.

AGAINST THE HOUR OF MIDNIGHT.
Achmet the Ropemaker was ill at ease.

He had been set a task in which he had failed.

The bright Cairene sun starkly glittering on the French chandeliers and Viennese mirrors, and beating on the brass trays and braziers by the window, irritated him.

He watched the flies on the wall abstractedly; he listened to the early peripatetic salesmen crying their wares in the streets leading to the Palace; he stroked his cadaverous cheek with yellow fingers; he listened anxiously for a footstep.
Presently he straightened himself up, and his fingers ran down the front of his coat to make sure that it was buttoned from top to bottom.
He grew a little paler.