Dicky looked at Achmed Hariri for a moment without stirring or speaking; his lips relaxed, his eyes softening with satisfaction. "She is living?" "But living, saadat el basha." Dicky started to his feet. "At the mudirieh?" "At the house of Azra, the seller of sherbet, saadat el basha." "When did she leave the mudirieh?" "A week past, effendi." "Why did she leave?" "None knows save the sister of Azra, who is in the harem. The Englishwoman was kind to her when she was ill, and she gave her aid." "The Mudir has not tried to find her?" "Will the robber make a noise if the horse he has stolen breaks free, effendi?" "Why has she not flown the place?" "Effendi, can the broken-winged bird fly!" "She is ill?" He caught the barber by the arm. "As a gazelle with an arrow in its breast." Dicky's small hand tightened like a vice on the barber's thin arm. "And he who sped the arrow, Achmed Hariri?" Achmed Hariri was silent. "Shall he not die the death?" Achmed Hariri shrank back. Dicky drew from his pocket a paper with seals, and held it up to the barber's eyes. The barber stared, drew back, salaamed, bowed his head, and put a hand upon his turban as a slave to his master. "Show me the way, Mahommed," said Dicky, and stepped out. Two hours later Dicky, with pale face, and fingers clutching his heavy riding-whip fiercely, came quickly towards the bridge where he must cross to go to the mudirieh. Suddenly he heard an uproar, and saw men hurrying on in front of him. He quickened his footsteps, and presently came to a house on which had been freshly painted those rough, staring pictures of "accidents by flood and field," which Mecca pilgrims paint on their houses like hatchments, on their safe return--proclamation of their prestige. Presently he saw in the grasp of an infuriated crowd the Arab youth he had met in the desert, near the Pyramid of Maydoum. Execrations, murderous cries arose from the mob. The youth's face was deathly pale, but it had no fear. Upon the outskirts of the crowd hung women, their robes drawn half over their faces, crying out for the young man's death. Dicky asked the ghaflir standing by what the youth had done. "It is no youth, but a woman," he answered--"the latest wife of the Mudir. In a man's clothes--" He paused, for the head sheikh of El Medineh, with two Ulema, entered the throng. The crowd fell back. Presently the Sheikh-el-beled mounted the mastaba by the house, the holy men beside him, and pointing to the Arab youth, spoke loudly: "This sister of scorpions and crocodiles has earned a thousand deaths. She was a daughter of a pasha, and was lifted high. She was made the wife of Abbas Bey, our Mudir. Like a wanton beast she cut off her hair, clothed herself as a man, journeyed to Mecca, and desecrated the tomb of Mahomet, who hath written that no woman, save her husband of his goodness bring her, shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven."