thing he had worn when he had entered the house in search of
Marishka. His own clothing, the disguise he had bought in the bazaar.
Then perhaps----! Feverishly he felt along the upper lining, where he
had pinned the larger sum of money he had taken from his purse when he
had changed from mufti at the inn over in the Bistrick quarter of the
town. They had found it? Something crinkled under the pressure of his
fingers, and a pin pricked his thumb. It was there--his money. They had
not searched for it, thinking of course that the money they had found in
the pockets was all that he had possessed. He found the head of the pin
and opened the lining, counting the notes--ten of them in all--of one
hundred _kroners_ each.

A thousand _kroners_! He could have shouted for glee. But caution came
to him in time. He looked around to find that Selim had awakened and was
sitting up rubbing his eyes.

CHAPTER XX

RENWICK QUESTIONS

Had the man observed him when he was counting his money? The hazard of
his position made Renwick suspicious. Selim was a crafty rogue as his
conversation with the officer at the Visegrader Gate had shown, and one
of Zubeydeh's breed needed watching. But the man yawned and stretched
his arms, then got up and looked about with so genuine an air of
drowsiness and fatigue that Renwick concluded that he had been mistaken.
How much or how little Selim had been told of Renwick's affair the
Englishman did not know. But the man had already done him a service and
might be in a position to help him further. So he decided upon an
attitude of friendliness and gratitude which might perhaps be measured
by a few of his eighteen _kroners_ but no more.

It was about three o'clock, when having met no adventures upon the way,
they reached the farm of Selim Ali upon the border of the Romanja Plain.
Twenty hours at a stretch, nine of which had been spent in the tension
of his escape, were more than Renwick's strength permitted, and he sank
upon the straw pallet to which Selim assigned him, weary and shaken, and
with a hand which instinctively clutched the lining of his trousers
where his money was pinned, he fell into a deep sleep, from which he
did not awaken until the sun was high in the heavens.

He did not rise at once, but lay on his cot, gazing at the ceiling, his
mind adjusting itself slowly to his situation. He felt for the money in
the lining of his trousers. It had not been touched. If Selim had
discovered