The consul shook his head.

"Never saw or heard of any of them."

We were sitting in full view of the roadstead where Anthony and
Cleopatra's ships had moored a hundred times. The consul's garden
sloped in front of us, and most of the flowers that Europe reckons
rare were getting ready to bloom.

"Would you know the man if you saw him again, Will?" I asked.

"Sure I would!"

"Then look!"

I pointed, and seeing himself observed a man stepped out of the shadow
of some oleanders. There was something suggestive in his choice
of lurking place, for every part of the oleander plant is dangerously
poisonous; it was as if he had hidden himself among the hairs of death.

"Him, sure enough!" said Will.

The man came forward uninvited.

"How did you get into the grounds?" the consul demanded, and the
man laughed, laying an unafraid hand on the veranda rail.

"My teskere is a better than the Turks give!" he answered in English.
(A teskere is the official permit to travel into the interior.)