Page:Weird Tales volume 32 number 01.djvu/110

 gets the daylights hammered out of her; my fault, and yours."

"Come now, try and act naturally," mocked Revell, who had mastered his amazement at my outburst. "I return that rug? Absurd. Really preposterous. Why, as I said, I'd have committed"

And then Revell stared as I leaped to the arm of a davenport, reached up, and yanked Saladin's throne-rug from its place on the wall.

"Wait a minute. This is getting a bit thick. I say"

By this time I was seeing red and also other colors.

"One more word out of you and I'll knock your head off! I'm taking this rug back to its owner. Get me?"

Revell is far from yellow. But somehow, I convinced him. The last glimpse I had of him, he was the color of an old saddle, and choking for breath.

"Really now, but this is a bit thick," he contrived, as I slammed the door. I missed the rest, but I am sure that for the next fifteen minutes it was a bit thick in the Revell apartment.

Throne-rug trailing over my shoulder, I hopped a taxi and proceeded to bin Ayyub's house.

himself admitted me. I recognized him simply because no mask could disguise those lean, aquiline features; but this which faced me was but a simulacrum of the vital personality I had met two weeks ago. His face was unshaven; his eyes were cavernous and dull, lifeless; gone was all save the shell of Saladin's descendant. The change was so startling, so dismaying, that for the moment I forgot the throne-rug I carried, rolled up under my arm.

In view of the denunciation and wrath I expected, accusations of having played a part in the trickery of Revell, this listlessness of bin Ayyub left me dazed and wondering.

"I am glad to see you, effendi," he murmured, as he conducted me into the salon. He had not offered to take my hat and coat; had not noticed the bundle I carried.

"The throne-rug," I began, offering him the precious roll. "I regret"

"Spare your regrets. It was my fault. I should have told Djénane Hanoum of its value."

He took the rug with a listlessness that amazed me, and, moving as one suddenly aroused from sound sleep, spread it across a couch.

"I feared"

"That I suspected you?" interrupted bin Ayyub. "No. I knew you were not guilty. You know who is guilty; but since he must be one who has eaten your bread and salt, I can not ask you to betray him."

Bin Ayyub seemed to forget that I was not bound by the Moslem's belief in the sanctity of bread and salt. But now that I had returned the rug, why bother about the trickster, Revell?

"Nor have I time to hunt him," continued bin Ayyub. "I have been waiting for you to return Saladin's throne-rug. And now that that is done, I have little time for hunting him."

"But now there's no need of hunting him," I suggested. "You have your rug."

Which I fancied was a sensible answer. But the look that flitted across bin Ayyub's face and took form in his eyes told me that my remark had been the thrust of incandescent iron.

Bin Ayyub rose. I wondered if this was to terminate the interview. It seemed that he might at least have thanked me, despite my having been the cause of his annoyance.

"I have dismissed Saoud for the day.