"I tell you," said he, "from the beginning. Bentham--that is what M. Warriner calls himself now, Bentham--Jeremy Bentham he calls himself, because he says he's such an economist--well, he and I are partners in a little business, and we have prospered. So when Bentham came back from Bemin Sooar to Tangier a week ago, I give a dinner in my house to a few friends and we dance afterwards. Perhaps ten or eleven of us and Bentham. Bentham he came and danced and he was the last to go away. He did not stay in my house--it was better for our little business that we should not be thought more than mere friends. He had a lodging in the town, while my house was outside up the hill. He rode away alone on a mule, for he was in evening dress and one cannot walk across the Sôk in dancing shoes, and he never reached his lodging. He disappeared. I heard no word of him, until yesterday; yesterday about mid-day, an Arab brought that scrap of paper to my shop." "But the Arab told you how and where he got it?" said Miranda. "Yes. He belonged to a douar, a tent village, you understand. The village is three days from Tangier on the road to Mequinez. The Arab was leading down his goats to the water a week ago, in the morning, when six men passed him at a distance. They were going up into the country; they had a mule with them. He watched them pass and noticed that one of them would now and then loiter and fall a little behind, whereupon the rest beat him with sticks and drove him again in front. And he did not resist, Madame, I am afraid we know why he did not resist." Miranda pressed her hands to her forehead. "Well," she said with an effort, and her voice had sunk to a whisper, "finish, finish!" "It seemed to the Arab," continued Fournier, whose anxiety seemed in some measure to diminish, and whose face grew hopeful as he watched Miranda's increasing distress, "that this victim made a sign to him, and when the party had gone by he noticed something white gleaming on the brown soil in the line of their march. He went forward and picked it up. It was this piece of paper. He read the writing on it, these marks." M. Fournier turned over the sheet, and pointed to the indecipherable Arabic. "They mean, 'Take this to Fournier at Tangier and you will get money.' He opened it, he could not read the inside, but seeing that it was written in one of the languages of the Nazarenes, he thought there might be some truth in the promise. So he brought the paper to Tangier yesterday and I have brought it to you." M. Fournier settled his glasses upon his nose and leaned forward for his answer. Miranda sat with knitted brows, gazing out to the dark mountains. Fournier would not interrupt her; he fancied she was searching her wits for a device to bring help to Warriner; but, indeed, she was not thinking at all.