CHAPTER XXIX
THE BLACK PALMER
Curious things may happen when masked men hold revel under a moonlit
sky.
Thus in a tropical garden of palm and fountain, of dark, shifting
shadows and a thousand softly luminous Chinese lanterns swaying in a
breeze of spice, a Bedouin talked to an ancient Greek.
"He is here?" asked the Bedouin with an accent slightly foreign.
"Yes," said the Greek. "He is here and immensely relieved, I take it,
to be rid of the jurisdiction of the hay-camp."
"I fancied he would not dare--"
"A man in love," commented the Greek dryly, "dares much for the sake of
his lady. One may conceivably lack discretion without forfeiting his
claim to courage."
"The disguise of his stained and shaven face," hinted the Bedouin
grimly, "has made him over-confident. Having tested it with apparent
success upon you--"
"Even so. But he has forgotten that few men have such striking eyes."
"If he has taken the pains to assure himself of my whereabouts,"
rumbled the Bedouin, "as he surely has, I am of course still blistering
in extreme southern Florida, hunting tarpon. I have a permanent
Washington address which I have taken pains to notify of my interest in
tarpon and to which he writes. These incognito days," added the
Bedouin with a slight smile, "my cipher communications cross an ocean
and return immediately by trusted hands to America, though I, of
course, know nothing of it.
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