“I remember,” said the consul.

“Yet you don’t look quite like that man.”

“I told you you knew me.”

“Neither does to-day’s wind blow like yesterday’s!”

“What is your name?”

“Then it was Ali.”

“What is it now?”

“The name God gave me?”

“Yes.”

“God knows!”

“What do you want here?”

He spread out his arms toward us four, and grinned.

“Look—­see!  Four Eenglis sportman!  Could a man want more?”

“Your face is hauntingly familiar,” said the consul, searching old memories.

“No doubt.  Who carried your honor’s letter to Adrianople in time of war, and received a bullet, but brought the answer back?”

“What—­are you that man—­Kagig?”

Instead of replying the man opened his smock, and pulled aside an undershirt until his hairy left breast lay bare down to where the nipple should have been.  Why a bullet that drilled that nipple so neatly had not pierced the heart was simply mystery.

“Kagig, by jove!  Kagig with a beard!  Nobody would know you but for that scar.”

“But now you know me surely?  Tell these Eenglis sportman, then, that I am good man—­good guide!  Tell them they come with me to Zeitoon!”

The consul’s face darkened swiftly, clouded by some notion that he seemed to try to dismiss, but that refused to leave him.

“How much would you ask for your services?” he demanded.

“Whatever the effendim please.”

“Have you a horse?”

He nodded.

“You and your horse, then, two piasters a day, and you feed yourself and the beast.”

The man agreed, very bright-eyed.  Often it takes a day or two to come to terms with natives of that country, yet the terms the consul offered him were those for a man of very ordinary attainments.

“Come back in an hour,” said the consul.

Without a word of answer Kagig vaulted back across the rail and disappeared around the corner of the house, walking without hurry but not looking back.

“Kagig, by jove!  It would take too long now to tell that story of the letter to Adrianople.  I’ve no proof, but a private notion that Kagig is descended from the old Armenian kings.  In a certain sort of tight place there’s not a better man in Asia.  Now, Lord Montdidier, if you’re in earnest about searching for that castle of your Crusader ancestors, you’re in luck!”

“You know it’s what I came here for,” said Monty.  “These friends of mine are curious, and I’m determined.  Now that Fred’s well—­”

“I’m puzzled,” said the consul, leaning back and looking at us all with half-closed eyes.  “Why should Kagig choose just this time to guide a hunting party?  If any man knows trouble’s brewing, I suspect be surely does.  Anything can happen in the interior.  I recall, for instance, a couple of Danes, who went with a guide not long ago, and simply disappeared.  There are outlaws everywhere, and it’s more than a theory that the public officials are in league with them.”