"I am hardly ever lost," Colonel Glinka said, and, eying the young female, added, "Tell me, what is the name of that rather tasteless game that you are playing?" "No game, Effendi," the brown young man said. "That one chases me every time I go outside. They are worse than Tuaregs, these people." "Are you not a native, then?" "I?" The young man placed a hand of scorn upon his breast. "Hadji Abdul Hakkim ben Salazar? I am Saudi, and a Hadj besides. Say, Joe, have you got an American cigarette?" "A great deal better than that," Colonel Glinka said, proffering an ornate golden cigarette case. "Try one of these, my boy." Abdul Hakkim ben Salazar took two, sniffing them suspiciously. "They are very brown," he said. Less critically, Colonel Glinka lighted one for himself. "You know," he said, "I was rather hoping that you might direct me to the house of a very old friend of mine." "What handle?" "I cannot tell you what name he is presently affecting, but he is a small, crooked man with a heavy black beard--or, at any rate, he once had such a beard. I know that he is somewhere on this island; therefore it will be useless for you to lie to me." "Ah, that is the Sidi Doctor Stephens," Abdul said, puffing not too happily upon his cigarette. "His is the only house upon this island; also, I am his flunky and so I ought to know." "'Stephens' will do," said Colonel Glinka, thwacking him smartly with the Malacca cane. "Lead on. And you may dispense with the gutter American dialect. I am not American, and besides I speak Arabic fluently." "But I not so well," Abdul said, "for I was raised in the Kuwait oil-fields." "By whom? A camel breeder?" "Socony Vacuum," Abdul said. They toiled up the face of the cliff. At once, half a dozen of the white-robed gallery fell in behind them. When Colonel Glinka stopped and looked back, they stopped. When he continued upon his way, they continued. "Have they no homes to which to go?" he complained. "Have they nothing to do?" "They are a very backward people, who live in the open," Abdul said. "They do not work." "How, then, do the wretches live? Wall Street charity, I presume." "Oh, no, when they are not able to forage, the Sidi Doctor Stephens feeds them." "The reactionary old fool! But you may be sure that they knew how to work in the old days, before he came." "I do not think so." "And why, in your ageless wisdom, not?" "Because the Sidi Doctor made them," Abdul Hakkim ben Salazar said. * * * * * Colonel Glinka did not reply, for they had reached the summit of the path by this time and were looking down upon a small, white villa that nestled in a green microcosm between the naked chines of the dark, interior hills. A miniature Eden indeed, thought Colonel Glinka, of figs and cinnamons, of date palms and patchouli, all enclosed within a high wire fence.