One evening, on their return to the hotel, when two stable-boys were leading off the tired horses, and Iskender, with Elias, stood waiting to take leave of his kind lord, the negro brought a little card to the Emîr, who eyed it strangely.
"It is that missionary-man you hate so," he informed Iskender. "What in the name of Moses made him call on me?"
"Ha, ha! 'Name of Moses!'" laughed Elias, who was daily adding to his store of English idioms. "By gum, that's good!"
Iskender inwardly thanked Allah Most High for his mercy in directing the Father of Ice to call while the Emîr was out. He thought no more of it. They rode again the next day and the next; his happiness went on, unshadowed, till a certain morning when the Frank announced, with a yawn, that he supposed he must return the visit of the missionary. This he gave as a reason for not riding on that day. He would write off arrears of letters in the morning, and in the afternoon would walk out to the Mission.
Iskender's jaw fell. It had never occurred to him as even remotely possible that his Emîr would stoop to enter the abode of people he had always mentioned with such fine contempt. The picture of his loved one seated in the well-known drawing-room, an object of attention to the ladies, hobnobbing with the Father of Ice—his Emîr, whom he had come to regard as the very counterblast of that house and all it stood for—gave him a sense of being upside down. The Frank laughed at his dismay, inquiring:
"Why so surprised? I must return the poor man's call in mere politeness."
"They hate me very much there," said Iskender miserably. "I fear they tell you things not true about me."
"I know the truth from you, don't I? Let them say what they like!"
Iskender went forth from his presence, pondering this reassurance, which contained no comfort for him, since he had given his lord to understand that he had received his education at the Mission as an independent paying pupil, and had quite concealed the fact that his mother was a washerwoman. The Emîr, if he thought at all of the matter, supposed him a youth of substance. How could he think otherwise, when he heard Iskender offer to defray the cost of horses, and saw him daily bring some present in his hand? Now he would learn the truth.
Elias was standing in the doorway talking to Daûd son of Mûsa when his friend came out. He noticed his glum looks, and asked the cause.