"Ma tante," pleaded Julia Redmond.
She felt as though a slender thread was between her fingers, a thread which led her to the door of a labyrinth and which a rude touch might cause her to lose forever.
"If you had money would you start out to find Monsieur de Sabron at once?"
"It would cost a great deal, Excellency."
"You shall have all the money you need. Do you think you would be able to find your way?"
"Yes, Excellency."
The Duc de Tremont watched the American girl. She was bartering with an Arabian for the salvation of a poor officer. What an enthusiast! He had no idea she had ever seen Sabron more than once or twice in her life. He came forward.
"Let me talk to this man," he said with authority, and Julia Redmond did not dispute him.
In a tone different from the light and mocking one that he had hitherto used to the Arab, Tremont began to ask a dozen questions severely, and in his answers to the young Frenchman, Hammet Abou began to make a favorable impression on every one save the Marquise d'Esclignac, who did not understand him. There was a huge bamboo chair on a dais under a Chinese pagoda, and the Marquise d'Esclignac took the chair and sat upright as on a throne. Mimi, who had just been fed, came in tinkling her little bells and fawned at the sandals on Hammet Abou's bare feet. After talking with the native, Tremont said to his friends:
"This man says that if he joins a Jewish caravan, which leaves here to-morrow at sundown, he will be taken with these men and leave the city without suspicion, but he must share the expenses of the whole caravan. The expedition will not be without danger; it must be entered into with great subtlety. He is either," said Tremont, "an impostor or a remarkable man."