"
"What do you know?" asked Mohammed, trembling slightly. "I pray you
tell me, Osman!"
"Listen, Mohammed," said Osman, bending toward him, in a low voice.
"Lamentations have just resounded from the interior of the pacha's
harem. Two of his eunuchs have received the bastinado, and do you
know why? Because they could not inform him where Mohammed Ali
passed the last and the preceding night."
"For that reason?" asked Mohammed. "I was in my house. If Cousrouf
Pacha had himself asked me, I should have told him I was there!"
Osman gently shook his head. "No, Mohammed, you were not in your
house; and Cousrouf Pacha well knows you were not. Do you know why?
He lighted a lamp to look for you."
"A lamp?" asked Mohammed.
"Yes, a lamp! And do you know what this lamp consisted of? Of the
house that stood opposite yours. They set it on fire, and knocked at
your doors and window shutters to awaken you.--And, if you had been
there, you would have heard the outcries of the people, and would
assuredly have gone to their assistance. No, Mohammed, you were not
in your house last night!"
"I was above, on the summit of the rock," said Mohammed, hastily,
and in a somewhat embarrassed manner.
"No," said Osman, gently. "You forget, Mohammed, that you came down
in the evening with the four pigeons you had shot, and you also
forget that you went on down to Praousta as it grew dark.
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