My inquiries at the time, however, proved futile, and beyond the fact that the town was remarkable for a singular number of semi-wild cats, I discovered nothing to support my theory.  However, as I have already stated, a native acquaintance there, a very learned Moslem, to whom I had imparted during my residence some idea of the nature of my studies, sent me a long communication containing particulars of the event which had befallen Lady Coverly during her one-night’s sojourn in Zagazig.

Briefly, she had learned from a native attached to the one possible hotel which the town boasted, of the tradition associated with the place.  Some other member of the party (for quite a large company had been detained in Zagazig by the mishap) unwisely pointed out to her that the favored date was that upon which they had arrived in the town.

Nothing might have resulted from this; but by a strange fatality (or because of the operation of some unsuspected law understood by the ancients but misapprehended to-day) the matter was sealed in a very extraordinary fashion.

Lady Coverly’s room opened upon a balcony, and during the night one of those huge cats of the kind which I had observed myself to infest the neighborhood, gained access to this balcony.  Since the appearance of the creature produced so singular and disastrous an effect, it must certainly have been an unusually large specimen of its kind.  I may add that according to my Moslem friend—­who, although a man of great culture, was soaked in the traditions of his religion—­it was none other than a member of the ginn, an efreet or evil spirit, and not a cat of flesh and blood which appeared to Lady Coverly.  I leave each to choose his own explanation, but let it suffice that Lady Coverly was awakened some time during the night by the appearance at her bedside of this gaunt and hungry-eyed creature.  The result was an illness of a kind very dangerous to one in her delicate state of health.

Reflecting, then, upon these matters, I presently came to the official residence of Sir Burnham Coverly, and my expectations regarding the nature of the case were realized....[1]

[Footnote 1:  Part of the statement which immediately followed, being of a purely technical nature, is omitted here.]

* * * * *

My house in the narrow street so near to the Bab-es-Zuwela and the minarets of Muayyad was admirably adapted for my new purpose.  For here in the very heart of native Cairo, with my great house (which had been built, as are all Oriental houses, to guard secrets) I was as safe from unwelcome intrusion as one upon a desert island, whilst at the same time I was denied none of the conveniences and facilities of civilization.

Lady Coverly, then, never set eyes upon her firstborn, and Sir Burnham, who did, readily reconciled himself to the loss of such a daughter.  The announcement which should have appeared joyfully under the press-heading “Births” was unobtrusively inserted under “Deaths,” and Sir Burnham being fortunately far from the haunts of the social paragraph writers, this unfortunate event aroused comparatively little comment in the English journals; beyond one or two formal condolences it passed unnoticed.