The Quest of the Sacred Slipper
                        
                     
                                                         
                
                    The Quest of the Sacred Slipper
                                            
                            By Sax Rohmer
                            
                                23 Nov, 2018                            
                            
                         
                                        
                                                                        Excerpt......I was not the only passenger aboard the S.S. Mandalay who perceived the disturbance and wondered what it might portend and from whence proceed. A goodly number of passengers were joining the ship at Port Said. I was lounging against the 
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                                                Excerpt......I was not the only passenger aboard the S.S. Mandalay who perceived the disturbance and wondered what it might portend and from whence proceed. A goodly number of passengers were joining the ship at Port Said. I was lounging against the rail, pipe in mouth, lazily wondering, with a large vagueness.
What a heterogeneous rabble it was!—a brightly coloured rabble, but the colours all were dirty, like the town and the canal. Only the sky was clean; the sky and the hard, merciless sunlight which spared nothing of the uncleanness, and defied one even to think of the term dear to tourists, "picturesque." I was in that kind of mood. All the natives appeared to be pockmarked; all the Europeans greasy with perspiration.
"Probably," he replied, "some local celebrity is joining the ship."
I stared at him curiously. Less