“Not in? Höllespein! Certainly he’s in! He never goes out before noon. Do you think I’m a bungler at my profession? I know the hours of every padre in Cairo, exactly, always! Who told you he was not in?”
“His servant.”
“Was! Ein verdammter Schwartze? Herr Gott, aber du bist roh! Two days looking for work, and you don’t know yet that every nigger servant will tell you his master is out? Not in!”—and he burst forth in his peculiarly silent, yet uproarious laughter.
A new light had broken in upon me. This, then, was the reason that of some forty white men whom I had called on for employment, a bare dozen had been at home? I left my companion to conquer his risibility alone, and, hastening back to the rectory, brought the servant to the door with a vicious ring.
“I’ve heard the Reverend —— is in. I want to see him.”
There was no smile on the ebony face now. Even through the mask of black skin one could see anger welling up, the blind rage of the Mussulman against the hated unbeliever.
“I say Reverend —— not in!” snarled the servant, in hoarse sotto voce, “Go away.”
With a string of English oaths that spoke better of his linguistic abilities than the influence of his master, he shut the door, quickly, yet noiselessly.
I pressed a finger against the electric button and kept it there. A quick muffled patter of footsteps sounded inside, a whispered imprecation came through the keyhole. My finger was growing numb. I relieved it with a thumb without breaking the circuit.
“Go away,” growled the servant, fiercely, half opening the door, “go way, damn you, I cut your neck”—and his speech did not end there. I relieved my thumb with another finger. The murderous gleam in the Arab’s eyes blazed forth more fiercely, then by a stern command of the will changed to an appeal.