When men of that type get annoyed they generally like to work it off on somebody.
Rather, than admit that he had let me get away from him he might prefer to track me through the streets and use his knife on me in some dark corner.

After that he could claim credit with Noureddin Ali by swearing he had reason to suspect me of something or other.

The suggestion did not seem any more unreal to me than the moonlit panorama of the Haram-es-Sheriff, or the Sikh who had stepped out of nowhere-at-all to "Imshi" me away.
On the other hand, I had no fancy for the hotel steps.

To sit and fall asleep there would be to place myself at the mercy of the other two spies, who might come and search me; and I was conscious of certain papers in an inner pocket, and of underclothes made in America, that might have given the game away.
Besides, I was no longer any too sure of Suliman.

The boy was so sleepy that his wits were hardly in working order; if those two spies by the hotel were to question him he might betray the two of us by some clumsy answer.