for thee. If I were to take thee, and go to thy land, but were not to
ask thy help there--if I were not to ask thee to guide me nor yet to
betray any secret--wouldst thou play the traitor to me, and deliver me
up to thy people?"

"My head is at your feet, _M'almé_. So long as you did not ask me
to do such things as would be unlawful in the eyes of Allah and the
Prophet, and seek to force me to them, this hand of mine would wither
before it would be raised against the preserver of my life! I pray
you, _M'almé_, let me go!"

"I grant it. _Ru'c'h halla!_" (Go now!) exclaimed the Master, with a
wave of the hand. Rrisa salaamed again, and, noiseless as a wraith,
departed.




CHAPTER II


"TO PARADISE--OR HELL"

For a time the Master sat in the thickening gloom, eating the dates
and _temmin_ wafers, drinking the coffee, pondering in deep silence.
When the simple meal was ended, he plucked a little sprig of leaves
from the khat plant in the bowl, and thrust them into his mouth.

This khat, gathered in the mountains back of Hodeida, on the Red Sea
not far from Bab el Mandeb, had been preserved by a process known