You can read Arabic, can you not ?" "A little," I answered.
Then from a stool at her side she took paper, or rather papyrus and a reed pen, and on her knee wrote something on the sheet which she gave to me folded up.
"Now tell me the names," she said, "and then let us see if they tally with what I have written, for if so you are a true man, not a mere wanderer or a spy." "The principal names of this doctor are Zikali, the Opener-of-Roads, the '_Thing-that-should-never-have-been-born_,'" I answered.
"Read the writing, Allan," she said.
I unfolded the sheet and read Arabic words which meant, "Weapons, Cleaver-of-Rocks, One-at-whom-dogs-bark-and-children-wail." "The last two are near enough," she said, "but the first is wrong." "Nay, Ayesha, since in this man's tongue the word 'Zikali' means 'Weapons'"; intelligence at which she clapped her hands as a merry girl might do.

"The man," I went on, "is without doubt a great doctor, one who sees and knows things that others do not, but I do not understand why this token carved in his likeness should have power, as you say it has." "Because with it goes his spirit, Allan.

Have you never heard of the Egyptians, a very wise people who, as I remember, declared that man has a _Ka_ or Double, a second self, that can either dwell in his statue or be sent afar ?" I answered that I had heard this.
"Well the _Ka_ of this Zikali goes with that hideous image of him, which is perhaps why you have come safe through many dangers and why also I seemed to dream so much of him last night.

Tell me now, what does Zikali want of me whose power he knows very well ?" "An oracle, the answer to a riddle, Ayesha." "Then set it out another time.

So you decide to see the dead, and this old dwarf, who is a home of wisdom, desires an oracle from one who is greater than he.Good.And what are you, or both of you, prepared to pay for these boons?
Know, Allan, that I am a merchant who sells my favours dear.