As Forsyth’s mind grew sounder his body kept pace with it, and he was able at last to mount a horse and take short rides; and it amused him to saunter about the bazaar occasionally, though it was not a very extensive or grand one; indeed, the poet who wrote “Man wants but little here below,” would have been pleased to see how completely an Arab, as a rule, verifies his theory.
One day he, (Harry, not the poet) was puzzled by some round balls of a frothy appearance, which he could not make out; could it possibly be soap? What sale could there be for such an article? The shopman might just as well have offered straps and stay-laces to the population around him. But it did not smell like soap, either; indeed, the odour was extremely unpleasant.
“That is not an object worthy of your attention,” said the owner of the shop, who sat on a cushion in the midst of his goods. “I have a preparation for the hair which is infallible for restoring it if it falls off from age or sickness, for example, and which is as agreeable to the nose as beneficial to the scalp. Those balls of mutton fat are only fit for the poor who can afford no better.”
“Oh, it is for the hair, then,” observed Harry; “and what makes it look all frothy like that?”
“It is prepared by chewing, and women are employed for the purpose; they cheat me sometimes, and swallow a portion. But deign to come up, oh illustrious one, and partake of a cup of coffee or a glass of sherbet and a chibouque, and allow me the unparalleled and illustrious honour of showing you my poor goods.”
Harry consented, not that he wanted to purchase anything, but because something about the man’s face struck him as familiar, and he was anxious to remember where and under what circumstances he had seen him before.
“I have here a French pistol, a revolver with six chambers, which I can offer your Excellency almost for nothing, with ammunition to match. It is a weapon which will save your life a hundred times by its accuracy and the rapidity of its fire; and what says the wise man? ‘Life is sweet, even to the bravest.’” And all the time he was talking, Harry Forsyth kept thinking, “Where have I seen him? What circumstance does his face recall?”
As he left the shop his eye fell on a bale of goods yet unopened, and on it he read the name Daireh!
It acted like a match on a gas-jet. He had come out to seek the will, and Daireh was the man who had abstracted it!
And as he walked home, he remembered everything which had been a puzzle to him. Being still weak, he now grew as much excited as before he had been apathetic, and had his uncle been at home he would have gone to him with the whole story at once. But the sheikh was away, superintending the drill of certain European ruffians in the Mahdi’s service who were to man some Krupp guns taken from the Egyptians, and Harry had a forced respite in which to collect his ideas and frame them in the manner best calculated to gain his uncle’s attention and assistance.