"The breath of Allah is warm," answered the Arab. Dicky liked the lad's
answer. Putting a hand in his saddle-bag, he drew out a cake of dourha
bread and some onions--for he made shift to live as the people lived,
lest he should be caught unawares some time, and die of the remembrance
of too much luxury in the midst of frugal fare.
"Plenty be in your home, Mahommed!" he said, and held out the bread and
onions.
The slim hands came up at once and took the food, the eyes flashed a
strange look at Dicky. "God give you plenty upon your plenty, effendi,
and save your soul and the souls of your wife and children, if it be your
will, effendi!"
"I have no wife, praise be to God," said Dicky; "but if I had, her soul
would be saved before my own, or I'm a dervish!" Then something moved
him further, and he unbuttoned his pocket--for there really was a button
to Dicky's pocket. He drew out a five-piastre piece, and held it down to
the young Arab. "For the home-coming after Mecca," he said, and smiled.
The young Arab drew back. "I will eat thy bread, but no more, effendi,"
he said quickly.
"Then you're not what I thought you were," said Dicky under his breath,
and, with a quick good-bye, struck a heel into the horse's side and
galloped away toward El Medineh.
In El Medineh Dicky went about his business--a bitter business it was, as
all Egypt came to know. For four days he pursued it, without halting and
in some danger, for, disguise himself as he would in his frequenting of
the cafes, his Arabic was not yet wholly perfect. Sometimes he went
about in European dress, and that was equally dangerous, for in those
days the Fayoum was a nest of brigandage and murder, and an European--an
infidel dog--was fair game.
But Dicky had two friends--the village barber, and the moghassil of the
dead, or body-washer, who were in his pay; and for the moment they were
loyal to him. For his purpose, too, they were the most useful of
mercenaries: for the duties of a barber are those of a valet-de-chambre,
a doctor, registrar and sanitary officer combined; and his coadjutor in
information and gossip was the moghassil, who sits and waits for some one
to die, as a raven on a housetop waits for carrion. Dicky was patient,
but as the days went by and nothing came of all his searching, his lips
tightened and his eyes became more restless. One day, as he sat in his
doorway twisting and turning things in his mind, with an ugly knot in his
temper, the barber came to him quickly.
"Saadat el basha, I have found the Englishwoman, by the mercy of Allah!"
Dicky looked at Achmed Hariri for a moment without stirring or speaking;
his lips relaxed, his eyes softening with satisfaction.
"She is living?"
"But living, saadat el basha."