CHAPTER VII
THE RUSS INCOGNITO
The shadows lengthened; from the minarets of Cairo's mosques muezzins' calls to prayers rang out. O'Rourke, absorbed in musings, hardly heard them; and, indeed, so detached from his surroundings was he that a man sat himself down in the chair opposite O'Rourke's elbow and spoke twice before he roused him.
"Pardon," he said, in French; "Colonel O'Rourke, I believe?"
The Irishman came out of his abstraction with a start.
"Eh, I beg pardon?" he said. "I am Colonel O'Rourke," he admitted, after a careful scrutiny of the other's features, which were barely distinguishable in the fading light. "But monsieur has the advantage of me."
"Then, monsieur, I count myself fortunate," rejoined the stranger, with a careless laugh. "It is a brave man who gains an advantage over Colonel Terence O'Rourke."
He paused; but O'Rourke, with characteristic caution, was waiting for him to declare himself. In the meantime he continued his search of the stranger's lineaments, trying to discover therein some familiar feature. He saw a man of a distinguished type, in evening dress; with a high, pale forehead, rather narrow; eyes close set to the bridge of an aquiline nose; a pointed beard, exactly trimmed, and a mustache with upcurled tips, beneath which his lips showed rather full and red, of a cruel and sensual modeling.
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