie down and sleep soundly for one night, feeling that one isn't caged in like a bird, and isn't in immediate danger of arrest and further imprisonment."
"And better still to know that there is something before us," Geoff answered him as they reached a low doorway leading out of the courtyard, "better, far better, Philip, to hear that Esbul has news of my guardian—news of Douglas Pasha—news so valuable that he won't impart it to me out here, but is waiting until we get into this house and under shelter."
A sharp rap on the door was answered after a while by a gruff request to enter, and presently the three were stumbling up the flight of steps down which Esbul had gone when he left Benshi the Jew—that mysterious, silent, and thoughtful friend of Douglas Pasha. In a trice it seemed they were in the room he occupied, to find the Jew seated on a divan, his eyes fixed on the opposite wall, the same listless unfathomable expression about his haggard face. And yet that face could show animation when he wished, could show friendship and welcome.
"Be seated," he told the two subalterns. "Be seated, Keith Pasha, ward of that one who has been my friend for many years, of Douglas Pasha. So, Esbul, it came about that in passing on your way from the house where you were watching you hit upon these two, hit upon them by mere chance, by pure accident!"
"But how—how did you learn that then?" asked Geoff impulsively; for it was but a few minutes ago only that that unexpected meeting had taken place, and how could the Jew have gained tidings of it? Had he guessed it? Had he merely divined it because of their coming together? Or had this mysterious man obtained news of the event in the same mysterious manner in which other and more valuable information came to him?
"Be seated, my master," Benshi said, ignoring the question for the moment. "Let Esbul place food before you; and to-morrow he will lead you to that place where Douglas Pasha is imprisoned. Is it not so, Esbul? You who have watched over the German, were you not on your way hither to give me tidings of this von Hildemaller and of his movements on the morrow?"
A glance at the young Armenian proved indeed that that must be the case, though how Benshi had learned of that also was beyond him. Amazement was written on every feature; he gasped with astonishment, and then smiled at our hero.
"It is even so," he told him. "Men come and go, but Benshi sits here or in the Bazaar, seeing nothing it would seem, hearing no news, merely existing the day through, and yet—and yet, news reaches him."
"Aye! Reaches me, my friend, in a manner that I will not explain; news sometimes small and petty, sometimes of great doings, of great events. Listen now, whilst Esbul brings food before you. My master, you desire news of your friends, of your expedition which has come to Mesopotamia, which fought its way to Basra and Kurnah, and from thence advanced up the Tigris to Amara? You desire tidings of those friends whom you accompanied to Nasiriyeh, and of those others who struck to the north-east and seized Ahwaz? Then, I will tell you.
"Amara fell to them as easily as a ripe orange falls to the hands of the plucker. Then came an advance up the river to Kut-el-Amara, while Turks waited the coming of the British and the Indians in full force, in positions prepared most carefully for them under the leading of Germans—men of the same cunning and skill as this von Hildemaller. Yet they were defeated."