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Rh inquire whether he cannot have made away with it for some other reason."

"It is hard to imagine any other reason."

"Very, for in fact I can think of only one. Baraka may have suspected that an attempt to steal the stone was planned by one of his attendants. He would very likely, in that case, take summary vengeance upon the unfaithful one after the oriental custom. He would, I feel sure, at once shoot the man he had reason to suspect. Let us imagine, in that case, Baraka's position. He is in a strange land and unacquainted with its laws. At the same time he cannot help but know that an execution of that sort would not pass unchallenged in this country. He must have known that he himself would be arrested and obliged to account for his act. Necessarily his arrest would separate him