The clatter of a horse’s hoofs now resounded through the still air.  A mounted officer was approaching.  Joe looked up, turned a light pea-green, backed his body into the gate with the movement of an eel, put his cheek close to the sliding panel, and whispered some words in Turkish.  The girl leaned a little forward, glanced at the officer as if in confirmation of Joseph’s warning, and smothering a low cry, sprang back from the opening.  The next instant my eye caught the thumb and forefinger of a black hand noiselessly closing the panel.  Joe straightened up, pulled himself into the position of a sentinel on guard, saluted the officer, who passed without looking to the right or left, drew a handkerchief from his pocket, and began mopping his head.

“What the devil is it all about, Joe?  Why, you look as if you had had the wind knocked out of you.”

“Oh, awful close, awful close!  I tell you—­but not here.  Come, we go ’way—­we go now—­not stay here any more.  If that officer see the lady with us the Pasha send me to black mosque for five year and you find yourself board ship on way to Tripoli.  Here come Yusuf—­damn him!  You tell him you no like view of mosque from here—­say you find another place to-morrow—­you do this quick.  Hornstog never lie.”

On my way across the Galata Bridge to my quarters in Pera that same afternoon Joe followed until Yusuf had made his kotow and we had made ours, the three ending in a triple flight of fingers—­waited until the guard was well on his way back to the Pasha’s office—­it was but a short way from the Stamboul end of the Galata—­and drawing me into one of the small cafes overlooking the waters of the Golden Horn, seated me at the far end near a window where we could talk without being overheard.  Here Joe ordered coffee and laid a package of cigarettes on the table.

“My! but that was like the razor at the throat—­ not for all the hairs on my head would I had her look out the small hole in the door when Serim come along.  Somebody must be take care of you, you Joe Hornstog, that you don’t make damn big fool of yourselluf.  Ha! but it make me creep like a spider crawl.”

I had pulled up a chair by this time and was facing him.

“Now what is it?  Who is the girl?  Who was the chap on horseback?”

“That man on the horse is Serim Pasha, chief of the palace police.  He has eyes around twice; one in the forehead, one in each ear, one in the behind of his head.  He did not see her—­if he did—­well, we would not be talk now together—­sure not after to-morrow night.”

“But what has he got to do with it?  What did you say her name was?  Yuleima?”

“Yes, Yuleima.  What has Serim to do with her?  Well, I tell you.  If she get away off go Serim’s head.  Listen!  I speak something you never hear anywhere ’cept in Turk-man’s land.  I know it all—­ everything.  I know her prince—­he knows me.  I meet him Damascus once—­he told me some things then—­the tears run his cheeks down like a baby’s when he talk—­and Serim know I know somethings!  Ah! that’s why he not believe me if he catch me talk to her.  Afterward I find more out from my friend in Yuleima’s house—­he is the gardener.  Put your head close, effendi.”