One night, when his employer was away keeping watch over his crops, he lay awake in his shed and heard footsteps steal silently past where he lay. Then he heard the door of the walled enclosure quietly opened and shut. Scenting that something was amiss, the goatherd stranger rose and silently went in pursuit. Seeing nothing, he hid himself amongst the mimosa bushes, which grew thick on both sides of the narrow path leading from the door to the river-bank. Presently, from his place of concealment, he beheld two forms walking up from the direction of the river towards the house, and as they slowly passed the spot where he lay hidden the watcher, by the light of the stars, recognised beyond a doubt who the couple were. "Allah is great, and Mohammed is His Prophet," murmured the stranger. "My enemy has now been delivered into my hands. I will demand from the dog the sum of twenty Egyptian pounds, and if he will not give them to me—then my employer knows all."
As the door softly closed, out of the deep shadow of the wall one figure retraced its steps along the path towards the river. It was Abdul. When he arrived at the spot where the path was narrowed by the mimosa bushes, the watcher rose up and, stepping to the path, confronted his man. Speaking in a low, hissing voice, he said, "Abdul, you know me. I am a man of few words, and my words to you this night are few."
Abdul, taken unawares, stood still, trembling, and then, recognising who it was that spoke, answered, "What do you want with me at this hour of night, you offspring of a snake?"
"I will tell you," the stranger replied. "Since my sojourn here I have been employed in watching my master's property; both by day and by night I have driven the noxious animals away. But there is one foul bird of night that I have not driven away, and that, O Abdul, is yourself. Now I will make this compact with you, who are in my power. If you will give me the sum of twenty Egyptian pounds at noon to-morrow I will go forth from here and return no more; and my lips shall be for ever sealed. This I will swear by the beard of the Prophet."
"HE MOVED FORWARD AS THOUGH TO PASS HIS MAN, WHEN THE KNIFE FLASHED DOWNWARDS."
The stranger folded his arms and stood silent, awaiting the reply.
After a pause, which to both men seemed an age, Abdul replied, "And if I refuse this price of blackmail, how then? What can you do—a stranger and a dog? Who, think you, will believe your perjured evidence?"
The goatherd did not immediately reply, and for a space the two men stood confronting each other. Abdul was wearing a gallibeah—a long cloak reaching from the neck to the feet, made of thick cotton stuff, with very large loose sleeves. The stranger was dressed, as he slept, in a cotton shirt and drawers. So it happened that Abdul was able, unseen by his foe, to draw his knife from its sheath. (All the natives of this country carry a big knife in a sheath strapped to the left arm, just above the elbow.)
After a few moments had elapsed the stranger laughed a short, derisive laugh, and, putting out his arm, as if to brush Abdul aside, said, "You fool! At the rising of to-morrow's sun Mahkmoud shall know all." With that he moved forward as though to pass his man, when the knife flashed downwards, and with a choking, gurgling sound, followed by a deep sigh, he sank to the earth, never to rise again!