As for understanding he was stunned and dazed. A sheik's daughter! And the father himself claiming her--under the direction of a blond-mustached man.... And a stolen horse.... Jack conceding the horse.... Jack utterly upset at the search party.... But he himself had seen that new-placed shaft with its inscription to Aimée Marie Dejane.... What then in the name of wonders did this mean? There couldn't be _another_ girl? McLean's imagination faltered then dashed on at a gallop. Some--some hand-maiden, perhaps, whom Jack had rescued in mistaken chivalry? Perhaps the French girl has sent a maid on ahead? McLean's head was whirling now. One thing appeared quite as possible as another. Pasha's daughters and sheik's daughters, stolen horses and Djinns and Afrits and palaces and masquerades at wedding receptions appeared upon the same plane of feasibility. Outwardly he was extremely calm. Calm and cold and crisp. At the mouth of the tomb he detained the party of native policemen with their hangers-on of curious natives and examined, with great show of circumspection and authority, the perfectly regular search warrants which had been issued for them at the instigation of an apparently bereft parent. He conversed with the alleged parent, a stolid, taciturn native dignitary whose accusations were confirmed by eagerly assenting followers. He lived in a small village, not far north of the camp. He had a young daughter, very beautiful. Three nights ago he had surprised her with this young American and they had fled upon his noblest horse. It was a simple and direct story. And Jack--by his own report--had been out upon the desert that night, had appeared, upon the next night, with this unknown and beautiful horse, and had since kept to the tomb, claiming illness, in a most persistent way. The camp boys had testified that he had been vividly critical of the food sent in to him, and that he had required extraordinary amounts of heated water. "All of which," McLean said sternly, in the vernacular, "amounts to nothing--unless you can discover the girl." "And that, monsieur," said a Turk in the uniform of the Sultan's guards, appearing beside the desert sheik, "that is exactly what we are here to do." McLean found himself looking into a thin, menacing face, capped with a red fez, a face deeply lined, marked by light, arrogant eyes and embellished with a huge, blond mustache. "And your interest in this, monsieur?" he questioned. "I am a friend of Sheik Hassan's," said the Turk loftily. "I shall see that my friend obtains his rights." And in McLean's other ear a distraught Thatcher was murmuring "That officer chap is Hamdi Bey--a General of the Guards. You know, Mr. McLean, this really is--you know, it is--" Hamdi Bey ... Hamdi Bey, two days after his distressing loss, befriending this sheik and trying to involve Jack Ryder in disgrace.