Page:The Mating of the Blades.djvu/274

 too long have been torn by strife and turmoil and”—he said it quite naïvely—“the plundering of the caravans. Say the word, and I myself shall see to it that the armed men under my command join thy service. As to Higgins saheb and the other saheb, the easiest way would be to kill them. For a dead horse does not eat grass, and a dead saheb does not ask for 'concessions.'”

“What about Abderrahman Yahiah Khan?” demanded Hector, with a twinkle in his eye.

“He is a scoundrel,” said the Arab. “He is in league with Musboot, the lord of lies and fleas. It is he who led me astray from the right path—the path of virtue—I swear it by my mother's honor! He is …”

Quite suddenly, he was silent. His jaws dropped, and, perhaps for the first time in his life, he blushed.

For there in the crowd stood Abderrahman Yahiah Khan, a smile curling his thin lips—a smile that presently changed into a laugh.

The Arab, too, laughed.

“Ho, brother!” he shouted. “Ho, soul of my soul!”—and, without any more ado, they fell in each other's arms.

It was Babu Chandra who, talking to Gulabian that night, put it all in a nutshell.

“If the man be ugly,” he said, “what can the mirror do? If a man be a liar, how can we expect truth from him? But even an ugly man has his uses. Even a liar has his uses. I myself,” he added, unblushingly, “have been known to lie at times.”