Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Christoph W. Kluge, Rod Crawford, Dave Morgan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Obvious mis-spellings and printing errors have been corrected; a list is included at the end of this e-book.
Missing periods at paragraph-end have silently been supplied. Inconsistencies in hyphenation and accentuation have been retained.
The romanization of Arabic is the author's.
[Illustration: "She stood there ... her slim body swaying in a perfect rapture of admiration for her own beauty."]
_Printed in the United States of America_
I. THE YASHMAK OF PEARLS 1 II. THE DEATH-RING OF SNEFERU 31 III. THE LADY OF THE LATTICE 58 IV. OMAR OF ISPAHÂN 87 V. BREATH OF ALLAH 114 VI. THE WHISPERING MUMMY 144
I. LORD OF THE JACKALS 169 II. LURE OF SOULS 194 III. THE SECRET OF ISMAIL 216 IV. HARÛN PASHA 239 V. IN THE VALLEY OF THE SORCERESS 267 VI. POMEGRANATE FLOWER 290
The _duhr_, or noonday call to prayer, had just sounded from the minarets of the Mosques of Kalaûn and En-Nasîr, and I was idly noting the negligible effect of the _adan_ upon the occupants of the neighboring shops--coppersmiths for the most part--when suddenly my errant attention became arrested.
A mendicant of unwholesome aspect crouched in the shadow of the narrow gateway at the entrance to the Sûk es-Saîgh, or gold and silver bazaar, having his one serviceable eye fixed in a malevolent stare upon something or someone immediately behind me.
It is part and parcel of my difficult profession to subdue all impulses and to think before acting. I sipped my coffee and selected a fresh cigarette from the silver box upon the rug beside me. In this interval I had decided that the one-eyed mendicant cherished in his bosom an implacable and murderous hatred for my genial friend, Ali Mohammed, the dealer in antiques; that he was unaware of my having divined his bloody secret; and that if I would profit by my accidental discovery, I must continue to feign complete ignorance of it.
Turning casually to Ali Mohammed, I was startled to observe the expression upon his usually immobile face: he was positively gray, and I thought I detected a faint rattling sound, apparently produced by his teeth; his eyes were set as if by hypnosis upon the uncleanly figure huddled in the shadow of the low gate.