I obeyed, and an excited throng burst in, headed by M. Balabas and Inspector Carlisle, the latter looking very pale and haggard! "Where is the man posing as Chundermeyer?" began the detective hoarsely. "By sheer sleight-of-hand, and under ye're very noses"--excitement rendered him weirdly Caledonian--"he has robbed ye! I cabled Madras to-day, and the real Chundermeyer arrived at Amsterdam last Friday! As I returned with the reply cable in my pocket to-night I became so dizzy I was only just able to get to my room. He'd doctored every smoke in my case! Where is he?" "I assisted him to escape, disguised as a woman, some ten minutes ago," I replied feebly. "I should be sincerely indebted to you if you would kick me." "Escaped!" roared Inspector Carlisle. "Then what are ye doing here? Pursue him, somebody! Are ye all mad?" "We should be," said Abû Tabâh, "to attempt pursuit. As well pursue the shadow of a cloud, the first spear of sunrise, or the phantom heifer of Pepi-Ankh, as pursue Omar of Ispahân! He is gone--but empty-handed. Behold what I recovered from 'Mr. Chundermeyer's' room." From beneath his black _gibbeh_ he took out a leather bag, opened it, and displayed to our startled eyes the tiara of Mrs. Van Heysten, the rope of pearls, and--my Hatshepsu scarab! Ere anyone could utter a word, Abû Tabâh inclined his head in dignified salutation, turned, and walked stately from the room. V BREATH OF ALLAH I For close upon a week I had been haunting the purlieus of the Mûski, attired as a respectable dragoman, my face and hands reduced to a deeper shade of brown by means of a water-color paint (I had to use something that could be washed off and grease-paint is useless for purposes of actual disguise) and a neat black moustache fixed to my lip with spirit-gum. In his story _Beyond the Pale_, Rudyard Kipling has trounced the man who inquires too deeply into native life; but if everybody thought with Kipling we should never have had a Lane or a Burton and I should have continued in unbroken scepticism regarding the reality of magic. Whereas, because of the matters which I am about to set forth, for ten minutes of my life I found myself a trembling slave of the unknown.