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“Koom Khan,” he said, “I do not love the sahebs any more than thou. Yet am I a reasonable man, washed in thirty-seven buckets of patient wisdom. Tell me,” he went on, dreamily, “if a scorpion could spin a silk cocoon, would I crush it under foot—or would I feed it choice mulberry leaves?”

“But”—came the counter question, “suppose the scorpion weaves a silken net with which to strangle—thee?”

The governor shook his head.

“No, no,” he said. “The saheb intends no treachery. He is my ally. He needs my armed men, my knowledge of the land, as I need his wisdom in war, and the other saheb's money-bags. We made a bargain.”

“And yet,” Koom Khan breathed, softly, “I have heard in the bazaars that the young saheb dreams of mating with the princess Aziza Nurmahal.”

Abderrahman Yahiah Khan looked puzzled.

“Why—of course!” he rejoined. “Such is the understanding. The saheb is the 'Expected One'!”

“Is he?”

Koom Khan laughed long and riotously, his whole body shaken jerkily by the panting, gurgling catches of his breath.

But it was not a merry laughter—bitter it was, grim, sardonic. And grim, too, was his exclamation, as he rose and stretched his stout arms to heaven:

“By the teeth of God—I was a fool, then, to leave the silken security of Tamerlanistan, to brave the dangers of the open road with my women and servants