Achmed Hariri shrank back.

Dicky drew from his pocket a paper with seals, and held it up to the
barber's eyes. The barber stared, drew back, salaamed, bowed his head,
and put a hand upon his turban as a slave to his master.

"Show me the way, Mahommed," said Dicky, and stepped out.

Two hours later Dicky, with pale face, and fingers clutching his heavy
riding-whip fiercely, came quickly towards the bridge where he must cross
to go to the mudirieh. Suddenly he heard an uproar, and saw men hurrying
on in front of him. He quickened his footsteps, and presently came to a
house on which had been freshly painted those rough, staring pictures of
"accidents by flood and field," which Mecca pilgrims paint on their
houses like hatchments, on their safe return--proclamation of their
prestige.

Presently he saw in the grasp of an infuriated crowd the Arab youth he
had met in the desert, near the Pyramid of Maydoum. Execrations,
murderous cries arose from the mob. The youth's face was deathly pale,
but it had no fear. Upon the outskirts of the crowd hung women, their
robes drawn half over their faces, crying out for the young man's death.
Dicky asked the ghaflir standing by what the youth had done.

"It is no youth, but a woman," he answered--"the latest wife of the
Mudir. In a man's clothes--"

He paused, for the head sheikh of El Medineh, with two Ulema, entered the
throng. The crowd fell back. Presently the Sheikh-el-beled mounted the