“Allah!” said the mamur, spreading out his hands, “an afrit?” Qway began to get a bit flurried.
“Yes, Effendim, an afrit.”
“Liar,” repeated the mamur. “I said you were a liar.”
Qway looked round again for help, but I was not going to bolster up that statement. The mamur began to examine him as to the exact nature of that afrit. Qway broke down, stammered and generally got into a terrible mess. At the last the mamur, having elicited from him in turn the fact that there was one afrit, that there were two, that there had been a crowd of them, and finally that there were none at all, went on to the next stage and asked what had happened afterwards.
Qway explained that after leaving the depot he had ridden for two days to the south-west, and then had turned back and circled round Jebel el Bayed and finally ridden off to the east.
“The east?” said the mamur. “I thought Dakhla lay to the north.”
“The north-east, Effendim,” corrected Qway. “Rather north of north-east.”
“Then why did you go to the east? Were you lost?”
Qway stammered worse than ever. The mamur repeated his question. Two tears began to roll down Qway’s cheeks and his great gnarled hand went up to hide his twitching lips.
“Yes,” he said, with a great effort. “I was lost.” Being an Arab he did not lie—at least not often.