sturdily. "I am the fostered
offspring of my master's bounty. May he live a thousand years!"

That shocked my Yankee ears. Achmet smiled his crooked smile.

"Why did the sahiba follow when I showed her a broken coin?" he
asked.

"Because I knew that Mr. Jelnik needed me."

"Even in the bowels of the earth?" I was silent.

"Because he is the master!" said The Jinnee. "Therefore you obeyed.
He is the master. Wherefore am I, Achmet, his slave." Oh, shame
upon you, Sophy Smith, for there was that in you, and that not the
least divine part, which was in full accord with black Achmet!

"Achmet's ideas are of the immutable East," said Mr. Jelnik, with a
faint smile. "He is archaic." And dismissing this persiflage with a
wave of the hand, he continued:

"Behold me, then, footing it up and down the highways and byways of
the world. But it was as if I had disobeyed the dead, and they would
give me no rest. So presently I stopped short and came to
Hyndsville.

"With Richard's directions in my possession, it was comparatively
easy for me to find the passageways, and after the old woman's death
I had chance to examine the house room by room. And sometimes,
Sophy, when I have been alone in this tragic old place--" he paused,
and looked at me with a puzzled frown--"it has seemed to me that
there were--well, secret influences, say; things outside of our
sphere. I have felt a sense of horror and despair descend upon my
spirit, a weight almost too heavy to bear. Sometimes it would be so
powerful, so insistent, so vivid, that I had to fly from it.

"Then I happened to remember something that a gipsy, an old, old man
reputed to be very wise, told me when I was a boy. He said that
troubled spirits can be soothed and sent hence by music. It is the
old and sure charm, as David found when he played upon the harp and
drove the evil spirit out of Saul the king. I brought my violin and
tried it. And," said the cosmopolitan Mr. Jelnik, "the gipsy was
right."

"Ah, yes, I see you know, now. It was I whom you heard playing, that
first day. It was I, touched by your plight in that forlorn and
dusty barracks, who gave you some slight relief. It was easy enough
for me to cut across to Geddes's house, reach in through his kitchen
window, lift his tray, and escape through the ragged hedges while
his cook's broad back was turned. Achmet was willing enough to play
the obliging Jinnee. You had your dinner, and I had a bit of
harmless amusement