To my utter surprise he bowed his head with his old gravity, and answered, "If Allah wills, the jewel is found."
This was amazing, no doubt, and in its way a triumph of impudence. If he could find it with that ease, then he must have known by whom it was stolen. I turned upon him at once with the accusation, but he stood with the gravity of granite and responded to all my threats with the simple greeting, as of a father to a son,—
To have argued with such a rogue would have been as useful as a demonstration in theology before a mollah; to have accused him boldly of the theft would have been absurd, even had I not possessed such a wealth of testimony in his favor. I sent him about his business, therefore, and went in search of my friend Chassaigne, who had been away since I lost the trinket, but was then at the arsenal again. The lieutenant took the news with edifying calmness, but assured me that I had at last taken the only course which was at all likely to result in success.
"Our friend the Moor," said he, "is the most honorable of his kind in Algiers, where all are rogues. I do not believe for a moment that he stole the jewels, although his father, his uncle, or his own brother may have done so. Your reward may tempt him to return them if the police set up a hue and cry; but if he suggests that you go up in the old town to receive them, tell him you will do nothing of the sort. There are far too many dark eyes and sharp knives there for an Englishman's taste, and a Moor still has claims in Paradise for every Frank he sticks. If you took the other course, and sought your money from this hotel-keeper, he would bring a hundred to swear that you did not lose the stones in the hotel, and you would be where you are. It's annoying to adopt a laissez aller policy, but I fear you can do nothing else."
I thought that he was right, but my habitual obstinacy was all upon me, and I found myself as much determined to recover the jewels I had lost as if they had been worth ten thousand pounds. I was quite sure that the police would do nothing, and save that they informed me in a cumbrous document that they had searched the house of Mohammed the porter, and of five others, my surmise proved a true one. It was left to Sidi, and for Sidi I waited on the morning of the ninth day with an expectancy which was unwarrantably large. He came to me at his usual hour, eight o'clock, and when he had salaamed, he said,—
"If Allah is willing, the jewel is found—but the money is not enough."
"Not enough!" said I, choking almost with anger, "the money is not enough! Why, you brazen-faced blackguard, what do you mean?"
He replied with an appeal to the beard of the Prophet, and an evident word of contempt for my commercial understanding. The irony of the whole situation was so great, and his immobility so stupendous, that I quickly forbore my anger and said,—
"Very well, Sidi, we will make it fifteen hundred francs." And with that he went off again, and I saw him no more until the next day, when he repeated the incha Alläh and the intimation that the price was too low. On this occasion my anger overcame me. I seized him by the throat, and shaking him roughly, said,—