“Probably he suspected that someone he knew was playing a joke on him,” says Aleck quietly.
“Humph! he was a bear then,” grunts the other.
“By the way, my dear boy, did she remind you of—well, anyone you had seen before?”
“That’s what makes me mad. A chump in the seat in front got his beastly head between me and the stage, so that I couldn’t see her face. You saw me knock his hat down over his ears. Well, just then the lights went out and I missed the opportunity of solving the riddle of the mysterious veiled prophetess of Cairo Street.”
It is Aleck’s turn to grunt now.
“Was she very beautiful, Craig?”
“Yes, strikingly so. I wish you had seen her. Never mind, did the pasha come out?”
“Rather! he was ahead of us. Perhaps he feared the consequences of his bold act, for these people of the Orient are quick to use knife or yataghan. As he passed I heard him laugh, and, as it is seldom these Turks do that, I can guess he was well pleased over what he had done, and that he recognized the face from which he snatched the veil.”
If ever a sorely puzzled man walked up or down that singular narrow street, our bachelor is the individual. He cudgels his brains for a solution to the enigma and finds it not.
“I don’t see how I can wait until to-morrow night to solve the problem,” he mutters.