"'You know me?' I began. 'I am Jean Antoine Stromboli Kosnapulski.'
"Senussi-el-Mahdi nodded his grotesque head slowly. Half his proud spirit seemed to have left him with the loss of half his hair.
"'You have trampled on me,' I continued, 'you have insulted me; you have inflicted shameful indignities on me. But no man with impunity treats Jean Antoine Stromboli Kosnapulski thus; and now my hour has come.'
"A menace was rising to his lips; but I had only to hold the mirror once more before him to subdue him. As I have said, his self-confidence forsook him when he saw how ridiculous he looked. I continued—
"'You have made me speak to you humbly as a pupil to his master—as a sinner to a saint. But that is over now. I have treated you with ignominy, even as you treated me; and now that account is squared between us, I speak to you as man to man.'
"'Dog of a—' he began; but once more I held the mirror to him, and he changed his tone, and merely asked—
"'What would you have with me, then?'
"'Listen,' I replied. 'I know well that you have but to speak the word to have me slain. But I know also—and you, too, know—that, if you speak that word, the reputation of Senussi-el-Mahdi is for ever lost. Think of it, then! A Mahdi with half a beard and half a head of hair, and a waxed moustache like a Hungarian hussar's! The thing is too ridiculous! It could not be.'
"And once more I emphasised my criticisms with the mirror; and he looked at me with impotent rage, and did not speak.
"'Listen,' I continued. 'You can keep your holy reputation only if you hide your shame by veiling yourself until your beard has grown again; you may even acquire an added holiness. Who knows? But you can only keep your secret if you let me depart from Jarabub in peace. What say you, Holy Man?'