t were not to
ask thy help there--if I were not to ask thee to guide me nor yet to
betray any secret--wouldst thou play the traitor to me, and deliver me
up to thy people?"

"My head is at your feet, _M'alme_. So long as you did not ask me
to do such things as would be unlawful in the eyes of Allah and the
Prophet, and seek to force me to them, this hand of mine would wither
before it would be raised against the preserver of my life! I pray
you, _M'alme_, let me go!"

"I grant it. _Ru'c'h halla!_" (Go now!) exclaimed the Master, with a
wave of the hand. Rrisa salaamed again, and, noiseless as a wraith,
departed.

CHAPTER II

"TO PARADISE--OR HELL"

For a time the Master sat in the thickening gloom, eating the dates
and _temmin_ wafers, drinking the coffee, pondering in deep silence.
When the simple meal was ended, he plucked a little sprig of leaves
from the khat plant in the bowl, and thrust them into his mouth.

This khat, gathered in the mountains back of Hodeida, on the Red Sea
not far from Bab el Mandeb, had been preserved by a process known
to only a few Coast Arabs. The plant now in the bowl was part of a
shipment that had been more than three months on the way; yet still
the fresh aroma of it, as the Master crushed the thick-set, dark-green
leaves, scented the darkening room with perfumes of Araby.

Slowly, with the contemplative appreciation of the connoisseur, the
Master absorbed the flavor and the wondrous stimulation of the "flower
of paradise." The use of khat, his once-a-day joy and comfort, he had
learned more than fifteen years before, on one of his exploring tours
in Yemen. He could hardly remember just when and where he had first
come to know the extraordinary mental and physical stimulus of this
strange plant, dear to all Arabs, any more than he definitely recalled
having learned the complex, poetical language of that Oriental land
of mystery. Both language and the use of khat had come to him from
contact with only the fringes of the country; and both had contributed
to his vast, unsatisfied longing to know what lay beyond the forbidden
zones that walled this land away from all the world.

Wherever he had gone, whatever perils, hardships, and adventures had
been his in many years of wandering up and down the world, khat,
the wondrous, had always gone with him. The fortune he had spent
on keeping up the supply had many times over been repaid to him in
strength and comfort.

The use