"Not so fast, Tarkhân-jee," he jibed breathless, unable to resist retort, even in that moment of stress. "Beware stealing or thy list of crime is full! This is my master's."
Then the current caught him and hurled him almost helpless to the other side. Half a yard farther and he would have been sucked down into the archway, but a thin arm clutched at him and the clutch held.
A brief struggle and he stood beside the rebeck player, gazing at him stupidly, but half conscious of who he was. Only for an instant however; the next he faced Khodadâd who, backed by Mirza Ibrahîm was scowling at him across the water.
"Your pardon, gentlemen," he gasped politely, as before their very eyes, he calmly searched for and tore out the talisman which Umm Kulsum and Aunt Rosebody had sewn so deftly into the folds of Salîm's turban? "but I would fain see if this be my master's headdress given him in brotherhood by his son. Yes! of a surety it is. It will be kept, messieurs, the appointed time, and returned in due course--with the talisman--by all the gods! with the talisman--I wot not if it be a true or a false one--to those who gave it."
With that he turned on his heel regardless of the volley of curses from over the water.
But he rounded fiercely on the rebeck player's sardonic request to be remembered in that he had saved the master's life.
"Thou art the devil, juggler," he said and there was real fear in his voice. "Get thee gone, since, before God, I know not who thou art."
A laugh followed him.
[CHAPTER XVIII]
Longing for the Unseen as never one
Longed, passionate, for Seen; remembering none
From dawning to the setting of the sun
Save Secret Things unheard, unseen, unwon
No man shall know, till this world's life is done.