n me when I heard of
their departure. Allah witness how I strove to overtake them. But the
rogue had set every one upon the road against me. I was delayed at
every turn, flouted and finally robbed of my weapons and all my money."
He exhibited his empty belt. "So I returned, despairing. May God have
mercy on that kind Emir, and let his soul find peace."

These words, and still more the heart-broken manner of their utterance,
made a profound impression upon all who heard them. They were received
as true by every one there except Abdullah, who talked of hiring
ruffians to assassinate the wicked slanderer. He swore at once to
clear his nephew's honour. But his excitement was regarded with mere
pity, as natural to a man afflicted in so near a relative.

CHAPTER XIX

Abdullah's furious indignation with Elias was complicated by a strain
of keen anxiety upon his own account. Though most of the story seemed
absurd to his intelligence, there remained enough of possible and even
probable to justify dismay in so respectable a man. It seemed more
than likely that his nephew, that unlucky boy, had led a British
subject into lawless regions quite unknown to him; if harm ensued there
would be trouble with the consul; and the power called Cook was so
careful for its dragomans that the mere relationship to one whose face
was blackened might involve dismissal. The bare idea of this
contingency swamped Abdullah's intellect in pure amazement, for since
his vision of the Blessed Virgin years ago he had believed that the
breath of scandal could not come near him. He crossed himself
repeatedly and muttered prayers. But these misgivings were secreted
from the world, before which he appeared as the intrepid champion of
his absent nephew, prepared to refute the story in its entirety.

His first thought was to make Elias eat his words either by bribes or
violence; but a little reflection sufficed to show it worthless. For,
once pronounced, those words were all men's utterance; the town, the
countryside, was now ablaze, and Elias but a fuse that had done its
work. Abdullah demanded on behalf of Iskender that all who professed
any knowledge of the matter should be called and questioned in the
hearing of the group of dragomans. The proprietor and servants of the
khan, who had beheld Iskender's mad excitement on the morning of the
start, the discarded muleteer, Aflatun and Faris, who still lingered in
the town in hopes to rec