He took out his cheque-book and fountain pen, and wrote the draft, which the chief accepted with a deprecating bow. Orders were given for the carpet to be rolled up, covered with sacking, and placed on the back of one of the mules. The business having been thus satisfactorily concluded, the chief invited Frank to share his morning meal, after which he accompanied him with a small escort of horsemen for a few miles on his return journey.
CHAPTER III
DISTURBERS OF TRAFFIC
About noon on the following day, when Frank and his party were proceeding slowly northwards through the hills, they met a Kurd on horseback. Ali exchanged salutations with him; he was on his way, he said, to the house of Mirza Aga.
Some ten minutes afterwards, at a bend in the track, they were met by a second Kurd. The usual greetings again passed between the fellow-countrymen, and this traveller also explained that Mirza Aga's house was his destination. But when the party passed on, Ali, whose manner with the stranger had been cold and curt, glancing over his shoulder, noticed that the man had ridden a few paces in the same direction, then halted as if in irresolution, and was at that moment apparently making up his mind to continue his journey southward.
"Wallahy! Effendim, here is a strange thing," said Ali in a low tone. "I know that man. Surely I saw him with Abdi the Liar when he passed us the other day."
"Strange indeed! He cannot have been to Erzerum and back."
"Abdi devises mischief, effendim. It is well that we watch that man."
Riding slowly on until the bend in the track hid the Kurd from sight, Ali slipped from his saddle, and, asking Frank to accompany him, cautiously climbed the rear of a rocky bluff a little way off the track. From the top of this eminence, themselves unseen, they were able to overlook a long stretch of the track behind them, and in the distance, something more than half a mile away, they descried the stranger, no longer proceeding towards the house of Mirza Aga, but coming in their direction.
"Verily it is some evil device of Abdi, effendim," said Ali. "Let us go on our way, and consider this matter. Abdi is cunning as a serpent, but it will go hard with me if I do not bring his tricks to nought."