og, helping with the
water-cups--and gasped: "No; don't take him--please, effendi! No--no--"

I brushed Joe aside and continued: "We can send for coffee and spend
the afternoon. I'll have some chairs brought from the cafe. Pick up
everything, Joe, and come along."

On the way to the crooked, break-neck street my thoughts went racing
through my head. On one side, perhaps, a tap on the shoulder in the
middle of the night; half a yard of catgut in the hands of a
Bashi-Bazouk; an appeal to our consul, with the consciousness of having
meddled with something that did not concern me. On the other a pair of
tear-stained, pleading eyes. Not my eyes--not the eyes of anybody that
I knew--but the kind that raise the devil even in the heart of a staid
old painter like myself.

Joe followed, with downcast gaze. He, too, was scheming. He could not
protest before the prince, nor before Yusuf. That would imply previous
knowledge of the danger lurking in the vicinity of the old wall. His
was the devil and the deep sea. Not to tell the prince of Yuleima's
whereabouts, after their combined search for her, and the fees the
prince had paid him, would be as cruel as it was disloyal. To assist in
Mahmoud's finding her would bring down upon his own head--if it was
still on his shoulders--the wrath of the chief of police, as well as
the power behind him.

Once under the shadow of the wall, the trap unpacked, easel and
umbrella up, and water-bottle filled, Joe started his windmill, paused
at the third kotow, looked me straight in the eye, and, with a tone in
his voice, as if he had at last come to some conclusion, made this
request:

"I have no eat breakfast, effendi--very hungry--you please permit Joe
go cafe with Yusuf--we stay ONE hour, no more. Then I bring coffee. You
see me when I come--I bring the coffee myselluf."

He could not have pleased me more. How to get rid of them both was what
had been bothering me.

I painted on, both of us backed into the low gate with the sliding
panel, my eyes on the mosque, my ears open for the slightest sound. We
talked of the wonderful architecture of the East, of the taper of the
minarets, of the grace and dignity of the priests, of the social life
of the people, I leading and he following, until I had brought the
conversation down to the question:

"And when you young men decide to marry are you free to choose, as we
Europeans are?" I was feeling about, wondering how much of his
confidence he