Page:Treasure of the mosque.djvu/10

142 For an instant a head was laid on his shoulder, and “Ahi!” a little sigh escaped into the darkness. When the head was withdrawn, he felt some kind of metal bowl thrust into his hand. Again came the warning, “Hush!” Before he could ﬁnd the heart or words to dispel so captivating a situation by the evident truth that there had been a mistake, he was drawn backward a few paces, a door was opened, and he was thrust gently into the starlit outer world which was as the greater darkness. He heard the door closed behind him, and found himself in a narrow lane which led past the garden wall to the street in which he resided. He turned and stared at the closed door as if it had shut him out from a realm of delight instead of manifold danger.

“Well, if this isn’t a page out of the Arabian Nights!” he ejaculated, “then I’m not a citizen of Detroit trying to get the best of that old sinner, Dunkar Rao.”

He was about to direct his attention to the bowl, when two ﬁgures darted from the mosque buildings a hundred feet down the lane. A third ﬁgure came out of concealment and promptly gave chase. Lambert, feeling that it was no affair of his, stepped back into the shadow of the doorway. As the three men swept past, the muttered curses of the one in the rear with something that gleamed in his hand, suggested Firoz Khan hot on the war-path. The three quickly disappeared, and then as the way seemed clear Lambert made haste to reach the security of his room. Providentially he was not intercepted, the door of the house was unbolted, and he was soon beyond his own threshold. A few moments later found him standing over a small table, and by the dim light of a lamp regarding the contents of the metal bowl with overwhelming amazement.