“‘Why do you ask?’ he said, sharply.

“‘Because I do not understand,’ I replied.

“The man looked me over again.  There was no mistake in my dress, and with my black beard and eyes I could well pass for an Arab.  It seemed that he was content, for he continued:  ’How should I know what the word means?  I have heard a story, but whether it is true or not, who shall say?’”

Hatch paused for a moment and lighted his cigar again.

“Well, the account which he gave me was this.  Among the pilgrims who come up to Mecca, there are at times Hottentots from South Africa who speak no language intelligible to anyone in Mecca; but they speak English, and it is for their benefit that the sign was hung up.”

“What a strange thing!” said Shere Ali.

“The explanation,” continued Hatch, “is not very important to my story, but what followed upon it is; for the very next day, as I was walking alone, I heard a voice in my ear, whispering:  ’The Englishwoman would like to see you this evening at five.’  I turned round in amazement, and there stood the shopkeeper of whom I had made the inquiries.  I thought, of course, that he was laying a trap for me.  But he repeated his statement, and, telling me that he would wait for me on this spot at ten minutes to five, he walked away.

“I did not know what to do.  One moment I feared treachery and proposed to stay away, the next I was curious and proposed to go.  How in the world could there be an Englishwoman in Mecca—­above all, an Englishwoman who was in a position to ask me to tea?  Curiosity conquered in the end.  I tucked a loaded revolver into my waist underneath my jellaba and kept the appointment.”

“Go on,” said Shere Ali, who was leaning forward with a great perplexity upon his face.

“The shopkeeper was already there.  ‘Follow me,’ he said, ’but not too closely.’  We passed in that way through two or three streets, and then my guide turned into a dead alley closed in at the end by a house.  In the wall of the house there was a door.  My guide looked cautiously round, but there was no one to oversee us.  He rapped gently with his knuckles on the door, and immediately the door was opened.  He beckoned to me, and went quickly in.  I followed him no less quickly.  At once the door was shut behind me, and I found myself in darkness.  For a moment I was sure that I had fallen into a trap, but my guide laid a hand upon my arm and led me forward.  I was brought into a small, bare room, where a woman sat upon cushions.  She was dressed in white like a Mohammedan woman of the East, and over her face she wore a veil.  But a sort of shrivelled aspect which she had told me that she was very old.  She dismissed the guide who had brought me to her, and as soon as we were alone she said: 

“‘You are English.’

“And she spoke in English, though with a certain rustiness of speech, as though that language had been long unfamiliar to her tongue.