“You can tell my brother the little beggar’s all right,” he said as he sank back again upon the couch. “Legal and all that, you know. I married his mother,” with a jerk of the head towards the inner room, “before a consul as well as by Mohammedan law. The boy hasn’t been christened but my brother will enjoy getting all that done. Tell him I called him Humphrey after our old grandfather.” He stopped.
Then following his instructions Forde brought him a box which he unlocked. Inside it were some documents tied together, and from the bundle he took a slip of paper with the addresses and gave it to his companion.
“Now there’s only the post card,” he said. “You’ll find one on that table. Address it to yourself: to your home address. Then it is sure to find you.”
The other obeyed and the invalid put the post card carefully away in the box.
“That’s all, my dear fellow, and a thousand thanks. It’s a weight off my mind and I hope it won’t be a great nuisance to you.” He was silent for a time, then “Are you fond of women?” he asked abruptly. “It was over one that I went to pieces long ago.” Forde thought of the huddled shapelessness in the next room.
“I was an Army man,” began the voice again, but checked. “Sorry there’s nothing I can offer you, you don’t take opium?... But I expect you’ll be glad to be off, and I can tell you I’ll sleep easier to-night. You’ll find Ibrahim in the courtyard and he’ll show you the way back.”
The men shook hands and again the invalid declared he wanted nothing. “Only your promise not to say a word of this to my brother or to anyone till the post card reaches you,” he said to Forde, as the latter stepped into the open.
The shadow of the wall had crept a little further across the courtyard, and a few wisps of cloud dimmed the radiance of the moon. The figure of Ibrahim rose from the shadows and moved silently before him, retracing the way that they had come. The glow of illumination had died down, and only a scattered knot or two of revellers were to be seen as they crossed the thoroughfare. Night seemed to have flowed over the town and to have obliterated all tumult in her quiet tide. Down by the jetty gleamed the eye of the steamer, where she lay at her moorings, the water gently lapping her sides. Ibrahim melted away into the shadows as the young man stood a moment on deck before going below, watching the pathway of the moon across the dark water and the silver sleeping town; thinking too of the mysterious house in the heart of the Arab quarter, with its strange secret.
When he awoke in the morning he found they were already at sea and through the porthole he could see the curves of the coastline and the white semi-circle of the town fading to a faint blur. At first he thought constantly of the happenings of the night, but the interest and excitement of travel by degrees pushed them from his mind.