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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.”

Dicky started to his feet. “At the mudirieh?”

“At the house of Azra, the seller of sherbet, saadat el basha.”

“When did she leave the mudirieh?”

“A week past, effendi.”

“Why did she leave?”

“None knows save the sister of Azra, who is in the harem. The Englishwoman was kind to her when she was ill, and she gave her aid.”

“The Mudir has not tried to find her?”

“Will the robber make a noise if the horse he has stolen breaks free, effendi?”

“Why has she not flown the place?”

“Effendi, can the broken-winged bird fly!”

“She is ill?” He caught the barber by the arm.

“As a gazelle with an arrow in its breast.”

Dicky’s small hand tightened like a vice on the barber’s thin arm. “And he who sped the arrow, Achmed Hariri?”

Achmed Hariri was silent.

“Shall he not die the death?”

Achmed Hariri shrank back.

Dicky drew from his pocket a paper with seals, and held it up to the barber’s eyes. The barber stared, drew back, salaamed, bowed his head, and put a hand upon his turban as a slave to his master.

“Show me the way, Mahommed,” said Dicky, and stepped out.

Two hours later Dicky, with pale face, and fingers clutching his heavy riding-whip fiercely, came quickly towards the bridge where he must cross to go to the mudirieh. Suddenly he heard an uproar, and saw men hurrying on in front of him. He quickened his footsteps, and presently came to a house on which had been freshly painted those rough, staring pictures of “accidents by flood and field,” which Mecca pilgrims paint on their houses like hatchments, on their safe return–proclamation of their prestige.

Presently he saw in the grasp of an infuriated crowd the Arab youth he had met in the desert, near the Pyramid of Maydoum. Execrations, murderous cries arose from the mob. The youth’s face was deathly pale, but it had no fear. Upon the outskirts of the crowd hung women, their robes drawn half over their faces, crying out for the young man’s death. Dicky asked the ghaflir standing by what the youth had done.

“It is no youth, but a woman,” he answered–“the latest wife of the Mudir. In a man’s clothes–“

He paused, for the head sheikh of El Medineh, with two Ulema, entered the throng. The crowd fell back. Presently the Sheikh-el-beled mounted the mastaba by the house, the holy men beside him, and pointing to the Arab youth, spoke loudly: