"Because I knew that Mr. Jelnik needed me."
"Even in the bowels of the earth?" I was silent.
"Because he is the master!" said The Jinnee. "Therefore you obeyed. He is the master. Wherefore am I, Achmet, his slave." Oh, shame upon you, Sophy Smith, for there was that in you, and that not the least divine part, which was in full accord with black Achmet!
"Achmet's ideas are of the immutable East," said Mr. Jelnik, with a faint smile. "He is archaic." And dismissing this persiflage with a wave of the hand, he continued:
"Behold me, then, footing it up and down the highways and byways of the world. But it was as if I had disobeyed the dead, and they would give me no rest. So presently I stopped short and came to Hyndsville.
"With Richard's directions in my possession, it was comparatively easy for me to find the passageways, and after the old woman's death I had chance to examine the house room by room. And sometimes, Sophy, when I have been alone in this tragic old place—" he paused, and looked at me with a puzzled frown—"it has seemed to me that there were—well, secret influences, say; things outside of our sphere. I have felt a sense of horror and despair descend upon my spirit, a weight almost too heavy to bear. Sometimes it would be so powerful, so insistent, so vivid, that I had to fly from it.
"Then I happened to remember something that a gipsy, an old, old man reputed to be very wise, told me when I was a boy. He said that troubled spirits can be soothed and sent hence by music. It is the old and sure charm, as David found when he played upon the harp and drove the evil spirit out of Saul the king. I brought my violin and tried it. And," said the cosmopolitan Mr. Jelnik, "the gipsy was right."
"Ah, yes, I see you know, now. It was I whom you heard playing, that first day. It was I, touched by your plight in that forlorn and dusty barracks, who gave you some slight relief. It was easy enough for me to cut across to Geddes's house, reach in through his kitchen window, lift his tray, and escape through the ragged hedges while his cook's broad back was turned. Achmet was willing enough to play the obliging Jinnee. You had your dinner, and I had a bit of harmless amusement. It pleased me to hear Alicia call me Ariel. It pleased me to stand by, to protect you, if that should be necessary. Achmet and I took turns in safeguarding you at night.
"You will understand"—he gave me a straight, clear, proud look—"that it was never my desire to mystify or to frighten you. But I couldn't take you offhand into my confidence, could I? I had to find out something more about you. Remember, too, that my search in no wise jeopardizes your interests.
"Day after day, night after night, Sophy, I have pored over old papers, or burrowed mole-like into the black recesses of Hynds House. Bit by bit I have pieced scraps of evidence together—Shooba's savage chant with Scipio's dying whisper in Freeman's ear, and these two with a rude verse and a line of dots. But there the thread snapped.