scheme to care or even think whether Joanna dropped out of sight or
not. Ali Partab watched her down the street with a face that betrayed
no emotion and no suspicion of what his thoughts might be. When she
was out of sight he went back under the arch to attend to his three
horses; and the moment that he did so a fat but very furtive Hindoo
took his place--glanced down the street once in the direction that
Rosemary had taken--and then darted up-street as fast as his shaking
paunch would let him. He had been gone at the least ten minutes, when
Joanna, also furtive, also in a hurry, dodged here and there among the
commencing surge of traffic and approached the arch again.

It would be useless to try to read her mind, or to translate the
glitter of her beady eyes into thoughts intelligible to any but an
Oriental. It was quite clear, though, that she wished not to be
noticed, that she feared the occupants of the caravansary, and that she
had returned for word with Ali Partab. He, least of all, would have
doubted her intention of demanding the two gold mohurs, for it was she
who had brought the word that Miss McClean wanted him. But what
relation that intention had to her loyalty or treachery, or whether she
were capable of either--capable of anything except greed, and
obedience for the sake of pay--were problems no man living could have
guessed.

She asked the lounging sweeper by the arch whether Ali Partab had
ridden out as yet. He jeered back outrageous improprieties, suggestive
of impossible ambition on the hag's part. She called him "sahib,"
dubbed him "father of a dozen stalwart sons," returned a few of his
immodest compliments with a flattering laugh, and learned that Ali
Partab was still busy in the caravansary. Then she proceeded to make
herself very inconspicuous beside a two-wheeled wagon, up-ended in the