Rankin accepted the blade and glanced sharply about him. More combat?
The chief smiled. "You are among friends, Saidi Rankin."
"Your playmates didn't look so friendly," retorted Rankin.
"I am Absál, the son of our lord the Shareef," continued the redbeard, "and my six playmates were only to assure me of your identity. There are others on the same mission that leads you to Tekrit. Anyway, before I could signal Silat up there on the wall with his net, three of my men were out of action."
"One should," agreed Rankin, "always be sure of a stranger's identity. But what if they had cut me into many small pieces?"
Absál shrugged. "Wallah! That would have been deplorable, of course. But it would have proved to my entire satisfaction that you are not the man for the venture I have in mind. As it is——"
"As it is, saidi," interrupted Rankin, "you think that perhaps I may be fit to meet the Black Presence in the vault on the night of the 14th of Nisan?"
"Inshallah!" evaded Absál. "If it please God. And our lord the Shareef has a good deal to say about that."
A gong clanged. The heavy drapes that masked the horseshoe arch in the left wall of the courtyard parted, revealing a long, narrow room at whose farther end was a dais on which sat a white-bearded, hook-nosed man: Absál's father, the Shareef.
They paused in the archway to bow, and offer the peace.