opened at the southeast corner of the room--where the observatory
connected with the stairway leading down to the Master's apartment on
the top floor of the building--and a vague figure of a man appeared.

The light was steadily fading, so that this man could by no means be
clearly distinguished. But one could see that he wore clothing quite
as conventional as his master's. Still, no more than the Master did he
appear one of life's commonplaces. Lean, brown, dry, with a hawk-nose
and glinting eyes, surely he had come from far, strange places.

"Rrisa!" the Master spoke sharply, flinging the man's name at him with
the exasperation of overtensed nerves.

"_M'almé?_" (Master?) replied the other.

"Bring the evening food and drink," commanded the Master, in excellent
Arabic, guttural and elusive with strange hiatuses of breath.

Rrisa withdrew, salaaming. His master turned toward the western
windows. There the white blankness of the map of Arabia seemed mocking
him. The Master's eyes grew hard; he raised his fist against the map,
and smote it hard. Then once more he fell to pacing; and as he walked
that weary space, up and down, he muttered to himself with words we
cannot understand.

After a certain time, Rrisa came silently back, sliding into the soft
dusk of that room almost like a wraith. He bore a silver tray with a
hook-nosed coffee-pot of chased metal. The cover of this coffee-pot
rose into a tall, minaret-like spike. On the tray stood also a small
cup having no handle; a dish of dates; a few wafers made of the