I re-entered the doorway conscious of a sudden mental excitement; for an explanation of the anonymous letter had just presented itself to my mind. The owner of the neighboring house must have detected my rendezvous with his lady-love, have investigated the contents of the cases, and denounced me from motives of revenge! That the villainous Joseph Malaglou had been in the habit of smuggling _hashish_ into Egypt in my cases of "cutlery" was evident enough and accounted for his reluctance to fall in with the new arrangement; but my bemused brain utterly failed to grapple with the problem of why, knowing their damning contents, he had permitted these ten cases to be delivered at _my_ address. Moreover, how my worthy neighbor--who had evidently abducted Mizmûna from the old man of the scimitar--had learned my real name was another mystery which I found no leisure to examine. For I had but just set foot again within the ill-omened place when there came a patter of swift, light footsteps--and out from behind the fatal stack of boxes ran Mizmûna, and threw herself into my arms! "Oh, my friend, my protector!" she cried distractedly, "what shall I do? Yûssuf has discovered our plot! Fatimah, that mother of calamities, has betrayed me, and I dare not return! I am an outcast; for although I was stolen from the Sheikh Ismail without my consent, how can I hope for his forgiveness?" Such a flood of sorrows and confidences overwhelmed me, and I placed a silent but deathless curse upon the lapis armlet which had brought me to this pass. Mizmûna sobbed upon my shoulder. "Yûssuf has planned your ruin as well as mine," she said brokenly. "For it was he who denounced you to the Magician." (As "the Magician" Abû Tabâh was known and feared throughout Lower Egypt.) "Oh that I might return to the house of Ismail where I lived in luxury in a marble pavilion, guarded by Hanna and a hundred negroes, where I possessed the robes of a princess and was laden with costly jewels!" So very human and natural an ambition met with my hearty approval, and, upon consideration of the word-picture of his domestic state, the old man of the scimitar rose immensely in my esteem. How my malevolent neighbor had succeeded in abducting Mizmûna from such a fortress I failed to imagine. But I began to see my way more clearly and hope was reborn in my bosom. "Fear nothing, child," I said to the weeping girl. "You shall return to your marble pavilion and to the care of that worthy, if somewhat hasty man, from whose arms you were torn. And now inform me--where is Yûssuf?" Mizmûna raised her face and looked up at me, her long lashes wet with tears, but the slow, childish smile of the Eastern woman already curving her red lips. "He is in his own room destroying papers," she said. "Who told you this?" "Ali, the _bowwab_, who is faithful to me--and who hates Fatimah." "Is the trap rebolted?" "I know not."