that is thy desire. Tell me, me only, O my soul--thy
brother Asad!"

Still Iskender only answered: "Allah is bountiful!" In truth the
tidings of the Emir's relapse concerned him not at all. He murmured in
his soul, "May Allah heal him!" as he would have prayed on hearing of a
stranger's illness, but with no sense of guilt or responsibility. To
have opened his heart to Asad would have been to risk destroying this
blissful state of indifference. He feared to revive his emotions of
the day before; so confined himself to pious exclamations.

Asad's inquisitiveness, however, was of a hardy kind. Again and yet
again did he return to the charge, pleading, remonstrating, even
threatening; holding out every inducement he could think of; even
offering the fine penknife with three blades and an ivory handle, which
had been given to him only yesterday by the Sitt Jane. He held this
treasure up before his patient's eyes, opening the blades one by one to
display the glory of it. But Iskender still sat on composedly, smiling
into distance, like a graven image. Finding he could elicit nothing,
Asad grew angry.

"Thou art still at thy childish toys, I see," he sneered as he at last
withdrew. "Much they will profit thee! Ma sh' Allah! I can see how
thou wilt envy me hereafter when I am a grand khawajah, and thou art
dirt in the road!" Having attained a safe distance, he let fly his
farewell shaft: "Cursed be thy religion, O dog son of a dog!"

Iskender then glanced round in the hope that some others of the
Orthodox communion might have heard the insult, in which case it would
have fared extremely ill with the son of Costantin. His heart leapt
with joy at the sight of Elias close at hand armed with his fine
silver-mounted riding-whip. But instead of pursuing Asad, who had
taken to his heels, and of whipping the life out of him, Elias
contented himself with throwing a stone and celebrating in a loud voice
the immodesty of Asad's mother and the revolting manner of his
conception and birth. That done, he came and sat beside Iskender.

"I have killed a man for cursing our holy religion before now," he
remarked, smiling; and proceeded to give an outline of the murder. But
this was not the object of his coming. He had obtained command of a
party of American travellers, men bound for Wady Musa, and, remembering
that the valley of the gold lay somewhere in the same direction, had
come to ask Iskender to join the expedition