It was then about nine-thirty. The inharmonious trio moved on into the throng of guests and, as the time passed, gradually worked their way around toward the stairway leading down to the street. A few minutes before ten I descended into the street to wait for them, so it could not be seen from the hotel that I was following them. Promptly on the hour Ialla and her attendants came down the steps and set off toward Old Cairo, which, however much it may have been spoiled since, was then just the same as when Haroun-al-Raschid used to take his midnight rambles. At the corner of the hotel two men dressed as servants stepped out of a shadow and fell in close behind them, apparently to prevent me from engaging them in conversation, which, but for this barrier, I assuredly would have done. With all amorous advances thus discouraged I remained far enough behind so that it would not appear that I was one of the party. They led me almost the full length of the Mooshka, the main street of the old town and the only one wide enough to permit the passing of two carriages; turned into one of the narrow side streets, then into another and another until they stopped at last in front of a door at the side of one of the little shops. When I was within perhaps fifty feet of them Ialla entered the door, after looking back at me, while her four companions walked rapidly on down the street. I pushed open the door, which was immediately closed by a servant who dropped a bar across it, and found Ialla waiting for me in a dimly lighted hallway. She led me nearly to the end of the long hall, opened a door and motioned to me to enter and closed the door from the outside. I found myself in a large room, which, after my eyes had become accustomed to the half light, I saw was magnificently furnished. A fine-looking old Arab, with gray hair and beard, was seated on an ottoman, smoking a bubble pipe. His bearing was majestic and for the purpose of easy identification he will be known here as Regal, though that was not his name. “I am glad to see you, Pasha Boynton,” was his greeting, in a deep, strong voice. He proved himself a man of action, and advanced himself greatly in my esteem by giving no time to idle chatter. “We know you well,” he said, “through trustworthy information, as a soldier and a sailor, and we believe you are peculiarly well equipped for the work we wish you to undertake. It is a sea-going expedition, involving danger of disaster on one hand and the cause of liberty and a substantial reward on the other. Are you willing to attempt it?” “If you are open to reasonable terms and I am given full command of the expedition, I will gladly undertake it,” I replied. “If it furnishes real adventure I will be quite willing to accept that in part payment for my services.”