Immediately after his arrival Cordosa dispatched two trusty persons to his country retreat, and they returned with a third in a disguise which rendered identification impossible. He then sent for Ben Abir and insisted on being informed as to how he had come into possession of the mysterious coin that he had given him to invest. Filled with unutterable wonder at what he heard, Cordosa emptied one bag of gold after the other, asking each time whether the pile he had refrained from touching on the specified Friday eve had been as large as the one before him. Not before the contents of the ninth bag had been added to the heap, did Ben Abir exclaim, “So large, and not larger.”
“Then take all this, and be once more the Crœsus of Yemen, O, righteous Ben Abir!” cried Cordosa, and supplemented his words by the tale of the phantom city. It was Ben Abir’s turn to be overwhelmed by astonishment. “And now has thy time come to be perfectly happy,” added Cordosa, knowing the contrary to be the case.
“Alas, Ben Abir’s happiness will never, never return!—My daughter,—my daughter!” lamented the disconsolate father.
“Even thy daughter returns with thy fortune,” said Cordosa, and disappeared through the door, which led to his private apartments. Another minute and the lost Estrelia lay sobbing in her father’s arms. Ben Abir was a happy man, but the other felt that he owed his friend an explanation, which was substantially as follows.
When the jealous Ayesha had learned of the Imam’s intention to glorify his harem by the incomparable loveliness of Ben Abir’s daughter, she lost no time in warning Cordosa of the maiden’s danger. Knowing that his recreant son was at the bottom of the infamous scheme, he felt himself called upon to frustrate it. But once in possession of the girl, whose charms had lost him his son, Cordosa hoped against hope to effect a change in her feelings toward the desperate Menahem. The plan did not work. Estrelia detested the youth who had worshipped her, but was told that her safety required her removal to a hiding place. Cordosa was maturing a new plan when the supernatural incidents of his last journey left him no choice. The Peri-Queen must be obeyed, lest misfortune betide his house.
Cordosa asked Abir’s forgiveness, pointing to the great anguish of heart the love affair had caused him. The Crœsus of Yemen, recognizing the higher hand that fashioned his destiny, would not have his friend refer to it hereafter. “I would to God I could heal thy wound, O, kind-hearted Cordosa. My gratitude and sympathy are thine, and if a part of this hoard will give thee ease, be it thine also,” replied Ben Abir.
But Cordosa would not entertain the thought of being rewarded for services he had rendered accidentally, while Lilithiana’s warning not to touch the gold was fresh in his memory.
As the two much tried men were considering the best way of conveying the treasure quietly to the house of its owner, Ibraeem knocked at the door. When admitted, the man could scarcely speak for excitement. “The Imam is dead!” cried the liberated slave out of breath.
“The Imam dead!—Who killed him?” asked Cordosa, sure that death had not come peacefully,—else why that commotion?
“He killed both the Imam and the Kadi,” supplemented Ibraeem, “He ran amuck.”