Page:The Mating of the Blades.djvu/127

 he felt that it was this door which stood between life as he had known it heretofore and the life of the future—whatever the future might bring.

Should he take the—yes—the plunge. For it was that.

Again he hesitated. Then, suddenly, a wisp of laughter drifted out of the nowhere, a woman's laughter, soft, tinkling, silvery, and he took a deep breath like a man about to dive, and lifted the door knocker—brought it down sharply—banng!—with a dull, portentous thud; and, a few moments later, from the inside, came the brushing of feet, a cough, and the door opened to disclose a tall, elderly Hindu who was holding in his right hand a flickering oil lamp and who surveyed the late visitor with suspicion.

“What do you wish?” he asked, and Hector thought it typical of the neighborhood, the Colootallah, that the man did not use the courteous “saheb.”

“I wish to speak to Mehmet Iddrissy Khan.”

“About what?”

Hector flared up.

“None of your confounded business,” he cried; then, as the other was about to close the door, he stopped him with a gesture, laughed, drew the blade from his pocket and gave it, hilt foremost, to the other.

“Show this to your master,” he said. “Tell him it is all the credentials I have.”

“Very well;” and the Hindu shut the door in Hector's face.

Hector waited. Afterwards he used to say that, had it not been for the fact that the other had taken