actual value,
though I knew it must be considerable--enough to make up to Nicholas
Jelnik the losses he had sustained; enough to decide his fate--and
mine. Even now he was packing to go; even now there were "For Sale"
signs on the gray cottage.

I ran into our living-room, snatched my sewing-bag from the
sewing-stand, and dropped the heavy bag into it. That looked more
commonplace.

The clamor from the kitchen, incident upon Beautiful Dog's having
taken refuge under Mary Magdalen's skirts, had died down. I knew
that Beautiful Dog was licking his wounds after defeat, and the
Black cats, sedate and mild-mannered, were licking their paws after
victory. I determined that from that afternoon Beautiful Dog should
become an honored and important institution in Hynds House. If I had
to choose a new family escutcheon, I think I should insist upon
having Beautiful Dog rampant upon it!

When I went outside, the garden was a gray-green gloom of flying
leaves and twisting tree-branches bending before the stiff northeast
gale. It was wild weather--weather that sent the blood tingling
through the veins and whipped red into one's cheeks.

I got into Mr. Jelnik's grounds through the hedge behind the
spring-house, and ran like a hare through his garden. I had to
hammer upon his door before I could make Achmet hear me, so loud and
surf-like was the noise of the wind in the trees.

The Jinnee stepped back and salaamed, his hands upon his breast.
Then he laid a finger upon his lips, for from up-stairs came the
wailing outcry of a violin.

The Jinnee looked thin and old. His garments hung loose upon his
shrunken frame. There was trouble in that house, he told me. The
master had wished to send Daoud away. Daoud had refused to go. To
leave one's lord when calamity came upon him was to shame one's
beard. It was the act of the infidel, not the behavior of the
faithful, and Daoud had threatened to shave his beard, put on the
dress of a pilgrim, and beg his way from Hyndsville to Mecca. He was
even now kneeling upon a prayer-mat reciting a four-bow prayer. As
for the master, for two days he had not eaten; he merely swallowed
a cup of coffee in the morning because Achmet wept. This afternoon
he had fled to his violin for relief. Verily, God was afflicting
them! "The bad fortune of the good turns his face to heaven, even as
the good fortune of the bad bends his head to the earth. It is the
will of God: _Islam_!" said The Jinnee, simply.