I had half expected to be led to the gray-gabled cottage, but The Jinnee stole along in the shadow of the hedge, stopped beside the spring-house, and held up his hand.
"In the name of God!" said I, involuntarily.
"The compassionate, the merciful!" finished The Jinnee, and turning to the east made a profound reverence. There was something so simple and so sincere in his manner that my momentary fear subsided.
"But why have I been sent for? Why are you here?" I wondered.
He folded his arms upon his breast, and in a sing-song voice, curiously unlike any other I had ever heard, answered parrotlike:
"This is the word of the master: Take to the fair-haired lady the broken coin, my sign, and she will remember her word to me. Verily, for the sign's sake, she will follow without fear."
"The master is not ill, then?"
"In his body he is well. But of the spirit of man, and what help he needs, there is but one judge, namely, God."
"He has need of me?"
"He sends the token by me, Achmet." And he stood there with a motionless patience, waiting.