“What means this?” cried Asru, the captain of the guard.

“Treachery, if it please you,” returned the keeper.  “An asp which has been in our camp with its poison-fangs hid!  No Moslem, but an enemy—­a friend of this dotard poet!”

“Search him!” was the order.

The tools were found.

“Aha!” said the captain.  “Most conclusive proof, wretch!  We will teach you, knave, that foxes are sometimes trapped in their own wiles.  Off with him!  Chain him!”

Amzi was hurried off, and Asru strode away to execute some other act of so-called justice.  He was a man of immense stature, heavy-featured, and covered with pock-marks, yet his face was full of strength of character, and bore traces of candor and honesty, though the lines about the mouth told of unrestrained cruelty and passion.

At home Yusuf waited in an agony of suspense.  The day passed into night, the night into day, the day into night again, yet Amzi did not come.  Yusuf could bear it no longer.  Anything was better than this awful waiting.  Only once he almost gave up hope and cried in the words of the Psalmist, “O Lord, why castest thou off my soul?  Why hidest thou thy face from me?” Then like balm of healing came the words, “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he will sustain thee; he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.”

Dressed in his quiet, scholarly raiment, and quite unarmed, he set out in search of Amzi.  Arriving at the place, he saw none whom he knew.  He was stopped at the door.

“I wish to see the captain who has command here,” he said.

“You are a peaceable-looking citizen enough,” said a guard, “yet we have orders to search all new-comers, and you will have to submit, stranger.”

Yusuf was searched, but as neither arms nor tools were found upon him, he was allowed to have audience with the captain.

“Ah!” said Asru, recognizing him at once.  “What seeks Yusuf, a Christian, of a follower of Mohammed the prophet?”

“I seek but the deliverance of two harmless, inoffensive friends,” he replied.

“A bold request, truly,” said the other.  “Yet have I not forgotten my debt of gratitude to you.  I have not forgotten that it was Yusuf who nursed me through the foul disease whose marks I yet bear, when all others fled;” and he passed his hand over his pock-marked face.

“Of that speak not,” returned Yusuf, with a gesture of impatience.  “’Twas but the service which any man with a heart may render to a needy brother.  However, if you are grateful, as you say, you can more than repay the debt, you can make me indebted to you, by telling me aught of Amzi, the benevolent Meccan, whose hand would not take the life of a worm were he not forced into it.”

“He is here in chains,” said Asru haughtily, “as every spy who enters a Moslem camp should be.”

“Amzi is no spy!” declared Yusuf emphatically.

“His sole object, then, was to free that half-witted poet?” asked Asru, incredulously.