lips of Nahoum, Oriental of Orientals, Christian though he was also!

"I think, perhaps, you'll get over it, pasha. Man is born to trouble,
and you've got a lot of courage. I guess you could see other people bear
a pile of suffering, and never flinch."

Nahoum appeared not to notice the gibe. "It is a land of suffering,
effendi," he sighed, "and one sees what one sees."

"Have you any idea, any real sensible idea, how those cotton-mills got
afire?" Lacey's eyes were fixed on Nahoum's face.

The other met his gaze calmly. "Who can tell! An accident, perhaps,
or--"

"Or some one set the mills on fire in several places at once--they say
the buildings flamed out in every corner; and it was the only time in a
month they hadn't been running night and day. Funny, isn't it?"

"It looks like the work of an enemy, effendi." Nahoum shook his head
gravely. "A fortune destroyed in an hour, as it were. But we shall get
the dog. We shall find him. There is no hole deep enough to hide him
from us."

"Well, I wouldn't go looking in holes for him, pasha.

"He isn't any cave-dweller, that incendiary; he's an artist--no palace is
too unlikely for him. No, I wouldn't go poking in mud-huts to find him."

"Thou dost not think that Higli Pasha--" Nahoum seemed startled out of