When there is mischief to be done, it is seldom that tools are wanting for the accomplishment of it, and when Azim Bey had been thinking of M. Karalampi for some days as a possible helper, he suddenly found himself face to face with him. It was in the early morning, when the boy had gone to pay his usual visit to his father as he dressed. Important despatches had just arrived, however, and the Pasha must not be disturbed in the perusal of them. In a very bad temper, Azim Bey settled himself in the anteroom, where visitors were wont to wait for audience of his Excellency. Only one other person occupied the room at present, and this was M. Karalampi, who saluted Azim Bey respectfully, and then retired to the farthest corner, to intimate that he had no desire to force himself upon him after the rebuff he had received more than a year ago. From his distant seat, however, he watched the boy’s face narrowly, and read the varying thoughts which passed through his mind. Pride and eagerness were contending for the mastery, and M. Karalampi watched for the right moment at which to intervene. He had not heard any of the circumstances, but hastily coupling with the deductions he drew from Azim Bey’s perturbed face, Charlie’s often-repeated intention of returning before Christmas (for he was well up in the gossip of the various consulates), he formed a working hypothesis, and proceeded to put it to the test. Approaching the divan on which Azim Bey was seated, he asked casually after the health of Mademoiselle Antaza, “_cette dame si aimable et si savante_,” to whom the Bey was so deeply attached. If Azim Bey had known that to the list of his employers M. Karalampi had lately added the name of the Um-ul-Pasha, he might have been suspicious, but he was so much relieved to find the conversation brought without his assistance to the very subject he wished to reach, that he answered politely at once that mademoiselle enjoyed the best of health. “But the Bey Effendi will soon lose mademoiselle; is it not so?” was M. Karalampi’s next question. “What do you mean, monsieur?” asked the boy, startled. M. Karalampi shrugged his shoulders. “All the world says that she will marry at Christmas the surgeon of the English Consulate,” he said. “But she shall not,” cried Azim Bey. “Listen, monsieur; I need your help. He must be delayed in returning. He is not to be killed, nor hurt, because he saved mademoiselle and me in the riot, but simply kept back. Manage this, and I am your friend for life.” To recover his old position in the Bey’s confidence was M. Karalampi’s great object at this time, and he was also not averse to doing a bad turn to Cecil, but he looked serious and reflective. “Do I understand you, Bey Effendi?” he asked. “There are to be difficulties among the tribes, you say, and Dr Egerton is to be detained for the sake of his own personal safety, while he is still at some distance from Baghdad?”