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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Weavers, Complete, by Gilbert Parker
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Weavers, Complete
+
+Author: Gilbert Parker
+
+Release Date: October 18, 2006 [EBook #6267]
+Last Updated: August 27, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WEAVERS, COMPLETE ***
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WEAVERS
+
+By Gilbert Parker
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  BOOK I
+  I.        AS THE SPIRIT MOVED
+  II.       THE GATES OF THE WORLD
+  III.      BANISHED
+  IV.       THE CALL
+
+  BOOK II
+  V.        THE WIDER WAY
+  VI.       “HAST THOU NEVER BILLED A MANY”
+   VII.      THE COMPACT
+  VIII.     FOR HIS SOUL’S SAKE AND THE LAND’S SAKE
+  IX.       THE LETTER, THE NIGHT, AND THE WOMAN
+  X.        THE FOUR WHO KNEW
+  XI.       AGAINST THE HOUR OF MIDNIGHT
+  XII.      THE JEHAD AND THE LIONS
+  XIII.     ACHMET THE ROPEMAKER STRIKES
+  XIV.      BEYOND THE PALE
+
+  BOOK III
+  XV.       SOOLSBY’S HAND UPON THE CURTAIN
+  XVI.      THE DEBT AND THE ACCOUNTING
+  XVII.     THE WOMAN OF THE CROSS-ROADS
+  XVIII.    TIME, THE IDOL-BREAKER
+  XIX.      SHARPER THAN A SWORD
+  XX.       EACH AFTER HIS OWN ORDER
+  XXI.      “THERE IS NOTHING HIDDEN WHICH SHALL NOT BE REVEALED”
+   XXII.     AS IN A GLASS DARKLY
+  XXIII.    THE TENTS OF CUSHAN
+  XXIV.     THE QUESTIONER
+  XXV.      THE VOICE THROUGH THE DOOR
+  XXVI.     “I OWE YOU NOTHING”
+   XXVII.    THE AWAKENING
+
+  BOOK IV
+  XXVIII.   NAHOUM TURNS THE SCREW
+  XXIX.     THE RECOIL
+  XXX.      LACEY MOVES
+  XXXI.     THE STRUGGLE IN THE DESERT
+  XXXII.    FORTY STRIPES SAVE ONE
+  XXXIII.   THE DARK INDENTURE
+  XXXIV.    NAHOUM DROPS THE MASK
+
+  BOOK V
+  XXXV.     THE FLIGHT OF THE WOUNDED
+  XXXVI.    “IS IT ALWAYS SO-IN LIFE?”
+   XXXVII.   THE FLYING SHUTTLE
+  XXXVIII.  JASPER KIMBER SPEAKS
+  XXXIX.    FAITH JOURNEYS TO LONDON
+
+  BOOK VI
+  XL.       HYLDA SEEKS NAHOUM
+  XLI.      IN THE LAND OF SHINAR
+  XLII.     THE LOOM OF DESTINY
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+When I turn over the hundreds of pages of this book, I have a feeling
+that I am looking upon something for which I have no particular
+responsibility, though it has a strange contour of familiarity. It is as
+though one looks upon a scene in which one had lived and moved, with the
+friendly yet half-distant feeling that it once was one’s own possession
+but is so no longer. I should think the feeling to be much like that of
+the old man whose sons, gone to distant places, have created their
+own plantations of life and have themselves become the masters of
+possessions. Also I suppose that when I read the story through again
+from the first page to the last, I shall recreate the feeling in which
+I lived when I wrote it, and it will become a part of my own identity
+again. That distance between himself and his work, however, which
+immediately begins to grow as soon as a book leaves the author’s hands
+for those of the public, is a thing which, I suppose, must come to one
+who produces a work of the imagination. It is no doubt due to the fact
+that every piece of art which has individuality and real likeness to
+the scenes and character it is intended to depict is done in a kind of
+trance. The author, in effect, self-hypnotises himself, has created
+an atmosphere which is separate and apart from that of his daily
+surroundings, and by virtue of his imagination becomes absorbed in
+that atmosphere. When the book is finished and it goes forth, when the
+imagination is relaxed and the concentration of mind is withdrawn, the
+atmosphere disappears, and then. One experiences what I feel when I take
+up ‘The Weavers’ and, in a sense, wonder how it was done, such as it is.
+
+The frontispiece of the English edition represents a scene in the House
+of Commons, and this brings to my mind a warning which was given me
+similar to that on my entering new fields outside the one in which
+I first made a reputation in fiction. When, in a certain year, I
+determined that I would enter the House of Commons I had many friends
+who, in effect, wailed and gnashed their teeth. They said that it would
+be the death of my imaginative faculties; that I should never write
+anything any more; that all the qualities which make literature living
+and compelling would disappear. I thought this was all wrong then, and
+I know it is all wrong now. Political life does certainly interfere
+with the amount of work which an author may produce. He certainly cannot
+write a book every year and do political work as well, but if he does
+not attempt to do the two things on the same days, as it were, but in
+blocks of time devoted to each separately and respectively, he will
+only find, as I have found, that public life the conflict of it, the
+accompanying attrition of mind, the searching for the things which will
+solve the problems of national life, the multitudinous variations of
+character with which one comes in contact, the big issues suddenly
+sprung upon the congregation of responsible politicians, all are
+stimulating to the imagination, invigorating to the mind, and
+marvellously freshening to every literary instinct. No danger to the
+writer lies in doing political work, if it does not sap his strength
+and destroy his health. Apart from that, he should not suffer. The very
+spirit of statesmanship is imagination, vision; and the same quality
+which enables an author to realise humanity for a book is necessary for
+him to realise humanity in the crowded chamber of a Parliament.
+
+So far as I can remember, whatever was written of The Weavers, no critic
+said that it lacked imagination. Some critics said it was too crowded
+with incident; that there was enough incident in it for two novels; some
+said that the sweep was too wide, but no critic of authority declared
+that the book lacked vision or the vivacity of a living narrative. It
+is not likely that I shall ever write again a novel of Egypt, but I have
+made my contribution to Anglo-Egyptian literature, and I do not think I
+failed completely in showing the greatness of soul which enabled one man
+to keep the torch of civilisation, of truth, justice, and wholesome love
+alight in surroundings as offensive to civilisation as was Egypt in the
+last days of Ismail Pasha--a time which could be well typified by the
+words put by Bulwer Lytton in the mouth of Cardinal Richelieu:
+
+       “I found France rent asunder,
+        Sloth in the mart and schism in the temple;
+        Broils festering to rebellion; and weak laws
+        Rotting away with rust in antique sheaths.
+        I have re-created France; and, from the ashes
+        Of the old feudal and decrepit carcase,
+        Civilisation on her luminous wings
+        Soars, phoenix-like, to Jove!”
+
+Critics and readers have endeavoured to identify the main
+characteristics of The Weavers with figures in Anglo-Egyptian and
+official public life. David Claridge was, however, a creature of the
+imagination. It has been said that he was drawn from General Gordon. I
+am not conscious of having taken Gordon for David’s prototype, though,
+as I was saturated with all that had been written about Gordon, there
+is no doubt that something of that great man may have found its way
+into the character of David Claridge. The true origin of David Claridge,
+however, may be found in a short story called ‘All the World’s Mad’, in
+Donovan Pasha, which was originally published by Lady Randolph Churchill
+in an ambitious but defunct magazine called ‘The Anglo-Saxon Review’.
+The truth is that David Claridge had his origin in a fairly close
+understanding of, and interest in, Quaker life. I had Quaker relatives
+through the marriage of a connection of my mother, and the original of
+Benn Claridge, the uncle of David, is still alive, a very old man, who
+in my boyhood days wore the broad brim and the straight preacher-like
+coat of the old-fashioned Quaker. The grandmother of my wife was also a
+Quaker, and used the “thee” and “thou” until the day of her death.
+
+Here let me say that criticism came to me from several quarters both
+in England and America on the use of these words thee and thou, and
+statements were made that the kind of speech which I put into David
+Claridge’s mouth was not Quaker speech. For instance, they would not
+have it that a Quaker would say, “Thee will go with me”--as though they
+were ashamed of the sweet inaccuracy of the objective pronoun being used
+in the nominative; but hundreds of times I have myself heard Quakers
+use “thee” in just such a way in England and America. The facts are,
+however, that Quakers differ extensively in their habits, and there grew
+up in England among the Quakers in certain districts a sense of shame
+for false grammar which, to say the least, was very childish. To be
+deliberately and boldly ungrammatical, when you serve both euphony and
+simplicity, is merely to give archaic charm, not to be guilty of an
+offence. I have friends in Derbyshire who still say “Thee thinks,”
+ etc., and I must confess that the picture of a Quaker rampant over my
+deliberate use of this well-authenticated form of speech produced to
+my mind only the effect of an infuriated sheep, when I remembered the
+peaceful attribute of Quaker life and character. From another quarter
+came the assurance that I was wrong when I set up a tombstone with a
+name upon it in a Quaker graveyard. I received a sarcastic letter from
+a lady on the borders of Sussex and Surrey upon this point, and I
+immediately sent her a first-class railway ticket to enable her to visit
+the Quaker churchyard at Croydon, in Surrey, where dead and gone Quakers
+have tombstones by the score, and inscriptions on them also. It is a
+good thing to be accurate; it is desperately essential in a novel.
+The average reader, in his triumph at discovering some slight error of
+detail, would consign a masterpiece of imagination, knowledge of life
+and character to the rubbish-heap.
+
+I believe that ‘The Weavers’ represents a wider outlook of life, closer
+understanding of the problems which perplex society, and a clearer
+view of the verities than any previous book written by me, whatever its
+popularity may have been. It appealed to the British public rather more
+than ‘The Right of Way’, and the great public of America and the Oversea
+Dominions gave it a welcome which enabled it to take its place beside
+‘The Right of Way’, the success of which was unusual.
+
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+This book is not intended to be an historical novel, nor are its
+characters meant to be identified with well-known persons connected with
+the history of England or of Egypt; but all that is essential in the
+tale is based upon, and drawn from, the life of both countries. Though
+Egypt has greatly changed during the past generation, away from Cairo
+and the commercial centres the wheels of social progress have turned but
+slowly, and much remains as it was in the days of which this book is a
+record in the spirit of the life, at least.
+
+                       G. P.
+
+
+     “Dost thou spread the sail, throw the spear, swing the axe, lay
+     thy hand upon the plough, attend the furnace door, shepherd the
+     sheep upon the hills, gather corn from the field, or smite the
+     rock in the quarry? Yet, whatever thy task, thou art even as
+     one who twists the thread and throws the shuttle, weaving the
+     web of Life. Ye are all weavers, and Allah the Merciful, does
+     He not watch beside the loom?”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. AS THE SPIRIT MOVED
+
+The village lay in a valley which had been the bed of a great river in
+the far-off days when Ireland, Wales and Brittany were joined together
+and the Thames flowed into the Seine. The place had never known turmoil
+or stir. For generations it had lived serenely.
+
+Three buildings in the village stood out insistently, more by the
+authority of their appearance and position than by their size. One was a
+square, red-brick mansion in the centre of the village, surrounded by a
+high, redbrick wall enclosing a garden. Another was a big, low, graceful
+building with wings. It had once been a monastery. It was covered
+with ivy, which grew thick and hungry upon it, and it was called the
+Cloistered House. The last of the three was of wood, and of no great
+size--a severely plain but dignified structure, looking like some
+council-hall of a past era. Its heavy oak doors and windows with
+diamond panes, and its air of order, cleanliness and serenity, gave it
+a commanding influence in the picture. It was the key to the history of
+the village--a Quaker Meeting-house.
+
+Involuntarily the village had built itself in such a way that it made
+a wide avenue from the common at one end to the Meeting-house on the
+gorse-grown upland at the other. With a demure resistance to the will
+of its makers the village had made itself decorative. The people were
+unconscious of any attractiveness in themselves or in their village.
+There were, however, a few who felt the beauty stirring around them.
+These few, for their knowledge and for the pleasure which it brought,
+paid the accustomed price. The records of their lives were the only
+notable history of the place since the days when their forefathers
+suffered for the faith.
+
+One of these was a girl--for she was still but a child when she died;
+and she had lived in the Red Mansion with the tall porch, the wide
+garden behind, and the wall of apricots and peaches and clustering
+grapes. Her story was not to cease when she was laid away in the stiff
+graveyard behind the Meeting-house. It was to go on in the life of her
+son, whom to bring into the world she had suffered undeserved, and loved
+with a passion more in keeping with the beauty of the vale in which she
+lived than with the piety found on the high-backed seats in the Quaker
+Meeting-house. The name given her on the register of death was Mercy
+Claridge, and a line beneath said that she was the daughter of Luke
+Claridge, that her age at passing was nineteen years, and that “her soul
+was with the Lord.”
+
+Another whose life had given pages to the village history was one of
+noble birth, the Earl of Eglington. He had died twenty years after the
+time when Luke Claridge, against the then custom of the Quakers, set up
+a tombstone to Mercy Claridge’s memory behind the Meeting-house. Only
+thrice in those twenty years had he slept in a room of the Cloistered
+House. One of those occasions was the day on which Luke Claridge put up
+the grey stone in the graveyard, three years after his daughter’s death.
+On the night of that day these two men met face to face in the garden of
+the Cloistered House. It was said by a passer-by, who had involuntarily
+overheard, that Luke Claridge had used harsh and profane words to Lord
+Eglington, though he had no inkling of the subject of the bitter talk.
+He supposed, however, that Luke had gone to reprove the other for a
+wasteful and wandering existence; for desertion of that Quaker religion
+to which his grandfather, the third Earl of Eglington, had turned in
+the second half of his life, never visiting his estates in Ireland, and
+residing here among his new friends to his last day. This listener--John
+Fairley was his name--kept his own counsel. On two other occasions had
+Lord Eglington visited the Cloistered House in the years that passed,
+and remained many months. Once he brought his wife and child. The former
+was a cold, blue-eyed Saxon of an old family, who smiled distantly upon
+the Quaker village; the latter, a round-headed, warm-faced youth, with a
+bold, menacing eye, who probed into this and that, rushed here and there
+as did his father; now built a miniature mill; now experimented at some
+peril in the laboratory which had been arranged in the Cloistered House
+for scientific experiments; now shot partridges in the fields where
+partridges had not been shot for years; and was as little in the picture
+as his adventurous father, though he wore a broad-brimmed hat, smiling
+the while at the pain it gave to the simple folk around him.
+
+And yet once more the owner of the Cloistered House returned alone. The
+blue-eyed lady was gone to her grave; the youth was abroad. This time
+he came to die. He was found lying on the floor of his laboratory with
+a broken retort in fragments beside him. With his servant, Luke
+Claridge was the first to look upon him lying in the wreck of his last
+experiment, a spirit-lamp still burning above him, in the grey light
+of a winter’s morning. Luke Claridge closed the eyes, straightened
+the body, and crossed the hands over the breast which had been the
+laboratory of many conflicting passions of life.
+
+The dead man had left instructions that his body should be buried in the
+Quaker graveyard, but Luke Claridge and the Elders prevented that--he
+had no right to the privileges of a Friend; and, as the only son was
+afar, and no near relatives pressed the late Earl’s wishes, the ancient
+family tomb in Ireland received all that was left of the owner of the
+Cloistered House, which, with the estates in Ireland and the title,
+passed to the wandering son.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE GATES OF THE WORLD
+
+Stillness in the Meeting-house, save for the light swish of one
+graveyard-tree against the window-pane, and the slow breathing of the
+Quaker folk who filled every corner. On the long bench at the upper
+end of the room the Elders sat motionless, their hands on their knees,
+wearing their hats; the women in their poke-bonnets kept their gaze upon
+their laps. The heads of all save three were averted, and they were
+Luke Claridge, his only living daughter, called Faith, and his dead
+daughter’s son David, who kept his eyes fixed on the window where the
+twig flicked against the pane. The eyes of Faith, who sat on a bench at
+one side, travelled from David to her father constantly; and if, once or
+twice, the plain rebuke of Luke Claridge’s look compelled her eyes
+upon her folded hands, still she was watchful and waiting, and seemed
+demurely to defy the convention of unblinking silence. As time went on,
+others of her sex stole glances at Mercy’s son from the depths of their
+bonnets; and at last, after over an hour, they and all were drawn to
+look steadily at the young man upon whose business this Meeting of
+Discipline had been called. The air grew warmer and warmer, but no one
+became restless; all seemed as cool of face and body as the grey gowns
+and coats with grey steel buttons which they wore.
+
+At last a shrill voice broke the stillness. Raising his head, one of the
+Elders said: “Thee will stand up, friend.” He looked at David.
+
+With a slight gesture of relief the young man stood up. He was good
+to look at-clean-shaven, broad of brow, fine of figure, composed of
+carriage, though it was not the composure of the people by whom he was
+surrounded. They were dignified, he was graceful; they were consistently
+slow of movement, but at times his quick gestures showed that he had
+not been able to train his spirit to that passiveness by which he
+lived surrounded. Their eyes were slow and quiet, more meditative than
+observant; his were changeful in expression, now abstracted, now dark
+and shining as though some inner fire was burning. The head, too, had
+a habit of coming up quickly with an almost wilful gesture, and with an
+air which, in others, might have been called pride.
+
+“What is thy name?” said another owl-like Elder to him.
+
+A gentle, half-amused smile flickered at the young man’s lips for an
+instant, then, “David Claridge--still,” he answered.
+
+His last word stirred the meeting. A sort of ruffle went through the
+atmosphere, and now every eye was fixed and inquiring. The word was
+ominous. He was there on his trial, and for discipline; and it was
+thought by all that, as many days had passed since his offence was
+committed, meditation and prayer should have done their work. Now,
+however, in the tone of his voice, as it clothed the last word, there
+was something of defiance. On the ear of his grandfather, Luke Claridge,
+it fell heavily. The old man’s lips closed tightly, he clasped his hands
+between his knees with apparent self-repression.
+
+The second Elder who had spoken was he who had once heard Luke Claridge
+use profane words in the Cloistered House. Feeling trouble ahead, and
+liking the young man and his brother Elder, Luke Claridge, John Fairley
+sought now to take the case into his own hands.
+
+“Thee shall never find a better name, David,” he said, “if thee live a
+hundred years. It hath served well in England. This thee didst do.
+While the young Earl of Eglington was being brought home, with noise
+and brawling, after his return to Parliament, thee mingled among the
+brawlers; and because some evil words were said of thy hat and thy
+apparel, thee laid about thee, bringing one to the dust, so that his
+life was in peril for some hours to come. Jasper Kimber was his name.”
+
+“Were it not that the smitten man forgave thee, thee would now be in a
+prison cell,” shrilly piped the Elder who had asked his name.
+
+“The fight was fair,” was the young man’s reply. “Though I am a Friend,
+the man was English.”
+
+“Thee was that day a son of Belial,” rejoined the shrill Elder. “Thee
+did use thy hands like any heathen sailor--is it not the truth?”
+
+“I struck the man. I punished him--why enlarge?”
+
+“Thee is guilty?”
+
+“I did the thing.”
+
+“That is one charge against thee. There are others. Thee was seen
+to drink of spirits in a public-house at Heddington that day.
+Twice--thrice, like any drunken collier.”
+
+“Twice,” was the prompt correction.
+
+There was a moment’s pause, in which some women sighed and others folded
+and unfolded their hands on their laps; the men frowned.
+
+“Thee has been a dark deceiver,” said the shrill Elder again, and with
+a ring of acrid triumph; “thee has hid these things from our eyes many
+years, but in one day thee has uncovered all. Thee--”
+
+“Thee is charged,” interposed Elder Fairley, “with visiting a play this
+same day, and with seeing a dance of Spain following upon it.”
+
+“I did not disdain the music,” said the young man drily; “the flute,
+of all instruments, has a mellow sound.” Suddenly his eyes darkened, he
+became abstracted, and gazed at the window where the twig flicked softly
+against the pane, and the heat of summer palpitated in the air. “It has
+good grace to my ear,” he added slowly.
+
+Luke Claridge looked at him intently. He began to realize that there
+were forces stirring in his grandson which had no beginning in Claridge
+blood, and were not nurtured in the garden with the fruited wall. He was
+not used to problems; he had only a code, which he had rigidly kept. He
+had now a glimmer of something beyond code or creed.
+
+He saw that the shrill Elder was going to speak. He intervened. “Thee is
+charged, David,” he said coldly, “with kissing a woman--a stranger and
+a wanton--where the four roads meet ‘twixt here and yonder town.” He
+motioned towards the hills.
+
+“In the open day,” added the shrill Elder, a red spot burning on each
+withered cheek.
+
+“The woman was comely,” said the young man, with a tone of irony,
+recovering an impassive look.
+
+A strange silence fell, the women looked down; yet they seemed not so
+confounded as the men. After a moment they watched the young man with
+quicker flashes of the eye.
+
+“The answer is shameless,” said the shrill Elder. “Thy life is that of a
+carnal hypocrite.”
+
+The young man said nothing. His face had become very pale, his lips were
+set, and presently he sat down and folded his arms.
+
+“Thee is guilty of all?” asked John Fairley.
+
+His kindly eye was troubled, for he had spent numberless hours in this
+young man’s company, and together they had read books of travel and
+history, and even the plays of Shakespeare and Marlowe, though drama was
+anathema to the Society of Friends--they did not realize it in the life
+around them. That which was drama was either the visitation of God or
+the dark deeds of man, from which they must avert their eyes. Their own
+tragedies they hid beneath their grey coats and bodices; their dirty
+linen they never washed in public, save in the scandal such as this
+where the Society must intervene. Then the linen was not only washed,
+but duly starched, sprinkled, and ironed.
+
+“I have answered all. Judge by my words,” said David gravely.
+
+“Has repentance come to thee? Is it thy will to suffer that which we
+may decide for thy correction?” It was Elder Fairley who spoke. He was
+determined to control the meeting and to influence its judgment. He
+loved the young man.
+
+David made no reply; he seemed lost in thought. “Let the discipline
+proceed--he hath an evil spirit,” said the shrill Elder.
+
+“His childhood lacked in much,” said Elder Fairley patiently.
+
+To most minds present the words carried home--to every woman who had a
+child, to every man who had lost a wife and had a motherless son. This
+much they knew of David’s real history, that Mercy Claridge, his mother,
+on a visit to the house of an uncle at Portsmouth, her mother’s brother,
+had eloped with and was duly married to the captain of a merchant ship.
+They also knew that, after some months, Luke Claridge had brought her
+home; and that before her child was born news came that the ship her
+husband sailed had gone down with all on board. They knew likewise that
+she had died soon after David came, and that her father, Luke Claridge,
+buried her in her maiden name, and brought the boy up as his son,
+not with his father’s name but bearing that name so long honoured in
+England, and even in the far places of the earth--for had not Benn
+Claridge, Luke’s brother, been a great carpet-merchant, traveller, and
+explorer in Asia Minor, Egypt, and the Soudan--Benn Claridge of the
+whimsical speech, the pious life? All this they knew; but none of them,
+to his or her knowledge, had ever seen David’s father. He was legendary;
+though there was full proof that the girl had been duly married. That
+had been laid before the Elders by Luke Claridge on an occasion when
+Benn Claridge, his brother was come among them again from the East.
+
+At this moment of trial David was thinking of his uncle, Benn Claridge,
+and of his last words fifteen years before when going once again to the
+East, accompanied by the Muslim chief Ebn Ezra, who had come with him
+to England on the business of his country. These were Benn Claridge’s
+words: “Love God before all, love thy fellow-man, and thy conscience
+will bring thee safe home, lad.”
+
+“If he will not repent, there is but one way,” said the shrill Elder.
+
+“Let there be no haste,” said Luke Claridge, in a voice that shook a
+little in his struggle for self-control.
+
+Another heretofore silent Elder, sitting beside John Fairley, exchanged
+words in a whisper with him, and then addressed them. He was a very
+small man with a very high stock and spreading collar, a thin face, and
+large wide eyes. He kept his chin down in his collar, but spoke at the
+ceiling like one blind, though his eyes were sharp enough on occasion.
+His name was Meacham.
+
+“It is meet there shall be time for sorrow and repentance,” he said.
+“This, I pray you all, be our will: that for three months David live
+apart, even in the hut where lived the drunken chair-maker ere he
+disappeared and died, as rumour saith--it hath no tenant. Let it be that
+after to-morrow night at sunset none shall speak to him till that time
+be come, the first day of winter. Till that day he shall speak to no
+man, and shall be despised of the world, and--pray God--of himself. Upon
+the first day of winter let it be that he come hither again and speak
+with us.”
+
+On the long stillness of assent that followed there came a voice across
+the room, from within a grey-and-white bonnet, which shadowed a delicate
+face shining with the flame of the spirit within. It was the face of
+Faith Claridge, the sister of the woman in the graveyard, whose soul
+was “with the Lord,” though she was but one year older and looked much
+younger than her nephew, David.
+
+“Speak, David,” she said softly. “Speak now. Doth not the spirit move
+thee?”
+
+She gave him his cue, for he had of purpose held his peace till all had
+been said; and he had come to say some things which had been churning
+in his mind too long. He caught the faint cool sarcasm in her tone, and
+smiled unconsciously at her last words. She, at least, must have reasons
+for her faith in him, must have grounds for his defence in painful days
+to come; for painful they must be, whether he stayed to do their
+will, or went into the fighting world where Quakers were few and life
+composite of things they never knew in Hamley.
+
+He got to his feet and clasped his hands behind his back. After an
+instant he broke silence.
+
+“All those things of which I am accused, I did; and for them is asked
+repentance. Before that day on which I did these things was there
+complaint, or cause for it? Was my life evil? Did I think in secret that
+which might not be done openly? Well, some things I did secretly. Ye
+shall hear of them. I read where I might, and after my taste, many
+plays, and found in them beauty and the soul of deep things. Tales
+I have read, but a few, and John Milton, and Chaucer, and Bacon, and
+Montaigne, and Arab poets also, whose books my uncle sent me. Was this
+sin in me?”
+
+“It drove to a day of shame for thee,” said the shrill Elder.
+
+He took no heed, but continued: “When I was a child I listened to the
+lark as it rose from the meadow; and I hid myself in the hedge that,
+unseen, I might hear it sing; and at night I waited till I could hear
+the nightingale. I have heard the river singing, and the music of the
+trees. At first I thought that this must be sin, since ye condemn the
+human voice that sings, but I could feel no guilt. I heard men and women
+sing upon the village green, and I sang also. I heard bands of music.
+One instrument seemed to me more than all the rest. I bought one
+like it, and learned to play. It was the flute--its note so soft and
+pleasant. I learned to play it--years ago--in the woods of Beedon beyond
+the hill, and I have felt no guilt from then till now. For these things
+I have no repentance.”
+
+“Thee has had good practice in deceit,” said the shrill Elder.
+
+Suddenly David’s manner changed. His voice became deeper; his eyes
+took on that look of brilliance and heat which had given Luke Claridge
+anxious thoughts.
+
+“I did, indeed, as the spirit moved me, even as ye have done.”
+
+“Blasphemer, did the spirit move thee to brawl and fight, to drink and
+curse, to kiss a wanton in the open road? What hath come upon thee?”
+ Again it was the voice of the shrill Elder.
+
+“Judge me by the truth I speak,” he answered. “Save in these things my
+life has been an unclasped book for all to read.”
+
+“Speak to the charge of brawling and drink, David,” rejoined the little
+Elder Meacham with the high collar and gaze upon the ceiling.
+
+“Shall I not speak when I am moved? Ye have struck swiftly; I will draw
+the arrow slowly from the wound. But, in truth, ye had good right to
+wound. Naught but kindness have I had among you all; and I will answer.
+Straightly have I lived since my birth. Yet betimes a torturing unrest
+of mind was used to come upon me as I watched the world around us. I
+saw men generous to their kind, industrious and brave, beloved by
+their fellows; and I have seen these same men drink and dance and give
+themselves to coarse, rough play like young dogs in a kennel. Yet, too,
+I have seen dark things done in drink--the cheerful made morose, the
+gentle violent. What was the temptation? What the secret? Was it but the
+low craving of the flesh, or was it some primitive unrest, or craving of
+the soul, which, clouded and baffled by time and labour and the wear of
+life, by this means was given the witched medicament--a false freedom, a
+thrilling forgetfulness? In ancient days the high, the humane, in search
+of cure for poison, poisoned themselves, and then applied the antidote.
+He hath little knowledge and less pity for sin who has never sinned.
+The day came when all these things which other men did in my sight I
+did--openly. I drank with them in the taverns--twice I drank. I met a
+lass in the way. I kissed her. I sat beside her at the roadside and she
+told me her brief, sad, evil story. One she had loved had left her. She
+was going to London. I gave her what money I had--”
+
+“And thy watch,” said a whispering voice from the Elders’ bench.
+
+“Even so. And at the cross-roads I bade her goodbye with sorrow.”
+
+“There were those who saw,” said the shrill voice from the bench.
+
+“They saw what I have said--no more. I had never tasted spirits in my
+life. I had never kissed a woman’s lips. Till then I had never struck my
+fellow-man; but before the sun went down I fought the man who drove the
+lass in sorrow into the homeless world. I did not choose to fight; but
+when I begged the man Jasper Kimber for the girl’s sake to follow and
+bring her back, and he railed at me and made to fight me, I took off my
+hat, and there I laid him in the dust.”
+
+“No thanks to thee that he did not lie in his grave,” observed the
+shrill Elder.
+
+“In truth I hit hard,” was the quiet reply.
+
+“How came thee expert with thy fists?” asked Elder Fairley, with the
+shadow of a smile.
+
+“A book I bought from London, a sack of corn, a hollow leather ball, and
+an hour betimes with the drunken chair-maker in the hut by the lime-kiln
+on the hill. He was once a sailor and a fighting man.”
+
+A look of blank surprise ran slowly along the faces of the Elders. They
+were in a fog of misunderstanding and reprobation.
+
+“While yet my father”--he looked at Luke Claridge, whom he had ever been
+taught to call his father--“shared the great business at Heddington, and
+the ships came from Smyrna and Alexandria, I had some small duties, as
+is well known. But that ceased, and there was little to do. Sports are
+forbidden among us here, and my body grew sick, because the mind had no
+labour. The world of work has thickened round us beyond the hills. The
+great chimneys rise in a circle as far as eye can see on yonder crests;
+but we slumber and sleep.”
+
+“Enough, enough,” said a voice from among the women. “Thee has a friend
+gone to London--thee knows the way. It leads from the cross-roads!”
+
+Faith Claridge, who had listened to David’s speech, her heart panting,
+her clear grey eyes--she had her mother’s eyes--fixed benignly on him,
+turned to the quarter whence the voice came. Seeing who it was--a widow
+who, with no demureness, had tried without avail to bring Luke Claridge
+to her--her lips pressed together in a bitter smile, and she said to her
+nephew clearly:
+
+“Patience Spielman hath little hope of thee, David. Hope hath died in
+her.”
+
+A faint, prim smile passed across the faces of all present, for all knew
+Faith’s allusion, and it relieved the tension of the past half-hour.
+From the first moment David began to speak he had commanded his hearers.
+His voice was low and even; but it had also a power which, when put to
+sudden quiet use, compelled the hearer to an almost breathless silence,
+not so much to the meaning of the words, but to the tone itself, to
+the man behind it. His personal force was remarkable. Quiet and pale
+ordinarily, his clear russet-brown hair falling in a wave over his
+forehead, when roused, he seemed like some delicate engine made to do
+great labours. As Faith said to him once, “David, thee looks as though
+thee could lift great weights lightly.” When roused, his eyes lighted
+like a lamp, the whole man seemed to pulsate. He had shocked, awed,
+and troubled his listeners. Yet he had held them in his power, and was
+master of their minds. The interjections had but given him new means to
+defend himself. After Faith had spoken he looked slowly round.
+
+“I am charged with being profane,” he said. “I do not remember. But
+is there none among you who has not secretly used profane words and,
+neither in secret nor openly, has repented? I am charged with drinking.
+On one day of my life I drank openly. I did it because something in me
+kept crying out, ‘Taste and see!’ I tasted and saw, and know; and I know
+that oblivion, that brief pitiful respite from trouble, which this
+evil tincture gives. I drank to know; and I found it lure me into a new
+careless joy. The sun seemed brighter, men’s faces seemed happier,
+the world sang about me, the blood ran swiftly, thoughts swarmed in
+my brain. My feet were on the mountains, my hands were on the sails of
+great ships; I was a conqueror. I understood the drunkard in the first
+withdrawal begotten of this false stimulant. I drank to know. Is there
+none among you who has, though it be but once, drunk secretly as I drank
+openly? If there be none, then I am condemned.”
+
+“Amen,” said Elder Fairley’s voice from the bench. “In the open way by
+the cross-roads I saw a woman. I saw she was in sorrow. I spoke to her.
+Tears came to her eyes. I took her hand, and we sat down together. Of
+the rest I have told you. I kissed her--a stranger. She was comely. And
+this I know, that the matter ended by the cross-roads, and that by and
+forbidden paths have easy travel. I kissed the woman openly--is there
+none among you who has kissed secretly, and has kept the matter hidden?
+For him I struck and injured, it was fair. Shall a man be beaten like a
+dog? Kimber would have beaten me.”
+
+“Wherein has it all profited?” asked the shrill Elder querulously.
+
+“I have knowledge. None shall do these things hereafter but I shall
+understand. None shall go venturing, exploring, but I shall pray for
+him.”
+
+“Thee will break thy heart and thy life exploring,” said Luke Claridge
+bitterly. Experiment in life he did not understand, and even Benn
+Claridge’s emigration to far lands had ever seemed to him a monstrous
+and amazing thing, though it ended in the making of a great business in
+which he himself had prospered, and from which he had now retired. He
+suddenly realized that a day of trouble was at hand with this youth on
+whom his heart doted, and it tortured him that he could not understand.
+
+“By none of these things shall I break my life,” was David’s answer now.
+
+For a moment he stood still and silent, then all at once he stretched
+out his hands to them. “All these things I did were against our faith.
+I desire forgiveness. I did them out of my own will; I will take up your
+judgment. If there be no more to say, I will make ready to go to old
+Soolsby’s hut on the hill till the set time be passed.”
+
+There was a long silence. Even the shrill Elder’s head was buried in
+his breast. They were little likely to forego his penalty. There was
+a gentle inflexibility in their natures born of long restraint
+and practised determination. He must go out into blank silence and
+banishment until the first day of winter. Yet, recalcitrant as they held
+him, their secret hearts were with him, for there was none of them but
+had had happy commerce with him; and they could think of no more bitter
+punishment than to be cut off from their own society for three months.
+They were satisfied he was being trained back to happiness and honour.
+
+A new turn was given to events, however. The little wizened Elder
+Meacham said: “The flute, friend--is it here?”
+
+“I have it here,” David answered.
+
+“Let us have music, then.”
+
+“To what end?” interjected the shrill Elder.
+
+“He hath averred he can play,” drily replied the other. “Let us judge
+whether vanity breeds untruth in him.”
+
+The furtive brightening of the eyes in the women was represented in
+the men by an assumed look of abstraction in most; in others by a bland
+assumption of judicial calm. A few, however, frowned, and would have
+opposed the suggestion, but that curiosity mastered them. These watched
+with darkening interest the flute, in three pieces, drawn from an inner
+pocket and put together swiftly.
+
+David raised the instrument to his lips, blew one low note, and then
+a little run of notes, all smooth and soft. Mellowness and a sober
+sweetness were in the tone. He paused a moment after this, and seemed
+questioning what to play. And as he stood, the flute in his hands, his
+thoughts took flight to his Uncle Benn, whose kindly, shrewd face and
+sharp brown eyes were as present to him, and more real, than those of
+Luke Claridge, whom he saw every day. Of late when he had thought of
+his uncle, however, alternate depression and lightness of spirit had
+possessed him. Night after night he had troubled sleep, and he had
+dreamed again and again that his uncle knocked at his door, or came and
+stood beside his bed and spoke to him. He had wakened suddenly and said
+“Yes” to a voice which seemed to call to him.
+
+Always his dreams and imaginings settled round his Uncle Benn, until
+he had found himself trying to speak to the little brown man across the
+thousand leagues of land and sea. He had found, too, in the past that
+when he seemed to be really speaking to his uncle, when it seemed
+as though the distance between them had been annihilated, that soon
+afterwards there came a letter from him. Yet there had not been more
+than two or three a year. They had been, however, like books of many
+pages, closely written, in Arabic, in a crabbed characteristic hand, and
+full of the sorrow and grandeur and misery of the East. How many books
+on the East David had read he would hardly have been able to say; but
+something of the East had entered into him, something of the philosophy
+of Mahomet and Buddha, and the beauty of Omar Khayyam had given a
+touch of colour and intellect to the narrow faith in which he had been
+schooled. He had found himself replying to a question asked of him in
+Heddington, as to how he knew that there was a God, in the words of a
+Muslim quoted by his uncle: “As I know by the tracks in the sand whether
+a Man or Beast has passed there, so the heaven with its stars, the earth
+with its fruits, show me that God has passed.” Again, in reply to the
+same question, the reply of the same Arab sprang to his lips--“Does the
+Morning want a Light to see it by?”
+
+As he stood with his flute--his fingers now and then caressingly rising
+and falling upon its little caverns, his mind travelled far to those
+regions he had never seen, where his uncle traded, and explored.
+Suddenly, the call he had heard in his sleep now came to him in this
+waking reverie. His eyes withdrew from the tree at the window, as if
+startled, and he almost called aloud in reply; but he realised where
+he was. At last, raising the flute to his lips, as the eyes of Luke
+Claridge closed with very trouble, he began to play.
+
+Out in the woods of Beedon he had attuned his flute to the stir of
+leaves, the murmur of streams, the song of birds, the boom and burden
+of storm; and it was soft and deep as the throat of the bell-bird of
+Australian wilds. Now it was mastered by the dreams he had dreamed
+of the East: the desert skies, high and clear and burning, the desert
+sunsets, plaintive and peaceful and unvaried--one lovely diffusion, in
+which day dies without splendour and in a glow of pain. The long velvety
+tread of the camel, the song of the camel-driver, the monotonous chant
+of the river-man, with fingers mechanically falling on his little drum,
+the cry of the eagle of the Libyan Hills, the lap of the heavy waters
+of the Dead Sea down by Jericho, the battle-call of the Druses beyond
+Damascus, the lonely gigantic figures at the mouth of the temple of Abou
+Simbel, looking out with the eternal question to the unanswering desert,
+the delicate ruins of moonlit Baalbec, with the snow mountains hovering
+above, the green oases, and the deep wells where the caravans lay down
+in peace--all these were pouring their influences on his mind in the
+little Quaker village of Hamley where life was so bare, so grave.
+
+The music he played was all his own, was instinctively translated from
+all other influences into that which they who listened to him could
+understand. Yet that sensuous beauty which the Quaker Society was so
+concerned to banish from any part in their life was playing upon them
+now, making the hearts of the women beat fast, thrilling them, turning
+meditation into dreams, and giving the sight of the eyes far visions
+of pleasure. So powerful was this influence that the shrill Elder twice
+essayed to speak in protest, but was prevented by the wizened Elder
+Meacham. When it seemed as if the aching, throbbing sweetness must
+surely bring denunciation, David changed the music to a slow mourning
+cadence. It was a wail of sorrow, a march to the grave, a benediction,
+a soft sound of farewell, floating through the room and dying away into
+the mid-day sun.
+
+There came a long silence after, and David sat with unmoving look upon
+the distant prospect through the window. A woman’s sob broke the air.
+Faith’s handkerchief was at her eyes. Only one quick sob, but it
+had been wrung from her by the premonition suddenly come that the
+brother--he was brother more than nephew--over whom her heart had
+yearned had, indeed, come to the cross-roads, and that their ways would
+henceforth divide. The punishment or banishment now to be meted out to
+him was as nothing. It meant a few weeks of disgrace, of ban, of what,
+in effect, was self-immolation, of that commanding justice of the
+Society which no one yet save the late Earl of Eglington had defied.
+David could refuse to bear punishment, but such a possibility had never
+occurred to her or to any one present. She saw him taking his punishment
+as surely as though the law of the land had him in its grasp. It was not
+that which she was fearing. But she saw him moving out of her life. To
+her this music was the prelude of her tragedy.
+
+A moment afterwards Luke Claridge arose and spoke to David in austere
+tones: “It is our will that thee begone to the chair-maker’s but upon
+the hill till three months be passed, and that none have speech with
+thee after sunset to-morrow even.”
+
+“Amen,” said all the Elders.
+
+“Amen,” said David, and put his flute into his pocket, and rose to go.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. BANISHED
+
+The chair-maker’s hut lay upon the north hillside about half-way between
+the Meeting-house at one end of the village and the common at the other
+end. It commanded the valley, had no house near it, and was sheltered
+from the north wind by the hill-top which rose up behind it a hundred
+feet or more. No road led to it--only a path up from the green of the
+village, winding past a gulley and the deep cuts of old rivulets now
+over grown by grass or bracken. It got the sun abundantly, and it was
+protected from the full sweep of any storm. It had but two rooms, the
+floor was of sanded earth, but it had windows on three sides, east,
+west, and south, and the door looked south. Its furniture was a plank
+bed, a few shelves, a bench, two chairs, some utensils, a fireplace
+of stone, a picture of the Virgin and Child, and of a cardinal of the
+Church of Rome with a red hat--for the chair-maker had been a Roman
+Catholic, the only one of that communion in Hamley. Had he been a
+Protestant his vices would have made him anathema, but, being what he
+was, his fellow-villagers had treated him with kindness.
+
+After the half-day in which he was permitted to make due preparations,
+lay in store of provisions, and purchase a few sheep and hens, hither
+came David Claridge. Here, too, came Faith, who was permitted one hour
+with him before he began his life of willing isolation. Little was said
+as they made the journey up the hill, driving the sheep before them,
+four strong lads following with necessities--flour, rice, potatoes, and
+suchlike.
+
+Arrived, the goods were deposited inside the hut, the lads were
+dismissed, and David and Faith were left alone. David looked at his
+watch. They had still a handful of minutes before the parting. These
+flew fast, and yet, seated inside the door, and looking down at the
+village which the sun was bathing in the last glowing of evening,
+they remained silent. Each knew that a great change had come in their
+hitherto unchanging life, and it was difficult to separate premonition
+from substantial fact. The present fact did not represent all they felt,
+though it represented all on which they might speak together now.
+
+Looking round the room, at last Faith said: “Thee has all thee needs,
+David? Thee is sure?”
+
+He nodded. “I know not yet how little man may need. I have lived in
+plenty.”
+
+At that moment her eyes rested on the Cloistered House.
+
+“The Earl of Eglington would not call it plenty.” A shade passed over
+David’s face. “I know not how he would measure. Is his own field so
+wide?”
+
+“The spread of a peacock’s feather.”
+
+“What does thee know of him?” David asked the question absently.
+
+“I have eyes to see, Davy.” The shadows from that seeing were in her
+eyes as she spoke, but he did not observe them.
+
+“Thee sees but with half an eye,” she continued. “With both mine I have
+seen horses and carriages, and tall footmen, and wine and silver, and
+gilded furniture, and fine pictures, and rolls of new carpet--of Uncle
+Benn’s best carpets, Davy--and a billiard-table, and much else.”
+
+A cloud slowly gathered over David’s face, and he turned to her with an
+almost troubled surprise. “Thee has seen these things--and how?”
+
+“One day--thee was in Devon--one of the women was taken ill. They sent
+for me because the woman asked it. She was a Papist; but she begged that
+I should go with her to the hospital, as there was no time to send
+to Heddington for a nurse. She had seen me once in the house of the
+toll-gate keeper. Ill as she was, I could have laughed, for, as we went
+in the Earl’s carriage to the hospital-thirty miles it was--she said she
+felt at home with me, my dress being so like a nun’s. It was then I saw
+the Cloistered House within and learned what was afoot.”
+
+“In the Earl’s carriage indeed--and the Earl?”
+
+“He was in Ireland, burrowing among those tarnished baubles, his titles,
+and stripping the Irish Peter to clothe the English Paul.”
+
+“He means to make Hamley his home? From Ireland these furnishings come?”
+
+“So it seems. Henceforth the Cloistered House will have its doors flung
+wide. London and all the folk of Parliament will flutter along the dunes
+of Hamley.”
+
+“Then the bailiff will sit yonder within a year, for he is but a starved
+Irish peer.”
+
+“He lives to-day as though he would be rich tomorrow. He bids for fame
+and fortune, Davy.”
+
+“‘Tis as though a shirtless man should wear a broadcloth coat over a
+cotton vest.”
+
+“The world sees only the broadcloth coat. For the rest--”
+
+“For the rest, Faith?”
+
+“They see the man’s face, and--”
+
+His eyes were embarrassed. A thought had flashed into his mind which he
+considered unworthy, for this girl beside him was little likely to dwell
+upon the face of a renegade peer, whose living among them was a constant
+reminder of his father’s apostasy. She was too fine, dwelt in such high
+spheres, that he could not think of her being touched by the glittering
+adventures of this daring young member of Parliament, whose book of
+travels had been published, only to herald his understood determination
+to have office in the Government, not in due time, but in his own time.
+What could there be in common between the sophisticated Eglington and
+this sweet, primitively wholesome Quaker girl?
+
+Faith read what was passing in his mind. She flushed--slowly flushed
+until her face--and eyes were one soft glow, then she laid a hand upon
+his arm and said: “Davy, I feel the truth about him--no more. Nothing of
+him is for thee or me. His ways are not our ways.” She paused, and then
+said solemnly: “He hath a devil. That I feel. But he hath also a mind,
+and a cruel will. He will hew a path, or make others hew it for him.
+He will make or break. Nothing will stand in his way, neither man nor
+thing, those he loves nor those he hates. He will go on--and to go on,
+all means, so they be not criminal, will be his. Men will prophesy great
+things for him--they do so now. But nothing they prophesy, Davy, keeps
+pace with his resolve.”
+
+“How does thee know these things?”
+
+His question was one of wonder and surprise. He had never before seen in
+her this sharp discernment and criticism.
+
+“How know I, Davy? I know him by studying thee. What thee is not he is.
+What he is thee is not.” The last beams of the sun sent a sudden glint
+of yellow to the green at their feet from the western hills, rising far
+over and above the lower hills of the village, making a wide ocean of
+light, at the bottom of which lay the Meeting-house and the Cloistered
+House, and the Red Mansion with the fruited wall, and all the others,
+like dwellings at the bottom of a golden sea. David’s eyes were on the
+distance, and the far-seeing look was in his face which had so deeply
+impressed Faith in the Meeting-house, by which she had read his future.
+
+“And shall I not also go on?” he asked.
+
+“How far, who can tell?”
+
+There was a plaintive note in her voice--the unavailing and sad protest
+of the maternal spirit, of the keeper of the nest, who sees the brood
+fly safely away, looking not back.
+
+“What does thee see for me afar, Faith?” His look was eager.
+
+“The will of God, which shall be done,” she said with a sudden
+resolution, and stood up. Her hands were lightly clasped before her like
+those of Titian’s Mater Dolorosa among the Rubens and Tintorettos of the
+Prado, a lonely figure, whose lot it was to spend her life for others.
+Even as she already had done; for thrice she had refused marriages
+suitable and possible to her. In each case she had steeled her heart
+against loving, that she might be all in all to her sister’s child and
+to her father. There is no habit so powerful as the habit of care of
+others. In Faith it came as near being a passion as passion could have
+a place in her even-flowing blood, under that cool flesh, governed by
+a heart as fair as the apricot blossoms on the wall in her father’s
+garden. She had been bitterly hurt in the Meeting-house; as bitterly as
+is many a woman when her lover has deceived her. David had acknowledged
+before them all that he had played the flute secretly for years! That he
+should have played it was nothing; that she should not have shared his
+secret, and so shared his culpability before them all, was a wound which
+would take long to heal.
+
+She laid her hand upon his shoulder suddenly with a nervous little
+motion.
+
+“And the will of God thee shall do to His honour, though thee is outcast
+to-day.... But, Davy, the music-thee kept it from me.”
+
+He looked up at her steadily; he read what was in her mind.
+
+“I hid it so, because I would not have thy conscience troubled. Thee
+would go far to smother it for me; and I was not so ungrateful to thee.
+I did it for good to thee.”
+
+A smile passed across her lips. Never was woman so grateful, never wound
+so quickly healed. She shook her head sadly at him, and stilling the
+proud throbbing of her heart, she said:
+
+“But thee played so well, Davy!”
+
+He got up and turned his head away, lest he should laugh outright. Her
+reasoning--though he was not worldly enough to call it feminine, and
+though it scarce tallied with her argument--seemed to him quite her own.
+
+“How long have we?” he said over his shoulder. “The sun is yet five
+minutes up, or more,” she said, a little breathlessly, for she saw his
+hand inside his coat, and guessed his purpose.
+
+“But thee will not dare to play--thee will not dare,” she said, but more
+as an invitation than a rebuke. “Speech was denied me here, but not my
+music. I find no sin in it.”
+
+She eagerly watched him adjust the flute. Suddenly she drew to him the
+chair from the doorway, and beckoned him to sit down. She sat where she
+could see the sunset.
+
+The music floated through the room and down the hillside, a searching
+sweetness.
+
+She kept her face ever on the far hills. It went on and on. At last it
+stopped. David roused himself, as from a dream. “But it is dark!”
+ he said, startled. “It is past the time thee should be with me. My
+banishment began at sunset.”
+
+“Are all the sins to be thine?” she asked calmly. She had purposely let
+him play beyond the time set for their being together.
+
+“Good-night, Davy.” She kissed him on the cheek. “I will keep the music
+for the sin’s remembrance,” she added, and went out into the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE CALL
+
+
+“England is in one of those passions so creditable to her moral sense,
+so illustrative of her unregulated virtues. We are living in the first
+excitement and horror of the news of the massacre of Christians
+at Damascus. We are full of righteous and passionate indignation.
+‘Punish--restore the honour of the Christian nations’ is the proud
+appeal of prelate, prig, and philanthropist, because some hundreds of
+Christians who knew their danger, yet chose to take up their abode in a
+fanatical Muslim city of the East, have suffered death.”
+
+The meeting had been called in answer to an appeal from Exeter Hall.
+Lord Eglington had been asked to speak, and these were among his closing
+words.
+
+He had seen, as he thought, an opportunity for sensation. Politicians of
+both sides, the press on all hands, were thundering denunciations upon
+the city of Damascus, sitting insolent and satiated in its exquisite
+bloom of pear and nectarine, and the deed itself was fading into that
+blank past of Eastern life where there “are no birds in last year’s
+nest.” If he voyaged with the crowd, his pennant would be lost in the
+clustering sails! So he would move against the tide, and would startle,
+even if he did not convince.
+
+“Let us not translate an inflamed religious emotion into a war,” he
+continued. “To what good? Would it restore one single life in Damascus?
+Would it bind one broken heart? Would it give light to one darkened
+home? Let us have care lest we be called a nation of hypocrites. I will
+neither support nor oppose the resolution presented; I will content
+myself with pointing the way to a greater national self-respect.”
+
+Mechanically, a few people who had scarcely apprehended the full force
+of his remarks began to applaud; but there came cries of “‘Sh! ‘Sh!” and
+the clapping of hands suddenly stopped. For a moment there was absolute
+silence, in which the chairman adjusted his glasses and fumbled with the
+agenda paper in his confusion, scarcely knowing what to do. The speaker
+had been expected to second the resolution, and had not done so. There
+was an awkward silence. Then, in a loud whisper, some one said:
+
+“David, David, do thee speak.”
+
+It was the voice of Faith Claridge. Perturbed and anxious, she had come
+to the meeting with her father. They had not slept for nights, for the
+last news they had had of Benn Claridge was from the city of Damascus,
+and they were full of painful apprehensions.
+
+It was the eve of the first day of winter, and David’s banishment was
+over. Faith had seen David often at a distance--how often had she stood
+in her window and looked up over the apricot-wall to the chair-maker’s
+hut on the hill! According to his penalty David had never come to
+Hamley village, but had lived alone, speaking to no one, avoided by all,
+working out his punishment. Only the day before the meeting he had read
+of the massacre at Damascus from a newspaper which had been left on
+his doorstep overnight. Elder Fairley had so far broken the covenant of
+ostracism and boycott, knowing David’s love for his Uncle Benn.
+
+All that night David paced the hillside in anxiety and agitation,
+and saw the sun rise upon a new world--a world of freedom, of
+home-returning, yet a world which, during the past four months, had
+changed so greatly that it would never seem the same again.
+
+The sun was scarce two hours high when Faith and her father mounted the
+hill to bring him home again. He had, however, gone to Heddington
+to learn further news of the massacre. He was thinking of his Uncle
+Benn-all else could wait. His anxiety was infinitely greater than
+that of Luke Claridge, for his mind had been disturbed by frequent
+premonitions; and those sudden calls in his sleep-his uncle’s
+voice--ever seemed to be waking him at night. He had not meant to speak
+at the meeting, but the last words of the speaker decided him; he was
+in a flame of indignation. He heard the voice of Faith whisper over the
+heads of the people. “David, David, do thee speak.” Turning, he met her
+eyes, then rose to his feet, came steadily to the platform, and raised a
+finger towards the chairman.
+
+A great whispering ran through the audience. Very many recognised
+him, and all had heard of him--the history of his late banishment and
+self-approving punishment were familiar to them. He climbed the steps
+of the platform alertly, and the chairman welcomed him with nervous
+pleasure. Any word from a Quaker, friendly to the feeling of national
+indignation, would give the meeting the new direction which all desired.
+
+Something in the face of the young man, grown thin and very pale during
+the period of long thought and little food in the lonely and meditative
+life he had led; something human and mysterious in the strange tale of
+his one day’s mad doings, fascinated them. They had heard of the liquor
+he had drunk, of the woman he had kissed at the cross-roads, of the
+man he had fought, of his discipline and sentence. His clean, shapely
+figure, and the soft austerity of the neat grey suit he wore, his
+broad-brimmed hat pushed a little back, showing well a square white
+forehead--all conspired to send a wave of feeling through the audience,
+which presently broke into cheering.
+
+Beginning with the usual formality, he said: “I am obliged to differ
+from nearly every sentiment expressed by the Earl of Eglington, the
+member for Levizes, who has just taken his seat.”
+
+There was an instant’s pause, the audience cheered, and cries of delight
+came from all parts of the house. “All good counsel has its sting,” he
+continued, “but the good counsel of him who has just spoken is a sting
+in a wound deeper than the skin. The noble Earl has bidden us to be
+consistent and reasonable. I have risen here to speak for that to which
+mere consistency and reason may do cruel violence. I am a man of peace,
+I am the enemy of war--it is my faith and creed; yet I repudiate the
+principle put forward by the Earl of Eglington, that you shall not
+clinch your hand for the cause which is your heart’s cause, because, if
+you smite, the smiting must be paid for.”
+
+He was interrupted by cheers and laughter, for the late event in his own
+life came to them to point his argument.
+
+“The nation that declines war may be refusing to inflict that just
+punishment which alone can set the wrong-doers on the better course. It
+is not the faith of that Society to which I belong to decline correction
+lest it may seem like war.”
+
+The point went home significantly, and cheering followed. “The high
+wall of Tibet, a stark refusal to open the door to the wayfarer, I can
+understand; but, friend”--he turned to the young peer--“friend, I cannot
+understand a defence of him who opens the door upon terms of mutual
+hospitality, and then, in the red blood of him who has so contracted,
+blots out the just terms upon which they have agreed. Is that thy faith,
+friend?”
+
+The repetition of the word friend was almost like a gibe, though it was
+not intended as such. There was none present, however, but knew of the
+defection of the Earl’s father from the Society of Friends, and they
+chose to interpret the reference to a direct challenge. It was a
+difficult moment for the young Earl, but he only smiled, and cherished
+anger in his heart.
+
+For some minutes David spoke with force and power, and he ended with
+passionate solemnity. His voice rang out: “The smoke of this burning
+rises to Heaven, the winds that wail over scattered and homeless dust
+bear a message of God to us. In the name of Mahomet, whose teaching
+condemns treachery and murder, in the name of the Prince of Peace, who
+taught that justice which makes for peace, I say it is England’s duty
+to lay the iron hand of punishment upon this evil city and on the
+Government in whose orbit it shines with so deathly a light. I fear it
+is that one of my family and of my humble village lies beaten to death
+in Damascus. Yet not because of that do I raise my voice here to-day.
+These many years Benn Claridge carried his life in his hands, and in
+a good cause it was held like the song of a bird, to be blown from his
+lips in the day of the Lord. I speak only as an Englishman. I ask you
+to close your minds against the words of this brilliant politician, who
+would have you settle a bill of costs written in Christian blood, by a
+promise to pay, got through a mockery of armed display in those waters
+on which once looked the eyes of the Captain of our faith. Humanity has
+been put in the witness-box of the world; let humanity give evidence.”
+
+Women wept. Men waved their hats and cheered; the whole meeting rose to
+its feet and gave vent to its feelings.
+
+For some moments the tumult lasted, Eglington looking on with face
+unmoved. As David turned to leave the table, however, he murmured,
+“Peacemaker! Peacemaker!” and smiled sarcastically.
+
+As the audience resumed their seats, two people were observed making
+their way to the platform. One was Elder Fairley, leading the way to a
+tall figure in a black robe covering another coloured robe, and wearing
+a large white turban. Not seeing the new-comers, the chairman was about
+to put the resolution; but a protesting hand from John Fairley stopped
+him, and in a strange silence the two new-comers mounted the platform.
+David rose and advanced to meet them. There flashed into his mind that
+this stranger in Eastern garb was Ebn Ezra Bey, the old friend of Benn
+Claridge, of whom his uncle had spoken and written so much. The same
+instinct drew Ebn Ezra Bey to him--he saw the uncle’s look in the
+nephew’s face. In a breathless stillness the Oriental said in perfect
+English, with a voice monotonously musical:
+
+“I came to thy house and found thee not. I have a message for thee from
+the land where thine uncle sojourned with me.”
+
+He took from a wallet a piece of paper and passed it to David, adding:
+“I was thine uncle’s friend. He hath put off his sandals and walketh
+with bare feet!” David read eagerly.
+
+“It is time to go, Davy,” the paper said. “All that I have is thine. Go
+to Egypt, and thee shall find it so. Ebn Ezra Bey will bring thee. Trust
+him as I have done. He is a true man, though the Koran be his faith.
+They took me from behind, Davy, so that I was spared temptation--I die
+as I lived, a man of peace. It is too late to think how it might have
+gone had we met face to face; but the will of God worketh not according
+to our will. I can write no more. Luke, Faith, and Davy--dear Davy, the
+night has come, and all’s well. Good morrow, Davy. Can you not hear me
+call? I have called thee so often of late! Good morrow! Good morrow!...
+I doff my hat, Davy--at last--to God!”
+
+David’s face whitened. All his visions had been true visions, his dreams
+true dreams. Brave Benn Claridge had called to him at his door--“Good
+morrow! Good morrow! Good morrow!” Had he not heard the knocking and the
+voice? Now all was made clear. His path lay open before him--a far land
+called him, his quiet past was infinite leagues away. Already the staff
+was in his hands and the cross-roads were sinking into the distance
+behind. He was dimly conscious of the wan, shocked face of Faith in the
+crowd beneath him, which seemed blurred and swaying, of the bowed
+head of Luke Claridge, who, standing up, had taken off his hat in the
+presence of this news of his brother’s death which he saw written in
+David’s face. David stood for a moment before the great throng, numb and
+speechless. “It is a message from Damascus,” he said at last, and could
+say no more.
+
+Ebn Ezra Bey turned a grave face upon the audience.
+
+“Will you hear me?” he said. “I am an Arab.” “Speak--speak!” came from
+every side.
+
+“The Turk hath done his evil work in Damascus,” he said. “All the
+Christians are dead--save one; he hath turned Muslim, and is safe.” His
+voice had a note of scorn. “It fell sudden and swift like a storm in
+summer. There were no paths to safety. Soldiers and those who led them
+shared in the slaying. As he and I who had travelled far together these
+many years sojourned there in the way of business, I felt the air grow
+colder, I saw the cloud gathering. I entreated, but he would not go. If
+trouble must come, then he would be with the Christians in their peril.
+At last he saw with me the truth. He had a plan of escape. There was a
+Christian weaver with his wife in a far quarter--against my entreaty he
+went to warn them. The storm broke. He was the first to fall, smitten in
+‘that street called Straight.’ I found him soon after. Thus did he speak
+to me--even in these words: ‘The blood of women and children shed
+here to-day shall cry from the ground. Unprovoked the host has turned
+wickedly upon his guest. The storm has been sown, and the whirlwind must
+be reaped. Out of this evil good shall come. Shall not the Judge of all
+the earth do right?’ These were his last words to me then. As his life
+ebbed out, he wrote a letter which I have brought hither to one”--he
+turned to David--“whom he loved. At the last he took off his hat, and
+lay with it in his hands, and died.... I am a Muslim, but the God of
+pity, of justice, and of right is my God; and in His name be it said
+that was a crime of Sheitan the accursed.”
+
+In a low voice the chairman put the resolution. The Earl of Eglington
+voted in its favour.
+
+Walking the hills homeward with Ebn Ezra Bey, Luke, Faith, and John
+Fairley, David kept saying over to himself the words of Benn Claridge:
+“I have called thee so often of late. Good morrow! Good morrow! Good
+morrow! Can you not hear me call?”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE WIDER WAY
+
+Some months later the following letter came to David Claridge in Cairo
+from Faith Claridge in Hamley:
+
+   David, I write thee from the village and the land of the people
+   which thou didst once love so well. Does thee love them still?
+   They gave thee sour bread to eat ere thy going, but yet thee didst
+   grind the flour for the baking. Thee didst frighten all who knew
+   thee with thy doings that mad midsummer time. The tavern, the
+   theatre, the cross-roads, and the cockpit--was ever such a day!
+
+   Now, Davy, I must tell of a strange thing. But first, a moment.
+   Thee remembers the man Kimber smitten by thee at the public-house on
+   that day? What think thee has happened? He followed to London the
+   lass kissed by thee, and besought her to return and marry him. This
+   she refused at first with anger; but afterwards she said that, if in
+   three years he was of the same mind, and stayed sober and hard-
+   working meanwhile, she would give him an answer, she would consider.
+   Her head was high. She has become maid to a lady of degree, who has
+   well befriended her.
+
+   How do I know these things? Even from Jasper Kimber, who, on his
+   return from London, was taken to his bed with fever. Because of the
+   hard blows dealt him by thee, I went to make amends. He welcomed
+   me, and soon opened his whole mind. That mind has generous moments,
+   David, for he took to being thankful for thy knocks.
+
+   Now for the strange thing I hinted. After visiting Jasper Kimber at
+   Heddington, as I came back over the hill by the path we all took
+   that day after the Meeting--Ebn Ezra Bey, my father, Elder Fairley,
+   and thee and me--I drew near the chairmaker’s but where thee lived
+   alone all those sad months. It was late evening; the sun had set.
+   Yet I felt that I must needs go and lay my hand in love upon the
+   door of the empty hut which had been ever as thee left it. So I
+   came down the little path swiftly, and then round the great rock,
+   and up towards the door. But, as I did so, my heart stood still,
+   for I heard voices. The door was open, but I could see no one. Yet
+   there the voices sounded, one sharp and peevish with anger, the
+   other low and rough. I could not hear what was said. At last, a
+   figure came from the door and went quickly down the hillside. Who,
+   think thee, was it? Even “neighbour Eglington.” I knew the walk
+   and the forward thrust of the head. Inside the hut all was still.
+   I drew near with a kind of fear, but yet I came to the door and
+   looked in.
+
+   As I looked into the dusk, my limbs trembled under me, for who
+   should be sitting there, a half-finished chair between his knees,
+   but Soolsby the old chair-maker! Yes, it was he. There he sat
+   looking at me with his staring blue eyes and shock of redgrey hair.
+   “Soolsby! Soolsby!” said I, my heart hammering at my breast; for
+   was not Soolsby dead and buried? His eyes stared at me in fright.
+   “Why do you come?” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Is he dead, then?
+   Has harm come to him?”
+
+   By now I had recovered myself, for it was no ghost I saw, but a
+   human being more distraught than was myself. “Do you not know me,
+   Soolsby?” I asked. “You are Mercy Claridge from beyond--beyond and
+   away,” he answered dazedly. “I am Faith Claridge, Soolsby,”
+    answered I. He started, peered forward at me, and for a moment he
+   did not speak; then the fear went from his face. “Ay, Faith
+   Claridge, as I said,” he answered, with apparent understanding, his
+   stark mood passing. “No, thee said Mercy Claridge, Soolsby,” said
+   I, “and she has been asleep these many years.” “Ay, she has slept
+   soundly, thanks be to God!” he replied, and crossed himself. “Why
+   should thee call me by her name?” I inquired. “Ay, is not her tomb
+   in the churchyard?” he answered, and added quickly, “Luke Claridge
+   and I are of an age to a day--which, think you, will go first?”
+
+   He stopped weaving, and peered over at me with his staring blue
+   eyes, and I felt a sudden quickening of the heart. For, at the
+   question, curtains seemed to drop from all around me, and leave me
+   in the midst of pains and miseries, in a chill air that froze me to
+   the marrow. I saw myself alone--thee in Egypt and I here, and none
+   of our blood and name beside me. For we are the last, Davy, the
+   last of the Claridges. But I said coldly, and with what was near to
+   anger, that he should link his name and fate with that of Luke
+   Claridge: “Which of ye two goes first is God’s will, and according
+   to His wisdom. Which, think thee,” added I--and now I cannot
+   forgive myself for saying it--“which, think thee, would do least
+   harm in going?” “I know which would do most good,” he answered,
+   with a harsh laugh in his throat. Yet his blue eyes looked kindly
+   at me, and now he began to nod pleasantly. I thought him a little
+   mad, but yet his speech had seemed not without dark meaning. “Thee
+   has had a visitor,” I said to him presently. He laughed in a
+   snarling way that made me shrink, and answered: “He wanted this and
+   he wanted that--his high-handed, second-best lordship. Ay, and he
+   would have it, because it pleased him to have it--like his father
+   before him. A poor sparrow on a tree-top, if you tell him he must
+   not have it, he will hunt it down the world till it is his, as
+   though it was a bird of paradise. And when he’s seen it fall at
+   last, he’ll remember but the fun of the chase; and the bird may get
+   to its tree-top again--if it can--if it can--if it can, my lord!
+   That is what his father was, the last Earl, and that is what he is
+   who left my door but now. He came to snatch old Soolsby’s palace,
+   his nest on the hill, to use it for a telescope, or such whimsies.
+   He has scientific tricks like his father before him. Now is it
+   astronomy, and now chemistry, and suchlike; and always it is the
+   Eglington mind, which let God A’mighty make it as a favour. He
+   would have old Soolsby’s palace for his spy-glass, would he then?
+   It scared him, as though I was the devil himself, to find me here.
+   I had but come back in time--a day later, and he would have sat here
+   and seen me in the Pit below before giving way. Possession’s nine
+   points were with me; and here I sat and faced him; and here he
+   stormed, and would do this and should do that; and I went on with my
+   work. Then he would buy my Colisyum, and I wouldn’t sell it for all
+   his puffball lordship might offer. Isn’t the house of the snail as
+   much to him as the turtle’s shell to the turtle? I’ll have no
+   upstart spilling his chemicals here, or devilling the stars from a
+   seat on my roof.” “Last autumn,” said I, “David Claridge was housed
+   here. Thy palace was a prison then.” “I know well of that.
+   Haven’t I found his records here? And do you think his makeshift
+   lordship did not remind me?” “Records? What records, Soolsby?”
+    asked I, most curious. “Writings of his thoughts which he forgot--
+   food for mind and body left in the cupboard.” “Give them to me upon
+   this instant, Soolsby,” said I. “All but one,” said he, “and that
+   is my own, for it was his mind upon Soolsby the drunken chair-maker.
+   God save him from the heathen sword that slew his uncle. Two better
+   men never sat upon a chair!” He placed the papers in my hand, all
+   save that one which spoke of him. Ah, David, what with the flute
+   and the pen, banishment was no pain to thee!... He placed the
+   papers, save that one, in my hands, and I, womanlike, asked again
+   for all. “Some day,” said he, “come, and I will read it to you.
+   Nay, I will give you a taste of it now,” he added, as he brought
+   forth the writing. “Thus it reads.”
+
+   Here are thy words, Davy. What think thee of them now?
+
+   “As I dwell in this house I know Soolsby as I never knew him when he
+   lived, and though, up here, I spent many an hour with him. Men
+   leave their impressions on all around them. The walls which have
+   felt their look and their breath, the floor which has taken their
+   footsteps, the chairs in which they have sat, have something of
+   their presence. I feel Soolsby here at times so sharply that it
+   would seem he came again and was in this room, though he is dead and
+   gone. I ask him how it came he lived here alone; how it came that
+   he made chairs, he, with brains enough to build great houses or
+   great bridges; how it was that drink and he were such friends; and
+   how he, a Catholic, lived here among us Quakers, so singular,
+   uncompanionable, and severe. I think it true, and sadly true, that
+   a man with a vice which he is able to satisfy easily and habitually,
+   even as another satisfies a virtue, may give up the wider actions of
+   the world and the possibilities of his life for the pleasure which
+   his one vice gives him, and neither miss nor desire those greater
+   chances of virtue or ambition which he has lost. The simplicity of
+   a vice may be as real as the simplicity of a virtue.”
+
+   Ah, David, David, I know not what to think of those strange words;
+   but old Soolsby seemed well to understand thee, and he called thee
+   “a first-best gentleman.” Is my story long? Well, it was so
+   strange, and it fixed itself upon my mind so deeply, and thy
+   writings at the hut have been so much in my hands and in my mind,
+   that I have put it all down here. When I asked Soolsby how it came
+   he had been rumoured dead, he said that he himself had been the
+   cause of it; but for what purpose he would not say, save that he was
+   going a long voyage, and had made up his mind to return no more. “I
+   had a friend,” he said, “and I was set to go and see that friend
+   again.... But the years go on, and friends have an end. Life
+   spills faster than the years,” he said. And he would say no more,
+   but would walk with me even to my father’s door. “May the Blessed
+   Virgin and all the Saints be with you,” he said at parting, “if you
+   will have a blessing from them. And tell him who is beyond and away
+   in Egypt that old Soolsby’s busy making a chair for him to sit in
+   when the scarlet cloth is spread, and the East and West come to
+   salaam before him. Tell him the old man says his fluting will be
+   heard.”
+
+   And now, David, I have told thee all, nearly. Remains to say that
+   thy one letter did our hearts good. My father reads it over and
+   over, and shakes his head sadly, for, truth is, he has a fear that
+   the world may lay its hand upon thee. One thing I do observe, his
+   heart is hard set against Lord Eglington. In degree it has ever
+   been so; but now it is like a constant frown upon his forehead. I
+   see him at his window looking out towards the Cloistered House; and
+   if our neighbour comes forth, perhaps upon his hunter, or now in his
+   cart, or again with his dogs, he draws his hat down upon his eyes
+   and whispers to himself. I think he is ever setting thee off
+   against Lord Eglington; and that is foolish, for Eglington is but a
+   man of the earth earthy. His is the soul of the adventurer.
+
+   Now what more to be set down? I must ask thee how is thy friend Ebn
+   Ezra Bey? I am glad thee did find all he said was true, and that in
+   Damascus thee was able to set a mark by my uncle’s grave. But that
+   the Prince Pasha of Egypt has set up a claim against my uncle’s
+   property is evil news; though, thanks be to God, as my father says,
+   we have enough to keep us fed and clothed and housed. But do thee
+   keep enough of thy inheritance to bring thee safe home again to
+   those who love thee. England is ever grey, Davy, but without thee
+   it is grizzled--all one “Quaker drab,” as says the Philistine. But
+   it is a comely and a good land, and here we wait for thee.
+
+   In love and remembrance.
+
+   I am thy mother’s sister, thy most loving friend.
+
+                       FAITH.
+
+David received this letter as he was mounting a huge white Syrian donkey
+to ride to the Mokattam Hills, which rise sharply behind Cairo, burning
+and lonely and large. The cities of the dead Khalifas and Mamelukes
+separated them from the living city where the fellah toiled, and Arab,
+Bedouin, Copt strove together to intercept the fruits of his toiling, as
+it passed in the form of taxes to the Palace of the Prince Pasha; while
+in the dark corners crouched, waiting, the cormorant usurers--Greeks,
+Armenians, and Syrians, a hideous salvage corps, who saved the house
+of a man that they might at last walk off with his shirt and the cloth
+under which he was carried to his grave. In a thousand narrow streets
+and lanes, in the warm glow of the bazaars, in earth-damp huts, by
+blistering quays, on the myriad ghiassas on the river, from long before
+sunrise till the sunset-gun boomed from the citadel rising beside the
+great mosque whose pinnacles seem to touch the blue, the slaves of
+the city of Prince Kaid ground out their lives like corn between the
+millstones.
+
+David had been long enough in Egypt to know what sort of toiling it was.
+A man’s labour was not his own. The fellah gave labour and taxes and
+backsheesh and life to the State, and the long line of tyrants above
+him, under the sting of the kourbash; the high officials gave backsheesh
+to the Prince Pasha, or to his Mouffetish, or to his Chief Eunuch, or to
+his barber, or to some slave who had his ear.
+
+But all the time the bright, unclouded sun looked down on a smiling
+land, and in Cairo streets the din of the hammers, the voices of the
+boys driving heavily laden donkeys, the call of the camel-drivers
+leading their caravans into the great squares, the clang of the brasses
+of the sherbet-sellers, the song of the vendor of sweetmeats, the drone
+of the merchant praising his wares, went on amid scenes of wealth and
+luxury, and the city glowed with colour and gleamed with light. Dark
+faces grinned over the steaming pot at the door of the cafes, idlers
+on the benches smoked hasheesh, female street-dancers bared their faces
+shamelessly to the men, and indolent musicians beat on their tiny drums,
+and sang the song of “O Seyyid,” or of “Antar”; and the reciter gave
+his sing-song tale from a bench above his fellows. Here a devout Muslim,
+indifferent to the presence of strangers, turned his face to the East,
+touched his forehead to the ground, and said his prayers. There, hung to
+a tree by a deserted mosque near by, the body of one who was with
+them all an hour before, and who had paid the penalty for some real
+or imaginary crime; while his fellows blessed Allah that the storm had
+passed them by. Guilt or innocence did not weigh with them; and the dead
+criminal, if such he were, who had drunk his glass of water and prayed
+to Allah, was, in their sight, only fortunate and not disgraced, and had
+“gone to the bosom of Allah.” Now the Muezzin from a minaret called to
+prayer, and the fellah in his cotton shirt and yelek heard, laid his
+load aside, and yielded himself to his one dear illusion, which would
+enable him to meet with apathy his end--it might be to-morrow!--and go
+forth to that plenteous heaven where wives without number awaited him,
+where fields would yield harvests without labour, where rich food in
+gold dishes would be ever at his hand. This was his faith.
+
+David had now been in the country six months, rapidly perfecting his
+knowledge of Arabic, speaking it always to his servant Mahommed Hassan,
+whom he had picked from the streets. Ebn Ezra Bey had gone upon his own
+business to Fazougli, the tropical Siberia of Egypt, to liberate, by
+order of Prince Kaid,--and at a high price--a relative banished there.
+David had not yet been fortunate with his own business--the settlement
+of his Uncle Benn’s estate--though the last stages of negotiation with
+the Prince Pasha seemed to have been reached. When he had brought the
+influence of the British Consulate to bear, promises were made, doors
+were opened wide, and Pasha and Bey offered him coffee and talked to
+him sympathetically. They had respect for him more than for most Franks,
+because the Prince Pasha had honoured him with especial favour. Perhaps
+because David wore his hat always and the long coat with high collar
+like a Turk, or because Prince Kaid was an acute judge of human nature,
+and also because honesty was a thing he greatly desired--in others--and
+never found near his own person; however it was, he had set David high
+in his esteem at once. This esteem gave greater certainty that any
+backsheesh coming from the estate of Benn Claridge would not be sifted
+through many hands on its way to himself. Of Benn Claridge Prince Kaid
+had scarcely even heard until he died; and, indeed, it was only within
+the past few years that the Quaker merchant had extended his business to
+Egypt and had made his headquarters at Assiout, up the river.
+
+David’s donkey now picked its way carefully through the narrow streets
+of the Moosky. Arabs and fellaheen squatting at street corners looked at
+him with furtive interest. A foreigner of this character they had never
+before seen, with coat buttoned up like an Egyptian official in the
+presence of his superior, and this wide, droll hat on his head. David
+knew that he ran risks, that his confidence invited the occasional
+madness of a fanatical mind, which makes murder of the infidel a
+passport to heaven; but as a man he took his chances, and as a Christian
+he believed he would suffer no mortal hurt till his appointed time. He
+was more Oriental, more fatalist, than he knew. He had also early in his
+life learned that an honest smile begets confidence; and his face, grave
+and even a little austere in outline, was usually lighted by a smile.
+
+From the Mokattam Hills, where he read Faith’s letter again, his back
+against one of the forts which Napoleon had built in his Egyptian days,
+he scanned the distance. At his feet lay the great mosque, and the
+citadel, whose guns controlled the city, could pour into it a lava
+stream of shot and shell. The Nile wound its way through the green
+plains, stretching as far to the north as eye could see between the opal
+and mauve and gold of the Libyan Hills. Far over in the western vista a
+long line of trees, twining through an oasis flanking the city, led out
+to a point where the desert abruptly raised its hills of yellow sand.
+Here, enormous, lonely, and cynical, the pyramids which Cheops had
+built, the stone sphinx of Ghizeh, kept faith with the desert in the
+glow of rainless land-reminders ever that the East, the mother of
+knowledge, will by knowledge prevail; that:
+
+          “The thousand years of thy insolence
+          The thousand years of thy faith,
+          Will be paid in fiery recompense,
+          And a thousand years of bitter death.”
+
+“The sword--for ever the sword,” David said to himself, as he looked:
+“Rameses and David and Mahomet and Constantine, and how many conquests
+have been made in the name of God! But after other conquests there have
+been peace and order and law. Here in Egypt it is ever the sword, the
+survival of the strongest.”
+
+As he made his way down the hillside again he fell to thinking upon all
+Faith had written. The return of the drunken chair-maker made a deep
+impression on him--almost as deep as the waking dreams he had had of his
+uncle calling him.
+
+“Soolsby and me--what is there between Soolsby and me?” he asked himself
+now as he made his way past the tombs of the Mamelukes. “He and I are
+as far apart as the poles, and yet it comes to me now, with a strange
+conviction, that somehow my life will be linked with that of the drunken
+Romish chair-maker. To what end?” Then he fell to thinking of his Uncle
+Benn. The East was calling him. “Something works within me to hold me
+here, a work to do.”
+
+From the ramparts of the citadel he watched the sun go down, bathing the
+pyramids in a purple and golden light, throwing a glamour over all
+the western plain, and making heavenly the far hills with a plaintive
+colour, which spoke of peace and rest, but not of hope. As he stood
+watching, he was conscious of people approaching. Voices mingled, there
+was light laughter, little bursts of admiration, then lower tones,
+and then he was roused by a voice calling. He turned round. A group of
+people were moving towards the exit from the ramparts, and near himself
+stood a man waving an adieu.
+
+“Well, give my love to the girls,” said the man cheerily. Merry faces
+looked back and nodded, and in a moment they were gone. The man turned
+round, and looked at David, then he jerked his head in a friendly sort
+of way and motioned towards the sunset.
+
+“Good enough, eh?”
+
+“Surely, for me,” answered David. On the instant he liked the red,
+wholesome face, and the keen, round, blue eyes, the rather opulent
+figure, the shrewd, whimsical smile, all aglow now with beaming
+sentimentality, which had from its softest corner called out: “Well,
+give my love to the girls.”
+
+“Quaker, or I never saw Germantown and Philadelphy,” he continued, with
+a friendly manner quite without offence. “I put my money on Quakers
+every time.”
+
+“But not from Germantown or Philadelphia,” answered David, declining a
+cigar which his new acquaintance offered.
+
+“Bet you, I know that all right. But I never saw Quakers anywhere else,
+and I meant the tribe and not the tent. English, I bet? Of course, or
+you wouldn’t be talking the English language--though I’ve heard they
+talk it better in Boston than they do in England, and in Chicago they’re
+making new English every day and improving on the patent. If Chicago
+can’t have the newest thing, she won’t have anything. ‘High hopes that
+burn like stars sublime,’ has Chicago. She won’t let Shakespeare or
+Milton be standards much longer. She won’t have it--simply won’t have
+England swaggering over the English language. Oh, she’s dizzy, is
+Chicago--simply dizzy. I was born there. Parents, one Philadelphy, one
+New York, one Pawtucket--the Pawtucket one was the step-mother. Father
+liked his wives from the original States; but I was born in Chicago. My
+name is Lacey--Thomas Tilman Lacey of Chicago.”
+
+“I thank thee,” said David.
+
+“And you, sir?”
+
+“David Claridge.”
+
+“Of--?”
+
+“Of Hamley.”
+
+“Mr. Claridge of Hamley. Mr. Claridge, I am glad to meet you.” They
+shook hands. “Been here long, Mr. Claridge?”
+
+“A few months only.”
+
+“Queer place--gilt-edged dust-bin; get anything you like here, from a
+fresh gutter-snipe to old Haroun-al-Raschid. It’s the biggest jack-pot
+on earth. Barnum’s the man for this place--P. T. Barnum. Golly, how
+the whole thing glitters and stews! Out of Shoobra his High Jinks Pasha
+kennels with his lions and lives with his cellars of gold, as if he
+was going to take them with him where he’s going--and he’s going fast.
+Here--down here, the people, the real people, sweat and drudge between
+a cake of dourha, an onion, and a balass of water at one end of the day,
+and a hemp collar and their feet off the ground at the other.”
+
+“You have seen much of Egypt?” asked David, feeling a strange confidence
+in the garrulous man, whose frankness was united to shrewdness and a
+quick, observant eye.
+
+“How much of Egypt I’ve seen, the Egypt where more men get lost,
+strayed, and stolen than die in their beds every day, the Egypt where
+a eunuch is more powerful than a minister, where an official will toss
+away a life as I’d toss this cigar down there where the last Mameluke
+captain made his great jump, where women--Lord A’mighty! where women are
+divorced by one evil husband, by the dozen, for nothing they ever did
+or left undone, and yet ‘d be cut to pieces by their own fathers if they
+learned that ‘To step aside is human--’ Mr. Claridge, of that Egypt I
+don’t know much more’n would entitle me to say, How d’ye do. But it’s
+enough for me. You’ve seen something--eh?”
+
+“A little. It is not civilised life here. Yet--yet a few strong
+patriotic men--”
+
+Lacey looked quizzically at David.
+
+“Say,” he said, “I thought that about Mexico once. I said
+Manana--this Manana is the curse of Mexico. It’s always
+to-morrow--to-morrow--to-morrow. Let’s teach ‘em to do things to-day.
+Let’s show ‘em what business means. Two million dollars went into that
+experiment, but Manana won. We had good hands, but it had the joker.
+After five years I left, with a bald head at twenty-nine, and a little
+book of noble thoughts--Tips for the Tired, or Things you can say To-day
+on what you can do to-morrow. I lost my hair worrying, but I learned
+to be patient. The Dagos wanted to live in their own way, and they did.
+It’s one thing to be a missionary and say the little word in season;
+it’s another to run your soft red head against a hard stone wall. I went
+to Mexico a conquistador, I left it a child of time, who had learned to
+smile; and I left some millions behind me, too. I said to an old Padre
+down there that I knew--we used to meet in the Cafe Manrique and drink
+chocolate--I said to him, ‘Padre, the Lord’s Prayer is a mistake down
+here.’ ‘Si, senor,’ he said, and smiled his far-away smile at me. ‘Yes,’
+said I, ‘for you say in the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily
+bread.”’ ‘Si, senor,’ he says, ‘but we do not expect it till to-morrow!’
+The Padre knew from the start, but I learned at great expense, and went
+out of business--closed up shop for ever, with a bald head and my Tips
+for the Tired. Well, I’ve had more out of it all, I guess, than if I’d
+trebled the millions and wiped Manana off the Mexican coat of arms.”
+
+“You think it would be like that here?” David asked abstractedly.
+
+Lacey whistled. “There the Government was all right and the people all
+wrong. Here the people are all right and the Government all wrong. Say,
+it makes my eyes water sometimes to see the fellah slogging away. He’s
+a Jim-dandy--works all day and half the night, and if the tax-gatherer
+isn’t at the door, wakes up laughing. I saw one”--his light blue eyes
+took on a sudden hardness--“laughing on the other side of his mouth one
+morning. They were ‘kourbashing’ his feet; I landed on them as the soles
+came away. I hit out.” His face became grave, he turned the cigar round
+in his mouth. “It made me feel better, but I had a close call. Lucky for
+me that in Mexico I got into the habit of carrying a pop-gun. It saved
+me then. But it isn’t any use going on these special missions. We
+Americans think a lot of ourselves. We want every land to do as we do;
+and we want to make ‘em do it. But a strong man here at the head, with
+a sword in his hand, peace in his heart, who’d be just and poor--how can
+you make officials honest when you take all you can get yourself--! But,
+no, I guess it’s no good. This is a rotten cotton show.”
+
+Lacey had talked so much, not because he was garrulous only, but because
+the inquiry in David’s eyes was an encouragement to talk. Whatever his
+misfortunes in Mexico had been, his forty years sat lightly on him, and
+his expansive temperament, his childlike sentimentality, gave him
+an appearance of beaming, sophisticated youth. David was slowly
+apprehending these things as he talked--subconsciously, as it were; for
+he was seeing pictures of the things he himself had observed, through
+the lens of another mind, as primitive in some regards as his own, but
+influenced by different experiences.
+
+“Say, you’re the best listener I ever saw,” added Lacey, with a laugh.
+
+David held out his hand. “Thee sees things clearly,” he answered.
+
+Lacey grasped his hand.
+
+At that moment an orderly advanced towards them. “He’s after us--one of
+the Palace cavalry,” said Lacey.
+
+“Effendi--Claridge Effendi! May his grave be not made till the
+karadh-gatherers return,” said the orderly to David.
+
+“My name is Claridge,” answered David.
+
+“To the hotel, effendi, first, then to the Mokattam Hills after thee,
+then here--from the Effendina, on whom be God’s peace, this letter for
+thee.”
+
+David took the letter. “I thank thee, friend,” he said.
+
+As he read it, Lacey said to the orderly in Arabic “How didst thou know
+he was here?”
+
+The orderly grinned wickedly.
+
+“Always it is known what place the effendi honours. It is not dark where
+he uncovers his face.”
+
+Lacey gave a low whistle.
+
+“Say, you’ve got a pull in this show,” he said, as David folded up the
+letter and put it in his pocket.
+
+“In Egypt, if the master smiles on you, the servant puts his nose in the
+dust.”
+
+“The Prince Pasha bids me to dinner at the Palace to-night. I have no
+clothes for such affairs. Yet--” His mind was asking itself if this was
+a door opening, which he had no right to shut with his own hand. There
+was no reason why he should not go; therefore there might be a
+reason why he should go. It might be, it no doubt was, in the way of
+facilitating his business. He dismissed the orderly with an affirmative
+and ceremonial message to Prince Kaid--and a piece of gold.
+
+“You’ve learned the custom of the place,” said Lacey, as he saw the gold
+piece glitter in the brown palm of the orderly.
+
+“I suppose the man’s only pay is in such service,” rejoined David. “It
+is a land of backsheesh. The fault is not with the people; it is with
+the rulers. I am not sorry to share my goods with the poor.”
+
+“You’ll have a big going concern here in no time,” observed Lacey. “Now,
+if I had those millions I left in Mexico--” Suddenly he stopped. “Is it
+you that’s trying to settle up an estate here--at Assiout--belonged to
+an uncle?”
+
+David inclined his head.
+
+“They say that you and Prince Kaid are doing the thing yourselves, and
+that the pashas and judges and all the high-mogul sharks of the Medjidie
+think that the end of the world has come. Is that so?”
+
+“It is so, if not completely so. There are the poor men and humble--the
+pashas and judges and the others of the Medjidie, as thee said, are not
+poor. But such as the orderly yonder--” He paused meditatively.
+
+Lacey looked at David with profound respect. “You make the poorest your
+partners, your friends. I see, I see. Jerusalem, that’s masterly! I
+admire you. It’s a new way in this country.” Then, after a moment:
+“It’ll do--by golly, it’ll do! Not a bit more costly, and you do some
+good with it. Yes--it--will--do.”
+
+“I have given no man money save in charity and for proper service done
+openly,” said David, a little severely.
+
+“Say--of course. And that’s just what isn’t done here. Everything goes
+to him who hath, and from him who hath not is taken away even that which
+he hath. One does the work and another gets paid--that’s the way here.
+But you, Mr. Claridge, you clinch with the strong man at the top, and,
+down below, you’ve got as your partners the poor man, whose name is
+Legion. If you get a fall out of the man at the top, you’re solid with
+the Legion. And if the man at the top gets up again and salaams and
+strokes your hand, and says, ‘Be my brother,’ then it’s a full Nile,
+and the fig-tree putteth forth its tender branches, and the date-palm
+flourisheth, and at the village pond the thanksgiving turkey gobbles and
+is glad. ‘Selah’!”
+
+The sunset gun boomed out from the citadel. David turned to go, and
+Lacey added:
+
+“I’m waiting for a pasha who’s taking toll of the officers inside
+there--Achmet Pasha. They call him the Ropemaker, because so many pass
+through his hands to the Nile. The Old Muslin I call him, because he’s
+so diaphanous. Thinks nobody can see through him, and there’s nobody
+that can’t. If you stay long in Egypt, you’ll find that Achmet is the
+worst, and Nahoum the Armenian the deepest, pasha in all this sickening
+land. Achmet is cruel as a tiger to any one that stands in his way;
+Nahoum, the whale, only opens out to swallow now and then; but when
+Nahoum does open out, down goes Jonah, and never comes up again. He’s
+a deep one, and a great artist is Nahoum. I’ll bet a dollar you’ll see
+them both to-night at the Palace--if Kaid doesn’t throw them to the
+lions for their dinner before yours is served. Here one shark is
+swallowed by another bigger, till at last the only and original
+sea-serpent swallows ‘em all.”
+
+As David wound his way down the hills, Lacey waved a hand after him.
+
+“Well, give my love to the girls,” he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. “HAST THOU NEVER KILLED A MAN?”
+
+“Claridge Effendi!”
+
+As David moved forward, his mind was embarrassed by many impressions.
+He was not confused, but the glitter and splendour, the Oriental
+gorgeousness of the picture into which he stepped, excited his
+eye, roused some new sense in him. He was a curious figure in those
+surroundings. The consuls and agents of all the nations save one were
+in brilliant uniform, and pashas, generals, and great officials were
+splendid in gold braid and lace, and wore flashing Orders on their
+breasts. David had been asked for half-past eight o’clock, and he was
+there on the instant; yet here was every one assembled, the Prince Pasha
+included. As he walked up the room he suddenly realised this fact, and,
+for a moment, he thought he had made a mistake; but again he remembered
+distinctly that the letter said half-past eight, and he wondered now
+if this had been arranged by the Prince--for what purpose? To afford
+amusement to the assembled company? He drew himself up with dignity, his
+face became graver. He had come in a Quaker suit of black broadcloth,
+with grey steel buttons, and a plain white stock; and he wore his
+broad-brimmed hat--to the consternation of the British Consul-General
+and the Europeans present, to the amazement of the Turkish and native
+officials, who eyed him keenly. They themselves wore red tarbooshes, as
+did the Prince; yet all of them knew that the European custom of showing
+respect was by doffing the hat. The Prince Pasha had settled that with
+David, however, at their first meeting, when David had kept on his hat
+and offered Kaid his hand.
+
+Now, with amusement in his eyes, Prince Kaid watched David coming up the
+great hall. What his object was in summoning David for an hour when
+all the court and all the official Europeans should be already present,
+remained to be seen. As David entered, Kaid was busy receiving salaams,
+and returning greeting, but with an eye to the singularly boyish yet
+gallant figure approaching. By the time David had reached the group, the
+Prince Pasha was ready to receive him.
+
+“Friend, I am glad to welcome thee,” said the Effendina, sly humour
+lurking at the corner of his eye. Conscious of the amazement of all
+present, he held out his hand to David.
+
+“May thy coming be as the morning dew, friend,” he added, taking David’s
+willing hand.
+
+“And thy feet, Kaid, wall in goodly paths, by the grace of God the
+compassionate and merciful.”
+
+As a wind, unfelt, stirs the leaves of a forest, making it rustle
+delicately, a whisper swept through the room. Official Egypt was
+dumfounded. Many had heard of David, a few had seen him, and now all
+eyed with inquisitive interest one who defied so many of the customs of
+his countrymen; who kept on his hat; who used a Mahommedan salutation
+like a true believer; whom the Effendina honoured--and presently
+honoured in an unusual degree by seating him at table opposite himself,
+where his Chief Chamberlain was used to sit.
+
+During dinner Kaid addressed his conversation again and again to David,
+asking questions put to disconcert the consuls and other official folk
+present, confident in the naive reply which would be returned. For there
+was a keen truthfulness in the young man’s words which, however suave
+and carefully balanced, however gravely simple and tactful, left no
+doubt as to their meaning. There was nothing in them which could be
+challenged, could be construed into active criticism of men or things;
+and yet much he said was horrifying. It made Achmet Pasha sit up
+aghast, and Nahoum Pasha, the astute Armenian, for a long time past the
+confidant and favourite of the Prince Pasha, laugh in his throat; for,
+if there was a man in Egypt who enjoyed the thrust of a word or the
+bite of a phrase, it was Nahoum. Christian though he was, he was,
+nevertheless, Oriental to his farthermost corner, and had the culture of
+a French savant. He had also the primitive view of life, and the morals
+of a race who, in the clash of East and West, set against Western
+character and directness, and loyalty to the terms of a bargain, the
+demoralised cunning of the desert folk; the circuitous tactics of those
+who believed that no man spoke the truth directly, that it must ever
+be found beneath devious and misleading words, to be tracked like a
+panther, as an Antipodean bushman once said, “through the sinuosities
+of the underbrush.” Nahoum Pasha had also a rich sense of grim humour.
+Perhaps that was why he had lived so near the person of the Prince, had
+held office so long. There were no Grand Viziers in Egypt; but he was
+as much like one as possible, and he had one uncommon virtue, he was
+greatly generous. If he took with his right hand he gave with his left;
+and Mahommedan as well as Copt and Armenian, and beggars of every race
+and creed, hung about his doors each morning to receive the food and
+alms he gave freely.
+
+After one of David’s answers to Kaid, which had had the effect
+of causing his Highness to turn a sharp corner of conversation by
+addressing himself to the French consul, Nahoum said suavely:
+
+“And so, monsieur, you think that we hold life lightly in the East--that
+it is a characteristic of civilisation to make life more sacred, to
+cherish it more fondly?”
+
+He was sitting beside David, and though he asked the question casually,
+and with apparent intention only of keeping talk going, there was a
+lurking inquisition in his eye. He had seen enough to-night to make
+him sure that Kaid had once more got the idea of making a European
+his confidant and adviser; to introduce to his court one of those
+mad Englishmen who cared nothing for gold--only for power; who loved
+administration for the sake of administration and the foolish joy of
+labour. He was now set to see what sort of match this intellect could
+play, when faced by the inherent contradictions present in all truths or
+the solutions of all problems.
+
+“It is one of the characteristics of that which lies behind
+civilisation, as thee and me have been taught,” answered David.
+
+Nahoum was quick in strategy, but he was unprepared for David’s
+knowledge that he was an Armenian Christian, and he had looked for
+another answer.
+
+But he kept his head and rose to the occasion. “Ah, it is high, it is
+noble, to save life--it is so easy to destroy it,” he answered. “I saw
+his Highness put his life in danger once to save a dog from drowning. To
+cherish the lives of others, and to be careless of our own; to give
+that of great value as though it were of no worth--is it not the
+Great Lesson?” He said it with such an air of sincerity, with such
+dissimulation, that, for the moment, David was deceived. There was,
+however, on the face of the listening Kaid a curious, cynical smile. He
+had heard all, and he knew the sardonic meaning behind Nahoum’s words.
+
+Fat High Pasha, the Chief Chamberlain, the corrupt and corruptible,
+intervened. “It is not so hard to be careless when care would be
+useless,” he said, with a chuckle. “When the khamsin blows the
+dust-storms upon the caravan, the camel-driver hath no care for his
+camels. ‘Malaish!’ he says, and buries his face in his yelek.”
+
+“Life is beautiful and so difficult--to save,” observed Nahoum, in
+a tone meant to tempt David on one hand and to reach the ears of the
+notorious Achmet Pasha, whose extortions, cruelties, and taxations had
+built his master’s palaces, bribed his harem, given him money to pay
+the interest on his European loans, and made himself the richest man in
+Egypt, whose spies were everywhere, whose shadow was across every man’s
+path. Kaid might slay, might toss a pasha or a slave into the Nile now
+and then, might invite a Bey to visit him, and stroke his beard and call
+him brother and put diamond-dust in the coffee he drank, so that he
+died before two suns came and went again, “of inflammation and a natural
+death”; but he, Achmet Pasha, was the dark Inquisitor who tortured every
+day, for whose death all men prayed, and whom some would have slain, but
+that another worse than himself might succeed him.
+
+At Nahoum’s words the dusky brown of Achmet’s face turned as black as
+the sudden dilation of the pupil of an eye deepens its hue, and he said
+with a guttural accent:
+
+“Every man hath a time to die.”
+
+“But not his own time,” answered Nahoum maliciously.
+
+“It would appear that in Egypt he hath not always the choice of the
+fashion or the time,” remarked David calmly. He had read the malice
+behind their words, and there had flashed into his own mind tales told
+him, with every circumstance of accuracy, of deaths within and without
+the Palace. Also he was now aware that Nahoum had mocked him. He was
+concerned to make it clear that he was not wholly beguiled.
+
+“Is there, then, for a man choice of fashion or time in England,
+effendi?” asked Nahoum, with assumed innocence.
+
+“In England it is a matter between the Giver and Taker of life and
+himself--save where murder does its work,” said David.
+
+“And here it is between man and man--is it that you would say?” asked
+Nahoum.
+
+“There seem wider privileges here,” answered David drily.
+
+“Accidents will happen, privileges or no,” rejoined Nahoum, with
+lowering eyelids.
+
+The Prince intervened. “Thy own faith forbids the sword, forbids war,
+or--punishment.”
+
+“The Prophet I follow was called the Prince of Peace, friend,” answered
+David, bowing gravely across the table.
+
+“Hast thou never killed a man?” asked Kaid, with interest in his eyes.
+He asked the question as a man might ask another if he had never visited
+Paris.
+
+“Never, by the goodness of God, never,” answered David.
+
+“Neither in punishment nor in battle?”
+
+“I am neither judge nor soldier, friend.”
+
+“Inshallah, thou hast yet far to go! Thou art young yet. Who can tell?”
+
+“I have never so far to go as that, friend,” said David, in a voice that
+rang a little.
+
+“To-morrow is no man’s gift.”
+
+David was about to answer, but chancing to raise his eyes above the
+Prince Pasha’s head, his glance was arrested and startled by seeing a
+face--the face of a woman-looking out of a panel in a mooshrabieh screen
+in a gallery above. He would not have dwelt upon the incident, he would
+have set it down to the curiosity of a woman of the harem, but that
+the face looking out was that of an English girl, and peering over her
+shoulder was the dark, handsome face of an Egyptian or a Turk.
+
+Self-control was the habit of his life, the training of his faith,
+and, as a rule, his face gave little evidence of inner excitement.
+Demonstration was discouraged, if not forbidden, among the Quakers, and
+if, to others, it gave a cold and austere manner, in David it tempered
+to a warm stillness the powerful impulses in him, the rivers of feeling
+which sometimes roared through his veins.
+
+Only Nahoum Pasha had noticed his arrested look, so motionless did he
+sit; and now, without replying, he bowed gravely and deferentially to
+Kaid, who rose from the table. He followed with the rest. Presently the
+Prince sent Higli Pasha to ask his nearer presence.
+
+The Prince made a motion of his hand, and the circle withdrew. He waved
+David to a seat.
+
+“To-morrow thy business shall be settled,” said the Prince suavely, “and
+on such terms as will not startle. Death-tribute is no new thing in the
+East. It is fortunate for thee that the tribute is from thy hand to my
+hand, and not through many others to mine.”
+
+“I am conscious I have been treated with favour, friend,” said David.
+“I would that I might show thee kindness. Though how may a man of no
+account make return to a great Prince?”
+
+“By the beard of my father, it is easily done, if thy kindness is a
+real thing, and not that which makes me poorer the more I have of it--as
+though one should be given a herd of horses which must not be sold but
+still must be fed.”
+
+“I have given thee truth. Is not truth cheaper than falsehood?”
+
+“It is the most expensive thing in Egypt; so that I despair of buying
+thee. Yet I would buy thee to remain here--here at my court; here by my
+hand which will give thee the labour thou lovest, and will defend thee
+if defence be needed. Thou hast not greed, thou hast no thirst for
+honour, yet thou hast wisdom beyond thy years. Kaid has never besought
+men, but he beseeches thee. Once there was in Egypt, Joseph, a wise
+youth, who served a Pharaoh, and was his chief counsellor, and it was
+well with the land. Thy name is a good name; well-being may follow thee.
+The ages have gone, and the rest of the world has changed, but Egypt is
+the same Egypt, the Nile rises and falls, and the old lean years and fat
+years come and go. Though I am in truth a Turk, and those who serve
+and rob me here are Turks, yet the fellah is the same as he was five
+thousand years ago. What Joseph the Israelite did, thou canst do; for
+I am no more unjust than was that Rameses whom Joseph served. Wilt thou
+stay with me?”
+
+David looked at Kaid as though he would read in his face the reply that
+he must make, but he did not see Kaid; he saw, rather, the face of
+one he had loved more than Jonathan had been loved by the young
+shepherd-prince of Israel. In his ears he heard the voice that had
+called him in his sleep-the voice of Benn Claridge; and, at the same
+instant, there flashed into his mind a picture of himself fighting
+outside the tavern beyond Hamley and bidding farewell to the girl at the
+crossroads.
+
+“Friend, I cannot answer thee now,” he said, in a troubled voice.
+
+Kaid rose. “I will give thee an hour to think upon it. Come with me.” He
+stepped forward. “To-morrow I will answer thee, Kaid.”
+
+“To-morrow there is work for thee to do. Come.” David followed him.
+
+The eyes that followed the Prince and the Quaker were not friendly.
+What Kaid had long foreshadowed seemed at hand: the coming of a European
+counsellor and confidant. They realised that in the man who had just
+left the room with Kaid there were characteristics unlike those they had
+ever met before in Europeans.
+
+“A madman,” whispered High Pasha to Achmet the Ropemaker.
+
+“Then his will be the fate of the swine of Gadarene,” said Nahoum Pasha,
+who had heard.
+
+“At least one need not argue with a madman.” The face of Achmet the
+Ropemaker was not more pleasant than his dark words.
+
+“It is not the madman with whom you have to deal, but his keeper,”
+ rejoined Nahoum.
+
+Nahoum’s face was heavier than usual. Going to weight, he was still
+muscular and well groomed. His light brown beard and hair and blue eyes
+gave him a look almost Saxon, and bland power spoke in his face and in
+every gesture.
+
+He was seldom without the string of beads so many Orientals love
+to carry, and, Armenian Christian as he was, the act seemed almost
+religious. It was to him, however, like a ground-wire in telegraphy--it
+carried off the nervous force tingling in him and driving him to
+impulsive action, while his reputation called for a constant outward
+urbanity, a philosophical apathy. He had had his great fight for place
+and power, alien as he was in religion, though he had lived in Egypt
+since a child. Bar to progress as his religion had been at first, it had
+been an advantage afterwards; for, through it, he could exclude himself
+from complications with the Wakfs, the religious court of the Muslim
+creed, which had lands to administer, and controlled the laws of
+marriage and inheritance. He could shrug his shoulders and play with his
+beads, and urbanely explain his own helplessness and ineligibility when
+his influence was summoned, or it was sought to entangle him in warring
+interests. Oriental through and through, the basis of his creed was
+similar to that of a Muslim: Mahomet was a prophet and Christ was a
+prophet. It was a case of rival prophets--all else was obscured into a
+legend, and he saw the strife of race in the difference of creed. For
+the rest, he flourished the salutations and language of the Arab as
+though they were his own, and he spoke Arabic as perfectly as he did
+French and English.
+
+He was the second son of his father. The first son, who was but a year
+older, and was as dark as he was fair, had inherited--had seized--all
+his father’s wealth. He had lived abroad for some years in France and
+England. In the latter place he had been one of the Turkish Embassy,
+and, having none of the outward characteristics of the Turk, and being
+in appearance more of a Spaniard than an Oriental, he had, by his gifts,
+his address and personal appearance, won the good-will of the Duchess of
+Middlesex, and had had that success all too flattering to the soul of a
+libertine. It had, however, been the means of his premature retirement
+from England, for his chief at the Embassy had a preference for an
+Oriental entourage. He was called Foorgat Bey.
+
+Sitting at table, Nahoum alone of all present had caught David’s
+arrested look, and, glancing up, had seen the girl’s face at the panel
+of mooshrabieh, and had seen also over her shoulder the face of his
+brother, Foorgat Bey. He had been even more astonished than David,
+and far more disturbed. He knew his brother’s abilities; he knew his
+insinuating address--had he not influenced their father to give him
+wealth while he was yet alive? He was aware also that his brother had
+visited the Palace often of late. It would seem as though the Prince
+Pasha was ready to make him, as well as David, a favourite. But the
+face of the girl--it was an English face! Familiar with the Palace,
+and bribing when it was necessary to bribe, Foorgat Bey had evidently
+brought her to see the function, there where all women were forbidden.
+He could little imagine Foorgat doing this from mere courtesy; he could
+not imagine any woman, save one wholly sophisticated, or one entirely
+innocent, trusting herself with him--and in such a place. The girl’s
+face, though not that of one in her teens, had seemed to him a very
+flower of innocence.
+
+But, as he stood telling his beads, abstractedly listening to the
+scandal talked by Achmet and Higli, he was not thinking of his brother,
+but of the two who had just left the chamber. He was speculating as
+to which room they were likely to enter. They had not gone by the door
+convenient to passage to Kaid’s own apartments. He would give much to
+hear the conversation between Kaid and the stranger; he was all too
+conscious of its purport. As he stood thinking, Kaid returned. After
+looking round the room for a moment, the Prince came slowly over to
+Nahoum, and, stretching out a hand, stroked his beard.
+
+“Oh, brother of all the wise, may thy sun never pass its noon!” said
+Kaid, in a low, friendly voice.
+
+Despite his will, a shudder passed through Nahoum Pasha’s frame.
+How often in Egypt this gesture and such words were the prelude to
+assassination, from which there was no escape save by death itself. Into
+Nahoum’s mind there flashed the words of an Arab teacher, “There is
+no refuge from God but God Himself,” and he found himself blindly
+wondering, even as he felt Kaid’s hand upon his beard and listened to
+the honeyed words, what manner of death was now preparing for him, and
+what death of his own contriving should intervene. Escape, he knew,
+there was none, if his death was determined on; for spies were
+everywhere, and slaves in the pay of Kaid were everywhere, and such as
+were not could be bought or compelled, even if he took refuge in the
+house of a foreign consul. The lean, invisible, ghastly arm of death
+could find him, if Kaid willed, though he delved in the bowels of the
+Cairene earth, or climbed to an eagle’s eyrie in the Libyan Hills.
+Whether it was diamond-dust or Achmet’s thin thong that stopped the
+breath, it mattered not; it was sure. Yet he was not of the breed to
+tremble under the descending sword, and he had long accustomed himself
+to the chance of “sudden demise.” It had been chief among the chances he
+had taken when he entered the high and perilous service of Kaid. Now,
+as he felt the secret joy of these dark spirits surrounding him--Achmet,
+and High Pasha, who kept saying beneath his breath in thankfulness
+that it was not his turn, Praise be to God!--as he, felt their secret
+self-gratulations, and their evil joy over his prospective downfall,
+he settled himself steadily, made a low salutation to Kaid, and calmly
+awaited further speech. It came soon enough.
+
+“It is written upon a cucumber leaf--does not the world read it?--that
+Nahoum Pasha’s form shall cast a longer shadow than the trees; so that
+every man in Egypt shall, thinking on him, be as covetous as Ashaah, who
+knew but one thing more covetous than himself--the sheep that mistook
+the rainbow for a rope of hay, and, jumping for it, broke his neck.”
+
+Kaid laughed softly at his own words.
+
+With his eye meeting Kaid’s again, after a low salaam, Nahoum made
+answer:
+
+“I would that the lance of my fame might sheathe itself in the breasts
+of thy enemies, Effendina.”
+
+“Thy tongue does that office well,” was the reply. Once more Kaid laid
+a gentle hand upon Nahoum’s beard. Then, with a gesture towards the
+consuls and Europeans, he said to them in French: “If I might but beg
+your presence for yet a little time!” Then he turned and walked away. He
+left by a door leading to his own apartments.
+
+When he had gone, Nahoum swung slowly round and faced the agitated
+groups.
+
+“He who sleeps with one eye open sees the sun rise first,” he said, with
+a sarcastic laugh. “He who goes blindfold never sees it set.”
+
+Then, with a complacent look upon them all, he slowly left the room by
+the door out of which David and Kaid had first passed.
+
+Outside the room his face did not change. His manner had not been
+bravado. It was as natural to him as David’s manner was to himself. Each
+had trained himself in his own way to the mastery of his will, and the
+will in each was stronger than any passion of emotion in them. So far
+at least it had been so. In David it was the outcome of his faith,
+in Nahoum it was the outcome of his philosophy, a simple, fearless
+fatalism.
+
+David had been left by Kaid in a small room, little more than an
+alcove, next to a larger room richly furnished. Both rooms belonged to a
+spacious suite which lay between the harem and the major portion of the
+Palace. It had its own entrance and exits from the Palace, opening on
+the square at the front, at the back opening on its own garden, which
+also had its own exits to the public road. The quarters of the Chief
+Eunuch separated the suite from the harem, and Mizraim, the present
+Chief Eunuch, was a man of power in the Palace, knew more secrets, was
+more courted, and was richer than some of the princes. Nahoum had an
+office in the Palace, also, which gave him the freedom of the place, and
+brought him often in touch with the Chief Eunuch. He had made Mizraim
+a fast friend ever since the day he had, by an able device, saved the
+Chief Eunuch from determined robbery by the former Prince Pasha, with
+whom he had suddenly come out of favour.
+
+When Nahoum left the great salon, he directed his steps towards the
+quarters of the Chief Eunuch, thinking of David, with a vague desire
+for pursuit and conflict. He was too much of a philosopher to seek to do
+David physical injury--a futile act; for it could do him no good in the
+end, could not mend his own fortunes; and, merciless as he could be on
+occasion, he had no love of bloodshed. Besides, the game afoot was not
+of his making, and he was ready to await the finish, the more so because
+he was sure that to-morrow would bring forth momentous things. There was
+a crisis in the Soudan, there was trouble in the army, there was
+dark conspiracy of which he knew the heart, and anything might happen
+to-morrow! He had yet some cards to play, and Achmet and Higli--and
+another very high and great--might be delivered over to Kaid’s deadly
+purposes rather than himself tomorrow. What he knew Kaid did not know.
+He had not meant to act yet; but new facts faced him, and he must make
+one struggle for his life. But as he went towards Mizraim’s quarters he
+saw no sure escape from the stage of those untoward events, save by the
+exit which is for all in some appointed hour.
+
+He was not, however, more perplexed and troubled than David, who, in
+the little room where he had been brought and left alone with coffee and
+cigarettes, served by a slave from some distant portion of the Palace,
+sat facing his future.
+
+David looked round the little room. Upon the walls hung weapons of every
+kind--from a polished dagger of Toledo to a Damascus blade, suits of
+chain armour, long-handled, two-edged Arab swords, pistols which had
+been used in the Syrian wars of Ibrahim, lances which had been taken
+from the Druses at Palmyra, rude battle-axes from the tribes of the
+Soudan, and neboots of dom-wood which had done service against
+Napoleon at Damietta. The cushions among which he sat had come from
+Constantinople, the rug at his feet from Tiflis, the prayer-rug on the
+wall from Mecca.
+
+All that he saw was as unlike what he had known in past years as though
+he had come to Mars or Jupiter. All that he had heard recalled to him
+his first readings in the Old Testament--the story of Nebuchadnezzar, of
+Belshazzar, of Ahasuerus--of Ahasuerus! He suddenly remembered the
+face he had seen looking down at the Prince’s table from the panel of
+mooshrabieh. That English face--where was it? Why was it there? Who
+was the man with her? Whose the dark face peering scornfully over her
+shoulder? The face of an English girl in that place dedicated to sombre
+intrigue, to the dark effacement of women, to the darker effacement of
+life, as he well knew, all too often! In looking at this prospect for
+good work in the cause of civilisation, he was not deceived, he was not
+allured. He knew into what subterranean ways he must walk, through what
+mazes of treachery and falsehood he must find his way; and though he
+did not know to the full the corruption which it was his duty to Kaid
+to turn to incorruption, he knew enough to give his spirit pause. What
+would be--what could be--the end? Would he not prove to be as much out
+of place as was the face of that English girl? The English girl! England
+rushed back upon him--the love of those at home; of his father, the only
+father he had ever known; of Faith, the only mother or sister he had
+ever known; of old John Fairley; the love of the woods and the hills
+where he had wandered came upon him. There was work to do in England,
+work too little done--the memory of the great meeting at Heddington
+flashed upon him. Could his labour and his skill, if he had any, not be
+used there? Ah, the green fields, the soft grey skies, the quiet vale,
+the brave, self-respecting, toiling millions, the beautiful sense of law
+and order and goodness! Could his gifts and labours not be used there?
+Could not--
+
+He was suddenly startled by a smothered cry, then a call of distress. It
+was the voice of a woman.
+
+He started up. The voice seemed to come from a room at his right; not
+that from which he had entered, but one still beyond this where he was.
+He sprang towards the wall and examined it swiftly. Finding a division
+in the tapestry, he ran his fingers quickly and heavily down the crack
+between. It came upon the button of a spring. He pressed it, the door
+yielded, and, throwing it back, he stepped into the room-to see a woman
+struggling to resist the embraces and kisses of a man. The face was that
+of the girl who had looked out of the panel in the mooshrabieh screen.
+Then it was beautiful in its mirth and animation, now it was pale
+and terror-stricken, as with one free hand she fiercely beat the face
+pressed to hers.
+
+The girl only had seen David enter. The man was not conscious of his
+presence till he was seized and flung against the wall. The violence of
+the impact brought down at his feet two weapons from the wall above
+him. He seized one-a dagger-and sprang to his feet. Before he could move
+forward or raise his arm, however, David struck him a blow in the neck
+which flung him upon a square marble pedestal intended for a statue.
+In falling his head struck violently a sharp corner of the pedestal. He
+lurched, rolled over on the floor, and lay still.
+
+The girl gave a choking cry. David quickly stooped and turned the body
+over. There was a cut where the hair met the temple. He opened the
+waistcoat and thrust his hand inside the shirt. Then he felt the pulse
+of the limp wrist.
+
+For a moment he looked at the face steadily, almost contemplatively it
+might have seemed, and then drew both arms close to the body.
+
+Foorgat Bey, the brother of Nahoum Pasha, was dead.
+
+Rising, David turned, as if in a dream, to the girl. He made a motion of
+the hand towards the body. She understood. Dismay was in her face, but
+the look of horror and desperation was gone. She seemed not to realise,
+as did David, the awful position in which they were placed, the deed
+which David had done, the significance of the thing that lay at their
+feet.
+
+“Where are thy people?” said David. “Come, we will go to them.”
+
+“I have no people here,” she said, in a whisper.
+
+“Who brought thee?”
+
+She made a motion behind her towards the body. David glanced down. The
+eyes of the dead man were open. He stooped and closed them gently. The
+collar and tie were disarranged; he straightened them, then turned again
+to her.
+
+“I must take thee away,” he said calmly. “But it must be secretly.”
+ He looked around, perplexed. “We came secretly. My maid is outside the
+garden--in a carriage. Oh, come, let us go, let us escape. They will
+kill you--!” Terror came into her face again. “Thee, not me, is in
+danger--name, goodness, future, all.... Which way did thee come?”
+
+“Here--through many rooms--” She made a gesture to curtains beyond. “But
+we first entered through doors with sphinxes on either side, with a room
+where was a statue of Mehemet Ali.”
+
+It was the room through which David had come with Kaid. He took her
+hand. “Come quickly. I know the way. It is here,” he said, pointing to
+the panel-door by which he had entered.
+
+Holding her hand still, as though she were a child, he led her quickly
+from the room, and shut the panel behind them. As they passed through,
+a hand drew aside the curtains on the other side of the room which they
+were leaving.
+
+Presently the face of Nahoum Pasha followed the hand. A swift glance
+to the floor, then he ran forward, stooped down, and laid a hand on his
+brother’s breast. The slight wound on the forehead answered his rapid
+scrutiny. He realised the situation as plainly as if it had been written
+down for him--he knew his brother well.
+
+Noiselessly he moved forward and touched the spring of the door through
+which the two had gone. It yielded, and he passed through, closed the
+door again and stealthily listened, then stole a look into the farther
+chamber. It was empty. He heard the outer doors close. For a moment he
+listened, then went forward and passed through into the hall. Softly
+turning the handle of the big wooden doors which faced him, he opened
+them an inch or so, and listened. He could hear swiftly retreating
+footsteps. Presently he heard the faint noise of a gate shutting. He
+nodded his head, and was about to close the doors and turn away, when
+his quick ear detected footsteps again in the garden. Some one--the man,
+of course--was returning.
+
+“May fire burn his eyes for ever! He would talk with Kald, then go again
+among them all, and so pass out unsuspected and safe. For who but I--who
+but I could say he did it? And I--what is my proof? Only the words which
+I speak.”
+
+A scornful, fateful smile passed over his face. “‘Hast thou never killed
+a man?’ said Kaid. ‘Never,’ said he--‘by the goodness of God, never!’
+The voice of Him of Galilee, the hand of Cain, the craft of Jael. But
+God is with the patient.”
+
+He went hastily and noiselessly-his footfall was light for so heavy a
+man-through the large room to the farther side from that by which David
+and Kaid had first entered. Drawing behind a clump of palms near a door
+opening to a passage leading to Mizraim’s quarters, he waited. He saw
+David enter quickly, yet without any air of secrecy, and pass into the
+little room where Kaid had left him.
+
+For a long time there was silence.
+
+The reasons were clear in Nahoum’s mind why he should not act yet. A new
+factor had changed the equation which had presented itself a short half
+hour ago.
+
+A new factor had also entered into the equation which had been presented
+to David by Kaid with so flattering an insistence. He sat in the place
+where Kaid had left him, his face drawn and white, his eyes burning, but
+with no other “sign of agitation. He was frozen and still. His look was
+fastened now upon the door by which the Prince Pasha would enter, now
+upon the door through which he had passed to the rescue of the English
+girl, whom he had seen drive off safely with her maid. In their swift
+passage from the Palace to the carriage, a thing had been done of even
+greater moment than the killing of the sensualist in the next room.
+In the journey to the gateway the girl David served had begged him to
+escape with her. This he had almost sharply declined; it would be no
+escape, he had said. She had urged that no one knew. He had replied that
+Kaid would come again for him, and suspicion would be aroused if he were
+gone.
+
+“Thee has safety,” he had said. “I will go back. I will say that I
+killed him. I have taken a life, I will pay for it as is the law.”
+
+Excited as she was, she had seen the inflexibility of his purpose. She
+had seen the issue also clearly. He would give himself up, and the whole
+story would be the scandal of Europe.
+
+“You have no right to save me only to kill me,” she had said
+desperately. “You would give your life, but you would destroy that
+which is more than life to me. You did not intend to kill him. It was
+no murder, it was punishment.” Her voice had got harder. “He would have
+killed my life because he was evil. Will you kill it because you are
+good? Will you be brave, quixotic, but not pitiful?... No, no, no!”
+ she had said, as his hand was upon the gate, “I will not go unless you
+promise that you will hide the truth, if you can.” She had laid her hand
+upon his shoulder with an agonised impulse. “You will hide it for a girl
+who will cherish your memory her whole life long. Ah--God bless you!”
+
+She had felt that she conquered before he spoke as, indeed, he did not
+speak, but nodded his head and murmured something indistinctly. But that
+did not matter, for she had won; she had a feeling that all would be
+well. Then he had placed her in her carriage, and she was driven swiftly
+away, saying to herself half hysterically: “I am safe, I am safe. He
+will keep his word.”
+
+Her safety and his promise were the new factor which changed the
+equation for which Kaid would presently ask the satisfaction. David’s
+life had suddenly come upon problems for which his whole past was no
+preparation. Conscience, which had been his guide in every situation,
+was now disarmed, disabled, and routed. It had come to terms.
+
+In going quickly through the room, they had disarranged a table. The
+girl’s cloak had swept over it, and a piece of brie-a-brae had been
+thrown upon the floor. He got up and replaced it with an attentive
+air. He rearranged the other pieces on the table mechanically, seeing,
+feeling another scene, another inanimate thing which must be for ever
+and for ever a picture burning in his memory. Yet he appeared to be
+casually doing a trivial and necessary act. He did not definitely
+realise his actions; but long afterwards he could have drawn an accurate
+plan of the table, could have reproduced upon it each article in its
+exact place as correctly as though it had been photographed. There were
+one or two spots of dust or dirt on the floor, brought in by his boots
+from the garden. He flicked them aside with his handkerchief.
+
+How still it was! Or was it his life which had become so still? It
+seemed as if the world must be noiseless, for not a sound of the life in
+other parts of the Palace came to him, not an echo or vibration of the
+city which stirred beyond the great gateway. Was it the chilly hand of
+death passing over everything, and smothering all the activities? His
+pulses, which, but a few minutes past, were throbbing and pounding like
+drums in his ears, seemed now to flow and beat in very quiet. Was this,
+then, the way that murderers felt, that men felt who took human life--so
+frozen, so little a part of their surroundings? Did they move as dead
+men among the living, devitalised, vacuous calm?
+
+His life had been suddenly twisted out of recognition. All that his
+habit, his code, his morals, his religion, had imposed upon him had
+been overturned in one moment. To take a human life, even in battle, was
+against the code by which he had ever been governed, yet he had taken
+life secretly, and was hiding it from the world.
+
+Accident? But had it been necessary to strike at all? His presence alone
+would have been enough to save the girl from further molestation; but,
+he had thrown himself upon the man like a tiger. Yet, somehow, he felt
+no sorrow for that. He knew that if again and yet again he were placed
+in the same position he would do even as he had done--even as he had
+done with the man Kimber by the Fox and Goose tavern beyond Hamley. He
+knew that the blow he had given then was inevitable, and he had never
+felt real repentance. Thinking of that blow, he saw its sequel in the
+blow he had given now. Thus was that day linked with the present, thus
+had a blow struck in punishment of the wrong done the woman at the
+crossroads been repeated in the wrong done the girl who had just left
+him.
+
+A sound now broke the stillness. It was a door shutting not far off.
+Kaid was coming. David turned his face towards the room where Foorgat
+Bey was lying dead. He lifted his arms with a sudden passionate gesture.
+The blood came rushing through his veins again. His life, which had
+seemed suspended, was set free; and an exaltation of sorrow, of pain, of
+action, possessed him.
+
+“I have taken a life, O my God!” he murmured. “Accept mine in service
+for this land. What I have done in secret, let me atone for in secret,
+for this land--for this poor land, for Christ’s sake!”
+
+Footsteps were approaching quickly. With a great effort of the will he
+ruled himself to quietness again. Kaid entered, and stood before him in
+silence. David rose. He looked Kaid steadily in the eyes. “Well?” said
+Kaid placidly.
+
+“For Egypt’s sake I will serve thee,” was the reply. He held out his
+hand. Kaid took it, but said, in smiling comment on the action: “As the
+Viceroy’s servant there is another way!”
+
+“I will salaam to-morrow, Kaid,” answered David.
+
+“It is the only custom of the place I will require of thee, effendi.
+Come.”
+
+A few moments later they were standing among the consuls and officials
+in the salon.
+
+“Where is Nahoum?” asked Kaid, looking round on the agitated throng.
+
+No one answered. Smiling, Kaid whispered in David’s ear.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE COMPACT
+
+One by one the lights went out in the Palace. The excited guests were
+now knocking at the doors of Cairene notables, bent upon gossip of the
+night’s events, or were scouring the bazaars for ears into which to
+pour the tale of how David was exalted and Nahoum was brought low; how,
+before them all, Kaid had commanded Nahoum to appear at the Palace in
+the morning at eleven, and the Inglesi, as they had named David, at ten.
+But they declared to all who crowded upon their words that the Inglesi
+left the Palace with a face frozen white, as though it was he that had
+met debacle, while Nahoum had been as urbane and cynical as though he
+had come to the fulness of his power.
+
+Some, on hearing this, said: “Beware Nahoum!” But those who had been at
+the Palace said: “Beware the Inglesi!” This still Quaker, with the white
+shining face and pontifical hat, with his address of “thee” and “thou,”
+ and his forms of speech almost Oriental in their imagery and simplicity,
+himself an archaism, had impressed them with a sense of power. He had
+prompted old Diaz Pasha to speak of him as a reincarnation, so separate
+and withdrawn he seemed at the end of the evening, yet with an uncanny
+mastery in his dark brown eyes. One of the Ulema, or holy men, present
+had said in reply to Diaz: “It is the look of one who hath walked with
+Death and bought and sold with Sheitan the accursed.” To Nahoum Pasha,
+Dim had said, as the former left the Palace, a cigarette between his
+fingers: “Sleep not nor slumber, Nahoum. The world was never lost by
+one earthquake.” And Nahoum had replied with a smooth friendliness: “The
+world is not reaped in one harvest.”
+
+“The day is at hand--the East against the West,” murmured old Diaz, as
+he passed on.
+
+“The day is far spent,” answered Nahoum, in a voice unheard by Diaz;
+and, with a word to his coachman, who drove off quickly, he disappeared
+in the shrubbery.
+
+A few minutes later he was tapping at the door of Mizraim, the Chief
+Eunuch. Three times he tapped in the same way. Presently the door
+opened, and he stepped inside. The lean, dark figure of Mizraim bowed
+low; the long, slow fingers touched the forehead, the breast, and the
+lips.
+
+“May God preserve thy head from harm, excellency, and the night give
+thee sleep,” said Mizraim. He looked inquiringly at Nahoum.
+
+“May thy head know neither heat nor cold, and thy joys increase,”
+ responded Nahoum mechanically, and sat down.
+
+To an European it would have seemed a shameless mockery to have wished
+joy to this lean, hateful dweller in the between-worlds; to Nahoum
+it was part of a life which was all ritual and intrigue, gabbling
+superstition and innate fatalism, decorated falsehood and a brave
+philosophy.
+
+“I have work for thee at last, Mizraim,” said Nahoum.
+
+“At last?”
+
+“Thou hast but played before. To-night I must see the sweat of thy
+brow.”
+
+Mizraim’s cold fingers again threw themselves against his breast,
+forehead, and lips, and he said:
+
+“As a woman swims in a fountain, so shall I bathe in sweat for thee, who
+hath given with one hand and hath never taken with the other.”
+
+“I did thee service once, Mizraim--eh?”
+
+“I was as a bird buffeted by the wind; upon thy masts my feet found
+rest. Behold, I build my nest in thy sails, excellency.”
+
+“There are no birds in last year’s nest, Mizraim, thou dove,” said
+Nahoum, with a cynical smile. “When I build, I build. Where I swear by
+the stone of the corner, there am I from dark to dark and from dawn to
+dawn, pasha.” Suddenly he swept his hand low to the ground and a ghastly
+sort of smile crossed over his face. “Speak--I am thy servant. Shall I
+not hear? I will put my hand in the entrails of Egypt, and wrench them
+forth for thee.”
+
+He made a gesture so cruelly, so darkly, suggestive that Nahoum turned
+his head away. There flashed before his mind the scene of death in
+which his own father had lain, butchered like a beast in the shambles, a
+victim to the rage of Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Mehemet Ali.
+
+“Then listen, and learn why I have need of thee to-night.”
+
+First, Nahoum told the story of David’s coming, and Kaid’s treatment of
+himself, the foreshadowing of his own doom. Then of David and the girl,
+and the dead body he had seen; of the escape of the girl, of David’s
+return with Kaid--all exactly as it had happened, save that he did; not
+mention the name of the dead man.
+
+It did not astonish Mizraim that Nahoum had kept all this secret. That
+crime should be followed by secrecy and further crime, if need be,
+seems natural to the Oriental mind. Mizraim had seen removal follow upon
+removal, and the dark Nile flowed on gloomily, silently, faithful to the
+helpless ones tossed into its bosom. It would much have astonished him
+if Nahoum had not shown a gaping darkness somewhere in his tale, and he
+felt for the key to the mystery.
+
+“And he who lies dead, excellency?”
+
+“My brother.”
+
+“Foorgat Bey!”
+
+“Even he, Mizraim. He lured the girl here--a mad man ever. The other
+madman was in the next room. He struck--come, and thou shalt see.”
+
+Together they felt their way through the passages and rooms, and
+presently entered the room where Foorgat Bey was lying. Nahoum struck a
+light, and, as he held the candle, Mizraim knelt and examined the body
+closely. He found the slight wound on the temple, then took the candle
+from Nahoum and held it close to the corner of the marble pedestal. A
+faint stain of blood was there. Again he examined the body, and ran his
+fingers over the face and neck. Suddenly he stopped, and held the light
+close to the skin beneath the right jaw. He motioned, and Nahoum laid
+his fingers also on the spot. There was a slight swelling.
+
+“A blow with the fist, excellency--skilful, and English.” He looked
+inquiringly at Nahoum. “As a weasel hath a rabbit by the throat, so is
+the Inglesi in thy hands.”
+
+Nahoum shook his head. “And if I went to Kaid, and said, ‘This is the
+work of the Inglesi,’ would he believe? Kaid would hang me for the
+lie--would it be truth to him? What proof have I, save the testimony of
+mine own eyes? Egypt would laugh at that. Is it the time, while yet the
+singers are beneath the windows, to assail the bride? All bridegrooms
+are mad. It is all sunshine and morning with the favourite, the Inglesi.
+Only when the shadows lengthen may he be stricken. Not now.”
+
+“Why dost thou hide this from Kaid, O thou brother of the eagle?”
+
+“For my gain and thine, keeper of the gate. To-night I am weak, because
+I am poor. To-morrow I shall be rich and, it may be, strong. If Kaid
+knew of this tonight, I should be a prisoner before cockcrow. What
+claims has a prisoner? Kaid would be in my brother’s house at dawn,
+seizing all that is there and elsewhere, and I on my way to Fazougli, to
+be strangled or drowned.”
+
+“O wise and far-seeing! Thine eye pierces the earth. What is there to
+do? What is my gain--what thine?”
+
+“Thy gain? The payment of thy debt to me.” Mizraim’s face lengthened.
+His was a loathsome sort of gratitude. He was willing to pay in kind;
+but what Oriental ever paid a debt without a gift in return, even as a
+bartering Irishman demands his lucky penny.
+
+“So be it, excellency, and my life is thine to spill upon the ground, a
+scarlet cloth for thy feet. And backsheesh?”
+
+Nahoum smiled grimly. “For backsheesh, thy turban full of gold.”
+
+Mizraim’s eyes glittered-the dull black shine of a mongrel terrier’s. He
+caught the sleeve of Nahoum’s coat and kissed it, then kissed his hand.
+
+Thus was their bargain made over the dead body; and Mizraim had an
+almost superstitious reverence for the fulfilment of a bond, the one
+virtue rarely found in the Oriental. Nothing else had he, but of all men
+in Egypt he was the best instrument Nahoum could have chosen; and of all
+men in Egypt he was the one man who could surely help him.
+
+“What is there now to do, excellency?”
+
+“My coachman is with the carriage at the gate by which the English girl
+left. It is open still. The key is in Foorgat’s pocket, no doubt; stolen
+by him, no doubt also.... This is my design. Thou wilt drive him”--he
+pointed to the body--“to his palace, seated in the carriage as though he
+were alive. There is a secret entrance. The bowab of the gate will show
+the way; I know it not. But who will deny thee? Thou comest from high
+places--from Kaid. Who will speak of this? Will the bowab? In the
+morning Foorgat will be found dead in his bed! The slight bruise thou
+canst heal--thou canst?”
+
+Mizraim nodded. “I can smooth it from the sharpest eye.”
+
+“At dawn he will be found dead; but at dawn I shall be knocking at his
+gates. Before the world knows I shall be in possession. All that is
+his shall be mine, for at once the men of law shall be summoned, and my
+inheritance secured before Kaid shall even know of his death. I shall
+take my chances for my life.”
+
+“And the coachman, and the bowab, and others it may be?”
+
+“Shall not these be with thee--thou, Kaid’s keeper of the harem, the
+lion at the door of his garden of women? Would it be strange that
+Foorgat, who ever flew at fruit above his head, perilous to get or keep,
+should be found on forbidden ground, or in design upon it? Would it be
+strange to the bowab or the slave that he should return with thee stark
+and still? They would but count it mercy of Kaid that he was not given
+to the serpents of the Nile. A word from thee--would one open his mouth?
+Would not the shadow of thy hand, of the swift doom, be over them? Would
+not a handful of gold bind them to me? Is not the man dead? Are they not
+mine--mine to bind or break as I will?”
+
+“So be it! Wisdom is of thee as the breath of man is his life. I will
+drive Foorgat Bey to his home.”
+
+A few moments later all that was left of Foorgat Bey was sitting in his
+carriage beside Mizraim the Chief Eunuch--sitting upright, stony, and
+still, and in such wise was driven swiftly to his palace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. FOR HIS SOUL’S SAKE AND THE LAND’S SAKE
+
+David came to know a startling piece of news the next morning-that
+Foorgat Bey had died of heart-disease in his bed, and was so found by
+his servants. He at once surmised that Foorgat’s body had been carried
+out of the Palace; no doubt that it might not be thought he had come
+to his death by command of Kaid. His mind became easier. Death, murder,
+crime in Egypt was not a nine days’ wonder; it scarce outlived one day.
+When a man was gone none troubled. The dead man was in the bosom of
+Allah; then why should the living be beset or troubled? If there was
+foul play, why make things worse by sending another life after the life
+gone, even in the way of justice?
+
+The girl David saved had told him her own name, and had given him the
+name of the hotel at which she was staying. He had an early breakfast,
+and prepared to go to her hotel, wishing to see her once more. There
+were things to be said for the first and last time and then be buried
+for ever. She must leave the country at once. In this sick, mad land, in
+this whirlpool of secret murder and conspiracy, no one could tell what
+plot was hatching, what deeds were forward; and he could not yet be sure
+that no one save himself and herself knew who had killed Foorgat Bey.
+Her perfect safety lay in instant flight. It was his duty to see that
+she went, and at once--this very day. He would go and see her.
+
+He went to the hotel. There he learned that, with her aunt, she had left
+that morning for Alexandria en route to England.
+
+He approved her wisdom, he applauded her decision. Yet--yet, somehow,
+as he bent his footsteps towards his lodgings again he had a sense of
+disappointment, of revelation. What might happen to him--evidently that
+had not occurred to her. How could she know but that his life might be
+in danger; that, after all, they might have been seen leaving the fatal
+room? Well, she had gone, and with all his heart he was glad that she
+was safe.
+
+His judgment upon last night’s event was not coloured by a single
+direct criticism upon the girl. But he could not prevent the suggestion
+suddenly flashing into his mind that she had thought of herself first
+and last. Well, she had gone; and he was here to face the future,
+unencumbered by aught save the weight of his own conscience.
+
+Yet, the weight of his conscience! His feet were still free--free for
+one short hour before he went to Kaid; but his soul was in chains. As he
+turned his course to the Nile, and crossed over the great bridge, there
+went clanking by in chains a hundred conscripts, torn from their homes
+in the Fayoum, bidding farewell for ever to their friends, receiving
+their last offerings, for they had no hope of return. He looked at their
+haggard and dusty faces, at their excoriated ankles, and his eyes closed
+in pain. All they felt he felt. What their homes were to them, these
+fellaheen, dragged forth to defend their country, to go into the desert
+and waste their lives under leaders tyrannous, cruel, and incompetent,
+his old open life, his innocence, his integrity, his truthfulness and
+character, were to him. By an impulsive act, by a rash blow, he had
+asserted his humanity; but he had killed his fellow-man in anger. He
+knew that as that fatal blow had been delivered, there was no thought
+of punishment--it was blind anger and hatred: it was the ancient
+virus working which had filled the world with war, and armed it at the
+expense, the bitter and oppressive expense, of the toilers and the poor.
+The taxes for wars were wrung out of the sons of labour and sorrow.
+These poor fellaheen had paid taxes on everything they possessed. Taxes,
+taxes, nothing but taxes from the cradle! Their lands, houses, and
+palm-trees would be taxed still, when they would reap no more. And
+having given all save their lives, these lives they must now give under
+the whip and the chain and the sword.
+
+As David looked at them in their single blue calico coverings, in which
+they had lived and slept-shivering in the cold night air upon the bare
+ground--these thoughts came to him; and he had a sudden longing to
+follow them and put the chains upon his own arms and legs, and go forth
+and suffer with them, and fight and die? To die were easy. To fight?...
+Was it then come to that? He was no longer a man of peace, but a man
+of the sword; no longer a man of the palm and the evangel, but a man of
+blood and of crime! He shrank back out of the glare of the sun; for it
+suddenly seemed to him that there was written upon his fore head, “This
+is a brother of Cain.” For the first time in his life he had a shrinking
+from the light, and from the sun which he had loved like a Persian, had,
+in a sense, unconsciously worshipped.
+
+He was scarcely aware where he was. He had wandered on until he had come
+to the end of the bridge and into the great groups of traffickers who,
+at this place, made a market of their wares. Here sat a seller of sugar
+cane; there wandered, clanking his brasses, a merchant of sweet waters;
+there shouted a cheap-jack of the Nile the virtues of a knife from
+Sheffield. Yonder a camel-driver squatted and counted his earnings; and
+a sheepdealer haggled with the owner of a ghiassa bound for the sands of
+the North. The curious came about him and looked at him, but he did not
+see or hear. He sat upon a stone, his gaze upon the river, following
+with his eyes, yet without consciously observing, the dark riverine
+population whose ways are hidden, who know only the law of the river and
+spend their lives in eluding pirates and brigands now, and yet again the
+peaceful porters of commerce.
+
+To his mind, never a criminal in this land but less a criminal than he!
+For their standard was a standard of might the only right; but he--his
+whole life had been nurtured in an atmosphere of right and justice, had
+been a spiritual demonstration against force. He was with out fear, as
+he was without an undue love of life. The laying down of his life had
+never been presented to him; and yet, now that his conscience was his
+only judge, and it condemned him, he would gladly have given his life to
+pay the price of blood.
+
+That was impossible. His life was not his own to give, save by suicide;
+and that would be the unpardonable insult to God and humanity. He
+had given his word to the woman, and he would keep it. In those brief
+moments she must have suffered more than most men suffer in a long life.
+Not her hand, however, but his, had committed the deed. And yet a sudden
+wave of pity for her rushed over him, because the conviction seized him
+that she would also in her heart take upon herself the burden of his
+guilt as though it were her own. He had seen it in the look of her face
+last night.
+
+For the sake of her future it was her duty to shield herself from any
+imputation which might as unjustly as scandalously arise, if the facts
+of that black hour ever became known. Ever became known? The thought
+that there might be some human eye which had seen, which knew, sent a
+shiver through him.
+
+“I would give my life a thousand times rather than that,” he said
+aloud to the swift-flowing river. His head sank on his breast. His lips
+murmured in prayer:
+
+“But be merciful to me, Thou just Judge of Israel, for Thou hast made
+me, and Thou knowest whereof I am made. Here will I dedicate my life to
+Thee for the land’s sake. Not for my soul’s sake, O my God! If it be
+Thy will, let my soul be cast away; but for the soul of him whose body I
+slew, and for his land, let my life be the long sacrifice.”
+
+Dreams he had had the night before--terrible dreams, which he could
+never forget; dreams of a fugitive being hunted through the world,
+escaping and eluding, only to be hemmed in once more; on and on till he
+grew grey and gaunt, and the hunt suddenly ended in a great morass, into
+which he plunged with the howling world behind him. The grey, dank mists
+came down on him, his footsteps sank deeper and deeper, and ever the
+cries, as of damned spirits, grew in his ears. Mocking shapes flitted
+past him, the wings of obscene birds buffeted him, the morass grew up
+about him; and now it was all a red moving mass like a dead sea heaving
+about him. With a moan of agony he felt the dolorous flood above his
+shoulders, and then a cry pierced the gloom and the loathsome misery,
+and a voice he knew called to him, “David, David, I am coming!” and he
+had awaked with the old hallucination of his uncle’s voice calling to
+him in the dawn.
+
+It came to him now as he sat by the water-side, and he raised his face
+to the sun and to the world. The idlers had left him alone; none were
+staring at him now. They were all intent on their own business, each man
+labouring after his kind. He heard the voice of a riverman as he toiled
+at a rope standing on the corn that filled his ghiassa from end to
+end, from keel to gunwale. The man was singing a wild chant of cheerful
+labour, the soul of the hard-smitten of the earth rising above the rack
+and burden of the body:
+
+     “O, the garden where to-day we sow and to-morrow we reap!
+     O, the sakkia turning by the garden walls;
+     O, the onion-field and the date-tree growing,
+     And my hand on the plough-by the blessing of God;
+     Strength of my soul, O my brother, all’s well!”
+
+The meaning of the song got into his heart. He pressed his hand to his
+breast with a sudden gesture. It touched something hard. It was his
+flute. Mechanically he had put it in his pocket when he dressed in the
+morning. He took it out and looked at it lovingly. Into it he had poured
+his soul in the old days--days, centuries away, it seemed now. It should
+still be the link with the old life. He rose and walked towards his home
+again. The future spread clearly before him. Rapine, murder, tyranny,
+oppression, were round him on every side, and the ruler of the land
+called him to his counsels. Here a great duty lay--his life for this
+land, his life, and his love, and his faith. He would expiate his crime
+and his sin, the crime of homicide for which he alone was responsible,
+the sin of secrecy for which he and another were responsible. And that
+other? If only there had been but one word of understanding between them
+before she left!
+
+At the door of his house stood the American whom he had met at the
+citadel yesterday-it seemed a hundred years ago.
+
+“I’ve got a letter for you,” Lacey said. “The lady’s aunt and herself
+are cousins of mine more or less removed, and originally at home in the
+U. S. A. a generation ago. Her mother was an American. She didn’t know
+your name--Miss Hylda Maryon, I mean. I told her, but there wasn’t time
+to put it on.” He handed over the unaddressed envelope.
+
+David opened the letter, and read:
+
+“I have seen the papers. I do not understand what has happened, but I
+know that all is well. If it were not so, I would not go. That is the
+truth. Grateful I am, oh, believe me! So grateful that I do not yet know
+what is the return which I must make. But the return will be made. I
+hear of what has come to you--how easily I might have destroyed all! My
+thoughts blind me. You are great and good; you will know at least that
+I go because it is the only thing to do. I fly from the storm with a
+broken wing. Take now my promise to pay what I owe in the hour Fate
+wills--or in the hour of your need. You can trust him who brings this to
+you; he is a distant cousin of my own. Do not judge him by his odd and
+foolish words. They hide a good character, and he has a strong nature.
+He wants work to do. Can you give it? Farewell.”
+
+David put the letter in his pocket, a strange quietness about his heart.
+
+He scarcely realised what Lacey was saying. “Great girl that. Troubled
+about something in England, I guess. Going straight back.”
+
+David thanked him for the letter. Lacey became red in the face. He
+tried to say something, but failed. “Thee wishes to say something to me,
+friend?” asked David.
+
+“I’m full up; I can’t speak. But, say--”
+
+“I am going to the Palace now. Come back at noon if you will.”
+
+He wrung David’s hand in gratitude. “You’re going to do it. You’re going
+to do it. I see it. It’s a great game--like Abe Lincoln’s. Say, let me
+black your boots while you’re doing it, will you?”
+
+David pressed his hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE LETTER, THE NIGHT, AND THE WOMAN
+
+   “To-day has come the fulfilment of my dream, Faith. I am given to
+   my appointed task; I am set on a road of life in which there is no
+   looking back. My dreams of the past are here begun in very truth
+   and fact. When, in the night, I heard Uncle Benn calling, when in
+   the Meeting-house voices said, ‘Come away, come away, and labour,
+   thou art idle,’ I could hear my heart beat in the ardour to be off.
+   Yet I knew not whither. Now I know.
+
+   “Last night the Prince Pasha called me to his Council, made me
+   adviser, confidant, as one who has the ear of his captain--after he
+   had come to terms with me upon that which Uncle Benn left of land
+   and gold. Think not that he tempted me.
+
+   “Last night I saw favourites look upon me with hate because of
+   Kaid’s favour, though the great hall was filled with show of
+   cheerful splendour, and men smiled and feasted. To-day I know that
+   in the Palace where I was summoned to my first: duty with the
+   Prince, every step I took was shadowed, every motion recorded, every
+   look or word noted and set down. I have no fear of them. They are
+   not subtle enough for the unexpected acts of honesty in the life of
+   a true man. Yet I do not wonder men fail to keep honest in the
+   midst of this splendour, where all is strife as to who shall have
+   the Prince’s favour; who shall enjoy the fruits of bribery,
+   backsheesh, and monopoly; who shall wring from the slave and the
+   toil-ridden fellah the coin his poor body mints at the corvee, in
+   his own taxed fields of dourha and cucumbers.
+
+   “Is this like anything we ever dreamed at Hamley, Faith? Yet here
+   am I set, and here shall I stay till the skein be ravelled out.
+   Soon I shall go into the desert upon a mission to the cities of the
+   South, to Dongola, Khartoum, and Darfur and beyond; for there is
+   trouble yonder, and war is near, unless it is given to me to bring
+   peace. So I must bend to my study of Arabic, which I am thankful I
+   learned long ago. And I must not forget to say that I shall take
+   with me on my journey that faithful Muslim Ebn Ezra. Others I shall
+   take also, but of them I shall write hereafter.
+
+   “I shall henceforth be moving in the midst of things which I was
+   taught to hate. I pray that I may not hate them less as time goes
+   on. To-morrow I shall breathe the air of intrigue, shall hear
+   footsteps of spies behind me wherever I go; shall know that even the
+   roses in the garden have ears; that the ground under my feet will
+   telegraph my thoughts. Shall I be true? Shall I at last whisper,
+   and follow, and evade, believe in no one, much less in myself, steal
+   in and out of men’s confidences to use them for my own purposes?
+   Does any human being know what he can bear of temptation or of the
+   daily pressure of the life around him? what powers of resistance
+   are in his soul? how long the vital energy will continue to throw
+   off the never-ending seduction, the freshening force of evil?
+   Therein lies the power of evil, that it is ever new, ever fortified
+   by continuous conquest and achievements. It has the rare fire of
+   aggression; is ever more upon the offence than upon the defence;
+   has, withal, the false lure of freedom from restraint, the throbbing
+   force of sympathy.
+
+   “Such things I dreamed not of in Soolsby’s but upon the hill, Faith,
+   though, indeed, that seemed a time of trial and sore-heartedness.
+   How large do small issues seem till we have faced the momentous
+   things! It is true that the larger life has pleasures and expanding
+   capacities; but it is truer still that it has perils, events which
+   try the soul as it is never tried in the smaller life--unless,
+   indeed, the soul be that of the Epicurean. The Epicurean I well
+   understand, and in his way I might have walked with a wicked grace.
+   I have in me some hidden depths of luxury, a secret heart of
+   pleasure, an understanding for the forbidden thing. I could have
+   walked the broad way with a laughing heart, though, in truth, habit
+   of mind and desire have kept me in the better path. But offences
+   must come, and woe to him from whom the offence cometh! I have
+   begun now, and only now, to feel the storms that shake us to our
+   farthest cells of life. I begin to see how near good is to evil;
+   how near faith is to unfaith; and how difficult it is to judge from
+   actions only; how little we can know to-day what we shall feel
+   tomorrow. Yet one must learn to see deeper, to find motive, not in
+   acts that shake the faith, but in character which needs no
+   explanation, which--”
+
+He paused, disturbed. Then he raised his head, as though not conscious
+of what was breaking the course of his thoughts. Presently he realised
+a low, hurried knocking at his door. He threw a hand over his eyes, and
+sprang up. An instant later the figure of a woman, deeply veiled, stood
+within the room, beside the table where he had been writing. There was
+silence as they faced each other, his back against the door.
+
+“Oh, do you not know me?” she said at last, and sank into the chair
+where he had been sitting.
+
+The question was unnecessary, and she knew it was so; but she could
+not bear the strain of the silence. She seemed to have risen out of the
+letter he had been writing; and had he not been writing of her--of what
+concerned them both? How mean and small-hearted he had been, to have
+thought for an instant that she had not the highest courage, though in
+going she had done the discreeter, safer thing. But she had come--she
+had come!
+
+All this was in his eyes, though his face was pale and still. He
+was almost rigid with emotion, for the ancient habit of repose and
+self-command of the Quaker people was upon him.
+
+“Can you not see--do you not know?” she repeated, her back upon him now,
+her face still veiled, her hands making a swift motion of distress.
+
+“Has thee found in the past that thee is so soon forgotten?”
+
+“Oh, do not blame me!” She raised her veil suddenly, and showed a face
+as pale as his own, and in the eyes a fiery brightness. “I did not know.
+It was so hard to come--do not blame me. I went to Alexandria--I felt
+that I must fly; the air around me seemed full of voices crying out. Did
+you not understand why I went?”
+
+“I understand,” he said, coming forward slowly. “Thee should not have
+returned. In the way I go now the watchers go also.”
+
+“If I had not come, you would never have understood,” she answered
+quickly. “I am not sorry I went. I was so frightened, so shaken. My only
+thought was to get away from the terrible Thing. But I should have been
+sorry all my life long had I not come back to tell you what I feel, and
+that I shall never forget. All my life I shall be grateful. You have
+saved me from a thousand deaths. Ah, if I could give you but one life!
+Yet--yet--oh, do not think but that I would tell you the whole truth,
+though I am not wholly truthful. See, I love my place in the world more
+than I love my life; and but for you I should have lost all.”
+
+He made a protesting motion. “The debt is mine, in truth. But for you I
+should never have known what, perhaps--” He paused.
+
+His eyes were on hers, gravely speaking what his tongue faltered to say.
+She looked and looked, but did not understand. She only saw troubled
+depths, lighted by a soul of kindling purpose. “Tell me,” she said,
+awed.
+
+“Through you I have come to know--” He paused again. What he was going
+to say, truthful though it was, must hurt her, and she had been sorely
+hurt already. He put his thoughts more gently, more vaguely.
+
+“By what happened I have come to see what matters in life. I was behind
+the hedge. I have broken through upon the road. I know my goal now. The
+highway is before me.”
+
+She felt the tragedy in his words, and her voice shook as she spoke. “I
+wish I knew life better. Then I could make a better answer. You are on
+the road, you say. But I feel that it is a hard and cruel road--oh, I
+understand that at least! Tell me, please, tell me the whole truth. You
+are hiding from me what you feel. I have upset your life, have I not?
+You are a Quaker, and Quakers are better than all other Christian
+people, are they not? Their faith is peace, and for me, you--” She
+covered her face with her hands for an instant, but turned quickly and
+looked him in the eyes: “For me you put your hand upon the clock of a
+man’s life, and stopped it.”
+
+She got to her feet with a passionate gesture, but he put a hand gently
+upon her arm, and she sank back again. “Oh, it was not you; it was I who
+did it!” she said. “You did what any man of honour would have done, what
+a brother would have done.”
+
+“What I did is a matter for myself only,” he responded quickly. “Had
+I never seen your face again it would have been the same. You were the
+occasion; the thing I did had only one source, my own heart and mind.
+There might have been another way; but for that way, or for the way I
+did take, you could not be responsible.”
+
+“How generous you are!” Her eyes swam with tears; she leaned over the
+table where he had been writing, and the tears dropped upon his letter.
+Presently she realised this, and drew back, then made as though to dry
+the tears from the paper with her handkerchief. As she did so the words
+that he had written met her eye: “‘But offences must come, and woe to
+him from whom the offence cometh!’ I have begun now, and only now, to
+feel the storms that shake us to our farthest cells of life.”
+
+She became very still. He touched her arm and said heavily: “Come away,
+come away.”
+
+She pointed to the words she had read. “I could not help but see, and
+now I know what this must mean to you.”
+
+“Thee must go at once,” he urged. “Thee should not have come. Thee was
+safe--none knew. A few hours and it would all have been far behind. We
+might never have met again.”
+
+Suddenly she gave a low, hysterical laugh. “You think you hide the real
+thing from me. I know I’m ignorant and selfish and feeble-minded, but I
+can see farther than you think. You want to tell the truth about--about
+it, because you are honest and hate hiding things, because you want to
+be punished, and so pay the price. Oh, I can understand! If it were not
+for me you would not....” With a sudden wild impulse she got to her
+feet. “And you shall not,” she cried. “I will not have it.” Colour came
+rushing to her cheeks.
+
+“I will not have it. I will not put myself so much in your debt. I will
+not demand so much of you. I will face it all. I will stand alone.”
+
+There was a touch of indignation in her voice. Somehow she seemed moved
+to anger against him. Her hands were clasped at her side rigidly, her
+pulses throbbing. He stood looking at her fixedly, as though trying
+to realise her. His silence agitated her still further, and she spoke
+excitedly:
+
+“I could have, would have, killed him myself without a moment’s regret.
+He had planned, planned--ah, God, can you not see it all! I would
+have taken his life without a thought. I was mad to go upon such an
+adventure, but I meant no ill. I had not one thought that I could not
+have cried out from the housetops, and he had in his heart--he had what
+you saw. But you repent that you killed him--by accident, it was by
+accident. Do you realise how many times others have been trapped by him
+as was I? Do you not see what he was--as I see now? Did he not say as
+much to me before you came, when I was dumb with terror? Did he not make
+me understand what his whole life had been? Did I not see in a flash
+the women whose lives he had spoiled and killed? Would I have had pity?
+Would I have had remorse? No, no, no! I was frightened when it was done,
+I was horrified, but I was not sorry; and I am not sorry. It was to be.
+It was the true end to his vileness. Ah!”
+
+She shuddered, and buried her face in her hands for a moment, then went
+on: “I can never forgive myself for going to the Palace with him. I was
+mad for experience, for mystery; I wanted more than the ordinary share
+of knowledge. I wanted to probe things. Yet I meant no wrong. I thought
+then nothing of which I shall ever be ashamed. But I shall always be
+ashamed because I knew him, because he thought that I--oh, if I were a
+man, I should be glad that I had killed him, for the sake of all honest
+women!”
+
+He remained silent. His look was not upon her, he seemed lost in a
+dream; but his face was fixed in trouble.
+
+She misunderstood his silence. “You had the courage, the impulse to--to
+do it,” she said keenly; “you have not the courage to justify it. I will
+not have it so.
+
+“I will tell the truth to all the world. I will not shrink I shrank
+yesterday because I was afraid of the world; to-day I will face it, I
+will--”
+
+She stopped suddenly, and another look flashed into her face. Presently
+she spoke in a different tone; a new light had come upon her mind. “But
+I see,” she added. “To tell all is to make you the victim, too, of what
+he did. It is in your hands; it is all in your hands; and I cannot speak
+unless--unless you are ready also.”
+
+There was an unintended touch of scorn in her voice. She had been
+troubled and tried beyond bearing, and her impulsive nature revolted
+at his silence. She misunderstood him, or, if she did not wholly
+misunderstand him, she was angry at what she thought was a needless
+remorse or sensitiveness. Did not the man deserve his end?
+
+“There is only one course to pursue,” he rejoined quietly, “and that is
+the course we entered upon last night. I neither doubted yourself nor
+your courage. Thee must not turn back now. Thee must not alter the
+course which was your own making, and the only course which thee could,
+or I should, take. I have planned my life according to the word I gave
+you. I could not turn back now. We are strangers, and we must remain so.
+Thee will go from here now, and we must not meet again. I am--”
+
+“I know who you are,” she broke in. “I know what your religion is; that
+fighting and war and bloodshed is a sin to you.”
+
+“I am of no family or place in England,” he went on calmly. “I come of
+yeoman and trading stock; I have nothing in common with people of rank.
+Our lines of life will not cross. It is well that it should be so. As
+to what happened--that which I may feel has nothing to do with whether I
+was justified or no. But if thee has thought that I have repented doing
+what I did, let that pass for ever from your mind. I know that I should
+do the same, yes, even a hundred times. I did according to my nature.
+Thee must not now be punished cruelly for a thing thee did not do.
+Silence is the only way of safety or of justice. We must not speak of
+this again. We must each go our own way.”
+
+Her eyes were moist. She reached out a hand to him timidly. “Oh, forgive
+me,” she added brokenly, “I am so vain, so selfish, and that makes one
+blind to the truth. It is all clearer now. You have shown me that I was
+right in my first impulse, and that is all I can say for myself. I shall
+pray all my life that it will do you no harm in the end.”
+
+She remained silent, for a moment adjusting her veil, preparing to go.
+Presently she spoke again: “I shall always want to know about you--what
+is happening to you. How could it be otherwise?”
+
+She was half realising one of the deepest things in existence, that the
+closest bond between two human beings is a bond of secrecy upon a thing
+which vitally, fatally concerns both or either. It is a power at once
+malevolent and beautiful. A secret like that of David and Hylda will
+do in a day what a score of years could not accomplish, will insinuate
+confidences which might never be given to the nearest or dearest. In
+neither was any feeling of the heart begotten by their experiences; and
+yet they had gone deeper in each other’s lives than any one either
+had known in a lifetime. They had struck a deeper note than love or
+friendship. They had touched the chord of a secret and mutual experience
+which had gone so far that their lives would be influenced by it for
+ever after. Each understood this in a different way.
+
+Hylda looked towards the letter lying on the table. It had raised in
+her mind, not a doubt, but an undefined, undefinable anxiety. He saw the
+glance, and said: “I was writing to one who has been as a sister to me.
+She was my mother’s sister though she is almost as young as I. Her name
+is Faith. There is nothing there of what concerns thee and me, though
+it would make no difference if she knew.” Suddenly a thought seemed to
+strike him. “The secret is of thee and me. There is safety. If it became
+another’s, there might be peril. The thing shall be between us only, for
+ever?”
+
+“Do you think that I--”
+
+“My instinct tells me a woman of sensitive mind might one day, out of an
+unmerciful honesty, tell her husband--”
+
+“I am not married-”
+
+“But one day--”
+
+She interrupted him. “Sentimental egotism will not rule me. Tell me,”
+ she added, “tell me one thing before I go. You said that your course was
+set. What is it?”
+
+“I remain here,” he answered quietly. “I remain in the service of Prince
+Kaid.”
+
+“It is a dreadful government, an awful service--”
+
+“That is why I stay.”
+
+“You are going to try and change things here--you alone?”
+
+“I hope not alone, in time.”
+
+“You are going to leave England, your friends, your family, your
+place--in Hamley, was it not? My aunt has read of you--my cousin--” she
+paused.
+
+“I had no place in Hamley. Here is my place. Distance has little to do
+with understanding or affection. I had an uncle here in the East for
+twenty-five years, yet I knew him better than all others in the world.
+Space is nothing if minds are in sympathy. My uncle talked to me over
+seas and lands. I felt him, heard him speak.”
+
+“You think that minds can speak to minds, no matter what the
+distance--real and definite things?”
+
+“If I were parted from one very dear to me, I would try to say to him
+or her what was in my mind, not by written word only, but by the flying
+thought.”
+
+She sat down suddenly, as though overwhelmed. “Oh, if that were
+possible!” she said. “If only one could send a thought like that!” Then
+with an impulse, and the flicker of a sad smile, she reached out a hand.
+“If ever in the years to come you want to speak to me, will you try to
+make me understand, as your uncle did with you?”
+
+“I cannot tell,” he answered. “That which is deepest within us obeys
+only the laws of its need. By instinct it turns to where help lies, as
+a wild deer, fleeing, from captivity, makes for the veldt and the
+watercourse.”
+
+She got to her feet again. “I want to pay my debt,” she said solemnly.
+“It is a debt that one day must be paid--so awful--so awful!” A swift
+change passed over her. She shuddered, and grew white. “I said brave
+words just now,” she added in a hoarse whisper, “but now I see him lying
+there cold and still, and you stooping over him. I see you touch his
+breast, his pulse. I see you close his eyes. One instant full of the
+pulse of life, the next struck out into infinite space. Oh, I shall
+never--how can I ever-forget!” She turned her head away from him, then
+composed herself again, and said quietly, with anxious eyes: “Why was
+nothing said or done? Perhaps they are only waiting. Perhaps they know.
+Why was it announced that he died in his bed at home?”
+
+“I cannot tell. When a man in high places dies in Egypt, it may be one
+death or another. No one inquires too closely. He died in Kaid Pasha’s
+Palace, where other men have died, and none has inquired too closely.
+To-day they told me at the Palace that his carriage was seen to leave
+with himself and Mizraim the Chief Eunuch. Whatever the object, he was
+secretly taken to his house from the Palace, and his brother Nahoum
+seized upon his estate in the early morning.
+
+“I think that no one knows the truth. But it is all in the hands of
+God. We can do nothing more. Thee must go. Thee should not have come.
+In England thee will forget, as thee should forget. In Egypt I shall
+remember, as I should remember.”
+
+“Thee,” she repeated softly. “I love the Quaker thee. My grandmother was
+an American Quaker. She always spoke like that. Will you not use thee
+and thou in speaking to me, always?”
+
+“We are not likely to speak together in any language in the future,” he
+answered. “But now thee must go, and I will--”
+
+“My cousin, Mr. Lacey, is waiting for me in the garden,” she answered.
+“I shall be safe with him.” She moved towards the door. He caught the
+handle to turn it, when there came the noise of loud talking, and the
+sound of footsteps in the court-yard. He opened the door slightly and
+looked out, then closed it quickly. “It is Nahoum Pasha,” he said.
+“Please, the other room,” he added, and pointed to a curtain. “There is
+a window leading on a garden. The garden-gate opens on a street leading
+to the Ezbekiah Square and your hotel.”
+
+“But, no, I shall stay here,” she said. She drew down her veil, then
+taking from her pocket another, arranged it also, so that her face was
+hidden.
+
+“Thee must go,” he said--“go quickly.” Again he pointed.
+
+“I will remain,” she rejoined, with determination, and seated herself in
+a chair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE FOUR WHO KNEW
+
+There was a knocking at the door. David opened it. Nahoum Pasha stepped
+inside, and stood still a moment looking at Hylda. Then he made low
+salutation to her, touched his hand to his lips and breast saluting
+David, and waited.
+
+“What is thy business, pasha?” asked David quietly, and motioned towards
+a chair.
+
+“May thy path be on the high hills, Saadat-el-basha. I come for a favour
+at thy hands.” Nahoum sat down. “What favour is mine to give to Nahoum
+Pasha?”
+
+“The Prince has given thee supreme place--it was mine but yesterday. It
+is well. To the deserving be the fruits of deserving.”
+
+“Is merit, then, so truly rewarded here?” asked David quietly.
+
+“The Prince saw merit at last when he chose your Excellency for
+councillor.”
+
+“How shall I show merit, then, in the eyes of Nahoum Pasha?”
+
+“Even by urging the Prince to give me place under him again. Not as
+heretofore--that is thy place--yet where it may be. I have capacity. I
+can aid thee in the great task. Thou wouldst remake our Egypt--and my
+heart is with you. I would rescue, not destroy. In years gone by I
+tried to do good to this land, and I failed. I was alone. I had not the
+strength to fight the forces around me. I was overcome. I had too little
+faith. But my heart was with the right--I am an Armenian and a Christian
+of the ancient faith. I am in sorrow. Death has humbled me. My brother
+Foorgat Bey--may flowers bloom for ever on his grave!--he is dead,”--his
+eyes were fixed on those of David, as with a perfectly assured
+candour--“and my heart is like an empty house. But man must not be idle
+and live--if Kaid lets me live. I have riches. Are not Foorgat’s riches
+mine, his Palace, his gardens, his cattle, and his plantations, are they
+not mine? I may sit in the court-yard and hear the singers, may listen
+to the tale-tellers by the light of the moon; I may hear the tales of
+Al-Raschid chanted by one whose tongue never falters, and whose voice
+is like music; after the manner of the East I may give bread and meat
+to the poor at sunset; I may call the dancers to the feast. But what
+comfort shall it give? I am no longer a youth. I would work. I would
+labour for the land of Egypt, for by work shall we fulfil ourselves,
+redeem ourselves. Saadat, I would labour, but my master has taken away
+from me the anvil, the fire, and the hammer, and I sit without the door
+like an armless beggar. What work to do in Egypt save to help the land,
+and how shall one help, save in the Prince’s service? There can be no
+reform from outside. If I laboured for better things outside Kaid’s
+Palace, how long dost thou think I should escape the Nile, or the
+diamond-dust in my coffee? The work which I did, is it not so that it,
+with much more, falls now to thy hands, Saadat, with a confidence from
+Kaid that never was mine?”
+
+“I sought not the office.”
+
+“Have I a word of blame? I come to ask for work to do with thee. Do I
+not know Prince Kaid? He had come to distrust us all. As stale water
+were we in his taste. He had no pleasure in us, and in our deeds he
+found only stones of stumbling. He knew not whom to trust. One by one we
+all had yielded to ceaseless intrigue and common distrust of each other,
+until no honest man was left; till all were intent to save their lives
+by holding power; for in this land to lose power is to lose life. No man
+who has been in high place, has had the secrets of the Palace and the
+ear of the Prince, lives after he has lost favour. The Prince, for his
+safety, must ensure silence, and the only silence in Egypt is the grave.
+In thee, Saadat, Kaid has found an honest man. Men will call thee mad,
+if thou remainest honest, but that is within thine own bosom and with
+fate. For me, thou hast taken my place, and more. Malaish, it is the
+decree of fate, and I have no anger. I come to ask thee to save my life,
+and then to give me work.”
+
+“How shall I save thy life?”
+
+“By reconciling the Effendina to my living, and then by giving me
+service, where I shall be near to thee; where I can share with thee,
+though it be as the ant beside the beaver, the work of salvation in
+Egypt. I am rich since my brother was--” He paused; no covert look was
+in his eyes, no sign of knowledge, nothing but meditation and sorrowful
+frankness--“since Foorgat passed away in peace, praise be to God! He lay
+on his bed in the morning, when one came to wake him, like a sleeping
+child, no sign of the struggle of death upon him.”
+
+A gasping sound came from the chair where Hylda sat; but he took no
+notice. He appeared to be unconscious of David’s pain-drawn face, as
+he sat with hands upon his knees, his head bent forward listening, as
+though lost to the world.
+
+“So did Foorgat, my brother, die while yet in the fulness of his
+manhood, life beating high in his veins, with years before him to
+waste. He was a pleasure-lover, alas! he laid up no treasure of work
+accomplished; and so it was meet that he should die as he lived, in a
+moment of ease. And already he is forgotten. It is the custom here.
+He might have died by diamond-dust, and men would have set down their
+coffee-cups in surprise, and then would have forgotten; or he might have
+been struck down by the hand of an assassin, and, unless it was in the
+Palace, none would have paused to note it. And so the sands sweep over
+his steps upon the shore of time.”
+
+After the first exclamation of horror, Hylda had sat rigid, listening
+as though under a spell. Through her veil she gazed at Nahoum with a
+cramping pain at her heart, for he seemed ever on the verge of the truth
+she dreaded; and when he spoke the truth, as though unconsciously, she
+felt she must cry out and rush from the room. He recalled to her the
+scene in the little tapestried room as vividly as though it was there
+before her eyes, and it had for the moment all the effect of a hideous
+nightmare. At last, however, she met David’s eyes, and they guided her,
+for in them was a steady strength and force which gave her confidence.
+At first he also had been overcome inwardly, but his nerves were cool,
+his head was clear, and he listened to Nahoum, thinking out his course
+meanwhile.
+
+He owed this man much. He had taken his place, and by so doing had
+placed his life in danger. He had killed the brother upon the same
+day that he had dispossessed the favourite of office; and the debt was
+heavy. In office Nahoum had done after his kind, after the custom of
+the place and the people; and yet, as it would seem, the man had had
+stirrings within him towards a higher path. He, at any rate, had not
+amassed riches out of his position, and so much could not be said of
+any other servant of the Prince Pasha. Much he had heard of Nahoum’s
+powerful will, hidden under a genial exterior, and behind his friendly,
+smiling blue eyes. He had heard also of cruelty--of banishment, and of
+enemies removed from his path suddenly, never to be seen again; but,
+on the whole, men spoke with more admiration of him than of any other
+public servant, Armenian Christian in a Mahommedan country though he
+was. That very day Kaid had said that if Nahoum had been less eager to
+control the State, he might still have held his place. Besides, the man
+was a Christian--of a mystic, half-legendary, obscure Christianity; yet
+having in his mind the old faith, its essence and its meaning, perhaps.
+Might not this Oriental mind, with that faith, be a power to redeem
+the land? It was a wonderful dream, in which he found the way, as he
+thought, to atone somewhat to this man for a dark injury done.
+
+When Nahoum stopped speaking David said: “But if I would have it, if it
+were well that it should be, I doubt I have the power to make it so.”
+
+“Saadat-el-bdsha, Kaid believes in thee to-day; he will not believe
+to-morrow if thou dost remain without initiative. Action, however
+startling, will be proof of fitness. His Highness shakes a long spear.
+Those who ride with him must do battle with the same valour. Excellency,
+I have now great riches--since Death smote Foorgat Bey in the
+forehead”--still his eyes conveyed no meaning, though Hylda shrank
+back--“and I would use them for the good thou wouldst do here. Money
+will be needed, and sufficient will not be at thy hand-not till new
+ledgers be opened, new balances struck.”
+
+He turned to Hylda quietly, and with a continued air of innocence said:
+“Shall it not be so-madame? Thou, I doubt not, are of his kin. It would
+seem so, though I ask pardon if it be not so--wilt thou not urge his
+Excellency to restore me to Kaid’s favour? I know little of the English,
+though I know them humane and honest; but my brother, Foorgat Bey, he
+was much among them, lived much in England, was a friend to many great
+English. Indeed, on the evening that he died I saw him in the gallery of
+the banquet-room with an English lady--can one be mistaken in an English
+face? Perhaps he cared for her; perhaps that was why he smiled as he lay
+upon his bed, never to move again. Madame, perhaps in England thou mayst
+have known my brother. If that is so, I ask thee to speak for me to his
+Excellency. My life is in danger, and I am too young to go as my brother
+went. I do not wish to die in middle age, as my brother died.”
+
+He had gone too far. In David’s mind there was no suspicion that Nahoum
+knew the truth. The suggestion in his words had seemed natural; but,
+from the first, a sharp suspicion was in the mind of Hylda, and his last
+words had convinced her that if Nahoum did not surely know the truth,
+he suspected it all too well. Her instinct had pierced far; and as she
+realised his suspicions, perhaps his certainty, and heard his words of
+covert insult, which, as she saw, David did not appreciate, anger and
+determination grew in her. Yet she felt that caution must mark her
+words, and that nothing but danger lay in resentment. She felt the
+everlasting indignity behind the quiet, youthful eyes, the determined
+power of the man; but she saw also that, for the present, the course
+Nahoum suggested was the only course to take. And David must not even
+feel the suspicion in her own mind, that Nahoum knew or suspected the
+truth. If David thought that Nahoum knew, the end of all would come at
+once. It was clear, however, that Nahoum meant to be silent, or he would
+have taken another course of action. Danger lay in every direction, but,
+to her mind, the least danger lay in following Nahoum’s wish.
+
+She slowly raised her veil, showing a face very still now, with eyes as
+steady as David’s. David started at her action, he thought it rash; but
+the courage of it pleased him, too.
+
+“You are not mistaken,” she said slowly in French; “your brother was
+known to me. I had met him in England. It will be a relief to all his
+friends to know that he passed away peacefully.” She looked him in the
+eyes determinedly. “Monsieur Claridge is not my kinsman, but he is my
+fellow-countryman. If you mean well by monsieur, your knowledge and your
+riches should help him on his way. But your past is no guarantee of good
+faith, as you will acknowledge.”
+
+He looked her in the eyes with a far meaning. “But I am giving
+guarantees of good faith now,” he said softly. “Will you--not?”
+
+She understood. It was clear that he meant peace, for the moment at
+least.
+
+“If I had influence I would advise him to reconcile you to Prince Kaid,”
+ she said quietly, then turned to David with an appeal in her eyes.
+
+David stood up. “I will do what I can,” he said. “If thee means as well
+by Egypt as I mean by thee, all may be well for all.”
+
+“Saadat! Saadat!” said Nahoum, with show of assumed feeling, and made
+salutation. Then to Hylda, making lower salutation still, he said: “Thou
+hast lifted from my neck the yoke. Thou hast saved me from the shadow
+and the dust. I am thy slave.” His eyes were like a child’s, wide and
+confiding.
+
+He turned towards the door, and was about to open it, when there came
+a knocking, and he stepped back. Hylda drew down her veil. David opened
+the door cautiously and admitted Mizraim the Chief Eunuch. Mizraim’s
+eyes searched the room, and found Nahoum.
+
+“Pasha,” he said to Nahoum, “may thy bones never return to dust, nor the
+light of thine eyes darken! There is danger.”
+
+Nahoum nodded, but did not speak.
+
+“Shall I speak, then?” He paused and made low salutation to David,
+saying, “Excellency, I am thine ox to be slain.”
+
+“Speak, son of the flowering oak,” said Nahoum, with a sneer in his
+voice. “What blessing dost thou bring?”
+
+“The Effendina has sent for thee.”
+
+Nahoum’s eyes flashed. “By thee, lion of Abdin?” The lean, ghastly being
+smiled. “He has sent a company of soldiers and Achmet Pasha.”
+
+“Achmet! Is it so? They are here, Mizraim, watcher of the morning?”
+
+“They are at thy palace--I am here, light of Egypt.”
+
+“How knewest thou I was here?”
+
+Mizraim salaamed. “A watch was set upon thee this morning early. The
+watcher was of my slaves. He brought the word to me that thou wast here
+now. A watcher also was set upon thee, Excellency”--he turned to David.
+“He also was of my slaves. Word was delivered to his Highness that
+thou”--he turned to Nahoum again--“wast in thy palace, and Achmet Pasha
+went thither. He found thee not. Now the city is full of watchers, and
+Achmet goes from bazaar to bazaar, from house to house which thou was
+wont to frequent--and thou art here.”
+
+“What wouldst thou have me do, Mizraim?”
+
+“Thou art here; is it the house of a friend or a foe?” Nahoum did
+not answer. His eyes were fixed in thought upon the floor, but he was
+smiling. He seemed without fear.
+
+“But if this be the house of a friend, is he safe here?” asked David.
+
+“For this night, it may be,” answered Mizraim, “till other watchers be
+set, who are no slaves of mine. Tonight, here, of all places in Cairo,
+he is safe; for who could look to find him where thou art who hast taken
+from him his place and office, Excellency--on whom the stars shine
+for ever! But in another day, if my lord Nahoum be not forgiven by the
+Effendina, a hundred watchers will pierce the darkest corner of the
+bazaar, the smallest room in Cairo.”
+
+David turned to Nahoum. “Peace be to thee, friend. Abide here till
+to-morrow, when I will speak for thee to his Highness, and, I trust,
+bring thee pardon. It shall be so--but I shall prevail,” he added, with
+slow decision; “I shall prevail with him. My reasons shall convince his
+Highness.”
+
+“I can help thee with great reasons, Saadat,” said Nahoum. “Thou shalt
+prevail. I can tell thee that which will convince Kaid.”
+
+While they were speaking, Hylda had sat motionless watching. At first
+it seemed to her that a trap had been set, and that David was to be the
+victim of Oriental duplicity; but revolt, as she did, from the miserable
+creature before them, she saw at last that he spoke the truth.
+
+“Thee will remain under this roof to-night, pasha?” asked David.
+
+“I will stay if thy goodness will have it so,” answered Nahoum slowly.
+“It is not my way to hide, but when the storm comes it is well to
+shelter.”
+
+Salaaming low, Mizraim withdrew, his last glance being thrown towards
+Hylda, who met his look with a repugnance which made her face rigid.
+She rose and put on her gloves. Nahoum rose also, and stood watching her
+respectfully.
+
+“Thee will go?” asked David, with a movement towards her.
+
+She inclined her head. “We have finished our business, and it is late,”
+ she answered.
+
+David looked at Nahoum. “Thee will rest here, pasha, in peace. In a
+moment I will return.” He took up his hat.
+
+There was a sudden flash of Nahoum’s eyes, as though he saw an outcome
+of the intention which pleased him, but Hylda, saw the flash, and her
+senses were at once alarmed.
+
+“There is no need to accompany me,” she said. “My cousin waits for me.”
+
+David opened the door leading into the court-yard. It was dark, save for
+the light of a brazier of coals. A short distance away, near the outer
+gate, glowed a star of red light, and the fragrance of a strong cigar
+came over.
+
+“Say, looking for me?” said a voice, and a figure moved towards David.
+“Yours to command, pasha, yours to command.” Lacey from Chicago held out
+his hand.
+
+“Thee is welcome, friend,” said David.
+
+“She’s ready, I suppose. Wonderful person, that. Stands on her own feet
+every time. She don’t seem as though she came of the same stock as me,
+does she?”
+
+“I will bring her if thee will wait, friend.”
+
+“I’m waiting.” Lacey drew back to the gateway again and leaned against
+the wall, his cigar blazing in the dusk.
+
+A moment later David appeared in the garden again, with the slim,
+graceful figure of the girl who stood “upon her own feet.” David drew
+her aside for a moment. “Thee is going at once to England?” he asked.
+
+“To-morrow to Alexandria. There is a steamer next day for Marseilles. In
+a fortnight more I shall be in England.”
+
+“Thee must forget Egypt,” he said. “Remembrance is not a thing of the
+will,” she answered.
+
+“It is thy duty to forget. Thee is young, and it is spring with thee.
+Spring should be in thy heart. Thee has seen a shadow; but let it not
+fright thee.”
+
+“My only fear is that I may forget,” she answered.
+
+“Yet thee will forget.”
+
+With a motion towards Lacey he moved to the gate. Suddenly she turned
+to him and touched his arm. “You will be a great man herein Egypt,” she
+said. “You will have enemies without number. The worst of your enemies
+always will be your guest to-night.”
+
+He did not, for a moment, understand. “Nahoum?” he asked. “I take his
+place. It would not be strange; but I will win him to me.”
+
+“You will never win him,” she answered. “Oh, trust my instinct in this!
+Watch him. Beware of him.” David smiled slightly. “I shall have need to
+beware of many. I am sure thee does well to caution me. Farewell,” he
+added.
+
+“If it should be that I can ever help you--” she said, and paused.
+
+“Thee has helped me,” he replied. “The world is a desert. Caravans from
+all quarters of the sun meet at the cross-roads. One gives the other
+food or drink or medicine, and they move on again. And all grows dim
+with time. And the camel-drivers are forgotten; but the cross-roads
+remain, and the food and the drink and the medicine and the cattle
+helped each caravan upon the way. Is it not enough?”
+
+She placed her hand in his. It lay there for a moment. “God be with
+thee, friend,” he said.
+
+The next instant Thomas Tilman Lacey’s drawling voice broke the silence.
+
+“There’s something catching about these nights in Egypt. I suppose it’s
+the air. No wind--just the stars, and the ultramarine, and the nothing
+to do but lay me down and sleep. It doesn’t give you the jim-jumps like
+Mexico. It makes you forget the world, doesn’t it? You’d do things here
+that you wouldn’t do anywhere else.”
+
+The gate was opened by the bowab, and the two passed through. David was
+standing by the brazier, his hand held unconsciously over the coals,
+his eyes turned towards them. The reddish flame from the fire lit up his
+face under the broad-brimmed hat. His head, slightly bowed, was thrust
+forward to the dusk. Hylda looked at him steadily for a moment. Their
+eyes met, though hers were in the shade. Again Lacey spoke. “Don’t be
+anxious. I’ll see her safe back. Good-bye. Give my love to the girls.”
+
+David stood looking at the closed gate with eyes full of thought and
+wonder and trouble. He was not thinking of the girl. There was no
+sentimental reverie in his look. Already his mind was engaged in
+scrutiny of the circumstances in which he was set. He realised fully his
+situation. The idealism which had been born with him had met its reward
+in a labour herculean at the least, and the infinite drudgery of the
+practical issues came in a terrible pressure of conviction to his mind.
+The mind did not shrink from any thought of the dangers in which he
+would be placed, from any vision of the struggle he must have with
+intrigue, and treachery and vileness. In a dim, half-realised way he
+felt that honesty and truth would be invincible weapons with a people
+who did not know them. They would be embarrassed, if not baffled, by a
+formula of life and conduct which they could not understand.
+
+It was not these matters that vexed him now, but the underlying forces
+of life set in motion by the blow which killed a fellow-man. This fact
+had driven him to an act of redemption unparalleled in its intensity and
+scope; but he could not tell--and this was the thought that shook his
+being--how far this act itself, inspiring him to a dangerous and immense
+work in life, would sap the best that was in him, since it must remain
+a secret crime, for which he could not openly atone. He asked himself as
+he stood by the brazier, the bowab apathetically rolling cigarettes at
+his feet, whether, in the flow of circumstance, the fact that he could
+not make open restitution, or take punishment for his unlawful act,
+would undermine the structure of his character. He was on the threshold
+of his career: action had not yet begun; he was standing like a swimmer
+on a high shore, looking into depths beneath which have never been
+plumbed by mortal man, wondering what currents, what rocks, lay beneath
+the surface of the blue. Would his strength, his knowledge, his skill,
+be equal to the enterprise? Would he emerge safe and successful, or be
+carried away by some strong undercurrent, be battered on unseen rocks?
+
+He turned with a calm face to the door behind which sat the displaced
+favourite of the Prince, his mind at rest, the trouble gone out of his
+eyes.
+
+“Uncle Benn! Uncle Benn!” he said to himself, with a warmth at his heart
+as he opened the door and stepped inside.
+
+Nahoum sat sipping coffee. A cigarette was between his fingers. He
+touched his hand to his forehead and his breast as David closed the door
+and hung his hat upon a nail. David’s servant, Mahommed Hassan, whom
+he had had since first he came to Egypt, was gliding from the room--a
+large, square-shouldered fellow of over six feet, dressed in a plain
+blue yelek, but on his head the green turban of one who had done a
+pilgrimage to Mecca. Nahoum waved a hand after Mahommed and said:
+
+“Whence came thy servant sadat?”
+
+“He was my guide to Cairo. I picked him from the street.”
+
+Nahoum smiled. There was no malice in the smile, only, as it might seem,
+a frank humour. “Ah, your Excellency used independent judgment. Thou art
+a judge of men. But does it make any difference that the man is a thief
+and a murderer--a murderer?”
+
+David’s eyes darkened, as they were wont to do when he was moved or
+shocked.
+
+“Shall one only deal, then, with those who have neither stolen nor
+slain--is that the rule of the just in Egypt?”
+
+Nahoum raised his eyes to the ceiling as though in amiable inquiry, and
+began to finger a string of beads as a nun might tell her paternosters.
+“If that were the rule,” he answered, after a moment, “how should any
+man be served in Egypt? Hereabouts is a man’s life held cheap, else
+I had not been thy guest to-night; and Kaid’s Palace itself would be
+empty, if every man in it must be honest. But it is the custom of the
+place for political errors to be punished by a hidden hand; we do not
+call it murder.”
+
+“What is murder, friend?”
+
+“It is such a crime as that of Mahommed yonder, who killed--”
+
+David interposed. “I do not wish to know his crime. That is no affair
+between thee and me.”
+
+Nahoum fingered his beads meditatively. “It was an affair of the
+housetops in his town of Manfaloot. I have only mentioned it because I
+know what view the English take of killing, and how set thou art to have
+thy household above reproach, as is meet in a Christian home. So, I
+took it, would be thy mind--which Heaven fill with light for Egypt’s
+sake!--that thou wouldst have none about thee who were not above
+reproach, neither liars, nor thieves, nor murderers.”
+
+“But thee would serve with me, friend,” rejoined David quietly. “Thee
+has men’s lives against thy account.”
+
+“Else had mine been against their account.”
+
+“Was it not so with Mahommed? If so, according to the custom of the
+land, then Mahommed is as immune as thou art.”
+
+“Saadat, like thee I am a Christian, yet am I also Oriental, and what
+is crime with one race is none with another. At the Palace two days past
+thou saidst thou hadst never killed a man; and I know that thy religion
+condemns killing even in war. Yet in Egypt thou wilt kill, or thou
+shalt thyself be killed, and thy aims will come to naught. When, as thou
+wouldst say, thou hast sinned, hast taken a man’s life, then thou wilt
+understand. Thou wilt keep this fellow Mahommed, then?”
+
+“I understand, and I will keep him.”
+
+“Surely thy heart is large and thy mind great. It moveth above small
+things. Thou dost not seek riches here?”
+
+“I have enough; my wants are few.”
+
+“There is no precedent for one in office to withhold his hand from
+profit and backsheesh.”
+
+“Shall we not try to make a precedent?”
+
+“Truthfulness will be desolate--like a bird blown to sea, beating
+‘gainst its doom.”
+
+“Truth will find an island in the sea.”
+
+“If Egypt is that sea, Saadat, there is no island.”
+
+David came over close to Nahoum, and looked him in the eyes.
+
+“Surely I can speak to thee, friend, as to one understanding. Thou art
+a Christian--of the ancient fold. Out of the East came the light. Thy
+Church has preserved the faith. It is still like a lamp in the mist and
+the cloud in the East. Thou saidst but now that thy heart was with my
+purpose. Shall the truth that I would practise here not find an island
+in this sea--and shall it not be the soul of Nahoum Pasha?”
+
+“Have I not given my word? Nay, then, I swear it by the tomb of my
+brother, whom Death met in the highway, and because he loved the sun,
+and the talk of men, and the ways of women, rashly smote him out of the
+garden of life into the void. Even by his tomb I swear it.”
+
+“Hast thou, then, such malice against Death? These things cannot happen
+save by the will of God.”
+
+“And by the hand of man. But I have no cause for revenge. Foorgat died
+in his sleep like a child. Yet if it had been the hand of man, Prince
+Kaid or any other, I would not have held my hand until I had a life for
+his.”
+
+“Thou art a Christian, yet thou wouldst meet one wrong by another?”
+
+“I am an Oriental.” Then, with a sudden change of manner, he added: “But
+thou hast a Christianity the like of which I have never seen. I will
+learn of thee, Saadat, and thou shalt learn of me also many things which
+I know. They will help thee to understand Egypt and the place where thou
+wilt be set--if so be my life is saved, and by thy hand.”
+
+Mahommed entered, and came to David. “Where wilt thou sleep, Saadat?” he
+asked.
+
+“The pasha will sleep yonder,” David replied, pointing to another room.
+“I will sleep here.” He laid a hand upon the couch where he sat.
+
+Nahoum rose and, salaaming, followed Mahommed to the other room.
+
+In a few moments the house was still, and remained so for hours. Just
+before dawn the curtain of Nahoum’s room was drawn aside, the Armenian
+entered stealthily, and moved a step towards the couch where David lay.
+Suddenly he was stopped by a sound. He glanced towards a corner near
+David’s feet. There sat Mahommed watching, a neboot of dom-wood across
+his knees.
+
+Their eyes remained fixed upon each other for a moment. Then Nahoum
+passed back into his bedroom as stealthily as he had come.
+
+Mahommed looked closely at David. He lay with an arm thrown over
+his head, resting softly, a moisture on his forehead as on that of a
+sleeping child.
+
+“Saadat! Saadat!” said Mahommed softly to the sleeping figure, scarcely
+above his breath, and then with his eyes upon the curtained room
+opposite, began to whisper words from the Koran:
+
+“In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful--”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. 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. He was less stoical and apathetic than most
+Egyptians. Also he was absurdly vain, and he knew that his vanity would
+receive rough usage.
+
+Now the door swung open, and a portly figure entered quickly. For so
+large a man Prince Kaid was light and subtle in his movements. His face
+was mobile, his eye keen and human.
+
+Achmet salaamed low. “The gardens of the First Heaven be thine, and the
+uttermost joy, Effendina,” he said elaborately.
+
+“A thousand colours to the rainbow of thy happiness,” answered Kaid
+mechanically, and seated himself cross-legged on a divan, taking a
+narghileh from the black slave who had glided ghostlike behind him.
+
+“What hour didst thou find him? Where hast thou placed him?” he added,
+after a moment.
+
+Achmet salaamed once more. “I have burrowed without ceasing, but the
+holes are empty, Effendina,” he returned, abjectly and nervously.
+
+He had need to be concerned. The reply was full of amazement and anger.
+“Thou hast not found him? Thou hast not brought Nahoum to me?” Kaid’s
+eyes were growing reddish; no good sign for those around him, for any
+that crossed him or his purposes.
+
+“A hundred eyes failed to search him out. Ten thousand piastres did not
+find him; the kourbash did not reveal him.”
+
+Kaid’s frown grew heavier. “Thou shalt bring Nahoum to me by midnight
+to-morrow!”
+
+“But if he has escaped, Effendina?” Achmet asked desperately. He had a
+peasant’s blood; fear of power was ingrained.
+
+“What was thy business but to prevent escape? Son of a Nile crocodile,
+if he has escaped, thou too shalt escape from Egypt--into Fazougli.
+Fool, Nahoum is no coward. He would remain. He is in Egypt.”
+
+“If he be in Egypt, I will find him, Effendina. Have I ever failed?
+When thou hast pointed, have I not brought? Have there not been many,
+Effendina? Should I not bring Nahoum, who has held over our heads the
+rod?”
+
+Kaid looked at him meditatively, and gave no answer to the question. “He
+reached too far,” he muttered. “Egypt has one master only.”
+
+The door opened softly and the black slave stole in. His lips moved, but
+scarce a sound travelled across the room. Kaid understood, and made a
+gesture. An instant afterwards the vast figure of Higli Pasha bulked
+into the room. Again there were elaborate salutations and salaams, and
+Kaid presently said:
+
+“Foorgat?”
+
+“Effendina,” answered High, “it is not known how he died. He was in this
+Palace alive at night. In the morning he was found in bed at his own
+home.”
+
+“There was no wound?”
+
+“None, Effendina.”
+
+“The thong?”
+
+“There was no mark, Effendina.”
+
+“Poison?”
+
+“There was no sign, Effendina.”
+
+“Diamond-dust?”
+
+“Impossible, Effendina. There was not time. He was alive and well here
+at the Palace at eleven, and--” Kaid made an impatient gesture. “By the
+stone in the Kaabah, but it is not reasonable that Foorgat should die in
+his bed like a babe and sleep himself into heaven! Fate meant him for
+a violent end; but ere that came there was work to do for me. He had
+a gift for scenting treason--and he had treasure.” His eyes shut and
+opened again with a look not pleasant to see. “But since it was that he
+must die so soon, then the loan he promised must now be a gift from the
+dead, if he be dead, if he be not shamming. Foorgat was a dire jester.”
+
+“But now it is no jest, Effendina. He is in his grave.”
+
+“In his grave! Bismillah! In his grave, dost thou say?”
+
+High’s voice quavered. “Yesterday before sunset, Effendina. By Nahoum’s
+orders.”
+
+“I ordered the burial for to-day. By the gates of hell, but who shall
+disobey me!”
+
+“He was already buried when the Effendina’s orders came,” High pleaded
+anxiously.
+
+“Nahoum should have been taken yesterday,” he rejoined, with malice in
+his eyes.
+
+“If I had received the orders of the Effendina on the night when the
+Effendina dismissed Nahoum--” Achmet said softly, and broke off.
+
+“A curse upon thine eyes that did not see thy duty!” Kaid replied
+gloomily. Then he turned to High. “My seal has been put upon Foorgat’s
+doors? His treasure-places have been found? The courts have been
+commanded as to his estate, the banks--”
+
+“It was too late, Effendina,” replied High hopelessly. Kaid got to his
+feet slowly, rage possessing him. “Too late! Who makes it too late when
+I command?”
+
+“When Foorgat was found dead, Nahoum at once seized the palace and the
+treasures. Then he went to the courts and to the holy men, and claimed
+succession. That was while it was yet early morning. Then he instructed
+the banks. The banks hold Foorgat’s fortune against us, Effendina.”
+
+“Foorgat had turned Mahommedan. Nahoum is a Christian. My will is law.
+Shall a Christian dog inherit from a true believer? The courts, the
+Wakfs shall obey me. And thou, son of a burnt father, shalt find Nahoum!
+Kaid shall not be cheated. Foorgat pledged the loan. It is mine. Allah
+scorch thine eyes!” he added fiercely to Achmet, “but thou shalt find
+this Christian gentleman, Nahoum.”
+
+Suddenly, with a motion of disgust, he sat down, and taking the stem of
+the narghileh, puffed vigorously in silence. Presently in a red fury he
+cried: “Go--go--go, and bring me back by midnight Nahoum, and Foorgat’s
+treasures, to the last piastre. Let every soldier be a spy, if thine own
+spies fail.”
+
+As they turned to go, the door opened again, the black slave appeared,
+and ushered David into the room. David salaamed, but not low, and stood
+still.
+
+On the instant Kaid changed, The rage left his face. He leaned forward
+eagerly, the cruel and ugly look faded slowly from his eyes.
+
+“May thy days of life be as a river with sands of gold, effendi,” he
+said gently. He had a voice like music. “May the sun shine in thy heart
+and fruits of wisdom flourish there, Effendina,” answered David quietly.
+He saluted the others gravely, and his eyes rested upon Achmet in a way
+which Higli Pasha noted for subsequent gossip.
+
+Kaid pulled at his narghileh for a moment, mumbling good-humouredly to
+himself and watching the smoke reel away; then, with half-shut eyes, he
+said to David: “Am I master in Egypt or no, effendi?”
+
+“In ruling this people the Prince of Egypt stands alone,” answered
+David. “There is no one between him and the people. There is no
+Parliament.”
+
+“It is in my hand, then, to give or to withhold, to make or to break?”
+ Kaid chuckled to have this tribute, as he thought, from a Christian, who
+did not blink at Oriental facts, and was honest.
+
+David bowed his head to Kaid’s words.
+
+“Then if it be my hand that lifts up or casts down, that rewards or that
+punishes, shall my arm not stretch into the darkest corner of Egypt to
+bring forth a traitor? Shall it not be so?”
+
+“It belongs to thy power,” answered David. “It is the ancient custom of
+princes here. Custom is law, while it is yet the custom.”
+
+Kaid looked at him enigmatically for a moment, then smiled grimly--he
+saw the course of the lance which David had thrown. He bent his look
+fiercely on Achmet and Higli. “Ye have heard. Truth is on his lips. I
+have stretched out my arm. Ye are my arm, to reach for and gather in
+Nahoum and all that is his.” He turned quickly to David again. “I have
+given this hawk, Achmet, till to-morrow night to bring Nahoum to me,” he
+explained.
+
+“And if he fails--a penalty? He will lose his place?” asked David, with
+cold humour.
+
+“More than his place,” Kaid rejoined, with a cruel smile.
+
+“Then is his place mine, Effendina,” rejoined David, with a look which
+could give Achmet no comfort. “Thou will bring Nahoum--thou?” asked
+Kaid, in amazement.
+
+“I have brought him,” answered David. “Is it not my duty to know the
+will of the Effendina and to do it, when it is just and right?”
+
+“Where is he--where does he wait?” questioned Kaid eagerly.
+
+“Within the Palace--here,” replied David. “He awaits his fate in thine
+own dwelling, Effendina.” Kaid glowered upon Achmet. “In the years which
+Time, the Scytheman, will cut from thy life, think, as thou fastest at
+Ramadan or feastest at Beiram, how Kaid filled thy plate when thou wast
+a beggar, and made thee from a dog of a fellah into a pasha. Go to thy
+dwelling, and come here no more,” he added sharply. “I am sick of thy
+yellow, sinful face.”
+
+Achmet made no reply, but, as he passed beyond the door with Higli, he
+said in a whisper: “Come--to Harrik and the army! He shall be deposed.
+The hour is at hand.” High answered him faintly, however. He had not the
+courage of the true conspirator, traitor though he was.
+
+As they disappeared, Kaid made a wide gesture of friendliness to David,
+and motioned to a seat, then to a narghileh. David seated himself, took
+the stem of a narghileh in his mouth for an instant, then laid it down
+again and waited.
+
+“Nahoum--I do not understand,” Kaid said presently, his eyes gloating.
+
+“He comes of his own will, Effendina.”
+
+“Wherefore?” Kaid could not realise the truth. This truth was not
+Oriental on the face of it. “Effendina, he comes to place his life in
+thy hands. He would speak with thee.”
+
+“How is it thou dost bring him?”
+
+“He sought me to plead for him with thee, and because I knew his peril,
+I kept him with me and brought him hither but now.”
+
+“Nahoum went to thee?” Kaid’s eyes peered abstractedly into the distance
+between the almost shut lids. That Nahoum should seek David, who had
+displaced him from his high office, was scarcely Oriental, when his
+every cue was to have revenge on his rival. This was a natural sequence
+to his downfall. It was understandable. But here was David safe and
+sound. Was it, then, some deeper scheme of future vengeance? The
+Oriental instinctively pierced the mind of the Oriental. He could have
+realised fully the fierce, blinding passion for revenge which had almost
+overcome Nahoum’s calculating mind in the dark night, with his foe in
+the next room, which had driven him suddenly from his bed to fall upon
+David, only to find Mahommed Hassan watching--also with the instinct of
+the Oriental.
+
+Some future scheme of revenge? Kaid’s eyes gleamed red. There would
+be no future for Nahoum. “Why did Nahoum go to thee?” he asked again
+presently.
+
+“That I might beg his life of thee, Highness, as I said,” David replied.
+
+“I have not ordered his death.”
+
+David looked meditatively at him. “It was agreed between us yesterday
+that I should speak plainly--is it not so?”
+
+Kaid nodded, and leaned back among the cushions.
+
+“If what the Effendina intends is fulfilled, there is no other way but
+death for Nahoum,” added David. “What is my intention, effendi?”
+
+“To confiscate the fortune left by Foorgat Bey. Is it not so?”
+
+“I had a pledge from Foorgat--a loan.”
+
+“That is the merit of the case, Effendina. I am otherwise concerned.
+There is the law. Nahoum inherits. Shouldst thou send him to Fazougli,
+he would still inherit.”
+
+“He is a traitor.”
+
+“Highness, where is the proof?”
+
+“I know. My friends have disappeared one by one--Nahoum. Lands have been
+alienated from me--Nahoum. My income has declined--Nahoum. I have given
+orders and they have not been fulfilled--Nahoum. Always, always some
+rumour of assassination, or of conspiracy, or the influence and secret
+agents of the Sultan--all Nahoum. He is a traitor. He has grown rich
+while I borrow from Europe to pay my army and to meet the demands of the
+Sultan.”
+
+“What man can offer evidence in this save the Effendina who would profit
+by his death?”
+
+“I speak of what I know. I satisfy myself. It is enough.”
+
+“Highness, there is a better way; to satisfy the people, for whom thee
+lives. None should stand between. Is not the Effendina a father to
+them?”
+
+“The people! Would they not say Nahoum had got his due if he were
+blotted from their sight?”
+
+“None has been so generous to the poor, so it is said by all. His hand
+has been upon the rich only. Now, Effendina, he has brought hither the
+full amount of all he has received and acquired in thy service. He would
+offer it in tribute.”
+
+Kaid smiled sardonically. “It is a thin jest. When a traitor dies the
+State confiscates his goods!”
+
+“Thee calls him traitor. Does thee believe he has ever conspired against
+thy life?”
+
+Kaid shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Let me answer for thee, Effendina. Again and again he has defeated
+conspiracy. He has blotted it out--by the sword and other means. He has
+been a faithful servant to his Prince at least. If he has done after the
+manner of all others in power here, the fault is in the system, not in
+the man alone. He has been a friend to thee, Kaid.”
+
+“I hope to find in thee a better.”
+
+“Why should he not live?”
+
+“Thou hast taken his place.”
+
+“Is it, then, the custom to destroy those who have served thee, when
+they cease to serve?” David rose to his feet quickly. His face was
+shining with a strange excitement. It gave him a look of exaltation, his
+lips quivered with indignation. “Does thee kill because there is silence
+in the grave?”
+
+Kaid blew a cloud of smoke slowly. “Silence in the grave is a fact
+beyond dispute,” he said cynically.
+
+“Highness, thee changes servants not seldom,” rejoined David meaningly.
+“It may be that my service will be short. When I go, will the long arm
+reach out for me in the burrows where I shall hide?”
+
+Kaid looked at him with ill-concealed admiration. “Thou art an
+Englishman, not an Egyptian, a guest, not a subject, and under no law
+save my friendship.” Then he added scornfully: “When an Englishman in
+England leaves office, no matter how unfaithful, though he be a friend
+of any country save his own, they send him to the House of Lords--or so
+I was told in France when I was there. What does it matter to thee what
+chances to Nahoum? Thou hast his place with me. My secrets are thine.
+They shall all be thine--for years I have sought an honest man. Thou art
+safe whether to go or to stay.”
+
+“It may be so. I heed it not. My life is as that of a gull--if the wind
+carry it out to sea, it is lost. As my uncle went I shall go one day.
+Thee will never do me ill; but do I not know that I shall have foes at
+every corner, behind every mooshrabieh screen, on every mastaba, in the
+pasha’s court-yard, by every mosque? Do I not know in what peril I serve
+Egypt?”
+
+“Yet thou wouldst keep alive Nahoum! He will dig thy grave deep, and
+wait long.”
+
+“He will work with me for Egypt, Effendina.” Kaid’s face darkened.
+
+“What is thy meaning?”
+
+“I ask Nahoum’s life that he may serve under me, to do those things thou
+and I planned yesterday--the land, taxation, the army, agriculture, the
+Soudan. Together we will make Egypt better and greater and richer--the
+poor richer, even though the rich be poorer.”
+
+“And Kaid--poorer?”
+
+“When Egypt is richer, the Prince is richer, too. Is not the Prince
+Egypt? Highness, yesterday--yesterday thee gave me my commission. If
+thee will not take Nahoum again into service to aid me, I must not
+remain. I cannot work alone.”
+
+“Thou must have this Christian Oriental to work with thee?” He looked at
+David closely, then smiled sardonically, but with friendliness to David
+in his eyes. “Nahoum has prayed to work with thee, to be a slave where
+he was master? He says to thee that he would lay his heart upon the
+altar of Egypt?” Mordant, questioning humour was in his voice.
+
+David inclined his head.
+
+“He would give up all that is his?”
+
+“It is so, Effendina.”
+
+“All save Foorgat’s heritage?”
+
+“It belonged to their father. It is a due inheritance.”
+
+Kaid laughed sarcastically. “It was got in Mehemet Ali’s service.”
+
+“Nathless, it is a heritage, Effendina. He would give that fortune back
+again to Egypt in work with me, as I shall give of what is mine, and of
+what I am, in the name of God, the all-merciful!”
+
+The smile faded out of Kaid’s face, and wonder settled on it. What
+manner of man was this? His life, his fortune for Egypt, a country alien
+to him, which he had never seen till six months ago! What kind of being
+was behind the dark, fiery eyes and the pale, impassioned face? Was
+he some new prophet? If so, why should he not have cast a spell upon
+Nahoum? Had he not bewitched himself, Kaid, one of the ablest princes
+since Alexander or Amenhotep? Had Nahoum, then, been mastered and won?
+Was ever such power? In how many ways had it not been shown! He had
+fought for his uncle’s fortune, and had got it at last yesterday without
+a penny of backsheesh. Having got his will, he was now ready to give
+that same fortune to the good of Egypt--but not to beys and pashas and
+eunuchs (and that he should have escaped Mizraim was the marvel beyond
+all others!), or even to the Prince Pasha; but to that which would make
+“Egypt better and greater and richer--the poor richer, even though the
+rich be poorer!” Kaid chuckled to himself at that. To make the rich
+poorer would suit him well, so long as he remained rich. And, if riches
+could be got, as this pale Frank proposed, by less extortion from the
+fellah and less kourbash, so much the happier for all.
+
+He was capable of patriotism, and this Quaker dreamer had stirred it in
+him a little. Egypt, industrial in a real sense; Egypt, paying her own
+way without tyranny and loans: Egypt, without corvee, and with an army
+hired from a full public purse; Egypt, grown strong and able to resist
+the suzerainty and cruel tribute--that touched his native goodness of
+heart, so long, in disguise; it appealed to the sense of leadership in
+him; to the love of the soil deep in his bones; to regard for the common
+people--for was not his mother a slave? Some distant nobleness trembled
+in him, while yet the arid humour of the situation flashed into his
+eyes, and, getting to his feet, he said to David: “Where is Nahoum?”
+
+David told him, and he clapped his hands. The black slave entered,
+received an order, and disappeared. Neither spoke, but Kaid’s face was
+full of cheerfulness.
+
+Presently Nahoum entered and salaamed low, then put his hand upon
+his turban. There was submission, but no cringing or servility in his
+manner. His blue eyes looked fearlessly before him. His face was not
+paler than its wont. He waited for Kaid to speak.
+
+“Peace be to thee,” Kaid murmured mechanically.
+
+“And to thee, peace, O Prince,” answered Nahoum. “May the feet of Time
+linger by thee, and Death pass thy house forgetful.”
+
+There was silence for a moment, and then Kaid spoke again. “What are thy
+properties and treasure?” he asked sternly.
+
+Nahoum drew forth a paper from his sleeve, and handed it to Kaid without
+a word. Kaid glanced at it hurriedly, then said: “This is but nothing.
+What hast thou hidden from me?”
+
+“It is all I have got in thy service, Highness,” he answered boldly.
+“All else I have given to the poor; also to spies--and to the army.”
+
+“To spies--and to the army?” asked Kaid slowly, incredulously.
+
+“Wilt thou come with me to the window, Effendina?” Kaid, wondering, went
+to the great windows which looked on to the Palace square. There, drawn
+up, were a thousand mounted men as black as ebony, wearing shining white
+metal helmets and fine chain-armour and swords and lances like medieval
+crusaders. The horses, too, were black, and the mass made a barbaric
+display belonging more to another period in the world’s history. This
+regiment of Nubians Kaid had recruited from the far south, and had
+maintained at his own expense. When they saw him at the window now,
+their swords clashed on their thighs and across their breasts, and they
+raised a great shout of greeting.
+
+“Well?” asked Kaid, with a ring to the voice. “They are loyal,
+Effendina, every man. But the army otherwise is honeycombed with
+treason. Effendina, my money has been busy in the army paying
+and bribing officers, and my spies were costly. There has been
+sedition--conspiracy; but until I could get the full proofs I waited; I
+could but bribe and wait. Were it not for the money I had spent, there
+might have been another Prince of Egypt.”
+
+Kald’s face darkened. He was startled, too. He had been taken unawares.
+“My brother Harrik--!”
+
+“And I should have lost my place, lost all for which I cared. I had no
+love for money; it was but a means. I spent it for the State--for the
+Effendina, and to keep my place. I lost my place, however, in another
+way.”
+
+“Proofs! Proofs!” Kaid’s voice was hoarse with feeling.
+
+“I have no proofs against Prince Harrik, no word upon paper. But there
+are proofs that the army is seditious, that, at any moment, it may
+revolt.”
+
+“Thou hast kept this secret?” questioned Kaid darkly and suspiciously.
+
+“The time had not come. Read, Effendina,” he added, handing some papers
+over.
+
+“But it is the whole army!” said Kaid aghast, as he read. He was
+convinced.
+
+“There is only one guilty,” returned Nahoum. Their eyes met. Oriental
+fatalism met inveterate Oriental distrust and then instinctively Kaid’s
+eyes turned to David. In the eyes of the Inglesi was a different thing.
+The test of the new relationship had come. Ferocity was in his heart,
+a vitriolic note was in his voice as he said to David, “If this be
+true--the army rotten, the officers disloyal, treachery under every
+tunic--bismillah, speak!”
+
+“Shall it not be one thing at a time, Effendina?” asked David. He made a
+gesture towards Nahoum. Kaid motioned to a door. “Wait yonder,” he said
+darkly to Nahoum. As the door opened, and Nahoum disappeared leisurely
+and composedly, David caught a glimpse of a guard of armed Nubians in
+leopard-skins filed against the white wall of the other room.
+
+“What is thy intention towards Nahoum, Effendina?” David asked
+presently.
+
+Kaid’s voice was impatient. “Thou hast asked his life--take it; it
+is thine; but if I find him within these walls again until I give him
+leave, he shall go as Foorgat went.”
+
+“What was the manner of Foorgat’s going?” asked David quietly.
+
+“As a wind blows through a court-yard, and the lamp goes out, so he
+went--in the night. Who can say? Wherefore speculate? He is gone. It is
+enough. Were it not for thee, Egypt should see Nahoum no more.”
+
+David sighed, and his eyes closed for an instant. “Effendina, Nahoum has
+proved his faith--is it not so?” He pointed to the documents in Kaid’s
+hands.
+
+A grim smile passed over Kaid’s face. Distrust of humanity, incredulity,
+cold cynicism, were in it. “Wheels within wheels, proofs within proofs,”
+ he said. “Thou hast yet to learn the Eastern heart. When thou seest
+white in the East, call it black, for in an instant it will be black.
+Malaish, it is the East! Have I not trusted--did I not mean well by all?
+Did I not deal justly? Yet my justice was but darkness of purpose, the
+hidden terror to them all. So did I become what thou findest me and dost
+believe me--a tyrant, in whose name a thousand do evil things of which I
+neither hear nor know. Proof! When a woman lies in your arms, it is not
+the moment to prove her fidelity. Nahoum has crawled back to my feet
+with these things, and by the beard of the Prophet they are true!” He
+looked at the papers with loathing. “But what his purpose was when he
+spied upon and bribed my army I know not. Yet, it shall be said, he has
+held Harrik back--Harrik, my brother. Son of Sheitan and slime of the
+Nile, have I not spared Harrik all these years!”
+
+“Hast thou proof, Effendina?”
+
+“I have proof enough; I shall have more soon. To save their lives,
+these, these will tell. I have their names here.” He tapped the papers.
+“There are ways to make them tell. Now, speak, effendi, and tell me what
+I shall do to Harrik.”
+
+“Wouldst thou proclaim to Egypt, to the Sultan, to the world that
+the army is disloyal? If these guilty men are seized, can the army
+be trusted? Will it not break away in fear? Yonder Nubians are not
+enough--a handful lost in the melee. Prove the guilt of him who
+perverted the army and sought to destroy thee. Punish him.”
+
+“How shall there be proof save through those whom he has perverted?
+There is no writing.”
+
+“There is proof,” answered David calmly.
+
+“Where shall I find it?” Kaid laughed contemptuously.
+
+“I have the proof,” answered David gravely. “Against Harrik?”
+
+“Against Prince Harrik Pasha.”
+
+“Thou--what dost thou know?”
+
+“A woman of the Prince heard him give instructions for thy disposal,
+Effendina, when the Citadel should turns its guns upon Cairo and the
+Palace. She was once of thy harem. Thou didst give her in marriage, and
+she came to the harem of Prince Harrik at last. A woman from without who
+sang to her--a singing girl, an al’mah--she trusted with the paper to
+warn thee, Effendina, in her name. Her heart had remembrance of thee.
+Her foster-brother Mahommed Hassan is my servant. Him she told, and
+Mahommed laid the matter before me this morning. Here is a sign by which
+thee will remember her, so she said. Zaida she was called here.” He
+handed over an amulet which had one red gem in the centre.
+
+Kaid’s face had set into fierce resolution, but as he took the amulet
+his eyes softened.
+
+“Zaida. Inshallah! Zaida, she was called. She has the truth almost of
+the English. She could not lie ever. My heart smote me concerning her,
+and I gave her in marriage.” Then his face darkened again, and his teeth
+showed in malice. A demon was roused in him. He might long ago have
+banished the handsome and insinuating Harrik, but he had allowed him
+wealth and safety--and now...
+
+His intention was unmistakable.
+
+“He shall die the death,” he said. “Is it not so?” he added fiercely to
+David, and gazed at him fixedly. Would this man of peace plead for the
+traitor, the would-be fratricide?
+
+“He is a traitor; he must die,” answered David slowly.
+
+Kald’s eyes showed burning satisfaction. “If he were thy brother, thou
+wouldst kill him?”
+
+“I would give a traitor to death for the country’s sake. There is no
+other way.”
+
+“To-night he shall die.”
+
+“But with due trial, Effendina?”
+
+“Trial--is not the proof sufficient?”
+
+“But if he confess, and give evidence himself, and so offer himself to
+die?”
+
+“Is Harrik a fool?” answered Kaid, with scorn.
+
+“If there be a trial and sentence is given, the truth concerning the
+army must appear. Is that well? Egypt will shake to its foundations--to
+the joy of its enemies.”
+
+“Then he shall die secretly.”
+
+“The Prince Pasha of Egypt will be called a murderer.”
+
+Kaid shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“The Sultan--Europe--is it well?”
+
+“I will tell the truth,” Kaid rejoined angrily.
+
+“If the Effendina will trust me, Prince Harrik shall confess his crime
+and pay the penalty also.”
+
+“What is thy purpose?”
+
+“I will go to his palace and speak with him.”
+
+“Seize him?”
+
+“I have no power to seize him, Effendina.”
+
+“I will give it. My Nubians shall go also.”
+
+“Effendina, I will go alone. It is the only way. There is great danger
+to the throne. Who can tell what a night will bring forth?”
+
+“If Harrik should escape--”
+
+“If I were an Egyptian and permitted Harrik to escape, my life would pay
+for my failure. If I failed, thou wouldst not succeed. If I am to serve
+Egypt, there must be trust in me from thee, or it were better to pause
+now. If I go, as I shall go, alone, I put my life in danger--is it not
+so?”
+
+Suddenly Kaid sat down again among his cushions. “Inshallah! In the name
+of God, be it so. Thou art not as other men. There is something in thee
+above my thinking. But I will not sleep till I see thee again.”
+
+“I shall see thee at midnight, Effendina. Give me the ring from thy
+finger.”
+
+Kaid passed it over, and David put it in his pocket. Then he turned to
+go.
+
+“Nahoum?” he asked.
+
+“Take him hence. Let him serve thee if it be thy will. Yet I cannot
+understand it. The play is dark. Is he not an Oriental?”
+
+“He is a Christian.”
+
+Kaid laughed sourly, and clapped his hands for the slave.
+
+In a moment David and Nahoum were gone. “Nahoum, a Christian!
+Bismillah!” murmured Kaid scornfully, then fell to pondering darkly over
+the evil things he had heard.
+
+Meanwhile the Nubians in their glittering armour waited without in the
+blistering square.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. THE JEHAD AND THE LIONS
+
+“Allah hu Achbar! Allah hu Achbar! Ashhadu an la illaha illalla!”
+ The sweetly piercing, resonant voice of the Muezzin rang far and
+commandingly on the clear evening air, and from bazaar and crowded
+street the faithful silently hurried to the mosques, leaving their
+slippers at the door, while others knelt where the call found them, and
+touched their foreheads to the ground.
+
+In his palace by the Nile, Harrik, the half-brother of the Prince Pasha,
+heard it, and breaking off from conversation with two urgent visitors,
+passed to an alcove near, dropping a curtain behind him. Kneeling
+reverently on the solitary furniture of the room--a prayer-rug from
+Medina--he lost himself as completely in his devotions as though his
+life were an even current of unforbidden acts and motives.
+
+Cross-legged on the great divan of the room he had left, his less pious
+visitors, unable to turn their thoughts from the dark business on which
+they had come, smoked their cigarettes, talking to each other in tones
+so low as would not have been heard by a European, and with apparent
+listlessness.
+
+Their manner would not have indicated that they were weighing matters of
+life and death, of treason and infamy, of massacre and national shame.
+Only the sombre, smouldering fire of their eyes was evidence of the
+lighted fuse of conspiracy burning towards the magazine. One look of
+surprise had been exchanged when Harrik Pasha left them suddenly--time
+was short for what they meant to do; but they were Muslims, and they
+resigned themselves.
+
+“The Inglesi must be the first to go; shall a Christian dog rule over
+us?”
+
+It was Achmet the Ropemaker who spoke, his yellow face wrinkling with
+malice, though his voice but murmured hoarsely.
+
+“Nahoum will kill him.” Higli Pasha laughed low--it was like the gurgle
+of water in the narghileh--a voice of good nature and persuasiveness
+from a heart that knew no virtue. “Bismillah! Who shall read the meaning
+of it? Why has he not already killed?”
+
+“Nahoum would choose his own time--after he has saved his life by the
+white carrion. Kaid will give him his life if the Inglesi asks. The
+Inglesi, he is mad. If he were not mad, he would see to it that Nahoum
+was now drying his bones in the sands.”
+
+“What each has failed to do for the other shall be done for them,”
+ answered Achmet, a hateful leer on his immobile features. “To-night many
+things shall be made right. To-morrow there will be places empty and
+places filled. Egypt shall begin again to-morrow.”
+
+“Kaid?”
+
+Achmet stopped smoking for a moment. “When the khamsin comes, when the
+camels stampede, and the children of the storm fall upon the caravan,
+can it be foretold in what way Fate shall do her work? So but the end be
+the same--malaish! We shall be content tomorrow.”
+
+Now he turned and looked at his companion as though his mind had chanced
+on a discovery. “To him who first brings word to a prince who inherits,
+that the reigning prince is dead, belong honour and place,” he said.
+
+“Then shall it be between us twain,” said High, and laid his hot palm
+against the cold, snaky palm of the other. “And he to whom the honour
+falls shall help the other.”
+
+“Aiwa, but it shall be so,” answered Achmet, and then they spoke in
+lower tones still, their eyes on the curtain behind which Harrik prayed.
+
+Presently Harrik entered, impassive, yet alert, his slight, handsome
+figure in sharp contrast to the men lounging in the cushions before him,
+who salaamed as he came forward. The features were finely chiselled, the
+forehead white and high, the lips sensuous, the eyes fanatical, the look
+concentrated yet abstracted. He took a seat among the cushions, and,
+after a moment, said to Achmet, in a voice abnormally deep and powerful:
+“Diaz--there is no doubt of Diaz?”
+
+“He awaits the signal. The hawk flies not swifter than Diaz will act.”
+
+“The people--the bazaars--the markets?”
+
+“As the air stirs a moment before the hurricane comes, so the whisper
+has stirred them. From one lip to another, from one street to another,
+from one quarter to another, the word has been passed--‘Nahoum was
+a Christian, but Nahoum was an Egyptian whose heart was Muslim. The
+stranger is a Christian and an Inglesi. Reason has fled from the Prince
+Pasha, the Inglesi has bewitched him. But the hour of deliverance
+draweth nigh. Be ready! To-night!’ So has the whisper gone.”
+
+Harrik’s eyes burned. “God is great,” he said. “The time has come. The
+Christians spoil us. From France, from England, from Austria--it is
+enough. Kaid has handed us over to the Greek usurers, the Inglesi and
+the Frank are everywhere. And now this new-comer who would rule Kaid,
+and lay his hand upon Egypt like Joseph of old, and bring back Nahoum,
+to the shame of every Muslim--behold, the spark is to the tinder, it
+shall burn.”
+
+“And the hour, Effendina?”
+
+“At midnight. The guns to be trained on the Citadel, the Palace
+surrounded. Kaid’s Nubians?”
+
+“A hundred will be there, Effendina, the rest a mile away at their
+barracks.” Achmet rubbed his cold palms together in satisfaction.
+
+“And Prince Kaid, Effendina?” asked Higli cautiously.
+
+The fanatical eyes turned away. “The question is foolish--have ye no
+brains?” he said impatiently.
+
+A look of malignant triumph flashed from Achmet to High, and he said,
+scarce above a whisper: “May thy footsteps be as the wings of the eagle,
+Effendina. The heart of the pomegranate is not redder than our hearts
+are red for thee. Cut deep into our hearts, and thou shalt find the last
+beat is for thee--and for the Jehad!”
+
+“The Jehad--ay, the Jehad! The time is at hand,” answered Harrik,
+glowering at the two. “The sword shall not be sheathed till we have
+redeemed Egypt. Go your ways, effendis, and peace be on you and on all
+the righteous worshippers of God!”
+
+As High and Achmet left the palace, the voice of a holy man--admitted
+everywhere and treated with reverence--chanting the Koran, came
+somnolently through the court-yard: “Bismillah hirrahmah, nirraheem.
+Elhamdu lillahi sabbila!”
+
+Rocking his body backwards and forwards and dwelling sonorously on each
+vowel, the holy man seemed the incarnation of Muslim piety; but as the
+two conspirators passed him with scarce a glance, and made their way to
+a small gate leading into the great garden bordering on the Nile, his
+eyes watched them sharply. When they had passed through, he turned
+towards the windows of the harem, still chanting. For a long time he
+chanted. An occasional servant came and went, but his voice ceased not,
+and he kept his eyes fixed ever on the harem windows.
+
+At last his watching had its reward. Something fluttered from a window
+to the ground. Still chanting, he rose and began walking round the great
+court-yard. Twice he went round, still chanting, but the third time he
+stooped to pick up a little strip of linen which had fallen from the
+window, and concealed it in his sleeve. Presently he seated himself
+again, and, still chanting, spread out the linen in his palm and read
+the characters upon it. For an instant there was a jerkiness to the
+voice, and then it droned on resonantly again. Now the eyes of the holy
+man were fixed on the great gates through which strangers entered, and
+he was seated in the way which any one must take who came to the palace
+doors.
+
+It was almost dark, when he saw the bowab, after repeated knocking,
+sleepily and grudgingly open the gates to admit a visitor. There seemed
+to be a moment’s hesitation on the bowab’s part, but he was presently
+assured by something the visitor showed him, and the latter made his way
+deliberately to the palace doors. As the visitor neared the holy man,
+who chanted on monotonously, he was suddenly startled to hear between
+the long-drawn syllables the quick words in Arabic:
+
+“Beware, Saadat! See, I am Mahommed Hassan, thy servant! At midnight
+they surround Kaid’s palace--Achmet and Higli--and kill the Prince
+Pasha. Return, Saadat. Harrik will kill thee.”
+
+David made no sign, but with a swift word to the faithful Mahommed
+Hassan, passed on, and was presently admitted to the palace. As the
+doors closed behind him, he would hear the voice of the holy man still
+chanting: “Waladalleen--Ameen-Ameen! Waladalleen--Ameen!”
+
+The voice followed him, fainter and fainter, as he passed through the
+great bare corridors with the thick carpets on which the footsteps made
+no sound, until it came, soft and undefined, as it were from a great
+distance. Then suddenly there fell upon him a sense of the peril of his
+enterprise. He had been left alone in the vast dim hall while a slave,
+made obsequious by the sight of the ring of the Prince Pasha, sought
+his master. As he waited he was conscious that people were moving about
+behind the great screens of mooshrabieh which separated this room from
+others, and that eyes were following his every motion. He had gained
+easy ingress to this place; but egress was a matter of some speculation.
+The doors which had closed behind him might swing one way only! He had
+voluntarily put himself in the power of a man whose fatal secret he
+knew. He only felt a moment’s apprehension, however. He had been moved
+to come from a whisper in his soul; and he had the sure conviction of
+the predestinarian that he was not to be the victim of “The Scytheman”
+ before his appointed time. His mind resumed its composure, and he
+watchfully waited the return of the slave.
+
+Suddenly he was conscious of some one behind him, though he had heard
+no one approach. He swung round and was met by the passive face of the
+black slave in personal attendance on Harrik. The slave did not speak,
+but motioned towards a screen at the end of the room, and moved towards
+it. David followed. As they reached it, a broad panel opened, and they
+passed through, between a line of black slaves. Then there was a sudden
+darkness, and a moment later David was ushered into a room blazing with
+light. Every inch of the walls was hung with red curtains. No door was
+visible. He was conscious of this as the panel clicked behind him, and
+the folds of the red velvet caught his shoulder in falling. Now he saw
+sitting on a divan on the opposite side of the room Prince Harrik.
+
+David had never before seen him, and his imagination had fashioned a
+different personality. Here was a combination of intellect, refinement,
+and savagery. The red, sullen lips stamped the delicate, fanatical face
+with cruelty and barbaric indulgence, while yet there was an intensity
+in the eyes that showed the man was possessed of an idea which
+mastered him--a root-thought. David was at once conscious of a complex
+personality, of a man in whom two natures fought. He understood it.
+By instinct the man was a Mahdi, by heredity he was a voluptuary, that
+strange commingling of the religious and the evil found in so many
+criminals. In some far corner of his nature David felt something akin.
+The rebellion in his own blood against the fine instinct of his Quaker
+faith and upbringing made him grasp the personality before him. Had he
+himself been born in these surroundings, under these influences! The
+thought flashed through his mind like lightning, even as he bowed before
+Harrik, who salaamed and said: “Peace be unto thee!” and motioned him to
+a seat on a divan near and facing him.
+
+“What is thy business with me, effendi?” asked Harrik.
+
+“I come on the business of the Prince Pasha,” answered David.
+
+Harrik touched his fez mechanically, then his breast and lips, and a
+cruel smile lurked at the corners of his mouth as he rejoined:
+
+“The feet of them who wear the ring of their Prince wait at no man’s
+door. The carpet is spread for them. They go and they come as the feet
+of the doe in the desert. Who shall say, They shall not come; who shall
+say, They shall not return!”
+
+Though the words were spoken with an air of ingenuous welcome, David
+felt the malignity in the last phrase, and knew that now was come
+the most fateful moment of his life. In his inner being he heard the
+dreadful challenge of Fate. If he failed in his purpose with this
+man, he would never begin his work in Egypt. Of his life he did not
+think--his life was his purpose, and the one was nothing without the
+other. No other man would have undertaken so Quixotic an enterprise,
+none would have exposed himself so recklessly to the dreadful accidents
+of circumstance. There had been other ways to overcome this crisis, but
+he had rejected them for a course fantastic and fatal when looked at in
+the light of ordinary reason. A struggle between the East and the West
+was here to be fought out between two wills; between an intellectual
+libertine steeped in Oriental guilt and cruelty and self-indulgence, and
+a being selfless, human, and in an agony of remorse for a life lost by
+his hand.
+
+Involuntarily David’s eyes ran round the room before he replied. How
+many slaves and retainers waited behind those velvet curtains?
+
+Harrik saw the glance and interpreted it correctly. With a look of
+dark triumph he clapped his hands. As if by magic fifty black slaves
+appeared, armed with daggers. They folded their arms and waited like
+statues.
+
+David made no sign of discomposure, but said slowly: “Dost thou think I
+did not know my danger, Eminence? Do I seem to thee such a fool? I came
+alone as one would come to the tent of a Bedouin chief whose son one had
+slain, and ask for food and safety. A thousand men were mine to command,
+but I came alone. Is thy guest imbecile? Let them go. I have that to say
+which is for Prince Harrik’s ear alone.”
+
+An instant’s hesitation, and Harrik motioned the slaves away. “What is
+the private word for my ear?” he asked presently, fingering the stem of
+the narghileh.
+
+“To do right by Egypt, the land of thy fathers and thy land; to do right
+by the Prince Pasha, thy brother.”
+
+“What is Egypt to thee? Why shouldst thou bring thine insolence here?
+Couldst thou not preach in thine own bazaars beyond the sea?”
+
+David showed no resentment. His reply was composed and quiet. “I am come
+to save Egypt from the work of thy hands.”
+
+“Dog of an unbeliever, what hast thou to do with me, or the work of my
+hands?”
+
+David held up Kaid’s ring, which had lain in his hand. “I come from the
+master of Egypt--master of thee, and of thy life, and of all that is
+thine.”
+
+“What is Kaid’s message to me?” Harrik asked, with an effort at
+unconcern, for David’s boldness had in it something chilling to his
+fierce passion and pride.
+
+“The word of the Effendina is to do right by Egypt, to give thyself to
+justice and to peace.”
+
+“Have done with parables. To do right by Egypt wherein, wherefore?” The
+eyes glinted at David like bits of fiery steel.
+
+“I will interpret to thee, Eminence.”
+
+“Interpret.” Harrik muttered to himself in rage. His heart was dark, he
+thirsted for the life of this arrogant Inglesi. Did the fool not see his
+end? Midnight was at hand! He smiled grimly.
+
+“This is the interpretation, O Prince! Prince Harrik has conspired
+against his brother the Prince Pasha, has treacherously seduced officers
+of the army, has planned to seize Cairo, to surround the Palace and take
+the life of the Prince of Egypt. For months, Prince, thee has done this:
+and the end of it is that thee shall do right ere it be too late. Thee
+is a traitor to thy country and thy lawful lord.”
+
+Harrik’s face turned pale; the stem of the narghileh shook in his
+fingers. All had been discovered, then! But there was a thing of dark
+magic here. It was not a half-hour since he had given the word to strike
+at midnight, to surround the Palace, and to seize the Prince Pasha.
+Achmet--Higli, had betrayed him, then! Who other? No one else knew save
+Zaida, and Zaida was in the harem. Perhaps even now his own palace was
+surrounded. If it was so, then, come what might, this masterful Inglesi
+should pay the price. He thought of the den of lions hard by, of the
+cage of tigers-the menagerie not a thousand feet away. He could hear the
+distant roaring now, and his eyes glittered. The Christian to the wild
+beasts! That at least before the end. A Muslim would win heaven by
+sending a Christian to hell.
+
+Achmet--Higli! No others knew. The light of a fateful fanaticism was in
+his eyes. David read him as an open book, and saw the madness come upon
+him.
+
+“Neither Higli, nor Achmet, nor any of thy fellow-conspirators has
+betrayed thee,” David said. “God has other voices to whisper the truth
+than those who share thy crimes. I have ears, and the air is full of
+voices.”
+
+Harrik stared at him. Was this Inglesi, then, with the grey coat,
+buttoned to the chin, and the broad black hat which remained on his head
+unlike the custom of the English--was he one of those who saw visions
+and dreamed dreams, even as himself! Had he not heard last night a voice
+whisper through the dark “Harrik, Harrik, flee to the desert! The lions
+are loosed upon thee!” Had he not risen with the voice still in his ears
+and fled to the harem, seeking Zaida, she who had never cringed before
+him, whose beauty he had conquered, but whose face turned from him when
+he would lay his lips on hers? And, as he fled, had he not heard, as it
+were, footsteps lightly following him--or were they going before him?
+Finding Zaida, had he not told her of the voice, and had she not said:
+“In the desert all men are safe--safe from themselves and safe from
+others; from their own acts and from the acts of others”? Were the
+lions, then, loosed upon him? Had he been betrayed?
+
+Suddenly the thought flashed into his mind that his challenger would not
+have thrust himself into danger, given himself to the mouth of the Pit,
+if violence were intended. There was that inside his robe, than which
+lightning would not be more quick to slay. Had he not been a hunter of
+repute? Had he not been in deadly peril with wild beasts, and was he
+not quicker than they? This man before him was like no other he had ever
+met. Did voices speak to him? Were there, then, among the Christians
+such holy men as among the Muslims, who saw things before they happened,
+and read the human mind? Were there sorcerers among them, as among the
+Arabs?
+
+In any case his treason was known. What were to be the consequences?
+Diamond-dust in his coffee? To be dropped into the Nile like a dog?
+To be smothered in his sleep?--For who could be trusted among all his
+slaves and retainers when it was known he was disgraced, and that the
+Prince Pasha would be happier if Harrik were quiet for ever?
+
+Mechanically he drew out his watch and looked at it. It was nine
+o’clock. In three hours more would have fallen the coup. But from this
+man’s words he knew that the stroke was now with the Prince Pasha.
+Yet, if this pale Inglesi, this Christian sorcerer, knew the truth in
+a vision only, and had not declared it to Kaid, there might still be
+a chance of escape. The lions were near--it would be a joy to give a
+Christian to the lions to celebrate the capture of Cairo and the throne.
+He listened intently to the distant rumble of the lions. There was one
+cage dedicated to vengeance. Five human beings on whom his terrible
+anger fell in times past had been thrust into it alive. Two were slaves,
+one was an enemy, one an invader of his harem, and one was a woman, his
+wife, his favourite, the darling of his heart. When his chief eunuch
+accused her of a guilty love, he had given her paramour and herself
+to that awful death. A stroke of the vast paw, a smothered roar as the
+teeth gave into the neck of the beautiful Fatima, and then--no more.
+Fanaticism had caught a note of savage music that tuned it to its
+height.
+
+“Why art thou here? For what hast thou come? Do the spirit voices give
+thee that counsel?” he snarled.
+
+“I am come to ask Prince Harrik to repair the wrong he has done. When
+the Prince Pasha came to know of thy treason--”
+
+Harrik started. “Kaid believes thy tale of treason?” he burst out.
+
+“Prince Kaid knows the truth,” answered David quietly. “He might have
+surrounded this palace with his Nubians, and had thee shot against the
+palace walls. That would have meant a scandal in Egypt and in Europe. I
+besought him otherwise. It may be the scandal must come, but in another
+way, and--”
+
+“That I, Harrik, must die?” Harrik’s voice seemed far away. In his own
+ears it sounded strange and unusual. All at once the world seemed to be
+a vast vacuum in which his brain strove for air, and all his senses were
+numbed and overpowered. Distempered and vague, his soul seemed spinning
+in an aching chaos. It was being overpowered by vast elements, and life
+and being were atrophied in a deadly smother. The awful forces behind
+visible being hung him in the middle space between consciousness
+and dissolution. He heard David’s voice, at first dimly, then
+understandingly.
+
+“There is no other way. Thou art a traitor. Thou wouldst have been a
+fratricide. Thou wouldst have put back the clock in Egypt by a
+hundred years, even to the days of the Mamelukes--a race of slaves and
+murderers. God ordained that thy guilt should be known in time. Prince,
+thou art guilty. It is now but a question how thou shalt pay the debt of
+treason.”
+
+In David’s calm voice was the ring of destiny. It was dispassionate,
+judicial; it had neither hatred nor pity. It fell on Harrik’s ear as
+though from some far height. Destiny, the controller--who could escape
+it?
+
+Had he not heard the voices in the night--“The lions are loosed upon
+thee”? He did not answer David now, but murmured to himself like one in
+a dream.
+
+David saw his mood, and pursued the startled mind into the pit of
+confusion. “If it become known to Europe that the army is disloyal,
+that its officers are traitors like thee, what shall we find? England,
+France, Turkey, will land an army of occupation. Who shall gainsay
+Turkey if she chooses to bring an army here and recover control, remove
+thy family from Egypt, and seize upon its lands and goods? Dost thou not
+see that the hand of God has been against thee? He has spoken, and thy
+evil is discovered.”
+
+He paused. Still Harrik did not reply, but looked at him with dilated,
+fascinated eyes. Death had hypnotised him, and against death and destiny
+who could struggle? Had not a past Prince Pasha of Egypt safeguarded
+himself from assassination all his life, and, in the end, had he not
+been smothered in his sleep by slaves?
+
+“There are two ways only,” David continued--“to be tried and die
+publicly for thy crimes, to the shame of Egypt, its present peril, and
+lasting injury; or to send a message to those who conspired with thee,
+commanding them to return to their allegiance, and another to the Prince
+Pasha, acknowledging thy fault, and exonerating all others. Else, how
+many of thy dupes shall die! Thy choice is not life or death, but how
+thou shalt die, and what thou shalt do for Egypt as thou diest. Thou
+didst love Egypt, Eminence?”
+
+David’s voice dropped low, and his last words had a suggestion which
+went like an arrow to the source of all Harrik’s crimes, and that also
+which redeemed him in a little. It got into his inner being. He roused
+himself and spoke, but at first his speech was broken and smothered.
+
+“Day by day I saw Egypt given over to the Christians,” he said. “The
+Greek, the Italian, the Frenchman, the Englishman, everywhere they
+reached out, their hands and took from us our own. They defiled our
+mosques; they corrupted our life; they ravaged our trade, they stole
+our customers, they crowded us from the streets where once the faithful
+lived alone. Such as thou had the ear of the Prince, and such as Nahoum,
+also an infidel, who favoured the infidels of Europe. And now thou hast
+come, the most dangerous of them all! Day by day the Muslim has loosed
+his hold on Cairo, and Alexandria, and the cities of Egypt. Street upon
+street knows him no more. My heart burned within me. I conspired for
+Egypt’s sake. I would have made her Muslim once again. I would have
+fought the Turk and the Frank, as did Mehemet Ali; and if the infidels
+came, I would have turned them back; or if they would not go, I would
+have destroyed them here. Such as thou should have been stayed at the
+door. In my own house I would have been master. We seek not to take up
+our abode in other nations and in the cities of the infidel. Shall we
+give place to them on our own mastaba, in our own court-yard--hand to
+them the keys of our harems? I would have raised the Jehad if they vexed
+me with their envoys and their armies.” He paused, panting.
+
+“It would not have availed,” was David’s quiet answer. “This land may
+not be as Tibet--a prison for its own people. If the door opens outward,
+then must it open inward also. Egypt is the bridge between the East and
+the West. Upon it the peoples of all nations pass and repass. Thy plan
+was folly, thy hope madness, thy means to achieve horrible. Thy dream is
+done. The army will not revolt, the Prince will not be slain. Now only
+remains what thou shalt do for Egypt--”
+
+“And thou--thou wilt be left here to lay thy will upon Egypt. Kaid’s ear
+will be in thy hand--thou hast the sorcerer’s eye. I know thy meaning.
+Thou wouldst have me absolve all, even Achmet, and Higli, and Diaz, and
+the rest, and at thy bidding go out into the desert”--he paused--“or
+into the grave.”
+
+“Not into the desert,” rejoined David firmly. “Thou wouldst not rest.
+There, in the desert, thou wouldst be a Mahdi. Since thou must die, wilt
+thou not order it after thine own choice? It is to die for Egypt.”
+
+“Is this the will of Kaid?” asked Harrik, his voice thick with wonder,
+his brain still dulled by the blow of Fate.
+
+“It was not the Effendina’s will, but it hath his assent. Wilt thou
+write the word to the army and also to the Prince?”
+
+He had conquered. There was a moment’s hesitation, then Harrik picked
+up paper and ink that lay near, and said: “I will write to Kaid. I will
+have naught to do with the army.”
+
+“It shall be the whole, not the part,” answered David determinedly. “The
+truth is known. It can serve no end to withhold the writing to the army.
+Remember what I have said to thee. The disloyalty of the army must not
+be known. Canst thou not act after the will of Allah, the all-powerful,
+the all-just, the all-merciful?”
+
+There was an instant’s pause, and then suddenly Harrik placed the paper
+in his palm and wrote swiftly and at some length to Kaid. Laying it
+down, he took another and wrote but a few words--to Achmet and Diaz.
+This message said in brief, “Do not strike. It is the will of Allah.
+The army shall keep faithful until the day of the Mahdi be come. I spoke
+before the time. I go to the bosom of my Lord Mahomet.”
+
+He threw the papers on the floor before David, who picked them up, read
+them, and put them into his pocket.
+
+“It is well,” he said. “Egypt shall have peace. And thou, Eminence?”
+
+“Who shall escape Fate? What I have written I have written.”
+
+David rose and salaamed. Harrik rose also. “Thou wouldst go, having
+accomplished thy will?” Harrik asked, a thought flashing to his mind
+again, in keeping with his earlier purpose. Why should this man be left
+to trouble Egypt?
+
+David touched his breast. “I must bear thy words to the Palace and the
+Citadel.”
+
+“Are there not slaves for messengers?” Involuntarily Harrik turned his
+eyes to the velvet curtains. No fear possessed David, but he felt the
+keenness of the struggle, and prepared for the last critical moment of
+fanaticism.
+
+“It were a foolish thing to attempt my death,” he said calmly. “I have
+been thy friend to urge thee to do that which saves thee from public
+shame, and Egypt from peril. I came alone, because I had no fear that
+thou wouldst go to thy death shaming hospitality.”
+
+“Thou wast sure I would give myself to death?”
+
+“Even as that I breathe. Thou wert mistaken; a madness possessed thee;
+but thou, I knew, wouldst choose the way of honour. I too have had
+dreams--and of Egypt. If it were for her good, I would die for her.”
+
+“Thou art mad. But the mad are in the hands of God, and--”
+
+Suddenly Harrik stopped. There came to his ears two distant sounds--the
+faint click of horses’ hoofs and that dull rumble they had heard as they
+talked, a sound he loved, the roar of his lions.
+
+He clapped his hands twice, the curtains parted opposite, and a slave
+slid silently forward.
+
+“Quick! The horses! What are they? Bring me word,” he said.
+
+The slave vanished. For a moment there was silence. The eyes of the two
+men met. In the minds of both was the same thing.
+
+“Kaid! The Nubians!” Harrik said, at last. David made no response.
+
+The slave returned, and his voice murmured softly, as though the matter
+were of no concern: “The Nubians--from the Palace.” In an instant he was
+gone again.
+
+“Kaid had not faith in thee,” Harrik said grimly. “But see, infidel
+though thou art, thou trustest me, and thou shalt go thy way. Take them
+with thee, yonder jackals of the desert. I will not go with them. I did
+not choose to live; others chose for me; but I will die after my own
+choice. Thou hast heard a voice, even as I. It is too late to flee to
+the desert. Fate tricks me. ‘The lions are loosed on thee’--so the
+voice said to me in the night. Hark! dost thou not hear them--the lions,
+Harrik’s lions, got out of the uttermost desert?”
+
+David could hear the distant roar, for the menagerie was even part of
+the palace itself.
+
+“Go in peace,” continued Harrik soberly and with dignity, “and when
+Egypt is given to the infidel and Muslims are their slaves, remember
+that Harrik would have saved it for his Lord Mahomet, the Prophet of
+God.”
+
+He clapped his hands, and fifty slaves slid from behind the velvet
+curtains.
+
+“I have thy word by the tomb of thy mother that thou wilt take the
+Nubians hence, and leave me in peace?” he asked.
+
+David raised a hand above his head. “As I have trusted thee, trust thou
+me, Harrik, son of Mahomet.” Harrik made a gesture of dismissal, and
+David salaamed and turned to go. As the curtains parted for his exit, he
+faced Harrik again. “Peace be to thee,” he said.
+
+But, seated in his cushions, the haggard, fanatical face of Harrik was
+turned from him, the black, flaring eyes fixed on vacancy. The curtain
+dropped behind David, and through the dim rooms and corridors he passed,
+the slaves gliding beside him, before him, and behind him, until they
+reached the great doors. As they swung open and the cool night breeze
+blew in his face, a great suspiration of relief passed from him. What
+he had set out to do would be accomplished in all. Harrik would keep his
+word. It was the only way.
+
+As he emerged from the doorway some one fell at his feet, caught his
+sleeve and kissed it. It was Mahommed Hassan. Behind Mahommed was a
+little group of officers and a hundred stalwart Nubians. David motioned
+them towards the great gates, and, without speaking, passed swiftly down
+the pathway and emerged upon the road without. A moment later he was
+riding towards the Citadel with Harrik’s message to Achmet. In the
+red-curtained room Harrik sat alone, listening until he heard the far
+clatter of hoofs, and knew that the Nubians were gone. Then the other
+distant sound which had captured his ear came to him again. In his fancy
+it grew louder and louder. With it came the voice that called him in the
+night, the voice of a woman--of the wife he had given to the lions for
+a crime against him which she did not commit, which had haunted him all
+the years. He had seen her thrown to the king of them all, killed in one
+swift instant, and dragged about the den by her warm white neck--this
+slave wife from Albania, his adored Fatima. And when, afterwards, he
+came to know the truth, and of her innocence, from the chief eunuch who
+with his last breath cleared her name, a terrible anger and despair had
+come upon him. Time and intrigue and conspiracy had distracted his mind,
+and the Jehad became the fixed aim and end of his life. Now this was
+gone. Destiny had tripped him up. Kaid and the infidel Inglesi had won.
+
+As the one great passion went out like smoke, the woman he loved, whom
+he had given to the lions, the memory of her, some haunting part of
+her, possessed him, overcame him. In truth, he had heard a voice in the
+night, but not the voice of a spirit. It was the voice of Zaida, who,
+preying upon his superstitious mind--she knew the hallucination which
+possessed him concerning her he had cast to the lions--and having given
+the terrible secret to Kaid, whom she had ever loved, would still save
+Harrik from the sure vengeance which must fall upon him. Her design had
+worked, but not as she intended. She had put a spell of superstition on
+him, and the end would be accomplished, but not by flight to the desert.
+
+Harrik chose the other way. He had been a hunter.
+
+He was without fear. The voice of the woman he loved called him. It came
+to him through the distant roar of the lions as clear as when, with one
+cry of “Harrik!” she had fallen beneath the lion’s paw. He knew now why
+he had kept the great beast until this hour, though tempted again and
+again to slay him.
+
+Like one in a dream, he drew a dagger from the cushions where he sat,
+and rose to his feet. Leaving the room and passing dark groups of
+waiting slaves, he travelled empty chambers and long corridors, the
+voices of the lions growing nearer and nearer. He sped faster now, and
+presently came to two great doors, on which he knocked thrice. The doors
+opened, and two slaves held up lights for him to enter. Taking a torch
+from one of them, he bade them retire, and the doors clanged behind
+them.
+
+Harrik held up the torch and came nearer. In the centre of the room was
+a cage in which one great lion paced to and fro in fury. It roared
+at him savagely. It was his roar which had come to Harrik through the
+distance and the night. He it was who had carried Fatima, the beloved,
+about his cage by that neck in which Harrik had laid his face so often.
+
+The hot flush of conflict and the long anger of the years were on him.
+Since he must die, since Destiny had befooled him, left him the victim
+of the avengers, he would end it here. Here, against the thing of savage
+hate which had drunk of the veins and crushed the bones of his fair
+wife, he would strike one blow deep and strong and shed the blood of
+sacrifice before his own was shed.
+
+He thrust the torch into the ground, and, with the dagger grasped
+tightly, carefully opened the cage and stepped inside. The door clicked
+behind him. The lion was silent now, and in a far corner prepared to
+spring, crouching low.
+
+“Fatima!” Harrik cried, and sprang forward as the wild beast rose at
+him. He struck deep, drew forth the dagger--and was still.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. ACHMET THE ROPEMAKER STRIKES
+
+War! War! The chains of the conscripts clanked in the river villages;
+the wailing of the women affrighted the pigeons in a thousand dovecotes
+on the Nile; the dust of despair was heaped upon the heads of the old,
+who knew that their young would no more return, and that the fields of
+dourha would go ungathered, the water-channels go unattended, and
+the onion-fields be bare. War! War! War! The strong, the
+broad-shouldered--Aka, Mahmoud, Raschid, Selim, they with the bodies
+of Seti and the faces of Rameses, in their blue yeleks and unsandalled
+feet--would go into the desert as their forefathers did for the Shepherd
+Kings. But there would be no spoil for them--no slaves with swelling
+breasts and lips of honey; no straight-limbed servants of their pleasure
+to wait on them with caressing fingers; no rich spoils carried back from
+the fields of war to the mud hut, the earth oven, and the thatched roof;
+no rings of soft gold and necklaces of amber snatched from the fingers
+and bosoms of the captive and the dead. Those days were no more. No
+vision of loot or luxury allured these. They saw only the yellow sand,
+the ever-receding oasis, the brackish, undrinkable water, the withered
+and fruitless date-tree, handfuls of dourha for their food by day, and
+the keen, sharp night to chill their half-dead bodies in a half-waking
+sleep. And then the savage struggle for life--with all the gain to the
+pashas and the beys, and those who ruled over them; while their own
+wounds grew foul, and, in the torturing noon-day heat of the white
+waste, Death reached out and dragged them from the drooping lines
+to die. Fighting because they must fight--not patriot love, nor
+understanding, nor sacrifice in their hearts. War! War! War! War!
+
+David had been too late to stop it. It had grown to a head with
+revolution and conspiracy. For months before he came conscripts had
+been gathered in the Nile country from Rosetta to Assouan, and here and
+there, far south, tribes had revolted. He had come to power too late
+to devise another course. One day, when this war was over, he would go
+alone, save for a faithful few, to deal with these tribes and peoples
+upon another plane than war; but here and now the only course was that
+which had been planned by Kaid and those who counselled him. Troubled by
+a deep danger drawing near, Kaid had drawn him into his tough service,
+half-blindly catching at his help, with a strange, almost superstitious
+belief that luck and good would come from the alliance; seeing in him
+a protection against wholesale robbery and debt--were not the English
+masters of finance, and was not this Englishman honest, and with a brain
+of fire and an eye that pierced things?
+
+David had accepted the inevitable. The war had its value. It would draw
+off to the south--he would see that it was so--Achmet and Higli and Diaz
+and the rest, who were ever a danger. Not to himself: he did not think
+of that; but to Kaid and to Egypt. They had been out-manoeuvred,
+beaten, foiled, knew who had foiled them and what they had escaped;
+congratulated themselves, but had no gratitude to him, and still plotted
+his destruction. More than once his death had been planned, but the dark
+design had come to light--now from the workers of the bazaars, whose
+wires of intelligence pierced everywhere; now from some hungry fellah
+whose yelek he had filled with cakes of dourha beside a bread-shop;
+now from Mahommed Hassan, who was for him a thousand eyes and feet and
+hands, who cooked his food, and gathered round him fellaheen or Copts
+or Soudanese or Nubians whom he himself had tested and found true, and
+ruled them with a hand of plenty and a rod of iron. Also, from Nahoum’s
+spies he learned of plots and counterplots, chiefly on Achmet’s part;
+and these he hid from Kaid, while he trusted Nahoum--and not without
+reason, as yet.
+
+The day of Nahoum’s wrath and revenge was not yet come; it was his deep
+design to lay the foundation for his own dark actions strong on a
+rock of apparent confidence and devotion. A long torture and a great
+over-whelming was his design. He knew himself to be in the scheme of
+a master-workman, and by-and-by he would blunt the chisel and bend the
+saw; but not yet. Meanwhile, he hated, admired, schemed, and got a sweet
+taste on his tongue from aiding David to foil Achmet--Higli and Diaz
+were of little account; only the injury they felt in seeing the sluices
+being closed on the stream of bribery and corruption kept them in the
+toils of Achmet’s conspiracy. They had saved their heads, but they had
+not learned their lesson yet; and Achmet, blinded by rage, not at all.
+Achmet did not understand clemency. One by one his plots had failed,
+until the day came when David advised Kaid to send him and his friends
+into the Soudan, with the punitive expedition under loyal generals. It
+was David’s dream that, in the field of war, a better spirit might enter
+into Achmet and his friends; that patriotism might stir in them.
+
+The day was approaching when the army must leave. Achmet threw dice once
+more.
+
+Evening was drawing down. Over the plaintive pink and golden glow of
+sunset was slowly being drawn a pervasive silver veil of moonlight. A
+caravan of camels hunched alone in the middle distance, making for the
+western desert. Near by, village life manifested itself in heavily laden
+donkeys; in wolfish curs stealing away with refuse into the waste; in
+women, upright and modest, bearing jars of water on their heads; in
+evening fires, where the cover of the pot clattered over the boiling
+mass within; in the voice of the Muezzin calling to prayer.
+
+Returning from Alexandria to Cairo in the special train which Kaid had
+sent for him, David watched the scene with grave and friendly interest.
+There was far, to go before those mud huts of the thousand years would
+give place to rational modern homes; and as he saw a solitary horseman
+spread his sheepskin on the ground and kneel to say his evening prayer,
+as Mahomet had done in his flight between Mecca and Medina, the distance
+between the Egypt of his desire and the ancient Egypt that moved round
+him sharply impressed his mind, and the magnitude of his task settled
+heavily on his spirit.
+
+“But it is the beginning--the beginning,” he said aloud to himself,
+looking out upon the green expanses of dourha and Lucerne, and eyeing
+lovingly the cotton-fields here and there, the origin of the industrial
+movement he foresaw--“and some one had to begin. The rest is as it must
+be--”
+
+There was a touch of Oriental philosophy in his mind--was it not Galilee
+and the Nazarene, that Oriental source from which Mahomet also drew? But
+he added to the “as it must be” the words, “and as God wills.” He was
+alone in the compartment with Lacey, whose natural garrulity had had a
+severe discipline in the months that had passed since he had asked to
+be allowed to black David’s boots. He could now sit for an hour silent,
+talking to himself, carrying on unheard conversations. Seeing David’s
+mood, he had not spoken twice on this journey, but had made notes in a
+little “Book of Experience,”--as once he had done in Mexico. At last,
+however, he raised his head, and looked eagerly out of the window as
+David did, and sniffed.
+
+“The Nile again,” he said, and smiled. The attraction of the Nile was
+upon him, as it grows on every one who lives in Egypt. The Nile and
+Egypt--Egypt and the Nile--its mystery, its greatness, its benevolence,
+its life-giving power, without which Egypt is as the Sahara, it conquers
+the mind of every man at last.
+
+“The Nile, yes,” rejoined David, and smiled also. “We shall cross it
+presently.”
+
+Again they relapsed into silence, broken only by the clang, clang of the
+metal on the rails, and then presently another, more hollow sound--the
+engine was upon the bridge. Lacey got up and put his head out of the
+window. Suddenly there was a cry of fear and horror over his head, a
+warning voice shrieking:
+
+“The bridge is open--we are lost. Effendi--master--Allah!” It was the
+voice of Mahommed Hassan, who had been perched on the roof of the car.
+
+Like lightning Lacey realised the danger, and saw the only way of
+escape. He swung open the door, even as the engine touched the edge
+of the abyss and shrieked its complaint under the hand of the
+terror-stricken driver, caught David’s shoulder, and cried: “Jump-jump
+into the river--quick!”
+
+As the engine toppled, David jumped--there was no time to think,
+obedience was the only way. After him sprang, far down into the
+grey-blue water, Lacey and Mahommed. When they came again to the
+surface, the little train with its handful of human freight had
+disappeared.
+
+Two people had seen the train plunge to destruction--the solitary
+horseman whom David had watched kneel upon his sheepskin, and who now
+from a far hill had seen the disaster, but had not seen the three jump
+for their lives, and a fisherman on the bank, who ran shouting towards a
+village standing back from the river.
+
+As the fisherman sped shrieking and beckoning to the villagers, David,
+Lacey, and Mahommed fought for their lives in the swift current,
+swimming at an angle upstream towards the shore; for, as Mahommed warned
+them, there were rocks below. Lacey was a good swimmer, but he was
+heavy, and David was a better, but Mahommed had proved his merit in the
+past on many an occasion when the laws of the river were reaching out
+strong hands for him. Now, as Mahommed swam, he kept moaning to himself,
+cursing his father and his father’s son, as though he himself were to
+blame for the crime which had been committed. Here was a plot, and
+he had discovered more plots than one against his master. The
+bridge-opener--when he found him he would take him into the desert and
+flay him alive; and find him he would. His watchful eyes were on the hut
+by the bridge where this man should be. No one was visible. He cursed
+the man and all his ancestry and all his posterity, sleeping and waking,
+until the day when he, Mahommed, would pinch his flesh with red hot
+irons. But now he had other and nearer things to occupy him, for in
+the fierce struggle towards the shore Lacey found himself failing, and
+falling down the stream. Presently both Mahommed and David were beside
+him, Lacey angrily protesting to David that he must save himself.
+
+“Say, think of Egypt and all the rest. You’ve got to save yourself--let
+me splash along!” he spluttered, breathing hard, his shoulders low in
+the water, his mouth almost submerged.
+
+But David and Mahommed fought along beside him, each determined that it
+must be all or none; and presently the terror-stricken fisherman who
+had roused the village, still shrieking deliriously, came upon them in a
+flat-bottomed boat manned by four stalwart fellaheen, and the tragedy of
+the bridge was over. But not the tragedy of Achmet the Ropemaker.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. BEYOND THE PALE
+
+Mahommed Hassan had vowed a vow in the river, and he kept it in so far
+as was seemly. His soul hungered for the face of the bridge-opener, and
+the hunger grew. He was scarce passed from the shivering Nile into a dry
+yelek, had hardly taken a juicy piece from the cooking-pot at the house
+of the village sheikh, before he began to cultivate friends who could
+help him, including the sheikh himself; for what money Mahommed lacked
+was supplied by Lacey, who had a reasoned confidence in him, and by
+the fiercely indignant Kaid himself, to whom Lacey and Mahommed went
+secretly, hiding their purpose from David. So, there were a score of
+villages where every sheikh, eager for gold, listened for the whisper
+of the doorways, and every slave and villager listened at the sheikh’s
+door. But neither to sheikh nor to villager was it given to find the
+man.
+
+But one evening there came a knocking at the door of the house which
+Mahommed still kept in the lowest Muslim quarter of the town, a woman
+who hid her face and was of more graceful figure than was familiar in
+those dark purlieus. The door was at once opened, and Mahommed, with a
+cry, drew her inside.
+
+“Zaida--the peace of God be upon thee,” he said, and gazed lovingly yet
+sadly upon her, for she had greatly changed.
+
+“And upon thee peace, Mahommed,” she answered, and sat upon the floor,
+her head upon her breast.
+
+“Thou hast trouble at,” he said, and put some cakes of dourha and a
+meated cucumber beside her. She touched the food with her fingers, but
+did not eat. “Is thy grief, then, for thy prince who gave himself to the
+lions?” he asked.
+
+“Inshallah! Harrik is in the bosom of Allah. He is with Fatima in the
+fields of heaven--was I as Fatima to him? Nay, the dead have done with
+hurting.”
+
+“Since that night thou hast been lost, even since Harrik went. I
+searched for thee, but thou wert hid. Surely, thou knewest mine eyes
+were aching and my heart was cast down--did not thou and I feed at the
+same breast?”
+
+“I was dead, and am come forth from the grave; but I shall go again into
+the dark where all shall forget, even I myself; but there is that which
+I would do, which thou must do for me, even as I shall do good to thee,
+that which is the desire of my heart.”
+
+“Speak, light of the morning and blessing of thy mother’s soul,” he
+said, and crowded into his mouth a roll of meat and cucumber. “Against
+thy feddan shall be set my date-tree; it hath been so ever.”
+
+“Listen then, and by the stone of the Kaabah, keep the faith which has
+been throe and mine since my mother, dying, gave me to thy mother, whose
+milk gave me health and, in my youth, beauty--and, in my youth, beauty!”
+ Suddenly she buried her face in her veil, and her body shook with sobs
+which had no voice. Presently she continued: “Listen, and by Abraham and
+Christ and all the Prophets, and by Mahomet the true revealer, give me
+thine aid. When Harrik gave his life to the lions, I fled to her whom I
+had loved in the house of Kaid--Laka the Syrian, afterwards the wife of
+Achmet Pasha. By Harrik’s death I was free--no more a slave. Once Laka
+had been the joy of Achmet’s heart, but, because she had no child, she
+was despised and forgotten. Was it not meet I should fly to her whose
+sorrow would hide my loneliness? And so it was--I was hidden in the
+harem of Achmet. But miserable tongues--may God wither them!--told
+Achmet of my presence. And though I was free, and not a bondswoman, he
+broke upon my sleep....”
+
+Mahommed’s eyes blazed, his dark skin blackened like a coal, and he
+muttered maledictions between his teeth. “... In the morning there was
+a horror upon me, for which there is no name. But I laughed also when
+I took a dagger and stole from the harem to find him in the quarters
+beyond the women’s gate. I found him, but I held my hand, for one was
+with him who spake with a tone of anger and of death, and I listened.
+Then, indeed, I rejoiced for thee, for I have found thee a road to
+honour and fortune. The man was a bridge-opener--” “Ah!--O, light of a
+thousand eyes, fruit of the tree of Eden!” cried Mahommed, and fell on
+his knees at her feet, and would have kissed them, but that, with a cry,
+she said: “Nay, nay, touch me not. But listen.... Ay, it was Achmet who
+sought to drown thy Pasha in the Nile. Thou shalt find the man in the
+little street called Singat in the Moosky, at the house of Haleel the
+date-seller.”
+
+Mahommed rocked backwards and forwards in his delight. “Oh, now art thou
+like a lamp of Paradise, even as a star which leadeth an army of stars,
+beloved,” he said. He rubbed his hands together. “Thy witness and
+his shall send Achmet to a hell of scorpions, and I shall slay the
+bridge-opener with my own hand--hath not the Effendina secretly said so
+to me, knowing that my Pasha, the Inglesi, upon whom be peace for ever
+and forever, would forgive him. Ah, thou blossom of the tree of trees--”
+
+She rose hastily, and when he would have kissed her hand she drew back
+to the wall. “Touch me not--nay, then, Mahommed, touch me not--”
+
+“Why should I not pay thee honour, thou princess among women? Hast thou
+not the brain of a man, and thy beauty, like thy heart, is it not--”
+
+She put out both her hands and spoke sharply. “Enough, my brother,” she
+said. “Thou hast thy way to great honour. Thou shalt yet have a thousand
+feddans of well-watered land and slaves to wait upon thee. Get thee to
+the house of Haleel. There shall the blow fall on the head of Achmet,
+the blow which was mine to strike, but that Allah stayed my hand that
+I might do thee and thy Pasha good, and to give the soul-slayer and the
+body-slayer into the hands of Kaid, upon whom be everlasting peace!” Her
+voice dropped low. “Thou saidst but now that I had beauty. Is there yet
+any beauty in my face?” She lowered her yashmak and looked at him with
+burning eyes.
+
+“Thou art altogether beautiful,” he answered, “but there is a
+strangeness to thy beauty like none I have seen; as if upon the face of
+an angel there fell a mist--nay, I have not words to make it plain to
+thee.”
+
+With a great sigh, and yet with the tenseness gone from her eyes, she
+slowly drew the veil up again till only her eyes were visible. “It is
+well,” she answered. “Now, I have heard that to-morrow night Prince Kaid
+will sit in the small court-yard of the blue tiles by the harem to feast
+with his friends, ere the army goes into the desert at the next sunrise.
+Achmet is bidden to the feast.”
+
+“It is so, O beloved!”
+
+“There will be dancers and singers to make the feast worthy?”
+
+“At such a time it will be so.”
+
+“Then this thou shalt do. See to it that I shall be among the singers,
+and when all have danced and sung, that I shall sing, and be brought
+before Kaid.”
+
+“Inshallah! It shall be so. Thou dost desire to see Kaid--in truth, thou
+hast memory, beloved.”
+
+She made a gesture of despair. “Go upon thy business. Dost thou not
+desire the blood of Achmet and the bridge-opener?”
+
+Mahommed laughed, and joyfully beat his breast, with whispered
+exclamations, and made ready to go. “And thou?” he asked.
+
+“Am I not welcome here?” she replied wearily. “O, my sister, thou art
+the master of my life and all that I have,” he exclaimed, and a moment
+afterwards he was speeding towards Kaid’s Palace.
+
+For the first time since the day of his banishment Achmet the Ropemaker
+was invited to Kaid’s Palace. Coming, he was received with careless
+consideration by the Prince. Behind his long, harsh face and sullen eyes
+a devil was raging, because of all his plans that had gone awry, and
+because the man he had sought to kill still served the Effendina,
+putting a blight upon Egypt. To-morrow he, Achmet, must go into the
+desert with the army, and this hated Inglesi would remain behind to have
+his will with Kaid. The one drop of comfort in his cup was the fact that
+the displeasure of the Effendina against himself was removed, and that
+he had, therefore, his foot once more inside the Palace. When he came
+back from the war he would win his way to power again. Meanwhile, he
+cursed the man who had eluded the death he had prepared for him. With
+his own eyes had he not seen, from the hill top, the train plunge to
+destruction, and had he not once more got off his horse and knelt upon
+his sheepskin and given thanks to Allah--a devout Arab obeying the
+sunset call to prayer, as David had observed from the train?
+
+One by one, two by two, group by group, the unveiled dancers came and
+went; the singers sang behind the screen provided for them, so that none
+might see their faces, after the custom. At last, however, Kaid and his
+guests grew listless, and smoked and talked idly. Yet there was in the
+eyes of Kaid a watchfulness unseen by any save a fellah who squatted in
+a corner eating sweetmeats, and a hidden singer waiting until she should
+be called before the Prince Pasha. The singer’s glances continually
+flashed between Kaid and Achmet. At last, with gleaming eyes, she saw
+six Nubian slaves steal silently behind Achmet. One, also, of great
+strength, came suddenly and stood before him. In his hands was a
+leathern thong.
+
+Achmet saw, felt the presence of the slaves behind him, and shrank back
+numbed and appalled. A mist came before his eyes; the voice he heard
+summoning him to stand up seemed to come from infinite distances. The
+hand of doom had fallen like a thunderbolt. The leathern thong in the
+hands of the slave was the token of instant death. There was no chance
+of escape. The Nubians had him at their mercy. As his brain struggled
+to regain its understanding, he saw, as in a dream, David enter the
+court-yard and come towards Kaid.
+
+Suddenly David stopped in amazement, seeing Achmet. Inquiringly he
+looked at Kaid, who spoke earnestly to him in a low tone. Whereupon
+David turned his head away, but after a moment fixed his eyes on Achmet.
+
+Kaid motioned all his startled guests to come nearer. Then in strong,
+unmerciful voice he laid Achmet’s crime before them, and told the story
+of the bridge-opener, who had that day expiated his crime in the desert
+by the hands of Mahommed--but not with torture, as Mahommed had hoped
+might be.
+
+“What shall be his punishment--so foul, so wolfish?” Kaid asked of them
+all. A dozen voices answered, some one terrible thing, some another.
+
+“Mercy!” moaned Achmet aghast. “Mercy, Saadat!” he cried to David.
+
+David looked at him calmly. There was little mercy in his eyes as he
+answered: “Thy crimes sent to their death in the Nile those who never
+injured thee. Dost thou quarrel with justice? Compose thy soul, and I
+pray only the Effendina to give thee that seemly death thou didst deny
+thy victims.” He bowed respectfully to Kaid.
+
+Kaid frowned. “The ways of Egypt are the ways of Egypt, and not of the
+land once thine,” he answered shortly. Then, under the spell of that
+influence which he had never yet been able to resist, he added to the
+slaves: “Take him aside. I will think upon it. But he shall die at
+sunrise ere the army goes. Shall not justice be the gift of Kaid for an
+example and a warning? Take him away a little. I will decide.”
+
+As Achmet and the slaves disappeared into a dark corner of the
+court-yard, Kaid rose to his feet, and, upon the hint, his guests,
+murmuring praises of his justice and his mercy and his wisdom, slowly
+melted from the court-yard; but once outside they hastened to proclaim
+in the four quarters of Cairo how yet again the English Pasha had picked
+from the Tree of Life an apple of fortune.
+
+The court-yard was now empty, save for the servants of the Prince, David
+and Mahommed, and two officers in whom David had advised Kaid to put
+trust. Presently one of these officers said: “There is another singer,
+and the last. Is it the Effendina’s pleasure?”
+
+Kaid made a gesture of assent, sat down, and took the stem of a
+narghileh between his lips. For a moment there was silence, and then,
+out upon the sweet, perfumed night, over which the stars hung brilliant
+and soft and near, a voice at first quietly, then fully, and palpitating
+with feeling, poured forth an Eastern love song:
+
+     “Take thou thy flight, O soul! Thou hast no more
+     The gladness of the morning! Ah, the perfumed roses
+     My love laid on my bosom as I slept!
+     How did he wake me with his lips upon mine eyes,
+     How did the singers carol--the singers of my soul
+     That nest among the thoughts of my beloved!...
+     All silent now, the choruses are gone,
+     The windows of my soul are closed; no more
+     Mine eyes look gladly out to see my lover come.
+     There is no more to do, no more to say:
+     Take flight, my soul, my love returns no more!”
+
+At the first note Kaid started, and his eyes fastened upon the screen
+behind which sat the singer. Then, as the voice, in sweet anguish,
+filled the court-yard, entrancing them all, rose higher and higher, fell
+and died away, he got to his feet, and called out hoarsely: “Come--come
+forth!”
+
+Slowly a graceful, veiled figure came from behind the great screen. He
+took a step forward.
+
+“Zaida! Zaida!” he said gently, amazedly.
+
+She salaamed low. “Forgive me, O my lord!” she said, in a whispering
+voice, drawing her veil about her head. “It was my soul’s desire to look
+upon thy face once more.”
+
+“Whither didst thou go at Harrik’s death? I sent to find thee, and give
+thee safety; but thou wert gone, none knew where.”
+
+“O my lord, what was I but a mote in thy sun, that thou shouldst seek
+me?”
+
+Kaid’s eyes fell, and he murmured to himself a moment, then he said
+slowly: “Thou didst save Egypt, thou and my friend”--he gestured towards
+David”--and my life also, and all else that is worth. Therefore bounty,
+and safety, and all thy desires were thy due. Kaid is no ingrate--no, by
+the hand of Moses that smote at Sinai!”
+
+She made a pathetic motion of her hands. “By Harrik’s death I am free, a
+slave no longer. O my lord, where I go bounty and famine are the same.”
+
+Kaid took a step forward. “Let me see thy face,” he said, something
+strange in her tone moving him with awe.
+
+She lowered her veil and looked him in the eyes. Her wan beauty smote
+him, conquered him, the exquisite pain in her face filled Kaid’s eyes
+with foreboding, and pierced his heart.
+
+“O cursed day that saw thee leave these walls! I did it for thy
+good--thou wert so young; thy life was all before thee! But now--come,
+Zaida, here in Kaid’s Palace thou shalt have a home, and be at peace,
+for I see that thou hast suffered. Surely it shall be said that Kaid
+honours thee.” He reached out to take her hand.
+
+She had listened like one in a dream, but, as he was about to touch her,
+she suddenly drew back, veiled her face, save for the eyes, and said in
+a voice of agony: “Unclean, unclean! My lord, I am a leper!”
+
+An awed and awful silence fell upon them all. Kaid drew back as though
+smitten by a blow.
+
+Presently, upon the silence, her voice sharp with agony said: “I am a
+leper, and I go to that desert place which my lord has set apart for
+lepers, where, dead to the world, I shall watch the dreadful years come
+and go. Behold, I would die, but that I have a sister there these many
+years, and her sick soul lives in loneliness. O my lord, forgive me!
+Here was I happy; here of old I did sing to thee, and I came to sing to
+thee once more a death-song. Also, I came to see thee do justice, ere I
+went from thy face for ever.”
+
+Kaid’s head was lowered on his breast. He shuddered. “Thou art so
+beautiful--thy voice, all! Thou wouldst see justice--speak! Justice
+shall be made plain before thee.”
+
+Twice she essayed to speak, and could not; but from his sweetmeats and
+the shadows Mahommed crept forward, kissed the ground before Kaid, and
+said: “Effendina, thou knowest me as the servant of thy high servant,
+Claridge Pasha.”
+
+“I know thee--proceed.”
+
+“Behold, she whom God has smitten, man smote first. I am her
+foster-brother--from the same breast we drew the food of life. Thou
+wouldst do justice, O Effendina; but canst thou do double justice--ay,
+a thousandfold? Then”--his voice raised almost shrilly--“then do it
+upon Achmet Pasha. She--Zaida--told me where I should find the
+bridge-opener.”
+
+“Zaida once more!” Kaid murmured.
+
+“She had learned all in Achmet’s harem--hearing speech between Achmet
+and the man whom thou didst deliver to my hands yesterday.”
+
+“Zaida-in Achmet’s harem?” Kaid turned upon her.
+
+Swiftly she told her dreadful tale, how, after Achmet had murdered all
+of her except her body, she rose up to kill herself; but fainting, fell
+upon a burning brazier, and her hand thrust accidentally in the live
+coals felt no pain. “And behold, O my lord, I knew I was a leper; and I
+remembered my sister and lived on.” So she ended, in a voice numbed and
+tuneless.
+
+Kaid trembled with rage, and he cried in a loud voice: “Bring Achmet
+forth.”
+
+As the slave sped upon the errand, David laid a hand on Kaid’s arm, and
+whispered to him earnestly. Kaid’s savage frown cleared away, and his
+rage calmed down; but an inflexible look came into his face, a look
+which petrified the ruined Achmet as he salaamed before him.
+
+“Know thy punishment, son of a dog with a dog’s heart, and prepare for
+a daily death,” said Kaid. “This woman thou didst so foully wrong, even
+when thou didst wrong her, she was a leper.”
+
+A low cry broke from Achmet, for now when death came he must go unclean
+to the after-world, forbidden Allah’s presence. Broken and abject he
+listened.
+
+“She knew not, till thou wert gone,” continued Kaid. “She is innocent
+before the law. But thou--beast of the slime--hear thy sentence. There
+is in the far desert a place where lepers live. There, once a year, one
+caravan comes, and, at the outskirts of the place unclean, leaves food
+and needful things for another year, and returns again to Egypt after
+many days. From that place there is no escape--the desert is as the sea,
+and upon that sea there is no ghiassa to sail to a farther shore. It is
+the leper land. Thither thou shalt go to wait upon this woman thou hast
+savagely wronged, and upon her kind, till thou diest. It shall be so.”
+
+“Mercy! Mercy!” Achmet cried, horror-stricken, and turned to David.
+“Thou art merciful. Speak for me, Saadat.”
+
+“When didst thou have mercy?” asked David. “Thy crimes are against
+humanity.”
+
+Kaid made a motion, and, with dragging feet, Achmet passed from the
+haunts of familiar faces.
+
+For a moment Kaid stood and looked at Zaida, rigid and stricken in that
+awful isolation which is the leper’s doom. Her eyes were closed, but her
+head was high. “Wilt thou not die?” Kaid asked her gently.
+
+She shook her head slowly, and her hands folded on her breast. “My
+sister is there,” she said at last. There was an instant’s stillness,
+then Kaid added with a voice of grief: “Peace be upon thee, Zaida.
+Life is but a spark. If death comes not to-day, it will tomorrow, for
+thee--for me. Inshallah, peace be upon thee!”
+
+She opened her eyes and looked at him. Seeing what was in his face, they
+lighted with a great light for a moment.
+
+“And upon thee peace, O my lord, for ever and for ever!” she said
+softly, and, turning, left the court-yard, followed at a distance by
+Mahommed Hassan.
+
+Kaid remained motionless looking after her.
+
+David broke in on his abstraction. “The army at sunrise--thou wilt speak
+to it, Effendina?”
+
+Kaid roused himself. “What shall I say?” he asked anxiously.
+
+“Tell them they shall be clothed and fed, and to every man or his family
+three hundred piastres at the end.”
+
+“Who will do this?” asked Kaid incredulously. “Thou, Effendina--Egypt
+and thou and I.”
+
+“So be it,” answered Kaid.
+
+As they left the court-yard, he said suddenly to an officer behind him:
+
+“The caravan to the Place of Lepers--add to the stores fifty camel-loads
+this year, and each year hereafter. Have heed to it. Ere it starts, come
+to me. I would see all with mine own eyes.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. SOOLSBY’S HAND UPON THE CURTAIN
+
+Faith raised her eyes from the paper before her and poised her head
+meditatively.
+
+“How long is it, friend, since--”
+
+“Since he went to Egypt?”
+
+“Nay, since thee--”
+
+“Since I went to Mass?” he grumbled humorously.
+
+She laughed whimsically. “Nay, then, since thee made the promise--”
+
+“That I would drink no more till his return--ay, that was my bargain;
+till then and no longer! I am not to be held back then, unless I change
+my mind when I see him. Well, ‘tis three years since--”
+
+“Three years! Time hasn’t flown. Is it not like an old memory, his
+living here in this house, Soolsby, and all that happened then?”
+
+Soolsby looked at her over his glasses, resting his chin on the back
+of the chair he was caning, and his lips worked in and out with a
+suppressed smile.
+
+“Time’s got naught to do with you. He’s afeard of you,” he continued.
+“He lets you be.”
+
+“Friend, thee knows I am almost an old woman now.” She made marks
+abstractedly upon the corner of a piece of paper. “Unless my hair turns
+grey presently I must bleach it, for ‘twill seem improper it should
+remain so brown.”
+
+She smoothed it back with her hand. Try as she would to keep it trim
+after the manner of her people, it still waved loosely on her forehead
+and over her ears. And the grey bonnet she wore but added piquancy to
+its luxuriance, gave a sweet gravity to the demure beauty of the face it
+sheltered.
+
+“I am thirty now,” she murmured, with a sigh, and went on writing.
+
+The old man’s fingers moved quickly among the strips of cane, and, after
+a silence, without raising his head, he said: “Thirty, it means naught.”
+
+“To those without understanding,” she rejoined drily.
+
+“‘Tis tough understanding why there’s no wedding-ring on yonder finger.
+There’s been many a man that’s wanted it, that’s true--the Squire’s son
+from Bridgley, the lord of Axwood Manor, the long soldier from Shipley
+Wood, and doctors, and such folk aplenty. There’s where understanding
+fails.”
+
+Faith’s face flushed, then it became pale, and her eyes, suffused,
+dropped upon the paper before her. At first it seemed as though she must
+resent his boldness; but she had made a friend of him these years past,
+and she knew he meant no rudeness. In the past they had talked of things
+deeper and more intimate still. Yet there was that in his words which
+touched a sensitive corner of her nature.
+
+“Why should I be marrying?” she asked presently. “There was my sister’s
+son all those years. I had to care for him.”
+
+“Ay, older than him by a thimbleful!” he rejoined.
+
+“Nay, till he came to live in this hut alone older by many a year. Since
+then he is older than me by fifty. I had not thought of marriage before
+he went away. Squire’s son, soldier, or pillman, what were they to me!
+He needed me. They came, did they? Well, and if they came?”
+
+“And since the Egyptian went?”
+
+A sort of sob came into her throat. “He does not need me, but he may--he
+will one day; and then I shall be ready. But now--”
+
+Old Soolsby’s face turned away. His house overlooked every house in
+the valley beneath: he could see nearly every garden; he could even
+recognise many in the far streets. Besides, there hung along two nails
+on the wall a telescope, relic of days when he sailed the main. The
+grounds of the Cloistered House and the fruit-decked garden-wall of the
+Red Mansion were ever within his vision. Once, twice, thrice, he had
+seen what he had seen, and dark feelings, harsh emotions, had been
+roused in him.
+
+“He will need us both--the Egyptian will need us both one day,” he
+answered now; “you more than any, me because I can help him, too--ay,
+I can help him. But married or single you could help him; so why waste
+your days here?”
+
+“Is it wasting my days to stay with my father? He is lonely, most lonely
+since our Davy went away; and troubled, too, for the dangers of that
+life yonder. His voice used to shake when he prayed, in those days when
+Davy was away in the desert, down at Darfur and elsewhere among the
+rebel tribes. He frightened me then, he was so stern and still. Ah, but
+that day when we knew he was safe, I was eighteen, and no more!” she
+added, smiling. “But, think you, I could marry while my life is so tied
+to him and to our Egyptian?”
+
+No one looking at her limpid, shining blue eyes but would have set
+her down for twenty-three or twenty-four, for not a line showed on
+her smooth face; she was exquisite of limb and feature, and had the
+lissomeness of a girl of fifteen. There was in her eyes, however, an
+unquiet sadness; she had abstracted moments when her mind seemed fixed
+on some vexing problem. Such a mood suddenly came upon her now. The
+pen lay by the paper untouched, her hands folded in her lap, and a long
+silence fell upon them, broken only by the twanging of the strips of
+cane in Soolsby’s hands. At last, however, even this sound ceased; and
+the two scarce moved as the sun drew towards the middle afternoon. At
+last they were roused by the sound of a horn, and, looking down, they
+saw a four-in-hand drawing smartly down the road to the village over the
+gorse-spread common, till it stopped at the Cloistered House. As Faith
+looked, her face slightly flushed. She bent forward till she saw one
+figure get down and, waving a hand to the party on the coach as it moved
+on, disappear into the gateway of the Cloistered House.
+
+“What is the office they have given him?” asked Soolsby, disapproval in
+his tone, his eyes fixed on the disappearing figure.
+
+“They have made Lord Eglington Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs,” she
+answered.
+
+“And what means that to a common mind?”
+
+“That what his Government does in Egypt will mean good or bad to our
+Egyptian,” she returned.
+
+“That he can do our man good or ill?” Soolsby asked sharply--“that he,
+yonder, can do that?”
+
+She inclined her head.
+
+“When I see him doing ill--well, when I see him doing that”--he snatched
+up a piece of wood from the floor--“then I will break him, so!”
+
+He snapped the stick across his knee, and threw the pieces on the
+ground. He was excited. He got to his feet and walked up and down the
+little room, his lips shut tight, his round eyes flaring.
+
+Faith watched him in astonishment. In the past she had seen his face
+cloud over, his eyes grow sulky, at the mention of Lord Eglington’s
+name; she knew that Soolsby hated him; but his aversion now was more
+definite and violent than he had before shown, save on that night long
+ago when David went first to Egypt, and she had heard hard words between
+them in this same hut. She supposed it one of those antipathies which
+often grow in inverse ratio to the social position of those concerned.
+She replied in a soothing voice:
+
+“Then we shall hope that he will do our Davy only good.”
+
+“You would not wish me to break his lordship? You would not wish it?” He
+came over to her, and looked sharply at her. “You would not wish it?” he
+repeated meaningly.
+
+She evaded his question. “Lord Eglington will be a great man one day
+perhaps,” she answered. “He has made his way quickly. How high he has
+climbed in three years--how high!”
+
+Soolsby’s anger was not lessened. “Pooh! Pooh! He is an Earl. An Earl
+has all with him at the start--name, place, and all. But look at our
+Egyptian! Look at Egyptian David--what had he but his head and an honest
+mind? What is he? He is the great man of Egypt. Tell me, who helped
+Egyptian David? That second-best lordship yonder, he crept about coaxing
+this one and wheedling that. I know him--I know him. He wheedles and
+wheedles. No matter whether ‘tis a babe or an old woman, he’ll talk, and
+talk, and talk, till they believe in him, poor folks! No one’s too small
+for his net. There’s Martha Higham yonder. She’s forty five. If he sees
+her, as sure as eggs he’ll make love to her, and fill her ears with
+words she’d never heard before, and ‘d never hear at all if not from
+him. Ay, there’s no man too sour and no woman too old that he’ll not
+blandish, if he gets the chance.”
+
+As he spoke Faith shut her eyes, and her fingers clasped tightly
+together--beautiful long, tapering fingers, like those in Romney’s
+pictures. When he stopped, her eyes opened slowly, and she gazed before
+her down towards that garden by the Red Mansion where her lifetime had
+been spent.
+
+“Thee says hard words, Soolsby,” she rejoined gently. “But maybe thee
+is right.” Then a flash of humour passed over her face. “Suppose we
+ask Martha Higham if the Earl has ‘blandished’ her. If the Earl has
+blandished Martha, he is the very captain of deceit. Why, he has himself
+but twenty-eight years. Will a man speak so to one older than himself,
+save in mockery? So, if thee is right in this, then--then if he speak
+well to deceive and to serve his turn, he will also speak ill; and he
+will do ill when it may serve his turn; and so he may do our Davy ill,
+as thee says, Soolsby.”
+
+She rose to her feet and made as if to go, but she kept her face from
+him. Presently, however, she turned and looked at him. “If he does ill
+to Davy, there will be those like thee, Soolsby, who will not spare
+him.”
+
+His fingers opened and shut maliciously, he nodded dour assent. After an
+instant, while he watched her, she added: “Thee has not heard my lord is
+to marry?”
+
+“Marry--who is the blind lass?”
+
+“Her name is Maryon, Miss Hylda Maryon: and she has a great fortune. But
+within a month it is to be.”
+
+“Thee remembers the woman of the cross-roads, her that our Davy--”
+
+“Her the Egyptian kissed, and put his watch in her belt--ay, Kate
+Heaver!”
+
+“She is now maid to her Lord Eglington will wed. She is to spend
+to-night with us.”
+
+“Where is her lad that was, that the Egyptian rolled like dough in a
+trough?”
+
+“Jasper Kimber? He is at Sheffield. He has been up and down, now sober
+for a year, now drunken for a month, now in, now out of a place, until
+this past year. But for this whole year he has been sober, and he
+may keep his pledge. He is working in the trades-unions. Among his
+fellow-workers he is called a politician--if loud speaking and boasting
+can make one. Yet if these doings give him stimulant instead of drink,
+who shall complain?”
+
+Soolsby’s head was down. He was looking out over the far hills, while
+the strips of cane were idle in his hands. “Ay, ‘tis true--‘tis true,”
+ he nodded. “Give a man an idee which keeps him cogitating, makes him
+think he’s greater than he is, and sets his pulses beating, why, that’s
+the cure to drink. Drink is friendship and good company and big thoughts
+while it lasts; and it’s lonely without it, if you’ve been used to it.
+Ay, but Kimber’s way is best. Get an idee in your noddle, to do a thing
+that’s more to you than work or food or bed, and ‘twill be more than
+drink, too.”
+
+He nodded to himself, then began weaving the strips of cane furiously.
+Presently he stopped again, and threw his head back with a chuckle.
+“Now, wouldn’t it be a joke, a reg’lar first-class joke, if Kimber
+and me both had the same idee, if we was both workin’ for the same
+thing--an’ didn’t know it? I reckon it might be so.”
+
+“What end is thee working for, friend? If the public prints speak true,
+Kimber is working to stand for Parliament against Lord Eglington.”
+
+Soolsby grunted and laughed in his throat. “Now, is that the game of
+Mister Kimber? Against my Lord Eglington! Hey, but that’s a joke, my
+lord!”
+
+“And what is thee working for, Soolsby?”
+
+“What do I be working for? To get the Egyptian back to England--what
+else?”
+
+“That is no joke.”
+
+“Ay, but ‘tis a joke.” The old man chuckled. “‘Tis the best joke in the
+boilin’.” He shook his head and moved his body backwards and forwards
+with glee. “Me and Kimber! Me and Kimber!” he roared, “and neither of us
+drunk for a year--not drunk for a whole year. Me and Kimber--and him!”
+
+Faith put her hand on his shoulder. “Indeed, I see no joke, but only
+that which makes my heart thankful, Soolsby.”
+
+“Ay, you will be thankful, you will be thankful, by-and-by,” he said,
+still chuckling, and stood up respectfully to show her out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. THE DEBT AND THE ACCOUNTING
+
+His forehead frowning, but his eyes full of friendliness, Soolsby
+watched Faith go down the hillside and until she reached the main road.
+Here, instead of going to the Red Mansion, she hesitated a moment, and
+then passed along a wooded path leading to the Meetinghouse, and the
+graveyard. It was a perfect day of early summer, the gorse was in full
+bloom, and the may and the hawthorn were alive with colour. The path
+she had taken led through a narrow lane, overhung with blossoms and
+greenery. By bearing away to the left into another path, and making a
+detour, she could reach the Meeting-house through a narrow lane leading
+past a now disused mill and a small, strong stream flowing from the hill
+above.
+
+As she came down the hill, other eyes than Soolsby’s watched her. From
+his laboratory--the laboratory in which his father had worked, in which
+he had lost his life--Eglington had seen the trim, graceful figure. He
+watched it till it moved into the wooded path. Then he left his garden,
+and, moving across a field, came into the path ahead of her. Walking
+swiftly, he reached the old mill, and waited.
+
+She came slowly, now and again stooping to pick a flower and place it in
+her belt. Her bonnet was slung on her arm, her hair had broken a little
+loose and made a sort of hood round the face, so still, so composed,
+into which the light of steady, soft, apprehending eyes threw a gentle
+radiance. It was a face to haunt a man when the storm of life was
+round him. It had, too, a courage which might easily become a delicate
+stubbornness, a sense of duty which might become sternness, if roused by
+a sense of wrong to herself or others.
+
+She reached the mill and stood and listened towards the stream and
+the waterfall. She came here often. The scene quieted her in moods of
+restlessness which came from a feeling that her mission was interrupted,
+that half her life’s work had been suddenly taken from her. When David
+went, her life had seemed to shrivel; for with him she had developed as
+he had developed; and when her busy care of him was withdrawn, she had
+felt a sort of paralysis which, in a sense, had never left her. Then
+suitors had come--the soldier from Shipley Wood, the lord of Axwood
+Manor, and others, and, in a way, a new sense was born in her, though
+she was alive to the fact that the fifteen thousand pounds inherited
+from her Uncle Benn had served to warm the air about her into a wider
+circle. Yet it was neither to soldier, nor squire, nor civil engineer,
+nor surgeon that the new sense stirring in her was due. The spring was
+too far beneath to be found by them.
+
+When, at last, she raised her head, Lord Eglington was in the path,
+looking at her with a half-smile. She did not start, but her face turned
+white, and a mist came before her eyes.
+
+Quickly, however, as though fearful lest he should think he could
+trouble her composure, she laid a hand upon herself.
+
+He came near to her and held out his hand. “It has been a long six
+months since we met here,” he said.
+
+She made no motion to take his hand. “I find days grow shorter as I
+grow older,” she rejoined steadily, and smoothed her hair with her hand,
+making ready to put on her bonnet.
+
+“Ah, do not put it on,” he urged quickly, with a gesture. “It becomes
+you so--on your arm.”
+
+She had regained her self-possession. Pride, the best weapon of a woman,
+the best tonic, came to her resource. “Thee loves to please thee at any
+cost,” she replied. She fastened the grey strings beneath her chin.
+
+“Would it be costly to keep the bonnet on your arm?”
+
+“It is my pleasure to have it on my head, and my pleasure has some value
+to myself.”
+
+“A moment ago,” he rejoined laughing, “it was your pleasure to have it
+on your arm.”
+
+“Are all to be monotonous except Lord Eglington? Is he to have the only
+patent of change?”
+
+“Do I change?” He smiled at her with a sense of inquisition, with an air
+that seemed to say, “I have lifted the veil of this woman’s heart; I am
+the master of the situation.”
+
+She did not answer to the obvious meaning of his words, but said:
+
+“Thee has done little else but change, so far as eye can see. Thee and
+thy family were once of Quaker faith, but thee is a High Churchman now.
+Yet they said a year ago thee was a sceptic or an infidel.”
+
+“There is force in what you say,” he replied. “I have an inquiring mind;
+I am ever open to reason. Confucius said: ‘It is only the supremely wise
+or the deeply ignorant who never alter.’”
+
+“Thee has changed politics. Thee made a ‘sensation, but that was not
+enough. Thee that was a rebel became a deserter.”
+
+He laughed. “Ah, I was open to conviction! I took my life in my hands,
+defied consequences.” He laughed again.
+
+“It brought office.”
+
+“I am Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs,” he murmured complacently.
+
+“Change is a policy with thee, I think. It has paid thee well, so it
+would seem.”
+
+“Only a fair rate of interest for the capital invested and the risks
+I’ve taken,” he answered with an amused look.
+
+“I do not think that interest will increase. Thee has climbed quickly,
+but fast climbing is not always safe climbing.”
+
+His mood changed. His voice quickened, his face lowered. “You think I
+will fail? You wish me to fail?”
+
+“In so far as thee acts uprightly, I wish thee well. But if, out of
+office, thee disregards justice and conscience and the rights of others,
+can thee be just and faithful in office? Subtlety will not always avail.
+The strong man takes the straight course. Subtlety is not intellect.”
+
+He flushed. She had gone to the weakest point in his defences. His
+vanity was being hurt. She had an advantage now.
+
+“You are wrong,” he protested. “You do not understand public life, here
+in a silly Quaker village.”
+
+“Does thee think that all that happens in ‘public life’ is of
+consequence? That is not sensible. Thee is in the midst of a thousand
+immaterial things, though they have importance for the moment. But the
+chief things that matter to all, does thee not know that a ‘silly Quaker
+village’ may realise them to the full--more fully because we see them
+apart from the thousand little things that do not matter? I remember a
+thing in political life that mattered. It was at Heddington after the
+massacre at Damascus. Does thee think that we did not know thee spoke
+without principle then, and only to draw notice?”
+
+“You would make me into a demagogue,” he said irritably.
+
+“Thee is a demagogue,” she answered candidly.
+
+“Why did you never say all this to me long ago? Years have passed since
+then, and since then you and I have--have been friends. You have--”
+
+He paused, for she made a protesting motion, and a fire sprang into her
+eyes. Her voice got colder. “Thee made me believe--ah, how many times
+did we speak together? Six times it was, not more. Thee made me believe
+that what I thought or said helped thee to see things better. Thee
+said I saw things truly like a child, with the wisdom of a woman. Thee
+remembers that?”
+
+“It was so,” he put in hastily.
+
+“No, not for a moment so, though I was blinded to think for an instant
+that it was. Thee subtly took the one way which could have made me
+listen to thee. Thee wanted help, thee said; and if a word of mine could
+help thee now and then, should I withhold it, so long as I thought thee
+honest?”
+
+“Do you think I was not honest in wanting your friendship?”
+
+“Nay, it was not friendship thee wanted, for friendship means a giving
+and a getting. Thee was bent on getting what was, indeed, of but little
+value save to the giver; but thee gave nothing; thee remembered nothing
+of what was given thee.”
+
+“It is not so, it is not so,” he urged eagerly, nervously. “I gave, and
+I still give.”
+
+“In those old days, I did not understand,” she went on, “what it
+was thee wanted. I know now. It was to know the heart and mind of a
+woman--of a woman older than thee. So that thee should have such sort
+of experience, though I was but a foolish choice of the experiment.
+They say thee has a gift for chemistry like thy father; but if thee
+experiments no more wisely in the laboratory than with me, thee will not
+reach distinction.”
+
+“Your father hated my father and did not believe in him, I know not why,
+and you are now hating and disbelieving me.”
+
+“I do not know why my father held the late Earl in abhorrence; I know he
+has no faith in thee; and I did ill in listening to thee, in believing
+for one moment there was truth in thee. But no, no, I think I never
+believed it. I think that even when thee said most, at heart I believed
+least.”
+
+“You doubt that? You doubt all I said to you?” he urged softly, coming
+close to her.
+
+She drew aside slightly. She had steeled herself for this inevitable
+interview, and there was no weakening of her defences; but a great
+sadness came into her eyes, and spread over her face, and to this was
+added, after a moment, a pity which showed the distance she was from
+him, the safety in which she stood.
+
+“I remember that the garden was beautiful, and that thee spoke as though
+thee was part of the garden. Thee remembers that, at our meeting in the
+Cloistered House, when the woman was ill, I had no faith in thee; but
+thee spoke with grace, and turned common things round about, so that
+they seemed different to the ear from any past hearing; and I listened.
+I did not know, and I do not know now, why it is my duty to shun any
+of thy name, and above all thyself; but it has been so commanded by my
+father all my life; and though what he says may be in a little wrong, in
+much it must ever be right.”
+
+“And so, from a hatred handed down, your mind has been tuned to shun
+even when your heart was learning to give me a home--Faith?”
+
+She straightened herself. “Friend, thee will do me the courtesy to
+forget to use my Christian name. I am not a child-indeed, I am well
+on in years”--he smiled--“and thee has no friendship or kinship for
+warrant. If my mind was tuned to shun thee, I gave proof that it was
+willing to take thee at thine own worth, even against the will of my
+father, against the desire of David, who knew thee better than I--he
+gauged thee at first glance.”
+
+“You have become a philosopher and a statesman,” he said ironically.
+“Has your nephew, the new Joseph in Egypt, been giving you instructions
+in high politics? Has he been writing the Epistles of David to the
+Quakers?”
+
+“Thee will leave his name apart,” she answered with dignity. “I have
+studied neither high politics nor statesmanship, though in the days when
+thee did flatter me thee said I had a gift for such things. Thee did
+not speak the truth. And now I will say that I do not respect thee. No
+matter how high thee may climb, still I shall not respect thee; for thee
+will ever gain ends by flattery, by subtlety, and by using every man and
+every woman for selfish ends. Thee cannot be true-not even to that which
+by nature is greatest in thee.”.
+
+He withered under her words.
+
+“And what is greatest in me?” he asked abruptly, his coolness and
+self-possession striving to hold their own.
+
+“That which will ruin thee in the end.” Her eyes looked beyond his
+into the distance, rapt and shining; she seemed scarcely aware of
+his presence. “That which will bring thee down--thy hungry spirit of
+discovery. It will serve thee no better than it served the late Earl.
+But thee it will lead into paths ending in a gulf of darkness.”
+
+“Deborah!” he answered, with a rasping laugh. “Continuez! Forewarned is
+forearmed.”
+
+“No, do not think I shall be glad,” she answered, still like one in a
+dream. “I shall lament it as I lament--as I lament now. All else fades
+away into the end which I see for thee. Thee will live alone without a
+near and true friend, and thee will die alone, never having had a true
+friend. Thee will never be a true friend, thee will never love truly
+man or woman, and thee will never find man or woman who will love thee
+truly, or will be with thee to aid thee in the dark and falling days.”
+
+“Then,” he broke in sharply, querulously, “then, I will stand alone. I
+shall never come whining that I have been ill-used, to fate or fortune,
+to men or to the Almighty.”
+
+“That I believe. Pride will build up in thee a strength which will be
+like water in the end. Oh, my lord,” she added, with a sudden change in
+her voice and manner, “if thee could only be true--thee who never has
+been true to any one!”
+
+“Why does a woman always judge a man after her own personal experience
+with him, or what she thinks is her own personal experience?”
+
+A robin hopped upon the path before her. She watched it for a moment
+intently, then lifted her head as the sound of a bell came through
+the wood to her. She looked up at the sun, which was slanting towards
+evening. She seemed about to speak, but with second thought, moved on
+slowly past the mill and towards the Meeting-house. He stepped on beside
+her. She kept her eyes fixed in front of her, as though oblivious of his
+presence.
+
+“You shall hear me speak. You shall listen to what I have to say, though
+it is for the last time,” he urged stubbornly. “You think ill of me. Are
+you sure you are not pharisaical?”
+
+“I am honest enough to say that which hurts me in the saying. I do not
+forget that to believe thee what I think is to take all truth from what
+thee said to me last year, and again this spring when the tulips first
+came and there was good news from Egypt.”
+
+“I said,” he rejoined boldly, “that I was happier with you than with any
+one else alive. I said that what you thought of me meant more to me than
+what any one else in the world thought; and that I say now, and will
+always say it.”
+
+The old look of pity came into her face. “I am older than thee by two
+years,” she answered quaintly, “and I know more of real life, though I
+have lived always here. I have made the most of the little I have seen;
+thee has made little of the much that thee has seen. Thee does not know
+the truth concerning thee. Is it not, in truth, vanity which would have
+me believe in thee? If thee was happier with me than with any one
+alive, why then did thee make choice of a wife even in the days thee was
+speaking to me as no man shall ever speak again? Nothing can explain so
+base a fact. No, no, no, thee said to me what thee said to others, and
+will say again without shame. But--but see, I will forgive; yes, I will
+follow thee with good wishes, if thee will promise to help David, whom
+thee has ever disliked, as, in the place held by thee, thee can do now.
+Will thee offer this one proof, in spite of all else that disproves,
+that thee spoke any words of truth to me in the Cloistered House, in
+the garden by my father’s house, by yonder mill, and hard by the
+Meeting-house yonder-near to my sister’s grave by the willow-tree? Will
+thee do that for me?”
+
+He was about to reply, when there appeared in the path before them Luke
+Claridge. His back was upon them, but he heard their footsteps and
+swung round. As though turned to stone, he waited for them. As they
+approached, his lips, dry and pale, essayed to speak, but no sound came.
+A fire was in his eyes which boded no good. Amazement, horror, deadly
+anger, were all there, but, after a moment, the will behind the tumult
+commanded it, the wild light died away, and he stood calm and still
+awaiting them. Faith was as pale as when she had met Eglington. As she
+came nearer, Luke Claridge said, in a low voice:
+
+“How do I find thee in this company, Faith?” There was reproach
+unutterable in his voice, in his face. He seemed humiliated and shamed,
+though all the while a violent spirit in him was struggling for the
+mastery.
+
+“As I came this way to visit my sister’s grave I met my lord by the
+mill. He spoke to me, and, as I wished a favour of him, I walked with
+him thither--but a little way. I was going to visit my sister’s grave.”
+
+“Thy sister’s grave!” The fire flamed up again, but the masterful will
+chilled it down, and he answered: “What secret business can thee have
+with any of that name which I have cast out of knowledge or notice?”
+
+Ignorant as he was of the old man’s cause for quarrel or dislike,
+Eglington felt himself aggrieved, and, therefore, with an advantage.
+
+“You had differences with my father, sir,” he said. “I do not know
+what they were, but they lasted his lifetime, and all my life you have
+treated me with aversion. I am not a pestilence. I have never wronged
+you. I have lived your peaceful neighbour under great provocation, for
+your treatment would have done me harm if my place were less secure. I
+think I have cause for complaint.”
+
+“I have never acted in haste concerning thee, or those who went before
+thee. What business had thee with him, Faith?” he asked again. His voice
+was dry and hard.
+
+Her impulse was to tell the truth, and so for ever have her conscience
+clear, for there would never be any more need for secrecy. The wheel of
+understanding between Eglington and herself had come full circle, and
+there was an end. But to tell the truth would be to wound her father, to
+vex him against Eglington even as he had never yet been vexed. Besides,
+it was hard, while Eglington was there, to tell what, after all, was
+the sole affair of her own life. In one literal sense, Eglington was
+not guilty of deceit. Never in so many words had he said to her: “I love
+you;” never had he made any promise to her or exacted one; he had done
+no more than lure her to feel one thing, and then to call it another
+thing. Also there was no direct and vital injury, for she had never
+loved him; though how far she had travelled towards that land of light
+and trial she could never now declare. These thoughts flashed through
+her mind as she stood looking at her father. Her tongue seemed
+imprisoned, yet her soft and candid eyes conquered the austerity in the
+old man’s gaze.
+
+Eglington spoke for her.
+
+“Permit me to answer, neighbour,” he said. “I wished to speak with
+your daughter, because I am to be married soon, and my wife will, at
+intervals, come here to live. I wished that she should not be shunned
+by you and yours as I have been. She would not understand, as I do not.
+Yours is a constant call to war, while all your religion is an appeal
+for peace. I wished to ask your daughter to influence you to make it
+possible for me and mine to live in friendship among you. My wife will
+have some claims upon you. Her mother was an American, of a Quaker
+family from Derbyshire. She has done nothing to merit your aversion.”
+
+Faith listened astonished and baffled. Nothing of this had he said to
+her. Had he meant to say it to her? Had it been in his mind? Or was it
+only a swift adaptation to circumstances, an adroit means of working
+upon the sympathies of her father, who, she could see, was in a
+quandary? Eglington had indeed touched the old man as he had not been
+touched in thirty years and more by one of his name. For a moment the
+insinuating quality of the appeal submerged the fixed idea in a mind to
+which the name of Eglington was anathema.
+
+Eglington saw his advantage. He had felt his way carefully, and he
+pursued it quickly. “For the rest, your daughter asked what I was ready
+to offer--such help as, in my new official position, I can give to
+Claridge Pasha in Egypt. As a neighbour, as Minister in the Government,
+I will do what I can to aid him.”
+
+Silent and embarrassed, the old man tried to find his way. Presently
+he said tentatively: “David Claridge has a title to the esteem of all
+civilised people.” Eglington was quick with his reply. “If he succeeds,
+his title will become a concrete fact. There is no honour the Crown
+would not confer for such remarkable service.”
+
+The other’s face darkened. “I did not speak, I did not think, of handles
+to his name. I find no good in them, but only means for deceiving and
+deluding the world. Such honours as might make him baronet, or duke,
+would add not a cubit to his stature. If he had such a thing by
+right”--his voice hardened, his eyes grew angry once again--“I would
+wish it sunk into the sea.”
+
+“You are hard on us, sir, who did not give ourselves our titles, but
+took them with our birth as a matter of course. There was nothing
+inspiring in them. We became at once distinguished and respectable by
+patent.”
+
+He laughed good-humouredly. Then suddenly he changed, and his eyes took
+on a far-off look which Faith had seen so often in the eyes of David,
+but in David’s more intense and meaning, and so different. With what
+deftness and diplomacy had he worked upon her father! He had crossed a
+stream which seemed impassable by adroit, insincere diplomacy.
+
+She saw that it was time to go, while yet Eglington’s disparagement of
+rank and aristocracy was ringing in the old man’s ears; though she knew
+there was nothing in Eglington’s equipment he valued more than his
+title and the place it gave him. Grateful, however, for his successful
+intervention, Faith now held out her hand.
+
+“I must take my father away, or it will be sunset before we reach the
+Meeting-house,” she said. “Goodbye-friend,” she added gently.
+
+For an instant Luke Claridge stared at her, scarce comprehending that
+his movements were being directed by any one save himself. Truth was,
+Faith had come to her cross-roads in life. For the first time in her
+memory she had seen her father speak to an Eglington without harshness;
+and, as he weakened for a moment, she moved to take command of that
+weakness, though she meant it to seem like leading. While loving her
+and David profoundly, her father had ever been quietly imperious. If she
+could but gain ascendency even in a little, it might lead to a more open
+book of life for them both.
+
+Eglington held out his hand to the old man. “I have kept you too long,
+sir. Good-bye--if you will.”
+
+The offered hand was not taken, but Faith slid hers into the old man’s
+palm, and pressed it, and he said quietly to Eglington:
+
+“Good evening, friend.”
+
+“And when I bring my wife, sir?” Eglington added, with a smile.
+
+“When thee brings the lady, there will be occasion to consider--there
+will be occasion then.”
+
+Eglington raised his hat, and turned back upon the path he and Faith had
+travelled.
+
+The old man stood watching him until he was out of view. Then he seemed
+more himself. Still holding Faith’s hand, he walked with her on the
+gorse-covered hill towards the graveyard.
+
+“Was it his heart spoke or his tongue--is there any truth in him?” he
+asked at last.
+
+Faith pressed his hand. “If he help Davy, father--”
+
+“If he help Davy; ay, if he help Davy! Nay, I cannot go to the
+graveyard, Faith. Take me home,” he said with emotion.
+
+His hand remained in hers. She had conquered. She was set upon a new
+path of influence. Her hand was upon the door of his heart.
+
+“Thee is good to me, Faith,” he said, as they entered the door of the
+Red Mansion.
+
+She glanced over towards the Cloistered House. Smoke was coming from the
+little chimney of the laboratory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. THE WOMAN OF THE CROSS-ROADS
+
+The night came down slowly. There was no moon, the stars were few, but
+a mellow warmth was in the air. At the window of her little sitting-room
+up-stairs Faith sat looking out into the stillness. Beneath was the
+garden with its profusion of flowers and fruit; away to the left was the
+common; and beyond-far beyond--was a glow in the sky, a suffused light,
+of a delicate orange, merging away into a grey-blueness, deepening
+into a darker blue; and then a purple depth, palpable and heavy with a
+comforting silence.
+
+There was something alluring and suggestive in the soft, smothered
+radiance. It had all the glamour of some distant place of pleasure and
+quiet joy, of happiness and ethereal being. It was, in fact, the far-off
+mirror of the flaming furnace of the great Heddington factories. The
+light of the sky above was a soft radiance, as of a happy Arcadian
+land; the fire of the toil beneath was the output of human striving, an
+intricate interweaving of vital forces which, like some Titanic machine,
+wrought out in pain--a vast destiny.
+
+As Faith looked, she thought of the thousands beneath struggling and
+striving, none with all desires satisfied, some in an agony of want and
+penury, all straining for the elusive Enough; like Sisyphus ever rolling
+the rock of labour up a hill too steep for them.
+
+Her mind flew to the man Kimber and his task of organising labour for
+its own advance. What a life-work for a man! Here might David have spent
+his days, here among his own countrymen, instead of in that far-off land
+where all the forces of centuries were fighting against him. Here the
+forces would have been fighting for him; the trend was towards the
+elevation of the standards of living and the wider rights of labour,
+to the amelioration of hard conditions of life among the poor. David’s
+mind, with its equity, its balance, and its fire--what might it not have
+accomplished in shepherding such a cause, guiding its activity?
+
+The gate of the garden clicked. Kate Heaver had arrived. Faith got to
+her feet and left the room.
+
+A few minutes later the woman of the cross-roads was seated opposite
+Faith at the window. She had changed greatly since the day David had
+sent her on her way to London and into the unknown. Then there had been
+recklessness, something of coarseness, in the fine face. Now it was
+strong and quiet, marked by purpose and self-reliance.
+
+Ignorance had been her only peril in the past, as it had been the cause
+of her unhappy connection with Jasper Kimber. The atmosphere in which
+she was raised had been unmoral; it had not been consciously immoral.
+Her temper and her indignation against her man for drinking had been the
+means of driving them apart. He would have married her in those days, if
+she had given the word, for her will was stronger than his own; but she
+had broken from him in an agony of rage and regret and despised love.
+
+She was now, again, as she had been in those first days before she went
+with Jasper Kimber; when she was the rose-red angel of the quarters;
+when children were lured by the touch of her large, shapely hands; when
+she had been counted a great nurse among her neighbours. The old simple
+untutored sympathy was in her face.
+
+They sat for a long time in silence, and at length Faith said: “Thee is
+happy now with her who is to marry Lord Eglington?”
+
+Kate nodded, smiling. “Who could help but be happy with her! Yet a
+temper, too--so quick, and then all over in a second. Ah, she is one
+that’d break her heart if she was treated bad; but I’d be sorry for him
+that did it. For the like of her goes mad with hurting, and the mad cut
+with a big scythe.”
+
+“Has thee seen Lord Eglington?”
+
+“Once before I left these parts and often in London.” Her voice was
+constrained; she seemed not to wish to speak of him.
+
+“Is it true that Jasper Kimber is to stand against him for Parliament?”
+
+“I do not know. They say my lord has to do with foreign lands now. If he
+helps Mr. Claridge there, then it would be a foolish thing for Jasper to
+fight him; and so I’ve told him. You’ve got to stand by those that stand
+by you. Lord Eglington has his own way of doing things. There’s not
+a servant in my lady’s house that he hasn’t made his friend. He’s one
+that’s bound to have his will. I heard my lady say he talks better than
+any one in England, and there’s none she doesn’t know from duchesses
+down.”
+
+“She is beautiful?” asked Faith, with hesitation.
+
+“Taller than you, but not so beautiful.”
+
+Faith sighed, and was silent for a moment, then she laid a hand upon the
+other’s shoulder. “Thee has never said what happened when thee first got
+to London. Does thee care to say?”
+
+“It seems so long ago,” was the reply.... “No need to tell of the
+journey to London. When I got there it frightened me at first. My head
+went round. But somehow it came to me what I should do. I asked my
+way to a hospital. I’d helped a many that was hurt at Heddington and
+thereabouts, and doctors said I was as good as them that was trained. I
+found a hospital at last, and asked for work, but they laughed at me--it
+was the porter at the door. I was not to be put down, and asked to see
+some one that had rights to say yes or no. So he opened the door and
+told me to go. I said he was no man to treat a woman so, and I would not
+go. Then a fine white-haired gentleman came forward. He had heard all we
+had said, standing in a little room at one side. He spoke a kind word
+or two, and asked me to go into the little room. Before I had time to
+think, he came to me with the matron, and left me with her. I told her
+the whole truth, and she looked at first as if she’d turn me out. But
+the end of it was I stayed there for the night, and in the morning the
+old gentleman came again, and with him his lady, as kind and sharp of
+tongue as himself, and as big as three. Some things she said made my
+tongue ache to speak back to her; but I choked it down. I went to her to
+be a sort of nurse and maid. She taught me how to do a hundred things,
+and by-and-by I couldn’t be too thankful she had taken me in. I was with
+her till she died. Then, six months ago I went to Miss Maryon, who
+knew about me long before from her that died. With her I’ve been ever
+since--and so that’s all.”
+
+“Surely God has been kind to thee.”
+
+“I’d have gone down--down--down, if it hadn’t been for Mr. Claridge at
+the cross-roads.”
+
+“Does thee think I shall like her that will live yonder?” She nodded
+towards the Cloistered House. “There’s none but likes her. She will want
+a friend, I’m thinking. She’ll be lonely by-and-by. Surely, she will be
+lonely.”
+
+Faith looked at her closely, and at last leaned over, and again laid a
+soft hand on her shoulder. “Thee thinks that--why?”
+
+“He cares only what matters to himself. She will be naught to him but
+one that belongs. He’ll never try to do her good. Doing good to any but
+himself never comes to his mind.”
+
+“How does thee know him, to speak so surely?”
+
+“When, at the first, he gave me a letter for her one day, and slipped a
+sovereign into my hand, and nodded, and smiled at me, I knew him right
+enough. He never could be true to aught.”
+
+“Did thee keep the sovereign?” Faith asked anxiously.
+
+“Ay, that I did. If he was for giving his money away, I’d take it fast
+enough. The gold gave father boots for a year. Why should I mind?”
+
+Faith’s face suffused. How low was Eglington’s estimate of humanity!
+
+In the silence that followed the door of her room opened, and her father
+entered. He held in one hand a paper, in the other a candle. His face
+was passive, but his eyes were burning.
+
+“David--David is coming,” he cried, in a voice that rang. “Does thee
+hear, Faith? Davy is coming home!” A woman laughed exultantly. It was
+not Faith. But still two years passed before David came.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. TIME, THE IDOL-BREAKER
+
+Lord Windlehurst looked meditatively round the crowded and brilliant
+salon. His host, the Foreign Minister, had gathered in the vast golden
+chamber the most notable people of a most notable season, and in as
+critical a period of the world’s politics as had been known for a
+quarter of a century. After a moment’s survey, the ex-Prime-Minister
+turned to answer the frank and caustic words addressed to him by the
+Duchess of Snowdon concerning the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
+Presently he said:
+
+“But there is method in his haste, dear lady. He is good at his
+dangerous game. He plays high, he plunges; but, somehow, he makes it
+do. I’ve been in Parliament a generation or so, and I’ve never known an
+amateur more daring and skilful. I should have given him office had I
+remained in power. Look at him, and tell me if he wouldn’t have been
+worth the backing.”
+
+As Lord Windlehurst uttered the last word with an arid smile, he looked
+quizzically at the central figure of a group of people gaily talking.
+
+The Duchess impatiently tapped her knee with a fan. “Be thankful you
+haven’t got him on your conscience,” she rejoined. “I call Eglington
+unscrupulous and unreliable. He has but one god--getting on; and he
+has got on, with a vengeance. Whenever I look at that dear thing he’s
+married, I feel there’s no trusting Providence, who seems to make the
+deserving a footstool for the undeserving. I’ve known Hylda since she
+was ten, and I’ve known him since the minute he came into the world, and
+I’ve got the measure of both. She is the finest essence the middle class
+can distil, and he, oh, he’s paraffin-vin ordinaire, if you like it
+better, a selfish, calculating adventurer!”
+
+Lord Windlehurst chuckled mordantly. “Adventurer! That’s what they
+called me--with more reason. I spotted him as soon as he spoke in the
+House. There was devilry in him, and unscrupulousness, as you say; but,
+I confess, I thought it would give way to the more profitable habit of
+integrity, and that some cause would seize him, make him sincere and
+mistaken, and give him a few falls. But in that he was more original
+than I thought. He is superior to convictions. You don’t think he
+married yonder Queen of Hearts from conviction, do you?”
+
+He nodded towards a corner where Hylda, under a great palm, and backed
+by a bank of flowers, stood surrounded by a group of people palpably
+amused and interested; for she had a reputation for wit--a wit that
+never hurt, and irony that was only whimsical.
+
+“No, there you are wrong,” the Duchess answered. “He married from
+conviction, if ever a man did. Look at her beauty, look at her fortune,
+listen to her tongue. Don’t you think conviction was easy?”
+
+Lord Windlehurst looked at Hylda approvingly. She has the real
+gift--little information, but much knowledge, the primary gift of public
+life. “Information is full of traps; knowledge avoids them, it
+reads men; and politics is men--and foreign affairs, perhaps! She is
+remarkable. I’ve made some hay in the political world, not so much as
+the babblers think, but I hadn’t her ability at twenty-five.”
+
+“Why didn’t she see through Eglington?”
+
+“My dear Betty, he didn’t give her time. He carried her off her feet.
+You know how he can talk.”
+
+“That’s the trouble. She was clever, and liked a clever man, and he--!”
+
+“Quite so. He’d disprove his own honest parentage, if it would help him
+on--as you say.”
+
+“I didn’t say it. Now don’t repeat that as from me. I’m not clever
+enough to think of such things. But that Eglington lot--I knew his
+father and his grandfather. Old Broadbrim they called his grandfather
+after he turned Quaker, and he didn’t do that till he had had his
+fling, so my father used to say. And Old Broadbrim’s father was called
+I-want-to-know. He was always poking his nose into things, and playing
+at being a chemist-like this one and the one before. They all fly off.
+This one’s father used to disappear for two or three years at a time.
+This one will fly off, too. You’ll see!
+
+“He is too keen on Number One for that, I fancy. He calculates like a
+mathematician. As cool as a cracksman of fame and fancy.”
+
+The Duchess dropped the fan in her lap. “My dear, I’ve said nothing as
+bad as that about him. And there he is at the Foreign Office!”
+
+“Yet, what has he done, Betty, after all? He has never cheated at cards,
+or forged a cheque, or run away with his neighbour’s wife.”
+
+“There’s no credit in not doing what you don’t want to do. There’s no
+virtue in not falling, when you’re not tempted. Neighbour’s wife! He
+hasn’t enough feeling to face it. Oh no, he’ll not break the heart of
+his neighbour’s wife. That’s melodrama, and he’s a cold-blooded artist.
+He will torture that sweet child over there until she poisons him, or
+runs away.”
+
+“Isn’t he too clever for that? She has a million!”
+
+“He’ll not realise it till it’s all over. He’s too selfish to see--how I
+hate him!”
+
+Lord Windlehurst smiled indulgently at her. “Ah, you never hated any
+one--not even the Duke.”
+
+“I will not have you take away my character. Of course I’ve hated, or
+I wouldn’t be worth a button. I’m not the silly thing you’ve always
+thought me.”
+
+His face became gentler. “I’ve always thought you one of the wisest
+women of this world--adventurous, but wise. If it weren’t too late, if
+my day weren’t over, I’d ask the one great favour, Betty, and--”
+
+She tapped his arm sharply with her fan. “What a humbug you are--the
+Great Pretender! But tell me, am I not right about Eglington?”
+
+Windlehurst became grave. “Yes, you are right--but I admire him, too. He
+is determined to test himself to the full. His ambition is boundless and
+ruthless, but his mind has a scientific turn--the obligation of energy
+to apply itself, of intelligence to engage itself to the farthest limit.
+But service to humanity--”
+
+“Service to humanity!” she sniffed.
+
+“Of course he would think it ‘flap-doodle’--except in a speech; but I
+repeat, I admire him. Think of it all. He was a poor Irish peer, with
+no wide circle of acquaintance, come of a family none too popular.
+He strikes out a course for himself--a course which had its dangers,
+because it was original. He determines to become celebrated--by becoming
+notorious first. He uses his title as a weapon for advancement as though
+he were a butter merchant. He plans carefully and adroitly. He writes
+a book of travel. It is impudent, and it traverses the observations of
+authorities, and the scientific geographers prance with rage. That was
+what he wished. He writes a novel. It sets London laughing at me, his
+political chief. He knew me well enough to be sure I would not resent
+it. He would have lampooned his grandmother, if he was sure she
+would not, or could not, hurt him. Then he becomes more audacious. He
+publishes a monograph on the painters of Spain, artificial, confident,
+rhetorical, acute: as fascinating as a hide-and-seek drawing-room
+play--he is so cleverly escaping from his ignorance and indiscretions
+all the while. Connoisseurs laugh, students of art shriek a little, and
+Ruskin writes a scathing letter, which was what he had played for. He
+had got something for nothing cheaply. The few who knew and despised him
+did not matter, for they were able and learned and obscure, and, in
+the world where he moves, most people are superficial, mediocre,
+and ‘tuppence coloured.’ It was all very brilliant. He pursued his
+notoriety, and got it.”
+
+“Industrious Eglington!”
+
+“But, yes, he is industrious. It is all business. It was an enormous
+risk, rebelling against his party, and leaving me, and going over; but
+his temerity justified itself, and it didn’t matter to him that people
+said he went over to get office as we were going out. He got the
+office-and people forget so soon. Then, what does he do--”
+
+“He brings out another book, and marries a wife, and abuses his old
+friends--and you.”
+
+“Abuse? With his tongue in his cheek, hoping that I should reply.
+Dev’lishly ingenious! But on that book of Electricity and Disease he
+scored. In most other things he’s a barber-shop philosopher, but in
+science he has got a flare, a real talent. So he moves modestly in this
+thing, for which he had a fine natural gift and more knowledge than he
+ever had before in any department, whose boundaries his impertinent and
+ignorant mind had invaded. That book gave him a place. It wasn’t full
+of new things, but it crystallised the discoveries, suggestions, and
+expectations of others; and, meanwhile, he had got a name at no cost.
+He is so various. Look at it dispassionately, and you will see much to
+admire in his skill. He pleases, he amuses, he startles, he baffles, he
+mystifies.”
+
+The Duchess made an impatient exclamation. “The silly newspapers call
+him a ‘remarkable man, a personality.’ Now, believe me, Windlehurst,
+he will overreach himself one of these days, and he’ll come down like a
+stick.”
+
+“There you are on solid ground. He thinks that Fate is with him, and
+that, in taking risks, he is infallible. But the best system breaks at
+political roulette sooner or later. You have got to work for something
+outside yourself, something that is bigger than the game, or the end is
+sickening.”
+
+“Eglington hasn’t far to go, if that’s the truth.”
+
+“Well, well, when it comes, we must help him--we must help him up
+again.”
+
+The Duchess nervously adjusted her wig, with ludicrously tiny fingers
+for one so ample, and said petulantly: “You are incomprehensible. He has
+been a traitor to you and to your party, he has thrown mud at you, he
+has played with principles as my terrier plays with his rubber ball, and
+yet you’ll run and pick him up when he falls, and--”
+
+“‘And kiss the spot to make it well,’” he laughed softly, then added
+with a sigh: “Able men in public life are few; ‘far too few, for half
+our tasks; we can spare not one.’ Besides, my dear Betty, there is his
+pretty lass o’ London.”
+
+The Duchess was mollified at once. “I wish she had been my girl,” she
+said, in a voice a little tremulous. “She never needed looking after.
+Look at the position she has made for herself. Her father wouldn’t go
+into society, her mother knew a mere handful of people, and--”
+
+“She knew you, Betty.”
+
+“Well, suppose I did help her a little--I was only a kind of reference.
+She did the rest. She’s set a half-dozen fashions herself--pure genius.
+She was born to lead. Her turnouts were always a little smarter, her
+horses travelled a little faster, than other people’s. She took risks,
+too, but she didn’t play a game; she only wanted to do things well. We
+all gasped when she brought Adelaide to recite from ‘Romeo and Juliet’
+at an evening party, but all London did the same the week after.”
+
+“She discovered, and the Duchess of Snowdon applied the science. Ah,
+Betty, don’t think I don’t agree. She has the gift. She has temperament.
+No woman should have temperament. She hasn’t scope enough to wear it out
+in some passion for a cause. Men are saved in spite of themselves by the
+law of work. Forty comes to a man of temperament, and then a passion for
+a cause seizes him, and he is safe. A woman of temperament at forty is
+apt to cut across the bows of iron-clad convention and go down. She has
+temperament, has my lady yonder, and I don’t like the look of her eyes
+sometimes. There’s dark fire smouldering in them. She should have a
+cause; but a cause to a woman now-a-days means ‘too little of pleasure,
+too much of pain,’ for others.”
+
+“What was your real cause, Windlehurst? You had one, I suppose, for
+you’ve never had a fall.”
+
+“My cause? You ask that? Behold the barren figtree! A lifetime in my
+country’s service, and you who have driven me home from the House in
+your own brougham, and told me that you understood--oh, Betty!”
+
+She laughed. “You’ll say something funny as you’re dying, Windlehurst.”
+
+“Perhaps. But it will be funny to know that presently I’ll have a secret
+that none of you know, who watch me ‘launch my pinnace into the dark.’
+But causes? There are hundreds, and all worth while. I’ve come here
+to-night for a cause--no, don’t start, it’s not you, Betty, though
+you are worth any sacrifice. I’ve come here to-night to see a modern
+Paladin, a real crusader:
+
+“‘Then felt I like some watcher of the skies, When a new planet swims
+into his ken.’”
+
+“Yes, that’s poetry, Windlehurst, and you know I love it-I’ve always
+kept yours. But who’s the man--the planet?”
+
+“Egyptian Claridge.”
+
+“Ah, he is in England?”
+
+“He will be here to-night; you shall see him.”
+
+“Really! What is his origin?”
+
+He told her briefly, adding: “I’ve watched the rise of Claridge Pasha.
+I’ve watched his cause grow, and now I shall see the man--ah, but here
+comes our lass o’ London!”
+
+The eyes of both brightened, and a whimsical pleasure came to the
+mask-like face of Lord Windlehurst. There was an eager and delighted
+look in Hylda’s face also as she quickly came to them, her cavaliers
+following.
+
+The five years that had passed since that tragic night in Cairo had been
+more than kind to her. She was lissome, radiant, and dignified, her face
+was alive with expression, and a delicate grace was in every movement.
+The dark lashes seemed to have grown longer, the brown hair fuller, the
+smile softer and more alluring.
+
+“She is an invaluable asset to the Government,” Lord Windlehurst
+murmured as she came. “No wonder the party helped the marriage on.
+London conspired for it, her feet got tangled in the web--and he gave
+her no time to think. Thinking had saved her till he came.”
+
+By instinct Lord Windlehurst knew. During the first year after the
+catastrophe at Kaid’s Palace Hylda could scarcely endure the advances
+made by her many admirers, the greatly eligible and the eager
+ineligible, all with as real an appreciation of her wealth as of her
+personal attributes. But she took her place in London life with more
+than the old will to make for herself, with the help of her aunt
+Conyngham, an individual position.
+
+The second year after her visit to Egypt she was less haunted by the
+dark episode of the Palace, memory tortured her less; she came to think
+of David and the part he had played with less agitation. At first the
+thought of him had moved her alternately to sympathy and to revolt. His
+chivalry had filled her with admiration, with a sense of confidence,
+of dependence, of touching and vital obligation; but there was, too,
+another overmastering feeling. He had seen her life naked, as it
+were, stripped of all independence, with the knowledge of a dangerous
+indiscretion which, to say the least, was a deformity; and she inwardly
+resented it, as one would resent the exposure of a long-hidden physical
+deformity, even by the surgeon who saved one’s life. It was not a very
+lofty attitude of mind, but it was human--and feminine.
+
+These moods had been always dissipated, however, when she recalled,
+as she did so often, David as he stood before Nahoum Pasha, his soul
+fighting in him to make of his enemy--of the man whose brother he had
+killed--a fellow-worker in the path of altruism he had mapped out for
+himself. David’s name had been continually mentioned in telegraphic
+reports and journalistic correspondence from Egypt; and from this source
+she had learned that Nahoum Pasha was again high in the service of
+Prince Kaid. When the news of David’s southern expedition to the
+revolting slave-dealing tribes began to appear, she was deeply roused.
+Her agitation was the more intense because she never permitted
+herself to talk of him to others, even when his name was discussed at
+dinner-tables, accompanied by strange legends of his origin and stranger
+romances regarding his call to power by Kaid.
+
+She had surrounded him with romance; he seemed more a hero of history
+than of her own real and living world, a being apart. Even when there
+came rumblings of disaster, dark dangers to be conquered by the Quaker
+crusader, it all was still as of another life. True it was, that when
+his safe return to Cairo was announced she had cried with joy and
+relief; but there was nothing emotional or passionate in her feeling;
+it was the love of the lower for the higher, the hero-worship of an
+idealist in passionate gratitude.
+
+And, amid it all, her mind scarcely realised that they would surely meet
+again. At the end of the second year the thought had receded into an
+almost indefinite past. She was beginning to feel that she had lived
+two lives, and that this life had no direct or vital bearing upon her
+previous existence, in which David had moved. Yet now and then the
+perfume of the Egyptian garden, through which she had fled to escape
+from tragedy, swept over her senses, clouded her eyes in the daytime,
+made them burn at night.
+
+At last she had come to meet and know Eglington. From the first moment
+they met he had directed his course towards marriage. He was the man
+of the moment. His ambition seemed but patriotism, his ardent and
+overwhelming courtship the impulse of a powerful nature. As Lord
+Windlehurst had said, he carried her off her feet, and, on a wave of
+devotion and popular encouragement, he had swept her to the altar.
+
+The Duchess held both her hands for a moment, admiring her, and,
+presently, with a playful remark upon her unselfishness, left her alone
+with Lord Windlehurst.
+
+As they talked, his mask-like face became lighted from the brilliant
+fire in the inquisitorial eyes, his lips played with topics of the
+moment in a mordant fashion, which drew from her flashing replies.
+Looking at her, he was conscious of the mingled qualities of three races
+in her--English, Welsh, and American-Dutch of the Knickerbocker strain;
+and he contrasted her keen perception and her exquisite sensitiveness
+with the purebred Englishwomen round him, stately, kindly, handsome, and
+monotonously intelligent.
+
+“Now I often wonder,” he said, conscious of, but indifferent to, the
+knowledge that he and the brilliant person beside him were objects of
+general attention--“I often wonder, when I look at a gathering like
+this, how many undiscovered crimes there are playing about among us.
+They never do tell--or shall I say, we never do tell?”
+
+All day, she knew not why, Hylda had been nervous and excited. Without
+reason his words startled her. Now there flashed before her eyes a room
+in a Palace at Cairo, and a man lying dead before her. The light slowly
+faded out of her eyes, leaving them almost lustreless, but her face was
+calm, and the smile on her lips stayed. She fanned herself slowly, and
+answered nonchalantly: “Crime is a word of many meanings. I read in the
+papers of political crimes--it is a common phrase; yet the criminals
+appear to go unpunished.”
+
+“There you are wrong,” he answered cynically. “The punishment is, that
+political virtue goes unrewarded, and in due course crime is the only
+refuge to most. Yet in politics the temptation to be virtuous is great.”
+
+She laughed now with a sense of relief. The intellectual stimulant
+had brought back the light to her face. “How is it, then, with
+you--inveterate habit or the strain of the ages? For they say you have
+not had your due reward.”
+
+He smiled grimly. “Ah, no, with me virtue is the act of an inquiring
+mind--to discover where it will lead me. I began with political crime--I
+was understood! I practise political virtue: it embarrasses the world,
+it fogs them, it seems original, because so unnecessary. Mine is the
+scientific life. Experiment in old substances gives new--well, say, new
+precipitations. But you are scientific, too. You have a laboratory, and
+have much to do--with retorts.”
+
+“No, you are thinking of my husband. The laboratory is his.”
+
+“But the retorts are yours.”
+
+“The precipitations are his.”
+
+“Ah, well, at least you help him to fuse the constituents!... But now,
+be quite confidential to an old man who has experimented too. Is your
+husband really an amateur scientist, or is he a scientific amateur? Is
+it a pose or a taste? I fiddled once--and wrote sonnets; one was a pose,
+the other a taste.”
+
+It was mere persiflage, but it was a jest which made an unintended
+wound. Hylda became conscious of a sudden sharp inquiry going on in her
+mind. There flashed into it the question, Does Eglington’s heart ever
+really throb for love of any object or any cause? Even in moments of
+greatest intimacy, soon after marriage, when he was most demonstrative
+towards her, he had seemed preoccupied, except when speaking about
+himself and what he meant to do. Then he made her heart throb in
+response to his confident, ardent words--concerning himself. But his own
+heart, did it throb? Or was it only his brain that throbbed?
+
+Suddenly, with an exclamation, she involuntarily laid a hand upon
+Windlehurst’s arm. She was looking down the room straight before her
+to a group of people towards which other groups were now converging,
+attracted by one who seemed to be a centre of interest.
+
+Presently the eager onlookers drew aside, and Lord Windlehurst observed
+moving up the room a figure he had never seen before. The new-comer was
+dressed in a grey and blue official dress, unrelieved save by silver
+braid at the collar and at the wrists. There was no decoration, but
+on the head was a red fez, which gave prominence to the white,
+broad forehead, with the dark hair waving away behind the ears. Lord
+Windlehurst held his eye-glass to his eye in interested scrutiny. “H’m,”
+ he said, with lips pursed out, “a most notable figure, a most remarkable
+face! My dear, there’s a fortune in that face. It’s a national asset.”
+
+He saw the flush, the dumb amazement, the poignant look in Lady
+Eglington’s face, and registered it in his mind. “Poor thing,” he said
+to himself, “I wonder what it is all about--I wonder. I thought she had
+no unregulated moments. She gave promise of better things.” The Foreign
+Minister was bringing his guest towards them. The new-comer did not look
+at them till within a few steps of where they stood. Then his eyes met
+those of Lady Eglington. For an instant his steps were arrested. A swift
+light came into his face, softening its quiet austerity and strength.
+
+It was David.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. SHARPER THAN A SWORD
+
+A glance of the eye was the only sign of recognition between David and
+Hylda; nothing that others saw could have suggested that they had ever
+met before. Lord Windlehurst at once engaged David in conversation.
+
+At first when Hylda had come back from Egypt, those five years ago, she
+had often wondered what she would think or do if she ever were to see
+this man again; whether, indeed, she could bear it. Well, the moment and
+the man had come. Her eyes had gone blind for an instant; it had seemed
+for one sharp, crucial moment as though she could not bear it; then the
+gulf of agitation was passed, and she had herself in hand.
+
+While her mind was engaged subconsciously with what Lord Windlehurst and
+David said, comprehending it all, and, when Lord Windlehurst appealed
+to her, offering by a word contribution to the ‘pourparler’, she was
+studying David as steadily as her heated senses would permit her.
+
+He seemed to her to have put on twenty years in the steady force of his
+personality--in the composure of his bearing, in the self-reliance of
+his look, though his face and form were singularly youthful. The face
+was handsome and alight, the look was that of one who weighed things;
+yet she was conscious of a great change. The old delicate quality of
+the features was not so marked, though there was nothing material in the
+look, and the head had not a sordid line, while the hand that he now
+and again raised, brushing his forehead meditatively, had gained much in
+strength and force. Yet there was something--something different, that
+brought a slight cloud into her eyes. It came to her now, a certain
+melancholy in the bearing of the figure, erect and well-balanced as it
+was. Once the feeling came, the certainty grew. And presently she found
+a strange sadness in the eyes, something that lurked behind all that he
+did and all that he was, some shadow over the spirit. It was even more
+apparent when he smiled.
+
+As she was conscious of this new reading of him, a motion arrested her
+glance, a quick lifting of the head to one side, as though the mind had
+suddenly been struck by an idea, the glance flying upward in abstracted
+questioning. This she had seen in her husband, too, the same brisk
+lifting of the head, the same quick smiling. Yet this face, unlike
+Eglington’s, expressed a perfect single-mindedness; it wore the look of
+a self-effacing man of luminous force, a concentrated battery of energy.
+Since she had last seen him every sign of the provincial had vanished.
+He was now the well-modulated man of affairs, elegant in his simplicity
+of dress, with the dignified air of the intellectual, yet with the
+decision of a man who knew his mind.
+
+Lord Windlehurst was leaving. Now David and she were alone. Without
+a word they moved on together through the throng, the eyes of all
+following them, until they reached a quiet room at one end of the salon,
+where were only a few people watching the crowd pass the doorway.
+
+“You will be glad to sit,” he said, motioning her to a chair beside some
+palms. Then, with a change of tone, he added: “Thee is not sorry I am
+come?”
+
+Thee--the old-fashioned simple Quaker word! She put her fingers to her
+eyes. Her senses were swimming with a distant memory. The East was in
+her brain, the glow of the skies, the gleam of the desert, the swish of
+the Nile, the cry of the sweet-seller, the song of the dance-girl,
+the strain of the darabukkeh, the call of the skis. She saw again the
+ghiassas drifting down the great river, laden with dourha; she saw the
+mosque of the blue tiles with its placid fountain, and its handful of
+worshippers praying by the olive-tree. She watched the moon rise above
+the immobile Sphinx, she looked down on the banqueters in the Palace,
+David among them, and Foorgat Bey beside her. She saw Foorgat Bey again
+lying dead at her feet. She heard the stir of the leaves; she caught the
+smell of the lime-trees in the Palace garden as she fled. She recalled
+her reckless return to Cairo from Alexandria. She remembered the little
+room where she and David, Nahoum and Mizraim, crossed a bridge over a
+chasm, and stood upon ground which had held good till now--till this
+hour, when the man who had played a most vital part in her life had
+come again out of a land which, by some forced obliquity of mind and
+stubbornness of will, she had assured herself she would never see again.
+
+She withdrew her hand from her eyes, and saw him looking at her calmly,
+though his face was alight. “Thee is fatigued,” he said. “This is labour
+which wears away the strength.” He made a motion towards the crowd.
+
+She smiled a very little, and said: “You do not care for such things as
+this, I know. Your life has its share of it, however, I suppose.”
+
+He looked out over the throng before he answered. “It seems an eddy of
+purposeless waters. Yet there is great depth beneath, or there were no
+eddy; and where there is depth and the eddy there is danger--always.” As
+he spoke she became almost herself again. “You think that deep natures
+have most perils?”
+
+“Thee knows it is so. Human nature is like the earth: the deeper the
+plough goes into the soil unploughed before, the more evil substance is
+turned up--evil that becomes alive as soon as the sun and the air fall
+upon it.”
+
+“Then, women like me who pursue a flippant life, who ride in this
+merry-go-round”--she made a gesture towards the crowd beyond--“who
+have no depth, we are safest, we live upon the surface.” Her gaiety was
+forced; her words were feigned.
+
+“Thee has passed the point of danger, thee is safe,” he answered
+meaningly.
+
+“Is that because I am not deep, or because the plough has been at work?”
+ she asked. “In neither case I am not sure you are right.”
+
+“Thee is happily married,” he said reflectively; “and the prospect is
+fair.”
+
+“I think you know my husband,” she said in answer, and yet not in
+answer.
+
+“I was born in Hamley where he has a place--thee has been there?” he
+asked eagerly.
+
+“Not yet. We are to go next Sunday, for the first time to the Cloistered
+House. I had not heard that my husband knew you, until I saw in
+the paper a few days ago that your home was in Hamley. Then I asked
+Eglington, and he told me that your family and his had been neighbours
+for generations.”
+
+“His father was a Quaker,” David rejoined, “but he forsook the faith.”
+
+“I did not know,” she answered, with some hesitation. There was no
+reason why, when she and Eglington had talked of Hamley, he should not
+have said his own father had once been a Quaker; yet she had dwelt so
+upon the fact that she herself had Quaker blood, and he had laughed
+so much over it, with the amusement of the superior person, that his
+silence on this one point struck her now with a sense of confusion.
+
+“You are going to Hamley--we shall meet there?” she continued.
+
+“To-day I should have gone, but I have business at the Foreign Office
+to-morrow. One needs time to learn that all ‘private interests and
+partial affections’ must be sacrificed to public duty.”
+
+“But you are going soon? You will be there on Sunday?”
+
+“I shall be there to-morrow night, and Sunday, and for one long week at
+least. Hamley is the centre of the world, the axle of the universe--you
+shall see. You doubt it?” he added, with a whimsical smile.
+
+“I shall dispute most of what you say, and all that you think, if you do
+not continue to use the Quaker ‘thee’ and ‘thou’--ungrammatical as you
+are so often.”
+
+“Thee is now the only person in London, or in England, with whom I use
+‘thee’ and ‘thou.’ I am no longer my own master, I am a public servant,
+and so I must follow custom.”
+
+“It is destructive of personality. The ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ belong to you.
+I wonder if the people of Hamley will say ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ to me. I
+hope, I do hope they will.”
+
+“Thee may be sure they will. They are no respecters of persons there.
+They called your husband’s father Robert--his name was Robert. Friend
+Robert they called him, and afterwards they called him Robert Denton
+till he died.”
+
+“Will they call me Hylda?” she asked, with a smile. “More like they will
+call thee Friend Hylda; it sounds simple and strong,” he replied.
+
+“As they call Claridge Pasha Friend David,” she answered, with a smile.
+“David is a good name for a strong man.”
+
+“That David threw a stone from a sling and smote a giant in the
+forehead. The stone from this David’s sling falls into the ocean and is
+lost beneath the surface.”
+
+His voice had taken on a somewhat sombre tone, his eyes looked away
+into the distance; yet he smiled too, and a hand upon his knee suddenly
+closed in sympathy with an inward determination.
+
+A light of understanding came into her face. They had been keeping
+things upon the surface, and, while it lasted, he seemed a lesser man
+than she had thought him these past years. But now--now there was the
+old unschooled simplicity, the unique and lonely personality, the homely
+soul and body bending to one root-idea, losing themselves in a wave
+of duty. Again he was to her, once more, the dreamer, the worker, the
+conqueror--the conqueror of her own imagination. She had in herself the
+soul of altruism, the heart of the crusader. Touched by the fire of
+a great idea, she was of those who could have gone out into the world
+without wallet or scrip, to work passionately for some great end.
+
+And she had married the Earl of Eglington!
+
+She leaned towards David, and said eagerly: “But you are satisfied--you
+are satisfied with your work for poor Egypt?”
+
+“Thee says ‘poor Egypt,’” he answered, “and thee says well. Even now she
+is not far from the day of Rameses and Joseph. Thee thinks perhaps thee
+knows Egypt--none knows her.”
+
+“You know her--now?”
+
+He shook his head slowly. “It is like putting one’s ear to the mouth of
+the Sphinx. Yet sometimes, almost in despair, when I have lain down in
+the desert beside my camel, set about with enemies, I have got a message
+from the barren desert, the wide silence, and the stars.” He paused.
+
+“What is the message that comes?” she asked softly. “It is always the
+same: Work on! Seek not to know too much, nor think that what you do is
+of vast value. Work, because it is yours to be adjusting the machinery
+in your own little workshop of life to the wide mechanism of the
+universe and time. One wheel set right, one flying belt adjusted, and
+there is a step forward to the final harmony--ah, but how I preach!” he
+added hastily.
+
+His eyes were fixed on hers with a great sincerity, and they were
+clear and shining, yet his lips were smiling--what a trick they had of
+smiling! He looked as though he should apologise for such words in such
+a place.
+
+She rose to her feet with a great suspiration, with a light in her eyes
+and a trembling smile.
+
+“But no, no, no, you inspire one. Thee inspires me,” she said, with a
+little laugh, in which there was a note of sadness. “I may use ‘thee,’
+may I not, when I will? I am a little a Quaker also, am I not? My people
+came from Derbyshire, my American people, that is--and only forty years
+ago. Almost thee persuades me to be a Quaker now,” she added. “And
+perhaps I shall be, too,” she went on, her eyes fixed on the crowd
+passing by, Eglington among them.
+
+David saw Eglington also, and moved forward with her.
+
+“We shall meet in Hamley,” she said composedly, as she saw her husband
+leave the crush and come towards her. As Eglington noticed David, a
+curious enigmatical glance flashed from his eyes. He came forward,
+however, with outstretched hand.
+
+“I am sorry I was not at the Foreign Office when you called to-day.
+Welcome back to England, home--and beauty.” He laughed in a rather
+mirthless way, but with a certain empressement, conscious, as he always
+was, of the onlookers. “You have had a busy time in Egypt?” he continued
+cheerfully, and laughed again.
+
+David laughed slightly, also, and Hylda noticed that it had a certain
+resemblance in its quick naturalness to that of her husband.
+
+“I am not sure that we are so busy there as we ought to be,” David
+answered. “I have no real standards. I am but an amateur, and have known
+nothing of public life. But you should come and see.”
+
+“It has been in my mind. An ounce of eyesight is worth a ton of print.
+My lady was there once, I believe”--he turned towards her--“but before
+your time, I think. Or did you meet there, perhaps?” He glanced at both
+curiously. He scarcely knew why a thought flashed into his mind--as
+though by some telepathic sense; for it had never been there before, and
+there was no reason for its being there now.
+
+Hylda saw what David was about to answer, and she knew instinctively
+that he would say they had never met. It shamed her. She intervened as
+she saw he was about to speak.
+
+“We were introduced for the first time to-night,” she said; “but
+Claridge Pasha is part of my education in the world. It is a miracle
+that Hamley should produce two such men,” she added gaily, and laid
+her fan upon her husband’s arm lightly. “You should have been a Quaker,
+Harry, and then you two would have been--”
+
+“Two Quaker Don Quixotes,” interrupted Eglington ironically.
+
+“I should not have called you a Don Quixote,” his wife lightly rejoined,
+relieved at the turn things had taken. “I cannot imagine you tilting at
+wind-mills--”
+
+“Or saving maidens in distress? Well, perhaps not; but you do not
+suggest that Claridge Pasha tilts at windmills either--or saves maidens
+in distress. Though, now I come to think, there was an episode.” He
+laughed maliciously. “Some time ago it was--a lass of the cross-roads. I
+think I heard of such an adventure, which did credit to Claridge Pasha’s
+heart, though it shocked Hamley at the time. But I wonder, was the
+maiden really saved?”
+
+Lady Eglington’s face became rigid. “Well, yes,” she said slowly, “the
+maiden was saved. She is now my maid. Hamley may have been shocked, but
+Claridge Pasha has every reason to be glad that he helped a fellow-being
+in trouble.”
+
+“Your maid--Heaver?” asked Eglington in surprise, a swift shadow
+crossing his face.
+
+“Yes; she only told me this morning. Perhaps she had seen that Claridge
+Pasha was coming to England. I had not, however. At any rate, Quixotism
+saved her.”
+
+David smiled. “It is better than I dared to hope,” he remarked quietly.
+
+“But that is not all,” continued Hylda. “There is more. She had been
+used badly by a man who now wants to marry her--has tried to do so
+for years. Now, be prepared for a surprise, for it concerns you rather
+closely, Eglington. Fate is a whimsical jade. Whom do you think it is?
+Well, since you could never guess, it was Jasper Kimber.”
+
+Eglington’s eyes opened wide. “This is nothing but a coarse and
+impossible stage coincidence,” he laughed. “It is one of those tricks
+played by Fact to discredit the imagination. Life is laughing at us
+again. The longer I live, the more I am conscious of being an object of
+derision by the scene-shifters in the wings of the stage. What a cynical
+comedy life is at the best!”
+
+“It all seems natural enough,” rejoined David.
+
+“It is all paradox.”
+
+“Isn’t it all inevitable law? I have no belief in ‘antic Fate.’”
+
+Hylda realised, with a new and poignant understanding, the difference of
+outlook on life between the two men. She suddenly remembered the words
+of Confucius, which she had set down in her little book of daily life:
+“By nature we approximate, it is only experience that drives us apart.”
+
+David would have been content to live in the desert all his life for
+the sake of a cause, making no calculations as to reward. Eglington must
+ever have the counters for the game.
+
+“Well, if you do not believe in ‘antic Fate,’ you must be greatly
+puzzled as you go on,” he rejoined, laughing; “especially in Egypt,
+where the East and the West collide, race against race, religion against
+religion, Oriental mind against Occidental intellect. You have an
+unusual quantity of Quaker composure, to see in it all ‘inevitable
+law.’ And it must be dull. But you always were, so they say in Hamley, a
+monument of seriousness.”
+
+“I believe they made one or two exceptions,” answered David drily. “I
+had assurances.”
+
+Eglington laughed boyishly. “You are right. You achieved a name for
+humour in a day--‘a glass, a kick, and a kiss,’ it was. Do you have such
+days in Egypt?”
+
+“You must come and see,” David answered lightly, declining to notice the
+insolence. “These are critical days there. The problems are worthy of
+your care. Will you not come?”
+
+Eglington was conscious of a peculiar persuasive influence over himself
+that he had never felt before. In proportion, however, as he felt its
+compelling quality, there came a jealousy of the man who was its cause.
+The old antagonism, which had had its sharpest expression the last time
+they had met on the platform at Heddington, came back. It was one strong
+will resenting another--as though there was not room enough in the wide
+world of being for these two atoms of life, sparks from the ceaseless
+wheel, one making a little brighter flash than the other for the moment,
+and then presently darkness, and the whirring wheel which threw them
+off, throwing off millions of others again.
+
+On the moment Eglington had a temptation to say something with an edge,
+which would show David that his success in Egypt hung upon the course
+that he himself and the weak Foreign Minister, under whom he served,
+would take. And this course would be his own course largely, since he
+had been appointed to be a force and strength in the Foreign Office
+which his chief did not supply. He refrained, however, and, on the
+moment, remembered the promise he had given to Faith to help David.
+
+A wave of feeling passed over him. His wife was beautiful, a creature
+of various charms, a centre of attraction. Yet he had never really loved
+her--so many sordid elements had entered into the thought of marriage
+with her, lowering the character of his affection. With a perversity
+which only such men know, such heart as he had turned to the unknown
+Quaker girl who had rebuked him, scathed him, laid bare his soul before
+himself, as no one ever had done. To Eglington it was a relief that
+there was one human being--he thought there was only one--who read him
+through and through; and that knowledge was in itself as powerful an
+influence as was the secret between David and Hylda. It was a kind
+of confessional, comforting to a nature not self-contained. Now he
+restrained his cynical intention to deal David a side-thrust, and
+quietly said:
+
+“We shall meet at Hamley, shall we not? Let us talk there, and not at
+the Foreign Office. You would care to go to Egypt, Hylda?”
+
+She forced a smile. “Let us talk it over at Hamley.” With a smile to
+David she turned away to some friends.
+
+Eglington offered to introduce David to some notable people, but he said
+that he must go--he was fatigued after his journey. He had no wish to be
+lionised.
+
+As he left the salon, the band was playing a tune that made him close
+his eyes, as though against something he would not see. The band in
+Kaid’s Palace had played it that night when he had killed Foorgat Bey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. EACH AFTER HIS OWN ORDER
+
+With the passing years new feelings had grown up in the heart of Luke
+Claridge. Once David’s destiny and career were his own peculiar and
+self-assumed responsibility. “Inwardly convicted,” he had wrenched
+the lad away from the natural circumstances of his life, and created a
+scheme of existence for him out of his own conscience--a pious egoist.
+
+After David went to Egypt, however, his mind involuntarily formed the
+resolution that “Davy and God should work it out together.”
+
+He had grown very old in appearance, and his quiet face was almost
+painfully white; but the eyes burned with more fire than in the past.
+As the day approached when David should arrive in England, he walked by
+himself continuously, oblivious of the world round him. He spoke to no
+one, save the wizened Elder Meacham, and to John Fairley, who rightly
+felt that he had a share in the making of Claridge Pasha.
+
+With head perched in the air, and face half hidden in his great white
+collar, the wizened Elder, stopping Luke Claridge in the street one day,
+said:
+
+“Does thee think the lad will ride in Pharaoh’s chariot here?”
+
+There were sly lines of humour about the mouth of the wizened Elder as
+he spoke, but Luke Claridge did not see.
+
+“Pride is far from his heart,” he answered portentously. “He will ride
+in no chariot. He has written that he will walk here from Heddington,
+and none is to meet him.”
+
+“He will come by the cross-roads, perhaps,” rejoined the other piously.
+“Well, well, memory is a flower or a rod, as John Fox said, and the
+cross-roads have memories for him.”
+
+Again flashes of humour crossed his face, for he had a wide humanity, of
+insufficient exercise.
+
+“He has made full atonement, and thee does ill to recall the past,
+Reuben,” rejoined the other sternly.
+
+“If he has done no more that needs atonement than he did that day at the
+cross-roads, then has his history been worthy of Hamley,” rejoined the
+wizened Elder, eyes shut and head buried in his collar. “Hamley made
+him--Hamley made him. We did not spare advice, or example, or any
+correction that came to our minds--indeed, it was almost a luxury. Think
+you, does he still play the flute--an instrument none too grave, Luke?”
+
+But, to this, Luke Claridge exclaimed impatiently and hastened on; and
+the little wizened Elder chuckled to himself all the way to the house of
+John Fairley. None in Hamley took such pride in David as did these two
+old men, who had loved him from a child, but had discreetly hidden their
+favour, save to each other. Many times they had met and prayed together
+in the weeks when his life was in notorious danger in the Soudan.
+
+As David walked through the streets of Heddington making for the open
+country, he was conscious of a new feeling regarding the place. It
+was familiar, but in a new sense. Its grimy, narrow streets, unlovely
+houses, with shut windows, summer though it was, and no softening
+influences anywhere, save here and there a box of sickly geraniums in
+the windows, all struck his mind in a way they had never done before.
+A mile away were the green fields, the woods, the roadsides gay with
+flowers and shrubs-loveliness was but over the wall, as it were; yet
+here the barrack-like houses, the grey, harsh streets, seemed like
+prison walls, and the people in them prisoners who, with every legal
+right to call themselves free, were as much captives as the criminal on
+some small island in a dangerous sea. Escape--where? Into the gulf of no
+work and degradation?
+
+They never lifted their eyes above the day’s labour. They were scarce
+conscious of anything beyond. What were their pleasures? They had
+imitations of pleasures. To them a funeral or a wedding, a riot or a
+vociferous band, a dog-fight or a strike, were alike in this, that they
+quickened feelings which carried them out of themselves, gave them a
+sense of intoxication.
+
+Intoxication? David remembered the far-off day of his own wild rebellion
+in Hamley. From that day forward he had better realised that in the
+hearts of so many of the human race there was a passion to forget
+themselves; to blot out, if for a moment only, the troubles of life and
+time; or, by creating a false air of exaltation, to rise above
+them. Once in the desert, when men were dying round him of fever and
+dysentery, he had been obliged, exhausted and ill, scarce able to
+drag himself from his bed, to resort to an opiate to allay his own
+sufferings, that he might minister to others. He remembered how, in the
+atmosphere it had created--an intoxication, a soothing exhilaration and
+pervasive thrill--he had saved so many of his followers. Since then the
+temptation had come upon him often when trouble weighed or difficulties
+surrounded him--accompanied always by recurrence of fever--to resort to
+the insidious medicine. Though he had fought the temptation with every
+inch of his strength, he could too well understand those who sought for
+“surcease of pain”.
+
+          “Seeking for surcease of pain,
+          Pilgrim to Lethe I came;
+          Drank not, for pride was too keen,
+          Stung by the sound of a name!”
+
+As the plough of action had gone deep into his life and laid bare his
+nature to the light, there had been exposed things which struggled for
+life and power in him, with the fiery strength which only evil has.
+
+The western heavens were aglow. On every hand the gorse and the may were
+in bloom, the lilacs were coming to their end, but wild rhododendrons
+were glowing in the bracken, as he stepped along the road towards the
+place where he was born. Though every tree and roadmark was familiar,
+yet he was conscious of a new outlook. He had left these quiet scenes
+inexperienced and untravelled, to be thrust suddenly into the thick of
+a struggle of nations over a sick land. He had worked in a vortex of
+debilitating local intrigue. All who had to do with Egypt gained except
+herself, and if she moved in revolt or agony, they threatened her.
+Once when resisting the pressure and the threats of war of a foreign
+diplomatist, he had, after a trying hour, written to Faith in a burst of
+passionate complaint, and his letter had ended with these words.
+
+          “In your onward march, O men,
+          White of face, in promise whiter,
+          You unsheath the sword, and then
+          Blame the wronged as the fighter.
+
+          “Time, ah, Time, rolls onward o’er
+          All these foetid fields of evil,
+          While hard at the nation’s core
+          Eats the burning rust and weevill
+
+          “Nathless, out beyond the stars
+          Reigns the Wiser and the Stronger,
+          Seeing in all strifes and wars
+          Who the wronged, who the wronger.”
+
+Privately he had spoken thus, but before the world he had given way to
+no impulse, in silence finding safety from the temptation to diplomatic
+evasion. Looking back over five years, he felt now that the sum of his
+accomplishment had been small.
+
+He did not realise the truth. When his hand was almost upon the object
+for which he had toiled and striven--whether pacifying a tribe, meeting
+a loan by honest means, building a barrage, irrigating the land,
+financing a new industry, or experimenting in cotton--it suddenly
+eluded him. Nahoum had snatched it away by subterranean wires. On such
+occasions Nahoum would shrug his shoulders, and say with a sigh, “Ah, my
+friend, let us begin again. We are both young; time is with us; and we
+will flourish palms in the face of Europe yet. We have our course set by
+a bright star. We will continue.”
+
+Yet, withal, David was the true altruist. Even now as he walked this
+road which led to his old home, dear to him beyond all else, his
+thoughts kept flying to the Nile and to the desert.
+
+Suddenly he stopped. He was at the cross-roads. Here he had met Kate
+Heaver, here he had shamed his neighbours--and begun his work in life.
+He stood for a moment, smiling, as he looked at the stone where he
+had sat those years ago, his hand feeling instinctively for his flute.
+Presently he turned to the dusty road again.
+
+Walking quickly away, he swung into the path of the wood which would
+bring him by a short cut to Hamley, past Soolsby’s cottage. Here was the
+old peace, the old joy of solitude among the healing trees. Experience
+had broadened his life, had given him a vast theatre of work; but the
+smell of the woods, the touch of the turf, the whispering of the trees,
+the song of the birds, had the ancient entry to his heart.
+
+At last he emerged on the hill where Soolsby lived. He had not meant, if
+he could help it, to speak to any one until he had entered the garden of
+the Red Mansion, but he had inadvertently come upon this place where he
+had spent the most momentous days of his life, and a feeling stronger
+than he cared to resist drew him to the open doorway. The afternoon
+sun was beating in over the threshold as he reached it, and, at his
+footstep, a figure started forward from the shadow of a corner.
+
+It was Kate Heaver.
+
+Surprise, then pain showed in her face; she flushed, was agitated.
+
+“I am sorry. It’s too bad--it’s hard on him you should see,” she said in
+a breath, and turned her head away for an instant; but presently looked
+him in the face again, all trembling and eager. “He’ll be sorry enough
+to-morrow,” she added solicitously, and drew away from something, she
+had been trying to hide.
+
+Then David saw. On a bench against a wall lay old Soolsby--drunk. A
+cloud passed across his face and left it pale.
+
+“Of course,” he said simply, and went over and touched the heaving
+shoulders reflectively. “Poor Soolsby!”
+
+“He’s been sober four years--over four,” she said eagerly. “When he knew
+you’d come again, he got wild, and he would have the drink in spite of
+all. Walking from Heddington, I saw him at the tavern, and brought him
+home.”
+
+“At the tavern--” David said reflectively.
+
+“The Fox and Goose, sir.” She turned her face away again, and David’s
+head came up with a quick motion. There it was, five years ago, that he
+had drunk at the bar, and had fought Jasper Kimber.
+
+“Poor fellow!” he said again, and listened to Soolsby’s stertorous
+breathing, as a physician looks at a patient whose case he cannot
+control, does not wholly understand.
+
+The hand of the sleeping man was suddenly raised, his head gave a jerk,
+and he said mumblingly: “Claridge for ever!”
+
+Kate nervously intervened. “It fair beat him, your coming back, sir.
+It’s awful temptation, the drink. I lived in it for years, and it’s
+cruel hard to fight it when you’re worked up either way, sorrow or joy.
+There’s a real pleasure in being drunk, I’m sure. While it lasts you’re
+rich, and you’re young, and you don’t care what happens. It’s kind of
+you to take it like this, sir, seeing you’ve never been tempted and
+mightn’t understand.” David shook his head sadly, and looked at Soolsby
+in silence.
+
+“I don’t suppose he took a quarter what he used to take, but it made him
+drunk. ‘Twas but a minute of madness. You’ve saved him right enough.”
+
+“I was not blaming him. I understand--I understand.”
+
+He looked at her clearly. She was healthy and fine-looking, with
+large, eloquent eyes. Her dress was severe and quiet, as became her
+occupation--a plain, dark grey, but the shapely fulness of the figure
+gave softness to the outlines. It was no wonder Jasper Kimber wished
+to marry her; and, if he did, the future of the man was sure. She had
+a temperament which might have made her an adventuress--or an
+opera-singer. She had been touched in time, and she had never looked
+back.
+
+“You are with Lady Eglington now, I have heard?” he asked.
+
+She nodded.
+
+“It was hard for you in London at first?”
+
+She met his look steadily. “It was easy in a way. I could see round me
+what was the right thing to do. Oh, that was what was so awful in the
+old life over there at Heddington,”--she pointed beyond the hill, “we
+didn’t know what was good and what was bad. The poor people in big
+working-places like Heddington ain’t much better than heathens,
+leastways as to most things that matter. They haven’t got a sensible
+religion, not one that gets down into what they do. The parson doesn’t
+reach them--he talks about church and the sacraments, and they don’t get
+at what good it’s going to do them. And the chapel preachers ain’t much
+better. They talk and sing and pray, when what the people want is light,
+and hot water, and soap, and being shown how to live, and how to
+bring up children healthy and strong, and decent-cooked food. I’d have
+food-hospitals if I could, and I’d give the children in the schools one
+good meal a day. I’m sure the children of the poor go wrong and bad
+more through the way they live than anything. If only they was taught
+right--not as though they was paupers! Give me enough nurses of the
+right sort, and enough good, plain cooks, and meat three times a week,
+and milk and bread and rice and porridge every day, and I’d make a new
+place of any town in England in a year. I’d--”
+
+She stopped all at once, however, and flushing, said: “I didn’t stop to
+think I was talking to you, sir.”
+
+“I am glad you speak to me so,” he answered gently. “You and I are both
+reformers at heart.”
+
+“Me? I’ve done nothing, sir, not any good to anybody or anything.”
+
+“Not to Jasper Kimber?”
+
+“You did that, sir; he says so; he says you made him.”
+
+A quick laugh passed David’s lips. “Men are not made so easily. I think
+I know the trowel and the mortar that built that wall! Thee will marry
+him, friend?”
+
+Her eyes burned as she looked at him. She had been eternally
+dispossessed of what every woman has the right to have--one memory
+possessing the elements of beauty. Even if it remain but for the moment,
+yet that moment is hers by right of her sex, which is denied the
+wider rights of those they love and serve. She had tasted the cup of
+bitterness and drunk of the waters of sacrifice. Married life had no
+lure for her. She wanted none of it. The seed of service had, however,
+taken root in a nature full of fire and light and power, undisciplined
+and undeveloped as it was. She wished to do something--the spirit of
+toil, the first habit of the life of the poor, the natural medium for
+the good that may be in them, had possession of her.
+
+This man was to her the symbol of work. To have cared for his home, to
+have looked after his daily needs, to have sheltered him humbly from
+little things, would have been her one true happiness. And this was
+denied her. Had she been a man, it would have been so easy. She could
+have offered to be his servant; could have done those things which she
+could do better than any, since hers would be a heart-service.
+
+But even as she looked at him now, she had a flash of insight and
+prescience. She had, from little things said or done, from newspapers
+marked and a hundred small indications, made up her mind that her
+mistress’s mind dwelt much upon “the Egyptian.” The thought flashed now
+that she might serve this man, after all; that a day might come when she
+could say that she had played a part in his happiness, in return for
+all he had done for her. Life had its chances--and strange things had
+happened. In her own mind she had decided that her mistress was not
+happy, and who could tell what might happen? Men did not live for ever!
+The thought came and went, but it left behind a determination to answer
+David as she felt.
+
+“I will not marry Jasper,” she answered slowly. “I want work, not
+marriage.”
+
+“There would be both,” he urged.
+
+“With women there is the one or the other, not both.”
+
+“Thee could help him. He has done credit to himself, and he can do good
+work for England. Thee can help him.”
+
+“I want work alone, not marriage, sir.”
+
+“He would pay thee his debt.”
+
+“He owes me nothing. What happened was no fault of his, but of the life
+we were born in. He tired of me, and left me. Husbands tire of their
+wives, but stay on and beat them.”
+
+“He drove thee mad almost, I remember.”
+
+“Wives go mad and are never cured, so many of them. I’ve seen them die,
+poor things, and leave the little ones behind. I had the luck wi’ me. I
+took the right turning at the cross-roads yonder.”
+
+“Thee must be Jasper’s wife if he asks thee again,” he urged.
+
+“He will come when I call, but I will not call,” she answered.
+
+“But still thee will marry him when the heart is ready,” he persisted.
+“It shall be ready soon. He needs thee. Good-bye, friend. Leave Soolsby
+alone. He will be safe. And do not tell him that I have seen him so.” He
+stooped over and touched the old man’s shoulder gently.
+
+He held out his hand to her. She took it, then suddenly leaned over and
+kissed it. She could not speak.
+
+He stepped to the door and looked out. Behind the Red Mansion the sun
+was setting, and the far garden looked cool and sweet. He gave a happy
+sigh, and stepped out and down.
+
+As he disappeared, the woman dropped into a chair, her arms upon a
+table. Her body shook with sobs. She sat there for an hour, and then,
+when the sun was setting, she left the drunken man sleeping, and
+made her way down the hill to the Cloistered House. Entering, she was
+summoned to her mistress’s room. “I did not expect my lady so soon,” she
+said, surprised.
+
+“No; we came sooner than we expected. Where have you been?”
+
+“At Soolsby’s hut on the hill, my lady.”
+
+“Who is Soolsby?”
+
+Kate told her all she knew, and of what had happened that afternoon--but
+not all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. “THERE IS NOTHING HIDDEN WHICH SHALL NOT BE REVEALED”
+
+A fortnight had passed since they had come to Hamley--David, Eglington,
+and Hylda--and they had all travelled a long distance in mutual
+understanding during that time, too far, thought Luke Claridge, who
+remained neutral and silent. He would not let Faith go to the Cloistered
+House, though he made no protest against David going; because he
+recognised in these visits the duty of diplomacy and the business of
+the nation--more particularly David’s business, which, in his eyes,
+swallowed all. Three times David had gone to the Cloistered House; once
+Hylda and he had met in the road leading to the old mill, and once at
+Soolsby’s hut. Twice, also, in the garden of his old home he had seen
+her, when she came to visit Faith, who had captured her heart at once.
+Eglington and Faith had not met, however. He was either busy in his
+laboratory, or with his books, or riding over the common and through the
+woods, and their courses lay apart.
+
+But there came an afternoon when Hylda and David were a long hour
+together at the Cloistered House. They talked freely of his work in
+Egypt. At last she said: “And Nahoum Pasha?”
+
+“He has kept faith.”
+
+“He is in high place again?”
+
+“He is a good administrator.”
+
+“You put him there!”
+
+“Thee remembers what I said to him, that night in Cairo?”
+
+Hylda closed her eyes and drew in a long breath. Had there been a word
+spoken that night when she and David and Nahoum met which had not bitten
+into her soul! That David had done so much in Egypt without ruin or
+death was a tribute to his power. Nevertheless, though Nahoum had not
+struck yet, she was certain he would one day. All that David now told
+her of the vicissitudes of his plans, and Nahoum’s sympathy and help,
+only deepened this conviction. She could well believe that Nahoum gave
+David money from his own pocket, which he replaced by extortion from
+other sources, while gaining credit with David for co-operation.
+Armenian Christian Nahoum might be, but he was ranged with the East
+against the West, with the reactionary and corrupt against advance,
+against civilisation and freedom and equality. Nahoum’s Christianity was
+permeated with Orientalism, the Christian belief obscured by the theism
+of the Muslim. David was in a deadlier struggle than he knew. Yet it
+could serve no good end to attempt to warn him now. He had outlived
+peril so far; might it not be that, after all, he would win?
+
+So far she had avoided Nahoum’s name in talks with David. She could
+scarcely tell why she did, save that it opened a door better closed, as
+it were; but the restraint had given way at last.
+
+“Thee remembers what I said that night?” David repeated slowly.
+
+“I remember--I understand. You devise your course and you never change.
+It is like building on a rock. That is why nothing happens to you as bad
+as might happen.”
+
+“Nothing bad ever happens to me.”
+
+“The philosophy of the desert,” she commented smiling. “You are living
+in the desert even when you are here. This is a dream; the desert and
+Egypt only are real.
+
+“That is true, I think. I seem sometimes like a sojourner here, like a
+spirit ‘revisiting the scenes of life and time.’” He laughed boyishly.
+
+“Yet you are happy here. I understand now why and how you are what you
+are. Even I that have been here so short a time feel the influence upon
+me. I breathe an air that, somehow, seems a native air. The spirit of
+my Quaker grandmother revives in me. Sometimes I sit hours thinking,
+scarcely stirring; and I believe I know now how people might speak to
+each other without words. Your Uncle Benn and you--it was so with
+you, was it not? You heard his voice speaking to you sometimes; you
+understood what he meant to say to you? You told me so long ago.”
+
+David inclined his head. “I heard him speak as one might speak through
+a closed door. Sometimes, too, in the desert I have heard Faith speak to
+me.”
+
+“And your grandfather?”
+
+“Never my grandfather--never. It would seem as though, in my thoughts,
+I could never reach him; as though masses of opaque things lay between.
+Yet he and I--there is love between us. I don’t know why I never hear
+him.”
+
+“Tell me of your childhood, of your mother. I have seen her grave under
+the ash by the Meeting-house, but I want to know of her from you.”
+
+“Has not Faith told you?”
+
+“We have only talked of the present. I could not ask her; but I can ask
+you. I want to know of your mother and you together.”
+
+“We were never together. When I opened my eyes she closed hers. It was
+so little to get for the life she gave. See, was it not a good face?”
+ He drew from his pocket a little locket which Faith had given him years
+ago, and opened it before her.
+
+Hylda looked long. “She was exquisite,” she said, “exquisite.”
+
+“My father I never knew either. He was a captain of a merchant ship. He
+married her secretly while she was staying with an aunt at Portsmouth.
+He sailed away, my mother told my grandfather all, and he brought her
+home here. The marriage was regular, of course, but my grandfather,
+after announcing it, and bringing it before the Elders, declared that
+she should never see her husband again. She never did, for she died a
+few months after, when I came, and my father died very soon, also. I
+never saw him, and I do not know if he ever tried to see me. I never had
+any feeling about it. My grandfather was the only father I ever knew,
+and Faith, who was born a year before me, became like a sister to
+me, though she soon made other pretensions!” He laughed again, almost
+happily. “To gain an end she exercised authority as my aunt!”
+
+“What was your father’s name?”
+
+“Fetherdon--James Fetherdon.”
+
+“Fetherdon--James Fetherdon!” Involuntarily Hylda repeated the name
+after him. Where had she heard the name before--or where had she seen
+it? It kept flashing before her eyes. Where had she seen it? For days
+she had been rummaging among old papers in the library of the Cloistered
+House, and in an old box full of correspondence and papers of the late
+countess, who had died suddenly. Was it among them that she had seen the
+name? She could not tell. It was all vague, but that she had seen it or
+heard it she was sure.
+
+“Your father’s people, you never knew them?”
+
+He shook his head. “Nor of them. Here was my home--I had no desire to
+discover them. We draw in upon ourselves here.”
+
+“There is great force in such a life and such a people,” she answered.
+“If the same concentration of mind could be carried into the wide life
+of the world, we might revolutionise civilisation; or vitalise and
+advance it, I mean--as you are doing in Egypt.”
+
+“I have done nothing in Egypt. I have sounded the bugle--I have not had
+my fight.”
+
+“That is true in a sense,” she replied. “Your real struggle is before
+you. I do not know why I say it, but I do say it; I feel it. Something
+here”--she pressed her hand to her heart--“something here tells me that
+your day of battle is yet to come.” Her eyes were brimming and full of
+excitement. “We must all help you.” She gained courage with each word.
+“You must not fight alone. You work for civilisation; you must have
+civilisation behind you.” Her hands clasped nervously; there was a catch
+in her throat. “You remember then, that I said I would call to you one
+day, as your Uncle Benn did, and you should hear and answer me. It shall
+not be that I will call. You--you will call, and I will help you if
+I can. I will help, no matter what may seem to prevent, if there is
+anything I can do. I, surely I, of all the world owe it to you to do
+what I can, always.
+
+“I owe so much--you did so much. Oh, how it haunts me! Sometimes in the
+night I wake with a start and see it all--all!”
+
+The flood which had been dyked back these years past had broken loose in
+her heart.
+
+Out of the stir and sweep of social life and duty, of official and
+political ambition-heart-hungry, for she had no child; heart-lonely,
+though she had scarce recognised it in the duties and excitements round
+her--she had floated suddenly into this backwater of a motionless life
+in Hamley. Its quiet had settled upon her, the shackles of her spirit
+had been loosed, and dropped from her; she had suddenly bathed her heart
+and soul in a freer atmosphere than they had ever known before. And
+David and Hamley had come together. The old impulses, dominated by a
+divine altruism, were swinging her out upon a course leading she knew
+not, reeked not, whither--for the moment reeked not. This man’s career,
+the work he was set to do, the ideal before him, the vision of a land
+redeemed, captured her, carried her panting into a resolve which,
+however she might modify her speech or action, must be an influence in
+her life hereafter. Must the penance and the redemption be his only?
+This life he lived had come from what had happened to her and to him in
+Egypt. In a deep sense her life was linked with his.
+
+In a flash David now felt the deep significance of their relations. A
+curtain seemed suddenly to have been drawn aside. He was blinded for a
+moment. Her sympathy, her desire to help, gave him a new sense of hope
+and confidence, but--but there was no room in his crusade for any woman;
+the dear egotism of a life-dream was masterful in him, possessed him.
+
+Yet, if ever his heart might have dwelt upon a woman with thought of the
+future, this being before him--he drew himself up with a start!... He
+was going to Egypt again in a few days; they might probably never meet
+again--would not, no doubt--should not. He had pressed her husband to go
+to Egypt, but now he would not encourage it; he must “finish his journey
+alone.”
+
+He looked again in her eyes, and their light and beauty held him. His
+own eyes swam. The exaltation of a great idea was upon them, was a bond
+of fate between them. It was a moment of peril not fully realised by
+either. David did realise, however, that she was beautiful beyond all
+women he had ever seen--or was he now for the first time really aware
+of the beauty of woman? She had an expression, a light of eye and face,
+finely alluring beyond mere outline of feature. Yet the features were
+there, too, regular and fine; and her brown hair waving away from her
+broad, white forehead over eyes a greyish violet in colour gave her a
+classic distinction. In the quietness of the face there was that
+strain of the Quaker, descending to her through three generations, yet
+enlivened by a mind of impulse and genius.
+
+They stood looking at each other for a moment, in which both had taken
+a long step forward in life’s experience. But presently his eyes looked
+beyond her, as though at something that fascinated them.
+
+“Of what are you thinking? What do you see?” she asked.
+
+“You, leaving the garden of my house in Cairo, I standing by the fire,”
+ he answered, closing his eyes for an instant.
+
+“It is what I saw also,” she said breathlessly. “It is what I saw and
+was thinking of that instant.” When, as though she must break away from
+the cords of feeling drawing her nearer and nearer to him, she said,
+with a little laugh, “Tell me again of my Chicago cousin? I have not had
+a letter for a year.”
+
+“Lacey, he is with me always. I should have done little had it not been
+for him. He has remarkable resource; he is never cast down. He has but
+one fault.”
+
+“What is that?”
+
+“He is no respecter of persons. His humour cuts deep. He has a wide
+heart for your sex. When leaving the court of the King of Abyssinia he
+said to his Majesty: ‘Well, good-bye, King. Give my love to the girls.’”
+
+She laughed again. “How absurd and childish he is! But he is true and
+able. And how glad you should be that you are able to make true friends,
+without an effort. Yesterday I met neighbour Fairley, and another little
+old Elder who keeps his chin in his collar and his eyes on the sky. They
+did little else but sing your praises. One might have thought that you
+had invented the world-or Hamley.”
+
+“Yet they would chafe if I were to appear among them without these.” He
+glanced down at the Quaker clothes he wore, and made a gesture towards
+the broadbrimmed hat reposing on a footstool near by.
+
+“It is good to see that you are not changed, not spoiled at all,” she
+remarked, smiling. “Though, indeed, how could you be, who always work
+for others and never for yourself? All I envy you is your friends. You
+make them and keep them so.”
+
+She sighed, and a shadow came into her eyes suddenly. She was thinking
+of Eglington. Did he make friends--true friends? In London--was there
+one she knew who would cleave to him for love of him? In England--had
+she ever seen one? In Hamley, where his people had been for so many
+generations, had she found one?
+
+Herself? Yes, she was his true friend. She would do what would she not
+do to help him, to serve his interests? What had she not done since she
+married Her fortune, it was his; her every waking hour had been filled
+with something devised to help him on his way. Had he ever said to her:
+“Hylda, you are a help to me”? He had admired her--but was he singular
+in that? Before she married there were many--since, there had been
+many--who had shown, some with tact and carefulness, others with a
+crudeness making her shudder, that they admired her; and, if they
+might, would have given their admiration another name with other
+manifestations. Had she repelled it all? She had been too sure of
+herself to draw her skirts about her; she was too proud to let any man
+put her at any disadvantage. She had been safe, because her heart had
+been untouched. The Duchess of Snowdon, once beautiful, but now with
+a face like a mask, enamelled and rouged and lifeless, had said to her
+once: “My dear, I ought to have died at thirty. When I was twenty-three
+I wanted to squeeze the orange dry in a handful of years, and then go
+out suddenly, and let the dust of forgetfulness cover my bones. I had
+one child, a boy, and would have no more; and I squeezed the orange! But
+I didn’t go at thirty, and yet the orange was dry. My boy died; and you
+see what I am--a fright, I know it; and I dress like a child of twenty;
+and I can’t help it.”
+
+There had been moments, once, when Hylda, too, had wished to squeeze the
+orange dry, but something behind, calling to her, had held her back. She
+had dropped her anchor in perilous seas, but it had never dragged.
+
+“Tell me how to make friends--and keep them,” she added gaily.
+
+“If it be true I make friends, thee taught me how,” he answered, “for
+thee made me a friend, and I forget not the lesson.”
+
+She smiled. “Thee has learnt another lesson too well,” she answered
+brightly. “Thee must not flatter. It is not that which makes thee keep
+friends. Thee sees I also am speaking as they do in Hamley--am I not
+bold? I love the grammarless speech.”
+
+“Then use it freely to-day, for this is farewell,” he answered, not
+looking at her.
+
+“This--is--farewell,” she said slowly, vaguely. Why should it startle
+her so? “You are going so soon--where?”
+
+“To-morrow to London, next week to Egypt.”
+
+She laid a hand upon herself, for her heart was beating violently. “Thee
+is not fair to give no warning--there is so much to say,” she said, in
+so low a tone that he could scarcely hear her. “There is the future,
+your work, what we are to do here to help. What I am to do.
+
+“Thee will always be a friend to Egypt, I know,” he answered. “She needs
+friends. Thee has a place where thee can help.”
+
+“Will not right be done without my voice?” she asked, her eyes half
+closing. “There is the Foreign Office, and English policy, and the
+ministers, and--and Eglington. What need of me?”
+
+He saw the thought had flashed into her mind that he did not trust her
+husband. “Thee knows and cares for Egypt, and knowing and caring make
+policy easier to frame,” he rejoined.
+
+Suddenly a wave of feeling went over her. He whose life had been flung
+into this field of labour by an act of her own, who should help him but
+herself?
+
+But it all baffled her, hurt her, shook her. She was not free to help as
+she wished. Her life belonged to another; and he exacted the payment of
+tribute to the uttermost farthing. She was blinded by the thought. Yet
+she must speak. “I will come to Egypt--we will come to Egypt,” she said
+quickly. “Eglington shall know, too; he shall understand. You shall have
+his help. You shall not work alone.”
+
+“Thee can work here,” he said. “It may not be easy for Lord Eglington to
+come.”
+
+“You pressed it on him.”
+
+Their eyes met. She suddenly saw what was in his mind.
+
+“You know best what will help you most,” she added gently.
+
+“You will not come?” he asked.
+
+“I will not say I will not come--not ever,” she answered firmly. “It may
+be I should have to come.” Resolution was in her eyes. She was thinking
+of Nahoum. “I may have to come,” she added after a pause, “to do right
+by you.”
+
+He read her meaning. “Thee will never come,” he continued confidently.
+He held out his hand. “Perhaps I shall see you in town,” she rejoined,
+as her hand rested in his, and she looked away. “When do you start for
+Egypt?”
+
+“To-morrow week, I think,” he answered. “There is much to do.”
+
+“Perhaps we shall meet in town,” she repeated. But they both knew they
+would not.
+
+“Farewell,” he said, and picked up his hat.
+
+As he turned again, the look in her eyes brought the blood to his face,
+then it became pale. A new force had come into his life.
+
+“God be good to thee,” he said, and turned away.
+
+She watched him leave the room and pass through the garden.
+
+“David! David!” she said softly after him.
+
+At the other end of the room her husband, who had just entered, watched
+her. He heard her voice, but did not hear what she said.
+
+“Come, Hylda, and have some music,” he said brusquely.
+
+She scrutinised him calmly. His face showed nothing. His look was
+enigmatical.
+
+“Chopin is the thing for me,” he said, and opened the piano.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. AS IN A GLASS DARKLY
+
+It was very quiet and cool in the Quaker Meeting-house, though outside
+there was the rustle of leaves, the low din of the bees, the whistle
+of a bird, or the even tread of horses’ hoofs as they journeyed on the
+London road. The place was full. For a half-hour the worshippers had sat
+voiceless. They were waiting for the spirit to move some one to speak.
+As they waited, a lady entered and glided into a seat. Few saw, and
+these gave no indication of surprise, though they were little used
+to strangers, and none of the name borne by this lady had entered the
+building for many years. It was Hylda.
+
+At last the silence was broken. The wizened Elder, with eyes upon the
+ceiling and his long white chin like ivory on his great collar, began to
+pray, sitting where he was, his hands upon his knees. He prayed for all
+who wandered “into by and forbidden paths.” He prayed for one whose work
+was as that of Joseph, son of Jacob; whose footsteps were now upon the
+sea, and now upon the desert; whose way was set among strange gods and
+divers heresies--“‘For there must also be heresies, that they which are
+approved may be made manifest among the weak.’” A moment more, and
+then he added: “He hath been tried beyond his years; do Thou uphold his
+hands. Once with a goad did we urge him on, when in ease and sloth he
+was among us, but now he spurreth on his spirit and body in too great
+haste. O put Thy hand upon the bridle, Lord, that He ride soberly upon
+Thy business.”
+
+There was a longer silence now, but at last came the voice of Luke
+Claridge.
+
+“Father of the fatherless,” he said, “my days are as the sands in the
+hour-glass hastening to their rest; and my place will soon be empty. He
+goeth far, and I may not go with him. He fighteth alone, like him that
+strove with wild beasts at Ephesus; do Thou uphold him that he may bring
+a nation captive. And if a viper fasten on his hand, as chanced to Paul
+of old, give him grace to strike it off without hurt. O Lord, he is
+to me, Thy servant, as the one ewe lamb; let him be Thine when Thou
+gatherest for Thy vineyard!”
+
+“And if a viper fasten on his hand--” David passed his hand across his
+forehead and closed his eyes. The beasts at Ephesus he had fought, and
+he would fight them again--there was fighting enough to do in the land
+of Egypt. And the viper would fasten on his hand--it had fastened on his
+hand, and he had struck it off; but it would come again, the dark thing
+against which he had fought in the desert.
+
+Their prayers had unnerved him, had got into that corner of his nature
+where youth and its irresponsibility loitered yet. For a moment he was
+shaken, and then, looking into the faces of the Elders, said: “Friends,
+I go again upon paths that lead into the wilderness. I know not if I
+ever shall return. Howsoe’er that may be, I shall walk with firmer step
+because of all ye do for me.”
+
+He closed his eyes and prayed: “O God, I go into the land of ancient
+plagues and present pestilence. If it be Thy will, bring me home to this
+good land, when my task is done. If not, by Thy goodness let me be as a
+stone set by the wayside for others who come after; and save me from the
+beast and from the viper. ‘Thou art faithful, who wilt not suffer us
+to be tempted above that we are able; but wilt with the temptation also
+make a way of escape, that we may be able to bear it!’”
+
+He sat down, and all grew silent again; but suddenly some one sobbed
+aloud-sobbed, and strove to stay the sobbing, and could not, and,
+getting up, hastened towards the door.
+
+It was Faith. David heard, and came quickly after her. As he took her
+arm gently, his eyes met those of Hylda. She rose and came out also.
+
+“Will thee take her home?” he said huskily. “I can bear no more.”
+
+Hylda placed her arm round Faith, and led her out under the trees and
+into the wood. As they went, Faith looked back.
+
+“Oh, forgive me, forgive me, Davy,” she said softly.
+
+Three lights burned in Hamley: one in the Red Mansion, one in the
+Cloistered House, and one in Soolsby’s hut upon the hill. In the Red
+Mansion old Luke Claridge, his face pale with feeling, his white
+hair tumbling about, his head thrust forward, his eyes shining, sat
+listening, as Faith read aloud letters which Benn Claridge had written
+from the East many years before. One letter, written from Bagdad, he
+made her read twice. The faded sheet had in it the glow and glamour of
+the East; it was like a heart beating with life; emotion rose and fell
+in it like the waves of the sea. Once the old man interrupted Faith.
+
+“Davy--it is as though Davy spoke. It is like Davy--both Claridge, both
+Claridge,” he said. “But is it not like Davy? Davy is doing what it was
+in Benn’s heart to do. Benn showed the way; Benn called, and Davy came.”
+
+He laid both hands upon his knees and raised his eyes. “O Lord, I have
+sought to do according to Thy will,” he whispered. He was thinking of a
+thing he had long hidden. Through many years he had no doubt, no qualm;
+but, since David had gone to Egypt, some spirit of unquiet had worked
+in him. He had acted against the prayer of his own wife, lying in her
+grave--a quiet-faced woman, who had never crossed him, who had never
+shown a note of passion in all her life, save in one thing concerning
+David. Upon it, like some prophetess, she had flamed out. With the
+insight which only women have where children are concerned, she had told
+him that he would live to repent of what he had done. She had died soon
+after, and was laid beside the deserted young mother, whose days had
+budded and blossomed, and fallen like petals to the ground, while yet it
+was the spring.
+
+Luke Claridge had understood neither, not his wife when she had said:
+“Thee should let the Lord do His own work, Luke,” nor his dying daughter
+Mercy, whose last words had been: “With love and sorrow I have sowed;
+he shall reap rejoicing--my babe. Thee will set him in the garden in the
+sun, where God may find him--God will not pass him by. He will take him
+by the hand and lead him home.” The old man had thought her touched by
+delirium then, though her words were but the parable of a mind fed by
+the poetry of life, by a shy spirit, to which meditation gave fancy and
+farseeing. David had come by his idealism honestly. The half-mystical
+spirit of his Uncle Benn had flowed on to another generation through
+the filter of a woman’s sad soul. It had come to David a pure force, a
+constructive and practical idealism.
+
+Now, as Faith read, there were ringing in the old man’s ears the words
+which David’s mother had said before she closed her eyes and passed
+away: “Set him in the garden in the sun, where God may find him--God
+will not pass him by.” They seemed to weave themselves into the
+symbolism of Benn Claridge’s letter, written from the hills of Bagdad.
+
+“But,” the letter continued, “the Governor passed by with his suite, the
+buckles of the harness of his horses all silver, his carriage shining
+with inlay of gold, his turban full of precious stones. When he had
+passed, I said to a shepherd standing by, ‘If thou hadst all his wealth,
+shepherd, what wouldst thou do?’ and he answered, ‘If I had his wealth,
+I would sit on the south side of my house in the sun all day and every
+day.’ To a messenger of the Palace, who must ever be ready night and day
+to run at his master’s order, I asked the same. He replied, ‘If I had
+all the Effendina’s wealth, I would sleep till I died.’ To a blind
+beggar, shaking the copper in his cup in the highways, pleading dumbly
+to those who passed, I made similar inquisition, and he replied ‘If the
+wealth of the exalted one were mine, I would sit on the mastaba by the
+bake-house, and eat three times a day, save at Ramadan, when I would
+bless Allah the compassionate and merciful, and breakfast at sunset with
+the flesh of a kid and a dish of dates.’ To a woman at the door of a
+tomb hung with relics of hundreds of poor souls in misery, who besought
+the buried saint to intercede for her with Allah, I made the same
+catechism, and she answered, ‘Oh, effendi, if his wealth were mine, I
+would give my son what he has lost.’ ‘What has he lost, woman?’ said
+I; and she answered: ‘A little house with a garden, and a flock of
+ten goats, a cow and a dovecote, his inheritance of which he has been
+despoiled by one who carried a false debt ‘gainst his dead father.’ And
+I said to her: ‘But if thy wealth were as that of the ruler of the city,
+thy son would have no need of the little house and garden and the flock
+of goats, and a cow and a dovecote.’ Whereupon she turned upon me in
+bitterness, and said: ‘Were they not his own as the seed of his father?
+Shall not one cherish that which is his own, which cometh from seed
+to seed? Is it not the law?’ ‘But,’ said I, ‘if his wealth were thine,
+there would be herds of cattle, and flocks of sheep, and carpets spread,
+and the banquet-tables, and great orchards.’ But she stubbornly shook
+her head. ‘Where the eagle built shall not the young eagle nest? How
+should God meet me in the way and bless him who stood not by his birth
+right? The plot of ground was the lad’s, and all that is thereon. I pray
+thee, mock me not.’ God knows I did not mock her, for her words were
+wisdom. So did it work upon me that, after many days, I got for the lad
+his own again, and there he is happier, and his mother happier, than the
+Governor in his palace. Later I did learn some truths from the shepherd,
+the messenger, and the beggar, and the woman with the child; but chiefly
+from the woman and the child. The material value has no relation to the
+value each sets upon that which is his own. Behind this feeling lies the
+strength of the world. Here on this hill of Bagdad I am thinking these
+things. And, Luke, I would have thee also think on my story of the woman
+and the child. There is in it a lesson for thee.”
+
+When Luke Claridge first read this letter years before, he had put
+it from him sternly. Now he heard it with a soft emotion. He took the
+letter from Faith at last and put it in his pocket. With no apparent
+relevancy, and laying his hand on Faith’s shoulder, he said:
+
+“We have done according to our conscience by Davy--God is our witness,
+so!”
+
+She leaned her cheek against his hand, but did not speak.
+
+In Soolsby’s hut upon the hill David sat talking to the old chair-maker.
+Since his return he had visited the place several times, only to find
+Soolsby absent. The old man, on awaking from his drunken sleep, had been
+visited by a terrible remorse, and, whenever he had seen David coming,
+had fled into the woods. This evening, however, David came in the dark,
+and Soolsby was caught.
+
+When David entered first, the old man broke down. He could not speak,
+but leaned upon the back of a chair, and though his lips moved, no sound
+came forth. But David took him by the shoulders and set him down, and
+laughed gently in his face, and at last Soolsby got voice and said:
+
+“Egyptian! O Egyptian!”
+
+Then his tongue was loosened and his eye glistened, and he poured out
+question after question, many pertinent, some whimsical, all frankly
+answered by David. But suddenly he stopped short, and his eyes sank
+before the other, who had laid a hand upon his knee.
+
+“But don’t, Egyptian, don’t! Don’t have aught to do with me. I’m only a
+drunken swine. I kept sober four years, as she knows--as the Angel down
+yonder in the Red Mansion knows; but the day you came, going out to meet
+you, I got drunk--blind drunk. I had only been pretending all the time.
+I was being coaxed along--made believe I was a real man, I suppose.
+But I wasn’t. I was a pillar of sand. When pressure came I just broke
+down--broke down, Egyptian. Don’t be surprised if you hear me grunt.
+It’s my natural speech. I’m a hog, a drink-swilling hog. I wasn’t decent
+enough to stay sober till you had said ‘Good day,’ and ‘How goes it,
+Soolsby?’ I tried it on; it was no good. I began to live like a man, but
+I’ve slipped back into the ditch. You didn’t know that, did you?”
+
+David let him have his say, and then in a low voice said: “Yes, I
+knew thee had been drinking, Soolsby.” He started. “She told you--Kate
+Heaver--”
+
+“She did not tell me. I came and found you here with her. You were
+asleep.”
+
+“A drunken sweep!” He spat upon the ground in disgust at himself.
+
+“I ought never have comeback here,” he added. “It was no place for me.
+But it drew me. I didn’t belong; but it drew me.”
+
+“Thee belongs to Hamley. Thee is an honour to Hamley, Soolsby.”
+
+Soolsby’s eyes widened; the blurred look of rage and self-reproach in
+them began to fade away.
+
+“Thee has made a fight, Soolsby, to conquer a thing that has had thee by
+the throat. There’s no fighting like it. It means a watching every hour,
+every minute--thee can never take the eye off it. Some days it’s easy,
+some days it’s hard, but it’s never so easy that you can say, ‘There is
+no need to watch.’ In sleep it whispers and wakes you; in the morning,
+when there are no shadows, it casts a shadow on the path. It comes
+between you and your work; you see it looking out of the eyes of a
+friend. And one day, when you think it has been conquered, that you have
+worn it down into oblivion and the dust, and you close your eyes and
+say, ‘I am master,’ up it springs with fury from nowhere you can see,
+and catches you by the throat; and the fight begins again. But you sit
+stronger, and the fight becomes shorter; and after many battles, and
+you have learned never to be off guard, to know by instinct where every
+ambush is, then at last the victory is yours. It is hard, it is bitter,
+and sometimes it seems hardly worth the struggle. But it is--it is worth
+the struggle, dear old man.”
+
+Soolsby dropped on his knees and caught David by the arms. “How did you
+know-how did you know?” he asked hoarsely. “It’s been just as you say.
+You’ve watched some one fighting?”
+
+“I have watched some one fighting--fighting,” answered David clearly,
+but his eyes were moist.
+
+“With drink, the same as me?”
+
+“No, with opium--laudanum.”
+
+“Oh, I’ve heard that’s worse, that it makes you mad, the wanting it.”
+
+“I have seen it so.”
+
+“Did the man break down like me?”
+
+“Only once, but the fight is not yet over with him.”
+
+“Was he--an Englishman?”
+
+David inclined his head. “It’s a great thing to have a temptation to
+fight, Soolsby. Then we can understand others.”
+
+“It’s not always true, Egyptian, for you have never had temptation to
+fight. Yet you know it all.”
+
+“God has been good to me,” David answered, putting a hand on the old
+man’s shoulder. “And thee is a credit to Hamley, friend. Thee will never
+fall again.”
+
+“You know that--you say that to me! Then, by Mary the mother of God, I
+never will be a swine again,” he said, getting to his feet.
+
+“Well, good-bye, Soolsby. I go to-morrow,” David said presently.
+
+Soolsby frowned; his lips worked. “When will you come back?” he asked
+eagerly.
+
+David smiled. “There is so much to do, they may not let me come--not
+soon. I am going into the desert again.”
+
+Soolsby was shaking. He spoke huskily. “Here is your place,” he said.
+“You shall come back--Oh, but you shall come back, here, where you
+belong.”
+
+David shook his head and smiled, and clasped the strong hand again. A
+moment later he was gone. From the door of the but Soolsby muttered to
+himself:
+
+“I will bring you back. If Luke Claridge doesn’t, then I will bring you
+back. If he dies, I will bring you--no, by the love of God, I will bring
+you back while he lives!”
+
+       ...........................
+
+Two thousand miles away, in a Nile village, women sat wailing in dark
+doorways, dust on their heads, black mantles covering their faces. By
+the pond where all the people drank, performed their ablutions, bathed
+their bodies and rinsed their mouths, sat the sheikh-el-beled, the
+village chief, taking counsel in sorrow with the barber, the holy man,
+and others. Now speaking, now rocking their bodies to and fro, in the
+evening sunlight, they sat and watched the Nile in flood covering the
+wide wastes of the Fayoum, spreading over the land rich deposits of
+earth from the mountains of Abyssinia. When that flood subsided there
+would be fields to be planted with dourha and onions and sugar-cane; but
+they whose strong arms should plough and sow and wield the sickle, the
+youth, the upstanding ones, had been carried off in chains to serve in
+the army of Egypt, destined for the far Soudan, for hardship, misery,
+and death, never to see their kindred any more. Twice during three
+months had the dread servant of the Palace come and driven off
+their best like sheep to the slaughter. The brave, the stalwart, the
+bread-winners, were gone; and yet the tax-gatherer would come and press
+for every impost--on the onion-field, the date-palm, the dourha-field,
+and the clump of sugar-cane, as though the young men, the toilers,
+were still there. The old and infirm, the children, the women, must now
+double and treble their labour. The old men must go to the corvee, and
+mend the banks of the Nile for the Prince and his pashas, providing
+their own food, their own tools, their own housing, if housing there
+would be--if it was more than sleeping under a bush by the riverside, or
+crawling into a hole in the ground, their yeleks their clothes by day,
+their only covering at night.
+
+They sat like men without hope, yet with the proud, bitter mien of
+those who had known good and had lost it, had seen content and now were
+desolate.
+
+Presently one--a lad--the youngest of them, lifted up his voice and
+began to chant a recitative, while another took a small drum and beat
+it in unison. He was but just recovered from an illness, or he had gone
+also in chains to die for he knew not what, leaving behind without hope
+all that he loved:
+
+     “How has the cloud fallen, and the leaf withered on the tree,
+     The lemon-tree, that standeth by the door.
+     The melon and the date have gone bitter to the taste,
+     The weevil, it has eaten at the core
+     The core of my heart, the mildew findeth it.
+     My music, it is but the drip of tears,
+     The garner empty standeth, the oven hath no fire,
+     Night filleth me with fears.
+     O Nile that floweth deeply, hast thou not heard his voice?
+     His footsteps hast thou covered with thy flood?
+     He was as one who lifteth up the yoke,
+     He was as one who taketh off the chain,
+     As one who sheltereth from the rain,
+     As one who scattereth bread to the pigeons flying.
+     His purse was at his side, his mantle was for me,
+     For any who passeth were his mantle and his purse,
+     And now like a gourd is he withered from our eyes.
+     His friendship, it was like a shady wood
+     Whither has he gone?--Who shall speak for us?
+     Who shall save us from the kourbash and the stripes?
+     Who shall proclaim us in the palace?
+     Who shall contend for us in the gate?
+     The sakkia turneth no more; the oxen they are gone;
+     The young go forth in chains, the old waken in the night,
+     They waken and weep, for the wheel turns backward,
+     And the dark days are come again upon us--
+     Will he return no more?
+     His friendship was like a shady wood,
+     O Nile that floweth deeply, hast thou not heard his voice?
+     Hast thou covered up his footsteps with thy flood?
+     The core of my heart, the mildew findeth it!”
+
+Another-an old man-took up the strain, as the drum kept time to the beat
+of the voice with its undulating call and refrain:
+
+“When his footsteps were among us there was peace; War entered not the
+village, nor the call of war. Now our homes are as those that have
+no roofs. As a nest decayed, as a cave forsaken, As a ship that lieth
+broken on the beach, Is the house where we were born. Out in the desert
+did we bury our gold, We buried it where no man robbed us, for his arm
+was strong. Now are the jars empty, gold did not avail To save our young
+men, to keep them from the chains. God hath swallowed his voice, or the
+sea hath drowned it, Or the Nile hath covered him with its flood; Else
+would he come when our voices call. His word was honey in the prince’s
+ear Will he return no more?”
+
+And now the sheikh-el-beled spoke. “It hath been so since Nahoum Pasha
+passed this way four months agone. He hath changed all. War will not
+avail. David Pasha, he will come again. His word is as the centre of
+the world. Ye have no hope, because ye see the hawks among the starving
+sheep. But the shepherd will return from behind the hill, and the hawks
+will flee away.
+
+“... Behold, once was I in the desert. Listen, for mine are the words
+of one who hath travelled far--was I not at Damascus and Palmyra and
+Bagdad, and at Medina by the tomb of Mahomet?”
+
+Reverently he touched the green turban on his head, evidence of his
+journey to Mahomet’s tomb. “Once in the desert I saw afar off an oasis
+of wood and water, and flying things, and houses where a man might rest.
+And I got me down from my camel, and knelt upon my sheepskin, and gave
+thanks in the name of Allah. Thereupon I mounted again and rode on
+towards that goodly place. But as I rode it vanished from my sight. Then
+did I mourn. Yet once again I saw the trees, and flocks of pigeons and
+waving fields, and I was hungry and thirsty, and longed exceedingly. Yet
+got I down, and, upon my sheep-skin, once more gave thanks to Allah. And
+I mounted thereafter in haste and rode on; but once again was I mocked.
+Then I cried aloud in my despair. It was in my heart to die upon the
+sheep-skin where I had prayed; for I was burned up within, and there
+seemed naught to do but say malaish, and go hence. But that goodly sight
+came again. My heart rebelled that I should be so mocked. I bent down
+my head upon my camel that I might not see, yet once more I loosed the
+sheep-skin. Lifting up my heart, I looked again, and again I took hope
+and rode on. Farther and farther I rode, and lo! I was no longer mocked;
+for I came to a goodly place of water and trees, and was saved. So shall
+it be with us. We have looked for his coming again, and our hearts
+have fallen and been as ashes, for that he has not come. Yet there be
+mirages, and one day soon David Pasha will come hither, and our pains
+shall be eased.”
+
+“Aiwa, aiwa--yes, yes,” cried the lad who had sung to them.
+
+“Aiwa, aiwa,” rang softly over the pond, where naked children stooped to
+drink.
+
+The smell of the cooking-pots floated out from the mud-houses near by.
+
+“Malaish,” said one after another, “I am hungry. He will come
+again-perhaps to-morrow.” So they moved towards the houses over the way.
+
+One cursed his woman for wailing in the doorway; one snatched the lid
+from a cooking-pot; one drew from an oven cakes of dourha, and gave them
+to those who had none; one knelt and bowed his forehead to the ground in
+prayer; one shouted the name of him whose coming they desired.
+
+So was David missed in Egypt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. THE TENTS OF CUSHAN
+
+     “I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction, and the curtains
+     of the Land of Midian did tremble.”
+
+A Hurdy-Gurdy was standing at the corner, playing with shrill insistence
+a medley of Scottish airs. Now “Loch Lomond” pleaded for pennies from
+the upper windows:
+
+       “For you’ll tak’ the high road,
+        and I’ll tak’ the low road,
+        And I’ll be in Scotland before ye:
+        But I and my true love will never meet again,
+        On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond!”
+
+The hurdy-gurdy was strident and insistent, but for a long time no
+response came. At last, however, as the strains of “Loch Lomond” ceased,
+a lady appeared on the balcony of a drawing-room, and, leaning over a
+little forest of flowers and plants, threw a half-crown to the sorry
+street-musician. She watched the grotesque thing trundle away, then
+entering the house again, took a ‘cello from the corner of the room and
+tuned the instrument tenderly. It was Hylda.
+
+Something of the peace of Hamley had followed her to London, but the
+poignant pain of it had come also. Like Melisande, she had looked into
+the quiet pool of life and had seen her own face, its story and its
+foreshadowings. Since then she had been “apart.” She had watched life
+move on rather than shared in its movement. Things stood still for her.
+That apathy of soul was upon her which follows the inward struggle
+that exhausts the throb and fret of inward emotions, leaving the mind
+dominant, the will in abeyance.
+
+She had become conscious that her fate and future were suspended over
+a chasm, as, on the trapeze of a balloon, an adventurous aeronaut hangs
+uncertain over the hungry sea, waiting for the coming wind which will
+either blow the hazardous vessel to its doom or to safe refuge on the
+land.
+
+She had not seen David after he left Hamley. Their last words had been
+spoken at the Meeting-house, when he gave Faith to her care. That scene
+came back to her now, and a flush crept slowly over her face and faded
+away again. She was recalling, too, the afternoon of that day when she
+and David had parted in the drawing-room of the Cloistered House, and
+Eglington had asked her to sing. She thought of the hours with Eglington
+that followed, first at the piano and afterwards in the laboratory,
+where in his long blue smock he made experiments. Had she not been
+conscious of something enigmatical in his gaiety that afternoon, in his
+cheerful yet cheerless words, she would have been deeply impressed by
+his appreciation of her playing, and his keen reflections on the merits
+of the composers; by his still keener attention to his subsequent
+experiments, and his amusing comments upon them. But, somehow, that very
+cheerless cheerfulness seemed to proclaim him superficial. Though she
+had no knowledge of science, she instinctively doubted his earnestness
+even in this work, which certainly was not pursued for effect. She
+had put the feeling from her, but it kept returning. She felt that
+in nothing did he touch the depths. Nothing could possess him wholly;
+nothing inherent could make him self-effacing.
+
+Yet she wondered, too, if she was right, when she saw his fox-terrier
+watching him, ever watching him with his big brown eyes as he buoyantly
+worked, and saw him stoop to pat its head. Or was this, after all, mere
+animalism, mere superficial vitality, love of health and being? She
+shuddered, and shut her eyes, for it came home to her that to him she
+was just such a being of health, vitality and comeliness, on a little
+higher plane. She put the thought from her, but it had had its birth,
+and it would not down. He had immense vitality, he was tireless, and
+abundant in work and industry; he went from one thing to another with
+ease and swiftly changing eagerness. Was it all mere force--mere man and
+mind? Was there no soul behind it? There in the laboratory she had
+laid her hand on the terrier, and prayed in her heart that she might
+understand him for her own good, her own happiness, and his. Above all
+else she wanted to love him truly, and to be loved truly, and duty was
+to her a daily sacrifice, a constant memorial. She realised to the full
+that there lay before her a long race unilluminated by the sacred lamp
+which, lighted at the altar, should still be burning beside the grave.
+
+Now, as she thought of him, she kept saying to herself: “We should have
+worked out his life together. Work together would have brought peace. He
+shuts me out--he shuts me out.”
+
+At last she drew the bow across the instrument, once, twice, and then
+she began to play, forgetful of the world. She had a contralto voice,
+and she sang with a depth of feeling and a delicate form worthy of a
+professional; on the piano she was effective and charming, but into the
+‘cello she poured her soul.
+
+For quite an hour she played with scarce an interruption. At last, with
+a sigh, she laid the instrument against her knee and gazed out of the
+window. As she sat lost in her dream--a dream of the desert--a servant
+entered with letters. One caught her eye. It was from Egypt--from
+her cousin Lacey. Her heart throbbed violently, yet she opened the
+official-looking envelope with steady fingers. She would not admit even
+to her self that news from the desert could move her so. She began to
+read slowly, but presently, with a little cry, she hastened through the
+pages. It ran:
+
+                       THE SOUDAN.
+
+   DEAR LADY COUSIN,
+
+   I’m still not certain how I ought to style you, but I thought I’d
+   compromise as per above. Anyway, it’s a sure thing that I haven’t
+   bothered you much with country-cousin letters. I figure, however,
+   that you’ve put some money in Egypt, so to speak, and what happens
+   to this sandy-eyed foundling of the Nile you would like to know. So
+   I’ve studied the only “complete letter-writer” I could find between
+   the tropic of Capricorn and Khartoum, and this is the contemptible
+   result, as the dagos in Mexico say. This is a hot place by reason
+   of the sun that shines above us, and likewise it is hot because of
+   the niggers that swarm around us. I figure, if we get out of this
+   portion of the African continent inside our skins, that we will have
+   put up a pretty good bluff, and pulled off a ticklish proposition.
+
+   It’s a sort of early Christian business. You see, David the Saadat
+   is great on moral suasion--he’s a master of it; and he’s never
+   failed yet--not altogether; though there have been minutes by a
+   stop-watch when I’ve thought it wouldn’t stand the strain. Like the
+   Mississippi steamboat which was so weak that when the whistle blew
+   the engines stopped! When those frozen minutes have come to us,
+   I’ve tried to remember the correct religious etiquette, but I’ve not
+   had much practise since I stayed with Aunt Melissa, and lived on
+   skim-milk and early piety. When things were looking as bad as they
+   did for Dives, “Now I lay me down to sleep,” and “For what we are
+   about to receive,” was all that I could think of. But the Saadat,
+   he’s a wonder from Wondertown. With a little stick, or maybe his
+   flute under his arm, he’ll smile and string these heathen along,
+   when you’d think they weren’t waiting for anybody. A spear took off
+   his fez yesterday. He never blinked--he’s a jim-dandy at keeping
+   cool; and when a hundred mounted heathens made a rush down on him
+   the other day, spears sticking out like quills on a porcupine--2.5
+   on the shell-road the chargers were going--did he stir? Say, he
+   watched ‘em as if they were playing for his benefit. And sure
+   enough, he was right. They parted either side of him when they were
+   ten feet away, and there he was quite safe, a blessing in the storm,
+   a little rock island in the rapids--but I couldn’t remember a proper
+   hymn of praise to say.
+
+   There’s no getting away from the fact that he’s got a will or
+   something, a sort of force different from most of us, or perhaps any
+   of us. These heathen feel it, and keep their hands off him. They
+   say he’s mad, but they’ve got great respect for mad people, for they
+   think that God has got their souls above with Him, and that what’s
+   left behind on earth is sacred. He talks to’em, too, like a father
+   in Israel; tells ‘em they must stop buying and selling slaves, and
+   that if they don’t he will have to punish them! And I sit holding
+   my sides, for we’re only two white men and forty “friendlies”
+    altogether, and two revolvers among us; and I’ve got the two! And
+   they listen to his blarneying, and say, “Aiwa, Saadat! aiwa,
+   Saadat!” as if he had an army of fifty thousand behind him.
+   Sometimes I’ve sort of hinted that his canoe was carrying a lot of
+   sail; but my! he believes in it all as if there wasn’t a spear or a
+   battle-axe or a rifle within a hundred miles of him. We’ve been at
+   this for two months now, and a lot of ground we covered till we got
+   here. I’ve ridden the gentle camel at the rate of sixty and seventy
+   miles a day--sort of sweeping through the land, making treaties,
+   giving presents, freeing slaves, appointing governors and sheikhs-
+   el-beled, doing it as if we owned the continent. He mesmerised ‘em,
+   simply mesmerised ‘em-till we got here. I don’t know what happened
+   then. Now we’re distinctly rating low, the laugh is on us somehow.
+   But he--mind it? He goes about talking to the sheikhs as though we
+   were all eating off the same corn-cob, and it seems to stupefy them;
+   they don’t grasp it. He goes on arranging for a post here and a
+   station there, and it never occurs to him that it ain’t really
+   actual. He doesn’t tell me, and I don’t ask him, for I came along
+   to wipe his stirrups, so to speak. I put my money on him, and I’m
+   not going to worry him. He’s so dead certain in what he does, and
+   what he is, that I don’t lose any sleep guessing about him. It will
+   be funny if we do win out on this proposition--funnier than
+   anything.
+
+   Now, there’s one curious thing about it all which ought to be
+   whispered, for I’m only guessing, and I’m not a good guesser; I
+   guessed too much in Mexico about three railways and two silvermines.
+   The first two days after we came here, everything was all right.
+   Then there came an Egyptian, Halim Bey, with a handful of niggers
+   from Cairo, and letters for Claridge Pasha.
+
+   From that minute there was trouble. I figure it out this way: Halim
+   was sent by Nahoum Pasha to bring letters that said one thing to the
+   Saadat, and, when quite convenient, to say other things to Mustafa,
+   the boss-sheikh of this settlement. Halim Bey has gone again, but
+   he has left his tale behind him. I’d stake all I lost, and more
+   than I ever expect to get out of Mexico on that, and maybe I’ll get
+   a hatful out of Mexico yet. I had some good mining propositions
+   down there. The Saadat believes in Nahoum, and has made Nahoum what
+   he is; and on the surface Nahoum pretends to help him; but he is
+   running underground all the time. I’d like to help give him a villa
+   at Fazougli. When the Saadat was in England there was a bad time in
+   Egypt. I was in Cairo; I know. It was the same bad old game--the
+   corvee, the kourbash, conscription, a war manufactured to fill the
+   pockets of a few, while the poor starved and died. It didn’t come
+   off, because the Saadat wasn’t gone long enough, and he stopped it
+   when he came back. But Nahoumhe laid the blame on others, and the
+   Saadat took his word for it, and, instead of a war, there came this
+   expedition of his own.
+
+   Ten days later.--Things have happened. First, there’s been awful
+   sickness among the natives, and the Saadat has had his chance. His
+   medicine-chest was loaded, he had a special camel for it--and he has
+   fired it off. Night and day he has worked, never resting, never
+   sleeping, curing most, burying a few. He looks like a ghost now,
+   but it’s no use saying or doing anything. He says: “Sink your own
+   will; let it be subject to a higher, and you need take no thought.”
+    It’s eating away his life and strength, but it has given us our
+   return tickets, I guess. They hang about him as if he was Moses in
+   the wilderness smiting the rock. It’s his luck. Just when I get
+   scared to death, and run down and want a tonic, and it looks as if
+   there’d be no need to put out next week’s washing, then his luck
+   steps in, and we get another run. But it takes a heap out of a man,
+   getting scared. Whenever I look on a lot of green trees and cattle
+   and horses, and the sun, to say nothing of women and children, and
+   listen to music, or feel a horse eating up the ground under me, 2.10
+   in the sand, I hate to think of leaving it, and I try to prevent it.
+   Besides, I don’t like the proposition of going, I don’t know where.
+   That’s why I get seared. But he says that it’s no more than turning
+   down the light and turning it up again. They used to call me a
+   dreamer in Mexico, because I kept seeing things that no one else had
+   thought of, and laid out railways and tapped mines for the future;
+   but I was nothing to him. I’m a high-and-dry hedge-clipper
+   alongside. I’m betting on him all the time; but no one seems to be
+   working to make his dreams come true, except himself. I don’t
+   count; I’m no good, no real good. I’m only fit to run the
+   commissariat, and see that he gets enough to eat, and has a safe
+   camel, and so on.
+
+   Why doesn’t some one else help him? He’s working for humanity.
+   Give him half a chance, and Haroun-al-Raschid won’t be in it. Kaid
+   trusts him, depends on him, stands by him, but doesn’t seem to know
+   how to help him when help would do most good. The Saadat does it
+   all himself; and if it wasn’t that the poor devil of a fellah sees
+   what he’s doing, and cottons to him, and the dervishes and Arabs
+   feel he’s right, he might as well leave. But it’s just there he
+   counts. There’s something about him, something that’s Quaker in
+   him, primitive, silent, and perceptive--if that’s a real word--which
+   makes them feel that he’s honest, and isn’t after anything for
+   himself. Arabs don’t talk much; they make each other understand
+   without many words. They think with all their might on one thing at
+   a time, and they think things into happening--and so does he. He’s
+   a thousand years old, which is about as old-fashioned as I mean, and
+   as wise, and as plain to read as though you’d write the letters of
+   words as big as a date-palm. That’s where he makes the running with
+   them, and they can read their title clear to mansions in the skies!
+
+   You should hear him talk with Ebn Ezra Bey--perhaps you don’t know
+   of Ezra? He was a friend of his Uncle Benn, and brought the news of
+   his massacre to England, and came back with the Saadat. Well, three
+   days ago Ebn Ezra came, and there came with him, too, Halim Bey, the
+   Egyptian, who had brought the letters to us from Cairo. Elm Ezra
+   found him down the river deserted by his niggers, and sick with this
+   new sort of fever, which the Saadat is knocking out of time. And
+   there he lies, the Saadat caring for him as though he was his
+   brother. But that’s his way; though, now I come to think of it, the
+   Saadat doesn’t suspect what I suspect, that Halim Bey brought word
+   from Nahoum to our sheikhs here to keep us here, or lose us, or do
+   away with us. Old Ebn Ezra doesn’t say much himself, doesn’t say
+   anything about that; but he’s guessing the same as me. And the
+   Saadat looks as though he was ready for his grave, but keeps going,
+   going, going. He never seems to sleep. What keeps him alive I
+   don’t know. Sometimes I feel clean knocked out myself with the
+   little I do, but he’s a travelling hospital all by his lonesome.
+
+   Later.--I had to stop writing, for things have been going on--
+   several. I can see that Ebn Ezra has told the Saadat things that
+   make him want to get away to Cairo as soon as possible. That it’s
+   Nahoum Pasha and others--oh, plenty of others, of course--I’m
+   certain; but what the particular game is I don’t know. Perhaps you
+   know over in England, for you’re nearer Cairo than we are by a few
+   miles, and you’ve got the telegraph. Perhaps there’s a revolution,
+   perhaps there’s been a massacre of Europeans, perhaps Turkey is
+   kicking up a dust, perhaps Europe is interfering--all of it, all at
+   once.
+
+   Later still.--I’ve found out it’s a little of all, and the Saadat is
+   ready to go. I guess he can go now pretty soon, for the worst of
+   the fever is over. But something has happened that’s upset him--
+   knocked him stony for a minute. Halim Bey was killed last night--by
+   order of the sheikhs, I’m told; but the sheikhs won’t give it away.
+   When the Saadat went to them, his eyes blazing, his face pale as a
+   sheet, and as good as swore at them, and treated them as though he’d
+   string them up the next minute, they only put their hands on their
+   heads, and said they were “the fallen leaves for his foot to
+   scatter,” the “snow on the hill for his breath to melt”; but they
+   wouldn’t give him any satisfaction. So he came back and shut
+   himself up in his tent, and he sits there like a ghost all
+   shrivelled up for want of sleep, and his eyes like a lime-kiln
+   burning; for now he knows this at least, that Halim Bey had brought
+   some word from Kaid’s Palace that set these Arabs against him, and
+   nearly stopped my correspondence. You see, there’s a widow in
+   Cairo--she’s a sister of the American consul, and I’ve promised to
+   take her with a party camping in the Fayoum--cute as she can be, and
+   plays the guitar. But it’s all right now, except that the Saadat is
+   running too close and fine. If he has any real friends in England
+   among the Government people, or among those who can make the
+   Government people sit up, and think what’s coming to Egypt and to
+   him, they’ll help him now when he needs it. He’ll need help real
+   bad when he gets back to Cairo--if we get that far. It isn’t yet a
+   sure thing, for we’ve got to fight in the next day or two--I forgot
+   to tell you that sooner. There’s a bull-Arab on the rampage with
+   five thousand men, and he’s got a claim out on our sheikh, Mustafa,
+   for ivory he has here, and there’s going to be a scrimmage. We’ve
+   got to make for a better position to-morrow, and meet Abdullah, the
+   bull-Arab, further down the river. That’s one reason why Mustafa
+   and all our friends here are so sweet on us now. They look on the
+   Saadat as a kind of mascot, and they think that he can wipe out the
+   enemy with his flute, which they believe is a witch-stick to work
+   wonders.
+
+   He’s just sent for me to come, and I must stop soon. Say, he hasn’t
+   had sleep for a fortnight. It’s too much; he can’t stand it. I
+   tried it, and couldn’t. It wore me down. He’s killing himself for
+   others. I can’t manage him; but I guess you could. I apologise,
+   dear Lady Cousin. I’m only a hayseed, and a failure, but I guess
+   you’ll understand that I haven’t thought only of myself as I wrote
+   this letter. The higher you go in life the more you’ll understand;
+   that’s your nature. I’ll get this letter off by a nigger to-morrow,
+   with those the Saadat is sending through to Cairo by some
+   friendlies. It’s only a chance; but everything’s chance here now.
+   Anyhow, it’s safer than leaving it till the scrimmage. If you get
+   this, won’t you try and make the British Government stand by the
+   Saadat? Your husband, the lord, could pull it off, if he tried; and
+   if you ask him, I guess he’d try. I must be off now. David Pasha
+   will be waiting. Well, give my love to the girls!
+
+        Your affectionate cousin,
+
+                    TOM LACEY.
+
+   P. S.--I’ve got a first-class camel for our scrimmage day after
+   to-morrow. Mustafa sent it to me this morning. I had a fight on
+   mules once, down at Oaxaca, but that was child’s play. This will be
+   “slaughter in the pan,” if the Saadat doesn’t stop it somehow.
+   Perhaps he will. If I wasn’t so scared I’d wish he couldn’t stop
+   it, for it will be a way-up Barbarian scrap, the tongs and the
+   kettle, a bully panjandrum. It gets mighty dull in the desert when
+   you’re not moving. But “it makes to think,” as the French say.
+   Since I came out here I’ve had several real centre thoughts, sort of
+   main principles-key-thoughts, that’s it. What I want now is a sort
+   of safety-ring to string ‘em on and keep ‘em safe; for I haven’t a
+   good memory, and I get mighty rattled sometimes. Thoughts like
+   these are like the secret of a combination lock; they let you into
+   the place where the gold and securities and title-deeds of life are.
+   Trouble is, I haven’t got a safety-ring, and I’m certain to lose
+   them. I haven’t got what you’d call an intellectual memory. Things
+   come in flashes to me out of experiences, and pull me up short, and
+   I say, “Yes, that’s it--that’s it; I understand.” I see why it’s
+   so, and what it means, and where it leads, and how far it spreads.
+   It’s five thousand years old. Adam thought it after Cain killed
+   Abel, or Abel thought it just before he died, or Eve learned it from
+   Lilith, or it struck Abraham when he went to sacrifice Isaac.
+   Sometimes things hit me deep like that here in the desert. Then I
+   feel I can see just over on the horizon the tents of Moab in the
+   wilderness; that yesterday and to-day are the same; that I’ve
+   crossed the prairies of the everlasting years, and am playing about
+   with Ishmael in the wild hills, or fighting with Ahab. Then the
+   world and time seem pretty small potatoes.
+
+   You see how it is. I never was trained to think, and I get stunned
+   by thoughts that strike me as being dug right out of the centre.
+   Sometimes I’d like to write them down; but I can’t write; I can only
+   talk as I’m talking to you. If you weren’t so high up, and so much
+   cleverer than I am, and such a thinker, I’d like you to be my
+   safety-ring, if you would. I could tell the key-thoughts to you
+   when they came to me, before I forgot them with all their bearings;
+   and by-and-by they’d do me a lot of good when I got away from this
+   influence, and back into the machinery of the Western world again.
+   If you could come out here, if you could feel what I feel here--and
+   you would feel a thousand times as much--I don’t know what you
+   wouldn’t do.
+
+   It’s pretty wonderful. The nights with the stars so white and
+   glittering, and so near that you’d think you could reach up and hand
+   them down; the dark, deep, blue beyond; such a width of life all
+   round you, a sort of never-ending space, that everything you ever
+   saw or did seems little, and God so great in a kind of hovering
+   sense like a pair of wings; and all the secrets of time coming out
+   of it all, and sort of touching your face like a velvet wind. I
+   expect you’ll think me sentimental, a first-class squash out of the
+   pumpkin-garden; but it’s in the desert, and it gets into you and
+   saturates you, till you feel that this is a kind of middle space
+   between the world of cities, and factories, and railways, and
+   tenement-houses, and the quiet world to come--a place where they
+   think out things for the benefit of future generations, and convey
+   them through incarnations, or through the desert. Say, your
+   ladyship, I’m a chatterer, I’m a two-cent philosopher, I’m a baby;
+   but you are too much like your grandmother, who was the daughter of
+   a Quaker like David Pasha, to laugh at me.
+
+   I’ve got a suit of fine chain-armour which I bought of an Arab down
+   by Darfur. I’m wondering if it would be too cowardly to wear it in
+   the scrap that’s coming. I don’t know, though, but what I’ll wear
+   it, I get so scared. But it will be a frightful hot thing under my
+   clothes, and it’s hot enough without that, so I’m not sure. It
+   depends how much my teeth chatter when I see “the dawn of battle.”
+
+   I’ve got one more thing before I stop. I’m going to send you a
+   piece of poetry which the Saadat wrote, and tore in two, and threw
+   away. He was working off his imagination, I guess, as you have to
+   do out here. I collected it and copied it, and put in the
+   punctuation--he didn’t bother about that. Perhaps he can’t
+   punctuate. I don’t understand quite what the poetry means, but
+   maybe you will. Anyway, you’ll see that it’s a real desert piece.
+   Here it is:
+
+             “THE DESERT ROAD
+
+       “In the sands I lived in a hut of palm,
+        There was never a garden to see;
+        There was never a path through the desert calm,
+        Nor a way through its storms for me.
+
+       “Tenant was I of a lone domain;
+        The far pale caravans wound
+        To the rim of the sky, and vanished again;
+        My call in the waste was drowned.
+
+       “The vultures came and hovered and fled;
+        And once there stole to my door
+        A white gazelle, but its eyes were dread
+        With the hurt of the wounds it bore.
+
+       “It passed in the dusk with a foot of fear,
+        And the white cold mists rolled in;
+
+        “And my heart was the heart of a stricken deer,
+        Of a soul in the snare of sin.
+
+       “My days they withered like rootless things,
+        And the sands rolled on, rolled wide;
+        Like a pelican I, with broken wings,
+        Like a drifting barque on the tide.
+
+       “But at last, in the light of a rose-red day,
+        In the windless glow of the morn,
+        From over the hills and from far away,
+        You came--ah, the joy of the morn!
+
+       “And wherever your footsteps fell, there crept
+        A path--it was fair and wide:
+        A desert road which no sands have swept,
+        Where never a hope has died.
+
+       “I followed you forth, and your beauty held
+        My heart like an ancient song;
+        By that desert road to the blossoming plains
+        I came-and the way was long!
+
+       “So I set my course by the light of your eyes;
+        I care not what fate may send;
+        On the road I tread shine the love-starred skies--
+        The road with never an end.”
+
+   Not many men can do things like that, and the other things, too,
+   that he does. Perhaps he will win through, by himself, but is it
+   fair to have him run the risk? If he ever did you a good turn, as
+   you once said to me he did, won’t you help him now? You are on the
+   inside of political things, and if you make up your mind to help,
+   nothing will stop you--that was your grandmother’s way. He ought to
+   get his backing pretty soon, or it won’t be any good.... I
+   hear him at his flute. I expect he’s tired waiting for me. Well,
+   give my love to the girls!
+                         T. L.
+
+As Hylda read, she passed through phases of feeling begotten of new
+understanding which shook her composure. She had seen David and all that
+David was doing; Egypt, and all that was threatening the land through
+the eyes of another who told the whole truth--except about his own
+cowardice, which was untrue. She felt the issues at stake. While the
+mention of David’s personal danger left her sick for a moment, she saw
+the wider peril also to the work he had set out to do.
+
+What was the thing without the man? It could not exist--it had no
+meaning. Where was he now? What had been the end of the battle? He
+had saved others, had he saved himself? The most charmed life must be
+pierced by the shaft of doom sooner or later; but he was little more
+than a youth yet, he had only just begun!
+
+“And the Saadat looks as though he was ready for his grave--but keeps
+going, going, going!” The words kept ringing in her ears. Again: “And
+he sits there like a ghost all shrivelled up for want of sleep, and
+his eyes like a lime-kiln burning.... He hasn’t had sleep for a
+fortnight.... He’s killing himself for others.”
+
+Her own eyes were shining with a dry, hot light, her lips were
+quivering, but her hands upon the letter were steady and firm. What
+could she do?
+
+She went to a table, picked up the papers, and scanned them hurriedly.
+Not a word about Egypt. She thought for a moment, then left the
+drawing-room. Passing up a flight of stairs to her husband’s study, she
+knocked and entered. It was empty; but Eglington was in the house, for a
+red despatch-box lay open on his table. Instinctively she glanced at the
+papers exposed in the box, and at the letters beside it. The document
+on the top of the pile in the box related to Cyprus--the name caught her
+eye. Another document was half-exposed beneath it. Her hand went to her
+heart. She saw the words, “Soudan” and “Claridge Pasha.” She reached for
+it, then drew back her hand, and her eyes closed as though to shut it
+out from her sight. Why should she not see it? They were her husband’s
+papers, husband and wife were one. Husband and wife one! She shrank
+back. Were they one? An overmastering desire was on her. It seemed
+terrible to wait, when here before her was news of David, of life or
+death. Suddenly she put out her hand and drew the Cyprus paper over the
+Egyptian document, so that she might not see it.
+
+As she did so the door opened on her, and Eglington entered. He had seen
+the swift motion of her hand, and again a look peculiar to him crossed
+his face, enigmatical, cynical, not pleasant to see.
+
+She turned on him slowly, and he was aware of her inward distress to
+some degree, though her face was ruled to quietness.
+
+He nodded at her and smiled. She shrank, for she saw in his nod and his
+smile that suggestion of knowing all about everything and everybody, and
+thinking the worst, which had chilled her so often. Even in their short
+married life it had chilled those confidences which she would gladly
+have poured out before him, if he had been a man with an open soul. Had
+there been joined to his intellect and temperament a heart capable of
+true convictions and abiding love, what a man he might have been!
+But his intellect was superficial, and his temperament was dangerous,
+because there were not the experiences of a soul of truth to give the
+deeper hold upon the meaning of life. She shrank now, as, with a little
+laugh and glancing suggestively at the despatch-box, he said:
+
+“And what do you think of it all?”
+
+She felt as though something was crushing her heart within its grasp,
+and her eyes took on a new look of pain. “I did not read the papers,”
+ she answered quietly.
+
+“I saw them in your fingers. What creatures women are--so dishonourable
+in little things,” he said ironically.
+
+She laid a hand on his. “I did not read them, Harry,” she urged.
+
+He smiled and patted her arm. “There, there, it doesn’t matter,” he
+laughed. He watched her narrowly. “It matters greatly,” she answered
+gently, though his words had cut her like a knife. “I did not read the
+papers. I only saw the word ‘Cyprus’ on the first paper, and I pushed it
+over the paper which had the word ‘Egypt’ on it ‘Egypt’ and
+‘Claridge,’ lest I should read it. I did not wish to read it. I am not
+dishonourable, Harry.”
+
+He had hurt her more than he had ever done; and only the great matter
+at stake had prevented the lesser part of her from bursting forth in
+indignation, from saying things which she did not wish to say. She had
+given him devotion--such devotion, such self-effacement in his career as
+few women ever gave. Her wealth--that was so little in comparison with
+the richness of her nature--had been his; and yet his vast egotism took
+it all as his right, and she was repaid in a kind of tyranny, the more
+galling and cruel because it was wielded by a man of intellect and
+culture, and ancient name and tradition. If he had been warned that
+he was losing his wife’s love, he would have scouted the idea, his
+self-assurance was so strong, his vanity complete. If, however, he
+had been told that another man was thinking of his wife, he would have
+believed it, as he believed now that David had done; and he cherished
+that belief, and let resentment grow. He was the Earl of Eglington, and
+no matter what reputation David had reached, he was still a member of
+a Quaker trader’s family, with an origin slightly touched with scandal.
+Another resentment, however, was steadily rising in him. It galled him
+that Hylda should take so powerful an interest in David’s work in Egypt;
+and he knew now that she had always done so. It did not ease his vexed
+spirit to know that thousands of others of his fellow-countrymen did the
+same. They might do so, but she was his wife, and his own work was the
+sun round which her mind and interest should revolve.
+
+“Why should you be so keen about Egypt and Claridge Pasha?” he said to
+her now.
+
+Her face hardened a little. Had he the right to torture her so? To
+suspect her? She could read it in his eyes. Her conscience was clear.
+She was no man’s slave. She would not be any man’s slave. She was master
+of her own soul. What right had he to catechise her--as though she
+were a servant or a criminal? But she checked the answer on her tongue,
+because she was hurt deeper than words could express, and she said,
+composedly:
+
+“I have here a letter from my cousin Lacey, who is with Claridge Pasha.
+It has news of him, of events in the Soudan. He had fever, there was to
+be a fight, and I wished to know if you had any later news. I thought
+that document there might contain news, but I did not read it. I
+realised that it was not yours, that it belonged to the Government, that
+I had no right. Perhaps you will tell me if you have news. Will you?”
+ She leaned against the table wearily, holding her letter.
+
+“Let me read your letter first,” he said wilfully.
+
+A mist seemed to come before her eyes; but she was schooled to
+self-command, and he did not see he had given her a shock. Her first
+impulse was to hand the letter over at once; then there came the
+remembrance of all it contained, all it suggested. Would he see all it
+suggested? She recalled the words Lacey had used regarding a service
+which David had once done her. If Eglington asked, what could she say?
+It was not her secret alone, it was another’s. Would she have the right,
+even if she wished it, to tell the truth, or part of the truth? Or,
+would she be entitled to relate some immaterial incident which would
+evade the real truth? What good could it do to tell the dark story?
+What could it serve? Eglington would horribly misunderstand it--that
+she knew. There were the verses also. They were more suggestive than
+anything else, though, indeed, they might have referred to another
+woman, or were merely impersonal; but she felt that was not so. And
+there was Eglington’s innate unbelief in man and woman! Her first
+impulse held, however. She would act honestly. She would face whatever
+there was to face. She would not shelter herself; she would not give
+him the right in the future to say she had not dealt fairly by him, had
+evaded any inquest of her life or mind which he might make.
+
+She gave him the letter, her heart standing still, but she was filled
+with a regnant determination to defend herself, to defend David against
+any attack, or from any consequences.
+
+All her life and hopes seemed hanging in the balance, as he began
+to read the letter. With fear she saw his face cloud over, heard an
+impatient exclamation pass his lips. She closed her eyes to gather
+strength for the conflict which was upon her. He spoke, and she vaguely
+wondered what passage in the letter had fixed his attention. His voice
+seemed very far away. She scarcely understood. But presently it pierced
+the clouds of numbness between them, and she realised what he was
+saying:
+
+“Vulgar fellow--I can’t congratulate you upon your American cousin.
+So, the Saadat is great on moral suasion, master of it--never failed
+yet--not altogether--and Aunt Melissa and skim-milk and early piety!’
+And ‘the Saadat is a wonder from Wondertown’--like a side-show to a
+circus, a marvel on the flying trapeze! Perhaps you can give me the
+sense of the letter, if there is any sense in it. I can’t read his
+writing, and it seems interminable. Would you mind?”
+
+A sigh of relief broke from her. A weight slipped away from her heart
+and brain. It was as though one in armour awaited the impact of a heavy,
+cruel, overwhelming foe, who suddenly disappeared, and the armour fell
+from the shoulders, and breath came easily once again.
+
+“Would you mind?” he repeated drily, as he folded up the letter slowly.
+
+He handed it back to her, the note of sarcasm in his voice pricking her
+like the point of a dagger. She felt angered with herself that he could
+rouse her temper by such small mean irony. She had a sense of bitter
+disappointment in him--or was it a deep hurt?--that she had not made him
+love her, truly love her. If he had only meant the love that he swore
+before they had married! Why had he deceived her? It had all been in
+his hands, her fate and future; but almost before the bridal flowers had
+faded, she had come to know two bitter things: that he had married with
+a sordid mind; that he was incapable of the love which transmutes
+the half-comprehending, half-developed affection of the maid into
+the absorbing, understanding, beautiful passion of the woman. She had
+married not knowing what love and passion were; uncomprehending, and
+innocent because uncomprehending; with a fine affection, but capable
+of loving wholly. One thing had purified her motives and her life--the
+desire to share with Eglington his public duty and private hopes, to be
+his confidante, his friend, his coadjutor, proud of him, eager for
+him, determined to help him. But he had blocked the path to all inner
+companionship. He did no more than let her share the obvious and outer
+responsibilities of his life. From the vital things, if there were vital
+things, she was shut out. What would she not give for one day of simple
+tenderness and quiet affection, a true day with a true love!
+
+She was now perfectly composed. She told him the substance of the
+letter, of David’s plight, of the fever, of the intended fight, of
+Nahoum Pasha, of the peril to David’s work. He continued to interrogate
+her, while she could have shrieked out the question, “What is in yonder
+document? What do you know? Have you news of his safety?” Would he never
+stop his questioning? It was trying her strength and patience beyond
+endurance. At last he drew the document slowly from the despatch-box,
+and glanced up and down it musingly. “I fancy he won the battle,” he
+said slowly, “for they have news of him much farther down the river. But
+from this letter I take it he is not yet within the zone of safety--so
+Nahoum Pasha says.” He flicked the document upwards with his thumb.
+
+“What is our Government doing to help him?” she asked, checking her
+eagerness.
+
+His heart had gradually hardened towards Egypt. Power had emphasised a
+certain smallness in him. Personal considerations informed the policy of
+the moment. He was not going to be dragged at the chariot-wheels of
+the Quaker. To be passive, when David in Egypt had asked for active
+interest; to delay, when urgency was important to Claridge Pasha;
+to speak coldly on Egyptian affairs to his chief, the weak Foreign
+Secretary, this was the policy he had begun.
+
+So he answered now: “It is the duty of the Egyptian Government to help
+him--of Prince Kaid, of Nahoum Pasha, who is acting for him in his
+absence, who governs finance, and therefore the army. Egypt does not
+belong to England.”
+
+“Nahoum Pasha is his enemy. He will do nothing to help, unless you force
+him.”
+
+“Why do you say that?”
+
+“Because I know Nahoum Pasha.”
+
+“When did you know Nahoum?”
+
+“In Egypt, years ago.”
+
+“Your acquaintance is more varied than I thought,” he said
+sarcastically.
+
+“Oh, do not speak to me like that!” she returned, in a low, indignant
+voice.
+
+“Do not patronise me; do not be sarcastic.”
+
+“Do not be so sensitive,” he answered unemotionally.
+
+“You surely do not mean that you--that the Government will not help him?
+He is doing the work of Europe, of civilisation, of Christianity there.
+He is sacrificing himself for the world. Do you not see it? Oh, but you
+do! You would realise his work if you knew Egypt as I have seen it.”
+
+“Expediency must govern the policy of nations,” he answered critically.
+
+“But, if through your expediency he is killed like a rat in a trap, and
+his work goes to pieces--all undone! Is there no right in the matter?”
+
+“In affairs of state other circumstances than absolute ‘right’ enter.
+Here and there the individual is sacrificed who otherwise would be
+saved--if it were expedient.”
+
+“Oh, Eglington! He is of your own county, of your own village, is your
+neighbour, a man of whom all England should be proud. You can intervene
+if you will be just, and say you will. I know that intervention has been
+discussed in the Cabinet.”
+
+“You say he is of my county. So are many people, and yet they are not
+county people. A neighbour he was, but more in a Scriptural than social
+sense.” He was hurting her purposely.
+
+She made a protesting motion of her hand. “No, no, no, do not be so
+small. This is a great matter. Do a great thing now; help it to be done
+for your own honour, for England’s honour--for a good man’s sake, for
+your country’s sake.”
+
+There came a knock at the door. An instant afterwards a secretary
+entered. “A message from the Prime Minister, sir.” He handed over a
+paper.
+
+“Will you excuse me?” he asked Hylda suavely, in his eyes the
+enigmatical look that had chilled her so often before. She felt that
+her appeal had been useless. She prepared to leave the room. He took her
+hand, kissed it gallantly, and showed her out. It was his way--too civil
+to be real.
+
+Blindly she made her way to her room. Inside, she suddenly swayed and
+sank fainting to the ground, as Kate Heaver ran forward to her. Kate
+saw the letter in the clinched hand. Loosening it, she read two or three
+sentences with a gasp. They contained Tom Lacey’s appeal for David. She
+lifted Hylda’s head to her shoulder with endearing words, and chafed the
+cold hands, murmuring to herself the while.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. THE QUESTIONER
+
+“What has thee come to say?”
+
+Sitting in his high-backed chair, Luke Claridge seemed a part of its
+dignified severity. In the sparsely furnished room with its uncarpeted
+floor, its plain teak table, its high wainscoting and undecorated walls,
+the old man had the look of one who belonged to some ancient consistory,
+a judge whose piety would march with an austerity that would save a
+human soul by destroying the body, if need be.
+
+A crisis had come, vaguely foreseen, sombrely eluded. A questioner was
+before him who, poor, unheeded, an ancient victim of vice, could yet
+wield a weapon whose sweep of wounds would be wide. Stern and masterful
+as he looked in his arid isolation, beneath all was a shaking anxiety.
+
+He knew well what the old chair-maker had come to say, but, in the
+prologue of the struggle before him, he was unwittingly manoeuvring for
+position.
+
+“Speak,” he added presently, as Soolsby fumbled in his great loose
+pockets, and drew forth a paper. “What has thee to say?”
+
+Without a word, Soolsby handed over the paper, but the other would not
+take it.
+
+“What is it?” he asked, his lips growing pale. “Read--if thee can read.”
+
+The gibe in the last words made the colour leap into Soolsby’s face, and
+a fighting look came. He too had staved off this inevitable hour, had
+dreaded it, but now his courage shot up high.
+
+“Doost think I have forgotten how to read since the day I put my hand to
+a writing you’ve hid so long from them it most concerns? Ay, I can
+read, and I can write, and I will prove that I can speak too before I’ve
+done.”
+
+“Read--read,” rejoined the old man hoarsely, his hands tightly gripping
+the chair-arm.
+
+“The fever caught him at Shendy--that is the place--”
+
+“He is not dead--David is not dead?” came the sharp, pained
+interruption. The old man’s head strained forward, his eyes were misty
+and dazed.
+
+Soolsby’s face showed no pity for the other’s anxiety; it had a kind
+of triumph in it. “Nay, he is living,” he answered. “He got well of the
+fever, and came to Cairo, but he’s off again into the desert. It’s the
+third time. You can’t be tempting Providence for ever. This paper here
+says it’s too big a job for one man--like throwing a good life away.
+Here in England is his place, it says. And so say I; and so I have come
+to say, and to hear you say so, too. What is he there? One man against a
+million. What put it in his head that he thinks he can do it?”
+
+His voice became lower; he fixed his eyes meaningly on the other. “When
+a man’s life got a twist at the start, no wonder it flies off madlike
+to do the thing that isn’t to be done, and leave undone the thing that’s
+here for it to do. Doost think a straight line could come from the
+crooked line you drew for him?”
+
+“He is safe--he is well and strong again?” asked the old man painfully.
+Suddenly he reached out a hand for the paper. “Let me read,” he said, in
+a voice scarce above a whisper.
+
+He essayed to take the paper calmly, but it trembled in his hands. He
+spread it out and fumbled for his glasses, but could not find them, and
+he gazed helplessly at the page before him. Soolsby took the paper from
+him and read slowly:
+
+“... Claridge Pasha has done good work in Egypt, but he is a generation
+too soon, it may be two or three too soon. We can but regard this fresh
+enterprise as a temptation to Fate to take from our race one of the
+most promising spirits and vital personalities which this generation has
+produced. It is a forlorn hope. Most Englishmen familiar with Claridge
+Pasha’s life and aims will ask--”
+
+An exclamation broke from the old man. In the pause which followed he
+said: “It was none of my doing. He went to Egypt against my will.”
+
+“Ay, so many a man’s said that’s not wanted to look his own acts
+straight in the face. If Our Man had been started different, if he’d
+started in the path where God A’mighty dropped him, and not in the path
+Luke Claridge chose, would he have been in Egypt to-day wearing out his
+life? He’s not making carpets there, he’s only beating them.”
+
+The homely illustration drawn from the business in which he had been
+interested so many years went home to Claridge’s mind. He shrank back,
+and sat rigid, his brows drawing over the eyes, till they seemed sunk
+in caverns of the head. Suddenly Soolsby’s voice rose angrily. Luke
+Claridge seemed so remorseless and unyielding, so set in his vanity
+and self-will! Soolsby misread the rigid look in the face, the pale
+sternness. He did not know that there had suddenly come upon Luke
+Claridge the full consciousness of an agonising truth--that all he had
+done where David was concerned had been a mistake. The hard look, the
+sternness, were the signals of a soul challenging itself.
+
+“Ay, you’ve had your own will,” cried Soolsby mercilessly. “You’ve said
+to God A’mighty that He wasn’t able to work out to a good end what He’d
+let happen; and so you’d do His work for Him. You kept the lad hid away
+from the people that belonged to him, you kept him out of his own, and
+let others take his birthright. You put a shame upon him, hiding who his
+father and his father’s people were, and you put a shame upon her that
+lies in the graveyard--as sweet a lass, as good, as ever lived on
+earth. Ay, a shame and a scandal! For your eyes were shut always to
+the sidelong looks, your ears never heard the things people said--‘A
+good-for-nothing ship-captain, a scamp and a ne’er-do-weel, one that had
+a lass at every port, and, maybe, wives too; one that none knew or ever
+had seen--a pirate maybe, or a slave-dealer, or a jail-bird, for all
+they knew! Married--oh yes, married right enough, but nothing else--not
+even a home. Just a ring on the finger, and then, beyond and away!’
+Around her life that brought into the world our lad yonder you let a
+cloud draw down; and you let it draw round his, too, for he didn’t even
+bear his father’s name--much less knew who his father was--or live in
+his father’s home, or come by his own in the end. You gave the lad shame
+and scandal. Do you think, he didn’t feel it, was it much or little? He
+wasn’t walking in the sun, but--”
+
+“Mercy! Mercy!” broke in the old man, his hand before his eyes. He was
+thinking of Mercy, his daughter, of the words she had said to him when
+she died, “Set him in the sun, father, where God can find him,” and her
+name now broke from his lips.
+
+Soolsby misunderstood. “Ay, there’ll be mercy when right’s been done
+Our Man, and not till then. I’ve held my tongue for half a lifetime, but
+I’ll speak now and bring him back. Ay, he shall come back and take
+the place that is his, and all that belongs to him. That lordship
+yonder--let him go out into the world and make his place as the Egyptian
+did. He’s had his chance to help Our Man, and he has only hurt, not
+helped him. We’ve had enough of his second-best lordship and his ways.”
+
+The old man’s face was painful in its stricken stillness now. He had
+regained control of himself, his brain had recovered greatly from its
+first suffusion of excitement.
+
+“How does thee know my lord yonder has hurt and not helped him?” he
+asked in an even voice, his lips tightening, however. “How does thee
+know it surely?”
+
+“From Kate Heaver, my lady’s maid. My lady’s illness--what was it?
+Because she would help Our Man, and, out of his hatred, yonder second
+son said that to her which no woman can bear that’s a true woman; and
+then, what with a chill and fever, she’s been yonder ailing these weeks
+past. She did what she could for him, and her husband did what he could
+against him.”
+
+The old man settled back in his chair again. “Thee has kept silent all
+these years? Thee has never told any that lives?”
+
+“I gave my word to her that died--to our Egyptian’s mother--that I would
+never speak unless you gave me leave to speak, or if you should die
+before me. It was but a day before the lad was born. So have I kept my
+word. But now you shall speak. Ay, then, but you shall speak, or I’ll
+break my word to her, to do right by her son. She herself would speak
+if she was here, and I’ll answer her, if ever I see her after Purgatory,
+for speaking now.”
+
+The old man drew himself up in his chair as though in pain, and said
+very slowly, almost thickly: “I shall answer also for all I did. The
+spirit moved me. He is of my blood--his mother was dead--in his veins
+is the blood that runs in mine. His father--aristocrat, spendthrift,
+adventurer, renegade, who married her in secret, and left her, bidding
+her return to me, until he came again, and she to bear him a child--was
+he fit to bring up the boy?”
+
+He breathed heavily, his face became wan and haggard, as he continued:
+“Restless on land or sea, for ever seeking some new thing, and when he
+found it, and saw what was therein, he turned away forgetful. God put it
+into my heart to abjure him and the life around him. The Voice made me
+rescue the child from a life empty and bare and heartless and proud.
+When he returned, and my child was in her grave, he came to me in
+secret; he claimed the child of that honest lass whom he had married
+under a false name. I held my hand lest I should kill him, man of peace
+as I am. Even his father--Quaker though he once became--did we not know
+ere the end that he had no part or lot with us, that he but experimented
+with his soul, as with all else? Experiment--experiment--experiment,
+until at last an Eglington went exploring in my child’s heart, and sent
+her to her grave--the God of Israel be her rest and refuge! What should
+such high-placed folk do stooping out of their sphere to us who walk in
+plain paths? What have we in common with them? My soul would have none
+of them--masks of men, the slaves of riches and titles, and tyrants over
+the poor.”
+
+His voice grew hoarse and high, and his head bent forward. He spoke as
+though forgetful of Soolsby’s presence: “As the East is from the West,
+so were we separate from these lovers of this world, the self-indulgent,
+the hard-hearted, the proud. I chose for the child that he should stay
+with me and not go to him, to remain among his own people and his own
+class. He was a sinister, an evil man. Was the child to be trusted with
+him?”
+
+“The child was his own child,” broke in Soolsby. “Your daughter was his
+lady--the Countess of Eglington! Not all the Quakers in heaven or earth
+could alter that. His first-born son is Earl of Eglington, and has been
+so these years past; and you, nor his second-best lordship there, nor
+all the courts in England can alter that.... Ay, I’ve kept my peace,
+but I will speak out now. I was with the Earl--James Fetherdon he called
+himself--when he married her that’s gone to heaven, if any ever went to
+heaven; and I can prove all. There’s proof aplenty, and ‘tis a pity,
+ay, God’s pity! that ‘twas not used long ago. Well I knew, as the years
+passed, that the Earl’s heart was with David, but he had not the courage
+to face it all, so worn away was the man in him. Ah, if the lad had
+always been with him--who can tell?--he might have been different!
+Whether so or not, it was the lad’s right to take his place his mother
+gave him, let be whatever his father was. ‘Twas a cruel thing done to
+him. His own was his own, to run his race as God A’mighty had laid the
+hurdles, not as Luke Claridge willed. I’m sick of seeing yonder fellow
+in Our Man’s place, he that will not give him help, when he may; he that
+would see him die like a dog in the desert, brother or no brother--”
+
+“He does not know--Lord Eglington does not know the truth?” interposed
+the old man in a heavy whisper. “He does not know, but, if he knew,
+would it matter to him! So much the more would he see Our Man die yonder
+in the sands. I know the breed. I know him yonder, the skim-milk lord.
+There is no blood of justice, no milk of kindness in him. Do you think
+his father that I friended in this thing--did he ever give me a penny,
+or aught save that hut on the hill that was not worth a pound a year?
+Did he ever do aught to show that he remembered?--Like father like son.
+I wanted naught. I held my peace, not for him, but for her--for the
+promise I made her when she smiled at me and said: ‘If I shouldn’t
+be seeing thee again, Soolsby, remember; and if thee can ever prove a
+friend to the child that is to be, prove it.’ And I will prove it now.
+He must come back to his own. Right’s right, and I will have it so. More
+brains you may have, and wealth you have, but not more common sense than
+any common man like me. If the spirit moved you to hold your peace, it
+moves me to make you speak. With all your meek face you’ve been a hard,
+stiff-necked man, a tyrant too, and as much an aristocrat to such as
+me as any lord in the land. But I’ve drunk the mug of silence to the
+bottom. I’ve--” He stopped short, seeing a strange look come over the
+other’s face, then stepped forward quickly as the old man half rose from
+his chair, murmuring thickly:
+
+“Mercy--David, my lord, come--!” he muttered, and staggered, and fell
+into Soolsby’s arms.
+
+His head dropped forward on his breast, and with a great sigh he sank
+into unconsciousness. Soolsby laid him on a couch, and ran to the door
+and called aloud for help.
+
+       ..........................
+
+The man of silence was silent indeed now. In the room where paralysis
+had fallen on him a bed was brought, and he lay nerveless on the verge
+of a still deeper silence. The hours went by. His eyes opened, he saw
+and recognised them all, but his look rested only on Faith and Soolsby;
+and, as time went on, these were the only faces to which he gave an
+answering look of understanding. Days wore away, but he neither spoke
+nor moved.
+
+People came and went softly, and he gave no heed. There was ever a
+trouble in his eyes when they were open. Only when Soolsby came did it
+seem to lessen. Faith saw this, and urged Soolsby to sit by him. She had
+questioned much concerning what had happened before the stroke fell,
+but Soolsby said only that the old man had been greatly troubled about
+David. Once Lady Eglington, frail and gentle and sympathetic, came, but
+the trouble deepened in his eyes, and the lids closed over them, so that
+he might not see her face.
+
+When she had gone, Soolsby, who had been present and had interpreted the
+old man’s look according to a knowledge all his own, came over to the
+bed, leaned down and whispered: “I will speak now.”
+
+Then the eyes opened, and a smile faintly flickered at the mouth.
+
+“I will speak now,” Soolsby said again into the old man’s ear.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV. THE VOICE THROUGH THE DOOR
+
+That night Soolsby tapped at the door of the lighted laboratory of the
+Cloistered House where Lord Eglington was at work; opened it, peered in,
+and stepped inside.
+
+With a glass retort in his hand Eglington faced him. “What’s this--what
+do you want?” he demanded.
+
+“I want to try an experiment,” answered Soolsby grimly.
+
+“Ah, a scientific turn!” rejoined Eglington coolly--looking at him
+narrowly, however. He was conscious of danger of some kind.
+
+Then for a minute neither spoke. Now that Soolsby had come to the moment
+for which he had waited for so many years, the situation was not what he
+had so often prefigured. The words he had chosen long ago were gone from
+his memory; in his ignorance of what had been a commonplace to Soolsby’s
+dark reflection so long, the man he had meant to bring low stood up
+before him on his own ground, powerful and unabashed.
+
+Eglington wore a blue smock, and over his eyes was a green shade
+to protect them from the light, but they peered sharply out at the
+chair-maker, and were boldly alive to the unexpected. He was no physical
+coward, and, in any case, what reason had he for physical fear in the
+presence of this man weakened by vice and age? Yet ever since he was a
+boy there had existed between them an antagonism which had shown itself
+in many ways. There had ever been something sinister in Soolsby’s
+attitude to his father and himself.
+
+Eglington vaguely knew that now he was to face some trial of mind and
+nerve, but with great deliberation he continued dropping liquid from a
+bottle into the glass retort he carried, his eyes, however, watchful of
+his visitor, who involuntarily stared around the laboratory.
+
+It was fifteen years since Soolsby had been in this room; and then he
+had faced this man’s father with a challenge on his tongue such as he
+meant to speak now. The smell of the chemicals, the carboys filled with
+acids, the queer, tapering glasses with engraved measurements showing
+against the coloured liquids, the great blue bottles, the mortars and
+pestles, the microscopic instruments--all brought back the far-off,
+acrid scene between the late Earl and himself. Nothing had changed,
+except that now there were wires which gave out hissing sparks,
+electrical instruments invented since the earlier day; except that this
+man, gently dropping acids into the round white bottle upon a crystal
+which gave off musty fumes, was bolder, stronger, had more at stake than
+the other.
+
+Slowly Eglington moved back to put the retort on a long table against
+the wall, and Soolsby stepped forward till he stood where the electric
+sparks were gently hissing about him. Now Eglington leaned against the
+table, poured some alcohol on his fingers to cleanse the acid from them,
+and wiped them with a piece of linen, while he looked inquiringly at
+Soolsby. Still, Soolsby did not speak. Eglington lit a cigarette, and
+took away the shade from his eyes.
+
+“Well, now, what is your experiment?” he asked, “and why bring it here?
+Didn’t you know the way to the stables or the scullery?”
+
+“I knew my way better here,” answered Soolsby, steadying himself.
+
+“Ah, you’ve been here often?” asked Eglington nonchalantly, yet feeling
+for the cause of this midnight visit.
+
+“It is fifteen years since I was here, my lord. Then I came to see the
+Earl of Eglington.”
+
+“And so history repeats itself every fifteen years! You came to see
+the Earl of Eglington then; you come to see the Earl of Eglington
+again--after fifteen years!”
+
+“I come to speak with him that’s called the Earl of Eglington.”
+
+Eglington’s eyes half closed, as though the light hurt them. “That
+sounds communistic, or is it pure Quakerism? I believe they used to call
+my father Friend Robert till he backslided. But you are not a Quaker,
+Soolsby, so why be too familiar? Or is it merely the way of the old
+family friend?”
+
+“I knew your father before you were born, my lord--he troosted me then.”
+
+“So long? And fifteen years ago--here?” He felt a menace, vague and
+penetrating. His eyes were hard and cruel.
+
+“It wasn’t a question of troost then; ‘twas one of right or
+wrong--naught else.”
+
+“Ah--and who was right, and what was wrong?” At that moment there came
+a tap at the door leading into the living part of the house, and the
+butler entered. “The doctor--he has used up all his oxygen, my lord. He
+begs to know if you can give him some for Mr. Claridge. Mr. Claridge is
+bad to-night.”
+
+A sinister smile passed over Eglington’s face. “Who brings the message,
+Garry?”
+
+“A servant--Miss Claridge’s, my lord.”
+
+An ironical look came into Eglington’s eyes; then they softened a
+little. In a moment he placed a jar of oxygen in the butler’s hands.
+
+“My compliments to Miss Claridge, and I am happy to find my laboratory
+of use at last to my neighbours,” he said, and the door closed upon the
+man.
+
+Then he came back thoughtfully. Soolsby had not moved.
+
+“Do you know what oxygen’s for, Soolsby?” he asked quizzically.
+
+“No, my lord, I’ve never heerd tell of it.”
+
+“Well, if you brought the top of Ben Lomond to the bottom of a
+coal-mine--breath to the breathless--that’s it.
+
+“You’ve been doing that to Mr. Claridge, my lord?”
+
+“A little oxygen more or less makes all the difference to a man--it
+probably will to neighbour Claridge, Soolsby; and so I’ve done him a
+good turn.”
+
+A grim look passed over Soolsby’s face. “It’s the first, I’m thinking,
+my lord, and none too soon; and it’ll be the last, I’m thinking, too.
+It’s many a year since this house was neighbourly to that.”
+
+Eglington’s eyes almost closed, as he studied the other’s face; then he
+said: “I asked you a little while ago who was right and what was wrong
+when you came to see my father here fifteen years ago. Well?”
+
+Suddenly a thought flashed into his eyes, and it seemed to course
+through his veins like some anaesthetic, for he grew very still, and a
+minute passed before he added quietly: “Was it a thing between my father
+and Luke Claridge? There was trouble--well, what was it?” All at once
+he seemed to rise above the vague anxiety that possessed him, and he
+fingered inquiringly a long tapering glass of acids on the bench beside
+him. “There’s been so much mystery, and I suppose it was nothing, after
+all. What was it all about? Or do you know--eh? Fifteen years ago you
+came to see my father, and now you have come to see me--all in the light
+o’ the moon, as it were; like a villain in a play. Ah, yes, you said
+it was to make an experiment--yet you didn’t know what oxygen was! It’s
+foolish making experiments, unless you know what you are playing with,
+Soolsby. See, here are two glasses.” He held them up. “If I poured one
+into the other, we’d have an experiment--and you and I would be picked
+up in fragments and carried away in a basket. And that wouldn’t be a
+successful experiment, Soolsby.”
+
+“I’m not so sure of that, my lord. Some things would be put right then.”
+
+“H’m, there would be a new Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and--”
+
+“And Claridge Pasha would come back from Egypt, my lord,” was the sharp
+interjection. Suddenly Soolsby’s anger flared up, his hands twitched.
+“You had your chance to be a friend to him, my lord. You promised
+her yonder at the Red Mansion that you would help him--him that never
+wronged you, him you always wronged, and you haven’t lifted hand to help
+him in his danger. A moment since you asked me who was right and what
+was wrong. You shall know. If you had treated him right, I’d have held
+my peace, and kept my word to her that’s gone these thirty-odd years.
+I’ll hold it no more, and so I told Luke Claridge. I’ve been silent, but
+not for your father’s sake or yours, for he was as cruel as you, with no
+heart, and a conscience like a pin’s head, not big enough for use... Ay,
+you shall know. You are no more the Earl of Eglington than me.
+
+“The Earl of Eglington is your elder brother, called David Claridge.”
+
+As Soolsby’s words poured forth passionately, weighty, Eglington
+listened like one in a dream. Since this man entered the laboratory
+fifty reasons for his coming had flashed across his mind; he had
+prepared himself at many corners for defence, he had rallied every
+mental resource, he had imagined a dozen dangerous events which his
+father and Luke Claridge shared--with the balance against his father;
+but this thing was beyond all speculation. Yet on the instant the words
+were said he had a conviction of their inevitable truth. Even as they
+were uttered, kaleidoscopic memories rushed in, and David’s face,
+figure, personal characteristics, flashed before him. He saw, he felt,
+the likeness to his father and himself; a thousand things were explained
+that could only be explained by this fatal fact launched at him without
+warning. It was as though, fully armed for his battle of life, he had
+suddenly been stripped of armour and every weapon, and left naked on
+the field. But he had the mind of the gamester, and the true gamester’s
+self-control. He had taken chances so often that the tornado of ill-luck
+left him standing.
+
+“What proof have you?” he asked quietly. Soolsby’s explicit answer left
+no ground for doubt. He had not asked the question with any idea of
+finding gaps in the evidence, but rather to find if there were a chance
+for resistance, of escape, anywhere. The marriage certificate existed;
+identification of James Fetherdon with his father could be established
+by Soolsby and Luke Claridge.
+
+Soolsby and Luke Claridge! Luke Claridge--he could not help but smile
+cynically, for he was composed and calculating now. A few minutes ago
+he had sent a jar of oxygen to keep Luke Claridge alive! But for it one
+enemy to his career, to his future, would be gone. He did not shrink
+from the thought. Born a gentleman, there were in him some degenerate
+characteristics which heart could not drown or temperament refine.
+Selfishness was inwoven with every fibre of his nature.
+
+Now, as he stood with eyes fixed on Soolsby, the world seemed to narrow
+down to this laboratory. It was a vacuum where sensation was suspended,
+and the million facts of ordinary existence disappeared into inactivity.
+There was a fine sense of proportion in it all. Only the bare essential
+things that concerned him remained: David Claridge was the Earl of
+Eglington, this man before him knew, Luke Claridge knew; and there was
+one thing yet to know! When he spoke his voice showed no excitement--the
+tones were even, colourless.
+
+“Does he know?” In these words he acknowledged that he believed the tale
+told him.
+
+Soolsby had expected a different attitude; he was not easier in mind
+because his story had not been challenged. He blindly felt working in
+the man before him a powerful mind, more powerful because it faced the
+truth unflinchingly; but he knew that this did not mean calm acceptance
+of the consequences. He, not Eglington, was dazed and embarrassed, was
+not equal to the situation. He moved uneasily, changed his position.
+
+“Does he know?” Eglington questioned again quietly. There was no need
+for Eglington to explain who he was.
+
+“Of course he does not know--I said so. If he knew, do you think he’d be
+in Egypt and you here, my lord?”
+
+Eglington was very quiet. His intellect more than his passions were now
+at work.
+
+“I am not sure. You never can tell. This might not mean much to him. He
+has got his work cut out; he wasn’t brought up to this. What he has done
+is in line with the life he has lived as a pious Quaker. What good would
+it do to bring him back? I have been brought up to it; I am used to it;
+I have worked things out ‘according to the state of life to which I was
+called.’ Take what I’ve always had away from me, and I am crippled; give
+him what he never had, and it doesn’t work into his scheme. It would
+do him no good and me harm--Where’s the use? Besides, I am still my
+father’s son. Don’t you see how unreasonable you are? Luke Claridge was
+right. He knew that he and his belonged to a different sphere. He didn’t
+speak. Why do you speak now after all these years when we are all set in
+our grooves? It’s silly to disturb us, Soolsby.”
+
+The voice was low, persuasive, and searching; the mind was working as it
+had never worked before, to achieve an end by peaceful means, when war
+seemed against him. And all the time he was fascinated by the fact that
+Soolsby’s hand was within a few inches of a live electric wire, which,
+if he touched, would probably complete “the experiment” he had come
+to make; and what had been the silence of a generation would continue
+indefinitely. It was as though Fate had deliberately tempted him and
+arranged the necessary conditions, for Soolsby’s feet were in a little
+pool of liquid which had been spilled on the floor--the experiment was
+exact and real.
+
+For minutes he had watched Soolsby’s hand near the wire-had watched as
+he talked, and his talk was his argument for non-interference against
+warning the man who had come to destroy him and his career. Why had Fate
+placed that hand so near the wire there, and provided the other perfect
+conditions for tragedy? Why should he intervene? It would never have
+crossed his mind to do Soolsby harm, yet here, as the man’s arm was
+stretched out to strike him, Fate offered an escape. Luke Claridge was
+stricken with paralysis, no doubt would die; Soolsby alone stood in his
+way.
+
+“You see, Soolsby, it has gone on too long,” he added, in a low,
+penetrating tone. “It would be a crime to alter things now. Give him the
+earldom and the estates, and his work in Egypt goes to pieces; he will
+be spoiled for all he wants to do. I’ve got my faults, but, on the
+whole, I’m useful, and I play my part here, as I was born to it, as well
+as most. Anyhow, it’s no robbery for me to have what has been mine by
+every right except the accident of being born after him. I think you’ll
+see that you will do a good thing to let it all be. Luke Claridge, if
+he was up and well, wouldn’t thank you for it--have you got any right to
+give him trouble, too? Besides, I’ve saved his life to-night, and... and
+perhaps I might save yours, Soolsby, if it was in danger.”
+
+Soolsby’s hand had moved slightly. It was only an inch from the wire.
+For an instant the room was terribly still.
+
+An instant, and it might be too late. An instant, and Soolsby would be
+gone. Eglington watched the hand which had been resting on the table
+turn slowly over to the wire. Why should he intervene? Was it his
+business? This thing was not his doing. Destiny had laid the train of
+circumstance and accident, and who was stronger than Destiny? In spite
+of himself his eyes fixed themselves on Soolsby’s hand. It was but a
+hair’s breadth from the wire. The end would come now. Suddenly a voice
+was heard outside the door. “Eglington!” it called.
+
+Soolsby started, his hand drew spasmodically away from the wire, and he
+stepped back quickly.
+
+The door opened, and Hylda entered.
+
+“Mr. Claridge is dead, Eglington,” she said. Destiny had decided.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI. “I OWE YOU NOTHING”
+
+Beside the grave under the willow-tree another grave had been made.
+It was sprinkled with the fallen leaves of autumn. In the Red Mansion
+Faith’s delicate figure moved forlornly among relics of an austere,
+beloved figure vanished from the apricot-garden and the primitive
+simplicity of wealth combined with narrow thought.
+
+Since her father’s death, the bereaved girl had been occupied by matters
+of law and business, by affairs of the estate; but the first pressure
+was over, long letters had been written to David which might never reach
+him; and now, when the strain was withdrawn, the gentle mind was lost in
+a grey mist of quiet suffering. In Hamley there were but two in whom she
+had any real comfort and help--Lady Eglington and the old chair-maker.
+Of an afternoon or evening one or the other was to be seen in the long
+high-wainscoted room, where a great fire burned, or in the fruitless
+garden where the breeze stirred the bare branches.
+
+Almost as deep a quiet brooded in the Cloistered House as in the home
+where mourning enjoined movement in a minor key. Hylda had not recovered
+wholly from the illness which had stricken her down on that day in
+London when she had sought news of David from Eglington, at such cost to
+her peace and health and happiness. Then had come her slow convalescence
+in Hamley, and long days of loneliness, in which Eglington seemed to
+retreat farther and farther from her inner life. Inquiries had poured in
+from friends in town, many had asked to come and see her; flowers came
+from one or two who loved her benignly, like Lord Windlehurst; and now
+and then she had some cheerful friend with her who cared for music or
+could sing; and then the old home rang; but she was mostly alone, and
+Eglington was kept in town by official business the greater part of each
+week. She did not gain strength as quickly as she ought to have done,
+and this was what brought the Duchess of Snowdon down on a special
+mission one day of early November.
+
+Ever since the night she had announced Luke Claridge’s death to
+Eglington, had discovered Soolsby with him, had seen the look in her
+husband’s face and caught the tension of the moment on which she had
+broken, she had been haunted by a hovering sense of trouble. What had
+Soolsby been doing in the laboratory at that time of night? What was the
+cause of this secret meeting? All Hamley knew--she had long known--how
+Luke Claridge had held the Cloistered House in abhorrence, and she knew
+also that Soolsby worshipped David and Faith, and, whatever the cause
+of the family antipathy, championed it. She was conscious of a shadow
+somewhere, and behind it all was the name of David’s father, James
+Fetherdon. That last afternoon when she had talked with him, and he had
+told her of his life, she had recalled the name as one she had seen or
+heard, and it had floated into her mind at last that she had seen it
+among the papers and letters of the late Countess of Eglington.
+
+As the look in Eglington’s face the night she came upon him and Soolsby
+in the laboratory haunted her, so the look in her own face had haunted
+Soolsby. Her voice announcing Luke Claridge’s death had suddenly opened
+up a new situation to him. It stunned him; and afterwards, as he saw
+Hylda with Faith in the apricot-garden, or walking in the grounds of the
+Cloistered House hour after hour alone or with her maid, he became vexed
+by a problem greater than had yet perplexed him. It was one thing to
+turn Eglington out of his lands and home and title; it was another thing
+to strike this beautiful being, whose smile had won him from the first,
+whose voice, had he but known, had saved his life. Perhaps the truth in
+some dim way was conveyed to him, for he came to think of her a little
+as he thought of Faith.
+
+Since the moment when he had left the laboratory and made his way to the
+Red Mansion, he and Eglington had never met face to face; and he avoided
+a meeting. He was not a blackmailer, he had no personal wrongs to
+avenge, he had not sprung the bolt of secrecy for evil ends; and when
+he saw the possible results of his disclosure, he was unnerved. His mind
+had seen one thing only, the rights of “Our Man,” the wrong that had
+been done him and his mother; but now he saw how the sword of justice,
+which he had kept by his hand these many years, would cut both ways.
+His mind was troubled, too, that he had spoken while yet Luke Claridge
+lived, and so broken his word to Mercy Claridge. If he had but waited
+till the old man died--but one brief half-hour--his pledge would have
+been kept. Nothing had worked out wholly as he expected. The heavens had
+not fallen. The “second-best lordship” still came and went, the wheels
+went round as usual. There was no change; yet, as he sat in his hut and
+looked down into the grounds of the Cloistered House, he kept saying to
+himself.
+
+“It had to be told. It’s for my lord now. He knows the truth. I’ll wait
+and see. It’s for him to do right by Our Man that’s beyond and away.”
+
+The logic and fairness of this position, reached after much thinking,
+comforted him. He had done his duty so far. If, in the end, the
+“second-best lordship” failed to do his part, hid the truth from the
+world, refused to do right by his half-brother, the true Earl, then
+would be time to act again. Also he waited for word out of Egypt; and he
+had a superstitious belief that David would return, that any day might
+see him entering the door of the Red Mansion.
+
+Eglington himself was haunted by a spectre which touched his elbow by
+day, and said: “You are not the Earl of Eglington,” and at night laid
+a clammy finger on his forehead, waking him, and whispering in his ear:
+“If Soolsby had touched the wire, all would now be well!” And as deep as
+thought and feeling in him lay, he felt that Fate had tricked
+him--Fate and Hylda. If Hylda had not come at that crucial instant, the
+chairmaker’s but on the hill would be empty. Why had not Soolsby told
+the world the truth since? Was the man waiting to see what course he
+himself would take? Had the old chair-maker perhaps written the truth to
+the Egyptian--to his brother David.
+
+His brother! The thought irritated every nerve in him. No note of
+kindness or kinship or blood stirred in him. If, before, he had
+had innate antagonism and a dark, hovering jealousy, he had a black
+repugnance now--the antipathy of the lesser to the greater nature, of
+the man in the wrong to the man in the right.
+
+And behind it all was the belief that his wife had set David above
+him--by how much or in what fashion he did not stop to consider; but it
+made him desire that death and the desert would swallow up his father’s
+son and leave no trace behind.
+
+Policy? His work in the Foreign Office now had but one policy so far
+as Egypt was concerned. The active sophistry in him made him advocate
+non-intervention in Egyptian affairs as diplomatic wisdom, though it was
+but personal purpose; and he almost convinced himself that he was acting
+from a national stand-point. Kaid and Claridge Pasha pursued their
+course of civilisation in the Soudan, and who could tell what danger
+might not bring forth? If only Soolsby held his peace yet a while!
+
+Did Faith know? Luke Claridge was gone without speaking, but had Soolsby
+told Faith? How closely had he watched the faces round him at Luke
+Claridge’s funeral, to see if they betrayed any knowledge!
+
+Anxious days had followed that night in the laboratory. His boundless
+egotism had widened the chasm between Hylda and himself, which had been
+made on the day when she fell ill in London, with Lacey’s letter in
+her hand. It had not grown less in the weeks that followed. He nursed
+a grievance which had, so far as he knew, no foundation in fact; he was
+vaguely jealous of a man--his brother--thousands of miles away; he was
+not certain how far Hylda had pierced the disguise of sincerity which he
+himself had always worn, or how far she understood him. He thought that
+she shrank from what she had seen of his real self, much or little, and
+he was conscious of so many gifts and abilities and attractive personal
+qualities that he felt a sense of injury. Yet what would his position
+be without her? Suppose David should return and take the estates and
+titles, and suppose that she should close her hand upon her fortune and
+leave him, where would he be?
+
+He thought of all this as he sat in his room at the Foreign Office
+and looked over St. James’s Park, his day’s work done. He was suddenly
+seized by a new-born anxiety, for he had been so long used to the open
+purse and the unchecked stream of gold, had taken it so much as a matter
+of course, as not to realise the possibility of its being withdrawn.
+He was conscious of a kind of meanness and ugly sordidness in the
+suggestion; but the stake--his future, his career, his position in the
+world--was too high to allow him to be too chivalrous. His sense of the
+real facts was perverted. He said to himself that he must be practical.
+
+Moved by the new thought, he seized a time-table and looked up the
+trains. He had been ten days in town, receiving every morning a little
+note from Hylda telling of what she had done each day; a calm, dutiful
+note, written without pretence, and out of a womanly affection with
+which she surrounded the man who, it seemed once--such a little while
+ago--must be all in all to her. She had no element of pretence in her.
+What she could give she gave freely, and it was just what it appeared to
+be. He had taken it all as his due, with an underlying belief that, if
+he chose to make love to her again, he could blind her to all else in
+the world. Hurt vanity and egotism and jealousy had prevented him from
+luring her back to that fine atmosphere in which he had hypnotised her
+so few years ago. But suddenly, as he watched the swans swimming in the
+pond below, a new sense of approaching loss, all that Hylda had meant
+in his march and progress, came upon him; and he hastened to return to
+Hamley.
+
+Getting out of the train at Heddington, he made up his mind to walk home
+by the road that David had taken on his return from Egypt, and he left
+word at the station that he would send for his luggage.
+
+His first objective was Soolsby’s hut, and, long before he reached it,
+darkness had fallen. From a light shining through the crack of the blind
+he knew that Soolsby was at home. He opened the door and entered without
+knocking. Soolsby was seated at a table, a map and a newspaper spread
+out before him. Egypt and David, always David and Egypt!
+
+Soolsby got to his feet slowly, his eyes fixed inquiringly on his
+visitor.
+
+“I didn’t knock,” said Eglington, taking off his greatcoat and reaching
+for a chair; then added, as he seated himself: “Better sit down,
+Soolsby.”
+
+After a moment he continued: “Do you mind my smoking?”
+
+Soolsby did not reply, but sat down again. He watched Eglington light a
+cigar and stretch out his hands to the wood fire with an air of comfort.
+
+A silence followed. Eglington appeared to forget the other’s presence,
+and to occupy himself with thoughts that glimmered in the fire.
+
+At last Soolsby said moodily: “What have you come for, my lord?”
+
+“Oh, I am my lord still, am I?” Eglington returned lazily. “Is it a
+genealogical tree you are studying there?” He pointed to the map.
+
+“I’ve studied your family tree with care, as you should know, my lord;
+and a map of Egypt”--he tapped the parchment before him--“goes well with
+it. And see, my lord, Egypt concerns you too. Lord Eglington is there,
+and ‘tis time he was returning-ay, ‘tis time.”
+
+There was a baleful look in Soolsby’s eyes. Whatever he might think,
+whatever considerations might arise at other times, a sinister feeling
+came upon him when Eglington was with him.
+
+“And, my lord,” he went on, “I’d be glad to know that you’ve sent for
+him, and told him the truth.”
+
+“Have you?” Eglington flicked the ash from his cigar, speaking coolly.
+
+Soolsby looked at him with his honest blue eyes aflame, and answered
+deliberately: “I was not for taking your place, my lord. ‘Twas my duty
+to tell you, but the rest was between you and the Earl of Eglington.”
+
+“That was thoughtful of you, Soolsby. And Miss Claridge?”
+
+“I told you that night, my lord, that only her father and myself knew;
+and what was then is now.”
+
+A look of relief stole across Eglington’s face. “Of course--of course.
+These things need a lot of thought, Soolsby. One must act with care--no
+haste, no flurry, no mistakes.”
+
+“I would not wait too long, my lord, or be too careful.” There was
+menace in the tone.
+
+“But if you go at things blind, you’re likely to hurt where you don’t
+mean to hurt. When you’re mowing in a field by a school-house, you must
+look out for the children asleep in the grass. Sometimes the longest way
+round is the shortest way home.”
+
+“Do you mean to do it or not, my lord? I’ve left it to you as a
+gentleman.”
+
+“It’s going to upset more than you think, Soolsby. Suppose he, out
+there in Egypt”--he pointed again to the map--“doesn’t thank me for the
+information. Suppose he says no, and--”
+
+“Right’s right. Give him the chance, my lord. How can you know, unless
+you tell him the truth?”
+
+“Do you like living, Soolsby?”
+
+“Do you want to kill me, my lord?”
+
+There was a dark look in Eglington’s face. “But answer me, do you want
+to live?”
+
+“I want to live long enough to see the Earl of Eglington in his own
+house.”
+
+“Well, I’ve made that possible. The other night when you were telling me
+your little story, you were near sending yourself into eternity--as
+near as I am knocking this ash off my cigar.” His little finger almost
+touched the ash. “Your hand was as near touching a wire charged with
+death. I saw it. It would have been better for me if you had gone; but I
+shut off the electricity. Suppose I hadn’t, could I have been blamed?
+It would have been an accident. Providence did not intervene; I did. You
+owe me something, Soolsby.”
+
+Soolsby stared at him almost blindly for a moment. A mist was before his
+eyes; but through the mist, though he saw nothing of this scene in
+which he now was, he saw the laboratory, and himself and Eglington, and
+Eglington’s face as it peered at him, and, just before the voice called
+outside, Eglington’s eyes fastened on his hand. It all flashed upon him
+now, and he saw himself starting back at the sound of the voice.
+
+Slowly he got up now, went to the door, and opened it. “My lord, it is
+not true,” he said. “You have not spoken like a gentleman. It was
+my lady’s voice that saved me. This is my castle, my lord--you lodge
+yonder.” He pointed down into the darkness where the lights of the
+village shone. “I owe you nothing. I pay my debts. Pay yours, my lord,
+to him that’s beyond and away.”
+
+Eglington kept his countenance as he drew on his great-coat and slowly
+passed from the house.
+
+“I ought to have let you die, Soolsby. Y’ou’ll think better of this
+soon. But it’s quite right to leave the matter to me. It may take a
+little time, but everything will come right. Justice shall be done.
+Well, good night, Soolsby. You live too much alone, and imagination is a
+bad thing for the lonely. Good night-good night.”
+
+Going down the hill quickly, he said to himself: “A sort of second sight
+he had about that wire. But time is on my side, time and the Soudan--and
+‘The heathen in his blindness....’ I will keep what is mine. I will keep
+it!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII. THE AWAKENING
+
+In her heart of hearts Hylda had not greatly welcomed the Duchess of
+Snowdon to Hamley. There was no one whose friendship she prized more;
+but she was passing through a phase of her life when she felt that
+she was better apart, finding her own path by those intuitions and
+perceptions which belonged to her own personal experience. She vaguely
+felt, what all realise sooner or later, that we must live our dark hours
+alone.
+
+Yet the frank downright nature of the once beautiful, now faded,
+Duchess, the humorous glimmer in the pale-blue eyes, the droll irony
+and dry truth of her speech, appealed to Hylda, made her smile a warm
+greeting when she would rather have been alone. For, a few days before,
+she had begun a quest which had absorbed her, fascinated her. The miner,
+finding his way across the gap of a reef to pick up the vein of quartz
+at some distant and uncertain point, could not have been more lost
+to the world than was the young wife searching for a family skeleton,
+indefinitely embodied in her imagination by the name, James Fetherdon.
+
+Pile after pile of papers and letters of the late Earl and his Countess
+had passed through her hands from chaos to order. As she had read, hour
+after hour, the diaries of the cold, blue-eyed woman, Sybil Eglington,
+who had lived without love of either husband or son, as they, in turn,
+lived without love of each other, she had been overwhelmed by the
+revelation of a human heart, whose powers of expression were smothered
+by a shy and awkward temperament. The late Countess’s letters were the
+unclothing of a heart which had never expanded to the eyes of those
+whose love would have broken up a natural reserve, which became at last
+a proud coldness, and gave her a reputation for lack of feeling that she
+carried to her grave.
+
+In the diaries which Hylda unearthed--the Countess had died
+suddenly--was the muffled cry of a soul tortured through different
+degrees of misunderstanding; from the vague pain of suffered
+indifference, of being left out of her husband’s calculations, to the
+blank neglect narrowing her life down to a tiny stream of duty, which
+was finally lost in the sands. She had died abroad, and alone, save for
+her faithful maid, who, knowing the chasm that lay between her mistress
+and her lord, had brought her letters and papers back to the Cloistered
+House, and locked them away with all the other papers and correspondence
+which the Countess had accumulated.
+
+Among these papers was a letter to the late Lord Eglington written the
+day before she died. In the haste and confusion ensuing on her death,
+the maid had not seen it. It had never reached his hands, but lay in a
+pocket of the dead woman’s writing-portfolio, which Hylda had explored
+without discovering. Only a few hours, however, before the Duchess
+of Snowdon came, Hylda had found again an empty envelope on which was
+written the name, James Fetherdon. The writing on the envelope was that
+of Sybil Lady Eglington.
+
+When she discovered the envelope, a sense of mystery and premonition
+possessed her. What was the association between the Countess of
+Eglington and James Fetherdon, the father of David Claridge? In vain she
+searched among the voluminous letters and papers, for it would seem that
+the dead woman had saved every letter she received, and kept copies of
+numberless letters she had written. But she had searched without avail.
+Even the diaries, curiously frank and without reserve, never mentioned
+the name, so far as she could find, though here and there were strange
+allusive references, hints of a trouble that weighed her down, phrases
+of exasperation and defiance. One phrase, or the idea in it, was,
+however, much repeated in the diaries during the course of years, and
+towards the last almost feverishly emphasised--“Why should I bear it for
+one who would bear nothing for me, for his sake, who would do nothing
+for my sake? Is it only the mother in me, not the love in me?”
+
+These words were haunting Hylda’s brain when the telegram from the
+Duchess of Snowdon came. They followed her to Heddington, whither she
+went in the carriage to bring her visitor to Hamley, and kept repeating
+themselves at the back of her mind through the cheerful rallying of the
+Duchess, who spread out the wings of good-humour and motherly freedom
+over her.
+
+After all, it was an agreeable thing to be taken possession of, and “put
+in her proper place,” as the Duchess said; made to understand that her
+own affairs were not so important, after all; and that it was far more
+essential to hear the charming gossip about the new and most popular
+Princess of Wales, or the quarrel between Dickens and Thackeray. Yet,
+after dinner, in the little sitting-room, where the Duchess, in a white
+gown with great pink bows, fitter for a girl fresh from Confirmation,
+and her cheeks with their fixed colour, which changed only at the
+discretion of her maid, babbled of nothing that mattered, Hylda’s mind
+kept turning to the book of life an unhappy woman had left behind her.
+The sitting-room had been that of the late Countess also, and on the
+wall was an oil-painting of her, stately and distant and not very
+alluring, though the mouth had a sweetness which seemed unable to break
+into a smile.
+
+“What was she really like--that wasn’t her quite, was it?” asked Hylda,
+at last, leaning her chin on the hand which held the ‘cello she had been
+playing.
+
+“Oh, yes, it’s Sybil Eglington, my dear, but done in wood; and she
+wasn’t the graven image that makes her out to be. That’s as most people
+saw her; as the fellow that painted her saw her; but she had another
+side to her. She disapproved of me rather, because I was squeezing the
+orange dry, and trying to find yesterday’s roses in to-morrow’s garden.
+But she didn’t shut her door in my face--it’s hard to do that to a
+Duchess; which is one of the few advantages of living naked in the
+street, as it were, with only the strawberry leaves to clothe you. No,
+Sybil Eglington was a woman who never had her chance. Your husband’s
+forbears were difficult, my dear. They didn’t exactly draw you out.
+She needed drawing out; and her husband drove her back into her corner,
+where she sulked rather till she died--died alone at Wiesbaden, with
+a German doctor, a stray curate, and a stuttering maid to wish her bon
+voyage. Yet I fancy she went glad enough, for she had no memories, not
+even an affaire to repent of, and to cherish. La, la! she wasn’t so
+stupid, Sybil there, and she was an ornament to her own sex and the
+despair of the other. His Serene Highness Heinrich of Saxe-Gunden
+fancied the task of breaking that ice, and he was an adept and an
+Apollo, but it broke his reputation instead.
+
+“No doubt she is happy now. I shall probably never see!”
+
+In spite of the poignant nature of the talk, Hylda could not but smile
+at the last words.
+
+“Don’t despair,” she rejoined; “one star differeth from another star in
+glory, but that is no reason why they should not be on visiting terms.”
+
+“My dear, you may laugh--you may laugh, but I am sixty-five, and I
+am not laughing at the idea of what company I may be obliged to keep
+presently. In any case I’m sure I shall not be comfortable. If I’m
+where she is, I shall be dull; if I’m where her husband is, I’ll have
+no reputation; and if there is one thing I want, it is a spotless
+reputation--sometime.”
+
+Hylda laughed--the manner and the voice were so droll--but her face
+saddened too, and her big eyes with the drooping lashes looked up
+pensively at the portrait of her husband’s mother.
+
+“Was it ever a happy family, or a lucky family?” she asked.
+
+“It’s lucky now, and it ought to be happy now,” was the meaning reply.
+
+Hylda made no answer, but caught the strings of the ‘cello lightly,
+and shook her head reprovingly, with a smile meant to be playful. For a
+moment she played, humming to herself, and then the Duchess touched the
+hand that was drawing the bow softly across the strings. She had behind
+her garishness a gift for sympathy and a keen intuition, delicacy, and
+allusiveness. She knew what to say and what to leave unsaid, when her
+heart was moved.
+
+“My darling,” she said now, “you are not quite happy; but that is
+because you don’t allow yourself to get well. You’ve never recovered
+from your attack last summer; and you won’t, until you come out into
+the world again and see people. This autumn you ought to have been at
+Homburg or at Aix, where you’d take a little cure of waters and a great
+deal of cure of people. You were born to bask in friendship and the sun,
+and to draw from the world as much as you deserve, a little from many,
+for all you give in return. Because, dearest, you are a very agreeable
+person, with enough wit and humanity to make it worth the world’s while
+to conspire to make you do what will give it most pleasure, and let
+yourself get most--and that’s why I’ve come.”
+
+“What a person of importance I am!” answered Hylda, with a laugh that
+was far from mirthful, though she caught the plump, wrinkled little hand
+of the Duchess and pressed it. “But really I’m getting well here
+fast. I’m very strong again. It is so restful, and one’s days go by so
+quietly.”
+
+“Yet, I’m not sure that it’s rest you want. I don’t think it is. You
+want tonics--men and women and things. Monte Carlo would do you a world
+of good--I’d go with you. Eglington gambles here”--she watched Hylda
+closely--“why shouldn’t you gamble there?”
+
+“Eglington gambles?” Hylda’s face took on a frightened look, then
+it cleared again, and she smiled. “Oh, of course, with international
+affairs, you mean. Well, I must stay here and be the croupier.”
+
+“Nonsense! Eglington is his own croupier. Besides, he is so much in
+London, and you so much here. You sit with the distaff; he throws the
+dice.”
+
+Hylda’s lips tightened a little. Her own inner life, what Eglington was
+to her or she to Eglington, was for the ears of no human being, however
+friendly. She had seen little of him of late, but in one sense that had
+been a relief, though she would have done anything to make that feeling
+impossible. His rather precise courtesy and consideration, when he
+was with her, emphasised the distance between “the first fine careless
+rapture” and this grey quiet. And, strange to say, though in the first
+five years after the Cairo days and deeds, Egypt seemed an infinite
+space away, and David a distant, almost legendary figure, now Egypt
+seemed but beyond the door--as though, opening it, she would stand
+near him who represented the best of all that she might be capable of
+thinking. Yet all the time she longed for Eglington to come and say one
+word, which would be like touching the lever of the sluice-gates of
+her heart, to let loose the flood. As the space grew between her and
+Eglington, her spirit trembled, she shrank back, because she saw that
+sea towards which she was drifting.
+
+As she did not answer the last words of the Duchess, the latter said
+presently: “When do you expect Eglington?”
+
+“Not till the week-end; it is a busy week with him,” Hylda answered;
+then added hastily, though she had not thought of it till this moment:
+“I shall probably go up to town with you to-morrow.”
+
+She did not know that Eglington was already in the house, and had given
+orders to the butler that she was not to be informed of his arrival for
+the present.
+
+“Well, if you get that far, will you come with me to the Riviera, or
+to Florence, or Sicily--or Cairo?” the other asked, adjusting her
+gold-brown wig with her babyish hands.
+
+Cairo! Cairo! A light shot up into Hylda’s eyes. The Duchess had spoken
+without thought, but, as she spoke, she watched the sudden change in
+Hylda. What did it mean? Cairo--why should Cairo have waked her so?
+Suddenly she recalled certain vague references of Lord Windlehurst, and,
+for the first time, she associated Hylda with Claridge Pasha in a way
+which might mean much, account for much, in this life she was leading.
+
+“Perhaps! Perhaps!” answered Hylda abstractedly, after a moment.
+
+The Duchess got to her feet. She had made progress. She would let her
+medicine work.
+
+“I’m going to bed, my dear. I’m sixty-five, and I take my sleep when I
+can get it. Think it over, Sicily--Cairo!”
+
+She left the room, saying to herself that Eglington was a fool, and
+that danger was ahead. “But I hold a red light--poor darling!” she said
+aloud, as she went up the staircase. She did not know that Eglington,
+standing in a deep doorway, heard her, and seized upon the words eagerly
+and suspiciously, and turned them over in his mind.
+
+Below, at the desk where Eglington’s mother used to write, Hylda sat
+with a bundle of letters before her. For some moments she opened,
+glanced through them, and put them aside. Presently she sat back in her
+chair, thinking--her mind was invaded by the last words of the Duchess;
+and somehow they kept repeating themselves with the words in the late
+Countess’s diary: “Is it only the mother in me, not the love in me?”
+ Mechanically her hand moved over the portfolio of the late Countess, and
+it involuntarily felt in one of its many pockets. Her hand came upon
+a letter. This had remained when the others had been taken out. It was
+addressed to the late Earl, and was open. She hesitated a moment, then,
+with a strange premonition and a tightening of her heart-strings, she
+spread it out and read it.
+
+At first she could scarcely see because of the mist in her eyes; but
+presently her sight cleared, and she read quickly, her cheeks burning
+with excitement, her heart throbbing violently. The letter was the
+last expression of a disappointed and barren life. The slow, stammering
+tongue of an almost silent existence had found the fulness of speech.
+The fountains of the deep had been broken up, and Sybil Eglington’s
+repressed emotions, undeveloped passions, tortured by mortal sufferings,
+and refined and vitalised by the atmosphere blown in upon her last hours
+from the Hereafter, were set free, given voice and power at last.
+
+The letter reviewed the life she had lived with her husband during
+twenty-odd years, reproved herself for not speaking out and telling him
+his faults at the beginning, and for drawing in upon herself, when she
+might have compelled him to a truer understanding; and, when all
+that was said, called him to such an account as only the dying might
+make--the irrevocable, disillusionising truth which may not be altered,
+the poignant record of failure and its causes.
+
+   “... I could not talk well, I never could, as a girl,” the
+   letter ran; “and you could talk like one inspired, and so
+   speciously, so overwhelmingly, that I felt I could say nothing in
+   disagreement, not anything but assent; while all the time I felt how
+   hollow was so much you said--a cloak of words to cover up the real
+   thought behind. Before I knew the truth, I felt the shadow of
+   secrecy in your life. When you talked most, I felt you most
+   secretive, and the feeling slowly closed the door upon all frankness
+   and sympathy and open speech between us. I was always shy and self-
+   conscious and self-centred, and thought little of myself; and I
+   needed deep love and confidence and encouragement to give out what
+   was in me. I gave nothing out, nothing to you that you wanted, or
+   sought for, or needed. You were complete, self-contained. Harry,
+   my beloved babe Harry, helped at first; but, as the years went on,
+   he too began to despise me for my little intellect and slow
+   intelligence, and he grew to be like you in all things--and
+   secretive also, though I tried so hard to be to him what a mother
+   should be. Oh, Bobby, Bobby--I used to call you that in the days
+   before we were married, and I will call you that now when all is
+   over and done--why did you not tell me all? Why did you not tell me
+   that my boy, my baby Harry, was not your only child, that there had
+   been another wife, and that your eldest son was alive?
+
+   “I know all. I have known all for years. The clergyman who married
+   you to Mercy Claridge was a distant relative of my mother’s, and
+   before he died he told me. When you married her, he knew you only
+   as James Fetherdon, but, years afterwards, he saw and recognised
+   you. He held his peace then, but at last he came to me. And I did
+   not speak. I was not strong enough, nor good enough, to face the
+   trouble of it all. I could not endure the scandal, to see my own
+   son take the second place--he is so brilliant and able and
+   unscrupulous, like yourself; but, oh, so sure of winning a great
+   place in the world, surer than yourself ever was, he is so
+   calculating and determined and ambitious! And though he loves me
+   little, as he loves you little, too, yet he is my son, and for what
+   he is we are both responsible, one way or another; and I had not the
+   courage to give him the second place, and the Quaker, David
+   Claridge, the first place. Why Luke Claridge, his grandfather,
+   chose the course he did, does not concern me, no more than why you
+   chose secrecy, and kept your own firstborn legitimate son, of whom
+   you might well be proud, a stranger to you and his rights all these
+   years. Ah, Eglington, you never knew what love was, you never had
+   a heart--experiment, subterfuge, secrecy, ‘reaping where you had
+   not sowed, and gathering where you had not strawed.’ Always,
+   experiment, experiment, experiment!
+
+   “I shall be gone in a few hours--I feel it, but before I go I must
+   try to do right, and to warn you. I have had such bad dreams about
+   you and Harry--they haunt me--that I am sure you will suffer
+   terribly, will have some awful tragedy, unless you undo what was
+   done long ago, and tell the truth to the world, and give your titles
+   and estates where they truly belong. Near to death, seeing how
+   little life is, and how much right is in the end, I am sure that I
+   was wrong in holding my peace; for Harry cannot prosper with this
+   black thing behind him, and you cannot die happy if you smother up
+   the truth. Night after night I have dreamed of you in your
+   laboratory, a vague, dark, terrifying dream of you in that
+   laboratory which I have hated so. It has always seemed to me the
+   place where some native evil and cruelty in your blood worked out
+   its will. I know I am an ignorant woman, with no brain, but God has
+   given me clear sight at the last, and the things I see are true
+   things, and I must warn you. Remember that....”
+
+The letter ended there. She had been interrupted or seized with illness,
+and had never finished it, and had died a few hours afterwards; and the
+letter was now, for the first time, read by her whom it most concerned,
+into whose heart and soul the words sank with an immitigable pain
+and agonised amazement. A few moments with this death-document had
+transformed Hylda’s life.
+
+Her husband and--and David, were sons of the same father; and the
+name she bore, the home in which she was living, the estates the title
+carried, were not her husband’s, but another’s--David’s. She fell back
+in her chair, white and faint, but, with a great effort, she conquered
+the swimming weakness which blinded her. Sons of the same father! The
+past flashed before her, the strange likeness she had observed, the
+trick of the head, the laugh, the swift gesture, the something in the
+voice. She shuddered as she had done in reading the letter. But they
+were related only in name, in some distant, irreconcilable way--in a way
+which did not warrant the sudden scarlet flush that flooded her face.
+Presently she recovered herself. She--what did she suffer, compared
+with her who wrote this revelation of a lifetime of pain, of bitter and
+torturing knowledge! She looked up at the picture on the wall, at
+the still, proud, emotionless face, the conventional, uninspired
+personality, behind which no one had seen, which had agonised alone till
+the last. With what tender yet pitiless hand had she laid bare the lives
+of her husband and her son! How had the neglected mother told the bitter
+truth of him to whom she had given birth! “So brilliant and able, and
+unscrupulous, like yourself; but, oh, sure of winning a great place
+in the world... so calculating and determined and ambitious.... That
+laboratory which I have hated so. It has always seemed to me the
+place where some native evil and cruelty in your blood worked out its
+will....”
+
+With a deep-drawn sigh Hylda said to herself: “If I were dying
+to-morrow, would I say that? She loved them so--at first must have loved
+them so; and yet this at the last! And I--oh, no, no, no!” She looked at
+a portrait of Eglington on the table near, touched it caressingly, and
+added, with a sob in her voice: “Oh, Harry, no, it is not true! It is
+not native evil and cruelty in your blood. It has all been a mistake.
+You will do right. We will do right, Harry. You will suffer, it will
+hurt, the lesson will be hard--to give up what has meant so much to you;
+but we will work it out together, you and I, my very dear. Oh, say that
+we shall, that....” She suddenly grew silent. A tremor ran through her,
+she became conscious of his presence near her, and turned, as though he
+were behind her. There was nothing. Yet she felt him near, and, as she
+did so, the soul-deep feeling with which she had spoken to the portrait
+fled. Why was it that, so often, when absent from him, her imagination
+helped her to make excuses for him, inspired her to press the real truth
+out of sight, and to make believe that he was worthy of a love which,
+but through some inner fault of her own, might be his altogether, and
+all the love of which he was capable might be hers?
+
+She felt him near her, and the feelings possessing her a moment before
+slowly chilled and sank away. Instinctively her eyes glanced towards
+the door. She saw the handle turn, and she slipped the letter inside the
+portfolio again.
+
+The door opened briskly now, and Eglington entered with what his enemies
+in the newspaper press had called his “professional smile”--a criticism
+which had angered his wife, chiefly because it was so near the truth.
+He smiled. Smiling was part of his equipment, and was for any one at any
+time that suited him.
+
+Her eyes met his, and he noted in her something that he had never seen
+before. Something had happened. The Duchess of Snowdon was in the house;
+had it anything to do with her? Had she made trouble? There was trouble
+enough without her. He came forward, took Hylda’s hand and kissed it,
+then kissed her on the cheek. As he did so, she laid a hand on his arm
+with a sudden impulse, and pressed it. Though his presence had chilled
+the high emotions of a few moments before, yet she had to break to him
+a truth which would hurt him, dismay him, rob his life of so much that
+helped it; and a sudden protective, maternal sense was roused in her,
+reached out to shelter him as he faced his loss and the call of duty.
+
+“You have just come?” she said, in a voice that, to herself, seemed far
+away.
+
+“I have been here some hours,” he answered. Secrecy again--always
+the thing that had chilled the dead woman, and laid a cold hand upon
+herself--“I felt the shadow of secrecy in your life. When you talked
+most I felt you most secretive, and the feeling slowly closed the door
+upon all frankness and sympathy and open speech between us.”
+
+“Why did you not see me--dine with me?” she asked. “What can
+the servants think?” Even in such a crisis the little things had
+place--habit struck its note in the presence of her tragedy.
+
+“You had the Duchess of Snowdon, and we are not precisely congenial;
+besides, I had much to do in the laboratory. I’m working for that new
+explosive of which I told you. There’s fame and fortune in it, and I’m
+on the way. I feel it coming”--his eyes sparkled a little. “I made it
+right with the servants; so don’t be apprehensive.”
+
+“I have not seen you for nearly a week. It doesn’t seem--friendly.”
+
+“Politics and science are stern masters,” he answered gaily.
+
+“They leave little time for your mistress,” she rejoined meaningly.
+
+“Who is my mistress?”
+
+“Well, I am not greatly your wife,” she replied. “I have the dregs of
+your life. I help you--I am allowed to help you--so little, to share so
+little in the things that matter to you.”
+
+“Now, that’s imagination and misunderstanding,” he rejoined. “It has
+helped immensely your being such a figure in society, and entertaining
+so much, and being so popular, at any rate until very lately.”
+
+“I do not misunderstand,” she answered gravely. “I do not share your
+real life. I do not help you where your brain works, in the plans and
+purposes and hopes that lie behind all that you do--oh, yes, I know your
+ambitions and what positions you are aiming for; but there is something
+more than that. There is the object of it all, the pulse of it, the
+machinery down, down deep in your being that drives it all. Oh, I am not
+a child! I have some intellect, and I want--I want that we should work
+it out together.”
+
+In spite of all that had come and gone, in spite of the dead mother’s
+words and all her own convictions, seeing trouble coming upon him, she
+wanted to make one last effort for what might save their lives--her
+life--from shipwreck in the end. If she failed now, she foresaw a
+bitter, cynical figure working out his life with a narrowing soul, a
+hard spirit unrelieved by the softening influence of a great love--even
+yet the woman in her had a far-off hope that, where the law had made
+them one by book and scrip, the love which should consecrate such a
+union, lift it above an almost offensive relation, might be theirs. She
+did not know how much of her heart, of her being, was wandering over
+the distant sands of Egypt, looking for its oasis. Eglington had never
+needed or wanted more than she had given him--her fortune, her person,
+her charm, her ability to play an express and definite part in his
+career. It was this material use to which she was so largely assigned,
+almost involuntarily but none the less truly, that had destroyed all of
+the finer, dearer, more delicate intimacy invading his mind sometimes,
+more or less vaguely, where Faith was concerned. So extreme was his
+egotism that it had never occurred to him, as it had done to the Duchess
+of Snowdon and Lord Windlehurst, that he might lose Hylda herself as
+well as her fortune; that the day might come when her high spirit could
+bear it no longer. As the Duchess of Snowdon had said: “It would all
+depend upon the other man, whoever he might be.”
+
+So he answered her with superficial cheerfulness now; he had not the
+depth of soul to see that they were at a crisis, and that she could bear
+no longer the old method of treating her as though she were a child, to
+be humoured or to be dominated.
+
+“Well, you see all there is,” he answered; “you are so imaginative,
+crying for some moon there never was in any sky.”
+
+In part he had spoken the truth. He had no high objects or ends or
+purposes. He wanted only success somehow or another, and there was no
+nobility of mind or aspiration behind it. In her heart of hearts she
+knew it; but it was the last cry of her soul to him, seeking, though in
+vain, for what she had never had, could never have.
+
+“What have you been doing?” he added, looking at the desk where she
+had sat, glancing round the room. “Has the Duchess left any rags on
+the multitude of her acquaintances? I wonder that you can make yourself
+contented here with nothing to do. You don’t look much stronger. I’m
+sure you ought to have a change. My mother was never well here; though,
+for the matter of that, she was never very well anywhere. I suppose it’s
+the laboratory that attracts me here, as it did my father, playing with
+the ancient forces of the world in these Arcadian surroundings--Arcady
+without beauty or Arcadians.” He glanced up at his mother’s picture.
+“No, she never liked it--a very silent woman, secretive almost.”
+
+Suddenly her eyes flared up. Anger possessed her. She choked it down.
+Secretive--the poor bruised soul who had gone to her grave with a broken
+heart!
+
+“She secretive? No, Eglington,” she rejoined gravely, “she was
+congealed. She lived in too cold an air. She was not secretive, but yet
+she kept a secret--another’s.”
+
+Again Eglington had the feeling which possessed him when he entered the
+room. She had changed. There was something in her tone, a meaning, he
+had never heard before. He was startled. He recalled the words of the
+Duchess as she went up the staircase.
+
+What was it all about?
+
+“Whose secrets did she keep?” he asked, calmly enough.
+
+“Your father’s, yours, mine,” she replied, in a whisper almost.
+
+“Secret? What secret? Good Lord, such mystery!” He laughed mirthlessly.
+
+She came close to him. “I am sorry--sorry, Harry,” she said with
+difficulty. “It will hurt you, shock you so. It will be a blow to you,
+but you must bear it.”
+
+She tried to speak further, but her heart was beating so violently that
+she could not. She turned quickly to the portfolio on the desk, drew
+forth the fatal letter, and, turning to the page which contained the
+truth concerning David, handed it to him. “It is there,” she said.
+
+He had great self-control. Before looking at the page to which she had
+directed his attention, he turned the letter over slowly, fingering the
+pages one by one. “My mother to my father,” he remarked.
+
+Instinctively he knew what it contained. “You have been reading my
+mother’s correspondence,” he added in cold reproof.
+
+“Do you forget that you asked me to arrange her papers?” she retorted,
+stung by his suggestion.
+
+“Your imagination is vivid,” he exclaimed. Then he bethought himself
+that, after all, he might sorely need all she could give, if things
+went against him, and that she was the last person he could afford to
+alienate; “but I do remember that I asked you that,” he added--“no doubt
+foolishly.”
+
+“Read what is there,” she broke in, “and you will see that it was not
+foolish, that it was meant to be.” He felt a cold dead hand reaching
+out from the past to strike him; but he nerved himself, and his eyes
+searched the paper with assumed coolness-even with her he must still be
+acting. The first words he saw were: “Why did you not tell me that my
+boy, my baby Harry, was not your only child, and that your eldest son
+was alive?”
+
+So that was it, after all. Even his mother knew. Master of his nerves
+as he was, it blinded him for a moment. Presently he read on--the whole
+page--and lingered upon the words, that he might have time to think what
+he must say to Hylda. Nothing of the tragedy of his mother touched him,
+though he was faintly conscious of a revelation of a woman he had
+never known, whose hungering caresses had made him, as a child, rather
+peevish, when a fit of affection was not on him. Suddenly, as he read
+the lines touching himself, “Brilliant and able and unscrupulous.... and
+though he loves me little, as he loves you little too,” his eye lighted
+up with anger, his face became pale--yet he had borne the same truths
+from Faith without resentment, in the wood by the mill that other year.
+For a moment he stood infuriated, then, going to the fireplace, he
+dropped the letter on the coals, as Hylda, in horror, started forward to
+arrest his hand.
+
+“Oh, Eglington--but no--no! It is not honourable. It is proof of all!”
+
+He turned upon her slowly, his face rigid, a strange, cold light in his
+eyes. “If there is no more proof than that, you need not vex your mind,”
+ he said, commanding his voice to evenness.
+
+A bitter anger was on him. His mother had read him through and
+through--he had not deceived her even; and she had given evidence
+against him to Hylda, who, he had ever thought, believed in him
+completely. Now there was added to the miserable tale, that first
+marriage, and the rights of David--David, the man who, he was convinced,
+had captured her imagination. Hurt vanity played a disproportionate part
+in this crisis.
+
+The effect on him had been different from what Hylda had anticipated.
+She had pictured him stricken and dumfounded by the blow. It had never
+occurred to her, it did not now, that he had known the truth; for, of
+course, to know the truth was to speak, to restore to David his own,
+to step down into the second and unconsidered place. After all, to her
+mind, there was no disgrace. The late Earl had married secretly, but he
+had been duly married, and he did not marry again until Mercy Claridge
+was dead. The only wrong was to David, whose grandfather had been even
+more to blame than his own father. She had looked to help Eglington in
+this moment, and now there seemed nothing for her to do. He was superior
+to the situation, though it was apparent in his pale face and rigid
+manner that he had been struck hard.
+
+She came near to him, but there was no encouragement to her to play
+that part which is a woman’s deepest right and joy and pain in one--to
+comfort her man in trouble, sorrow, or evil. Always, always, he stood
+alone, whatever the moment might be, leaving her nothing to do--“playing
+his own game with his own weapons,” as he had once put it. Yet there was
+strength in it too, and this came to her mind now, as though in excuse
+for whatever else there was in the situation which, against her will,
+repelled her.
+
+“I am so sorry for you,” she said at last.
+
+“What do you mean?” he asked.
+
+“To lose all that has been yours so long.”
+
+This was their great moment. The response to this must be the touchstone
+of their lives. A--half dozen words might alter all the future, might
+be the watch word to the end of all things. Involuntarily her heart
+fashioned the response he ought to give--“I shall have you left, Hylda.”
+
+The air seemed to grow oppressive, and the instant’s silence a torture,
+and, when he spoke, his words struck a chill to her heart--rough notes
+of pain. “I have not lost yet,” were his words.
+
+She shrank. “You will not hide it. You will do right by--by him,” she
+said with difficulty.
+
+“Let him establish his claim to the last item of fact,” he said with
+savage hate.
+
+“Luke Claridge knew. The proofs are but just across the way, no doubt,”
+ she answered, almost coldly, so had his words congealed her heart.
+
+Their great moment had passed. It was as though a cord had snapped that
+held her to him, and in the recoil she had been thrown far off from him.
+Swift as his mind worked, it had not seen his opportunity to win her to
+his cause, to asphyxiate her high senses, her quixotic justice, by that
+old flood of eloquence and compelling persuasion of the emotions with
+which he had swept her to the altar--an altar of sacrifice. He had
+not even done what he had left London to do--make sure of her, by an
+alluring flattery and devotion, no difficult duty with one so beautiful
+and desirable; though neither love of beauty nor great desire was strong
+enough in him to divert him from his course for an hour, save by his own
+initiative. His mother’s letter had changed it all. A few hours before
+he had had a struggle with Soolsby, and now another struggle on the
+same theme was here. Fate had dealt illy with him, who had ever been its
+spoiled child and favourite. He had not learned yet the arts of defence
+against adversity.
+
+“Luke Claridge is dead,” he answered sharply. “But you will tell--him,
+you will write to Egypt and tell your brother?” she said, the conviction
+slowly coming to her that he would not.
+
+“It is not my duty to displace myself, to furnish evidence against
+myself--”
+
+“You have destroyed the evidence,” she intervened, a little scornfully.
+
+“If there were no more than that--” He shrugged his shoulders
+impatiently.
+
+“Do you know there is more?” she asked searchingly. “In whose interests
+are you speaking?” he rejoined, with a sneer. A sudden fury possessed
+him. Claridge Pasha--she was thinking of him!
+
+“In yours--your conscience, your honour.”
+
+“There is over thirty years’ possession on my side,” he rejoined.
+
+“It is not as if it were going from your family,” she argued.
+
+“Family--what is he to me!”
+
+“What is any one to you?” she returned bitterly.
+
+“I am not going to unravel a mystery in order to facilitate the cutting
+of my own throat.”
+
+“It might be worth while to do something once for another’s sake than
+your own--it would break the monotony,” she retorted, all her sense
+tortured by his words, and even more so by his manner.
+
+Long ago Faith had said in Soolsby’s but that he “blandished” all with
+whom he came in contact; but Hylda realised with a lacerated heart that
+he had ceased to blandish her. Possession had altered that. Yet how had
+he vowed to her in those sweet tempestuous days of his courtship when
+the wind of his passion blew so hard! Had one of the vows been kept?
+
+Even as she looked at him now, words she had read some days before
+flashed through her mind--they had burnt themselves into her brain:
+
+          “Broken faith is the crown of evils,
+          Broken vows are the knotted thongs
+          Set in the hands of laughing devils,
+          To scourge us for deep wrongs.
+
+          “Broken hearts, when all is ended,
+          Bear the better all after-stings;
+          Bruised once, the citadel mended,
+          Standeth through all things.”
+
+Suddenly he turned upon her with aggrieved petulance. “Why are you so
+eager for proof?”
+
+“Oh, I have,” she said, with a sudden flood of tears in her voice,
+though her eyes were dry--“I have the feeling your mother had, that
+nothing will be well until you undo the wrong your father did. I know
+it was not your fault. I feel for you--oh, believe me, I feel as I have
+never felt, could never feel, for myself. It was brought on you by your
+father, but you must be the more innocent because he was so guilty. You
+have had much out of it, it has helped you on your way. It does not mean
+so much now. By-and-by another--an English-peerage may be yours by your
+own achievement. Let it go. There is so much left, Harry. It is a small
+thing in a world of work. It means nothing to me.” Once again, even when
+she had given up all hope, seeing what was the bent of his mind--once
+again she made essay to win him out of his selfishness. If he would only
+say, “I have you left,” how she would strive to shut all else out of her
+life!
+
+He was exasperated. His usual prescience and prudence forsook him. It
+angered him that she should press him to an act of sacrifice for the
+man who had so great an influence upon her. Perversity possessed him.
+Lifelong egotism was too strong for wisdom, or discretion.
+
+Suddenly he caught her hands in both of his and said hoarsely: “Do you
+love me--answer me, do you love me with all your heart and soul? The
+truth now, as though it were your last word on earth.”
+
+Always self. She had asked, if not in so many words, for a little love,
+something for herself to feed on in the darkening days for him, for her,
+for both; and he was thinking only of himself.
+
+She shrank, but her hands lay passive in his. “No, not with all my heart
+and soul--but, oh--!”
+
+He flung her hands from him. “No, not with all your heart and soul--I
+know! You are willing to sacrifice me for him, and you think I do not
+understand.”
+
+She drew herself up, with burning cheeks and flashing eyes. “You
+understand nothing--nothing. If you had ever understood me, or any human
+being, or any human heart, you would not have ruined all that might
+have given you an undying love, something that would have followed
+you through fire and flood to the grave. You cannot love. You do not
+understand love. Self--self, always self. Oh, you are mad, mad, to have
+thrown it all away, all that might have given happiness! All that I
+have, all that I am, has been at your service; everything has been bent
+and tuned to your pleasure, for your good. All has been done for
+you, with thought of you and your position and your advancement, and
+now--now, when you have killed all that might have been yours, you cry
+out in anger that it is dying, and you insinuate what you should kill
+another for insinuating. Oh, the wicked, cruel folly of it all! You
+suggest--you dare! I never heard a word from David Claridge that might
+not be written on the hoardings. His honour is deeper than that which
+might attach to the title of Earl of Eglington.”
+
+She seemed to tower above him. For an instant she looked him in the eyes
+with frigid dignity, but a great scorn in her face. Then she went to the
+door--he hastened to open it for her.
+
+“You will be very sorry for this,” he said stubbornly. He was too
+dumfounded to be discreet, too suddenly embarrassed by the turn affairs
+had taken. He realised too late that he had made a mistake, that he had
+lost his hold upon her.
+
+As she passed through, there suddenly flashed before her mind the scene
+in the laboratory with the chairmaker. She felt the meaning of it now.
+
+“You do not intend to tell him--perhaps Soolsby has done so,” she said
+keenly, and moved on to the staircase.
+
+He was thunderstruck at her intuition. “Why do you want to rob
+yourself?” he asked after her vaguely. She turned back. “Think of your
+mother’s letter that you destroyed,” she rejoined solemnly and quietly.
+“Was it right?”
+
+He shut the door, and threw himself into a chair. “I will put it
+straight with her to-morrow,” he said helplessly.
+
+He sat for a half-hour silent, planning his course.
+
+At last there came a tap at the door, and the butler appeared.
+
+“Some one from the Foreign Office, my lord,” he said. A moment
+afterwards a young official, his subordinate, entered. “There’s the
+deuce to pay in Egypt, sir; I’ve brought the despatch,” he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII. NAHOUM TURNS THE SCREW
+
+Laughing to himself, Higli Pasha sat with the stem of a narghileh in his
+mouth. His big shoulders kept time to the quivering of his fat stomach.
+He was sitting in a small court-yard of Nahoum Pasha’s palace, waiting
+for its owner to appear. Meanwhile he exercised a hilarious patience.
+The years had changed him little since he had been sent on that
+expedition against the southern tribes which followed hard on David’s
+appointment to office. As David had expected, few of the traitorous
+officers returned. Diaz had ignominiously died of the bite of a
+tarantula before a blow had been struck, but Higli had gratefully
+received a slight wound in the first encounter, which enabled him
+to beat a safe retreat to Cairo. He alone of the chief of the old
+conspirators was left. Achmet was still at the Place of Lepers, and the
+old nest of traitors was scattered for ever.
+
+Only Nahoum and Higli were left, and between these two there had never
+been partnership or understanding. Nahoum was not the man to trust to
+confederates, and Higli Pasha was too contemptible a coadjutor. Nahoum
+had faith in no one save Mizraim the Chief Eunuch, but Mizraim alone was
+better than a thousand; and he was secret--and terrible. Yet Higli had a
+conviction that Nahoum’s alliance with David was a sham, and that David
+would pay the price of misplaced confidence one day. More than once when
+David’s plans had had a set-back, Higli had contrived a meeting with
+Nahoum, to judge for himself the true position.
+
+For his visit to-day he had invented a reason--a matter of finance; but
+his real reason was concealed behind the malevolent merriment by which
+he was now seized. So absorbed was he that he did not heed the approach
+of another visitor down an angle of the court-yard. He was roused by a
+voice.
+
+“Well, what’s tickling you so, pasha?”
+
+The voice was drawling, and quite gentle; but at the sound of it,
+Higli’s laugh stopped short, and the muscles of his face contracted.
+If there was one man of whom he had a wholesome fear--why, he could not
+tell--it was this round-faced, abrupt, imperturbable American, Claridge
+Pasha’s right-hand man. Legends of resourcefulness and bravery had
+gathered round his name. “Who’s been stroking your chin with a feather,
+pasha?” he continued, his eye piercing the other like a gimlet.
+
+“It was an amusing tale I heard at Assiout, effendi,” was Higli’s
+abashed and surly reply.
+
+“Oh, at Assiout!” rejoined Lacey. “Yes, they tell funny stories at
+Assiout. And when were you at Assiout, pasha?”
+
+“Two days ago, effendi.”
+
+“And so you thought you’d tell the funny little story to Nahoum as quick
+as could be, eh? He likes funny stories, same as you--damn, nice, funny
+little stories, eh?”
+
+There was something chilly in Lacey’s voice now, which Higli did
+not like; something much too menacing and contemptuous for a mere
+man-of-all-work to the Inglesi. Higli bridled up, his eyes glared
+sulkily.
+
+“It is but my own business if I laugh or if I curse, effendi,” he
+replied, his hand shaking a little on the stem of the narghileh.
+
+“Precisely, my diaphanous polyandrist; but it isn’t quite your own
+affair what you laugh at--not if I know it!”
+
+“Does the effendi think I was laughing at him?”
+
+“The effendi thinks not. The effendi knows that the descendant of a
+hundred tigers was laughing at the funny little story, of how the two
+cotton-mills that Claridge Pasha built were burned down all in one
+night, and one of his steamers sent down the cataract at Assouan. A
+knock-down blow for Claridge Pasha, eh? That’s all you thought of,
+wasn’t it? And it doesn’t matter to you that the cotton-mills made
+thousands better off, and started new industries in Egypt. No, it only
+matters to you that Claridge Pasha loses half his fortune, and that you
+think his feet are in the quicksands, and ‘ll be sucked in, to make an
+Egyptian holiday. Anything to discredit him here, eh? I’m not sure what
+else you know; but I’ll find out, my noble pasha, and if you’ve had
+your hand in it--but no, you ain’t game-cock enough for that! But if
+you were, if you had a hand in the making of your funny little story,
+there’s a nutcracker that ‘d break the shell of that joke--”
+
+He turned round quickly, seeing a shadow and hearing a movement. Nahoum
+was but a few feet away. There was a bland smile on his face, a look of
+innocence in his magnificent blue eye. As he met Lacey’s look, the smile
+left his lips, a grave sympathy appeared to possess them, and he spoke
+softly:
+
+“I know the thing that burns thy heart, effendi, to whom be the flowers
+of hope and the fruits of merit. It is even so, a great blow has fallen.
+Two hours since I heard. I went at once to see Claridge Pasha, but found
+him not. Does he know, think you?” he added sadly.
+
+“May your heart never be harder than it is, pasha, and when I left the
+Saadat an hour ago, he did not know. His messenger hadn’t a steamer
+like Higli Pasha there. But he was coming to see you; and that’s why I’m
+here. I’ve been brushing the flies off this sore on the hump of Egypt
+while waiting.” He glanced with disdain at Higli.
+
+A smile rose like liquid in the eye of Nahoum and subsided, then he
+turned to Higli inquiringly.
+
+“I have come on business, Excellency; the railway to Rosetta, and--”
+
+“To-morrow--or the next day,” responded Nahoum irritably, and turned
+again to Lacey.
+
+As Higli’s huge frame disappeared through a gateway, Nahoum motioned
+Lacey to a divan, and summoned a slave for cooling drinks. Lacey’s eyes
+now watched him with an innocence nearly as childlike as his own. Lacey
+well knew that here was a foe worthy of the best steel. That he was a
+foe, and a malignant foe, he had no doubt whatever; he had settled the
+point in his mind long ago; and two letters he had received from Lady
+Eglington, in which she had said in so many words, “Watch Nahoum!”
+ had made him vigilant and intuitive. He knew, meanwhile, that he was
+following the trail of a master-hunter who covered up his tracks. Lacey
+was as certain as though he had the book of Nahoum’s mind open in his
+hand, that David’s work had been torn down again--and this time with
+dire effect--by this Armenian, whom David trusted like a brother. But
+the black doors that closed on the truth on every side only made him
+more determined to unlock them; and, when he faltered as to his own
+powers, he trusted Mahommed Hassan, whose devotion to David had given
+him eyes that pierced dark places.
+
+“Surely the God of Israel has smitten Claridge Pasha sorely. My
+heart will mourn to look upon his face. The day is insulting in its
+brightness,” continued Nahoum with a sigh, his eyes bent upon Lacey,
+dejection in his shoulders.
+
+Lacey started. “The God of Israel!” How blasphemous it sounded from the
+lips of Nahoum, Oriental of Orientals, Christian though he was also!
+
+“I think, perhaps, you’ll get over it, pasha. Man is born to trouble,
+and you’ve got a lot of courage. I guess you could see other people bear
+a pile of suffering, and never flinch.”
+
+Nahoum appeared not to notice the gibe. “It is a land of suffering,
+effendi,” he sighed, “and one sees what one sees.”
+
+“Have you any idea, any real sensible idea, how those cotton-mills got
+afire?” Lacey’s eyes were fixed on Nahoum’s face.
+
+The other met his gaze calmly. “Who can tell! An accident, perhaps,
+or--”
+
+“Or some one set the mills on fire in several places at once--they say
+the buildings flamed out in every corner; and it was the only time in a
+month they hadn’t been running night and day. Funny, isn’t it?”
+
+“It looks like the work of an enemy, effendi.” Nahoum shook his head
+gravely. “A fortune destroyed in an hour, as it were. But we shall get
+the dog. We shall find him. There is no hole deep enough to hide him
+from us.”
+
+“Well, I wouldn’t go looking in holes for him, pasha.
+
+“He isn’t any cave-dweller, that incendiary; he’s an artist--no palace
+is too unlikely for him. No, I wouldn’t go poking in mud-huts to find
+him.”
+
+“Thou dost not think that Higli Pasha--” Nahoum seemed startled out
+of equanimity by the thought. Lacey eyed him meditatively, and said
+reflectively: “Say, you’re an artist, pasha. You are a guesser of the
+first rank. But I’d guess again. Higli Pasha would have done it, if it
+had ever occurred to him; and he’d had the pluck. But it didn’t, and he
+hadn’t. What I can’t understand is that the artist that did it should
+have done it before Claridge Pasha left for the Soudan. Here we were
+just about to start; and if we’d got away south, the job would have done
+more harm, and the Saadat would have been out of the way. No, I can’t
+understand why the firebug didn’t let us get clean away; for if the
+Saadat stays here, he’ll be where he can stop the underground mining.”
+
+Nahoum’s self-control did not desert him, though he fully realised that
+this man suspected him. On the surface Lacey was right. It would have
+seemed better to let David go, and destroy his work afterwards, but he
+had been moved by other considerations, and his design was deep. His
+own emissaries were in the Soudan, announcing David’s determination to
+abolish slavery, secretly stirring up feeling against him, preparing for
+the final blow to be delivered, when he went again among the southern
+tribes. He had waited and waited, and now the time was come. Had he,
+Nahoum, not agreed with David that the time had come for the slave-trade
+to go? Had he not encouraged him to take this bold step, in the sure
+belief that it would overwhelm him, and bring him an ignominious death,
+embittered by total failure of all he had tried to do?
+
+For years he had secretly loosened the foundations of David’s work,
+and the triumph of Oriental duplicity over Western civilisation and
+integrity was sweet in his mouth. And now there was reason to believe
+that, at last, Kaid was turning against the Inglesi. Everything would
+come at once. If all that he had planned was successful, even this man
+before him should aid in his master’s destruction.
+
+“If it was all done by an enemy,” he said, in answer to Lacey, at last,
+“would it all be reasoned out like that? Is hatred so logical? Dost
+thou think Claridge Pasha will not go now? The troops are ready at
+Wady-Halfa, everything is in order; the last load of equipment has gone.
+Will not Claridge Pasha find the money somehow? I will do what I can. My
+heart is moved to aid him.”
+
+“Yes, you’d do what you could, pasha,” Lacey rejoined enigmatically,
+“but whether it would set the Saadat on his expedition or not is a
+question. But I guess, after all, he’s got to go. He willed it so.
+People may try to stop him, and they may tear down what he does, but he
+does at last what he starts to do, and no one can prevent him--not any
+one. Yes, he’s going on this expedition; and he’ll have the money,
+too.” There was a strange, abstracted look in his face, as though he saw
+something which held him fascinated.
+
+Presently, as if with an effort, he rose to his feet, took the red
+fez from his head, and fanned himself with it for a moment. “Don’t you
+forget it, pasha; the Saadat will win. He can’t be beaten, not in a
+thousand years. Here he comes.”
+
+Nahoum got to his feet, as David came quickly through the small gateway
+of the court-yard, his head erect, his lips smiling, his eyes sweeping
+the place. He came forward briskly to them. It was plain he had not
+heard the evil news.
+
+“Peace be to thee, Saadat, and may thy life be fenced about with
+safety!” said Nahoum.
+
+David laid a hand on Lacey’s arm and squeezed it, smiling at him with
+such friendship that Lacey’s eyes moistened, and he turned his head
+away.
+
+There was a quiet elation in David’s look. “We are ready at last,” he
+said, looking from one to the other. “Well, well,” he added, almost
+boyishly, “has thee nothing to say, Nahoum?”
+
+Nahoum turned his head away as though overcome. David’s face grew
+instantly grave. He turned to Lacey. Never before had he seen Lacey’s
+face with a look like this. He grasped Lacey’s arm. “What is it?” he
+asked quietly. “What does thee want to say to me?”
+
+But Lacey could not speak, and David turned again to Nahoum. “What is
+there to say to me?” he asked. “Something has happened--what is it?...
+Come, many things have happened before. This can be no worse. Do thee
+speak,” he urged gently.
+
+“Saadat,” said Nahoum, as though under the stress of feeling, “the
+cotton-mills at Tashah and Mini are gone--burned to the ground.”
+
+For a moment David looked at him without sight in his eyes, and his face
+grew very pale. “Excellency, all in one night, the besom of destruction
+was abroad,” he heard Nahoum say, as though from great depths below him.
+He slowly turned his head to look at Lacey. “Is this true?” he asked at
+last in an unsteady voice. Lacey could not speak, but inclined his head.
+
+David’s figure seemed to shrink for a moment, his face had a withered
+look, and his head fell forward in a mood of terrible dejection.
+
+“Saadat! Oh, my God, Saadat, don’t take it so!” said Lacey brokenly, and
+stepped between David and Nahoum. He could not bear that the stricken
+face and figure should be seen by Nahoum, whom he believed to be
+secretly gloating. “Saadat,” he said brokenly, “God has always been with
+you; He hasn’t forgotten you now.
+
+“The work of years,” David murmured, and seemed not to hear.
+
+“When God permits, shall man despair?” interposed Nahoum, in a voice
+that lingered on the words. Nahoum accomplished what Lacey had failed to
+do. His voice had pierced to some remote corner in David’s nature, and
+roused him. Was it that doubt, suspicion, had been wakened at last? Was
+some sensitive nerve touched, that this Oriental should offer Christian
+comfort to him in his need--to him who had seen the greater light? Or
+was it that some unreality in the words struck a note which excited
+a new and subconscious understanding? Perhaps it was a little of all
+three. He did not stop to inquire. In crises such as that through which
+he was passing, the mind and body act without reason, rather by the
+primal instinct, the certain call of the things that were before reason
+was.
+
+“God is with the patient,” continued Nahoum; and Lacey set his teeth to
+bear this insult to all things. But Nahoum accomplished what he had not
+anticipated. David straightened himself up, and clasped his hands behind
+him. By a supreme effort of the will he controlled himself, and the
+colour came back faintly to his face. “God’s will be done,” he said, and
+looked Nahoum calmly in the eyes. “It was no accident,” he added with
+conviction. “It was an enemy of Egypt.” Suddenly the thing rushed over
+him again, going through his veins like a poisonous ether, and clamping
+his heart as with iron. “All to do over again!” he said brokenly, and
+again he caught Lacey’s arm.
+
+With an uncontrollable impulse Lacey took David’s hand in his own warm,
+human grasp.
+
+“Once I thought I lost everything in Mexico, Saadat, and I understand
+what you feel. But all wasn’t lost in Mexico, as I found at last, and I
+got something, too, that I didn’t put in. Say, let us go from here. God
+is backing you, Saadat. Isn’t it all right--same as ever?”
+
+David was himself again. “Thee is a good man,” he said, and through the
+sadness of his eyes there stole a smile. “Let us go,” he said. Then he
+added in a businesslike way: “To-morrow at seven, Nahoum. There is much
+to do.”
+
+He turned towards the gate with Lacey, where the horses waited. Mahommed
+Hassan met them as they prepared to mount. He handed David a letter.
+It was from Faith, and contained the news of Luke Claridge’s death.
+Everything had come at once. He stumbled into the saddle with a moan.
+
+“At last I have drawn blood,” said Nahoum to himself with grim
+satisfaction, as they disappeared. “It is the beginning of the end. It
+will crush him-I saw it in his eyes. God of Israel, I shall rule again
+in Egypt!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX. THE RECOIL
+
+
+It was a great day in the Muslim year. The Mahmal, or Sacred Carpet, was
+leaving Cairo on its long pilgrimage of thirty-seven days to Mecca and
+Mahomet’s tomb. Great guns boomed from the Citadel, as the gorgeous
+procession, forming itself beneath the Mokattam Hills, began its slow
+march to where, seated in the shade of an ornate pavilion, Prince Kaid
+awaited its approach to pay devout homage. Thousands looked down at the
+scene from the ramparts of the Citadel, from the overhanging cliffs,
+and from the tops of the houses that hung on the ledges of rock rising
+abruptly from the level ground, to which the last of the famed Mamelukes
+leaped to their destruction.
+
+Now to Prince Kaid’s ears there came from hundreds of hoarse throats the
+cry: “Allah! Allah! May thy journey be with safety to Arafat!” mingling
+with the harsh music of the fifes and drums.
+
+Kaid looked upon the scene with drawn face and lowering brows. His
+retinue watched him with alarm. A whisper had passed that, two nights
+before, the Effendina had sent in haste for a famous Italian physician
+lately come to Cairo, and that since his visit Kaid had been sullen and
+depressed. It was also the gossip of the bazaars that he had suddenly
+shown favour to those of the Royal House and to other reactionaries, who
+had been enemies to the influence of Claridge Pasha.
+
+This rumour had been followed by an official proclamation that no
+Europeans or Christians would be admitted to the ceremony of the Sacred
+Carpet.
+
+Thus it was that Kaid looked out on a vast multitude of Muslims, in
+which not one European face showed, and from lip to lip there passed the
+word, “Harrik--Harrik--remember Harrik! Kaid turns from the infidel!”
+
+They crowded near the great pavilion--as near as the mounted Nubians
+would permit--to see Kaid’s face; while he, with eyes wandering over
+the vast assemblage, was lost in dark reflections. For a year he had
+struggled against a growing conviction that some obscure disease was
+sapping his strength. He had hid it from every one, until, at last,
+distress and pain had overcome him. The verdict of the Italian expert
+was that possible, but by no means certain, cure might come from an
+operation which must be delayed for a month or more.
+
+Suddenly, the world had grown unfamiliar to him; he saw it from afar;
+but his subconscious self involuntarily registered impressions, and he
+moved mechanically through the ceremonies and duties of the immediate
+present. Thrown back upon himself, to fight his own fight, with the
+instinct of primary life his mind involuntarily drew for refuge to
+the habits and predispositions of youth; and for two days he had shut
+himself away from the activities with which David and Nahoum were
+associated. Being deeply engaged with the details of the expedition to
+the Soudan, David had not gone to the Palace; and he was unaware of the
+turn which things had taken.
+
+Three times, with slow and stately steps, the procession wound in a
+circle in the great square, before it approached the pavilion where the
+Effendina sat, the splendid camels carrying the embroidered tent wherein
+the Carpet rested, and that which bore the Emir of the pilgrims, moving
+gracefully like ships at sea. Naked swordsmen, with upright and shining
+blades, were followed by men on camels bearing kettle-drums. After them
+came Arab riders with fresh green branches fastened to the saddles like
+plumes, while others carried flags and banners emblazoned with texts
+and symbols. Troops of horsemen in white woollen cloaks, sheikhs and
+Bedouins with flowing robes and huge turbans, religious chiefs of the
+great sects, imperturbable and statuesque, were in strange contrast to
+the shouting dervishes and camel-drivers and eager pilgrims.
+
+At last the great camel with its sacred burden stopped in front of
+Kaid for his prayer and blessing. As he held the tassels, lifted the
+gold-fringed curtain, and invoked Allah’s blessing, a half-naked sheikh
+ran forward, and, raising his hand high above his head, cried shrilly:
+“Kaid, Kaid, hearken!”
+
+Rough hands caught him away, but Kaid commanded them to desist; and the
+man called a blessing on him; and cried aloud:
+
+“Listen, O Kaid, son of the stars and the light of day. God hath exalted
+thee. Thou art the Egyptian of all the Egyptians. In thy hand is power.
+But thou art mortal even as I. Behold, O Kaid, in the hour that I was
+born thou wast born, I in the dust without thy Palace wall, thou amid
+the splendid things. But thy star is my star. Behold, as God ordains,
+the Tree of Life was shaken on the night when all men pray and cry aloud
+to God--even the Night of the Falling Leaves. And I watched the falling
+leaves; and I saw my leaf, and it was withered, but only a little
+withered, and so I live yet a little. But I looked for thy leaf, thou
+who wert born in that moment when I waked to the world. I looked long,
+but I found no leaf, neither green nor withered. But I looked again upon
+my leaf, and then I saw that thy name now was also upon my leaf, and
+that it was neither green nor withered; but was a leaf that drooped as
+when an evil wind has passed and drunk its life. Listen, O Kaid! Upon
+the tomb of Mahomet I will set my lips, and it may be that the leaf of
+my life will come fresh and green again. But thou--wilt thou not
+come also to the lord Mahomet’s tomb? Or”--he paused and raised his
+voice--“or wilt thou stay and lay thy lips upon the cross of the
+infidel? Wilt thou--”
+
+He could say no more, for Kaid’s face now darkened with anger. He made
+a gesture, and, in an instant, the man was gagged and bound, while a
+sullen silence fell upon the crowd. Kaid suddenly became aware of this
+change of feeling, and looked round him. Presently his old prudence
+and subtlety came back, his face cleared a little, and he called aloud,
+“Unloose the man, and let him come to me.” An instant after, the man was
+on his knees, silent before him.
+
+“What is thy name?” Kaid asked.
+
+“Kaid Ibrahim, Effendina,” was the reply.
+
+“Thou hast misinterpreted thy dream, Kaid Ibrahim,” answered the
+Effendina. “The drooping leaf was token of the danger in which thy life
+should be, and my name upon thy leaf was token that I should save thee
+from death. Behold, I save thee. Inshallah, go in peace! There is no God
+but God, and the Cross is the sign of a false prophet. Thou art mad. God
+give thee a new mind. Go.”
+
+The man was presently lost in the sweltering, half-frenzied crowd; but
+he had done his work, and his words rang in the ears of Kaid as he rode
+away.
+
+A few hours afterwards, bitter and rebellious, murmuring to himself,
+Kaid sat in a darkened room of his Nile Palace beyond the city. So
+few years on the throne, so young, so much on which to lay the hand of
+pleasure, so many millions to command; and yet the slave at his door had
+a surer hold on life and all its joys and lures than he, Prince Kaid,
+ruler of Egypt! There was on him that barbaric despair which has taken
+dreadful toll of life for the decree of destiny. Across the record of
+this day, as across the history of many an Eastern and pagan tyrant, was
+written: “He would not die alone.” That the world should go on when he
+was gone, that men should buy and sell and laugh and drink, and flaunt
+it in the sun, while he, Prince Kaid, would be done with it all.
+
+He was roused by the rustling of a robe. Before him stood the Arab
+physician, Sharif Bey, who had been in his father’s house and his own
+for a lifetime. It was many a year since his ministrations to Kaid had
+ceased; but he had remained on in the Palace, doing service to those
+who received him, and--it was said by the evil-tongued--granting
+certificates of death out of harmony with dark facts, a sinister and
+useful figure. His beard was white, his face was friendly, almost
+benevolent, but his eyes had a light caught from no celestial flame.
+
+His look was confident now, as his eyes bent on Kaid. He had lived long,
+he had seen much, he had heard of the peril that had been foreshadowed
+by the infidel physician; and, by a sure instinct, he knew that his
+own opportunity had come. He knew that Kaid would snatch at any offered
+comfort, would cherish any alleviating lie, would steal back from
+science and civilisation and the modern palace to the superstition of
+the fellah’s hut. Were not all men alike when the neboot of Fate struck
+them down into the terrible loneliness of doom, numbing their minds?
+Luck would be with him that offered first succour in that dark hour.
+Sharif had come at the right moment for Sharif.
+
+Kaid looked at him with dull yet anxious eyes. “Did I not command that
+none should enter?” he asked presently in a thick voice.
+
+“Am I not thy physician, Effendina, to whom be the undying years? When
+the Effendina is sick, shall I not heal? Have I not waited like a dog
+at thy door these many years, till that time would come when none could
+heal thee save Sharif?”
+
+“What canst thou give me?”
+
+“What the infidel physician gave thee not--I can give thee hope. Hast
+thou done well, oh, Effendina, to turn from thine own people? Did not
+thine own father, and did not Mehemet Ali, live to a good age? Who
+were their physicians? My father and I, and my father’s father, and his
+father’s father.”
+
+“Thou canst cure me altogether?” asked Kaid hesitatingly.
+
+“Wilt thou not have faith in one of thine own race? Will the infidel
+love thee as do we, who are thy children and thy brothers, who are
+to thee as a nail driven in the wall, not to be moved? Thou shalt
+live--Inshallah, thou shalt have healing and length of days!”
+
+He paused at a gesture from Kaid, for a slave had entered and stood
+waiting.
+
+“What dost thou here? Wert thou not commanded?” asked Kaid.
+
+“Effendina, Claridge Pasha is waiting,” was the reply.
+
+Kaid frowned, hesitated; then, with a sudden resolve, made a gesture of
+dismissal to Sharif Bey, and nodded David’s admittance to the slave.
+
+As David entered, he passed Sharif Bey, and something in the look on
+the Arab physician’s face--a secret malignancy and triumph--struck him
+strangely. And now a fresh anxiety and apprehension rose in his mind as
+he glanced at Kaid. The eye was heavy and gloomy, the face was clouded,
+the lips once so ready to smile at him were sullen and smileless now.
+David stood still, waiting.
+
+“I did not expect thee till to-morrow, Saadat,” said Kaid moodily at
+last.
+
+“The business is urgent?”
+
+“Effendina,” said David, with every nerve at tension, yet with outward
+self-control, “I have to report--” He paused, agitated; then, in a firm
+voice, he told of the disaster which had befallen the cotton-mills and
+the steamer.
+
+As David spoke, Kaid’s face grew darker, his fingers fumbled vaguely
+with the linen of the loose white robe he wore. When the tale was
+finished he sat for a moment apparently stunned by the news, then he
+burst out fiercely:
+
+“Bismillah, am I to hear only black words to-day? Hast thou naught to
+say but this--the fortune of Egypt burned to ashes!”
+
+David held back the quick retort that came to his tongue.
+
+“Half my fortune is in the ashes,” he answered with dignity. “The rest
+came from savings never made before by this Government. Is the work less
+worthy in thy sight, Effendina, because it has been destroyed? Would thy
+life be less great and useful because a blow took thee from behind?”
+
+Kaid’s face turned black. David had bruised an open wound.
+
+“What is my life to thee--what is thy work to me?”
+
+“Thy life is dear to Egypt, Effendina,” urged David soothingly, “and my
+labour for Egypt has been pleasant in thine eyes till now.”
+
+“Egypt cannot be saved against her will,” was the moody response. “What
+has come of the Western hand upon the Eastern plough?” His face grew
+blacker; his heart was feeding on itself.
+
+“Thou, the friend of Egypt, hast come of it, Effendina.”
+
+“Harrik was right, Harrik was right,” Kaid answered, with stubborn gloom
+and anger. “Better to die in our own way, if we must die, than live in
+the way of another. Thou wouldst make of Egypt another England; thou
+wouldst civilise the Soudan--bismillah, it is folly!”
+
+“That is not the way Mehemet Ali thought, nor Ibrahim. Nor dost thou
+think so, Effendina,” David answered gravely. “A dark spirit is on thee.
+Wouldst thou have me understand that what we have done together, thou
+and I, was ill done, that the old bad days were better?”
+
+“Go back to thine own land,” was the surly answer. “Nation after nation
+ravaged Egypt, sowed their legions here, but the Egyptian has lived them
+down. The faces of the fellaheen are the faces of Thotmes and Seti. Go
+back. Egypt will travel her own path. We are of the East; we are Muslim.
+What is right to you is wrong to us. Ye would make us over--give us
+cotton beds and wooden floors and fine flour of the mill, and cleanse
+the cholera-hut with disinfectants, but are these things all? How many
+of your civilised millions would die for their prophet Christ? Yet
+all Egypt would rise up from the mud-floor, the dourha-field and the
+mud-hut, and would come out to die for Mahomet and Allah--ay, as
+Harrik knew, as Harrik knew! Ye steal into corners, and hide behind the
+curtains of your beds to pray; we pray where the hour of prayer finds
+us--in the street, in the market-place, where the house is building,
+the horse being shod, or the money-changers are. Ye hear the call of
+civilisation, but we heap the Muezzin--”
+
+He stopped, and searched mechanically for his watch. “It is the hour the
+Muezzin calls,” said David gently. “It is almost sunset. Shall I open
+the windows that the call may come to us?” he added.
+
+While Kaid stared at him, his breast heaving with passion, David went to
+a window and opened the shutters wide.
+
+The Palace faced the Nile, which showed like a tortuous band of blue and
+silver a mile or so away. Nothing lay between but the brown sand, and
+here and there a handful of dark figures gliding towards the river, or a
+little train of camels making for the bare grey hills from the ghiassas
+which had given them their desert loads. The course of the Nile was
+marked by a wide fringe of palms showing blue and purple, friendly and
+ancient and solitary. Beyond the river and the palms lay the grey-brown
+desert, faintly touched with red. So clear was the sweet evening air
+that the irregular surface of the desert showed for a score of miles as
+plainly as though it were but a step away. Hummocks of sand--tombs and
+fallen monuments gave a feeling as of forgotten and buried peoples; and
+the two vast pyramids of Sakkarah stood up in the plaintive glow of
+the evening skies, majestic and solemn, faithful to the dissolved and
+absorbed races who had built them. Curtains of mauve and saffron-red
+were hung behind them, and through a break of cloud fringing the horizon
+a yellow glow poured, to touch the tips of the pyramids with poignant
+splendour. But farther over to the right, where Cairo lay, there hung
+a bluish mist, palpable and delicate, out of which emerged the vast
+pyramids of Cheops; and beside it the smiling inscrutable Sphinx faced
+the changeless centuries. Beyond the pyramids the mist deepened into a
+vast deep cloud of blue and purple, which seemed the end to some mystic
+highway untravelled by the sons of men.
+
+Suddenly there swept over David a wave of feeling such as had passed
+over Kaid, though of a different nature. Those who had built the
+pyramids were gone, Cheops and Thotmes and Amenhotep and Chefron and the
+rest. There had been reformers in those lost races; one age had sought
+to better the last, one man had toiled to save--yet there only remained
+offensive bundles of mummied flesh and bone and a handful of relics
+in tombs fifty centuries old. Was it all, then, futile? Did it matter,
+then, whether one man laboured or a race aspired?
+
+Only for a moment these thoughts passed through his mind; and then,
+as the glow through the broken cloud on the opposite horizon suddenly
+faded, and veils of melancholy fell over the desert and the river and
+the palms, there rose a call, sweetly shrill, undoubtingly insistent.
+Sunset had come, and, with it, the Muezzin’s call to prayer from the
+minaret of a mosque hard by.
+
+David was conscious of a movement behind him--that Kaid was praying with
+hands uplifted; and out on the sands between the window and the river
+he saw kneeling figures here and there, saw the camel-drivers halt their
+trains, and face the East with hands uplifted. The call went on--“La
+ilaha illa-llah!”
+
+It called David, too. The force and searching energy and fire in it
+stole through his veins, and drove from him the sense of futility
+and despondency which had so deeply added to his trouble. There was
+something for him, too, in that which held infatuated the minds of so
+many millions.
+
+A moment later Kaid and he faced each other again. “Effendina,” he said,
+“thou wilt not desert our work now?”
+
+“Money--for this expedition? Thou hast it?” Kaid asked ironically.
+
+“I have but little money, and it must go to rebuild the mills,
+Effendina. I must have it of thee.”
+
+“Let them remain in their ashes.”
+
+“But thousands will have no work.”
+
+“They had work before they were built, they will have work now they are
+gone.”
+
+“Effendina, I stayed in Egypt at thy request. The work is thy work. Wilt
+thou desert it?”
+
+“The West lured me--by things that seemed. Now I know things as they
+are.”
+
+“They will lure thee again to-morrow,” said David firmly, but with a
+weight on his spirit. His eyes sought and held Kaid’s. “It is too late
+to go back; we must go forward or we shall lose the Soudan, and a Mahdi
+and his men will be in Cairo in ten years.”
+
+For an instant Kaid was startled. The old look of energy and purpose
+leaped up into his eye; but it faded quickly again. If, as the Italian
+physician more than hinted, his life hung by a thread, did it matter
+whether the barbarian came to Cairo? That was the business of those who
+came after. If Sharif was right, and his life was saved, there would be
+time enough to set things right.
+
+“I will not pour water on the sands to make an ocean,” he answered.
+“Will a ship sail on the Sahara? Bismillah, it is all a dream! Harrik
+was right. But dost thou think to do with me as thou didst with Harrik?”
+ he sneered. “Is it in thy mind?”
+
+David’s patience broke down under the long provocation. “Know then,
+Effendina,” he said angrily, “that I am not thy subject, nor one
+beholden to thee, nor thy slave. Upon terms well understood, I have
+laboured here. I have kept my obligations, and it is thy duty to keep
+thy obligations, though the hand of death were on thee. I know not what
+has poisoned thy mind, and driven thee from reason and from justice. I
+know that, Prince Pasha of Egypt as thou art, thou art as bound to me as
+any fellah that agrees to tend my door or row my boat. Thy compact
+with me is a compact with England, and it shall be kept, if thou art an
+honest man. Thou mayst find thousands in Egypt who will serve thee at
+any price, and bear thee in any mood. I have but one price. It is well
+known to thee. I will not be the target for thy black temper. This is
+not the middle ages; I am an Englishman, not a helot. The bond must
+be kept; thou shalt not play fast and loose. Money must be found; the
+expedition must go. But if thy purpose is now Harrik’s purpose, then
+Europe should know, and Egypt also should know. I have been thy right
+hand, Effendina; I will not be thy old shoe, to be cast aside at thy
+will.”
+
+In all the days of his life David had never flamed out as he did now.
+Passionate as his words were, his manner was strangely quiet, but his
+white and glistening face and his burning eyes showed how deep was his
+anger.
+
+As he spoke, Kaid sank upon the divan. Never had he been challenged so.
+With his own people he had ever been used to cringing and abasement, and
+he had played the tyrant, and struck hard and cruelly, and he had
+been feared; but here, behind David’s courteous attitude, there was a
+scathing arraignment of his conduct which took no count of consequence.
+In other circumstances his vanity would have shrunk under this whip of
+words, but his native reason and his quick humour would have justified
+David. In this black distemper possessing him, however, only outraged
+egotism prevailed. His hands clenched and unclenched, his lips were
+drawn back on his teeth in rage.
+
+When David had finished, Kaid suddenly got to his feet and took a step
+forward with a malediction, but a faintness seized him and he staggered
+back. When he raised his head again David was gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX. LACEY MOVES
+
+If there was one glistening bead of sweat on the bald pate of Lacey of
+Chicago there were a thousand; and the smile on his face was not less
+shining and unlimited. He burst into the rooms of the palace where David
+had residence, calling: “Oyez! Oyez! Saadat! Oh, Pasha of the Thousand
+Tails! Oyez! Oyez!”
+
+Getting no answer, he began to perform a dance round the room, which in
+modern days is known as the negro cake-walk. It was not dignified, but
+it would have been less dignified still performed by any other living
+man of forty-five with a bald head and a waist-band ten inches too
+large. Round the room three times he went, and then he dropped on a
+divan. He gasped, and mopped his face and forehead, leaving a little
+island of moisture on the top of his head untouched. After a moment, he
+gained breath and settled down a little. Then he burst out:
+
+     “Are you coming to my party, O effendi?
+     There’ll be high jinks, there’ll be welcome, there’ll be room;
+     For to-morrow we are pulling stakes for Shendy.
+     Are you coming to my party, O Nahoum?”
+
+“Say, I guess that’s pretty good on the spur of the moment,” he wheezed,
+and, taking his inseparable note book from his pocket, wrote the
+impromptu down. “I guess She’ll like that-it rings spontaneous. She’ll
+be tickled, tickled to death, when she knows what’s behind it.” He
+repeated it with gusto. “She’ll dote on it,” he added--the person to
+whom he referred being the sister of the American Consul, the little
+widow, “cute as she can be,” of whom he had written to Hylda in the
+letter which had brought a crisis in her life. As he returned the
+note-book to his pocket a door opened. Mahommed Hassan slid forward into
+the room, and stood still, impassive and gloomy. Lacey beckoned, and
+said grotesquely:
+
+    “‘Come hither, come hither, my little daughter,
+     And do not tremble so!’”
+
+A sort of scornful patience was in Mahommed’s look, but he came nearer
+and waited.
+
+“Squat on the ground, and smile a smile of mirth, Mahommed,” Lacey said
+riotously. “‘For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’
+the May!’”
+
+Mahommed’s face grew resentful. “O effendi, shall the camel-driver laugh
+when the camels are lost in the khamsin and the water-bottle is empty?”
+
+“Certainly not, O son of the spreading palm; but this is not a desert,
+nor a gaudy caravan. This is a feast of all angels. This is the day when
+Nahoum the Nefarious is to be buckled up like a belt, and ridden in a
+ring. Where is the Saadat?”
+
+“He is gone, effendi! Like a mist on the face of the running water, so
+was his face; like eyes that did not see, so was his look. ‘Peace be to
+thee, Mahommed, thou art faithful as Zaida,’ he said, and he mounted and
+rode into the desert. I ran after till he was come to the edge of the
+desert; but he sent me back, saying that I must wait for thee; and this
+word I was to say, that Prince Kaid had turned his face darkly from him,
+and that the finger of Sharif--”
+
+“That fanatical old quack--Harrik’s friend!”
+
+“--that the finger of Sharif was on his pulse; but the end of all was in
+the hands of God.”
+
+“Oh yes, exactly, the finger of Sharif on his pulse! The old story-the
+return to the mother’s milk, throwing back to all the Pharaohs. Well,
+what then?” he added cheerfully, his smile breaking out again. “Where
+has he gone, our Saadat?”
+
+“To Ebn Ezra Bey at the Coptic Monastery by the Etl Tree, where your
+prophet Christ slept when a child.”
+
+Lacey hummed to himself meditatively. “A sort of last powwow--Rome
+before the fall. Everything wrong, eh? Kaid turned fanatic, Nahoum on
+the tiles watching for the Saadat to fall, things trembling for want of
+hard cash. That’s it, isn’t it, Mahommed?”
+
+Mahommed nodded, but his look was now alert, and less sombre. He had
+caught at something vital and confident in Lacey’s tone. He drew nearer,
+and listened closely.
+
+“Well, now, my gentle gazelle, listen unto me,” continued Lacey. He
+suddenly leaned forward, and spoke in subdued but rapid tones. “Say,
+Mahommed, once upon a time there was an American man, with a shock of
+red hair, and a nature like a spring-lock. He went down to Mexico, with
+a million or two of his own money got honestly by an undisputed will
+from an undisputed father--you don’t understand that, but it doesn’t
+matter--and with a few millions of other people’s money, for to gamble
+in mines and railways and banks and steamship companies--all to do with
+Mexico what the Saadat has tried to do in Egypt with less money; but not
+for the love of Allah, same as him. This American was going to conquer
+like Cortez, but his name was Thomas Tilman Lacey, and he had a lot of
+gall. After years of earnest effort, he lost his hair and the millions
+of the Infatuated Conquistadores. And by-and-by he came to Cairo with
+a thimbleful of income, and began to live again. There was a civil
+war going on in his own country, but he thought that one out of forty
+millions would not be strictly missed. So he stayed in Egypt; and the
+tale of his days in Egypt, is it not written with a neboot of domwood in
+the book of Mahommed Hassan the scribe?”
+
+He paused and beamed upon the watchful Mahommed, who, if he did not
+understand all that had been said, was in no difficulty as to the drift
+and meaning of the story.
+
+“Aiwa, effendi,” he urged impatiently. “It is a long ride to the Etl
+Tree, and the day is far spent.”
+
+“Inshallah, you shall hear, my turtle-dove! One day there came to Cairo,
+in great haste, a man from Mexico, looking for the foolish one called T.
+T. Lacey, bearing glad news. And the man from Mexico blew his trumpet,
+and straightway T. T. Lacey fell down dismayed. The trumpet said that
+a million once lost in Mexico was returned, with a small flock of other
+millions; for a mine, in which it was sunk, had burst forth with a stony
+stream of silver. And behold! Thomas Tilman Lacey, the despised waster
+of his patrimony and of other people’s treasure, is now, O son of the
+fig-flower, richer than Kaid Pasha and all his eunuchs.”
+
+Suddenly Mahommed Hassan leaned forward, then backward, and, after the
+fashion of desert folk, gave a shrill, sweet ululation that seemed to
+fill the palace.
+
+“Say, that’s A1,” Lacey said, when Mahommed’s voice sank to a whisper
+of wild harmony. “Yes, you can lick my boots, my noble sheikh of
+Manfaloot,” he added, as Mahommed caught his feet and bent his head upon
+them. “I wanted to do something like that myself. Kiss ‘em, honey; it’ll
+do you good.”
+
+After a moment, Mahommed drew back and squatted before him in an
+attitude of peace and satisfaction. “The Saadat--you will help him? You
+will give him money?”
+
+“Let’s put it in this way, Mahommed: I’ll invest in an expedition out of
+which I expect to get something worth while--concessions for mines
+and railways, et cetera.” He winked a round, blue eye. “Business is
+business, and the way to get at the Saadat is to talk business; but you
+can make up your mind that,
+
+    “‘To-morrow, we are pulling stakes for Shendy!
+     Are you coming to my party, O Nahoum?’”
+
+“By the prophet Abraham, but the news is great news,” said Mahommed with
+a grin. “But the Effendina?”
+
+“Well, I’ll try and square the Effendina,” answered Lacey. “Perhaps the
+days of backsheesh aren’t done in Egypt, after all.”
+
+“And Nahoum Pasha?” asked Mahommed, with a sinister look.
+
+“Well, we’ll try and square him, too, but in another way.”
+
+“The money, it is in Egypt?” queried Mahommed, whose idea was that money
+to be real must be seen. “Something that’s as handy and as marketable,”
+ answered Lacey. “I can raise half a million to-morrow; and that will do
+a lot of what we want. How long will it take to ride to the monastery?”
+
+Mahommed told him.
+
+Lacey was about to leave the room, when he heard a voice outside.
+“Nahoum!” he said, and sat down again on the divan. “He has come to see
+the Saadat, I suppose; but it’ll do him good to see me, perhaps. Open
+the sluices, Mahommed.”
+
+Yes, Nahoum would be glad to see the effendi, since Claridge Pasha was
+not in Cairo. When would Claridge Pasha return? If, then, the effendi
+expected to see the Saadat before his return to Cairo, perhaps he would
+convey a message. He could not urge his presence on the Saadat, since he
+had not been honoured with any communication since yesterday.
+
+“Well, that’s good-mannered, anyhow, pasha,” said Lacey with cheerful
+nonchalance. “People don’t always know when they’re wanted or not
+wanted.”
+
+Nahoum looked at him guardedly, sighed and sat down. “Things have grown
+worse since yesterday,” he said. “Prince Kaid received the news badly.”
+ He shook his head. “He has not the gift of perfect friendship. That is
+a Christian characteristic; the Muslim does not possess it. It was too
+strong to last, maybe--my poor beloved friend, the Saadat.”
+
+“Oh, it will last all right,” rejoined Lacey coolly. “Prince Kaid has
+got a touch of jaundice, I guess. He knows a thing when he finds it,
+even if he hasn’t the gift of ‘perfect friendship,’ same as Christians
+like you and me. But even you and me don’t push our perfections too
+far--I haven’t noticed you going out of your way to do things for your
+‘poor beloved friend, the Saadat’.”
+
+“I have given him time, energy, experience--money.”
+
+Lacey nodded. “True. And I’ve often wondered why, when I’ve seen the
+things you didn’t give and the things you took away.”
+
+Nahoum’s eyes half closed. Lacey was getting to close quarters with
+suspicion and allusion; but it was not his cue to resent them yet.
+
+“I had come now to offer him help; to advance him enough to carry
+through his expedition.”
+
+“Well, that sounds generous, but I guess he would get on without it,
+pasha. He would not want to be under any more obligations to you.”
+
+“He is without money. He must be helped.”
+
+“Just so.”
+
+“He cannot go to the treasury, and Prince Kaid has refused. Why should
+he decline help from his friend?” Suddenly Lacey changed his tactics. He
+had caught a look in Nahoum’s eyes which gave him a new thought. “Well,
+if you’ve any proposition, pasha, I’ll take it to him. I’ll be seeing
+him to-night.”
+
+“I can give him fifty thousand pounds.”
+
+“It isn’t enough to save the situation, pasha.”
+
+“It will help him over the first zareba.”
+
+“Are there any conditions?”
+
+“There are no conditions, effendi.”
+
+“And interest?”
+
+“There would be no interest in money.”
+
+“Other considerations?”
+
+“Yes, other considerations, effendi.”
+
+“If they were granted, would there be enough still in the stocking to
+help him over a second zareba--or a third, perhaps?”
+
+“That would be possible, even likely, I think. Of course we speak in
+confidence, effendi.”
+
+“The confidence of the ‘perfect friendship.’”
+
+“There may be difficulty, because the Saadat is sensitive; but it is the
+only way to help him. I can get the money from but one source; and to
+get it involves an agreement.”
+
+“You think his Excellency would not just jump at it--that it might hurt
+some of his prejudices, eh?”
+
+“So, effendi.”
+
+“And me--where am I in it, pasha?”
+
+“Thou hast great influence with his Excellency.”
+
+“I am his servant--I don’t meddle with his prejudices, pasha.”
+
+“But if it were for his own good, to save his work here.”
+
+Lacey yawned almost ostentatiously. “I guess if he can’t save it himself
+it can’t be saved, not even when you reach out the hand of perfect
+friendship. You’ve been reaching out for a long time, pasha, and it
+didn’t save the steamer or the cotton-mills; and it didn’t save us when
+we were down by Sobat a while ago, and you sent Halim Bey to teach us to
+be patient. We got out of that nasty corner by sleight of hand, but not
+your sleight of hand, pasha. Your hand is a quick hand, but a sharp eye
+can see the trick, and then it’s no good, not worth a button.”
+
+There was something savage behind Nahoum’s eyes, but they did not show
+it; they blinked with earnest kindness and interest. The time would come
+when Lacey would go as his master should go, and the occasion was
+not far off now; but it must not be forced. Besides, was this fat,
+amorous-looking factotum of Claridge Pasha’s as Spartan-minded as his
+master? Would he be superior to the lure of gold? He would see. He spoke
+seriously, with apparent solicitude.
+
+“Thou dost not understand, effendi. Claridge Pasha must have money.
+Prestige is everything in Egypt, it is everything with Kaid. If Claridge
+Pasha rides on as though nothing has happened--and money is the only
+horse that can carry him--Kaid will not interfere, and his black mood
+may pass; but any halting now and the game is done.”
+
+“And you want the game to go on right bad, don’t you? Well, I guess
+you’re right. Money is the only winner in this race. He’s got to have
+money, sure. How much can you raise? Oh, yes, you told me! Well, I don’t
+think it’s enough; he’s got to have three times that; and if he can’t
+get it from the Government, or from Kaid, it’s a bad lookout. What’s the
+bargain you have in your mind?”
+
+“That the slave-trade continue, effendi.”
+
+Lacey did not wink, but he had a shock of surprise. On the instant he
+saw the trap--for the Saadat and for himself.
+
+“He would not do it--not for money, pasha.”
+
+“He would not be doing it for money. The time is not ripe for it, it is
+too dangerous. There is a time for all things. If he will but wait!”
+
+“I wouldn’t like to be the man that’d name the thing to him. As you say,
+he’s got his prejudices. They’re stronger than in most men.”
+
+“It need not be named to him. Thou canst accept the money for him,
+and when thou art in the Soudan, and he is going to do it, thou canst
+prevent it.”
+
+“Tell him that I’ve taken the money and that he’s used it, and he
+oughtn’t to go back on the bargain I made for him? So that he’ll be
+bound by what I did?”
+
+“It is the best way, effendi.”
+
+“He’d be annoyed,” said Lacey with a patient sigh.
+
+“He has a great soul; but sometimes he forgets that expediency is the
+true policy.”
+
+“Yet he’s done a lot of things without it. He’s never failed in what he
+set out to do. What he’s done has been kicked over, but he’s done it all
+right, somehow, at last.”
+
+“He will not be able to do this, effendi, except with my help--and
+thine.”
+
+“He’s had quite a lot of things almost finished, too,” said Lacey
+reflectively, “and then a hand reached out in the dark and cut the
+wires--cut them when he was sleeping, and he didn’t know; cut them when
+he was waking, and he wouldn’t understand; cut them under his own eyes,
+and he wouldn’t see; because the hand that cut them was the hand of the
+perfect friend.”
+
+He got slowly to his feet, as a cloud of colour drew over the face of
+Nahoum and his eyes darkened with astonishment and anger. Lacey put his
+hands in his pockets and waited till Nahoum also rose. Then he gathered
+the other’s eyes to his, and said with drawling scorn:
+
+“So, you thought I didn’t understand! You thought I’d got a brain like
+a peanut, and wouldn’t drop onto your game or the trap you’ve set. You’d
+advance money--got from the slave-dealers to prevent the slave-trade
+being stopped! If Claridge Pasha took it and used it, he could never
+stop the slave-trade. If I took it and used it for him on the same
+terms, he couldn’t stop the slave-trade, though he might know no more
+about the bargain than a babe unborn. And if he didn’t stand by the
+bargain I made, and did prohibit slave-dealing, nothing’d stop the
+tribes till they marched into Cairo. He’s been safe so far, because they
+believed in him, and because he’d rather die a million deaths than go
+crooked. Say, I’ve been among the Dagos before--down in Mexico--and I’m
+onto you. I’ve been onto you for a good while; though there was nothing
+I could spot certain; but now I’ve got you, and I’ll break the ‘perfect
+friendship’ or I’ll eat my shirt. I’ll--”
+
+He paused, realising the crisis in which David was moving, and that
+perils were thick around their footsteps. But, even as he thought of
+them, he remembered David’s own frank, fearless audacity in danger and
+difficulty, and he threw discretion to the winds. He flung his flag
+wide, and believed with a belief as daring as David’s that all would be
+well.
+
+“Well, what wilt thou do?” asked Nahoum with cool and deadly menace.
+“Thou wilt need to do it quickly, because, if it is a challenge, within
+forty-eight hours Claridge Pasha and thyself will be gone from Egypt--or
+I shall be in the Nile.”
+
+“I’ll take my chances, pasha,” answered Lacey, with equal coolness. “You
+think you’ll win. It’s not the first time I’ve had to tackle men like
+you--they’ve got the breed in Mexico. They beat me there, but I learned
+the game, and I’ve learned a lot from you, too. I never knew what your
+game was here. I only know that the Saadat saved your life, and got
+you started again with Kaid. I only know that you called yourself a
+Christian, and worked on him till he believed in you, and Hell might
+crackle round you, but he’d believe, till he saw your contract signed
+with the Devil--and then he’d think the signature forged. But he’s got
+to know now. We are not going out of Egypt, though you may be going to
+the Nile; but we are going to the Soudan, and with Kaid’s blessing, too.
+You’ve put up the bluff, and I take it. Be sure you’ve got Kaid solid,
+for, if you haven’t, he’ll be glad to know where you keep the money you
+got from the slave-dealers.”
+
+Nahoum shrugged his shoulders. “Who has seen the money? Where is the
+proof? Kaid would know my reasons. It is not the first time virtue has
+been tested in Egypt, or the first time that it has fallen.”
+
+In spite of himself Lacey laughed. “Say, that’s worthy of a great
+Christian intellect. You are a bright particular star, pasha. I take it
+back--they’d learn a lot from you in Mexico. But the only trouble with
+lying is, that the demand becomes so great you can’t keep all the cards
+in your head, and then the one you forget does you. The man that isn’t
+lying has the pull in the long run. You are out against us, pasha, and
+we’ll see how we stand in forty-eight hours. You have some cards up your
+sleeve, I suppose; but--well, I’m taking you on. I’m taking you on with
+a lot of joy, and some sorrow, too, for we might have pulled off a big
+thing together, you and Claridge Pasha, with me to hold the stirrups.
+Now it’s got to be war. You’ve made it so. It’s a pity, for when we grip
+there’ll be a heavy fall.”
+
+“For a poor man thou hast a proud stomach.”
+
+“Well, I’ll admit the stomach, pasha. It’s proud; and it’s strong, too;
+it’s stood a lot in Egypt; it’s standing a lot to-day.”
+
+“We’ll ease the strain, perhaps,” sneered Nahoum. He made a perfunctory
+salutation and walked briskly from the room.
+
+Mahommed Hassan crept in, a malicious grin on his face. Danger and
+conflict were as meat and drink to him.
+
+“Effendi, God hath given thee a wasp’s sting to thy tongue. It is well.
+Nahoum Pasha hath Mizraim: the Saadat hath thee and me.”
+
+“There’s the Effendina,” said Lacey reflectively. “Thou saidst thou
+would ‘square’ him, effendi.”
+
+“I say a lot,” answered Lacey rather ruefully. “Come, Mahommed, the
+Saadat first, and the sooner the better.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI. THE STRUGGLE IN THE DESERT
+
+   “And His mercy is on them that fear Him throughout all generations.”
+
+On the clear, still evening air the words rang out over the desert,
+sonorous, imposing, peaceful. As the notes of the verse died away the
+answer came from other voices in deep, appealing antiphonal:
+
+   “He hath showed strength with His arm, He hath scattered the proud
+   in the imagination of their hearts.”
+
+Beyond the limits of the monastery there was not a sign of life; neither
+beast nor bird, nor blade of grass, nor any green thing; only the
+perfect immemorial blue, and in the east a misty moon, striving in vain
+to offer light which the earth as yet rejected for the brooding radiance
+of the descending sun. But at the great door of the monastery there grew
+a stately palm, and near by an ancient acacia-tree; and beyond the stone
+chapel there was a garden of struggling shrubs and green things, with
+one rose-tree which scattered its pink leaves from year to year upon the
+loam, since no man gathered bud or blossom.
+
+The triumphant call of the Magnificat, however beautiful, seemed
+strangely out of place in this lonely island in a sea of sand. It
+was the song of a bannered army, marching over the battle-field with
+conquering voices, and swords as yet unsheathed and red, carrying
+the spoils of conquest behind the laurelled captain of the host. The
+crumbling and ancient walls were surrounded by a moat which a stranger’s
+foot crossed hardly from moon to moon, which the desert wayfarer sought
+rarely, since it was out of the track of caravans, and because food was
+scant in the refectory of this Coptic brotherhood. It was scarce five
+hours’ ride from the Palace of the Prince Pasha: but it might have been
+a thousand miles away, so profoundly separate was it from the world of
+vital things and deeds of men.
+
+As the chant rang out, confident, majestic, and serene, carried by
+voices of power and shrill sweetness, which only the desert can produce,
+it might have seemed to any listener that this monastery was all that
+remained of some ancient kingdom of brimming, active cities, now lying
+beneath the obliterating sand, itself the monument and memorial of a
+breath of mercy of the Destroyer, the last refuge of a few surviving
+captains of a departed greatness. Hidden by the grey, massive walls,
+built as it were to resist the onset of a ravaging foe, the swelling
+voices might well have been those of some ancient order of valiant
+knights, whose banners hung above them, the ‘riclame’ of their deeds.
+But they were voices and voices only; for they who sang were as unkempt
+and forceless as the lonely wall which shut them in from the insistent
+soul of the desert.
+
+Desolation? The desert was not desolate. Its face was bare and burning,
+it slaked no man’s thirst, gave no man food, save where scattered oases
+were like the breasts of a vast mother eluding the aching lips of her
+parched children; but the soul of the desert was living and inspiring,
+beating with vitality. It was life that burned like flame. If the
+water-skin was dry and the date-bag empty it smothered and destroyed;
+but it was life; and to those who ventured into its embrace, obeying the
+conditions of the sharp adventure, it gave what neither sea, nor green
+plain, nor high mountain, nor verdant valley could give--a consuming
+sense of power, which found its way to the deepest recesses of being.
+Out upon the vast sea of sand, where the descending sun was spreading a
+note of incandescent colour, there floated the grateful words:
+
+   “He remembering His mercy hath holpen His servant Israel; as He
+   promised to our forefathers, Abraham, and his seed for ever.”
+
+Then the antiphonal ceased; and together the voices of all within the
+place swelled out in the Gloria and the Amen, and seemed to pass away
+in ever-receding vibrations upon the desert, till it was lost in the
+comforting sunset.
+
+As the last note died away, a voice from beneath the palm-tree near
+the door, deeper than any that had come from within, said reverently:
+“Ameen-Ameen!”
+
+He who spoke was a man well over sixty years, with a grey beard, lofty
+benign forehead, and the eyes of a scholar and a dreamer. As he uttered
+the words of spiritual assent, alike to the Muslim and the Christian
+religion, he rose to his feet, showing the figure of a man of action,
+alert, well-knit, authoritative. Presently he turned towards the East
+and stretched a robe upon the ground, and with stately beauty of gesture
+he spread out his hands, standing for a moment in the attitude of
+aspiration. Then, kneeling, he touched his turbaned head to the ground
+three times, and as the sun drew down behind the sharp, bright line of
+sand that marked the horizon, he prayed devoutly and long. It was Ebn
+Ezra Bey.
+
+Muslim though he was, he had visited this monastery many times, to study
+the ancient Christian books which lay in disordered heaps in an ill-kept
+chamber, books which predated the Hegira, and were as near to the life
+of the Early Church as the Scriptures themselves--or were so reputed.
+Student and pious Muslim as he was, renowned at El Azhar and at every
+Muslim university in the Eastern world, he swore by the name of Christ
+as by that of Abraham, Isaac, and all the prophets, though to him
+Mahomet was the last expression of Heaven’s will to mankind. At first
+received at the monastery with unconcealed aversion, and not without
+danger to himself, he had at last won to him the fanatical monks, who,
+in spirit, kept this ancient foundation as rigid to their faith as
+though it were in mediaeval times. And though their discipline was
+lax, and their daily duties orderless, this was Oriental rather than
+degenerate. Here Ebn Ezra had stayed for weeks at a time in the past,
+not without some religious scandal, long since forgotten.
+
+His prayers ended, he rose up slowly, once more spread out his hands in
+ascription, and was about to enter the monastery, when, glancing towards
+the west, he saw a horseman approaching. An instinct told him who it
+was before he could clearly distinguish the figure, and his face lighted
+with a gentle and expectant smile. Then his look changed.
+
+“He is in trouble,” he murmured. “As it was with his uncle in Damascus,
+so will it be with him. Malaish, we are in the will of God!”
+
+The hand that David laid in Ebn Ezra’s was hot and nervous, the eyes
+that drank in the friendship of the face which had seen two Claridges
+emptying out their lives in the East were burning and famished by long
+fasting of the spirit, forced abstinence from the pleasures of success
+and fruition-haunting, desiring eyes, where flamed a spirit which
+consumed the body and the indomitable mind. The lips, however, had their
+old trick of smiling, though the smile which greeted Ebn Ezra Bey had a
+melancholy which touched the desert-worn, life-spent old Arab as he had
+not been touched since a smile, just like this, flashed up at him from
+the weather-stained, dying face of quaint Benn Claridge in a street of
+Damascus. The natural duplicity of the Oriental had been abashed and
+inactive before the simple and astounding honesty of these two Quaker
+folk.
+
+He saw crisis written on every feature of the face before him. Yet the
+scanty meal they ate with the monks in the ancient room was enlivened
+by the eager yet quiet questioning of David, to whom the monks responded
+with more spirit than had been often seen in this arid retreat. The
+single torch which spluttered from the wall as they drank their coffee
+lighted up faces as strange, withdrawn, and unconsciously secretive
+as ever gathered to greet a guest. Dim tales had reached them of this
+Christian reformer and administrator, scraps of legend from stray
+camel-drivers, a letter from the Patriarch commanding them to pray
+blessings on his labours--who could tell what advantage might not come
+to the Coptic Church through him, a Christian! On the dull, torpid
+faces, light seemed struggling to live for a moment, as David talked.
+It was as though something in their meagre lives, which belonged to
+undeveloped feelings, was fighting for existence--a light struggling to
+break through murky veils of inexperience.
+
+Later, in the still night, however--still, though air vibrated
+everywhere, as though the desert breathed an ether which was to fill
+men’s veins with that which quieted the fret and fever of life’s
+disillusions and forgeries and failures--David’s speech with Ebn Ezra
+Bey was of a different sort. If, as it seems ever in the desert, an
+invisible host of beings, once mortal, now immortal, but suspensive and
+understanding, listened to the tale he unfolded, some glow of pity must
+have possessed them; for it was an Iliad of herculean struggle against
+absolute disaster, ending with the bitter news of his grandfather’s
+death. It was the story of AEdipus overcome by events too strong for
+soul to bear. In return, as the stars wheeled on, and the moon stole to
+the zenith, majestic and slow, Ebn Ezra offered to his troubled friend
+only the philosophy of the predestinarian, mingled with the calm of the
+stoic. But something antagonistic to his own dejection, to the Muslim’s
+fatalism, emerged from David’s own altruism, to nerve him to hope
+and effort still. His unconquerable optimism rose determinedly to the
+surface, even as he summed up and related the forces working against
+him.
+
+“They have all come at once,” he said; “all the activities opposing me,
+just as though they had all been started long ago at different points,
+with a fixed course to run, and to meet and give me a fall in the hour
+when I could least resist. You call it Fate. I call it what it proves
+itself to be. But here it is a hub of danger and trouble, and the spokes
+of disaster are flying to it from all over the compass, to make the
+wheel that will grind me; and all the old troop of Palace intriguers and
+despoilers are waiting to heat the tire and fasten it on the machine
+of torture. Kaid has involved himself in loans which press, in foolish
+experiments in industry without due care; and now from ill-health and
+bad temper comes a reaction towards the old sinister rule, when the
+Prince shuts his eyes and his agents ruin and destroy. Three nations
+who have intrigued against my work see their chance, and are at Kaid’s
+elbow. The fate of the Soudan is in the balance. It is all as the shake
+of a feather. I can save it if I go; but, just as I am ready, my mills
+burn down, my treasury dries up, Kaid turns his back on me, and the toil
+of years is swept away in a night. Thee sees it is terrible, friend?”
+
+Ebn Ezra looked at him seriously and sadly for a moment, and then said:
+“Is it given one man to do all? If many men had done these things, then
+there had been one blow for each. Now all falls on thee, Saadat. Is it
+the will of God that one man should fling the lance, fire the cannon,
+dig the trenches, gather food for the army, drive the horses on to
+battle, and bury the dead? Canst thou do all?”
+
+David’s eyes brightened to the challenge. “There was the work to do, and
+there were not the many to do it. My hand was ready; the call came; I
+answered. I plunged into the river of work alone.”
+
+“Thou didst not know the strength of the currents, the eddies and the
+whirlpools, the hidden rocks--and the shore is far off, Saadat.”
+
+“It is not so far but that, if I could get breath to gather strength,
+I should reach the land in time. Money--ah, but enough for this
+expedition! That over, order, quiet yonder, my own chosen men as
+governors, and I could”--he pointed towards the southern horizon--“I
+could plant my foot in Cairo, and from the centre control the great
+machinery--with Kaid’s help; and God’s help. A sixth of a million, and
+Kaid’s hand behind me, and the boat would lunge free of the sand-banks
+and churn on, and churn on.... Friend,” he added, with the winning
+insistence that few found it possible to resist, “if all be well, and we
+go thither, wilt thou become the governor-general yonder? With thee
+to rule justly where there is most need of justice, the end would be
+sure--if it be the will of God.”
+
+Ebn Ezra Bey sat for a moment looking into the worn, eager face,
+indistinct in the moonlight, then answered slowly: “I am seventy, and
+the years smite hard as they pass, and there or here, it little matters
+when I go, as I must go; and whether it be to bend the lance, or bear
+the flag before thee, or rule a Mudirieh, what does it matter! I will
+go with thee,” he added hastily; “but it is better thou shouldst not
+go. Within the last three days I have news from the South. All that thou
+hast done there is in danger now. The word for revolt has passed from
+tribe to tribe. A tongue hath spoken, and a hand hath signalled”--his
+voice lowered--“and I think I know the tongue and the hand!” He paused;
+then, as David did not speak, continued: “Thou who art wise in most
+things, dost decline to seek for thy foe in him who eateth from the same
+dish with thee. Only when it is too late thou wilt defend thyself and
+all who keep faith with thee.”
+
+David’s face clouded. “Nahoum, thou dost mean Nahoum? But thou dost not
+understand, and there is no proof.”
+
+“As a camel knows the coming storm while yet the sky is clear, by that
+which the eye does not see, so do I feel Nahoum. The evils thou hast
+suffered, Saadat, are from his hand, if from any hand in Egypt--”
+
+Suddenly he leaned over and touched David’s arm. “Saadat, it is of no
+avail. There is none in Egypt that desires good; thy task is too great.
+All men will deceive thee; if not now, yet in time. If Kaid favours thee
+once more, and if it is made possible for thee to go to the Soudan, yet
+I pray thee to stay here. Better be smitten here, where thou canst get
+help from thine own country, if need be, than yonder, where they but
+wait to spoil thy work and kill thee. Thou art young; wilt thou throw
+thy life away? Art thou not needed here as there? For me it is nothing,
+whether it be now or in a few benumbing years; but for thee--is there no
+one whom thou lovest so well that thou wouldst not shelter thy life to
+spare that life sorrow? Is there none that thou lovest so, and that will
+love thee to mortal sorrow, if thou goest without care to thy end too
+soon?”
+
+As a warm wind suddenly sweeps across the cool air of a summer evening
+for an instant, suffocating and unnerving, so Ebn Ezra’s last words
+swept across David’s spirit. His breath came quicker, his eyes half
+closed. “Is there none that thou lovest so, and that will love thee to
+mortal sorrow, if--”
+
+As a hand secretly and swiftly slips the lever that opens the
+sluice-gates of a dike, while the watchman turns away for a moment to
+look at the fields which the waters enrich and the homes of poor folk
+whom the gates defend, so, in a moment, when off his guard, worn with
+watching and fending, as it were, Ebn Ezra had sprung the lever, and
+a flood of feeling swept over David, drowned him in its impulse and
+pent-up force.
+
+“Is there none that thou lovest so--” Of what use had been all his
+struggle and his pain since that last day in Hamley--his dark fighting
+days in the desert with Lacey and Mahommed, and his handful of faithful
+followers, hemmed in by dangers, the sands swarming with Arabs who
+feathered now to his safety, now to his doom, and his heart had hungered
+for what he had denied it with a will that would not be conquered?
+Wasted by toil and fever and the tension of danger and the care of
+others dependent on him, he had also fought a foe which was ever at
+his elbow, ever whispered its comfort and seduction in his ear, the
+insidious and peace-giving, exalting opiate that had tided him over some
+black places, and then had sought for mastery of him when he was back
+again in the world of normal business and duty, where it appealed not as
+a medicine, but as a perilous luxury. And fighting this foe, which had
+a voice so soothing, and words like the sound of murmuring waters, and
+a cool and comforting hand that sought to lead him into gardens of
+stillness and passive being, where he could no more hear the clangour
+and vexing noises of a world that angered and agonised, there had also
+been the lure of another passion of the heart, which was too perilously
+dear to contemplate. Eyes that were beautiful, and their beauty was not
+for him; a spirit that was bright and glowing, but the brightness and
+the glow might not renew his days. It was hard to fight alone. Alone he
+was, for only to one may the doors within doors be opened-only to one
+so dear that all else is everlastingly distant may the true tale of the
+life beneath life be told. And it was not for him--nothing of this;
+not even the thought of it; for to think of it was to desire it, and to
+desire it was to reach out towards it; and to reach out towards it was
+the end of all. There had been moments of abandonment to the alluring
+dream, such as when he wrote the verses which Lacey had sent to Hylda
+from the desert; but they were few. Oft-repeated, they would have filled
+him with an agitated melancholy impossible to be borne in the life which
+must be his.
+
+So it had been. The deeper into life and its labours and experiences he
+had gone, the greater had been his temptations, born of two passions,
+one of the body and its craving, the other of the heart and its desires:
+and he had fought on--towards the morning.
+
+“Is there none that thou lovest so, and that will love thee to mortal
+sorrow, if thou goest without care to thy end too soon?” The desert, the
+dark monastery, the acacia tree, the ancient palm, the ruinous garden,
+disappeared. He only saw a face which smiled at him, as it had done ‘by
+the brazier in the garden at Cairo, that night when she and Nahoum and
+himself and Mizraim had met in the room of his house by the Ezbekieh
+gardens, and she had gone out to her old life in England, and he had
+taken up the burden of the East--that long six years ago. His head
+dropped in his hands, and all that was beneath the Quaker life he
+had led so many years, packed under the crust of form and habit, and
+regulated thought, and controlled emotion, broke forth now, and had its
+way with him.
+
+He turned away staggering and self-reproachful from the first question,
+only to face the other--“And that will love thee to mortal sorrow, if
+thou goest without care to thy end too soon.” It was a thought he had
+never let himself dwell on for an instant in all the days since they
+had last met. He had driven it back to its covert, even before he could
+recognise its face. It was disloyal to her, an offence against all that
+she was, an affront to his manhood to let the thought have place in his
+mind even for one swift moment. She was Lord Eglington’s wife--there
+could be no sharing of soul and mind and body and the exquisite devotion
+of a life too dear for thought. Nothing that she was to Eglington could
+be divided with another, not for an hour, not by one act of impulse; or
+else she must be less, she that might have been, if there had been no
+Eglington--
+
+An exclamation broke from him, and, as one crying out in one’s sleep
+wakes himself, so the sharp cry of his misery woke him from the trance
+of memory that had been upon him, and he slowly became conscious of Ebn
+Ezra standing before him. Their eyes met, and Ebn Ezra spoke:
+
+“The will of Allah be thy will, Saadat. If it be to go to the Soudan,
+I am thine; if it be to stay, I am thy servant and thy brother. But
+whether it be life or death, thou must sleep, for the young are like
+water without sleep. Thou canst not live in strength nor die with
+fortitude without it. For the old, malaish, old age is between a
+sleeping and a waking! Come, Saadat! Forget not, thou must ride again to
+Cairo at dawn.”
+
+David got slowly to his feet and turned towards the monastery. The
+figure of a monk stood in the doorway with a torch to light him to his
+room.
+
+He turned to Ebn Ezra again. “Does thee think that I have aught of his
+courage--my Uncle Benn? Thou knowest me--shall I face it out as did he?”
+
+“Saadat,” the old man answered, pointing, “yonder acacia, that was he,
+quick to grow and short to live; but thou art as this date-palm, which
+giveth food to the hungry, and liveth through generations. Peace be upon
+thee,” he added at the doorway, as the torch flickered towards the room
+where David was to lie.
+
+“And upon thee, peace!” answered David gently, and followed the smoky
+light to an inner chamber. The room in which David found himself was
+lofty and large, but was furnished with only a rough wooden bed, a rug,
+and a brazier. Left alone, he sat down on the edge of the bed, and,
+for a few moments, his mind strayed almost vaguely from one object to
+another. From two windows far up in the wall the moonlight streamed in,
+making bars of light aslant the darkness.
+
+Not a sound broke the stillness. Yet, to his sensitive nerves, the air
+seemed tingling with sensation, stirring with unseen activities. Here
+the spirit of the desert seemed more insistent in its piercing vitality,
+because it was shut in by four stone walls.
+
+Mechanically he took off his coat, and was about to fold and lay it
+on the rug beside the bed, when something hard in one of the pockets
+knocked against his knee. Searching, he found and drew forth a small
+bottle which, for many a month past, had lain in the drawer of a table
+where he had placed it on his return from the Soudan. It was an evil
+spirit which sent this tiny phial to his hand at a moment when he had
+paid out of the full treasury of his strength and will its accumulated
+deposit, leaving him with a balance on which no heavy draft could be
+made. His pulse quickened, then his body stiffened with the effort at
+self-control.
+
+Who placed this evil elixir in his pocket? What any enemy of his work
+had done was nothing to what might be achieved by the secret foe, who
+had placed this anodyne within his reach at this the most critical
+moment of his life. He remembered the last time he had used it--in the
+desert: two days of forgetfulness to the world, when it all moved by
+him, the swarming Arabs, the train of camels, the loads of ivory, the
+slimy crocodile on the sandbanks, the vultures hovering above unburied
+carcasses, the kourbash descending on shining black shoulders,
+corrugating bare brown bodies into cloven skin and lacerated flesh,
+a fight between champions of two tribes who clasped and smote and
+struggled and rained blows, and, both mortally wounded, still writhed in
+last conflict upon the ground--and Mahommed Hassan ever at the tent door
+or by his side, towering, watchful, sullen to all faces without, smiling
+to his own, with dog-like look waiting for any motion of his hand or any
+word.... Ah, Mahommed Hassan, it was he! Mahommed had put this phial in
+his pocket. His bitter secret was not hidden from Mahommed. And this was
+an act of supreme devotion--to put at his hand the lulling, inspiring
+draught. Did this fellah servant know what it meant--the sin of it, the
+temptation, the terrible joy, the blessed quiet; and then, the agonising
+remorse, the withering self-hatred and torturing penitence? No, Mahommed
+only knew that when the Saadat was gone beyond his strength, when the
+sleepless nights and feverish days came in the past, in their great
+troubles, when men were dying and only the Saadat could save, that this
+cordial lifted him out of misery and storm into calm. Yet Mahommed must
+have divined that it was a thing against which his soul revolted, or he
+would have given it to him openly. In the heart and mind of the giant
+murderer, however, must have been the thought that now when trouble
+was upon his master again, trouble which might end all, this supreme
+destroyer of pain and dark memory and present misery, would give him the
+comfort he needed--and that he would take it.
+
+If he had not seen it, this sudden craving would not have seized him for
+this eager beguiling, this soothing benevolence. Yet here it was in his
+hand; and even as it lay in his cold fingers--how cold they were, and
+his head how burning!--the desire for it surged up in him. And, as
+though the thing itself had the magical power to summon up his troubles,
+that it might offer the apathy and stimulus in one--even as it lured
+him, his dangers, his anxieties, the black uncertainties massed,
+multiplied and aggressive, rose before him, buffeted him, caught at his
+throat, dragged down his shoulders, clutched at his heart.
+
+Now, with a cry of agony, he threw the phial on the ground, and, sinking
+on the bed, buried his face in his hands and moaned, and fought for
+freedom from the cords tightening round him. It was for him to realise
+now how deep are the depths to which the human soul can sink, even while
+labouring to climb. Once more the sense of awful futility was on him: of
+wasted toil and blenched force, veins of energy drained of their blood,
+hope smitten in the way, and every dear dream shattered. Was it, then,
+all ended? Was his work indeed fallen, and all his love undone? Was his
+own redemption made impossible? He had offered up his life to this land
+to atone for a life taken when she--when she first looked up with eyes
+of gratitude, eyes that haunted him. Was it, then, unacceptable? Was it
+so that he must turn his back upon this long, heart-breaking but beloved
+work, this panacea for his soul, without which he could not pay the
+price of blood?
+
+Go back to England--to Hamley where all had changed, where the old man
+he loved no longer ruled in the Red Mansion, where all that had been
+could be no more? Go to some other land, and there begin again another
+such a work? Were there not vast fields of human effort, effort such
+as his, where he could ease the sorrow of living by the joy of a divine
+altruism? Go back to Hamley? Ah, no, a million times, no! That life was
+dead, it was a cycle of years behind him. There could be no return.
+He was in a maelstrom of agony, his veins were afire, his lips were
+parched. He sprang from his bed, knelt down, and felt for the little
+phial he had flung aside. After a moment his hand caught it, clutched
+it. But, even at the crest of the wave of temptation, words that he
+had heard one night in Hamley, that last night of all, flashed into his
+mind--the words of old Luke Claridge’s prayer, “And if a viper fasten on
+his hand, O Lord--”
+
+Suddenly he paused. That scene in the old Meetinghouse swam before his
+eyes, got into his brain. He remembered the words of his own prayer,
+and how he had then retreated upon the Power that gave him power, for a
+draught of the one true tincture which braced the heart to throw itself
+upon the spears of trial. Now the trial had come, and that which was
+in him as deep as being, the habit of youth, the mother-fibre and
+predisposition, responded to the draught he had drunk then. As a body
+freed from the quivering, unrelenting grasp of an electric battery
+subsides into a cool quiet, so, through his veins seemed to pass an
+ether which stilled the tumult, the dark desire to drink the potion in
+his hand, and escape into that irresponsible, artificial world, where he
+had before loosened his hold on activity.
+
+The phial slipped from his fingers to the floor. He sank upon the side
+of the bed, and, placing his hands on his knees, he whispered a few
+broken words that none on earth was meant to hear. Then he passed into
+a strange and moveless quiet of mind and body. Many a time in days gone
+by--far-off days--had he sat as he was doing now, feeling his mind pass
+into a soft, comforting quiet, absorbed in a sensation of existence,
+as it were between waking and sleeping, where doors opened to new
+experience and understanding, where the mind seemed to loose itself from
+the bonds of human necessity and find a freer air.
+
+Now, as he sat as still as the stone in the walls around him, he was
+conscious of a vision forming itself before his eyes. At first it was
+indefinite, vague, without clear form, but at last it became a room
+dimly outlined, delicately veiled, as it were. Then it seemed, not that
+the mist cleared, but that his eyes became stronger, and saw through the
+delicate haze; and now the room became wholly, concretely visible.
+
+It was the room in which he had said good-bye to Hylda. As he gazed like
+one entranced, he saw a figure rise from a couch, pale, agitated, and
+beautiful, and come forward, as it were, towards him. But suddenly the
+mist closed in again upon the scene, a depth of darkness passed his
+eyes, and he heard a voice say: “Speak--speak to me!”
+
+He heard her voice as distinctly as though she were beside him--as,
+indeed, she had stood before him but an instant ago.
+
+Getting slowly to his feet, into the night he sent an answer to the
+call.
+
+Would she hear? She had said long ago that she would speak to him so.
+Perhaps she had tried before. But now at last he had heard and answered.
+Had she heard? Time might tell--if ever they met again. But how good,
+and quiet, and serene was the night!
+
+He composed himself to sleep, but, as he lay waiting for that coverlet
+of forgetfulness to be drawn over him, he heard the sound of bells soft
+and clear. Just such bells he had heard upon the common at Hamley. Was
+it, then, the outcome of his vision--a sweet hallucination? He leaned
+upon his elbow and listened.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII. FORTY STRIPES SAVE ONE
+
+The bells that rang were not the bells of Hamley; they were part of no
+vision or hallucination, and they drew David out of his chamber into
+the night. A little group of three stood sharply silhouetted against the
+moonlight, and towering above them was the spare, commanding form of Ebn
+Ezra Bey. Three camels crouched near, and beside them stood a Nubian lad
+singing to himself the song of the camel-driver:
+
+     “Fleet is thy foot: thou shalt rest by the Etl tree;
+     Water shalt thou drink from the blue-deep well;
+     Allah send His gard’ner with the green bersim,
+     For thy comfort, fleet one, by the Etl tree.
+     As the stars fly, have thy footsteps flown
+     Deep is the well, drink, and be still once more;
+     Till the pursuing winds panting have found thee
+     And, defeated, sink still beside thee--
+     By the well and the Etl tree.”
+
+For a moment David stood in the doorway listening to the low song of
+the camel-driver. Then he came forward. As he did so, one of the two who
+stood with Ebn Ezra moved towards the monastery door slowly. It was
+a monk with a face which, even in this dim light, showed a deathly
+weariness. The eyes looked straight before him, as though they saw
+nothing of the world, only a goal to make, an object to be accomplished.
+The look of the face went to David’s heart--the kinship of pain was
+theirs.
+
+“Peace be to thee,” David said gently, as the other passed him.
+
+There was an instant’s pause, and then the monk faced him with fingers
+uplifted. “The grace of God be upon thee, David,” he said, and his eyes,
+drawn back from the world where they had been exploring, met the other’s
+keenly. Then he wheeled and entered the monastery.
+
+“The grace of God be upon thee, David!” How strange it sounded, this
+Christian blessing in response to his own Oriental greeting, out in
+this Eastern waste. His own name, too. It was as though he had been
+transported to the ancient world where “Brethren” were so few that they
+called each other by their “Christian” names--even as they did in Hamley
+to-day. In Hamley to-day! He closed his eyes, a tremor running through
+his body; and then, with an effort which stilled him to peace again, he
+moved forward, and was greeted by Ebn Ezra, from whom the third member
+of the little group had now drawn apart nearer to the acacia-tree, and
+was seated on a rock that jutted from the sand. “What is it?” David
+asked.
+
+“Wouldst thou not sleep, Saadat? Sleep is more to thee now than aught
+thou mayst hear from any man. To all thou art kind save thyself.”
+
+“I have rested,” David answered, with a measured calmness, revealing to
+his friend the change which had come since they parted an hour before.
+They seated themselves under the palm-tree, and were silent for a
+moment, then Ebn Ezra said:
+
+“These come from the Place of Lepers.”
+
+David started slightly. “Zaida?” he asked, with a sigh of pity.
+
+“The monk who passed thee but now goes every year to the Place of Lepers
+with the caravan, for a brother of this order stays yonder with the
+afflicted, seeing no more the faces of this world which he has left
+behind. Afar off from each other they stand--as far as eye can see--and
+after the manner of their faith they pray to Allah, and he who has just
+left us finds a paper fastened with a stone upon the sand at a certain
+place where he waits. He touches it not, but reads it as it lies, and,
+having read, heaps sand upon it. And the message which the paper gives
+is for me.”
+
+“For thee? Hast thou there one who--”
+
+“There was one, my father’s son, though we were of different mothers;
+and in other days, so many years ago, he did great wrong to me, and not
+to me alone,”--the grey head bowed in sorrow--“but to one dearer to me
+than life. I hated him, and would have slain him, but the mind of Allah
+is not the mind of man; and he escaped me. Then he was stricken with
+leprosy, and was carried to the place from whence no leper returns. At
+first my heart rejoiced; then, at last, I forgave him, Saadat--was he
+not my father’s son, and was the woman not gone to the bosom of Allah,
+where is peace? So I forgave and sorrowed for him--who shall say what
+miseries are those which, minute to minute, day after day, and year upon
+year, repeat themselves, till it is an endless flaying of the body and
+burning of the soul! Every year I send a message to him, and every year
+now this Christian monk--there is no Sheikh-el-Islam yonder--brings back
+the written message which he finds in the sand.”
+
+“And thee has had a message to-night?”
+
+“The last that may come--God be praised, he goeth to his long home. It
+was written in his last hour. There was no hope; he is gone. And so, one
+more reason showeth why I should go where thou goest, Saadat.”
+
+Casting his eyes toward the figure by the acacia-tree, his face clouded
+and he pondered anxiously, looking at David the while. Twice he essayed
+to speak, but paused.
+
+David’s eyes followed his look. “What is it? Who is he--yonder?”
+
+The other rose to his feet. “Come and see, Saadat,” he replied. “Seeing,
+thou wilt know what to do.”
+
+“Zaida--is it of Zaida?” David asked.
+
+“The man will answer for himself, Saadat.” Coming within a few feet of
+the figure crouched upon the rock, Ebn Ezra paused and stretched out
+a hand. “A moment, Saadat. Dost thou not see, dost thou not recognise
+him?”
+
+David intently studied the figure, which seemed unconscious of their
+presence. The shoulders were stooping and relaxed as though from great
+fatigue, but David could see that the figure was that of a tall man. The
+head was averted, but a rough beard covered the face, and, in the light
+of the fire, one hand that clutched it showed long and skinny and yellow
+and cruel. The hand fascinated David’s eyes. Where had he seen it? It
+flashed upon him--a hand clutching a robe, in a frenzy of fear, in the
+court-yard of the blue tiles, in Kaid’s Palace--Achmet the Ropemaker! He
+drew back a step.
+
+“Achmet,” he said in a low voice. The figure stirred, the hand dropped
+from the beard and clutched the knee; but the head was not raised, and
+the body remained crouching and listless.
+
+“He escaped?” David said, turning to Ebn Ezra Bey.
+
+“I know not by what means--a camel-driver bribed, perhaps, and a camel
+left behind for him. After the caravan had travelled a day’s journey he
+joined it. None knew what to do. He was not a leper, and he was armed.”
+
+“Leave him with me,” said David.
+
+Ebn Ezra hesitated. “He is armed; he was thy foe--”
+
+“I am armed also,” David answered enigmatically, and indicated by a
+gesture that he wished to be left alone. Ebn Ezra drew away towards the
+palm-tree, and stood at this distance watching anxiously, for he knew
+what dark passions seize upon the Oriental--and Achmet had many things
+for which to take vengeance.
+
+David stood for a moment, pondering, his eyes upon the deserter. “God
+greet thee as thou goest, and His goodness befriend thee,” he said
+evenly. There was silence, and no movement. “Rise and speak,” he added
+sternly. “Dost thou not hear? Rise, Achmet Pasha!”
+
+Achmet Pasha! The head of the desolate wretch lifted, the eyes glared at
+David for an instant, as though to see whether he was being mocked, and
+then the spare figure stretched itself, and the outcast stood up. The
+old lank straightness was gone, the shoulders were bent, the head was
+thrust forward, as though the long habit of looking into dark places had
+bowed it out of all manhood.
+
+“May grass spring under thy footstep, Saadat,” he said, in a thick
+voice, and salaamed awkwardly--he had been so long absent from life’s
+formularies.
+
+“What dost thou here, pasha?” asked David formally. “Thy sentence had no
+limit.”
+
+“I could not die there,” said the hollow voice, and the head sank
+farther forward. “Year after year I lived there, but I could not die
+among them. I was no leper; I am no leper. My penalty was my penalty,
+and I paid it to the full, piastre by piastre of my body and my mind. It
+was not one death, it was death every hour, every day I stayed. I had no
+mind. I could not think. Mummy-cloths were round my brain; but the fire
+burned underneath and would not die. There was the desert, but my limbs
+were like rushes. I had no will, and I could not flee. I was chained to
+the evil place. If I stayed it was death, if I went it was death.”
+
+“Thou art armed now,” said David suggestively. Achmet laid a hand
+fiercely upon a dagger under his robe. “I hid it. I was afraid. I could
+not die--my hand was like a withered leaf; it could not strike; my heart
+poured out like water. Once I struck a leper, that he might strike and
+kill me; but he lay upon the ground and wept, for all his anger, which
+had been great, died in him at last. There was none other given to anger
+there. The leper has neither anger, nor mirth, nor violence, nor peace.
+It is all the black silent shame--and I was no leper.”
+
+“Why didst thou come? What is there but death for thee here, or anywhere
+thou goest! Kaid’s arm will find thee; a thousand hands wait to strike
+thee.”
+
+“I could not die there--Dost thou think that I repent?” he added with
+sudden fierceness. “Is it that which would make me repent? Was I worse
+than thousands of others? I have come out to die--to fight and die.
+Aiwa, I have come to thee, whom I hated, because thou canst give me
+death as I desire it. My mother was an Arab slave from Senaar, and
+she was got by war, and all her people. War and fighting were their
+portion--as they ate, as they drank and slept. In the black years behind
+me among the Unclean, there was naught to fight--could one fight the
+dead, and the agony of death, and the poison of the agony! Life, it is
+done for me--am I not accursed? But to die fighting--ay, fighting for
+Egypt, since it must be, and fighting for thee, since it must be; to
+strike, and strike, and strike, and earn death! Must the dog, because he
+is a dog, die in the slime? Shall he not be driven from the village to
+die in the clean sand? Saadat, who will see in me Achmet Pasha, who did
+with Egypt what he willed, and was swept away by the besom in thy hand?
+Is there in me aught of that Achmet that any should know?”
+
+“None would know thee for that Achmet,” answered David.
+
+“I know, it matters not how--at last a letter found me, and the way
+of escape--that thou goest again to the Soudan. There will be fighting
+there--”
+
+“Not by my will,” interrupted David.
+
+“Then by the will of Sheitan the accursed; but there will be
+fighting--am I not an Arab, do I not know? Thou hast not conquered yet.
+Bid me go where thou wilt, do what thou wilt, so that I may be among the
+fighters, and in the battle forget what I have seen. Since I am unclean,
+and am denied the bosom of Allah, shall I not go as a warrior to Hell,
+where men will fear me? Speak, Saadat, canst thou deny me this?”
+
+Nothing of repentance, so far as he knew, moved the dark soul; but, like
+some evil spirit, he would choose the way to his own doom, the place and
+the manner of it: a sullen, cruel, evil being, unyielding in his evil,
+unmoved by remorse--so far as he knew. Yet he would die fighting, and
+for Egypt “and for thee, if it must be so. To strike, to strike, to
+strike, and earn death!” What Achmet did not see, David saw, the glimmer
+of light breaking through the cloud of shame and evil and doom. Yonder
+in the Soudan more problems than one would be solved, more lives than
+one be put to the extreme test. He did not answer Achmet’s question yet.
+“Zaida--?” he said in a low voice. The pathos of her doom had been a
+dark memory.
+
+Achmet’s voice dropped lower as he answered. “She lived till the day her
+sister died. I never saw her face; but I was sent to bear each day to
+her door the food she ate and a balass of water; and I did according to
+my sentence. Yet I heard her voice. And once, at last, the day she
+died, she spoke to me, and said from inside the hut: ‘Thy work is done,
+Achmet. Go in peace.’ And that night she lay down on her sister’s grave,
+and in the morning she was found dead upon it.”
+
+David’s eyes were blinded with tears. “It was too long,” he said at
+last, as though to himself.
+
+“That day,” continued Achmet, “there fell ill with leprosy the Christian
+priest from this place who had served in that black service so long;
+and then a fire leapt up in me. Zaida was gone--I had brought food and
+a balass of water to her door those many times; there was naught to do,
+since she was gone--”
+
+Suddenly David took a step nearer to him and looked into the sullen and
+drooping eyes. “Thou shalt go with me, Achmet. I will do this unlawful
+act for thee. At daybreak I will give thee orders. Thou shalt join
+me far from here--if I go to the Soudan,” he added, with a sudden
+remembrance of his position; and he turned away slowly.
+
+After a moment, with muttered words, Achmet sank down upon the stone
+again, drew a cake of dourha from his inner robe, and began to eat.
+
+The camel-boy had lighted a fire, and he sat beside it warming his hands
+at the blaze and still singing to himself:
+
+  “The bed of my love I will sprinkle with attar of roses,
+   The face of my love I will touch with the balm
+   With the balm of the tree from the farthermost wood,
+   From the wood without end, in the world without end.
+   My love holds the cup to my lips, and I drink of the cup,
+   And the attar of roses I sprinkle will soothe like the evening dew,
+   And the balm will be healing and sleep, and the cup I will drink,
+   I will drink of the cup my love holds to my lips--”
+
+David stood listening. What power was there in desert life that could
+make this poor camel-driver, at the end of a long day of weariness and
+toil and little food and drink, sing a song of content and cheerfulness?
+The little needed, the little granted, and no thought beyond--save the
+vision of one who waited in the hut by the onion-field. He gathered
+himself together and tuned his mind to the scene through which he had
+just passed, and then to the interview he would have with Kaid on the
+morrow. A few hours ago he had seen no way out of it all--he had had no
+real hope that Kaid would turn to him again; but the last two hours had
+changed all that. Hope was alive in him. He had fought a desperate fight
+with himself, and he had conquered. Then had come Achmet, unrepentant,
+degraded still, but with the spirit of Something glowing--Achmet to die
+for a cause, driven by that Something deep beneath the degradation and
+the crime. He had hope, and, as the camel-driver’s voice died away,
+and he lay down with a sheep-skin over him and went instantly to sleep,
+David drew to the fire and sat down beside it. Presently Ebn Ezra came
+to urge him to go to bed, but he would not. He had slept, he said; he
+had slept and rested, and the night was good--he would wait. Then the
+other brought rugs and blankets, and gave David some, and lay down
+beside the fire, and watched and waited for he knew not what. Ever and
+ever his eyes were on David, and far back under the acacia-tree Achmet
+slept as he had not slept since his doom fell on him.
+
+At last Ebn Ezra Bey also slept; but David was awake with the night and
+the benevolent moon and the marching stars. The spirit of the desert
+was on him, filling him with its voiceless music. From the infinite
+stretches of sand to the south came the irresistible call of life, as
+soft as the leaves in a garden of roses, as deep as the sea. This world
+was still, yet there seemed a low, delicate humming, as of multitudinous
+looms at a distance so great that the ear but faintly caught it--the
+sound of the weavers of life and destiny and eternal love, the hands of
+the toilers of all the ages spinning and spinning on; and he was part
+of it, not abashed or dismayed because he was but one of the illimitable
+throng.
+
+The hours wore on, but still he sat there, peace in all his heart,
+energy tingling softly through every vein, the wings of hope fluttering
+at his ear.
+
+At length the morning came, and, from the west, with the rising sun,
+came a traveller swiftly, making for where he was. The sleepers stirred
+around him and waked and rose. The little camp became alive. As the
+traveller neared the fresh-made fire, David saw that it was Lacey. He
+went eagerly to meet him.
+
+“Thee has news,” he said. “I see it is so.” He held Lacey’s hand in his.
+
+“Say, you are going on that expedition, Saadat. You wanted money. Will a
+quarter of a million do?” David’s eyes caught fire.
+
+From the monastery there came the voices of the monks:
+
+   “O be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with
+   gladness, and come before His presence with a song.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII. THE DARK INDENTURE
+
+Nahoum had forgotten one very important thing: that what affected David
+as a Christian in Egypt would tell equally against himself. If, in his
+ill-health and dejection, Kaid drank deep of the cup of Mahomet, the
+red eyes of fanaticism would be turned upon the Armenian, as upon the
+European Christian. He had forgotten it for the moment, but when, coming
+into Kaid’s Palace, a little knot of loiterers spat upon the ground and
+snarled, “Infidel--Nazarene!” with contempt and hatred, the significance
+of the position came home to him. He made his way to a far quarter of
+the Palace, thoughtfully weighing the circumstances, and was met by
+Mizraim.
+
+Mizraim salaamed. “The height of thy renown be as the cedar of Lebanon,
+Excellency.”
+
+“May thy feet tread the corn of everlasting fortune, son of Mahomet.”
+
+They entered the room together. Nahoum looked at Mizraim curiously. He
+was not satisfied with what he saw. Mizraim’s impassive face had little
+expression, but the eyes were furtively eager and sinister.
+
+“Well, so it is, and if it is, what then?” asked Nahoum coolly.
+
+“Ki di, so it is,” answered Mizraim, and a ghastly smile came to his
+lips. This infidel pasha, Nahoum, had a mind that pierced to the meaning
+of words ere they were spoken. Mizraim’s hand touched his forehead,
+his breast, his lips, and, clasping and unclasping his long, snakelike
+fingers, he began the story he had come to tell.
+
+“The Inglesi, whom Allah confound, the Effendina hath blackened by a
+look, his words have smitten him in the vital parts--”
+
+“Mizraim, thou dove, speak to the purpose!” Mizraim showed a dark
+pleasure at the interruption. Nahoum was impatient, anxious; that made
+the tale better worth telling.
+
+“Sharif and the discontented ones who dare not act, like the vultures,
+they flee the living man, but swoop upon the corpse. The consuls of
+those countries who love not England or Claridge Pasha, and the holy
+men, and the Cadi, all scatter smouldering fires. There is a spirit in
+the Palace and beyond which is blowing fast to a great flame.”
+
+“Then, so it is, great one, and what bodes it?”
+
+“It may kill the Inglesi; but it will also sweep thee from the fields of
+life where thou dost flourish.”
+
+“It is not against the foreigner, but against the Christian, Mizraim?”
+
+“Thy tongue hath wisdom, Excellency.”
+
+“Thou art a Muslim--”
+
+“Why do I warn thee? For service done to me; and because there is none
+other worth serving in Egypt. Behold, it is my destiny to rule others,
+to serve thee.”
+
+“Once more thy turban full of gold, Mizraim, if thou dost service now
+that hath meaning and is not a belching of wind and words. Thou hast
+a thing to say--say it, and see if Nahoum hath lost his wit, or hath a
+palsied arm.”
+
+“Then behold, pasha. Are not my spies in all the Palace? Is not my
+scourge heavier than the whip of the horned horse? Ki di, so it is. This
+I have found. Sharif hath, with others, made a plot which hath enough
+powder in it to shake Egypt, and toss thee from thy high place into the
+depths. There is a Christian--an Armenian, as it chances; but he was
+chosen because he was a Christian, and for that only. His name is Rahib.
+He is a tent-maker. He had three sons. They did kill an effendi who
+had cheated them of their land. Two of them were hanged last week; the
+other, caught but a few days since, is to hang within three days. To-day
+Kaid goes to the Mosque of Mahmoud, as is the custom at this festival.
+The old man hath been persuaded to attempt the life of Kaid, upon
+condition that his son--his Benjamin--is set free. It will be but
+an attempt at Kaid’s life, no more; but the cry will go forth that a
+Christian did the thing; and the Muslim flame will leap high.”
+
+“And the tent-maker?” asked Nahoum musingly, though he was turning over
+the tale in his mind, seeing behind it and its far consequences.
+
+“Malaish, what does it matter! But he is to escape, and they are to
+hang another Christian in his stead for the attempt on Kaid. It hath no
+skill, but it would suffice. With the dervishes gone malboos, and the
+faithful drunk with piety--canst thou not see the issue, pasha? Blood
+will be shed.”
+
+“The Jews of Europe would be angry,” said Nahoum grimly but evenly.
+“The loans have been many, and Kaid has given a lien by the new canal
+at Suez. The Jews will be angry,” he repeated, “and for every drop of
+Christian blood shed there would be a lanced vein here. But that would
+not bring back Nahoum Pasha,” he continued cynically. “Well, this is thy
+story, Mizraim; this is what they would do. Now what hast thou done to
+stop their doing?”
+
+“Am I not a Muslim? Shall I give Sharif to the Nile?”
+
+Nahoum smiled darkly. “There is a simpler way. Thy mind ever runs on the
+bowstring and the sword. These are great, but there is a greater. It is
+the mocking finger. At midnight, when Kaid goes to the Mosque Mahmoud,
+a finger will mock the plotters till they are buried in confusion. Thou
+knowest the governor of the prisons--has he not need of something? Hath
+he never sought favours of thee?”
+
+“Bismillah, but a week ago!”
+
+“Then, listen, thou shepherd of the sheep--”
+
+He paused, as there came a tap at the door, and a slave entered
+hurriedly and addressed Nahoum. “The effendi, Ebn Ezra Bey, whom thou
+didst set me to watch, he hath entered the Palace, and asks for the
+Effendina.”
+
+Nahoum started, and his face clouded, but his eyes flashed fire. He
+tossed the slave a coin. “Thou hast done well. Where is he now?”
+
+“He waits in the hall, where is the statue of Mehemet Ali and the
+lions.”
+
+“In an hour, Mizraim, thou shalt hear what I intend. Peace be to thee!”
+
+“And on thee, peace!” answered Mizraim, as Nahoum passed from the room,
+and walked hastily towards the hall where he should find Ebn Ezra Bey.
+Nearing the spot, he brought his step to a deliberate slowness, and
+appeared not to notice the stately Arab till almost upon him.
+
+“Salaam, effendi,” he said smoothly, yet with inquisition in his eye,
+with malice in his tone.
+
+“Salaam, Excellency.”
+
+“Thou art come on the business of thy master?”
+
+“Who is my master, Excellency?”
+
+“Till yesterday it was Claridge Pasha. Hast thou then forsaken him in
+his trouble--the rat from the sinking ship?”
+
+A flush passed over Ebn Ezra Bey’s face, and his mouth opened with a
+gasp of anger. Oriental though he was, he was not as astute as this
+Armenian Christian, who was purposely insulting him, that he might, in
+a moment of heat, snatch from him the business he meant to lay before
+Kaid. Nahoum had not miscalculated.
+
+“I have but one master, Excellency,” Ebn Ezra answered quietly at last,
+“and I have served him straightly. Hast thou done likewise?”
+
+“What is straight to thee might well be crooked to me, effendi.”
+
+“Thou art crooked as the finger of a paralytic.”
+
+“Yet I have worked in peace with Claridge Pasha for these years past,
+even until yesterday, when thou didst leave him to his fate.”
+
+“His ship will sail when thine is crumbling on the sands, and all thou
+art is like a forsaken cockatrice’s nest.”
+
+“Is it this thou hast come to say to the Effendina?”
+
+“What I have come to say to the Effendina is for the world to know after
+it hath reached his ears. I know thee, Nahoum Pasha. Thou art a traitor.
+Claridge Pasha would abolish slavery, and thou dost receive great sums
+of gold from the slave-dealers to prevent it.”
+
+“Is it this thou wilt tell Kaid?” Nahoum asked with a sneer. “And hast
+thou proofs?”
+
+“Even this day they have come to my hands from the south.”
+
+“Yet I think the proofs thou hast will not avail; and I think that thou
+wilt not show them to Kaid. The gift of second thinking is a great gift.
+Thou must find greater reason for seeking the Effendina.”
+
+“That too shall be. Gold thou hadst to pay the wages of the soldiers of
+the south. Thou didst keep the gold and order the slave-hunt; and the
+soldiers of the Effendina have been paid in human flesh and blood--ten
+thousand slaves since Claridge Pasha left the Soudan, and three thousand
+dead upon the desert sands, abandoned by those who hunted them when
+water grew scarce and food failed. To-day shall see thy fall.”
+
+At his first words Nahoum had felt a shock, from which his spirit
+reeled; but an inspiration came to him on the moment; and he listened
+with a saturnine coolness to the passionate words of the indignant
+figure towering above him. When Ebn Ezra had finished, he replied
+quietly:
+
+“It is even as thou sayest, effendi. The soldiers were paid in slaves
+got in the slave-hunt; and I have gold from the slave-dealers. I needed
+it, for the hour is come when I must do more for Egypt than I have ever
+done.”
+
+With a gesture of contempt Ebn Ezra made to leave, seeing an official
+of the Palace in the distance. Nahoum stopped him. “But, one moment ere
+thou dost thrust thy hand into the cockatrice’s den. Thou dost measure
+thyself against Nahoum? In patience and with care have I trained myself
+for the battle. The bulls of Bashan may roar, yet my feet are shod with
+safety. Thou wouldst go to Kaid and tell him thy affrighted tale. I tell
+thee, thou wilt not go. Thou hast reason yet, though thy blood is hot.
+Thou art to Claridge Pasha like a brother--as to his uncle before him,
+who furnished my father’s palace with carpets. The carpets still soften
+the fall of my feet in my father’s palace, as they did soften the fall
+of my brother’s feet, the feet of Foorgat Bey.”
+
+He paused, looking at Ebn Ezra with quiet triumph, though his eyes had
+ever that smiling innocence which had won David in days gone by. He was
+turning his words over on the tongue with a relish born of long waiting.
+
+“Come,” he said presently--“come, and I will give thee reason why thou
+wilt not speak with Kaid to-day. This way, effendi.”
+
+He led the other into a little room hung about with rugs and tapestry,
+and, going to the wall, he touched a spring. “One moment here, effendi,”
+ he added quietly. The room was as it had been since David last stood
+within it.
+
+“In this room, effendi,” Nahoum said with cold deliberation, “Claridge
+Pasha killed my brother, Foorgat Bey.”
+
+Ebn Ezra fell back as though he had been struck. Swiftly Nahoum told
+him the whole truth--even to the picture of the brougham, and the rigid,
+upright figure passing through the night to Foorgat’s palace, the gaunt
+Mizraim piloting the equipage of death.
+
+“I have held my peace for my own reasons, effendi. Wilt thou then force
+me to speak? If thou dost still cherish Claridge Pasha, wilt thou see
+him ruined? Naught but ruin could follow the telling of the tale at this
+moment--his work, his life, all done. The scandal, the law, vengeance!
+But as it is now, Kaid may turn to him again; his work may yet go on--he
+has had the luck of angels, and Kaid is fickle. Who can tell?”
+
+Abashed and overwhelmed, Ebn Ezra Bey looked at him keenly. “To tell
+of Foorgat Bey would ruin thee also,” he said. “That thou knowest. The
+trick--would Kaid forgive it? Claridge Pasha would not be ruined alone.”
+
+“Be it so. If thou goest to Kaid with thy story, I go to Egypt with
+mine. Choose.”
+
+Ebn Ezra turned to go. “The high God judge between him and thee,” he
+said, and, with bowed head, left the Palace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV. NAHOUM DROPS THE MASK “CLARIDGE PASHA!”
+
+At the sound of the words, announced in a loud voice, hundreds of heads
+were turned towards the entrance of the vast salon, resplendent with
+gilded mirrors, great candelabra and chandeliers, golden hangings, and
+divans glowing with robes of yellow silk.
+
+It was the anniversary of Kaid’s succession, and all entitled to come
+poured into the splendid chamber. The showy livery of the officials,
+the loose, spacious, gorgeous uniforms of the officers, with the curved
+jewelled scimitars and white turbans, the rich silk robes of the Ulema,
+robe over robe of coloured silk with flowing sleeves and sumptuous
+silken vests, the ample dignity of noble-looking Arabs in immense white
+turbans, the dark straight Stambouli coat of the officials, made a
+picture of striking variety and colour and interest.
+
+About the centre of the room, laying palm to palm again and yet again,
+touching lips and forehead and breast, speaking with slow, leisurely,
+voices, were two Arab sheikhs from the far Soudan. One of these showed
+a singular interest in the movements of Nahoum Pasha as he entered the
+chamber, and an even greater interest in David when he was announced;
+but as David, in his journey up the chamber, must pass near him, he
+drew behind a little group of officials, who whispered to each other
+excitedly as David came on. More than once before this same Sheikh
+Abdullah had seen David, and once they had met, and had made a treaty of
+amity, and Abdullah had agreed to deal in slaves no more; and yet within
+three months had sent to Cairo two hundred of the best that could be
+found between Khartoum and Senaar. His business, of which Ebn Ezra Bey
+had due knowledge, had now been with Nahoum. The business of the other
+Arab, a noble-looking and wiry Bedouin from the South, had been with Ebn
+Ezra Bey, and each hid his business from his friend. Abdullah murmured
+to himself as David passed--a murmur of admiration and astonishment. He
+had heard of the disfavour in which the Inglesi was; but, as he looked
+at David’s face with its quiet smile, the influence which he felt in the
+desert long ago came over him again.
+
+“By Allah,” he said aloud abstractedly, “it is a face that will not hide
+when the khamsin blows! Who shall gainsay it? If he were not an infidel
+he would be a Mahdi.”
+
+To this his Bedouin friend replied: “As the depths of the pool at Ghebel
+Farik, so are his eyes. You shall dip deep and you shall not find the
+bottom. Bismillah, I would fight Kaid’s Nubians, but not this infidel
+pasha!”
+
+Never had David appeared to such advantage. The victory over himself the
+night before, the message of hope that had reached him at the monastery
+in the desert, the coming of Lacey, had given him a certain quiet
+masterfulness not reassuring to his foes.
+
+As he entered the chamber but now, there flashed into his mind the
+scene six years ago when, an absolute stranger, he had stepped into this
+Eastern salon, and had heard his name called out to the great throng:
+“Claridge efendi!”
+
+He addressed no one, but he bowed to the group of foreign
+consuls-general, looking them steadily in the eyes. He knew their
+devices and what had been going on of late, he was aware that his fall
+would mean a blow to British prestige, and the calmness of his gaze
+expressed a fortitude which had a disconcerting effect upon the group.
+The British Consul-General stood near by. David advanced to him, and,
+as he did so, the few who surrounded the Consul-General fell back. David
+held out his hand. Somewhat abashed and ill at ease, the Consul-General
+took it.
+
+“Have you good news from Downing Street?” asked David quietly.
+
+The Consul-General hesitated for an instant, and then said: “There is
+no help to be had for you or for what you are doing in that quarter.”
+ He lowered his voice. “I fear Lord Eglington does not favour you; and he
+controls the Foreign Minister. I am very sorry. I have done my best, but
+my colleagues, the other consuls, are busy--with Lord Eglington.”
+
+David turned his head away for an instant. Strange how that name sent
+a thrill through him, stirred his blood! He did not answer the
+Consul-General, and the latter continued:
+
+“Is there any hope? Is the breach with Kaid complete?”
+
+David smiled gravely. “We shall see presently. I have made no change in
+my plans on the basis of a breach.”
+
+At that moment he caught sight of Nahoum some distance away and moved
+towards him. Out of the corner of his eye Nahoum saw David coming, and
+edged away towards that point where Kaid would enter, and where the
+crowd was greater. As he did so Kaid appeared. A thrill went through
+the chamber. Contrary to his custom, he was dressed in the old native
+military dress of Mehemet Ali. At his side was a jewelled scimitar,
+and in his turban flashed a great diamond. In his hand he carried a
+snuff-box, covered with brilliants, and on his breast were glittering
+orders.
+
+The eyes of the reactionaries flashed with sinister pleasure when they
+saw Kaid. This outward display of Orientalism could only be a reflex of
+the mind. It was the outer symbol of Kaid’s return to the spirit of
+the old days, before the influence of the Inglesi came upon him. Every
+corrupt and intriguing mind had a palpitation of excitement.
+
+In Nahoum the sight of Kaid produced mixed feelings. If, indeed, this
+display meant reaction towards an entourage purely Arab, Egyptian, and
+Muslim, then it was no good omen for his Christian self. He drew near,
+and placed himself where Kaid could see him. Kaid’s manner was cheerful,
+but his face showed the effect of suffering, physical and mental.
+Presently there entered behind him Sharif Bey, whose appearance was the
+signal for a fresh demonstration. Now, indeed, there could be no doubt
+as to Kaid’s reaction. Yet if Sharif had seen Mizraim’s face evilly
+gloating near by he would have been less confident.
+
+David was standing where Kaid must see him, but the Effendina gave no
+sign of recognition. This was so significant that the enemies of David
+rejoiced anew. The day of the Inglesi was over. Again and again did
+Kaid’s eye wander over David’s head.
+
+David remained calm and watchful, neither avoiding nor yet seeking the
+circle in which Kaid moved. The spirit with which he had entered the
+room, however, remained with him, even when he saw Kaid summon to him
+some of the most fanatical members of the court circle, and engage them
+in talk for a moment. But as this attention grew more marked, a cloud
+slowly gathered in the far skies of his mind.
+
+There was one person in the great assembly, however, who seemed to be
+unduly confident. It was an ample, perspiring person in evening dress,
+who now and again mopped a prematurely bald head, and who said to
+himself, as Kaid talked to the reactionaries:
+
+“Say, Kald’s overdoing it. He’s putting potted chicken on the butter.
+But it’s working all right-r-i-g-h-t. It’s worth the backsheesh!”
+
+At this moment Kaid fastened David with his look, and spoke in a tone so
+loud that people standing at some distance were startled.
+
+“Claridge Pasha!”
+
+In the hush that followed David stepped forward. “May the bounty of the
+years be thine, Saadat,” Kaid said in a tone none could misunderstand.
+
+“May no tree in thy orchard wither, Effendina,” answered David in a firm
+voice.
+
+Kaid beckoned him near, and again he spoke loudly: “I have proved thee,
+and found thee as gold tried seven times by the fire, Saadat. In the
+treasury of my heart shall I store thee up. Thou art going to the Soudan
+to finish the work Mehemet Ali began. I commend thee to Allah, and will
+bid thee farewell at sunrise--I and all who love Egypt.”
+
+There was a sinister smile on his lips, as his eyes wandered over
+the faces of the foreign consuls-general. The look he turned on the
+intriguers of the Palace was repellent; he reserved for Sharif a moody,
+threatening glance, and the desperate hakim shrank back confounded from
+it. His first impulse was to flee from the Palace and from Cairo; but he
+bethought himself of the assault to be made on Kaid by the tent-maker,
+as he passed to the mosque a few hours later, and he determined to
+await the issue of that event. Exchanging glances with confederates, he
+disappeared, as Kaid laid a hand on David’s arm and drew him aside.
+
+After viewing the great throng cynically for a moment Kaid said:
+“To-morrow thou goest. A month hence the hakim’s knife will find the
+thing that eats away my life. It may be they will destroy it and save
+me; if not, we shall meet no more.”
+
+David looked into his eyes. “Not in a month shall thy work be completed,
+Effendina. Thou shalt live. God and thy strong will shall make it so.”
+
+A light stole over the superstitious face. “No device or hatred,
+or plot, has prevailed against thee,” Kaid said eagerly. “Thou hast
+defeated all--even when I turned against thee in the black blood of
+despair. Thou hast conquered me even as thou didst Harrik.”
+
+“Thou dost live,” returned David drily. “Thou dost live for Egypt’s
+sake, even as Harrik died for Egypt’s sake, and as others shall die.”
+
+“Death hath tracked thee down how often! Yet with a wave of the hand
+thou hast blinded him, and his blow falls on the air. Thou art beset by
+a thousand dangers, yet thou comest safe through all. Thou art an honest
+man. For that I besought thee to stay with me. Never didst thou lie to
+me. Good luck hath followed thee. Kismet! Stay with me, and it may be
+I shall be safe also. This thought came to me in the night, and in the
+morning was my reward, for Lacey effendi came to me and said, even as
+I say now, that thou wilt bring me good luck; and even in that hour, by
+the mercy of God, a loan much needed was negotiated. Allah be praised!”
+
+A glint of humour shot into David’s eyes. Lacey--a loan--he read it
+all! Lacey had eased the Prince Pasha’s immediate and pressing financial
+needs--and, “Allah be praised!” Poor human nature--backsheesh to a
+Prince regnant!
+
+“Effendina,” he said presently, “thou didst speak of Harrik. One there
+was who saved thee then--”
+
+“Zaida!” A change passed over Kaid’s face.
+
+“Speak! Thou hast news of her? She is gone?” Briefly David told him how
+Zaida was found upon her sister’s grave. Kaid’s face was turned away as
+he listened.
+
+“She spoke no word of me?” Kaid said at last. “To whom should she
+speak?” David asked gently. “But the amulet thou gavest her, set with
+one red jewel, it was clasped in her hand in death.”
+
+Suddenly Kaid’s anger blazed. “Now shall Achmet die,” he burst out.
+“His hands and feet shall be burnt off, and he shall be thrown to the
+vultures.”
+
+“The Place of the Lepers is sacred even from thee, Effendina,” answered
+David gravely. “Yet Achmet shall die even as Harrik died. He shall die
+for Egypt and for thee, Effendina.”
+
+Swiftly he drew the picture of Achmet at the monastery in the desert.
+“I have done the unlawful thing, Effendina,” he said at last, “but thou
+wilt make it lawful. He hath died a thousand deaths--all save one.”
+
+“Be it so,” answered Kaid gloomily, after a moment; then his face
+lighted with cynical pleasure as he scanned once more the faces of the
+crowd before him. At last his eyes fastened on Nahoum. He turned to
+David.
+
+“Thou dost still desire Nahoum in his office?” he asked keenly.
+
+A troubled look came into David’s eyes, then it cleared away, and he
+said firmly: “For six years we have worked together, Effendina. I am
+surety for his loyalty to thee.”
+
+“And his loyalty to thee?”
+
+A pained look crossed over David’s face again, but he said with a will
+that fought all suspicion down: “The years bear witness.”
+
+Kaid shrugged his shoulders slightly. “The years have perjured
+themselves ere this. Yet, as thou sayest, Nahoum is a Christian,” he
+added, with irony scarcely veiled.
+
+Now he moved forward with David towards the waiting court. David
+searched the groups of faces for Nahoum in vain. There were things to
+be said to Nahoum before he left on the morrow, last suggestions to be
+given. Nahoum could not be seen.
+
+Nahoum was gone, as were also Sharif and his confederates, and in
+the lofty Mosque of Mahmoud soft lights were hovering, while the
+Sheikh-el-Islam waited with Koran and scimitar for the ruler of Egypt to
+pray to God and salute the Lord Mahomet.
+
+At the great gateway in the Street of the Tent Makers Kaid paused on his
+way to the Mosque Mahmoud. The Gate was studded with thousands of nails,
+which fastened to its massive timbers relics of the faithful, bits of
+silk and cloth, and hair and leather; and here from time immemorial a
+holy man had sat and prayed. At the gateway Kaid salaamed humbly, and
+spoke to the holy man, who, as he passed, raised his voice shrilly in
+an appeal to Allah, commending Kaid to mercy and everlasting favour.
+On every side eyes burned with religious zeal, and excited faces were
+turned towards the Effendina. At a certain point there were little
+groups of men with faces more set than excited. They had a look of
+suppressed expectancy. Kald neared them, passed them, and, as he did
+so, they looked at each other in consternation. They were Sharif’s
+confederates, fanatics carefully chosen. The attempt on Kaid’s life
+should have been made opposite the spot where they stood. They craned
+their necks in effort to find the Christian tent-maker, but in vain.
+
+Suddenly they heard a cry, a loud voice calling. It was Rahib the
+tent-maker. He was beside Kaid’s stirrups, but no weapon was in his
+hand; and his voice was calling blessings down on the Effendina’s head
+for having pardoned and saved from death his one remaining son, the joy
+of his old age. In all the world there was no prince like Kaid, said the
+tent-maker; none so bountiful and merciful and beautiful in the eyes of
+men. God grant him everlasting days, the beloved friend of his people,
+just to all and greatly to be praised.
+
+As the soldiers drove the old man away with kindly insistence--for Kaid
+had thrown him a handful of gold--Mizraim, the Chief Eunuch, laughed
+wickedly. As Nahoum had said, the greatest of all weapons was the
+mocking finger. He and Mizraim had had their way with the governor
+of the prisons, and the murderer had gone in safety, while the father
+stayed to bless Kaid. Rahib the tent-maker had fooled the plotters. They
+were mad in derision. They did not know that Kaid was as innocent as
+themselves of having pardoned the tent-maker’s son. Their moment had
+passed; they could not overtake it; the match had spluttered and gone
+out at the fuel laid for the fire of fanaticism.
+
+The morning of David’s departure came. While yet it was dark he had
+risen, and had made his last preparations. When he came into the open
+air and mounted, it was not yet sunrise, and in that spectral early
+light, which is all Egypt’s own, Cairo looked like some dream-city in a
+forgotten world. The Mokattam Hills were like vast dun barriers guarding
+and shutting in the ghostly place, and, high above all, the minarets of
+the huge mosque upon the lofty rocks were impalpable fingers pointing
+an endless flight. The very trees seemed so little real and substantial
+that they gave the eye the impression that they might rise and float
+away. The Nile was hung with mist, a trailing cloud unwound from the
+breast of the Nile-mother. At last the sun touched the minarets of the
+splendid mosque with shafts of light, and over at Ghizeh and Sakkarah
+the great pyramids, lifting their heads from the wall of rolling blue
+mist below, took the morning’s crimson radiance with the dignity of four
+thousand years.
+
+On the decks of the little steamer which was to carry them south David,
+Ebn Ezra, Lacey, and Mahommed waited. Presently Kaid came, accompanied
+by his faithful Nubians, their armour glowing in the first warm light
+of the rising sun, and crowds of people, who had suddenly emerged, ran
+shrilling to the waterside behind him.
+
+Kaid’s pale face had all last night’s friendliness, as he bade David
+farewell with great honour, and commended him to the care of Allah; and
+the swords of the Nubians clashed against their breasts and on their
+shields in salaam.
+
+But there was another farewell to make; and it was made as David’s foot
+touched the deck of the steamer. Once again David looked at Nahoum as
+he had done six years ago, in the little room where they had made their
+bond together. There was the same straight look in Nahoum’s eyes. Was he
+not to be trusted? Was it not his own duty to trust? He clasped Nahoum’s
+hand in farewell, and turned away. But as he gave the signal to start,
+and the vessel began to move, Nahoum came back. He leaned over the
+widening space and said in a low tone, as David again drew near:
+
+“There is still an account which should be settled, Saadat. It has
+waited long; but God is with the patient. There is the account of
+Foorgat Bey.”
+
+The light fled from David’s eyes and his heart stopped beating for a
+moment. When his eyes saw the shore again Nahoum was gone with Kaid.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV. THE FLIGHT OF THE WOUNDED
+
+       “And Mario can soothe with a tenor note
+        The souls in purgatory.”
+
+“Non ti scordar di mi!” The voice rang out with passionate stealthy
+sweetness, finding its way into far recesses of human feeling. Women
+of perfect poise and with the confident look of luxury and social fame
+dropped their eyes abstractedly on the opera-glasses lying in their
+laps, or the programmes they mechanically fingered, and recalled, they
+knew not why--for what had it to do with this musical narration of a
+tragic Italian tale!--the days when, in the first flush of their wedded
+life, they had set a seal of devotion and loyalty and love upon their
+arms, which, long ago, had gone to the limbo of lost jewels, with the
+chaste, fresh desires of worshipping hearts. Young egotists, supremely
+happy and defiant in the pride of the fact that they loved each
+other, and that it mattered little what the rest of the world enjoyed,
+suffered, and endured--these were suddenly arrested in their buoyant and
+solitary flight, and stirred restlessly in their seats. Old men whose
+days of work were over; who no longer marshalled their legions, or moved
+at a nod great ships upon the waters in masterful manoeuvres; whose
+voices were heard no more in chambers of legislation, lashing partisan
+feeling to a height of cruelty or lulling a storm among rebellious
+followers; whose intellects no longer devised vast schemes of finance,
+or applied secrets of science to transform industry--these heard the
+enthralling cry of a soul with the darkness of eternal loss gathering
+upon it, and drew back within themselves; for they too had cried like
+this one time or another in their lives. Stricken, they had cried out,
+and ambition had fled away, leaving behind only the habit of living, and
+of work and duty.
+
+As Hylda, in the Duchess of Snowdon’s box, listened with a face which
+showed nothing of what she felt, and looking straight at the stage
+before her, the words of a poem she had learned but yesterday came to
+her mind, and wove themselves into the music thrilling from the voice in
+the stage prison:
+
+  “And what is our failure here but a triumph’s evidence
+    For the fulness of the days? Have we withered or agonised?
+   Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue
+    thence?
+    Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should be prized?”
+
+“And what is our failure here but a triumph’s evidence?” Was it then so?
+The long weeks which had passed since that night at Hamley, when she had
+told Eglington the truth about so many things, had brought no peace,
+no understanding, no good news from anywhere. The morning after she
+had spoken with heart laid bare. Eglington had essayed to have a
+reconciliation; but he had come as the martyr, as one injured. His
+egotism at such a time, joined to his attempt to make light of things,
+of treating what had happened as a mere “moment of exasperation,” as
+“one of those episodes inseparable from the lives of the high-spirited,”
+ only made her heart sink and grow cold, almost as insensible as the
+flesh under a spray of ether. He had been neither wise nor patient. She
+had not slept after that bitter, terrible scene, and the morning had
+found her like one battered by winter seas, every nerve desperately
+alert to pain, yet tears swimming at her heart and ready to spring to
+her eyes at a touch of the real thing, the true note--and she knew so
+well what the true thing was! Their great moment had passed, had left
+her withdrawn into herself, firmly, yet without heart, performing the
+daily duties of life, gay before the world, the delightful hostess, the
+necessary and graceful figure at so many functions.
+
+Even as Soolsby had done, who went no further than to tell Eglington his
+dark tale, and told no one else, withholding it from “Our Man”; as Sybil
+Lady Eglington had shrunk when she had been faced by her obvious duty,
+so Hylda hesitated, but from better reason than either. To do right in
+the matter was to strike her husband--it must be a blow now, since her
+voice had failed. To do right was to put in the ancient home and house
+of Eglington one whom he--with anger and without any apparent desire
+to have her altogether for himself, all the riches of her life and
+love--had dared to say commanded her sympathy and interest, not because
+he was a man dispossessed of his rights, but because he was a man
+possessed of that to which he had no right. The insult had stung her,
+had driven her back into a reserve, out of which she seemed unable to
+emerge. How could she compel Eglington to do right in this thing--do
+right by his own father’s son?
+
+Meanwhile, that father’s son was once more imperilling his life, once
+more putting England’s prestige in the balance in the Soudan, from which
+he had already been delivered twice as though by miracles. Since he had
+gone, months before, there had been little news; but there had been
+much public anxiety; and she knew only too well that there had been
+‘pourparlers’ with foreign ministers, from which no action came
+safe-guarding David.
+
+Many a human being has realised the apathy, the partial paralysis of the
+will, succeeding a great struggle, which has exhausted the vital forces.
+Many a general who has fought a desperate and victorious fight after
+a long campaign, and amid all the anxieties and miseries of war, has
+failed to follow up his advantage, from a sudden lesion of the power for
+action in him. He has stepped from the iron routine of daily effort into
+a sudden freedom, and his faculties have failed him, the iron of his
+will has vanished. So it was with Hylda. She waited for she knew not
+what. Was it some dim hope that Eglington might see the right as she
+saw it? That he might realise how unreal was this life they were living,
+outwardly peaceful and understanding, deluding the world, but inwardly
+a place of tears. How she dreaded the night and its recurrent tears, and
+the hours when she could not sleep, and waited for the joyless morning,
+as one lost on the moor, blanched with cold, waits for the sun-rise!
+Night after night at a certain hour--the hour when she went to bed at
+last after that poignant revelation to Eglington--she wept, as she
+had wept then, heart-broken tears of disappointment, disillusion,
+loneliness; tears for the bitter pity of it all; for the wasting and
+wasted opportunities; for the common aim never understood or planned
+together; for the precious hours lived in an air of artificial happiness
+and social excitement; for a perfect understanding missed; for the touch
+which no longer thrilled.
+
+But the end of it all must come. She was looking frail and delicate,
+and her beauty, newly refined, and with a fresh charm, as of mystery
+or pain, was touched by feverishness. An old impatience once hers was
+vanished, and Kate Heaver would have given a month’s wages for one of
+those flashes of petulance of other days ever followed by a smile. Now
+the smile was all too often there, the patient smile which comes to
+those who have suffered. Hardness she felt at times, where Eglington
+was concerned, for he seemed to need her now not at all, to be
+self-contained, self-dependent--almost arrogantly so; but she did not
+show it, and she was outwardly patient.
+
+In his heart of hearts Eglington believed that she loved him, that
+her interest in David was only part of her idealistic temperament--the
+admiration of a woman for a man of altruistic aims; but his hatred of
+David, of what David was, and of his irrefutable claims, reacted on her.
+Perverseness and his unhealthy belief that he would master her in the
+end, that she would one day break down and come to him, willing to take
+his view in all things, and to be his slave--all this drove him farther
+and farther on a fatal, ever-broadening path.
+
+Success had spoiled him. He applied his gifts in politics, daringly
+unscrupulous, superficially persuasive, intellectually insinuating, to
+his wife; and she, who had been captured once by all these things, was
+not to be captured again. She knew what alone could capture her; and,
+as she sat and watched the singers on the stage now, the divine notes of
+that searching melody still lingering in her heart, there came a sudden
+wonder whether Eglington’s heart could not be wakened. She knew that
+it never had been, that he had never known love, the transfiguring
+and reclaiming passion. No, no, surely it could not be too late--her
+marriage with him had only come too soon! He had ridden over her without
+mercy; he had robbed her of her rightful share of the beautiful and the
+good; he had never loved her; but if love came to him, if he could but
+once realise how much there was of what he had missed! If he did not
+save himself--and her--what would be the end? She felt the cords drawing
+her elsewhere; the lure of a voice she had heard in an Egyptian garden
+was in her ears. One night at Hamley, in an abandonment of grief-life
+hurt her so--she had remembered the prophecy she had once made that she
+would speak to David, and that he would hear; and she had risen from her
+seat, impelled by a strange new feeling, and had cried: “Speak! speak
+to me!” As plainly as she had ever heard anything in her life, she had
+heard his voice speak to her a message that sank into the innermost
+recesses of her being, and she had been more patient afterwards. She had
+no doubt whatever; she had spoken to him, and he had answered; but the
+answer was one which all the world might have heard.
+
+Down deep in her nature was an inalienable loyalty, was a simple,
+old-fashioned feeling that “they two,” she and Eglington, should cleave
+unto each other till death should part. He had done much to shatter
+that feeling; but now, as she listened to Mario’s voice, centuries of
+predisposition worked in her, and a great pity awoke in her heart. Could
+she not save him, win him, wake him, cure him of the disease of Self?
+
+The thought brought a light to her eyes which had not been there
+for many a day. Out of the deeps of her soul this mist of a pure
+selflessness rose, the spirit of that idealism which was the real chord
+of sympathy between her and Egypt.
+
+Yes, she would, this once again, try to win the heart of this man; and
+so reach what was deeper than heart, and so also give him that without
+which his life must be a failure in the end, as Sybil Eglington had
+said. How often had those bitter anguished words of his mother rung in
+her ears--“So brilliant and unscrupulous, like yourself; but, oh,
+so sure of winning a great place in the world... so calculating and
+determined and ambitious!” They came to her now, flashed between
+the eager solicitous eyes of her mind and the scene of a perfect and
+everlasting reconciliation which it conjured up--flashed and were gone;
+for her will rose up and blurred them into mist; and other words of
+that true palimpsest of Sybil Eglington’s broken life came instead: “And
+though he loves me little, as he loves you little too, yet he is my son,
+and for what he is we are both responsible one way or another.” As the
+mother, so the wife. She said to herself now in sad paraphrase, “And
+though he loves me little, yet he is my husband, and for what he is it
+may be that I am in some sense responsible.” Yet he is my husband! All
+that it was came to her; the closed door, the drawn blinds; the intimacy
+which shut them away from all the world; the things said which can
+only be said without desecration between two honest souls who love each
+other; and that sweet isolation which makes marriage a separate world,
+with its own sacred revelation. This she had known; this had been; and
+though the image of the sacred thing had been defaced, yet the shrine
+was not destroyed.
+
+For she believed that each had kept the letter of the law; that,
+whatever his faults, he had turned his face to no other woman. If she
+had not made his heart captive and drawn him by an ever-shortening cord
+of attraction, yet she was sure that none other had any influence over
+him, that, as he had looked at her in those short-lived days of his
+first devotion, he looked at no other. The way was clear yet. There was
+nothing irretrievable, nothing irrevocable, which would for ever stain
+the memory and tarnish the gold of life when the perfect love should be
+minted. Whatever faults of mind or disposition or character were his--or
+hers--there were no sins against the pledges they had made, nor the bond
+into which they had entered. Life would need no sponge. Memory might
+still live on without a wound or a cowl of shame.
+
+It was all part of the music to which she listened, and she was almost
+oblivious of the brilliant throng, the crowded boxes, or of the Duchess
+of Snowdon sitting near her strangely still, now and again scanning the
+beautiful face beside her with a reflective look. The Duchess loved the
+girl--she was but a girl, after all--as she had never loved any of her
+sex; it had come to be the last real interest of her life. To her eyes,
+dimmed with much seeing, blurred by a garish kaleidoscope of fashionable
+life, there had come a look which was like the ghost of a look she had,
+how many decades ago.
+
+Presently, as she saw Hylda’s eyes withdraw from the stage, and look at
+her with a strange, soft moisture and a new light in them, she laid her
+fan confidently on her friend’s knee, and said in her abrupt whimsical
+voice: “You like it, my darling; your eyes are as big as saucers. You
+look as if you’d been seeing things, not things on that silly stage, but
+what Verdi felt when he wrote the piece, or something of more account
+than that.”
+
+“Yes, I’ve been seeing things,” Hylda answered with a smile which came
+from a new-born purpose, the dream of an idealist. “I’ve been seeing
+things that Verdi did not see, and of more account, too.... Do you
+suppose the House is up yet?”
+
+A strange look flashed into the Duchess’s eyes, which had been watching
+her with as much pity as interest. Hylda had not been near the House
+of Commons this session, though she had read the reports with her usual
+care. She had shunned the place.
+
+“Why, did you expect Eglington?” the Duchess asked idly, yet she was
+watchful too, alert for every movement in this life where the footsteps
+of happiness were falling by the edge of a precipice, over which she
+would not allow herself to look. She knew that Hylda did not expect
+Eglington, for the decision to come to the opera was taken at the last
+moment.
+
+“Of course not--he doesn’t know we are here. But if it wasn’t too late,
+I thought I’d go down and drive him home.”
+
+The Duchess veiled her look. Here was some new development in the
+history which had been torturing her old eyes, which had given her and
+Lord Windlehurst as many anxious moments as they had known in many a
+day, and had formed them into a vigilance committee of two, who waited
+for the critical hour when they should be needed.
+
+“We’ll go at once if you like,” she replied. “The opera will be over
+soon. We sent word to Windlehurst to join us, you remember, but he won’t
+come now; it’s too late. So, we’ll go, if you like.”
+
+She half rose, but the door of the box opened, and Lord Windlehurst
+looked in quizzically. There was a smile on his face.
+
+“I’m late, I know; but you’ll forgive me--you’ll forgive me, dear lady,”
+ he added to Hylda, “for I’ve been listening to your husband making a
+smashing speech for a bad cause.”
+
+Hylda smiled. “Then I must go and congratulate him,” she answered, and
+withdrew her hand from that of Lord Windlehurst, who seemed to hold it
+longer than usual, and pressed it in a fatherly way.
+
+“I’m afraid the House is up,” he rejoined, as Hylda turned for her
+opera-cloak; “and I saw Eglington leave Palace Yard as I came away.” He
+gave a swift, ominous glance towards the Duchess, which Hylda caught,
+and she looked at each keenly.
+
+“It’s seldom I sit in the Peers’ Gallery,” continued Windlehurst; “I
+don’t like going back to the old place much. It seems empty and hollow.
+But I wouldn’t have missed Eglington’s fighting speech for a good deal.”
+
+“What was it about?” asked Hylda as they left the box. She had a sudden
+throb of the heart. Was it the one great question, that which had been
+like a gulf of fire between them?
+
+“Oh, Turkey--the unpardonable Turk,” answered Windlehurst. “As good a
+defence of a bad case as I ever heard.”
+
+“Yes, Eglington would do that well,” said the Duchess enigmatically,
+drawing her cloak around her and adjusting her hair. Hylda looked at her
+sharply, and Lord Windlehurst slyly, but the Duchess seemed oblivious of
+having said anything out of the way, and added: “It’s a gift seeing all
+that can be said for a bad cause, and saying it, and so making the other
+side make their case so strong that the verdict has to be just.”
+
+“Dear Duchess, it doesn’t always work out that way,” rejoined
+Windlehurst with a dry laugh. “Sometimes the devil’s advocate wins.”
+
+“You are not very complimentary to my husband,” retorted Hylda, looking
+him in the eyes, for she was not always sure when he was trying to
+baffle her.
+
+“I’m not so sure of that. He hasn’t won his case yet. He has only staved
+off the great attack. It’s coming--soon.”
+
+“What is the great attack? What has the Government, or the Foreign
+Office, done or left undone?”
+
+“Well, my dear--” Suddenly Lord Windlehurst remembered himself, stopped,
+put up his eyeglass, and with great interest seemed to watch a gay
+group of people opposite; for the subject of attack was Egypt and the
+Government’s conduct in not helping David, in view not alone of his
+present danger, but of the position of England in the country, on which
+depended the security of her highway to the East. Windlehurst was a good
+actor, and he had broken off his words as though the group he was now
+watching had suddenly claimed his attention. “Well, well, Duchess,”
+ he said reflectively, “I see a new nine days’ wonder yonder.” Then, in
+response to a reminder from Hylda, he continued: “Ah, yes, the attack!
+Oh, Persia--Persia, and our feeble diplomacy, my dear lady, though you
+mustn’t take that as my opinion, opponent as I am. That’s the charge,
+Persia--and her cats.”
+
+The Duchess breathed a sigh of relief; for she knew what Windlehurst had
+been going to say, and she shrank from seeing what she felt she would
+see, if Egypt and Claridge Pasha’s name were mentioned. That night at
+Harnley had burnt a thought into her mind which she did not like. Not
+that she had any pity for Eglington; her thought was all for this girl
+she loved. No happiness lay in the land of Egypt for her, whatever her
+unhappiness here; and she knew that Hylda must be more unhappy still
+before she was ever happy again, if that might be. There was that
+concerning Eglington which Hylda did not know, yet which she must know
+one day--and then! But why were Hylda’s eyes so much brighter and softer
+and deeper to-night? There was something expectant, hopeful, brooding in
+them. They belonged not to the life moving round her, but were shining
+in a land of their own, a land of promise. By an instinct in each of
+them they stood listening for a moment to the last strains of the opera.
+The light leaped higher in Hylda’s eyes.
+
+“Beautiful--oh, so beautiful!” she said, her hand touching the Duchess’s
+arm.
+
+The Duchess gave the slim warm fingers a spasmodic little squeeze. “Yes,
+darling, beautiful,” she rejoined; and then the crowd began to pour out
+behind them.
+
+Their carriages were at the door. Lord Windlehurst put Hylda in. “The
+House is up,” he said. “You are going on somewhere?”
+
+“No--home,” she said, and smiled into his old, kind, questioning eyes.
+“Home!”
+
+“Home!” he murmured significantly as he turned towards the Duchess and
+her carriage. “Home!” he repeated, and shook his head sadly.
+
+“Shall I drive you to your house?” the Duchess asked.
+
+“No, I’ll go with you to your door, and walk back to my cell. Home!” he
+growled to the footman, with a sardonic note in the voice.
+
+As they drove away, the Duchess turned to him abruptly. “What did you
+mean by your look when you said you had seen Eglington drive away from
+the House?”
+
+“Well, my dear Betty, she--the fly-away--drives him home now. It has
+come to that.”
+
+“To her house--Windlehurst, oh, Windlehurst!”
+
+She sank back in the cushions, and gave what was as near a sob as she
+had given in many a day. Windlehurst took her hand. “No, not so bad as
+that yet. She drove him to his club. Don’t fret, my dear Betty.”
+
+Home! Hylda watched the shops, the houses, the squares, as she passed
+westward, her mind dwelling almost happily on the new determination to
+which she had come. It was not love that was moving her, not love for
+him, but a deeper thing. He had brutally killed love--the full life of
+it--those months ago; but there was a deep thing working in her which
+was as near nobility as the human mind can feel. Not in a long time
+had she neared her home with such expectation and longing. Often on the
+doorstep she had shut her eyes to the light and warmth and elegance
+of it, because of that which she did not see. Now, with a thrill of
+pleasure, she saw its doors open. It was possible Eglington might have
+come home already. Lord Windlehurst had said that he had left the House.
+She did not ask if he was in--it had not been her custom for a
+long time--and servants were curious people; but she looked at the
+hall-table. Yes, there was a hat which had evidently just been placed
+there, and gloves, and a stick. He was at home, then.
+
+She hurried to her room, dropped her opera-cloak on a chair, looked at
+herself in the glass, a little fluttered and critical, and then crossed
+the hallway to Eglington’s bedroom. She listened for a moment. There
+was no sound. She turned the handle of the door softly, and opened it. A
+light was burning low, but the room was empty. It was as she thought,
+he was in his study, where he spent hours sometimes after he came home,
+reading official papers. She went up the stairs, at first swiftly, then
+more slowly, then with almost lagging feet. Why did she hesitate? Why
+should a woman falter in going to her husband--to her own one man of
+all the world? Was it not, should it not be, ever the open door between
+them? Confidence--confidence--could she not have it, could she not get
+it now at last? She had paused; but now she moved on with quicker step,
+purpose in her face, her eyes softly lighted.
+
+Suddenly she saw on the floor an opened letter. She picked it up, and,
+as she did so, involuntarily observed the writing. Almost mechanically
+she glanced at the contents. Her heart stood still. The first words
+scorched her eyes.
+
+   “Eglington--Harry, dearest,” it said, “you shall not go to sleep
+   to-night without a word from me. This will make you think of me
+   when....”
+
+Frozen, struck as by a mortal blow, Hylda looked at the signature.
+She knew it--the cleverest, the most beautiful adventuress which the
+aristocracy and society had produced. She trembled from head to foot,
+and for a moment it seemed that she must fall. But she steadied herself
+and walked firmly to Eglington’s door. Turning the handle softly, she
+stepped inside.
+
+He did not hear her. He was leaning over a box of papers, and they
+rustled loudly under his hand. He was humming to himself that song she
+heard an hour ago in Il Trovatore, that song of passion and love and
+tragedy. It sent a wave of fresh feeling over her. She could not go
+on--could not face him, and say what she must say. She turned and passed
+swiftly from the room, leaving the door open, and hurried down the
+staircase. Eglington heard now, and wheeled round. He saw the open door,
+listened to the rustle of her skirts, knew that she had been there. He
+smiled, and said to himself:
+
+“She came to me, as I said she would. I shall master her--the full
+surrender, and then--life will be easy then.”
+
+Hylda hurried down the staircase to her room, saw Kate Heaver waiting,
+beckoned to her, caught up her opera-cloak, and together they passed
+down the staircase to the front door. Heaver rang a bell, a footman
+appeared, and, at a word, called a cab. A minute later they were ready:
+
+“Snowdon House,” Hylda said; and they passed into the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI. “IS IT ALWAYS SO--IN LIFE?”
+
+The Duchess and her brother, an ex-diplomatist, now deaf and patiently
+amiable and garrulous, had met on the doorstep of Snowdon House, and
+together they insisted on Lord Windlehurst coming in for a talk. The two
+men had not met for a long time, and the retired official had been one
+of Lord Windlehurst’s own best appointments in other days. The Duchess
+had the carriage wait in consequence.
+
+The ex-official could hear little, but he had cultivated the habit of
+talking constantly and well. There were some voices, however, which he
+could hear more distinctly than others, and Lord Windlehurst’s was one
+of them--clear, well-modulated, and penetrating. Sipping brandy and
+water, Lord Windlehurst gave his latest quip. They were all laughing
+heartily, when the butler entered the room and said, “Lady Eglington is
+here, and wishes to see your Grace.”
+
+As the butler left the room, the Duchess turned despairingly to
+Windlehurst, who had risen, and was paler than the Duchess. “It has
+come,” she said, “oh, it has come! I can’t face it.”
+
+“But it doesn’t matter about you facing it,” Lord Windlehurst rejoined.
+“Go to her and help her, Betty. You know what to do--the one thing.” He
+took her hand and pressed it.
+
+She dashed the tears from her eyes and drew herself together, while her
+brother watched her benevolently.
+
+He had not heard what was said. Betty had always been impulsive, he
+thought to himself, and here was some one in trouble--they all came to
+her, and kept her poor.
+
+“Go to bed, Dick,” the Duchess said to him, and hurried from the room.
+She did not hesitate now. Windlehurst had put the matter in the right
+way. Her pain was nothing, mere moral cowardice; but Hylda--!
+
+She entered the other room as quickly as rheumatic limbs would permit.
+Hylda stood waiting, erect, her eyes gazing blankly before her and
+rimmed by dark circles, her face haggard and despairing.
+
+Before the Duchess could reach her, she said in a hoarse whisper: “I
+have left him--I have left him. I have come to you.”
+
+With a cry of pity the Duchess would have taken the stricken girl in her
+arms, but Hylda held out a shaking hand with the letter in it which
+had brought this new woe and this crisis foreseen by Lord Windlehurst.
+“There--there it is. He goes from me to her--to that!” She thrust the
+letter into the Duchess’s fingers. “You knew--you knew! I saw the look
+that passed between you and Windlehurst at the opera. I understand all
+now. He left the House of Commons with her--and you knew, oh, you knew!
+All the world knows--every one knew but me.” She threw up her hands.
+“But I’ve left him--I’ve left him, for ever.”
+
+Now the Duchess had her in her arms, and almost forcibly drew her to a
+sofa. “Darling, my darling,” she said, “you must not give way. It is not
+so bad as you think. You must let me help to make you understand.”
+
+Hylda laughed hysterically. “Not so bad as I think! Read--read it,” she
+said, taking the letter from the Duchess’s fingers and holding it before
+her face. “I found it on the staircase. I could not help but read it.”
+ She sat and clasped and unclasped her hands in utter misery. “Oh, the
+shame of it, the bitter shame of it! Have I not been a good wife to him?
+Have I not had reason to break my heart? But I waited, and I wanted to
+be good and to do right. And to-night I was going to try once more--I
+felt it in the opera. I was going to make one last effort for his sake.
+It was for his sake I meant to make it, for I thought him only hard and
+selfish, and that he had never loved; and if he only loved, I thought--”
+
+She broke off, wringing her hands and staring into space, the ghost of
+the beautiful figure that had left the Opera House with shining eyes.
+
+The Duchess caught the cold hands. “Yes, yes, darling, I know. I
+understand. So does Windlehurst. He loves you as much as I do. We know
+there isn’t much to be got out of life; but we always hoped you would
+get more than anybody else.”
+
+Hylda shrank, then raised her head, and looked at the Duchess with an
+infinite pathos. “Oh, is it always so--in life? Is no one true? Is every
+one betrayed sometime? I would die--yes, a thousand times yes, I would
+rather die than bear this. What do I care for life--it has cheated me!
+I meant well, and I tried to do well, and I was true to him in word and
+deed even when I suffered most, even when--”
+
+The Duchess laid a cheek against the burning head. “I understand, my own
+dear. I understand--altogether.”
+
+“But you cannot know,” the broken girl replied; “but through everything
+I was true; and I have been tempted too when my heart was aching so,
+when the days were so empty, the nights so long, and my heart hurt--hurt
+me. But now, it is over, everything is done. You will keep me here--ah,
+say you will keep me here till everything can be settled, and I can go
+away--far away--far--!”
+
+She stopped with a gasping cry, and her eyes suddenly strained into the
+distance, as though a vision of some mysterious thing hung before her.
+The Duchess realised that that temptation, which has come to so many
+disillusioned mortals, to end it all, to find quiet somehow, somewhere
+out in the dark, was upon her. She became resourceful and persuasively
+commanding.
+
+“But no, my darling,” she said, “you are going nowhere. Here in London
+is your place now. And you must not stay here in my house. You must go
+back to your home. Your place is there. For the present, at any rate,
+there must be no scandal. Suspicion is nothing, talk is nothing, and the
+world forgets--”
+
+“Oh, I do not care for the world or its forgetting!” the wounded girl
+replied. “What is the world to me! I wanted my own world, the world
+of my four walls, quiet and happy, and free from scandal and shame. I
+wanted love and peace there, and now...!”
+
+“You must be guided by those who love you. You are too young to decide
+what is best for yourself. You must let Windlehurst and me think for
+you; and, oh, my darling, you cannot know how much I care for your best
+good!”
+
+“I cannot, will not, bear the humiliation and the shame. This letter
+here--you see!”
+
+“It is the letter of a woman who has had more affaires than any man in
+London. She is preternaturally clever, my dear--Windlehurst would tell
+you so. The brilliant and unscrupulous, the beautiful and the bad, have
+a great advantage in this world. Eglington was curious, that is all. It
+is in the breed of the Eglingtons to go exploring, to experiment.”
+
+Hylda started. Words from the letter Sybil Lady Eglington had left
+behind her rushed into her mind: “Experiment, subterfuge, secrecy.
+‘Reaping where you had not sowed, and gathering where you had not
+strawed.’ Always experiment, experiment, experiment!”
+
+“I have only been married three years,” she moaned. “Yes, yes, my
+darling; but much may happen after three days of married life, and love
+may come after twenty years. The human heart is a strange thing.”
+
+“I was patient--I gave him every chance. He has been false and
+shameless. I will not go on.”
+
+The Duchess pressed both hands hard, and made a last effort, looking
+into the deep troubled eyes with her own grown almost beautiful with
+feeling--the faded world-worn eyes.
+
+“You will go back to-night-at once,” she said firmly. “To-morrow you
+will stay in bed till noon-at any rate, till I come. I promise you that
+you shall not be treated with further indignity. Your friends will stand
+by you, the world will be with you, if you do nothing rash, nothing that
+forces it to babble and scold. But you must play its game, my dearest.
+I’ll swear that the worst has not happened. She drove him to his club,
+and, after a man has had a triumph, a woman will not drive him to his
+club if--my darling, you must trust me! If there must be the great
+smash, let it be done in a way that will prevent you being smashed also
+in the world’s eyes. You can live, and you will live. Is there nothing
+for you to do? Is there no one for whom you would do something, who
+would be heart-broken if you--if you went mad now?”
+
+Suddenly a great change passed over Hylda. “Is there no one for whom
+you would do something?” Just as in the desert a question like this had
+lifted a man out of a terrible and destroying apathy, so this searching
+appeal roused in Hylda a memory and a pledge. “Is there no one for whom
+you would do something?” Was life, then, all over? Was her own great
+grief all? Was her bitter shame the end?
+
+She got to her feet tremblingly. “I will go back,” she said slowly and
+softly.
+
+“Windlehurst will take you home,” the Duchess rejoined eagerly. “My
+carriage is at the door.”
+
+A moment afterwards Lord Windlehurst took Hylda’s hands in his and held
+them long. His old, querulous eyes were like lamps of safety; his smile
+had now none of that cynicism with which he had aroused and chastened
+the world. The pitiful understanding of life was there and a consummate
+gentleness. He gave her his arm, and they stepped out into the moonlit
+night. “So peaceful, so bright!” he said, looking round.
+
+“I will come at noon to-morrow,” called the Duchess from the doorway.
+
+A light was still shining in Eglington’s study when the carriage drove
+up. With a latch-key Hylda admitted herself and her maid.
+
+The storm had broken, the flood had come. The storm was over, but the
+flood swept far and wide.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII. THE FLYING SHUTTLE
+
+Hour after hour of sleeplessness. The silver-tongued clock remorselessly
+tinkled the quarters, and Hylda lay and waited for them with a hopeless
+strained attention. In vain she tried devices to produce that monotony
+of thought which sometimes brings sleep. Again and again, as she felt
+that sleep was coming at last, the thought of the letter she had found
+flashed through her mind with words of fire, and it seemed as if there
+had been poured through every vein a subtle irritant. Just such a
+surging, thrilling flood she had felt in the surgeon’s chair when she
+was a girl and an anesthetic had been given. But this wave of sensation
+led to no oblivion, no last soothing intoxication. Its current beat
+against her heart until she could have cried out from the mere physical
+pain, the clamping grip of her trouble. She withered and grew cold under
+the torture of it all--the ruthless spoliation of everything which made
+life worth while or the past endurable.
+
+About an hour after she had gone to bed she heard Eglington’s step. It
+paused at her door. She trembled with apprehension lest he should enter.
+It was many a day since he had done so, but also she had not heard his
+step pause at her door for many a day. She could not bear to face it all
+now; she must have time to think, to plan her course--the last course
+of all. For she knew that the next step must be the last step in her old
+life, and towards a new life, whatever that might be. A great sigh of
+relief broke from her as she heard his door open and shut, and silence
+fell on everything, that palpable silence which seems to press upon the
+night-watcher with merciless, smothering weight.
+
+How terribly active her brain was! Pictures--it was all vivid pictures,
+that awful visualisation of sorrow which, if it continues, breaks the
+heart or wrests the mind from its sanity. If only she did not see! But
+she did see Eglington and the Woman together, saw him look into her
+eyes, take her hands, put his arm round her, draw her face to his!
+Her heart seemed as if it must burst, her lips cried out. With a
+great effort of the will she tried to hide from these agonies of the
+imagination, and again she would approach those happy confines of sleep,
+which are the only refuge to the lacerated heart; and then the weapon of
+time on the mantelpiece would clash on the shield of the past, and
+she was wide awake again. At last, in desperation, she got out of bed,
+hurried to the fireplace, caught the little sharp-tongued recorder in a
+nervous grasp, and stopped it.
+
+As she was about to get into bed again, she saw a pile of letters lying
+on the table near her pillow. In her agitation she had not noticed
+them, and the devoted Heaver had not drawn her attention to them.
+Now, however, with a strange premonition, she quickly glanced at the
+envelopes. The last one of all was less aristocratic-looking than the
+others; the paper of the envelope was of the poorest, and it had a
+foreign look. She caught it up with an exclamation. The handwriting was
+that of her cousin Lacey.
+
+She got into bed with a mind suddenly swept into a new atmosphere,
+and opened the flimsy cover. Shutting her eyes, she lay still for a
+moment--still and vague; she was only conscious of one thing, that a
+curtain had dropped on the terrible pictures she had seen, and that her
+mind was in a comforting quiet. Presently she roused herself, and turned
+the letter over in her hand. It was not long--was that because its news
+was bad news? The first chronicles of disaster were usually brief! She
+smoothed the paper out-it had been crumpled and was a little soiled-and
+read it swiftly. It ran:
+
+   DEAR LADY COUSIN--As the poet says, “Man is born to trouble as the
+   sparks fly upward,” and in Egypt the sparks set the stacks on fire
+   oftener than anywhere else, I guess. She outclasses Mexico as a
+   “precious example” in this respect. You needn’t go looking for
+   trouble in Mexico; it’s waiting for you kindly. If it doesn’t find
+   you to-day, well, manana. But here it comes running like a native
+   to his cooking-pot at sunset in Ramadan. Well, there have been
+   “hard trials” for the Saadat. His cotton-mills were set on fire-
+   can’t you guess who did it? And now, down in Cairo, Nahoum runs
+   Egypt; for a messenger that got through the tribes worrying us tells
+   us that Kaid is sick, and Nahoum the Armenian says, you shall, and
+   you shan’t, now. Which is another way of saying, that between us
+   and the front door of our happy homes there are rattlesnakes that
+   can sting--Nahoum’s arm is long, and his traitors are crawling under
+   the canvas of our tents!
+
+   I’m not complaining for myself. I asked for what I’ve got, and,
+   dear Lady Cousin, I put up some cash for it, too, as a man should.
+   No, I don’t mind for myself, fond as I am of loafing, sort of
+   pottering round where the streets are in the hands of a pure police;
+   for I’ve seen more, done more, thought more, up here, than in all my
+   life before; and I’ve felt a country heaving under the touch of one
+   of God’s men--it gives you minutes that lift you out of the dust and
+   away from the crawlers. And I’d do it all over a thousand times for
+   him, and for what I’ve got out of it. I’ve lived. But, to speak
+   right out plain, I don’t know how long this machine will run.
+   There’s been a plant of the worst kind. Tribes we left friendly
+   under a year ago are out against us; cities that were faithful have
+   gone under to rebels. Nahoum has sowed the land with the tale that
+   the Saadat means to abolish slavery, to take away the powers of the
+   great sheikhs, and to hand the country over to the Turk. Ebn Ezra
+   Bey has proofs of the whole thing, and now at last the Saadat knows
+   too late that his work has been spoiled by the only man who could
+   spoil it. The Saadat knows it, but does he rave and tear his hair?
+   He says nothing. He stands up like a rock before the riot of
+   treachery and bad luck and all the terrible burden he has to carry
+   here. If he wasn’t a Quaker I’d say he had the pride of an
+   archangel. You can bend him, but you can’t break him; and it takes
+   a lot to bend him. Men desert, but he says others will come to take
+   their place. And so they do. It’s wonderful, in spite of the holy
+   war that’s being preached, and all the lies about him sprinkled over
+   this part of Africa, how they all fear him, and find it hard to be
+   out on the war-path against him. We should be gorging the vultures
+   if he wasn’t the wonder he is. We need boats. Does he sit down and
+   wring his hands? No, he organises, and builds them--out of scraps.
+   Hasn’t he enough food for a long siege? He goes himself to the
+   tribes that have stored food in their cities, and haven’t yet
+   declared against him, and he puts a hand on their hard hearts, and
+   takes the sulkiness out of their eyes, and a fleet of ghiassas comes
+   down to us loaded with dourha. The defences of this place are
+   nothing. Does he fold his hands like a man of peace that he is,
+   and say, ‘Thy will be done’? Not the Saadat. He gets two soldier-
+   engineers, one an Italian who murdered his wife in Italy twenty
+   years ago, and one a British officer that cheated at cards and had
+   to go, and we’ve got defences that’ll take some negotiating. That’s
+   the kind of man he is; smiling to cheer others when their hearts are
+   in their boots, stern like a commander-in-chief when he’s got to
+   punish, and then he does it like steel; but I’ve seen him afterwards
+   in his tent with a face that looks sixty, and he’s got to travel a
+   while yet before he’s forty. None of us dares be as afraid as we
+   could be, because a look at him would make us so ashamed we’d have
+   to commit suicide. He hopes when no one else would ever hope. The
+   other day I went to his tent to wait for him, and I saw his Bible
+   open on the table. A passage was marked. It was this:
+
+   “Behold, I have taken out of thy hand the cup of trembling, even the
+   dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again: But
+   I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have
+   said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over; and thou hast laid
+   thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over.”
+
+   I’d like to see Nahoum with that cup of trembling in his hand, and
+   I’ve got an idea, too, that it will be there yet. I don’t know how
+   it is, but I never can believe the worst will happen to the Saadat.
+   Reading those verses put hope into me. That’s why I’m writing to
+   you, on the chance of this getting through by a native who is
+   stealing down the river with a letter from the Saadat to Nahoum, and
+   one to Kaid, and one to the Foreign Minister in London, and one to
+   your husband. If they reach the hands they’re meant for, it may be
+   we shall pan out here yet. But there must be display of power; an
+   army must be sent, without delay, to show the traitors that the game
+   is up. Five thousand men from Cairo under a good general would do
+   it. Will Nahoum send them? Does Kaid, the sick man, know? I’m not
+   banking on Kaid. I think he’s on his last legs. Unless pressure is
+   put on him, unless some one takes him by the throat and says: If you
+   don’t relieve Claridge Pasha and the people with him, you will go to
+   the crocodiles, Nahoum won’t stir. So, I am writing to you.
+   England can do it. The lord, your husband, can do it. England will
+   have a nasty stain on her flag if she sees this man go down without
+   a hand lifted to save him. He is worth another Alma to her
+   prestige. She can’t afford to see him slaughtered here, where he’s
+   fighting the fight of civilisation. You see right through this
+   thing, I know, and I don’t need to palaver any more about it. It
+   doesn’t matter about me. I’ve had a lot for my money, and I’m no
+   use--or I wouldn’t be, if anything happened to the Saadat. No one
+   would drop a knife and fork at the breakfast-table when my obit was
+   read out--well, yes, there’s one, cute as she can be, but she’s lost
+   two husbands already, and you can’t be hurt so bad twice in the same
+   place. But the Saadat, back him, Hylda--I’ll call you that at this
+   distance. Make Nahoum move. Send four or five thousand men before
+   the day comes when famine does its work and they draw the bowstring
+   tight.
+
+   Salaam and salaam, and the post is going out, and there’s nothing in
+   the morning paper; and, as Aunt Melissa used to say: “Well, so much
+   for so much!” One thing I forgot. I’m lucky to be writing to you
+   at all. If the Saadat was an old-fashioned overlord, I shouldn’t be
+   here. I got into a bad corner three days ago with a dozen Arabs--
+   I’d been doing a little work with a friendly tribe all on my own,
+   and I almost got caught by this loose lot of fanatics. I shot
+   three, and galloped for it. I knew the way through the mines
+   outside, and just escaped by the skin of my teeth. Did the Saadat,
+   as a matter of discipline, have me shot for cowardice? Cousin
+   Hylda, my heart was in my mouth as I heard them yelling behind me--
+   and I never enjoyed a dinner so much in my life. Would the Saadat
+   have run from them? Say, he’d have stayed and saved his life too.
+   Well, give my love to the girls!
+
+          Your affectionate cousin,
+
+                    Tom LACEY.
+
+   P.S.-There’s no use writing to me. The letter service is bad. Send
+   a few thousand men by military parcel-post, prepaid, with some red
+   seals--majors and colonels from Aldershot will do. They’ll give the
+   step to the Gyppies. T.
+
+Hylda closed her eyes. A fever had passed from her veins. Here lay her
+duty before her--the redemption of the pledge she had made. Whatever her
+own sorrow, there was work before her; a supreme effort must be made for
+another. Even now it might be too late. She must have strength for what
+she meant to do. She put the room in darkness, and resolutely banished
+thought from her mind.
+
+The sun had been up for hours before she waked. Eglington had gone to
+the Foreign Office. The morning papers were full of sensational reports
+concerning Claridge Pasha and the Soudan. A Times leader sternly
+admonished the Government.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII. JASPER KIMBER SPEAKS
+
+That day the adjournment of the House of Commons was moved “To call
+attention to an urgent matter of public importance”--the position of
+Claridge Pasha in the Soudan. Flushed with the success of last night’s
+performance, stung by the attacks of the Opposition morning papers,
+confident in the big majority behind, which had cheered him a few hours
+before, viciously resenting the letter he had received from David that
+morning, Eglington returned such replies to the questions put to him
+that a fire of angry mutterings came from the forces against him. He
+might have softened the growing resentment by a change of manner, but
+his intellectual arrogance had control of him for the moment; and he
+said to himself that he had mastered the House before, and he would do
+so now. Apart from his deadly antipathy to his half-brother, and the
+gain to himself--to his credit, the latter weighed with him not so much,
+so set was he on a stubborn course--if David disappeared for ever, there
+was at bottom a spirit of anti-expansion, of reaction against England’s
+world-wide responsibilities. He had no largeness of heart or view
+concerning humanity. He had no inherent greatness, no breadth of policy.
+With less responsibility taken, there would be less trouble, national
+and international--that was his point of view; that had been his view
+long ago at the meeting at Heddington; and his weak chief had taken it,
+knowing nothing of the personal elements behind.
+
+The disconcerting factor in the present bitter questioning in the House
+was, that it originated on his own side. It was Jasper Kimber who had
+launched the questions, who moved the motion for adjournment. Jasper had
+had a letter from Kate Heaver that morning early, which sent him to her,
+and he had gone to the House to do what he thought to be his duty. He
+did it boldly, to the joy of the Opposition, and with a somewhat sullen
+support from many on his own side. Now appeared Jasper’s own inner
+disdain of the man who had turned his coat for office. It gave a lead
+to a latent feeling among members of the ministerial party, of distrust,
+and of suspicion that they were the dupes of a mind of abnormal
+cleverness which, at bottom, despised them.
+
+With flashing eyes and set lips, vigilant and resourceful, Eglington
+listened to Jasper Kimber’s opening remarks.
+
+By unremitting industry Jasper had made a place for himself in the
+House. The humour and vitality of his speeches, and his convincing
+advocacy of the cause of the “factory folk,” had gained him a hearing.
+Thickset, under middle size, with an arm like a giant and a throat like
+a bull, he had strong common sense, and he gave the impression that he
+would wear his heart out for a good friend or a great cause, but that if
+he chose to be an enemy he would be narrow, unrelenting, and persistent.
+For some time the House had been aware that he had more than a gift for
+criticism of the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
+
+His speech began almost stumblingly, his h’s ran loose, and his grammar
+became involved, but it was seen that he meant business, that he had
+that to say which would give anxiety to the Government, that he had a
+case wherein were the elements of popular interest and appeal, and that
+he was thinking and speaking as thousands outside the House would think
+and speak.
+
+He had waited for this hour. Indirectly he owed to Claridge Pasha all
+that he had become. The day in which David knocked him down saw the
+depths of his degradation reached, and, when he got up, it was to start
+on a new life uncertainly, vaguely at first, but a new life for all
+that. He knew, from a true source, of Eglington’s personal hatred of
+Claridge Pasha, though he did not guess their relationship; and all his
+interest was enlisted for the man who had, as he knew, urged Kate Heaver
+to marry himself--and Kate was his great ambition now. Above and beyond
+these personal considerations was a real sense of England’s duty to the
+man who was weaving the destiny of a new land.
+
+“It isn’t England’s business?” he retorted, in answer to an interjection
+from a faithful soul behind the ministerial Front Bench. “Well, it
+wasn’t the business of the Good Samaritan to help the man that had been
+robbed and left for dead by the wayside; but he did it. As to David
+Claridge’s work, some have said that--I’ve no doubt it’s been said
+in the Cabinet, and it is the thing the Under-Secretary would say as
+naturally as he would flick a fly from his boots--that it’s a generation
+too soon. Who knows that? I suppose there was those that thought John
+the Baptist was baptising too soon, that Luther preached too soon, and
+Savonarola was in too great a hurry, all because he met his death and
+his enemies triumphed--and Galileo and Hampden and Cromwell and John
+Howard were all too soon. Who’s to be judge of that? God Almighty puts
+it into some men’s minds to work for a thing that’s a great, and maybe
+an impossible, thing, so far as the success of the moment is concerned.
+Well, for a thing that has got to be done some time, the seed has to
+be sown, and it’s always sown by men like Claridge Pasha, who has shown
+millions of people--barbarians and half-civilised alike--what a true
+lover of the world can do. God knows, I think he might have stayed and
+found a cause in England, but he elected to go to the ravaging Soudan,
+and he is England there, the best of it. And I know Claridge Pasha--from
+his youth up I have seen him, and I stand here to bear witness of what
+the working men of England will say to-morrow. Right well the noble
+lord yonder knows that what I say is true. He has known it for years.
+Claridge Pasha would never have been in his present position, if the
+noble lord had not listened to the enemies of Claridge Pasha and of this
+country, in preference to those who know and hold the truth as I tell
+it here to-day. I don’t know whether the noble lord has repented or not;
+but I do say that his Government will rue it, if his answer is not the
+one word ‘Intervention!’ Mistaken, rash or not, dreamer if you like,
+Claridge Pasha should be relieved now, and his policy discussed
+afterwards. I don’t envy the man who holds a contrary opinion; he’ll be
+ashamed of it some day. But”--he pointed towards Eglington--“but there
+sits the minister in whose hands his fate has been. Let us hope that
+this speech of mine needn’t have been made, and that I’ve done injustice
+to his patriotism and to the policy he will announce.”
+
+“A set-back, a sharp set-back,” said Lord Windlehurst, in the Peers’
+Gallery, as the cheers of the Opposition and of a good number of
+ministerialists sounded through the Chamber. There were those on
+the Treasury Bench who saw danger ahead. There was an attempt at a
+conference, but Kimber’s seconder only said a half-dozen words, and sat
+down, and Eglington had to rise before any definite confidences could
+be exchanged. One word only he heard behind him as he got up. It was the
+word, “Temporise,” and it came from the Prime Minister.
+
+Eglington was in no mood for temporising. Attack only nerved him. He was
+a good and ruthless fighter; and last night’s intoxication of success
+was still in his brain. He did not temporise. He did not leave a way
+of retreat open for the Prime Minister, who would probably wind up the
+debate. He fought with skill, but he fought without gloves, and the
+House needed gentle handling. He had the gift of effective speech to a
+rare degree, and when he liked he could be insinuating and witty, but he
+had not genuine humour or good feeling, and the House knew it. In debate
+he was biting, resourceful, and unscrupulous. He made the fatal mistake
+of thinking that intellect and gifts of fence, followed by a brilliant
+peroration, in which he treated the commonplaces of experienced minds
+as though they were new discoveries and he was their Columbus, could
+accomplish anything. He had never had a political crisis, but one had
+come now.
+
+In his reply he first resorted to arguments of high politics,
+historical, informative, and, in a sense, commanding; indeed, the House
+became restless under what seemed a piece of intellectual dragooning.
+Signs of impatience appeared on his own side, and, when he ventured on a
+solemn warning about hampering ministers who alone knew the difficulties
+of diplomacy and the danger of wounding the susceptibilities of foreign
+and friendly countries, the silence was broken by a voice that said
+sneeringly, “The kid-glove Government!”
+
+Then he began to lose place with the Chamber. He was conscious of it,
+and shifted his ground, pointing out the dangers of doing what the other
+nations interested in Egypt were not prepared to do.
+
+“Have you asked them? Have you pressed them?” was shouted across the
+House. Eglington ignored the interjections. “Answer! Answer!” was called
+out angrily, but he shrugged a shoulder and continued his argument. If
+a man insisted on using a flying-machine before the principle was fully
+mastered and applied--if it could be mastered and applied--it must not
+be surprising if he was killed. Amateurs sometimes took preposterous
+risks without the advice of the experts. If Claridge Pasha had asked
+the advice of the English Government, or of any of the Chancellories of
+Europe, as to his incursions into the Soudan and his premature attempts
+at reform, he would have received expert advice that civilisation had
+not advanced to that stage in this portion of the world which would
+warrant his experiments. It was all very well for one man to run
+vast risks and attempt quixotic enterprises, but neither he nor his
+countrymen had any right to expect Europe to embroil itself on his
+particular account.
+
+At this point he was met by angry cries of dissent, which did not
+come from the Opposition alone. His lips set, he would not yield.
+The Government could not hold itself responsible for Claridge Pasha’s
+relief, nor in any sense for his present position. However, from motives
+of humanity, it would make representations in the hope that the Egyptian
+Government would act; but it was not improbable, in view of past
+experiences of Claridge Pasha, that he would extricate himself from his
+present position, perhaps had done so already. Sympathy and sentiment
+were natural and proper manifestations of human society, but governments
+were, of necessity, ruled by sterner considerations. The House must
+realise that the Government could not act as though it were wholly a
+free agent, or as if its every move would not be matched by another move
+on the part of another Power or Powers.
+
+Then followed a brilliant and effective appeal to his own party to trust
+the Government, to credit it with feeling and with a due regard for
+English prestige and the honour brought to it by Claridge Pasha’s
+personal qualities, whatever might be thought of his crusading
+enterprises. The party must not fall into the trap of playing the game
+of the Opposition. Then, with some supercilious praise of the “worthy
+sentiments” of Jasper Kimber’s speech and a curt depreciation of its
+reasoning, he declared that: “No Government can be ruled by clamour. The
+path to be trodden by this Government will be lighted by principles
+of progress and civilisation, humanity and peace, the urbane power
+of reason, and the persuasive influence of just consideration for the
+rights of others, rather than the thunder and the threat of the cannon
+and the sword!”
+
+He sat down amid the cheers of a large portion of his party, for the end
+of his speech had been full of effective if meretricious appeal. But the
+debate that followed showed that the speech had been a failure. He had
+not uttered one warm or human word concerning Claridge Pasha, and it was
+felt and said, that no pledge had been given to insure the relief of the
+man who had caught the imagination of England.
+
+The debate was fierce and prolonged. Eglington would not agree to any
+modification of his speech, to any temporising. Arrogant and insistent,
+he had his way, and, on a division, the Government was saved by a mere
+handful of votes--votes to save the party, not to indorse Eglington’s
+speech or policy.
+
+Exasperated and with jaw set, but with a defiant smile, Eglington drove
+straight home after the House rose. He found Hylda in the library with
+an evening paper in her hands. She had read and reread his speech, and
+had steeled herself for “the inevitable hour,” to this talk which would
+decide for ever their fate and future.
+
+Eglington entered the room smiling. He remembered the incident of the
+night before, when she came to his study and then hurriedly retreated.
+He had been defiant and proudly disdainful at the House and on the way
+home; but in his heart of hearts he was conscious of having failed to
+have his own way; and, like such men, he wanted assurance that he could
+not err, and he wanted sympathy. Almost any one could have given it
+to him, and he had a temptation to seek that society which was his the
+evening before; but he remembered that she was occupied where he could
+not reach her, and here was Hylda, from whom he had been estranged,
+but who must surely have seen by now that at Hamley she had been
+unreasonable, and that she must trust his judgment. So absorbed was he
+with self and the failure of his speech, that, for a moment, he forgot
+the subject of it, and what that subject meant to them both.
+
+“What do you think of my speech, Hylda?” he asked, as he threw himself
+into a chair. “I see you have been reading it. Is it a full report?”
+
+She handed the paper over. “Quite full,” she answered evenly.
+
+He glanced down the columns. “Sentimentalists!” he said as his eye
+caught an interjection. “Cant!” he added. Then he looked at Hylda, and
+remembered once again on whom and what his speech had been made. He saw
+that her face was very pale.
+
+“What do you think of my speech?” he repeated stubbornly.
+
+“If you think an answer necessary, I regard it as wicked and
+unpatriotic,” she answered firmly.
+
+“Yes, I suppose you would,” he rejoined bitingly. She got to her feet
+slowly, a flush passing over her face. “If you think I would, did you
+not think that a great many other people would think so too, and for
+the same reason?” she asked, still evenly, but very slowly. “Not for the
+same reason,” he rejoined in a low, savage voice.
+
+“You do not treat me well,” she said, with a voice that betrayed no
+hurt, no indignation. It seemed to state a fact deliberately; that was
+all.
+
+“No, please,” she added quickly, as she saw him rise to his feet with
+anger trembling at his lips. “Do not say what is on your tongue to say.
+Let us speak quietly to-night. It is better; and I am tired of strife,
+spoken and unspoken. I have got beyond that. But I want to speak of what
+you did to-day in Parliament.”
+
+“Well, you have said it was wicked and unpatriotic,” he rejoined,
+sitting down again and lighting a cigar, in an attempt to be composed.
+
+“What you said was that; but I am concerned with what you did. Did your
+speech mean that you would not press the Egyptian Government to relieve
+Claridge Pasha at once?”
+
+“Is that the conclusion you draw from my words?” he asked.
+
+“Yes; but I wish to know beyond doubt if that is what you mean the
+country to believe?”
+
+“It is what I mean you to believe, my dear.”
+
+She shrank from the last two words, but still went on quietly, though
+her eyes burned and she shivered. “If you mean that you will do nothing,
+it will ruin you and your Government,” she answered. “Kimber was right,
+and--”
+
+“Kimber was inspired from here,” he interjected sharply.
+
+She put her hand upon herself. “Do you think I would intrigue against
+you? Do you think I would stoop to intrigue?” she asked, a hand clasping
+and unclasping a bracelet on her wrist, her eyes averted, for very shame
+that he should think the thought he had uttered.
+
+“It came from this house--the influence,” he rejoined.
+
+“I cannot say. It is possible,” she answered; “but you cannot think that
+I connive with my maid against you. I think Kimber has reasons of his
+own for acting as he did to-day. He speaks for many besides himself; and
+he spoke patriotically this afternoon. He did his duty.”
+
+“And I did not? Do you think I act alone?”
+
+“You did not do your duty, and I think that you are not alone
+responsible. That is why I hope the Government will be influenced by
+public feeling.” She came a step nearer to him. “I ask you to relieve
+Claridge Pasha at any cost. He is your father’s son. If you do not, when
+all the truth is known, you will find no shelter from the storm that
+will break over you.”
+
+“You will tell--the truth?”
+
+“I do not know yet what I shall do,” she answered. “It will depend on
+you; but it is your duty to tell the truth, not mine. That does not
+concern me; but to save Claridge Pasha does concern me.”
+
+“So I have known.”
+
+Her heart panted for a moment with a wild indignation; but she quieted
+herself, and answered almost calmly: “If you refuse to do that which
+is honourable--and human, then I shall try to do it for you while yet
+I bear your name. If you will not care for your family honour, then I
+shall try to do so. If you will not do your duty, then I will try to
+do it for you.” She looked him determinedly in the eyes. “Through you I
+have lost nearly all I cared to keep in the world. I should like to feel
+that in this one thing you acted honourably.”
+
+He sprang to his feet, bursting with anger, in spite of the inward
+admonition that much that he prized was in danger, that any breach
+with Hylda would be disastrous. But self-will and his native arrogance
+overruled the monitor within, and he said: “Don’t preach to me, don’t
+play the martyr. You will do this and you will do that! You will save my
+honour and the family name! You will relieve Claridge Pasha, you will do
+what Governments choose not to do; you will do what your husband chooses
+not to do--Well, I say that you will do what your husband chooses to do,
+or take the consequences.”
+
+“I think I will take the consequences,” she answered. “I will save
+Claridge Pasha, if it is possible. It is no boast. I will do it, if it
+can be done at all, if it is God’s will that it should be done; and in
+doing it I shall be conscious that you and I will do nothing together
+again--never! But that will not stop me; it will make me do it, the last
+right thing, before the end.”
+
+She was so quiet, so curiously quiet. Her words had a strange solemnity,
+a tragic apathy. What did it mean? He had gone too far, as he had done
+before. He had blundered viciously, as he had blundered before.
+
+She spoke again before he could collect his thoughts and make reply.
+
+“I did not ask for too much, I think, and I could have forgiven and
+forgotten all the hurts you have given me, if it were not for one thing.
+You have been unjust, hard, selfish, and suspicious. Suspicious--of me!
+No one else in all the world ever thought of me what you have thought.
+I have done all I could. I have honourably kept the faith. But you have
+spoiled it all. I have no memory that I care to keep. It is stained.
+My eyes can never bear to look upon the past again, the past with
+you--never.”
+
+She turned to leave the room. He caught her arm. “You will wait till you
+hear what I have to say,” he cried in anger. Her last words had stung
+him so, her manner was so pitilessly scornful. It was as though she
+looked down on him from a height. His old arrogance fought for mastery
+over his apprehension. What did she know? What did she mean? In any
+case he must face it out, be strong--and merciful and affectionate
+afterwards.
+
+“Wait, Hylda,” he said. “We must talk this out.”
+
+She freed her arm. “There is nothing to talk out,” she answered. “So far
+as our relations are concerned, all reason for talk is gone.” She drew
+the fatal letter from the sash at her waist. “You will think so too when
+you read this letter again.” She laid it on the table beside him, and,
+as he opened and glanced at it, she left the room.
+
+He stood with the letter in his hand, dumfounded. “Good God!” he said,
+and sank into a chair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX. FAITH JOURNEYS TO LONDON
+
+Faith withdrew her eyes from Hylda’s face, and they wandered helplessly
+over the room. They saw, yet did not see; and even in her trouble
+there was some subconscious sense softly commenting on the exquisite
+refinement and gentle beauty which seemed to fill the room; but the
+only definite objects which the eyes registered at the moment were the
+flowers filling every corner. Hylda had been lightly adjusting a clump
+of roses when she entered; and she had vaguely noticed how pale was the
+face that bent over the flowers, how pale and yet how composed--as she
+had seen a Quaker face, after some sorrow had passed over it, and left
+it like a quiet sea in the sun, when wreck and ruin were done. It was
+only a swift impression, for she could think of but one thing, David and
+his safety. She had come to Hylda, she said, because of Lord Eglington’s
+position, and she could not believe that the Government would see
+David’s work undone and David killed by the slave-dealers of Africa.
+
+Hylda’s reply had given her no hope that Eglington would keep the
+promise he had made that evening long ago when her father had come upon
+them by the old mill, and because of which promise she had forgiven
+Eglington so much that was hard to forgive. Hylda had spoken with
+sorrowful decision, and then this pause had come, in which Faith tried
+to gain composure and strength. There was something strangely still in
+the two women. From the far past, through Quaker ancestors, there had
+come to Hylda now this grey mist of endurance and self-control and
+austere reserve. Yet behind it all, beneath it all, a wild heart was
+beating.
+
+Presently, as they looked into each other’s eyes, and Faith dimly
+apprehended something of Hylda’s distress and its cause, Hylda leaned
+over and spasmodically pressed her hand.
+
+“It is so, Faith,” she said. “They will do nothing. International
+influences are too strong.” She paused. “The Under-Secretary for Foreign
+Affairs will do nothing; but yet we must hope. Claridge Pasha has saved
+himself in the past; and he may do so now, even though it is all ten
+times worse. Then, there is another way. Nahoum Pasha can save him, if
+he can be saved. And I am going to Egypt--to Nahoum.”
+
+Faith’s face blanched. Something of the stark truth swept into her
+brain. She herself had suffered--her own life had been maimed, it had
+had its secret bitterness. Her love for her sister’s son was that of a
+mother, sister, friend combined, and he was all she had in life. That
+he lived, that she might cherish the thought of him living, was the
+one thing she had; and David must be saved, if that might be; but this
+girl--was she not a girl, ten years younger than herself?--to go to
+Egypt to do--what? She herself lived out of the world, but she knew the
+world! To go to Egypt, and--“Thee will not go to Egypt. What can thee
+do?” she pleaded, something very like a sob in her voice. “Thee is but
+a woman, and David would not be saved at such a price, and I would not
+have him saved so. Thee will not go. Say thee will not. He is all
+God has left to me in life; but thee to go--ah, no! It is a bitter
+world--and what could thee do?”
+
+Hylda looked at her reflectively. Should she tell Faith all, and take
+her to Egypt? No, she could not take her without telling her all, and
+that was impossible now. There might come a time when this wise and
+tender soul might be taken into the innermost chambers, when all
+the truth might be known; but the secret of David’s parentage was
+Eglington’s concern most of all, and she would not speak now; and what
+was between Nahoum and David was David’s concern; and she had kept his
+secret all these years. No, Faith might not know now, and might not come
+with her. On this mission she must go alone.
+
+Hylda rose to her feet, still keeping hold of Faith’s hand. “Go back
+to Hamley and wait there,” she said, in a colourless voice. “You can do
+nothing; it may be I can do much. Whatever can be done I can do, since
+England will not act. Pray for his safety. It is all you can do. It is
+given to some to work, to others to pray. I must work now.”
+
+She led Faith towards the door; she could not endure more; she must hold
+herself firm for the journey and the struggle before her. If she broke
+down now she could not go forward; and Faith’s presence roused in her an
+emotion almost beyond control.
+
+At the door she took both of Faith’s hands in hers, and kissed her
+cheek. “It is your place to stay; you will see that it is best.
+Good-bye,” she added hurriedly, and her eyes were so blurred that she
+could scarcely see the graceful, demure figure pass into the sunlit
+street.
+
+That afternoon Lord Windlehurst entered the Duchess of Snowdon’s
+presence hurried and excited. She started on seeing his face.
+
+“What has happened?” she asked breathlessly. “She is gone,” he answered.
+“Our girl has gone to Egypt.”
+
+The Duchess almost staggered to her feet. “Windlehurst--gone!” she
+gasped.
+
+“I called to see her. Her ladyship had gone into the country, the
+footman said. I saw the butler, a faithful soul, who would die--or clean
+the area steps--for her. He was discreet; but he knew what you and I are
+to her. It was he got the tickets--for Marseilles and Egypt.”
+
+The Duchess began to cry silently. Big tears ran down a face from which
+the glow of feeling had long fled, but her eyes were sad enough.
+
+“Gone--gone! It is the end!” was all she could say. Lord Windlehurst
+frowned, though his eyes were moist. “We must act at once. You must go
+to Egypt, Betty. You must catch her at Marseilles. Her boat does not
+sail for three days. She thought it went sooner, as it was advertised to
+do. It is delayed--I’ve found that out. You can start to-night, and--and
+save the situation. You will do it, Betty?”
+
+“I will do anything you say, as I have always done.” She dried her eyes.
+
+“She is a good girl. We must do all we can. I’ll arrange everything for
+you myself. I’ve written this paragraph to go into the papers to-morrow
+morning: ‘The Duchess of Snowdon, accompanied by Lady Eglington, left
+London last night for the Mediterranean via Calais, to be gone for two
+months or more.’ That is simple and natural. I’ll see Eglington. He
+must make no fuss. He thinks she has gone to Hamley, so the butler says.
+There, it’s all clear. Your work is cut out, Betty, and I know you will
+do it as no one else can.”
+
+“Oh, Windlehurst,” she answered, with a hand clutching at his arm, “if
+we fail, it will kill me.”
+
+“If she fails, it will kill her,” he answered, “and she is very young.
+What is in her mind, who can tell? But she thinks she can help Claridge
+somehow. We must save her, Betty.”
+
+“I used to think you had no real feeling, Windlehurst. You didn’t show
+it,” she said in a low voice. “Ah, that was because you had too much,”
+ he answered. “I had to wait till you had less.” He took out his watch.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL. HYLDA SEEKS NAHOUM
+
+It was as though she had gone to sleep the night before, and waked
+again upon this scene unchanged, brilliant, full of colour, a chaos
+of decoration--confluences of noisy, garish streams of life, eddies
+of petty labour. Craftsmen crowded one upon the other in dark bazaars;
+merchants chattered and haggled on their benches; hawkers clattered and
+cried their wares. It was a people that lived upon the streets, for all
+the houses seemed empty and forsaken. The sais ran before the Pasha’s
+carriage, the donkey-boys shrieked for their right of way, a train
+of camels calmly forced its passage through the swirling crowds,
+supercilious and heavy-laden.
+
+It seemed but yesterday since she had watched with amused eyes the
+sherbet-sellers clanking their brass saucers, the carriers streaming
+the water from the bulging goatskins into the earthen bottles, crying,
+“Allah be praised, here is coolness for thy throat for ever!” the idle
+singer chanting to the soft kanoon, the chess-players in the shade of a
+high wall, lost to the world, the dancing-girls with unveiled, shameless
+faces, posturing for evil eyes. Nothing had changed these past six
+years. Yet everything had changed.
+
+She saw it all as in a dream, for her mind had no time for reverie or
+retrospect; it was set on one thing only.
+
+Yet behind the one idea possessing her there was a subconscious self
+taking note of all these sights and sounds, and bringing moisture to her
+eyes. Passing the house which David had occupied on that night when
+he and she and Nahoum and Mizraim had met, the mist of feeling almost
+blinded her; for there at the gate sat the bowab who had admitted her
+then, and with apathetic eyes had watched her go, in the hour when it
+seemed that she and David Claridge had bidden farewell for ever, two
+driftwood spars that touched and parted in the everlasting sea. Here
+again in the Palace square were Kaid’s Nubians in their glittering
+armour as of silver and gold, drawn up as she had seen them drawn then,
+to be reviewed by their overlord.
+
+She swept swiftly through the streets and bazaars on her mission to
+Nahoum. “Lady Eglington” had asked for an interview, and Nahoum had
+granted it without delay. He did not associate her with the girl for
+whom David Claridge had killed Foorgat Pey, and he sent his own carriage
+to bring her to the Palace. No time had been lost, for it was less than
+twenty-four hours since she had arrived in Cairo, and very soon she
+would know the worst or the best. She had put her past away for the
+moment, and the Duchess of Snowdon had found at Marseilles a silent,
+determined, yet gentle-tongued woman, who refused to look back, or to
+discuss anything vital to herself and Eglington, until what she had
+come to Egypt to do was accomplished. Nor would she speak of the future,
+until the present had been fully declared and she knew the fate of David
+Claridge. In Cairo there were only varying rumours: that he was still
+holding out; that he was lost; that he had broken through; that he was a
+prisoner--all without foundation upon which she could rely.
+
+As she neared the Palace entrance, a female fortune-teller ran forward,
+thrusting towards her a gazelle’s skin, filled with the instruments of
+her mystic craft, and crying out: “I divine-I reveal! What is present
+I manifest! What is absent I declare! What is future I show! Beautiful
+one, hear me. It is all written. To thee is greatness, and thy heart’s
+desire. Hear all! See! Wait for the revealing. Thou comest from afar,
+but thy fortune is near. Hear and see. I divine--I reveal. Beautiful
+one, what is future I show.”
+
+Hylda’s eyes looked at the poor creature eagerly, pathetically. If it
+could only be, if she could but see one step ahead! If the veil
+could but be lifted! She dropped some silver into the folds of the
+gazelle-skin and waved the Gipsy away. “There is darkness, it is all
+dark, beautiful one,” cried the woman after her, “but it shall be light.
+I show--I reveal!”
+
+Inside these Palace walls there was a revealer of more merit, as she so
+well and bitterly knew. He could raise the veil--a dark and dangerous
+necromancer, with a flinty heart and a hand that had waited long to
+strike. Had it struck its last blow?
+
+Outside Nahoum’s door she had a moment of utter weakness, when her knees
+smote together, and her throat became parched; but before the door had
+swung wide and her eyes swept the cool and shadowed room, she was as
+composed as on that night long ago when she had faced the man who knew.
+
+Nahoum was standing in a waiting and respectful attitude as she entered.
+He advanced towards her and bowed low, but stopped dumfounded, as he saw
+who she was. Presently he recovered himself; but he offered no further
+greeting than to place a chair for her where her face was in the shadow
+and his in the light--time of crisis as it was, she noticed this and
+marvelled at him. His face was as she had seen it those years ago. It
+showed no change whatever. The eyes looked at her calmly, openly, with
+no ulterior thought behind, as it might seem. The high, smooth forehead,
+the full but firm lips, the brown, well-groomed beard, were all
+indicative of a nature benevolent and refined. Where did the duplicity
+lie? Her mind answered its own question on the instant; it lay in
+the brain and the tongue. Both were masterly weapons, an armament so
+complete that it controlled the face and eyes and outward man into a
+fair semblance of honesty. The tongue--she remembered its insinuating
+and adroit power, and how it had deceived the man she had come to try
+and save. She must not be misled by it. She felt it was to be a struggle
+between them, and she must be alert and persuasive, and match him word
+for word, move for move.
+
+“I am happy to welcome you here, madame,” he said in English. “It is
+years since we met; yet time has passed you by.”
+
+She flushed ever so slightly--compliment from Nahoum Pasha! Yet she must
+not resent anything to-day; she must get what she came for, if it was
+possible. What had Lacey said? “A few thousand men by parcel-post, and
+some red seals-British officers.”
+
+“We meet under different circumstances,” she replied meaningly. “You
+were asking a great favour then.”
+
+“Ah, but of you, madame?”
+
+“I think you appealed to me when you were doubtful of the result.”
+
+“Well, madame, it may be so--but, yes, you are right; I thought you were
+Claridge Pasha’s kinswoman, I remember.”
+
+“Excellency, you said you thought I was Claridge Pasha’s kinswoman.”
+
+“And you are not?” he asked reflectively.
+
+He did not understand the slight change that passed over her face. His
+kinswoman--Claridge Pasha’s kinswoman!
+
+“I was not his kinswoman,” she answered calmly. “You came to ask
+a favour then of Claridge Pasha; your life-work to do under him. I
+remember your words: ‘I can aid thee in thy great task. Thou wouldst
+remake our Egypt, and my heart is with you. I would rescue, not
+destroy.... I would labour, but my master has taken away from me the
+anvil, the fire, and the hammer, and I sit without the door like an
+armless beggar.’ Those were your words, and Claridge Pasha listened and
+believed, and saved your life and gave you work; and now again you have
+power greater than all others in Egypt.”
+
+“Madame, I congratulate you on a useful memory. May it serve you as the
+hill-fountain the garden in the city! Those indeed were my words. I hear
+myself from your lips, and yet recognise myself, if that be not vanity.
+But, madame, why have you sought me? What is it you wish to know--to
+hear?”
+
+He looked at her innocently, as though he did not know her errand; as
+though beyond, in the desert, there was no tragedy approaching--or come.
+
+“Excellency, you are aware that I have come to ask for news of Claridge
+Pasha.” She leaned forward slightly, but, apart from her tightly
+interlaced fingers, it would not have been possible to know that she was
+under any strain.
+
+“You come to me instead of to the Effendina. May I ask why, madame? Your
+husband’s position--I did not know you were Lord Eglington’s wife--would
+entitle you to the highest consideration.”
+
+“I knew that Nahoum Pasha would have the whole knowledge, while the
+Effendina would have part only. Excellency, will you not tell me what
+news You have? Is Claridge Pasha alive?”
+
+“Madame, I do not know. He is in the desert. He was surrounded. For over
+a month there has been no word-none. He is in danger. His way by the
+river was blocked. He stayed too long. He might have escaped, but he
+would insist on saving the loyal natives, on remaining with them, since
+he could not bring them across the desert; and the river and the desert
+are silent. Nothing comes out of that furnace yonder. Nothing comes.”
+
+He bent his eyes upon her complacently. Her own dropped. She could not
+bear that he should see the misery in them.
+
+“You have come to try and save him, madame. What did you expect to
+do? Your Government did not strengthen my hands; your husband did
+nothing--nothing that could make it possible for me to act. There are
+many nations here, alas! Your husband does not take so great an interest
+in the fate of Claridge Pasha as yourself, madame.”
+
+She ignored the insult. She had determined to endure everything, if she
+might but induce this man to do the thing that could be done--if it was
+not too late. Before she could frame a reply, he said urbanely:
+
+“But that is not to be expected. There was that between Claridge Pasha
+and yourself which would induce you to do all you might do for him, to
+be anxious for his welfare. Gratitude is a rare thing--as rare as the
+flower of the century--aloe; but you have it, madame.”
+
+There was no chance to misunderstand him. Foorgat Bey--he knew the
+truth, and had known it all these years.
+
+“Excellency,” she said, “if through me, Claridge Pasha--”
+
+“One moment, madame,” he interrupted, and, opening a drawer, took out
+a letter. “I think that what you would say may be found here, with
+much else that you will care to know. It is the last news of Claridge
+Pasha--a letter from him. I understand all you would say to me; but
+he who has most at stake has said it, and, if he failed, do you think,
+madame, that you could succeed?”
+
+He handed her the letter with a respectful salutation.
+
+“In the hour he left, madame, he came to know that the name of Foorgat
+Bey was not blotted from the book of Time, nor from Fate’s reckoning.”
+
+After all these years! Her instinct had been true, then, that night so
+long ago. The hand that took the letter trembled slightly in spite of
+her will, but it was not the disclosure Nahoum had made which caused her
+agitation. This letter she held was in David Claridge’s hand, the first
+she had ever seen, and, maybe, the last that he had ever written, or
+that any one would ever see, a document of tears. But no, there were
+no tears in this letter! As Hylda read it the trembling passed from her
+fingers, and a great thrilling pride possessed her. If tragedy had come,
+then it had fallen like a fire from heaven, not like a pestilence rising
+from the earth. Here indeed was that which justified all she had done,
+what she was doing now, what she meant to do when she had read the last
+word of it and the firm, clear signature beneath.
+
+   “Excellency [the letter began in English], I came into the desert
+   and into the perils I find here, with your last words in my ear,
+   ‘There is the matter of Foorgat Bey.’ The time you chose to speak
+   was chosen well for your purpose, but ill for me. I could not turn
+   back, I must go on. Had I returned, of what avail? What could I do
+   but say what I say here, that my hand killed Foorgat Bey; that I had
+   not meant to kill him, though at the moment I struck I took no heed
+   whether he lived or died. Since you know of my sorrowful deed, you
+   also know why Foorgat Bey was struck down. When, as I left the bank
+   of the Nile, your words blinded my eyes, my mind said in its misery:
+   ‘Now, I see!’ The curtains fell away from between you and me, and I
+   saw all that you had done for vengeance and revenge. You knew all
+   on that night when you sought your life of me and the way back to
+   Kaid’s forgiveness. I see all as though you spoke it in my ear.
+   You had reason to hurt me, but you had no reason for hurting Egypt,
+   as you have done. I did not value my life, as you know well, for it
+   has been flung into the midst of dangers for Egypt’s sake, how
+   often! It was not cowardice which made me hide from you and all the
+   world the killing of Foorgat Bey. I desired to face the penalty,
+   for did not my act deny all that I had held fast from my youth up?
+   But there was another concerned--a girl, but a child in years, as
+   innocent and true a being as God has ever set among the dangers of
+   this life, and, by her very innocence and unsuspecting nature, so
+   much more in peril before such unscrupulous wiles as were used by
+   Foorgat Bey.
+
+   “I have known you many years, Nahoum, and dark and cruel as your
+   acts have been against the work I gave my life to do, yet I think
+   that there was ever in you, too, the root of goodness. Men would
+   call your acts treacherous if they knew what you had done; and so
+   indeed they were; but yet I have seen you do things to others--not
+   to me--which could rise only from the fountain of pure waters. Was
+   it partly because I killed Foorgat and partly because I came to
+   place and influence and power, that you used me so, and all that I
+   did? Or was it the East at war with the West, the immemorial feud
+   and foray?
+
+   “This last I will believe; for then it will seem to be something
+   beyond yourself--centuries of predisposition, the long stain of the
+   indelible--that drove you to those acts of matricide. Ay, it is
+   that! For, Armenian as you are, this land is your native land, and
+   in pulling down what I have built up--with you, Nahoum, with you--
+   you have plunged the knife into the bosom of your mother. Did it
+   never seem to you that the work which you did with me was a good
+   work--the reduction of the corvee, the decrease of conscription, the
+   lessening of taxes of the fellah, the bridges built, the canals dug,
+   the seed distributed, the plague stayed, the better dwellings for
+   the poor in the Delta, the destruction of brigandage, the slow
+   blotting-out of exaction and tyranny under the kourbash, the quiet
+   growth of law and justice, the new industries started--did not all
+   these seem good to you, as you served the land with me, your great
+   genius for finance, ay, and your own purse, helping on the things
+   that were dear to me, for Egypt’s sake? Giving with one hand
+   freely, did your soul not misgive you when you took away with the
+   other?
+
+   “When you tore down my work, you were tearing down your own; for,
+   more than the material help I thought you gave in planning and
+   shaping reforms, ay, far more than all, was the feeling in me which
+   helped me over many a dark place, that I had you with me, that I was
+   not alone. I trusted you, Nahoum. A life for a life you might have
+   had for the asking; but a long torture and a daily weaving of the
+   web of treachery--that has taken more than my life; it has taken
+   your own, for you have killed the best part of yourself, that which
+   you did with me; and here in an ever-narrowing circle of death I say
+   to you that you will die with me. Power you have, but it will
+   wither in your grasp. Kaid will turn against you; for with my
+   failure will come a dark reaction in his mind, which feels the cloud
+   of doom drawing over it. Without me, with my work falling about his
+   ears, he will, as he did so short a time ago, turn to Sharif and
+   Higli and the rest; and the only comfort you will have will be that
+   you destroyed the life of him who killed your brother. Did you love
+   your brother? Nay, not more than did I, for I sent his soul into
+   the void, and I would gladly have gone after it to ask God for the
+   pardon of all his sins--and mine. Think: I hid the truth, but why?
+   Because a woman would suffer an unmerited scandal and shame.
+   Nothing could recall Foorgat Bey; but for that silence I gave my
+   life, for the land which was his land. Do you betray it, then?
+
+   “And now, Nahoum, the gulf in which you sought to plunge me when you
+   had ruined all I did is here before me. The long deception has
+   nearly done its work. I know from Ebn Ezra Bey what passed between
+   you. They are out against me--the slave-dealers--from Senaar to
+   where I am. The dominion of Egypt is over here. Yet I could
+   restore it with a thousand men and a handful of European officers,
+   had I but a show of authority from Cairo, which they think has
+   deserted me.
+
+   “I am shut up here with a handful of men who can fight and thousands
+   who cannot fight, and food grows scarcer, and my garrison is worn
+   and famished; but each day I hearten them with the hope that you
+   will send me a thousand men from Cairo. One steamer pounding here
+   from the north with men who bring commands from the Effendina, and
+   those thousands out yonder beyond my mines and moats and guns will
+   begin to melt away. Nahoum, think not that you shall triumph over
+   David Claridge. If it be God’s will that I shall die here, my work
+   undone, then, smiling, I shall go with step that does not falter, to
+   live once more; and another day the work that I began will rise
+   again in spite of you or any man.
+
+   “Nahoum, the killing of Foorgat Bey has been like a cloud upon all
+   my past. You know me, and you know I do not lie. Yet I do not
+   grieve that I hid the thing--it was not mine only; and if ever you
+   knew a good woman, and in dark moments have turned to her, glad that
+   she was yours, think what you would have done for her, how you would
+   have sheltered her against aught that might injure her, against
+   those things women are not made to bear. Then think that I hid the
+   deed for one who was a stranger to me, whose life must ever lay far
+   from mine, and see clearly that I did it for a woman’s sake, and not
+   for this woman’s sake; for I had never seen her till the moment I
+   struck Foorgat Bey into silence and the tomb. Will you not
+   understand, Nahoum?
+
+   “Yonder, I see the tribes that harry me. The great guns firing make
+   the day a burden, the nights are ever fretted by the dangers of
+   surprise, and there is scarce time to bury the dead whom sickness
+   and the sword destroy. From the midst of it all my eyes turn to you
+   in Cairo, whose forgiveness I ask for the one injury I did you;
+   while I pray that you will seek pardon for all that you have done to
+   me and to those who will pass with me, if our circle is broken.
+   Friend, Achmet the Ropemaker is here fighting for Egypt. Art thou
+   less, then, than Achmet? So, God be with thee.
+
+                    “DAVID CLARIDGE.”
+
+Without a pause Hylda had read the letter from the first word to the
+last. She was too proud to let this conspirator and traitor see what
+David’s words could do to her. When she read the lines concerning
+herself, she became cold from head to foot, but she knew that Nahoum
+never took his eyes from her face, and she gave no outward sign of what
+was passing within. When she had finished it, she folded it up calmly,
+her eyes dwelt for a moment on the address upon the envelope, and then
+she handed it back to Nahoum without a word. She looked him in the eyes
+and spoke. “He saved your life, he gave you all you had lost. It was not
+his fault that Prince Kaid chose him for his chief counsellor. You would
+be lying where your brother lies, were it not for Claridge Pasha.”
+
+“It may be; but the luck was with me; and I have my way.”
+
+She drew herself together to say what was hard to say. “Excellency, the
+man who was killed deserved to die. Only by lies, only by subterfuge,
+only because I was curious to see the inside of the Palace, and because
+I had known him in London, did I, without a thought of indiscretion,
+give myself to his care to come here. I was so young; I did not know
+life, or men--or Egyptians.” The last word was uttered with low scorn.
+
+He glanced up quickly, and for the first time she saw a gleam of malice
+in his eyes. She could not feel sorry she had said it, yet she must
+remove the impression if possible.
+
+“What Claridge Pasha did, any man would have done, Excellency. He
+struck, and death was an accident. Foorgat’s temple struck the corner of
+a pedestal.
+
+“His death was instant. He would have killed Claridge Pasha if it
+had been possible--he tried to do so. But, Excellency, if you have a
+daughter, if you ever had a child, what would you have done if any man
+had--”
+
+“In the East daughters are more discreet; they tempt men less,” he
+answered quietly, and fingered the string of beads he carried.
+
+“Yet you would have done as Claridge Pasha did. That it was your brother
+was an accident, and--”
+
+“It was an accident that the penalty must fall on Claridge Pasha, and
+on you, madame. I did not choose the objects of penalty. Destiny chose
+them, as Destiny chose Claridge Pasha as the man who should supplant me,
+who should attempt to do these mad things for Egypt against the judgment
+of the world--against the judgment of your husband. Shall I have
+better judgment than the chancellories of Europe and England--and Lord
+Eglington?”
+
+“Excellency, you know what moves other nations; but it is for Egypt to
+act for herself. You ask me why I did not go to the Effendina. I come to
+you because I know that you could circumvent the Effendina, even if he
+sent ten thousand men. It is the way in Egypt.”
+
+“Madame, you have insight--will you not look farther still, and see
+that, however good Claridge Pasha’s work might be some day in the far
+future, it is not good to-day. It is too soon. At the beginning of the
+twentieth century, perhaps. Men pay the penalty of their mistakes. A
+man’s life”--he watched her closely with his wide, benevolent eyes--“is
+neither here nor there, nor a few thousands, in the destiny of a nation.
+A man who ventures into a lion’s den must not be surprised if he goes
+as Harrik went--ah, perhaps you do not know how Harrik went! A man who
+tears at the foundations of a house must not be surprised if the timbers
+fall on him and on his workmen. It is Destiny that Claridge Pasha should
+be the slayer of my brother, and a danger to Egypt, and one whose life
+is so dear to you, madame. You would have it otherwise, and so would
+I, but we must take things as they are--and you see that letter. It is
+seven weeks since then, and it may be that the circle has been broken.
+Yet it may not be so. The circle may be smaller, but not broken.”
+
+She felt how he was tempting her from word to word with a merciless
+ingenuity; yet she kept to her purpose; and however hopeless it seemed,
+she would struggle on.
+
+“Excellency,” she said in a low, pleading tone, “has he not suffered
+enough? Has he not paid the price of that life which you would not bring
+back if you could? No, in those places of your mind where no one can see
+lies the thought that you would not bring back Foorgat Bey. It is not
+an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth that has moved you; it has
+not been love of Foorgat Bey; it has been the hatred of the East for
+the West. And yet you are a Christian! Has Claridge Pasha not suffered
+enough, Excellency? Have you not had your fill of revenge? Have you not
+done enough to hurt a man whose only crime was that he killed a man to
+save a woman, and had not meant to kill?”
+
+“Yet he says in his letter that the thought of killing would not have
+stopped him.”
+
+“Does one think at such a moment? Did he think? There was no time. It
+was the work of an instant. Ah, Fate was not kind, Excellency! If it
+had been, I should have been permitted to kill Foorgat Bey with my own
+hands.”
+
+“I should have found it hard to exact the penalty from you, madame.”
+
+The words were uttered in so neutral a way that they were enigmatical,
+and she could not take offence or be sure of his meaning.
+
+“Think, Excellency. Have you ever known one so selfless, so good, so
+true? For humanity’s sake, would you not keep alive such a man? If there
+were a feud as old as Adam between your race and his, would you
+not before this life of sacrifice lay down the sword and the bitter
+challenge? He gave you his hand in faith and trust, because your God was
+his God, your prophet and lord his prophet and lord. Such faith should
+melt your heart. Can you not see that he tried to make compensation for
+Foorgat’s death, by giving you your life and setting you where you are
+now, with power to save or kill him?”
+
+“You call him great; yet I am here in safety, and he is--where he is.
+Have you not heard of the strife of minds and wills? He represented the
+West, I the East. He was a Christian, so was I; the ground of our battle
+was a fair one, and--and I have won.”
+
+“The ground of battle fair!” she protested bitterly. “He did not know
+that there was strife between you. He did not fight you. I think that he
+always loved you, Excellency. He would have given his life for you, if
+it had been in danger. Is there in that letter one word that any man
+could wish unwritten when the world was all ended for all men? But no,
+there was no strife between you--there was only hatred on your part. He
+was so much greater than you that you should feel no rivalry, no strife.
+The sword he carries cuts as wide as Time. You are of a petty day in a
+petty land. Your mouth will soon be filled with dust, and you will be
+forgotten. He will live in the history of the world. Excellency, I plead
+for him because I owe him so much: he killed a man and brought upon
+himself a lifelong misery for me. It is all I can do, plead to you who
+know the truth about him--yes, you know the truth--to make an effort to
+save him. It may be too late; but yet God may be waiting for you to lift
+your hand. You said the circle may be smaller, but it may be unbroken
+still. Will you not do a great thing once, and win a woman’s gratitude,
+and the thanks of the world, by trying to save one who makes us think
+better of humanity? Will you not have the name of Nahoum Pasha linked
+with his--with his who thought you were his friend? Will you not save
+him?”
+
+He got slowly to his feet, a strange look in his eyes. “Your words are
+useless. I will not save him for your sake; I will not save him for the
+world’s sake; I will not save him--”
+
+A cry of pain and grief broke from her, and she buried her face in her
+hands.
+
+“--I will not save him for any other sake than his own.”
+
+He paused. Slowly, as dazed as though she had received a blow, Hylda
+raised her face and her hands dropped in her lap.
+
+“For any other sake than his own!” Her eyes gazed at him in a
+bewildered, piteous way. What did he mean? His voice seemed to come from
+afar off.
+
+“Did you think that you could save him? That I would listen to you, if
+I did not listen to him? No, no, madame. Not even did he conquer me; but
+something greater than himself within himself, it conquered me.”
+
+She got to her feet gasping, her hands stretched out. “Oh, is it
+true--is it true?” she cried.
+
+“The West has conquered,” he answered.
+
+“You will help him--you will try to save him?”
+
+“When, a month ago, I read the letter you have read, I tried to save
+him. I sent secretly four thousand men who were at Wady Halfa to relieve
+him--if it could be done; five hundred to push forward on the quickest
+of the armed steamers, the rest to follow as fast as possible. I did
+my best. That was a month ago, and I am waiting--waiting and hoping,
+madame.”
+
+Suddenly she broke down. Tears streamed from her eyes. She sank into the
+chair, and sobs shook her from head to foot.
+
+“Be patient, be composed, madame,” Nahoum said gently. “I have tried you
+greatly--forgive me. Nay, do not weep. I have hope. We may hear from
+him at any moment now,” he added softly, and there was a new look in his
+wide blue eyes as they were bent on her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI. IN THE LAND OF SHINAR
+
+   “Then I said to the angel that talked with me, Whither do these bear
+   the Ephah?
+
+   “And he said unto me, To build it an house in the land of Shinar;
+   and it shall be established, and set there upon her own base.”
+
+David raised his head from the paper he was studying. He looked at Lacey
+sharply. “And how many rounds of ammunition?” he asked.
+
+“Ten thousand, Saadat.”
+
+“How many shells?” he continued, making notes upon the paper before him.
+
+“Three hundred, Saadat.”
+
+“How many hundredweight of dourha?”
+
+“Eighty--about.”
+
+“And how many mouths to feed?”
+
+“Five thousand.”
+
+“How many fighters go with the mouths?”
+
+“Nine hundred and eighty-of a kind.”
+
+“And of the best?’
+
+“Well, say, five hundred.”
+
+“Thee said six hundred three days ago, Lacey.”
+
+“Sixty were killed or wounded on Sunday, and forty I reckon in the
+others, Saadat.”
+
+The dark eyes flashed, the lips set. “The fire was sickening--they fell
+back?”
+
+“Well, Saadat, they reflected--at the wrong time.”
+
+“They ran?”
+
+“Not back--they were slow in getting on.”
+
+“But they fought it out?”
+
+“They had to--root hog, or die. You see, Saadat, in that five hundred
+I’m only counting the invincibles, the up-and-at-’ems, the blind-goers
+that ‘d open the lid of Hell and jump in after the enemy.”
+
+The pale face lighted. “So many! I would not have put the estimate half
+so high. Not bad for a dark race fighting for they know not what!”
+
+“They know that all right; they are fighting for you, Saadat.”
+
+David seemed not to hear. “Five hundred--so many, and the enemy so near,
+the temptation so great.”
+
+“The deserters are all gone to Ali Wad Hei, Saadat. For a month there
+have been only the deserted.”
+
+A hardness crept into the dark eyes. “Only the deserted!” He looked out
+to where the Nile lost itself in the northern distance. “I asked Nahoum
+for one thousand men, I asked England for the word which would send
+them. I asked for a thousand, but even two hundred would turn the
+scale--the sign that the Inglesi had behind him Cairo and London. Twenty
+weeks, and nothing comes!”
+
+He got to his feet slowly and walked up and down the room for a moment,
+glancing out occasionally towards the clump of palms which marked
+the disappearance of the Nile into the desert beyond his vision. At
+intervals a cannon-shot crashed upon the rarefied air, as scores of
+thousands had done for months past, torturing to ear and sense and
+nerve. The confused and dulled roar of voices came from the distance
+also; and, looking out to the landward side, David saw a series of
+movements of the besieging forces, under the Arab leader, Ali Wad Hei.
+Here a loosely formed body of lancers and light cavalry cantered away
+towards the south, converging upon the Nile; there a troop of heavy
+cavalry in glistening mail moved nearer to the northern defences; and
+between, battalions of infantry took up new positions, while batteries
+of guns moved nearer to the river, curving upon the palace north and
+south. Suddenly David’s eyes flashed fire. He turned to Lacey eagerly.
+Lacey was watching with eyes screwed up shrewdly, his forehead shining
+with sweat.
+
+“Saadat,” he said suddenly, “this isn’t the usual set of quadrilles.
+It’s the real thing. They’re watching the river--waiting.”
+
+“But south!” was David’s laconic response. At the same moment he struck
+a gong. An orderly entered. Giving swift instructions, he turned to
+Lacey again. “Not Cairo--Darfur,” he added.
+
+“Ebn Ezra Bey coming! Ali Wad Hei’s got word from up the Nile, I guess.”
+
+David nodded, and his face clouded. “We should have had word also,” he
+said sharply.
+
+There was a knock at the door, and Mahommed Hassan entered, supporting
+an Arab, down whose haggard face blood trickled from a wound in the
+head, while an arm hung limp at his side.
+
+“Behold, Saadat--from Ebn Ezra Bey,” Mahommed said. The man drooped
+beside him.
+
+David caught a tin cup from a shelf, poured some liquor into it, and
+held it to the lips of the fainting man. “Drink,” he said. The
+Arab drank greedily, and, when he had finished, gave a long sigh of
+satisfaction. “Let him sit,” David added.
+
+When the man was seated on a sheepskin, the huge Mahommed squatting
+behind like a sentinel, David questioned him. “What is thy name--thy
+news?” he asked in Arabic.
+
+“I am called Feroog. I come from Ebn Ezra Bey, to whom be peace!” he
+answered. “Thy messenger, Saadat, behold he died of hunger and thirst,
+and his work became mine. Ebn Ezra Bey came by the river....”
+
+“He is near?” asked David impatiently.
+
+“He is twenty miles away.”
+
+“Thou camest by the desert?”
+
+“By the desert, Saadat, as Ebn Ezra effendi comes.”
+
+“By the desert! But thou saidst he came by the river.”
+
+“Saadat, yonder, forty miles from where we are, the river makes a great
+curve. There the effendi landed in the night with four hundred men to
+march hither. But he commanded that the boats should come on slowly and
+receive the attack in the river, while he came in from the desert.”
+
+David’s eye flashed. “A great device. They will be here by midnight,
+then, perhaps?”
+
+“At midnight, Saadat, by the blessing of God.”
+
+“How wert thou wounded?”
+
+“I came upon two of the enemy. They were mounted. I fought them. Upon
+the horse of one I came here.”
+
+“The other?”
+
+“God is merciful, Saadat. He is in the bosom of God.”
+
+“How many men come by the river?”
+
+“But fifty, Saadat,” was the answer, “but they have sworn by the stone
+in the Kaabah not to surrender.”
+
+“And those who come with the effendi, with Ebn Ezra Bey, are they as
+those who will not surrender?”
+
+“Half of them are so. They were with thee, as was I, Saadat, when the
+great sickness fell upon us, and were healed by thee, and afterwards
+fought with thee.” David nodded abstractedly, and motioned to Mahommed
+to take the man away; then he said to Lacey: “How long do you think we
+can hold out?”
+
+“We shall have more men, but also more rifles to fire, and more mouths
+to fill, if Ebn Ezra gets in, Saadat.”
+
+David raised his head. “But with more rifles to fire away your ten
+thousand rounds”--he tapped the paper on the table--“and eat the eighty
+hundredweight of dourha, how long can we last?”
+
+“If they are to fight, and with full stomachs, and to stake everything
+on that one fight, then we can last two days. No more, I reckon.”
+
+“I make it one day,” answered David. “In three days we shall have no
+food, and unless help comes from Cairo, we must die or surrender. It is
+not well to starve on the chance of help coming, and then die fighting
+with weak arms and broken spirit. Therefore, we must fight to morrow, if
+Ebn Ezra gets in to-night. I think we shall fight well,” he added. “You
+think so?”
+
+“You are a born fighter, Saadat.”
+
+A shadow fell on David’s face, and his lips tightened. “I was not born a
+fighter, Lacey. The day we met first no man had ever died by my hand or
+by my will.”
+
+“There are three who must die at sunset--an hour from now-by thy will,
+Saadat.”
+
+A startled look came into David’s face. “Who?” he asked.
+
+“The Three Pashas, Saadat. They have been recaptured.”
+
+“Recaptured!” rejoined David mechanically.
+
+“Achmet Pasha got them from under the very noses of the sheikhs before
+sunrise this morning.”
+
+“Achmet--Achmet Pasha!” A light came into David’s face again.
+
+“You will keep faith with Achmet, Saadat. He risked his life to get
+them. They betrayed you, and betrayed three hundred good men to death.
+If they do not die, those who fight for you will say that it doesn’t
+matter whether men fight for you or betray you, they get the same stuff
+off the same plate. If we are going to fight to-morrow, it ought to be
+with a clean bill of health.”
+
+“They served me well so long--ate at my table, fought with me. But--but
+traitors must die, even as Harrik died.” A stern look came into his
+face. He looked round the great room slowly. “We have done our best,” he
+said. “I need not have failed, if there had been no treachery....”
+
+“If it hadn’t been for Nahoum!”
+
+David raised his head. Supreme purpose came into his bearing. A grave
+smile played at his lips, as he gave that quick toss of the head which
+had been a characteristic of both Eglington and himself. His eyes
+shone-a steady, indomitable light. “I will not give in. I still have
+hope. We are few and they are many, but the end of a battle has never
+been sure. We may not fail even now. Help may come from Cairo even
+to-morrow.”
+
+“Say, somehow you’ve always pulled through before, Saadat. When
+I’ve been most frightened I’ve perked up and stiffened my backbone,
+remembering your luck. I’ve seen a blue funk evaporate by thinking of
+how things always come your way just when the worst seems at the worst.”
+
+David smiled as he caught up a small cane and prepared to go. Looking
+out of a window, he stroked his thin, clean-shaven face with a lean
+finger. Presently a movement in the desert arrested his attention.
+He put a field-glass to his eyes, and scanned the field of operations
+closely once more.
+
+“Good-good!” he burst out cheerfully. “Achmet has done the one thing
+possible. The way to the north will be still open. He has flung his
+men between the Nile and the enemy, and now the batteries are at work.”
+ Opening the door, they passed out. “He has anticipated my orders,” he
+added. “Come, Lacey, it will be an anxious night. The moon is full, and
+Ebn Ezra Bey has his work cut out--sharp work for all of us, and...”
+
+Lacey could not hear the rest of his words in the roar of the artillery.
+David’s steamers in the river were pouring shot into the desert where
+the enemy lay, and Achmet’s “friendlies” and the Egyptians were making
+good their new position. As David and Lacey, fearlessly exposing
+themselves to rifle fire, and taking the shortest and most dangerous
+route to where Achmet fought, rode swiftly from the palace, Ebn Ezra’s
+three steamers appeared up the river, and came slowly down to where
+David’s gunboats lay. Their appearance was greeted by desperate
+discharges of artillery from the forces under Ali Wad Hei, who had
+received word of their coming two hours before, and had accordingly
+redisposed his attacking forces. But for Achmet’s sharp initiative, the
+boldness of the attempt to cut off the way north and south would have
+succeeded, and the circle of fire and sword would have been complete.
+Achmet’s new position had not been occupied before, for men were too
+few, and the position he had just left was now exposed to attack.
+
+Never since the siege began had the foe shown such initiative and
+audacity. They had relied on the pressure of famine and decimation by
+sickness, the steady effects of sorties, with consequent fatalities and
+desertions, to bring the Liberator of the Slaves to his knees. Ebn Ezra
+Bey had sought to keep quiet the sheikhs far south, but he had been shut
+up in Darffur for months, and had been in as bad a plight as David. He
+had, however, broken through at last. His ruse in leaving the steamers
+in the night and marching across the desert was as courageous as it was
+perilous, for, if discovered before he reached the beleaguered place,
+nothing could save his little force from destruction. There was one way
+in from the desert to the walled town, and it was through that space
+which Achmet and his men had occupied, and on which Ali Wad Hei might
+now, at any moment, throw his troops.
+
+David’s heart sank as he saw the danger. From the palace he had sent
+an orderly with a command to an officer to move forward and secure the
+position, but still the gap was open, and the men he had ordered to
+advance remained where they were. Every minute had its crisis.
+
+As Lacey and himself left the town the misery of the place smote him in
+the eyes. Filth, refuse, debris filled the streets. Sick and dying men
+called to him from dark doorways, children and women begged for bread,
+carcasses lay unburied, vultures hovering above them--his tireless
+efforts had not been sufficient to cope with the daily horrors of
+the siege. But there was no sign of hostility to him. Voices called
+blessings on him from dark doorways, lips blanching in death commended
+him to Allah, and now and then a shrill call told of a fighter who had
+been laid low, but who had a spirit still unbeaten. Old men and women
+stood over their cooking-pots waiting for the moment of sunset; for it
+was Ramadan, and the faithful fasted during the day--as though every day
+was not a fast.
+
+Sunset was almost come, as David left the city and galloped away to
+send forces to stop the gap of danger before it was filled by the foe.
+Sunset--the Three Pashas were to die at sunset! They were with Achmet,
+and in a few moments they would be dead. As David and Lacey rode hard,
+they suddenly saw a movement of men on foot at a distant point of the
+field, and then a small mounted troop, fifty at most, detach themselves
+from the larger force and, in close formation, gallop fiercely down on
+the position which Achmet had left. David felt a shiver of anxiety and
+apprehension as he saw this sharp, sweeping advance. Even fifty men,
+well intrenched, could hold the position until the main body of Ali Wad
+Hei’s infantry came on.
+
+They rode hard, but harder still rode Ali Wad Hei’s troop of daring
+Arabs. Nearer and nearer they came. Suddenly from the trenches,
+which they had thought deserted, David saw jets of smoke rise, and
+a half-dozen of the advancing troop fell from their saddles, their
+riderless horses galloping on.
+
+David’s heart leaped: Achmet had, then, left men behind, hidden from
+view; and these were now defending the position. Again came the jets of
+smoke, and again more Arabs dropped from their saddles. But the others
+still came on. A thousand feet away others fell. Twenty-two of the fifty
+had already gone. The rest fired their rifles as they galloped. But now,
+to David’s relief, his own forces, which should have moved half an hour
+before, were coming swiftly down to cut off the approach of Ali Wad
+Hei’s infantry, and he turned his horse upon the position where a
+handful of men were still emptying the saddles of the impetuous enemy.
+But now all that were left of the fifty were upon the trenches. Then
+came the flash of swords, puffs of smoke, the thrust of lances, and
+figures falling from the screaming, rearing horses.
+
+Lacey’s pistol was in his hand, David’s sword was gripped tight, as they
+rushed upon the melee. Lacey’s pistol snapped, and an Arab fell; again,
+and another swayed in his saddle. David’s sword swept down, and a
+turbaned head was gashed by a mortal stroke. As he swung towards another
+horseman, who had struck down a defender of the trenches, an Arab raised
+himself in his saddle and flung a lance with a cry of terrible malice;
+but, even as he did so, a bullet from Lacey’s pistol pierced his
+shoulder. The shot had been too late to stop the lance, but sufficient
+to divert its course. It caught David in the flesh of the body under the
+arm--a slight wound only. A few inches to the right, however, and his
+day would have been done.
+
+The remaining Arabs turned and fled. The fight was over. As David,
+dismounting, stood with dripping sword in his hand, in imagination, he
+heard the voice of Kaid say to him, as it said that night when he killed
+Foorgat Bey: “Hast thou never killed a man?”
+
+For an instant it blinded him, then he was conscious that, on the ground
+at his feet, lay one of the Three Pashas who were to die at sunset. It
+was sunset now, and the man was dead. Another of the Three sat upon the
+ground winding his thigh with the folds of a dead Arab’s turban, blood
+streaming from his gashed face. The last of the trio stood before David,
+stoical and attentive. For a moment David looked at the Three, the
+dead man and the two living men, and then suddenly turned to where
+the opposing forces were advancing. His own men were now between the
+position and Ali Wad Hei’s shouting fanatics. They would be able to
+reach and defend the post in time. He turned and gave orders. There
+were only twenty men besides the two pashas, whom his commands also
+comprised. Two small guns were in place. He had them trained on that
+portion of the advancing infantry of Ali Wad Hei not yet covered by his
+own forces. Years of work and responsibility had made him master of many
+things, and long ago he had learned the work of an artilleryman. In a
+moment a shot, well directed, made a gap in the ranks of the advancing
+foe. An instant afterwards a shot from the other gun fired by the
+unwounded pasha, who, in his youth, had been an officer of artillery,
+added to the confusion in the swerving ranks, and the force hesitated;
+and now from Ebn Ezra Bey’s river steamers, which had just arrived,
+there came a flank fire. The force wavered. From David’s gun another
+shot made havoc. They turned and fell back quickly. The situation was
+saved.
+
+As if by magic the attack of the enemy all over the field ceased. By
+sunset they had meant to finish this enterprise, which was to put
+the besieged wholly in their hands, and then to feast after the day’s
+fasting. Sunset had come, and they had been foiled; but hunger demanded
+the feast. The order to cease firing and retreat sounded, and three
+thousand men hurried back to the cooking-pot, the sack of dourha,
+and the prayer mat. Malaish, if the infidel Inglesi was not conquered
+to-day, he should be beaten and captured and should die to-morrow! And
+yet there were those among them who had a well-grounded apprehension
+that the “Inglesi” would win in the end.
+
+By the trenches, where five men had died so bravely, and a traitorous
+pasha had paid the full penalty of a crime and won a soldier’s death,
+David spoke to his living comrades. As he prepared to return to the
+city, he said to the unwounded pasha: “Thou wert to die at sunset; it
+was thy sentence.”
+
+And the pasha answered: “Saadat, as for death--I am ready to die, but
+have I not fought for thee?” David turned to the wounded pasha.
+
+“Why did Achmet Pasha spare thee?”
+
+“He did not spare us, Saadat. Those who fought with us but now were
+to shoot us at sunset, and remain here till other troops came. Before
+sunset we saw the danger, since no help came. Therefore we fought to
+save this place for thee.”
+
+David looked them in the eyes. “Ye were traitors,” he said, “and for an
+example it was meet that ye should die. But this that ye have done shall
+be told to all who fight to-morrow, and men will know why it is I pardon
+treachery. Ye shall fight again, if need be, betwixt this hour and
+morning, and ye shall die, if need be. Ye are willing?”
+
+Both men touched their foreheads, their lips, and their breasts.
+“Whether it be death or it be life, Inshallah, we are true to thee,
+Saadat!” one said, and the other repeated the words after him. As they
+salaamed David left them, and rode forward to the advancing forces.
+
+Upon the roof of the palace Mahommed Hassan watched and waited, his eyes
+scanning sharply the desert to the south, his ears strained to catch
+that stir of life which his accustomed ears had so often detected in the
+desert, when no footsteps, marching, or noises could be heard. Below,
+now in the palace, now in the defences, his master, the Saadat,
+planned for the last day’s effort on the morrow, gave directions to the
+officers, sent commands to Achmet Pasha, arranged for the disposition of
+his forces, with as strange a band of adherents and subordinates as ever
+men had--adventurers, to whom adventure in their own land had brought
+no profit; members of that legion of the non-reputable, to whom Cairo
+offered no home; Levantines, who had fled from that underground world
+where every coin of reputation is falsely minted, refugees from the
+storm of the world’s disapproval. There were Greeks with Austrian
+names; Armenians, speaking Italian as their native tongue; Italians of
+astonishing military skill, whose services were no longer required by
+their offended country; French Pizarros with a romantic outlook, even
+in misery, intent to find new El Dorados; Englishmen, who had cheated
+at cards and had left the Horse Guards for ever behind; Egyptian
+intriguers, who had been banished for being less successful than greater
+intriguers; but also a band of good gallant men of every nation.
+
+Upon all these, during the siege, Mahommed Hassan had been a
+self-appointed spy, and had indirectly added to that knowledge
+which made David’s decisive actions to circumvent intrigue and its
+consequences seem almost supernatural. In his way Mahommed was a great
+man. He knew that David would endure no spying, and it was creditable
+to his subtlety and skill that he was able to warn his master, without
+being himself suspected of getting information by dark means. On the
+palace roof Mahommed was happy to-night. Tomorrow would be a great day,
+and, since the Saadat was to control its destiny, what other end could
+there be but happiness? Had not the Saadat always ridden over all that
+had been in his way? Had not he, Mahommed, ever had plenty to eat and
+drink, and money to send to Manfaloot to his father there, and to
+bribe when bribing was needed? Truly, life was a boon! With a neboot of
+dom-wood across his knees he sat in the still, moonlit night, peering
+into that distance whence Ebn Ezra Bey and his men must come, the
+moon above tranquil and pleasant and alluring, and the desert beneath,
+covered as it was with the outrages and terrors of war, breathing
+softly its ancient music, that delicate vibrant humming of the latent
+activities. In his uncivilised soul Mahommed Hassan felt this murmur,
+and even as he sat waiting to know whether a little army would steal out
+of the south like phantoms into this circle the Saadat had drawn round
+him, he kept humming to himself--had he not been, was he not now, an
+Apollo to numberless houris who had looked down at him from behind
+mooshrabieh screens, or waited for him in the palm-grove or the
+cane-field? The words of his song were not uttered aloud, but yet he
+sang them silently--
+
+  “Every night long and all night my spirit is moaning and crying
+   O dear gazelle, that has taken away my peace!
+   Ah! if my beloved come not, my eyes will be blinded with weeping
+   Moon of my joy, come to me, hark to the call of my soul!”
+
+Over and over he kept chanting the song. Suddenly, however, he leaned
+farther forward and strained his ears. Yes, at last, away to the
+south-east, there was life stirring, men moving--moving quickly. He
+got to his feet slowly, still listening, stood for a moment motionless,
+then, with a cry of satisfaction, dimly saw a moving mass in the white
+moonlight far over by the river. Ebn Ezra Bey and his men were coming.
+He started below, and met David on the way up. He waited till David had
+mounted the roof, then he pointed. “Now, Saadat!” he said.
+
+“They have stolen in?” David peered into the misty whiteness.
+
+“They are almost in, Saadat. Nothing can stop them now.”
+
+“It is well done. Go and ask Ebn Ezra effendi to come hither,” he said.
+
+Suddenly a shot was fired, then a hoarse shout came over the desert,
+then there was silence again.
+
+“They are in, Saadat,” said Mahommed Hassan.
+
+       .......................
+
+Day broke over a hazy plain. On both sides of the Nile the river mist
+spread wide, and the army of Ali Wad Hei and the defending forces were
+alike veiled from each other and from the desert world beyond. Down the
+river for scores of miles the mist was heavy, and those who moved within
+it and on the waters of the Nile could not see fifty feet ahead. Yet
+through this heavy veil there broke gently a little fleet of phantom
+vessels, the noise of the paddle-wheels and their propellers muffled
+as they moved slowly on. Never had vessels taken such risks on the
+Nile before, never had pilots trusted so to instinct, for there were
+sand-banks and ugly drifts of rock here and there. A safe journey for
+phantom ships; but these armed vessels, filled by men with white, eager
+faces and others with dark Egyptian features, were no phantoms. They
+bristled with weapons, and armed men crowded every corner of space.
+For full two hours from the first streak of light they had travelled
+swiftly, taking chances not to be taken save in some desperate moment.
+The moment was desperate enough, if not for them. They were going to
+the relief of besieged men, with a message from Nahoum Pasha to Claridge
+Pasha, and with succour. They had looked for a struggle up this river as
+they neared the beleaguered city; but, as they came nearer and nearer,
+not a gun fired at them from the forts on the banks out of the mists. If
+they were heard they still were safe from the guns, for they could not
+be seen, and those on shore could not know whether they were friend or
+foe. Like ghostly vessels they passed on, until at last they could hear
+the stir and murmur of life along the banks of the stream.
+
+Boom! boom! boom! Through the mist the guns of the city were pouring
+shot and shell out into Ali Wad Hei’s camp, and Ali Wad Hei laughed
+contemptuously. Surely now the Inglesi was altogether mad, and to-day,
+this day after prayers at noon, he should be shot like a mad dog, for
+yesterday’s defeat had turned some of his own adherent sheikhs into
+angry critics. He would not wait for starvation to compel the infidel
+to surrender. He would win freedom to deal in human flesh and blood, and
+make slave-markets where he willed, and win glory for the Lord Mahomet,
+by putting this place to the sword; and, when it was over, he would have
+the Inglesi’s head carried on a pole through the city for the faithful
+to mock at, a target for the filth of the streets. So, by the will of
+Allah, it should be done!
+
+Boom! boom! boom! The Inglesi was certainly mad, for never had there
+been so much firing in any long day in all the siege as in this brief
+hour this morning. It was the act of a fool, to fire his shot and shell
+into the mist without aim, without a clear target. Ali Wad Hei scorned
+to make any reply with his guns, but sat in desultory counsel with his
+sheikhs, planning what should be done when the mists had cleared away.
+But yesterday evening the Arab chief had offered to give the Inglesi
+life if he would surrender and become a Muslim, and swear by the Lord
+Mahomet; but late in the night he had received a reply which left only
+one choice, and that was to disembowel the infidel, and carry his head
+aloft on a spear. The letter he had received ran thus in Arabic:
+
+   “To Ali Wad Hei and All with Him:
+
+   “We are here to live or to die as God wills, and not as ye will. I
+   have set my feet on the rock, and not by threats of any man shall I
+   be moved. But I say that for all the blood that ye have shed here
+   there will be punishment, and for the slaves which ye have slain or
+   sold there will be high price paid. Ye have threatened the city and
+   me--take us if ye can. Ye are seven to one. Why falter all these
+   months? If ye will not come to us, we shall come to you, rebellious
+   ones, who have drawn the sword against your lawful ruler, the
+   Effendina.
+
+                  “CLARIDGE PASHA”
+
+
+It was a rhetorical document couched in the phraseology they best
+understood; and if it begat derision, it also begat anger; and the
+challenge David had delivered would be met when the mists had lifted
+from the river and the plain. But when the first thinning of the mists
+began, when the sun began to dissipate the rolling haze, Ali Wad Hei
+and his rebel sheikhs were suddenly startled by rifle-fire at close
+quarters, by confused noises, and the jar and roar of battle. Now the
+reason for the firing of the great guns was plain. The noise was meant
+to cover the advance of David’s men. The little garrison, which had done
+no more than issue in sorties, was now throwing its full force on the
+enemy in a last desperate endeavour. It was either success or absolute
+destruction. David was staking all, with the last of his food, the
+last of his ammunition, the last of his hopes. All round the field the
+movement was forward, till the circle had widened to the enemy’s lines;
+while at the old defences were only handfuls of men. With scarce a cry
+David’s men fell on the unprepared foe; and he himself, on a grey Arab,
+a mark for any lance or spear and rifle, rode upon that point where Ali
+Wad Hei’s tent was set.
+
+But after the first onset, in which hundreds were killed, there began
+the real noise of battle--fierce shouting, the shrill cries of wounded
+and maddened horses as they struck with their feet, and bit as fiercely
+at the fighting foe as did their masters. The mist cleared slowly, and,
+when it had wholly lifted, the fight was spread over every part of the
+field of siege. Ali Wad Hei’s men had gathered themselves together after
+the first deadly onslaught, and were fighting fiercely, shouting the
+Muslim battle-cry, “Allah hu achbar!” Able to bring up reinforcements,
+the great losses at first sustained were soon made up, and the sheer
+weight of numbers gave them courage and advantage. By rushes with lance
+and sword and rifle they were able, at last, to drive David’s men back
+upon their old defences with loss. Then charge upon charge ensued, and
+each charge, if it cost them much, cost the besieged more, by reason of
+their fewer numbers. At one point, however, the besieged became again
+the attacking party. This was where Achmet Pasha had command. His men on
+one side of the circle, as Ebn Ezra Bey’s men on the other, fought with
+a valour as desperate as the desert ever saw. But David, galloping here
+and there to order, to encourage, to prevent retreat at one point, or
+to urge attack at another, saw that the doom of his gallant force was
+certain; for the enemy were still four to one, in spite of the carnage
+of the first attack. Bullets hissed past him. One carried away a button,
+one caught the tip of his ear, one pierced the fez he wore; but he
+felt nothing of this, saw nothing. He was buried in the storm of battle
+preparing for the end, for the final grim defence, when his men would
+retreat upon the one last strong fort, and there await their fate. From
+this absorption he was roused by Lacey, who came galloping towards him.
+
+“They’ve come, Saadat, they’ve come at last! We’re saved--oh, my God,
+you bet we’re all right now! See! See, Saadat!”
+
+David saw. Five steamers carrying the Egyptian flag were bearing around
+the point where the river curved below the town, and converging upon
+David’s small fleet. Presently the steamers opened fire, to encourage
+the besieged, who replied with frenzied shouts of joy, and soon there
+poured upon the sands hundreds of men in the uniform of the Effendina.
+These came forward at the double, and, with a courage which nothing
+could withstand, the whole circle spread out again upon the discomfited
+tribes of Ali Wad Hei. Dismay, confusion, possessed the Arabs. Their
+river-watchers had failed them, God had hidden His face from them; and
+when Ali Wad Hei and three of his emirs turned and rode into the desert,
+their forces broke and ran also, pursued by the relentless men who had
+suffered the tortures of siege so long. The chase was short, however,
+for they were desert folk, and they returned to loot the camp which had
+menaced them so long.
+
+Only the new-comers, Nahoum’s men, carried the hunt far; and they
+brought back with them a body which their leader commanded to be brought
+to a great room of the palace. Towards sunset David and Ebn Ezra Bey and
+Lacey came together to this room. The folds of loose linen were lifted
+from the face, and all three looked at it long in silence. At last Lacey
+spoke:
+
+“He got what he wanted; the luck was with him. It’s better than
+Leperland.”
+
+“In the bosom of Allah there is peace,” said Ebn Ezra. “It is well with
+Achmet.”
+
+With misty eyes David stooped and took the dead man’s hand in his for a
+moment. Then he rose to his feet and turned away.
+
+“And Nahoum also--and Nahoum,” he said presently. “Read this,” he added,
+and put a letter from Nahoum into Ebn Ezra’s hand.
+
+Lacey reverently covered Achmet’s face. “Say, he got what he wanted,” he
+said again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII. THE LOOM OF DESTINY
+
+It was many a day since the Duchess of Snowdon had seen a sunrise, and
+the one on which she now gazed from the deck of the dahabieh Nefert,
+filled her with a strange new sense of discovery and revelation.
+Her perceptions were arrested and a little confused, and yet the
+undercurrent of feeling was one of delight and rejuvenation. Why did
+this sunrise bring back, all at once, the day when her one lost child
+was born, and she looked out of the windows of Snowdon Hall, as she lay
+still and nerveless, and thought how wonderful and sweet and green was
+the world she saw and the sky that walled it round? Sunrise over the
+Greek Temple of Philae and the splendid ruins of a farther time towering
+beside it! In her sight were the wide, islanded Nile, where Cleopatra
+loitered with Antony, the foaming, crashing cataracts above, the great
+quarries from which ancient temples had been hewed, unfinished obelisks
+and vast blocks of stone left where bygone workmen had forsaken them,
+when the invader came and another dynasty disappeared into that partial
+oblivion from which the Egyptian still emerges triumphant over all his
+conquerors, unchanged in form and feature. Something of its meaning got
+into her mind.
+
+“I wonder what Windlehurst would think of it. He always had an eye for
+things like that,” she murmured; and then caught her breath, as she
+added: “He always liked beauty.” She looked at her wrinkled, childish
+hands. “But sunsets never grow old,” she continued, with no apparent
+relevance. “La, la, we were young once!”
+
+Her eyes were lost again in the pinkish glow spreading over the
+grey-brown sand of the desert, over the palm-covered island near. “And
+now it’s others’ turn, or ought to be,” she murmured.
+
+She looked to where, not far away, Hylda stood leaning over the railing
+of the dahabieh, her eyes fixed in reverie on the farthest horizon line
+of the unpeopled, untravelled plain of sand.
+
+“No, poor thing, it’s not her turn,” she added, as Hylda, with a long
+sigh, turned and went below. Tears gathered in her pale blue eyes. “Not
+yet--with Eglington alive. And perhaps it would be best if the other
+never came back. I could have made the world better worth living in if I
+had had the chance--and I wouldn’t have been a duchess! La! La!”
+
+She relapsed into reverie, an uncommon experience for her; and her
+mind floated indefinitely from one thing to another, while she was half
+conscious of the smell of coffee permeating the air, and of the low
+resonant notes of the Nubian boys, as, with locked shoulders, they
+scrubbed the decks of a dahabieh near by with hempshod feet.
+
+Presently, however, she was conscious of another sound--the soft clip
+of oars, joined to the guttural, explosive song of native rowers; and,
+leaning over the rail, she saw a boat draw alongside the Nefert. From
+it came the figure of Nahoum Pasha, who stepped briskly on deck, in his
+handsome face a light which flashed an instant meaning to her.
+
+“I know--I know! Claridge Pasha--you have heard?” she said excitedly, as
+he came to her.
+
+He smiled and nodded. “A messenger has arrived. Within a few hours he
+should be here.”
+
+“Then it was all false that he was wounded--ah, that horrible story of
+his death!”
+
+“Bismillah, it was not all false! The night before the great battle he
+was slightly wounded in the side. He neglected it, and fever came on;
+but he survived. His first messengers to us were killed, and that is
+why the news of the relief came so late. But all is well at last. I have
+come to say so to Lady Eglington--even before I went to the Effendina.”
+ He made a gesture towards a huge and gaily-caparisoned dahabieh not far
+away. “Kaid was right about coming here. His health is better. He never
+doubted Claridge Pasha’s return; it was une idee fixe. He believes a
+magic hand protects the Saadat, and that, adhering to him, he himself
+will carry high the flower of good fortune and live for ever. Kismet!
+I will not wait to see Lady Eglington. I beg to offer to her my
+congratulations on the triumph of her countryman.”
+
+His words had no ulterior note; but there was a shadow in his eyes which
+in one not an Oriental would have seemed sympathy.
+
+“Pasha, Pasha!” the Duchess called after him, as he turned to leave;
+“tell me, is there any news from England--from the Government?”
+
+“From Lord Eglington? No,” Nahoum answered meaningly. “I wrote to him.
+Did the English Government desire to send a message to Claridge Pasha,
+if the relief was accomplished? That is what I asked. But there is no
+word. Malaish, Egypt will welcome him!”
+
+She followed his eyes. Two score of dahabiehs lay along the banks of the
+Nile, and on the shore were encampments of soldiers, while flags
+were flying everywhere. Egypt had followed the lead of the Effendina.
+Claridge Pasha’s star was in its zenith.
+
+As Nahoum’s boat was rowed away, Hylda came on deck again, and the
+Duchess hastened to her. Hylda caught the look in her face. “What has
+happened? Is there news? Who has been here?” she asked.
+
+The Duchess took her hands. “Nahoum has gone to tell Prince Kaid. He
+came to you with the good news first,” she said with a flutter.
+
+She felt Hylda’s hands turn cold. A kind of mist filled the dark eyes,
+and the slim, beautiful figure swayed slightly. An instant only, and
+then the lips smiled, and Hylda said in a quavering voice: “They will be
+so glad in England.”
+
+“Yes, yes, my darling, that is what Nahoum said.” She gave Nahoum’s
+message to her. “Now they’ll make him a peer, I suppose, after having
+deserted him. So English!”
+
+She did not understand why Hylda’s hands trembled so, why so strange a
+look came into her face, but, in an instant, the rare and appealing eyes
+shone again with a light of agitated joy, and suddenly Hylda leaned over
+and kissed her cheek.
+
+“Smell the coffee,” she said with assumed gaiety. “Doesn’t
+fair-and-sixty want her breakfast? Sunrise is a splendid tonic.” She
+laughed feverishly.
+
+“My darling, I hadn’t seen the sun rise in thirty years, not since the
+night I first met Windlehurst at a Foreign Office ball.”
+
+“You have always been great friends?” Hylda stole a look at her.
+
+“That’s the queer part of it; I was so stupid, and he so clever. But
+Windlehurst has a way of letting himself down to your level. He always
+called me Betty after my boy died, just as if I was his equal. La, la,
+but I was proud when he first called me that--the Prime Minister of
+England. I’m going to watch the sun rise again to-morrow, my darling.
+I didn’t know it was so beautiful, and gave one such an appetite.” She
+broke a piece of bread, and, not waiting to butter it, almost stuffed it
+into her mouth.
+
+Hylda leaned over and pressed her arm. “What a good mother Betty it is!”
+ she said tenderly.
+
+Presently they were startled by the shrill screaming of a steamer
+whistle, followed by the churning of the paddles, as she drove past and
+drew to the bank near them.
+
+“It is a steamer from Cairo, with letters, no doubt,” said Hylda; and
+the Duchess nodded assent, and covertly noted her look, for she knew
+that no letters had arrived from Eglington since Hylda had left England.
+
+A half-hour later, as the Duchess sat on deck, a great straw hat tied
+under her chin with pale-blue ribbons, like a child of twelve, she was
+startled by seeing the figure of a farmer-looking person with a shock of
+grey-red hair, a red face, and with great blue eyes, appear before her
+in the charge of Hylda’s dragoman.
+
+“This has come to speak with my lady,” the dragoman said, “but my lady
+is riding into the desert there.” He pointed to the sands.
+
+The Duchess motioned the dragoman away, and scanned the face of the
+new-comer shrewdly. Where had she seen this strange-looking English
+peasant, with the rolling walk of a sailor?
+
+“What is your name, and where do you come from?” she asked, not without
+anxiety, for there was something ominous and suggestive in the old man’s
+face.
+
+“I come from Hamley, in England, and my name is Soolsby, your grace. I
+come to see my Lady Eglington.”
+
+Now she remembered him. She had seen him in Hamley more than once.
+
+“You have come far; have you important news for her ladyship? Is there
+anything wrong?” she asked with apparent composure, but with heavy
+premonition.
+
+“Ay, news that counts, I bring,” answered Soolsby, “or I hadn’t come
+this long way. ‘Tis a long way at sixty-five.”
+
+“Well, yes, at our age it is a long way,” rejoined the Duchess in a
+friendly voice, suddenly waving away the intervening air of class, for
+she was half a peasant at heart.
+
+“Ay, and we both come for the same end, I suppose,” Soolsby added;
+“and a costly business it is. But what matters, so be that you help her
+ladyship and I help Our Man.”
+
+“And who is ‘Our Man’?” was the rejoinder. “Him that’s coming safe here
+from the South--David Claridge,” he answered. “Ay, ‘twas the first thing
+I heard when I landed here, me that he come all these thousand miles
+to see him, if so be he was alive.” Just then he caught sight of Kate
+Heaver climbing the stair to the deck where they were. His face flushed;
+he hurried forward and gripped her by the arm, as her feet touched the
+upper deck. “Kate-ay, ‘tis Kate!” he cried. Then he let go her arm and
+caught a hand in both of his and fondled it. “Ay, ay, ‘tis Kate!” “What
+is it brings you, Soolsby?” Kate asked anxiously.
+
+“‘Tis not Jasper, and ‘tis not the drink-ay, I’ve been sober since, ever
+since, Kate, lass,” he answered stoutly. “Quick, quick, tell me what it
+is!” she said, frowning. “You’ve not come here for naught, Soolsby.”
+
+Still holding her hand, he leaned over and whispered in her ear. For an
+instant she stood as though transfixed, and then, with a curious muffled
+cry, broke away from him and turned to go below.
+
+“Keep your mouth shut, lass, till proper time,” he called after her, as
+she descended the steps hastily again. Then he came slowly back to the
+Duchess.
+
+He looked her in the face--he was so little like a peasant, so much more
+like a sailor here with his feet on the deck of a floating thing. “Your
+grace is a good friend to her ladyship,” he said at last deliberately,
+“and ‘tis well that you tell her ladyship. As good a friend to her
+you’ve been, I doubt not, as that I’ve been to him that’s coming from
+beyond and away.”
+
+“Go on, man, go on. I want to know what startled Heaver yonder, what you
+have come to say.”
+
+“I beg pardon, your grace. One doesn’t keep good news waiting, and
+‘tis not good news for her ladyship I bring, even if it be for Claridge
+Pasha, for there was no love lost ‘twixt him and second-best lordship
+that’s gone.”
+
+“Speak, man, speak it out, and no more riddles,” she interrupted
+sharply.
+
+“Then, he that was my Lord Eglington is gone foreign--he is dead,” he
+said slowly.
+
+The Duchess fell back in her chair. For an instant the desert, the
+temples, the palms, the Nile waters faded, and she was in some middle
+world, in which Soolsby’s voice seemed coming muffled and deep across
+a dark flood; then she recovered herself, and gave a little cry, not
+unlike that which Kate gave a few moments before, partly of pain, partly
+of relief.
+
+“Ay, he’s dead and buried, too, and in the Quaker churchyard. Miss
+Claridge would have it so. And none in Hamley said nay, not one.”
+
+The Duchess murmured to herself. Eglington was dead--Eglington was
+dead--Eglington was dead! And David Claridge was coming out of the
+desert, was coming to-day-now!
+
+“How did it happen?” she asked, faintly, at last.
+
+“Things went wrong wi’ him--bad wrong in Parliament and everywhere, and
+he didn’t take it well. He stood the world off like-ay, he had no temper
+for black days. He shut himself up at Hamley in his chemical place, like
+his father, like his father before him. When the week-end came, there he
+was all day and night among his bottles and jars and wires. He was after
+summat big in experiment for explosives, so the papers said, and so he
+said himself before he died, to Miss Claridge--ay, ‘twas her he deceived
+and treated cruel, that come to him when he was shattered by his
+experimenting. No patience, he had at last--and reckless in his chemical
+place, and didn’t realise what his hands was doing. ‘Twas so he told
+her, that forgave him all his deceit, and held him in her arms when he
+died. Not many words he had to speak; but he did say that he had never
+done any good to any one--ay, I was standing near behind his bed and
+heard all, for I was thinking of her alone with him, and so I would be
+with her, and she would have it so. Ay, and he said that he had misused
+cruel her that had loved him, her ladyship, that’s here. He said he
+had misused her because he had never loved her truly, only pride and
+vainglory being in his heart. Then he spoke summat to her that was there
+to forgive him and help him over the stile ‘twixt this field and it
+that’s Beyond and Away, which made her cry out in pain and say that he
+must fix his thoughts on other things. And she prayed out loud for him,
+for he would have no parson there. She prayed and prayed as never priest
+or parson prayed, and at last he got quiet and still, and, when she
+stopped praying, he did not speak or open his eyes for a longish while.
+But when the old clock on the stable was striking twelve, he opened his
+eyes wide, and when it had stopped, he said: ‘It is always twelve by
+the clock that stops at noon. I’ve done no good. I’ve earned my end.’
+He looked as though he was waiting for the clock to go on striking,
+half raising himself up in bed, with Miss Faith’s arm under his head.
+He whispered to her then--he couldn’t speak by this time. ‘It’s twelve
+o’clock,’ he said. Then there came some words I’ve heard the priest say
+at Mass, ‘Vanitas, Vanitatum,’--that was what he said. And her he’d lied
+to, there with him, laying his head down on the pillow, as if he was her
+child going to sleep. So, too, she had him buried by her father, in the
+Quaker burying-ground--ay, she is a saint on earth, I warrant.”
+
+For a moment after he had stopped the Duchess did not speak, but kept
+untying and tying the blue ribbons under her chin, her faded eyes still
+fastened on him, burning with the flame of an emotion which made them
+dark and young again.
+
+“So, it’s all over,” she said, as though to herself. “They were all
+alike, from old Broadbrim, the grandfather, down to this one, and back
+to William the Conqueror.”
+
+“Like as peas in a pod,” exclaimed Soolsby--“all but one, all but one,
+and never satisfied with what was in their own garden, but peeking,
+peeking beyond the hedge, and climbing and getting a fall. That’s what
+they’ve always been evermore.”
+
+His words aroused the Duchess, and the air became a little colder about
+her-after all, the division between the classes and the masses must be
+kept, and the Eglingtons were no upstarts. “You will say nothing about
+this till I give you leave to speak,” she commanded. “I must tell her
+ladyship.”
+
+Soolsby drew himself up a little, nettled at her tone. “It is your
+grace’s place to tell her ladyship,” he responded; “but I’ve taken ten
+years’ savings to come to Egypt, and not to do any one harm, but good,
+if so be I might.”
+
+The Duchess relented at once. She got to her feet as quickly as she
+could, and held out her hand to him. “You are a good man, and a
+friend worth having, I know, and I shall like you to be my friend, Mr.
+Soolsby,” she said impulsively.
+
+He took her hand and shook it awkwardly, his lips working. “Your grace,
+I understand. I’ve got naught to live for except my friends. Money’s
+naught, naught’s naught, if there isn’t a friend to feel a crunch at his
+heart when summat bad happens to you. I’d take my affydavy that there’s
+no better friend in the world than your grace.”
+
+She smiled at him. “And so we are friends, aren’t we? And I am to tell
+her ladyship, and you are to say ‘naught.’
+
+“But to the Egyptian, to him, your grace, it is my place to speak--to
+Claridge Pasha, when he comes.” The Duchess looked at him quizzically.
+“How does Lord Eglington’s death concern Claridge Pasha?” she asked
+rather anxiously. Had there been gossip about Hylda? Had the public got
+a hint of the true story of her flight, in spite of all Windlehurst had
+done? Was Hylda’s name smirched, now, when all would be set right? Had
+everything come too late, as it were?
+
+“There’s two ways that his lordship’s death concerns Claridge Pasha,”
+ answered Soolsby shrewdly, for though he guessed the truth concerning
+Hylda and David, his was not a leaking tongue. “There’s two ways it
+touches him. There’ll be a new man in the Foreign Office--Lord Eglington
+was always against Claridge Pasha; and there’s matters of land betwixt
+the two estates--matters of land that’s got to be settled now,” he
+continued, with determined and successful evasion.
+
+The Duchess was deceived. “But you will not tell Claridge Pasha until I
+have told her ladyship and I give you leave? Promise that,” she urged.
+
+“I will not tell him until then,” he answered. “Look, look, your grace,”
+ he added, suddenly pointing towards the southern horizon, “there he
+comes! Ay, ‘tis Our Man, I doubt not--Our Man evermore!”
+
+Miles away there appeared on the horizon a dozen camels being ridden
+towards Assouan.
+
+“Our Man evermore,” repeated the Duchess, with a trembling smile. “Yes,
+it is surely he. See, the soldiers are moving. They’re going to ride out
+to meet him.” She made a gesture towards the far shore where Kaid’s men
+were saddling their horses, and to Nahoum’s and Kaid’s dahabiehs, where
+there was a great stir.
+
+“There’s one from Hamley will meet them first,” Soolsby said, and
+pointed to where Hylda, in the desert, was riding towards the camels
+coming out of the south.
+
+The Duchess threw up her hands. “Dear me, dear me,” she said in
+distress, “if she only knew!”
+
+“There’s thousands of women that’d ride out mad to meet him,” said
+Soolsby carefully; “women that likes to see an Englishman that’s done
+his duty--ay, women and men, that’d ride hard to welcome him back from
+the grave. Her ladyship’s as good a patriot as any,” he added, watching
+the Duchess out of the corners of his eyes, his face turned to the
+desert.
+
+The Duchess looked at him quizzically, and was satisfied with her
+scrutiny. “You’re a man of sense,” she replied brusquely, and gathered
+up her skirts. “Find me a horse or a donkey, and I’ll go too,” she added
+whimsically. “Patriotism is such a nice sentiment.”
+
+For David and Lacey the morning had broken upon a new earth. Whatever
+of toil and tribulation the future held in store, this day marked a
+step forward in the work to which David had set his life. A way had been
+cloven through the bloody palisades of barbarism, and though the dark
+races might seek to hold back the forces which drain the fens, and build
+the bridges, and make the desert blossom as the rose, which give liberty
+and preserve life, the good end was sure and near, whatever of rebellion
+and disorder and treachery intervened. This was the larger, graver
+issue; but they felt a spring in the blood, and their hearts were
+leaping, because of the thought that soon they would clasp hands again
+with all from which they had been exiled.
+
+“Say, Saadat, think of it: a bed with four feet, and linen sheets,
+and sleeping till any time in the morning, and, If you please, sir,
+breakfast’s on the table.’ Say, it’s great, and we’re in it!”
+
+David smiled. “Thee did very well, friend, without such luxuries. Thee
+is not skin and bone.”
+
+Lacey mopped his forehead. “Well, I’ve put on a layer or two since
+the relief. It’s being scared that takes the flesh off me. I never was
+intended for the ‘stricken field.’ Poetry and the hearth-stone was my
+real vocation--and a bit of silver mining to blow off steam with,” he
+added with a chuckle.
+
+David laughed and tapped his arm. “That is an old story now, thy
+cowardice. Thee should be more original.
+
+“It’s worth not being original, Saadat, to hear you thee and thou me
+as you used to do. It’s like old times--the oldest, first times. You’ve
+changed a lot, Saadat.”
+
+“Not in anything that matters, I hope.”
+
+“Not in anything that matters to any one that matters. To me it’s the
+same as it ever was, only more so. It isn’t that, for you are you. But
+you’ve had disappointment, trouble, hard nuts to crack, and all you
+could do to escape the rocks being rolled down the Egyptian hill onto
+you; and it’s left its mark.”
+
+“Am I grown so different?”
+
+Lacey’s face shone under the look that was turned towards him. “Say,
+Saadat, you’re the same old red sandstone; but I missed the thee and
+thou. I sort of hankered after it; it gets me where I’m at home with
+myself.”
+
+David laughed drily. “Well, perhaps I’ve missed something in you. Thee
+never says now--not since thee went south a year ago, ‘Well, give my
+love to the girls.’ Something has left its mark, friend,” he added
+teasingly; for his spirits were boyish to-day; he was living in the
+present. There had gone from his eyes and from the lines of his figure
+the melancholy which Hylda had remarked when he was in England.
+
+“Well, now, I never noticed,” rejoined Lacey. “That’s got me. Looks as
+if I wasn’t as friendly as I used to be, doesn’t it? But I am--I am,
+Saadat.”
+
+“I thought that the widow in Cairo, perhaps--” Lacey chuckled. “Say,
+perhaps it was--cute as she can be, maybe, wouldn’t like it, might be
+prejudiced.”
+
+Suddenly David turned sharply to Lacey. “Thee spoke of silver mining
+just now. I owe thee something like two hundred thousand pounds, I
+think--Egypt and I.”
+
+Lacey winked whimsically at himself under the rim of his helmet. “Are
+you drawing back from those concessions, Saadat?” he asked with apparent
+ruefulness.
+
+“Drawing back? No! But does thee think they are worth--”
+
+Lacey assumed an injured air. “If a man that’s made as much money as me
+can’t be trusted to look after a business proposition--”
+
+“Oh, well, then!”
+
+“Say, Saadat, I don’t want you to think I’ve taken a mean advantage of
+you; and if--”
+
+David hastened to put the matter right. “No, no; thee must be the
+judge!” He smiled sceptically. “In any case, thee has done a good deed
+in a great way, and it will do thee no harm in the end. In one way the
+investment will pay a long interest, as long as the history of Egypt
+runs. Ah, see, the houses of Assouan, the palms, the river, the masts of
+the dahabiehs!”
+
+Lacey quickened his camel’s steps, and stretched out a hand to the
+inviting distance. “‘My, it’s great,” he said, and his eyes were
+blinking with tears. Presently he pointed. “There’s a woman riding
+to meet us, Saa dat. Golly, can’t she ride! She means to be in it--to
+salute the returning brave.”
+
+He did not glance at David. If he had done so, he would have seen that
+David’s face had taken on a strange look, just such a look as it wore
+that night in the monastery when he saw Hylda in a vision and heard her
+say: “Speak, speak to me!”
+
+There had shot into David’s mind the conviction that the woman
+riding towards them was Hylda. Hylda, the first to welcome him back,
+Hylda--Lady Eglington! Suddenly his face appeared to tighten and grow
+thin. It was all joy and torture at once. He had fought this fight out
+with himself--had he not done so? Had he not closed his heart to all
+but duty and Egypt? Yet there she was riding out of the old life, out
+of Hamley, and England, and all that had happened in Cairo, to meet him.
+Nearer and nearer she came. He could not see the face, but yet he
+knew. He quickened his camel and drew ahead of Lacey. Lacey did not
+understand, he did not recognise Hylda as yet; but he knew by instinct
+the Saadat’s wishes, and he motioned the others to ride more slowly,
+while he and they watched horsemen coming out from Assouan towards them.
+
+David urged his camel on. Presently he could distinguish the features
+of the woman riding towards him. It was Hylda. His presentiment, his
+instinct had been right. His heart beat tumultuously, his hand trembled,
+he grew suddenly weak; but he summoned up his will, and ruled himself to
+something like composure. This, then, was his home-coming from the
+far miseries and trials and battle-fields--to see her face before all
+others, to hear her voice first. What miracle had brought this thing to
+pass, this beautiful, bitter, forbidden thing? Forbidden! Whatever the
+cause of her coming, she must not see what he felt for her. He must deal
+fairly by her and by Eglington; he must be true to that real self which
+had emerged from the fiery trial in the monastery. Bronzed as he was,
+his face showed no paleness; but, as he drew near her, it grew pinched
+and wan from the effort at self-control. He set his lips and rode on,
+until he could see her eyes looking into his--eyes full of that which he
+had never seen in any eyes in all the world.
+
+What had been her feelings during that ride in the desert? She had not
+meant to go out to meet him. After she heard that he was coming, her
+desire was to get away from all the rest of the world, and be alone with
+her thoughts. He was coming, he was safe, and her work was done. What
+she had set out to do was accomplished--to bring him back, if it was
+God’s will, out of the jaws of death, for England’s sake, for the
+world’s sake, for his sake, for her own sake. For her own sake? Yes,
+yes, in spite of all, for her own sake. Whatever lay before, now, for
+this one hour, for this moment of meeting he should be hers. But meet
+him, where? Before all the world, with a smile of conventional welcome
+on her lips, with the same hand-clasp that any friend and lover of
+humanity would give him?
+
+The desert air blew on her face, keen, sweet, vibrant, thrilling. What
+he had heard that night at the monastery, the humming life of the land
+of white fire--the desert, the million looms of all the weavers of the
+world weaving, this she heard in the sunlight, with the sand rising
+like surf behind her horse’s heels. The misery and the tyranny and the
+unrequited love were all behind her, the disillusion and the loss and
+the undeserved insult to her womanhood--all, all were sunk away into the
+unredeemable past. Here, in Egypt, where she had first felt the stir of
+life’s passion and pain and penalty, here, now, she lost herself in a
+beautiful, buoyant dream. She was riding out to meet the one man of all
+men, hero, crusader, rescuer--ah, that dreadful night in the Palace, and
+Foorgat’s face! But he was coming, who had made her live, to whom she
+had called, to whom her soul had spoken in its grief and misery. Had she
+ever done aught to shame the best that was in herself--and had she not
+been sorely tempted? Had she not striven to love Eglington even when
+the worst was come, not alone at her own soul’s command, but because she
+knew that this man would have it so? Broken by her own sorrow, she had
+left England, Eglington--all, to keep her pledge to help him in his hour
+of need, to try and save him to the world, if that might be. So she had
+come to Nahoum, who was binding him down on the bed of torture and of
+death. And yet, alas! not herself had conquered Nahoum, but David, as
+Nahoum had said. She herself had not done this one thing which would
+have compensated for all that she had suffered. This had not been
+permitted; but it remained that she had come here to do it, and perhaps
+he would understand when he saw her.
+
+Yes, she knew he would understand! She flung up her head to the sun
+and the pulse-stirring air, and, as she did so, she saw his cavalcade
+approaching. She was sure it was he, even when he was far off, by the
+same sure instinct that convinced him. For an instant she hesitated. She
+would turn back, and meet him with the crowd. Then she looked around.
+The desert was deserted by all save herself and himself and those who
+were with him. No. Her mind was made up. She would ride forward. She
+would be the first to welcome him back to life and the world. He and she
+would meet alone in the desert. For one minute they would be alone, they
+two, with the world afar, they two, to meet, to greet--and to part. Out
+of all that Fate had to give of sorrow and loss, this one delectable
+moment, no matter what came after.
+
+“David!” she cried with beating heart, and rode on, harder and harder.
+
+Now she saw him ride ahead of the others. Ah, he knew that it was she,
+though he could not see her face! Nearer and nearer. Now they looked
+into each other’s eyes.
+
+She saw him stop his camel and make it kneel for the dismounting. She
+stopped her horse also, and slid to the ground, and stood waiting, one
+hand upon the horse’s neck. He hastened forward, then stood still, a few
+feet away, his eyes on hers, his helmet off, his brown hair, brown as
+when she first saw it--peril and hardship had not thinned or greyed it.
+For a moment they stood so, for a moment of revealing and understanding,
+but speechless; and then, suddenly, and with a smile infinitely
+touching, she said, as he had heard her say in the monastery--the very
+words:
+
+“Speak--speak to me!”
+
+He took her hand in his. “There is no need--I have said all,” he
+answered, happiness and trouble at once in his eyes. Then his face grew
+calmer. “Thee has made it worth while living on,” he added.
+
+She was gaining control of herself also. “I said that I would come when
+I was needed,” she answered less, tremblingly.
+
+“Thee came alone?” he asked gently.
+
+“From Assouan, yes,” she said in a voice still unsteady. “I was riding
+out to be by myself, and then I saw you coming, and I rode on. I thought
+I should like to be the first to say: ‘Well done,’ and ‘God bless you!’”
+
+He drew in a long breath, then looked at her keenly. “Lord Eglington is
+in Egypt also?” he asked.
+
+Her face did not change. She looked him in the eyes.
+
+“No, Eglington would not come to help you. I came to Nahoum, as I said I
+would.”
+
+“Thee has a good memory,” he rejoined simply. “I am a good friend,” she
+answered, then suddenly her face flushed up, her breast panted, her eyes
+shone with a brightness almost intolerable to him, and he said in a low,
+shaking voice:
+
+“It is all fighting, all fighting. We have done our best; and thee has
+made all possible.”
+
+“David!” she said in a voice scarce above a whisper.
+
+“Thee and me have far to go,” he said in a voice not louder than her
+own, “but our ways may not be the same.”
+
+She understood, and a newer life leaped up in her. She knew that he
+loved her--that was sufficient; the rest would be easier now. Sacrifice,
+all, would be easier. To part, yes, and for evermore; but to know that
+she had been truly loved--who could rob her of that?
+
+“See,” she said lightly, “your people are waiting--and there, why, there
+is my cousin Lacey. Tom, oh, Cousin Tom!” she called eagerly.
+
+Lacey rode down on them. “I swan, but I’m glad,” he said, as he dropped
+from his horse. “Cousin Hylda, I’m blest if I don’t feel as if I could
+sing like Aunt Melissa.”
+
+“You may kiss me, Cousin Tom,” she said, as she took his hands in hers.
+
+He flushed, was embarrassed, then snatched a kiss from her cheek. “Say,
+I’m in it, ain’t I? And you were in it first, eh, Cousin Hylda? The
+rest are nowhere--there they come from Assouan, Kaid, Nahoum, and the
+Nubians. Look at ‘em glisten!”
+
+A hundred of Kaid’s Nubians in their glittering armour made three sides
+of a quickly moving square, in the centre of which, and a little
+ahead, rode Kaid and Nahoum, while behind the square-in parade and gala
+dress-trooped hundreds of soldiers and Egyptians and natives.
+
+Swiftly the two cavalcades approached each other, the desert ringing
+with the cries of the Bedouins, the Nubians, and the fellaheen. They
+met on an upland of sand, from which the wide valley of the Nile and its
+wild cataracts could be seen. As men meet who parted yesterday, Kaid,
+Nahoum, and David met, but Kaid’s first quiet words to David had behind
+them a world of meaning:
+
+“I also have come back, Saadat, to whom be the bread that never moulds
+and the water that never stales!” he said, with a look in his face which
+had not been there for many a day. Superstition had set its mark on
+him--on Claridge Pasha’s safety depended his own, that was his belief;
+and the look of this thin, bronzed face, with its living fire, gave him
+vital assurance of length of days.
+
+And David answered: “May thy life be the nursling of Time, Effendina.
+I bring the tribute of the rebel lions once more to thy hand. What was
+thine, and was lost, is thine once more. Peace and salaam!” Between
+Nahoum and David there were no words at first at all. They shook hands
+like Englishmen, looking into each other’s eyes, and with pride of what
+Nahoum, once, in his duplicity, had called “perfect friendship.”
+
+Lacey thought of this now as he looked on; and not without a sense of
+irony, he said under his breath, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a
+Christian!”
+
+But in Hylda’s look, as it met Nahoum’s, there was no doubt--what woman
+doubts the convert whom she thinks she has helped to make? Meanwhile,
+the Nubians smote their mailed breasts with their swords in honour of
+David and Kaid.
+
+Under the gleaming moon, the exquisite temple of Philae perched on its
+high rock above the river, the fires on the shore, the masts of the
+dahabiehs twinkling with lights, and the barbarous songs floating across
+the water, gave the feeling of past centuries to the scene. From the
+splendid boat which Kaid had placed at his disposal David looked out
+upon it all, with emotions not yet wholly mastered by the true estimate
+of what this day had brought to him. With a mind unsettled he listened
+to the natives in the forepart of the boat and on the shore, beating the
+darabukkeh and playing the kemengeh. Yet it was moving in a mist and on
+a flood of greater happiness than he had ever known.
+
+He did not know as yet that Eglington was gone for ever. He did not know
+that the winds of time had already swept away all traces of the house of
+ambition which Eglington had sought to build; and that his nimble tongue
+and untrustworthy mind would never more delude and charm, and wanton
+with truth. He did not know, but within the past hour Hylda knew; and
+now out of the night Soolsby came to tell him.
+
+He was roused from his reverie by Soolsby’s voice saying: “Hast nowt to
+say to me, Egyptian?”
+
+It startled him, sounded ghostly in the moonlight; for why should he
+hear Soolsby’s voice on the confines of Egypt? But Soolsby came nearer,
+and stood where the moonlight fell upon him, hat in hand, a rustic
+modern figure in this Oriental world.
+
+David sprang to his feet and grasped the old man by the shoulders.
+“Soolsby, Soolsby,” he said, with a strange plaintive-note in his voice,
+yet gladly, too. “Soolsby, thee is come here to welcome me! But has she
+not come--Miss Claridge, Soolsby?”
+
+He longed for that true heart which had never failed him, the simple
+soul whose life had been filled by thought and care of him, and whose
+every act had for its background the love of sister for brother--for
+that was their relation in every usual meaning--who, too frail and
+broken to come to him now, waited for him by the old hearthstone. And
+so Soolsby, in his own way, made him understand; for who knew them both
+better than this old man, who had shared in David’s destiny since the
+fatal day when Lord Eglington had married Mercy Claridge in secret, had
+set in motion a long line of tragic happenings?
+
+“Ay, she would have come, she would have come,” Soolsby answered, “but
+she was not fit for the journey, and there was little time, my lord.”
+
+“Why did thee come, Soolsby? Only to welcome me back?”
+
+“I come to bring you back to England, to your duty there, my lord.”
+
+The first time Soolsby had used the words “my lord,” David had scarcely
+noticed it, but its repetition struck him strangely.
+
+“Here, sometimes they call me Pasha and Saadat, but I am not ‘my lord,’”
+ he said.
+
+“Ay, but you are my lord, Egyptian, as sure as I’ve kept my word to you
+that I’d drink no more, ay, on my sacred honour. So you are my lord; you
+are Lord Eglington, my lord.”
+
+David stood rigid and almost unblinking as Soolsby told his tale,
+beginning with the story of Eglington’s death, and going back all the
+years to the day of Mercy Claridge’s marriage.
+
+“And him that never was Lord Eglington, your own father’s son, is dead
+and gone, my lord; and you are come into your rights at last.” This was
+the end of the tale.
+
+For a long time David stood looking into the sparkling night before him,
+speechless and unmoving, his hands clasped behind him, his head bent
+forward, as though in a dream.
+
+How, all in an instant, had life changed for him! How had Soolsby’s
+tale of Eglington’s death filled him with a pity deeper than he had ever
+felt-the futile, bitter, unaccomplished life, the audacious, brilliant
+genius quenched, a genius got from the same source as his own resistless
+energy and imagination, from the same wild spring. Gone--all gone,
+with only pity to cover him, unloved, unloving, unbemoaned, save by the
+Quaker girl whose true spirit he had hurt, save by the wife whom he had
+cruelly wronged and tortured; and pity was the thing that moved them
+both, unfathomable and almost maternal, in that sense of motherhood
+which, in spite of love or passion, is behind both, behind all, in every
+true woman’s life.
+
+At last David spoke.
+
+“Who knows of all this--of who I am, Soolsby?”
+
+“Lady Eglington and myself, my lord.”
+
+“Only she and you?”
+
+“Only us two, Egyptian.”
+
+“Then let it be so--for ever.”
+
+Soolsby was startled, dumfounded.
+
+“But you will take your title and estates, my lord; you will take the
+place which is your own.”
+
+“And prove my grandfather wrong? Had he not enough sorrow? And change my
+life, all to please thee, Soolsby?”
+
+He took the old man’s shoulders in his hands again. “Thee has done thy
+duty as few in this world, Soolsby, and given friendship such as few
+give. But thee must be content. I am David Claridge, and so shall remain
+ever.”
+
+“Then, since he has no male kin, the title dies, and all that’s his will
+go to her ladyship,” Soolsby rejoined sourly.
+
+“Does thee grudge her ladyship what was his?”
+
+“I grudge her what is yours, my lord--”
+
+Suddenly Soolsby paused, as though a new thought had come to him, and he
+nodded to himself in satisfaction. “Well, since you will have it so, it
+will be so, Egyptian; but it is a queer fuddle, all of it; and where’s
+the way out, tell me that, my lord?”
+
+David spoke impatiently. “Call me ‘my lord’ no more.... But I will go
+back to England to her that’s waiting at the Red Mansion, and you will
+remember, Soolsby--”
+
+Slowly the great flotilla of dahabiehs floated with the strong current
+down towards Cairo, the great sails swelling to the breeze that blew
+from the Libyan Hills. Along the bank of the Nile thousands of Arabs and
+fellaheen crowded to welcome “the Saadat,” bringing gifts of dates and
+eggs and fowls and dourha and sweetmeats, and linen cloth; and even
+in the darkness and in the trouble that was on her, and the harrowing
+regret that she had not been with Eglington in his last hour--she little
+knew what Eglington had said to Faith in that last hour--Hylda’s heart
+was soothed by the long, loud tribute paid to David.
+
+As she sat in the evening light, David and Lacey came, and were received
+by the Duchess of Snowdon, who could only say to David, as she held his
+hand, “Windlehurst sent his regards to you, his loving regards. He was
+sure you would come home--come home. He wished he were in power for your
+sake.”
+
+So, for a few moments she talked vaguely, and said at last: “But Lady
+Eglington, she will be glad to see you, such old friends as you are,
+though not so old as Windlehurst and me--thirty years, over thirty la,
+la!”
+
+They turned to go to Hylda, and came face to face with Kate Heaver.
+
+Kate looked at David as one would look who saw a lost friend return from
+the dead. His eyes lighted, he held out his hand to her.
+
+“It is good to see thee here,” he said gently. “And ‘tis the cross-roads
+once again, sir,” she rejoined.
+
+“Thee means thee will marry Jasper?”
+
+“Ay, I will marry Jasper now,” she answered. “It has been a long
+waiting.”
+
+“It could not be till now,” she responded.
+
+David looked at her reflectively, and said: “By devious ways the human
+heart comes home. One can only stand in the door and wait. He has been
+patient.”
+
+“I have been patient, too,” she answered.
+
+As the Duchess disappeared with David, a swift change came over Lacey.
+He spun round on one toe, and, like a boy of ten, careered around the
+deck to the tune of a negro song.
+
+“Say, things are all right in there with them two, and it’s my turn
+now,” he said. “Cute as she can be, and knows the game! Twice a widow,
+and knows the game! Waiting, she is down in Cairo, where the orange
+blossom blows. I’m in it; we’re all in it--every one of us. Cousin
+Hylda’s free now, and I’ve got no past worth speaking of; and, anyhow,
+she’ll understand, down there in Cairo. Cute as she can be--”
+
+Suddenly he swung himself down to the deck below. “The desert’s the
+place for me to-night,” he said. Stepping ashore, he turned to where
+the Duchess stood on the deck, gazing out into the night. “Well, give my
+love to the girls,” he called, waving a hand upwards, as it were to the
+wide world, and disappeared into the alluring whiteness.
+
+“I’ve got to get a key-thought,” he muttered to himself, as he walked
+swiftly on, till only faint sounds came to him from the riverside. In
+the letter he had written to Hylda, which was the turning-point of
+all for her, he had spoken of these “key-thoughts.” With all the
+childishness he showed at times, he had wisely felt his way into spheres
+where life had depth and meaning. The desert had justified him to
+himself and before the spirits of departed peoples, who wandered over
+the sands, until at last they became sand also, and were blown hither
+and thither, to make beds for thousands of desert wayfarers, or paths
+for camels’ feet, or a blinding storm to overwhelm the traveller and
+the caravan; Life giving and taking, and absorbing and destroying, and
+destroying and absorbing, till the circle of human existence wheel to
+the full, and the task of Time be accomplished.
+
+On the gorse-grown common above Hamley, David and Faith, and David’s
+mother Mercy, had felt the same soul of things stirring--in the green
+things of green England, in the arid wastes of the Libyan desert, on the
+bosom of the Nile, where Mahommed Hassan now lay in a nugger singing a
+song of passion, Nature, with burning voice, murmuring down the unquiet
+world its message of the Final Peace through the innumerable years.
+
+
+
+
+GLOSSARY
+
+  Aiwa----Yes.
+  Allah hu Achbar----God is most Great.
+  Al’mah----Female professional singers, signifying “a learned female.”
+   Ardab----A measure equivalent to five English bushels.
+
+  Backsheesh----Tip, douceur.
+  Balass----Earthen vessel for carrying water.
+  Bdsha----Pasha.
+  Bersim----Clover.
+  Bismillah----In the name of God.
+  Bowdb----A doorkeeper.
+
+  Dahabieh----A Nile houseboat with large lateen sails.
+  Darabukkeh----A drum made of a skin stretched over an earthenware funnel.
+  Dourha----Maize.
+
+  Effendina----Most noble.
+  El Azhar----The Arab University at Cairo.
+
+  Fedddn----A measure of land representing about an acre.
+  Fellah----The Egyptian peasant.
+
+  Ghiassa----Small boat.
+
+  Hakim----Doctor.
+  Hasheesh----Leaves of hemp.
+
+  Inshallah----God willing.
+
+  Kdnoon----A musical instrument like a dulcimer.
+  Kavass----An orderly.
+  Kemengeh----A cocoanut fiddle.
+  Khamsin----A hot wind of Egypt and the Soudan.
+
+  Kourbash----A whip, often made of rhinoceros hide.
+
+  La ilaha illa-llah----There is no deity but God.
+
+  Malaish----No matter.
+  Malboos----Demented.
+  Mastaba----A bench.
+  Medjidie----A Turkish Order.
+  Mooshrabieh----Lattice window.
+  Moufettish----High Steward.
+  Mudir----The Governor of a
+  Mudirieh, or province.
+  Muezzin----The sheikh of the mosque who calls to prayer.
+
+  Narghileh----A Persian pipe.
+  Nebool----A quarter-staff.
+
+  Ramadan----The Mahommedan season of fasting.
+
+  Saadat-el-bdsha----Excellency Pasha.
+  Sdis----Groom.
+  Sakkia----The Persian water-wheel.
+  Salaam----Eastern salutation.
+  Sheikh-el-beled----Head of a village.
+
+  Tarboosh----A Turkish turban.
+
+  Ulema----Learned men.
+
+  Wakf----Mahommedan Court dealing with succession, etc.
+  Welee----A holy man or saint.
+
+  Yashmak----A veil for the lower part of the face.
+  Yelek----A long vest or smock.
+
+
+     ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:
+
+     A cloak of words to cover up the real thought behind
+     Antipathy of the man in the wrong to the man in the right
+     Antipathy of the lesser to the greater nature
+     Begin to see how near good is to evil
+     But the years go on, and friends have an end
+     Cherish any alleviating lie
+     Does any human being know what he can bear of temptation
+     Friendship means a giving and a getting
+     He’s a barber-shop philosopher
+     Heaven where wives without number awaited him
+     Honesty was a thing he greatly desired--in others
+     How little we can know to-day what we shall feel tomorrow
+     How many conquests have been made in the name of God
+     Monotonously intelligent
+     No virtue in not falling, when you’re not tempted
+     Of course I’ve hated, or I wouldn’t be worth a button
+     One does the work and another gets paid
+     Only the supremely wise or the deeply ignorant who never alter
+     Passion to forget themselves
+     Political virtue goes unrewarded
+     She knew what to say and what to leave unsaid
+     Smiling was part of his equipment
+     Sometimes the longest way round is the shortest way home
+     Soul tortured through different degrees of misunderstanding
+     The vague pain of suffered indifference
+     There is no habit so powerful as the habit of care of others
+     There’s no credit in not doing what you don’t want to do
+     To-morrow is no man’s gift
+     Tricks played by Fact to discredit the imagination
+     Triumph of Oriental duplicity over Western civilisation
+     We want every land to do as we do; and we want to make ‘em do it
+     We must live our dark hours alone
+     When God permits, shall man despair?
+     Woman’s deepest right and joy and pain in one--to comfort
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Weavers, Complete, by Gilbert Parker
+
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      The Weavers, by Gilbert Parker
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd7; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    pre     { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Weavers, Complete, by Gilbert Parker
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Weavers, Complete
+
+Author: Gilbert Parker
+
+Release Date: October 18, 2006 [EBook #6267]
+Last Updated: August 27, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WEAVERS, COMPLETE ***
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <h1>
+      THE WEAVERS
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By Gilbert Parker
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br /> <a href="#link2H_INTR"> INTRODUCTION </a><br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2H_4_0002"> NOTE </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0001">
+        CHAPTER I. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;AS THE SPIRIT MOVED <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE GATES OF THE WORLD
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;BANISHED
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE CALL
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE WIDER
+        WAY <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;"HAST
+        THOU NEVER KILLED A MAN?&rdquo; <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER
+        VII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE COMPACT <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0008">
+        CHAPTER VIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;FOR HIS SOUL&rsquo;S SAKE AND THE LAND&rsquo;S SAKE
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        LETTER, THE NIGHT, AND THE WOMAN <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0010">
+        CHAPTER X. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE FOUR WHO KNEW <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;AGAINST THE HOUR OF
+        MIDNIGHT <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        JEHAD AND THE LIONS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII.
+        </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ACHMET THE ROPEMAKER STRIKES <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;BEYOND THE PALE <br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;SOOLSBY&rsquo;S HAND UPON
+        THE CURTAIN <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        DEBT AND THE ACCOUNTING <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER
+        XVII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE WOMAN OF THE CROSS-ROADS <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;TIME, THE
+        IDOL-BREAKER <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;SHARPER
+        THAN A SWORD <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;EACH
+        AFTER HIS OWN ORDER <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI.
+        </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;"THERE IS NOTHING HIDDEN WHICH SHALL NOT BE REVEALED&rdquo;
+         <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;AS IN
+        A GLASS DARKLY <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        TENTS OF CUSHAN <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        QUESTIONER <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        VOICE THROUGH THE DOOR <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI.
+        </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;"I OWE YOU NOTHING&rdquo; <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0027">
+        CHAPTER XXVII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE AWAKENING <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;NAHOUM TURNS THE
+        SCREW <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        RECOIL <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;LACEY
+        MOVES <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0031"> CHAPTER XXXI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        STRUGGLE IN THE DESERT <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0032"> CHAPTER
+        XXXII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;FORTY STRIPES SAVE ONE <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0033"> CHAPTER XXXIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE DARK INDENTURE
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0034"> CHAPTER XXXIV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;NAHOUM
+        DROPS THE MASK &ldquo;CLARIDGE PASHA!&rdquo; <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0035">
+        CHAPTER XXXV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE FLIGHT OF THE WOUNDED <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0036"> CHAPTER XXXVI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;"IS IT ALWAYS SO&mdash;IN
+        LIFE?&rdquo; <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0037"> CHAPTER XXXVII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        FLYING SHUTTLE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0038"> CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+        &nbsp;&nbsp;</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;JASPER KIMBER SPEAKS <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0039"> CHAPTER XXXIX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;FAITH JOURNEYS TO
+        LONDON <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0040"> CHAPTER XL. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;HYLDA
+        SEEKS NAHOUM <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0041"> CHAPTER XLI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;IN
+        THE LAND OF SHINAR <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0042"> CHAPTER XLII.
+        </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE LOOM OF DESTINY <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_GLOS">
+        GLOSSARY. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp; <br /><br />
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_INTR" id="link2H_INTR">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      INTRODUCTION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      When I turn over the hundreds of pages of this book, I have a feeling that
+      I am looking upon something for which I have no particular responsibility,
+      though it has a strange contour of familiarity. It is as though one looks
+      upon a scene in which one had lived and moved, with the friendly yet
+      half-distant feeling that it once was one&rsquo;s own possession but is so no
+      longer. I should think the feeling to be much like that of the old man
+      whose sons, gone to distant places, have created their own plantations of
+      life and have themselves become the masters of possessions. Also I suppose
+      that when I read the story through again from the first page to the last,
+      I shall recreate the feeling in which I lived when I wrote it, and it will
+      become a part of my own identity again. That distance between himself and
+      his work, however, which immediately begins to grow as soon as a book
+      leaves the author&rsquo;s hands for those of the public, is a thing which, I
+      suppose, must come to one who produces a work of the imagination. It is no
+      doubt due to the fact that every piece of art which has individuality and
+      real likeness to the scenes and character it is intended to depict is done
+      in a kind of trance. The author, in effect, self-hypnotises himself, has
+      created an atmosphere which is separate and apart from that of his daily
+      surroundings, and by virtue of his imagination becomes absorbed in that
+      atmosphere. When the book is finished and it goes forth, when the
+      imagination is relaxed and the concentration of mind is withdrawn, the
+      atmosphere disappears, and then. One experiences what I feel when I take
+      up &lsquo;The Weavers&rsquo; and, in a sense, wonder how it was done, such as it is.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The frontispiece of the English edition represents a scene in the House of
+      Commons, and this brings to my mind a warning which was given me similar
+      to that on my entering new fields outside the one in which I first made a
+      reputation in fiction. When, in a certain year, I determined that I would
+      enter the House of Commons I had many friends who, in effect, wailed and
+      gnashed their teeth. They said that it would be the death of my
+      imaginative faculties; that I should never write anything any more; that
+      all the qualities which make literature living and compelling would
+      disappear. I thought this was all wrong then, and I know it is all wrong
+      now. Political life does certainly interfere with the amount of work which
+      an author may produce. He certainly cannot write a book every year and do
+      political work as well, but if he does not attempt to do the two things on
+      the same days, as it were, but in blocks of time devoted to each
+      separately and respectively, he will only find, as I have found, that
+      public life the conflict of it, the accompanying attrition of mind, the
+      searching for the things which will solve the problems of national life,
+      the multitudinous variations of character with which one comes in contact,
+      the big issues suddenly sprung upon the congregation of responsible
+      politicians, all are stimulating to the imagination, invigorating to the
+      mind, and marvellously freshening to every literary instinct. No danger to
+      the writer lies in doing political work, if it does not sap his strength
+      and destroy his health. Apart from that, he should not suffer. The very
+      spirit of statesmanship is imagination, vision; and the same quality which
+      enables an author to realise humanity for a book is necessary for him to
+      realise humanity in the crowded chamber of a Parliament.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So far as I can remember, whatever was written of The Weavers, no critic
+      said that it lacked imagination. Some critics said it was too crowded with
+      incident; that there was enough incident in it for two novels; some said
+      that the sweep was too wide, but no critic of authority declared that the
+      book lacked vision or the vivacity of a living narrative. It is not likely
+      that I shall ever write again a novel of Egypt, but I have made my
+      contribution to Anglo-Egyptian literature, and I do not think I failed
+      completely in showing the greatness of soul which enabled one man to keep
+      the torch of civilisation, of truth, justice, and wholesome love alight in
+      surroundings as offensive to civilisation as was Egypt in the last days of
+      Ismail Pasha&mdash;a time which could be well typified by the words put by
+      Bulwer Lytton in the mouth of Cardinal Richelieu:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+       &ldquo;I found France rent asunder,
+        Sloth in the mart and schism in the temple;
+        Broils festering to rebellion; and weak laws
+        Rotting away with rust in antique sheaths.
+        I have re-created France; and, from the ashes
+        Of the old feudal and decrepit carcase,
+        Civilisation on her luminous wings
+        Soars, phoenix-like, to Jove!&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Critics and readers have endeavoured to identify the main characteristics
+      of The Weavers with figures in Anglo-Egyptian and official public life.
+      David Claridge was, however, a creature of the imagination. It has been
+      said that he was drawn from General Gordon. I am not conscious of having
+      taken Gordon for David&rsquo;s prototype, though, as I was saturated with all
+      that had been written about Gordon, there is no doubt that something of
+      that great man may have found its way into the character of David
+      Claridge. The true origin of David Claridge, however, may be found in a
+      short story called &lsquo;All the World&rsquo;s Mad&rsquo;, in Donovan Pasha, which was
+      originally published by Lady Randolph Churchill in an ambitious but
+      defunct magazine called &lsquo;The Anglo-Saxon Review&rsquo;. The truth is that David
+      Claridge had his origin in a fairly close understanding of, and interest
+      in, Quaker life. I had Quaker relatives through the marriage of a
+      connection of my mother, and the original of Benn Claridge, the uncle of
+      David, is still alive, a very old man, who in my boyhood days wore the
+      broad brim and the straight preacher-like coat of the old-fashioned
+      Quaker. The grandmother of my wife was also a Quaker, and used the &ldquo;thee&rdquo;
+       and &ldquo;thou&rdquo; until the day of her death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here let me say that criticism came to me from several quarters both in
+      England and America on the use of these words thee and thou, and
+      statements were made that the kind of speech which I put into David
+      Claridge&rsquo;s mouth was not Quaker speech. For instance, they would not have
+      it that a Quaker would say, &ldquo;Thee will go with me&rdquo;&mdash;as though they
+      were ashamed of the sweet inaccuracy of the objective pronoun being used
+      in the nominative; but hundreds of times I have myself heard Quakers use
+      &ldquo;thee&rdquo; in just such a way in England and America. The facts are, however,
+      that Quakers differ extensively in their habits, and there grew up in
+      England among the Quakers in certain districts a sense of shame for false
+      grammar which, to say the least, was very childish. To be deliberately and
+      boldly ungrammatical, when you serve both euphony and simplicity, is
+      merely to give archaic charm, not to be guilty of an offence. I have
+      friends in Derbyshire who still say &ldquo;Thee thinks,&rdquo; etc., and I must
+      confess that the picture of a Quaker rampant over my deliberate use of
+      this well-authenticated form of speech produced to my mind only the effect
+      of an infuriated sheep, when I remembered the peaceful attribute of Quaker
+      life and character. From another quarter came the assurance that I was
+      wrong when I set up a tombstone with a name upon it in a Quaker graveyard.
+      I received a sarcastic letter from a lady on the borders of Sussex and
+      Surrey upon this point, and I immediately sent her a first-class railway
+      ticket to enable her to visit the Quaker churchyard at Croydon, in Surrey,
+      where dead and gone Quakers have tombstones by the score, and inscriptions
+      on them also. It is a good thing to be accurate; it is desperately
+      essential in a novel. The average reader, in his triumph at discovering
+      some slight error of detail, would consign a masterpiece of imagination,
+      knowledge of life and character to the rubbish-heap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I believe that &lsquo;The Weavers&rsquo; represents a wider outlook of life, closer
+      understanding of the problems which perplex society, and a clearer view of
+      the verities than any previous book written by me, whatever its popularity
+      may have been. It appealed to the British public rather more than &lsquo;The
+      Right of Way&rsquo;, and the great public of America and the Oversea Dominions
+      gave it a welcome which enabled it to take its place beside &lsquo;The Right of
+      Way&rsquo;, the success of which was unusual.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      NOTE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      This book is not intended to be an historical novel, nor are its
+      characters meant to be identified with well-known persons connected with
+      the history of England or of Egypt; but all that is essential in the tale
+      is based upon, and drawn from, the life of both countries. Though Egypt
+      has greatly changed during the past generation, away from Cairo and the
+      commercial centres the wheels of social progress have turned but slowly,
+      and much remains as it was in the days of which this book is a record in
+      the spirit of the life, at least.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                       G. P.
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Dost thou spread the sail, throw the spear, swing the axe, lay
+     thy hand upon the plough, attend the furnace door, shepherd the
+     sheep upon the hills, gather corn from the field, or smite the
+     rock in the quarry? Yet, whatever thy task, thou art even as
+     one who twists the thread and throws the shuttle, weaving the
+     web of Life. Ye are all weavers, and Allah the Merciful, does
+     He not watch beside the loom?&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I. AS THE SPIRIT MOVED
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The village lay in a valley which had been the bed of a great river in the
+      far-off days when Ireland, Wales and Brittany were joined together and the
+      Thames flowed into the Seine. The place had never known turmoil or stir.
+      For generations it had lived serenely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three buildings in the village stood out insistently, more by the
+      authority of their appearance and position than by their size. One was a
+      square, red-brick mansion in the centre of the village, surrounded by a
+      high, redbrick wall enclosing a garden. Another was a big, low, graceful
+      building with wings. It had once been a monastery. It was covered with
+      ivy, which grew thick and hungry upon it, and it was called the Cloistered
+      House. The last of the three was of wood, and of no great size&mdash;a
+      severely plain but dignified structure, looking like some council-hall of
+      a past era. Its heavy oak doors and windows with diamond panes, and its
+      air of order, cleanliness and serenity, gave it a commanding influence in
+      the picture. It was the key to the history of the village&mdash;a Quaker
+      Meeting-house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Involuntarily the village had built itself in such a way that it made a
+      wide avenue from the common at one end to the Meeting-house on the
+      gorse-grown upland at the other. With a demure resistance to the will of
+      its makers the village had made itself decorative. The people were
+      unconscious of any attractiveness in themselves or in their village. There
+      were, however, a few who felt the beauty stirring around them. These few,
+      for their knowledge and for the pleasure which it brought, paid the
+      accustomed price. The records of their lives were the only notable history
+      of the place since the days when their forefathers suffered for the faith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of these was a girl&mdash;for she was still but a child when she died;
+      and she had lived in the Red Mansion with the tall porch, the wide garden
+      behind, and the wall of apricots and peaches and clustering grapes. Her
+      story was not to cease when she was laid away in the stiff graveyard
+      behind the Meeting-house. It was to go on in the life of her son, whom to
+      bring into the world she had suffered undeserved, and loved with a passion
+      more in keeping with the beauty of the vale in which she lived than with
+      the piety found on the high-backed seats in the Quaker Meeting-house. The
+      name given her on the register of death was Mercy Claridge, and a line
+      beneath said that she was the daughter of Luke Claridge, that her age at
+      passing was nineteen years, and that &ldquo;her soul was with the Lord.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Another whose life had given pages to the village history was one of noble
+      birth, the Earl of Eglington. He had died twenty years after the time when
+      Luke Claridge, against the then custom of the Quakers, set up a tombstone
+      to Mercy Claridge&rsquo;s memory behind the Meeting-house. Only thrice in those
+      twenty years had he slept in a room of the Cloistered House. One of those
+      occasions was the day on which Luke Claridge put up the grey stone in the
+      graveyard, three years after his daughter&rsquo;s death. On the night of that
+      day these two men met face to face in the garden of the Cloistered House.
+      It was said by a passer-by, who had involuntarily overheard, that Luke
+      Claridge had used harsh and profane words to Lord Eglington, though he had
+      no inkling of the subject of the bitter talk. He supposed, however, that
+      Luke had gone to reprove the other for a wasteful and wandering existence;
+      for desertion of that Quaker religion to which his grandfather, the third
+      Earl of Eglington, had turned in the second half of his life, never
+      visiting his estates in Ireland, and residing here among his new friends
+      to his last day. This listener&mdash;John Fairley was his name&mdash;kept
+      his own counsel. On two other occasions had Lord Eglington visited the
+      Cloistered House in the years that passed, and remained many months. Once
+      he brought his wife and child. The former was a cold, blue-eyed Saxon of
+      an old family, who smiled distantly upon the Quaker village; the latter, a
+      round-headed, warm-faced youth, with a bold, menacing eye, who probed into
+      this and that, rushed here and there as did his father; now built a
+      miniature mill; now experimented at some peril in the laboratory which had
+      been arranged in the Cloistered House for scientific experiments; now shot
+      partridges in the fields where partridges had not been shot for years; and
+      was as little in the picture as his adventurous father, though he wore a
+      broad-brimmed hat, smiling the while at the pain it gave to the simple
+      folk around him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet once more the owner of the Cloistered House returned alone. The
+      blue-eyed lady was gone to her grave; the youth was abroad. This time he
+      came to die. He was found lying on the floor of his laboratory with a
+      broken retort in fragments beside him. With his servant, Luke Claridge was
+      the first to look upon him lying in the wreck of his last experiment, a
+      spirit-lamp still burning above him, in the grey light of a winter&rsquo;s
+      morning. Luke Claridge closed the eyes, straightened the body, and crossed
+      the hands over the breast which had been the laboratory of many
+      conflicting passions of life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dead man had left instructions that his body should be buried in the
+      Quaker graveyard, but Luke Claridge and the Elders prevented that&mdash;he
+      had no right to the privileges of a Friend; and, as the only son was afar,
+      and no near relatives pressed the late Earl&rsquo;s wishes, the ancient family
+      tomb in Ireland received all that was left of the owner of the Cloistered
+      House, which, with the estates in Ireland and the title, passed to the
+      wandering son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II. THE GATES OF THE WORLD
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Stillness in the Meeting-house, save for the light swish of one
+      graveyard-tree against the window-pane, and the slow breathing of the
+      Quaker folk who filled every corner. On the long bench at the upper end of
+      the room the Elders sat motionless, their hands on their knees, wearing
+      their hats; the women in their poke-bonnets kept their gaze upon their
+      laps. The heads of all save three were averted, and they were Luke
+      Claridge, his only living daughter, called Faith, and his dead daughter&rsquo;s
+      son David, who kept his eyes fixed on the window where the twig flicked
+      against the pane. The eyes of Faith, who sat on a bench at one side,
+      travelled from David to her father constantly; and if, once or twice, the
+      plain rebuke of Luke Claridge&rsquo;s look compelled her eyes upon her folded
+      hands, still she was watchful and waiting, and seemed demurely to defy the
+      convention of unblinking silence. As time went on, others of her sex stole
+      glances at Mercy&rsquo;s son from the depths of their bonnets; and at last,
+      after over an hour, they and all were drawn to look steadily at the young
+      man upon whose business this Meeting of Discipline had been called. The
+      air grew warmer and warmer, but no one became restless; all seemed as cool
+      of face and body as the grey gowns and coats with grey steel buttons which
+      they wore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last a shrill voice broke the stillness. Raising his head, one of the
+      Elders said: &ldquo;Thee will stand up, friend.&rdquo; He looked at David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With a slight gesture of relief the young man stood up. He was good to
+      look at-clean-shaven, broad of brow, fine of figure, composed of carriage,
+      though it was not the composure of the people by whom he was surrounded.
+      They were dignified, he was graceful; they were consistently slow of
+      movement, but at times his quick gestures showed that he had not been able
+      to train his spirit to that passiveness by which he lived surrounded.
+      Their eyes were slow and quiet, more meditative than observant; his were
+      changeful in expression, now abstracted, now dark and shining as though
+      some inner fire was burning. The head, too, had a habit of coming up
+      quickly with an almost wilful gesture, and with an air which, in others,
+      might have been called pride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is thy name?&rdquo; said another owl-like Elder to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A gentle, half-amused smile flickered at the young man&rsquo;s lips for an
+      instant, then, &ldquo;David Claridge&mdash;still,&rdquo; he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His last word stirred the meeting. A sort of ruffle went through the
+      atmosphere, and now every eye was fixed and inquiring. The word was
+      ominous. He was there on his trial, and for discipline; and it was thought
+      by all that, as many days had passed since his offence was committed,
+      meditation and prayer should have done their work. Now, however, in the
+      tone of his voice, as it clothed the last word, there was something of
+      defiance. On the ear of his grandfather, Luke Claridge, it fell heavily.
+      The old man&rsquo;s lips closed tightly, he clasped his hands between his knees
+      with apparent self-repression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second Elder who had spoken was he who had once heard Luke Claridge
+      use profane words in the Cloistered House. Feeling trouble ahead, and
+      liking the young man and his brother Elder, Luke Claridge, John Fairley
+      sought now to take the case into his own hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee shall never find a better name, David,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if thee live a
+      hundred years. It hath served well in England. This thee didst do. While
+      the young Earl of Eglington was being brought home, with noise and
+      brawling, after his return to Parliament, thee mingled among the brawlers;
+      and because some evil words were said of thy hat and thy apparel, thee
+      laid about thee, bringing one to the dust, so that his life was in peril
+      for some hours to come. Jasper Kimber was his name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were it not that the smitten man forgave thee, thee would now be in a
+      prison cell,&rdquo; shrilly piped the Elder who had asked his name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fight was fair,&rdquo; was the young man&rsquo;s reply. &ldquo;Though I am a Friend,
+      the man was English.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee was that day a son of Belial,&rdquo; rejoined the shrill Elder. &ldquo;Thee did
+      use thy hands like any heathen sailor&mdash;is it not the truth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I struck the man. I punished him&mdash;why enlarge?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee is guilty?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did the thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is one charge against thee. There are others. Thee was seen to drink
+      of spirits in a public-house at Heddington that day. Twice&mdash;thrice,
+      like any drunken collier.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Twice,&rdquo; was the prompt correction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a moment&rsquo;s pause, in which some women sighed and others folded
+      and unfolded their hands on their laps; the men frowned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee has been a dark deceiver,&rdquo; said the shrill Elder again, and with a
+      ring of acrid triumph; &ldquo;thee has hid these things from our eyes many
+      years, but in one day thee has uncovered all. Thee&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee is charged,&rdquo; interposed Elder Fairley, &ldquo;with visiting a play this
+      same day, and with seeing a dance of Spain following upon it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not disdain the music,&rdquo; said the young man drily; &ldquo;the flute, of
+      all instruments, has a mellow sound.&rdquo; Suddenly his eyes darkened, he
+      became abstracted, and gazed at the window where the twig flicked softly
+      against the pane, and the heat of summer palpitated in the air. &ldquo;It has
+      good grace to my ear,&rdquo; he added slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Luke Claridge looked at him intently. He began to realize that there were
+      forces stirring in his grandson which had no beginning in Claridge blood,
+      and were not nurtured in the garden with the fruited wall. He was not used
+      to problems; he had only a code, which he had rigidly kept. He had now a
+      glimmer of something beyond code or creed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He saw that the shrill Elder was going to speak. He intervened. &ldquo;Thee is
+      charged, David,&rdquo; he said coldly, &ldquo;with kissing a woman&mdash;a stranger
+      and a wanton&mdash;where the four roads meet &lsquo;twixt here and yonder town.&rdquo;
+       He motioned towards the hills.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the open day,&rdquo; added the shrill Elder, a red spot burning on each
+      withered cheek.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The woman was comely,&rdquo; said the young man, with a tone of irony,
+      recovering an impassive look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A strange silence fell, the women looked down; yet they seemed not so
+      confounded as the men. After a moment they watched the young man with
+      quicker flashes of the eye.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The answer is shameless,&rdquo; said the shrill Elder. &ldquo;Thy life is that of a
+      carnal hypocrite.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man said nothing. His face had become very pale, his lips were
+      set, and presently he sat down and folded his arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee is guilty of all?&rdquo; asked John Fairley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His kindly eye was troubled, for he had spent numberless hours in this
+      young man&rsquo;s company, and together they had read books of travel and
+      history, and even the plays of Shakespeare and Marlowe, though drama was
+      anathema to the Society of Friends&mdash;they did not realize it in the
+      life around them. That which was drama was either the visitation of God or
+      the dark deeds of man, from which they must avert their eyes. Their own
+      tragedies they hid beneath their grey coats and bodices; their dirty linen
+      they never washed in public, save in the scandal such as this where the
+      Society must intervene. Then the linen was not only washed, but duly
+      starched, sprinkled, and ironed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have answered all. Judge by my words,&rdquo; said David gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has repentance come to thee? Is it thy will to suffer that which we may
+      decide for thy correction?&rdquo; It was Elder Fairley who spoke. He was
+      determined to control the meeting and to influence its judgment. He loved
+      the young man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David made no reply; he seemed lost in thought. &ldquo;Let the discipline
+      proceed&mdash;he hath an evil spirit,&rdquo; said the shrill Elder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His childhood lacked in much,&rdquo; said Elder Fairley patiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To most minds present the words carried home&mdash;to every woman who had
+      a child, to every man who had lost a wife and had a motherless son. This
+      much they knew of David&rsquo;s real history, that Mercy Claridge, his mother,
+      on a visit to the house of an uncle at Portsmouth, her mother&rsquo;s brother,
+      had eloped with and was duly married to the captain of a merchant ship.
+      They also knew that, after some months, Luke Claridge had brought her
+      home; and that before her child was born news came that the ship her
+      husband sailed had gone down with all on board. They knew likewise that
+      she had died soon after David came, and that her father, Luke Claridge,
+      buried her in her maiden name, and brought the boy up as his son, not with
+      his father&rsquo;s name but bearing that name so long honoured in England, and
+      even in the far places of the earth&mdash;for had not Benn Claridge,
+      Luke&rsquo;s brother, been a great carpet-merchant, traveller, and explorer in
+      Asia Minor, Egypt, and the Soudan&mdash;Benn Claridge of the whimsical
+      speech, the pious life? All this they knew; but none of them, to his or
+      her knowledge, had ever seen David&rsquo;s father. He was legendary; though
+      there was full proof that the girl had been duly married. That had been
+      laid before the Elders by Luke Claridge on an occasion when Benn Claridge,
+      his brother was come among them again from the East.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment of trial David was thinking of his uncle, Benn Claridge,
+      and of his last words fifteen years before when going once again to the
+      East, accompanied by the Muslim chief Ebn Ezra, who had come with him to
+      England on the business of his country. These were Benn Claridge&rsquo;s words:
+      &ldquo;Love God before all, love thy fellow-man, and thy conscience will bring
+      thee safe home, lad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he will not repent, there is but one way,&rdquo; said the shrill Elder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let there be no haste,&rdquo; said Luke Claridge, in a voice that shook a
+      little in his struggle for self-control.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another heretofore silent Elder, sitting beside John Fairley, exchanged
+      words in a whisper with him, and then addressed them. He was a very small
+      man with a very high stock and spreading collar, a thin face, and large
+      wide eyes. He kept his chin down in his collar, but spoke at the ceiling
+      like one blind, though his eyes were sharp enough on occasion. His name
+      was Meacham.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is meet there shall be time for sorrow and repentance,&rdquo; he said.
+      &ldquo;This, I pray you all, be our will: that for three months David live
+      apart, even in the hut where lived the drunken chair-maker ere he
+      disappeared and died, as rumour saith&mdash;it hath no tenant. Let it be
+      that after to-morrow night at sunset none shall speak to him till that
+      time be come, the first day of winter. Till that day he shall speak to no
+      man, and shall be despised of the world, and&mdash;pray God&mdash;of
+      himself. Upon the first day of winter let it be that he come hither again
+      and speak with us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On the long stillness of assent that followed there came a voice across
+      the room, from within a grey-and-white bonnet, which shadowed a delicate
+      face shining with the flame of the spirit within. It was the face of Faith
+      Claridge, the sister of the woman in the graveyard, whose soul was &ldquo;with
+      the Lord,&rdquo; though she was but one year older and looked much younger than
+      her nephew, David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Speak, David,&rdquo; she said softly. &ldquo;Speak now. Doth not the spirit move
+      thee?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She gave him his cue, for he had of purpose held his peace till all had
+      been said; and he had come to say some things which had been churning in
+      his mind too long. He caught the faint cool sarcasm in her tone, and
+      smiled unconsciously at her last words. She, at least, must have reasons
+      for her faith in him, must have grounds for his defence in painful days to
+      come; for painful they must be, whether he stayed to do their will, or
+      went into the fighting world where Quakers were few and life composite of
+      things they never knew in Hamley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He got to his feet and clasped his hands behind his back. After an instant
+      he broke silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All those things of which I am accused, I did; and for them is asked
+      repentance. Before that day on which I did these things was there
+      complaint, or cause for it? Was my life evil? Did I think in secret that
+      which might not be done openly? Well, some things I did secretly. Ye shall
+      hear of them. I read where I might, and after my taste, many plays, and
+      found in them beauty and the soul of deep things. Tales I have read, but a
+      few, and John Milton, and Chaucer, and Bacon, and Montaigne, and Arab
+      poets also, whose books my uncle sent me. Was this sin in me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It drove to a day of shame for thee,&rdquo; said the shrill Elder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took no heed, but continued: &ldquo;When I was a child I listened to the lark
+      as it rose from the meadow; and I hid myself in the hedge that, unseen, I
+      might hear it sing; and at night I waited till I could hear the
+      nightingale. I have heard the river singing, and the music of the trees.
+      At first I thought that this must be sin, since ye condemn the human voice
+      that sings, but I could feel no guilt. I heard men and women sing upon the
+      village green, and I sang also. I heard bands of music. One instrument
+      seemed to me more than all the rest. I bought one like it, and learned to
+      play. It was the flute&mdash;its note so soft and pleasant. I learned to
+      play it&mdash;years ago&mdash;in the woods of Beedon beyond the hill, and
+      I have felt no guilt from then till now. For these things I have no
+      repentance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee has had good practice in deceit,&rdquo; said the shrill Elder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly David&rsquo;s manner changed. His voice became deeper; his eyes took on
+      that look of brilliance and heat which had given Luke Claridge anxious
+      thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did, indeed, as the spirit moved me, even as ye have done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Blasphemer, did the spirit move thee to brawl and fight, to drink and
+      curse, to kiss a wanton in the open road? What hath come upon thee?&rdquo; Again
+      it was the voice of the shrill Elder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Judge me by the truth I speak,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Save in these things my
+      life has been an unclasped book for all to read.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Speak to the charge of brawling and drink, David,&rdquo; rejoined the little
+      Elder Meacham with the high collar and gaze upon the ceiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I not speak when I am moved? Ye have struck swiftly; I will draw
+      the arrow slowly from the wound. But, in truth, ye had good right to
+      wound. Naught but kindness have I had among you all; and I will answer.
+      Straightly have I lived since my birth. Yet betimes a torturing unrest of
+      mind was used to come upon me as I watched the world around us. I saw men
+      generous to their kind, industrious and brave, beloved by their fellows;
+      and I have seen these same men drink and dance and give themselves to
+      coarse, rough play like young dogs in a kennel. Yet, too, I have seen dark
+      things done in drink&mdash;the cheerful made morose, the gentle violent.
+      What was the temptation? What the secret? Was it but the low craving of
+      the flesh, or was it some primitive unrest, or craving of the soul, which,
+      clouded and baffled by time and labour and the wear of life, by this means
+      was given the witched medicament&mdash;a false freedom, a thrilling
+      forgetfulness? In ancient days the high, the humane, in search of cure for
+      poison, poisoned themselves, and then applied the antidote. He hath little
+      knowledge and less pity for sin who has never sinned. The day came when
+      all these things which other men did in my sight I did&mdash;openly. I
+      drank with them in the taverns&mdash;twice I drank. I met a lass in the
+      way. I kissed her. I sat beside her at the roadside and she told me her
+      brief, sad, evil story. One she had loved had left her. She was going to
+      London. I gave her what money I had&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And thy watch,&rdquo; said a whispering voice from the Elders&rsquo; bench.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even so. And at the cross-roads I bade her goodbye with sorrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There were those who saw,&rdquo; said the shrill voice from the bench.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They saw what I have said&mdash;no more. I had never tasted spirits in my
+      life. I had never kissed a woman&rsquo;s lips. Till then I had never struck my
+      fellow-man; but before the sun went down I fought the man who drove the
+      lass in sorrow into the homeless world. I did not choose to fight; but
+      when I begged the man Jasper Kimber for the girl&rsquo;s sake to follow and
+      bring her back, and he railed at me and made to fight me, I took off my
+      hat, and there I laid him in the dust.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No thanks to thee that he did not lie in his grave,&rdquo; observed the shrill
+      Elder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In truth I hit hard,&rdquo; was the quiet reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How came thee expert with thy fists?&rdquo; asked Elder Fairley, with the
+      shadow of a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A book I bought from London, a sack of corn, a hollow leather ball, and
+      an hour betimes with the drunken chair-maker in the hut by the lime-kiln
+      on the hill. He was once a sailor and a fighting man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A look of blank surprise ran slowly along the faces of the Elders. They
+      were in a fog of misunderstanding and reprobation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;While yet my father&rdquo;&mdash;he looked at Luke Claridge, whom he had ever
+      been taught to call his father&mdash;&ldquo;shared the great business at
+      Heddington, and the ships came from Smyrna and Alexandria, I had some
+      small duties, as is well known. But that ceased, and there was little to
+      do. Sports are forbidden among us here, and my body grew sick, because the
+      mind had no labour. The world of work has thickened round us beyond the
+      hills. The great chimneys rise in a circle as far as eye can see on yonder
+      crests; but we slumber and sleep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Enough, enough,&rdquo; said a voice from among the women. &ldquo;Thee has a friend
+      gone to London&mdash;thee knows the way. It leads from the cross-roads!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Faith Claridge, who had listened to David&rsquo;s speech, her heart panting, her
+      clear grey eyes&mdash;she had her mother&rsquo;s eyes&mdash;fixed benignly on
+      him, turned to the quarter whence the voice came. Seeing who it was&mdash;a
+      widow who, with no demureness, had tried without avail to bring Luke
+      Claridge to her&mdash;her lips pressed together in a bitter smile, and she
+      said to her nephew clearly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Patience Spielman hath little hope of thee, David. Hope hath died in
+      her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A faint, prim smile passed across the faces of all present, for all knew
+      Faith&rsquo;s allusion, and it relieved the tension of the past half-hour. From
+      the first moment David began to speak he had commanded his hearers. His
+      voice was low and even; but it had also a power which, when put to sudden
+      quiet use, compelled the hearer to an almost breathless silence, not so
+      much to the meaning of the words, but to the tone itself, to the man
+      behind it. His personal force was remarkable. Quiet and pale ordinarily,
+      his clear russet-brown hair falling in a wave over his forehead, when
+      roused, he seemed like some delicate engine made to do great labours. As
+      Faith said to him once, &ldquo;David, thee looks as though thee could lift great
+      weights lightly.&rdquo; When roused, his eyes lighted like a lamp, the whole man
+      seemed to pulsate. He had shocked, awed, and troubled his listeners. Yet
+      he had held them in his power, and was master of their minds. The
+      interjections had but given him new means to defend himself. After Faith
+      had spoken he looked slowly round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am charged with being profane,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I do not remember. But is
+      there none among you who has not secretly used profane words and, neither
+      in secret nor openly, has repented? I am charged with drinking. On one day
+      of my life I drank openly. I did it because something in me kept crying
+      out, &lsquo;Taste and see!&rsquo; I tasted and saw, and know; and I know that
+      oblivion, that brief pitiful respite from trouble, which this evil
+      tincture gives. I drank to know; and I found it lure me into a new
+      careless joy. The sun seemed brighter, men&rsquo;s faces seemed happier, the
+      world sang about me, the blood ran swiftly, thoughts swarmed in my brain.
+      My feet were on the mountains, my hands were on the sails of great ships;
+      I was a conqueror. I understood the drunkard in the first withdrawal
+      begotten of this false stimulant. I drank to know. Is there none among you
+      who has, though it be but once, drunk secretly as I drank openly? If there
+      be none, then I am condemned.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Amen,&rdquo; said Elder Fairley&rsquo;s voice from the bench. &ldquo;In the open way by the
+      cross-roads I saw a woman. I saw she was in sorrow. I spoke to her. Tears
+      came to her eyes. I took her hand, and we sat down together. Of the rest I
+      have told you. I kissed her&mdash;a stranger. She was comely. And this I
+      know, that the matter ended by the cross-roads, and that by and forbidden
+      paths have easy travel. I kissed the woman openly&mdash;is there none
+      among you who has kissed secretly, and has kept the matter hidden? For him
+      I struck and injured, it was fair. Shall a man be beaten like a dog?
+      Kimber would have beaten me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wherein has it all profited?&rdquo; asked the shrill Elder querulously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have knowledge. None shall do these things hereafter but I shall
+      understand. None shall go venturing, exploring, but I shall pray for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee will break thy heart and thy life exploring,&rdquo; said Luke Claridge
+      bitterly. Experiment in life he did not understand, and even Benn
+      Claridge&rsquo;s emigration to far lands had ever seemed to him a monstrous and
+      amazing thing, though it ended in the making of a great business in which
+      he himself had prospered, and from which he had now retired. He suddenly
+      realized that a day of trouble was at hand with this youth on whom his
+      heart doted, and it tortured him that he could not understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By none of these things shall I break my life,&rdquo; was David&rsquo;s answer now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a moment he stood still and silent, then all at once he stretched out
+      his hands to them. &ldquo;All these things I did were against our faith. I
+      desire forgiveness. I did them out of my own will; I will take up your
+      judgment. If there be no more to say, I will make ready to go to old
+      Soolsby&rsquo;s hut on the hill till the set time be passed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a long silence. Even the shrill Elder&rsquo;s head was buried in his
+      breast. They were little likely to forego his penalty. There was a gentle
+      inflexibility in their natures born of long restraint and practised
+      determination. He must go out into blank silence and banishment until the
+      first day of winter. Yet, recalcitrant as they held him, their secret
+      hearts were with him, for there was none of them but had had happy
+      commerce with him; and they could think of no more bitter punishment than
+      to be cut off from their own society for three months. They were satisfied
+      he was being trained back to happiness and honour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A new turn was given to events, however. The little wizened Elder Meacham
+      said: &ldquo;The flute, friend&mdash;is it here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have it here,&rdquo; David answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us have music, then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To what end?&rdquo; interjected the shrill Elder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He hath averred he can play,&rdquo; drily replied the other. &ldquo;Let us judge
+      whether vanity breeds untruth in him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The furtive brightening of the eyes in the women was represented in the
+      men by an assumed look of abstraction in most; in others by a bland
+      assumption of judicial calm. A few, however, frowned, and would have
+      opposed the suggestion, but that curiosity mastered them. These watched
+      with darkening interest the flute, in three pieces, drawn from an inner
+      pocket and put together swiftly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David raised the instrument to his lips, blew one low note, and then a
+      little run of notes, all smooth and soft. Mellowness and a sober sweetness
+      were in the tone. He paused a moment after this, and seemed questioning
+      what to play. And as he stood, the flute in his hands, his thoughts took
+      flight to his Uncle Benn, whose kindly, shrewd face and sharp brown eyes
+      were as present to him, and more real, than those of Luke Claridge, whom
+      he saw every day. Of late when he had thought of his uncle, however,
+      alternate depression and lightness of spirit had possessed him. Night
+      after night he had troubled sleep, and he had dreamed again and again that
+      his uncle knocked at his door, or came and stood beside his bed and spoke
+      to him. He had wakened suddenly and said &ldquo;Yes&rdquo; to a voice which seemed to
+      call to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Always his dreams and imaginings settled round his Uncle Benn, until he
+      had found himself trying to speak to the little brown man across the
+      thousand leagues of land and sea. He had found, too, in the past that when
+      he seemed to be really speaking to his uncle, when it seemed as though the
+      distance between them had been annihilated, that soon afterwards there
+      came a letter from him. Yet there had not been more than two or three a
+      year. They had been, however, like books of many pages, closely written,
+      in Arabic, in a crabbed characteristic hand, and full of the sorrow and
+      grandeur and misery of the East. How many books on the East David had read
+      he would hardly have been able to say; but something of the East had
+      entered into him, something of the philosophy of Mahomet and Buddha, and
+      the beauty of Omar Khayyam had given a touch of colour and intellect to
+      the narrow faith in which he had been schooled. He had found himself
+      replying to a question asked of him in Heddington, as to how he knew that
+      there was a God, in the words of a Muslim quoted by his uncle: &ldquo;As I know
+      by the tracks in the sand whether a Man or Beast has passed there, so the
+      heaven with its stars, the earth with its fruits, show me that God has
+      passed.&rdquo; Again, in reply to the same question, the reply of the same Arab
+      sprang to his lips&mdash;&ldquo;Does the Morning want a Light to see it by?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he stood with his flute&mdash;his fingers now and then caressingly
+      rising and falling upon its little caverns, his mind travelled far to
+      those regions he had never seen, where his uncle traded, and explored.
+      Suddenly, the call he had heard in his sleep now came to him in this
+      waking reverie. His eyes withdrew from the tree at the window, as if
+      startled, and he almost called aloud in reply; but he realised where he
+      was. At last, raising the flute to his lips, as the eyes of Luke Claridge
+      closed with very trouble, he began to play.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Out in the woods of Beedon he had attuned his flute to the stir of leaves,
+      the murmur of streams, the song of birds, the boom and burden of storm;
+      and it was soft and deep as the throat of the bell-bird of Australian
+      wilds. Now it was mastered by the dreams he had dreamed of the East: the
+      desert skies, high and clear and burning, the desert sunsets, plaintive
+      and peaceful and unvaried&mdash;one lovely diffusion, in which day dies
+      without splendour and in a glow of pain. The long velvety tread of the
+      camel, the song of the camel-driver, the monotonous chant of the
+      river-man, with fingers mechanically falling on his little drum, the cry
+      of the eagle of the Libyan Hills, the lap of the heavy waters of the Dead
+      Sea down by Jericho, the battle-call of the Druses beyond Damascus, the
+      lonely gigantic figures at the mouth of the temple of Abou Simbel, looking
+      out with the eternal question to the unanswering desert, the delicate
+      ruins of moonlit Baalbec, with the snow mountains hovering above, the
+      green oases, and the deep wells where the caravans lay down in peace&mdash;all
+      these were pouring their influences on his mind in the little Quaker
+      village of Hamley where life was so bare, so grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The music he played was all his own, was instinctively translated from all
+      other influences into that which they who listened to him could
+      understand. Yet that sensuous beauty which the Quaker Society was so
+      concerned to banish from any part in their life was playing upon them now,
+      making the hearts of the women beat fast, thrilling them, turning
+      meditation into dreams, and giving the sight of the eyes far visions of
+      pleasure. So powerful was this influence that the shrill Elder twice
+      essayed to speak in protest, but was prevented by the wizened Elder
+      Meacham. When it seemed as if the aching, throbbing sweetness must surely
+      bring denunciation, David changed the music to a slow mourning cadence. It
+      was a wail of sorrow, a march to the grave, a benediction, a soft sound of
+      farewell, floating through the room and dying away into the mid-day sun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There came a long silence after, and David sat with unmoving look upon the
+      distant prospect through the window. A woman&rsquo;s sob broke the air. Faith&rsquo;s
+      handkerchief was at her eyes. Only one quick sob, but it had been wrung
+      from her by the premonition suddenly come that the brother&mdash;he was
+      brother more than nephew&mdash;over whom her heart had yearned had,
+      indeed, come to the cross-roads, and that their ways would henceforth
+      divide. The punishment or banishment now to be meted out to him was as
+      nothing. It meant a few weeks of disgrace, of ban, of what, in effect, was
+      self-immolation, of that commanding justice of the Society which no one
+      yet save the late Earl of Eglington had defied. David could refuse to bear
+      punishment, but such a possibility had never occurred to her or to any one
+      present. She saw him taking his punishment as surely as though the law of
+      the land had him in its grasp. It was not that which she was fearing. But
+      she saw him moving out of her life. To her this music was the prelude of
+      her tragedy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A moment afterwards Luke Claridge arose and spoke to David in austere
+      tones: &ldquo;It is our will that thee begone to the chair-maker&rsquo;s but upon the
+      hill till three months be passed, and that none have speech with thee
+      after sunset to-morrow even.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Amen,&rdquo; said all the Elders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Amen,&rdquo; said David, and put his flute into his pocket, and rose to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III. BANISHED
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The chair-maker&rsquo;s hut lay upon the north hillside about half-way between
+      the Meeting-house at one end of the village and the common at the other
+      end. It commanded the valley, had no house near it, and was sheltered from
+      the north wind by the hill-top which rose up behind it a hundred feet or
+      more. No road led to it&mdash;only a path up from the green of the
+      village, winding past a gulley and the deep cuts of old rivulets now over
+      grown by grass or bracken. It got the sun abundantly, and it was protected
+      from the full sweep of any storm. It had but two rooms, the floor was of
+      sanded earth, but it had windows on three sides, east, west, and south,
+      and the door looked south. Its furniture was a plank bed, a few shelves, a
+      bench, two chairs, some utensils, a fireplace of stone, a picture of the
+      Virgin and Child, and of a cardinal of the Church of Rome with a red hat&mdash;for
+      the chair-maker had been a Roman Catholic, the only one of that communion
+      in Hamley. Had he been a Protestant his vices would have made him
+      anathema, but, being what he was, his fellow-villagers had treated him
+      with kindness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the half-day in which he was permitted to make due preparations, lay
+      in store of provisions, and purchase a few sheep and hens, hither came
+      David Claridge. Here, too, came Faith, who was permitted one hour with him
+      before he began his life of willing isolation. Little was said as they
+      made the journey up the hill, driving the sheep before them, four strong
+      lads following with necessities&mdash;flour, rice, potatoes, and suchlike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Arrived, the goods were deposited inside the hut, the lads were dismissed,
+      and David and Faith were left alone. David looked at his watch. They had
+      still a handful of minutes before the parting. These flew fast, and yet,
+      seated inside the door, and looking down at the village which the sun was
+      bathing in the last glowing of evening, they remained silent. Each knew
+      that a great change had come in their hitherto unchanging life, and it was
+      difficult to separate premonition from substantial fact. The present fact
+      did not represent all they felt, though it represented all on which they
+      might speak together now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Looking round the room, at last Faith said: &ldquo;Thee has all thee needs,
+      David? Thee is sure?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He nodded. &ldquo;I know not yet how little man may need. I have lived in
+      plenty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment her eyes rested on the Cloistered House.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Earl of Eglington would not call it plenty.&rdquo; A shade passed over
+      David&rsquo;s face. &ldquo;I know not how he would measure. Is his own field so wide?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The spread of a peacock&rsquo;s feather.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does thee know of him?&rdquo; David asked the question absently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have eyes to see, Davy.&rdquo; The shadows from that seeing were in her eyes
+      as she spoke, but he did not observe them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee sees but with half an eye,&rdquo; she continued. &ldquo;With both mine I have
+      seen horses and carriages, and tall footmen, and wine and silver, and
+      gilded furniture, and fine pictures, and rolls of new carpet&mdash;of
+      Uncle Benn&rsquo;s best carpets, Davy&mdash;and a billiard-table, and much
+      else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A cloud slowly gathered over David&rsquo;s face, and he turned to her with an
+      almost troubled surprise. &ldquo;Thee has seen these things&mdash;and how?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One day&mdash;thee was in Devon&mdash;one of the women was taken ill.
+      They sent for me because the woman asked it. She was a Papist; but she
+      begged that I should go with her to the hospital, as there was no time to
+      send to Heddington for a nurse. She had seen me once in the house of the
+      toll-gate keeper. Ill as she was, I could have laughed, for, as we went in
+      the Earl&rsquo;s carriage to the hospital-thirty miles it was&mdash;she said she
+      felt at home with me, my dress being so like a nun&rsquo;s. It was then I saw
+      the Cloistered House within and learned what was afoot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the Earl&rsquo;s carriage indeed&mdash;and the Earl?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was in Ireland, burrowing among those tarnished baubles, his titles,
+      and stripping the Irish Peter to clothe the English Paul.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He means to make Hamley his home? From Ireland these furnishings come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So it seems. Henceforth the Cloistered House will have its doors flung
+      wide. London and all the folk of Parliament will flutter along the dunes
+      of Hamley.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then the bailiff will sit yonder within a year, for he is but a starved
+      Irish peer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He lives to-day as though he would be rich tomorrow. He bids for fame and
+      fortune, Davy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Tis as though a shirtless man should wear a broadcloth coat over a
+      cotton vest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The world sees only the broadcloth coat. For the rest&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For the rest, Faith?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They see the man&rsquo;s face, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His eyes were embarrassed. A thought had flashed into his mind which he
+      considered unworthy, for this girl beside him was little likely to dwell
+      upon the face of a renegade peer, whose living among them was a constant
+      reminder of his father&rsquo;s apostasy. She was too fine, dwelt in such high
+      spheres, that he could not think of her being touched by the glittering
+      adventures of this daring young member of Parliament, whose book of
+      travels had been published, only to herald his understood determination to
+      have office in the Government, not in due time, but in his own time. What
+      could there be in common between the sophisticated Eglington and this
+      sweet, primitively wholesome Quaker girl?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Faith read what was passing in his mind. She flushed&mdash;slowly flushed
+      until her face&mdash;and eyes were one soft glow, then she laid a hand
+      upon his arm and said: &ldquo;Davy, I feel the truth about him&mdash;no more.
+      Nothing of him is for thee or me. His ways are not our ways.&rdquo; She paused,
+      and then said solemnly: &ldquo;He hath a devil. That I feel. But he hath also a
+      mind, and a cruel will. He will hew a path, or make others hew it for him.
+      He will make or break. Nothing will stand in his way, neither man nor
+      thing, those he loves nor those he hates. He will go on&mdash;and to go
+      on, all means, so they be not criminal, will be his. Men will prophesy
+      great things for him&mdash;they do so now. But nothing they prophesy,
+      Davy, keeps pace with his resolve.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How does thee know these things?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His question was one of wonder and surprise. He had never before seen in
+      her this sharp discernment and criticism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How know I, Davy? I know him by studying thee. What thee is not he is.
+      What he is thee is not.&rdquo; The last beams of the sun sent a sudden glint of
+      yellow to the green at their feet from the western hills, rising far over
+      and above the lower hills of the village, making a wide ocean of light, at
+      the bottom of which lay the Meeting-house and the Cloistered House, and
+      the Red Mansion with the fruited wall, and all the others, like dwellings
+      at the bottom of a golden sea. David&rsquo;s eyes were on the distance, and the
+      far-seeing look was in his face which had so deeply impressed Faith in the
+      Meeting-house, by which she had read his future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And shall I not also go on?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How far, who can tell?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a plaintive note in her voice&mdash;the unavailing and sad
+      protest of the maternal spirit, of the keeper of the nest, who sees the
+      brood fly safely away, looking not back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does thee see for me afar, Faith?&rdquo; His look was eager.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The will of God, which shall be done,&rdquo; she said with a sudden resolution,
+      and stood up. Her hands were lightly clasped before her like those of
+      Titian&rsquo;s Mater Dolorosa among the Rubens and Tintorettos of the Prado, a
+      lonely figure, whose lot it was to spend her life for others. Even as she
+      already had done; for thrice she had refused marriages suitable and
+      possible to her. In each case she had steeled her heart against loving,
+      that she might be all in all to her sister&rsquo;s child and to her father.
+      There is no habit so powerful as the habit of care of others. In Faith it
+      came as near being a passion as passion could have a place in her
+      even-flowing blood, under that cool flesh, governed by a heart as fair as
+      the apricot blossoms on the wall in her father&rsquo;s garden. She had been
+      bitterly hurt in the Meeting-house; as bitterly as is many a woman when
+      her lover has deceived her. David had acknowledged before them all that he
+      had played the flute secretly for years! That he should have played it was
+      nothing; that she should not have shared his secret, and so shared his
+      culpability before them all, was a wound which would take long to heal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She laid her hand upon his shoulder suddenly with a nervous little motion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the will of God thee shall do to His honour, though thee is outcast
+      to-day.... But, Davy, the music-thee kept it from me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked up at her steadily; he read what was in her mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hid it so, because I would not have thy conscience troubled. Thee would
+      go far to smother it for me; and I was not so ungrateful to thee. I did it
+      for good to thee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A smile passed across her lips. Never was woman so grateful, never wound
+      so quickly healed. She shook her head sadly at him, and stilling the proud
+      throbbing of her heart, she said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But thee played so well, Davy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He got up and turned his head away, lest he should laugh outright. Her
+      reasoning&mdash;though he was not worldly enough to call it feminine, and
+      though it scarce tallied with her argument&mdash;seemed to him quite her
+      own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long have we?&rdquo; he said over his shoulder. &ldquo;The sun is yet five
+      minutes up, or more,&rdquo; she said, a little breathlessly, for she saw his
+      hand inside his coat, and guessed his purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But thee will not dare to play&mdash;thee will not dare,&rdquo; she said, but
+      more as an invitation than a rebuke. &ldquo;Speech was denied me here, but not
+      my music. I find no sin in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She eagerly watched him adjust the flute. Suddenly she drew to him the
+      chair from the doorway, and beckoned him to sit down. She sat where she
+      could see the sunset.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The music floated through the room and down the hillside, a searching
+      sweetness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She kept her face ever on the far hills. It went on and on. At last it
+      stopped. David roused himself, as from a dream. &ldquo;But it is dark!&rdquo; he said,
+      startled. &ldquo;It is past the time thee should be with me. My banishment began
+      at sunset.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are all the sins to be thine?&rdquo; she asked calmly. She had purposely let
+      him play beyond the time set for their being together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-night, Davy.&rdquo; She kissed him on the cheek. &ldquo;I will keep the music
+      for the sin&rsquo;s remembrance,&rdquo; she added, and went out into the night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV. THE CALL
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;England is in one of those passions so creditable to her moral sense, so
+      illustrative of her unregulated virtues. We are living in the first
+      excitement and horror of the news of the massacre of Christians at
+      Damascus. We are full of righteous and passionate indignation. &lsquo;Punish&mdash;restore
+      the honour of the Christian nations&rsquo; is the proud appeal of prelate, prig,
+      and philanthropist, because some hundreds of Christians who knew their
+      danger, yet chose to take up their abode in a fanatical Muslim city of the
+      East, have suffered death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The meeting had been called in answer to an appeal from Exeter Hall. Lord
+      Eglington had been asked to speak, and these were among his closing words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had seen, as he thought, an opportunity for sensation. Politicians of
+      both sides, the press on all hands, were thundering denunciations upon the
+      city of Damascus, sitting insolent and satiated in its exquisite bloom of
+      pear and nectarine, and the deed itself was fading into that blank past of
+      Eastern life where there &ldquo;are no birds in last year&rsquo;s nest.&rdquo; If he voyaged
+      with the crowd, his pennant would be lost in the clustering sails! So he
+      would move against the tide, and would startle, even if he did not
+      convince.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us not translate an inflamed religious emotion into a war,&rdquo; he
+      continued. &ldquo;To what good? Would it restore one single life in Damascus?
+      Would it bind one broken heart? Would it give light to one darkened home?
+      Let us have care lest we be called a nation of hypocrites. I will neither
+      support nor oppose the resolution presented; I will content myself with
+      pointing the way to a greater national self-respect.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mechanically, a few people who had scarcely apprehended the full force of
+      his remarks began to applaud; but there came cries of &ldquo;&lsquo;Sh! &lsquo;Sh!&rdquo; and the
+      clapping of hands suddenly stopped. For a moment there was absolute
+      silence, in which the chairman adjusted his glasses and fumbled with the
+      agenda paper in his confusion, scarcely knowing what to do. The speaker
+      had been expected to second the resolution, and had not done so. There was
+      an awkward silence. Then, in a loud whisper, some one said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;David, David, do thee speak.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the voice of Faith Claridge. Perturbed and anxious, she had come to
+      the meeting with her father. They had not slept for nights, for the last
+      news they had had of Benn Claridge was from the city of Damascus, and they
+      were full of painful apprehensions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the eve of the first day of winter, and David&rsquo;s banishment was
+      over. Faith had seen David often at a distance&mdash;how often had she
+      stood in her window and looked up over the apricot-wall to the
+      chair-maker&rsquo;s hut on the hill! According to his penalty David had never
+      come to Hamley village, but had lived alone, speaking to no one, avoided
+      by all, working out his punishment. Only the day before the meeting he had
+      read of the massacre at Damascus from a newspaper which had been left on
+      his doorstep overnight. Elder Fairley had so far broken the covenant of
+      ostracism and boycott, knowing David&rsquo;s love for his Uncle Benn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All that night David paced the hillside in anxiety and agitation, and saw
+      the sun rise upon a new world&mdash;a world of freedom, of home-returning,
+      yet a world which, during the past four months, had changed so greatly
+      that it would never seem the same again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sun was scarce two hours high when Faith and her father mounted the
+      hill to bring him home again. He had, however, gone to Heddington to learn
+      further news of the massacre. He was thinking of his Uncle Benn-all else
+      could wait. His anxiety was infinitely greater than that of Luke Claridge,
+      for his mind had been disturbed by frequent premonitions; and those sudden
+      calls in his sleep-his uncle&rsquo;s voice&mdash;ever seemed to be waking him at
+      night. He had not meant to speak at the meeting, but the last words of the
+      speaker decided him; he was in a flame of indignation. He heard the voice
+      of Faith whisper over the heads of the people. &ldquo;David, David, do thee
+      speak.&rdquo; Turning, he met her eyes, then rose to his feet, came steadily to
+      the platform, and raised a finger towards the chairman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A great whispering ran through the audience. Very many recognised him, and
+      all had heard of him&mdash;the history of his late banishment and
+      self-approving punishment were familiar to them. He climbed the steps of
+      the platform alertly, and the chairman welcomed him with nervous pleasure.
+      Any word from a Quaker, friendly to the feeling of national indignation,
+      would give the meeting the new direction which all desired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Something in the face of the young man, grown thin and very pale during
+      the period of long thought and little food in the lonely and meditative
+      life he had led; something human and mysterious in the strange tale of his
+      one day&rsquo;s mad doings, fascinated them. They had heard of the liquor he had
+      drunk, of the woman he had kissed at the cross-roads, of the man he had
+      fought, of his discipline and sentence. His clean, shapely figure, and the
+      soft austerity of the neat grey suit he wore, his broad-brimmed hat pushed
+      a little back, showing well a square white forehead&mdash;all conspired to
+      send a wave of feeling through the audience, which presently broke into
+      cheering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beginning with the usual formality, he said: &ldquo;I am obliged to differ from
+      nearly every sentiment expressed by the Earl of Eglington, the member for
+      Levizes, who has just taken his seat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an instant&rsquo;s pause, the audience cheered, and cries of delight
+      came from all parts of the house. &ldquo;All good counsel has its sting,&rdquo; he
+      continued, &ldquo;but the good counsel of him who has just spoken is a sting in
+      a wound deeper than the skin. The noble Earl has bidden us to be
+      consistent and reasonable. I have risen here to speak for that to which
+      mere consistency and reason may do cruel violence. I am a man of peace, I
+      am the enemy of war&mdash;it is my faith and creed; yet I repudiate the
+      principle put forward by the Earl of Eglington, that you shall not clinch
+      your hand for the cause which is your heart&rsquo;s cause, because, if you
+      smite, the smiting must be paid for.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was interrupted by cheers and laughter, for the late event in his own
+      life came to them to point his argument.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The nation that declines war may be refusing to inflict that just
+      punishment which alone can set the wrong-doers on the better course. It is
+      not the faith of that Society to which I belong to decline correction lest
+      it may seem like war.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The point went home significantly, and cheering followed. &ldquo;The high wall
+      of Tibet, a stark refusal to open the door to the wayfarer, I can
+      understand; but, friend&rdquo;&mdash;he turned to the young peer&mdash;&ldquo;friend,
+      I cannot understand a defence of him who opens the door upon terms of
+      mutual hospitality, and then, in the red blood of him who has so
+      contracted, blots out the just terms upon which they have agreed. Is that
+      thy faith, friend?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The repetition of the word friend was almost like a gibe, though it was
+      not intended as such. There was none present, however, but knew of the
+      defection of the Earl&rsquo;s father from the Society of Friends, and they chose
+      to interpret the reference to a direct challenge. It was a difficult
+      moment for the young Earl, but he only smiled, and cherished anger in his
+      heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For some minutes David spoke with force and power, and he ended with
+      passionate solemnity. His voice rang out: &ldquo;The smoke of this burning rises
+      to Heaven, the winds that wail over scattered and homeless dust bear a
+      message of God to us. In the name of Mahomet, whose teaching condemns
+      treachery and murder, in the name of the Prince of Peace, who taught that
+      justice which makes for peace, I say it is England&rsquo;s duty to lay the iron
+      hand of punishment upon this evil city and on the Government in whose
+      orbit it shines with so deathly a light. I fear it is that one of my
+      family and of my humble village lies beaten to death in Damascus. Yet not
+      because of that do I raise my voice here to-day. These many years Benn
+      Claridge carried his life in his hands, and in a good cause it was held
+      like the song of a bird, to be blown from his lips in the day of the Lord.
+      I speak only as an Englishman. I ask you to close your minds against the
+      words of this brilliant politician, who would have you settle a bill of
+      costs written in Christian blood, by a promise to pay, got through a
+      mockery of armed display in those waters on which once looked the eyes of
+      the Captain of our faith. Humanity has been put in the witness-box of the
+      world; let humanity give evidence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Women wept. Men waved their hats and cheered; the whole meeting rose to
+      its feet and gave vent to its feelings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For some moments the tumult lasted, Eglington looking on with face
+      unmoved. As David turned to leave the table, however, he murmured,
+      &ldquo;Peacemaker! Peacemaker!&rdquo; and smiled sarcastically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the audience resumed their seats, two people were observed making their
+      way to the platform. One was Elder Fairley, leading the way to a tall
+      figure in a black robe covering another coloured robe, and wearing a large
+      white turban. Not seeing the new-comers, the chairman was about to put the
+      resolution; but a protesting hand from John Fairley stopped him, and in a
+      strange silence the two new-comers mounted the platform. David rose and
+      advanced to meet them. There flashed into his mind that this stranger in
+      Eastern garb was Ebn Ezra Bey, the old friend of Benn Claridge, of whom
+      his uncle had spoken and written so much. The same instinct drew Ebn Ezra
+      Bey to him&mdash;he saw the uncle&rsquo;s look in the nephew&rsquo;s face. In a
+      breathless stillness the Oriental said in perfect English, with a voice
+      monotonously musical:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came to thy house and found thee not. I have a message for thee from
+      the land where thine uncle sojourned with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took from a wallet a piece of paper and passed it to David, adding: &ldquo;I
+      was thine uncle&rsquo;s friend. He hath put off his sandals and walketh with
+      bare feet!&rdquo; David read eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is time to go, Davy,&rdquo; the paper said. &ldquo;All that I have is thine. Go to
+      Egypt, and thee shall find it so. Ebn Ezra Bey will bring thee. Trust him
+      as I have done. He is a true man, though the Koran be his faith. They took
+      me from behind, Davy, so that I was spared temptation&mdash;I die as I
+      lived, a man of peace. It is too late to think how it might have gone had
+      we met face to face; but the will of God worketh not according to our
+      will. I can write no more. Luke, Faith, and Davy&mdash;dear Davy, the
+      night has come, and all&rsquo;s well. Good morrow, Davy. Can you not hear me
+      call? I have called thee so often of late! Good morrow! Good morrow!... I
+      doff my hat, Davy&mdash;at last&mdash;to God!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David&rsquo;s face whitened. All his visions had been true visions, his dreams
+      true dreams. Brave Benn Claridge had called to him at his door&mdash;&ldquo;Good
+      morrow! Good morrow! Good morrow!&rdquo; Had he not heard the knocking and the
+      voice? Now all was made clear. His path lay open before him&mdash;a far
+      land called him, his quiet past was infinite leagues away. Already the
+      staff was in his hands and the cross-roads were sinking into the distance
+      behind. He was dimly conscious of the wan, shocked face of Faith in the
+      crowd beneath him, which seemed blurred and swaying, of the bowed head of
+      Luke Claridge, who, standing up, had taken off his hat in the presence of
+      this news of his brother&rsquo;s death which he saw written in David&rsquo;s face.
+      David stood for a moment before the great throng, numb and speechless. &ldquo;It
+      is a message from Damascus,&rdquo; he said at last, and could say no more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ebn Ezra Bey turned a grave face upon the audience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you hear me?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I am an Arab.&rdquo; &ldquo;Speak&mdash;speak!&rdquo; came
+      from every side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Turk hath done his evil work in Damascus,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;All the
+      Christians are dead&mdash;save one; he hath turned Muslim, and is safe.&rdquo;
+       His voice had a note of scorn. &ldquo;It fell sudden and swift like a storm in
+      summer. There were no paths to safety. Soldiers and those who led them
+      shared in the slaying. As he and I who had travelled far together these
+      many years sojourned there in the way of business, I felt the air grow
+      colder, I saw the cloud gathering. I entreated, but he would not go. If
+      trouble must come, then he would be with the Christians in their peril. At
+      last he saw with me the truth. He had a plan of escape. There was a
+      Christian weaver with his wife in a far quarter&mdash;against my entreaty
+      he went to warn them. The storm broke. He was the first to fall, smitten
+      in &lsquo;that street called Straight.&rsquo; I found him soon after. Thus did he
+      speak to me&mdash;even in these words: &lsquo;The blood of women and children
+      shed here to-day shall cry from the ground. Unprovoked the host has turned
+      wickedly upon his guest. The storm has been sown, and the whirlwind must
+      be reaped. Out of this evil good shall come. Shall not the Judge of all
+      the earth do right?&rsquo; These were his last words to me then. As his life
+      ebbed out, he wrote a letter which I have brought hither to one&rdquo;&mdash;he
+      turned to David&mdash;&ldquo;whom he loved. At the last he took off his hat, and
+      lay with it in his hands, and died.... I am a Muslim, but the God of pity,
+      of justice, and of right is my God; and in His name be it said that was a
+      crime of Sheitan the accursed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In a low voice the chairman put the resolution. The Earl of Eglington
+      voted in its favour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Walking the hills homeward with Ebn Ezra Bey, Luke, Faith, and John
+      Fairley, David kept saying over to himself the words of Benn Claridge: &ldquo;I
+      have called thee so often of late. Good morrow! Good morrow! Good morrow!
+      Can you not hear me call?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V. THE WIDER WAY
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Some months later the following letter came to David Claridge in Cairo
+      from Faith Claridge in Hamley:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   David, I write thee from the village and the land of the people
+   which thou didst once love so well. Does thee love them still?
+   They gave thee sour bread to eat ere thy going, but yet thee didst
+   grind the flour for the baking. Thee didst frighten all who knew
+   thee with thy doings that mad midsummer time. The tavern, the
+   theatre, the cross-roads, and the cockpit&mdash;was ever such a day!
+
+   Now, Davy, I must tell of a strange thing. But first, a moment.
+   Thee remembers the man Kimber smitten by thee at the public-house on
+   that day? What think thee has happened? He followed to London the
+   lass kissed by thee, and besought her to return and marry him. This
+   she refused at first with anger; but afterwards she said that, if in
+   three years he was of the same mind, and stayed sober and hard-
+   working meanwhile, she would give him an answer, she would consider.
+   Her head was high. She has become maid to a lady of degree, who has
+   well befriended her.
+
+   How do I know these things? Even from Jasper Kimber, who, on his
+   return from London, was taken to his bed with fever. Because of the
+   hard blows dealt him by thee, I went to make amends. He welcomed
+   me, and soon opened his whole mind. That mind has generous moments,
+   David, for he took to being thankful for thy knocks.
+
+   Now for the strange thing I hinted. After visiting Jasper Kimber at
+   Heddington, as I came back over the hill by the path we all took
+   that day after the Meeting&mdash;Ebn Ezra Bey, my father, Elder Fairley,
+   and thee and me&mdash;I drew near the chairmaker&rsquo;s but where thee lived
+   alone all those sad months. It was late evening; the sun had set.
+   Yet I felt that I must needs go and lay my hand in love upon the
+   door of the empty hut which had been ever as thee left it. So I
+   came down the little path swiftly, and then round the great rock,
+   and up towards the door. But, as I did so, my heart stood still,
+   for I heard voices. The door was open, but I could see no one. Yet
+   there the voices sounded, one sharp and peevish with anger, the
+   other low and rough. I could not hear what was said. At last, a
+   figure came from the door and went quickly down the hillside. Who,
+   think thee, was it? Even &ldquo;neighbour Eglington.&rdquo; I knew the walk
+   and the forward thrust of the head. Inside the hut all was still.
+   I drew near with a kind of fear, but yet I came to the door and
+   looked in.
+
+   As I looked into the dusk, my limbs trembled under me, for who
+   should be sitting there, a half-finished chair between his knees,
+   but Soolsby the old chair-maker! Yes, it was he. There he sat
+   looking at me with his staring blue eyes and shock of redgrey hair.
+   &ldquo;Soolsby! Soolsby!&rdquo; said I, my heart hammering at my breast; for
+   was not Soolsby dead and buried? His eyes stared at me in fright.
+   &ldquo;Why do you come?&rdquo; he said in a hoarse whisper. &ldquo;Is he dead, then?
+   Has harm come to him?&rdquo;
+ 
+   By now I had recovered myself, for it was no ghost I saw, but a
+   human being more distraught than was myself. &ldquo;Do you not know me,
+   Soolsby?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;You are Mercy Claridge from beyond&mdash;beyond and
+   away,&rdquo; he answered dazedly. &ldquo;I am Faith Claridge, Soolsby,&rdquo;
+    answered I. He started, peered forward at me, and for a moment he
+   did not speak; then the fear went from his face. &ldquo;Ay, Faith
+   Claridge, as I said,&rdquo; he answered, with apparent understanding, his
+   stark mood passing. &ldquo;No, thee said Mercy Claridge, Soolsby,&rdquo; said
+   I, &ldquo;and she has been asleep these many years.&rdquo; &ldquo;Ay, she has slept
+   soundly, thanks be to God!&rdquo; he replied, and crossed himself. &ldquo;Why
+   should thee call me by her name?&rdquo; I inquired. &ldquo;Ay, is not her tomb
+   in the churchyard?&rdquo; he answered, and added quickly, &ldquo;Luke Claridge
+   and I are of an age to a day&mdash;which, think you, will go first?&rdquo;
+ 
+   He stopped weaving, and peered over at me with his staring blue
+   eyes, and I felt a sudden quickening of the heart. For, at the
+   question, curtains seemed to drop from all around me, and leave me
+   in the midst of pains and miseries, in a chill air that froze me to
+   the marrow. I saw myself alone&mdash;thee in Egypt and I here, and none
+   of our blood and name beside me. For we are the last, Davy, the
+   last of the Claridges. But I said coldly, and with what was near to
+   anger, that he should link his name and fate with that of Luke
+   Claridge: &ldquo;Which of ye two goes first is God&rsquo;s will, and according
+   to His wisdom. Which, think thee,&rdquo; added I&mdash;and now I cannot
+   forgive myself for saying it&mdash;&ldquo;which, think thee, would do least
+   harm in going?&rdquo; &ldquo;I know which would do most good,&rdquo; he answered,
+   with a harsh laugh in his throat. Yet his blue eyes looked kindly
+   at me, and now he began to nod pleasantly. I thought him a little
+   mad, but yet his speech had seemed not without dark meaning. &ldquo;Thee
+   has had a visitor,&rdquo; I said to him presently. He laughed in a
+   snarling way that made me shrink, and answered: &ldquo;He wanted this and
+   he wanted that&mdash;his high-handed, second-best lordship. Ay, and he
+   would have it, because it pleased him to have it&mdash;like his father
+   before him. A poor sparrow on a tree-top, if you tell him he must
+   not have it, he will hunt it down the world till it is his, as
+   though it was a bird of paradise. And when he&rsquo;s seen it fall at
+   last, he&rsquo;ll remember but the fun of the chase; and the bird may get
+   to its tree-top again&mdash;if it can&mdash;if it can&mdash;if it can, my lord!
+   That is what his father was, the last Earl, and that is what he is
+   who left my door but now. He came to snatch old Soolsby&rsquo;s palace,
+   his nest on the hill, to use it for a telescope, or such whimsies.
+   He has scientific tricks like his father before him. Now is it
+   astronomy, and now chemistry, and suchlike; and always it is the
+   Eglington mind, which let God A&rsquo;mighty make it as a favour. He
+   would have old Soolsby&rsquo;s palace for his spy-glass, would he then?
+   It scared him, as though I was the devil himself, to find me here.
+   I had but come back in time&mdash;a day later, and he would have sat here
+   and seen me in the Pit below before giving way. Possession&rsquo;s nine
+   points were with me; and here I sat and faced him; and here he
+   stormed, and would do this and should do that; and I went on with my
+   work. Then he would buy my Colisyum, and I wouldn&rsquo;t sell it for all
+   his puffball lordship might offer. Isn&rsquo;t the house of the snail as
+   much to him as the turtle&rsquo;s shell to the turtle? I&rsquo;ll have no
+   upstart spilling his chemicals here, or devilling the stars from a
+   seat on my roof.&rdquo; &ldquo;Last autumn,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;David Claridge was housed
+   here. Thy palace was a prison then.&rdquo; &ldquo;I know well of that.
+   Haven&rsquo;t I found his records here? And do you think his makeshift
+   lordship did not remind me?&rdquo; &ldquo;Records? What records, Soolsby?&rdquo;
+    asked I, most curious. &ldquo;Writings of his thoughts which he forgot&mdash;
+   food for mind and body left in the cupboard.&rdquo; &ldquo;Give them to me upon
+   this instant, Soolsby,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;All but one,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;and that
+   is my own, for it was his mind upon Soolsby the drunken chair-maker.
+   God save him from the heathen sword that slew his uncle. Two better
+   men never sat upon a chair!&rdquo; He placed the papers in my hand, all
+   save that one which spoke of him. Ah, David, what with the flute
+   and the pen, banishment was no pain to thee!... He placed the
+   papers, save that one, in my hands, and I, womanlike, asked again
+   for all. &ldquo;Some day,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;come, and I will read it to you.
+   Nay, I will give you a taste of it now,&rdquo; he added, as he brought
+   forth the writing. &ldquo;Thus it reads.&rdquo;
+ 
+   Here are thy words, Davy. What think thee of them now?
+
+   &ldquo;As I dwell in this house I know Soolsby as I never knew him when he
+   lived, and though, up here, I spent many an hour with him. Men
+   leave their impressions on all around them. The walls which have
+   felt their look and their breath, the floor which has taken their
+   footsteps, the chairs in which they have sat, have something of
+   their presence. I feel Soolsby here at times so sharply that it
+   would seem he came again and was in this room, though he is dead and
+   gone. I ask him how it came he lived here alone; how it came that
+   he made chairs, he, with brains enough to build great houses or
+   great bridges; how it was that drink and he were such friends; and
+   how he, a Catholic, lived here among us Quakers, so singular,
+   uncompanionable, and severe. I think it true, and sadly true, that
+   a man with a vice which he is able to satisfy easily and habitually,
+   even as another satisfies a virtue, may give up the wider actions of
+   the world and the possibilities of his life for the pleasure which
+   his one vice gives him, and neither miss nor desire those greater
+   chances of virtue or ambition which he has lost. The simplicity of
+   a vice may be as real as the simplicity of a virtue.&rdquo;
+ 
+   Ah, David, David, I know not what to think of those strange words;
+   but old Soolsby seemed well to understand thee, and he called thee
+   &ldquo;a first-best gentleman.&rdquo; Is my story long? Well, it was so
+   strange, and it fixed itself upon my mind so deeply, and thy
+   writings at the hut have been so much in my hands and in my mind,
+   that I have put it all down here. When I asked Soolsby how it came
+   he had been rumoured dead, he said that he himself had been the
+   cause of it; but for what purpose he would not say, save that he was
+   going a long voyage, and had made up his mind to return no more. &ldquo;I
+   had a friend,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and I was set to go and see that friend
+   again.... But the years go on, and friends have an end. Life
+   spills faster than the years,&rdquo; he said. And he would say no more,
+   but would walk with me even to my father&rsquo;s door. &ldquo;May the Blessed
+   Virgin and all the Saints be with you,&rdquo; he said at parting, &ldquo;if you
+   will have a blessing from them. And tell him who is beyond and away
+   in Egypt that old Soolsby&rsquo;s busy making a chair for him to sit in
+   when the scarlet cloth is spread, and the East and West come to
+   salaam before him. Tell him the old man says his fluting will be
+   heard.&rdquo;
+ 
+   And now, David, I have told thee all, nearly. Remains to say that
+   thy one letter did our hearts good. My father reads it over and
+   over, and shakes his head sadly, for, truth is, he has a fear that
+   the world may lay its hand upon thee. One thing I do observe, his
+   heart is hard set against Lord Eglington. In degree it has ever
+   been so; but now it is like a constant frown upon his forehead. I
+   see him at his window looking out towards the Cloistered House; and
+   if our neighbour comes forth, perhaps upon his hunter, or now in his
+   cart, or again with his dogs, he draws his hat down upon his eyes
+   and whispers to himself. I think he is ever setting thee off
+   against Lord Eglington; and that is foolish, for Eglington is but a
+   man of the earth earthy. His is the soul of the adventurer.
+
+   Now what more to be set down? I must ask thee how is thy friend Ebn
+   Ezra Bey? I am glad thee did find all he said was true, and that in
+   Damascus thee was able to set a mark by my uncle&rsquo;s grave. But that
+   the Prince Pasha of Egypt has set up a claim against my uncle&rsquo;s
+   property is evil news; though, thanks be to God, as my father says,
+   we have enough to keep us fed and clothed and housed. But do thee
+   keep enough of thy inheritance to bring thee safe home again to
+   those who love thee. England is ever grey, Davy, but without thee
+   it is grizzled&mdash;all one &ldquo;Quaker drab,&rdquo; as says the Philistine. But
+   it is a comely and a good land, and here we wait for thee.
+
+   In love and remembrance.
+
+   I am thy mother&rsquo;s sister, thy most loving friend.
+
+                       FAITH.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      David received this letter as he was mounting a huge white Syrian donkey
+      to ride to the Mokattam Hills, which rise sharply behind Cairo, burning
+      and lonely and large. The cities of the dead Khalifas and Mamelukes
+      separated them from the living city where the fellah toiled, and Arab,
+      Bedouin, Copt strove together to intercept the fruits of his toiling, as
+      it passed in the form of taxes to the Palace of the Prince Pasha; while in
+      the dark corners crouched, waiting, the cormorant usurers&mdash;Greeks,
+      Armenians, and Syrians, a hideous salvage corps, who saved the house of a
+      man that they might at last walk off with his shirt and the cloth under
+      which he was carried to his grave. In a thousand narrow streets and lanes,
+      in the warm glow of the bazaars, in earth-damp huts, by blistering quays,
+      on the myriad ghiassas on the river, from long before sunrise till the
+      sunset-gun boomed from the citadel rising beside the great mosque whose
+      pinnacles seem to touch the blue, the slaves of the city of Prince Kaid
+      ground out their lives like corn between the millstones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David had been long enough in Egypt to know what sort of toiling it was. A
+      man&rsquo;s labour was not his own. The fellah gave labour and taxes and
+      backsheesh and life to the State, and the long line of tyrants above him,
+      under the sting of the kourbash; the high officials gave backsheesh to the
+      Prince Pasha, or to his Mouffetish, or to his Chief Eunuch, or to his
+      barber, or to some slave who had his ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But all the time the bright, unclouded sun looked down on a smiling land,
+      and in Cairo streets the din of the hammers, the voices of the boys
+      driving heavily laden donkeys, the call of the camel-drivers leading their
+      caravans into the great squares, the clang of the brasses of the
+      sherbet-sellers, the song of the vendor of sweetmeats, the drone of the
+      merchant praising his wares, went on amid scenes of wealth and luxury, and
+      the city glowed with colour and gleamed with light. Dark faces grinned
+      over the steaming pot at the door of the cafes, idlers on the benches
+      smoked hasheesh, female street-dancers bared their faces shamelessly to
+      the men, and indolent musicians beat on their tiny drums, and sang the
+      song of &ldquo;O Seyyid,&rdquo; or of &ldquo;Antar&rdquo;; and the reciter gave his sing-song tale
+      from a bench above his fellows. Here a devout Muslim, indifferent to the
+      presence of strangers, turned his face to the East, touched his forehead
+      to the ground, and said his prayers. There, hung to a tree by a deserted
+      mosque near by, the body of one who was with them all an hour before, and
+      who had paid the penalty for some real or imaginary crime; while his
+      fellows blessed Allah that the storm had passed them by. Guilt or
+      innocence did not weigh with them; and the dead criminal, if such he were,
+      who had drunk his glass of water and prayed to Allah, was, in their sight,
+      only fortunate and not disgraced, and had &ldquo;gone to the bosom of Allah.&rdquo;
+       Now the Muezzin from a minaret called to prayer, and the fellah in his
+      cotton shirt and yelek heard, laid his load aside, and yielded himself to
+      his one dear illusion, which would enable him to meet with apathy his end&mdash;it
+      might be to-morrow!&mdash;and go forth to that plenteous heaven where
+      wives without number awaited him, where fields would yield harvests
+      without labour, where rich food in gold dishes would be ever at his hand.
+      This was his faith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David had now been in the country six months, rapidly perfecting his
+      knowledge of Arabic, speaking it always to his servant Mahommed Hassan,
+      whom he had picked from the streets. Ebn Ezra Bey had gone upon his own
+      business to Fazougli, the tropical Siberia of Egypt, to liberate, by order
+      of Prince Kaid,&mdash;and at a high price&mdash;a relative banished there.
+      David had not yet been fortunate with his own business&mdash;the
+      settlement of his Uncle Benn&rsquo;s estate&mdash;though the last stages of
+      negotiation with the Prince Pasha seemed to have been reached. When he had
+      brought the influence of the British Consulate to bear, promises were
+      made, doors were opened wide, and Pasha and Bey offered him coffee and
+      talked to him sympathetically. They had respect for him more than for most
+      Franks, because the Prince Pasha had honoured him with especial favour.
+      Perhaps because David wore his hat always and the long coat with high
+      collar like a Turk, or because Prince Kaid was an acute judge of human
+      nature, and also because honesty was a thing he greatly desired&mdash;in
+      others&mdash;and never found near his own person; however it was, he had
+      set David high in his esteem at once. This esteem gave greater certainty
+      that any backsheesh coming from the estate of Benn Claridge would not be
+      sifted through many hands on its way to himself. Of Benn Claridge Prince
+      Kaid had scarcely even heard until he died; and, indeed, it was only
+      within the past few years that the Quaker merchant had extended his
+      business to Egypt and had made his headquarters at Assiout, up the river.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David&rsquo;s donkey now picked its way carefully through the narrow streets of
+      the Moosky. Arabs and fellaheen squatting at street corners looked at him
+      with furtive interest. A foreigner of this character they had never before
+      seen, with coat buttoned up like an Egyptian official in the presence of
+      his superior, and this wide, droll hat on his head. David knew that he ran
+      risks, that his confidence invited the occasional madness of a fanatical
+      mind, which makes murder of the infidel a passport to heaven; but as a man
+      he took his chances, and as a Christian he believed he would suffer no
+      mortal hurt till his appointed time. He was more Oriental, more fatalist,
+      than he knew. He had also early in his life learned that an honest smile
+      begets confidence; and his face, grave and even a little austere in
+      outline, was usually lighted by a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the Mokattam Hills, where he read Faith&rsquo;s letter again, his back
+      against one of the forts which Napoleon had built in his Egyptian days, he
+      scanned the distance. At his feet lay the great mosque, and the citadel,
+      whose guns controlled the city, could pour into it a lava stream of shot
+      and shell. The Nile wound its way through the green plains, stretching as
+      far to the north as eye could see between the opal and mauve and gold of
+      the Libyan Hills. Far over in the western vista a long line of trees,
+      twining through an oasis flanking the city, led out to a point where the
+      desert abruptly raised its hills of yellow sand. Here, enormous, lonely,
+      and cynical, the pyramids which Cheops had built, the stone sphinx of
+      Ghizeh, kept faith with the desert in the glow of rainless land-reminders
+      ever that the East, the mother of knowledge, will by knowledge prevail;
+      that:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+          &ldquo;The thousand years of thy insolence
+          The thousand years of thy faith,
+          Will be paid in fiery recompense,
+          And a thousand years of bitter death.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The sword&mdash;for ever the sword,&rdquo; David said to himself, as he looked:
+      &ldquo;Rameses and David and Mahomet and Constantine, and how many conquests
+      have been made in the name of God! But after other conquests there have
+      been peace and order and law. Here in Egypt it is ever the sword, the
+      survival of the strongest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he made his way down the hillside again he fell to thinking upon all
+      Faith had written. The return of the drunken chair-maker made a deep
+      impression on him&mdash;almost as deep as the waking dreams he had had of
+      his uncle calling him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Soolsby and me&mdash;what is there between Soolsby and me?&rdquo; he asked
+      himself now as he made his way past the tombs of the Mamelukes. &ldquo;He and I
+      are as far apart as the poles, and yet it comes to me now, with a strange
+      conviction, that somehow my life will be linked with that of the drunken
+      Romish chair-maker. To what end?&rdquo; Then he fell to thinking of his Uncle
+      Benn. The East was calling him. &ldquo;Something works within me to hold me
+      here, a work to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      From the ramparts of the citadel he watched the sun go down, bathing the
+      pyramids in a purple and golden light, throwing a glamour over all the
+      western plain, and making heavenly the far hills with a plaintive colour,
+      which spoke of peace and rest, but not of hope. As he stood watching, he
+      was conscious of people approaching. Voices mingled, there was light
+      laughter, little bursts of admiration, then lower tones, and then he was
+      roused by a voice calling. He turned round. A group of people were moving
+      towards the exit from the ramparts, and near himself stood a man waving an
+      adieu.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, give my love to the girls,&rdquo; said the man cheerily. Merry faces
+      looked back and nodded, and in a moment they were gone. The man turned
+      round, and looked at David, then he jerked his head in a friendly sort of
+      way and motioned towards the sunset.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good enough, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely, for me,&rdquo; answered David. On the instant he liked the red,
+      wholesome face, and the keen, round, blue eyes, the rather opulent figure,
+      the shrewd, whimsical smile, all aglow now with beaming sentimentality,
+      which had from its softest corner called out: &ldquo;Well, give my love to the
+      girls.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quaker, or I never saw Germantown and Philadelphy,&rdquo; he continued, with a
+      friendly manner quite without offence. &ldquo;I put my money on Quakers every
+      time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But not from Germantown or Philadelphia,&rdquo; answered David, declining a
+      cigar which his new acquaintance offered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bet you, I know that all right. But I never saw Quakers anywhere else,
+      and I meant the tribe and not the tent. English, I bet? Of course, or you
+      wouldn&rsquo;t be talking the English language&mdash;though I&rsquo;ve heard they talk
+      it better in Boston than they do in England, and in Chicago they&rsquo;re making
+      new English every day and improving on the patent. If Chicago can&rsquo;t have
+      the newest thing, she won&rsquo;t have anything. &lsquo;High hopes that burn like
+      stars sublime,&rsquo; has Chicago. She won&rsquo;t let Shakespeare or Milton be
+      standards much longer. She won&rsquo;t have it&mdash;simply won&rsquo;t have England
+      swaggering over the English language. Oh, she&rsquo;s dizzy, is Chicago&mdash;simply
+      dizzy. I was born there. Parents, one Philadelphy, one New York, one
+      Pawtucket&mdash;the Pawtucket one was the step-mother. Father liked his
+      wives from the original States; but I was born in Chicago. My name is
+      Lacey&mdash;Thomas Tilman Lacey of Chicago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank thee,&rdquo; said David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;David Claridge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of Hamley.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Claridge of Hamley. Mr. Claridge, I am glad to meet you.&rdquo; They shook
+      hands. &ldquo;Been here long, Mr. Claridge?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A few months only.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Queer place&mdash;gilt-edged dust-bin; get anything you like here, from a
+      fresh gutter-snipe to old Haroun-al-Raschid. It&rsquo;s the biggest jack-pot on
+      earth. Barnum&rsquo;s the man for this place&mdash;P. T. Barnum. Golly, how the
+      whole thing glitters and stews! Out of Shoobra his High Jinks Pasha
+      kennels with his lions and lives with his cellars of gold, as if he was
+      going to take them with him where he&rsquo;s going&mdash;and he&rsquo;s going fast.
+      Here&mdash;down here, the people, the real people, sweat and drudge
+      between a cake of dourha, an onion, and a balass of water at one end of
+      the day, and a hemp collar and their feet off the ground at the other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have seen much of Egypt?&rdquo; asked David, feeling a strange confidence
+      in the garrulous man, whose frankness was united to shrewdness and a
+      quick, observant eye.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How much of Egypt I&rsquo;ve seen, the Egypt where more men get lost, strayed,
+      and stolen than die in their beds every day, the Egypt where a eunuch is
+      more powerful than a minister, where an official will toss away a life as
+      I&rsquo;d toss this cigar down there where the last Mameluke captain made his
+      great jump, where women&mdash;Lord A&rsquo;mighty! where women are divorced by
+      one evil husband, by the dozen, for nothing they ever did or left undone,
+      and yet &lsquo;d be cut to pieces by their own fathers if they learned that &lsquo;To
+      step aside is human&mdash;&rsquo; Mr. Claridge, of that Egypt I don&rsquo;t know much
+      more&rsquo;n would entitle me to say, How d&rsquo;ye do. But it&rsquo;s enough for me.
+      You&rsquo;ve seen something&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A little. It is not civilised life here. Yet&mdash;yet a few strong
+      patriotic men&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lacey looked quizzically at David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I thought that about Mexico once. I said Manana&mdash;this
+      Manana is the curse of Mexico. It&rsquo;s always to-morrow&mdash;to-morrow&mdash;to-morrow.
+      Let&rsquo;s teach &lsquo;em to do things to-day. Let&rsquo;s show &lsquo;em what business means.
+      Two million dollars went into that experiment, but Manana won. We had good
+      hands, but it had the joker. After five years I left, with a bald head at
+      twenty-nine, and a little book of noble thoughts&mdash;Tips for the Tired,
+      or Things you can say To-day on what you can do to-morrow. I lost my hair
+      worrying, but I learned to be patient. The Dagos wanted to live in their
+      own way, and they did. It&rsquo;s one thing to be a missionary and say the
+      little word in season; it&rsquo;s another to run your soft red head against a
+      hard stone wall. I went to Mexico a conquistador, I left it a child of
+      time, who had learned to smile; and I left some millions behind me, too. I
+      said to an old Padre down there that I knew&mdash;we used to meet in the
+      Cafe Manrique and drink chocolate&mdash;I said to him, &lsquo;Padre, the Lord&rsquo;s
+      Prayer is a mistake down here.&rsquo; &lsquo;Si, senor,&rsquo; he said, and smiled his
+      far-away smile at me. &lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; said I, &lsquo;for you say in the Lord&rsquo;s Prayer,
+      &ldquo;Give us this day our daily bread.&rdquo;&rsquo; &lsquo;Si, senor,&rsquo; he says, &lsquo;but we do not
+      expect it till to-morrow!&rsquo; The Padre knew from the start, but I learned at
+      great expense, and went out of business&mdash;closed up shop for ever,
+      with a bald head and my Tips for the Tired. Well, I&rsquo;ve had more out of it
+      all, I guess, than if I&rsquo;d trebled the millions and wiped Manana off the
+      Mexican coat of arms.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think it would be like that here?&rdquo; David asked abstractedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lacey whistled. &ldquo;There the Government was all right and the people all
+      wrong. Here the people are all right and the Government all wrong. Say, it
+      makes my eyes water sometimes to see the fellah slogging away. He&rsquo;s a
+      Jim-dandy&mdash;works all day and half the night, and if the tax-gatherer
+      isn&rsquo;t at the door, wakes up laughing. I saw one&rdquo;&mdash;his light blue eyes
+      took on a sudden hardness&mdash;&ldquo;laughing on the other side of his mouth
+      one morning. They were &lsquo;kourbashing&rsquo; his feet; I landed on them as the
+      soles came away. I hit out.&rdquo; His face became grave, he turned the cigar
+      round in his mouth. &ldquo;It made me feel better, but I had a close call. Lucky
+      for me that in Mexico I got into the habit of carrying a pop-gun. It saved
+      me then. But it isn&rsquo;t any use going on these special missions. We
+      Americans think a lot of ourselves. We want every land to do as we do; and
+      we want to make &lsquo;em do it. But a strong man here at the head, with a sword
+      in his hand, peace in his heart, who&rsquo;d be just and poor&mdash;how can you
+      make officials honest when you take all you can get yourself&mdash;! But,
+      no, I guess it&rsquo;s no good. This is a rotten cotton show.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lacey had talked so much, not because he was garrulous only, but because
+      the inquiry in David&rsquo;s eyes was an encouragement to talk. Whatever his
+      misfortunes in Mexico had been, his forty years sat lightly on him, and
+      his expansive temperament, his childlike sentimentality, gave him an
+      appearance of beaming, sophisticated youth. David was slowly apprehending
+      these things as he talked&mdash;subconsciously, as it were; for he was
+      seeing pictures of the things he himself had observed, through the lens of
+      another mind, as primitive in some regards as his own, but influenced by
+      different experiences.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, you&rsquo;re the best listener I ever saw,&rdquo; added Lacey, with a laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David held out his hand. &ldquo;Thee sees things clearly,&rdquo; he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lacey grasped his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment an orderly advanced towards them. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s after us&mdash;one
+      of the Palace cavalry,&rdquo; said Lacey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Effendi&mdash;Claridge Effendi! May his grave be not made till the
+      karadh-gatherers return,&rdquo; said the orderly to David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name is Claridge,&rdquo; answered David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To the hotel, effendi, first, then to the Mokattam Hills after thee, then
+      here&mdash;from the Effendina, on whom be God&rsquo;s peace, this letter for
+      thee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David took the letter. &ldquo;I thank thee, friend,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he read it, Lacey said to the orderly in Arabic &ldquo;How didst thou know he
+      was here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The orderly grinned wickedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Always it is known what place the effendi honours. It is not dark where
+      he uncovers his face.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lacey gave a low whistle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, you&rsquo;ve got a pull in this show,&rdquo; he said, as David folded up the
+      letter and put it in his pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In Egypt, if the master smiles on you, the servant puts his nose in the
+      dust.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Prince Pasha bids me to dinner at the Palace to-night. I have no
+      clothes for such affairs. Yet&mdash;&rdquo; His mind was asking itself if this
+      was a door opening, which he had no right to shut with his own hand. There
+      was no reason why he should not go; therefore there might be a reason why
+      he should go. It might be, it no doubt was, in the way of facilitating his
+      business. He dismissed the orderly with an affirmative and ceremonial
+      message to Prince Kaid&mdash;and a piece of gold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve learned the custom of the place,&rdquo; said Lacey, as he saw the gold
+      piece glitter in the brown palm of the orderly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose the man&rsquo;s only pay is in such service,&rdquo; rejoined David. &ldquo;It is
+      a land of backsheesh. The fault is not with the people; it is with the
+      rulers. I am not sorry to share my goods with the poor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll have a big going concern here in no time,&rdquo; observed Lacey. &ldquo;Now,
+      if I had those millions I left in Mexico&mdash;&rdquo; Suddenly he stopped. &ldquo;Is
+      it you that&rsquo;s trying to settle up an estate here&mdash;at Assiout&mdash;belonged
+      to an uncle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David inclined his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They say that you and Prince Kaid are doing the thing yourselves, and
+      that the pashas and judges and all the high-mogul sharks of the Medjidie
+      think that the end of the world has come. Is that so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is so, if not completely so. There are the poor men and humble&mdash;the
+      pashas and judges and the others of the Medjidie, as thee said, are not
+      poor. But such as the orderly yonder&mdash;&rdquo; He paused meditatively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lacey looked at David with profound respect. &ldquo;You make the poorest your
+      partners, your friends. I see, I see. Jerusalem, that&rsquo;s masterly! I admire
+      you. It&rsquo;s a new way in this country.&rdquo; Then, after a moment: &ldquo;It&rsquo;ll do&mdash;by
+      golly, it&rsquo;ll do! Not a bit more costly, and you do some good with it. Yes&mdash;it&mdash;will&mdash;do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have given no man money save in charity and for proper service done
+      openly,&rdquo; said David, a little severely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say&mdash;of course. And that&rsquo;s just what isn&rsquo;t done here. Everything
+      goes to him who hath, and from him who hath not is taken away even that
+      which he hath. One does the work and another gets paid&mdash;that&rsquo;s the
+      way here. But you, Mr. Claridge, you clinch with the strong man at the
+      top, and, down below, you&rsquo;ve got as your partners the poor man, whose name
+      is Legion. If you get a fall out of the man at the top, you&rsquo;re solid with
+      the Legion. And if the man at the top gets up again and salaams and
+      strokes your hand, and says, &lsquo;Be my brother,&rsquo; then it&rsquo;s a full Nile, and
+      the fig-tree putteth forth its tender branches, and the date-palm
+      flourisheth, and at the village pond the thanksgiving turkey gobbles and
+      is glad. &lsquo;Selah&rsquo;!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sunset gun boomed out from the citadel. David turned to go, and Lacey
+      added:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m waiting for a pasha who&rsquo;s taking toll of the officers inside there&mdash;Achmet
+      Pasha. They call him the Ropemaker, because so many pass through his hands
+      to the Nile. The Old Muslin I call him, because he&rsquo;s so diaphanous. Thinks
+      nobody can see through him, and there&rsquo;s nobody that can&rsquo;t. If you stay
+      long in Egypt, you&rsquo;ll find that Achmet is the worst, and Nahoum the
+      Armenian the deepest, pasha in all this sickening land. Achmet is cruel as
+      a tiger to any one that stands in his way; Nahoum, the whale, only opens
+      out to swallow now and then; but when Nahoum does open out, down goes
+      Jonah, and never comes up again. He&rsquo;s a deep one, and a great artist is
+      Nahoum. I&rsquo;ll bet a dollar you&rsquo;ll see them both to-night at the Palace&mdash;if
+      Kaid doesn&rsquo;t throw them to the lions for their dinner before yours is
+      served. Here one shark is swallowed by another bigger, till at last the
+      only and original sea-serpent swallows &lsquo;em all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As David wound his way down the hills, Lacey waved a hand after him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, give my love to the girls,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI. &ldquo;HAST THOU NEVER KILLED A MAN?&rdquo;
+     </h2>
+    <h3>
+      &ldquo;Claridge Effendi!&rdquo;
+     </h3>
+    <p>
+      As David moved forward, his mind was embarrassed by many impressions. He
+      was not confused, but the glitter and splendour, the Oriental gorgeousness
+      of the picture into which he stepped, excited his eye, roused some new
+      sense in him. He was a curious figure in those surroundings. The consuls
+      and agents of all the nations save one were in brilliant uniform, and
+      pashas, generals, and great officials were splendid in gold braid and
+      lace, and wore flashing Orders on their breasts. David had been asked for
+      half-past eight o&rsquo;clock, and he was there on the instant; yet here was
+      every one assembled, the Prince Pasha included. As he walked up the room
+      he suddenly realised this fact, and, for a moment, he thought he had made
+      a mistake; but again he remembered distinctly that the letter said
+      half-past eight, and he wondered now if this had been arranged by the
+      Prince&mdash;for what purpose? To afford amusement to the assembled
+      company? He drew himself up with dignity, his face became graver. He had
+      come in a Quaker suit of black broadcloth, with grey steel buttons, and a
+      plain white stock; and he wore his broad-brimmed hat&mdash;to the
+      consternation of the British Consul-General and the Europeans present, to
+      the amazement of the Turkish and native officials, who eyed him keenly.
+      They themselves wore red tarbooshes, as did the Prince; yet all of them
+      knew that the European custom of showing respect was by doffing the hat.
+      The Prince Pasha had settled that with David, however, at their first
+      meeting, when David had kept on his hat and offered Kaid his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, with amusement in his eyes, Prince Kaid watched David coming up the
+      great hall. What his object was in summoning David for an hour when all
+      the court and all the official Europeans should be already present,
+      remained to be seen. As David entered, Kaid was busy receiving salaams,
+      and returning greeting, but with an eye to the singularly boyish yet
+      gallant figure approaching. By the time David had reached the group, the
+      Prince Pasha was ready to receive him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Friend, I am glad to welcome thee,&rdquo; said the Effendina, sly humour
+      lurking at the corner of his eye. Conscious of the amazement of all
+      present, he held out his hand to David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May thy coming be as the morning dew, friend,&rdquo; he added, taking David&rsquo;s
+      willing hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And thy feet, Kaid, wall in goodly paths, by the grace of God the
+      compassionate and merciful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As a wind, unfelt, stirs the leaves of a forest, making it rustle
+      delicately, a whisper swept through the room. Official Egypt was
+      dumfounded. Many had heard of David, a few had seen him, and now all eyed
+      with inquisitive interest one who defied so many of the customs of his
+      countrymen; who kept on his hat; who used a Mahommedan salutation like a
+      true believer; whom the Effendina honoured&mdash;and presently honoured in
+      an unusual degree by seating him at table opposite himself, where his
+      Chief Chamberlain was used to sit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During dinner Kaid addressed his conversation again and again to David,
+      asking questions put to disconcert the consuls and other official folk
+      present, confident in the naive reply which would be returned. For there
+      was a keen truthfulness in the young man&rsquo;s words which, however suave and
+      carefully balanced, however gravely simple and tactful, left no doubt as
+      to their meaning. There was nothing in them which could be challenged,
+      could be construed into active criticism of men or things; and yet much he
+      said was horrifying. It made Achmet Pasha sit up aghast, and Nahoum Pasha,
+      the astute Armenian, for a long time past the confidant and favourite of
+      the Prince Pasha, laugh in his throat; for, if there was a man in Egypt
+      who enjoyed the thrust of a word or the bite of a phrase, it was Nahoum.
+      Christian though he was, he was, nevertheless, Oriental to his farthermost
+      corner, and had the culture of a French savant. He had also the primitive
+      view of life, and the morals of a race who, in the clash of East and West,
+      set against Western character and directness, and loyalty to the terms of
+      a bargain, the demoralised cunning of the desert folk; the circuitous
+      tactics of those who believed that no man spoke the truth directly, that
+      it must ever be found beneath devious and misleading words, to be tracked
+      like a panther, as an Antipodean bushman once said, &ldquo;through the
+      sinuosities of the underbrush.&rdquo; Nahoum Pasha had also a rich sense of grim
+      humour. Perhaps that was why he had lived so near the person of the
+      Prince, had held office so long. There were no Grand Viziers in Egypt; but
+      he was as much like one as possible, and he had one uncommon virtue, he
+      was greatly generous. If he took with his right hand he gave with his
+      left; and Mahommedan as well as Copt and Armenian, and beggars of every
+      race and creed, hung about his doors each morning to receive the food and
+      alms he gave freely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After one of David&rsquo;s answers to Kaid, which had had the effect of causing
+      his Highness to turn a sharp corner of conversation by addressing himself
+      to the French consul, Nahoum said suavely:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so, monsieur, you think that we hold life lightly in the East&mdash;that
+      it is a characteristic of civilisation to make life more sacred, to
+      cherish it more fondly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was sitting beside David, and though he asked the question casually,
+      and with apparent intention only of keeping talk going, there was a
+      lurking inquisition in his eye. He had seen enough to-night to make him
+      sure that Kaid had once more got the idea of making a European his
+      confidant and adviser; to introduce to his court one of those mad
+      Englishmen who cared nothing for gold&mdash;only for power; who loved
+      administration for the sake of administration and the foolish joy of
+      labour. He was now set to see what sort of match this intellect could
+      play, when faced by the inherent contradictions present in all truths or
+      the solutions of all problems.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is one of the characteristics of that which lies behind civilisation,
+      as thee and me have been taught,&rdquo; answered David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nahoum was quick in strategy, but he was unprepared for David&rsquo;s knowledge
+      that he was an Armenian Christian, and he had looked for another answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he kept his head and rose to the occasion. &ldquo;Ah, it is high, it is
+      noble, to save life&mdash;it is so easy to destroy it,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;I
+      saw his Highness put his life in danger once to save a dog from drowning.
+      To cherish the lives of others, and to be careless of our own; to give
+      that of great value as though it were of no worth&mdash;is it not the
+      Great Lesson?&rdquo; He said it with such an air of sincerity, with such
+      dissimulation, that, for the moment, David was deceived. There was,
+      however, on the face of the listening Kaid a curious, cynical smile. He
+      had heard all, and he knew the sardonic meaning behind Nahoum&rsquo;s words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fat High Pasha, the Chief Chamberlain, the corrupt and corruptible,
+      intervened. &ldquo;It is not so hard to be careless when care would be useless,&rdquo;
+       he said, with a chuckle. &ldquo;When the khamsin blows the dust-storms upon the
+      caravan, the camel-driver hath no care for his camels. &lsquo;Malaish!&rsquo; he says,
+      and buries his face in his yelek.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Life is beautiful and so difficult&mdash;to save,&rdquo; observed Nahoum, in a
+      tone meant to tempt David on one hand and to reach the ears of the
+      notorious Achmet Pasha, whose extortions, cruelties, and taxations had
+      built his master&rsquo;s palaces, bribed his harem, given him money to pay the
+      interest on his European loans, and made himself the richest man in Egypt,
+      whose spies were everywhere, whose shadow was across every man&rsquo;s path.
+      Kaid might slay, might toss a pasha or a slave into the Nile now and then,
+      might invite a Bey to visit him, and stroke his beard and call him brother
+      and put diamond-dust in the coffee he drank, so that he died before two
+      suns came and went again, &ldquo;of inflammation and a natural death&rdquo;; but he,
+      Achmet Pasha, was the dark Inquisitor who tortured every day, for whose
+      death all men prayed, and whom some would have slain, but that another
+      worse than himself might succeed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Nahoum&rsquo;s words the dusky brown of Achmet&rsquo;s face turned as black as the
+      sudden dilation of the pupil of an eye deepens its hue, and he said with a
+      guttural accent:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Every man hath a time to die.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But not his own time,&rdquo; answered Nahoum maliciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would appear that in Egypt he hath not always the choice of the
+      fashion or the time,&rdquo; remarked David calmly. He had read the malice behind
+      their words, and there had flashed into his own mind tales told him, with
+      every circumstance of accuracy, of deaths within and without the Palace.
+      Also he was now aware that Nahoum had mocked him. He was concerned to make
+      it clear that he was not wholly beguiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there, then, for a man choice of fashion or time in England, effendi?&rdquo;
+       asked Nahoum, with assumed innocence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In England it is a matter between the Giver and Taker of life and himself&mdash;save
+      where murder does its work,&rdquo; said David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And here it is between man and man&mdash;is it that you would say?&rdquo; asked
+      Nahoum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There seem wider privileges here,&rdquo; answered David drily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Accidents will happen, privileges or no,&rdquo; rejoined Nahoum, with lowering
+      eyelids.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince intervened. &ldquo;Thy own faith forbids the sword, forbids war, or&mdash;punishment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Prophet I follow was called the Prince of Peace, friend,&rdquo; answered
+      David, bowing gravely across the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hast thou never killed a man?&rdquo; asked Kaid, with interest in his eyes. He
+      asked the question as a man might ask another if he had never visited
+      Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never, by the goodness of God, never,&rdquo; answered David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Neither in punishment nor in battle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am neither judge nor soldier, friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Inshallah, thou hast yet far to go! Thou art young yet. Who can tell?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have never so far to go as that, friend,&rdquo; said David, in a voice that
+      rang a little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-morrow is no man&rsquo;s gift.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David was about to answer, but chancing to raise his eyes above the Prince
+      Pasha&rsquo;s head, his glance was arrested and startled by seeing a face&mdash;the
+      face of a woman-looking out of a panel in a mooshrabieh screen in a
+      gallery above. He would not have dwelt upon the incident, he would have
+      set it down to the curiosity of a woman of the harem, but that the face
+      looking out was that of an English girl, and peering over her shoulder was
+      the dark, handsome face of an Egyptian or a Turk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Self-control was the habit of his life, the training of his faith, and, as
+      a rule, his face gave little evidence of inner excitement. Demonstration
+      was discouraged, if not forbidden, among the Quakers, and if, to others,
+      it gave a cold and austere manner, in David it tempered to a warm
+      stillness the powerful impulses in him, the rivers of feeling which
+      sometimes roared through his veins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Only Nahoum Pasha had noticed his arrested look, so motionless did he sit;
+      and now, without replying, he bowed gravely and deferentially to Kaid, who
+      rose from the table. He followed with the rest. Presently the Prince sent
+      Higli Pasha to ask his nearer presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Prince made a motion of his hand, and the circle withdrew. He waved
+      David to a seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-morrow thy business shall be settled,&rdquo; said the Prince suavely, &ldquo;and
+      on such terms as will not startle. Death-tribute is no new thing in the
+      East. It is fortunate for thee that the tribute is from thy hand to my
+      hand, and not through many others to mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am conscious I have been treated with favour, friend,&rdquo; said David. &ldquo;I
+      would that I might show thee kindness. Though how may a man of no account
+      make return to a great Prince?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By the beard of my father, it is easily done, if thy kindness is a real
+      thing, and not that which makes me poorer the more I have of it&mdash;as
+      though one should be given a herd of horses which must not be sold but
+      still must be fed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have given thee truth. Is not truth cheaper than falsehood?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the most expensive thing in Egypt; so that I despair of buying
+      thee. Yet I would buy thee to remain here&mdash;here at my court; here by
+      my hand which will give thee the labour thou lovest, and will defend thee
+      if defence be needed. Thou hast not greed, thou hast no thirst for honour,
+      yet thou hast wisdom beyond thy years. Kaid has never besought men, but he
+      beseeches thee. Once there was in Egypt, Joseph, a wise youth, who served
+      a Pharaoh, and was his chief counsellor, and it was well with the land.
+      Thy name is a good name; well-being may follow thee. The ages have gone,
+      and the rest of the world has changed, but Egypt is the same Egypt, the
+      Nile rises and falls, and the old lean years and fat years come and go.
+      Though I am in truth a Turk, and those who serve and rob me here are
+      Turks, yet the fellah is the same as he was five thousand years ago. What
+      Joseph the Israelite did, thou canst do; for I am no more unjust than was
+      that Rameses whom Joseph served. Wilt thou stay with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David looked at Kaid as though he would read in his face the reply that he
+      must make, but he did not see Kaid; he saw, rather, the face of one he had
+      loved more than Jonathan had been loved by the young shepherd-prince of
+      Israel. In his ears he heard the voice that had called him in his
+      sleep-the voice of Benn Claridge; and, at the same instant, there flashed
+      into his mind a picture of himself fighting outside the tavern beyond
+      Hamley and bidding farewell to the girl at the crossroads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Friend, I cannot answer thee now,&rdquo; he said, in a troubled voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid rose. &ldquo;I will give thee an hour to think upon it. Come with me.&rdquo; He
+      stepped forward. &ldquo;To-morrow I will answer thee, Kaid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-morrow there is work for thee to do. Come.&rdquo; David followed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The eyes that followed the Prince and the Quaker were not friendly. What
+      Kaid had long foreshadowed seemed at hand: the coming of a European
+      counsellor and confidant. They realised that in the man who had just left
+      the room with Kaid there were characteristics unlike those they had ever
+      met before in Europeans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A madman,&rdquo; whispered High Pasha to Achmet the Ropemaker.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then his will be the fate of the swine of Gadarene,&rdquo; said Nahoum Pasha,
+      who had heard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At least one need not argue with a madman.&rdquo; The face of Achmet the
+      Ropemaker was not more pleasant than his dark words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not the madman with whom you have to deal, but his keeper,&rdquo;
+       rejoined Nahoum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nahoum&rsquo;s face was heavier than usual. Going to weight, he was still
+      muscular and well groomed. His light brown beard and hair and blue eyes
+      gave him a look almost Saxon, and bland power spoke in his face and in
+      every gesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was seldom without the string of beads so many Orientals love to carry,
+      and, Armenian Christian as he was, the act seemed almost religious. It was
+      to him, however, like a ground-wire in telegraphy&mdash;it carried off the
+      nervous force tingling in him and driving him to impulsive action, while
+      his reputation called for a constant outward urbanity, a philosophical
+      apathy. He had had his great fight for place and power, alien as he was in
+      religion, though he had lived in Egypt since a child. Bar to progress as
+      his religion had been at first, it had been an advantage afterwards; for,
+      through it, he could exclude himself from complications with the Wakfs,
+      the religious court of the Muslim creed, which had lands to administer,
+      and controlled the laws of marriage and inheritance. He could shrug his
+      shoulders and play with his beads, and urbanely explain his own
+      helplessness and ineligibility when his influence was summoned, or it was
+      sought to entangle him in warring interests. Oriental through and through,
+      the basis of his creed was similar to that of a Muslim: Mahomet was a
+      prophet and Christ was a prophet. It was a case of rival prophets&mdash;all
+      else was obscured into a legend, and he saw the strife of race in the
+      difference of creed. For the rest, he flourished the salutations and
+      language of the Arab as though they were his own, and he spoke Arabic as
+      perfectly as he did French and English.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was the second son of his father. The first son, who was but a year
+      older, and was as dark as he was fair, had inherited&mdash;had seized&mdash;all
+      his father&rsquo;s wealth. He had lived abroad for some years in France and
+      England. In the latter place he had been one of the Turkish Embassy, and,
+      having none of the outward characteristics of the Turk, and being in
+      appearance more of a Spaniard than an Oriental, he had, by his gifts, his
+      address and personal appearance, won the good-will of the Duchess of
+      Middlesex, and had had that success all too flattering to the soul of a
+      libertine. It had, however, been the means of his premature retirement
+      from England, for his chief at the Embassy had a preference for an
+      Oriental entourage. He was called Foorgat Bey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sitting at table, Nahoum alone of all present had caught David&rsquo;s arrested
+      look, and, glancing up, had seen the girl&rsquo;s face at the panel of
+      mooshrabieh, and had seen also over her shoulder the face of his brother,
+      Foorgat Bey. He had been even more astonished than David, and far more
+      disturbed. He knew his brother&rsquo;s abilities; he knew his insinuating
+      address&mdash;had he not influenced their father to give him wealth while
+      he was yet alive? He was aware also that his brother had visited the
+      Palace often of late. It would seem as though the Prince Pasha was ready
+      to make him, as well as David, a favourite. But the face of the girl&mdash;it
+      was an English face! Familiar with the Palace, and bribing when it was
+      necessary to bribe, Foorgat Bey had evidently brought her to see the
+      function, there where all women were forbidden. He could little imagine
+      Foorgat doing this from mere courtesy; he could not imagine any woman,
+      save one wholly sophisticated, or one entirely innocent, trusting herself
+      with him&mdash;and in such a place. The girl&rsquo;s face, though not that of
+      one in her teens, had seemed to him a very flower of innocence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, as he stood telling his beads, abstractedly listening to the scandal
+      talked by Achmet and Higli, he was not thinking of his brother, but of the
+      two who had just left the chamber. He was speculating as to which room
+      they were likely to enter. They had not gone by the door convenient to
+      passage to Kaid&rsquo;s own apartments. He would give much to hear the
+      conversation between Kaid and the stranger; he was all too conscious of
+      its purport. As he stood thinking, Kaid returned. After looking round the
+      room for a moment, the Prince came slowly over to Nahoum, and, stretching
+      out a hand, stroked his beard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, brother of all the wise, may thy sun never pass its noon!&rdquo; said Kaid,
+      in a low, friendly voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Despite his will, a shudder passed through Nahoum Pasha&rsquo;s frame. How often
+      in Egypt this gesture and such words were the prelude to assassination,
+      from which there was no escape save by death itself. Into Nahoum&rsquo;s mind
+      there flashed the words of an Arab teacher, &ldquo;There is no refuge from God
+      but God Himself,&rdquo; and he found himself blindly wondering, even as he felt
+      Kaid&rsquo;s hand upon his beard and listened to the honeyed words, what manner
+      of death was now preparing for him, and what death of his own contriving
+      should intervene. Escape, he knew, there was none, if his death was
+      determined on; for spies were everywhere, and slaves in the pay of Kaid
+      were everywhere, and such as were not could be bought or compelled, even
+      if he took refuge in the house of a foreign consul. The lean, invisible,
+      ghastly arm of death could find him, if Kaid willed, though he delved in
+      the bowels of the Cairene earth, or climbed to an eagle&rsquo;s eyrie in the
+      Libyan Hills. Whether it was diamond-dust or Achmet&rsquo;s thin thong that
+      stopped the breath, it mattered not; it was sure. Yet he was not of the
+      breed to tremble under the descending sword, and he had long accustomed
+      himself to the chance of &ldquo;sudden demise.&rdquo; It had been chief among the
+      chances he had taken when he entered the high and perilous service of
+      Kaid. Now, as he felt the secret joy of these dark spirits surrounding him&mdash;Achmet,
+      and High Pasha, who kept saying beneath his breath in thankfulness that it
+      was not his turn, Praise be to God!&mdash;as he, felt their secret
+      self-gratulations, and their evil joy over his prospective downfall, he
+      settled himself steadily, made a low salutation to Kaid, and calmly
+      awaited further speech. It came soon enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is written upon a cucumber leaf&mdash;does not the world read it?&mdash;that
+      Nahoum Pasha&rsquo;s form shall cast a longer shadow than the trees; so that
+      every man in Egypt shall, thinking on him, be as covetous as Ashaah, who
+      knew but one thing more covetous than himself&mdash;the sheep that mistook
+      the rainbow for a rope of hay, and, jumping for it, broke his neck.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid laughed softly at his own words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With his eye meeting Kaid&rsquo;s again, after a low salaam, Nahoum made answer:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would that the lance of my fame might sheathe itself in the breasts of
+      thy enemies, Effendina.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thy tongue does that office well,&rdquo; was the reply. Once more Kaid laid a
+      gentle hand upon Nahoum&rsquo;s beard. Then, with a gesture towards the consuls
+      and Europeans, he said to them in French: &ldquo;If I might but beg your
+      presence for yet a little time!&rdquo; Then he turned and walked away. He left
+      by a door leading to his own apartments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had gone, Nahoum swung slowly round and faced the agitated groups.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He who sleeps with one eye open sees the sun rise first,&rdquo; he said, with a
+      sarcastic laugh. &ldquo;He who goes blindfold never sees it set.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, with a complacent look upon them all, he slowly left the room by the
+      door out of which David and Kaid had first passed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Outside the room his face did not change. His manner had not been bravado.
+      It was as natural to him as David&rsquo;s manner was to himself. Each had
+      trained himself in his own way to the mastery of his will, and the will in
+      each was stronger than any passion of emotion in them. So far at least it
+      had been so. In David it was the outcome of his faith, in Nahoum it was
+      the outcome of his philosophy, a simple, fearless fatalism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David had been left by Kaid in a small room, little more than an alcove,
+      next to a larger room richly furnished. Both rooms belonged to a spacious
+      suite which lay between the harem and the major portion of the Palace. It
+      had its own entrance and exits from the Palace, opening on the square at
+      the front, at the back opening on its own garden, which also had its own
+      exits to the public road. The quarters of the Chief Eunuch separated the
+      suite from the harem, and Mizraim, the present Chief Eunuch, was a man of
+      power in the Palace, knew more secrets, was more courted, and was richer
+      than some of the princes. Nahoum had an office in the Palace, also, which
+      gave him the freedom of the place, and brought him often in touch with the
+      Chief Eunuch. He had made Mizraim a fast friend ever since the day he had,
+      by an able device, saved the Chief Eunuch from determined robbery by the
+      former Prince Pasha, with whom he had suddenly come out of favour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Nahoum left the great salon, he directed his steps towards the
+      quarters of the Chief Eunuch, thinking of David, with a vague desire for
+      pursuit and conflict. He was too much of a philosopher to seek to do David
+      physical injury&mdash;a futile act; for it could do him no good in the
+      end, could not mend his own fortunes; and, merciless as he could be on
+      occasion, he had no love of bloodshed. Besides, the game afoot was not of
+      his making, and he was ready to await the finish, the more so because he
+      was sure that to-morrow would bring forth momentous things. There was a
+      crisis in the Soudan, there was trouble in the army, there was dark
+      conspiracy of which he knew the heart, and anything might happen
+      to-morrow! He had yet some cards to play, and Achmet and Higli&mdash;and
+      another very high and great&mdash;might be delivered over to Kaid&rsquo;s deadly
+      purposes rather than himself tomorrow. What he knew Kaid did not know. He
+      had not meant to act yet; but new facts faced him, and he must make one
+      struggle for his life. But as he went towards Mizraim&rsquo;s quarters he saw no
+      sure escape from the stage of those untoward events, save by the exit
+      which is for all in some appointed hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was not, however, more perplexed and troubled than David, who, in the
+      little room where he had been brought and left alone with coffee and
+      cigarettes, served by a slave from some distant portion of the Palace, sat
+      facing his future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David looked round the little room. Upon the walls hung weapons of every
+      kind&mdash;from a polished dagger of Toledo to a Damascus blade, suits of
+      chain armour, long-handled, two-edged Arab swords, pistols which had been
+      used in the Syrian wars of Ibrahim, lances which had been taken from the
+      Druses at Palmyra, rude battle-axes from the tribes of the Soudan, and
+      neboots of dom-wood which had done service against Napoleon at Damietta.
+      The cushions among which he sat had come from Constantinople, the rug at
+      his feet from Tiflis, the prayer-rug on the wall from Mecca.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All that he saw was as unlike what he had known in past years as though he
+      had come to Mars or Jupiter. All that he had heard recalled to him his
+      first readings in the Old Testament&mdash;the story of Nebuchadnezzar, of
+      Belshazzar, of Ahasuerus&mdash;of Ahasuerus! He suddenly remembered the
+      face he had seen looking down at the Prince&rsquo;s table from the panel of
+      mooshrabieh. That English face&mdash;where was it? Why was it there? Who
+      was the man with her? Whose the dark face peering scornfully over her
+      shoulder? The face of an English girl in that place dedicated to sombre
+      intrigue, to the dark effacement of women, to the darker effacement of
+      life, as he well knew, all too often! In looking at this prospect for good
+      work in the cause of civilisation, he was not deceived, he was not
+      allured. He knew into what subterranean ways he must walk, through what
+      mazes of treachery and falsehood he must find his way; and though he did
+      not know to the full the corruption which it was his duty to Kaid to turn
+      to incorruption, he knew enough to give his spirit pause. What would be&mdash;what
+      could be&mdash;the end? Would he not prove to be as much out of place as
+      was the face of that English girl? The English girl! England rushed back
+      upon him&mdash;the love of those at home; of his father, the only father
+      he had ever known; of Faith, the only mother or sister he had ever known;
+      of old John Fairley; the love of the woods and the hills where he had
+      wandered came upon him. There was work to do in England, work too little
+      done&mdash;the memory of the great meeting at Heddington flashed upon him.
+      Could his labour and his skill, if he had any, not be used there? Ah, the
+      green fields, the soft grey skies, the quiet vale, the brave,
+      self-respecting, toiling millions, the beautiful sense of law and order
+      and goodness! Could his gifts and labours not be used there? Could not&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was suddenly startled by a smothered cry, then a call of distress. It
+      was the voice of a woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He started up. The voice seemed to come from a room at his right; not that
+      from which he had entered, but one still beyond this where he was. He
+      sprang towards the wall and examined it swiftly. Finding a division in the
+      tapestry, he ran his fingers quickly and heavily down the crack between.
+      It came upon the button of a spring. He pressed it, the door yielded, and,
+      throwing it back, he stepped into the room-to see a woman struggling to
+      resist the embraces and kisses of a man. The face was that of the girl who
+      had looked out of the panel in the mooshrabieh screen. Then it was
+      beautiful in its mirth and animation, now it was pale and terror-stricken,
+      as with one free hand she fiercely beat the face pressed to hers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl only had seen David enter. The man was not conscious of his
+      presence till he was seized and flung against the wall. The violence of
+      the impact brought down at his feet two weapons from the wall above him.
+      He seized one-a dagger-and sprang to his feet. Before he could move
+      forward or raise his arm, however, David struck him a blow in the neck
+      which flung him upon a square marble pedestal intended for a statue. In
+      falling his head struck violently a sharp corner of the pedestal. He
+      lurched, rolled over on the floor, and lay still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl gave a choking cry. David quickly stooped and turned the body
+      over. There was a cut where the hair met the temple. He opened the
+      waistcoat and thrust his hand inside the shirt. Then he felt the pulse of
+      the limp wrist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a moment he looked at the face steadily, almost contemplatively it
+      might have seemed, and then drew both arms close to the body.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Foorgat Bey, the brother of Nahoum Pasha, was dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rising, David turned, as if in a dream, to the girl. He made a motion of
+      the hand towards the body. She understood. Dismay was in her face, but the
+      look of horror and desperation was gone. She seemed not to realise, as did
+      David, the awful position in which they were placed, the deed which David
+      had done, the significance of the thing that lay at their feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are thy people?&rdquo; said David. &ldquo;Come, we will go to them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no people here,&rdquo; she said, in a whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who brought thee?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She made a motion behind her towards the body. David glanced down. The
+      eyes of the dead man were open. He stooped and closed them gently. The
+      collar and tie were disarranged; he straightened them, then turned again
+      to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must take thee away,&rdquo; he said calmly. &ldquo;But it must be secretly.&rdquo; He
+      looked around, perplexed. &ldquo;We came secretly. My maid is outside the garden&mdash;in
+      a carriage. Oh, come, let us go, let us escape. They will kill you&mdash;!&rdquo;
+       Terror came into her face again. &ldquo;Thee, not me, is in danger&mdash;name,
+      goodness, future, all.... Which way did thee come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here&mdash;through many rooms&mdash;&rdquo; She made a gesture to curtains
+      beyond. &ldquo;But we first entered through doors with sphinxes on either side,
+      with a room where was a statue of Mehemet Ali.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the room through which David had come with Kaid. He took her hand.
+      &ldquo;Come quickly. I know the way. It is here,&rdquo; he said, pointing to the
+      panel-door by which he had entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Holding her hand still, as though she were a child, he led her quickly
+      from the room, and shut the panel behind them. As they passed through, a
+      hand drew aside the curtains on the other side of the room which they were
+      leaving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently the face of Nahoum Pasha followed the hand. A swift glance to
+      the floor, then he ran forward, stooped down, and laid a hand on his
+      brother&rsquo;s breast. The slight wound on the forehead answered his rapid
+      scrutiny. He realised the situation as plainly as if it had been written
+      down for him&mdash;he knew his brother well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Noiselessly he moved forward and touched the spring of the door through
+      which the two had gone. It yielded, and he passed through, closed the door
+      again and stealthily listened, then stole a look into the farther chamber.
+      It was empty. He heard the outer doors close. For a moment he listened,
+      then went forward and passed through into the hall. Softly turning the
+      handle of the big wooden doors which faced him, he opened them an inch or
+      so, and listened. He could hear swiftly retreating footsteps. Presently he
+      heard the faint noise of a gate shutting. He nodded his head, and was
+      about to close the doors and turn away, when his quick ear detected
+      footsteps again in the garden. Some one&mdash;the man, of course&mdash;was
+      returning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May fire burn his eyes for ever! He would talk with Kald, then go again
+      among them all, and so pass out unsuspected and safe. For who but I&mdash;who
+      but I could say he did it? And I&mdash;what is my proof? Only the words
+      which I speak.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A scornful, fateful smile passed over his face. &ldquo;&lsquo;Hast thou never killed a
+      man?&rsquo; said Kaid. &lsquo;Never,&rsquo; said he&mdash;&lsquo;by the goodness of God, never!&rsquo; 
+      The voice of Him of Galilee, the hand of Cain, the craft of Jael. But God
+      is with the patient.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He went hastily and noiselessly-his footfall was light for so heavy a
+      man-through the large room to the farther side from that by which David
+      and Kaid had first entered. Drawing behind a clump of palms near a door
+      opening to a passage leading to Mizraim&rsquo;s quarters, he waited. He saw
+      David enter quickly, yet without any air of secrecy, and pass into the
+      little room where Kaid had left him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a long time there was silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reasons were clear in Nahoum&rsquo;s mind why he should not act yet. A new
+      factor had changed the equation which had presented itself a short half
+      hour ago.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A new factor had also entered into the equation which had been presented
+      to David by Kaid with so flattering an insistence. He sat in the place
+      where Kaid had left him, his face drawn and white, his eyes burning, but
+      with no other &ldquo;sign of agitation. He was frozen and still. His look was
+      fastened now upon the door by which the Prince Pasha would enter, now upon
+      the door through which he had passed to the rescue of the English girl,
+      whom he had seen drive off safely with her maid. In their swift passage
+      from the Palace to the carriage, a thing had been done of even greater
+      moment than the killing of the sensualist in the next room. In the journey
+      to the gateway the girl David served had begged him to escape with her.
+      This he had almost sharply declined; it would be no escape, he had said.
+      She had urged that no one knew. He had replied that Kaid would come again
+      for him, and suspicion would be aroused if he were gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee has safety,&rdquo; he had said. &ldquo;I will go back. I will say that I killed
+      him. I have taken a life, I will pay for it as is the law.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Excited as she was, she had seen the inflexibility of his purpose. She had
+      seen the issue also clearly. He would give himself up, and the whole story
+      would be the scandal of Europe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have no right to save me only to kill me,&rdquo; she had said desperately.
+      &ldquo;You would give your life, but you would destroy that which is more than
+      life to me. You did not intend to kill him. It was no murder, it was
+      punishment.&rdquo; Her voice had got harder. &ldquo;He would have killed my life
+      because he was evil. Will you kill it because you are good? Will you be
+      brave, quixotic, but not pitiful?... No, no, no!&rdquo; she had said, as his
+      hand was upon the gate, &ldquo;I will not go unless you promise that you will
+      hide the truth, if you can.&rdquo; She had laid her hand upon his shoulder with
+      an agonised impulse. &ldquo;You will hide it for a girl who will cherish your
+      memory her whole life long. Ah&mdash;God bless you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had felt that she conquered before he spoke as, indeed, he did not
+      speak, but nodded his head and murmured something indistinctly. But that
+      did not matter, for she had won; she had a feeling that all would be well.
+      Then he had placed her in her carriage, and she was driven swiftly away,
+      saying to herself half hysterically: &ldquo;I am safe, I am safe. He will keep
+      his word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her safety and his promise were the new factor which changed the equation
+      for which Kaid would presently ask the satisfaction. David&rsquo;s life had
+      suddenly come upon problems for which his whole past was no preparation.
+      Conscience, which had been his guide in every situation, was now disarmed,
+      disabled, and routed. It had come to terms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In going quickly through the room, they had disarranged a table. The
+      girl&rsquo;s cloak had swept over it, and a piece of brie-a-brae had been thrown
+      upon the floor. He got up and replaced it with an attentive air. He
+      rearranged the other pieces on the table mechanically, seeing, feeling
+      another scene, another inanimate thing which must be for ever and for ever
+      a picture burning in his memory. Yet he appeared to be casually doing a
+      trivial and necessary act. He did not definitely realise his actions; but
+      long afterwards he could have drawn an accurate plan of the table, could
+      have reproduced upon it each article in its exact place as correctly as
+      though it had been photographed. There were one or two spots of dust or
+      dirt on the floor, brought in by his boots from the garden. He flicked
+      them aside with his handkerchief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How still it was! Or was it his life which had become so still? It seemed
+      as if the world must be noiseless, for not a sound of the life in other
+      parts of the Palace came to him, not an echo or vibration of the city
+      which stirred beyond the great gateway. Was it the chilly hand of death
+      passing over everything, and smothering all the activities? His pulses,
+      which, but a few minutes past, were throbbing and pounding like drums in
+      his ears, seemed now to flow and beat in very quiet. Was this, then, the
+      way that murderers felt, that men felt who took human life&mdash;so
+      frozen, so little a part of their surroundings? Did they move as dead men
+      among the living, devitalised, vacuous calm?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His life had been suddenly twisted out of recognition. All that his habit,
+      his code, his morals, his religion, had imposed upon him had been
+      overturned in one moment. To take a human life, even in battle, was
+      against the code by which he had ever been governed, yet he had taken life
+      secretly, and was hiding it from the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Accident? But had it been necessary to strike at all? His presence alone
+      would have been enough to save the girl from further molestation; but, he
+      had thrown himself upon the man like a tiger. Yet, somehow, he felt no
+      sorrow for that. He knew that if again and yet again he were placed in the
+      same position he would do even as he had done&mdash;even as he had done
+      with the man Kimber by the Fox and Goose tavern beyond Hamley. He knew
+      that the blow he had given then was inevitable, and he had never felt real
+      repentance. Thinking of that blow, he saw its sequel in the blow he had
+      given now. Thus was that day linked with the present, thus had a blow
+      struck in punishment of the wrong done the woman at the crossroads been
+      repeated in the wrong done the girl who had just left him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A sound now broke the stillness. It was a door shutting not far off. Kaid
+      was coming. David turned his face towards the room where Foorgat Bey was
+      lying dead. He lifted his arms with a sudden passionate gesture. The blood
+      came rushing through his veins again. His life, which had seemed
+      suspended, was set free; and an exaltation of sorrow, of pain, of action,
+      possessed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have taken a life, O my God!&rdquo; he murmured. &ldquo;Accept mine in service for
+      this land. What I have done in secret, let me atone for in secret, for
+      this land&mdash;for this poor land, for Christ&rsquo;s sake!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Footsteps were approaching quickly. With a great effort of the will he
+      ruled himself to quietness again. Kaid entered, and stood before him in
+      silence. David rose. He looked Kaid steadily in the eyes. &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said
+      Kaid placidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For Egypt&rsquo;s sake I will serve thee,&rdquo; was the reply. He held out his hand.
+      Kaid took it, but said, in smiling comment on the action: &ldquo;As the
+      Viceroy&rsquo;s servant there is another way!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will salaam to-morrow, Kaid,&rdquo; answered David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the only custom of the place I will require of thee, effendi.
+      Come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A few moments later they were standing among the consuls and officials in
+      the salon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is Nahoum?&rdquo; asked Kaid, looking round on the agitated throng.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No one answered. Smiling, Kaid whispered in David&rsquo;s ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII. THE COMPACT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      One by one the lights went out in the Palace. The excited guests were now
+      knocking at the doors of Cairene notables, bent upon gossip of the night&rsquo;s
+      events, or were scouring the bazaars for ears into which to pour the tale
+      of how David was exalted and Nahoum was brought low; how, before them all,
+      Kaid had commanded Nahoum to appear at the Palace in the morning at
+      eleven, and the Inglesi, as they had named David, at ten. But they
+      declared to all who crowded upon their words that the Inglesi left the
+      Palace with a face frozen white, as though it was he that had met debacle,
+      while Nahoum had been as urbane and cynical as though he had come to the
+      fulness of his power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some, on hearing this, said: &ldquo;Beware Nahoum!&rdquo; But those who had been at
+      the Palace said: &ldquo;Beware the Inglesi!&rdquo; This still Quaker, with the white
+      shining face and pontifical hat, with his address of &ldquo;thee&rdquo; and &ldquo;thou,&rdquo;
+       and his forms of speech almost Oriental in their imagery and simplicity,
+      himself an archaism, had impressed them with a sense of power. He had
+      prompted old Diaz Pasha to speak of him as a reincarnation, so separate
+      and withdrawn he seemed at the end of the evening, yet with an uncanny
+      mastery in his dark brown eyes. One of the Ulema, or holy men, present had
+      said in reply to Diaz: &ldquo;It is the look of one who hath walked with Death
+      and bought and sold with Sheitan the accursed.&rdquo; To Nahoum Pasha, Dim had
+      said, as the former left the Palace, a cigarette between his fingers:
+      &ldquo;Sleep not nor slumber, Nahoum. The world was never lost by one
+      earthquake.&rdquo; And Nahoum had replied with a smooth friendliness: &ldquo;The world
+      is not reaped in one harvest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The day is at hand&mdash;the East against the West,&rdquo; murmured old Diaz,
+      as he passed on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The day is far spent,&rdquo; answered Nahoum, in a voice unheard by Diaz; and,
+      with a word to his coachman, who drove off quickly, he disappeared in the
+      shrubbery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few minutes later he was tapping at the door of Mizraim, the Chief
+      Eunuch. Three times he tapped in the same way. Presently the door opened,
+      and he stepped inside. The lean, dark figure of Mizraim bowed low; the
+      long, slow fingers touched the forehead, the breast, and the lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May God preserve thy head from harm, excellency, and the night give thee
+      sleep,&rdquo; said Mizraim. He looked inquiringly at Nahoum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May thy head know neither heat nor cold, and thy joys increase,&rdquo;
+       responded Nahoum mechanically, and sat down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To an European it would have seemed a shameless mockery to have wished joy
+      to this lean, hateful dweller in the between-worlds; to Nahoum it was part
+      of a life which was all ritual and intrigue, gabbling superstition and
+      innate fatalism, decorated falsehood and a brave philosophy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have work for thee at last, Mizraim,&rdquo; said Nahoum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At last?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou hast but played before. To-night I must see the sweat of thy brow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mizraim&rsquo;s cold fingers again threw themselves against his breast,
+      forehead, and lips, and he said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As a woman swims in a fountain, so shall I bathe in sweat for thee, who
+      hath given with one hand and hath never taken with the other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did thee service once, Mizraim&mdash;eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was as a bird buffeted by the wind; upon thy masts my feet found rest.
+      Behold, I build my nest in thy sails, excellency.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are no birds in last year&rsquo;s nest, Mizraim, thou dove,&rdquo; said Nahoum,
+      with a cynical smile. &ldquo;When I build, I build. Where I swear by the stone
+      of the corner, there am I from dark to dark and from dawn to dawn, pasha.&rdquo;
+       Suddenly he swept his hand low to the ground and a ghastly sort of smile
+      crossed over his face. &ldquo;Speak&mdash;I am thy servant. Shall I not hear? I
+      will put my hand in the entrails of Egypt, and wrench them forth for
+      thee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He made a gesture so cruelly, so darkly, suggestive that Nahoum turned his
+      head away. There flashed before his mind the scene of death in which his
+      own father had lain, butchered like a beast in the shambles, a victim to
+      the rage of Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Mehemet Ali.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then listen, and learn why I have need of thee to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      First, Nahoum told the story of David&rsquo;s coming, and Kaid&rsquo;s treatment of
+      himself, the foreshadowing of his own doom. Then of David and the girl,
+      and the dead body he had seen; of the escape of the girl, of David&rsquo;s
+      return with Kaid&mdash;all exactly as it had happened, save that he did;
+      not mention the name of the dead man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It did not astonish Mizraim that Nahoum had kept all this secret. That
+      crime should be followed by secrecy and further crime, if need be, seems
+      natural to the Oriental mind. Mizraim had seen removal follow upon
+      removal, and the dark Nile flowed on gloomily, silently, faithful to the
+      helpless ones tossed into its bosom. It would much have astonished him if
+      Nahoum had not shown a gaping darkness somewhere in his tale, and he felt
+      for the key to the mystery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he who lies dead, excellency?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Foorgat Bey!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even he, Mizraim. He lured the girl here&mdash;a mad man ever. The other
+      madman was in the next room. He struck&mdash;come, and thou shalt see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Together they felt their way through the passages and rooms, and presently
+      entered the room where Foorgat Bey was lying. Nahoum struck a light, and,
+      as he held the candle, Mizraim knelt and examined the body closely. He
+      found the slight wound on the temple, then took the candle from Nahoum and
+      held it close to the corner of the marble pedestal. A faint stain of blood
+      was there. Again he examined the body, and ran his fingers over the face
+      and neck. Suddenly he stopped, and held the light close to the skin
+      beneath the right jaw. He motioned, and Nahoum laid his fingers also on
+      the spot. There was a slight swelling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A blow with the fist, excellency&mdash;skilful, and English.&rdquo; He looked
+      inquiringly at Nahoum. &ldquo;As a weasel hath a rabbit by the throat, so is the
+      Inglesi in thy hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nahoum shook his head. &ldquo;And if I went to Kaid, and said, &lsquo;This is the work
+      of the Inglesi,&rsquo; would he believe? Kaid would hang me for the lie&mdash;would
+      it be truth to him? What proof have I, save the testimony of mine own
+      eyes? Egypt would laugh at that. Is it the time, while yet the singers are
+      beneath the windows, to assail the bride? All bridegrooms are mad. It is
+      all sunshine and morning with the favourite, the Inglesi. Only when the
+      shadows lengthen may he be stricken. Not now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why dost thou hide this from Kaid, O thou brother of the eagle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For my gain and thine, keeper of the gate. To-night I am weak, because I
+      am poor. To-morrow I shall be rich and, it may be, strong. If Kaid knew of
+      this tonight, I should be a prisoner before cockcrow. What claims has a
+      prisoner? Kaid would be in my brother&rsquo;s house at dawn, seizing all that is
+      there and elsewhere, and I on my way to Fazougli, to be strangled or
+      drowned.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O wise and far-seeing! Thine eye pierces the earth. What is there to do?
+      What is my gain&mdash;what thine?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thy gain? The payment of thy debt to me.&rdquo; Mizraim&rsquo;s face lengthened. His
+      was a loathsome sort of gratitude. He was willing to pay in kind; but what
+      Oriental ever paid a debt without a gift in return, even as a bartering
+      Irishman demands his lucky penny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So be it, excellency, and my life is thine to spill upon the ground, a
+      scarlet cloth for thy feet. And backsheesh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nahoum smiled grimly. &ldquo;For backsheesh, thy turban full of gold.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mizraim&rsquo;s eyes glittered-the dull black shine of a mongrel terrier&rsquo;s. He
+      caught the sleeve of Nahoum&rsquo;s coat and kissed it, then kissed his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus was their bargain made over the dead body; and Mizraim had an almost
+      superstitious reverence for the fulfilment of a bond, the one virtue
+      rarely found in the Oriental. Nothing else had he, but of all men in Egypt
+      he was the best instrument Nahoum could have chosen; and of all men in
+      Egypt he was the one man who could surely help him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is there now to do, excellency?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My coachman is with the carriage at the gate by which the English girl
+      left. It is open still. The key is in Foorgat&rsquo;s pocket, no doubt; stolen
+      by him, no doubt also.... This is my design. Thou wilt drive him&rdquo;&mdash;he
+      pointed to the body&mdash;&ldquo;to his palace, seated in the carriage as though
+      he were alive. There is a secret entrance. The bowab of the gate will show
+      the way; I know it not. But who will deny thee? Thou comest from high
+      places&mdash;from Kaid. Who will speak of this? Will the bowab? In the
+      morning Foorgat will be found dead in his bed! The slight bruise thou
+      canst heal&mdash;thou canst?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mizraim nodded. &ldquo;I can smooth it from the sharpest eye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At dawn he will be found dead; but at dawn I shall be knocking at his
+      gates. Before the world knows I shall be in possession. All that is his
+      shall be mine, for at once the men of law shall be summoned, and my
+      inheritance secured before Kaid shall even know of his death. I shall take
+      my chances for my life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the coachman, and the bowab, and others it may be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall not these be with thee&mdash;thou, Kaid&rsquo;s keeper of the harem, the
+      lion at the door of his garden of women? Would it be strange that Foorgat,
+      who ever flew at fruit above his head, perilous to get or keep, should be
+      found on forbidden ground, or in design upon it? Would it be strange to
+      the bowab or the slave that he should return with thee stark and still?
+      They would but count it mercy of Kaid that he was not given to the
+      serpents of the Nile. A word from thee&mdash;would one open his mouth?
+      Would not the shadow of thy hand, of the swift doom, be over them? Would
+      not a handful of gold bind them to me? Is not the man dead? Are they not
+      mine&mdash;mine to bind or break as I will?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So be it! Wisdom is of thee as the breath of man is his life. I will
+      drive Foorgat Bey to his home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A few moments later all that was left of Foorgat Bey was sitting in his
+      carriage beside Mizraim the Chief Eunuch&mdash;sitting upright, stony, and
+      still, and in such wise was driven swiftly to his palace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII. FOR HIS SOUL&rsquo;S SAKE AND THE LAND&rsquo;S SAKE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      David came to know a startling piece of news the next morning-that Foorgat
+      Bey had died of heart-disease in his bed, and was so found by his
+      servants. He at once surmised that Foorgat&rsquo;s body had been carried out of
+      the Palace; no doubt that it might not be thought he had come to his death
+      by command of Kaid. His mind became easier. Death, murder, crime in Egypt
+      was not a nine days&rsquo; wonder; it scarce outlived one day. When a man was
+      gone none troubled. The dead man was in the bosom of Allah; then why
+      should the living be beset or troubled? If there was foul play, why make
+      things worse by sending another life after the life gone, even in the way
+      of justice?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl David saved had told him her own name, and had given him the name
+      of the hotel at which she was staying. He had an early breakfast, and
+      prepared to go to her hotel, wishing to see her once more. There were
+      things to be said for the first and last time and then be buried for ever.
+      She must leave the country at once. In this sick, mad land, in this
+      whirlpool of secret murder and conspiracy, no one could tell what plot was
+      hatching, what deeds were forward; and he could not yet be sure that no
+      one save himself and herself knew who had killed Foorgat Bey. Her perfect
+      safety lay in instant flight. It was his duty to see that she went, and at
+      once&mdash;this very day. He would go and see her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went to the hotel. There he learned that, with her aunt, she had left
+      that morning for Alexandria en route to England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He approved her wisdom, he applauded her decision. Yet&mdash;yet, somehow,
+      as he bent his footsteps towards his lodgings again he had a sense of
+      disappointment, of revelation. What might happen to him&mdash;evidently
+      that had not occurred to her. How could she know but that his life might
+      be in danger; that, after all, they might have been seen leaving the fatal
+      room? Well, she had gone, and with all his heart he was glad that she was
+      safe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His judgment upon last night&rsquo;s event was not coloured by a single direct
+      criticism upon the girl. But he could not prevent the suggestion suddenly
+      flashing into his mind that she had thought of herself first and last.
+      Well, she had gone; and he was here to face the future, unencumbered by
+      aught save the weight of his own conscience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet, the weight of his conscience! His feet were still free&mdash;free for
+      one short hour before he went to Kaid; but his soul was in chains. As he
+      turned his course to the Nile, and crossed over the great bridge, there
+      went clanking by in chains a hundred conscripts, torn from their homes in
+      the Fayoum, bidding farewell for ever to their friends, receiving their
+      last offerings, for they had no hope of return. He looked at their haggard
+      and dusty faces, at their excoriated ankles, and his eyes closed in pain.
+      All they felt he felt. What their homes were to them, these fellaheen,
+      dragged forth to defend their country, to go into the desert and waste
+      their lives under leaders tyrannous, cruel, and incompetent, his old open
+      life, his innocence, his integrity, his truthfulness and character, were
+      to him. By an impulsive act, by a rash blow, he had asserted his humanity;
+      but he had killed his fellow-man in anger. He knew that as that fatal blow
+      had been delivered, there was no thought of punishment&mdash;it was blind
+      anger and hatred: it was the ancient virus working which had filled the
+      world with war, and armed it at the expense, the bitter and oppressive
+      expense, of the toilers and the poor. The taxes for wars were wrung out of
+      the sons of labour and sorrow. These poor fellaheen had paid taxes on
+      everything they possessed. Taxes, taxes, nothing but taxes from the
+      cradle! Their lands, houses, and palm-trees would be taxed still, when
+      they would reap no more. And having given all save their lives, these
+      lives they must now give under the whip and the chain and the sword.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As David looked at them in their single blue calico coverings, in which
+      they had lived and slept-shivering in the cold night air upon the bare
+      ground&mdash;these thoughts came to him; and he had a sudden longing to
+      follow them and put the chains upon his own arms and legs, and go forth
+      and suffer with them, and fight and die? To die were easy. To fight?...
+      Was it then come to that? He was no longer a man of peace, but a man of
+      the sword; no longer a man of the palm and the evangel, but a man of blood
+      and of crime! He shrank back out of the glare of the sun; for it suddenly
+      seemed to him that there was written upon his fore head, &ldquo;This is a
+      brother of Cain.&rdquo; For the first time in his life he had a shrinking from
+      the light, and from the sun which he had loved like a Persian, had, in a
+      sense, unconsciously worshipped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was scarcely aware where he was. He had wandered on until he had come
+      to the end of the bridge and into the great groups of traffickers who, at
+      this place, made a market of their wares. Here sat a seller of sugar cane;
+      there wandered, clanking his brasses, a merchant of sweet waters; there
+      shouted a cheap-jack of the Nile the virtues of a knife from Sheffield.
+      Yonder a camel-driver squatted and counted his earnings; and a sheepdealer
+      haggled with the owner of a ghiassa bound for the sands of the North. The
+      curious came about him and looked at him, but he did not see or hear. He
+      sat upon a stone, his gaze upon the river, following with his eyes, yet
+      without consciously observing, the dark riverine population whose ways are
+      hidden, who know only the law of the river and spend their lives in
+      eluding pirates and brigands now, and yet again the peaceful porters of
+      commerce.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To his mind, never a criminal in this land but less a criminal than he!
+      For their standard was a standard of might the only right; but he&mdash;his
+      whole life had been nurtured in an atmosphere of right and justice, had
+      been a spiritual demonstration against force. He was with out fear, as he
+      was without an undue love of life. The laying down of his life had never
+      been presented to him; and yet, now that his conscience was his only
+      judge, and it condemned him, he would gladly have given his life to pay
+      the price of blood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That was impossible. His life was not his own to give, save by suicide;
+      and that would be the unpardonable insult to God and humanity. He had
+      given his word to the woman, and he would keep it. In those brief moments
+      she must have suffered more than most men suffer in a long life. Not her
+      hand, however, but his, had committed the deed. And yet a sudden wave of
+      pity for her rushed over him, because the conviction seized him that she
+      would also in her heart take upon herself the burden of his guilt as
+      though it were her own. He had seen it in the look of her face last night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the sake of her future it was her duty to shield herself from any
+      imputation which might as unjustly as scandalously arise, if the facts of
+      that black hour ever became known. Ever became known? The thought that
+      there might be some human eye which had seen, which knew, sent a shiver
+      through him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would give my life a thousand times rather than that,&rdquo; he said aloud to
+      the swift-flowing river. His head sank on his breast. His lips murmured in
+      prayer:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But be merciful to me, Thou just Judge of Israel, for Thou hast made me,
+      and Thou knowest whereof I am made. Here will I dedicate my life to Thee
+      for the land&rsquo;s sake. Not for my soul&rsquo;s sake, O my God! If it be Thy will,
+      let my soul be cast away; but for the soul of him whose body I slew, and
+      for his land, let my life be the long sacrifice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dreams he had had the night before&mdash;terrible dreams, which he could
+      never forget; dreams of a fugitive being hunted through the world,
+      escaping and eluding, only to be hemmed in once more; on and on till he
+      grew grey and gaunt, and the hunt suddenly ended in a great morass, into
+      which he plunged with the howling world behind him. The grey, dank mists
+      came down on him, his footsteps sank deeper and deeper, and ever the
+      cries, as of damned spirits, grew in his ears. Mocking shapes flitted past
+      him, the wings of obscene birds buffeted him, the morass grew up about
+      him; and now it was all a red moving mass like a dead sea heaving about
+      him. With a moan of agony he felt the dolorous flood above his shoulders,
+      and then a cry pierced the gloom and the loathsome misery, and a voice he
+      knew called to him, &ldquo;David, David, I am coming!&rdquo; and he had awaked with
+      the old hallucination of his uncle&rsquo;s voice calling to him in the dawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It came to him now as he sat by the water-side, and he raised his face to
+      the sun and to the world. The idlers had left him alone; none were staring
+      at him now. They were all intent on their own business, each man labouring
+      after his kind. He heard the voice of a riverman as he toiled at a rope
+      standing on the corn that filled his ghiassa from end to end, from keel to
+      gunwale. The man was singing a wild chant of cheerful labour, the soul of
+      the hard-smitten of the earth rising above the rack and burden of the
+      body:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;O, the garden where to-day we sow and to-morrow we reap!
+     O, the sakkia turning by the garden walls;
+     O, the onion-field and the date-tree growing,
+     And my hand on the plough-by the blessing of God;
+     Strength of my soul, O my brother, all&rsquo;s well!&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The meaning of the song got into his heart. He pressed his hand to his
+      breast with a sudden gesture. It touched something hard. It was his flute.
+      Mechanically he had put it in his pocket when he dressed in the morning.
+      He took it out and looked at it lovingly. Into it he had poured his soul
+      in the old days&mdash;days, centuries away, it seemed now. It should still
+      be the link with the old life. He rose and walked towards his home again.
+      The future spread clearly before him. Rapine, murder, tyranny, oppression,
+      were round him on every side, and the ruler of the land called him to his
+      counsels. Here a great duty lay&mdash;his life for this land, his life,
+      and his love, and his faith. He would expiate his crime and his sin, the
+      crime of homicide for which he alone was responsible, the sin of secrecy
+      for which he and another were responsible. And that other? If only there
+      had been but one word of understanding between them before she left!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the door of his house stood the American whom he had met at the citadel
+      yesterday-it seemed a hundred years ago.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got a letter for you,&rdquo; Lacey said. &ldquo;The lady&rsquo;s aunt and herself are
+      cousins of mine more or less removed, and originally at home in the U. S.
+      A. a generation ago. Her mother was an American. She didn&rsquo;t know your name&mdash;Miss
+      Hylda Maryon, I mean. I told her, but there wasn&rsquo;t time to put it on.&rdquo; He
+      handed over the unaddressed envelope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David opened the letter, and read:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have seen the papers. I do not understand what has happened, but I know
+      that all is well. If it were not so, I would not go. That is the truth.
+      Grateful I am, oh, believe me! So grateful that I do not yet know what is
+      the return which I must make. But the return will be made. I hear of what
+      has come to you&mdash;how easily I might have destroyed all! My thoughts
+      blind me. You are great and good; you will know at least that I go because
+      it is the only thing to do. I fly from the storm with a broken wing. Take
+      now my promise to pay what I owe in the hour Fate wills&mdash;or in the
+      hour of your need. You can trust him who brings this to you; he is a
+      distant cousin of my own. Do not judge him by his odd and foolish words.
+      They hide a good character, and he has a strong nature. He wants work to
+      do. Can you give it? Farewell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David put the letter in his pocket, a strange quietness about his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He scarcely realised what Lacey was saying. &ldquo;Great girl that. Troubled
+      about something in England, I guess. Going straight back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David thanked him for the letter. Lacey became red in the face. He tried
+      to say something, but failed. &ldquo;Thee wishes to say something to me,
+      friend?&rdquo; asked David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m full up; I can&rsquo;t speak. But, say&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to the Palace now. Come back at noon if you will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He wrung David&rsquo;s hand in gratitude. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re going to do it. You&rsquo;re going
+      to do it. I see it. It&rsquo;s a great game&mdash;like Abe Lincoln&rsquo;s. Say, let
+      me black your boots while you&rsquo;re doing it, will you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David pressed his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX. THE LETTER, THE NIGHT, AND THE WOMAN
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;To-day has come the fulfilment of my dream, Faith. I am given to
+   my appointed task; I am set on a road of life in which there is no
+   looking back. My dreams of the past are here begun in very truth
+   and fact. When, in the night, I heard Uncle Benn calling, when in
+   the Meeting-house voices said, &lsquo;Come away, come away, and labour,
+   thou art idle,&rsquo; I could hear my heart beat in the ardour to be off.
+   Yet I knew not whither. Now I know.
+
+   &ldquo;Last night the Prince Pasha called me to his Council, made me
+   adviser, confidant, as one who has the ear of his captain&mdash;after he
+   had come to terms with me upon that which Uncle Benn left of land
+   and gold. Think not that he tempted me.
+
+   &ldquo;Last night I saw favourites look upon me with hate because of
+   Kaid&rsquo;s favour, though the great hall was filled with show of
+   cheerful splendour, and men smiled and feasted. To-day I know that
+   in the Palace where I was summoned to my first: duty with the
+   Prince, every step I took was shadowed, every motion recorded, every
+   look or word noted and set down. I have no fear of them. They are
+   not subtle enough for the unexpected acts of honesty in the life of
+   a true man. Yet I do not wonder men fail to keep honest in the
+   midst of this splendour, where all is strife as to who shall have
+   the Prince&rsquo;s favour; who shall enjoy the fruits of bribery,
+   backsheesh, and monopoly; who shall wring from the slave and the
+   toil-ridden fellah the coin his poor body mints at the corvee, in
+   his own taxed fields of dourha and cucumbers.
+
+   &ldquo;Is this like anything we ever dreamed at Hamley, Faith? Yet here
+   am I set, and here shall I stay till the skein be ravelled out.
+   Soon I shall go into the desert upon a mission to the cities of the
+   South, to Dongola, Khartoum, and Darfur and beyond; for there is
+   trouble yonder, and war is near, unless it is given to me to bring
+   peace. So I must bend to my study of Arabic, which I am thankful I
+   learned long ago. And I must not forget to say that I shall take
+   with me on my journey that faithful Muslim Ebn Ezra. Others I shall
+   take also, but of them I shall write hereafter.
+
+   &ldquo;I shall henceforth be moving in the midst of things which I was
+   taught to hate. I pray that I may not hate them less as time goes
+   on. To-morrow I shall breathe the air of intrigue, shall hear
+   footsteps of spies behind me wherever I go; shall know that even the
+   roses in the garden have ears; that the ground under my feet will
+   telegraph my thoughts. Shall I be true? Shall I at last whisper,
+   and follow, and evade, believe in no one, much less in myself, steal
+   in and out of men&rsquo;s confidences to use them for my own purposes?
+   Does any human being know what he can bear of temptation or of the
+   daily pressure of the life around him? what powers of resistance
+   are in his soul? how long the vital energy will continue to throw
+   off the never-ending seduction, the freshening force of evil?
+   Therein lies the power of evil, that it is ever new, ever fortified
+   by continuous conquest and achievements. It has the rare fire of
+   aggression; is ever more upon the offence than upon the defence;
+   has, withal, the false lure of freedom from restraint, the throbbing
+   force of sympathy.
+
+   &ldquo;Such things I dreamed not of in Soolsby&rsquo;s but upon the hill, Faith,
+   though, indeed, that seemed a time of trial and sore-heartedness.
+   How large do small issues seem till we have faced the momentous
+   things! It is true that the larger life has pleasures and expanding
+   capacities; but it is truer still that it has perils, events which
+   try the soul as it is never tried in the smaller life&mdash;unless,
+   indeed, the soul be that of the Epicurean. The Epicurean I well
+   understand, and in his way I might have walked with a wicked grace.
+   I have in me some hidden depths of luxury, a secret heart of
+   pleasure, an understanding for the forbidden thing. I could have
+   walked the broad way with a laughing heart, though, in truth, habit
+   of mind and desire have kept me in the better path. But offences
+   must come, and woe to him from whom the offence cometh! I have
+   begun now, and only now, to feel the storms that shake us to our
+   farthest cells of life. I begin to see how near good is to evil;
+   how near faith is to unfaith; and how difficult it is to judge from
+   actions only; how little we can know to-day what we shall feel
+   tomorrow. Yet one must learn to see deeper, to find motive, not in
+   acts that shake the faith, but in character which needs no
+   explanation, which&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      He paused, disturbed. Then he raised his head, as though not conscious of
+      what was breaking the course of his thoughts. Presently he realised a low,
+      hurried knocking at his door. He threw a hand over his eyes, and sprang
+      up. An instant later the figure of a woman, deeply veiled, stood within
+      the room, beside the table where he had been writing. There was silence as
+      they faced each other, his back against the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, do you not know me?&rdquo; she said at last, and sank into the chair where
+      he had been sitting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The question was unnecessary, and she knew it was so; but she could not
+      bear the strain of the silence. She seemed to have risen out of the letter
+      he had been writing; and had he not been writing of her&mdash;of what
+      concerned them both? How mean and small-hearted he had been, to have
+      thought for an instant that she had not the highest courage, though in
+      going she had done the discreeter, safer thing. But she had come&mdash;she
+      had come!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this was in his eyes, though his face was pale and still. He was
+      almost rigid with emotion, for the ancient habit of repose and
+      self-command of the Quaker people was upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you not see&mdash;do you not know?&rdquo; she repeated, her back upon him
+      now, her face still veiled, her hands making a swift motion of distress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has thee found in the past that thee is so soon forgotten?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, do not blame me!&rdquo; She raised her veil suddenly, and showed a face as
+      pale as his own, and in the eyes a fiery brightness. &ldquo;I did not know. It
+      was so hard to come&mdash;do not blame me. I went to Alexandria&mdash;I
+      felt that I must fly; the air around me seemed full of voices crying out.
+      Did you not understand why I went?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand,&rdquo; he said, coming forward slowly. &ldquo;Thee should not have
+      returned. In the way I go now the watchers go also.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I had not come, you would never have understood,&rdquo; she answered
+      quickly. &ldquo;I am not sorry I went. I was so frightened, so shaken. My only
+      thought was to get away from the terrible Thing. But I should have been
+      sorry all my life long had I not come back to tell you what I feel, and
+      that I shall never forget. All my life I shall be grateful. You have saved
+      me from a thousand deaths. Ah, if I could give you but one life! Yet&mdash;yet&mdash;oh,
+      do not think but that I would tell you the whole truth, though I am not
+      wholly truthful. See, I love my place in the world more than I love my
+      life; and but for you I should have lost all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He made a protesting motion. &ldquo;The debt is mine, in truth. But for you I
+      should never have known what, perhaps&mdash;&rdquo; He paused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His eyes were on hers, gravely speaking what his tongue faltered to say.
+      She looked and looked, but did not understand. She only saw troubled
+      depths, lighted by a soul of kindling purpose. &ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo; she said, awed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Through you I have come to know&mdash;&rdquo; He paused again. What he was
+      going to say, truthful though it was, must hurt her, and she had been
+      sorely hurt already. He put his thoughts more gently, more vaguely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By what happened I have come to see what matters in life. I was behind
+      the hedge. I have broken through upon the road. I know my goal now. The
+      highway is before me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She felt the tragedy in his words, and her voice shook as she spoke. &ldquo;I
+      wish I knew life better. Then I could make a better answer. You are on the
+      road, you say. But I feel that it is a hard and cruel road&mdash;oh, I
+      understand that at least! Tell me, please, tell me the whole truth. You
+      are hiding from me what you feel. I have upset your life, have I not? You
+      are a Quaker, and Quakers are better than all other Christian people, are
+      they not? Their faith is peace, and for me, you&mdash;&rdquo; She covered her
+      face with her hands for an instant, but turned quickly and looked him in
+      the eyes: &ldquo;For me you put your hand upon the clock of a man&rsquo;s life, and
+      stopped it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She got to her feet with a passionate gesture, but he put a hand gently
+      upon her arm, and she sank back again. &ldquo;Oh, it was not you; it was I who
+      did it!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You did what any man of honour would have done, what a
+      brother would have done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I did is a matter for myself only,&rdquo; he responded quickly. &ldquo;Had I
+      never seen your face again it would have been the same. You were the
+      occasion; the thing I did had only one source, my own heart and mind.
+      There might have been another way; but for that way, or for the way I did
+      take, you could not be responsible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How generous you are!&rdquo; Her eyes swam with tears; she leaned over the
+      table where he had been writing, and the tears dropped upon his letter.
+      Presently she realised this, and drew back, then made as though to dry the
+      tears from the paper with her handkerchief. As she did so the words that
+      he had written met her eye: &ldquo;&lsquo;But offences must come, and woe to him from
+      whom the offence cometh!&rsquo; I have begun now, and only now, to feel the
+      storms that shake us to our farthest cells of life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She became very still. He touched her arm and said heavily: &ldquo;Come away,
+      come away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She pointed to the words she had read. &ldquo;I could not help but see, and now
+      I know what this must mean to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee must go at once,&rdquo; he urged. &ldquo;Thee should not have come. Thee was
+      safe&mdash;none knew. A few hours and it would all have been far behind.
+      We might never have met again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly she gave a low, hysterical laugh. &ldquo;You think you hide the real
+      thing from me. I know I&rsquo;m ignorant and selfish and feeble-minded, but I
+      can see farther than you think. You want to tell the truth about&mdash;about
+      it, because you are honest and hate hiding things, because you want to be
+      punished, and so pay the price. Oh, I can understand! If it were not for
+      me you would not....&rdquo; With a sudden wild impulse she got to her feet. &ldquo;And
+      you shall not,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;I will not have it.&rdquo; Colour came rushing to
+      her cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not have it. I will not put myself so much in your debt. I will
+      not demand so much of you. I will face it all. I will stand alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a touch of indignation in her voice. Somehow she seemed moved to
+      anger against him. Her hands were clasped at her side rigidly, her pulses
+      throbbing. He stood looking at her fixedly, as though trying to realise
+      her. His silence agitated her still further, and she spoke excitedly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I could have, would have, killed him myself without a moment&rsquo;s regret. He
+      had planned, planned&mdash;ah, God, can you not see it all! I would have
+      taken his life without a thought. I was mad to go upon such an adventure,
+      but I meant no ill. I had not one thought that I could not have cried out
+      from the housetops, and he had in his heart&mdash;he had what you saw. But
+      you repent that you killed him&mdash;by accident, it was by accident. Do
+      you realise how many times others have been trapped by him as was I? Do
+      you not see what he was&mdash;as I see now? Did he not say as much to me
+      before you came, when I was dumb with terror? Did he not make me
+      understand what his whole life had been? Did I not see in a flash the
+      women whose lives he had spoiled and killed? Would I have had pity? Would
+      I have had remorse? No, no, no! I was frightened when it was done, I was
+      horrified, but I was not sorry; and I am not sorry. It was to be. It was
+      the true end to his vileness. Ah!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shuddered, and buried her face in her hands for a moment, then went
+      on: &ldquo;I can never forgive myself for going to the Palace with him. I was
+      mad for experience, for mystery; I wanted more than the ordinary share of
+      knowledge. I wanted to probe things. Yet I meant no wrong. I thought then
+      nothing of which I shall ever be ashamed. But I shall always be ashamed
+      because I knew him, because he thought that I&mdash;oh, if I were a man, I
+      should be glad that I had killed him, for the sake of all honest women!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He remained silent. His look was not upon her, he seemed lost in a dream;
+      but his face was fixed in trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She misunderstood his silence. &ldquo;You had the courage, the impulse to&mdash;to
+      do it,&rdquo; she said keenly; &ldquo;you have not the courage to justify it. I will
+      not have it so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will tell the truth to all the world. I will not shrink I shrank
+      yesterday because I was afraid of the world; to-day I will face it, I will&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped suddenly, and another look flashed into her face. Presently
+      she spoke in a different tone; a new light had come upon her mind. &ldquo;But I
+      see,&rdquo; she added. &ldquo;To tell all is to make you the victim, too, of what he
+      did. It is in your hands; it is all in your hands; and I cannot speak
+      unless&mdash;unless you are ready also.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an unintended touch of scorn in her voice. She had been troubled
+      and tried beyond bearing, and her impulsive nature revolted at his
+      silence. She misunderstood him, or, if she did not wholly misunderstand
+      him, she was angry at what she thought was a needless remorse or
+      sensitiveness. Did not the man deserve his end?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is only one course to pursue,&rdquo; he rejoined quietly, &ldquo;and that is
+      the course we entered upon last night. I neither doubted yourself nor your
+      courage. Thee must not turn back now. Thee must not alter the course which
+      was your own making, and the only course which thee could, or I should,
+      take. I have planned my life according to the word I gave you. I could not
+      turn back now. We are strangers, and we must remain so. Thee will go from
+      here now, and we must not meet again. I am&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know who you are,&rdquo; she broke in. &ldquo;I know what your religion is; that
+      fighting and war and bloodshed is a sin to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am of no family or place in England,&rdquo; he went on calmly. &ldquo;I come of
+      yeoman and trading stock; I have nothing in common with people of rank.
+      Our lines of life will not cross. It is well that it should be so. As to
+      what happened&mdash;that which I may feel has nothing to do with whether I
+      was justified or no. But if thee has thought that I have repented doing
+      what I did, let that pass for ever from your mind. I know that I should do
+      the same, yes, even a hundred times. I did according to my nature. Thee
+      must not now be punished cruelly for a thing thee did not do. Silence is
+      the only way of safety or of justice. We must not speak of this again. We
+      must each go our own way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her eyes were moist. She reached out a hand to him timidly. &ldquo;Oh, forgive
+      me,&rdquo; she added brokenly, &ldquo;I am so vain, so selfish, and that makes one
+      blind to the truth. It is all clearer now. You have shown me that I was
+      right in my first impulse, and that is all I can say for myself. I shall
+      pray all my life that it will do you no harm in the end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She remained silent, for a moment adjusting her veil, preparing to go.
+      Presently she spoke again: &ldquo;I shall always want to know about you&mdash;what
+      is happening to you. How could it be otherwise?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was half realising one of the deepest things in existence, that the
+      closest bond between two human beings is a bond of secrecy upon a thing
+      which vitally, fatally concerns both or either. It is a power at once
+      malevolent and beautiful. A secret like that of David and Hylda will do in
+      a day what a score of years could not accomplish, will insinuate
+      confidences which might never be given to the nearest or dearest. In
+      neither was any feeling of the heart begotten by their experiences; and
+      yet they had gone deeper in each other&rsquo;s lives than any one either had
+      known in a lifetime. They had struck a deeper note than love or
+      friendship. They had touched the chord of a secret and mutual experience
+      which had gone so far that their lives would be influenced by it for ever
+      after. Each understood this in a different way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hylda looked towards the letter lying on the table. It had raised in her
+      mind, not a doubt, but an undefined, undefinable anxiety. He saw the
+      glance, and said: &ldquo;I was writing to one who has been as a sister to me.
+      She was my mother&rsquo;s sister though she is almost as young as I. Her name is
+      Faith. There is nothing there of what concerns thee and me, though it
+      would make no difference if she knew.&rdquo; Suddenly a thought seemed to strike
+      him. &ldquo;The secret is of thee and me. There is safety. If it became
+      another&rsquo;s, there might be peril. The thing shall be between us only, for
+      ever?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think that I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My instinct tells me a woman of sensitive mind might one day, out of an
+      unmerciful honesty, tell her husband&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not married-&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But one day&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She interrupted him. &ldquo;Sentimental egotism will not rule me. Tell me,&rdquo; she
+      added, &ldquo;tell me one thing before I go. You said that your course was set.
+      What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I remain here,&rdquo; he answered quietly. &ldquo;I remain in the service of Prince
+      Kaid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a dreadful government, an awful service&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is why I stay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are going to try and change things here&mdash;you alone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope not alone, in time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are going to leave England, your friends, your family, your place&mdash;in
+      Hamley, was it not? My aunt has read of you&mdash;my cousin&mdash;&rdquo; she
+      paused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had no place in Hamley. Here is my place. Distance has little to do
+      with understanding or affection. I had an uncle here in the East for
+      twenty-five years, yet I knew him better than all others in the world.
+      Space is nothing if minds are in sympathy. My uncle talked to me over seas
+      and lands. I felt him, heard him speak.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think that minds can speak to minds, no matter what the distance&mdash;real
+      and definite things?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I were parted from one very dear to me, I would try to say to him or
+      her what was in my mind, not by written word only, but by the flying
+      thought.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat down suddenly, as though overwhelmed. &ldquo;Oh, if that were possible!&rdquo;
+       she said. &ldquo;If only one could send a thought like that!&rdquo; Then with an
+      impulse, and the flicker of a sad smile, she reached out a hand. &ldquo;If ever
+      in the years to come you want to speak to me, will you try to make me
+      understand, as your uncle did with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot tell,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;That which is deepest within us obeys only
+      the laws of its need. By instinct it turns to where help lies, as a wild
+      deer, fleeing, from captivity, makes for the veldt and the watercourse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She got to her feet again. &ldquo;I want to pay my debt,&rdquo; she said solemnly. &ldquo;It
+      is a debt that one day must be paid&mdash;so awful&mdash;so awful!&rdquo; A
+      swift change passed over her. She shuddered, and grew white. &ldquo;I said brave
+      words just now,&rdquo; she added in a hoarse whisper, &ldquo;but now I see him lying
+      there cold and still, and you stooping over him. I see you touch his
+      breast, his pulse. I see you close his eyes. One instant full of the pulse
+      of life, the next struck out into infinite space. Oh, I shall never&mdash;how
+      can I ever-forget!&rdquo; She turned her head away from him, then composed
+      herself again, and said quietly, with anxious eyes: &ldquo;Why was nothing said
+      or done? Perhaps they are only waiting. Perhaps they know. Why was it
+      announced that he died in his bed at home?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot tell. When a man in high places dies in Egypt, it may be one
+      death or another. No one inquires too closely. He died in Kaid Pasha&rsquo;s
+      Palace, where other men have died, and none has inquired too closely.
+      To-day they told me at the Palace that his carriage was seen to leave with
+      himself and Mizraim the Chief Eunuch. Whatever the object, he was secretly
+      taken to his house from the Palace, and his brother Nahoum seized upon his
+      estate in the early morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think that no one knows the truth. But it is all in the hands of God.
+      We can do nothing more. Thee must go. Thee should not have come. In
+      England thee will forget, as thee should forget. In Egypt I shall
+      remember, as I should remember.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee,&rdquo; she repeated softly. &ldquo;I love the Quaker thee. My grandmother was
+      an American Quaker. She always spoke like that. Will you not use thee and
+      thou in speaking to me, always?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are not likely to speak together in any language in the future,&rdquo; he
+      answered. &ldquo;But now thee must go, and I will&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My cousin, Mr. Lacey, is waiting for me in the garden,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;I
+      shall be safe with him.&rdquo; She moved towards the door. He caught the handle
+      to turn it, when there came the noise of loud talking, and the sound of
+      footsteps in the court-yard. He opened the door slightly and looked out,
+      then closed it quickly. &ldquo;It is Nahoum Pasha,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Please, the other
+      room,&rdquo; he added, and pointed to a curtain. &ldquo;There is a window leading on a
+      garden. The garden-gate opens on a street leading to the Ezbekiah Square
+      and your hotel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, no, I shall stay here,&rdquo; she said. She drew down her veil, then
+      taking from her pocket another, arranged it also, so that her face was
+      hidden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee must go,&rdquo; he said&mdash;&ldquo;go quickly.&rdquo; Again he pointed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will remain,&rdquo; she rejoined, with determination, and seated herself in a
+      chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X. THE FOUR WHO KNEW
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      There was a knocking at the door. David opened it. Nahoum Pasha stepped
+      inside, and stood still a moment looking at Hylda. Then he made low
+      salutation to her, touched his hand to his lips and breast saluting David,
+      and waited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is thy business, pasha?&rdquo; asked David quietly, and motioned towards a
+      chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May thy path be on the high hills, Saadat-el-basha. I come for a favour
+      at thy hands.&rdquo; Nahoum sat down. &ldquo;What favour is mine to give to Nahoum
+      Pasha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Prince has given thee supreme place&mdash;it was mine but yesterday.
+      It is well. To the deserving be the fruits of deserving.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is merit, then, so truly rewarded here?&rdquo; asked David quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Prince saw merit at last when he chose your Excellency for
+      councillor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How shall I show merit, then, in the eyes of Nahoum Pasha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even by urging the Prince to give me place under him again. Not as
+      heretofore&mdash;that is thy place&mdash;yet where it may be. I have
+      capacity. I can aid thee in the great task. Thou wouldst remake our Egypt&mdash;and
+      my heart is with you. I would rescue, not destroy. In years gone by I
+      tried to do good to this land, and I failed. I was alone. I had not the
+      strength to fight the forces around me. I was overcome. I had too little
+      faith. But my heart was with the right&mdash;I am an Armenian and a
+      Christian of the ancient faith. I am in sorrow. Death has humbled me. My
+      brother Foorgat Bey&mdash;may flowers bloom for ever on his grave!&mdash;he
+      is dead,&rdquo;&mdash;his eyes were fixed on those of David, as with a perfectly
+      assured candour&mdash;&ldquo;and my heart is like an empty house. But man must
+      not be idle and live&mdash;if Kaid lets me live. I have riches. Are not
+      Foorgat&rsquo;s riches mine, his Palace, his gardens, his cattle, and his
+      plantations, are they not mine? I may sit in the court-yard and hear the
+      singers, may listen to the tale-tellers by the light of the moon; I may
+      hear the tales of Al-Raschid chanted by one whose tongue never falters,
+      and whose voice is like music; after the manner of the East I may give
+      bread and meat to the poor at sunset; I may call the dancers to the feast.
+      But what comfort shall it give? I am no longer a youth. I would work. I
+      would labour for the land of Egypt, for by work shall we fulfil ourselves,
+      redeem ourselves. Saadat, I would labour, but my master has taken away
+      from me the anvil, the fire, and the hammer, and I sit without the door
+      like an armless beggar. What work to do in Egypt save to help the land,
+      and how shall one help, save in the Prince&rsquo;s service? There can be no
+      reform from outside. If I laboured for better things outside Kaid&rsquo;s
+      Palace, how long dost thou think I should escape the Nile, or the
+      diamond-dust in my coffee? The work which I did, is it not so that it,
+      with much more, falls now to thy hands, Saadat, with a confidence from
+      Kaid that never was mine?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I sought not the office.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have I a word of blame? I come to ask for work to do with thee. Do I not
+      know Prince Kaid? He had come to distrust us all. As stale water were we
+      in his taste. He had no pleasure in us, and in our deeds he found only
+      stones of stumbling. He knew not whom to trust. One by one we all had
+      yielded to ceaseless intrigue and common distrust of each other, until no
+      honest man was left; till all were intent to save their lives by holding
+      power; for in this land to lose power is to lose life. No man who has been
+      in high place, has had the secrets of the Palace and the ear of the
+      Prince, lives after he has lost favour. The Prince, for his safety, must
+      ensure silence, and the only silence in Egypt is the grave. In thee,
+      Saadat, Kaid has found an honest man. Men will call thee mad, if thou
+      remainest honest, but that is within thine own bosom and with fate. For
+      me, thou hast taken my place, and more. Malaish, it is the decree of fate,
+      and I have no anger. I come to ask thee to save my life, and then to give
+      me work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How shall I save thy life?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By reconciling the Effendina to my living, and then by giving me service,
+      where I shall be near to thee; where I can share with thee, though it be
+      as the ant beside the beaver, the work of salvation in Egypt. I am rich
+      since my brother was&mdash;&rdquo; He paused; no covert look was in his eyes, no
+      sign of knowledge, nothing but meditation and sorrowful frankness&mdash;&ldquo;since
+      Foorgat passed away in peace, praise be to God! He lay on his bed in the
+      morning, when one came to wake him, like a sleeping child, no sign of the
+      struggle of death upon him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A gasping sound came from the chair where Hylda sat; but he took no
+      notice. He appeared to be unconscious of David&rsquo;s pain-drawn face, as he
+      sat with hands upon his knees, his head bent forward listening, as though
+      lost to the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So did Foorgat, my brother, die while yet in the fulness of his manhood,
+      life beating high in his veins, with years before him to waste. He was a
+      pleasure-lover, alas! he laid up no treasure of work accomplished; and so
+      it was meet that he should die as he lived, in a moment of ease. And
+      already he is forgotten. It is the custom here. He might have died by
+      diamond-dust, and men would have set down their coffee-cups in surprise,
+      and then would have forgotten; or he might have been struck down by the
+      hand of an assassin, and, unless it was in the Palace, none would have
+      paused to note it. And so the sands sweep over his steps upon the shore of
+      time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After the first exclamation of horror, Hylda had sat rigid, listening as
+      though under a spell. Through her veil she gazed at Nahoum with a cramping
+      pain at her heart, for he seemed ever on the verge of the truth she
+      dreaded; and when he spoke the truth, as though unconsciously, she felt
+      she must cry out and rush from the room. He recalled to her the scene in
+      the little tapestried room as vividly as though it was there before her
+      eyes, and it had for the moment all the effect of a hideous nightmare. At
+      last, however, she met David&rsquo;s eyes, and they guided her, for in them was
+      a steady strength and force which gave her confidence. At first he also
+      had been overcome inwardly, but his nerves were cool, his head was clear,
+      and he listened to Nahoum, thinking out his course meanwhile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He owed this man much. He had taken his place, and by so doing had placed
+      his life in danger. He had killed the brother upon the same day that he
+      had dispossessed the favourite of office; and the debt was heavy. In
+      office Nahoum had done after his kind, after the custom of the place and
+      the people; and yet, as it would seem, the man had had stirrings within
+      him towards a higher path. He, at any rate, had not amassed riches out of
+      his position, and so much could not be said of any other servant of the
+      Prince Pasha. Much he had heard of Nahoum&rsquo;s powerful will, hidden under a
+      genial exterior, and behind his friendly, smiling blue eyes. He had heard
+      also of cruelty&mdash;of banishment, and of enemies removed from his path
+      suddenly, never to be seen again; but, on the whole, men spoke with more
+      admiration of him than of any other public servant, Armenian Christian in
+      a Mahommedan country though he was. That very day Kaid had said that if
+      Nahoum had been less eager to control the State, he might still have held
+      his place. Besides, the man was a Christian&mdash;of a mystic,
+      half-legendary, obscure Christianity; yet having in his mind the old
+      faith, its essence and its meaning, perhaps. Might not this Oriental mind,
+      with that faith, be a power to redeem the land? It was a wonderful dream,
+      in which he found the way, as he thought, to atone somewhat to this man
+      for a dark injury done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Nahoum stopped speaking David said: &ldquo;But if I would have it, if it
+      were well that it should be, I doubt I have the power to make it so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Saadat-el-bdsha, Kaid believes in thee to-day; he will not believe
+      to-morrow if thou dost remain without initiative. Action, however
+      startling, will be proof of fitness. His Highness shakes a long spear.
+      Those who ride with him must do battle with the same valour. Excellency, I
+      have now great riches&mdash;since Death smote Foorgat Bey in the forehead&rdquo;&mdash;still
+      his eyes conveyed no meaning, though Hylda shrank back&mdash;&ldquo;and I would
+      use them for the good thou wouldst do here. Money will be needed, and
+      sufficient will not be at thy hand-not till new ledgers be opened, new
+      balances struck.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned to Hylda quietly, and with a continued air of innocence said:
+      &ldquo;Shall it not be so-madame? Thou, I doubt not, are of his kin. It would
+      seem so, though I ask pardon if it be not so&mdash;wilt thou not urge his
+      Excellency to restore me to Kaid&rsquo;s favour? I know little of the English,
+      though I know them humane and honest; but my brother, Foorgat Bey, he was
+      much among them, lived much in England, was a friend to many great
+      English. Indeed, on the evening that he died I saw him in the gallery of
+      the banquet-room with an English lady&mdash;can one be mistaken in an
+      English face? Perhaps he cared for her; perhaps that was why he smiled as
+      he lay upon his bed, never to move again. Madame, perhaps in England thou
+      mayst have known my brother. If that is so, I ask thee to speak for me to
+      his Excellency. My life is in danger, and I am too young to go as my
+      brother went. I do not wish to die in middle age, as my brother died.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had gone too far. In David&rsquo;s mind there was no suspicion that Nahoum
+      knew the truth. The suggestion in his words had seemed natural; but, from
+      the first, a sharp suspicion was in the mind of Hylda, and his last words
+      had convinced her that if Nahoum did not surely know the truth, he
+      suspected it all too well. Her instinct had pierced far; and as she
+      realised his suspicions, perhaps his certainty, and heard his words of
+      covert insult, which, as she saw, David did not appreciate, anger and
+      determination grew in her. Yet she felt that caution must mark her words,
+      and that nothing but danger lay in resentment. She felt the everlasting
+      indignity behind the quiet, youthful eyes, the determined power of the
+      man; but she saw also that, for the present, the course Nahoum suggested
+      was the only course to take. And David must not even feel the suspicion in
+      her own mind, that Nahoum knew or suspected the truth. If David thought
+      that Nahoum knew, the end of all would come at once. It was clear,
+      however, that Nahoum meant to be silent, or he would have taken another
+      course of action. Danger lay in every direction, but, to her mind, the
+      least danger lay in following Nahoum&rsquo;s wish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She slowly raised her veil, showing a face very still now, with eyes as
+      steady as David&rsquo;s. David started at her action, he thought it rash; but
+      the courage of it pleased him, too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not mistaken,&rdquo; she said slowly in French; &ldquo;your brother was known
+      to me. I had met him in England. It will be a relief to all his friends to
+      know that he passed away peacefully.&rdquo; She looked him in the eyes
+      determinedly. &ldquo;Monsieur Claridge is not my kinsman, but he is my
+      fellow-countryman. If you mean well by monsieur, your knowledge and your
+      riches should help him on his way. But your past is no guarantee of good
+      faith, as you will acknowledge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked her in the eyes with a far meaning. &ldquo;But I am giving guarantees
+      of good faith now,&rdquo; he said softly. &ldquo;Will you&mdash;not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She understood. It was clear that he meant peace, for the moment at least.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I had influence I would advise him to reconcile you to Prince Kaid,&rdquo;
+       she said quietly, then turned to David with an appeal in her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David stood up. &ldquo;I will do what I can,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If thee means as well by
+      Egypt as I mean by thee, all may be well for all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Saadat! Saadat!&rdquo; said Nahoum, with show of assumed feeling, and made
+      salutation. Then to Hylda, making lower salutation still, he said: &ldquo;Thou
+      hast lifted from my neck the yoke. Thou hast saved me from the shadow and
+      the dust. I am thy slave.&rdquo; His eyes were like a child&rsquo;s, wide and
+      confiding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned towards the door, and was about to open it, when there came a
+      knocking, and he stepped back. Hylda drew down her veil. David opened the
+      door cautiously and admitted Mizraim the Chief Eunuch. Mizraim&rsquo;s eyes
+      searched the room, and found Nahoum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pasha,&rdquo; he said to Nahoum, &ldquo;may thy bones never return to dust, nor the
+      light of thine eyes darken! There is danger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nahoum nodded, but did not speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I speak, then?&rdquo; He paused and made low salutation to David, saying,
+      &ldquo;Excellency, I am thine ox to be slain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Speak, son of the flowering oak,&rdquo; said Nahoum, with a sneer in his voice.
+      &ldquo;What blessing dost thou bring?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Effendina has sent for thee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nahoum&rsquo;s eyes flashed. &ldquo;By thee, lion of Abdin?&rdquo; The lean, ghastly being
+      smiled. &ldquo;He has sent a company of soldiers and Achmet Pasha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Achmet! Is it so? They are here, Mizraim, watcher of the morning?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are at thy palace&mdash;I am here, light of Egypt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How knewest thou I was here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mizraim salaamed. &ldquo;A watch was set upon thee this morning early. The
+      watcher was of my slaves. He brought the word to me that thou wast here
+      now. A watcher also was set upon thee, Excellency&rdquo;&mdash;he turned to
+      David. &ldquo;He also was of my slaves. Word was delivered to his Highness that
+      thou&rdquo;&mdash;he turned to Nahoum again&mdash;&ldquo;wast in thy palace, and
+      Achmet Pasha went thither. He found thee not. Now the city is full of
+      watchers, and Achmet goes from bazaar to bazaar, from house to house which
+      thou was wont to frequent&mdash;and thou art here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What wouldst thou have me do, Mizraim?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou art here; is it the house of a friend or a foe?&rdquo; Nahoum did not
+      answer. His eyes were fixed in thought upon the floor, but he was smiling.
+      He seemed without fear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if this be the house of a friend, is he safe here?&rdquo; asked David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For this night, it may be,&rdquo; answered Mizraim, &ldquo;till other watchers be
+      set, who are no slaves of mine. Tonight, here, of all places in Cairo, he
+      is safe; for who could look to find him where thou art who hast taken from
+      him his place and office, Excellency&mdash;on whom the stars shine for
+      ever! But in another day, if my lord Nahoum be not forgiven by the
+      Effendina, a hundred watchers will pierce the darkest corner of the
+      bazaar, the smallest room in Cairo.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David turned to Nahoum. &ldquo;Peace be to thee, friend. Abide here till
+      to-morrow, when I will speak for thee to his Highness, and, I trust, bring
+      thee pardon. It shall be so&mdash;but I shall prevail,&rdquo; he added, with
+      slow decision; &ldquo;I shall prevail with him. My reasons shall convince his
+      Highness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can help thee with great reasons, Saadat,&rdquo; said Nahoum. &ldquo;Thou shalt
+      prevail. I can tell thee that which will convince Kaid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While they were speaking, Hylda had sat motionless watching. At first it
+      seemed to her that a trap had been set, and that David was to be the
+      victim of Oriental duplicity; but revolt, as she did, from the miserable
+      creature before them, she saw at last that he spoke the truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee will remain under this roof to-night, pasha?&rdquo; asked David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will stay if thy goodness will have it so,&rdquo; answered Nahoum slowly. &ldquo;It
+      is not my way to hide, but when the storm comes it is well to shelter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Salaaming low, Mizraim withdrew, his last glance being thrown towards
+      Hylda, who met his look with a repugnance which made her face rigid. She
+      rose and put on her gloves. Nahoum rose also, and stood watching her
+      respectfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee will go?&rdquo; asked David, with a movement towards her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She inclined her head. &ldquo;We have finished our business, and it is late,&rdquo;
+       she answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David looked at Nahoum. &ldquo;Thee will rest here, pasha, in peace. In a moment
+      I will return.&rdquo; He took up his hat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a sudden flash of Nahoum&rsquo;s eyes, as though he saw an outcome of
+      the intention which pleased him, but Hylda, saw the flash, and her senses
+      were at once alarmed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no need to accompany me,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;My cousin waits for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David opened the door leading into the court-yard. It was dark, save for
+      the light of a brazier of coals. A short distance away, near the outer
+      gate, glowed a star of red light, and the fragrance of a strong cigar came
+      over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, looking for me?&rdquo; said a voice, and a figure moved towards David.
+      &ldquo;Yours to command, pasha, yours to command.&rdquo; Lacey from Chicago held out
+      his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee is welcome, friend,&rdquo; said David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s ready, I suppose. Wonderful person, that. Stands on her own feet
+      every time. She don&rsquo;t seem as though she came of the same stock as me,
+      does she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will bring her if thee will wait, friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m waiting.&rdquo; Lacey drew back to the gateway again and leaned against the
+      wall, his cigar blazing in the dusk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A moment later David appeared in the garden again, with the slim, graceful
+      figure of the girl who stood &ldquo;upon her own feet.&rdquo; David drew her aside for
+      a moment. &ldquo;Thee is going at once to England?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-morrow to Alexandria. There is a steamer next day for Marseilles. In a
+      fortnight more I shall be in England.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee must forget Egypt,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Remembrance is not a thing of the
+      will,&rdquo; she answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is thy duty to forget. Thee is young, and it is spring with thee.
+      Spring should be in thy heart. Thee has seen a shadow; but let it not
+      fright thee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My only fear is that I may forget,&rdquo; she answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet thee will forget.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With a motion towards Lacey he moved to the gate. Suddenly she turned to
+      him and touched his arm. &ldquo;You will be a great man herein Egypt,&rdquo; she said.
+      &ldquo;You will have enemies without number. The worst of your enemies always
+      will be your guest to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not, for a moment, understand. &ldquo;Nahoum?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;I take his
+      place. It would not be strange; but I will win him to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will never win him,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;Oh, trust my instinct in this!
+      Watch him. Beware of him.&rdquo; David smiled slightly. &ldquo;I shall have need to
+      beware of many. I am sure thee does well to caution me. Farewell,&rdquo; he
+      added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it should be that I can ever help you&mdash;&rdquo; she said, and paused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee has helped me,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;The world is a desert. Caravans from
+      all quarters of the sun meet at the cross-roads. One gives the other food
+      or drink or medicine, and they move on again. And all grows dim with time.
+      And the camel-drivers are forgotten; but the cross-roads remain, and the
+      food and the drink and the medicine and the cattle helped each caravan
+      upon the way. Is it not enough?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She placed her hand in his. It lay there for a moment. &ldquo;God be with thee,
+      friend,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next instant Thomas Tilman Lacey&rsquo;s drawling voice broke the silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s something catching about these nights in Egypt. I suppose it&rsquo;s
+      the air. No wind&mdash;just the stars, and the ultramarine, and the
+      nothing to do but lay me down and sleep. It doesn&rsquo;t give you the jim-jumps
+      like Mexico. It makes you forget the world, doesn&rsquo;t it? You&rsquo;d do things
+      here that you wouldn&rsquo;t do anywhere else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The gate was opened by the bowab, and the two passed through. David was
+      standing by the brazier, his hand held unconsciously over the coals, his
+      eyes turned towards them. The reddish flame from the fire lit up his face
+      under the broad-brimmed hat. His head, slightly bowed, was thrust forward
+      to the dusk. Hylda looked at him steadily for a moment. Their eyes met,
+      though hers were in the shade. Again Lacey spoke. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be anxious. I&rsquo;ll
+      see her safe back. Good-bye. Give my love to the girls.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David stood looking at the closed gate with eyes full of thought and
+      wonder and trouble. He was not thinking of the girl. There was no
+      sentimental reverie in his look. Already his mind was engaged in scrutiny
+      of the circumstances in which he was set. He realised fully his situation.
+      The idealism which had been born with him had met its reward in a labour
+      herculean at the least, and the infinite drudgery of the practical issues
+      came in a terrible pressure of conviction to his mind. The mind did not
+      shrink from any thought of the dangers in which he would be placed, from
+      any vision of the struggle he must have with intrigue, and treachery and
+      vileness. In a dim, half-realised way he felt that honesty and truth would
+      be invincible weapons with a people who did not know them. They would be
+      embarrassed, if not baffled, by a formula of life and conduct which they
+      could not understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not these matters that vexed him now, but the underlying forces of
+      life set in motion by the blow which killed a fellow-man. This fact had
+      driven him to an act of redemption unparalleled in its intensity and
+      scope; but he could not tell&mdash;and this was the thought that shook his
+      being&mdash;how far this act itself, inspiring him to a dangerous and
+      immense work in life, would sap the best that was in him, since it must
+      remain a secret crime, for which he could not openly atone. He asked
+      himself as he stood by the brazier, the bowab apathetically rolling
+      cigarettes at his feet, whether, in the flow of circumstance, the fact
+      that he could not make open restitution, or take punishment for his
+      unlawful act, would undermine the structure of his character. He was on
+      the threshold of his career: action had not yet begun; he was standing
+      like a swimmer on a high shore, looking into depths beneath which have
+      never been plumbed by mortal man, wondering what currents, what rocks, lay
+      beneath the surface of the blue. Would his strength, his knowledge, his
+      skill, be equal to the enterprise? Would he emerge safe and successful, or
+      be carried away by some strong undercurrent, be battered on unseen rocks?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned with a calm face to the door behind which sat the displaced
+      favourite of the Prince, his mind at rest, the trouble gone out of his
+      eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Benn! Uncle Benn!&rdquo; he said to himself, with a warmth at his heart
+      as he opened the door and stepped inside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nahoum sat sipping coffee. A cigarette was between his fingers. He touched
+      his hand to his forehead and his breast as David closed the door and hung
+      his hat upon a nail. David&rsquo;s servant, Mahommed Hassan, whom he had had
+      since first he came to Egypt, was gliding from the room&mdash;a large,
+      square-shouldered fellow of over six feet, dressed in a plain blue yelek,
+      but on his head the green turban of one who had done a pilgrimage to
+      Mecca. Nahoum waved a hand after Mahommed and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whence came thy servant sadat?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was my guide to Cairo. I picked him from the street.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nahoum smiled. There was no malice in the smile, only, as it might seem, a
+      frank humour. &ldquo;Ah, your Excellency used independent judgment. Thou art a
+      judge of men. But does it make any difference that the man is a thief and
+      a murderer&mdash;a murderer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David&rsquo;s eyes darkened, as they were wont to do when he was moved or
+      shocked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall one only deal, then, with those who have neither stolen nor slain&mdash;is
+      that the rule of the just in Egypt?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nahoum raised his eyes to the ceiling as though in amiable inquiry, and
+      began to finger a string of beads as a nun might tell her paternosters.
+      &ldquo;If that were the rule,&rdquo; he answered, after a moment, &ldquo;how should any man
+      be served in Egypt? Hereabouts is a man&rsquo;s life held cheap, else I had not
+      been thy guest to-night; and Kaid&rsquo;s Palace itself would be empty, if every
+      man in it must be honest. But it is the custom of the place for political
+      errors to be punished by a hidden hand; we do not call it murder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is murder, friend?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is such a crime as that of Mahommed yonder, who killed&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David interposed. &ldquo;I do not wish to know his crime. That is no affair
+      between thee and me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nahoum fingered his beads meditatively. &ldquo;It was an affair of the housetops
+      in his town of Manfaloot. I have only mentioned it because I know what
+      view the English take of killing, and how set thou art to have thy
+      household above reproach, as is meet in a Christian home. So, I took it,
+      would be thy mind&mdash;which Heaven fill with light for Egypt&rsquo;s sake!&mdash;that
+      thou wouldst have none about thee who were not above reproach, neither
+      liars, nor thieves, nor murderers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But thee would serve with me, friend,&rdquo; rejoined David quietly. &ldquo;Thee has
+      men&rsquo;s lives against thy account.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Else had mine been against their account.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was it not so with Mahommed? If so, according to the custom of the land,
+      then Mahommed is as immune as thou art.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Saadat, like thee I am a Christian, yet am I also Oriental, and what is
+      crime with one race is none with another. At the Palace two days past thou
+      saidst thou hadst never killed a man; and I know that thy religion
+      condemns killing even in war. Yet in Egypt thou wilt kill, or thou shalt
+      thyself be killed, and thy aims will come to naught. When, as thou wouldst
+      say, thou hast sinned, hast taken a man&rsquo;s life, then thou wilt understand.
+      Thou wilt keep this fellow Mahommed, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand, and I will keep him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely thy heart is large and thy mind great. It moveth above small
+      things. Thou dost not seek riches here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have enough; my wants are few.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no precedent for one in office to withhold his hand from profit
+      and backsheesh.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall we not try to make a precedent?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Truthfulness will be desolate&mdash;like a bird blown to sea, beating
+      &lsquo;gainst its doom.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Truth will find an island in the sea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If Egypt is that sea, Saadat, there is no island.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David came over close to Nahoum, and looked him in the eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely I can speak to thee, friend, as to one understanding. Thou art a
+      Christian&mdash;of the ancient fold. Out of the East came the light. Thy
+      Church has preserved the faith. It is still like a lamp in the mist and
+      the cloud in the East. Thou saidst but now that thy heart was with my
+      purpose. Shall the truth that I would practise here not find an island in
+      this sea&mdash;and shall it not be the soul of Nahoum Pasha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have I not given my word? Nay, then, I swear it by the tomb of my
+      brother, whom Death met in the highway, and because he loved the sun, and
+      the talk of men, and the ways of women, rashly smote him out of the garden
+      of life into the void. Even by his tomb I swear it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hast thou, then, such malice against Death? These things cannot happen
+      save by the will of God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And by the hand of man. But I have no cause for revenge. Foorgat died in
+      his sleep like a child. Yet if it had been the hand of man, Prince Kaid or
+      any other, I would not have held my hand until I had a life for his.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou art a Christian, yet thou wouldst meet one wrong by another?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am an Oriental.&rdquo; Then, with a sudden change of manner, he added: &ldquo;But
+      thou hast a Christianity the like of which I have never seen. I will learn
+      of thee, Saadat, and thou shalt learn of me also many things which I know.
+      They will help thee to understand Egypt and the place where thou wilt be
+      set&mdash;if so be my life is saved, and by thy hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mahommed entered, and came to David. &ldquo;Where wilt thou sleep, Saadat?&rdquo; he
+      asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The pasha will sleep yonder,&rdquo; David replied, pointing to another room. &ldquo;I
+      will sleep here.&rdquo; He laid a hand upon the couch where he sat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nahoum rose and, salaaming, followed Mahommed to the other room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a few moments the house was still, and remained so for hours. Just
+      before dawn the curtain of Nahoum&rsquo;s room was drawn aside, the Armenian
+      entered stealthily, and moved a step towards the couch where David lay.
+      Suddenly he was stopped by a sound. He glanced towards a corner near
+      David&rsquo;s feet. There sat Mahommed watching, a neboot of dom-wood across his
+      knees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their eyes remained fixed upon each other for a moment. Then Nahoum passed
+      back into his bedroom as stealthily as he had come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mahommed looked closely at David. He lay with an arm thrown over his head,
+      resting softly, a moisture on his forehead as on that of a sleeping child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Saadat! Saadat!&rdquo; said Mahommed softly to the sleeping figure, scarcely
+      above his breath, and then with his eyes upon the curtained room opposite,
+      began to whisper words from the Koran:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI. AGAINST THE HOUR OF MIDNIGHT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      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. He was less stoical and apathetic than most Egyptians. Also he was
+      absurdly vain, and he knew that his vanity would receive rough usage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now the door swung open, and a portly figure entered quickly. For so large
+      a man Prince Kaid was light and subtle in his movements. His face was
+      mobile, his eye keen and human.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Achmet salaamed low. &ldquo;The gardens of the First Heaven be thine, and the
+      uttermost joy, Effendina,&rdquo; he said elaborately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A thousand colours to the rainbow of thy happiness,&rdquo; answered Kaid
+      mechanically, and seated himself cross-legged on a divan, taking a
+      narghileh from the black slave who had glided ghostlike behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What hour didst thou find him? Where hast thou placed him?&rdquo; he added,
+      after a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Achmet salaamed once more. &ldquo;I have burrowed without ceasing, but the holes
+      are empty, Effendina,&rdquo; he returned, abjectly and nervously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had need to be concerned. The reply was full of amazement and anger.
+      &ldquo;Thou hast not found him? Thou hast not brought Nahoum to me?&rdquo; Kaid&rsquo;s eyes
+      were growing reddish; no good sign for those around him, for any that
+      crossed him or his purposes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A hundred eyes failed to search him out. Ten thousand piastres did not
+      find him; the kourbash did not reveal him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid&rsquo;s frown grew heavier. &ldquo;Thou shalt bring Nahoum to me by midnight
+      to-morrow!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if he has escaped, Effendina?&rdquo; Achmet asked desperately. He had a
+      peasant&rsquo;s blood; fear of power was ingrained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was thy business but to prevent escape? Son of a Nile crocodile, if
+      he has escaped, thou too shalt escape from Egypt&mdash;into Fazougli.
+      Fool, Nahoum is no coward. He would remain. He is in Egypt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he be in Egypt, I will find him, Effendina. Have I ever failed? When
+      thou hast pointed, have I not brought? Have there not been many,
+      Effendina? Should I not bring Nahoum, who has held over our heads the
+      rod?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid looked at him meditatively, and gave no answer to the question. &ldquo;He
+      reached too far,&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;Egypt has one master only.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The door opened softly and the black slave stole in. His lips moved, but
+      scarce a sound travelled across the room. Kaid understood, and made a
+      gesture. An instant afterwards the vast figure of Higli Pasha bulked into
+      the room. Again there were elaborate salutations and salaams, and Kaid
+      presently said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Foorgat?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Effendina,&rdquo; answered High, &ldquo;it is not known how he died. He was in this
+      Palace alive at night. In the morning he was found in bed at his own
+      home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was no wound?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None, Effendina.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The thong?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was no mark, Effendina.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poison?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was no sign, Effendina.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Diamond-dust?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Impossible, Effendina. There was not time. He was alive and well here at
+      the Palace at eleven, and&mdash;&rdquo; Kaid made an impatient gesture. &ldquo;By the
+      stone in the Kaabah, but it is not reasonable that Foorgat should die in
+      his bed like a babe and sleep himself into heaven! Fate meant him for a
+      violent end; but ere that came there was work to do for me. He had a gift
+      for scenting treason&mdash;and he had treasure.&rdquo; His eyes shut and opened
+      again with a look not pleasant to see. &ldquo;But since it was that he must die
+      so soon, then the loan he promised must now be a gift from the dead, if he
+      be dead, if he be not shamming. Foorgat was a dire jester.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But now it is no jest, Effendina. He is in his grave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In his grave! Bismillah! In his grave, dost thou say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      High&rsquo;s voice quavered. &ldquo;Yesterday before sunset, Effendina. By Nahoum&rsquo;s
+      orders.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ordered the burial for to-day. By the gates of hell, but who shall
+      disobey me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was already buried when the Effendina&rsquo;s orders came,&rdquo; High pleaded
+      anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nahoum should have been taken yesterday,&rdquo; he rejoined, with malice in his
+      eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I had received the orders of the Effendina on the night when the
+      Effendina dismissed Nahoum&mdash;&rdquo; Achmet said softly, and broke off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A curse upon thine eyes that did not see thy duty!&rdquo; Kaid replied
+      gloomily. Then he turned to High. &ldquo;My seal has been put upon Foorgat&rsquo;s
+      doors? His treasure-places have been found? The courts have been commanded
+      as to his estate, the banks&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was too late, Effendina,&rdquo; replied High hopelessly. Kaid got to his
+      feet slowly, rage possessing him. &ldquo;Too late! Who makes it too late when I
+      command?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When Foorgat was found dead, Nahoum at once seized the palace and the
+      treasures. Then he went to the courts and to the holy men, and claimed
+      succession. That was while it was yet early morning. Then he instructed
+      the banks. The banks hold Foorgat&rsquo;s fortune against us, Effendina.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Foorgat had turned Mahommedan. Nahoum is a Christian. My will is law.
+      Shall a Christian dog inherit from a true believer? The courts, the Wakfs
+      shall obey me. And thou, son of a burnt father, shalt find Nahoum! Kaid
+      shall not be cheated. Foorgat pledged the loan. It is mine. Allah scorch
+      thine eyes!&rdquo; he added fiercely to Achmet, &ldquo;but thou shalt find this
+      Christian gentleman, Nahoum.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly, with a motion of disgust, he sat down, and taking the stem of
+      the narghileh, puffed vigorously in silence. Presently in a red fury he
+      cried: &ldquo;Go&mdash;go&mdash;go, and bring me back by midnight Nahoum, and
+      Foorgat&rsquo;s treasures, to the last piastre. Let every soldier be a spy, if
+      thine own spies fail.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As they turned to go, the door opened again, the black slave appeared, and
+      ushered David into the room. David salaamed, but not low, and stood still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the instant Kaid changed, The rage left his face. He leaned forward
+      eagerly, the cruel and ugly look faded slowly from his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May thy days of life be as a river with sands of gold, effendi,&rdquo; he said
+      gently. He had a voice like music. &ldquo;May the sun shine in thy heart and
+      fruits of wisdom flourish there, Effendina,&rdquo; answered David quietly. He
+      saluted the others gravely, and his eyes rested upon Achmet in a way which
+      Higli Pasha noted for subsequent gossip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid pulled at his narghileh for a moment, mumbling good-humouredly to
+      himself and watching the smoke reel away; then, with half-shut eyes, he
+      said to David: &ldquo;Am I master in Egypt or no, effendi?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In ruling this people the Prince of Egypt stands alone,&rdquo; answered David.
+      &ldquo;There is no one between him and the people. There is no Parliament.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is in my hand, then, to give or to withhold, to make or to break?&rdquo;
+       Kaid chuckled to have this tribute, as he thought, from a Christian, who
+      did not blink at Oriental facts, and was honest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David bowed his head to Kaid&rsquo;s words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then if it be my hand that lifts up or casts down, that rewards or that
+      punishes, shall my arm not stretch into the darkest corner of Egypt to
+      bring forth a traitor? Shall it not be so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It belongs to thy power,&rdquo; answered David. &ldquo;It is the ancient custom of
+      princes here. Custom is law, while it is yet the custom.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid looked at him enigmatically for a moment, then smiled grimly&mdash;he
+      saw the course of the lance which David had thrown. He bent his look
+      fiercely on Achmet and Higli. &ldquo;Ye have heard. Truth is on his lips. I have
+      stretched out my arm. Ye are my arm, to reach for and gather in Nahoum and
+      all that is his.&rdquo; He turned quickly to David again. &ldquo;I have given this
+      hawk, Achmet, till to-morrow night to bring Nahoum to me,&rdquo; he explained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if he fails&mdash;a penalty? He will lose his place?&rdquo; asked David,
+      with cold humour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;More than his place,&rdquo; Kaid rejoined, with a cruel smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then is his place mine, Effendina,&rdquo; rejoined David, with a look which
+      could give Achmet no comfort. &ldquo;Thou will bring Nahoum&mdash;thou?&rdquo; asked
+      Kaid, in amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have brought him,&rdquo; answered David. &ldquo;Is it not my duty to know the will
+      of the Effendina and to do it, when it is just and right?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is he&mdash;where does he wait?&rdquo; questioned Kaid eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Within the Palace&mdash;here,&rdquo; replied David. &ldquo;He awaits his fate in
+      thine own dwelling, Effendina.&rdquo; Kaid glowered upon Achmet. &ldquo;In the years
+      which Time, the Scytheman, will cut from thy life, think, as thou fastest
+      at Ramadan or feastest at Beiram, how Kaid filled thy plate when thou wast
+      a beggar, and made thee from a dog of a fellah into a pasha. Go to thy
+      dwelling, and come here no more,&rdquo; he added sharply. &ldquo;I am sick of thy
+      yellow, sinful face.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Achmet made no reply, but, as he passed beyond the door with Higli, he
+      said in a whisper: &ldquo;Come&mdash;to Harrik and the army! He shall be
+      deposed. The hour is at hand.&rdquo; High answered him faintly, however. He had
+      not the courage of the true conspirator, traitor though he was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they disappeared, Kaid made a wide gesture of friendliness to David,
+      and motioned to a seat, then to a narghileh. David seated himself, took
+      the stem of a narghileh in his mouth for an instant, then laid it down
+      again and waited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nahoum&mdash;I do not understand,&rdquo; Kaid said presently, his eyes
+      gloating.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He comes of his own will, Effendina.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wherefore?&rdquo; Kaid could not realise the truth. This truth was not Oriental
+      on the face of it. &ldquo;Effendina, he comes to place his life in thy hands. He
+      would speak with thee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How is it thou dost bring him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He sought me to plead for him with thee, and because I knew his peril, I
+      kept him with me and brought him hither but now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nahoum went to thee?&rdquo; Kaid&rsquo;s eyes peered abstractedly into the distance
+      between the almost shut lids. That Nahoum should seek David, who had
+      displaced him from his high office, was scarcely Oriental, when his every
+      cue was to have revenge on his rival. This was a natural sequence to his
+      downfall. It was understandable. But here was David safe and sound. Was
+      it, then, some deeper scheme of future vengeance? The Oriental
+      instinctively pierced the mind of the Oriental. He could have realised
+      fully the fierce, blinding passion for revenge which had almost overcome
+      Nahoum&rsquo;s calculating mind in the dark night, with his foe in the next
+      room, which had driven him suddenly from his bed to fall upon David, only
+      to find Mahommed Hassan watching&mdash;also with the instinct of the
+      Oriental.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some future scheme of revenge? Kaid&rsquo;s eyes gleamed red. There would be no
+      future for Nahoum. &ldquo;Why did Nahoum go to thee?&rdquo; he asked again presently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That I might beg his life of thee, Highness, as I said,&rdquo; David replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not ordered his death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David looked meditatively at him. &ldquo;It was agreed between us yesterday that
+      I should speak plainly&mdash;is it not so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid nodded, and leaned back among the cushions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If what the Effendina intends is fulfilled, there is no other way but
+      death for Nahoum,&rdquo; added David. &ldquo;What is my intention, effendi?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To confiscate the fortune left by Foorgat Bey. Is it not so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had a pledge from Foorgat&mdash;a loan.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is the merit of the case, Effendina. I am otherwise concerned. There
+      is the law. Nahoum inherits. Shouldst thou send him to Fazougli, he would
+      still inherit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is a traitor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Highness, where is the proof?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know. My friends have disappeared one by one&mdash;Nahoum. Lands have
+      been alienated from me&mdash;Nahoum. My income has declined&mdash;Nahoum.
+      I have given orders and they have not been fulfilled&mdash;Nahoum. Always,
+      always some rumour of assassination, or of conspiracy, or the influence
+      and secret agents of the Sultan&mdash;all Nahoum. He is a traitor. He has
+      grown rich while I borrow from Europe to pay my army and to meet the
+      demands of the Sultan.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What man can offer evidence in this save the Effendina who would profit
+      by his death?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I speak of what I know. I satisfy myself. It is enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Highness, there is a better way; to satisfy the people, for whom thee
+      lives. None should stand between. Is not the Effendina a father to them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The people! Would they not say Nahoum had got his due if he were blotted
+      from their sight?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None has been so generous to the poor, so it is said by all. His hand has
+      been upon the rich only. Now, Effendina, he has brought hither the full
+      amount of all he has received and acquired in thy service. He would offer
+      it in tribute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid smiled sardonically. &ldquo;It is a thin jest. When a traitor dies the
+      State confiscates his goods!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee calls him traitor. Does thee believe he has ever conspired against
+      thy life?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me answer for thee, Effendina. Again and again he has defeated
+      conspiracy. He has blotted it out&mdash;by the sword and other means. He
+      has been a faithful servant to his Prince at least. If he has done after
+      the manner of all others in power here, the fault is in the system, not in
+      the man alone. He has been a friend to thee, Kaid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope to find in thee a better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should he not live?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou hast taken his place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it, then, the custom to destroy those who have served thee, when they
+      cease to serve?&rdquo; David rose to his feet quickly. His face was shining with
+      a strange excitement. It gave him a look of exaltation, his lips quivered
+      with indignation. &ldquo;Does thee kill because there is silence in the grave?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid blew a cloud of smoke slowly. &ldquo;Silence in the grave is a fact beyond
+      dispute,&rdquo; he said cynically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Highness, thee changes servants not seldom,&rdquo; rejoined David meaningly.
+      &ldquo;It may be that my service will be short. When I go, will the long arm
+      reach out for me in the burrows where I shall hide?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid looked at him with ill-concealed admiration. &ldquo;Thou art an Englishman,
+      not an Egyptian, a guest, not a subject, and under no law save my
+      friendship.&rdquo; Then he added scornfully: &ldquo;When an Englishman in England
+      leaves office, no matter how unfaithful, though he be a friend of any
+      country save his own, they send him to the House of Lords&mdash;or so I
+      was told in France when I was there. What does it matter to thee what
+      chances to Nahoum? Thou hast his place with me. My secrets are thine. They
+      shall all be thine&mdash;for years I have sought an honest man. Thou art
+      safe whether to go or to stay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may be so. I heed it not. My life is as that of a gull&mdash;if the
+      wind carry it out to sea, it is lost. As my uncle went I shall go one day.
+      Thee will never do me ill; but do I not know that I shall have foes at
+      every corner, behind every mooshrabieh screen, on every mastaba, in the
+      pasha&rsquo;s court-yard, by every mosque? Do I not know in what peril I serve
+      Egypt?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet thou wouldst keep alive Nahoum! He will dig thy grave deep, and wait
+      long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will work with me for Egypt, Effendina.&rdquo; Kaid&rsquo;s face darkened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is thy meaning?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ask Nahoum&rsquo;s life that he may serve under me, to do those things thou
+      and I planned yesterday&mdash;the land, taxation, the army, agriculture,
+      the Soudan. Together we will make Egypt better and greater and richer&mdash;the
+      poor richer, even though the rich be poorer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Kaid&mdash;poorer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When Egypt is richer, the Prince is richer, too. Is not the Prince Egypt?
+      Highness, yesterday&mdash;yesterday thee gave me my commission. If thee
+      will not take Nahoum again into service to aid me, I must not remain. I
+      cannot work alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou must have this Christian Oriental to work with thee?&rdquo; He looked at
+      David closely, then smiled sardonically, but with friendliness to David in
+      his eyes. &ldquo;Nahoum has prayed to work with thee, to be a slave where he was
+      master? He says to thee that he would lay his heart upon the altar of
+      Egypt?&rdquo; Mordant, questioning humour was in his voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David inclined his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He would give up all that is his?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is so, Effendina.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All save Foorgat&rsquo;s heritage?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It belonged to their father. It is a due inheritance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid laughed sarcastically. &ldquo;It was got in Mehemet Ali&rsquo;s service.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nathless, it is a heritage, Effendina. He would give that fortune back
+      again to Egypt in work with me, as I shall give of what is mine, and of
+      what I am, in the name of God, the all-merciful!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The smile faded out of Kaid&rsquo;s face, and wonder settled on it. What manner
+      of man was this? His life, his fortune for Egypt, a country alien to him,
+      which he had never seen till six months ago! What kind of being was behind
+      the dark, fiery eyes and the pale, impassioned face? Was he some new
+      prophet? If so, why should he not have cast a spell upon Nahoum? Had he
+      not bewitched himself, Kaid, one of the ablest princes since Alexander or
+      Amenhotep? Had Nahoum, then, been mastered and won? Was ever such power?
+      In how many ways had it not been shown! He had fought for his uncle&rsquo;s
+      fortune, and had got it at last yesterday without a penny of backsheesh.
+      Having got his will, he was now ready to give that same fortune to the
+      good of Egypt&mdash;but not to beys and pashas and eunuchs (and that he
+      should have escaped Mizraim was the marvel beyond all others!), or even to
+      the Prince Pasha; but to that which would make &ldquo;Egypt better and greater
+      and richer&mdash;the poor richer, even though the rich be poorer!&rdquo; Kaid
+      chuckled to himself at that. To make the rich poorer would suit him well,
+      so long as he remained rich. And, if riches could be got, as this pale
+      Frank proposed, by less extortion from the fellah and less kourbash, so
+      much the happier for all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was capable of patriotism, and this Quaker dreamer had stirred it in
+      him a little. Egypt, industrial in a real sense; Egypt, paying her own way
+      without tyranny and loans: Egypt, without corvee, and with an army hired
+      from a full public purse; Egypt, grown strong and able to resist the
+      suzerainty and cruel tribute&mdash;that touched his native goodness of
+      heart, so long, in disguise; it appealed to the sense of leadership in
+      him; to the love of the soil deep in his bones; to regard for the common
+      people&mdash;for was not his mother a slave? Some distant nobleness
+      trembled in him, while yet the arid humour of the situation flashed into
+      his eyes, and, getting to his feet, he said to David: &ldquo;Where is Nahoum?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David told him, and he clapped his hands. The black slave entered,
+      received an order, and disappeared. Neither spoke, but Kaid&rsquo;s face was
+      full of cheerfulness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently Nahoum entered and salaamed low, then put his hand upon his
+      turban. There was submission, but no cringing or servility in his manner.
+      His blue eyes looked fearlessly before him. His face was not paler than
+      its wont. He waited for Kaid to speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Peace be to thee,&rdquo; Kaid murmured mechanically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And to thee, peace, O Prince,&rdquo; answered Nahoum. &ldquo;May the feet of Time
+      linger by thee, and Death pass thy house forgetful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was silence for a moment, and then Kaid spoke again. &ldquo;What are thy
+      properties and treasure?&rdquo; he asked sternly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nahoum drew forth a paper from his sleeve, and handed it to Kaid without a
+      word. Kaid glanced at it hurriedly, then said: &ldquo;This is but nothing. What
+      hast thou hidden from me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is all I have got in thy service, Highness,&rdquo; he answered boldly. &ldquo;All
+      else I have given to the poor; also to spies&mdash;and to the army.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To spies&mdash;and to the army?&rdquo; asked Kaid slowly, incredulously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wilt thou come with me to the window, Effendina?&rdquo; Kaid, wondering, went
+      to the great windows which looked on to the Palace square. There, drawn
+      up, were a thousand mounted men as black as ebony, wearing shining white
+      metal helmets and fine chain-armour and swords and lances like medieval
+      crusaders. The horses, too, were black, and the mass made a barbaric
+      display belonging more to another period in the world&rsquo;s history. This
+      regiment of Nubians Kaid had recruited from the far south, and had
+      maintained at his own expense. When they saw him at the window now, their
+      swords clashed on their thighs and across their breasts, and they raised a
+      great shout of greeting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; asked Kaid, with a ring to the voice. &ldquo;They are loyal, Effendina,
+      every man. But the army otherwise is honeycombed with treason. Effendina,
+      my money has been busy in the army paying and bribing officers, and my
+      spies were costly. There has been sedition&mdash;conspiracy; but until I
+      could get the full proofs I waited; I could but bribe and wait. Were it
+      not for the money I had spent, there might have been another Prince of
+      Egypt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kald&rsquo;s face darkened. He was startled, too. He had been taken unawares.
+      &ldquo;My brother Harrik&mdash;!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I should have lost my place, lost all for which I cared. I had no
+      love for money; it was but a means. I spent it for the State&mdash;for the
+      Effendina, and to keep my place. I lost my place, however, in another
+      way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Proofs! Proofs!&rdquo; Kaid&rsquo;s voice was hoarse with feeling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no proofs against Prince Harrik, no word upon paper. But there are
+      proofs that the army is seditious, that, at any moment, it may revolt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou hast kept this secret?&rdquo; questioned Kaid darkly and suspiciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The time had not come. Read, Effendina,&rdquo; he added, handing some papers
+      over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it is the whole army!&rdquo; said Kaid aghast, as he read. He was
+      convinced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is only one guilty,&rdquo; returned Nahoum. Their eyes met. Oriental
+      fatalism met inveterate Oriental distrust and then instinctively Kaid&rsquo;s
+      eyes turned to David. In the eyes of the Inglesi was a different thing.
+      The test of the new relationship had come. Ferocity was in his heart, a
+      vitriolic note was in his voice as he said to David, &ldquo;If this be true&mdash;the
+      army rotten, the officers disloyal, treachery under every tunic&mdash;bismillah,
+      speak!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall it not be one thing at a time, Effendina?&rdquo; asked David. He made a
+      gesture towards Nahoum. Kaid motioned to a door. &ldquo;Wait yonder,&rdquo; he said
+      darkly to Nahoum. As the door opened, and Nahoum disappeared leisurely and
+      composedly, David caught a glimpse of a guard of armed Nubians in
+      leopard-skins filed against the white wall of the other room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is thy intention towards Nahoum, Effendina?&rdquo; David asked presently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid&rsquo;s voice was impatient. &ldquo;Thou hast asked his life&mdash;take it; it is
+      thine; but if I find him within these walls again until I give him leave,
+      he shall go as Foorgat went.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was the manner of Foorgat&rsquo;s going?&rdquo; asked David quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As a wind blows through a court-yard, and the lamp goes out, so he went&mdash;in
+      the night. Who can say? Wherefore speculate? He is gone. It is enough.
+      Were it not for thee, Egypt should see Nahoum no more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David sighed, and his eyes closed for an instant. &ldquo;Effendina, Nahoum has
+      proved his faith&mdash;is it not so?&rdquo; He pointed to the documents in
+      Kaid&rsquo;s hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A grim smile passed over Kaid&rsquo;s face. Distrust of humanity, incredulity,
+      cold cynicism, were in it. &ldquo;Wheels within wheels, proofs within proofs,&rdquo;
+       he said. &ldquo;Thou hast yet to learn the Eastern heart. When thou seest white
+      in the East, call it black, for in an instant it will be black. Malaish,
+      it is the East! Have I not trusted&mdash;did I not mean well by all? Did I
+      not deal justly? Yet my justice was but darkness of purpose, the hidden
+      terror to them all. So did I become what thou findest me and dost believe
+      me&mdash;a tyrant, in whose name a thousand do evil things of which I
+      neither hear nor know. Proof! When a woman lies in your arms, it is not
+      the moment to prove her fidelity. Nahoum has crawled back to my feet with
+      these things, and by the beard of the Prophet they are true!&rdquo; He looked at
+      the papers with loathing. &ldquo;But what his purpose was when he spied upon and
+      bribed my army I know not. Yet, it shall be said, he has held Harrik back&mdash;Harrik,
+      my brother. Son of Sheitan and slime of the Nile, have I not spared Harrik
+      all these years!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hast thou proof, Effendina?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have proof enough; I shall have more soon. To save their lives, these,
+      these will tell. I have their names here.&rdquo; He tapped the papers. &ldquo;There
+      are ways to make them tell. Now, speak, effendi, and tell me what I shall
+      do to Harrik.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wouldst thou proclaim to Egypt, to the Sultan, to the world that the army
+      is disloyal? If these guilty men are seized, can the army be trusted? Will
+      it not break away in fear? Yonder Nubians are not enough&mdash;a handful
+      lost in the melee. Prove the guilt of him who perverted the army and
+      sought to destroy thee. Punish him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How shall there be proof save through those whom he has perverted? There
+      is no writing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is proof,&rdquo; answered David calmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where shall I find it?&rdquo; Kaid laughed contemptuously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have the proof,&rdquo; answered David gravely. &ldquo;Against Harrik?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Against Prince Harrik Pasha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou&mdash;what dost thou know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A woman of the Prince heard him give instructions for thy disposal,
+      Effendina, when the Citadel should turns its guns upon Cairo and the
+      Palace. She was once of thy harem. Thou didst give her in marriage, and
+      she came to the harem of Prince Harrik at last. A woman from without who
+      sang to her&mdash;a singing girl, an al&rsquo;mah&mdash;she trusted with the
+      paper to warn thee, Effendina, in her name. Her heart had remembrance of
+      thee. Her foster-brother Mahommed Hassan is my servant. Him she told, and
+      Mahommed laid the matter before me this morning. Here is a sign by which
+      thee will remember her, so she said. Zaida she was called here.&rdquo; He handed
+      over an amulet which had one red gem in the centre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid&rsquo;s face had set into fierce resolution, but as he took the amulet his
+      eyes softened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Zaida. Inshallah! Zaida, she was called. She has the truth almost of the
+      English. She could not lie ever. My heart smote me concerning her, and I
+      gave her in marriage.&rdquo; Then his face darkened again, and his teeth showed
+      in malice. A demon was roused in him. He might long ago have banished the
+      handsome and insinuating Harrik, but he had allowed him wealth and safety&mdash;and
+      now...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His intention was unmistakable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He shall die the death,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Is it not so?&rdquo; he added fiercely to
+      David, and gazed at him fixedly. Would this man of peace plead for the
+      traitor, the would-be fratricide?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is a traitor; he must die,&rdquo; answered David slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kald&rsquo;s eyes showed burning satisfaction. &ldquo;If he were thy brother, thou
+      wouldst kill him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would give a traitor to death for the country&rsquo;s sake. There is no other
+      way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-night he shall die.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But with due trial, Effendina?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Trial&mdash;is not the proof sufficient?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if he confess, and give evidence himself, and so offer himself to
+      die?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is Harrik a fool?&rdquo; answered Kaid, with scorn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If there be a trial and sentence is given, the truth concerning the army
+      must appear. Is that well? Egypt will shake to its foundations&mdash;to
+      the joy of its enemies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then he shall die secretly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Prince Pasha of Egypt will be called a murderer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Sultan&mdash;Europe&mdash;is it well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will tell the truth,&rdquo; Kaid rejoined angrily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If the Effendina will trust me, Prince Harrik shall confess his crime and
+      pay the penalty also.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is thy purpose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will go to his palace and speak with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seize him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no power to seize him, Effendina.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will give it. My Nubians shall go also.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Effendina, I will go alone. It is the only way. There is great danger to
+      the throne. Who can tell what a night will bring forth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If Harrik should escape&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I were an Egyptian and permitted Harrik to escape, my life would pay
+      for my failure. If I failed, thou wouldst not succeed. If I am to serve
+      Egypt, there must be trust in me from thee, or it were better to pause
+      now. If I go, as I shall go, alone, I put my life in danger&mdash;is it
+      not so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly Kaid sat down again among his cushions. &ldquo;Inshallah! In the name
+      of God, be it so. Thou art not as other men. There is something in thee
+      above my thinking. But I will not sleep till I see thee again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall see thee at midnight, Effendina. Give me the ring from thy
+      finger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid passed it over, and David put it in his pocket. Then he turned to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nahoum?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take him hence. Let him serve thee if it be thy will. Yet I cannot
+      understand it. The play is dark. Is he not an Oriental?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is a Christian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid laughed sourly, and clapped his hands for the slave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a moment David and Nahoum were gone. &ldquo;Nahoum, a Christian! Bismillah!&rdquo;
+       murmured Kaid scornfully, then fell to pondering darkly over the evil
+      things he had heard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile the Nubians in their glittering armour waited without in the
+      blistering square.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII. THE JEHAD AND THE LIONS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Allah hu Achbar! Allah hu Achbar! Ashhadu an la illaha illalla!&rdquo; The
+      sweetly piercing, resonant voice of the Muezzin rang far and commandingly
+      on the clear evening air, and from bazaar and crowded street the faithful
+      silently hurried to the mosques, leaving their slippers at the door, while
+      others knelt where the call found them, and touched their foreheads to the
+      ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In his palace by the Nile, Harrik, the half-brother of the Prince Pasha,
+      heard it, and breaking off from conversation with two urgent visitors,
+      passed to an alcove near, dropping a curtain behind him. Kneeling
+      reverently on the solitary furniture of the room&mdash;a prayer-rug from
+      Medina&mdash;he lost himself as completely in his devotions as though his
+      life were an even current of unforbidden acts and motives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cross-legged on the great divan of the room he had left, his less pious
+      visitors, unable to turn their thoughts from the dark business on which
+      they had come, smoked their cigarettes, talking to each other in tones so
+      low as would not have been heard by a European, and with apparent
+      listlessness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their manner would not have indicated that they were weighing matters of
+      life and death, of treason and infamy, of massacre and national shame.
+      Only the sombre, smouldering fire of their eyes was evidence of the
+      lighted fuse of conspiracy burning towards the magazine. One look of
+      surprise had been exchanged when Harrik Pasha left them suddenly&mdash;time
+      was short for what they meant to do; but they were Muslims, and they
+      resigned themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Inglesi must be the first to go; shall a Christian dog rule over us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Achmet the Ropemaker who spoke, his yellow face wrinkling with
+      malice, though his voice but murmured hoarsely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nahoum will kill him.&rdquo; Higli Pasha laughed low&mdash;it was like the
+      gurgle of water in the narghileh&mdash;a voice of good nature and
+      persuasiveness from a heart that knew no virtue. &ldquo;Bismillah! Who shall
+      read the meaning of it? Why has he not already killed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nahoum would choose his own time&mdash;after he has saved his life by the
+      white carrion. Kaid will give him his life if the Inglesi asks. The
+      Inglesi, he is mad. If he were not mad, he would see to it that Nahoum was
+      now drying his bones in the sands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What each has failed to do for the other shall be done for them,&rdquo;
+       answered Achmet, a hateful leer on his immobile features. &ldquo;To-night many
+      things shall be made right. To-morrow there will be places empty and
+      places filled. Egypt shall begin again to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kaid?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Achmet stopped smoking for a moment. &ldquo;When the khamsin comes, when the
+      camels stampede, and the children of the storm fall upon the caravan, can
+      it be foretold in what way Fate shall do her work? So but the end be the
+      same&mdash;malaish! We shall be content tomorrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now he turned and looked at his companion as though his mind had chanced
+      on a discovery. &ldquo;To him who first brings word to a prince who inherits,
+      that the reigning prince is dead, belong honour and place,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then shall it be between us twain,&rdquo; said High, and laid his hot palm
+      against the cold, snaky palm of the other. &ldquo;And he to whom the honour
+      falls shall help the other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aiwa, but it shall be so,&rdquo; answered Achmet, and then they spoke in lower
+      tones still, their eyes on the curtain behind which Harrik prayed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently Harrik entered, impassive, yet alert, his slight, handsome
+      figure in sharp contrast to the men lounging in the cushions before him,
+      who salaamed as he came forward. The features were finely chiselled, the
+      forehead white and high, the lips sensuous, the eyes fanatical, the look
+      concentrated yet abstracted. He took a seat among the cushions, and, after
+      a moment, said to Achmet, in a voice abnormally deep and powerful: &ldquo;Diaz&mdash;there
+      is no doubt of Diaz?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He awaits the signal. The hawk flies not swifter than Diaz will act.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The people&mdash;the bazaars&mdash;the markets?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As the air stirs a moment before the hurricane comes, so the whisper has
+      stirred them. From one lip to another, from one street to another, from
+      one quarter to another, the word has been passed&mdash;&lsquo;Nahoum was a
+      Christian, but Nahoum was an Egyptian whose heart was Muslim. The stranger
+      is a Christian and an Inglesi. Reason has fled from the Prince Pasha, the
+      Inglesi has bewitched him. But the hour of deliverance draweth nigh. Be
+      ready! To-night!&rsquo; So has the whisper gone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Harrik&rsquo;s eyes burned. &ldquo;God is great,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The time has come. The
+      Christians spoil us. From France, from England, from Austria&mdash;it is
+      enough. Kaid has handed us over to the Greek usurers, the Inglesi and the
+      Frank are everywhere. And now this new-comer who would rule Kaid, and lay
+      his hand upon Egypt like Joseph of old, and bring back Nahoum, to the
+      shame of every Muslim&mdash;behold, the spark is to the tinder, it shall
+      burn.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the hour, Effendina?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At midnight. The guns to be trained on the Citadel, the Palace
+      surrounded. Kaid&rsquo;s Nubians?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A hundred will be there, Effendina, the rest a mile away at their
+      barracks.&rdquo; Achmet rubbed his cold palms together in satisfaction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Prince Kaid, Effendina?&rdquo; asked Higli cautiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fanatical eyes turned away. &ldquo;The question is foolish&mdash;have ye no
+      brains?&rdquo; he said impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A look of malignant triumph flashed from Achmet to High, and he said,
+      scarce above a whisper: &ldquo;May thy footsteps be as the wings of the eagle,
+      Effendina. The heart of the pomegranate is not redder than our hearts are
+      red for thee. Cut deep into our hearts, and thou shalt find the last beat
+      is for thee&mdash;and for the Jehad!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Jehad&mdash;ay, the Jehad! The time is at hand,&rdquo; answered Harrik,
+      glowering at the two. &ldquo;The sword shall not be sheathed till we have
+      redeemed Egypt. Go your ways, effendis, and peace be on you and on all the
+      righteous worshippers of God!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As High and Achmet left the palace, the voice of a holy man&mdash;admitted
+      everywhere and treated with reverence&mdash;chanting the Koran, came
+      somnolently through the court-yard: &ldquo;Bismillah hirrahmah, nirraheem.
+      Elhamdu lillahi sabbila!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rocking his body backwards and forwards and dwelling sonorously on each
+      vowel, the holy man seemed the incarnation of Muslim piety; but as the two
+      conspirators passed him with scarce a glance, and made their way to a
+      small gate leading into the great garden bordering on the Nile, his eyes
+      watched them sharply. When they had passed through, he turned towards the
+      windows of the harem, still chanting. For a long time he chanted. An
+      occasional servant came and went, but his voice ceased not, and he kept
+      his eyes fixed ever on the harem windows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last his watching had its reward. Something fluttered from a window to
+      the ground. Still chanting, he rose and began walking round the great
+      court-yard. Twice he went round, still chanting, but the third time he
+      stooped to pick up a little strip of linen which had fallen from the
+      window, and concealed it in his sleeve. Presently he seated himself again,
+      and, still chanting, spread out the linen in his palm and read the
+      characters upon it. For an instant there was a jerkiness to the voice, and
+      then it droned on resonantly again. Now the eyes of the holy man were
+      fixed on the great gates through which strangers entered, and he was
+      seated in the way which any one must take who came to the palace doors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was almost dark, when he saw the bowab, after repeated knocking,
+      sleepily and grudgingly open the gates to admit a visitor. There seemed to
+      be a moment&rsquo;s hesitation on the bowab&rsquo;s part, but he was presently assured
+      by something the visitor showed him, and the latter made his way
+      deliberately to the palace doors. As the visitor neared the holy man, who
+      chanted on monotonously, he was suddenly startled to hear between the
+      long-drawn syllables the quick words in Arabic:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beware, Saadat! See, I am Mahommed Hassan, thy servant! At midnight they
+      surround Kaid&rsquo;s palace&mdash;Achmet and Higli&mdash;and kill the Prince
+      Pasha. Return, Saadat. Harrik will kill thee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David made no sign, but with a swift word to the faithful Mahommed Hassan,
+      passed on, and was presently admitted to the palace. As the doors closed
+      behind him, he would hear the voice of the holy man still chanting:
+      &ldquo;Waladalleen&mdash;Ameen-Ameen! Waladalleen&mdash;Ameen!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The voice followed him, fainter and fainter, as he passed through the
+      great bare corridors with the thick carpets on which the footsteps made no
+      sound, until it came, soft and undefined, as it were from a great
+      distance. Then suddenly there fell upon him a sense of the peril of his
+      enterprise. He had been left alone in the vast dim hall while a slave,
+      made obsequious by the sight of the ring of the Prince Pasha, sought his
+      master. As he waited he was conscious that people were moving about behind
+      the great screens of mooshrabieh which separated this room from others,
+      and that eyes were following his every motion. He had gained easy ingress
+      to this place; but egress was a matter of some speculation. The doors
+      which had closed behind him might swing one way only! He had voluntarily
+      put himself in the power of a man whose fatal secret he knew. He only felt
+      a moment&rsquo;s apprehension, however. He had been moved to come from a whisper
+      in his soul; and he had the sure conviction of the predestinarian that he
+      was not to be the victim of &ldquo;The Scytheman&rdquo; before his appointed time. His
+      mind resumed its composure, and he watchfully waited the return of the
+      slave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly he was conscious of some one behind him, though he had heard no
+      one approach. He swung round and was met by the passive face of the black
+      slave in personal attendance on Harrik. The slave did not speak, but
+      motioned towards a screen at the end of the room, and moved towards it.
+      David followed. As they reached it, a broad panel opened, and they passed
+      through, between a line of black slaves. Then there was a sudden darkness,
+      and a moment later David was ushered into a room blazing with light. Every
+      inch of the walls was hung with red curtains. No door was visible. He was
+      conscious of this as the panel clicked behind him, and the folds of the
+      red velvet caught his shoulder in falling. Now he saw sitting on a divan
+      on the opposite side of the room Prince Harrik.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David had never before seen him, and his imagination had fashioned a
+      different personality. Here was a combination of intellect, refinement,
+      and savagery. The red, sullen lips stamped the delicate, fanatical face
+      with cruelty and barbaric indulgence, while yet there was an intensity in
+      the eyes that showed the man was possessed of an idea which mastered him&mdash;a
+      root-thought. David was at once conscious of a complex personality, of a
+      man in whom two natures fought. He understood it. By instinct the man was
+      a Mahdi, by heredity he was a voluptuary, that strange commingling of the
+      religious and the evil found in so many criminals. In some far corner of
+      his nature David felt something akin. The rebellion in his own blood
+      against the fine instinct of his Quaker faith and upbringing made him
+      grasp the personality before him. Had he himself been born in these
+      surroundings, under these influences! The thought flashed through his mind
+      like lightning, even as he bowed before Harrik, who salaamed and said:
+      &ldquo;Peace be unto thee!&rdquo; and motioned him to a seat on a divan near and
+      facing him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is thy business with me, effendi?&rdquo; asked Harrik.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I come on the business of the Prince Pasha,&rdquo; answered David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Harrik touched his fez mechanically, then his breast and lips, and a cruel
+      smile lurked at the corners of his mouth as he rejoined:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The feet of them who wear the ring of their Prince wait at no man&rsquo;s door.
+      The carpet is spread for them. They go and they come as the feet of the
+      doe in the desert. Who shall say, They shall not come; who shall say, They
+      shall not return!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Though the words were spoken with an air of ingenuous welcome, David felt
+      the malignity in the last phrase, and knew that now was come the most
+      fateful moment of his life. In his inner being he heard the dreadful
+      challenge of Fate. If he failed in his purpose with this man, he would
+      never begin his work in Egypt. Of his life he did not think&mdash;his life
+      was his purpose, and the one was nothing without the other. No other man
+      would have undertaken so Quixotic an enterprise, none would have exposed
+      himself so recklessly to the dreadful accidents of circumstance. There had
+      been other ways to overcome this crisis, but he had rejected them for a
+      course fantastic and fatal when looked at in the light of ordinary reason.
+      A struggle between the East and the West was here to be fought out between
+      two wills; between an intellectual libertine steeped in Oriental guilt and
+      cruelty and self-indulgence, and a being selfless, human, and in an agony
+      of remorse for a life lost by his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Involuntarily David&rsquo;s eyes ran round the room before he replied. How many
+      slaves and retainers waited behind those velvet curtains?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Harrik saw the glance and interpreted it correctly. With a look of dark
+      triumph he clapped his hands. As if by magic fifty black slaves appeared,
+      armed with daggers. They folded their arms and waited like statues.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David made no sign of discomposure, but said slowly: &ldquo;Dost thou think I
+      did not know my danger, Eminence? Do I seem to thee such a fool? I came
+      alone as one would come to the tent of a Bedouin chief whose son one had
+      slain, and ask for food and safety. A thousand men were mine to command,
+      but I came alone. Is thy guest imbecile? Let them go. I have that to say
+      which is for Prince Harrik&rsquo;s ear alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An instant&rsquo;s hesitation, and Harrik motioned the slaves away. &ldquo;What is the
+      private word for my ear?&rdquo; he asked presently, fingering the stem of the
+      narghileh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To do right by Egypt, the land of thy fathers and thy land; to do right
+      by the Prince Pasha, thy brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is Egypt to thee? Why shouldst thou bring thine insolence here?
+      Couldst thou not preach in thine own bazaars beyond the sea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David showed no resentment. His reply was composed and quiet. &ldquo;I am come
+      to save Egypt from the work of thy hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dog of an unbeliever, what hast thou to do with me, or the work of my
+      hands?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David held up Kaid&rsquo;s ring, which had lain in his hand. &ldquo;I come from the
+      master of Egypt&mdash;master of thee, and of thy life, and of all that is
+      thine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is Kaid&rsquo;s message to me?&rdquo; Harrik asked, with an effort at unconcern,
+      for David&rsquo;s boldness had in it something chilling to his fierce passion
+      and pride.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The word of the Effendina is to do right by Egypt, to give thyself to
+      justice and to peace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have done with parables. To do right by Egypt wherein, wherefore?&rdquo; The
+      eyes glinted at David like bits of fiery steel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will interpret to thee, Eminence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Interpret.&rdquo; Harrik muttered to himself in rage. His heart was dark, he
+      thirsted for the life of this arrogant Inglesi. Did the fool not see his
+      end? Midnight was at hand! He smiled grimly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is the interpretation, O Prince! Prince Harrik has conspired against
+      his brother the Prince Pasha, has treacherously seduced officers of the
+      army, has planned to seize Cairo, to surround the Palace and take the life
+      of the Prince of Egypt. For months, Prince, thee has done this: and the
+      end of it is that thee shall do right ere it be too late. Thee is a
+      traitor to thy country and thy lawful lord.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Harrik&rsquo;s face turned pale; the stem of the narghileh shook in his fingers.
+      All had been discovered, then! But there was a thing of dark magic here.
+      It was not a half-hour since he had given the word to strike at midnight,
+      to surround the Palace, and to seize the Prince Pasha. Achmet&mdash;Higli,
+      had betrayed him, then! Who other? No one else knew save Zaida, and Zaida
+      was in the harem. Perhaps even now his own palace was surrounded. If it
+      was so, then, come what might, this masterful Inglesi should pay the
+      price. He thought of the den of lions hard by, of the cage of tigers-the
+      menagerie not a thousand feet away. He could hear the distant roaring now,
+      and his eyes glittered. The Christian to the wild beasts! That at least
+      before the end. A Muslim would win heaven by sending a Christian to hell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Achmet&mdash;Higli! No others knew. The light of a fateful fanaticism was
+      in his eyes. David read him as an open book, and saw the madness come upon
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Neither Higli, nor Achmet, nor any of thy fellow-conspirators has
+      betrayed thee,&rdquo; David said. &ldquo;God has other voices to whisper the truth
+      than those who share thy crimes. I have ears, and the air is full of
+      voices.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Harrik stared at him. Was this Inglesi, then, with the grey coat, buttoned
+      to the chin, and the broad black hat which remained on his head unlike the
+      custom of the English&mdash;was he one of those who saw visions and
+      dreamed dreams, even as himself! Had he not heard last night a voice
+      whisper through the dark &ldquo;Harrik, Harrik, flee to the desert! The lions
+      are loosed upon thee!&rdquo; Had he not risen with the voice still in his ears
+      and fled to the harem, seeking Zaida, she who had never cringed before
+      him, whose beauty he had conquered, but whose face turned from him when he
+      would lay his lips on hers? And, as he fled, had he not heard, as it were,
+      footsteps lightly following him&mdash;or were they going before him?
+      Finding Zaida, had he not told her of the voice, and had she not said: &ldquo;In
+      the desert all men are safe&mdash;safe from themselves and safe from
+      others; from their own acts and from the acts of others&rdquo;? Were the lions,
+      then, loosed upon him? Had he been betrayed?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly the thought flashed into his mind that his challenger would not
+      have thrust himself into danger, given himself to the mouth of the Pit, if
+      violence were intended. There was that inside his robe, than which
+      lightning would not be more quick to slay. Had he not been a hunter of
+      repute? Had he not been in deadly peril with wild beasts, and was he not
+      quicker than they? This man before him was like no other he had ever met.
+      Did voices speak to him? Were there, then, among the Christians such holy
+      men as among the Muslims, who saw things before they happened, and read
+      the human mind? Were there sorcerers among them, as among the Arabs?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In any case his treason was known. What were to be the consequences?
+      Diamond-dust in his coffee? To be dropped into the Nile like a dog? To be
+      smothered in his sleep?&mdash;For who could be trusted among all his
+      slaves and retainers when it was known he was disgraced, and that the
+      Prince Pasha would be happier if Harrik were quiet for ever?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mechanically he drew out his watch and looked at it. It was nine o&rsquo;clock.
+      In three hours more would have fallen the coup. But from this man&rsquo;s words
+      he knew that the stroke was now with the Prince Pasha. Yet, if this pale
+      Inglesi, this Christian sorcerer, knew the truth in a vision only, and had
+      not declared it to Kaid, there might still be a chance of escape. The
+      lions were near&mdash;it would be a joy to give a Christian to the lions
+      to celebrate the capture of Cairo and the throne. He listened intently to
+      the distant rumble of the lions. There was one cage dedicated to
+      vengeance. Five human beings on whom his terrible anger fell in times past
+      had been thrust into it alive. Two were slaves, one was an enemy, one an
+      invader of his harem, and one was a woman, his wife, his favourite, the
+      darling of his heart. When his chief eunuch accused her of a guilty love,
+      he had given her paramour and herself to that awful death. A stroke of the
+      vast paw, a smothered roar as the teeth gave into the neck of the
+      beautiful Fatima, and then&mdash;no more. Fanaticism had caught a note of
+      savage music that tuned it to its height.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why art thou here? For what hast thou come? Do the spirit voices give
+      thee that counsel?&rdquo; he snarled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am come to ask Prince Harrik to repair the wrong he has done. When the
+      Prince Pasha came to know of thy treason&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Harrik started. &ldquo;Kaid believes thy tale of treason?&rdquo; he burst out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prince Kaid knows the truth,&rdquo; answered David quietly. &ldquo;He might have
+      surrounded this palace with his Nubians, and had thee shot against the
+      palace walls. That would have meant a scandal in Egypt and in Europe. I
+      besought him otherwise. It may be the scandal must come, but in another
+      way, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That I, Harrik, must die?&rdquo; Harrik&rsquo;s voice seemed far away. In his own
+      ears it sounded strange and unusual. All at once the world seemed to be a
+      vast vacuum in which his brain strove for air, and all his senses were
+      numbed and overpowered. Distempered and vague, his soul seemed spinning in
+      an aching chaos. It was being overpowered by vast elements, and life and
+      being were atrophied in a deadly smother. The awful forces behind visible
+      being hung him in the middle space between consciousness and dissolution.
+      He heard David&rsquo;s voice, at first dimly, then understandingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no other way. Thou art a traitor. Thou wouldst have been a
+      fratricide. Thou wouldst have put back the clock in Egypt by a hundred
+      years, even to the days of the Mamelukes&mdash;a race of slaves and
+      murderers. God ordained that thy guilt should be known in time. Prince,
+      thou art guilty. It is now but a question how thou shalt pay the debt of
+      treason.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In David&rsquo;s calm voice was the ring of destiny. It was dispassionate,
+      judicial; it had neither hatred nor pity. It fell on Harrik&rsquo;s ear as
+      though from some far height. Destiny, the controller&mdash;who could
+      escape it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had he not heard the voices in the night&mdash;&ldquo;The lions are loosed upon
+      thee&rdquo;? He did not answer David now, but murmured to himself like one in a
+      dream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David saw his mood, and pursued the startled mind into the pit of
+      confusion. &ldquo;If it become known to Europe that the army is disloyal, that
+      its officers are traitors like thee, what shall we find? England, France,
+      Turkey, will land an army of occupation. Who shall gainsay Turkey if she
+      chooses to bring an army here and recover control, remove thy family from
+      Egypt, and seize upon its lands and goods? Dost thou not see that the hand
+      of God has been against thee? He has spoken, and thy evil is discovered.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused. Still Harrik did not reply, but looked at him with dilated,
+      fascinated eyes. Death had hypnotised him, and against death and destiny
+      who could struggle? Had not a past Prince Pasha of Egypt safeguarded
+      himself from assassination all his life, and, in the end, had he not been
+      smothered in his sleep by slaves?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are two ways only,&rdquo; David continued&mdash;&ldquo;to be tried and die
+      publicly for thy crimes, to the shame of Egypt, its present peril, and
+      lasting injury; or to send a message to those who conspired with thee,
+      commanding them to return to their allegiance, and another to the Prince
+      Pasha, acknowledging thy fault, and exonerating all others. Else, how many
+      of thy dupes shall die! Thy choice is not life or death, but how thou
+      shalt die, and what thou shalt do for Egypt as thou diest. Thou didst love
+      Egypt, Eminence?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David&rsquo;s voice dropped low, and his last words had a suggestion which went
+      like an arrow to the source of all Harrik&rsquo;s crimes, and that also which
+      redeemed him in a little. It got into his inner being. He roused himself
+      and spoke, but at first his speech was broken and smothered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Day by day I saw Egypt given over to the Christians,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The
+      Greek, the Italian, the Frenchman, the Englishman, everywhere they reached
+      out, their hands and took from us our own. They defiled our mosques; they
+      corrupted our life; they ravaged our trade, they stole our customers, they
+      crowded us from the streets where once the faithful lived alone. Such as
+      thou had the ear of the Prince, and such as Nahoum, also an infidel, who
+      favoured the infidels of Europe. And now thou hast come, the most
+      dangerous of them all! Day by day the Muslim has loosed his hold on Cairo,
+      and Alexandria, and the cities of Egypt. Street upon street knows him no
+      more. My heart burned within me. I conspired for Egypt&rsquo;s sake. I would
+      have made her Muslim once again. I would have fought the Turk and the
+      Frank, as did Mehemet Ali; and if the infidels came, I would have turned
+      them back; or if they would not go, I would have destroyed them here. Such
+      as thou should have been stayed at the door. In my own house I would have
+      been master. We seek not to take up our abode in other nations and in the
+      cities of the infidel. Shall we give place to them on our own mastaba, in
+      our own court-yard&mdash;hand to them the keys of our harems? I would have
+      raised the Jehad if they vexed me with their envoys and their armies.&rdquo; He
+      paused, panting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would not have availed,&rdquo; was David&rsquo;s quiet answer. &ldquo;This land may not
+      be as Tibet&mdash;a prison for its own people. If the door opens outward,
+      then must it open inward also. Egypt is the bridge between the East and
+      the West. Upon it the peoples of all nations pass and repass. Thy plan was
+      folly, thy hope madness, thy means to achieve horrible. Thy dream is done.
+      The army will not revolt, the Prince will not be slain. Now only remains
+      what thou shalt do for Egypt&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And thou&mdash;thou wilt be left here to lay thy will upon Egypt. Kaid&rsquo;s
+      ear will be in thy hand&mdash;thou hast the sorcerer&rsquo;s eye. I know thy
+      meaning. Thou wouldst have me absolve all, even Achmet, and Higli, and
+      Diaz, and the rest, and at thy bidding go out into the desert&rdquo;&mdash;he
+      paused&mdash;&ldquo;or into the grave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not into the desert,&rdquo; rejoined David firmly. &ldquo;Thou wouldst not rest.
+      There, in the desert, thou wouldst be a Mahdi. Since thou must die, wilt
+      thou not order it after thine own choice? It is to die for Egypt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is this the will of Kaid?&rdquo; asked Harrik, his voice thick with wonder, his
+      brain still dulled by the blow of Fate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was not the Effendina&rsquo;s will, but it hath his assent. Wilt thou write
+      the word to the army and also to the Prince?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had conquered. There was a moment&rsquo;s hesitation, then Harrik picked up
+      paper and ink that lay near, and said: &ldquo;I will write to Kaid. I will have
+      naught to do with the army.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It shall be the whole, not the part,&rdquo; answered David determinedly. &ldquo;The
+      truth is known. It can serve no end to withhold the writing to the army.
+      Remember what I have said to thee. The disloyalty of the army must not be
+      known. Canst thou not act after the will of Allah, the all-powerful, the
+      all-just, the all-merciful?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an instant&rsquo;s pause, and then suddenly Harrik placed the paper in
+      his palm and wrote swiftly and at some length to Kaid. Laying it down, he
+      took another and wrote but a few words&mdash;to Achmet and Diaz. This
+      message said in brief, &ldquo;Do not strike. It is the will of Allah. The army
+      shall keep faithful until the day of the Mahdi be come. I spoke before the
+      time. I go to the bosom of my Lord Mahomet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He threw the papers on the floor before David, who picked them up, read
+      them, and put them into his pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is well,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Egypt shall have peace. And thou, Eminence?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who shall escape Fate? What I have written I have written.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David rose and salaamed. Harrik rose also. &ldquo;Thou wouldst go, having
+      accomplished thy will?&rdquo; Harrik asked, a thought flashing to his mind
+      again, in keeping with his earlier purpose. Why should this man be left to
+      trouble Egypt?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David touched his breast. &ldquo;I must bear thy words to the Palace and the
+      Citadel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are there not slaves for messengers?&rdquo; Involuntarily Harrik turned his
+      eyes to the velvet curtains. No fear possessed David, but he felt the
+      keenness of the struggle, and prepared for the last critical moment of
+      fanaticism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It were a foolish thing to attempt my death,&rdquo; he said calmly. &ldquo;I have
+      been thy friend to urge thee to do that which saves thee from public
+      shame, and Egypt from peril. I came alone, because I had no fear that thou
+      wouldst go to thy death shaming hospitality.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou wast sure I would give myself to death?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even as that I breathe. Thou wert mistaken; a madness possessed thee; but
+      thou, I knew, wouldst choose the way of honour. I too have had dreams&mdash;and
+      of Egypt. If it were for her good, I would die for her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou art mad. But the mad are in the hands of God, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly Harrik stopped. There came to his ears two distant sounds&mdash;the
+      faint click of horses&rsquo; hoofs and that dull rumble they had heard as they
+      talked, a sound he loved, the roar of his lions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He clapped his hands twice, the curtains parted opposite, and a slave slid
+      silently forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quick! The horses! What are they? Bring me word,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The slave vanished. For a moment there was silence. The eyes of the two
+      men met. In the minds of both was the same thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kaid! The Nubians!&rdquo; Harrik said, at last. David made no response.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The slave returned, and his voice murmured softly, as though the matter
+      were of no concern: &ldquo;The Nubians&mdash;from the Palace.&rdquo; In an instant he
+      was gone again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kaid had not faith in thee,&rdquo; Harrik said grimly. &ldquo;But see, infidel though
+      thou art, thou trustest me, and thou shalt go thy way. Take them with
+      thee, yonder jackals of the desert. I will not go with them. I did not
+      choose to live; others chose for me; but I will die after my own choice.
+      Thou hast heard a voice, even as I. It is too late to flee to the desert.
+      Fate tricks me. &lsquo;The lions are loosed on thee&rsquo;&mdash;so the voice said to
+      me in the night. Hark! dost thou not hear them&mdash;the lions, Harrik&rsquo;s
+      lions, got out of the uttermost desert?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David could hear the distant roar, for the menagerie was even part of the
+      palace itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go in peace,&rdquo; continued Harrik soberly and with dignity, &ldquo;and when Egypt
+      is given to the infidel and Muslims are their slaves, remember that Harrik
+      would have saved it for his Lord Mahomet, the Prophet of God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He clapped his hands, and fifty slaves slid from behind the velvet
+      curtains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have thy word by the tomb of thy mother that thou wilt take the Nubians
+      hence, and leave me in peace?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David raised a hand above his head. &ldquo;As I have trusted thee, trust thou
+      me, Harrik, son of Mahomet.&rdquo; Harrik made a gesture of dismissal, and David
+      salaamed and turned to go. As the curtains parted for his exit, he faced
+      Harrik again. &ldquo;Peace be to thee,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, seated in his cushions, the haggard, fanatical face of Harrik was
+      turned from him, the black, flaring eyes fixed on vacancy. The curtain
+      dropped behind David, and through the dim rooms and corridors he passed,
+      the slaves gliding beside him, before him, and behind him, until they
+      reached the great doors. As they swung open and the cool night breeze blew
+      in his face, a great suspiration of relief passed from him. What he had
+      set out to do would be accomplished in all. Harrik would keep his word. It
+      was the only way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he emerged from the doorway some one fell at his feet, caught his
+      sleeve and kissed it. It was Mahommed Hassan. Behind Mahommed was a little
+      group of officers and a hundred stalwart Nubians. David motioned them
+      towards the great gates, and, without speaking, passed swiftly down the
+      pathway and emerged upon the road without. A moment later he was riding
+      towards the Citadel with Harrik&rsquo;s message to Achmet. In the red-curtained
+      room Harrik sat alone, listening until he heard the far clatter of hoofs,
+      and knew that the Nubians were gone. Then the other distant sound which
+      had captured his ear came to him again. In his fancy it grew louder and
+      louder. With it came the voice that called him in the night, the voice of
+      a woman&mdash;of the wife he had given to the lions for a crime against
+      him which she did not commit, which had haunted him all the years. He had
+      seen her thrown to the king of them all, killed in one swift instant, and
+      dragged about the den by her warm white neck&mdash;this slave wife from
+      Albania, his adored Fatima. And when, afterwards, he came to know the
+      truth, and of her innocence, from the chief eunuch who with his last
+      breath cleared her name, a terrible anger and despair had come upon him.
+      Time and intrigue and conspiracy had distracted his mind, and the Jehad
+      became the fixed aim and end of his life. Now this was gone. Destiny had
+      tripped him up. Kaid and the infidel Inglesi had won.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the one great passion went out like smoke, the woman he loved, whom he
+      had given to the lions, the memory of her, some haunting part of her,
+      possessed him, overcame him. In truth, he had heard a voice in the night,
+      but not the voice of a spirit. It was the voice of Zaida, who, preying
+      upon his superstitious mind&mdash;she knew the hallucination which
+      possessed him concerning her he had cast to the lions&mdash;and having
+      given the terrible secret to Kaid, whom she had ever loved, would still
+      save Harrik from the sure vengeance which must fall upon him. Her design
+      had worked, but not as she intended. She had put a spell of superstition
+      on him, and the end would be accomplished, but not by flight to the
+      desert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Harrik chose the other way. He had been a hunter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was without fear. The voice of the woman he loved called him. It came
+      to him through the distant roar of the lions as clear as when, with one
+      cry of &ldquo;Harrik!&rdquo; she had fallen beneath the lion&rsquo;s paw. He knew now why he
+      had kept the great beast until this hour, though tempted again and again
+      to slay him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like one in a dream, he drew a dagger from the cushions where he sat, and
+      rose to his feet. Leaving the room and passing dark groups of waiting
+      slaves, he travelled empty chambers and long corridors, the voices of the
+      lions growing nearer and nearer. He sped faster now, and presently came to
+      two great doors, on which he knocked thrice. The doors opened, and two
+      slaves held up lights for him to enter. Taking a torch from one of them,
+      he bade them retire, and the doors clanged behind them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Harrik held up the torch and came nearer. In the centre of the room was a
+      cage in which one great lion paced to and fro in fury. It roared at him
+      savagely. It was his roar which had come to Harrik through the distance
+      and the night. He it was who had carried Fatima, the beloved, about his
+      cage by that neck in which Harrik had laid his face so often.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hot flush of conflict and the long anger of the years were on him.
+      Since he must die, since Destiny had befooled him, left him the victim of
+      the avengers, he would end it here. Here, against the thing of savage hate
+      which had drunk of the veins and crushed the bones of his fair wife, he
+      would strike one blow deep and strong and shed the blood of sacrifice
+      before his own was shed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He thrust the torch into the ground, and, with the dagger grasped tightly,
+      carefully opened the cage and stepped inside. The door clicked behind him.
+      The lion was silent now, and in a far corner prepared to spring, crouching
+      low.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fatima!&rdquo; Harrik cried, and sprang forward as the wild beast rose at him.
+      He struck deep, drew forth the dagger&mdash;and was still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII. ACHMET THE ROPEMAKER STRIKES
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      War! War! The chains of the conscripts clanked in the river villages; the
+      wailing of the women affrighted the pigeons in a thousand dovecotes on the
+      Nile; the dust of despair was heaped upon the heads of the old, who knew
+      that their young would no more return, and that the fields of dourha would
+      go ungathered, the water-channels go unattended, and the onion-fields be
+      bare. War! War! War! The strong, the broad-shouldered&mdash;Aka, Mahmoud,
+      Raschid, Selim, they with the bodies of Seti and the faces of Rameses, in
+      their blue yeleks and unsandalled feet&mdash;would go into the desert as
+      their forefathers did for the Shepherd Kings. But there would be no spoil
+      for them&mdash;no slaves with swelling breasts and lips of honey; no
+      straight-limbed servants of their pleasure to wait on them with caressing
+      fingers; no rich spoils carried back from the fields of war to the mud
+      hut, the earth oven, and the thatched roof; no rings of soft gold and
+      necklaces of amber snatched from the fingers and bosoms of the captive and
+      the dead. Those days were no more. No vision of loot or luxury allured
+      these. They saw only the yellow sand, the ever-receding oasis, the
+      brackish, undrinkable water, the withered and fruitless date-tree,
+      handfuls of dourha for their food by day, and the keen, sharp night to
+      chill their half-dead bodies in a half-waking sleep. And then the savage
+      struggle for life&mdash;with all the gain to the pashas and the beys, and
+      those who ruled over them; while their own wounds grew foul, and, in the
+      torturing noon-day heat of the white waste, Death reached out and dragged
+      them from the drooping lines to die. Fighting because they must fight&mdash;not
+      patriot love, nor understanding, nor sacrifice in their hearts. War! War!
+      War! War!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David had been too late to stop it. It had grown to a head with revolution
+      and conspiracy. For months before he came conscripts had been gathered in
+      the Nile country from Rosetta to Assouan, and here and there, far south,
+      tribes had revolted. He had come to power too late to devise another
+      course. One day, when this war was over, he would go alone, save for a
+      faithful few, to deal with these tribes and peoples upon another plane
+      than war; but here and now the only course was that which had been planned
+      by Kaid and those who counselled him. Troubled by a deep danger drawing
+      near, Kaid had drawn him into his tough service, half-blindly catching at
+      his help, with a strange, almost superstitious belief that luck and good
+      would come from the alliance; seeing in him a protection against wholesale
+      robbery and debt&mdash;were not the English masters of finance, and was
+      not this Englishman honest, and with a brain of fire and an eye that
+      pierced things?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David had accepted the inevitable. The war had its value. It would draw
+      off to the south&mdash;he would see that it was so&mdash;Achmet and Higli
+      and Diaz and the rest, who were ever a danger. Not to himself: he did not
+      think of that; but to Kaid and to Egypt. They had been out-manoeuvred,
+      beaten, foiled, knew who had foiled them and what they had escaped;
+      congratulated themselves, but had no gratitude to him, and still plotted
+      his destruction. More than once his death had been planned, but the dark
+      design had come to light&mdash;now from the workers of the bazaars, whose
+      wires of intelligence pierced everywhere; now from some hungry fellah
+      whose yelek he had filled with cakes of dourha beside a bread-shop; now
+      from Mahommed Hassan, who was for him a thousand eyes and feet and hands,
+      who cooked his food, and gathered round him fellaheen or Copts or
+      Soudanese or Nubians whom he himself had tested and found true, and ruled
+      them with a hand of plenty and a rod of iron. Also, from Nahoum&rsquo;s spies he
+      learned of plots and counterplots, chiefly on Achmet&rsquo;s part; and these he
+      hid from Kaid, while he trusted Nahoum&mdash;and not without reason, as
+      yet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The day of Nahoum&rsquo;s wrath and revenge was not yet come; it was his deep
+      design to lay the foundation for his own dark actions strong on a rock of
+      apparent confidence and devotion. A long torture and a great over-whelming
+      was his design. He knew himself to be in the scheme of a master-workman,
+      and by-and-by he would blunt the chisel and bend the saw; but not yet.
+      Meanwhile, he hated, admired, schemed, and got a sweet taste on his tongue
+      from aiding David to foil Achmet&mdash;Higli and Diaz were of little
+      account; only the injury they felt in seeing the sluices being closed on
+      the stream of bribery and corruption kept them in the toils of Achmet&rsquo;s
+      conspiracy. They had saved their heads, but they had not learned their
+      lesson yet; and Achmet, blinded by rage, not at all. Achmet did not
+      understand clemency. One by one his plots had failed, until the day came
+      when David advised Kaid to send him and his friends into the Soudan, with
+      the punitive expedition under loyal generals. It was David&rsquo;s dream that,
+      in the field of war, a better spirit might enter into Achmet and his
+      friends; that patriotism might stir in them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The day was approaching when the army must leave. Achmet threw dice once
+      more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Evening was drawing down. Over the plaintive pink and golden glow of
+      sunset was slowly being drawn a pervasive silver veil of moonlight. A
+      caravan of camels hunched alone in the middle distance, making for the
+      western desert. Near by, village life manifested itself in heavily laden
+      donkeys; in wolfish curs stealing away with refuse into the waste; in
+      women, upright and modest, bearing jars of water on their heads; in
+      evening fires, where the cover of the pot clattered over the boiling mass
+      within; in the voice of the Muezzin calling to prayer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Returning from Alexandria to Cairo in the special train which Kaid had
+      sent for him, David watched the scene with grave and friendly interest.
+      There was far, to go before those mud huts of the thousand years would
+      give place to rational modern homes; and as he saw a solitary horseman
+      spread his sheepskin on the ground and kneel to say his evening prayer, as
+      Mahomet had done in his flight between Mecca and Medina, the distance
+      between the Egypt of his desire and the ancient Egypt that moved round him
+      sharply impressed his mind, and the magnitude of his task settled heavily
+      on his spirit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it is the beginning&mdash;the beginning,&rdquo; he said aloud to himself,
+      looking out upon the green expanses of dourha and Lucerne, and eyeing
+      lovingly the cotton-fields here and there, the origin of the industrial
+      movement he foresaw&mdash;&ldquo;and some one had to begin. The rest is as it
+      must be&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a touch of Oriental philosophy in his mind&mdash;was it not
+      Galilee and the Nazarene, that Oriental source from which Mahomet also
+      drew? But he added to the &ldquo;as it must be&rdquo; the words, &ldquo;and as God wills.&rdquo;
+       He was alone in the compartment with Lacey, whose natural garrulity had
+      had a severe discipline in the months that had passed since he had asked
+      to be allowed to black David&rsquo;s boots. He could now sit for an hour silent,
+      talking to himself, carrying on unheard conversations. Seeing David&rsquo;s
+      mood, he had not spoken twice on this journey, but had made notes in a
+      little &ldquo;Book of Experience,&rdquo;&mdash;as once he had done in Mexico. At last,
+      however, he raised his head, and looked eagerly out of the window as David
+      did, and sniffed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Nile again,&rdquo; he said, and smiled. The attraction of the Nile was upon
+      him, as it grows on every one who lives in Egypt. The Nile and Egypt&mdash;Egypt
+      and the Nile&mdash;its mystery, its greatness, its benevolence, its
+      life-giving power, without which Egypt is as the Sahara, it conquers the
+      mind of every man at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Nile, yes,&rdquo; rejoined David, and smiled also. &ldquo;We shall cross it
+      presently.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again they relapsed into silence, broken only by the clang, clang of the
+      metal on the rails, and then presently another, more hollow sound&mdash;the
+      engine was upon the bridge. Lacey got up and put his head out of the
+      window. Suddenly there was a cry of fear and horror over his head, a
+      warning voice shrieking:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The bridge is open&mdash;we are lost. Effendi&mdash;master&mdash;Allah!&rdquo;
+       It was the voice of Mahommed Hassan, who had been perched on the roof of
+      the car.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like lightning Lacey realised the danger, and saw the only way of escape.
+      He swung open the door, even as the engine touched the edge of the abyss
+      and shrieked its complaint under the hand of the terror-stricken driver,
+      caught David&rsquo;s shoulder, and cried: &ldquo;Jump-jump into the river&mdash;quick!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As the engine toppled, David jumped&mdash;there was no time to think,
+      obedience was the only way. After him sprang, far down into the grey-blue
+      water, Lacey and Mahommed. When they came again to the surface, the little
+      train with its handful of human freight had disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two people had seen the train plunge to destruction&mdash;the solitary
+      horseman whom David had watched kneel upon his sheepskin, and who now from
+      a far hill had seen the disaster, but had not seen the three jump for
+      their lives, and a fisherman on the bank, who ran shouting towards a
+      village standing back from the river.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the fisherman sped shrieking and beckoning to the villagers, David,
+      Lacey, and Mahommed fought for their lives in the swift current, swimming
+      at an angle upstream towards the shore; for, as Mahommed warned them,
+      there were rocks below. Lacey was a good swimmer, but he was heavy, and
+      David was a better, but Mahommed had proved his merit in the past on many
+      an occasion when the laws of the river were reaching out strong hands for
+      him. Now, as Mahommed swam, he kept moaning to himself, cursing his father
+      and his father&rsquo;s son, as though he himself were to blame for the crime
+      which had been committed. Here was a plot, and he had discovered more
+      plots than one against his master. The bridge-opener&mdash;when he found
+      him he would take him into the desert and flay him alive; and find him he
+      would. His watchful eyes were on the hut by the bridge where this man
+      should be. No one was visible. He cursed the man and all his ancestry and
+      all his posterity, sleeping and waking, until the day when he, Mahommed,
+      would pinch his flesh with red hot irons. But now he had other and nearer
+      things to occupy him, for in the fierce struggle towards the shore Lacey
+      found himself failing, and falling down the stream. Presently both
+      Mahommed and David were beside him, Lacey angrily protesting to David that
+      he must save himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, think of Egypt and all the rest. You&rsquo;ve got to save yourself&mdash;let
+      me splash along!&rdquo; he spluttered, breathing hard, his shoulders low in the
+      water, his mouth almost submerged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But David and Mahommed fought along beside him, each determined that it
+      must be all or none; and presently the terror-stricken fisherman who had
+      roused the village, still shrieking deliriously, came upon them in a
+      flat-bottomed boat manned by four stalwart fellaheen, and the tragedy of
+      the bridge was over. But not the tragedy of Achmet the Ropemaker.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV. BEYOND THE PALE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mahommed Hassan had vowed a vow in the river, and he kept it in so far as
+      was seemly. His soul hungered for the face of the bridge-opener, and the
+      hunger grew. He was scarce passed from the shivering Nile into a dry
+      yelek, had hardly taken a juicy piece from the cooking-pot at the house of
+      the village sheikh, before he began to cultivate friends who could help
+      him, including the sheikh himself; for what money Mahommed lacked was
+      supplied by Lacey, who had a reasoned confidence in him, and by the
+      fiercely indignant Kaid himself, to whom Lacey and Mahommed went secretly,
+      hiding their purpose from David. So, there were a score of villages where
+      every sheikh, eager for gold, listened for the whisper of the doorways,
+      and every slave and villager listened at the sheikh&rsquo;s door. But neither to
+      sheikh nor to villager was it given to find the man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But one evening there came a knocking at the door of the house which
+      Mahommed still kept in the lowest Muslim quarter of the town, a woman who
+      hid her face and was of more graceful figure than was familiar in those
+      dark purlieus. The door was at once opened, and Mahommed, with a cry, drew
+      her inside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Zaida&mdash;the peace of God be upon thee,&rdquo; he said, and gazed lovingly
+      yet sadly upon her, for she had greatly changed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And upon thee peace, Mahommed,&rdquo; she answered, and sat upon the floor, her
+      head upon her breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou hast trouble at,&rdquo; he said, and put some cakes of dourha and a meated
+      cucumber beside her. She touched the food with her fingers, but did not
+      eat. &ldquo;Is thy grief, then, for thy prince who gave himself to the lions?&rdquo;
+       he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Inshallah! Harrik is in the bosom of Allah. He is with Fatima in the
+      fields of heaven&mdash;was I as Fatima to him? Nay, the dead have done
+      with hurting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Since that night thou hast been lost, even since Harrik went. I searched
+      for thee, but thou wert hid. Surely, thou knewest mine eyes were aching
+      and my heart was cast down&mdash;did not thou and I feed at the same
+      breast?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was dead, and am come forth from the grave; but I shall go again into
+      the dark where all shall forget, even I myself; but there is that which I
+      would do, which thou must do for me, even as I shall do good to thee, that
+      which is the desire of my heart.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Speak, light of the morning and blessing of thy mother&rsquo;s soul,&rdquo; he said,
+      and crowded into his mouth a roll of meat and cucumber. &ldquo;Against thy
+      feddan shall be set my date-tree; it hath been so ever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen then, and by the stone of the Kaabah, keep the faith which has
+      been throe and mine since my mother, dying, gave me to thy mother, whose
+      milk gave me health and, in my youth, beauty&mdash;and, in my youth,
+      beauty!&rdquo; Suddenly she buried her face in her veil, and her body shook with
+      sobs which had no voice. Presently she continued: &ldquo;Listen, and by Abraham
+      and Christ and all the Prophets, and by Mahomet the true revealer, give me
+      thine aid. When Harrik gave his life to the lions, I fled to her whom I
+      had loved in the house of Kaid&mdash;Laka the Syrian, afterwards the wife
+      of Achmet Pasha. By Harrik&rsquo;s death I was free&mdash;no more a slave. Once
+      Laka had been the joy of Achmet&rsquo;s heart, but, because she had no child,
+      she was despised and forgotten. Was it not meet I should fly to her whose
+      sorrow would hide my loneliness? And so it was&mdash;I was hidden in the
+      harem of Achmet. But miserable tongues&mdash;may God wither them!&mdash;told
+      Achmet of my presence. And though I was free, and not a bondswoman, he
+      broke upon my sleep....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mahommed&rsquo;s eyes blazed, his dark skin blackened like a coal, and he
+      muttered maledictions between his teeth. &ldquo;... In the morning there was a
+      horror upon me, for which there is no name. But I laughed also when I took
+      a dagger and stole from the harem to find him in the quarters beyond the
+      women&rsquo;s gate. I found him, but I held my hand, for one was with him who
+      spake with a tone of anger and of death, and I listened. Then, indeed, I
+      rejoiced for thee, for I have found thee a road to honour and fortune. The
+      man was a bridge-opener&mdash;&rdquo; &ldquo;Ah!&mdash;O, light of a thousand eyes,
+      fruit of the tree of Eden!&rdquo; cried Mahommed, and fell on his knees at her
+      feet, and would have kissed them, but that, with a cry, she said: &ldquo;Nay,
+      nay, touch me not. But listen.... Ay, it was Achmet who sought to drown
+      thy Pasha in the Nile. Thou shalt find the man in the little street called
+      Singat in the Moosky, at the house of Haleel the date-seller.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mahommed rocked backwards and forwards in his delight. &ldquo;Oh, now art thou
+      like a lamp of Paradise, even as a star which leadeth an army of stars,
+      beloved,&rdquo; he said. He rubbed his hands together. &ldquo;Thy witness and his
+      shall send Achmet to a hell of scorpions, and I shall slay the
+      bridge-opener with my own hand&mdash;hath not the Effendina secretly said
+      so to me, knowing that my Pasha, the Inglesi, upon whom be peace for ever
+      and forever, would forgive him. Ah, thou blossom of the tree of trees&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose hastily, and when he would have kissed her hand she drew back to
+      the wall. &ldquo;Touch me not&mdash;nay, then, Mahommed, touch me not&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should I not pay thee honour, thou princess among women? Hast thou
+      not the brain of a man, and thy beauty, like thy heart, is it not&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She put out both her hands and spoke sharply. &ldquo;Enough, my brother,&rdquo; she
+      said. &ldquo;Thou hast thy way to great honour. Thou shalt yet have a thousand
+      feddans of well-watered land and slaves to wait upon thee. Get thee to the
+      house of Haleel. There shall the blow fall on the head of Achmet, the blow
+      which was mine to strike, but that Allah stayed my hand that I might do
+      thee and thy Pasha good, and to give the soul-slayer and the body-slayer
+      into the hands of Kaid, upon whom be everlasting peace!&rdquo; Her voice dropped
+      low. &ldquo;Thou saidst but now that I had beauty. Is there yet any beauty in my
+      face?&rdquo; She lowered her yashmak and looked at him with burning eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou art altogether beautiful,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;but there is a strangeness
+      to thy beauty like none I have seen; as if upon the face of an angel there
+      fell a mist&mdash;nay, I have not words to make it plain to thee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With a great sigh, and yet with the tenseness gone from her eyes, she
+      slowly drew the veil up again till only her eyes were visible. &ldquo;It is
+      well,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;Now, I have heard that to-morrow night Prince Kaid
+      will sit in the small court-yard of the blue tiles by the harem to feast
+      with his friends, ere the army goes into the desert at the next sunrise.
+      Achmet is bidden to the feast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is so, O beloved!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There will be dancers and singers to make the feast worthy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At such a time it will be so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then this thou shalt do. See to it that I shall be among the singers, and
+      when all have danced and sung, that I shall sing, and be brought before
+      Kaid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Inshallah! It shall be so. Thou dost desire to see Kaid&mdash;in truth,
+      thou hast memory, beloved.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She made a gesture of despair. &ldquo;Go upon thy business. Dost thou not desire
+      the blood of Achmet and the bridge-opener?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mahommed laughed, and joyfully beat his breast, with whispered
+      exclamations, and made ready to go. &ldquo;And thou?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I not welcome here?&rdquo; she replied wearily. &ldquo;O, my sister, thou art the
+      master of my life and all that I have,&rdquo; he exclaimed, and a moment
+      afterwards he was speeding towards Kaid&rsquo;s Palace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the first time since the day of his banishment Achmet the Ropemaker
+      was invited to Kaid&rsquo;s Palace. Coming, he was received with careless
+      consideration by the Prince. Behind his long, harsh face and sullen eyes a
+      devil was raging, because of all his plans that had gone awry, and because
+      the man he had sought to kill still served the Effendina, putting a blight
+      upon Egypt. To-morrow he, Achmet, must go into the desert with the army,
+      and this hated Inglesi would remain behind to have his will with Kaid. The
+      one drop of comfort in his cup was the fact that the displeasure of the
+      Effendina against himself was removed, and that he had, therefore, his
+      foot once more inside the Palace. When he came back from the war he would
+      win his way to power again. Meanwhile, he cursed the man who had eluded
+      the death he had prepared for him. With his own eyes had he not seen, from
+      the hill top, the train plunge to destruction, and had he not once more
+      got off his horse and knelt upon his sheepskin and given thanks to Allah&mdash;a
+      devout Arab obeying the sunset call to prayer, as David had observed from
+      the train?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One by one, two by two, group by group, the unveiled dancers came and
+      went; the singers sang behind the screen provided for them, so that none
+      might see their faces, after the custom. At last, however, Kaid and his
+      guests grew listless, and smoked and talked idly. Yet there was in the
+      eyes of Kaid a watchfulness unseen by any save a fellah who squatted in a
+      corner eating sweetmeats, and a hidden singer waiting until she should be
+      called before the Prince Pasha. The singer&rsquo;s glances continually flashed
+      between Kaid and Achmet. At last, with gleaming eyes, she saw six Nubian
+      slaves steal silently behind Achmet. One, also, of great strength, came
+      suddenly and stood before him. In his hands was a leathern thong.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Achmet saw, felt the presence of the slaves behind him, and shrank back
+      numbed and appalled. A mist came before his eyes; the voice he heard
+      summoning him to stand up seemed to come from infinite distances. The hand
+      of doom had fallen like a thunderbolt. The leathern thong in the hands of
+      the slave was the token of instant death. There was no chance of escape.
+      The Nubians had him at their mercy. As his brain struggled to regain its
+      understanding, he saw, as in a dream, David enter the court-yard and come
+      towards Kaid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly David stopped in amazement, seeing Achmet. Inquiringly he looked
+      at Kaid, who spoke earnestly to him in a low tone. Whereupon David turned
+      his head away, but after a moment fixed his eyes on Achmet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid motioned all his startled guests to come nearer. Then in strong,
+      unmerciful voice he laid Achmet&rsquo;s crime before them, and told the story of
+      the bridge-opener, who had that day expiated his crime in the desert by
+      the hands of Mahommed&mdash;but not with torture, as Mahommed had hoped
+      might be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What shall be his punishment&mdash;so foul, so wolfish?&rdquo; Kaid asked of
+      them all. A dozen voices answered, some one terrible thing, some another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mercy!&rdquo; moaned Achmet aghast. &ldquo;Mercy, Saadat!&rdquo; he cried to David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David looked at him calmly. There was little mercy in his eyes as he
+      answered: &ldquo;Thy crimes sent to their death in the Nile those who never
+      injured thee. Dost thou quarrel with justice? Compose thy soul, and I pray
+      only the Effendina to give thee that seemly death thou didst deny thy
+      victims.&rdquo; He bowed respectfully to Kaid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid frowned. &ldquo;The ways of Egypt are the ways of Egypt, and not of the
+      land once thine,&rdquo; he answered shortly. Then, under the spell of that
+      influence which he had never yet been able to resist, he added to the
+      slaves: &ldquo;Take him aside. I will think upon it. But he shall die at sunrise
+      ere the army goes. Shall not justice be the gift of Kaid for an example
+      and a warning? Take him away a little. I will decide.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As Achmet and the slaves disappeared into a dark corner of the court-yard,
+      Kaid rose to his feet, and, upon the hint, his guests, murmuring praises
+      of his justice and his mercy and his wisdom, slowly melted from the
+      court-yard; but once outside they hastened to proclaim in the four
+      quarters of Cairo how yet again the English Pasha had picked from the Tree
+      of Life an apple of fortune.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The court-yard was now empty, save for the servants of the Prince, David
+      and Mahommed, and two officers in whom David had advised Kaid to put
+      trust. Presently one of these officers said: &ldquo;There is another singer, and
+      the last. Is it the Effendina&rsquo;s pleasure?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid made a gesture of assent, sat down, and took the stem of a narghileh
+      between his lips. For a moment there was silence, and then, out upon the
+      sweet, perfumed night, over which the stars hung brilliant and soft and
+      near, a voice at first quietly, then fully, and palpitating with feeling,
+      poured forth an Eastern love song:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Take thou thy flight, O soul! Thou hast no more
+     The gladness of the morning! Ah, the perfumed roses
+     My love laid on my bosom as I slept!
+     How did he wake me with his lips upon mine eyes,
+     How did the singers carol&mdash;the singers of my soul
+     That nest among the thoughts of my beloved!...
+     All silent now, the choruses are gone,
+     The windows of my soul are closed; no more
+     Mine eyes look gladly out to see my lover come.
+     There is no more to do, no more to say:
+     Take flight, my soul, my love returns no more!&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      At the first note Kaid started, and his eyes fastened upon the screen
+      behind which sat the singer. Then, as the voice, in sweet anguish, filled
+      the court-yard, entrancing them all, rose higher and higher, fell and died
+      away, he got to his feet, and called out hoarsely: &ldquo;Come&mdash;come
+      forth!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Slowly a graceful, veiled figure came from behind the great screen. He
+      took a step forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Zaida! Zaida!&rdquo; he said gently, amazedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She salaamed low. &ldquo;Forgive me, O my lord!&rdquo; she said, in a whispering
+      voice, drawing her veil about her head. &ldquo;It was my soul&rsquo;s desire to look
+      upon thy face once more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whither didst thou go at Harrik&rsquo;s death? I sent to find thee, and give
+      thee safety; but thou wert gone, none knew where.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O my lord, what was I but a mote in thy sun, that thou shouldst seek me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid&rsquo;s eyes fell, and he murmured to himself a moment, then he said
+      slowly: &ldquo;Thou didst save Egypt, thou and my friend&rdquo;&mdash;he gestured
+      towards David&rdquo;&mdash;and my life also, and all else that is worth.
+      Therefore bounty, and safety, and all thy desires were thy due. Kaid is no
+      ingrate&mdash;no, by the hand of Moses that smote at Sinai!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She made a pathetic motion of her hands. &ldquo;By Harrik&rsquo;s death I am free, a
+      slave no longer. O my lord, where I go bounty and famine are the same.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid took a step forward. &ldquo;Let me see thy face,&rdquo; he said, something
+      strange in her tone moving him with awe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She lowered her veil and looked him in the eyes. Her wan beauty smote him,
+      conquered him, the exquisite pain in her face filled Kaid&rsquo;s eyes with
+      foreboding, and pierced his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O cursed day that saw thee leave these walls! I did it for thy good&mdash;thou
+      wert so young; thy life was all before thee! But now&mdash;come, Zaida,
+      here in Kaid&rsquo;s Palace thou shalt have a home, and be at peace, for I see
+      that thou hast suffered. Surely it shall be said that Kaid honours thee.&rdquo;
+       He reached out to take her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had listened like one in a dream, but, as he was about to touch her,
+      she suddenly drew back, veiled her face, save for the eyes, and said in a
+      voice of agony: &ldquo;Unclean, unclean! My lord, I am a leper!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An awed and awful silence fell upon them all. Kaid drew back as though
+      smitten by a blow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently, upon the silence, her voice sharp with agony said: &ldquo;I am a
+      leper, and I go to that desert place which my lord has set apart for
+      lepers, where, dead to the world, I shall watch the dreadful years come
+      and go. Behold, I would die, but that I have a sister there these many
+      years, and her sick soul lives in loneliness. O my lord, forgive me! Here
+      was I happy; here of old I did sing to thee, and I came to sing to thee
+      once more a death-song. Also, I came to see thee do justice, ere I went
+      from thy face for ever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid&rsquo;s head was lowered on his breast. He shuddered. &ldquo;Thou art so
+      beautiful&mdash;thy voice, all! Thou wouldst see justice&mdash;speak!
+      Justice shall be made plain before thee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Twice she essayed to speak, and could not; but from his sweetmeats and the
+      shadows Mahommed crept forward, kissed the ground before Kaid, and said:
+      &ldquo;Effendina, thou knowest me as the servant of thy high servant, Claridge
+      Pasha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know thee&mdash;proceed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Behold, she whom God has smitten, man smote first. I am her
+      foster-brother&mdash;from the same breast we drew the food of life. Thou
+      wouldst do justice, O Effendina; but canst thou do double justice&mdash;ay,
+      a thousandfold? Then&rdquo;&mdash;his voice raised almost shrilly&mdash;&ldquo;then do
+      it upon Achmet Pasha. She&mdash;Zaida&mdash;told me where I should find
+      the bridge-opener.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Zaida once more!&rdquo; Kaid murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She had learned all in Achmet&rsquo;s harem&mdash;hearing speech between Achmet
+      and the man whom thou didst deliver to my hands yesterday.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Zaida-in Achmet&rsquo;s harem?&rdquo; Kaid turned upon her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Swiftly she told her dreadful tale, how, after Achmet had murdered all of
+      her except her body, she rose up to kill herself; but fainting, fell upon
+      a burning brazier, and her hand thrust accidentally in the live coals felt
+      no pain. &ldquo;And behold, O my lord, I knew I was a leper; and I remembered my
+      sister and lived on.&rdquo; So she ended, in a voice numbed and tuneless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid trembled with rage, and he cried in a loud voice: &ldquo;Bring Achmet
+      forth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As the slave sped upon the errand, David laid a hand on Kaid&rsquo;s arm, and
+      whispered to him earnestly. Kaid&rsquo;s savage frown cleared away, and his rage
+      calmed down; but an inflexible look came into his face, a look which
+      petrified the ruined Achmet as he salaamed before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Know thy punishment, son of a dog with a dog&rsquo;s heart, and prepare for a
+      daily death,&rdquo; said Kaid. &ldquo;This woman thou didst so foully wrong, even when
+      thou didst wrong her, she was a leper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A low cry broke from Achmet, for now when death came he must go unclean to
+      the after-world, forbidden Allah&rsquo;s presence. Broken and abject he
+      listened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She knew not, till thou wert gone,&rdquo; continued Kaid. &ldquo;She is innocent
+      before the law. But thou&mdash;beast of the slime&mdash;hear thy sentence.
+      There is in the far desert a place where lepers live. There, once a year,
+      one caravan comes, and, at the outskirts of the place unclean, leaves food
+      and needful things for another year, and returns again to Egypt after many
+      days. From that place there is no escape&mdash;the desert is as the sea,
+      and upon that sea there is no ghiassa to sail to a farther shore. It is
+      the leper land. Thither thou shalt go to wait upon this woman thou hast
+      savagely wronged, and upon her kind, till thou diest. It shall be so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mercy! Mercy!&rdquo; Achmet cried, horror-stricken, and turned to David. &ldquo;Thou
+      art merciful. Speak for me, Saadat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When didst thou have mercy?&rdquo; asked David. &ldquo;Thy crimes are against
+      humanity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid made a motion, and, with dragging feet, Achmet passed from the haunts
+      of familiar faces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a moment Kaid stood and looked at Zaida, rigid and stricken in that
+      awful isolation which is the leper&rsquo;s doom. Her eyes were closed, but her
+      head was high. &ldquo;Wilt thou not die?&rdquo; Kaid asked her gently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head slowly, and her hands folded on her breast. &ldquo;My sister
+      is there,&rdquo; she said at last. There was an instant&rsquo;s stillness, then Kaid
+      added with a voice of grief: &ldquo;Peace be upon thee, Zaida. Life is but a
+      spark. If death comes not to-day, it will tomorrow, for thee&mdash;for me.
+      Inshallah, peace be upon thee!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She opened her eyes and looked at him. Seeing what was in his face, they
+      lighted with a great light for a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And upon thee peace, O my lord, for ever and for ever!&rdquo; she said softly,
+      and, turning, left the court-yard, followed at a distance by Mahommed
+      Hassan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid remained motionless looking after her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David broke in on his abstraction. &ldquo;The army at sunrise&mdash;thou wilt
+      speak to it, Effendina?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid roused himself. &ldquo;What shall I say?&rdquo; he asked anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell them they shall be clothed and fed, and to every man or his family
+      three hundred piastres at the end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who will do this?&rdquo; asked Kaid incredulously. &ldquo;Thou, Effendina&mdash;Egypt
+      and thou and I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So be it,&rdquo; answered Kaid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they left the court-yard, he said suddenly to an officer behind him:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The caravan to the Place of Lepers&mdash;add to the stores fifty
+      camel-loads this year, and each year hereafter. Have heed to it. Ere it
+      starts, come to me. I would see all with mine own eyes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV. SOOLSBY&rsquo;S HAND UPON THE CURTAIN
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Faith raised her eyes from the paper before her and poised her head
+      meditatively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long is it, friend, since&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Since he went to Egypt?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, since thee&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Since I went to Mass?&rdquo; he grumbled humorously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She laughed whimsically. &ldquo;Nay, then, since thee made the promise&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That I would drink no more till his return&mdash;ay, that was my bargain;
+      till then and no longer! I am not to be held back then, unless I change my
+      mind when I see him. Well, &lsquo;tis three years since&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Three years! Time hasn&rsquo;t flown. Is it not like an old memory, his living
+      here in this house, Soolsby, and all that happened then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soolsby looked at her over his glasses, resting his chin on the back of
+      the chair he was caning, and his lips worked in and out with a suppressed
+      smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Time&rsquo;s got naught to do with you. He&rsquo;s afeard of you,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;He
+      lets you be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Friend, thee knows I am almost an old woman now.&rdquo; She made marks
+      abstractedly upon the corner of a piece of paper. &ldquo;Unless my hair turns
+      grey presently I must bleach it, for &lsquo;twill seem improper it should remain
+      so brown.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She smoothed it back with her hand. Try as she would to keep it trim after
+      the manner of her people, it still waved loosely on her forehead and over
+      her ears. And the grey bonnet she wore but added piquancy to its
+      luxuriance, gave a sweet gravity to the demure beauty of the face it
+      sheltered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am thirty now,&rdquo; she murmured, with a sigh, and went on writing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man&rsquo;s fingers moved quickly among the strips of cane, and, after a
+      silence, without raising his head, he said: &ldquo;Thirty, it means naught.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To those without understanding,&rdquo; she rejoined drily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Tis tough understanding why there&rsquo;s no wedding-ring on yonder finger.
+      There&rsquo;s been many a man that&rsquo;s wanted it, that&rsquo;s true&mdash;the Squire&rsquo;s
+      son from Bridgley, the lord of Axwood Manor, the long soldier from Shipley
+      Wood, and doctors, and such folk aplenty. There&rsquo;s where understanding
+      fails.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Faith&rsquo;s face flushed, then it became pale, and her eyes, suffused, dropped
+      upon the paper before her. At first it seemed as though she must resent
+      his boldness; but she had made a friend of him these years past, and she
+      knew he meant no rudeness. In the past they had talked of things deeper
+      and more intimate still. Yet there was that in his words which touched a
+      sensitive corner of her nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should I be marrying?&rdquo; she asked presently. &ldquo;There was my sister&rsquo;s
+      son all those years. I had to care for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, older than him by a thimbleful!&rdquo; he rejoined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, till he came to live in this hut alone older by many a year. Since
+      then he is older than me by fifty. I had not thought of marriage before he
+      went away. Squire&rsquo;s son, soldier, or pillman, what were they to me! He
+      needed me. They came, did they? Well, and if they came?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And since the Egyptian went?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A sort of sob came into her throat. &ldquo;He does not need me, but he may&mdash;he
+      will one day; and then I shall be ready. But now&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Old Soolsby&rsquo;s face turned away. His house overlooked every house in the
+      valley beneath: he could see nearly every garden; he could even recognise
+      many in the far streets. Besides, there hung along two nails on the wall a
+      telescope, relic of days when he sailed the main. The grounds of the
+      Cloistered House and the fruit-decked garden-wall of the Red Mansion were
+      ever within his vision. Once, twice, thrice, he had seen what he had seen,
+      and dark feelings, harsh emotions, had been roused in him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will need us both&mdash;the Egyptian will need us both one day,&rdquo; he
+      answered now; &ldquo;you more than any, me because I can help him, too&mdash;ay,
+      I can help him. But married or single you could help him; so why waste
+      your days here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it wasting my days to stay with my father? He is lonely, most lonely
+      since our Davy went away; and troubled, too, for the dangers of that life
+      yonder. His voice used to shake when he prayed, in those days when Davy
+      was away in the desert, down at Darfur and elsewhere among the rebel
+      tribes. He frightened me then, he was so stern and still. Ah, but that day
+      when we knew he was safe, I was eighteen, and no more!&rdquo; she added,
+      smiling. &ldquo;But, think you, I could marry while my life is so tied to him
+      and to our Egyptian?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No one looking at her limpid, shining blue eyes but would have set her
+      down for twenty-three or twenty-four, for not a line showed on her smooth
+      face; she was exquisite of limb and feature, and had the lissomeness of a
+      girl of fifteen. There was in her eyes, however, an unquiet sadness; she
+      had abstracted moments when her mind seemed fixed on some vexing problem.
+      Such a mood suddenly came upon her now. The pen lay by the paper
+      untouched, her hands folded in her lap, and a long silence fell upon them,
+      broken only by the twanging of the strips of cane in Soolsby&rsquo;s hands. At
+      last, however, even this sound ceased; and the two scarce moved as the sun
+      drew towards the middle afternoon. At last they were roused by the sound
+      of a horn, and, looking down, they saw a four-in-hand drawing smartly down
+      the road to the village over the gorse-spread common, till it stopped at
+      the Cloistered House. As Faith looked, her face slightly flushed. She bent
+      forward till she saw one figure get down and, waving a hand to the party
+      on the coach as it moved on, disappear into the gateway of the Cloistered
+      House.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the office they have given him?&rdquo; asked Soolsby, disapproval in
+      his tone, his eyes fixed on the disappearing figure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They have made Lord Eglington Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs,&rdquo; she
+      answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what means that to a common mind?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That what his Government does in Egypt will mean good or bad to our
+      Egyptian,&rdquo; she returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That he can do our man good or ill?&rdquo; Soolsby asked sharply&mdash;&ldquo;that
+      he, yonder, can do that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She inclined her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I see him doing ill&mdash;well, when I see him doing that&rdquo;&mdash;he
+      snatched up a piece of wood from the floor&mdash;&ldquo;then I will break him,
+      so!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He snapped the stick across his knee, and threw the pieces on the ground.
+      He was excited. He got to his feet and walked up and down the little room,
+      his lips shut tight, his round eyes flaring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Faith watched him in astonishment. In the past she had seen his face cloud
+      over, his eyes grow sulky, at the mention of Lord Eglington&rsquo;s name; she
+      knew that Soolsby hated him; but his aversion now was more definite and
+      violent than he had before shown, save on that night long ago when David
+      went first to Egypt, and she had heard hard words between them in this
+      same hut. She supposed it one of those antipathies which often grow in
+      inverse ratio to the social position of those concerned. She replied in a
+      soothing voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then we shall hope that he will do our Davy only good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You would not wish me to break his lordship? You would not wish it?&rdquo; He
+      came over to her, and looked sharply at her. &ldquo;You would not wish it?&rdquo; he
+      repeated meaningly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She evaded his question. &ldquo;Lord Eglington will be a great man one day
+      perhaps,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;He has made his way quickly. How high he has
+      climbed in three years&mdash;how high!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soolsby&rsquo;s anger was not lessened. &ldquo;Pooh! Pooh! He is an Earl. An Earl has
+      all with him at the start&mdash;name, place, and all. But look at our
+      Egyptian! Look at Egyptian David&mdash;what had he but his head and an
+      honest mind? What is he? He is the great man of Egypt. Tell me, who helped
+      Egyptian David? That second-best lordship yonder, he crept about coaxing
+      this one and wheedling that. I know him&mdash;I know him. He wheedles and
+      wheedles. No matter whether &lsquo;tis a babe or an old woman, he&rsquo;ll talk, and
+      talk, and talk, till they believe in him, poor folks! No one&rsquo;s too small
+      for his net. There&rsquo;s Martha Higham yonder. She&rsquo;s forty five. If he sees
+      her, as sure as eggs he&rsquo;ll make love to her, and fill her ears with words
+      she&rsquo;d never heard before, and &lsquo;d never hear at all if not from him. Ay,
+      there&rsquo;s no man too sour and no woman too old that he&rsquo;ll not blandish, if
+      he gets the chance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke Faith shut her eyes, and her fingers clasped tightly together&mdash;beautiful
+      long, tapering fingers, like those in Romney&rsquo;s pictures. When he stopped,
+      her eyes opened slowly, and she gazed before her down towards that garden
+      by the Red Mansion where her lifetime had been spent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee says hard words, Soolsby,&rdquo; she rejoined gently. &ldquo;But maybe thee is
+      right.&rdquo; Then a flash of humour passed over her face. &ldquo;Suppose we ask
+      Martha Higham if the Earl has &lsquo;blandished&rsquo; her. If the Earl has blandished
+      Martha, he is the very captain of deceit. Why, he has himself but
+      twenty-eight years. Will a man speak so to one older than himself, save in
+      mockery? So, if thee is right in this, then&mdash;then if he speak well to
+      deceive and to serve his turn, he will also speak ill; and he will do ill
+      when it may serve his turn; and so he may do our Davy ill, as thee says,
+      Soolsby.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose to her feet and made as if to go, but she kept her face from him.
+      Presently, however, she turned and looked at him. &ldquo;If he does ill to Davy,
+      there will be those like thee, Soolsby, who will not spare him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His fingers opened and shut maliciously, he nodded dour assent. After an
+      instant, while he watched her, she added: &ldquo;Thee has not heard my lord is
+      to marry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Marry&mdash;who is the blind lass?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her name is Maryon, Miss Hylda Maryon: and she has a great fortune. But
+      within a month it is to be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee remembers the woman of the cross-roads, her that our Davy&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her the Egyptian kissed, and put his watch in her belt&mdash;ay, Kate
+      Heaver!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is now maid to her Lord Eglington will wed. She is to spend to-night
+      with us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is her lad that was, that the Egyptian rolled like dough in a
+      trough?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jasper Kimber? He is at Sheffield. He has been up and down, now sober for
+      a year, now drunken for a month, now in, now out of a place, until this
+      past year. But for this whole year he has been sober, and he may keep his
+      pledge. He is working in the trades-unions. Among his fellow-workers he is
+      called a politician&mdash;if loud speaking and boasting can make one. Yet
+      if these doings give him stimulant instead of drink, who shall complain?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soolsby&rsquo;s head was down. He was looking out over the far hills, while the
+      strips of cane were idle in his hands. &ldquo;Ay, &lsquo;tis true&mdash;&lsquo;tis true,&rdquo; he
+      nodded. &ldquo;Give a man an idee which keeps him cogitating, makes him think
+      he&rsquo;s greater than he is, and sets his pulses beating, why, that&rsquo;s the cure
+      to drink. Drink is friendship and good company and big thoughts while it
+      lasts; and it&rsquo;s lonely without it, if you&rsquo;ve been used to it. Ay, but
+      Kimber&rsquo;s way is best. Get an idee in your noddle, to do a thing that&rsquo;s
+      more to you than work or food or bed, and &lsquo;twill be more than drink, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He nodded to himself, then began weaving the strips of cane furiously.
+      Presently he stopped again, and threw his head back with a chuckle. &ldquo;Now,
+      wouldn&rsquo;t it be a joke, a reg&rsquo;lar first-class joke, if Kimber and me both
+      had the same idee, if we was both workin&rsquo; for the same thing&mdash;an&rsquo; 
+      didn&rsquo;t know it? I reckon it might be so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What end is thee working for, friend? If the public prints speak true,
+      Kimber is working to stand for Parliament against Lord Eglington.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soolsby grunted and laughed in his throat. &ldquo;Now, is that the game of
+      Mister Kimber? Against my Lord Eglington! Hey, but that&rsquo;s a joke, my
+      lord!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what is thee working for, Soolsby?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do I be working for? To get the Egyptian back to England&mdash;what
+      else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is no joke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, but &lsquo;tis a joke.&rdquo; The old man chuckled. &ldquo;&lsquo;Tis the best joke in the
+      boilin&rsquo;.&rdquo; He shook his head and moved his body backwards and forwards with
+      glee. &ldquo;Me and Kimber! Me and Kimber!&rdquo; he roared, &ldquo;and neither of us drunk
+      for a year&mdash;not drunk for a whole year. Me and Kimber&mdash;and him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Faith put her hand on his shoulder. &ldquo;Indeed, I see no joke, but only that
+      which makes my heart thankful, Soolsby.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, you will be thankful, you will be thankful, by-and-by,&rdquo; he said,
+      still chuckling, and stood up respectfully to show her out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI. THE DEBT AND THE ACCOUNTING
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      His forehead frowning, but his eyes full of friendliness, Soolsby watched
+      Faith go down the hillside and until she reached the main road. Here,
+      instead of going to the Red Mansion, she hesitated a moment, and then
+      passed along a wooded path leading to the Meetinghouse, and the graveyard.
+      It was a perfect day of early summer, the gorse was in full bloom, and the
+      may and the hawthorn were alive with colour. The path she had taken led
+      through a narrow lane, overhung with blossoms and greenery. By bearing
+      away to the left into another path, and making a detour, she could reach
+      the Meeting-house through a narrow lane leading past a now disused mill
+      and a small, strong stream flowing from the hill above.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As she came down the hill, other eyes than Soolsby&rsquo;s watched her. From his
+      laboratory&mdash;the laboratory in which his father had worked, in which
+      he had lost his life&mdash;Eglington had seen the trim, graceful figure.
+      He watched it till it moved into the wooded path. Then he left his garden,
+      and, moving across a field, came into the path ahead of her. Walking
+      swiftly, he reached the old mill, and waited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She came slowly, now and again stooping to pick a flower and place it in
+      her belt. Her bonnet was slung on her arm, her hair had broken a little
+      loose and made a sort of hood round the face, so still, so composed, into
+      which the light of steady, soft, apprehending eyes threw a gentle
+      radiance. It was a face to haunt a man when the storm of life was round
+      him. It had, too, a courage which might easily become a delicate
+      stubbornness, a sense of duty which might become sternness, if roused by a
+      sense of wrong to herself or others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She reached the mill and stood and listened towards the stream and the
+      waterfall. She came here often. The scene quieted her in moods of
+      restlessness which came from a feeling that her mission was interrupted,
+      that half her life&rsquo;s work had been suddenly taken from her. When David
+      went, her life had seemed to shrivel; for with him she had developed as he
+      had developed; and when her busy care of him was withdrawn, she had felt a
+      sort of paralysis which, in a sense, had never left her. Then suitors had
+      come&mdash;the soldier from Shipley Wood, the lord of Axwood Manor, and
+      others, and, in a way, a new sense was born in her, though she was alive
+      to the fact that the fifteen thousand pounds inherited from her Uncle Benn
+      had served to warm the air about her into a wider circle. Yet it was
+      neither to soldier, nor squire, nor civil engineer, nor surgeon that the
+      new sense stirring in her was due. The spring was too far beneath to be
+      found by them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, at last, she raised her head, Lord Eglington was in the path,
+      looking at her with a half-smile. She did not start, but her face turned
+      white, and a mist came before her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quickly, however, as though fearful lest he should think he could trouble
+      her composure, she laid a hand upon herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He came near to her and held out his hand. &ldquo;It has been a long six months
+      since we met here,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She made no motion to take his hand. &ldquo;I find days grow shorter as I grow
+      older,&rdquo; she rejoined steadily, and smoothed her hair with her hand, making
+      ready to put on her bonnet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, do not put it on,&rdquo; he urged quickly, with a gesture. &ldquo;It becomes you
+      so&mdash;on your arm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had regained her self-possession. Pride, the best weapon of a woman,
+      the best tonic, came to her resource. &ldquo;Thee loves to please thee at any
+      cost,&rdquo; she replied. She fastened the grey strings beneath her chin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would it be costly to keep the bonnet on your arm?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is my pleasure to have it on my head, and my pleasure has some value
+      to myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A moment ago,&rdquo; he rejoined laughing, &ldquo;it was your pleasure to have it on
+      your arm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are all to be monotonous except Lord Eglington? Is he to have the only
+      patent of change?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do I change?&rdquo; He smiled at her with a sense of inquisition, with an air
+      that seemed to say, &ldquo;I have lifted the veil of this woman&rsquo;s heart; I am
+      the master of the situation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not answer to the obvious meaning of his words, but said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee has done little else but change, so far as eye can see. Thee and thy
+      family were once of Quaker faith, but thee is a High Churchman now. Yet
+      they said a year ago thee was a sceptic or an infidel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is force in what you say,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;I have an inquiring mind; I
+      am ever open to reason. Confucius said: &lsquo;It is only the supremely wise or
+      the deeply ignorant who never alter.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee has changed politics. Thee made a &lsquo;sensation, but that was not
+      enough. Thee that was a rebel became a deserter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed. &ldquo;Ah, I was open to conviction! I took my life in my hands,
+      defied consequences.&rdquo; He laughed again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It brought office.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs,&rdquo; he murmured complacently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Change is a policy with thee, I think. It has paid thee well, so it would
+      seem.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only a fair rate of interest for the capital invested and the risks I&rsquo;ve
+      taken,&rdquo; he answered with an amused look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not think that interest will increase. Thee has climbed quickly, but
+      fast climbing is not always safe climbing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His mood changed. His voice quickened, his face lowered. &ldquo;You think I will
+      fail? You wish me to fail?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In so far as thee acts uprightly, I wish thee well. But if, out of
+      office, thee disregards justice and conscience and the rights of others,
+      can thee be just and faithful in office? Subtlety will not always avail.
+      The strong man takes the straight course. Subtlety is not intellect.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He flushed. She had gone to the weakest point in his defences. His vanity
+      was being hurt. She had an advantage now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are wrong,&rdquo; he protested. &ldquo;You do not understand public life, here in
+      a silly Quaker village.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does thee think that all that happens in &lsquo;public life&rsquo; is of consequence?
+      That is not sensible. Thee is in the midst of a thousand immaterial
+      things, though they have importance for the moment. But the chief things
+      that matter to all, does thee not know that a &lsquo;silly Quaker village&rsquo; may
+      realise them to the full&mdash;more fully because we see them apart from
+      the thousand little things that do not matter? I remember a thing in
+      political life that mattered. It was at Heddington after the massacre at
+      Damascus. Does thee think that we did not know thee spoke without
+      principle then, and only to draw notice?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You would make me into a demagogue,&rdquo; he said irritably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee is a demagogue,&rdquo; she answered candidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did you never say all this to me long ago? Years have passed since
+      then, and since then you and I have&mdash;have been friends. You have&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused, for she made a protesting motion, and a fire sprang into her
+      eyes. Her voice got colder. &ldquo;Thee made me believe&mdash;ah, how many times
+      did we speak together? Six times it was, not more. Thee made me believe
+      that what I thought or said helped thee to see things better. Thee said I
+      saw things truly like a child, with the wisdom of a woman. Thee remembers
+      that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was so,&rdquo; he put in hastily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not for a moment so, though I was blinded to think for an instant
+      that it was. Thee subtly took the one way which could have made me listen
+      to thee. Thee wanted help, thee said; and if a word of mine could help
+      thee now and then, should I withhold it, so long as I thought thee
+      honest?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think I was not honest in wanting your friendship?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, it was not friendship thee wanted, for friendship means a giving and
+      a getting. Thee was bent on getting what was, indeed, of but little value
+      save to the giver; but thee gave nothing; thee remembered nothing of what
+      was given thee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not so, it is not so,&rdquo; he urged eagerly, nervously. &ldquo;I gave, and I
+      still give.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In those old days, I did not understand,&rdquo; she went on, &ldquo;what it was thee
+      wanted. I know now. It was to know the heart and mind of a woman&mdash;of
+      a woman older than thee. So that thee should have such sort of experience,
+      though I was but a foolish choice of the experiment. They say thee has a
+      gift for chemistry like thy father; but if thee experiments no more wisely
+      in the laboratory than with me, thee will not reach distinction.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your father hated my father and did not believe in him, I know not why,
+      and you are now hating and disbelieving me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not know why my father held the late Earl in abhorrence; I know he
+      has no faith in thee; and I did ill in listening to thee, in believing for
+      one moment there was truth in thee. But no, no, I think I never believed
+      it. I think that even when thee said most, at heart I believed least.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You doubt that? You doubt all I said to you?&rdquo; he urged softly, coming
+      close to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She drew aside slightly. She had steeled herself for this inevitable
+      interview, and there was no weakening of her defences; but a great sadness
+      came into her eyes, and spread over her face, and to this was added, after
+      a moment, a pity which showed the distance she was from him, the safety in
+      which she stood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I remember that the garden was beautiful, and that thee spoke as though
+      thee was part of the garden. Thee remembers that, at our meeting in the
+      Cloistered House, when the woman was ill, I had no faith in thee; but thee
+      spoke with grace, and turned common things round about, so that they
+      seemed different to the ear from any past hearing; and I listened. I did
+      not know, and I do not know now, why it is my duty to shun any of thy
+      name, and above all thyself; but it has been so commanded by my father all
+      my life; and though what he says may be in a little wrong, in much it must
+      ever be right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so, from a hatred handed down, your mind has been tuned to shun even
+      when your heart was learning to give me a home&mdash;Faith?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She straightened herself. &ldquo;Friend, thee will do me the courtesy to forget
+      to use my Christian name. I am not a child-indeed, I am well on in years&rdquo;&mdash;he
+      smiled&mdash;&ldquo;and thee has no friendship or kinship for warrant. If my
+      mind was tuned to shun thee, I gave proof that it was willing to take thee
+      at thine own worth, even against the will of my father, against the desire
+      of David, who knew thee better than I&mdash;he gauged thee at first
+      glance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have become a philosopher and a statesman,&rdquo; he said ironically. &ldquo;Has
+      your nephew, the new Joseph in Egypt, been giving you instructions in high
+      politics? Has he been writing the Epistles of David to the Quakers?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee will leave his name apart,&rdquo; she answered with dignity. &ldquo;I have
+      studied neither high politics nor statesmanship, though in the days when
+      thee did flatter me thee said I had a gift for such things. Thee did not
+      speak the truth. And now I will say that I do not respect thee. No matter
+      how high thee may climb, still I shall not respect thee; for thee will
+      ever gain ends by flattery, by subtlety, and by using every man and every
+      woman for selfish ends. Thee cannot be true-not even to that which by
+      nature is greatest in thee.&rdquo;.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He withered under her words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what is greatest in me?&rdquo; he asked abruptly, his coolness and
+      self-possession striving to hold their own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That which will ruin thee in the end.&rdquo; Her eyes looked beyond his into
+      the distance, rapt and shining; she seemed scarcely aware of his presence.
+      &ldquo;That which will bring thee down&mdash;thy hungry spirit of discovery. It
+      will serve thee no better than it served the late Earl. But thee it will
+      lead into paths ending in a gulf of darkness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Deborah!&rdquo; he answered, with a rasping laugh. &ldquo;Continuez! Forewarned is
+      forearmed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, do not think I shall be glad,&rdquo; she answered, still like one in a
+      dream. &ldquo;I shall lament it as I lament&mdash;as I lament now. All else
+      fades away into the end which I see for thee. Thee will live alone without
+      a near and true friend, and thee will die alone, never having had a true
+      friend. Thee will never be a true friend, thee will never love truly man
+      or woman, and thee will never find man or woman who will love thee truly,
+      or will be with thee to aid thee in the dark and falling days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then,&rdquo; he broke in sharply, querulously, &ldquo;then, I will stand alone. I
+      shall never come whining that I have been ill-used, to fate or fortune, to
+      men or to the Almighty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That I believe. Pride will build up in thee a strength which will be like
+      water in the end. Oh, my lord,&rdquo; she added, with a sudden change in her
+      voice and manner, &ldquo;if thee could only be true&mdash;thee who never has
+      been true to any one!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why does a woman always judge a man after her own personal experience
+      with him, or what she thinks is her own personal experience?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A robin hopped upon the path before her. She watched it for a moment
+      intently, then lifted her head as the sound of a bell came through the
+      wood to her. She looked up at the sun, which was slanting towards evening.
+      She seemed about to speak, but with second thought, moved on slowly past
+      the mill and towards the Meeting-house. He stepped on beside her. She kept
+      her eyes fixed in front of her, as though oblivious of his presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall hear me speak. You shall listen to what I have to say, though
+      it is for the last time,&rdquo; he urged stubbornly. &ldquo;You think ill of me. Are
+      you sure you are not pharisaical?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am honest enough to say that which hurts me in the saying. I do not
+      forget that to believe thee what I think is to take all truth from what
+      thee said to me last year, and again this spring when the tulips first
+      came and there was good news from Egypt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I said,&rdquo; he rejoined boldly, &ldquo;that I was happier with you than with any
+      one else alive. I said that what you thought of me meant more to me than
+      what any one else in the world thought; and that I say now, and will
+      always say it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old look of pity came into her face. &ldquo;I am older than thee by two
+      years,&rdquo; she answered quaintly, &ldquo;and I know more of real life, though I
+      have lived always here. I have made the most of the little I have seen;
+      thee has made little of the much that thee has seen. Thee does not know
+      the truth concerning thee. Is it not, in truth, vanity which would have me
+      believe in thee? If thee was happier with me than with any one alive, why
+      then did thee make choice of a wife even in the days thee was speaking to
+      me as no man shall ever speak again? Nothing can explain so base a fact.
+      No, no, no, thee said to me what thee said to others, and will say again
+      without shame. But&mdash;but see, I will forgive; yes, I will follow thee
+      with good wishes, if thee will promise to help David, whom thee has ever
+      disliked, as, in the place held by thee, thee can do now. Will thee offer
+      this one proof, in spite of all else that disproves, that thee spoke any
+      words of truth to me in the Cloistered House, in the garden by my father&rsquo;s
+      house, by yonder mill, and hard by the Meeting-house yonder-near to my
+      sister&rsquo;s grave by the willow-tree? Will thee do that for me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was about to reply, when there appeared in the path before them Luke
+      Claridge. His back was upon them, but he heard their footsteps and swung
+      round. As though turned to stone, he waited for them. As they approached,
+      his lips, dry and pale, essayed to speak, but no sound came. A fire was in
+      his eyes which boded no good. Amazement, horror, deadly anger, were all
+      there, but, after a moment, the will behind the tumult commanded it, the
+      wild light died away, and he stood calm and still awaiting them. Faith was
+      as pale as when she had met Eglington. As she came nearer, Luke Claridge
+      said, in a low voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do I find thee in this company, Faith?&rdquo; There was reproach
+      unutterable in his voice, in his face. He seemed humiliated and shamed,
+      though all the while a violent spirit in him was struggling for the
+      mastery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As I came this way to visit my sister&rsquo;s grave I met my lord by the mill.
+      He spoke to me, and, as I wished a favour of him, I walked with him
+      thither&mdash;but a little way. I was going to visit my sister&rsquo;s grave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thy sister&rsquo;s grave!&rdquo; The fire flamed up again, but the masterful will
+      chilled it down, and he answered: &ldquo;What secret business can thee have with
+      any of that name which I have cast out of knowledge or notice?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ignorant as he was of the old man&rsquo;s cause for quarrel or dislike,
+      Eglington felt himself aggrieved, and, therefore, with an advantage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had differences with my father, sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I do not know what
+      they were, but they lasted his lifetime, and all my life you have treated
+      me with aversion. I am not a pestilence. I have never wronged you. I have
+      lived your peaceful neighbour under great provocation, for your treatment
+      would have done me harm if my place were less secure. I think I have cause
+      for complaint.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have never acted in haste concerning thee, or those who went before
+      thee. What business had thee with him, Faith?&rdquo; he asked again. His voice
+      was dry and hard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her impulse was to tell the truth, and so for ever have her conscience
+      clear, for there would never be any more need for secrecy. The wheel of
+      understanding between Eglington and herself had come full circle, and
+      there was an end. But to tell the truth would be to wound her father, to
+      vex him against Eglington even as he had never yet been vexed. Besides, it
+      was hard, while Eglington was there, to tell what, after all, was the sole
+      affair of her own life. In one literal sense, Eglington was not guilty of
+      deceit. Never in so many words had he said to her: &ldquo;I love you;&rdquo; never had
+      he made any promise to her or exacted one; he had done no more than lure
+      her to feel one thing, and then to call it another thing. Also there was
+      no direct and vital injury, for she had never loved him; though how far
+      she had travelled towards that land of light and trial she could never now
+      declare. These thoughts flashed through her mind as she stood looking at
+      her father. Her tongue seemed imprisoned, yet her soft and candid eyes
+      conquered the austerity in the old man&rsquo;s gaze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eglington spoke for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Permit me to answer, neighbour,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I wished to speak with your
+      daughter, because I am to be married soon, and my wife will, at intervals,
+      come here to live. I wished that she should not be shunned by you and
+      yours as I have been. She would not understand, as I do not. Yours is a
+      constant call to war, while all your religion is an appeal for peace. I
+      wished to ask your daughter to influence you to make it possible for me
+      and mine to live in friendship among you. My wife will have some claims
+      upon you. Her mother was an American, of a Quaker family from Derbyshire.
+      She has done nothing to merit your aversion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Faith listened astonished and baffled. Nothing of this had he said to her.
+      Had he meant to say it to her? Had it been in his mind? Or was it only a
+      swift adaptation to circumstances, an adroit means of working upon the
+      sympathies of her father, who, she could see, was in a quandary? Eglington
+      had indeed touched the old man as he had not been touched in thirty years
+      and more by one of his name. For a moment the insinuating quality of the
+      appeal submerged the fixed idea in a mind to which the name of Eglington
+      was anathema.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eglington saw his advantage. He had felt his way carefully, and he pursued
+      it quickly. &ldquo;For the rest, your daughter asked what I was ready to offer&mdash;such
+      help as, in my new official position, I can give to Claridge Pasha in
+      Egypt. As a neighbour, as Minister in the Government, I will do what I can
+      to aid him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Silent and embarrassed, the old man tried to find his way. Presently he
+      said tentatively: &ldquo;David Claridge has a title to the esteem of all
+      civilised people.&rdquo; Eglington was quick with his reply. &ldquo;If he succeeds,
+      his title will become a concrete fact. There is no honour the Crown would
+      not confer for such remarkable service.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The other&rsquo;s face darkened. &ldquo;I did not speak, I did not think, of handles
+      to his name. I find no good in them, but only means for deceiving and
+      deluding the world. Such honours as might make him baronet, or duke, would
+      add not a cubit to his stature. If he had such a thing by right&rdquo;&mdash;his
+      voice hardened, his eyes grew angry once again&mdash;&ldquo;I would wish it sunk
+      into the sea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are hard on us, sir, who did not give ourselves our titles, but took
+      them with our birth as a matter of course. There was nothing inspiring in
+      them. We became at once distinguished and respectable by patent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed good-humouredly. Then suddenly he changed, and his eyes took on
+      a far-off look which Faith had seen so often in the eyes of David, but in
+      David&rsquo;s more intense and meaning, and so different. With what deftness and
+      diplomacy had he worked upon her father! He had crossed a stream which
+      seemed impassable by adroit, insincere diplomacy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She saw that it was time to go, while yet Eglington&rsquo;s disparagement of
+      rank and aristocracy was ringing in the old man&rsquo;s ears; though she knew
+      there was nothing in Eglington&rsquo;s equipment he valued more than his title
+      and the place it gave him. Grateful, however, for his successful
+      intervention, Faith now held out her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must take my father away, or it will be sunset before we reach the
+      Meeting-house,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Goodbye-friend,&rdquo; she added gently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For an instant Luke Claridge stared at her, scarce comprehending that his
+      movements were being directed by any one save himself. Truth was, Faith
+      had come to her cross-roads in life. For the first time in her memory she
+      had seen her father speak to an Eglington without harshness; and, as he
+      weakened for a moment, she moved to take command of that weakness, though
+      she meant it to seem like leading. While loving her and David profoundly,
+      her father had ever been quietly imperious. If she could but gain
+      ascendency even in a little, it might lead to a more open book of life for
+      them both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eglington held out his hand to the old man. &ldquo;I have kept you too long,
+      sir. Good-bye&mdash;if you will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The offered hand was not taken, but Faith slid hers into the old man&rsquo;s
+      palm, and pressed it, and he said quietly to Eglington:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good evening, friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And when I bring my wife, sir?&rdquo; Eglington added, with a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When thee brings the lady, there will be occasion to consider&mdash;there
+      will be occasion then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Eglington raised his hat, and turned back upon the path he and Faith had
+      travelled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man stood watching him until he was out of view. Then he seemed
+      more himself. Still holding Faith&rsquo;s hand, he walked with her on the
+      gorse-covered hill towards the graveyard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was it his heart spoke or his tongue&mdash;is there any truth in him?&rdquo; he
+      asked at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Faith pressed his hand. &ldquo;If he help Davy, father&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he help Davy; ay, if he help Davy! Nay, I cannot go to the graveyard,
+      Faith. Take me home,&rdquo; he said with emotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His hand remained in hers. She had conquered. She was set upon a new path
+      of influence. Her hand was upon the door of his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee is good to me, Faith,&rdquo; he said, as they entered the door of the Red
+      Mansion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She glanced over towards the Cloistered House. Smoke was coming from the
+      little chimney of the laboratory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII. THE WOMAN OF THE CROSS-ROADS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The night came down slowly. There was no moon, the stars were few, but a
+      mellow warmth was in the air. At the window of her little sitting-room
+      up-stairs Faith sat looking out into the stillness. Beneath was the garden
+      with its profusion of flowers and fruit; away to the left was the common;
+      and beyond-far beyond&mdash;was a glow in the sky, a suffused light, of a
+      delicate orange, merging away into a grey-blueness, deepening into a
+      darker blue; and then a purple depth, palpable and heavy with a comforting
+      silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was something alluring and suggestive in the soft, smothered
+      radiance. It had all the glamour of some distant place of pleasure and
+      quiet joy, of happiness and ethereal being. It was, in fact, the far-off
+      mirror of the flaming furnace of the great Heddington factories. The light
+      of the sky above was a soft radiance, as of a happy Arcadian land; the
+      fire of the toil beneath was the output of human striving, an intricate
+      interweaving of vital forces which, like some Titanic machine, wrought out
+      in pain&mdash;a vast destiny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Faith looked, she thought of the thousands beneath struggling and
+      striving, none with all desires satisfied, some in an agony of want and
+      penury, all straining for the elusive Enough; like Sisyphus ever rolling
+      the rock of labour up a hill too steep for them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her mind flew to the man Kimber and his task of organising labour for its
+      own advance. What a life-work for a man! Here might David have spent his
+      days, here among his own countrymen, instead of in that far-off land where
+      all the forces of centuries were fighting against him. Here the forces
+      would have been fighting for him; the trend was towards the elevation of
+      the standards of living and the wider rights of labour, to the
+      amelioration of hard conditions of life among the poor. David&rsquo;s mind, with
+      its equity, its balance, and its fire&mdash;what might it not have
+      accomplished in shepherding such a cause, guiding its activity?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gate of the garden clicked. Kate Heaver had arrived. Faith got to her
+      feet and left the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few minutes later the woman of the cross-roads was seated opposite Faith
+      at the window. She had changed greatly since the day David had sent her on
+      her way to London and into the unknown. Then there had been recklessness,
+      something of coarseness, in the fine face. Now it was strong and quiet,
+      marked by purpose and self-reliance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ignorance had been her only peril in the past, as it had been the cause of
+      her unhappy connection with Jasper Kimber. The atmosphere in which she was
+      raised had been unmoral; it had not been consciously immoral. Her temper
+      and her indignation against her man for drinking had been the means of
+      driving them apart. He would have married her in those days, if she had
+      given the word, for her will was stronger than his own; but she had broken
+      from him in an agony of rage and regret and despised love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was now, again, as she had been in those first days before she went
+      with Jasper Kimber; when she was the rose-red angel of the quarters; when
+      children were lured by the touch of her large, shapely hands; when she had
+      been counted a great nurse among her neighbours. The old simple untutored
+      sympathy was in her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They sat for a long time in silence, and at length Faith said: &ldquo;Thee is
+      happy now with her who is to marry Lord Eglington?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kate nodded, smiling. &ldquo;Who could help but be happy with her! Yet a temper,
+      too&mdash;so quick, and then all over in a second. Ah, she is one that&rsquo;d
+      break her heart if she was treated bad; but I&rsquo;d be sorry for him that did
+      it. For the like of her goes mad with hurting, and the mad cut with a big
+      scythe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has thee seen Lord Eglington?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Once before I left these parts and often in London.&rdquo; Her voice was
+      constrained; she seemed not to wish to speak of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it true that Jasper Kimber is to stand against him for Parliament?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not know. They say my lord has to do with foreign lands now. If he
+      helps Mr. Claridge there, then it would be a foolish thing for Jasper to
+      fight him; and so I&rsquo;ve told him. You&rsquo;ve got to stand by those that stand
+      by you. Lord Eglington has his own way of doing things. There&rsquo;s not a
+      servant in my lady&rsquo;s house that he hasn&rsquo;t made his friend. He&rsquo;s one that&rsquo;s
+      bound to have his will. I heard my lady say he talks better than any one
+      in England, and there&rsquo;s none she doesn&rsquo;t know from duchesses down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is beautiful?&rdquo; asked Faith, with hesitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Taller than you, but not so beautiful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Faith sighed, and was silent for a moment, then she laid a hand upon the
+      other&rsquo;s shoulder. &ldquo;Thee has never said what happened when thee first got
+      to London. Does thee care to say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems so long ago,&rdquo; was the reply.... &ldquo;No need to tell of the journey
+      to London. When I got there it frightened me at first. My head went round.
+      But somehow it came to me what I should do. I asked my way to a hospital.
+      I&rsquo;d helped a many that was hurt at Heddington and thereabouts, and doctors
+      said I was as good as them that was trained. I found a hospital at last,
+      and asked for work, but they laughed at me&mdash;it was the porter at the
+      door. I was not to be put down, and asked to see some one that had rights
+      to say yes or no. So he opened the door and told me to go. I said he was
+      no man to treat a woman so, and I would not go. Then a fine white-haired
+      gentleman came forward. He had heard all we had said, standing in a little
+      room at one side. He spoke a kind word or two, and asked me to go into the
+      little room. Before I had time to think, he came to me with the matron,
+      and left me with her. I told her the whole truth, and she looked at first
+      as if she&rsquo;d turn me out. But the end of it was I stayed there for the
+      night, and in the morning the old gentleman came again, and with him his
+      lady, as kind and sharp of tongue as himself, and as big as three. Some
+      things she said made my tongue ache to speak back to her; but I choked it
+      down. I went to her to be a sort of nurse and maid. She taught me how to
+      do a hundred things, and by-and-by I couldn&rsquo;t be too thankful she had
+      taken me in. I was with her till she died. Then, six months ago I went to
+      Miss Maryon, who knew about me long before from her that died. With her
+      I&rsquo;ve been ever since&mdash;and so that&rsquo;s all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely God has been kind to thee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;d have gone down&mdash;down&mdash;down, if it hadn&rsquo;t been for Mr.
+      Claridge at the cross-roads.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does thee think I shall like her that will live yonder?&rdquo; She nodded
+      towards the Cloistered House. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s none but likes her. She will want a
+      friend, I&rsquo;m thinking. She&rsquo;ll be lonely by-and-by. Surely, she will be
+      lonely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Faith looked at her closely, and at last leaned over, and again laid a
+      soft hand on her shoulder. &ldquo;Thee thinks that&mdash;why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He cares only what matters to himself. She will be naught to him but one
+      that belongs. He&rsquo;ll never try to do her good. Doing good to any but
+      himself never comes to his mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How does thee know him, to speak so surely?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When, at the first, he gave me a letter for her one day, and slipped a
+      sovereign into my hand, and nodded, and smiled at me, I knew him right
+      enough. He never could be true to aught.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did thee keep the sovereign?&rdquo; Faith asked anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, that I did. If he was for giving his money away, I&rsquo;d take it fast
+      enough. The gold gave father boots for a year. Why should I mind?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Faith&rsquo;s face suffused. How low was Eglington&rsquo;s estimate of humanity!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the silence that followed the door of her room opened, and her father
+      entered. He held in one hand a paper, in the other a candle. His face was
+      passive, but his eyes were burning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;David&mdash;David is coming,&rdquo; he cried, in a voice that rang. &ldquo;Does thee
+      hear, Faith? Davy is coming home!&rdquo; A woman laughed exultantly. It was not
+      Faith. But still two years passed before David came.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII. TIME, THE IDOL-BREAKER
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Lord Windlehurst looked meditatively round the crowded and brilliant
+      salon. His host, the Foreign Minister, had gathered in the vast golden
+      chamber the most notable people of a most notable season, and in as
+      critical a period of the world&rsquo;s politics as had been known for a quarter
+      of a century. After a moment&rsquo;s survey, the ex-Prime-Minister turned to
+      answer the frank and caustic words addressed to him by the Duchess of
+      Snowdon concerning the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Presently he
+      said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But there is method in his haste, dear lady. He is good at his dangerous
+      game. He plays high, he plunges; but, somehow, he makes it do. I&rsquo;ve been
+      in Parliament a generation or so, and I&rsquo;ve never known an amateur more
+      daring and skilful. I should have given him office had I remained in
+      power. Look at him, and tell me if he wouldn&rsquo;t have been worth the
+      backing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As Lord Windlehurst uttered the last word with an arid smile, he looked
+      quizzically at the central figure of a group of people gaily talking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess impatiently tapped her knee with a fan. &ldquo;Be thankful you
+      haven&rsquo;t got him on your conscience,&rdquo; she rejoined. &ldquo;I call Eglington
+      unscrupulous and unreliable. He has but one god&mdash;getting on; and he
+      has got on, with a vengeance. Whenever I look at that dear thing he&rsquo;s
+      married, I feel there&rsquo;s no trusting Providence, who seems to make the
+      deserving a footstool for the undeserving. I&rsquo;ve known Hylda since she was
+      ten, and I&rsquo;ve known him since the minute he came into the world, and I&rsquo;ve
+      got the measure of both. She is the finest essence the middle class can
+      distil, and he, oh, he&rsquo;s paraffin-vin ordinaire, if you like it better, a
+      selfish, calculating adventurer!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Windlehurst chuckled mordantly. &ldquo;Adventurer! That&rsquo;s what they called
+      me&mdash;with more reason. I spotted him as soon as he spoke in the House.
+      There was devilry in him, and unscrupulousness, as you say; but, I
+      confess, I thought it would give way to the more profitable habit of
+      integrity, and that some cause would seize him, make him sincere and
+      mistaken, and give him a few falls. But in that he was more original than
+      I thought. He is superior to convictions. You don&rsquo;t think he married
+      yonder Queen of Hearts from conviction, do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He nodded towards a corner where Hylda, under a great palm, and backed by
+      a bank of flowers, stood surrounded by a group of people palpably amused
+      and interested; for she had a reputation for wit&mdash;a wit that never
+      hurt, and irony that was only whimsical.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, there you are wrong,&rdquo; the Duchess answered. &ldquo;He married from
+      conviction, if ever a man did. Look at her beauty, look at her fortune,
+      listen to her tongue. Don&rsquo;t you think conviction was easy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Windlehurst looked at Hylda approvingly. She has the real gift&mdash;little
+      information, but much knowledge, the primary gift of public life.
+      &ldquo;Information is full of traps; knowledge avoids them, it reads men; and
+      politics is men&mdash;and foreign affairs, perhaps! She is remarkable.
+      I&rsquo;ve made some hay in the political world, not so much as the babblers
+      think, but I hadn&rsquo;t her ability at twenty-five.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t she see through Eglington?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Betty, he didn&rsquo;t give her time. He carried her off her feet. You
+      know how he can talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the trouble. She was clever, and liked a clever man, and he&mdash;!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite so. He&rsquo;d disprove his own honest parentage, if it would help him on&mdash;as
+      you say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t say it. Now don&rsquo;t repeat that as from me. I&rsquo;m not clever enough
+      to think of such things. But that Eglington lot&mdash;I knew his father
+      and his grandfather. Old Broadbrim they called his grandfather after he
+      turned Quaker, and he didn&rsquo;t do that till he had had his fling, so my
+      father used to say. And Old Broadbrim&rsquo;s father was called I-want-to-know.
+      He was always poking his nose into things, and playing at being a
+      chemist-like this one and the one before. They all fly off. This one&rsquo;s
+      father used to disappear for two or three years at a time. This one will
+      fly off, too. You&rsquo;ll see!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is too keen on Number One for that, I fancy. He calculates like a
+      mathematician. As cool as a cracksman of fame and fancy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess dropped the fan in her lap. &ldquo;My dear, I&rsquo;ve said nothing as bad
+      as that about him. And there he is at the Foreign Office!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet, what has he done, Betty, after all? He has never cheated at cards,
+      or forged a cheque, or run away with his neighbour&rsquo;s wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no credit in not doing what you don&rsquo;t want to do. There&rsquo;s no
+      virtue in not falling, when you&rsquo;re not tempted. Neighbour&rsquo;s wife! He
+      hasn&rsquo;t enough feeling to face it. Oh no, he&rsquo;ll not break the heart of his
+      neighbour&rsquo;s wife. That&rsquo;s melodrama, and he&rsquo;s a cold-blooded artist. He
+      will torture that sweet child over there until she poisons him, or runs
+      away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t he too clever for that? She has a million!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll not realise it till it&rsquo;s all over. He&rsquo;s too selfish to see&mdash;how
+      I hate him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Windlehurst smiled indulgently at her. &ldquo;Ah, you never hated any one&mdash;not
+      even the Duke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not have you take away my character. Of course I&rsquo;ve hated, or I
+      wouldn&rsquo;t be worth a button. I&rsquo;m not the silly thing you&rsquo;ve always thought
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His face became gentler. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always thought you one of the wisest women
+      of this world&mdash;adventurous, but wise. If it weren&rsquo;t too late, if my
+      day weren&rsquo;t over, I&rsquo;d ask the one great favour, Betty, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She tapped his arm sharply with her fan. &ldquo;What a humbug you are&mdash;the
+      Great Pretender! But tell me, am I not right about Eglington?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Windlehurst became grave. &ldquo;Yes, you are right&mdash;but I admire him, too.
+      He is determined to test himself to the full. His ambition is boundless
+      and ruthless, but his mind has a scientific turn&mdash;the obligation of
+      energy to apply itself, of intelligence to engage itself to the farthest
+      limit. But service to humanity&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Service to humanity!&rdquo; she sniffed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course he would think it &lsquo;flap-doodle&rsquo;&mdash;except in a speech; but I
+      repeat, I admire him. Think of it all. He was a poor Irish peer, with no
+      wide circle of acquaintance, come of a family none too popular. He strikes
+      out a course for himself&mdash;a course which had its dangers, because it
+      was original. He determines to become celebrated&mdash;by becoming
+      notorious first. He uses his title as a weapon for advancement as though
+      he were a butter merchant. He plans carefully and adroitly. He writes a
+      book of travel. It is impudent, and it traverses the observations of
+      authorities, and the scientific geographers prance with rage. That was
+      what he wished. He writes a novel. It sets London laughing at me, his
+      political chief. He knew me well enough to be sure I would not resent it.
+      He would have lampooned his grandmother, if he was sure she would not, or
+      could not, hurt him. Then he becomes more audacious. He publishes a
+      monograph on the painters of Spain, artificial, confident, rhetorical,
+      acute: as fascinating as a hide-and-seek drawing-room play&mdash;he is so
+      cleverly escaping from his ignorance and indiscretions all the while.
+      Connoisseurs laugh, students of art shriek a little, and Ruskin writes a
+      scathing letter, which was what he had played for. He had got something
+      for nothing cheaply. The few who knew and despised him did not matter, for
+      they were able and learned and obscure, and, in the world where he moves,
+      most people are superficial, mediocre, and &lsquo;tuppence coloured.&rsquo; It was all
+      very brilliant. He pursued his notoriety, and got it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Industrious Eglington!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, yes, he is industrious. It is all business. It was an enormous risk,
+      rebelling against his party, and leaving me, and going over; but his
+      temerity justified itself, and it didn&rsquo;t matter to him that people said he
+      went over to get office as we were going out. He got the office-and people
+      forget so soon. Then, what does he do&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He brings out another book, and marries a wife, and abuses his old
+      friends&mdash;and you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Abuse? With his tongue in his cheek, hoping that I should reply.
+      Dev&rsquo;lishly ingenious! But on that book of Electricity and Disease he
+      scored. In most other things he&rsquo;s a barber-shop philosopher, but in
+      science he has got a flare, a real talent. So he moves modestly in this
+      thing, for which he had a fine natural gift and more knowledge than he
+      ever had before in any department, whose boundaries his impertinent and
+      ignorant mind had invaded. That book gave him a place. It wasn&rsquo;t full of
+      new things, but it crystallised the discoveries, suggestions, and
+      expectations of others; and, meanwhile, he had got a name at no cost. He
+      is so various. Look at it dispassionately, and you will see much to admire
+      in his skill. He pleases, he amuses, he startles, he baffles, he
+      mystifies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess made an impatient exclamation. &ldquo;The silly newspapers call him
+      a &lsquo;remarkable man, a personality.&rsquo; Now, believe me, Windlehurst, he will
+      overreach himself one of these days, and he&rsquo;ll come down like a stick.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There you are on solid ground. He thinks that Fate is with him, and that,
+      in taking risks, he is infallible. But the best system breaks at political
+      roulette sooner or later. You have got to work for something outside
+      yourself, something that is bigger than the game, or the end is
+      sickening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eglington hasn&rsquo;t far to go, if that&rsquo;s the truth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well, when it comes, we must help him&mdash;we must help him up
+      again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess nervously adjusted her wig, with ludicrously tiny fingers for
+      one so ample, and said petulantly: &ldquo;You are incomprehensible. He has been
+      a traitor to you and to your party, he has thrown mud at you, he has
+      played with principles as my terrier plays with his rubber ball, and yet
+      you&rsquo;ll run and pick him up when he falls, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;And kiss the spot to make it well,&rsquo;&rdquo; he laughed softly, then added with
+      a sigh: &ldquo;Able men in public life are few; &lsquo;far too few, for half our
+      tasks; we can spare not one.&rsquo; Besides, my dear Betty, there is his pretty
+      lass o&rsquo; London.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess was mollified at once. &ldquo;I wish she had been my girl,&rdquo; she
+      said, in a voice a little tremulous. &ldquo;She never needed looking after. Look
+      at the position she has made for herself. Her father wouldn&rsquo;t go into
+      society, her mother knew a mere handful of people, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She knew you, Betty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, suppose I did help her a little&mdash;I was only a kind of
+      reference. She did the rest. She&rsquo;s set a half-dozen fashions herself&mdash;pure
+      genius. She was born to lead. Her turnouts were always a little smarter,
+      her horses travelled a little faster, than other people&rsquo;s. She took risks,
+      too, but she didn&rsquo;t play a game; she only wanted to do things well. We all
+      gasped when she brought Adelaide to recite from &lsquo;Romeo and Juliet&rsquo; at an
+      evening party, but all London did the same the week after.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She discovered, and the Duchess of Snowdon applied the science. Ah,
+      Betty, don&rsquo;t think I don&rsquo;t agree. She has the gift. She has temperament.
+      No woman should have temperament. She hasn&rsquo;t scope enough to wear it out
+      in some passion for a cause. Men are saved in spite of themselves by the
+      law of work. Forty comes to a man of temperament, and then a passion for a
+      cause seizes him, and he is safe. A woman of temperament at forty is apt
+      to cut across the bows of iron-clad convention and go down. She has
+      temperament, has my lady yonder, and I don&rsquo;t like the look of her eyes
+      sometimes. There&rsquo;s dark fire smouldering in them. She should have a cause;
+      but a cause to a woman now-a-days means &lsquo;too little of pleasure, too much
+      of pain,&rsquo; for others.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was your real cause, Windlehurst? You had one, I suppose, for you&rsquo;ve
+      never had a fall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My cause? You ask that? Behold the barren figtree! A lifetime in my
+      country&rsquo;s service, and you who have driven me home from the House in your
+      own brougham, and told me that you understood&mdash;oh, Betty!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She laughed. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll say something funny as you&rsquo;re dying, Windlehurst.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps. But it will be funny to know that presently I&rsquo;ll have a secret
+      that none of you know, who watch me &lsquo;launch my pinnace into the dark.&rsquo; But
+      causes? There are hundreds, and all worth while. I&rsquo;ve come here to-night
+      for a cause&mdash;no, don&rsquo;t start, it&rsquo;s not you, Betty, though you are
+      worth any sacrifice. I&rsquo;ve come here to-night to see a modern Paladin, a
+      real crusader:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Then felt I like some watcher of the skies, When a new planet swims into
+      his ken.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, that&rsquo;s poetry, Windlehurst, and you know I love it-I&rsquo;ve always kept
+      yours. But who&rsquo;s the man&mdash;the planet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Egyptian Claridge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, he is in England?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will be here to-night; you shall see him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really! What is his origin?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He told her briefly, adding: &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve watched the rise of Claridge Pasha.
+      I&rsquo;ve watched his cause grow, and now I shall see the man&mdash;ah, but
+      here comes our lass o&rsquo; London!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The eyes of both brightened, and a whimsical pleasure came to the
+      mask-like face of Lord Windlehurst. There was an eager and delighted look
+      in Hylda&rsquo;s face also as she quickly came to them, her cavaliers following.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The five years that had passed since that tragic night in Cairo had been
+      more than kind to her. She was lissome, radiant, and dignified, her face
+      was alive with expression, and a delicate grace was in every movement. The
+      dark lashes seemed to have grown longer, the brown hair fuller, the smile
+      softer and more alluring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is an invaluable asset to the Government,&rdquo; Lord Windlehurst murmured
+      as she came. &ldquo;No wonder the party helped the marriage on. London conspired
+      for it, her feet got tangled in the web&mdash;and he gave her no time to
+      think. Thinking had saved her till he came.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      By instinct Lord Windlehurst knew. During the first year after the
+      catastrophe at Kaid&rsquo;s Palace Hylda could scarcely endure the advances made
+      by her many admirers, the greatly eligible and the eager ineligible, all
+      with as real an appreciation of her wealth as of her personal attributes.
+      But she took her place in London life with more than the old will to make
+      for herself, with the help of her aunt Conyngham, an individual position.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second year after her visit to Egypt she was less haunted by the dark
+      episode of the Palace, memory tortured her less; she came to think of
+      David and the part he had played with less agitation. At first the thought
+      of him had moved her alternately to sympathy and to revolt. His chivalry
+      had filled her with admiration, with a sense of confidence, of dependence,
+      of touching and vital obligation; but there was, too, another
+      overmastering feeling. He had seen her life naked, as it were, stripped of
+      all independence, with the knowledge of a dangerous indiscretion which, to
+      say the least, was a deformity; and she inwardly resented it, as one would
+      resent the exposure of a long-hidden physical deformity, even by the
+      surgeon who saved one&rsquo;s life. It was not a very lofty attitude of mind,
+      but it was human&mdash;and feminine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These moods had been always dissipated, however, when she recalled, as she
+      did so often, David as he stood before Nahoum Pasha, his soul fighting in
+      him to make of his enemy&mdash;of the man whose brother he had killed&mdash;a
+      fellow-worker in the path of altruism he had mapped out for himself.
+      David&rsquo;s name had been continually mentioned in telegraphic reports and
+      journalistic correspondence from Egypt; and from this source she had
+      learned that Nahoum Pasha was again high in the service of Prince Kaid.
+      When the news of David&rsquo;s southern expedition to the revolting
+      slave-dealing tribes began to appear, she was deeply roused. Her agitation
+      was the more intense because she never permitted herself to talk of him to
+      others, even when his name was discussed at dinner-tables, accompanied by
+      strange legends of his origin and stranger romances regarding his call to
+      power by Kaid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had surrounded him with romance; he seemed more a hero of history than
+      of her own real and living world, a being apart. Even when there came
+      rumblings of disaster, dark dangers to be conquered by the Quaker
+      crusader, it all was still as of another life. True it was, that when his
+      safe return to Cairo was announced she had cried with joy and relief; but
+      there was nothing emotional or passionate in her feeling; it was the love
+      of the lower for the higher, the hero-worship of an idealist in passionate
+      gratitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, amid it all, her mind scarcely realised that they would surely meet
+      again. At the end of the second year the thought had receded into an
+      almost indefinite past. She was beginning to feel that she had lived two
+      lives, and that this life had no direct or vital bearing upon her previous
+      existence, in which David had moved. Yet now and then the perfume of the
+      Egyptian garden, through which she had fled to escape from tragedy, swept
+      over her senses, clouded her eyes in the daytime, made them burn at night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last she had come to meet and know Eglington. From the first moment
+      they met he had directed his course towards marriage. He was the man of
+      the moment. His ambition seemed but patriotism, his ardent and
+      overwhelming courtship the impulse of a powerful nature. As Lord
+      Windlehurst had said, he carried her off her feet, and, on a wave of
+      devotion and popular encouragement, he had swept her to the altar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess held both her hands for a moment, admiring her, and,
+      presently, with a playful remark upon her unselfishness, left her alone
+      with Lord Windlehurst.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they talked, his mask-like face became lighted from the brilliant fire
+      in the inquisitorial eyes, his lips played with topics of the moment in a
+      mordant fashion, which drew from her flashing replies. Looking at her, he
+      was conscious of the mingled qualities of three races in her&mdash;English,
+      Welsh, and American-Dutch of the Knickerbocker strain; and he contrasted
+      her keen perception and her exquisite sensitiveness with the purebred
+      Englishwomen round him, stately, kindly, handsome, and monotonously
+      intelligent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now I often wonder,&rdquo; he said, conscious of, but indifferent to, the
+      knowledge that he and the brilliant person beside him were objects of
+      general attention&mdash;&ldquo;I often wonder, when I look at a gathering like
+      this, how many undiscovered crimes there are playing about among us. They
+      never do tell&mdash;or shall I say, we never do tell?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All day, she knew not why, Hylda had been nervous and excited. Without
+      reason his words startled her. Now there flashed before her eyes a room in
+      a Palace at Cairo, and a man lying dead before her. The light slowly faded
+      out of her eyes, leaving them almost lustreless, but her face was calm,
+      and the smile on her lips stayed. She fanned herself slowly, and answered
+      nonchalantly: &ldquo;Crime is a word of many meanings. I read in the papers of
+      political crimes&mdash;it is a common phrase; yet the criminals appear to
+      go unpunished.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There you are wrong,&rdquo; he answered cynically. &ldquo;The punishment is, that
+      political virtue goes unrewarded, and in due course crime is the only
+      refuge to most. Yet in politics the temptation to be virtuous is great.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She laughed now with a sense of relief. The intellectual stimulant had
+      brought back the light to her face. &ldquo;How is it, then, with you&mdash;inveterate
+      habit or the strain of the ages? For they say you have not had your due
+      reward.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled grimly. &ldquo;Ah, no, with me virtue is the act of an inquiring mind&mdash;to
+      discover where it will lead me. I began with political crime&mdash;I was
+      understood! I practise political virtue: it embarrasses the world, it fogs
+      them, it seems original, because so unnecessary. Mine is the scientific
+      life. Experiment in old substances gives new&mdash;well, say, new
+      precipitations. But you are scientific, too. You have a laboratory, and
+      have much to do&mdash;with retorts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, you are thinking of my husband. The laboratory is his.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the retorts are yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The precipitations are his.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, well, at least you help him to fuse the constituents!... But now, be
+      quite confidential to an old man who has experimented too. Is your husband
+      really an amateur scientist, or is he a scientific amateur? Is it a pose
+      or a taste? I fiddled once&mdash;and wrote sonnets; one was a pose, the
+      other a taste.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was mere persiflage, but it was a jest which made an unintended wound.
+      Hylda became conscious of a sudden sharp inquiry going on in her mind.
+      There flashed into it the question, Does Eglington&rsquo;s heart ever really
+      throb for love of any object or any cause? Even in moments of greatest
+      intimacy, soon after marriage, when he was most demonstrative towards her,
+      he had seemed preoccupied, except when speaking about himself and what he
+      meant to do. Then he made her heart throb in response to his confident,
+      ardent words&mdash;concerning himself. But his own heart, did it throb? Or
+      was it only his brain that throbbed?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly, with an exclamation, she involuntarily laid a hand upon
+      Windlehurst&rsquo;s arm. She was looking down the room straight before her to a
+      group of people towards which other groups were now converging, attracted
+      by one who seemed to be a centre of interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently the eager onlookers drew aside, and Lord Windlehurst observed
+      moving up the room a figure he had never seen before. The new-comer was
+      dressed in a grey and blue official dress, unrelieved save by silver braid
+      at the collar and at the wrists. There was no decoration, but on the head
+      was a red fez, which gave prominence to the white, broad forehead, with
+      the dark hair waving away behind the ears. Lord Windlehurst held his
+      eye-glass to his eye in interested scrutiny. &ldquo;H&rsquo;m,&rdquo; he said, with lips
+      pursed out, &ldquo;a most notable figure, a most remarkable face! My dear,
+      there&rsquo;s a fortune in that face. It&rsquo;s a national asset.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He saw the flush, the dumb amazement, the poignant look in Lady
+      Eglington&rsquo;s face, and registered it in his mind. &ldquo;Poor thing,&rdquo; he said to
+      himself, &ldquo;I wonder what it is all about&mdash;I wonder. I thought she had
+      no unregulated moments. She gave promise of better things.&rdquo; The Foreign
+      Minister was bringing his guest towards them. The new-comer did not look
+      at them till within a few steps of where they stood. Then his eyes met
+      those of Lady Eglington. For an instant his steps were arrested. A swift
+      light came into his face, softening its quiet austerity and strength.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX. SHARPER THAN A SWORD
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      A glance of the eye was the only sign of recognition between David and
+      Hylda; nothing that others saw could have suggested that they had ever met
+      before. Lord Windlehurst at once engaged David in conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first when Hylda had come back from Egypt, those five years ago, she
+      had often wondered what she would think or do if she ever were to see this
+      man again; whether, indeed, she could bear it. Well, the moment and the
+      man had come. Her eyes had gone blind for an instant; it had seemed for
+      one sharp, crucial moment as though she could not bear it; then the gulf
+      of agitation was passed, and she had herself in hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While her mind was engaged subconsciously with what Lord Windlehurst and
+      David said, comprehending it all, and, when Lord Windlehurst appealed to
+      her, offering by a word contribution to the &lsquo;pourparler&rsquo;, she was studying
+      David as steadily as her heated senses would permit her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed to her to have put on twenty years in the steady force of his
+      personality&mdash;in the composure of his bearing, in the self-reliance of
+      his look, though his face and form were singularly youthful. The face was
+      handsome and alight, the look was that of one who weighed things; yet she
+      was conscious of a great change. The old delicate quality of the features
+      was not so marked, though there was nothing material in the look, and the
+      head had not a sordid line, while the hand that he now and again raised,
+      brushing his forehead meditatively, had gained much in strength and force.
+      Yet there was something&mdash;something different, that brought a slight
+      cloud into her eyes. It came to her now, a certain melancholy in the
+      bearing of the figure, erect and well-balanced as it was. Once the feeling
+      came, the certainty grew. And presently she found a strange sadness in the
+      eyes, something that lurked behind all that he did and all that he was,
+      some shadow over the spirit. It was even more apparent when he smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As she was conscious of this new reading of him, a motion arrested her
+      glance, a quick lifting of the head to one side, as though the mind had
+      suddenly been struck by an idea, the glance flying upward in abstracted
+      questioning. This she had seen in her husband, too, the same brisk lifting
+      of the head, the same quick smiling. Yet this face, unlike Eglington&rsquo;s,
+      expressed a perfect single-mindedness; it wore the look of a self-effacing
+      man of luminous force, a concentrated battery of energy. Since she had
+      last seen him every sign of the provincial had vanished. He was now the
+      well-modulated man of affairs, elegant in his simplicity of dress, with
+      the dignified air of the intellectual, yet with the decision of a man who
+      knew his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lord Windlehurst was leaving. Now David and she were alone. Without a word
+      they moved on together through the throng, the eyes of all following them,
+      until they reached a quiet room at one end of the salon, where were only a
+      few people watching the crowd pass the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will be glad to sit,&rdquo; he said, motioning her to a chair beside some
+      palms. Then, with a change of tone, he added: &ldquo;Thee is not sorry I am
+      come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thee&mdash;the old-fashioned simple Quaker word! She put her fingers to
+      her eyes. Her senses were swimming with a distant memory. The East was in
+      her brain, the glow of the skies, the gleam of the desert, the swish of
+      the Nile, the cry of the sweet-seller, the song of the dance-girl, the
+      strain of the darabukkeh, the call of the skis. She saw again the ghiassas
+      drifting down the great river, laden with dourha; she saw the mosque of
+      the blue tiles with its placid fountain, and its handful of worshippers
+      praying by the olive-tree. She watched the moon rise above the immobile
+      Sphinx, she looked down on the banqueters in the Palace, David among them,
+      and Foorgat Bey beside her. She saw Foorgat Bey again lying dead at her
+      feet. She heard the stir of the leaves; she caught the smell of the
+      lime-trees in the Palace garden as she fled. She recalled her reckless
+      return to Cairo from Alexandria. She remembered the little room where she
+      and David, Nahoum and Mizraim, crossed a bridge over a chasm, and stood
+      upon ground which had held good till now&mdash;till this hour, when the
+      man who had played a most vital part in her life had come again out of a
+      land which, by some forced obliquity of mind and stubbornness of will, she
+      had assured herself she would never see again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She withdrew her hand from her eyes, and saw him looking at her calmly,
+      though his face was alight. &ldquo;Thee is fatigued,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;This is labour
+      which wears away the strength.&rdquo; He made a motion towards the crowd.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled a very little, and said: &ldquo;You do not care for such things as
+      this, I know. Your life has its share of it, however, I suppose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked out over the throng before he answered. &ldquo;It seems an eddy of
+      purposeless waters. Yet there is great depth beneath, or there were no
+      eddy; and where there is depth and the eddy there is danger&mdash;always.&rdquo;
+       As he spoke she became almost herself again. &ldquo;You think that deep natures
+      have most perils?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee knows it is so. Human nature is like the earth: the deeper the
+      plough goes into the soil unploughed before, the more evil substance is
+      turned up&mdash;evil that becomes alive as soon as the sun and the air
+      fall upon it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, women like me who pursue a flippant life, who ride in this
+      merry-go-round&rdquo;&mdash;she made a gesture towards the crowd beyond&mdash;&ldquo;who
+      have no depth, we are safest, we live upon the surface.&rdquo; Her gaiety was
+      forced; her words were feigned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee has passed the point of danger, thee is safe,&rdquo; he answered
+      meaningly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that because I am not deep, or because the plough has been at work?&rdquo;
+       she asked. &ldquo;In neither case I am not sure you are right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee is happily married,&rdquo; he said reflectively; &ldquo;and the prospect is
+      fair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you know my husband,&rdquo; she said in answer, and yet not in answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was born in Hamley where he has a place&mdash;thee has been there?&rdquo; he
+      asked eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet. We are to go next Sunday, for the first time to the Cloistered
+      House. I had not heard that my husband knew you, until I saw in the paper
+      a few days ago that your home was in Hamley. Then I asked Eglington, and
+      he told me that your family and his had been neighbours for generations.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His father was a Quaker,&rdquo; David rejoined, &ldquo;but he forsook the faith.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not know,&rdquo; she answered, with some hesitation. There was no reason
+      why, when she and Eglington had talked of Hamley, he should not have said
+      his own father had once been a Quaker; yet she had dwelt so upon the fact
+      that she herself had Quaker blood, and he had laughed so much over it,
+      with the amusement of the superior person, that his silence on this one
+      point struck her now with a sense of confusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are going to Hamley&mdash;we shall meet there?&rdquo; she continued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-day I should have gone, but I have business at the Foreign Office
+      to-morrow. One needs time to learn that all &lsquo;private interests and partial
+      affections&rsquo; must be sacrificed to public duty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you are going soon? You will be there on Sunday?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall be there to-morrow night, and Sunday, and for one long week at
+      least. Hamley is the centre of the world, the axle of the universe&mdash;you
+      shall see. You doubt it?&rdquo; he added, with a whimsical smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall dispute most of what you say, and all that you think, if you do
+      not continue to use the Quaker &lsquo;thee&rsquo; and &lsquo;thou&rsquo;&mdash;ungrammatical as
+      you are so often.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee is now the only person in London, or in England, with whom I use
+      &lsquo;thee&rsquo; and &lsquo;thou.&rsquo; I am no longer my own master, I am a public servant,
+      and so I must follow custom.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is destructive of personality. The &lsquo;thee&rsquo; and &lsquo;thou&rsquo; belong to you. I
+      wonder if the people of Hamley will say &lsquo;thee&rsquo; and &lsquo;thou&rsquo; to me. I hope, I
+      do hope they will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee may be sure they will. They are no respecters of persons there. They
+      called your husband&rsquo;s father Robert&mdash;his name was Robert. Friend
+      Robert they called him, and afterwards they called him Robert Denton till
+      he died.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will they call me Hylda?&rdquo; she asked, with a smile. &ldquo;More like they will
+      call thee Friend Hylda; it sounds simple and strong,&rdquo; he replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As they call Claridge Pasha Friend David,&rdquo; she answered, with a smile.
+      &ldquo;David is a good name for a strong man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That David threw a stone from a sling and smote a giant in the forehead.
+      The stone from this David&rsquo;s sling falls into the ocean and is lost beneath
+      the surface.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice had taken on a somewhat sombre tone, his eyes looked away into
+      the distance; yet he smiled too, and a hand upon his knee suddenly closed
+      in sympathy with an inward determination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A light of understanding came into her face. They had been keeping things
+      upon the surface, and, while it lasted, he seemed a lesser man than she
+      had thought him these past years. But now&mdash;now there was the old
+      unschooled simplicity, the unique and lonely personality, the homely soul
+      and body bending to one root-idea, losing themselves in a wave of duty.
+      Again he was to her, once more, the dreamer, the worker, the conqueror&mdash;the
+      conqueror of her own imagination. She had in herself the soul of altruism,
+      the heart of the crusader. Touched by the fire of a great idea, she was of
+      those who could have gone out into the world without wallet or scrip, to
+      work passionately for some great end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And she had married the Earl of Eglington!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She leaned towards David, and said eagerly: &ldquo;But you are satisfied&mdash;you
+      are satisfied with your work for poor Egypt?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee says &lsquo;poor Egypt,&rsquo;&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;and thee says well. Even now she
+      is not far from the day of Rameses and Joseph. Thee thinks perhaps thee
+      knows Egypt&mdash;none knows her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know her&mdash;now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head slowly. &ldquo;It is like putting one&rsquo;s ear to the mouth of
+      the Sphinx. Yet sometimes, almost in despair, when I have lain down in the
+      desert beside my camel, set about with enemies, I have got a message from
+      the barren desert, the wide silence, and the stars.&rdquo; He paused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the message that comes?&rdquo; she asked softly. &ldquo;It is always the
+      same: Work on! Seek not to know too much, nor think that what you do is of
+      vast value. Work, because it is yours to be adjusting the machinery in
+      your own little workshop of life to the wide mechanism of the universe and
+      time. One wheel set right, one flying belt adjusted, and there is a step
+      forward to the final harmony&mdash;ah, but how I preach!&rdquo; he added
+      hastily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His eyes were fixed on hers with a great sincerity, and they were clear
+      and shining, yet his lips were smiling&mdash;what a trick they had of
+      smiling! He looked as though he should apologise for such words in such a
+      place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose to her feet with a great suspiration, with a light in her eyes
+      and a trembling smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But no, no, no, you inspire one. Thee inspires me,&rdquo; she said, with a
+      little laugh, in which there was a note of sadness. &ldquo;I may use &lsquo;thee,&rsquo; may
+      I not, when I will? I am a little a Quaker also, am I not? My people came
+      from Derbyshire, my American people, that is&mdash;and only forty years
+      ago. Almost thee persuades me to be a Quaker now,&rdquo; she added. &ldquo;And perhaps
+      I shall be, too,&rdquo; she went on, her eyes fixed on the crowd passing by,
+      Eglington among them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David saw Eglington also, and moved forward with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall meet in Hamley,&rdquo; she said composedly, as she saw her husband
+      leave the crush and come towards her. As Eglington noticed David, a
+      curious enigmatical glance flashed from his eyes. He came forward,
+      however, with outstretched hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sorry I was not at the Foreign Office when you called to-day.
+      Welcome back to England, home&mdash;and beauty.&rdquo; He laughed in a rather
+      mirthless way, but with a certain empressement, conscious, as he always
+      was, of the onlookers. &ldquo;You have had a busy time in Egypt?&rdquo; he continued
+      cheerfully, and laughed again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David laughed slightly, also, and Hylda noticed that it had a certain
+      resemblance in its quick naturalness to that of her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not sure that we are so busy there as we ought to be,&rdquo; David
+      answered. &ldquo;I have no real standards. I am but an amateur, and have known
+      nothing of public life. But you should come and see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It has been in my mind. An ounce of eyesight is worth a ton of print. My
+      lady was there once, I believe&rdquo;&mdash;he turned towards her&mdash;&ldquo;but
+      before your time, I think. Or did you meet there, perhaps?&rdquo; He glanced at
+      both curiously. He scarcely knew why a thought flashed into his mind&mdash;as
+      though by some telepathic sense; for it had never been there before, and
+      there was no reason for its being there now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hylda saw what David was about to answer, and she knew instinctively that
+      he would say they had never met. It shamed her. She intervened as she saw
+      he was about to speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were introduced for the first time to-night,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;but Claridge
+      Pasha is part of my education in the world. It is a miracle that Hamley
+      should produce two such men,&rdquo; she added gaily, and laid her fan upon her
+      husband&rsquo;s arm lightly. &ldquo;You should have been a Quaker, Harry, and then you
+      two would have been&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two Quaker Don Quixotes,&rdquo; interrupted Eglington ironically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should not have called you a Don Quixote,&rdquo; his wife lightly rejoined,
+      relieved at the turn things had taken. &ldquo;I cannot imagine you tilting at
+      wind-mills&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or saving maidens in distress? Well, perhaps not; but you do not suggest
+      that Claridge Pasha tilts at windmills either&mdash;or saves maidens in
+      distress. Though, now I come to think, there was an episode.&rdquo; He laughed
+      maliciously. &ldquo;Some time ago it was&mdash;a lass of the cross-roads. I
+      think I heard of such an adventure, which did credit to Claridge Pasha&rsquo;s
+      heart, though it shocked Hamley at the time. But I wonder, was the maiden
+      really saved?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Eglington&rsquo;s face became rigid. &ldquo;Well, yes,&rdquo; she said slowly, &ldquo;the
+      maiden was saved. She is now my maid. Hamley may have been shocked, but
+      Claridge Pasha has every reason to be glad that he helped a fellow-being
+      in trouble.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your maid&mdash;Heaver?&rdquo; asked Eglington in surprise, a swift shadow
+      crossing his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; she only told me this morning. Perhaps she had seen that Claridge
+      Pasha was coming to England. I had not, however. At any rate, Quixotism
+      saved her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David smiled. &ldquo;It is better than I dared to hope,&rdquo; he remarked quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But that is not all,&rdquo; continued Hylda. &ldquo;There is more. She had been used
+      badly by a man who now wants to marry her&mdash;has tried to do so for
+      years. Now, be prepared for a surprise, for it concerns you rather
+      closely, Eglington. Fate is a whimsical jade. Whom do you think it is?
+      Well, since you could never guess, it was Jasper Kimber.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Eglington&rsquo;s eyes opened wide. &ldquo;This is nothing but a coarse and impossible
+      stage coincidence,&rdquo; he laughed. &ldquo;It is one of those tricks played by Fact
+      to discredit the imagination. Life is laughing at us again. The longer I
+      live, the more I am conscious of being an object of derision by the
+      scene-shifters in the wings of the stage. What a cynical comedy life is at
+      the best!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It all seems natural enough,&rdquo; rejoined David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is all paradox.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t it all inevitable law? I have no belief in &lsquo;antic Fate.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hylda realised, with a new and poignant understanding, the difference of
+      outlook on life between the two men. She suddenly remembered the words of
+      Confucius, which she had set down in her little book of daily life: &ldquo;By
+      nature we approximate, it is only experience that drives us apart.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David would have been content to live in the desert all his life for the
+      sake of a cause, making no calculations as to reward. Eglington must ever
+      have the counters for the game.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, if you do not believe in &lsquo;antic Fate,&rsquo; you must be greatly puzzled
+      as you go on,&rdquo; he rejoined, laughing; &ldquo;especially in Egypt, where the East
+      and the West collide, race against race, religion against religion,
+      Oriental mind against Occidental intellect. You have an unusual quantity
+      of Quaker composure, to see in it all &lsquo;inevitable law.&rsquo; And it must be
+      dull. But you always were, so they say in Hamley, a monument of
+      seriousness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe they made one or two exceptions,&rdquo; answered David drily. &ldquo;I had
+      assurances.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Eglington laughed boyishly. &ldquo;You are right. You achieved a name for humour
+      in a day&mdash;&lsquo;a glass, a kick, and a kiss,&rsquo; it was. Do you have such
+      days in Egypt?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must come and see,&rdquo; David answered lightly, declining to notice the
+      insolence. &ldquo;These are critical days there. The problems are worthy of your
+      care. Will you not come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Eglington was conscious of a peculiar persuasive influence over himself
+      that he had never felt before. In proportion, however, as he felt its
+      compelling quality, there came a jealousy of the man who was its cause.
+      The old antagonism, which had had its sharpest expression the last time
+      they had met on the platform at Heddington, came back. It was one strong
+      will resenting another&mdash;as though there was not room enough in the
+      wide world of being for these two atoms of life, sparks from the ceaseless
+      wheel, one making a little brighter flash than the other for the moment,
+      and then presently darkness, and the whirring wheel which threw them off,
+      throwing off millions of others again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the moment Eglington had a temptation to say something with an edge,
+      which would show David that his success in Egypt hung upon the course that
+      he himself and the weak Foreign Minister, under whom he served, would
+      take. And this course would be his own course largely, since he had been
+      appointed to be a force and strength in the Foreign Office which his chief
+      did not supply. He refrained, however, and, on the moment, remembered the
+      promise he had given to Faith to help David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A wave of feeling passed over him. His wife was beautiful, a creature of
+      various charms, a centre of attraction. Yet he had never really loved her&mdash;so
+      many sordid elements had entered into the thought of marriage with her,
+      lowering the character of his affection. With a perversity which only such
+      men know, such heart as he had turned to the unknown Quaker girl who had
+      rebuked him, scathed him, laid bare his soul before himself, as no one
+      ever had done. To Eglington it was a relief that there was one human being&mdash;he
+      thought there was only one&mdash;who read him through and through; and
+      that knowledge was in itself as powerful an influence as was the secret
+      between David and Hylda. It was a kind of confessional, comforting to a
+      nature not self-contained. Now he restrained his cynical intention to deal
+      David a side-thrust, and quietly said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall meet at Hamley, shall we not? Let us talk there, and not at the
+      Foreign Office. You would care to go to Egypt, Hylda?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She forced a smile. &ldquo;Let us talk it over at Hamley.&rdquo; With a smile to David
+      she turned away to some friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eglington offered to introduce David to some notable people, but he said
+      that he must go&mdash;he was fatigued after his journey. He had no wish to
+      be lionised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he left the salon, the band was playing a tune that made him close his
+      eyes, as though against something he would not see. The band in Kaid&rsquo;s
+      Palace had played it that night when he had killed Foorgat Bey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX. EACH AFTER HIS OWN ORDER
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      With the passing years new feelings had grown up in the heart of Luke
+      Claridge. Once David&rsquo;s destiny and career were his own peculiar and
+      self-assumed responsibility. &ldquo;Inwardly convicted,&rdquo; he had wrenched the lad
+      away from the natural circumstances of his life, and created a scheme of
+      existence for him out of his own conscience&mdash;a pious egoist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After David went to Egypt, however, his mind involuntarily formed the
+      resolution that &ldquo;Davy and God should work it out together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had grown very old in appearance, and his quiet face was almost
+      painfully white; but the eyes burned with more fire than in the past. As
+      the day approached when David should arrive in England, he walked by
+      himself continuously, oblivious of the world round him. He spoke to no
+      one, save the wizened Elder Meacham, and to John Fairley, who rightly felt
+      that he had a share in the making of Claridge Pasha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With head perched in the air, and face half hidden in his great white
+      collar, the wizened Elder, stopping Luke Claridge in the street one day,
+      said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does thee think the lad will ride in Pharaoh&rsquo;s chariot here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There were sly lines of humour about the mouth of the wizened Elder as he
+      spoke, but Luke Claridge did not see.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pride is far from his heart,&rdquo; he answered portentously. &ldquo;He will ride in
+      no chariot. He has written that he will walk here from Heddington, and
+      none is to meet him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will come by the cross-roads, perhaps,&rdquo; rejoined the other piously.
+      &ldquo;Well, well, memory is a flower or a rod, as John Fox said, and the
+      cross-roads have memories for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again flashes of humour crossed his face, for he had a wide humanity, of
+      insufficient exercise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has made full atonement, and thee does ill to recall the past,
+      Reuben,&rdquo; rejoined the other sternly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he has done no more that needs atonement than he did that day at the
+      cross-roads, then has his history been worthy of Hamley,&rdquo; rejoined the
+      wizened Elder, eyes shut and head buried in his collar. &ldquo;Hamley made him&mdash;Hamley
+      made him. We did not spare advice, or example, or any correction that came
+      to our minds&mdash;indeed, it was almost a luxury. Think you, does he
+      still play the flute&mdash;an instrument none too grave, Luke?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But, to this, Luke Claridge exclaimed impatiently and hastened on; and the
+      little wizened Elder chuckled to himself all the way to the house of John
+      Fairley. None in Hamley took such pride in David as did these two old men,
+      who had loved him from a child, but had discreetly hidden their favour,
+      save to each other. Many times they had met and prayed together in the
+      weeks when his life was in notorious danger in the Soudan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As David walked through the streets of Heddington making for the open
+      country, he was conscious of a new feeling regarding the place. It was
+      familiar, but in a new sense. Its grimy, narrow streets, unlovely houses,
+      with shut windows, summer though it was, and no softening influences
+      anywhere, save here and there a box of sickly geraniums in the windows,
+      all struck his mind in a way they had never done before. A mile away were
+      the green fields, the woods, the roadsides gay with flowers and
+      shrubs-loveliness was but over the wall, as it were; yet here the
+      barrack-like houses, the grey, harsh streets, seemed like prison walls,
+      and the people in them prisoners who, with every legal right to call
+      themselves free, were as much captives as the criminal on some small
+      island in a dangerous sea. Escape&mdash;where? Into the gulf of no work
+      and degradation?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They never lifted their eyes above the day&rsquo;s labour. They were scarce
+      conscious of anything beyond. What were their pleasures? They had
+      imitations of pleasures. To them a funeral or a wedding, a riot or a
+      vociferous band, a dog-fight or a strike, were alike in this, that they
+      quickened feelings which carried them out of themselves, gave them a sense
+      of intoxication.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Intoxication? David remembered the far-off day of his own wild rebellion
+      in Hamley. From that day forward he had better realised that in the hearts
+      of so many of the human race there was a passion to forget themselves; to
+      blot out, if for a moment only, the troubles of life and time; or, by
+      creating a false air of exaltation, to rise above them. Once in the
+      desert, when men were dying round him of fever and dysentery, he had been
+      obliged, exhausted and ill, scarce able to drag himself from his bed, to
+      resort to an opiate to allay his own sufferings, that he might minister to
+      others. He remembered how, in the atmosphere it had created&mdash;an
+      intoxication, a soothing exhilaration and pervasive thrill&mdash;he had
+      saved so many of his followers. Since then the temptation had come upon
+      him often when trouble weighed or difficulties surrounded him&mdash;accompanied
+      always by recurrence of fever&mdash;to resort to the insidious medicine.
+      Though he had fought the temptation with every inch of his strength, he
+      could too well understand those who sought for &ldquo;surcease of pain&rdquo;.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+          &ldquo;Seeking for surcease of pain,
+          Pilgrim to Lethe I came;
+          Drank not, for pride was too keen,
+          Stung by the sound of a name!&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      As the plough of action had gone deep into his life and laid bare his
+      nature to the light, there had been exposed things which struggled for
+      life and power in him, with the fiery strength which only evil has.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The western heavens were aglow. On every hand the gorse and the may were
+      in bloom, the lilacs were coming to their end, but wild rhododendrons were
+      glowing in the bracken, as he stepped along the road towards the place
+      where he was born. Though every tree and roadmark was familiar, yet he was
+      conscious of a new outlook. He had left these quiet scenes inexperienced
+      and untravelled, to be thrust suddenly into the thick of a struggle of
+      nations over a sick land. He had worked in a vortex of debilitating local
+      intrigue. All who had to do with Egypt gained except herself, and if she
+      moved in revolt or agony, they threatened her. Once when resisting the
+      pressure and the threats of war of a foreign diplomatist, he had, after a
+      trying hour, written to Faith in a burst of passionate complaint, and his
+      letter had ended with these words.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+          &ldquo;In your onward march, O men,
+          White of face, in promise whiter,
+          You unsheath the sword, and then
+          Blame the wronged as the fighter.
+
+          &ldquo;Time, ah, Time, rolls onward o&rsquo;er
+          All these foetid fields of evil,
+          While hard at the nation&rsquo;s core
+          Eats the burning rust and weevill
+
+          &ldquo;Nathless, out beyond the stars
+          Reigns the Wiser and the Stronger,
+          Seeing in all strifes and wars
+          Who the wronged, who the wronger.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Privately he had spoken thus, but before the world he had given way to no
+      impulse, in silence finding safety from the temptation to diplomatic
+      evasion. Looking back over five years, he felt now that the sum of his
+      accomplishment had been small.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not realise the truth. When his hand was almost upon the object for
+      which he had toiled and striven&mdash;whether pacifying a tribe, meeting a
+      loan by honest means, building a barrage, irrigating the land, financing a
+      new industry, or experimenting in cotton&mdash;it suddenly eluded him.
+      Nahoum had snatched it away by subterranean wires. On such occasions
+      Nahoum would shrug his shoulders, and say with a sigh, &ldquo;Ah, my friend, let
+      us begin again. We are both young; time is with us; and we will flourish
+      palms in the face of Europe yet. We have our course set by a bright star.
+      We will continue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet, withal, David was the true altruist. Even now as he walked this road
+      which led to his old home, dear to him beyond all else, his thoughts kept
+      flying to the Nile and to the desert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly he stopped. He was at the cross-roads. Here he had met Kate
+      Heaver, here he had shamed his neighbours&mdash;and begun his work in
+      life. He stood for a moment, smiling, as he looked at the stone where he
+      had sat those years ago, his hand feeling instinctively for his flute.
+      Presently he turned to the dusty road again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Walking quickly away, he swung into the path of the wood which would bring
+      him by a short cut to Hamley, past Soolsby&rsquo;s cottage. Here was the old
+      peace, the old joy of solitude among the healing trees. Experience had
+      broadened his life, had given him a vast theatre of work; but the smell of
+      the woods, the touch of the turf, the whispering of the trees, the song of
+      the birds, had the ancient entry to his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last he emerged on the hill where Soolsby lived. He had not meant, if
+      he could help it, to speak to any one until he had entered the garden of
+      the Red Mansion, but he had inadvertently come upon this place where he
+      had spent the most momentous days of his life, and a feeling stronger than
+      he cared to resist drew him to the open doorway. The afternoon sun was
+      beating in over the threshold as he reached it, and, at his footstep, a
+      figure started forward from the shadow of a corner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Kate Heaver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Surprise, then pain showed in her face; she flushed, was agitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sorry. It&rsquo;s too bad&mdash;it&rsquo;s hard on him you should see,&rdquo; she said
+      in a breath, and turned her head away for an instant; but presently looked
+      him in the face again, all trembling and eager. &ldquo;He&rsquo;ll be sorry enough
+      to-morrow,&rdquo; she added solicitously, and drew away from something, she had
+      been trying to hide.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then David saw. On a bench against a wall lay old Soolsby&mdash;drunk. A
+      cloud passed across his face and left it pale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; he said simply, and went over and touched the heaving
+      shoulders reflectively. &ldquo;Poor Soolsby!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s been sober four years&mdash;over four,&rdquo; she said eagerly. &ldquo;When he
+      knew you&rsquo;d come again, he got wild, and he would have the drink in spite
+      of all. Walking from Heddington, I saw him at the tavern, and brought him
+      home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the tavern&mdash;&rdquo; David said reflectively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Fox and Goose, sir.&rdquo; She turned her face away again, and David&rsquo;s head
+      came up with a quick motion. There it was, five years ago, that he had
+      drunk at the bar, and had fought Jasper Kimber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor fellow!&rdquo; he said again, and listened to Soolsby&rsquo;s stertorous
+      breathing, as a physician looks at a patient whose case he cannot control,
+      does not wholly understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hand of the sleeping man was suddenly raised, his head gave a jerk,
+      and he said mumblingly: &ldquo;Claridge for ever!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kate nervously intervened. &ldquo;It fair beat him, your coming back, sir. It&rsquo;s
+      awful temptation, the drink. I lived in it for years, and it&rsquo;s cruel hard
+      to fight it when you&rsquo;re worked up either way, sorrow or joy. There&rsquo;s a
+      real pleasure in being drunk, I&rsquo;m sure. While it lasts you&rsquo;re rich, and
+      you&rsquo;re young, and you don&rsquo;t care what happens. It&rsquo;s kind of you to take it
+      like this, sir, seeing you&rsquo;ve never been tempted and mightn&rsquo;t understand.&rdquo;
+       David shook his head sadly, and looked at Soolsby in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t suppose he took a quarter what he used to take, but it made him
+      drunk. &lsquo;Twas but a minute of madness. You&rsquo;ve saved him right enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was not blaming him. I understand&mdash;I understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at her clearly. She was healthy and fine-looking, with large,
+      eloquent eyes. Her dress was severe and quiet, as became her occupation&mdash;a
+      plain, dark grey, but the shapely fulness of the figure gave softness to
+      the outlines. It was no wonder Jasper Kimber wished to marry her; and, if
+      he did, the future of the man was sure. She had a temperament which might
+      have made her an adventuress&mdash;or an opera-singer. She had been
+      touched in time, and she had never looked back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are with Lady Eglington now, I have heard?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was hard for you in London at first?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She met his look steadily. &ldquo;It was easy in a way. I could see round me
+      what was the right thing to do. Oh, that was what was so awful in the old
+      life over there at Heddington,&rdquo;&mdash;she pointed beyond the hill, &ldquo;we
+      didn&rsquo;t know what was good and what was bad. The poor people in big
+      working-places like Heddington ain&rsquo;t much better than heathens, leastways
+      as to most things that matter. They haven&rsquo;t got a sensible religion, not
+      one that gets down into what they do. The parson doesn&rsquo;t reach them&mdash;he
+      talks about church and the sacraments, and they don&rsquo;t get at what good
+      it&rsquo;s going to do them. And the chapel preachers ain&rsquo;t much better. They
+      talk and sing and pray, when what the people want is light, and hot water,
+      and soap, and being shown how to live, and how to bring up children
+      healthy and strong, and decent-cooked food. I&rsquo;d have food-hospitals if I
+      could, and I&rsquo;d give the children in the schools one good meal a day. I&rsquo;m
+      sure the children of the poor go wrong and bad more through the way they
+      live than anything. If only they was taught right&mdash;not as though they
+      was paupers! Give me enough nurses of the right sort, and enough good,
+      plain cooks, and meat three times a week, and milk and bread and rice and
+      porridge every day, and I&rsquo;d make a new place of any town in England in a
+      year. I&rsquo;d&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped all at once, however, and flushing, said: &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t stop to
+      think I was talking to you, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad you speak to me so,&rdquo; he answered gently. &ldquo;You and I are both
+      reformers at heart.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me? I&rsquo;ve done nothing, sir, not any good to anybody or anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to Jasper Kimber?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did that, sir; he says so; he says you made him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A quick laugh passed David&rsquo;s lips. &ldquo;Men are not made so easily. I think I
+      know the trowel and the mortar that built that wall! Thee will marry him,
+      friend?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her eyes burned as she looked at him. She had been eternally dispossessed
+      of what every woman has the right to have&mdash;one memory possessing the
+      elements of beauty. Even if it remain but for the moment, yet that moment
+      is hers by right of her sex, which is denied the wider rights of those
+      they love and serve. She had tasted the cup of bitterness and drunk of the
+      waters of sacrifice. Married life had no lure for her. She wanted none of
+      it. The seed of service had, however, taken root in a nature full of fire
+      and light and power, undisciplined and undeveloped as it was. She wished
+      to do something&mdash;the spirit of toil, the first habit of the life of
+      the poor, the natural medium for the good that may be in them, had
+      possession of her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This man was to her the symbol of work. To have cared for his home, to
+      have looked after his daily needs, to have sheltered him humbly from
+      little things, would have been her one true happiness. And this was denied
+      her. Had she been a man, it would have been so easy. She could have
+      offered to be his servant; could have done those things which she could do
+      better than any, since hers would be a heart-service.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But even as she looked at him now, she had a flash of insight and
+      prescience. She had, from little things said or done, from newspapers
+      marked and a hundred small indications, made up her mind that her
+      mistress&rsquo;s mind dwelt much upon &ldquo;the Egyptian.&rdquo; The thought flashed now
+      that she might serve this man, after all; that a day might come when she
+      could say that she had played a part in his happiness, in return for all
+      he had done for her. Life had its chances&mdash;and strange things had
+      happened. In her own mind she had decided that her mistress was not happy,
+      and who could tell what might happen? Men did not live for ever! The
+      thought came and went, but it left behind a determination to answer David
+      as she felt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not marry Jasper,&rdquo; she answered slowly. &ldquo;I want work, not
+      marriage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There would be both,&rdquo; he urged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With women there is the one or the other, not both.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee could help him. He has done credit to himself, and he can do good
+      work for England. Thee can help him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want work alone, not marriage, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He would pay thee his debt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He owes me nothing. What happened was no fault of his, but of the life we
+      were born in. He tired of me, and left me. Husbands tire of their wives,
+      but stay on and beat them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He drove thee mad almost, I remember.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wives go mad and are never cured, so many of them. I&rsquo;ve seen them die,
+      poor things, and leave the little ones behind. I had the luck wi&rsquo; me. I
+      took the right turning at the cross-roads yonder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee must be Jasper&rsquo;s wife if he asks thee again,&rdquo; he urged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will come when I call, but I will not call,&rdquo; she answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But still thee will marry him when the heart is ready,&rdquo; he persisted. &ldquo;It
+      shall be ready soon. He needs thee. Good-bye, friend. Leave Soolsby alone.
+      He will be safe. And do not tell him that I have seen him so.&rdquo; He stooped
+      over and touched the old man&rsquo;s shoulder gently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He held out his hand to her. She took it, then suddenly leaned over and
+      kissed it. She could not speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stepped to the door and looked out. Behind the Red Mansion the sun was
+      setting, and the far garden looked cool and sweet. He gave a happy sigh,
+      and stepped out and down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he disappeared, the woman dropped into a chair, her arms upon a table.
+      Her body shook with sobs. She sat there for an hour, and then, when the
+      sun was setting, she left the drunken man sleeping, and made her way down
+      the hill to the Cloistered House. Entering, she was summoned to her
+      mistress&rsquo;s room. &ldquo;I did not expect my lady so soon,&rdquo; she said, surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; we came sooner than we expected. Where have you been?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At Soolsby&rsquo;s hut on the hill, my lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is Soolsby?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kate told her all she knew, and of what had happened that afternoon&mdash;but
+      not all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXI. &ldquo;THERE IS NOTHING HIDDEN WHICH SHALL NOT BE REVEALED&rdquo;
+     </h2>
+    <p>
+      A fortnight had passed since they had come to Hamley&mdash;David,
+      Eglington, and Hylda&mdash;and they had all travelled a long distance in
+      mutual understanding during that time, too far, thought Luke Claridge, who
+      remained neutral and silent. He would not let Faith go to the Cloistered
+      House, though he made no protest against David going; because he
+      recognised in these visits the duty of diplomacy and the business of the
+      nation&mdash;more particularly David&rsquo;s business, which, in his eyes,
+      swallowed all. Three times David had gone to the Cloistered House; once
+      Hylda and he had met in the road leading to the old mill, and once at
+      Soolsby&rsquo;s hut. Twice, also, in the garden of his old home he had seen her,
+      when she came to visit Faith, who had captured her heart at once.
+      Eglington and Faith had not met, however. He was either busy in his
+      laboratory, or with his books, or riding over the common and through the
+      woods, and their courses lay apart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But there came an afternoon when Hylda and David were a long hour together
+      at the Cloistered House. They talked freely of his work in Egypt. At last
+      she said: &ldquo;And Nahoum Pasha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has kept faith.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is in high place again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is a good administrator.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You put him there!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee remembers what I said to him, that night in Cairo?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hylda closed her eyes and drew in a long breath. Had there been a word
+      spoken that night when she and David and Nahoum met which had not bitten
+      into her soul! That David had done so much in Egypt without ruin or death
+      was a tribute to his power. Nevertheless, though Nahoum had not struck
+      yet, she was certain he would one day. All that David now told her of the
+      vicissitudes of his plans, and Nahoum&rsquo;s sympathy and help, only deepened
+      this conviction. She could well believe that Nahoum gave David money from
+      his own pocket, which he replaced by extortion from other sources, while
+      gaining credit with David for co-operation. Armenian Christian Nahoum
+      might be, but he was ranged with the East against the West, with the
+      reactionary and corrupt against advance, against civilisation and freedom
+      and equality. Nahoum&rsquo;s Christianity was permeated with Orientalism, the
+      Christian belief obscured by the theism of the Muslim. David was in a
+      deadlier struggle than he knew. Yet it could serve no good end to attempt
+      to warn him now. He had outlived peril so far; might it not be that, after
+      all, he would win?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So far she had avoided Nahoum&rsquo;s name in talks with David. She could
+      scarcely tell why she did, save that it opened a door better closed, as it
+      were; but the restraint had given way at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee remembers what I said that night?&rdquo; David repeated slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I remember&mdash;I understand. You devise your course and you never
+      change. It is like building on a rock. That is why nothing happens to you
+      as bad as might happen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing bad ever happens to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The philosophy of the desert,&rdquo; she commented smiling. &ldquo;You are living in
+      the desert even when you are here. This is a dream; the desert and Egypt
+      only are real.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is true, I think. I seem sometimes like a sojourner here, like a
+      spirit &lsquo;revisiting the scenes of life and time.&rsquo;&rdquo; He laughed boyishly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet you are happy here. I understand now why and how you are what you
+      are. Even I that have been here so short a time feel the influence upon
+      me. I breathe an air that, somehow, seems a native air. The spirit of my
+      Quaker grandmother revives in me. Sometimes I sit hours thinking, scarcely
+      stirring; and I believe I know now how people might speak to each other
+      without words. Your Uncle Benn and you&mdash;it was so with you, was it
+      not? You heard his voice speaking to you sometimes; you understood what he
+      meant to say to you? You told me so long ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David inclined his head. &ldquo;I heard him speak as one might speak through a
+      closed door. Sometimes, too, in the desert I have heard Faith speak to
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And your grandfather?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never my grandfather&mdash;never. It would seem as though, in my
+      thoughts, I could never reach him; as though masses of opaque things lay
+      between. Yet he and I&mdash;there is love between us. I don&rsquo;t know why I
+      never hear him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me of your childhood, of your mother. I have seen her grave under
+      the ash by the Meeting-house, but I want to know of her from you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has not Faith told you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have only talked of the present. I could not ask her; but I can ask
+      you. I want to know of your mother and you together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were never together. When I opened my eyes she closed hers. It was so
+      little to get for the life she gave. See, was it not a good face?&rdquo; He drew
+      from his pocket a little locket which Faith had given him years ago, and
+      opened it before her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hylda looked long. &ldquo;She was exquisite,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;exquisite.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My father I never knew either. He was a captain of a merchant ship. He
+      married her secretly while she was staying with an aunt at Portsmouth. He
+      sailed away, my mother told my grandfather all, and he brought her home
+      here. The marriage was regular, of course, but my grandfather, after
+      announcing it, and bringing it before the Elders, declared that she should
+      never see her husband again. She never did, for she died a few months
+      after, when I came, and my father died very soon, also. I never saw him,
+      and I do not know if he ever tried to see me. I never had any feeling
+      about it. My grandfather was the only father I ever knew, and Faith, who
+      was born a year before me, became like a sister to me, though she soon
+      made other pretensions!&rdquo; He laughed again, almost happily. &ldquo;To gain an end
+      she exercised authority as my aunt!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was your father&rsquo;s name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fetherdon&mdash;James Fetherdon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fetherdon&mdash;James Fetherdon!&rdquo; Involuntarily Hylda repeated the name
+      after him. Where had she heard the name before&mdash;or where had she seen
+      it? It kept flashing before her eyes. Where had she seen it? For days she
+      had been rummaging among old papers in the library of the Cloistered
+      House, and in an old box full of correspondence and papers of the late
+      countess, who had died suddenly. Was it among them that she had seen the
+      name? She could not tell. It was all vague, but that she had seen it or
+      heard it she was sure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your father&rsquo;s people, you never knew them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head. &ldquo;Nor of them. Here was my home&mdash;I had no desire to
+      discover them. We draw in upon ourselves here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is great force in such a life and such a people,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;If
+      the same concentration of mind could be carried into the wide life of the
+      world, we might revolutionise civilisation; or vitalise and advance it, I
+      mean&mdash;as you are doing in Egypt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have done nothing in Egypt. I have sounded the bugle&mdash;I have not
+      had my fight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is true in a sense,&rdquo; she replied. &ldquo;Your real struggle is before you.
+      I do not know why I say it, but I do say it; I feel it. Something here&rdquo;&mdash;she
+      pressed her hand to her heart&mdash;&ldquo;something here tells me that your day
+      of battle is yet to come.&rdquo; Her eyes were brimming and full of excitement.
+      &ldquo;We must all help you.&rdquo; She gained courage with each word. &ldquo;You must not
+      fight alone. You work for civilisation; you must have civilisation behind
+      you.&rdquo; Her hands clasped nervously; there was a catch in her throat. &ldquo;You
+      remember then, that I said I would call to you one day, as your Uncle Benn
+      did, and you should hear and answer me. It shall not be that I will call.
+      You&mdash;you will call, and I will help you if I can. I will help, no
+      matter what may seem to prevent, if there is anything I can do. I, surely
+      I, of all the world owe it to you to do what I can, always.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I owe so much&mdash;you did so much. Oh, how it haunts me! Sometimes in
+      the night I wake with a start and see it all&mdash;all!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The flood which had been dyked back these years past had broken loose in
+      her heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Out of the stir and sweep of social life and duty, of official and
+      political ambition-heart-hungry, for she had no child; heart-lonely,
+      though she had scarce recognised it in the duties and excitements round
+      her&mdash;she had floated suddenly into this backwater of a motionless
+      life in Hamley. Its quiet had settled upon her, the shackles of her spirit
+      had been loosed, and dropped from her; she had suddenly bathed her heart
+      and soul in a freer atmosphere than they had ever known before. And David
+      and Hamley had come together. The old impulses, dominated by a divine
+      altruism, were swinging her out upon a course leading she knew not, reeked
+      not, whither&mdash;for the moment reeked not. This man&rsquo;s career, the work
+      he was set to do, the ideal before him, the vision of a land redeemed,
+      captured her, carried her panting into a resolve which, however she might
+      modify her speech or action, must be an influence in her life hereafter.
+      Must the penance and the redemption be his only? This life he lived had
+      come from what had happened to her and to him in Egypt. In a deep sense
+      her life was linked with his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a flash David now felt the deep significance of their relations. A
+      curtain seemed suddenly to have been drawn aside. He was blinded for a
+      moment. Her sympathy, her desire to help, gave him a new sense of hope and
+      confidence, but&mdash;but there was no room in his crusade for any woman;
+      the dear egotism of a life-dream was masterful in him, possessed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet, if ever his heart might have dwelt upon a woman with thought of the
+      future, this being before him&mdash;he drew himself up with a start!... He
+      was going to Egypt again in a few days; they might probably never meet
+      again&mdash;would not, no doubt&mdash;should not. He had pressed her
+      husband to go to Egypt, but now he would not encourage it; he must &ldquo;finish
+      his journey alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked again in her eyes, and their light and beauty held him. His own
+      eyes swam. The exaltation of a great idea was upon them, was a bond of
+      fate between them. It was a moment of peril not fully realised by either.
+      David did realise, however, that she was beautiful beyond all women he had
+      ever seen&mdash;or was he now for the first time really aware of the
+      beauty of woman? She had an expression, a light of eye and face, finely
+      alluring beyond mere outline of feature. Yet the features were there, too,
+      regular and fine; and her brown hair waving away from her broad, white
+      forehead over eyes a greyish violet in colour gave her a classic
+      distinction. In the quietness of the face there was that strain of the
+      Quaker, descending to her through three generations, yet enlivened by a
+      mind of impulse and genius.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They stood looking at each other for a moment, in which both had taken a
+      long step forward in life&rsquo;s experience. But presently his eyes looked
+      beyond her, as though at something that fascinated them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of what are you thinking? What do you see?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You, leaving the garden of my house in Cairo, I standing by the fire,&rdquo; he
+      answered, closing his eyes for an instant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is what I saw also,&rdquo; she said breathlessly. &ldquo;It is what I saw and was
+      thinking of that instant.&rdquo; When, as though she must break away from the
+      cords of feeling drawing her nearer and nearer to him, she said, with a
+      little laugh, &ldquo;Tell me again of my Chicago cousin? I have not had a letter
+      for a year.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lacey, he is with me always. I should have done little had it not been
+      for him. He has remarkable resource; he is never cast down. He has but one
+      fault.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is no respecter of persons. His humour cuts deep. He has a wide heart
+      for your sex. When leaving the court of the King of Abyssinia he said to
+      his Majesty: &lsquo;Well, good-bye, King. Give my love to the girls.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She laughed again. &ldquo;How absurd and childish he is! But he is true and
+      able. And how glad you should be that you are able to make true friends,
+      without an effort. Yesterday I met neighbour Fairley, and another little
+      old Elder who keeps his chin in his collar and his eyes on the sky. They
+      did little else but sing your praises. One might have thought that you had
+      invented the world-or Hamley.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet they would chafe if I were to appear among them without these.&rdquo; He
+      glanced down at the Quaker clothes he wore, and made a gesture towards the
+      broadbrimmed hat reposing on a footstool near by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is good to see that you are not changed, not spoiled at all,&rdquo; she
+      remarked, smiling. &ldquo;Though, indeed, how could you be, who always work for
+      others and never for yourself? All I envy you is your friends. You make
+      them and keep them so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sighed, and a shadow came into her eyes suddenly. She was thinking of
+      Eglington. Did he make friends&mdash;true friends? In London&mdash;was
+      there one she knew who would cleave to him for love of him? In England&mdash;had
+      she ever seen one? In Hamley, where his people had been for so many
+      generations, had she found one?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Herself? Yes, she was his true friend. She would do what would she not do
+      to help him, to serve his interests? What had she not done since she
+      married Her fortune, it was his; her every waking hour had been filled
+      with something devised to help him on his way. Had he ever said to her:
+      &ldquo;Hylda, you are a help to me&rdquo;? He had admired her&mdash;but was he
+      singular in that? Before she married there were many&mdash;since, there
+      had been many&mdash;who had shown, some with tact and carefulness, others
+      with a crudeness making her shudder, that they admired her; and, if they
+      might, would have given their admiration another name with other
+      manifestations. Had she repelled it all? She had been too sure of herself
+      to draw her skirts about her; she was too proud to let any man put her at
+      any disadvantage. She had been safe, because her heart had been untouched.
+      The Duchess of Snowdon, once beautiful, but now with a face like a mask,
+      enamelled and rouged and lifeless, had said to her once: &ldquo;My dear, I ought
+      to have died at thirty. When I was twenty-three I wanted to squeeze the
+      orange dry in a handful of years, and then go out suddenly, and let the
+      dust of forgetfulness cover my bones. I had one child, a boy, and would
+      have no more; and I squeezed the orange! But I didn&rsquo;t go at thirty, and
+      yet the orange was dry. My boy died; and you see what I am&mdash;a fright,
+      I know it; and I dress like a child of twenty; and I can&rsquo;t help it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There had been moments, once, when Hylda, too, had wished to squeeze the
+      orange dry, but something behind, calling to her, had held her back. She
+      had dropped her anchor in perilous seas, but it had never dragged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me how to make friends&mdash;and keep them,&rdquo; she added gaily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it be true I make friends, thee taught me how,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;for thee
+      made me a friend, and I forget not the lesson.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled. &ldquo;Thee has learnt another lesson too well,&rdquo; she answered
+      brightly. &ldquo;Thee must not flatter. It is not that which makes thee keep
+      friends. Thee sees I also am speaking as they do in Hamley&mdash;am I not
+      bold? I love the grammarless speech.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then use it freely to-day, for this is farewell,&rdquo; he answered, not
+      looking at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This&mdash;is&mdash;farewell,&rdquo; she said slowly, vaguely. Why should it
+      startle her so? &ldquo;You are going so soon&mdash;where?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-morrow to London, next week to Egypt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She laid a hand upon herself, for her heart was beating violently. &ldquo;Thee
+      is not fair to give no warning&mdash;there is so much to say,&rdquo; she said,
+      in so low a tone that he could scarcely hear her. &ldquo;There is the future,
+      your work, what we are to do here to help. What I am to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee will always be a friend to Egypt, I know,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;She needs
+      friends. Thee has a place where thee can help.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will not right be done without my voice?&rdquo; she asked, her eyes half
+      closing. &ldquo;There is the Foreign Office, and English policy, and the
+      ministers, and&mdash;and Eglington. What need of me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He saw the thought had flashed into her mind that he did not trust her
+      husband. &ldquo;Thee knows and cares for Egypt, and knowing and caring make
+      policy easier to frame,&rdquo; he rejoined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly a wave of feeling went over her. He whose life had been flung
+      into this field of labour by an act of her own, who should help him but
+      herself?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it all baffled her, hurt her, shook her. She was not free to help as
+      she wished. Her life belonged to another; and he exacted the payment of
+      tribute to the uttermost farthing. She was blinded by the thought. Yet she
+      must speak. &ldquo;I will come to Egypt&mdash;we will come to Egypt,&rdquo; she said
+      quickly. &ldquo;Eglington shall know, too; he shall understand. You shall have
+      his help. You shall not work alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee can work here,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It may not be easy for Lord Eglington to
+      come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You pressed it on him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Their eyes met. She suddenly saw what was in his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know best what will help you most,&rdquo; she added gently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will not come?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not say I will not come&mdash;not ever,&rdquo; she answered firmly. &ldquo;It
+      may be I should have to come.&rdquo; Resolution was in her eyes. She was
+      thinking of Nahoum. &ldquo;I may have to come,&rdquo; she added after a pause, &ldquo;to do
+      right by you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He read her meaning. &ldquo;Thee will never come,&rdquo; he continued confidently. He
+      held out his hand. &ldquo;Perhaps I shall see you in town,&rdquo; she rejoined, as her
+      hand rested in his, and she looked away. &ldquo;When do you start for Egypt?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-morrow week, I think,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;There is much to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps we shall meet in town,&rdquo; she repeated. But they both knew they
+      would not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Farewell,&rdquo; he said, and picked up his hat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he turned again, the look in her eyes brought the blood to his face,
+      then it became pale. A new force had come into his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God be good to thee,&rdquo; he said, and turned away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She watched him leave the room and pass through the garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;David! David!&rdquo; she said softly after him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the other end of the room her husband, who had just entered, watched
+      her. He heard her voice, but did not hear what she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Hylda, and have some music,&rdquo; he said brusquely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She scrutinised him calmly. His face showed nothing. His look was
+      enigmatical.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Chopin is the thing for me,&rdquo; he said, and opened the piano.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXII. AS IN A GLASS DARKLY
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was very quiet and cool in the Quaker Meeting-house, though outside
+      there was the rustle of leaves, the low din of the bees, the whistle of a
+      bird, or the even tread of horses&rsquo; hoofs as they journeyed on the London
+      road. The place was full. For a half-hour the worshippers had sat
+      voiceless. They were waiting for the spirit to move some one to speak. As
+      they waited, a lady entered and glided into a seat. Few saw, and these
+      gave no indication of surprise, though they were little used to strangers,
+      and none of the name borne by this lady had entered the building for many
+      years. It was Hylda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the silence was broken. The wizened Elder, with eyes upon the
+      ceiling and his long white chin like ivory on his great collar, began to
+      pray, sitting where he was, his hands upon his knees. He prayed for all
+      who wandered &ldquo;into by and forbidden paths.&rdquo; He prayed for one whose work
+      was as that of Joseph, son of Jacob; whose footsteps were now upon the
+      sea, and now upon the desert; whose way was set among strange gods and
+      divers heresies&mdash;&ldquo;&lsquo;For there must also be heresies, that they which
+      are approved may be made manifest among the weak.&rsquo;&rdquo; A moment more, and
+      then he added: &ldquo;He hath been tried beyond his years; do Thou uphold his
+      hands. Once with a goad did we urge him on, when in ease and sloth he was
+      among us, but now he spurreth on his spirit and body in too great haste. O
+      put Thy hand upon the bridle, Lord, that He ride soberly upon Thy
+      business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a longer silence now, but at last came the voice of Luke
+      Claridge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father of the fatherless,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;my days are as the sands in the
+      hour-glass hastening to their rest; and my place will soon be empty. He
+      goeth far, and I may not go with him. He fighteth alone, like him that
+      strove with wild beasts at Ephesus; do Thou uphold him that he may bring a
+      nation captive. And if a viper fasten on his hand, as chanced to Paul of
+      old, give him grace to strike it off without hurt. O Lord, he is to me,
+      Thy servant, as the one ewe lamb; let him be Thine when Thou gatherest for
+      Thy vineyard!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if a viper fasten on his hand&mdash;&rdquo; David passed his hand across
+      his forehead and closed his eyes. The beasts at Ephesus he had fought, and
+      he would fight them again&mdash;there was fighting enough to do in the
+      land of Egypt. And the viper would fasten on his hand&mdash;it had
+      fastened on his hand, and he had struck it off; but it would come again,
+      the dark thing against which he had fought in the desert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their prayers had unnerved him, had got into that corner of his nature
+      where youth and its irresponsibility loitered yet. For a moment he was
+      shaken, and then, looking into the faces of the Elders, said: &ldquo;Friends, I
+      go again upon paths that lead into the wilderness. I know not if I ever
+      shall return. Howsoe&rsquo;er that may be, I shall walk with firmer step because
+      of all ye do for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He closed his eyes and prayed: &ldquo;O God, I go into the land of ancient
+      plagues and present pestilence. If it be Thy will, bring me home to this
+      good land, when my task is done. If not, by Thy goodness let me be as a
+      stone set by the wayside for others who come after; and save me from the
+      beast and from the viper. &lsquo;Thou art faithful, who wilt not suffer us to be
+      tempted above that we are able; but wilt with the temptation also make a
+      way of escape, that we may be able to bear it!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat down, and all grew silent again; but suddenly some one sobbed
+      aloud-sobbed, and strove to stay the sobbing, and could not, and, getting
+      up, hastened towards the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Faith. David heard, and came quickly after her. As he took her arm
+      gently, his eyes met those of Hylda. She rose and came out also.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will thee take her home?&rdquo; he said huskily. &ldquo;I can bear no more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hylda placed her arm round Faith, and led her out under the trees and into
+      the wood. As they went, Faith looked back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, forgive me, forgive me, Davy,&rdquo; she said softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three lights burned in Hamley: one in the Red Mansion, one in the
+      Cloistered House, and one in Soolsby&rsquo;s hut upon the hill. In the Red
+      Mansion old Luke Claridge, his face pale with feeling, his white hair
+      tumbling about, his head thrust forward, his eyes shining, sat listening,
+      as Faith read aloud letters which Benn Claridge had written from the East
+      many years before. One letter, written from Bagdad, he made her read
+      twice. The faded sheet had in it the glow and glamour of the East; it was
+      like a heart beating with life; emotion rose and fell in it like the waves
+      of the sea. Once the old man interrupted Faith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Davy&mdash;it is as though Davy spoke. It is like Davy&mdash;both
+      Claridge, both Claridge,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But is it not like Davy? Davy is doing
+      what it was in Benn&rsquo;s heart to do. Benn showed the way; Benn called, and
+      Davy came.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laid both hands upon his knees and raised his eyes. &ldquo;O Lord, I have
+      sought to do according to Thy will,&rdquo; he whispered. He was thinking of a
+      thing he had long hidden. Through many years he had no doubt, no qualm;
+      but, since David had gone to Egypt, some spirit of unquiet had worked in
+      him. He had acted against the prayer of his own wife, lying in her grave&mdash;a
+      quiet-faced woman, who had never crossed him, who had never shown a note
+      of passion in all her life, save in one thing concerning David. Upon it,
+      like some prophetess, she had flamed out. With the insight which only
+      women have where children are concerned, she had told him that he would
+      live to repent of what he had done. She had died soon after, and was laid
+      beside the deserted young mother, whose days had budded and blossomed, and
+      fallen like petals to the ground, while yet it was the spring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Luke Claridge had understood neither, not his wife when she had said:
+      &ldquo;Thee should let the Lord do His own work, Luke,&rdquo; nor his dying daughter
+      Mercy, whose last words had been: &ldquo;With love and sorrow I have sowed; he
+      shall reap rejoicing&mdash;my babe. Thee will set him in the garden in the
+      sun, where God may find him&mdash;God will not pass him by. He will take
+      him by the hand and lead him home.&rdquo; The old man had thought her touched by
+      delirium then, though her words were but the parable of a mind fed by the
+      poetry of life, by a shy spirit, to which meditation gave fancy and
+      farseeing. David had come by his idealism honestly. The half-mystical
+      spirit of his Uncle Benn had flowed on to another generation through the
+      filter of a woman&rsquo;s sad soul. It had come to David a pure force, a
+      constructive and practical idealism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, as Faith read, there were ringing in the old man&rsquo;s ears the words
+      which David&rsquo;s mother had said before she closed her eyes and passed away:
+      &ldquo;Set him in the garden in the sun, where God may find him&mdash;God will
+      not pass him by.&rdquo; They seemed to weave themselves into the symbolism of
+      Benn Claridge&rsquo;s letter, written from the hills of Bagdad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; the letter continued, &ldquo;the Governor passed by with his suite, the
+      buckles of the harness of his horses all silver, his carriage shining with
+      inlay of gold, his turban full of precious stones. When he had passed, I
+      said to a shepherd standing by, &lsquo;If thou hadst all his wealth, shepherd,
+      what wouldst thou do?&rsquo; and he answered, &lsquo;If I had his wealth, I would sit
+      on the south side of my house in the sun all day and every day.&rsquo; To a
+      messenger of the Palace, who must ever be ready night and day to run at
+      his master&rsquo;s order, I asked the same. He replied, &lsquo;If I had all the
+      Effendina&rsquo;s wealth, I would sleep till I died.&rsquo; To a blind beggar, shaking
+      the copper in his cup in the highways, pleading dumbly to those who
+      passed, I made similar inquisition, and he replied &lsquo;If the wealth of the
+      exalted one were mine, I would sit on the mastaba by the bake-house, and
+      eat three times a day, save at Ramadan, when I would bless Allah the
+      compassionate and merciful, and breakfast at sunset with the flesh of a
+      kid and a dish of dates.&rsquo; To a woman at the door of a tomb hung with
+      relics of hundreds of poor souls in misery, who besought the buried saint
+      to intercede for her with Allah, I made the same catechism, and she
+      answered, &lsquo;Oh, effendi, if his wealth were mine, I would give my son what
+      he has lost.&rsquo; &lsquo;What has he lost, woman?&rsquo; said I; and she answered: &lsquo;A
+      little house with a garden, and a flock of ten goats, a cow and a
+      dovecote, his inheritance of which he has been despoiled by one who
+      carried a false debt &lsquo;gainst his dead father.&rsquo; And I said to her: &lsquo;But if
+      thy wealth were as that of the ruler of the city, thy son would have no
+      need of the little house and garden and the flock of goats, and a cow and
+      a dovecote.&rsquo; Whereupon she turned upon me in bitterness, and said: &lsquo;Were
+      they not his own as the seed of his father? Shall not one cherish that
+      which is his own, which cometh from seed to seed? Is it not the law?&rsquo; 
+      &lsquo;But,&rsquo; said I, &lsquo;if his wealth were thine, there would be herds of cattle,
+      and flocks of sheep, and carpets spread, and the banquet-tables, and great
+      orchards.&rsquo; But she stubbornly shook her head. &lsquo;Where the eagle built shall
+      not the young eagle nest? How should God meet me in the way and bless him
+      who stood not by his birth right? The plot of ground was the lad&rsquo;s, and
+      all that is thereon. I pray thee, mock me not.&rsquo; God knows I did not mock
+      her, for her words were wisdom. So did it work upon me that, after many
+      days, I got for the lad his own again, and there he is happier, and his
+      mother happier, than the Governor in his palace. Later I did learn some
+      truths from the shepherd, the messenger, and the beggar, and the woman
+      with the child; but chiefly from the woman and the child. The material
+      value has no relation to the value each sets upon that which is his own.
+      Behind this feeling lies the strength of the world. Here on this hill of
+      Bagdad I am thinking these things. And, Luke, I would have thee also think
+      on my story of the woman and the child. There is in it a lesson for thee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Luke Claridge first read this letter years before, he had put it from
+      him sternly. Now he heard it with a soft emotion. He took the letter from
+      Faith at last and put it in his pocket. With no apparent relevancy, and
+      laying his hand on Faith&rsquo;s shoulder, he said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have done according to our conscience by Davy&mdash;God is our
+      witness, so!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She leaned her cheek against his hand, but did not speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Soolsby&rsquo;s hut upon the hill David sat talking to the old chair-maker.
+      Since his return he had visited the place several times, only to find
+      Soolsby absent. The old man, on awaking from his drunken sleep, had been
+      visited by a terrible remorse, and, whenever he had seen David coming, had
+      fled into the woods. This evening, however, David came in the dark, and
+      Soolsby was caught.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When David entered first, the old man broke down. He could not speak, but
+      leaned upon the back of a chair, and though his lips moved, no sound came
+      forth. But David took him by the shoulders and set him down, and laughed
+      gently in his face, and at last Soolsby got voice and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Egyptian! O Egyptian!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then his tongue was loosened and his eye glistened, and he poured out
+      question after question, many pertinent, some whimsical, all frankly
+      answered by David. But suddenly he stopped short, and his eyes sank before
+      the other, who had laid a hand upon his knee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But don&rsquo;t, Egyptian, don&rsquo;t! Don&rsquo;t have aught to do with me. I&rsquo;m only a
+      drunken swine. I kept sober four years, as she knows&mdash;as the Angel
+      down yonder in the Red Mansion knows; but the day you came, going out to
+      meet you, I got drunk&mdash;blind drunk. I had only been pretending all
+      the time. I was being coaxed along&mdash;made believe I was a real man, I
+      suppose. But I wasn&rsquo;t. I was a pillar of sand. When pressure came I just
+      broke down&mdash;broke down, Egyptian. Don&rsquo;t be surprised if you hear me
+      grunt. It&rsquo;s my natural speech. I&rsquo;m a hog, a drink-swilling hog. I wasn&rsquo;t
+      decent enough to stay sober till you had said &lsquo;Good day,&rsquo; and &lsquo;How goes
+      it, Soolsby?&rsquo; I tried it on; it was no good. I began to live like a man,
+      but I&rsquo;ve slipped back into the ditch. You didn&rsquo;t know that, did you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David let him have his say, and then in a low voice said: &ldquo;Yes, I knew
+      thee had been drinking, Soolsby.&rdquo; He started. &ldquo;She told you&mdash;Kate
+      Heaver&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She did not tell me. I came and found you here with her. You were
+      asleep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A drunken sweep!&rdquo; He spat upon the ground in disgust at himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ought never have comeback here,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;It was no place for me. But
+      it drew me. I didn&rsquo;t belong; but it drew me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee belongs to Hamley. Thee is an honour to Hamley, Soolsby.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soolsby&rsquo;s eyes widened; the blurred look of rage and self-reproach in them
+      began to fade away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee has made a fight, Soolsby, to conquer a thing that has had thee by
+      the throat. There&rsquo;s no fighting like it. It means a watching every hour,
+      every minute&mdash;thee can never take the eye off it. Some days it&rsquo;s
+      easy, some days it&rsquo;s hard, but it&rsquo;s never so easy that you can say, &lsquo;There
+      is no need to watch.&rsquo; In sleep it whispers and wakes you; in the morning,
+      when there are no shadows, it casts a shadow on the path. It comes between
+      you and your work; you see it looking out of the eyes of a friend. And one
+      day, when you think it has been conquered, that you have worn it down into
+      oblivion and the dust, and you close your eyes and say, &lsquo;I am master,&rsquo; up
+      it springs with fury from nowhere you can see, and catches you by the
+      throat; and the fight begins again. But you sit stronger, and the fight
+      becomes shorter; and after many battles, and you have learned never to be
+      off guard, to know by instinct where every ambush is, then at last the
+      victory is yours. It is hard, it is bitter, and sometimes it seems hardly
+      worth the struggle. But it is&mdash;it is worth the struggle, dear old
+      man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soolsby dropped on his knees and caught David by the arms. &ldquo;How did you
+      know-how did you know?&rdquo; he asked hoarsely. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s been just as you say.
+      You&rsquo;ve watched some one fighting?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have watched some one fighting&mdash;fighting,&rdquo; answered David clearly,
+      but his eyes were moist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With drink, the same as me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, with opium&mdash;laudanum.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I&rsquo;ve heard that&rsquo;s worse, that it makes you mad, the wanting it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have seen it so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did the man break down like me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only once, but the fight is not yet over with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was he&mdash;an Englishman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David inclined his head. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a great thing to have a temptation to
+      fight, Soolsby. Then we can understand others.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not always true, Egyptian, for you have never had temptation to
+      fight. Yet you know it all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God has been good to me,&rdquo; David answered, putting a hand on the old man&rsquo;s
+      shoulder. &ldquo;And thee is a credit to Hamley, friend. Thee will never fall
+      again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know that&mdash;you say that to me! Then, by Mary the mother of God,
+      I never will be a swine again,&rdquo; he said, getting to his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, good-bye, Soolsby. I go to-morrow,&rdquo; David said presently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soolsby frowned; his lips worked. &ldquo;When will you come back?&rdquo; he asked
+      eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David smiled. &ldquo;There is so much to do, they may not let me come&mdash;not
+      soon. I am going into the desert again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soolsby was shaking. He spoke huskily. &ldquo;Here is your place,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You
+      shall come back&mdash;Oh, but you shall come back, here, where you
+      belong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David shook his head and smiled, and clasped the strong hand again. A
+      moment later he was gone. From the door of the but Soolsby muttered to
+      himself:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will bring you back. If Luke Claridge doesn&rsquo;t, then I will bring you
+      back. If he dies, I will bring you&mdash;no, by the love of God, I will
+      bring you back while he lives!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+       ...........................
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Two thousand miles away, in a Nile village, women sat wailing in dark
+      doorways, dust on their heads, black mantles covering their faces. By the
+      pond where all the people drank, performed their ablutions, bathed their
+      bodies and rinsed their mouths, sat the sheikh-el-beled, the village
+      chief, taking counsel in sorrow with the barber, the holy man, and others.
+      Now speaking, now rocking their bodies to and fro, in the evening
+      sunlight, they sat and watched the Nile in flood covering the wide wastes
+      of the Fayoum, spreading over the land rich deposits of earth from the
+      mountains of Abyssinia. When that flood subsided there would be fields to
+      be planted with dourha and onions and sugar-cane; but they whose strong
+      arms should plough and sow and wield the sickle, the youth, the upstanding
+      ones, had been carried off in chains to serve in the army of Egypt,
+      destined for the far Soudan, for hardship, misery, and death, never to see
+      their kindred any more. Twice during three months had the dread servant of
+      the Palace come and driven off their best like sheep to the slaughter. The
+      brave, the stalwart, the bread-winners, were gone; and yet the
+      tax-gatherer would come and press for every impost&mdash;on the
+      onion-field, the date-palm, the dourha-field, and the clump of sugar-cane,
+      as though the young men, the toilers, were still there. The old and
+      infirm, the children, the women, must now double and treble their labour.
+      The old men must go to the corvee, and mend the banks of the Nile for the
+      Prince and his pashas, providing their own food, their own tools, their
+      own housing, if housing there would be&mdash;if it was more than sleeping
+      under a bush by the riverside, or crawling into a hole in the ground,
+      their yeleks their clothes by day, their only covering at night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They sat like men without hope, yet with the proud, bitter mien of those
+      who had known good and had lost it, had seen content and now were
+      desolate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently one&mdash;a lad&mdash;the youngest of them, lifted up his voice
+      and began to chant a recitative, while another took a small drum and beat
+      it in unison. He was but just recovered from an illness, or he had gone
+      also in chains to die for he knew not what, leaving behind without hope
+      all that he loved:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;How has the cloud fallen, and the leaf withered on the tree,
+     The lemon-tree, that standeth by the door.
+     The melon and the date have gone bitter to the taste,
+     The weevil, it has eaten at the core
+     The core of my heart, the mildew findeth it.
+     My music, it is but the drip of tears,
+     The garner empty standeth, the oven hath no fire,
+     Night filleth me with fears.
+     O Nile that floweth deeply, hast thou not heard his voice?
+     His footsteps hast thou covered with thy flood?
+     He was as one who lifteth up the yoke,
+     He was as one who taketh off the chain,
+     As one who sheltereth from the rain,
+     As one who scattereth bread to the pigeons flying.
+     His purse was at his side, his mantle was for me,
+     For any who passeth were his mantle and his purse,
+     And now like a gourd is he withered from our eyes.
+     His friendship, it was like a shady wood
+     Whither has he gone?&mdash;Who shall speak for us?
+     Who shall save us from the kourbash and the stripes?
+     Who shall proclaim us in the palace?
+     Who shall contend for us in the gate?
+     The sakkia turneth no more; the oxen they are gone;
+     The young go forth in chains, the old waken in the night,
+     They waken and weep, for the wheel turns backward,
+     And the dark days are come again upon us&mdash;
+     Will he return no more?
+     His friendship was like a shady wood,
+     O Nile that floweth deeply, hast thou not heard his voice?
+     Hast thou covered up his footsteps with thy flood?
+     The core of my heart, the mildew findeth it!&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Another-an old man-took up the strain, as the drum kept time to the beat
+      of the voice with its undulating call and refrain:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When his footsteps were among us there was peace; War entered not the
+      village, nor the call of war. Now our homes are as those that have no
+      roofs. As a nest decayed, as a cave forsaken, As a ship that lieth broken
+      on the beach, Is the house where we were born. Out in the desert did we
+      bury our gold, We buried it where no man robbed us, for his arm was
+      strong. Now are the jars empty, gold did not avail To save our young men,
+      to keep them from the chains. God hath swallowed his voice, or the sea
+      hath drowned it, Or the Nile hath covered him with its flood; Else would
+      he come when our voices call. His word was honey in the prince&rsquo;s ear Will
+      he return no more?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And now the sheikh-el-beled spoke. &ldquo;It hath been so since Nahoum Pasha
+      passed this way four months agone. He hath changed all. War will not
+      avail. David Pasha, he will come again. His word is as the centre of the
+      world. Ye have no hope, because ye see the hawks among the starving sheep.
+      But the shepherd will return from behind the hill, and the hawks will flee
+      away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;... Behold, once was I in the desert. Listen, for mine are the words of
+      one who hath travelled far&mdash;was I not at Damascus and Palmyra and
+      Bagdad, and at Medina by the tomb of Mahomet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Reverently he touched the green turban on his head, evidence of his
+      journey to Mahomet&rsquo;s tomb. &ldquo;Once in the desert I saw afar off an oasis of
+      wood and water, and flying things, and houses where a man might rest. And
+      I got me down from my camel, and knelt upon my sheepskin, and gave thanks
+      in the name of Allah. Thereupon I mounted again and rode on towards that
+      goodly place. But as I rode it vanished from my sight. Then did I mourn.
+      Yet once again I saw the trees, and flocks of pigeons and waving fields,
+      and I was hungry and thirsty, and longed exceedingly. Yet got I down, and,
+      upon my sheep-skin, once more gave thanks to Allah. And I mounted
+      thereafter in haste and rode on; but once again was I mocked. Then I cried
+      aloud in my despair. It was in my heart to die upon the sheep-skin where I
+      had prayed; for I was burned up within, and there seemed naught to do but
+      say malaish, and go hence. But that goodly sight came again. My heart
+      rebelled that I should be so mocked. I bent down my head upon my camel
+      that I might not see, yet once more I loosed the sheep-skin. Lifting up my
+      heart, I looked again, and again I took hope and rode on. Farther and
+      farther I rode, and lo! I was no longer mocked; for I came to a goodly
+      place of water and trees, and was saved. So shall it be with us. We have
+      looked for his coming again, and our hearts have fallen and been as ashes,
+      for that he has not come. Yet there be mirages, and one day soon David
+      Pasha will come hither, and our pains shall be eased.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aiwa, aiwa&mdash;yes, yes,&rdquo; cried the lad who had sung to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aiwa, aiwa,&rdquo; rang softly over the pond, where naked children stooped to
+      drink.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The smell of the cooking-pots floated out from the mud-houses near by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Malaish,&rdquo; said one after another, &ldquo;I am hungry. He will come
+      again-perhaps to-morrow.&rdquo; So they moved towards the houses over the way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One cursed his woman for wailing in the doorway; one snatched the lid from
+      a cooking-pot; one drew from an oven cakes of dourha, and gave them to
+      those who had none; one knelt and bowed his forehead to the ground in
+      prayer; one shouted the name of him whose coming they desired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So was David missed in Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIII. THE TENTS OF CUSHAN
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction, and the curtains
+     of the Land of Midian did tremble.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      A Hurdy-Gurdy was standing at the corner, playing with shrill insistence a
+      medley of Scottish airs. Now &ldquo;Loch Lomond&rdquo; pleaded for pennies from the
+      upper windows:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+       &ldquo;For you&rsquo;ll tak&rsquo; the high road,
+        and I&rsquo;ll tak&rsquo; the low road,
+        And I&rsquo;ll be in Scotland before ye:
+        But I and my true love will never meet again,
+        On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond!&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The hurdy-gurdy was strident and insistent, but for a long time no
+      response came. At last, however, as the strains of &ldquo;Loch Lomond&rdquo; ceased, a
+      lady appeared on the balcony of a drawing-room, and, leaning over a little
+      forest of flowers and plants, threw a half-crown to the sorry
+      street-musician. She watched the grotesque thing trundle away, then
+      entering the house again, took a &lsquo;cello from the corner of the room and
+      tuned the instrument tenderly. It was Hylda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Something of the peace of Hamley had followed her to London, but the
+      poignant pain of it had come also. Like Melisande, she had looked into the
+      quiet pool of life and had seen her own face, its story and its
+      foreshadowings. Since then she had been &ldquo;apart.&rdquo; She had watched life move
+      on rather than shared in its movement. Things stood still for her. That
+      apathy of soul was upon her which follows the inward struggle that
+      exhausts the throb and fret of inward emotions, leaving the mind dominant,
+      the will in abeyance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had become conscious that her fate and future were suspended over a
+      chasm, as, on the trapeze of a balloon, an adventurous aeronaut hangs
+      uncertain over the hungry sea, waiting for the coming wind which will
+      either blow the hazardous vessel to its doom or to safe refuge on the
+      land.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had not seen David after he left Hamley. Their last words had been
+      spoken at the Meeting-house, when he gave Faith to her care. That scene
+      came back to her now, and a flush crept slowly over her face and faded
+      away again. She was recalling, too, the afternoon of that day when she and
+      David had parted in the drawing-room of the Cloistered House, and
+      Eglington had asked her to sing. She thought of the hours with Eglington
+      that followed, first at the piano and afterwards in the laboratory, where
+      in his long blue smock he made experiments. Had she not been conscious of
+      something enigmatical in his gaiety that afternoon, in his cheerful yet
+      cheerless words, she would have been deeply impressed by his appreciation
+      of her playing, and his keen reflections on the merits of the composers;
+      by his still keener attention to his subsequent experiments, and his
+      amusing comments upon them. But, somehow, that very cheerless cheerfulness
+      seemed to proclaim him superficial. Though she had no knowledge of
+      science, she instinctively doubted his earnestness even in this work,
+      which certainly was not pursued for effect. She had put the feeling from
+      her, but it kept returning. She felt that in nothing did he touch the
+      depths. Nothing could possess him wholly; nothing inherent could make him
+      self-effacing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet she wondered, too, if she was right, when she saw his fox-terrier
+      watching him, ever watching him with his big brown eyes as he buoyantly
+      worked, and saw him stoop to pat its head. Or was this, after all, mere
+      animalism, mere superficial vitality, love of health and being? She
+      shuddered, and shut her eyes, for it came home to her that to him she was
+      just such a being of health, vitality and comeliness, on a little higher
+      plane. She put the thought from her, but it had had its birth, and it
+      would not down. He had immense vitality, he was tireless, and abundant in
+      work and industry; he went from one thing to another with ease and swiftly
+      changing eagerness. Was it all mere force&mdash;mere man and mind? Was
+      there no soul behind it? There in the laboratory she had laid her hand on
+      the terrier, and prayed in her heart that she might understand him for her
+      own good, her own happiness, and his. Above all else she wanted to love
+      him truly, and to be loved truly, and duty was to her a daily sacrifice, a
+      constant memorial. She realised to the full that there lay before her a
+      long race unilluminated by the sacred lamp which, lighted at the altar,
+      should still be burning beside the grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, as she thought of him, she kept saying to herself: &ldquo;We should have
+      worked out his life together. Work together would have brought peace. He
+      shuts me out&mdash;he shuts me out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At last she drew the bow across the instrument, once, twice, and then she
+      began to play, forgetful of the world. She had a contralto voice, and she
+      sang with a depth of feeling and a delicate form worthy of a professional;
+      on the piano she was effective and charming, but into the &lsquo;cello she
+      poured her soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For quite an hour she played with scarce an interruption. At last, with a
+      sigh, she laid the instrument against her knee and gazed out of the
+      window. As she sat lost in her dream&mdash;a dream of the desert&mdash;a
+      servant entered with letters. One caught her eye. It was from Egypt&mdash;from
+      her cousin Lacey. Her heart throbbed violently, yet she opened the
+      official-looking envelope with steady fingers. She would not admit even to
+      her self that news from the desert could move her so. She began to read
+      slowly, but presently, with a little cry, she hastened through the pages.
+      It ran:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                       THE SOUDAN.
+
+   DEAR LADY COUSIN,
+
+   I&rsquo;m still not certain how I ought to style you, but I thought I&rsquo;d
+   compromise as per above. Anyway, it&rsquo;s a sure thing that I haven&rsquo;t
+   bothered you much with country-cousin letters. I figure, however,
+   that you&rsquo;ve put some money in Egypt, so to speak, and what happens
+   to this sandy-eyed foundling of the Nile you would like to know. So
+   I&rsquo;ve studied the only &ldquo;complete letter-writer&rdquo; I could find between
+   the tropic of Capricorn and Khartoum, and this is the contemptible
+   result, as the dagos in Mexico say. This is a hot place by reason
+   of the sun that shines above us, and likewise it is hot because of
+   the niggers that swarm around us. I figure, if we get out of this
+   portion of the African continent inside our skins, that we will have
+   put up a pretty good bluff, and pulled off a ticklish proposition.
+
+   It&rsquo;s a sort of early Christian business. You see, David the Saadat
+   is great on moral suasion&mdash;he&rsquo;s a master of it; and he&rsquo;s never
+   failed yet&mdash;not altogether; though there have been minutes by a
+   stop-watch when I&rsquo;ve thought it wouldn&rsquo;t stand the strain. Like the
+   Mississippi steamboat which was so weak that when the whistle blew
+   the engines stopped! When those frozen minutes have come to us,
+   I&rsquo;ve tried to remember the correct religious etiquette, but I&rsquo;ve not
+   had much practise since I stayed with Aunt Melissa, and lived on
+   skim-milk and early piety. When things were looking as bad as they
+   did for Dives, &ldquo;Now I lay me down to sleep,&rdquo; and &ldquo;For what we are
+   about to receive,&rdquo; was all that I could think of. But the Saadat,
+   he&rsquo;s a wonder from Wondertown. With a little stick, or maybe his
+   flute under his arm, he&rsquo;ll smile and string these heathen along,
+   when you&rsquo;d think they weren&rsquo;t waiting for anybody. A spear took off
+   his fez yesterday. He never blinked&mdash;he&rsquo;s a jim-dandy at keeping
+   cool; and when a hundred mounted heathens made a rush down on him
+   the other day, spears sticking out like quills on a porcupine&mdash;2.5
+   on the shell-road the chargers were going&mdash;did he stir? Say, he
+   watched &lsquo;em as if they were playing for his benefit. And sure
+   enough, he was right. They parted either side of him when they were
+   ten feet away, and there he was quite safe, a blessing in the storm,
+   a little rock island in the rapids&mdash;but I couldn&rsquo;t remember a proper
+   hymn of praise to say.
+
+   There&rsquo;s no getting away from the fact that he&rsquo;s got a will or
+   something, a sort of force different from most of us, or perhaps any
+   of us. These heathen feel it, and keep their hands off him. They
+   say he&rsquo;s mad, but they&rsquo;ve got great respect for mad people, for they
+   think that God has got their souls above with Him, and that what&rsquo;s
+   left behind on earth is sacred. He talks to&rsquo;em, too, like a father
+   in Israel; tells &lsquo;em they must stop buying and selling slaves, and
+   that if they don&rsquo;t he will have to punish them! And I sit holding
+   my sides, for we&rsquo;re only two white men and forty &ldquo;friendlies&rdquo;
+    altogether, and two revolvers among us; and I&rsquo;ve got the two! And
+   they listen to his blarneying, and say, &ldquo;Aiwa, Saadat! aiwa,
+   Saadat!&rdquo; as if he had an army of fifty thousand behind him.
+   Sometimes I&rsquo;ve sort of hinted that his canoe was carrying a lot of
+   sail; but my! he believes in it all as if there wasn&rsquo;t a spear or a
+   battle-axe or a rifle within a hundred miles of him. We&rsquo;ve been at
+   this for two months now, and a lot of ground we covered till we got
+   here. I&rsquo;ve ridden the gentle camel at the rate of sixty and seventy
+   miles a day&mdash;sort of sweeping through the land, making treaties,
+   giving presents, freeing slaves, appointing governors and sheikhs-
+   el-beled, doing it as if we owned the continent. He mesmerised &lsquo;em,
+   simply mesmerised &lsquo;em-till we got here. I don&rsquo;t know what happened
+   then. Now we&rsquo;re distinctly rating low, the laugh is on us somehow.
+   But he&mdash;mind it? He goes about talking to the sheikhs as though we
+   were all eating off the same corn-cob, and it seems to stupefy them;
+   they don&rsquo;t grasp it. He goes on arranging for a post here and a
+   station there, and it never occurs to him that it ain&rsquo;t really
+   actual. He doesn&rsquo;t tell me, and I don&rsquo;t ask him, for I came along
+   to wipe his stirrups, so to speak. I put my money on him, and I&rsquo;m
+   not going to worry him. He&rsquo;s so dead certain in what he does, and
+   what he is, that I don&rsquo;t lose any sleep guessing about him. It will
+   be funny if we do win out on this proposition&mdash;funnier than
+   anything.
+
+   Now, there&rsquo;s one curious thing about it all which ought to be
+   whispered, for I&rsquo;m only guessing, and I&rsquo;m not a good guesser; I
+   guessed too much in Mexico about three railways and two silvermines.
+   The first two days after we came here, everything was all right.
+   Then there came an Egyptian, Halim Bey, with a handful of niggers
+   from Cairo, and letters for Claridge Pasha.
+
+   From that minute there was trouble. I figure it out this way: Halim
+   was sent by Nahoum Pasha to bring letters that said one thing to the
+   Saadat, and, when quite convenient, to say other things to Mustafa,
+   the boss-sheikh of this settlement. Halim Bey has gone again, but
+   he has left his tale behind him. I&rsquo;d stake all I lost, and more
+   than I ever expect to get out of Mexico on that, and maybe I&rsquo;ll get
+   a hatful out of Mexico yet. I had some good mining propositions
+   down there. The Saadat believes in Nahoum, and has made Nahoum what
+   he is; and on the surface Nahoum pretends to help him; but he is
+   running underground all the time. I&rsquo;d like to help give him a villa
+   at Fazougli. When the Saadat was in England there was a bad time in
+   Egypt. I was in Cairo; I know. It was the same bad old game&mdash;the
+   corvee, the kourbash, conscription, a war manufactured to fill the
+   pockets of a few, while the poor starved and died. It didn&rsquo;t come
+   off, because the Saadat wasn&rsquo;t gone long enough, and he stopped it
+   when he came back. But Nahoumhe laid the blame on others, and the
+   Saadat took his word for it, and, instead of a war, there came this
+   expedition of his own.
+
+   Ten days later.&mdash;Things have happened. First, there&rsquo;s been awful
+   sickness among the natives, and the Saadat has had his chance. His
+   medicine-chest was loaded, he had a special camel for it&mdash;and he has
+   fired it off. Night and day he has worked, never resting, never
+   sleeping, curing most, burying a few. He looks like a ghost now,
+   but it&rsquo;s no use saying or doing anything. He says: &ldquo;Sink your own
+   will; let it be subject to a higher, and you need take no thought.&rdquo;
+    It&rsquo;s eating away his life and strength, but it has given us our
+   return tickets, I guess. They hang about him as if he was Moses in
+   the wilderness smiting the rock. It&rsquo;s his luck. Just when I get
+   scared to death, and run down and want a tonic, and it looks as if
+   there&rsquo;d be no need to put out next week&rsquo;s washing, then his luck
+   steps in, and we get another run. But it takes a heap out of a man,
+   getting scared. Whenever I look on a lot of green trees and cattle
+   and horses, and the sun, to say nothing of women and children, and
+   listen to music, or feel a horse eating up the ground under me, 2.10
+   in the sand, I hate to think of leaving it, and I try to prevent it.
+   Besides, I don&rsquo;t like the proposition of going, I don&rsquo;t know where.
+   That&rsquo;s why I get seared. But he says that it&rsquo;s no more than turning
+   down the light and turning it up again. They used to call me a
+   dreamer in Mexico, because I kept seeing things that no one else had
+   thought of, and laid out railways and tapped mines for the future;
+   but I was nothing to him. I&rsquo;m a high-and-dry hedge-clipper
+   alongside. I&rsquo;m betting on him all the time; but no one seems to be
+   working to make his dreams come true, except himself. I don&rsquo;t
+   count; I&rsquo;m no good, no real good. I&rsquo;m only fit to run the
+   commissariat, and see that he gets enough to eat, and has a safe
+   camel, and so on.
+
+   Why doesn&rsquo;t some one else help him? He&rsquo;s working for humanity.
+   Give him half a chance, and Haroun-al-Raschid won&rsquo;t be in it. Kaid
+   trusts him, depends on him, stands by him, but doesn&rsquo;t seem to know
+   how to help him when help would do most good. The Saadat does it
+   all himself; and if it wasn&rsquo;t that the poor devil of a fellah sees
+   what he&rsquo;s doing, and cottons to him, and the dervishes and Arabs
+   feel he&rsquo;s right, he might as well leave. But it&rsquo;s just there he
+   counts. There&rsquo;s something about him, something that&rsquo;s Quaker in
+   him, primitive, silent, and perceptive&mdash;if that&rsquo;s a real word&mdash;which
+   makes them feel that he&rsquo;s honest, and isn&rsquo;t after anything for
+   himself. Arabs don&rsquo;t talk much; they make each other understand
+   without many words. They think with all their might on one thing at
+   a time, and they think things into happening&mdash;and so does he. He&rsquo;s
+   a thousand years old, which is about as old-fashioned as I mean, and
+   as wise, and as plain to read as though you&rsquo;d write the letters of
+   words as big as a date-palm. That&rsquo;s where he makes the running with
+   them, and they can read their title clear to mansions in the skies!
+
+   You should hear him talk with Ebn Ezra Bey&mdash;perhaps you don&rsquo;t know
+   of Ezra? He was a friend of his Uncle Benn, and brought the news of
+   his massacre to England, and came back with the Saadat. Well, three
+   days ago Ebn Ezra came, and there came with him, too, Halim Bey, the
+   Egyptian, who had brought the letters to us from Cairo. Elm Ezra
+   found him down the river deserted by his niggers, and sick with this
+   new sort of fever, which the Saadat is knocking out of time. And
+   there he lies, the Saadat caring for him as though he was his
+   brother. But that&rsquo;s his way; though, now I come to think of it, the
+   Saadat doesn&rsquo;t suspect what I suspect, that Halim Bey brought word
+   from Nahoum to our sheikhs here to keep us here, or lose us, or do
+   away with us. Old Ebn Ezra doesn&rsquo;t say much himself, doesn&rsquo;t say
+   anything about that; but he&rsquo;s guessing the same as me. And the
+   Saadat looks as though he was ready for his grave, but keeps going,
+   going, going. He never seems to sleep. What keeps him alive I
+   don&rsquo;t know. Sometimes I feel clean knocked out myself with the
+   little I do, but he&rsquo;s a travelling hospital all by his lonesome.
+
+   Later.&mdash;I had to stop writing, for things have been going on&mdash;
+   several. I can see that Ebn Ezra has told the Saadat things that
+   make him want to get away to Cairo as soon as possible. That it&rsquo;s
+   Nahoum Pasha and others&mdash;oh, plenty of others, of course&mdash;I&rsquo;m
+   certain; but what the particular game is I don&rsquo;t know. Perhaps you
+   know over in England, for you&rsquo;re nearer Cairo than we are by a few
+   miles, and you&rsquo;ve got the telegraph. Perhaps there&rsquo;s a revolution,
+   perhaps there&rsquo;s been a massacre of Europeans, perhaps Turkey is
+   kicking up a dust, perhaps Europe is interfering&mdash;all of it, all at
+   once.
+
+   Later still.&mdash;I&rsquo;ve found out it&rsquo;s a little of all, and the Saadat is
+   ready to go. I guess he can go now pretty soon, for the worst of
+   the fever is over. But something has happened that&rsquo;s upset him&mdash;
+   knocked him stony for a minute. Halim Bey was killed last night&mdash;by
+   order of the sheikhs, I&rsquo;m told; but the sheikhs won&rsquo;t give it away.
+   When the Saadat went to them, his eyes blazing, his face pale as a
+   sheet, and as good as swore at them, and treated them as though he&rsquo;d
+   string them up the next minute, they only put their hands on their
+   heads, and said they were &ldquo;the fallen leaves for his foot to
+   scatter,&rdquo; the &ldquo;snow on the hill for his breath to melt&rdquo;; but they
+   wouldn&rsquo;t give him any satisfaction. So he came back and shut
+   himself up in his tent, and he sits there like a ghost all
+   shrivelled up for want of sleep, and his eyes like a lime-kiln
+   burning; for now he knows this at least, that Halim Bey had brought
+   some word from Kaid&rsquo;s Palace that set these Arabs against him, and
+   nearly stopped my correspondence. You see, there&rsquo;s a widow in
+   Cairo&mdash;she&rsquo;s a sister of the American consul, and I&rsquo;ve promised to
+   take her with a party camping in the Fayoum&mdash;cute as she can be, and
+   plays the guitar. But it&rsquo;s all right now, except that the Saadat is
+   running too close and fine. If he has any real friends in England
+   among the Government people, or among those who can make the
+   Government people sit up, and think what&rsquo;s coming to Egypt and to
+   him, they&rsquo;ll help him now when he needs it. He&rsquo;ll need help real
+   bad when he gets back to Cairo&mdash;if we get that far. It isn&rsquo;t yet a
+   sure thing, for we&rsquo;ve got to fight in the next day or two&mdash;I forgot
+   to tell you that sooner. There&rsquo;s a bull-Arab on the rampage with
+   five thousand men, and he&rsquo;s got a claim out on our sheikh, Mustafa,
+   for ivory he has here, and there&rsquo;s going to be a scrimmage. We&rsquo;ve
+   got to make for a better position to-morrow, and meet Abdullah, the
+   bull-Arab, further down the river. That&rsquo;s one reason why Mustafa
+   and all our friends here are so sweet on us now. They look on the
+   Saadat as a kind of mascot, and they think that he can wipe out the
+   enemy with his flute, which they believe is a witch-stick to work
+   wonders.
+
+   He&rsquo;s just sent for me to come, and I must stop soon. Say, he hasn&rsquo;t
+   had sleep for a fortnight. It&rsquo;s too much; he can&rsquo;t stand it. I
+   tried it, and couldn&rsquo;t. It wore me down. He&rsquo;s killing himself for
+   others. I can&rsquo;t manage him; but I guess you could. I apologise,
+   dear Lady Cousin. I&rsquo;m only a hayseed, and a failure, but I guess
+   you&rsquo;ll understand that I haven&rsquo;t thought only of myself as I wrote
+   this letter. The higher you go in life the more you&rsquo;ll understand;
+   that&rsquo;s your nature. I&rsquo;ll get this letter off by a nigger to-morrow,
+   with those the Saadat is sending through to Cairo by some
+   friendlies. It&rsquo;s only a chance; but everything&rsquo;s chance here now.
+   Anyhow, it&rsquo;s safer than leaving it till the scrimmage. If you get
+   this, won&rsquo;t you try and make the British Government stand by the
+   Saadat? Your husband, the lord, could pull it off, if he tried; and
+   if you ask him, I guess he&rsquo;d try. I must be off now. David Pasha
+   will be waiting. Well, give my love to the girls!
+
+        Your affectionate cousin,
+
+                    TOM LACEY.
+
+   P. S.&mdash;I&rsquo;ve got a first-class camel for our scrimmage day after
+   to-morrow. Mustafa sent it to me this morning. I had a fight on
+   mules once, down at Oaxaca, but that was child&rsquo;s play. This will be
+   &ldquo;slaughter in the pan,&rdquo; if the Saadat doesn&rsquo;t stop it somehow.
+   Perhaps he will. If I wasn&rsquo;t so scared I&rsquo;d wish he couldn&rsquo;t stop
+   it, for it will be a way-up Barbarian scrap, the tongs and the
+   kettle, a bully panjandrum. It gets mighty dull in the desert when
+   you&rsquo;re not moving. But &ldquo;it makes to think,&rdquo; as the French say.
+   Since I came out here I&rsquo;ve had several real centre thoughts, sort of
+   main principles-key-thoughts, that&rsquo;s it. What I want now is a sort
+   of safety-ring to string &lsquo;em on and keep &lsquo;em safe; for I haven&rsquo;t a
+   good memory, and I get mighty rattled sometimes. Thoughts like
+   these are like the secret of a combination lock; they let you into
+   the place where the gold and securities and title-deeds of life are.
+   Trouble is, I haven&rsquo;t got a safety-ring, and I&rsquo;m certain to lose
+   them. I haven&rsquo;t got what you&rsquo;d call an intellectual memory. Things
+   come in flashes to me out of experiences, and pull me up short, and
+   I say, &ldquo;Yes, that&rsquo;s it&mdash;that&rsquo;s it; I understand.&rdquo; I see why it&rsquo;s
+   so, and what it means, and where it leads, and how far it spreads.
+   It&rsquo;s five thousand years old. Adam thought it after Cain killed
+   Abel, or Abel thought it just before he died, or Eve learned it from
+   Lilith, or it struck Abraham when he went to sacrifice Isaac.
+   Sometimes things hit me deep like that here in the desert. Then I
+   feel I can see just over on the horizon the tents of Moab in the
+   wilderness; that yesterday and to-day are the same; that I&rsquo;ve
+   crossed the prairies of the everlasting years, and am playing about
+   with Ishmael in the wild hills, or fighting with Ahab. Then the
+   world and time seem pretty small potatoes.
+
+   You see how it is. I never was trained to think, and I get stunned
+   by thoughts that strike me as being dug right out of the centre.
+   Sometimes I&rsquo;d like to write them down; but I can&rsquo;t write; I can only
+   talk as I&rsquo;m talking to you. If you weren&rsquo;t so high up, and so much
+   cleverer than I am, and such a thinker, I&rsquo;d like you to be my
+   safety-ring, if you would. I could tell the key-thoughts to you
+   when they came to me, before I forgot them with all their bearings;
+   and by-and-by they&rsquo;d do me a lot of good when I got away from this
+   influence, and back into the machinery of the Western world again.
+   If you could come out here, if you could feel what I feel here&mdash;and
+   you would feel a thousand times as much&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know what you
+   wouldn&rsquo;t do.
+
+   It&rsquo;s pretty wonderful. The nights with the stars so white and
+   glittering, and so near that you&rsquo;d think you could reach up and hand
+   them down; the dark, deep, blue beyond; such a width of life all
+   round you, a sort of never-ending space, that everything you ever
+   saw or did seems little, and God so great in a kind of hovering
+   sense like a pair of wings; and all the secrets of time coming out
+   of it all, and sort of touching your face like a velvet wind. I
+   expect you&rsquo;ll think me sentimental, a first-class squash out of the
+   pumpkin-garden; but it&rsquo;s in the desert, and it gets into you and
+   saturates you, till you feel that this is a kind of middle space
+   between the world of cities, and factories, and railways, and
+   tenement-houses, and the quiet world to come&mdash;a place where they
+   think out things for the benefit of future generations, and convey
+   them through incarnations, or through the desert. Say, your
+   ladyship, I&rsquo;m a chatterer, I&rsquo;m a two-cent philosopher, I&rsquo;m a baby;
+   but you are too much like your grandmother, who was the daughter of
+   a Quaker like David Pasha, to laugh at me.
+
+   I&rsquo;ve got a suit of fine chain-armour which I bought of an Arab down
+   by Darfur. I&rsquo;m wondering if it would be too cowardly to wear it in
+   the scrap that&rsquo;s coming. I don&rsquo;t know, though, but what I&rsquo;ll wear
+   it, I get so scared. But it will be a frightful hot thing under my
+   clothes, and it&rsquo;s hot enough without that, so I&rsquo;m not sure. It
+   depends how much my teeth chatter when I see &ldquo;the dawn of battle.&rdquo;
+ 
+   I&rsquo;ve got one more thing before I stop. I&rsquo;m going to send you a
+   piece of poetry which the Saadat wrote, and tore in two, and threw
+   away. He was working off his imagination, I guess, as you have to
+   do out here. I collected it and copied it, and put in the
+   punctuation&mdash;he didn&rsquo;t bother about that. Perhaps he can&rsquo;t
+   punctuate. I don&rsquo;t understand quite what the poetry means, but
+   maybe you will. Anyway, you&rsquo;ll see that it&rsquo;s a real desert piece.
+   Here it is:
+
+             &ldquo;THE DESERT ROAD
+
+       &ldquo;In the sands I lived in a hut of palm,
+        There was never a garden to see;
+        There was never a path through the desert calm,
+        Nor a way through its storms for me.
+
+       &ldquo;Tenant was I of a lone domain;
+        The far pale caravans wound
+        To the rim of the sky, and vanished again;
+        My call in the waste was drowned.
+
+       &ldquo;The vultures came and hovered and fled;
+        And once there stole to my door
+        A white gazelle, but its eyes were dread
+        With the hurt of the wounds it bore.
+
+       &ldquo;It passed in the dusk with a foot of fear,
+        And the white cold mists rolled in;
+
+        &ldquo;And my heart was the heart of a stricken deer,
+        Of a soul in the snare of sin.
+
+       &ldquo;My days they withered like rootless things,
+        And the sands rolled on, rolled wide;
+        Like a pelican I, with broken wings,
+        Like a drifting barque on the tide.
+
+       &ldquo;But at last, in the light of a rose-red day,
+        In the windless glow of the morn,
+        From over the hills and from far away,
+        You came&mdash;ah, the joy of the morn!
+
+       &ldquo;And wherever your footsteps fell, there crept
+        A path&mdash;it was fair and wide:
+        A desert road which no sands have swept,
+        Where never a hope has died.
+
+       &ldquo;I followed you forth, and your beauty held
+        My heart like an ancient song;
+        By that desert road to the blossoming plains
+        I came-and the way was long!
+
+       &ldquo;So I set my course by the light of your eyes;
+        I care not what fate may send;
+        On the road I tread shine the love-starred skies&mdash;
+        The road with never an end.&rdquo;
+ 
+   Not many men can do things like that, and the other things, too,
+   that he does. Perhaps he will win through, by himself, but is it
+   fair to have him run the risk? If he ever did you a good turn, as
+   you once said to me he did, won&rsquo;t you help him now? You are on the
+   inside of political things, and if you make up your mind to help,
+   nothing will stop you&mdash;that was your grandmother&rsquo;s way. He ought to
+   get his backing pretty soon, or it won&rsquo;t be any good.... I
+   hear him at his flute. I expect he&rsquo;s tired waiting for me. Well,
+   give my love to the girls!
+                         T. L.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      As Hylda read, she passed through phases of feeling begotten of new
+      understanding which shook her composure. She had seen David and all that
+      David was doing; Egypt, and all that was threatening the land through the
+      eyes of another who told the whole truth&mdash;except about his own
+      cowardice, which was untrue. She felt the issues at stake. While the
+      mention of David&rsquo;s personal danger left her sick for a moment, she saw the
+      wider peril also to the work he had set out to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What was the thing without the man? It could not exist&mdash;it had no
+      meaning. Where was he now? What had been the end of the battle? He had
+      saved others, had he saved himself? The most charmed life must be pierced
+      by the shaft of doom sooner or later; but he was little more than a youth
+      yet, he had only just begun!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the Saadat looks as though he was ready for his grave&mdash;but keeps
+      going, going, going!&rdquo; The words kept ringing in her ears. Again: &ldquo;And he
+      sits there like a ghost all shrivelled up for want of sleep, and his eyes
+      like a lime-kiln burning.... He hasn&rsquo;t had sleep for a fortnight.... He&rsquo;s
+      killing himself for others.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her own eyes were shining with a dry, hot light, her lips were quivering,
+      but her hands upon the letter were steady and firm. What could she do?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She went to a table, picked up the papers, and scanned them hurriedly. Not
+      a word about Egypt. She thought for a moment, then left the drawing-room.
+      Passing up a flight of stairs to her husband&rsquo;s study, she knocked and
+      entered. It was empty; but Eglington was in the house, for a red
+      despatch-box lay open on his table. Instinctively she glanced at the
+      papers exposed in the box, and at the letters beside it. The document on
+      the top of the pile in the box related to Cyprus&mdash;the name caught her
+      eye. Another document was half-exposed beneath it. Her hand went to her
+      heart. She saw the words, &ldquo;Soudan&rdquo; and &ldquo;Claridge Pasha.&rdquo; She reached for
+      it, then drew back her hand, and her eyes closed as though to shut it out
+      from her sight. Why should she not see it? They were her husband&rsquo;s papers,
+      husband and wife were one. Husband and wife one! She shrank back. Were
+      they one? An overmastering desire was on her. It seemed terrible to wait,
+      when here before her was news of David, of life or death. Suddenly she put
+      out her hand and drew the Cyprus paper over the Egyptian document, so that
+      she might not see it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As she did so the door opened on her, and Eglington entered. He had seen
+      the swift motion of her hand, and again a look peculiar to him crossed his
+      face, enigmatical, cynical, not pleasant to see.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned on him slowly, and he was aware of her inward distress to some
+      degree, though her face was ruled to quietness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He nodded at her and smiled. She shrank, for she saw in his nod and his
+      smile that suggestion of knowing all about everything and everybody, and
+      thinking the worst, which had chilled her so often. Even in their short
+      married life it had chilled those confidences which she would gladly have
+      poured out before him, if he had been a man with an open soul. Had there
+      been joined to his intellect and temperament a heart capable of true
+      convictions and abiding love, what a man he might have been! But his
+      intellect was superficial, and his temperament was dangerous, because
+      there were not the experiences of a soul of truth to give the deeper hold
+      upon the meaning of life. She shrank now, as, with a little laugh and
+      glancing suggestively at the despatch-box, he said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what do you think of it all?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She felt as though something was crushing her heart within its grasp, and
+      her eyes took on a new look of pain. &ldquo;I did not read the papers,&rdquo; she
+      answered quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw them in your fingers. What creatures women are&mdash;so
+      dishonourable in little things,&rdquo; he said ironically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She laid a hand on his. &ldquo;I did not read them, Harry,&rdquo; she urged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled and patted her arm. &ldquo;There, there, it doesn&rsquo;t matter,&rdquo; he
+      laughed. He watched her narrowly. &ldquo;It matters greatly,&rdquo; she answered
+      gently, though his words had cut her like a knife. &ldquo;I did not read the
+      papers. I only saw the word &lsquo;Cyprus&rsquo; on the first paper, and I pushed it
+      over the paper which had the word &lsquo;Egypt&rsquo; on it &lsquo;Egypt&rsquo; and &lsquo;Claridge,&rsquo; 
+      lest I should read it. I did not wish to read it. I am not dishonourable,
+      Harry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had hurt her more than he had ever done; and only the great matter at
+      stake had prevented the lesser part of her from bursting forth in
+      indignation, from saying things which she did not wish to say. She had
+      given him devotion&mdash;such devotion, such self-effacement in his career
+      as few women ever gave. Her wealth&mdash;that was so little in comparison
+      with the richness of her nature&mdash;had been his; and yet his vast
+      egotism took it all as his right, and she was repaid in a kind of tyranny,
+      the more galling and cruel because it was wielded by a man of intellect
+      and culture, and ancient name and tradition. If he had been warned that he
+      was losing his wife&rsquo;s love, he would have scouted the idea, his
+      self-assurance was so strong, his vanity complete. If, however, he had
+      been told that another man was thinking of his wife, he would have
+      believed it, as he believed now that David had done; and he cherished that
+      belief, and let resentment grow. He was the Earl of Eglington, and no
+      matter what reputation David had reached, he was still a member of a
+      Quaker trader&rsquo;s family, with an origin slightly touched with scandal.
+      Another resentment, however, was steadily rising in him. It galled him
+      that Hylda should take so powerful an interest in David&rsquo;s work in Egypt;
+      and he knew now that she had always done so. It did not ease his vexed
+      spirit to know that thousands of others of his fellow-countrymen did the
+      same. They might do so, but she was his wife, and his own work was the sun
+      round which her mind and interest should revolve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should you be so keen about Egypt and Claridge Pasha?&rdquo; he said to her
+      now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her face hardened a little. Had he the right to torture her so? To suspect
+      her? She could read it in his eyes. Her conscience was clear. She was no
+      man&rsquo;s slave. She would not be any man&rsquo;s slave. She was master of her own
+      soul. What right had he to catechise her&mdash;as though she were a
+      servant or a criminal? But she checked the answer on her tongue, because
+      she was hurt deeper than words could express, and she said, composedly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have here a letter from my cousin Lacey, who is with Claridge Pasha. It
+      has news of him, of events in the Soudan. He had fever, there was to be a
+      fight, and I wished to know if you had any later news. I thought that
+      document there might contain news, but I did not read it. I realised that
+      it was not yours, that it belonged to the Government, that I had no right.
+      Perhaps you will tell me if you have news. Will you?&rdquo; She leaned against
+      the table wearily, holding her letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me read your letter first,&rdquo; he said wilfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A mist seemed to come before her eyes; but she was schooled to
+      self-command, and he did not see he had given her a shock. Her first
+      impulse was to hand the letter over at once; then there came the
+      remembrance of all it contained, all it suggested. Would he see all it
+      suggested? She recalled the words Lacey had used regarding a service which
+      David had once done her. If Eglington asked, what could she say? It was
+      not her secret alone, it was another&rsquo;s. Would she have the right, even if
+      she wished it, to tell the truth, or part of the truth? Or, would she be
+      entitled to relate some immaterial incident which would evade the real
+      truth? What good could it do to tell the dark story? What could it serve?
+      Eglington would horribly misunderstand it&mdash;that she knew. There were
+      the verses also. They were more suggestive than anything else, though,
+      indeed, they might have referred to another woman, or were merely
+      impersonal; but she felt that was not so. And there was Eglington&rsquo;s innate
+      unbelief in man and woman! Her first impulse held, however. She would act
+      honestly. She would face whatever there was to face. She would not shelter
+      herself; she would not give him the right in the future to say she had not
+      dealt fairly by him, had evaded any inquest of her life or mind which he
+      might make.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She gave him the letter, her heart standing still, but she was filled with
+      a regnant determination to defend herself, to defend David against any
+      attack, or from any consequences.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All her life and hopes seemed hanging in the balance, as he began to read
+      the letter. With fear she saw his face cloud over, heard an impatient
+      exclamation pass his lips. She closed her eyes to gather strength for the
+      conflict which was upon her. He spoke, and she vaguely wondered what
+      passage in the letter had fixed his attention. His voice seemed very far
+      away. She scarcely understood. But presently it pierced the clouds of
+      numbness between them, and she realised what he was saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Vulgar fellow&mdash;I can&rsquo;t congratulate you upon your American cousin.
+      So, the Saadat is great on moral suasion, master of it&mdash;never failed
+      yet&mdash;not altogether&mdash;and Aunt Melissa and skim-milk and early
+      piety!&rsquo; And &lsquo;the Saadat is a wonder from Wondertown&rsquo;&mdash;like a
+      side-show to a circus, a marvel on the flying trapeze! Perhaps you can
+      give me the sense of the letter, if there is any sense in it. I can&rsquo;t read
+      his writing, and it seems interminable. Would you mind?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A sigh of relief broke from her. A weight slipped away from her heart and
+      brain. It was as though one in armour awaited the impact of a heavy,
+      cruel, overwhelming foe, who suddenly disappeared, and the armour fell
+      from the shoulders, and breath came easily once again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you mind?&rdquo; he repeated drily, as he folded up the letter slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He handed it back to her, the note of sarcasm in his voice pricking her
+      like the point of a dagger. She felt angered with herself that he could
+      rouse her temper by such small mean irony. She had a sense of bitter
+      disappointment in him&mdash;or was it a deep hurt?&mdash;that she had not
+      made him love her, truly love her. If he had only meant the love that he
+      swore before they had married! Why had he deceived her? It had all been in
+      his hands, her fate and future; but almost before the bridal flowers had
+      faded, she had come to know two bitter things: that he had married with a
+      sordid mind; that he was incapable of the love which transmutes the
+      half-comprehending, half-developed affection of the maid into the
+      absorbing, understanding, beautiful passion of the woman. She had married
+      not knowing what love and passion were; uncomprehending, and innocent
+      because uncomprehending; with a fine affection, but capable of loving
+      wholly. One thing had purified her motives and her life&mdash;the desire
+      to share with Eglington his public duty and private hopes, to be his
+      confidante, his friend, his coadjutor, proud of him, eager for him,
+      determined to help him. But he had blocked the path to all inner
+      companionship. He did no more than let her share the obvious and outer
+      responsibilities of his life. From the vital things, if there were vital
+      things, she was shut out. What would she not give for one day of simple
+      tenderness and quiet affection, a true day with a true love!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was now perfectly composed. She told him the substance of the letter,
+      of David&rsquo;s plight, of the fever, of the intended fight, of Nahoum Pasha,
+      of the peril to David&rsquo;s work. He continued to interrogate her, while she
+      could have shrieked out the question, &ldquo;What is in yonder document? What do
+      you know? Have you news of his safety?&rdquo; Would he never stop his
+      questioning? It was trying her strength and patience beyond endurance. At
+      last he drew the document slowly from the despatch-box, and glanced up and
+      down it musingly. &ldquo;I fancy he won the battle,&rdquo; he said slowly, &ldquo;for they
+      have news of him much farther down the river. But from this letter I take
+      it he is not yet within the zone of safety&mdash;so Nahoum Pasha says.&rdquo; He
+      flicked the document upwards with his thumb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is our Government doing to help him?&rdquo; she asked, checking her
+      eagerness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His heart had gradually hardened towards Egypt. Power had emphasised a
+      certain smallness in him. Personal considerations informed the policy of
+      the moment. He was not going to be dragged at the chariot-wheels of the
+      Quaker. To be passive, when David in Egypt had asked for active interest;
+      to delay, when urgency was important to Claridge Pasha; to speak coldly on
+      Egyptian affairs to his chief, the weak Foreign Secretary, this was the
+      policy he had begun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So he answered now: &ldquo;It is the duty of the Egyptian Government to help him&mdash;of
+      Prince Kaid, of Nahoum Pasha, who is acting for him in his absence, who
+      governs finance, and therefore the army. Egypt does not belong to
+      England.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nahoum Pasha is his enemy. He will do nothing to help, unless you force
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you say that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I know Nahoum Pasha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When did you know Nahoum?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In Egypt, years ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your acquaintance is more varied than I thought,&rdquo; he said sarcastically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, do not speak to me like that!&rdquo; she returned, in a low, indignant
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not patronise me; do not be sarcastic.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not be so sensitive,&rdquo; he answered unemotionally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You surely do not mean that you&mdash;that the Government will not help
+      him? He is doing the work of Europe, of civilisation, of Christianity
+      there. He is sacrificing himself for the world. Do you not see it? Oh, but
+      you do! You would realise his work if you knew Egypt as I have seen it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Expediency must govern the policy of nations,&rdquo; he answered critically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, if through your expediency he is killed like a rat in a trap, and
+      his work goes to pieces&mdash;all undone! Is there no right in the
+      matter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In affairs of state other circumstances than absolute &lsquo;right&rsquo; enter. Here
+      and there the individual is sacrificed who otherwise would be saved&mdash;if
+      it were expedient.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Eglington! He is of your own county, of your own village, is your
+      neighbour, a man of whom all England should be proud. You can intervene if
+      you will be just, and say you will. I know that intervention has been
+      discussed in the Cabinet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You say he is of my county. So are many people, and yet they are not
+      county people. A neighbour he was, but more in a Scriptural than social
+      sense.&rdquo; He was hurting her purposely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She made a protesting motion of her hand. &ldquo;No, no, no, do not be so small.
+      This is a great matter. Do a great thing now; help it to be done for your
+      own honour, for England&rsquo;s honour&mdash;for a good man&rsquo;s sake, for your
+      country&rsquo;s sake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There came a knock at the door. An instant afterwards a secretary entered.
+      &ldquo;A message from the Prime Minister, sir.&rdquo; He handed over a paper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you excuse me?&rdquo; he asked Hylda suavely, in his eyes the enigmatical
+      look that had chilled her so often before. She felt that her appeal had
+      been useless. She prepared to leave the room. He took her hand, kissed it
+      gallantly, and showed her out. It was his way&mdash;too civil to be real.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blindly she made her way to her room. Inside, she suddenly swayed and sank
+      fainting to the ground, as Kate Heaver ran forward to her. Kate saw the
+      letter in the clinched hand. Loosening it, she read two or three sentences
+      with a gasp. They contained Tom Lacey&rsquo;s appeal for David. She lifted
+      Hylda&rsquo;s head to her shoulder with endearing words, and chafed the cold
+      hands, murmuring to herself the while.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIV. THE QUESTIONER
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      &ldquo;What has thee come to say?&rdquo;
+     </h3>
+    <p>
+      Sitting in his high-backed chair, Luke Claridge seemed a part of its
+      dignified severity. In the sparsely furnished room with its uncarpeted
+      floor, its plain teak table, its high wainscoting and undecorated walls,
+      the old man had the look of one who belonged to some ancient consistory, a
+      judge whose piety would march with an austerity that would save a human
+      soul by destroying the body, if need be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A crisis had come, vaguely foreseen, sombrely eluded. A questioner was
+      before him who, poor, unheeded, an ancient victim of vice, could yet wield
+      a weapon whose sweep of wounds would be wide. Stern and masterful as he
+      looked in his arid isolation, beneath all was a shaking anxiety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He knew well what the old chair-maker had come to say, but, in the
+      prologue of the struggle before him, he was unwittingly manoeuvring for
+      position.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Speak,&rdquo; he added presently, as Soolsby fumbled in his great loose
+      pockets, and drew forth a paper. &ldquo;What has thee to say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Without a word, Soolsby handed over the paper, but the other would not
+      take it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; he asked, his lips growing pale. &ldquo;Read&mdash;if thee can
+      read.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The gibe in the last words made the colour leap into Soolsby&rsquo;s face, and a
+      fighting look came. He too had staved off this inevitable hour, had
+      dreaded it, but now his courage shot up high.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doost think I have forgotten how to read since the day I put my hand to a
+      writing you&rsquo;ve hid so long from them it most concerns? Ay, I can read, and
+      I can write, and I will prove that I can speak too before I&rsquo;ve done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Read&mdash;read,&rdquo; rejoined the old man hoarsely, his hands tightly
+      gripping the chair-arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fever caught him at Shendy&mdash;that is the place&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is not dead&mdash;David is not dead?&rdquo; came the sharp, pained
+      interruption. The old man&rsquo;s head strained forward, his eyes were misty and
+      dazed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soolsby&rsquo;s face showed no pity for the other&rsquo;s anxiety; it had a kind of
+      triumph in it. &ldquo;Nay, he is living,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;He got well of the
+      fever, and came to Cairo, but he&rsquo;s off again into the desert. It&rsquo;s the
+      third time. You can&rsquo;t be tempting Providence for ever. This paper here
+      says it&rsquo;s too big a job for one man&mdash;like throwing a good life away.
+      Here in England is his place, it says. And so say I; and so I have come to
+      say, and to hear you say so, too. What is he there? One man against a
+      million. What put it in his head that he thinks he can do it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice became lower; he fixed his eyes meaningly on the other. &ldquo;When a
+      man&rsquo;s life got a twist at the start, no wonder it flies off madlike to do
+      the thing that isn&rsquo;t to be done, and leave undone the thing that&rsquo;s here
+      for it to do. Doost think a straight line could come from the crooked line
+      you drew for him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is safe&mdash;he is well and strong again?&rdquo; asked the old man
+      painfully. Suddenly he reached out a hand for the paper. &ldquo;Let me read,&rdquo; he
+      said, in a voice scarce above a whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He essayed to take the paper calmly, but it trembled in his hands. He
+      spread it out and fumbled for his glasses, but could not find them, and he
+      gazed helplessly at the page before him. Soolsby took the paper from him
+      and read slowly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;... Claridge Pasha has done good work in Egypt, but he is a generation
+      too soon, it may be two or three too soon. We can but regard this fresh
+      enterprise as a temptation to Fate to take from our race one of the most
+      promising spirits and vital personalities which this generation has
+      produced. It is a forlorn hope. Most Englishmen familiar with Claridge
+      Pasha&rsquo;s life and aims will ask&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An exclamation broke from the old man. In the pause which followed he
+      said: &ldquo;It was none of my doing. He went to Egypt against my will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, so many a man&rsquo;s said that&rsquo;s not wanted to look his own acts straight
+      in the face. If Our Man had been started different, if he&rsquo;d started in the
+      path where God A&rsquo;mighty dropped him, and not in the path Luke Claridge
+      chose, would he have been in Egypt to-day wearing out his life? He&rsquo;s not
+      making carpets there, he&rsquo;s only beating them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The homely illustration drawn from the business in which he had been
+      interested so many years went home to Claridge&rsquo;s mind. He shrank back, and
+      sat rigid, his brows drawing over the eyes, till they seemed sunk in
+      caverns of the head. Suddenly Soolsby&rsquo;s voice rose angrily. Luke Claridge
+      seemed so remorseless and unyielding, so set in his vanity and self-will!
+      Soolsby misread the rigid look in the face, the pale sternness. He did not
+      know that there had suddenly come upon Luke Claridge the full
+      consciousness of an agonising truth&mdash;that all he had done where David
+      was concerned had been a mistake. The hard look, the sternness, were the
+      signals of a soul challenging itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, you&rsquo;ve had your own will,&rdquo; cried Soolsby mercilessly. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve said to
+      God A&rsquo;mighty that He wasn&rsquo;t able to work out to a good end what He&rsquo;d let
+      happen; and so you&rsquo;d do His work for Him. You kept the lad hid away from
+      the people that belonged to him, you kept him out of his own, and let
+      others take his birthright. You put a shame upon him, hiding who his
+      father and his father&rsquo;s people were, and you put a shame upon her that
+      lies in the graveyard&mdash;as sweet a lass, as good, as ever lived on
+      earth. Ay, a shame and a scandal! For your eyes were shut always to the
+      sidelong looks, your ears never heard the things people said&mdash;&lsquo;A
+      good-for-nothing ship-captain, a scamp and a ne&rsquo;er-do-weel, one that had a
+      lass at every port, and, maybe, wives too; one that none knew or ever had
+      seen&mdash;a pirate maybe, or a slave-dealer, or a jail-bird, for all they
+      knew! Married&mdash;oh yes, married right enough, but nothing else&mdash;not
+      even a home. Just a ring on the finger, and then, beyond and away!&rsquo; Around
+      her life that brought into the world our lad yonder you let a cloud draw
+      down; and you let it draw round his, too, for he didn&rsquo;t even bear his
+      father&rsquo;s name&mdash;much less knew who his father was&mdash;or live in his
+      father&rsquo;s home, or come by his own in the end. You gave the lad shame and
+      scandal. Do you think, he didn&rsquo;t feel it, was it much or little? He wasn&rsquo;t
+      walking in the sun, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mercy! Mercy!&rdquo; broke in the old man, his hand before his eyes. He was
+      thinking of Mercy, his daughter, of the words she had said to him when she
+      died, &ldquo;Set him in the sun, father, where God can find him,&rdquo; and her name
+      now broke from his lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soolsby misunderstood. &ldquo;Ay, there&rsquo;ll be mercy when right&rsquo;s been done Our
+      Man, and not till then. I&rsquo;ve held my tongue for half a lifetime, but I&rsquo;ll
+      speak now and bring him back. Ay, he shall come back and take the place
+      that is his, and all that belongs to him. That lordship yonder&mdash;let
+      him go out into the world and make his place as the Egyptian did. He&rsquo;s had
+      his chance to help Our Man, and he has only hurt, not helped him. We&rsquo;ve
+      had enough of his second-best lordship and his ways.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man&rsquo;s face was painful in its stricken stillness now. He had
+      regained control of himself, his brain had recovered greatly from its
+      first suffusion of excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How does thee know my lord yonder has hurt and not helped him?&rdquo; he asked
+      in an even voice, his lips tightening, however. &ldquo;How does thee know it
+      surely?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From Kate Heaver, my lady&rsquo;s maid. My lady&rsquo;s illness&mdash;what was it?
+      Because she would help Our Man, and, out of his hatred, yonder second son
+      said that to her which no woman can bear that&rsquo;s a true woman; and then,
+      what with a chill and fever, she&rsquo;s been yonder ailing these weeks past.
+      She did what she could for him, and her husband did what he could against
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man settled back in his chair again. &ldquo;Thee has kept silent all
+      these years? Thee has never told any that lives?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I gave my word to her that died&mdash;to our Egyptian&rsquo;s mother&mdash;that
+      I would never speak unless you gave me leave to speak, or if you should
+      die before me. It was but a day before the lad was born. So have I kept my
+      word. But now you shall speak. Ay, then, but you shall speak, or I&rsquo;ll
+      break my word to her, to do right by her son. She herself would speak if
+      she was here, and I&rsquo;ll answer her, if ever I see her after Purgatory, for
+      speaking now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man drew himself up in his chair as though in pain, and said very
+      slowly, almost thickly: &ldquo;I shall answer also for all I did. The spirit
+      moved me. He is of my blood&mdash;his mother was dead&mdash;in his veins
+      is the blood that runs in mine. His father&mdash;aristocrat, spendthrift,
+      adventurer, renegade, who married her in secret, and left her, bidding her
+      return to me, until he came again, and she to bear him a child&mdash;was
+      he fit to bring up the boy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He breathed heavily, his face became wan and haggard, as he continued:
+      &ldquo;Restless on land or sea, for ever seeking some new thing, and when he
+      found it, and saw what was therein, he turned away forgetful. God put it
+      into my heart to abjure him and the life around him. The Voice made me
+      rescue the child from a life empty and bare and heartless and proud. When
+      he returned, and my child was in her grave, he came to me in secret; he
+      claimed the child of that honest lass whom he had married under a false
+      name. I held my hand lest I should kill him, man of peace as I am. Even
+      his father&mdash;Quaker though he once became&mdash;did we not know ere
+      the end that he had no part or lot with us, that he but experimented with
+      his soul, as with all else? Experiment&mdash;experiment&mdash;experiment,
+      until at last an Eglington went exploring in my child&rsquo;s heart, and sent
+      her to her grave&mdash;the God of Israel be her rest and refuge! What
+      should such high-placed folk do stooping out of their sphere to us who
+      walk in plain paths? What have we in common with them? My soul would have
+      none of them&mdash;masks of men, the slaves of riches and titles, and
+      tyrants over the poor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice grew hoarse and high, and his head bent forward. He spoke as
+      though forgetful of Soolsby&rsquo;s presence: &ldquo;As the East is from the West, so
+      were we separate from these lovers of this world, the self-indulgent, the
+      hard-hearted, the proud. I chose for the child that he should stay with me
+      and not go to him, to remain among his own people and his own class. He
+      was a sinister, an evil man. Was the child to be trusted with him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The child was his own child,&rdquo; broke in Soolsby. &ldquo;Your daughter was his
+      lady&mdash;the Countess of Eglington! Not all the Quakers in heaven or
+      earth could alter that. His first-born son is Earl of Eglington, and has
+      been so these years past; and you, nor his second-best lordship there, nor
+      all the courts in England can alter that.... Ay, I&rsquo;ve kept my peace, but I
+      will speak out now. I was with the Earl&mdash;James Fetherdon he called
+      himself&mdash;when he married her that&rsquo;s gone to heaven, if any ever went
+      to heaven; and I can prove all. There&rsquo;s proof aplenty, and &lsquo;tis a pity,
+      ay, God&rsquo;s pity! that &lsquo;twas not used long ago. Well I knew, as the years
+      passed, that the Earl&rsquo;s heart was with David, but he had not the courage
+      to face it all, so worn away was the man in him. Ah, if the lad had always
+      been with him&mdash;who can tell?&mdash;he might have been different!
+      Whether so or not, it was the lad&rsquo;s right to take his place his mother
+      gave him, let be whatever his father was. &lsquo;Twas a cruel thing done to him.
+      His own was his own, to run his race as God A&rsquo;mighty had laid the hurdles,
+      not as Luke Claridge willed. I&rsquo;m sick of seeing yonder fellow in Our Man&rsquo;s
+      place, he that will not give him help, when he may; he that would see him
+      die like a dog in the desert, brother or no brother&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He does not know&mdash;Lord Eglington does not know the truth?&rdquo;
+       interposed the old man in a heavy whisper. &ldquo;He does not know, but, if he
+      knew, would it matter to him! So much the more would he see Our Man die
+      yonder in the sands. I know the breed. I know him yonder, the skim-milk
+      lord. There is no blood of justice, no milk of kindness in him. Do you
+      think his father that I friended in this thing&mdash;did he ever give me a
+      penny, or aught save that hut on the hill that was not worth a pound a
+      year? Did he ever do aught to show that he remembered?&mdash;Like father
+      like son. I wanted naught. I held my peace, not for him, but for her&mdash;for
+      the promise I made her when she smiled at me and said: &lsquo;If I shouldn&rsquo;t be
+      seeing thee again, Soolsby, remember; and if thee can ever prove a friend
+      to the child that is to be, prove it.&rsquo; And I will prove it now. He must
+      come back to his own. Right&rsquo;s right, and I will have it so. More brains
+      you may have, and wealth you have, but not more common sense than any
+      common man like me. If the spirit moved you to hold your peace, it moves
+      me to make you speak. With all your meek face you&rsquo;ve been a hard,
+      stiff-necked man, a tyrant too, and as much an aristocrat to such as me as
+      any lord in the land. But I&rsquo;ve drunk the mug of silence to the bottom.
+      I&rsquo;ve&mdash;&rdquo; He stopped short, seeing a strange look come over the other&rsquo;s
+      face, then stepped forward quickly as the old man half rose from his
+      chair, murmuring thickly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mercy&mdash;David, my lord, come&mdash;!&rdquo; he muttered, and staggered, and
+      fell into Soolsby&rsquo;s arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His head dropped forward on his breast, and with a great sigh he sank into
+      unconsciousness. Soolsby laid him on a couch, and ran to the door and
+      called aloud for help.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+       ..........................
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The man of silence was silent indeed now. In the room where paralysis had
+      fallen on him a bed was brought, and he lay nerveless on the verge of a
+      still deeper silence. The hours went by. His eyes opened, he saw and
+      recognised them all, but his look rested only on Faith and Soolsby; and,
+      as time went on, these were the only faces to which he gave an answering
+      look of understanding. Days wore away, but he neither spoke nor moved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      People came and went softly, and he gave no heed. There was ever a trouble
+      in his eyes when they were open. Only when Soolsby came did it seem to
+      lessen. Faith saw this, and urged Soolsby to sit by him. She had
+      questioned much concerning what had happened before the stroke fell, but
+      Soolsby said only that the old man had been greatly troubled about David.
+      Once Lady Eglington, frail and gentle and sympathetic, came, but the
+      trouble deepened in his eyes, and the lids closed over them, so that he
+      might not see her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she had gone, Soolsby, who had been present and had interpreted the
+      old man&rsquo;s look according to a knowledge all his own, came over to the bed,
+      leaned down and whispered: &ldquo;I will speak now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the eyes opened, and a smile faintly flickered at the mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will speak now,&rdquo; Soolsby said again into the old man&rsquo;s ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXV. THE VOICE THROUGH THE DOOR
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      That night Soolsby tapped at the door of the lighted laboratory of the
+      Cloistered House where Lord Eglington was at work; opened it, peered in,
+      and stepped inside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With a glass retort in his hand Eglington faced him. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s this&mdash;what
+      do you want?&rdquo; he demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to try an experiment,&rdquo; answered Soolsby grimly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, a scientific turn!&rdquo; rejoined Eglington coolly&mdash;looking at him
+      narrowly, however. He was conscious of danger of some kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then for a minute neither spoke. Now that Soolsby had come to the moment
+      for which he had waited for so many years, the situation was not what he
+      had so often prefigured. The words he had chosen long ago were gone from
+      his memory; in his ignorance of what had been a commonplace to Soolsby&rsquo;s
+      dark reflection so long, the man he had meant to bring low stood up before
+      him on his own ground, powerful and unabashed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eglington wore a blue smock, and over his eyes was a green shade to
+      protect them from the light, but they peered sharply out at the
+      chair-maker, and were boldly alive to the unexpected. He was no physical
+      coward, and, in any case, what reason had he for physical fear in the
+      presence of this man weakened by vice and age? Yet ever since he was a boy
+      there had existed between them an antagonism which had shown itself in
+      many ways. There had ever been something sinister in Soolsby&rsquo;s attitude to
+      his father and himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eglington vaguely knew that now he was to face some trial of mind and
+      nerve, but with great deliberation he continued dropping liquid from a
+      bottle into the glass retort he carried, his eyes, however, watchful of
+      his visitor, who involuntarily stared around the laboratory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was fifteen years since Soolsby had been in this room; and then he had
+      faced this man&rsquo;s father with a challenge on his tongue such as he meant to
+      speak now. The smell of the chemicals, the carboys filled with acids, the
+      queer, tapering glasses with engraved measurements showing against the
+      coloured liquids, the great blue bottles, the mortars and pestles, the
+      microscopic instruments&mdash;all brought back the far-off, acrid scene
+      between the late Earl and himself. Nothing had changed, except that now
+      there were wires which gave out hissing sparks, electrical instruments
+      invented since the earlier day; except that this man, gently dropping
+      acids into the round white bottle upon a crystal which gave off musty
+      fumes, was bolder, stronger, had more at stake than the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Slowly Eglington moved back to put the retort on a long table against the
+      wall, and Soolsby stepped forward till he stood where the electric sparks
+      were gently hissing about him. Now Eglington leaned against the table,
+      poured some alcohol on his fingers to cleanse the acid from them, and
+      wiped them with a piece of linen, while he looked inquiringly at Soolsby.
+      Still, Soolsby did not speak. Eglington lit a cigarette, and took away the
+      shade from his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, now, what is your experiment?&rdquo; he asked, &ldquo;and why bring it here?
+      Didn&rsquo;t you know the way to the stables or the scullery?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew my way better here,&rdquo; answered Soolsby, steadying himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, you&rsquo;ve been here often?&rdquo; asked Eglington nonchalantly, yet feeling
+      for the cause of this midnight visit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is fifteen years since I was here, my lord. Then I came to see the
+      Earl of Eglington.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so history repeats itself every fifteen years! You came to see the
+      Earl of Eglington then; you come to see the Earl of Eglington again&mdash;after
+      fifteen years!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I come to speak with him that&rsquo;s called the Earl of Eglington.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Eglington&rsquo;s eyes half closed, as though the light hurt them. &ldquo;That sounds
+      communistic, or is it pure Quakerism? I believe they used to call my
+      father Friend Robert till he backslided. But you are not a Quaker,
+      Soolsby, so why be too familiar? Or is it merely the way of the old family
+      friend?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew your father before you were born, my lord&mdash;he troosted me
+      then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So long? And fifteen years ago&mdash;here?&rdquo; He felt a menace, vague and
+      penetrating. His eyes were hard and cruel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t a question of troost then; &lsquo;twas one of right or wrong&mdash;naught
+      else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah&mdash;and who was right, and what was wrong?&rdquo; At that moment there
+      came a tap at the door leading into the living part of the house, and the
+      butler entered. &ldquo;The doctor&mdash;he has used up all his oxygen, my lord.
+      He begs to know if you can give him some for Mr. Claridge. Mr. Claridge is
+      bad to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A sinister smile passed over Eglington&rsquo;s face. &ldquo;Who brings the message,
+      Garry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A servant&mdash;Miss Claridge&rsquo;s, my lord.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An ironical look came into Eglington&rsquo;s eyes; then they softened a little.
+      In a moment he placed a jar of oxygen in the butler&rsquo;s hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My compliments to Miss Claridge, and I am happy to find my laboratory of
+      use at last to my neighbours,&rdquo; he said, and the door closed upon the man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he came back thoughtfully. Soolsby had not moved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know what oxygen&rsquo;s for, Soolsby?&rdquo; he asked quizzically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, my lord, I&rsquo;ve never heerd tell of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, if you brought the top of Ben Lomond to the bottom of a coal-mine&mdash;breath
+      to the breathless&mdash;that&rsquo;s it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve been doing that to Mr. Claridge, my lord?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A little oxygen more or less makes all the difference to a man&mdash;it
+      probably will to neighbour Claridge, Soolsby; and so I&rsquo;ve done him a good
+      turn.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A grim look passed over Soolsby&rsquo;s face. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the first, I&rsquo;m thinking, my
+      lord, and none too soon; and it&rsquo;ll be the last, I&rsquo;m thinking, too. It&rsquo;s
+      many a year since this house was neighbourly to that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Eglington&rsquo;s eyes almost closed, as he studied the other&rsquo;s face; then he
+      said: &ldquo;I asked you a little while ago who was right and what was wrong
+      when you came to see my father here fifteen years ago. Well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly a thought flashed into his eyes, and it seemed to course through
+      his veins like some anaesthetic, for he grew very still, and a minute
+      passed before he added quietly: &ldquo;Was it a thing between my father and Luke
+      Claridge? There was trouble&mdash;well, what was it?&rdquo; All at once he
+      seemed to rise above the vague anxiety that possessed him, and he fingered
+      inquiringly a long tapering glass of acids on the bench beside him.
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s been so much mystery, and I suppose it was nothing, after all.
+      What was it all about? Or do you know&mdash;eh? Fifteen years ago you came
+      to see my father, and now you have come to see me&mdash;all in the light
+      o&rsquo; the moon, as it were; like a villain in a play. Ah, yes, you said it
+      was to make an experiment&mdash;yet you didn&rsquo;t know what oxygen was! It&rsquo;s
+      foolish making experiments, unless you know what you are playing with,
+      Soolsby. See, here are two glasses.&rdquo; He held them up. &ldquo;If I poured one
+      into the other, we&rsquo;d have an experiment&mdash;and you and I would be
+      picked up in fragments and carried away in a basket. And that wouldn&rsquo;t be
+      a successful experiment, Soolsby.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not so sure of that, my lord. Some things would be put right then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;H&rsquo;m, there would be a new Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Claridge Pasha would come back from Egypt, my lord,&rdquo; was the sharp
+      interjection. Suddenly Soolsby&rsquo;s anger flared up, his hands twitched. &ldquo;You
+      had your chance to be a friend to him, my lord. You promised her yonder at
+      the Red Mansion that you would help him&mdash;him that never wronged you,
+      him you always wronged, and you haven&rsquo;t lifted hand to help him in his
+      danger. A moment since you asked me who was right and what was wrong. You
+      shall know. If you had treated him right, I&rsquo;d have held my peace, and kept
+      my word to her that&rsquo;s gone these thirty-odd years. I&rsquo;ll hold it no more,
+      and so I told Luke Claridge. I&rsquo;ve been silent, but not for your father&rsquo;s
+      sake or yours, for he was as cruel as you, with no heart, and a conscience
+      like a pin&rsquo;s head, not big enough for use... Ay, you shall know. You are
+      no more the Earl of Eglington than me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Earl of Eglington is your elder brother, called David Claridge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As Soolsby&rsquo;s words poured forth passionately, weighty, Eglington listened
+      like one in a dream. Since this man entered the laboratory fifty reasons
+      for his coming had flashed across his mind; he had prepared himself at
+      many corners for defence, he had rallied every mental resource, he had
+      imagined a dozen dangerous events which his father and Luke Claridge
+      shared&mdash;with the balance against his father; but this thing was
+      beyond all speculation. Yet on the instant the words were said he had a
+      conviction of their inevitable truth. Even as they were uttered,
+      kaleidoscopic memories rushed in, and David&rsquo;s face, figure, personal
+      characteristics, flashed before him. He saw, he felt, the likeness to his
+      father and himself; a thousand things were explained that could only be
+      explained by this fatal fact launched at him without warning. It was as
+      though, fully armed for his battle of life, he had suddenly been stripped
+      of armour and every weapon, and left naked on the field. But he had the
+      mind of the gamester, and the true gamester&rsquo;s self-control. He had taken
+      chances so often that the tornado of ill-luck left him standing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What proof have you?&rdquo; he asked quietly. Soolsby&rsquo;s explicit answer left no
+      ground for doubt. He had not asked the question with any idea of finding
+      gaps in the evidence, but rather to find if there were a chance for
+      resistance, of escape, anywhere. The marriage certificate existed;
+      identification of James Fetherdon with his father could be established by
+      Soolsby and Luke Claridge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soolsby and Luke Claridge! Luke Claridge&mdash;he could not help but smile
+      cynically, for he was composed and calculating now. A few minutes ago he
+      had sent a jar of oxygen to keep Luke Claridge alive! But for it one enemy
+      to his career, to his future, would be gone. He did not shrink from the
+      thought. Born a gentleman, there were in him some degenerate
+      characteristics which heart could not drown or temperament refine.
+      Selfishness was inwoven with every fibre of his nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, as he stood with eyes fixed on Soolsby, the world seemed to narrow
+      down to this laboratory. It was a vacuum where sensation was suspended,
+      and the million facts of ordinary existence disappeared into inactivity.
+      There was a fine sense of proportion in it all. Only the bare essential
+      things that concerned him remained: David Claridge was the Earl of
+      Eglington, this man before him knew, Luke Claridge knew; and there was one
+      thing yet to know! When he spoke his voice showed no excitement&mdash;the
+      tones were even, colourless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does he know?&rdquo; In these words he acknowledged that he believed the tale
+      told him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soolsby had expected a different attitude; he was not easier in mind
+      because his story had not been challenged. He blindly felt working in the
+      man before him a powerful mind, more powerful because it faced the truth
+      unflinchingly; but he knew that this did not mean calm acceptance of the
+      consequences. He, not Eglington, was dazed and embarrassed, was not equal
+      to the situation. He moved uneasily, changed his position.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does he know?&rdquo; Eglington questioned again quietly. There was no need for
+      Eglington to explain who he was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course he does not know&mdash;I said so. If he knew, do you think he&rsquo;d
+      be in Egypt and you here, my lord?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Eglington was very quiet. His intellect more than his passions were now at
+      work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not sure. You never can tell. This might not mean much to him. He
+      has got his work cut out; he wasn&rsquo;t brought up to this. What he has done
+      is in line with the life he has lived as a pious Quaker. What good would
+      it do to bring him back? I have been brought up to it; I am used to it; I
+      have worked things out &lsquo;according to the state of life to which I was
+      called.&rsquo; Take what I&rsquo;ve always had away from me, and I am crippled; give
+      him what he never had, and it doesn&rsquo;t work into his scheme. It would do
+      him no good and me harm&mdash;Where&rsquo;s the use? Besides, I am still my
+      father&rsquo;s son. Don&rsquo;t you see how unreasonable you are? Luke Claridge was
+      right. He knew that he and his belonged to a different sphere. He didn&rsquo;t
+      speak. Why do you speak now after all these years when we are all set in
+      our grooves? It&rsquo;s silly to disturb us, Soolsby.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The voice was low, persuasive, and searching; the mind was working as it
+      had never worked before, to achieve an end by peaceful means, when war
+      seemed against him. And all the time he was fascinated by the fact that
+      Soolsby&rsquo;s hand was within a few inches of a live electric wire, which, if
+      he touched, would probably complete &ldquo;the experiment&rdquo; he had come to make;
+      and what had been the silence of a generation would continue indefinitely.
+      It was as though Fate had deliberately tempted him and arranged the
+      necessary conditions, for Soolsby&rsquo;s feet were in a little pool of liquid
+      which had been spilled on the floor&mdash;the experiment was exact and
+      real.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For minutes he had watched Soolsby&rsquo;s hand near the wire-had watched as he
+      talked, and his talk was his argument for non-interference against warning
+      the man who had come to destroy him and his career. Why had Fate placed
+      that hand so near the wire there, and provided the other perfect
+      conditions for tragedy? Why should he intervene? It would never have
+      crossed his mind to do Soolsby harm, yet here, as the man&rsquo;s arm was
+      stretched out to strike him, Fate offered an escape. Luke Claridge was
+      stricken with paralysis, no doubt would die; Soolsby alone stood in his
+      way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, Soolsby, it has gone on too long,&rdquo; he added, in a low,
+      penetrating tone. &ldquo;It would be a crime to alter things now. Give him the
+      earldom and the estates, and his work in Egypt goes to pieces; he will be
+      spoiled for all he wants to do. I&rsquo;ve got my faults, but, on the whole, I&rsquo;m
+      useful, and I play my part here, as I was born to it, as well as most.
+      Anyhow, it&rsquo;s no robbery for me to have what has been mine by every right
+      except the accident of being born after him. I think you&rsquo;ll see that you
+      will do a good thing to let it all be. Luke Claridge, if he was up and
+      well, wouldn&rsquo;t thank you for it&mdash;have you got any right to give him
+      trouble, too? Besides, I&rsquo;ve saved his life to-night, and... and perhaps I
+      might save yours, Soolsby, if it was in danger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soolsby&rsquo;s hand had moved slightly. It was only an inch from the wire. For
+      an instant the room was terribly still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An instant, and it might be too late. An instant, and Soolsby would be
+      gone. Eglington watched the hand which had been resting on the table turn
+      slowly over to the wire. Why should he intervene? Was it his business?
+      This thing was not his doing. Destiny had laid the train of circumstance
+      and accident, and who was stronger than Destiny? In spite of himself his
+      eyes fixed themselves on Soolsby&rsquo;s hand. It was but a hair&rsquo;s breadth from
+      the wire. The end would come now. Suddenly a voice was heard outside the
+      door. &ldquo;Eglington!&rdquo; it called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soolsby started, his hand drew spasmodically away from the wire, and he
+      stepped back quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door opened, and Hylda entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Claridge is dead, Eglington,&rdquo; she said. Destiny had decided.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVI. &ldquo;I OWE YOU NOTHING&rdquo;
+     </h2>
+    <p>
+      Beside the grave under the willow-tree another grave had been made. It was
+      sprinkled with the fallen leaves of autumn. In the Red Mansion Faith&rsquo;s
+      delicate figure moved forlornly among relics of an austere, beloved figure
+      vanished from the apricot-garden and the primitive simplicity of wealth
+      combined with narrow thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Since her father&rsquo;s death, the bereaved girl had been occupied by matters
+      of law and business, by affairs of the estate; but the first pressure was
+      over, long letters had been written to David which might never reach him;
+      and now, when the strain was withdrawn, the gentle mind was lost in a grey
+      mist of quiet suffering. In Hamley there were but two in whom she had any
+      real comfort and help&mdash;Lady Eglington and the old chair-maker. Of an
+      afternoon or evening one or the other was to be seen in the long
+      high-wainscoted room, where a great fire burned, or in the fruitless
+      garden where the breeze stirred the bare branches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Almost as deep a quiet brooded in the Cloistered House as in the home
+      where mourning enjoined movement in a minor key. Hylda had not recovered
+      wholly from the illness which had stricken her down on that day in London
+      when she had sought news of David from Eglington, at such cost to her
+      peace and health and happiness. Then had come her slow convalescence in
+      Hamley, and long days of loneliness, in which Eglington seemed to retreat
+      farther and farther from her inner life. Inquiries had poured in from
+      friends in town, many had asked to come and see her; flowers came from one
+      or two who loved her benignly, like Lord Windlehurst; and now and then she
+      had some cheerful friend with her who cared for music or could sing; and
+      then the old home rang; but she was mostly alone, and Eglington was kept
+      in town by official business the greater part of each week. She did not
+      gain strength as quickly as she ought to have done, and this was what
+      brought the Duchess of Snowdon down on a special mission one day of early
+      November.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ever since the night she had announced Luke Claridge&rsquo;s death to Eglington,
+      had discovered Soolsby with him, had seen the look in her husband&rsquo;s face
+      and caught the tension of the moment on which she had broken, she had been
+      haunted by a hovering sense of trouble. What had Soolsby been doing in the
+      laboratory at that time of night? What was the cause of this secret
+      meeting? All Hamley knew&mdash;she had long known&mdash;how Luke Claridge
+      had held the Cloistered House in abhorrence, and she knew also that
+      Soolsby worshipped David and Faith, and, whatever the cause of the family
+      antipathy, championed it. She was conscious of a shadow somewhere, and
+      behind it all was the name of David&rsquo;s father, James Fetherdon. That last
+      afternoon when she had talked with him, and he had told her of his life,
+      she had recalled the name as one she had seen or heard, and it had floated
+      into her mind at last that she had seen it among the papers and letters of
+      the late Countess of Eglington.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the look in Eglington&rsquo;s face the night she came upon him and Soolsby in
+      the laboratory haunted her, so the look in her own face had haunted
+      Soolsby. Her voice announcing Luke Claridge&rsquo;s death had suddenly opened up
+      a new situation to him. It stunned him; and afterwards, as he saw Hylda
+      with Faith in the apricot-garden, or walking in the grounds of the
+      Cloistered House hour after hour alone or with her maid, he became vexed
+      by a problem greater than had yet perplexed him. It was one thing to turn
+      Eglington out of his lands and home and title; it was another thing to
+      strike this beautiful being, whose smile had won him from the first, whose
+      voice, had he but known, had saved his life. Perhaps the truth in some dim
+      way was conveyed to him, for he came to think of her a little as he
+      thought of Faith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Since the moment when he had left the laboratory and made his way to the
+      Red Mansion, he and Eglington had never met face to face; and he avoided a
+      meeting. He was not a blackmailer, he had no personal wrongs to avenge, he
+      had not sprung the bolt of secrecy for evil ends; and when he saw the
+      possible results of his disclosure, he was unnerved. His mind had seen one
+      thing only, the rights of &ldquo;Our Man,&rdquo; the wrong that had been done him and
+      his mother; but now he saw how the sword of justice, which he had kept by
+      his hand these many years, would cut both ways. His mind was troubled,
+      too, that he had spoken while yet Luke Claridge lived, and so broken his
+      word to Mercy Claridge. If he had but waited till the old man died&mdash;but
+      one brief half-hour&mdash;his pledge would have been kept. Nothing had
+      worked out wholly as he expected. The heavens had not fallen. The
+      &ldquo;second-best lordship&rdquo; still came and went, the wheels went round as
+      usual. There was no change; yet, as he sat in his hut and looked down into
+      the grounds of the Cloistered House, he kept saying to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It had to be told. It&rsquo;s for my lord now. He knows the truth. I&rsquo;ll wait
+      and see. It&rsquo;s for him to do right by Our Man that&rsquo;s beyond and away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The logic and fairness of this position, reached after much thinking,
+      comforted him. He had done his duty so far. If, in the end, the
+      &ldquo;second-best lordship&rdquo; failed to do his part, hid the truth from the
+      world, refused to do right by his half-brother, the true Earl, then would
+      be time to act again. Also he waited for word out of Egypt; and he had a
+      superstitious belief that David would return, that any day might see him
+      entering the door of the Red Mansion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eglington himself was haunted by a spectre which touched his elbow by day,
+      and said: &ldquo;You are not the Earl of Eglington,&rdquo; and at night laid a clammy
+      finger on his forehead, waking him, and whispering in his ear: &ldquo;If Soolsby
+      had touched the wire, all would now be well!&rdquo; And as deep as thought and
+      feeling in him lay, he felt that Fate had tricked him&mdash;Fate and
+      Hylda. If Hylda had not come at that crucial instant, the chairmaker&rsquo;s but
+      on the hill would be empty. Why had not Soolsby told the world the truth
+      since? Was the man waiting to see what course he himself would take? Had
+      the old chair-maker perhaps written the truth to the Egyptian&mdash;to his
+      brother David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His brother! The thought irritated every nerve in him. No note of kindness
+      or kinship or blood stirred in him. If, before, he had had innate
+      antagonism and a dark, hovering jealousy, he had a black repugnance now&mdash;the
+      antipathy of the lesser to the greater nature, of the man in the wrong to
+      the man in the right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And behind it all was the belief that his wife had set David above him&mdash;by
+      how much or in what fashion he did not stop to consider; but it made him
+      desire that death and the desert would swallow up his father&rsquo;s son and
+      leave no trace behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Policy? His work in the Foreign Office now had but one policy so far as
+      Egypt was concerned. The active sophistry in him made him advocate
+      non-intervention in Egyptian affairs as diplomatic wisdom, though it was
+      but personal purpose; and he almost convinced himself that he was acting
+      from a national stand-point. Kaid and Claridge Pasha pursued their course
+      of civilisation in the Soudan, and who could tell what danger might not
+      bring forth? If only Soolsby held his peace yet a while!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Did Faith know? Luke Claridge was gone without speaking, but had Soolsby
+      told Faith? How closely had he watched the faces round him at Luke
+      Claridge&rsquo;s funeral, to see if they betrayed any knowledge!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anxious days had followed that night in the laboratory. His boundless
+      egotism had widened the chasm between Hylda and himself, which had been
+      made on the day when she fell ill in London, with Lacey&rsquo;s letter in her
+      hand. It had not grown less in the weeks that followed. He nursed a
+      grievance which had, so far as he knew, no foundation in fact; he was
+      vaguely jealous of a man&mdash;his brother&mdash;thousands of miles away;
+      he was not certain how far Hylda had pierced the disguise of sincerity
+      which he himself had always worn, or how far she understood him. He
+      thought that she shrank from what she had seen of his real self, much or
+      little, and he was conscious of so many gifts and abilities and attractive
+      personal qualities that he felt a sense of injury. Yet what would his
+      position be without her? Suppose David should return and take the estates
+      and titles, and suppose that she should close her hand upon her fortune
+      and leave him, where would he be?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He thought of all this as he sat in his room at the Foreign Office and
+      looked over St. James&rsquo;s Park, his day&rsquo;s work done. He was suddenly seized
+      by a new-born anxiety, for he had been so long used to the open purse and
+      the unchecked stream of gold, had taken it so much as a matter of course,
+      as not to realise the possibility of its being withdrawn. He was conscious
+      of a kind of meanness and ugly sordidness in the suggestion; but the stake&mdash;his
+      future, his career, his position in the world&mdash;was too high to allow
+      him to be too chivalrous. His sense of the real facts was perverted. He
+      said to himself that he must be practical.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moved by the new thought, he seized a time-table and looked up the trains.
+      He had been ten days in town, receiving every morning a little note from
+      Hylda telling of what she had done each day; a calm, dutiful note, written
+      without pretence, and out of a womanly affection with which she surrounded
+      the man who, it seemed once&mdash;such a little while ago&mdash;must be
+      all in all to her. She had no element of pretence in her. What she could
+      give she gave freely, and it was just what it appeared to be. He had taken
+      it all as his due, with an underlying belief that, if he chose to make
+      love to her again, he could blind her to all else in the world. Hurt
+      vanity and egotism and jealousy had prevented him from luring her back to
+      that fine atmosphere in which he had hypnotised her so few years ago. But
+      suddenly, as he watched the swans swimming in the pond below, a new sense
+      of approaching loss, all that Hylda had meant in his march and progress,
+      came upon him; and he hastened to return to Hamley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Getting out of the train at Heddington, he made up his mind to walk home
+      by the road that David had taken on his return from Egypt, and he left
+      word at the station that he would send for his luggage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His first objective was Soolsby&rsquo;s hut, and, long before he reached it,
+      darkness had fallen. From a light shining through the crack of the blind
+      he knew that Soolsby was at home. He opened the door and entered without
+      knocking. Soolsby was seated at a table, a map and a newspaper spread out
+      before him. Egypt and David, always David and Egypt!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soolsby got to his feet slowly, his eyes fixed inquiringly on his visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t knock,&rdquo; said Eglington, taking off his greatcoat and reaching
+      for a chair; then added, as he seated himself: &ldquo;Better sit down, Soolsby.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After a moment he continued: &ldquo;Do you mind my smoking?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soolsby did not reply, but sat down again. He watched Eglington light a
+      cigar and stretch out his hands to the wood fire with an air of comfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A silence followed. Eglington appeared to forget the other&rsquo;s presence, and
+      to occupy himself with thoughts that glimmered in the fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last Soolsby said moodily: &ldquo;What have you come for, my lord?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I am my lord still, am I?&rdquo; Eglington returned lazily. &ldquo;Is it a
+      genealogical tree you are studying there?&rdquo; He pointed to the map.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve studied your family tree with care, as you should know, my lord; and
+      a map of Egypt&rdquo;&mdash;he tapped the parchment before him&mdash;&ldquo;goes well
+      with it. And see, my lord, Egypt concerns you too. Lord Eglington is
+      there, and &lsquo;tis time he was returning-ay, &lsquo;tis time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a baleful look in Soolsby&rsquo;s eyes. Whatever he might think,
+      whatever considerations might arise at other times, a sinister feeling
+      came upon him when Eglington was with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And, my lord,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;I&rsquo;d be glad to know that you&rsquo;ve sent for him,
+      and told him the truth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you?&rdquo; Eglington flicked the ash from his cigar, speaking coolly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soolsby looked at him with his honest blue eyes aflame, and answered
+      deliberately: &ldquo;I was not for taking your place, my lord. &lsquo;Twas my duty to
+      tell you, but the rest was between you and the Earl of Eglington.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was thoughtful of you, Soolsby. And Miss Claridge?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you that night, my lord, that only her father and myself knew; and
+      what was then is now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A look of relief stole across Eglington&rsquo;s face. &ldquo;Of course&mdash;of
+      course. These things need a lot of thought, Soolsby. One must act with
+      care&mdash;no haste, no flurry, no mistakes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would not wait too long, my lord, or be too careful.&rdquo; There was menace
+      in the tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if you go at things blind, you&rsquo;re likely to hurt where you don&rsquo;t mean
+      to hurt. When you&rsquo;re mowing in a field by a school-house, you must look
+      out for the children asleep in the grass. Sometimes the longest way round
+      is the shortest way home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean to do it or not, my lord? I&rsquo;ve left it to you as a
+      gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s going to upset more than you think, Soolsby. Suppose he, out there
+      in Egypt&rdquo;&mdash;he pointed again to the map&mdash;&ldquo;doesn&rsquo;t thank me for
+      the information. Suppose he says no, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right&rsquo;s right. Give him the chance, my lord. How can you know, unless you
+      tell him the truth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you like living, Soolsby?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you want to kill me, my lord?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a dark look in Eglington&rsquo;s face. &ldquo;But answer me, do you want to
+      live?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to live long enough to see the Earl of Eglington in his own
+      house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;ve made that possible. The other night when you were telling me
+      your little story, you were near sending yourself into eternity&mdash;as
+      near as I am knocking this ash off my cigar.&rdquo; His little finger almost
+      touched the ash. &ldquo;Your hand was as near touching a wire charged with
+      death. I saw it. It would have been better for me if you had gone; but I
+      shut off the electricity. Suppose I hadn&rsquo;t, could I have been blamed? It
+      would have been an accident. Providence did not intervene; I did. You owe
+      me something, Soolsby.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soolsby stared at him almost blindly for a moment. A mist was before his
+      eyes; but through the mist, though he saw nothing of this scene in which
+      he now was, he saw the laboratory, and himself and Eglington, and
+      Eglington&rsquo;s face as it peered at him, and, just before the voice called
+      outside, Eglington&rsquo;s eyes fastened on his hand. It all flashed upon him
+      now, and he saw himself starting back at the sound of the voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Slowly he got up now, went to the door, and opened it. &ldquo;My lord, it is not
+      true,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You have not spoken like a gentleman. It was my lady&rsquo;s
+      voice that saved me. This is my castle, my lord&mdash;you lodge yonder.&rdquo;
+       He pointed down into the darkness where the lights of the village shone.
+      &ldquo;I owe you nothing. I pay my debts. Pay yours, my lord, to him that&rsquo;s
+      beyond and away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Eglington kept his countenance as he drew on his great-coat and slowly
+      passed from the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ought to have let you die, Soolsby. Y&rsquo;ou&rsquo;ll think better of this soon.
+      But it&rsquo;s quite right to leave the matter to me. It may take a little time,
+      but everything will come right. Justice shall be done. Well, good night,
+      Soolsby. You live too much alone, and imagination is a bad thing for the
+      lonely. Good night-good night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Going down the hill quickly, he said to himself: &ldquo;A sort of second sight
+      he had about that wire. But time is on my side, time and the Soudan&mdash;and
+      &lsquo;The heathen in his blindness....&rsquo; I will keep what is mine. I will keep
+      it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVII. THE AWAKENING
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In her heart of hearts Hylda had not greatly welcomed the Duchess of
+      Snowdon to Hamley. There was no one whose friendship she prized more; but
+      she was passing through a phase of her life when she felt that she was
+      better apart, finding her own path by those intuitions and perceptions
+      which belonged to her own personal experience. She vaguely felt, what all
+      realise sooner or later, that we must live our dark hours alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet the frank downright nature of the once beautiful, now faded, Duchess,
+      the humorous glimmer in the pale-blue eyes, the droll irony and dry truth
+      of her speech, appealed to Hylda, made her smile a warm greeting when she
+      would rather have been alone. For, a few days before, she had begun a
+      quest which had absorbed her, fascinated her. The miner, finding his way
+      across the gap of a reef to pick up the vein of quartz at some distant and
+      uncertain point, could not have been more lost to the world than was the
+      young wife searching for a family skeleton, indefinitely embodied in her
+      imagination by the name, James Fetherdon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pile after pile of papers and letters of the late Earl and his Countess
+      had passed through her hands from chaos to order. As she had read, hour
+      after hour, the diaries of the cold, blue-eyed woman, Sybil Eglington, who
+      had lived without love of either husband or son, as they, in turn, lived
+      without love of each other, she had been overwhelmed by the revelation of
+      a human heart, whose powers of expression were smothered by a shy and
+      awkward temperament. The late Countess&rsquo;s letters were the unclothing of a
+      heart which had never expanded to the eyes of those whose love would have
+      broken up a natural reserve, which became at last a proud coldness, and
+      gave her a reputation for lack of feeling that she carried to her grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the diaries which Hylda unearthed&mdash;the Countess had died suddenly&mdash;was
+      the muffled cry of a soul tortured through different degrees of
+      misunderstanding; from the vague pain of suffered indifference, of being
+      left out of her husband&rsquo;s calculations, to the blank neglect narrowing her
+      life down to a tiny stream of duty, which was finally lost in the sands.
+      She had died abroad, and alone, save for her faithful maid, who, knowing
+      the chasm that lay between her mistress and her lord, had brought her
+      letters and papers back to the Cloistered House, and locked them away with
+      all the other papers and correspondence which the Countess had
+      accumulated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among these papers was a letter to the late Lord Eglington written the day
+      before she died. In the haste and confusion ensuing on her death, the maid
+      had not seen it. It had never reached his hands, but lay in a pocket of
+      the dead woman&rsquo;s writing-portfolio, which Hylda had explored without
+      discovering. Only a few hours, however, before the Duchess of Snowdon
+      came, Hylda had found again an empty envelope on which was written the
+      name, James Fetherdon. The writing on the envelope was that of Sybil Lady
+      Eglington.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she discovered the envelope, a sense of mystery and premonition
+      possessed her. What was the association between the Countess of Eglington
+      and James Fetherdon, the father of David Claridge? In vain she searched
+      among the voluminous letters and papers, for it would seem that the dead
+      woman had saved every letter she received, and kept copies of numberless
+      letters she had written. But she had searched without avail. Even the
+      diaries, curiously frank and without reserve, never mentioned the name, so
+      far as she could find, though here and there were strange allusive
+      references, hints of a trouble that weighed her down, phrases of
+      exasperation and defiance. One phrase, or the idea in it, was, however,
+      much repeated in the diaries during the course of years, and towards the
+      last almost feverishly emphasised&mdash;&ldquo;Why should I bear it for one who
+      would bear nothing for me, for his sake, who would do nothing for my sake?
+      Is it only the mother in me, not the love in me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These words were haunting Hylda&rsquo;s brain when the telegram from the Duchess
+      of Snowdon came. They followed her to Heddington, whither she went in the
+      carriage to bring her visitor to Hamley, and kept repeating themselves at
+      the back of her mind through the cheerful rallying of the Duchess, who
+      spread out the wings of good-humour and motherly freedom over her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After all, it was an agreeable thing to be taken possession of, and &ldquo;put
+      in her proper place,&rdquo; as the Duchess said; made to understand that her own
+      affairs were not so important, after all; and that it was far more
+      essential to hear the charming gossip about the new and most popular
+      Princess of Wales, or the quarrel between Dickens and Thackeray. Yet,
+      after dinner, in the little sitting-room, where the Duchess, in a white
+      gown with great pink bows, fitter for a girl fresh from Confirmation, and
+      her cheeks with their fixed colour, which changed only at the discretion
+      of her maid, babbled of nothing that mattered, Hylda&rsquo;s mind kept turning
+      to the book of life an unhappy woman had left behind her. The sitting-room
+      had been that of the late Countess also, and on the wall was an
+      oil-painting of her, stately and distant and not very alluring, though the
+      mouth had a sweetness which seemed unable to break into a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was she really like&mdash;that wasn&rsquo;t her quite, was it?&rdquo; asked
+      Hylda, at last, leaning her chin on the hand which held the &lsquo;cello she had
+      been playing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes, it&rsquo;s Sybil Eglington, my dear, but done in wood; and she wasn&rsquo;t
+      the graven image that makes her out to be. That&rsquo;s as most people saw her;
+      as the fellow that painted her saw her; but she had another side to her.
+      She disapproved of me rather, because I was squeezing the orange dry, and
+      trying to find yesterday&rsquo;s roses in to-morrow&rsquo;s garden. But she didn&rsquo;t
+      shut her door in my face&mdash;it&rsquo;s hard to do that to a Duchess; which is
+      one of the few advantages of living naked in the street, as it were, with
+      only the strawberry leaves to clothe you. No, Sybil Eglington was a woman
+      who never had her chance. Your husband&rsquo;s forbears were difficult, my dear.
+      They didn&rsquo;t exactly draw you out. She needed drawing out; and her husband
+      drove her back into her corner, where she sulked rather till she died&mdash;died
+      alone at Wiesbaden, with a German doctor, a stray curate, and a stuttering
+      maid to wish her bon voyage. Yet I fancy she went glad enough, for she had
+      no memories, not even an affaire to repent of, and to cherish. La, la! she
+      wasn&rsquo;t so stupid, Sybil there, and she was an ornament to her own sex and
+      the despair of the other. His Serene Highness Heinrich of Saxe-Gunden
+      fancied the task of breaking that ice, and he was an adept and an Apollo,
+      but it broke his reputation instead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt she is happy now. I shall probably never see!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of the poignant nature of the talk, Hylda could not but smile at
+      the last words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t despair,&rdquo; she rejoined; &ldquo;one star differeth from another star in
+      glory, but that is no reason why they should not be on visiting terms.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear, you may laugh&mdash;you may laugh, but I am sixty-five, and I am
+      not laughing at the idea of what company I may be obliged to keep
+      presently. In any case I&rsquo;m sure I shall not be comfortable. If I&rsquo;m where
+      she is, I shall be dull; if I&rsquo;m where her husband is, I&rsquo;ll have no
+      reputation; and if there is one thing I want, it is a spotless reputation&mdash;sometime.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hylda laughed&mdash;the manner and the voice were so droll&mdash;but her
+      face saddened too, and her big eyes with the drooping lashes looked up
+      pensively at the portrait of her husband&rsquo;s mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was it ever a happy family, or a lucky family?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s lucky now, and it ought to be happy now,&rdquo; was the meaning reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hylda made no answer, but caught the strings of the &lsquo;cello lightly, and
+      shook her head reprovingly, with a smile meant to be playful. For a moment
+      she played, humming to herself, and then the Duchess touched the hand that
+      was drawing the bow softly across the strings. She had behind her
+      garishness a gift for sympathy and a keen intuition, delicacy, and
+      allusiveness. She knew what to say and what to leave unsaid, when her
+      heart was moved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My darling,&rdquo; she said now, &ldquo;you are not quite happy; but that is because
+      you don&rsquo;t allow yourself to get well. You&rsquo;ve never recovered from your
+      attack last summer; and you won&rsquo;t, until you come out into the world again
+      and see people. This autumn you ought to have been at Homburg or at Aix,
+      where you&rsquo;d take a little cure of waters and a great deal of cure of
+      people. You were born to bask in friendship and the sun, and to draw from
+      the world as much as you deserve, a little from many, for all you give in
+      return. Because, dearest, you are a very agreeable person, with enough wit
+      and humanity to make it worth the world&rsquo;s while to conspire to make you do
+      what will give it most pleasure, and let yourself get most&mdash;and
+      that&rsquo;s why I&rsquo;ve come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a person of importance I am!&rdquo; answered Hylda, with a laugh that was
+      far from mirthful, though she caught the plump, wrinkled little hand of
+      the Duchess and pressed it. &ldquo;But really I&rsquo;m getting well here fast. I&rsquo;m
+      very strong again. It is so restful, and one&rsquo;s days go by so quietly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet, I&rsquo;m not sure that it&rsquo;s rest you want. I don&rsquo;t think it is. You want
+      tonics&mdash;men and women and things. Monte Carlo would do you a world of
+      good&mdash;I&rsquo;d go with you. Eglington gambles here&rdquo;&mdash;she watched
+      Hylda closely&mdash;&ldquo;why shouldn&rsquo;t you gamble there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eglington gambles?&rdquo; Hylda&rsquo;s face took on a frightened look, then it
+      cleared again, and she smiled. &ldquo;Oh, of course, with international affairs,
+      you mean. Well, I must stay here and be the croupier.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense! Eglington is his own croupier. Besides, he is so much in
+      London, and you so much here. You sit with the distaff; he throws the
+      dice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hylda&rsquo;s lips tightened a little. Her own inner life, what Eglington was to
+      her or she to Eglington, was for the ears of no human being, however
+      friendly. She had seen little of him of late, but in one sense that had
+      been a relief, though she would have done anything to make that feeling
+      impossible. His rather precise courtesy and consideration, when he was
+      with her, emphasised the distance between &ldquo;the first fine careless
+      rapture&rdquo; and this grey quiet. And, strange to say, though in the first
+      five years after the Cairo days and deeds, Egypt seemed an infinite space
+      away, and David a distant, almost legendary figure, now Egypt seemed but
+      beyond the door&mdash;as though, opening it, she would stand near him who
+      represented the best of all that she might be capable of thinking. Yet all
+      the time she longed for Eglington to come and say one word, which would be
+      like touching the lever of the sluice-gates of her heart, to let loose the
+      flood. As the space grew between her and Eglington, her spirit trembled,
+      she shrank back, because she saw that sea towards which she was drifting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As she did not answer the last words of the Duchess, the latter said
+      presently: &ldquo;When do you expect Eglington?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not till the week-end; it is a busy week with him,&rdquo; Hylda answered; then
+      added hastily, though she had not thought of it till this moment: &ldquo;I shall
+      probably go up to town with you to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not know that Eglington was already in the house, and had given
+      orders to the butler that she was not to be informed of his arrival for
+      the present.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, if you get that far, will you come with me to the Riviera, or to
+      Florence, or Sicily&mdash;or Cairo?&rdquo; the other asked, adjusting her
+      gold-brown wig with her babyish hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cairo! Cairo! A light shot up into Hylda&rsquo;s eyes. The Duchess had spoken
+      without thought, but, as she spoke, she watched the sudden change in
+      Hylda. What did it mean? Cairo&mdash;why should Cairo have waked her so?
+      Suddenly she recalled certain vague references of Lord Windlehurst, and,
+      for the first time, she associated Hylda with Claridge Pasha in a way
+      which might mean much, account for much, in this life she was leading.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps! Perhaps!&rdquo; answered Hylda abstractedly, after a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess got to her feet. She had made progress. She would let her
+      medicine work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to bed, my dear. I&rsquo;m sixty-five, and I take my sleep when I can
+      get it. Think it over, Sicily&mdash;Cairo!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She left the room, saying to herself that Eglington was a fool, and that
+      danger was ahead. &ldquo;But I hold a red light&mdash;poor darling!&rdquo; she said
+      aloud, as she went up the staircase. She did not know that Eglington,
+      standing in a deep doorway, heard her, and seized upon the words eagerly
+      and suspiciously, and turned them over in his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Below, at the desk where Eglington&rsquo;s mother used to write, Hylda sat with
+      a bundle of letters before her. For some moments she opened, glanced
+      through them, and put them aside. Presently she sat back in her chair,
+      thinking&mdash;her mind was invaded by the last words of the Duchess; and
+      somehow they kept repeating themselves with the words in the late
+      Countess&rsquo;s diary: &ldquo;Is it only the mother in me, not the love in me?&rdquo;
+       Mechanically her hand moved over the portfolio of the late Countess, and
+      it involuntarily felt in one of its many pockets. Her hand came upon a
+      letter. This had remained when the others had been taken out. It was
+      addressed to the late Earl, and was open. She hesitated a moment, then,
+      with a strange premonition and a tightening of her heart-strings, she
+      spread it out and read it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first she could scarcely see because of the mist in her eyes; but
+      presently her sight cleared, and she read quickly, her cheeks burning with
+      excitement, her heart throbbing violently. The letter was the last
+      expression of a disappointed and barren life. The slow, stammering tongue
+      of an almost silent existence had found the fulness of speech. The
+      fountains of the deep had been broken up, and Sybil Eglington&rsquo;s repressed
+      emotions, undeveloped passions, tortured by mortal sufferings, and refined
+      and vitalised by the atmosphere blown in upon her last hours from the
+      Hereafter, were set free, given voice and power at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter reviewed the life she had lived with her husband during
+      twenty-odd years, reproved herself for not speaking out and telling him
+      his faults at the beginning, and for drawing in upon herself, when she
+      might have compelled him to a truer understanding; and, when all that was
+      said, called him to such an account as only the dying might make&mdash;the
+      irrevocable, disillusionising truth which may not be altered, the poignant
+      record of failure and its causes.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;... I could not talk well, I never could, as a girl,&rdquo; the
+   letter ran; &ldquo;and you could talk like one inspired, and so
+   speciously, so overwhelmingly, that I felt I could say nothing in
+   disagreement, not anything but assent; while all the time I felt how
+   hollow was so much you said&mdash;a cloak of words to cover up the real
+   thought behind. Before I knew the truth, I felt the shadow of
+   secrecy in your life. When you talked most, I felt you most
+   secretive, and the feeling slowly closed the door upon all frankness
+   and sympathy and open speech between us. I was always shy and self-
+   conscious and self-centred, and thought little of myself; and I
+   needed deep love and confidence and encouragement to give out what
+   was in me. I gave nothing out, nothing to you that you wanted, or
+   sought for, or needed. You were complete, self-contained. Harry,
+   my beloved babe Harry, helped at first; but, as the years went on,
+   he too began to despise me for my little intellect and slow
+   intelligence, and he grew to be like you in all things&mdash;and
+   secretive also, though I tried so hard to be to him what a mother
+   should be. Oh, Bobby, Bobby&mdash;I used to call you that in the days
+   before we were married, and I will call you that now when all is
+   over and done&mdash;why did you not tell me all? Why did you not tell me
+   that my boy, my baby Harry, was not your only child, that there had
+   been another wife, and that your eldest son was alive?
+
+   &ldquo;I know all. I have known all for years. The clergyman who married
+   you to Mercy Claridge was a distant relative of my mother&rsquo;s, and
+   before he died he told me. When you married her, he knew you only
+   as James Fetherdon, but, years afterwards, he saw and recognised
+   you. He held his peace then, but at last he came to me. And I did
+   not speak. I was not strong enough, nor good enough, to face the
+   trouble of it all. I could not endure the scandal, to see my own
+   son take the second place&mdash;he is so brilliant and able and
+   unscrupulous, like yourself; but, oh, so sure of winning a great
+   place in the world, surer than yourself ever was, he is so
+   calculating and determined and ambitious! And though he loves me
+   little, as he loves you little, too, yet he is my son, and for what
+   he is we are both responsible, one way or another; and I had not the
+   courage to give him the second place, and the Quaker, David
+   Claridge, the first place. Why Luke Claridge, his grandfather,
+   chose the course he did, does not concern me, no more than why you
+   chose secrecy, and kept your own firstborn legitimate son, of whom
+   you might well be proud, a stranger to you and his rights all these
+   years. Ah, Eglington, you never knew what love was, you never had
+   a heart&mdash;experiment, subterfuge, secrecy, &lsquo;reaping where you had
+   not sowed, and gathering where you had not strawed.&rsquo; Always,
+   experiment, experiment, experiment!
+
+   &ldquo;I shall be gone in a few hours&mdash;I feel it, but before I go I must
+   try to do right, and to warn you. I have had such bad dreams about
+   you and Harry&mdash;they haunt me&mdash;that I am sure you will suffer
+   terribly, will have some awful tragedy, unless you undo what was
+   done long ago, and tell the truth to the world, and give your titles
+   and estates where they truly belong. Near to death, seeing how
+   little life is, and how much right is in the end, I am sure that I
+   was wrong in holding my peace; for Harry cannot prosper with this
+   black thing behind him, and you cannot die happy if you smother up
+   the truth. Night after night I have dreamed of you in your
+   laboratory, a vague, dark, terrifying dream of you in that
+   laboratory which I have hated so. It has always seemed to me the
+   place where some native evil and cruelty in your blood worked out
+   its will. I know I am an ignorant woman, with no brain, but God has
+   given me clear sight at the last, and the things I see are true
+   things, and I must warn you. Remember that....&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The letter ended there. She had been interrupted or seized with illness,
+      and had never finished it, and had died a few hours afterwards; and the
+      letter was now, for the first time, read by her whom it most concerned,
+      into whose heart and soul the words sank with an immitigable pain and
+      agonised amazement. A few moments with this death-document had transformed
+      Hylda&rsquo;s life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband and&mdash;and David, were sons of the same father; and the
+      name she bore, the home in which she was living, the estates the title
+      carried, were not her husband&rsquo;s, but another&rsquo;s&mdash;David&rsquo;s. She fell
+      back in her chair, white and faint, but, with a great effort, she
+      conquered the swimming weakness which blinded her. Sons of the same
+      father! The past flashed before her, the strange likeness she had
+      observed, the trick of the head, the laugh, the swift gesture, the
+      something in the voice. She shuddered as she had done in reading the
+      letter. But they were related only in name, in some distant,
+      irreconcilable way&mdash;in a way which did not warrant the sudden scarlet
+      flush that flooded her face. Presently she recovered herself. She&mdash;what
+      did she suffer, compared with her who wrote this revelation of a lifetime
+      of pain, of bitter and torturing knowledge! She looked up at the picture
+      on the wall, at the still, proud, emotionless face, the conventional,
+      uninspired personality, behind which no one had seen, which had agonised
+      alone till the last. With what tender yet pitiless hand had she laid bare
+      the lives of her husband and her son! How had the neglected mother told
+      the bitter truth of him to whom she had given birth! &ldquo;So brilliant and
+      able, and unscrupulous, like yourself; but, oh, sure of winning a great
+      place in the world... so calculating and determined and ambitious.... That
+      laboratory which I have hated so. It has always seemed to me the place
+      where some native evil and cruelty in your blood worked out its will....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With a deep-drawn sigh Hylda said to herself: &ldquo;If I were dying to-morrow,
+      would I say that? She loved them so&mdash;at first must have loved them
+      so; and yet this at the last! And I&mdash;oh, no, no, no!&rdquo; She looked at a
+      portrait of Eglington on the table near, touched it caressingly, and
+      added, with a sob in her voice: &ldquo;Oh, Harry, no, it is not true! It is not
+      native evil and cruelty in your blood. It has all been a mistake. You will
+      do right. We will do right, Harry. You will suffer, it will hurt, the
+      lesson will be hard&mdash;to give up what has meant so much to you; but we
+      will work it out together, you and I, my very dear. Oh, say that we shall,
+      that....&rdquo; She suddenly grew silent. A tremor ran through her, she became
+      conscious of his presence near her, and turned, as though he were behind
+      her. There was nothing. Yet she felt him near, and, as she did so, the
+      soul-deep feeling with which she had spoken to the portrait fled. Why was
+      it that, so often, when absent from him, her imagination helped her to
+      make excuses for him, inspired her to press the real truth out of sight,
+      and to make believe that he was worthy of a love which, but through some
+      inner fault of her own, might be his altogether, and all the love of which
+      he was capable might be hers?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She felt him near her, and the feelings possessing her a moment before
+      slowly chilled and sank away. Instinctively her eyes glanced towards the
+      door. She saw the handle turn, and she slipped the letter inside the
+      portfolio again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The door opened briskly now, and Eglington entered with what his enemies
+      in the newspaper press had called his &ldquo;professional smile&rdquo;&mdash;a
+      criticism which had angered his wife, chiefly because it was so near the
+      truth. He smiled. Smiling was part of his equipment, and was for any one
+      at any time that suited him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her eyes met his, and he noted in her something that he had never seen
+      before. Something had happened. The Duchess of Snowdon was in the house;
+      had it anything to do with her? Had she made trouble? There was trouble
+      enough without her. He came forward, took Hylda&rsquo;s hand and kissed it, then
+      kissed her on the cheek. As he did so, she laid a hand on his arm with a
+      sudden impulse, and pressed it. Though his presence had chilled the high
+      emotions of a few moments before, yet she had to break to him a truth
+      which would hurt him, dismay him, rob his life of so much that helped it;
+      and a sudden protective, maternal sense was roused in her, reached out to
+      shelter him as he faced his loss and the call of duty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have just come?&rdquo; she said, in a voice that, to herself, seemed far
+      away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been here some hours,&rdquo; he answered. Secrecy again&mdash;always the
+      thing that had chilled the dead woman, and laid a cold hand upon herself&mdash;&ldquo;I
+      felt the shadow of secrecy in your life. When you talked most I felt you
+      most secretive, and the feeling slowly closed the door upon all frankness
+      and sympathy and open speech between us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did you not see me&mdash;dine with me?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;What can the
+      servants think?&rdquo; Even in such a crisis the little things had place&mdash;habit
+      struck its note in the presence of her tragedy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had the Duchess of Snowdon, and we are not precisely congenial;
+      besides, I had much to do in the laboratory. I&rsquo;m working for that new
+      explosive of which I told you. There&rsquo;s fame and fortune in it, and I&rsquo;m on
+      the way. I feel it coming&rdquo;&mdash;his eyes sparkled a little. &ldquo;I made it
+      right with the servants; so don&rsquo;t be apprehensive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not seen you for nearly a week. It doesn&rsquo;t seem&mdash;friendly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Politics and science are stern masters,&rdquo; he answered gaily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They leave little time for your mistress,&rdquo; she rejoined meaningly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is my mistress?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I am not greatly your wife,&rdquo; she replied. &ldquo;I have the dregs of your
+      life. I help you&mdash;I am allowed to help you&mdash;so little, to share
+      so little in the things that matter to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, that&rsquo;s imagination and misunderstanding,&rdquo; he rejoined. &ldquo;It has
+      helped immensely your being such a figure in society, and entertaining so
+      much, and being so popular, at any rate until very lately.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not misunderstand,&rdquo; she answered gravely. &ldquo;I do not share your real
+      life. I do not help you where your brain works, in the plans and purposes
+      and hopes that lie behind all that you do&mdash;oh, yes, I know your
+      ambitions and what positions you are aiming for; but there is something
+      more than that. There is the object of it all, the pulse of it, the
+      machinery down, down deep in your being that drives it all. Oh, I am not a
+      child! I have some intellect, and I want&mdash;I want that we should work
+      it out together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of all that had come and gone, in spite of the dead mother&rsquo;s
+      words and all her own convictions, seeing trouble coming upon him, she
+      wanted to make one last effort for what might save their lives&mdash;her
+      life&mdash;from shipwreck in the end. If she failed now, she foresaw a
+      bitter, cynical figure working out his life with a narrowing soul, a hard
+      spirit unrelieved by the softening influence of a great love&mdash;even
+      yet the woman in her had a far-off hope that, where the law had made them
+      one by book and scrip, the love which should consecrate such a union, lift
+      it above an almost offensive relation, might be theirs. She did not know
+      how much of her heart, of her being, was wandering over the distant sands
+      of Egypt, looking for its oasis. Eglington had never needed or wanted more
+      than she had given him&mdash;her fortune, her person, her charm, her
+      ability to play an express and definite part in his career. It was this
+      material use to which she was so largely assigned, almost involuntarily
+      but none the less truly, that had destroyed all of the finer, dearer, more
+      delicate intimacy invading his mind sometimes, more or less vaguely, where
+      Faith was concerned. So extreme was his egotism that it had never occurred
+      to him, as it had done to the Duchess of Snowdon and Lord Windlehurst,
+      that he might lose Hylda herself as well as her fortune; that the day
+      might come when her high spirit could bear it no longer. As the Duchess of
+      Snowdon had said: &ldquo;It would all depend upon the other man, whoever he
+      might be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So he answered her with superficial cheerfulness now; he had not the depth
+      of soul to see that they were at a crisis, and that she could bear no
+      longer the old method of treating her as though she were a child, to be
+      humoured or to be dominated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you see all there is,&rdquo; he answered; &ldquo;you are so imaginative, crying
+      for some moon there never was in any sky.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In part he had spoken the truth. He had no high objects or ends or
+      purposes. He wanted only success somehow or another, and there was no
+      nobility of mind or aspiration behind it. In her heart of hearts she knew
+      it; but it was the last cry of her soul to him, seeking, though in vain,
+      for what she had never had, could never have.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What have you been doing?&rdquo; he added, looking at the desk where she had
+      sat, glancing round the room. &ldquo;Has the Duchess left any rags on the
+      multitude of her acquaintances? I wonder that you can make yourself
+      contented here with nothing to do. You don&rsquo;t look much stronger. I&rsquo;m sure
+      you ought to have a change. My mother was never well here; though, for the
+      matter of that, she was never very well anywhere. I suppose it&rsquo;s the
+      laboratory that attracts me here, as it did my father, playing with the
+      ancient forces of the world in these Arcadian surroundings&mdash;Arcady
+      without beauty or Arcadians.&rdquo; He glanced up at his mother&rsquo;s picture. &ldquo;No,
+      she never liked it&mdash;a very silent woman, secretive almost.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly her eyes flared up. Anger possessed her. She choked it down.
+      Secretive&mdash;the poor bruised soul who had gone to her grave with a
+      broken heart!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She secretive? No, Eglington,&rdquo; she rejoined gravely, &ldquo;she was congealed.
+      She lived in too cold an air. She was not secretive, but yet she kept a
+      secret&mdash;another&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Eglington had the feeling which possessed him when he entered the
+      room. She had changed. There was something in her tone, a meaning, he had
+      never heard before. He was startled. He recalled the words of the Duchess
+      as she went up the staircase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What was it all about?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whose secrets did she keep?&rdquo; he asked, calmly enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your father&rsquo;s, yours, mine,&rdquo; she replied, in a whisper almost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Secret? What secret? Good Lord, such mystery!&rdquo; He laughed mirthlessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She came close to him. &ldquo;I am sorry&mdash;sorry, Harry,&rdquo; she said with
+      difficulty. &ldquo;It will hurt you, shock you so. It will be a blow to you, but
+      you must bear it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She tried to speak further, but her heart was beating so violently that
+      she could not. She turned quickly to the portfolio on the desk, drew forth
+      the fatal letter, and, turning to the page which contained the truth
+      concerning David, handed it to him. &ldquo;It is there,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had great self-control. Before looking at the page to which she had
+      directed his attention, he turned the letter over slowly, fingering the
+      pages one by one. &ldquo;My mother to my father,&rdquo; he remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instinctively he knew what it contained. &ldquo;You have been reading my
+      mother&rsquo;s correspondence,&rdquo; he added in cold reproof.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you forget that you asked me to arrange her papers?&rdquo; she retorted,
+      stung by his suggestion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your imagination is vivid,&rdquo; he exclaimed. Then he bethought himself that,
+      after all, he might sorely need all she could give, if things went against
+      him, and that she was the last person he could afford to alienate; &ldquo;but I
+      do remember that I asked you that,&rdquo; he added&mdash;&ldquo;no doubt foolishly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Read what is there,&rdquo; she broke in, &ldquo;and you will see that it was not
+      foolish, that it was meant to be.&rdquo; He felt a cold dead hand reaching out
+      from the past to strike him; but he nerved himself, and his eyes searched
+      the paper with assumed coolness-even with her he must still be acting. The
+      first words he saw were: &ldquo;Why did you not tell me that my boy, my baby
+      Harry, was not your only child, and that your eldest son was alive?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So that was it, after all. Even his mother knew. Master of his nerves as
+      he was, it blinded him for a moment. Presently he read on&mdash;the whole
+      page&mdash;and lingered upon the words, that he might have time to think
+      what he must say to Hylda. Nothing of the tragedy of his mother touched
+      him, though he was faintly conscious of a revelation of a woman he had
+      never known, whose hungering caresses had made him, as a child, rather
+      peevish, when a fit of affection was not on him. Suddenly, as he read the
+      lines touching himself, &ldquo;Brilliant and able and unscrupulous.... and
+      though he loves me little, as he loves you little too,&rdquo; his eye lighted up
+      with anger, his face became pale&mdash;yet he had borne the same truths
+      from Faith without resentment, in the wood by the mill that other year.
+      For a moment he stood infuriated, then, going to the fireplace, he dropped
+      the letter on the coals, as Hylda, in horror, started forward to arrest
+      his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Eglington&mdash;but no&mdash;no! It is not honourable. It is proof of
+      all!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned upon her slowly, his face rigid, a strange, cold light in his
+      eyes. &ldquo;If there is no more proof than that, you need not vex your mind,&rdquo;
+       he said, commanding his voice to evenness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A bitter anger was on him. His mother had read him through and through&mdash;he
+      had not deceived her even; and she had given evidence against him to
+      Hylda, who, he had ever thought, believed in him completely. Now there was
+      added to the miserable tale, that first marriage, and the rights of David&mdash;David,
+      the man who, he was convinced, had captured her imagination. Hurt vanity
+      played a disproportionate part in this crisis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The effect on him had been different from what Hylda had anticipated. She
+      had pictured him stricken and dumfounded by the blow. It had never
+      occurred to her, it did not now, that he had known the truth; for, of
+      course, to know the truth was to speak, to restore to David his own, to
+      step down into the second and unconsidered place. After all, to her mind,
+      there was no disgrace. The late Earl had married secretly, but he had been
+      duly married, and he did not marry again until Mercy Claridge was dead.
+      The only wrong was to David, whose grandfather had been even more to blame
+      than his own father. She had looked to help Eglington in this moment, and
+      now there seemed nothing for her to do. He was superior to the situation,
+      though it was apparent in his pale face and rigid manner that he had been
+      struck hard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She came near to him, but there was no encouragement to her to play that
+      part which is a woman&rsquo;s deepest right and joy and pain in one&mdash;to
+      comfort her man in trouble, sorrow, or evil. Always, always, he stood
+      alone, whatever the moment might be, leaving her nothing to do&mdash;&ldquo;playing
+      his own game with his own weapons,&rdquo; as he had once put it. Yet there was
+      strength in it too, and this came to her mind now, as though in excuse for
+      whatever else there was in the situation which, against her will, repelled
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am so sorry for you,&rdquo; she said at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To lose all that has been yours so long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was their great moment. The response to this must be the touchstone
+      of their lives. A&mdash;half dozen words might alter all the future, might
+      be the watch word to the end of all things. Involuntarily her heart
+      fashioned the response he ought to give&mdash;&ldquo;I shall have you left,
+      Hylda.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The air seemed to grow oppressive, and the instant&rsquo;s silence a torture,
+      and, when he spoke, his words struck a chill to her heart&mdash;rough
+      notes of pain. &ldquo;I have not lost yet,&rdquo; were his words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She shrank. &ldquo;You will not hide it. You will do right by&mdash;by him,&rdquo; she
+      said with difficulty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let him establish his claim to the last item of fact,&rdquo; he said with
+      savage hate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Luke Claridge knew. The proofs are but just across the way, no doubt,&rdquo;
+       she answered, almost coldly, so had his words congealed her heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their great moment had passed. It was as though a cord had snapped that
+      held her to him, and in the recoil she had been thrown far off from him.
+      Swift as his mind worked, it had not seen his opportunity to win her to
+      his cause, to asphyxiate her high senses, her quixotic justice, by that
+      old flood of eloquence and compelling persuasion of the emotions with
+      which he had swept her to the altar&mdash;an altar of sacrifice. He had
+      not even done what he had left London to do&mdash;make sure of her, by an
+      alluring flattery and devotion, no difficult duty with one so beautiful
+      and desirable; though neither love of beauty nor great desire was strong
+      enough in him to divert him from his course for an hour, save by his own
+      initiative. His mother&rsquo;s letter had changed it all. A few hours before he
+      had had a struggle with Soolsby, and now another struggle on the same
+      theme was here. Fate had dealt illy with him, who had ever been its
+      spoiled child and favourite. He had not learned yet the arts of defence
+      against adversity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Luke Claridge is dead,&rdquo; he answered sharply. &ldquo;But you will tell&mdash;him,
+      you will write to Egypt and tell your brother?&rdquo; she said, the conviction
+      slowly coming to her that he would not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not my duty to displace myself, to furnish evidence against myself&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have destroyed the evidence,&rdquo; she intervened, a little scornfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If there were no more than that&mdash;&rdquo; He shrugged his shoulders
+      impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know there is more?&rdquo; she asked searchingly. &ldquo;In whose interests
+      are you speaking?&rdquo; he rejoined, with a sneer. A sudden fury possessed him.
+      Claridge Pasha&mdash;she was thinking of him!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In yours&mdash;your conscience, your honour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is over thirty years&rsquo; possession on my side,&rdquo; he rejoined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not as if it were going from your family,&rdquo; she argued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Family&mdash;what is he to me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is any one to you?&rdquo; she returned bitterly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not going to unravel a mystery in order to facilitate the cutting of
+      my own throat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It might be worth while to do something once for another&rsquo;s sake than your
+      own&mdash;it would break the monotony,&rdquo; she retorted, all her sense
+      tortured by his words, and even more so by his manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Long ago Faith had said in Soolsby&rsquo;s but that he &ldquo;blandished&rdquo; all with
+      whom he came in contact; but Hylda realised with a lacerated heart that he
+      had ceased to blandish her. Possession had altered that. Yet how had he
+      vowed to her in those sweet tempestuous days of his courtship when the
+      wind of his passion blew so hard! Had one of the vows been kept?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even as she looked at him now, words she had read some days before flashed
+      through her mind&mdash;they had burnt themselves into her brain:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+          &ldquo;Broken faith is the crown of evils,
+          Broken vows are the knotted thongs
+          Set in the hands of laughing devils,
+          To scourge us for deep wrongs.
+
+          &ldquo;Broken hearts, when all is ended,
+          Bear the better all after-stings;
+          Bruised once, the citadel mended,
+          Standeth through all things.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly he turned upon her with aggrieved petulance. &ldquo;Why are you so
+      eager for proof?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I have,&rdquo; she said, with a sudden flood of tears in her voice, though
+      her eyes were dry&mdash;&ldquo;I have the feeling your mother had, that nothing
+      will be well until you undo the wrong your father did. I know it was not
+      your fault. I feel for you&mdash;oh, believe me, I feel as I have never
+      felt, could never feel, for myself. It was brought on you by your father,
+      but you must be the more innocent because he was so guilty. You have had
+      much out of it, it has helped you on your way. It does not mean so much
+      now. By-and-by another&mdash;an English-peerage may be yours by your own
+      achievement. Let it go. There is so much left, Harry. It is a small thing
+      in a world of work. It means nothing to me.&rdquo; Once again, even when she had
+      given up all hope, seeing what was the bent of his mind&mdash;once again
+      she made essay to win him out of his selfishness. If he would only say, &ldquo;I
+      have you left,&rdquo; how she would strive to shut all else out of her life!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was exasperated. His usual prescience and prudence forsook him. It
+      angered him that she should press him to an act of sacrifice for the man
+      who had so great an influence upon her. Perversity possessed him. Lifelong
+      egotism was too strong for wisdom, or discretion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly he caught her hands in both of his and said hoarsely: &ldquo;Do you
+      love me&mdash;answer me, do you love me with all your heart and soul? The
+      truth now, as though it were your last word on earth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Always self. She had asked, if not in so many words, for a little love,
+      something for herself to feed on in the darkening days for him, for her,
+      for both; and he was thinking only of himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She shrank, but her hands lay passive in his. &ldquo;No, not with all my heart
+      and soul&mdash;but, oh&mdash;!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He flung her hands from him. &ldquo;No, not with all your heart and soul&mdash;I
+      know! You are willing to sacrifice me for him, and you think I do not
+      understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She drew herself up, with burning cheeks and flashing eyes. &ldquo;You
+      understand nothing&mdash;nothing. If you had ever understood me, or any
+      human being, or any human heart, you would not have ruined all that might
+      have given you an undying love, something that would have followed you
+      through fire and flood to the grave. You cannot love. You do not
+      understand love. Self&mdash;self, always self. Oh, you are mad, mad, to
+      have thrown it all away, all that might have given happiness! All that I
+      have, all that I am, has been at your service; everything has been bent
+      and tuned to your pleasure, for your good. All has been done for you, with
+      thought of you and your position and your advancement, and now&mdash;now,
+      when you have killed all that might have been yours, you cry out in anger
+      that it is dying, and you insinuate what you should kill another for
+      insinuating. Oh, the wicked, cruel folly of it all! You suggest&mdash;you
+      dare! I never heard a word from David Claridge that might not be written
+      on the hoardings. His honour is deeper than that which might attach to the
+      title of Earl of Eglington.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She seemed to tower above him. For an instant she looked him in the eyes
+      with frigid dignity, but a great scorn in her face. Then she went to the
+      door&mdash;he hastened to open it for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will be very sorry for this,&rdquo; he said stubbornly. He was too
+      dumfounded to be discreet, too suddenly embarrassed by the turn affairs
+      had taken. He realised too late that he had made a mistake, that he had
+      lost his hold upon her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As she passed through, there suddenly flashed before her mind the scene in
+      the laboratory with the chairmaker. She felt the meaning of it now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do not intend to tell him&mdash;perhaps Soolsby has done so,&rdquo; she
+      said keenly, and moved on to the staircase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was thunderstruck at her intuition. &ldquo;Why do you want to rob yourself?&rdquo;
+       he asked after her vaguely. She turned back. &ldquo;Think of your mother&rsquo;s
+      letter that you destroyed,&rdquo; she rejoined solemnly and quietly. &ldquo;Was it
+      right?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shut the door, and threw himself into a chair. &ldquo;I will put it straight
+      with her to-morrow,&rdquo; he said helplessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat for a half-hour silent, planning his course.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last there came a tap at the door, and the butler appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some one from the Foreign Office, my lord,&rdquo; he said. A moment afterwards
+      a young official, his subordinate, entered. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s the deuce to pay in
+      Egypt, sir; I&rsquo;ve brought the despatch,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVIII. NAHOUM TURNS THE SCREW
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Laughing to himself, Higli Pasha sat with the stem of a narghileh in his
+      mouth. His big shoulders kept time to the quivering of his fat stomach. He
+      was sitting in a small court-yard of Nahoum Pasha&rsquo;s palace, waiting for
+      its owner to appear. Meanwhile he exercised a hilarious patience. The
+      years had changed him little since he had been sent on that expedition
+      against the southern tribes which followed hard on David&rsquo;s appointment to
+      office. As David had expected, few of the traitorous officers returned.
+      Diaz had ignominiously died of the bite of a tarantula before a blow had
+      been struck, but Higli had gratefully received a slight wound in the first
+      encounter, which enabled him to beat a safe retreat to Cairo. He alone of
+      the chief of the old conspirators was left. Achmet was still at the Place
+      of Lepers, and the old nest of traitors was scattered for ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Only Nahoum and Higli were left, and between these two there had never
+      been partnership or understanding. Nahoum was not the man to trust to
+      confederates, and Higli Pasha was too contemptible a coadjutor. Nahoum had
+      faith in no one save Mizraim the Chief Eunuch, but Mizraim alone was
+      better than a thousand; and he was secret&mdash;and terrible. Yet Higli
+      had a conviction that Nahoum&rsquo;s alliance with David was a sham, and that
+      David would pay the price of misplaced confidence one day. More than once
+      when David&rsquo;s plans had had a set-back, Higli had contrived a meeting with
+      Nahoum, to judge for himself the true position.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For his visit to-day he had invented a reason&mdash;a matter of finance;
+      but his real reason was concealed behind the malevolent merriment by which
+      he was now seized. So absorbed was he that he did not heed the approach of
+      another visitor down an angle of the court-yard. He was roused by a voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what&rsquo;s tickling you so, pasha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The voice was drawling, and quite gentle; but at the sound of it, Higli&rsquo;s
+      laugh stopped short, and the muscles of his face contracted. If there was
+      one man of whom he had a wholesome fear&mdash;why, he could not tell&mdash;it
+      was this round-faced, abrupt, imperturbable American, Claridge Pasha&rsquo;s
+      right-hand man. Legends of resourcefulness and bravery had gathered round
+      his name. &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s been stroking your chin with a feather, pasha?&rdquo; he
+      continued, his eye piercing the other like a gimlet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was an amusing tale I heard at Assiout, effendi,&rdquo; was Higli&rsquo;s abashed
+      and surly reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, at Assiout!&rdquo; rejoined Lacey. &ldquo;Yes, they tell funny stories at
+      Assiout. And when were you at Assiout, pasha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two days ago, effendi.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so you thought you&rsquo;d tell the funny little story to Nahoum as quick
+      as could be, eh? He likes funny stories, same as you&mdash;damn, nice,
+      funny little stories, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was something chilly in Lacey&rsquo;s voice now, which Higli did not like;
+      something much too menacing and contemptuous for a mere man-of-all-work to
+      the Inglesi. Higli bridled up, his eyes glared sulkily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is but my own business if I laugh or if I curse, effendi,&rdquo; he replied,
+      his hand shaking a little on the stem of the narghileh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Precisely, my diaphanous polyandrist; but it isn&rsquo;t quite your own affair
+      what you laugh at&mdash;not if I know it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does the effendi think I was laughing at him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The effendi thinks not. The effendi knows that the descendant of a
+      hundred tigers was laughing at the funny little story, of how the two
+      cotton-mills that Claridge Pasha built were burned down all in one night,
+      and one of his steamers sent down the cataract at Assouan. A knock-down
+      blow for Claridge Pasha, eh? That&rsquo;s all you thought of, wasn&rsquo;t it? And it
+      doesn&rsquo;t matter to you that the cotton-mills made thousands better off, and
+      started new industries in Egypt. No, it only matters to you that Claridge
+      Pasha loses half his fortune, and that you think his feet are in the
+      quicksands, and &lsquo;ll be sucked in, to make an Egyptian holiday. Anything to
+      discredit him here, eh? I&rsquo;m not sure what else you know; but I&rsquo;ll find
+      out, my noble pasha, and if you&rsquo;ve had your hand in it&mdash;but no, you
+      ain&rsquo;t game-cock enough for that! But if you were, if you had a hand in the
+      making of your funny little story, there&rsquo;s a nutcracker that &lsquo;d break the
+      shell of that joke&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned round quickly, seeing a shadow and hearing a movement. Nahoum
+      was but a few feet away. There was a bland smile on his face, a look of
+      innocence in his magnificent blue eye. As he met Lacey&rsquo;s look, the smile
+      left his lips, a grave sympathy appeared to possess them, and he spoke
+      softly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know the thing that burns thy heart, effendi, to whom be the flowers of
+      hope and the fruits of merit. It is even so, a great blow has fallen. Two
+      hours since I heard. I went at once to see Claridge Pasha, but found him
+      not. Does he know, think you?&rdquo; he added sadly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May your heart never be harder than it is, pasha, and when I left the
+      Saadat an hour ago, he did not know. His messenger hadn&rsquo;t a steamer like
+      Higli Pasha there. But he was coming to see you; and that&rsquo;s why I&rsquo;m here.
+      I&rsquo;ve been brushing the flies off this sore on the hump of Egypt while
+      waiting.&rdquo; He glanced with disdain at Higli.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A smile rose like liquid in the eye of Nahoum and subsided, then he turned
+      to Higli inquiringly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have come on business, Excellency; the railway to Rosetta, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-morrow&mdash;or the next day,&rdquo; responded Nahoum irritably, and turned
+      again to Lacey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Higli&rsquo;s huge frame disappeared through a gateway, Nahoum motioned Lacey
+      to a divan, and summoned a slave for cooling drinks. Lacey&rsquo;s eyes now
+      watched him with an innocence nearly as childlike as his own. Lacey well
+      knew that here was a foe worthy of the best steel. That he was a foe, and
+      a malignant foe, he had no doubt whatever; he had settled the point in his
+      mind long ago; and two letters he had received from Lady Eglington, in
+      which she had said in so many words, &ldquo;Watch Nahoum!&rdquo; had made him vigilant
+      and intuitive. He knew, meanwhile, that he was following the trail of a
+      master-hunter who covered up his tracks. Lacey was as certain as though he
+      had the book of Nahoum&rsquo;s mind open in his hand, that David&rsquo;s work had been
+      torn down again&mdash;and this time with dire effect&mdash;by this
+      Armenian, whom David trusted like a brother. But the black doors that
+      closed on the truth on every side only made him more determined to unlock
+      them; and, when he faltered as to his own powers, he trusted Mahommed
+      Hassan, whose devotion to David had given him eyes that pierced dark
+      places.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely the God of Israel has smitten Claridge Pasha sorely. My heart will
+      mourn to look upon his face. The day is insulting in its brightness,&rdquo;
+       continued Nahoum with a sigh, his eyes bent upon Lacey, dejection in his
+      shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lacey started. &ldquo;The God of Israel!&rdquo; How blasphemous it sounded from the
+      lips of Nahoum, Oriental of Orientals, Christian though he was also!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think, perhaps, you&rsquo;ll get over it, pasha. Man is born to trouble, and
+      you&rsquo;ve got a lot of courage. I guess you could see other people bear a
+      pile of suffering, and never flinch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nahoum appeared not to notice the gibe. &ldquo;It is a land of suffering,
+      effendi,&rdquo; he sighed, &ldquo;and one sees what one sees.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you any idea, any real sensible idea, how those cotton-mills got
+      afire?&rdquo; Lacey&rsquo;s eyes were fixed on Nahoum&rsquo;s face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other met his gaze calmly. &ldquo;Who can tell! An accident, perhaps, or&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or some one set the mills on fire in several places at once&mdash;they
+      say the buildings flamed out in every corner; and it was the only time in
+      a month they hadn&rsquo;t been running night and day. Funny, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It looks like the work of an enemy, effendi.&rdquo; Nahoum shook his head
+      gravely. &ldquo;A fortune destroyed in an hour, as it were. But we shall get the
+      dog. We shall find him. There is no hole deep enough to hide him from us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I wouldn&rsquo;t go looking in holes for him, pasha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He isn&rsquo;t any cave-dweller, that incendiary; he&rsquo;s an artist&mdash;no
+      palace is too unlikely for him. No, I wouldn&rsquo;t go poking in mud-huts to
+      find him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou dost not think that Higli Pasha&mdash;&rdquo; Nahoum seemed startled out
+      of equanimity by the thought. Lacey eyed him meditatively, and said
+      reflectively: &ldquo;Say, you&rsquo;re an artist, pasha. You are a guesser of the
+      first rank. But I&rsquo;d guess again. Higli Pasha would have done it, if it had
+      ever occurred to him; and he&rsquo;d had the pluck. But it didn&rsquo;t, and he
+      hadn&rsquo;t. What I can&rsquo;t understand is that the artist that did it should have
+      done it before Claridge Pasha left for the Soudan. Here we were just about
+      to start; and if we&rsquo;d got away south, the job would have done more harm,
+      and the Saadat would have been out of the way. No, I can&rsquo;t understand why
+      the firebug didn&rsquo;t let us get clean away; for if the Saadat stays here,
+      he&rsquo;ll be where he can stop the underground mining.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nahoum&rsquo;s self-control did not desert him, though he fully realised that
+      this man suspected him. On the surface Lacey was right. It would have
+      seemed better to let David go, and destroy his work afterwards, but he had
+      been moved by other considerations, and his design was deep. His own
+      emissaries were in the Soudan, announcing David&rsquo;s determination to abolish
+      slavery, secretly stirring up feeling against him, preparing for the final
+      blow to be delivered, when he went again among the southern tribes. He had
+      waited and waited, and now the time was come. Had he, Nahoum, not agreed
+      with David that the time had come for the slave-trade to go? Had he not
+      encouraged him to take this bold step, in the sure belief that it would
+      overwhelm him, and bring him an ignominious death, embittered by total
+      failure of all he had tried to do?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For years he had secretly loosened the foundations of David&rsquo;s work, and
+      the triumph of Oriental duplicity over Western civilisation and integrity
+      was sweet in his mouth. And now there was reason to believe that, at last,
+      Kaid was turning against the Inglesi. Everything would come at once. If
+      all that he had planned was successful, even this man before him should
+      aid in his master&rsquo;s destruction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it was all done by an enemy,&rdquo; he said, in answer to Lacey, at last,
+      &ldquo;would it all be reasoned out like that? Is hatred so logical? Dost thou
+      think Claridge Pasha will not go now? The troops are ready at Wady-Halfa,
+      everything is in order; the last load of equipment has gone. Will not
+      Claridge Pasha find the money somehow? I will do what I can. My heart is
+      moved to aid him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, you&rsquo;d do what you could, pasha,&rdquo; Lacey rejoined enigmatically, &ldquo;but
+      whether it would set the Saadat on his expedition or not is a question.
+      But I guess, after all, he&rsquo;s got to go. He willed it so. People may try to
+      stop him, and they may tear down what he does, but he does at last what he
+      starts to do, and no one can prevent him&mdash;not any one. Yes, he&rsquo;s
+      going on this expedition; and he&rsquo;ll have the money, too.&rdquo; There was a
+      strange, abstracted look in his face, as though he saw something which
+      held him fascinated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently, as if with an effort, he rose to his feet, took the red fez
+      from his head, and fanned himself with it for a moment. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you forget
+      it, pasha; the Saadat will win. He can&rsquo;t be beaten, not in a thousand
+      years. Here he comes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nahoum got to his feet, as David came quickly through the small gateway of
+      the court-yard, his head erect, his lips smiling, his eyes sweeping the
+      place. He came forward briskly to them. It was plain he had not heard the
+      evil news.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Peace be to thee, Saadat, and may thy life be fenced about with safety!&rdquo;
+       said Nahoum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David laid a hand on Lacey&rsquo;s arm and squeezed it, smiling at him with such
+      friendship that Lacey&rsquo;s eyes moistened, and he turned his head away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a quiet elation in David&rsquo;s look. &ldquo;We are ready at last,&rdquo; he
+      said, looking from one to the other. &ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; he added, almost
+      boyishly, &ldquo;has thee nothing to say, Nahoum?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nahoum turned his head away as though overcome. David&rsquo;s face grew
+      instantly grave. He turned to Lacey. Never before had he seen Lacey&rsquo;s face
+      with a look like this. He grasped Lacey&rsquo;s arm. &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; he asked
+      quietly. &ldquo;What does thee want to say to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Lacey could not speak, and David turned again to Nahoum. &ldquo;What is
+      there to say to me?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Something has happened&mdash;what is
+      it?... Come, many things have happened before. This can be no worse. Do
+      thee speak,&rdquo; he urged gently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Saadat,&rdquo; said Nahoum, as though under the stress of feeling, &ldquo;the
+      cotton-mills at Tashah and Mini are gone&mdash;burned to the ground.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For a moment David looked at him without sight in his eyes, and his face
+      grew very pale. &ldquo;Excellency, all in one night, the besom of destruction
+      was abroad,&rdquo; he heard Nahoum say, as though from great depths below him.
+      He slowly turned his head to look at Lacey. &ldquo;Is this true?&rdquo; he asked at
+      last in an unsteady voice. Lacey could not speak, but inclined his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David&rsquo;s figure seemed to shrink for a moment, his face had a withered
+      look, and his head fell forward in a mood of terrible dejection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Saadat! Oh, my God, Saadat, don&rsquo;t take it so!&rdquo; said Lacey brokenly, and
+      stepped between David and Nahoum. He could not bear that the stricken face
+      and figure should be seen by Nahoum, whom he believed to be secretly
+      gloating. &ldquo;Saadat,&rdquo; he said brokenly, &ldquo;God has always been with you; He
+      hasn&rsquo;t forgotten you now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The work of years,&rdquo; David murmured, and seemed not to hear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When God permits, shall man despair?&rdquo; interposed Nahoum, in a voice that
+      lingered on the words. Nahoum accomplished what Lacey had failed to do.
+      His voice had pierced to some remote corner in David&rsquo;s nature, and roused
+      him. Was it that doubt, suspicion, had been wakened at last? Was some
+      sensitive nerve touched, that this Oriental should offer Christian comfort
+      to him in his need&mdash;to him who had seen the greater light? Or was it
+      that some unreality in the words struck a note which excited a new and
+      subconscious understanding? Perhaps it was a little of all three. He did
+      not stop to inquire. In crises such as that through which he was passing,
+      the mind and body act without reason, rather by the primal instinct, the
+      certain call of the things that were before reason was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God is with the patient,&rdquo; continued Nahoum; and Lacey set his teeth to
+      bear this insult to all things. But Nahoum accomplished what he had not
+      anticipated. David straightened himself up, and clasped his hands behind
+      him. By a supreme effort of the will he controlled himself, and the colour
+      came back faintly to his face. &ldquo;God&rsquo;s will be done,&rdquo; he said, and looked
+      Nahoum calmly in the eyes. &ldquo;It was no accident,&rdquo; he added with conviction.
+      &ldquo;It was an enemy of Egypt.&rdquo; Suddenly the thing rushed over him again,
+      going through his veins like a poisonous ether, and clamping his heart as
+      with iron. &ldquo;All to do over again!&rdquo; he said brokenly, and again he caught
+      Lacey&rsquo;s arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With an uncontrollable impulse Lacey took David&rsquo;s hand in his own warm,
+      human grasp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Once I thought I lost everything in Mexico, Saadat, and I understand what
+      you feel. But all wasn&rsquo;t lost in Mexico, as I found at last, and I got
+      something, too, that I didn&rsquo;t put in. Say, let us go from here. God is
+      backing you, Saadat. Isn&rsquo;t it all right&mdash;same as ever?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David was himself again. &ldquo;Thee is a good man,&rdquo; he said, and through the
+      sadness of his eyes there stole a smile. &ldquo;Let us go,&rdquo; he said. Then he
+      added in a businesslike way: &ldquo;To-morrow at seven, Nahoum. There is much to
+      do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned towards the gate with Lacey, where the horses waited. Mahommed
+      Hassan met them as they prepared to mount. He handed David a letter. It
+      was from Faith, and contained the news of Luke Claridge&rsquo;s death.
+      Everything had come at once. He stumbled into the saddle with a moan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At last I have drawn blood,&rdquo; said Nahoum to himself with grim
+      satisfaction, as they disappeared. &ldquo;It is the beginning of the end. It
+      will crush him-I saw it in his eyes. God of Israel, I shall rule again in
+      Egypt!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIX. THE RECOIL
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was a great day in the Muslim year. The Mahmal, or Sacred Carpet, was
+      leaving Cairo on its long pilgrimage of thirty-seven days to Mecca and
+      Mahomet&rsquo;s tomb. Great guns boomed from the Citadel, as the gorgeous
+      procession, forming itself beneath the Mokattam Hills, began its slow
+      march to where, seated in the shade of an ornate pavilion, Prince Kaid
+      awaited its approach to pay devout homage. Thousands looked down at the
+      scene from the ramparts of the Citadel, from the overhanging cliffs, and
+      from the tops of the houses that hung on the ledges of rock rising
+      abruptly from the level ground, to which the last of the famed Mamelukes
+      leaped to their destruction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now to Prince Kaid&rsquo;s ears there came from hundreds of hoarse throats the
+      cry: &ldquo;Allah! Allah! May thy journey be with safety to Arafat!&rdquo; mingling
+      with the harsh music of the fifes and drums.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid looked upon the scene with drawn face and lowering brows. His retinue
+      watched him with alarm. A whisper had passed that, two nights before, the
+      Effendina had sent in haste for a famous Italian physician lately come to
+      Cairo, and that since his visit Kaid had been sullen and depressed. It was
+      also the gossip of the bazaars that he had suddenly shown favour to those
+      of the Royal House and to other reactionaries, who had been enemies to the
+      influence of Claridge Pasha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This rumour had been followed by an official proclamation that no
+      Europeans or Christians would be admitted to the ceremony of the Sacred
+      Carpet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus it was that Kaid looked out on a vast multitude of Muslims, in which
+      not one European face showed, and from lip to lip there passed the word,
+      &ldquo;Harrik&mdash;Harrik&mdash;remember Harrik! Kaid turns from the infidel!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They crowded near the great pavilion&mdash;as near as the mounted Nubians
+      would permit&mdash;to see Kaid&rsquo;s face; while he, with eyes wandering over
+      the vast assemblage, was lost in dark reflections. For a year he had
+      struggled against a growing conviction that some obscure disease was
+      sapping his strength. He had hid it from every one, until, at last,
+      distress and pain had overcome him. The verdict of the Italian expert was
+      that possible, but by no means certain, cure might come from an operation
+      which must be delayed for a month or more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly, the world had grown unfamiliar to him; he saw it from afar; but
+      his subconscious self involuntarily registered impressions, and he moved
+      mechanically through the ceremonies and duties of the immediate present.
+      Thrown back upon himself, to fight his own fight, with the instinct of
+      primary life his mind involuntarily drew for refuge to the habits and
+      predispositions of youth; and for two days he had shut himself away from
+      the activities with which David and Nahoum were associated. Being deeply
+      engaged with the details of the expedition to the Soudan, David had not
+      gone to the Palace; and he was unaware of the turn which things had taken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three times, with slow and stately steps, the procession wound in a circle
+      in the great square, before it approached the pavilion where the Effendina
+      sat, the splendid camels carrying the embroidered tent wherein the Carpet
+      rested, and that which bore the Emir of the pilgrims, moving gracefully
+      like ships at sea. Naked swordsmen, with upright and shining blades, were
+      followed by men on camels bearing kettle-drums. After them came Arab
+      riders with fresh green branches fastened to the saddles like plumes,
+      while others carried flags and banners emblazoned with texts and symbols.
+      Troops of horsemen in white woollen cloaks, sheikhs and Bedouins with
+      flowing robes and huge turbans, religious chiefs of the great sects,
+      imperturbable and statuesque, were in strange contrast to the shouting
+      dervishes and camel-drivers and eager pilgrims.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the great camel with its sacred burden stopped in front of Kaid
+      for his prayer and blessing. As he held the tassels, lifted the
+      gold-fringed curtain, and invoked Allah&rsquo;s blessing, a half-naked sheikh
+      ran forward, and, raising his hand high above his head, cried shrilly:
+      &ldquo;Kaid, Kaid, hearken!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rough hands caught him away, but Kaid commanded them to desist; and the
+      man called a blessing on him; and cried aloud:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen, O Kaid, son of the stars and the light of day. God hath exalted
+      thee. Thou art the Egyptian of all the Egyptians. In thy hand is power.
+      But thou art mortal even as I. Behold, O Kaid, in the hour that I was born
+      thou wast born, I in the dust without thy Palace wall, thou amid the
+      splendid things. But thy star is my star. Behold, as God ordains, the Tree
+      of Life was shaken on the night when all men pray and cry aloud to God&mdash;even
+      the Night of the Falling Leaves. And I watched the falling leaves; and I
+      saw my leaf, and it was withered, but only a little withered, and so I
+      live yet a little. But I looked for thy leaf, thou who wert born in that
+      moment when I waked to the world. I looked long, but I found no leaf,
+      neither green nor withered. But I looked again upon my leaf, and then I
+      saw that thy name now was also upon my leaf, and that it was neither green
+      nor withered; but was a leaf that drooped as when an evil wind has passed
+      and drunk its life. Listen, O Kaid! Upon the tomb of Mahomet I will set my
+      lips, and it may be that the leaf of my life will come fresh and green
+      again. But thou&mdash;wilt thou not come also to the lord Mahomet&rsquo;s tomb?
+      Or&rdquo;&mdash;he paused and raised his voice&mdash;&ldquo;or wilt thou stay and lay
+      thy lips upon the cross of the infidel? Wilt thou&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He could say no more, for Kaid&rsquo;s face now darkened with anger. He made a
+      gesture, and, in an instant, the man was gagged and bound, while a sullen
+      silence fell upon the crowd. Kaid suddenly became aware of this change of
+      feeling, and looked round him. Presently his old prudence and subtlety
+      came back, his face cleared a little, and he called aloud, &ldquo;Unloose the
+      man, and let him come to me.&rdquo; An instant after, the man was on his knees,
+      silent before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is thy name?&rdquo; Kaid asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kaid Ibrahim, Effendina,&rdquo; was the reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou hast misinterpreted thy dream, Kaid Ibrahim,&rdquo; answered the
+      Effendina. &ldquo;The drooping leaf was token of the danger in which thy life
+      should be, and my name upon thy leaf was token that I should save thee
+      from death. Behold, I save thee. Inshallah, go in peace! There is no God
+      but God, and the Cross is the sign of a false prophet. Thou art mad. God
+      give thee a new mind. Go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man was presently lost in the sweltering, half-frenzied crowd; but he
+      had done his work, and his words rang in the ears of Kaid as he rode away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few hours afterwards, bitter and rebellious, murmuring to himself, Kaid
+      sat in a darkened room of his Nile Palace beyond the city. So few years on
+      the throne, so young, so much on which to lay the hand of pleasure, so
+      many millions to command; and yet the slave at his door had a surer hold
+      on life and all its joys and lures than he, Prince Kaid, ruler of Egypt!
+      There was on him that barbaric despair which has taken dreadful toll of
+      life for the decree of destiny. Across the record of this day, as across
+      the history of many an Eastern and pagan tyrant, was written: &ldquo;He would
+      not die alone.&rdquo; That the world should go on when he was gone, that men
+      should buy and sell and laugh and drink, and flaunt it in the sun, while
+      he, Prince Kaid, would be done with it all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was roused by the rustling of a robe. Before him stood the Arab
+      physician, Sharif Bey, who had been in his father&rsquo;s house and his own for
+      a lifetime. It was many a year since his ministrations to Kaid had ceased;
+      but he had remained on in the Palace, doing service to those who received
+      him, and&mdash;it was said by the evil-tongued&mdash;granting certificates
+      of death out of harmony with dark facts, a sinister and useful figure. His
+      beard was white, his face was friendly, almost benevolent, but his eyes
+      had a light caught from no celestial flame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His look was confident now, as his eyes bent on Kaid. He had lived long,
+      he had seen much, he had heard of the peril that had been foreshadowed by
+      the infidel physician; and, by a sure instinct, he knew that his own
+      opportunity had come. He knew that Kaid would snatch at any offered
+      comfort, would cherish any alleviating lie, would steal back from science
+      and civilisation and the modern palace to the superstition of the fellah&rsquo;s
+      hut. Were not all men alike when the neboot of Fate struck them down into
+      the terrible loneliness of doom, numbing their minds? Luck would be with
+      him that offered first succour in that dark hour. Sharif had come at the
+      right moment for Sharif.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid looked at him with dull yet anxious eyes. &ldquo;Did I not command that
+      none should enter?&rdquo; he asked presently in a thick voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I not thy physician, Effendina, to whom be the undying years? When the
+      Effendina is sick, shall I not heal? Have I not waited like a dog at thy
+      door these many years, till that time would come when none could heal thee
+      save Sharif?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What canst thou give me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What the infidel physician gave thee not&mdash;I can give thee hope. Hast
+      thou done well, oh, Effendina, to turn from thine own people? Did not
+      thine own father, and did not Mehemet Ali, live to a good age? Who were
+      their physicians? My father and I, and my father&rsquo;s father, and his
+      father&rsquo;s father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou canst cure me altogether?&rdquo; asked Kaid hesitatingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wilt thou not have faith in one of thine own race? Will the infidel love
+      thee as do we, who are thy children and thy brothers, who are to thee as a
+      nail driven in the wall, not to be moved? Thou shalt live&mdash;Inshallah,
+      thou shalt have healing and length of days!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused at a gesture from Kaid, for a slave had entered and stood
+      waiting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What dost thou here? Wert thou not commanded?&rdquo; asked Kaid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Effendina, Claridge Pasha is waiting,&rdquo; was the reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid frowned, hesitated; then, with a sudden resolve, made a gesture of
+      dismissal to Sharif Bey, and nodded David&rsquo;s admittance to the slave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As David entered, he passed Sharif Bey, and something in the look on the
+      Arab physician&rsquo;s face&mdash;a secret malignancy and triumph&mdash;struck
+      him strangely. And now a fresh anxiety and apprehension rose in his mind
+      as he glanced at Kaid. The eye was heavy and gloomy, the face was clouded,
+      the lips once so ready to smile at him were sullen and smileless now.
+      David stood still, waiting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not expect thee till to-morrow, Saadat,&rdquo; said Kaid moodily at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The business is urgent?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Effendina,&rdquo; said David, with every nerve at tension, yet with outward
+      self-control, &ldquo;I have to report&mdash;&rdquo; He paused, agitated; then, in a
+      firm voice, he told of the disaster which had befallen the cotton-mills
+      and the steamer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As David spoke, Kaid&rsquo;s face grew darker, his fingers fumbled vaguely with
+      the linen of the loose white robe he wore. When the tale was finished he
+      sat for a moment apparently stunned by the news, then he burst out
+      fiercely:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bismillah, am I to hear only black words to-day? Hast thou naught to say
+      but this&mdash;the fortune of Egypt burned to ashes!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David held back the quick retort that came to his tongue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Half my fortune is in the ashes,&rdquo; he answered with dignity. &ldquo;The rest
+      came from savings never made before by this Government. Is the work less
+      worthy in thy sight, Effendina, because it has been destroyed? Would thy
+      life be less great and useful because a blow took thee from behind?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid&rsquo;s face turned black. David had bruised an open wound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is my life to thee&mdash;what is thy work to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thy life is dear to Egypt, Effendina,&rdquo; urged David soothingly, &ldquo;and my
+      labour for Egypt has been pleasant in thine eyes till now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Egypt cannot be saved against her will,&rdquo; was the moody response. &ldquo;What
+      has come of the Western hand upon the Eastern plough?&rdquo; His face grew
+      blacker; his heart was feeding on itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou, the friend of Egypt, hast come of it, Effendina.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Harrik was right, Harrik was right,&rdquo; Kaid answered, with stubborn gloom
+      and anger. &ldquo;Better to die in our own way, if we must die, than live in the
+      way of another. Thou wouldst make of Egypt another England; thou wouldst
+      civilise the Soudan&mdash;bismillah, it is folly!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is not the way Mehemet Ali thought, nor Ibrahim. Nor dost thou think
+      so, Effendina,&rdquo; David answered gravely. &ldquo;A dark spirit is on thee. Wouldst
+      thou have me understand that what we have done together, thou and I, was
+      ill done, that the old bad days were better?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go back to thine own land,&rdquo; was the surly answer. &ldquo;Nation after nation
+      ravaged Egypt, sowed their legions here, but the Egyptian has lived them
+      down. The faces of the fellaheen are the faces of Thotmes and Seti. Go
+      back. Egypt will travel her own path. We are of the East; we are Muslim.
+      What is right to you is wrong to us. Ye would make us over&mdash;give us
+      cotton beds and wooden floors and fine flour of the mill, and cleanse the
+      cholera-hut with disinfectants, but are these things all? How many of your
+      civilised millions would die for their prophet Christ? Yet all Egypt would
+      rise up from the mud-floor, the dourha-field and the mud-hut, and would
+      come out to die for Mahomet and Allah&mdash;ay, as Harrik knew, as Harrik
+      knew! Ye steal into corners, and hide behind the curtains of your beds to
+      pray; we pray where the hour of prayer finds us&mdash;in the street, in
+      the market-place, where the house is building, the horse being shod, or
+      the money-changers are. Ye hear the call of civilisation, but we heap the
+      Muezzin&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stopped, and searched mechanically for his watch. &ldquo;It is the hour the
+      Muezzin calls,&rdquo; said David gently. &ldquo;It is almost sunset. Shall I open the
+      windows that the call may come to us?&rdquo; he added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Kaid stared at him, his breast heaving with passion, David went to a
+      window and opened the shutters wide.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Palace faced the Nile, which showed like a tortuous band of blue and
+      silver a mile or so away. Nothing lay between but the brown sand, and here
+      and there a handful of dark figures gliding towards the river, or a little
+      train of camels making for the bare grey hills from the ghiassas which had
+      given them their desert loads. The course of the Nile was marked by a wide
+      fringe of palms showing blue and purple, friendly and ancient and
+      solitary. Beyond the river and the palms lay the grey-brown desert,
+      faintly touched with red. So clear was the sweet evening air that the
+      irregular surface of the desert showed for a score of miles as plainly as
+      though it were but a step away. Hummocks of sand&mdash;tombs and fallen
+      monuments gave a feeling as of forgotten and buried peoples; and the two
+      vast pyramids of Sakkarah stood up in the plaintive glow of the evening
+      skies, majestic and solemn, faithful to the dissolved and absorbed races
+      who had built them. Curtains of mauve and saffron-red were hung behind
+      them, and through a break of cloud fringing the horizon a yellow glow
+      poured, to touch the tips of the pyramids with poignant splendour. But
+      farther over to the right, where Cairo lay, there hung a bluish mist,
+      palpable and delicate, out of which emerged the vast pyramids of Cheops;
+      and beside it the smiling inscrutable Sphinx faced the changeless
+      centuries. Beyond the pyramids the mist deepened into a vast deep cloud of
+      blue and purple, which seemed the end to some mystic highway untravelled
+      by the sons of men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly there swept over David a wave of feeling such as had passed over
+      Kaid, though of a different nature. Those who had built the pyramids were
+      gone, Cheops and Thotmes and Amenhotep and Chefron and the rest. There had
+      been reformers in those lost races; one age had sought to better the last,
+      one man had toiled to save&mdash;yet there only remained offensive bundles
+      of mummied flesh and bone and a handful of relics in tombs fifty centuries
+      old. Was it all, then, futile? Did it matter, then, whether one man
+      laboured or a race aspired?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Only for a moment these thoughts passed through his mind; and then, as the
+      glow through the broken cloud on the opposite horizon suddenly faded, and
+      veils of melancholy fell over the desert and the river and the palms,
+      there rose a call, sweetly shrill, undoubtingly insistent. Sunset had
+      come, and, with it, the Muezzin&rsquo;s call to prayer from the minaret of a
+      mosque hard by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David was conscious of a movement behind him&mdash;that Kaid was praying
+      with hands uplifted; and out on the sands between the window and the river
+      he saw kneeling figures here and there, saw the camel-drivers halt their
+      trains, and face the East with hands uplifted. The call went on&mdash;&ldquo;La
+      ilaha illa-llah!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It called David, too. The force and searching energy and fire in it stole
+      through his veins, and drove from him the sense of futility and
+      despondency which had so deeply added to his trouble. There was something
+      for him, too, in that which held infatuated the minds of so many millions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A moment later Kaid and he faced each other again. &ldquo;Effendina,&rdquo; he said,
+      &ldquo;thou wilt not desert our work now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Money&mdash;for this expedition? Thou hast it?&rdquo; Kaid asked ironically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have but little money, and it must go to rebuild the mills, Effendina.
+      I must have it of thee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let them remain in their ashes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But thousands will have no work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They had work before they were built, they will have work now they are
+      gone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Effendina, I stayed in Egypt at thy request. The work is thy work. Wilt
+      thou desert it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The West lured me&mdash;by things that seemed. Now I know things as they
+      are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They will lure thee again to-morrow,&rdquo; said David firmly, but with a
+      weight on his spirit. His eyes sought and held Kaid&rsquo;s. &ldquo;It is too late to
+      go back; we must go forward or we shall lose the Soudan, and a Mahdi and
+      his men will be in Cairo in ten years.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For an instant Kaid was startled. The old look of energy and purpose
+      leaped up into his eye; but it faded quickly again. If, as the Italian
+      physician more than hinted, his life hung by a thread, did it matter
+      whether the barbarian came to Cairo? That was the business of those who
+      came after. If Sharif was right, and his life was saved, there would be
+      time enough to set things right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not pour water on the sands to make an ocean,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Will
+      a ship sail on the Sahara? Bismillah, it is all a dream! Harrik was right.
+      But dost thou think to do with me as thou didst with Harrik?&rdquo; he sneered.
+      &ldquo;Is it in thy mind?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David&rsquo;s patience broke down under the long provocation. &ldquo;Know then,
+      Effendina,&rdquo; he said angrily, &ldquo;that I am not thy subject, nor one beholden
+      to thee, nor thy slave. Upon terms well understood, I have laboured here.
+      I have kept my obligations, and it is thy duty to keep thy obligations,
+      though the hand of death were on thee. I know not what has poisoned thy
+      mind, and driven thee from reason and from justice. I know that, Prince
+      Pasha of Egypt as thou art, thou art as bound to me as any fellah that
+      agrees to tend my door or row my boat. Thy compact with me is a compact
+      with England, and it shall be kept, if thou art an honest man. Thou mayst
+      find thousands in Egypt who will serve thee at any price, and bear thee in
+      any mood. I have but one price. It is well known to thee. I will not be
+      the target for thy black temper. This is not the middle ages; I am an
+      Englishman, not a helot. The bond must be kept; thou shalt not play fast
+      and loose. Money must be found; the expedition must go. But if thy purpose
+      is now Harrik&rsquo;s purpose, then Europe should know, and Egypt also should
+      know. I have been thy right hand, Effendina; I will not be thy old shoe,
+      to be cast aside at thy will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In all the days of his life David had never flamed out as he did now.
+      Passionate as his words were, his manner was strangely quiet, but his
+      white and glistening face and his burning eyes showed how deep was his
+      anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke, Kaid sank upon the divan. Never had he been challenged so.
+      With his own people he had ever been used to cringing and abasement, and
+      he had played the tyrant, and struck hard and cruelly, and he had been
+      feared; but here, behind David&rsquo;s courteous attitude, there was a scathing
+      arraignment of his conduct which took no count of consequence. In other
+      circumstances his vanity would have shrunk under this whip of words, but
+      his native reason and his quick humour would have justified David. In this
+      black distemper possessing him, however, only outraged egotism prevailed.
+      His hands clenched and unclenched, his lips were drawn back on his teeth
+      in rage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When David had finished, Kaid suddenly got to his feet and took a step
+      forward with a malediction, but a faintness seized him and he staggered
+      back. When he raised his head again David was gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXX. LACEY MOVES
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      If there was one glistening bead of sweat on the bald pate of Lacey of
+      Chicago there were a thousand; and the smile on his face was not less
+      shining and unlimited. He burst into the rooms of the palace where David
+      had residence, calling: &ldquo;Oyez! Oyez! Saadat! Oh, Pasha of the Thousand
+      Tails! Oyez! Oyez!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Getting no answer, he began to perform a dance round the room, which in
+      modern days is known as the negro cake-walk. It was not dignified, but it
+      would have been less dignified still performed by any other living man of
+      forty-five with a bald head and a waist-band ten inches too large. Round
+      the room three times he went, and then he dropped on a divan. He gasped,
+      and mopped his face and forehead, leaving a little island of moisture on
+      the top of his head untouched. After a moment, he gained breath and
+      settled down a little. Then he burst out:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Are you coming to my party, O effendi?
+     There&rsquo;ll be high jinks, there&rsquo;ll be welcome, there&rsquo;ll be room;
+     For to-morrow we are pulling stakes for Shendy.
+     Are you coming to my party, O Nahoum?&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, I guess that&rsquo;s pretty good on the spur of the moment,&rdquo; he wheezed,
+      and, taking his inseparable note book from his pocket, wrote the impromptu
+      down. &ldquo;I guess She&rsquo;ll like that-it rings spontaneous. She&rsquo;ll be tickled,
+      tickled to death, when she knows what&rsquo;s behind it.&rdquo; He repeated it with
+      gusto. &ldquo;She&rsquo;ll dote on it,&rdquo; he added&mdash;the person to whom he referred
+      being the sister of the American Consul, the little widow, &ldquo;cute as she
+      can be,&rdquo; of whom he had written to Hylda in the letter which had brought a
+      crisis in her life. As he returned the note-book to his pocket a door
+      opened. Mahommed Hassan slid forward into the room, and stood still,
+      impassive and gloomy. Lacey beckoned, and said grotesquely:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+    &ldquo;&lsquo;Come hither, come hither, my little daughter,
+     And do not tremble so!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      A sort of scornful patience was in Mahommed&rsquo;s look, but he came nearer and
+      waited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Squat on the ground, and smile a smile of mirth, Mahommed,&rdquo; Lacey said
+      riotously. &ldquo;&lsquo;For I&rsquo;m to be Queen o&rsquo; the May, mother, I&rsquo;m to be Queen o&rsquo; 
+      the May!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mahommed&rsquo;s face grew resentful. &ldquo;O effendi, shall the camel-driver laugh
+      when the camels are lost in the khamsin and the water-bottle is empty?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly not, O son of the spreading palm; but this is not a desert, nor
+      a gaudy caravan. This is a feast of all angels. This is the day when
+      Nahoum the Nefarious is to be buckled up like a belt, and ridden in a
+      ring. Where is the Saadat?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is gone, effendi! Like a mist on the face of the running water, so was
+      his face; like eyes that did not see, so was his look. &lsquo;Peace be to thee,
+      Mahommed, thou art faithful as Zaida,&rsquo; he said, and he mounted and rode
+      into the desert. I ran after till he was come to the edge of the desert;
+      but he sent me back, saying that I must wait for thee; and this word I was
+      to say, that Prince Kaid had turned his face darkly from him, and that the
+      finger of Sharif&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That fanatical old quack&mdash;Harrik&rsquo;s friend!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;that the finger of Sharif was on his pulse; but the end of all was
+      in the hands of God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes, exactly, the finger of Sharif on his pulse! The old story-the
+      return to the mother&rsquo;s milk, throwing back to all the Pharaohs. Well, what
+      then?&rdquo; he added cheerfully, his smile breaking out again. &ldquo;Where has he
+      gone, our Saadat?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Ebn Ezra Bey at the Coptic Monastery by the Etl Tree, where your
+      prophet Christ slept when a child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lacey hummed to himself meditatively. &ldquo;A sort of last powwow&mdash;Rome
+      before the fall. Everything wrong, eh? Kaid turned fanatic, Nahoum on the
+      tiles watching for the Saadat to fall, things trembling for want of hard
+      cash. That&rsquo;s it, isn&rsquo;t it, Mahommed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mahommed nodded, but his look was now alert, and less sombre. He had
+      caught at something vital and confident in Lacey&rsquo;s tone. He drew nearer,
+      and listened closely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, now, my gentle gazelle, listen unto me,&rdquo; continued Lacey. He
+      suddenly leaned forward, and spoke in subdued but rapid tones. &ldquo;Say,
+      Mahommed, once upon a time there was an American man, with a shock of red
+      hair, and a nature like a spring-lock. He went down to Mexico, with a
+      million or two of his own money got honestly by an undisputed will from an
+      undisputed father&mdash;you don&rsquo;t understand that, but it doesn&rsquo;t matter&mdash;and
+      with a few millions of other people&rsquo;s money, for to gamble in mines and
+      railways and banks and steamship companies&mdash;all to do with Mexico
+      what the Saadat has tried to do in Egypt with less money; but not for the
+      love of Allah, same as him. This American was going to conquer like
+      Cortez, but his name was Thomas Tilman Lacey, and he had a lot of gall.
+      After years of earnest effort, he lost his hair and the millions of the
+      Infatuated Conquistadores. And by-and-by he came to Cairo with a
+      thimbleful of income, and began to live again. There was a civil war going
+      on in his own country, but he thought that one out of forty millions would
+      not be strictly missed. So he stayed in Egypt; and the tale of his days in
+      Egypt, is it not written with a neboot of domwood in the book of Mahommed
+      Hassan the scribe?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused and beamed upon the watchful Mahommed, who, if he did not
+      understand all that had been said, was in no difficulty as to the drift
+      and meaning of the story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aiwa, effendi,&rdquo; he urged impatiently. &ldquo;It is a long ride to the Etl Tree,
+      and the day is far spent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Inshallah, you shall hear, my turtle-dove! One day there came to Cairo,
+      in great haste, a man from Mexico, looking for the foolish one called T.
+      T. Lacey, bearing glad news. And the man from Mexico blew his trumpet, and
+      straightway T. T. Lacey fell down dismayed. The trumpet said that a
+      million once lost in Mexico was returned, with a small flock of other
+      millions; for a mine, in which it was sunk, had burst forth with a stony
+      stream of silver. And behold! Thomas Tilman Lacey, the despised waster of
+      his patrimony and of other people&rsquo;s treasure, is now, O son of the
+      fig-flower, richer than Kaid Pasha and all his eunuchs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly Mahommed Hassan leaned forward, then backward, and, after the
+      fashion of desert folk, gave a shrill, sweet ululation that seemed to fill
+      the palace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, that&rsquo;s A1,&rdquo; Lacey said, when Mahommed&rsquo;s voice sank to a whisper of
+      wild harmony. &ldquo;Yes, you can lick my boots, my noble sheikh of Manfaloot,&rdquo;
+       he added, as Mahommed caught his feet and bent his head upon them. &ldquo;I
+      wanted to do something like that myself. Kiss &lsquo;em, honey; it&rsquo;ll do you
+      good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After a moment, Mahommed drew back and squatted before him in an attitude
+      of peace and satisfaction. &ldquo;The Saadat&mdash;you will help him? You will
+      give him money?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s put it in this way, Mahommed: I&rsquo;ll invest in an expedition out of
+      which I expect to get something worth while&mdash;concessions for mines
+      and railways, et cetera.&rdquo; He winked a round, blue eye. &ldquo;Business is
+      business, and the way to get at the Saadat is to talk business; but you
+      can make up your mind that,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+    &ldquo;&lsquo;To-morrow, we are pulling stakes for Shendy!
+     Are you coming to my party, O Nahoum?&rsquo;&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By the prophet Abraham, but the news is great news,&rdquo; said Mahommed with a
+      grin. &ldquo;But the Effendina?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;ll try and square the Effendina,&rdquo; answered Lacey. &ldquo;Perhaps the
+      days of backsheesh aren&rsquo;t done in Egypt, after all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Nahoum Pasha?&rdquo; asked Mahommed, with a sinister look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, we&rsquo;ll try and square him, too, but in another way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The money, it is in Egypt?&rdquo; queried Mahommed, whose idea was that money
+      to be real must be seen. &ldquo;Something that&rsquo;s as handy and as marketable,&rdquo;
+       answered Lacey. &ldquo;I can raise half a million to-morrow; and that will do a
+      lot of what we want. How long will it take to ride to the monastery?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mahommed told him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lacey was about to leave the room, when he heard a voice outside.
+      &ldquo;Nahoum!&rdquo; he said, and sat down again on the divan. &ldquo;He has come to see
+      the Saadat, I suppose; but it&rsquo;ll do him good to see me, perhaps. Open the
+      sluices, Mahommed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, Nahoum would be glad to see the effendi, since Claridge Pasha was not
+      in Cairo. When would Claridge Pasha return? If, then, the effendi expected
+      to see the Saadat before his return to Cairo, perhaps he would convey a
+      message. He could not urge his presence on the Saadat, since he had not
+      been honoured with any communication since yesterday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that&rsquo;s good-mannered, anyhow, pasha,&rdquo; said Lacey with cheerful
+      nonchalance. &ldquo;People don&rsquo;t always know when they&rsquo;re wanted or not wanted.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nahoum looked at him guardedly, sighed and sat down. &ldquo;Things have grown
+      worse since yesterday,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Prince Kaid received the news badly.&rdquo; He
+      shook his head. &ldquo;He has not the gift of perfect friendship. That is a
+      Christian characteristic; the Muslim does not possess it. It was too
+      strong to last, maybe&mdash;my poor beloved friend, the Saadat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, it will last all right,&rdquo; rejoined Lacey coolly. &ldquo;Prince Kaid has got
+      a touch of jaundice, I guess. He knows a thing when he finds it, even if
+      he hasn&rsquo;t the gift of &lsquo;perfect friendship,&rsquo; same as Christians like you
+      and me. But even you and me don&rsquo;t push our perfections too far&mdash;I
+      haven&rsquo;t noticed you going out of your way to do things for your &lsquo;poor
+      beloved friend, the Saadat&rsquo;.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have given him time, energy, experience&mdash;money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lacey nodded. &ldquo;True. And I&rsquo;ve often wondered why, when I&rsquo;ve seen the
+      things you didn&rsquo;t give and the things you took away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nahoum&rsquo;s eyes half closed. Lacey was getting to close quarters with
+      suspicion and allusion; but it was not his cue to resent them yet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had come now to offer him help; to advance him enough to carry through
+      his expedition.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that sounds generous, but I guess he would get on without it,
+      pasha. He would not want to be under any more obligations to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is without money. He must be helped.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He cannot go to the treasury, and Prince Kaid has refused. Why should he
+      decline help from his friend?&rdquo; Suddenly Lacey changed his tactics. He had
+      caught a look in Nahoum&rsquo;s eyes which gave him a new thought. &ldquo;Well, if
+      you&rsquo;ve any proposition, pasha, I&rsquo;ll take it to him. I&rsquo;ll be seeing him
+      to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can give him fifty thousand pounds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t enough to save the situation, pasha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will help him over the first zareba.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are there any conditions?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are no conditions, effendi.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And interest?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There would be no interest in money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Other considerations?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, other considerations, effendi.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If they were granted, would there be enough still in the stocking to help
+      him over a second zareba&mdash;or a third, perhaps?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That would be possible, even likely, I think. Of course we speak in
+      confidence, effendi.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The confidence of the &lsquo;perfect friendship.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There may be difficulty, because the Saadat is sensitive; but it is the
+      only way to help him. I can get the money from but one source; and to get
+      it involves an agreement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You think his Excellency would not just jump at it&mdash;that it might
+      hurt some of his prejudices, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So, effendi.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And me&mdash;where am I in it, pasha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou hast great influence with his Excellency.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am his servant&mdash;I don&rsquo;t meddle with his prejudices, pasha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if it were for his own good, to save his work here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lacey yawned almost ostentatiously. &ldquo;I guess if he can&rsquo;t save it himself
+      it can&rsquo;t be saved, not even when you reach out the hand of perfect
+      friendship. You&rsquo;ve been reaching out for a long time, pasha, and it didn&rsquo;t
+      save the steamer or the cotton-mills; and it didn&rsquo;t save us when we were
+      down by Sobat a while ago, and you sent Halim Bey to teach us to be
+      patient. We got out of that nasty corner by sleight of hand, but not your
+      sleight of hand, pasha. Your hand is a quick hand, but a sharp eye can see
+      the trick, and then it&rsquo;s no good, not worth a button.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was something savage behind Nahoum&rsquo;s eyes, but they did not show it;
+      they blinked with earnest kindness and interest. The time would come when
+      Lacey would go as his master should go, and the occasion was not far off
+      now; but it must not be forced. Besides, was this fat, amorous-looking
+      factotum of Claridge Pasha&rsquo;s as Spartan-minded as his master? Would he be
+      superior to the lure of gold? He would see. He spoke seriously, with
+      apparent solicitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou dost not understand, effendi. Claridge Pasha must have money.
+      Prestige is everything in Egypt, it is everything with Kaid. If Claridge
+      Pasha rides on as though nothing has happened&mdash;and money is the only
+      horse that can carry him&mdash;Kaid will not interfere, and his black mood
+      may pass; but any halting now and the game is done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you want the game to go on right bad, don&rsquo;t you? Well, I guess you&rsquo;re
+      right. Money is the only winner in this race. He&rsquo;s got to have money,
+      sure. How much can you raise? Oh, yes, you told me! Well, I don&rsquo;t think
+      it&rsquo;s enough; he&rsquo;s got to have three times that; and if he can&rsquo;t get it
+      from the Government, or from Kaid, it&rsquo;s a bad lookout. What&rsquo;s the bargain
+      you have in your mind?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That the slave-trade continue, effendi.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lacey did not wink, but he had a shock of surprise. On the instant he saw
+      the trap&mdash;for the Saadat and for himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He would not do it&mdash;not for money, pasha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He would not be doing it for money. The time is not ripe for it, it is
+      too dangerous. There is a time for all things. If he will but wait!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t like to be the man that&rsquo;d name the thing to him. As you say,
+      he&rsquo;s got his prejudices. They&rsquo;re stronger than in most men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It need not be named to him. Thou canst accept the money for him, and
+      when thou art in the Soudan, and he is going to do it, thou canst prevent
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell him that I&rsquo;ve taken the money and that he&rsquo;s used it, and he oughtn&rsquo;t
+      to go back on the bargain I made for him? So that he&rsquo;ll be bound by what I
+      did?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the best way, effendi.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;d be annoyed,&rdquo; said Lacey with a patient sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has a great soul; but sometimes he forgets that expediency is the true
+      policy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet he&rsquo;s done a lot of things without it. He&rsquo;s never failed in what he
+      set out to do. What he&rsquo;s done has been kicked over, but he&rsquo;s done it all
+      right, somehow, at last.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will not be able to do this, effendi, except with my help&mdash;and
+      thine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s had quite a lot of things almost finished, too,&rdquo; said Lacey
+      reflectively, &ldquo;and then a hand reached out in the dark and cut the wires&mdash;cut
+      them when he was sleeping, and he didn&rsquo;t know; cut them when he was
+      waking, and he wouldn&rsquo;t understand; cut them under his own eyes, and he
+      wouldn&rsquo;t see; because the hand that cut them was the hand of the perfect
+      friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He got slowly to his feet, as a cloud of colour drew over the face of
+      Nahoum and his eyes darkened with astonishment and anger. Lacey put his
+      hands in his pockets and waited till Nahoum also rose. Then he gathered
+      the other&rsquo;s eyes to his, and said with drawling scorn:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So, you thought I didn&rsquo;t understand! You thought I&rsquo;d got a brain like a
+      peanut, and wouldn&rsquo;t drop onto your game or the trap you&rsquo;ve set. You&rsquo;d
+      advance money&mdash;got from the slave-dealers to prevent the slave-trade
+      being stopped! If Claridge Pasha took it and used it, he could never stop
+      the slave-trade. If I took it and used it for him on the same terms, he
+      couldn&rsquo;t stop the slave-trade, though he might know no more about the
+      bargain than a babe unborn. And if he didn&rsquo;t stand by the bargain I made,
+      and did prohibit slave-dealing, nothing&rsquo;d stop the tribes till they
+      marched into Cairo. He&rsquo;s been safe so far, because they believed in him,
+      and because he&rsquo;d rather die a million deaths than go crooked. Say, I&rsquo;ve
+      been among the Dagos before&mdash;down in Mexico&mdash;and I&rsquo;m onto you.
+      I&rsquo;ve been onto you for a good while; though there was nothing I could spot
+      certain; but now I&rsquo;ve got you, and I&rsquo;ll break the &lsquo;perfect friendship&rsquo; or
+      I&rsquo;ll eat my shirt. I&rsquo;ll&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused, realising the crisis in which David was moving, and that perils
+      were thick around their footsteps. But, even as he thought of them, he
+      remembered David&rsquo;s own frank, fearless audacity in danger and difficulty,
+      and he threw discretion to the winds. He flung his flag wide, and believed
+      with a belief as daring as David&rsquo;s that all would be well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what wilt thou do?&rdquo; asked Nahoum with cool and deadly menace. &ldquo;Thou
+      wilt need to do it quickly, because, if it is a challenge, within
+      forty-eight hours Claridge Pasha and thyself will be gone from Egypt&mdash;or
+      I shall be in the Nile.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll take my chances, pasha,&rdquo; answered Lacey, with equal coolness. &ldquo;You
+      think you&rsquo;ll win. It&rsquo;s not the first time I&rsquo;ve had to tackle men like you&mdash;they&rsquo;ve
+      got the breed in Mexico. They beat me there, but I learned the game, and
+      I&rsquo;ve learned a lot from you, too. I never knew what your game was here. I
+      only know that the Saadat saved your life, and got you started again with
+      Kaid. I only know that you called yourself a Christian, and worked on him
+      till he believed in you, and Hell might crackle round you, but he&rsquo;d
+      believe, till he saw your contract signed with the Devil&mdash;and then
+      he&rsquo;d think the signature forged. But he&rsquo;s got to know now. We are not
+      going out of Egypt, though you may be going to the Nile; but we are going
+      to the Soudan, and with Kaid&rsquo;s blessing, too. You&rsquo;ve put up the bluff, and
+      I take it. Be sure you&rsquo;ve got Kaid solid, for, if you haven&rsquo;t, he&rsquo;ll be
+      glad to know where you keep the money you got from the slave-dealers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nahoum shrugged his shoulders. &ldquo;Who has seen the money? Where is the
+      proof? Kaid would know my reasons. It is not the first time virtue has
+      been tested in Egypt, or the first time that it has fallen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of himself Lacey laughed. &ldquo;Say, that&rsquo;s worthy of a great
+      Christian intellect. You are a bright particular star, pasha. I take it
+      back&mdash;they&rsquo;d learn a lot from you in Mexico. But the only trouble
+      with lying is, that the demand becomes so great you can&rsquo;t keep all the
+      cards in your head, and then the one you forget does you. The man that
+      isn&rsquo;t lying has the pull in the long run. You are out against us, pasha,
+      and we&rsquo;ll see how we stand in forty-eight hours. You have some cards up
+      your sleeve, I suppose; but&mdash;well, I&rsquo;m taking you on. I&rsquo;m taking you
+      on with a lot of joy, and some sorrow, too, for we might have pulled off a
+      big thing together, you and Claridge Pasha, with me to hold the stirrups.
+      Now it&rsquo;s got to be war. You&rsquo;ve made it so. It&rsquo;s a pity, for when we grip
+      there&rsquo;ll be a heavy fall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For a poor man thou hast a proud stomach.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;ll admit the stomach, pasha. It&rsquo;s proud; and it&rsquo;s strong, too;
+      it&rsquo;s stood a lot in Egypt; it&rsquo;s standing a lot to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll ease the strain, perhaps,&rdquo; sneered Nahoum. He made a perfunctory
+      salutation and walked briskly from the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mahommed Hassan crept in, a malicious grin on his face. Danger and
+      conflict were as meat and drink to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Effendi, God hath given thee a wasp&rsquo;s sting to thy tongue. It is well.
+      Nahoum Pasha hath Mizraim: the Saadat hath thee and me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s the Effendina,&rdquo; said Lacey reflectively. &ldquo;Thou saidst thou would
+      &lsquo;square&rsquo; him, effendi.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say a lot,&rdquo; answered Lacey rather ruefully. &ldquo;Come, Mahommed, the Saadat
+      first, and the sooner the better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXI. THE STRUGGLE IN THE DESERT
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;And His mercy is on them that fear Him throughout all generations.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      On the clear, still evening air the words rang out over the desert,
+      sonorous, imposing, peaceful. As the notes of the verse died away the
+      answer came from other voices in deep, appealing antiphonal:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;He hath showed strength with His arm, He hath scattered the proud
+   in the imagination of their hearts.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Beyond the limits of the monastery there was not a sign of life; neither
+      beast nor bird, nor blade of grass, nor any green thing; only the perfect
+      immemorial blue, and in the east a misty moon, striving in vain to offer
+      light which the earth as yet rejected for the brooding radiance of the
+      descending sun. But at the great door of the monastery there grew a
+      stately palm, and near by an ancient acacia-tree; and beyond the stone
+      chapel there was a garden of struggling shrubs and green things, with one
+      rose-tree which scattered its pink leaves from year to year upon the loam,
+      since no man gathered bud or blossom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The triumphant call of the Magnificat, however beautiful, seemed strangely
+      out of place in this lonely island in a sea of sand. It was the song of a
+      bannered army, marching over the battle-field with conquering voices, and
+      swords as yet unsheathed and red, carrying the spoils of conquest behind
+      the laurelled captain of the host. The crumbling and ancient walls were
+      surrounded by a moat which a stranger&rsquo;s foot crossed hardly from moon to
+      moon, which the desert wayfarer sought rarely, since it was out of the
+      track of caravans, and because food was scant in the refectory of this
+      Coptic brotherhood. It was scarce five hours&rsquo; ride from the Palace of the
+      Prince Pasha: but it might have been a thousand miles away, so profoundly
+      separate was it from the world of vital things and deeds of men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the chant rang out, confident, majestic, and serene, carried by voices
+      of power and shrill sweetness, which only the desert can produce, it might
+      have seemed to any listener that this monastery was all that remained of
+      some ancient kingdom of brimming, active cities, now lying beneath the
+      obliterating sand, itself the monument and memorial of a breath of mercy
+      of the Destroyer, the last refuge of a few surviving captains of a
+      departed greatness. Hidden by the grey, massive walls, built as it were to
+      resist the onset of a ravaging foe, the swelling voices might well have
+      been those of some ancient order of valiant knights, whose banners hung
+      above them, the &lsquo;riclame&rsquo; of their deeds. But they were voices and voices
+      only; for they who sang were as unkempt and forceless as the lonely wall
+      which shut them in from the insistent soul of the desert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Desolation? The desert was not desolate. Its face was bare and burning, it
+      slaked no man&rsquo;s thirst, gave no man food, save where scattered oases were
+      like the breasts of a vast mother eluding the aching lips of her parched
+      children; but the soul of the desert was living and inspiring, beating
+      with vitality. It was life that burned like flame. If the water-skin was
+      dry and the date-bag empty it smothered and destroyed; but it was life;
+      and to those who ventured into its embrace, obeying the conditions of the
+      sharp adventure, it gave what neither sea, nor green plain, nor high
+      mountain, nor verdant valley could give&mdash;a consuming sense of power,
+      which found its way to the deepest recesses of being. Out upon the vast
+      sea of sand, where the descending sun was spreading a note of incandescent
+      colour, there floated the grateful words:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;He remembering His mercy hath holpen His servant Israel; as He
+   promised to our forefathers, Abraham, and his seed for ever.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Then the antiphonal ceased; and together the voices of all within the
+      place swelled out in the Gloria and the Amen, and seemed to pass away in
+      ever-receding vibrations upon the desert, till it was lost in the
+      comforting sunset.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the last note died away, a voice from beneath the palm-tree near the
+      door, deeper than any that had come from within, said reverently:
+      &ldquo;Ameen-Ameen!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He who spoke was a man well over sixty years, with a grey beard, lofty
+      benign forehead, and the eyes of a scholar and a dreamer. As he uttered
+      the words of spiritual assent, alike to the Muslim and the Christian
+      religion, he rose to his feet, showing the figure of a man of action,
+      alert, well-knit, authoritative. Presently he turned towards the East and
+      stretched a robe upon the ground, and with stately beauty of gesture he
+      spread out his hands, standing for a moment in the attitude of aspiration.
+      Then, kneeling, he touched his turbaned head to the ground three times,
+      and as the sun drew down behind the sharp, bright line of sand that marked
+      the horizon, he prayed devoutly and long. It was Ebn Ezra Bey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Muslim though he was, he had visited this monastery many times, to study
+      the ancient Christian books which lay in disordered heaps in an ill-kept
+      chamber, books which predated the Hegira, and were as near to the life of
+      the Early Church as the Scriptures themselves&mdash;or were so reputed.
+      Student and pious Muslim as he was, renowned at El Azhar and at every
+      Muslim university in the Eastern world, he swore by the name of Christ as
+      by that of Abraham, Isaac, and all the prophets, though to him Mahomet was
+      the last expression of Heaven&rsquo;s will to mankind. At first received at the
+      monastery with unconcealed aversion, and not without danger to himself, he
+      had at last won to him the fanatical monks, who, in spirit, kept this
+      ancient foundation as rigid to their faith as though it were in mediaeval
+      times. And though their discipline was lax, and their daily duties
+      orderless, this was Oriental rather than degenerate. Here Ebn Ezra had
+      stayed for weeks at a time in the past, not without some religious
+      scandal, long since forgotten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His prayers ended, he rose up slowly, once more spread out his hands in
+      ascription, and was about to enter the monastery, when, glancing towards
+      the west, he saw a horseman approaching. An instinct told him who it was
+      before he could clearly distinguish the figure, and his face lighted with
+      a gentle and expectant smile. Then his look changed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is in trouble,&rdquo; he murmured. &ldquo;As it was with his uncle in Damascus, so
+      will it be with him. Malaish, we are in the will of God!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The hand that David laid in Ebn Ezra&rsquo;s was hot and nervous, the eyes that
+      drank in the friendship of the face which had seen two Claridges emptying
+      out their lives in the East were burning and famished by long fasting of
+      the spirit, forced abstinence from the pleasures of success and
+      fruition-haunting, desiring eyes, where flamed a spirit which consumed the
+      body and the indomitable mind. The lips, however, had their old trick of
+      smiling, though the smile which greeted Ebn Ezra Bey had a melancholy
+      which touched the desert-worn, life-spent old Arab as he had not been
+      touched since a smile, just like this, flashed up at him from the
+      weather-stained, dying face of quaint Benn Claridge in a street of
+      Damascus. The natural duplicity of the Oriental had been abashed and
+      inactive before the simple and astounding honesty of these two Quaker
+      folk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He saw crisis written on every feature of the face before him. Yet the
+      scanty meal they ate with the monks in the ancient room was enlivened by
+      the eager yet quiet questioning of David, to whom the monks responded with
+      more spirit than had been often seen in this arid retreat. The single
+      torch which spluttered from the wall as they drank their coffee lighted up
+      faces as strange, withdrawn, and unconsciously secretive as ever gathered
+      to greet a guest. Dim tales had reached them of this Christian reformer
+      and administrator, scraps of legend from stray camel-drivers, a letter
+      from the Patriarch commanding them to pray blessings on his labours&mdash;who
+      could tell what advantage might not come to the Coptic Church through him,
+      a Christian! On the dull, torpid faces, light seemed struggling to live
+      for a moment, as David talked. It was as though something in their meagre
+      lives, which belonged to undeveloped feelings, was fighting for existence&mdash;a
+      light struggling to break through murky veils of inexperience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Later, in the still night, however&mdash;still, though air vibrated
+      everywhere, as though the desert breathed an ether which was to fill men&rsquo;s
+      veins with that which quieted the fret and fever of life&rsquo;s disillusions
+      and forgeries and failures&mdash;David&rsquo;s speech with Ebn Ezra Bey was of a
+      different sort. If, as it seems ever in the desert, an invisible host of
+      beings, once mortal, now immortal, but suspensive and understanding,
+      listened to the tale he unfolded, some glow of pity must have possessed
+      them; for it was an Iliad of herculean struggle against absolute disaster,
+      ending with the bitter news of his grandfather&rsquo;s death. It was the story
+      of AEdipus overcome by events too strong for soul to bear. In return, as
+      the stars wheeled on, and the moon stole to the zenith, majestic and slow,
+      Ebn Ezra offered to his troubled friend only the philosophy of the
+      predestinarian, mingled with the calm of the stoic. But something
+      antagonistic to his own dejection, to the Muslim&rsquo;s fatalism, emerged from
+      David&rsquo;s own altruism, to nerve him to hope and effort still. His
+      unconquerable optimism rose determinedly to the surface, even as he summed
+      up and related the forces working against him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They have all come at once,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;all the activities opposing me,
+      just as though they had all been started long ago at different points,
+      with a fixed course to run, and to meet and give me a fall in the hour
+      when I could least resist. You call it Fate. I call it what it proves
+      itself to be. But here it is a hub of danger and trouble, and the spokes
+      of disaster are flying to it from all over the compass, to make the wheel
+      that will grind me; and all the old troop of Palace intriguers and
+      despoilers are waiting to heat the tire and fasten it on the machine of
+      torture. Kaid has involved himself in loans which press, in foolish
+      experiments in industry without due care; and now from ill-health and bad
+      temper comes a reaction towards the old sinister rule, when the Prince
+      shuts his eyes and his agents ruin and destroy. Three nations who have
+      intrigued against my work see their chance, and are at Kaid&rsquo;s elbow. The
+      fate of the Soudan is in the balance. It is all as the shake of a feather.
+      I can save it if I go; but, just as I am ready, my mills burn down, my
+      treasury dries up, Kaid turns his back on me, and the toil of years is
+      swept away in a night. Thee sees it is terrible, friend?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ebn Ezra looked at him seriously and sadly for a moment, and then said:
+      &ldquo;Is it given one man to do all? If many men had done these things, then
+      there had been one blow for each. Now all falls on thee, Saadat. Is it the
+      will of God that one man should fling the lance, fire the cannon, dig the
+      trenches, gather food for the army, drive the horses on to battle, and
+      bury the dead? Canst thou do all?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David&rsquo;s eyes brightened to the challenge. &ldquo;There was the work to do, and
+      there were not the many to do it. My hand was ready; the call came; I
+      answered. I plunged into the river of work alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou didst not know the strength of the currents, the eddies and the
+      whirlpools, the hidden rocks&mdash;and the shore is far off, Saadat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not so far but that, if I could get breath to gather strength, I
+      should reach the land in time. Money&mdash;ah, but enough for this
+      expedition! That over, order, quiet yonder, my own chosen men as
+      governors, and I could&rdquo;&mdash;he pointed towards the southern horizon&mdash;&ldquo;I
+      could plant my foot in Cairo, and from the centre control the great
+      machinery&mdash;with Kaid&rsquo;s help; and God&rsquo;s help. A sixth of a million,
+      and Kaid&rsquo;s hand behind me, and the boat would lunge free of the sand-banks
+      and churn on, and churn on.... Friend,&rdquo; he added, with the winning
+      insistence that few found it possible to resist, &ldquo;if all be well, and we
+      go thither, wilt thou become the governor-general yonder? With thee to
+      rule justly where there is most need of justice, the end would be sure&mdash;if
+      it be the will of God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ebn Ezra Bey sat for a moment looking into the worn, eager face,
+      indistinct in the moonlight, then answered slowly: &ldquo;I am seventy, and the
+      years smite hard as they pass, and there or here, it little matters when I
+      go, as I must go; and whether it be to bend the lance, or bear the flag
+      before thee, or rule a Mudirieh, what does it matter! I will go with
+      thee,&rdquo; he added hastily; &ldquo;but it is better thou shouldst not go. Within
+      the last three days I have news from the South. All that thou hast done
+      there is in danger now. The word for revolt has passed from tribe to
+      tribe. A tongue hath spoken, and a hand hath signalled&rdquo;&mdash;his voice
+      lowered&mdash;&ldquo;and I think I know the tongue and the hand!&rdquo; He paused;
+      then, as David did not speak, continued: &ldquo;Thou who art wise in most
+      things, dost decline to seek for thy foe in him who eateth from the same
+      dish with thee. Only when it is too late thou wilt defend thyself and all
+      who keep faith with thee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David&rsquo;s face clouded. &ldquo;Nahoum, thou dost mean Nahoum? But thou dost not
+      understand, and there is no proof.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As a camel knows the coming storm while yet the sky is clear, by that
+      which the eye does not see, so do I feel Nahoum. The evils thou hast
+      suffered, Saadat, are from his hand, if from any hand in Egypt&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly he leaned over and touched David&rsquo;s arm. &ldquo;Saadat, it is of no
+      avail. There is none in Egypt that desires good; thy task is too great.
+      All men will deceive thee; if not now, yet in time. If Kaid favours thee
+      once more, and if it is made possible for thee to go to the Soudan, yet I
+      pray thee to stay here. Better be smitten here, where thou canst get help
+      from thine own country, if need be, than yonder, where they but wait to
+      spoil thy work and kill thee. Thou art young; wilt thou throw thy life
+      away? Art thou not needed here as there? For me it is nothing, whether it
+      be now or in a few benumbing years; but for thee&mdash;is there no one
+      whom thou lovest so well that thou wouldst not shelter thy life to spare
+      that life sorrow? Is there none that thou lovest so, and that will love
+      thee to mortal sorrow, if thou goest without care to thy end too soon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As a warm wind suddenly sweeps across the cool air of a summer evening for
+      an instant, suffocating and unnerving, so Ebn Ezra&rsquo;s last words swept
+      across David&rsquo;s spirit. His breath came quicker, his eyes half closed. &ldquo;Is
+      there none that thou lovest so, and that will love thee to mortal sorrow,
+      if&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As a hand secretly and swiftly slips the lever that opens the sluice-gates
+      of a dike, while the watchman turns away for a moment to look at the
+      fields which the waters enrich and the homes of poor folk whom the gates
+      defend, so, in a moment, when off his guard, worn with watching and
+      fending, as it were, Ebn Ezra had sprung the lever, and a flood of feeling
+      swept over David, drowned him in its impulse and pent-up force.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there none that thou lovest so&mdash;&rdquo; Of what use had been all his
+      struggle and his pain since that last day in Hamley&mdash;his dark
+      fighting days in the desert with Lacey and Mahommed, and his handful of
+      faithful followers, hemmed in by dangers, the sands swarming with Arabs
+      who feathered now to his safety, now to his doom, and his heart had
+      hungered for what he had denied it with a will that would not be
+      conquered? Wasted by toil and fever and the tension of danger and the care
+      of others dependent on him, he had also fought a foe which was ever at his
+      elbow, ever whispered its comfort and seduction in his ear, the insidious
+      and peace-giving, exalting opiate that had tided him over some black
+      places, and then had sought for mastery of him when he was back again in
+      the world of normal business and duty, where it appealed not as a
+      medicine, but as a perilous luxury. And fighting this foe, which had a
+      voice so soothing, and words like the sound of murmuring waters, and a
+      cool and comforting hand that sought to lead him into gardens of stillness
+      and passive being, where he could no more hear the clangour and vexing
+      noises of a world that angered and agonised, there had also been the lure
+      of another passion of the heart, which was too perilously dear to
+      contemplate. Eyes that were beautiful, and their beauty was not for him; a
+      spirit that was bright and glowing, but the brightness and the glow might
+      not renew his days. It was hard to fight alone. Alone he was, for only to
+      one may the doors within doors be opened-only to one so dear that all else
+      is everlastingly distant may the true tale of the life beneath life be
+      told. And it was not for him&mdash;nothing of this; not even the thought
+      of it; for to think of it was to desire it, and to desire it was to reach
+      out towards it; and to reach out towards it was the end of all. There had
+      been moments of abandonment to the alluring dream, such as when he wrote
+      the verses which Lacey had sent to Hylda from the desert; but they were
+      few. Oft-repeated, they would have filled him with an agitated melancholy
+      impossible to be borne in the life which must be his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So it had been. The deeper into life and its labours and experiences he
+      had gone, the greater had been his temptations, born of two passions, one
+      of the body and its craving, the other of the heart and its desires: and
+      he had fought on&mdash;towards the morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there none that thou lovest so, and that will love thee to mortal
+      sorrow, if thou goest without care to thy end too soon?&rdquo; The desert, the
+      dark monastery, the acacia tree, the ancient palm, the ruinous garden,
+      disappeared. He only saw a face which smiled at him, as it had done &lsquo;by
+      the brazier in the garden at Cairo, that night when she and Nahoum and
+      himself and Mizraim had met in the room of his house by the Ezbekieh
+      gardens, and she had gone out to her old life in England, and he had taken
+      up the burden of the East&mdash;that long six years ago. His head dropped
+      in his hands, and all that was beneath the Quaker life he had led so many
+      years, packed under the crust of form and habit, and regulated thought,
+      and controlled emotion, broke forth now, and had its way with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned away staggering and self-reproachful from the first question,
+      only to face the other&mdash;&ldquo;And that will love thee to mortal sorrow, if
+      thou goest without care to thy end too soon.&rdquo; It was a thought he had
+      never let himself dwell on for an instant in all the days since they had
+      last met. He had driven it back to its covert, even before he could
+      recognise its face. It was disloyal to her, an offence against all that
+      she was, an affront to his manhood to let the thought have place in his
+      mind even for one swift moment. She was Lord Eglington&rsquo;s wife&mdash;there
+      could be no sharing of soul and mind and body and the exquisite devotion
+      of a life too dear for thought. Nothing that she was to Eglington could be
+      divided with another, not for an hour, not by one act of impulse; or else
+      she must be less, she that might have been, if there had been no Eglington&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An exclamation broke from him, and, as one crying out in one&rsquo;s sleep wakes
+      himself, so the sharp cry of his misery woke him from the trance of memory
+      that had been upon him, and he slowly became conscious of Ebn Ezra
+      standing before him. Their eyes met, and Ebn Ezra spoke:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The will of Allah be thy will, Saadat. If it be to go to the Soudan, I am
+      thine; if it be to stay, I am thy servant and thy brother. But whether it
+      be life or death, thou must sleep, for the young are like water without
+      sleep. Thou canst not live in strength nor die with fortitude without it.
+      For the old, malaish, old age is between a sleeping and a waking! Come,
+      Saadat! Forget not, thou must ride again to Cairo at dawn.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David got slowly to his feet and turned towards the monastery. The figure
+      of a monk stood in the doorway with a torch to light him to his room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned to Ebn Ezra again. &ldquo;Does thee think that I have aught of his
+      courage&mdash;my Uncle Benn? Thou knowest me&mdash;shall I face it out as
+      did he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Saadat,&rdquo; the old man answered, pointing, &ldquo;yonder acacia, that was he,
+      quick to grow and short to live; but thou art as this date-palm, which
+      giveth food to the hungry, and liveth through generations. Peace be upon
+      thee,&rdquo; he added at the doorway, as the torch flickered towards the room
+      where David was to lie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And upon thee, peace!&rdquo; answered David gently, and followed the smoky
+      light to an inner chamber. The room in which David found himself was lofty
+      and large, but was furnished with only a rough wooden bed, a rug, and a
+      brazier. Left alone, he sat down on the edge of the bed, and, for a few
+      moments, his mind strayed almost vaguely from one object to another. From
+      two windows far up in the wall the moonlight streamed in, making bars of
+      light aslant the darkness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not a sound broke the stillness. Yet, to his sensitive nerves, the air
+      seemed tingling with sensation, stirring with unseen activities. Here the
+      spirit of the desert seemed more insistent in its piercing vitality,
+      because it was shut in by four stone walls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mechanically he took off his coat, and was about to fold and lay it on the
+      rug beside the bed, when something hard in one of the pockets knocked
+      against his knee. Searching, he found and drew forth a small bottle which,
+      for many a month past, had lain in the drawer of a table where he had
+      placed it on his return from the Soudan. It was an evil spirit which sent
+      this tiny phial to his hand at a moment when he had paid out of the full
+      treasury of his strength and will its accumulated deposit, leaving him
+      with a balance on which no heavy draft could be made. His pulse quickened,
+      then his body stiffened with the effort at self-control.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Who placed this evil elixir in his pocket? What any enemy of his work had
+      done was nothing to what might be achieved by the secret foe, who had
+      placed this anodyne within his reach at this the most critical moment of
+      his life. He remembered the last time he had used it&mdash;in the desert:
+      two days of forgetfulness to the world, when it all moved by him, the
+      swarming Arabs, the train of camels, the loads of ivory, the slimy
+      crocodile on the sandbanks, the vultures hovering above unburied
+      carcasses, the kourbash descending on shining black shoulders, corrugating
+      bare brown bodies into cloven skin and lacerated flesh, a fight between
+      champions of two tribes who clasped and smote and struggled and rained
+      blows, and, both mortally wounded, still writhed in last conflict upon the
+      ground&mdash;and Mahommed Hassan ever at the tent door or by his side,
+      towering, watchful, sullen to all faces without, smiling to his own, with
+      dog-like look waiting for any motion of his hand or any word.... Ah,
+      Mahommed Hassan, it was he! Mahommed had put this phial in his pocket. His
+      bitter secret was not hidden from Mahommed. And this was an act of supreme
+      devotion&mdash;to put at his hand the lulling, inspiring draught. Did this
+      fellah servant know what it meant&mdash;the sin of it, the temptation, the
+      terrible joy, the blessed quiet; and then, the agonising remorse, the
+      withering self-hatred and torturing penitence? No, Mahommed only knew that
+      when the Saadat was gone beyond his strength, when the sleepless nights
+      and feverish days came in the past, in their great troubles, when men were
+      dying and only the Saadat could save, that this cordial lifted him out of
+      misery and storm into calm. Yet Mahommed must have divined that it was a
+      thing against which his soul revolted, or he would have given it to him
+      openly. In the heart and mind of the giant murderer, however, must have
+      been the thought that now when trouble was upon his master again, trouble
+      which might end all, this supreme destroyer of pain and dark memory and
+      present misery, would give him the comfort he needed&mdash;and that he
+      would take it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If he had not seen it, this sudden craving would not have seized him for
+      this eager beguiling, this soothing benevolence. Yet here it was in his
+      hand; and even as it lay in his cold fingers&mdash;how cold they were, and
+      his head how burning!&mdash;the desire for it surged up in him. And, as
+      though the thing itself had the magical power to summon up his troubles,
+      that it might offer the apathy and stimulus in one&mdash;even as it lured
+      him, his dangers, his anxieties, the black uncertainties massed,
+      multiplied and aggressive, rose before him, buffeted him, caught at his
+      throat, dragged down his shoulders, clutched at his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, with a cry of agony, he threw the phial on the ground, and, sinking
+      on the bed, buried his face in his hands and moaned, and fought for
+      freedom from the cords tightening round him. It was for him to realise now
+      how deep are the depths to which the human soul can sink, even while
+      labouring to climb. Once more the sense of awful futility was on him: of
+      wasted toil and blenched force, veins of energy drained of their blood,
+      hope smitten in the way, and every dear dream shattered. Was it, then, all
+      ended? Was his work indeed fallen, and all his love undone? Was his own
+      redemption made impossible? He had offered up his life to this land to
+      atone for a life taken when she&mdash;when she first looked up with eyes
+      of gratitude, eyes that haunted him. Was it, then, unacceptable? Was it so
+      that he must turn his back upon this long, heart-breaking but beloved
+      work, this panacea for his soul, without which he could not pay the price
+      of blood?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Go back to England&mdash;to Hamley where all had changed, where the old
+      man he loved no longer ruled in the Red Mansion, where all that had been
+      could be no more? Go to some other land, and there begin again another
+      such a work? Were there not vast fields of human effort, effort such as
+      his, where he could ease the sorrow of living by the joy of a divine
+      altruism? Go back to Hamley? Ah, no, a million times, no! That life was
+      dead, it was a cycle of years behind him. There could be no return. He was
+      in a maelstrom of agony, his veins were afire, his lips were parched. He
+      sprang from his bed, knelt down, and felt for the little phial he had
+      flung aside. After a moment his hand caught it, clutched it. But, even at
+      the crest of the wave of temptation, words that he had heard one night in
+      Hamley, that last night of all, flashed into his mind&mdash;the words of
+      old Luke Claridge&rsquo;s prayer, &ldquo;And if a viper fasten on his hand, O Lord&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly he paused. That scene in the old Meetinghouse swam before his
+      eyes, got into his brain. He remembered the words of his own prayer, and
+      how he had then retreated upon the Power that gave him power, for a
+      draught of the one true tincture which braced the heart to throw itself
+      upon the spears of trial. Now the trial had come, and that which was in
+      him as deep as being, the habit of youth, the mother-fibre and
+      predisposition, responded to the draught he had drunk then. As a body
+      freed from the quivering, unrelenting grasp of an electric battery
+      subsides into a cool quiet, so, through his veins seemed to pass an ether
+      which stilled the tumult, the dark desire to drink the potion in his hand,
+      and escape into that irresponsible, artificial world, where he had before
+      loosened his hold on activity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The phial slipped from his fingers to the floor. He sank upon the side of
+      the bed, and, placing his hands on his knees, he whispered a few broken
+      words that none on earth was meant to hear. Then he passed into a strange
+      and moveless quiet of mind and body. Many a time in days gone by&mdash;far-off
+      days&mdash;had he sat as he was doing now, feeling his mind pass into a
+      soft, comforting quiet, absorbed in a sensation of existence, as it were
+      between waking and sleeping, where doors opened to new experience and
+      understanding, where the mind seemed to loose itself from the bonds of
+      human necessity and find a freer air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, as he sat as still as the stone in the walls around him, he was
+      conscious of a vision forming itself before his eyes. At first it was
+      indefinite, vague, without clear form, but at last it became a room dimly
+      outlined, delicately veiled, as it were. Then it seemed, not that the mist
+      cleared, but that his eyes became stronger, and saw through the delicate
+      haze; and now the room became wholly, concretely visible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the room in which he had said good-bye to Hylda. As he gazed like
+      one entranced, he saw a figure rise from a couch, pale, agitated, and
+      beautiful, and come forward, as it were, towards him. But suddenly the
+      mist closed in again upon the scene, a depth of darkness passed his eyes,
+      and he heard a voice say: &ldquo;Speak&mdash;speak to me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He heard her voice as distinctly as though she were beside him&mdash;as,
+      indeed, she had stood before him but an instant ago.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Getting slowly to his feet, into the night he sent an answer to the call.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Would she hear? She had said long ago that she would speak to him so.
+      Perhaps she had tried before. But now at last he had heard and answered.
+      Had she heard? Time might tell&mdash;if ever they met again. But how good,
+      and quiet, and serene was the night!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He composed himself to sleep, but, as he lay waiting for that coverlet of
+      forgetfulness to be drawn over him, he heard the sound of bells soft and
+      clear. Just such bells he had heard upon the common at Hamley. Was it,
+      then, the outcome of his vision&mdash;a sweet hallucination? He leaned
+      upon his elbow and listened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0032" id="link2HCH0032">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXII. FORTY STRIPES SAVE ONE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The bells that rang were not the bells of Hamley; they were part of no
+      vision or hallucination, and they drew David out of his chamber into the
+      night. A little group of three stood sharply silhouetted against the
+      moonlight, and towering above them was the spare, commanding form of Ebn
+      Ezra Bey. Three camels crouched near, and beside them stood a Nubian lad
+      singing to himself the song of the camel-driver:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Fleet is thy foot: thou shalt rest by the Etl tree;
+     Water shalt thou drink from the blue-deep well;
+     Allah send His gard&rsquo;ner with the green bersim,
+     For thy comfort, fleet one, by the Etl tree.
+     As the stars fly, have thy footsteps flown
+     Deep is the well, drink, and be still once more;
+     Till the pursuing winds panting have found thee
+     And, defeated, sink still beside thee&mdash;
+     By the well and the Etl tree.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      For a moment David stood in the doorway listening to the low song of the
+      camel-driver. Then he came forward. As he did so, one of the two who stood
+      with Ebn Ezra moved towards the monastery door slowly. It was a monk with
+      a face which, even in this dim light, showed a deathly weariness. The eyes
+      looked straight before him, as though they saw nothing of the world, only
+      a goal to make, an object to be accomplished. The look of the face went to
+      David&rsquo;s heart&mdash;the kinship of pain was theirs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Peace be to thee,&rdquo; David said gently, as the other passed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an instant&rsquo;s pause, and then the monk faced him with fingers
+      uplifted. &ldquo;The grace of God be upon thee, David,&rdquo; he said, and his eyes,
+      drawn back from the world where they had been exploring, met the other&rsquo;s
+      keenly. Then he wheeled and entered the monastery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The grace of God be upon thee, David!&rdquo; How strange it sounded, this
+      Christian blessing in response to his own Oriental greeting, out in this
+      Eastern waste. His own name, too. It was as though he had been transported
+      to the ancient world where &ldquo;Brethren&rdquo; were so few that they called each
+      other by their &ldquo;Christian&rdquo; names&mdash;even as they did in Hamley to-day.
+      In Hamley to-day! He closed his eyes, a tremor running through his body;
+      and then, with an effort which stilled him to peace again, he moved
+      forward, and was greeted by Ebn Ezra, from whom the third member of the
+      little group had now drawn apart nearer to the acacia-tree, and was seated
+      on a rock that jutted from the sand. &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; David asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wouldst thou not sleep, Saadat? Sleep is more to thee now than aught thou
+      mayst hear from any man. To all thou art kind save thyself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have rested,&rdquo; David answered, with a measured calmness, revealing to
+      his friend the change which had come since they parted an hour before.
+      They seated themselves under the palm-tree, and were silent for a moment,
+      then Ebn Ezra said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These come from the Place of Lepers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David started slightly. &ldquo;Zaida?&rdquo; he asked, with a sigh of pity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The monk who passed thee but now goes every year to the Place of Lepers
+      with the caravan, for a brother of this order stays yonder with the
+      afflicted, seeing no more the faces of this world which he has left
+      behind. Afar off from each other they stand&mdash;as far as eye can see&mdash;and
+      after the manner of their faith they pray to Allah, and he who has just
+      left us finds a paper fastened with a stone upon the sand at a certain
+      place where he waits. He touches it not, but reads it as it lies, and,
+      having read, heaps sand upon it. And the message which the paper gives is
+      for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For thee? Hast thou there one who&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was one, my father&rsquo;s son, though we were of different mothers; and
+      in other days, so many years ago, he did great wrong to me, and not to me
+      alone,&rdquo;&mdash;the grey head bowed in sorrow&mdash;&ldquo;but to one dearer to me
+      than life. I hated him, and would have slain him, but the mind of Allah is
+      not the mind of man; and he escaped me. Then he was stricken with leprosy,
+      and was carried to the place from whence no leper returns. At first my
+      heart rejoiced; then, at last, I forgave him, Saadat&mdash;was he not my
+      father&rsquo;s son, and was the woman not gone to the bosom of Allah, where is
+      peace? So I forgave and sorrowed for him&mdash;who shall say what miseries
+      are those which, minute to minute, day after day, and year upon year,
+      repeat themselves, till it is an endless flaying of the body and burning
+      of the soul! Every year I send a message to him, and every year now this
+      Christian monk&mdash;there is no Sheikh-el-Islam yonder&mdash;brings back
+      the written message which he finds in the sand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And thee has had a message to-night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The last that may come&mdash;God be praised, he goeth to his long home.
+      It was written in his last hour. There was no hope; he is gone. And so,
+      one more reason showeth why I should go where thou goest, Saadat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Casting his eyes toward the figure by the acacia-tree, his face clouded
+      and he pondered anxiously, looking at David the while. Twice he essayed to
+      speak, but paused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David&rsquo;s eyes followed his look. &ldquo;What is it? Who is he&mdash;yonder?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The other rose to his feet. &ldquo;Come and see, Saadat,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;Seeing,
+      thou wilt know what to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Zaida&mdash;is it of Zaida?&rdquo; David asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The man will answer for himself, Saadat.&rdquo; Coming within a few feet of the
+      figure crouched upon the rock, Ebn Ezra paused and stretched out a hand.
+      &ldquo;A moment, Saadat. Dost thou not see, dost thou not recognise him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David intently studied the figure, which seemed unconscious of their
+      presence. The shoulders were stooping and relaxed as though from great
+      fatigue, but David could see that the figure was that of a tall man. The
+      head was averted, but a rough beard covered the face, and, in the light of
+      the fire, one hand that clutched it showed long and skinny and yellow and
+      cruel. The hand fascinated David&rsquo;s eyes. Where had he seen it? It flashed
+      upon him&mdash;a hand clutching a robe, in a frenzy of fear, in the
+      court-yard of the blue tiles, in Kaid&rsquo;s Palace&mdash;Achmet the Ropemaker!
+      He drew back a step.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Achmet,&rdquo; he said in a low voice. The figure stirred, the hand dropped
+      from the beard and clutched the knee; but the head was not raised, and the
+      body remained crouching and listless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He escaped?&rdquo; David said, turning to Ebn Ezra Bey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know not by what means&mdash;a camel-driver bribed, perhaps, and a
+      camel left behind for him. After the caravan had travelled a day&rsquo;s journey
+      he joined it. None knew what to do. He was not a leper, and he was armed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave him with me,&rdquo; said David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ebn Ezra hesitated. &ldquo;He is armed; he was thy foe&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am armed also,&rdquo; David answered enigmatically, and indicated by a
+      gesture that he wished to be left alone. Ebn Ezra drew away towards the
+      palm-tree, and stood at this distance watching anxiously, for he knew what
+      dark passions seize upon the Oriental&mdash;and Achmet had many things for
+      which to take vengeance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David stood for a moment, pondering, his eyes upon the deserter. &ldquo;God
+      greet thee as thou goest, and His goodness befriend thee,&rdquo; he said evenly.
+      There was silence, and no movement. &ldquo;Rise and speak,&rdquo; he added sternly.
+      &ldquo;Dost thou not hear? Rise, Achmet Pasha!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Achmet Pasha! The head of the desolate wretch lifted, the eyes glared at
+      David for an instant, as though to see whether he was being mocked, and
+      then the spare figure stretched itself, and the outcast stood up. The old
+      lank straightness was gone, the shoulders were bent, the head was thrust
+      forward, as though the long habit of looking into dark places had bowed it
+      out of all manhood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May grass spring under thy footstep, Saadat,&rdquo; he said, in a thick voice,
+      and salaamed awkwardly&mdash;he had been so long absent from life&rsquo;s
+      formularies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What dost thou here, pasha?&rdquo; asked David formally. &ldquo;Thy sentence had no
+      limit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I could not die there,&rdquo; said the hollow voice, and the head sank farther
+      forward. &ldquo;Year after year I lived there, but I could not die among them. I
+      was no leper; I am no leper. My penalty was my penalty, and I paid it to
+      the full, piastre by piastre of my body and my mind. It was not one death,
+      it was death every hour, every day I stayed. I had no mind. I could not
+      think. Mummy-cloths were round my brain; but the fire burned underneath
+      and would not die. There was the desert, but my limbs were like rushes. I
+      had no will, and I could not flee. I was chained to the evil place. If I
+      stayed it was death, if I went it was death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou art armed now,&rdquo; said David suggestively. Achmet laid a hand fiercely
+      upon a dagger under his robe. &ldquo;I hid it. I was afraid. I could not die&mdash;my
+      hand was like a withered leaf; it could not strike; my heart poured out
+      like water. Once I struck a leper, that he might strike and kill me; but
+      he lay upon the ground and wept, for all his anger, which had been great,
+      died in him at last. There was none other given to anger there. The leper
+      has neither anger, nor mirth, nor violence, nor peace. It is all the black
+      silent shame&mdash;and I was no leper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why didst thou come? What is there but death for thee here, or anywhere
+      thou goest! Kaid&rsquo;s arm will find thee; a thousand hands wait to strike
+      thee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I could not die there&mdash;Dost thou think that I repent?&rdquo; he added with
+      sudden fierceness. &ldquo;Is it that which would make me repent? Was I worse
+      than thousands of others? I have come out to die&mdash;to fight and die.
+      Aiwa, I have come to thee, whom I hated, because thou canst give me death
+      as I desire it. My mother was an Arab slave from Senaar, and she was got
+      by war, and all her people. War and fighting were their portion&mdash;as
+      they ate, as they drank and slept. In the black years behind me among the
+      Unclean, there was naught to fight&mdash;could one fight the dead, and the
+      agony of death, and the poison of the agony! Life, it is done for me&mdash;am
+      I not accursed? But to die fighting&mdash;ay, fighting for Egypt, since it
+      must be, and fighting for thee, since it must be; to strike, and strike,
+      and strike, and earn death! Must the dog, because he is a dog, die in the
+      slime? Shall he not be driven from the village to die in the clean sand?
+      Saadat, who will see in me Achmet Pasha, who did with Egypt what he
+      willed, and was swept away by the besom in thy hand? Is there in me aught
+      of that Achmet that any should know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None would know thee for that Achmet,&rdquo; answered David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know, it matters not how&mdash;at last a letter found me, and the way
+      of escape&mdash;that thou goest again to the Soudan. There will be
+      fighting there&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not by my will,&rdquo; interrupted David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then by the will of Sheitan the accursed; but there will be fighting&mdash;am
+      I not an Arab, do I not know? Thou hast not conquered yet. Bid me go where
+      thou wilt, do what thou wilt, so that I may be among the fighters, and in
+      the battle forget what I have seen. Since I am unclean, and am denied the
+      bosom of Allah, shall I not go as a warrior to Hell, where men will fear
+      me? Speak, Saadat, canst thou deny me this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing of repentance, so far as he knew, moved the dark soul; but, like
+      some evil spirit, he would choose the way to his own doom, the place and
+      the manner of it: a sullen, cruel, evil being, unyielding in his evil,
+      unmoved by remorse&mdash;so far as he knew. Yet he would die fighting, and
+      for Egypt &ldquo;and for thee, if it must be so. To strike, to strike, to
+      strike, and earn death!&rdquo; What Achmet did not see, David saw, the glimmer
+      of light breaking through the cloud of shame and evil and doom. Yonder in
+      the Soudan more problems than one would be solved, more lives than one be
+      put to the extreme test. He did not answer Achmet&rsquo;s question yet. &ldquo;Zaida&mdash;?&rdquo;
+       he said in a low voice. The pathos of her doom had been a dark memory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Achmet&rsquo;s voice dropped lower as he answered. &ldquo;She lived till the day her
+      sister died. I never saw her face; but I was sent to bear each day to her
+      door the food she ate and a balass of water; and I did according to my
+      sentence. Yet I heard her voice. And once, at last, the day she died, she
+      spoke to me, and said from inside the hut: &lsquo;Thy work is done, Achmet. Go
+      in peace.&rsquo; And that night she lay down on her sister&rsquo;s grave, and in the
+      morning she was found dead upon it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David&rsquo;s eyes were blinded with tears. &ldquo;It was too long,&rdquo; he said at last,
+      as though to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That day,&rdquo; continued Achmet, &ldquo;there fell ill with leprosy the Christian
+      priest from this place who had served in that black service so long; and
+      then a fire leapt up in me. Zaida was gone&mdash;I had brought food and a
+      balass of water to her door those many times; there was naught to do,
+      since she was gone&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly David took a step nearer to him and looked into the sullen and
+      drooping eyes. &ldquo;Thou shalt go with me, Achmet. I will do this unlawful act
+      for thee. At daybreak I will give thee orders. Thou shalt join me far from
+      here&mdash;if I go to the Soudan,&rdquo; he added, with a sudden remembrance of
+      his position; and he turned away slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a moment, with muttered words, Achmet sank down upon the stone
+      again, drew a cake of dourha from his inner robe, and began to eat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The camel-boy had lighted a fire, and he sat beside it warming his hands
+      at the blaze and still singing to himself:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;The bed of my love I will sprinkle with attar of roses,
+   The face of my love I will touch with the balm
+   With the balm of the tree from the farthermost wood,
+   From the wood without end, in the world without end.
+   My love holds the cup to my lips, and I drink of the cup,
+   And the attar of roses I sprinkle will soothe like the evening dew,
+   And the balm will be healing and sleep, and the cup I will drink,
+   I will drink of the cup my love holds to my lips&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      David stood listening. What power was there in desert life that could make
+      this poor camel-driver, at the end of a long day of weariness and toil and
+      little food and drink, sing a song of content and cheerfulness? The little
+      needed, the little granted, and no thought beyond&mdash;save the vision of
+      one who waited in the hut by the onion-field. He gathered himself together
+      and tuned his mind to the scene through which he had just passed, and then
+      to the interview he would have with Kaid on the morrow. A few hours ago he
+      had seen no way out of it all&mdash;he had had no real hope that Kaid
+      would turn to him again; but the last two hours had changed all that. Hope
+      was alive in him. He had fought a desperate fight with himself, and he had
+      conquered. Then had come Achmet, unrepentant, degraded still, but with the
+      spirit of Something glowing&mdash;Achmet to die for a cause, driven by
+      that Something deep beneath the degradation and the crime. He had hope,
+      and, as the camel-driver&rsquo;s voice died away, and he lay down with a
+      sheep-skin over him and went instantly to sleep, David drew to the fire
+      and sat down beside it. Presently Ebn Ezra came to urge him to go to bed,
+      but he would not. He had slept, he said; he had slept and rested, and the
+      night was good&mdash;he would wait. Then the other brought rugs and
+      blankets, and gave David some, and lay down beside the fire, and watched
+      and waited for he knew not what. Ever and ever his eyes were on David, and
+      far back under the acacia-tree Achmet slept as he had not slept since his
+      doom fell on him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last Ebn Ezra Bey also slept; but David was awake with the night and
+      the benevolent moon and the marching stars. The spirit of the desert was
+      on him, filling him with its voiceless music. From the infinite stretches
+      of sand to the south came the irresistible call of life, as soft as the
+      leaves in a garden of roses, as deep as the sea. This world was still, yet
+      there seemed a low, delicate humming, as of multitudinous looms at a
+      distance so great that the ear but faintly caught it&mdash;the sound of
+      the weavers of life and destiny and eternal love, the hands of the toilers
+      of all the ages spinning and spinning on; and he was part of it, not
+      abashed or dismayed because he was but one of the illimitable throng.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hours wore on, but still he sat there, peace in all his heart, energy
+      tingling softly through every vein, the wings of hope fluttering at his
+      ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length the morning came, and, from the west, with the rising sun, came
+      a traveller swiftly, making for where he was. The sleepers stirred around
+      him and waked and rose. The little camp became alive. As the traveller
+      neared the fresh-made fire, David saw that it was Lacey. He went eagerly
+      to meet him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee has news,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I see it is so.&rdquo; He held Lacey&rsquo;s hand in his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, you are going on that expedition, Saadat. You wanted money. Will a
+      quarter of a million do?&rdquo; David&rsquo;s eyes caught fire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the monastery there came the voices of the monks:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;O be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with
+   gladness, and come before His presence with a song.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0033" id="link2HCH0033">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXIII. THE DARK INDENTURE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Nahoum had forgotten one very important thing: that what affected David as
+      a Christian in Egypt would tell equally against himself. If, in his
+      ill-health and dejection, Kaid drank deep of the cup of Mahomet, the red
+      eyes of fanaticism would be turned upon the Armenian, as upon the European
+      Christian. He had forgotten it for the moment, but when, coming into
+      Kaid&rsquo;s Palace, a little knot of loiterers spat upon the ground and
+      snarled, &ldquo;Infidel&mdash;Nazarene!&rdquo; with contempt and hatred, the
+      significance of the position came home to him. He made his way to a far
+      quarter of the Palace, thoughtfully weighing the circumstances, and was
+      met by Mizraim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mizraim salaamed. &ldquo;The height of thy renown be as the cedar of Lebanon,
+      Excellency.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May thy feet tread the corn of everlasting fortune, son of Mahomet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They entered the room together. Nahoum looked at Mizraim curiously. He was
+      not satisfied with what he saw. Mizraim&rsquo;s impassive face had little
+      expression, but the eyes were furtively eager and sinister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, so it is, and if it is, what then?&rdquo; asked Nahoum coolly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ki di, so it is,&rdquo; answered Mizraim, and a ghastly smile came to his lips.
+      This infidel pasha, Nahoum, had a mind that pierced to the meaning of
+      words ere they were spoken. Mizraim&rsquo;s hand touched his forehead, his
+      breast, his lips, and, clasping and unclasping his long, snakelike
+      fingers, he began the story he had come to tell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Inglesi, whom Allah confound, the Effendina hath blackened by a look,
+      his words have smitten him in the vital parts&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mizraim, thou dove, speak to the purpose!&rdquo; Mizraim showed a dark pleasure
+      at the interruption. Nahoum was impatient, anxious; that made the tale
+      better worth telling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sharif and the discontented ones who dare not act, like the vultures,
+      they flee the living man, but swoop upon the corpse. The consuls of those
+      countries who love not England or Claridge Pasha, and the holy men, and
+      the Cadi, all scatter smouldering fires. There is a spirit in the Palace
+      and beyond which is blowing fast to a great flame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, so it is, great one, and what bodes it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may kill the Inglesi; but it will also sweep thee from the fields of
+      life where thou dost flourish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not against the foreigner, but against the Christian, Mizraim?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thy tongue hath wisdom, Excellency.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou art a Muslim&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do I warn thee? For service done to me; and because there is none
+      other worth serving in Egypt. Behold, it is my destiny to rule others, to
+      serve thee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Once more thy turban full of gold, Mizraim, if thou dost service now that
+      hath meaning and is not a belching of wind and words. Thou hast a thing to
+      say&mdash;say it, and see if Nahoum hath lost his wit, or hath a palsied
+      arm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then behold, pasha. Are not my spies in all the Palace? Is not my scourge
+      heavier than the whip of the horned horse? Ki di, so it is. This I have
+      found. Sharif hath, with others, made a plot which hath enough powder in
+      it to shake Egypt, and toss thee from thy high place into the depths.
+      There is a Christian&mdash;an Armenian, as it chances; but he was chosen
+      because he was a Christian, and for that only. His name is Rahib. He is a
+      tent-maker. He had three sons. They did kill an effendi who had cheated
+      them of their land. Two of them were hanged last week; the other, caught
+      but a few days since, is to hang within three days. To-day Kaid goes to
+      the Mosque of Mahmoud, as is the custom at this festival. The old man hath
+      been persuaded to attempt the life of Kaid, upon condition that his son&mdash;his
+      Benjamin&mdash;is set free. It will be but an attempt at Kaid&rsquo;s life, no
+      more; but the cry will go forth that a Christian did the thing; and the
+      Muslim flame will leap high.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the tent-maker?&rdquo; asked Nahoum musingly, though he was turning over
+      the tale in his mind, seeing behind it and its far consequences.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Malaish, what does it matter! But he is to escape, and they are to hang
+      another Christian in his stead for the attempt on Kaid. It hath no skill,
+      but it would suffice. With the dervishes gone malboos, and the faithful
+      drunk with piety&mdash;canst thou not see the issue, pasha? Blood will be
+      shed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Jews of Europe would be angry,&rdquo; said Nahoum grimly but evenly. &ldquo;The
+      loans have been many, and Kaid has given a lien by the new canal at Suez.
+      The Jews will be angry,&rdquo; he repeated, &ldquo;and for every drop of Christian
+      blood shed there would be a lanced vein here. But that would not bring
+      back Nahoum Pasha,&rdquo; he continued cynically. &ldquo;Well, this is thy story,
+      Mizraim; this is what they would do. Now what hast thou done to stop their
+      doing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I not a Muslim? Shall I give Sharif to the Nile?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nahoum smiled darkly. &ldquo;There is a simpler way. Thy mind ever runs on the
+      bowstring and the sword. These are great, but there is a greater. It is
+      the mocking finger. At midnight, when Kaid goes to the Mosque Mahmoud, a
+      finger will mock the plotters till they are buried in confusion. Thou
+      knowest the governor of the prisons&mdash;has he not need of something?
+      Hath he never sought favours of thee?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bismillah, but a week ago!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, listen, thou shepherd of the sheep&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused, as there came a tap at the door, and a slave entered hurriedly
+      and addressed Nahoum. &ldquo;The effendi, Ebn Ezra Bey, whom thou didst set me
+      to watch, he hath entered the Palace, and asks for the Effendina.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nahoum started, and his face clouded, but his eyes flashed fire. He tossed
+      the slave a coin. &ldquo;Thou hast done well. Where is he now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He waits in the hall, where is the statue of Mehemet Ali and the lions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In an hour, Mizraim, thou shalt hear what I intend. Peace be to thee!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And on thee, peace!&rdquo; answered Mizraim, as Nahoum passed from the room,
+      and walked hastily towards the hall where he should find Ebn Ezra Bey.
+      Nearing the spot, he brought his step to a deliberate slowness, and
+      appeared not to notice the stately Arab till almost upon him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Salaam, effendi,&rdquo; he said smoothly, yet with inquisition in his eye, with
+      malice in his tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Salaam, Excellency.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou art come on the business of thy master?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is my master, Excellency?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Till yesterday it was Claridge Pasha. Hast thou then forsaken him in his
+      trouble&mdash;the rat from the sinking ship?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A flush passed over Ebn Ezra Bey&rsquo;s face, and his mouth opened with a gasp
+      of anger. Oriental though he was, he was not as astute as this Armenian
+      Christian, who was purposely insulting him, that he might, in a moment of
+      heat, snatch from him the business he meant to lay before Kaid. Nahoum had
+      not miscalculated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have but one master, Excellency,&rdquo; Ebn Ezra answered quietly at last,
+      &ldquo;and I have served him straightly. Hast thou done likewise?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is straight to thee might well be crooked to me, effendi.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou art crooked as the finger of a paralytic.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet I have worked in peace with Claridge Pasha for these years past, even
+      until yesterday, when thou didst leave him to his fate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His ship will sail when thine is crumbling on the sands, and all thou art
+      is like a forsaken cockatrice&rsquo;s nest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it this thou hast come to say to the Effendina?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I have come to say to the Effendina is for the world to know after
+      it hath reached his ears. I know thee, Nahoum Pasha. Thou art a traitor.
+      Claridge Pasha would abolish slavery, and thou dost receive great sums of
+      gold from the slave-dealers to prevent it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it this thou wilt tell Kaid?&rdquo; Nahoum asked with a sneer. &ldquo;And hast
+      thou proofs?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even this day they have come to my hands from the south.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet I think the proofs thou hast will not avail; and I think that thou
+      wilt not show them to Kaid. The gift of second thinking is a great gift.
+      Thou must find greater reason for seeking the Effendina.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That too shall be. Gold thou hadst to pay the wages of the soldiers of
+      the south. Thou didst keep the gold and order the slave-hunt; and the
+      soldiers of the Effendina have been paid in human flesh and blood&mdash;ten
+      thousand slaves since Claridge Pasha left the Soudan, and three thousand
+      dead upon the desert sands, abandoned by those who hunted them when water
+      grew scarce and food failed. To-day shall see thy fall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At his first words Nahoum had felt a shock, from which his spirit reeled;
+      but an inspiration came to him on the moment; and he listened with a
+      saturnine coolness to the passionate words of the indignant figure
+      towering above him. When Ebn Ezra had finished, he replied quietly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is even as thou sayest, effendi. The soldiers were paid in slaves got
+      in the slave-hunt; and I have gold from the slave-dealers. I needed it,
+      for the hour is come when I must do more for Egypt than I have ever done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With a gesture of contempt Ebn Ezra made to leave, seeing an official of
+      the Palace in the distance. Nahoum stopped him. &ldquo;But, one moment ere thou
+      dost thrust thy hand into the cockatrice&rsquo;s den. Thou dost measure thyself
+      against Nahoum? In patience and with care have I trained myself for the
+      battle. The bulls of Bashan may roar, yet my feet are shod with safety.
+      Thou wouldst go to Kaid and tell him thy affrighted tale. I tell thee,
+      thou wilt not go. Thou hast reason yet, though thy blood is hot. Thou art
+      to Claridge Pasha like a brother&mdash;as to his uncle before him, who
+      furnished my father&rsquo;s palace with carpets. The carpets still soften the
+      fall of my feet in my father&rsquo;s palace, as they did soften the fall of my
+      brother&rsquo;s feet, the feet of Foorgat Bey.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused, looking at Ebn Ezra with quiet triumph, though his eyes had
+      ever that smiling innocence which had won David in days gone by. He was
+      turning his words over on the tongue with a relish born of long waiting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; he said presently&mdash;&ldquo;come, and I will give thee reason why
+      thou wilt not speak with Kaid to-day. This way, effendi.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He led the other into a little room hung about with rugs and tapestry,
+      and, going to the wall, he touched a spring. &ldquo;One moment here, effendi,&rdquo;
+       he added quietly. The room was as it had been since David last stood
+      within it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In this room, effendi,&rdquo; Nahoum said with cold deliberation, &ldquo;Claridge
+      Pasha killed my brother, Foorgat Bey.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ebn Ezra fell back as though he had been struck. Swiftly Nahoum told him
+      the whole truth&mdash;even to the picture of the brougham, and the rigid,
+      upright figure passing through the night to Foorgat&rsquo;s palace, the gaunt
+      Mizraim piloting the equipage of death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have held my peace for my own reasons, effendi. Wilt thou then force me
+      to speak? If thou dost still cherish Claridge Pasha, wilt thou see him
+      ruined? Naught but ruin could follow the telling of the tale at this
+      moment&mdash;his work, his life, all done. The scandal, the law,
+      vengeance! But as it is now, Kaid may turn to him again; his work may yet
+      go on&mdash;he has had the luck of angels, and Kaid is fickle. Who can
+      tell?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Abashed and overwhelmed, Ebn Ezra Bey looked at him keenly. &ldquo;To tell of
+      Foorgat Bey would ruin thee also,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That thou knowest. The trick&mdash;would
+      Kaid forgive it? Claridge Pasha would not be ruined alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be it so. If thou goest to Kaid with thy story, I go to Egypt with mine.
+      Choose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ebn Ezra turned to go. &ldquo;The high God judge between him and thee,&rdquo; he said,
+      and, with bowed head, left the Palace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0034" id="link2HCH0034">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXIV. NAHOUM DROPS THE MASK &ldquo;CLARIDGE PASHA!&rdquo;
+     </h2>
+    <p>
+      At the sound of the words, announced in a loud voice, hundreds of heads
+      were turned towards the entrance of the vast salon, resplendent with
+      gilded mirrors, great candelabra and chandeliers, golden hangings, and
+      divans glowing with robes of yellow silk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the anniversary of Kaid&rsquo;s succession, and all entitled to come
+      poured into the splendid chamber. The showy livery of the officials, the
+      loose, spacious, gorgeous uniforms of the officers, with the curved
+      jewelled scimitars and white turbans, the rich silk robes of the Ulema,
+      robe over robe of coloured silk with flowing sleeves and sumptuous silken
+      vests, the ample dignity of noble-looking Arabs in immense white turbans,
+      the dark straight Stambouli coat of the officials, made a picture of
+      striking variety and colour and interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About the centre of the room, laying palm to palm again and yet again,
+      touching lips and forehead and breast, speaking with slow, leisurely,
+      voices, were two Arab sheikhs from the far Soudan. One of these showed a
+      singular interest in the movements of Nahoum Pasha as he entered the
+      chamber, and an even greater interest in David when he was announced; but
+      as David, in his journey up the chamber, must pass near him, he drew
+      behind a little group of officials, who whispered to each other excitedly
+      as David came on. More than once before this same Sheikh Abdullah had seen
+      David, and once they had met, and had made a treaty of amity, and Abdullah
+      had agreed to deal in slaves no more; and yet within three months had sent
+      to Cairo two hundred of the best that could be found between Khartoum and
+      Senaar. His business, of which Ebn Ezra Bey had due knowledge, had now
+      been with Nahoum. The business of the other Arab, a noble-looking and wiry
+      Bedouin from the South, had been with Ebn Ezra Bey, and each hid his
+      business from his friend. Abdullah murmured to himself as David passed&mdash;a
+      murmur of admiration and astonishment. He had heard of the disfavour in
+      which the Inglesi was; but, as he looked at David&rsquo;s face with its quiet
+      smile, the influence which he felt in the desert long ago came over him
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By Allah,&rdquo; he said aloud abstractedly, &ldquo;it is a face that will not hide
+      when the khamsin blows! Who shall gainsay it? If he were not an infidel he
+      would be a Mahdi.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To this his Bedouin friend replied: &ldquo;As the depths of the pool at Ghebel
+      Farik, so are his eyes. You shall dip deep and you shall not find the
+      bottom. Bismillah, I would fight Kaid&rsquo;s Nubians, but not this infidel
+      pasha!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Never had David appeared to such advantage. The victory over himself the
+      night before, the message of hope that had reached him at the monastery in
+      the desert, the coming of Lacey, had given him a certain quiet
+      masterfulness not reassuring to his foes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he entered the chamber but now, there flashed into his mind the scene
+      six years ago when, an absolute stranger, he had stepped into this Eastern
+      salon, and had heard his name called out to the great throng: &ldquo;Claridge
+      efendi!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He addressed no one, but he bowed to the group of foreign consuls-general,
+      looking them steadily in the eyes. He knew their devices and what had been
+      going on of late, he was aware that his fall would mean a blow to British
+      prestige, and the calmness of his gaze expressed a fortitude which had a
+      disconcerting effect upon the group. The British Consul-General stood near
+      by. David advanced to him, and, as he did so, the few who surrounded the
+      Consul-General fell back. David held out his hand. Somewhat abashed and
+      ill at ease, the Consul-General took it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you good news from Downing Street?&rdquo; asked David quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Consul-General hesitated for an instant, and then said: &ldquo;There is no
+      help to be had for you or for what you are doing in that quarter.&rdquo; He
+      lowered his voice. &ldquo;I fear Lord Eglington does not favour you; and he
+      controls the Foreign Minister. I am very sorry. I have done my best, but
+      my colleagues, the other consuls, are busy&mdash;with Lord Eglington.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David turned his head away for an instant. Strange how that name sent a
+      thrill through him, stirred his blood! He did not answer the
+      Consul-General, and the latter continued:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there any hope? Is the breach with Kaid complete?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David smiled gravely. &ldquo;We shall see presently. I have made no change in my
+      plans on the basis of a breach.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment he caught sight of Nahoum some distance away and moved
+      towards him. Out of the corner of his eye Nahoum saw David coming, and
+      edged away towards that point where Kaid would enter, and where the crowd
+      was greater. As he did so Kaid appeared. A thrill went through the
+      chamber. Contrary to his custom, he was dressed in the old native military
+      dress of Mehemet Ali. At his side was a jewelled scimitar, and in his
+      turban flashed a great diamond. In his hand he carried a snuff-box,
+      covered with brilliants, and on his breast were glittering orders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The eyes of the reactionaries flashed with sinister pleasure when they saw
+      Kaid. This outward display of Orientalism could only be a reflex of the
+      mind. It was the outer symbol of Kaid&rsquo;s return to the spirit of the old
+      days, before the influence of the Inglesi came upon him. Every corrupt and
+      intriguing mind had a palpitation of excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Nahoum the sight of Kaid produced mixed feelings. If, indeed, this
+      display meant reaction towards an entourage purely Arab, Egyptian, and
+      Muslim, then it was no good omen for his Christian self. He drew near, and
+      placed himself where Kaid could see him. Kaid&rsquo;s manner was cheerful, but
+      his face showed the effect of suffering, physical and mental. Presently
+      there entered behind him Sharif Bey, whose appearance was the signal for a
+      fresh demonstration. Now, indeed, there could be no doubt as to Kaid&rsquo;s
+      reaction. Yet if Sharif had seen Mizraim&rsquo;s face evilly gloating near by he
+      would have been less confident.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David was standing where Kaid must see him, but the Effendina gave no sign
+      of recognition. This was so significant that the enemies of David rejoiced
+      anew. The day of the Inglesi was over. Again and again did Kaid&rsquo;s eye
+      wander over David&rsquo;s head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David remained calm and watchful, neither avoiding nor yet seeking the
+      circle in which Kaid moved. The spirit with which he had entered the room,
+      however, remained with him, even when he saw Kaid summon to him some of
+      the most fanatical members of the court circle, and engage them in talk
+      for a moment. But as this attention grew more marked, a cloud slowly
+      gathered in the far skies of his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was one person in the great assembly, however, who seemed to be
+      unduly confident. It was an ample, perspiring person in evening dress, who
+      now and again mopped a prematurely bald head, and who said to himself, as
+      Kaid talked to the reactionaries:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Kald&rsquo;s overdoing it. He&rsquo;s putting potted chicken on the butter. But
+      it&rsquo;s working all right-r-i-g-h-t. It&rsquo;s worth the backsheesh!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this moment Kaid fastened David with his look, and spoke in a tone so
+      loud that people standing at some distance were startled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Claridge Pasha!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the hush that followed David stepped forward. &ldquo;May the bounty of the
+      years be thine, Saadat,&rdquo; Kaid said in a tone none could misunderstand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May no tree in thy orchard wither, Effendina,&rdquo; answered David in a firm
+      voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid beckoned him near, and again he spoke loudly: &ldquo;I have proved thee,
+      and found thee as gold tried seven times by the fire, Saadat. In the
+      treasury of my heart shall I store thee up. Thou art going to the Soudan
+      to finish the work Mehemet Ali began. I commend thee to Allah, and will
+      bid thee farewell at sunrise&mdash;I and all who love Egypt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a sinister smile on his lips, as his eyes wandered over the
+      faces of the foreign consuls-general. The look he turned on the intriguers
+      of the Palace was repellent; he reserved for Sharif a moody, threatening
+      glance, and the desperate hakim shrank back confounded from it. His first
+      impulse was to flee from the Palace and from Cairo; but he bethought
+      himself of the assault to be made on Kaid by the tent-maker, as he passed
+      to the mosque a few hours later, and he determined to await the issue of
+      that event. Exchanging glances with confederates, he disappeared, as Kaid
+      laid a hand on David&rsquo;s arm and drew him aside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After viewing the great throng cynically for a moment Kaid said:
+      &ldquo;To-morrow thou goest. A month hence the hakim&rsquo;s knife will find the thing
+      that eats away my life. It may be they will destroy it and save me; if
+      not, we shall meet no more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David looked into his eyes. &ldquo;Not in a month shall thy work be completed,
+      Effendina. Thou shalt live. God and thy strong will shall make it so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A light stole over the superstitious face. &ldquo;No device or hatred, or plot,
+      has prevailed against thee,&rdquo; Kaid said eagerly. &ldquo;Thou hast defeated all&mdash;even
+      when I turned against thee in the black blood of despair. Thou hast
+      conquered me even as thou didst Harrik.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou dost live,&rdquo; returned David drily. &ldquo;Thou dost live for Egypt&rsquo;s sake,
+      even as Harrik died for Egypt&rsquo;s sake, and as others shall die.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Death hath tracked thee down how often! Yet with a wave of the hand thou
+      hast blinded him, and his blow falls on the air. Thou art beset by a
+      thousand dangers, yet thou comest safe through all. Thou art an honest
+      man. For that I besought thee to stay with me. Never didst thou lie to me.
+      Good luck hath followed thee. Kismet! Stay with me, and it may be I shall
+      be safe also. This thought came to me in the night, and in the morning was
+      my reward, for Lacey effendi came to me and said, even as I say now, that
+      thou wilt bring me good luck; and even in that hour, by the mercy of God,
+      a loan much needed was negotiated. Allah be praised!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A glint of humour shot into David&rsquo;s eyes. Lacey&mdash;a loan&mdash;he read
+      it all! Lacey had eased the Prince Pasha&rsquo;s immediate and pressing
+      financial needs&mdash;and, &ldquo;Allah be praised!&rdquo; Poor human nature&mdash;backsheesh
+      to a Prince regnant!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Effendina,&rdquo; he said presently, &ldquo;thou didst speak of Harrik. One there was
+      who saved thee then&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Zaida!&rdquo; A change passed over Kaid&rsquo;s face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Speak! Thou hast news of her? She is gone?&rdquo; Briefly David told him how
+      Zaida was found upon her sister&rsquo;s grave. Kaid&rsquo;s face was turned away as he
+      listened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She spoke no word of me?&rdquo; Kaid said at last. &ldquo;To whom should she speak?&rdquo;
+       David asked gently. &ldquo;But the amulet thou gavest her, set with one red
+      jewel, it was clasped in her hand in death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly Kaid&rsquo;s anger blazed. &ldquo;Now shall Achmet die,&rdquo; he burst out. &ldquo;His
+      hands and feet shall be burnt off, and he shall be thrown to the
+      vultures.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Place of the Lepers is sacred even from thee, Effendina,&rdquo; answered
+      David gravely. &ldquo;Yet Achmet shall die even as Harrik died. He shall die for
+      Egypt and for thee, Effendina.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Swiftly he drew the picture of Achmet at the monastery in the desert. &ldquo;I
+      have done the unlawful thing, Effendina,&rdquo; he said at last, &ldquo;but thou wilt
+      make it lawful. He hath died a thousand deaths&mdash;all save one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be it so,&rdquo; answered Kaid gloomily, after a moment; then his face lighted
+      with cynical pleasure as he scanned once more the faces of the crowd
+      before him. At last his eyes fastened on Nahoum. He turned to David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou dost still desire Nahoum in his office?&rdquo; he asked keenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A troubled look came into David&rsquo;s eyes, then it cleared away, and he said
+      firmly: &ldquo;For six years we have worked together, Effendina. I am surety for
+      his loyalty to thee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And his loyalty to thee?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A pained look crossed over David&rsquo;s face again, but he said with a will
+      that fought all suspicion down: &ldquo;The years bear witness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid shrugged his shoulders slightly. &ldquo;The years have perjured themselves
+      ere this. Yet, as thou sayest, Nahoum is a Christian,&rdquo; he added, with
+      irony scarcely veiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now he moved forward with David towards the waiting court. David searched
+      the groups of faces for Nahoum in vain. There were things to be said to
+      Nahoum before he left on the morrow, last suggestions to be given. Nahoum
+      could not be seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nahoum was gone, as were also Sharif and his confederates, and in the
+      lofty Mosque of Mahmoud soft lights were hovering, while the
+      Sheikh-el-Islam waited with Koran and scimitar for the ruler of Egypt to
+      pray to God and salute the Lord Mahomet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the great gateway in the Street of the Tent Makers Kaid paused on his
+      way to the Mosque Mahmoud. The Gate was studded with thousands of nails,
+      which fastened to its massive timbers relics of the faithful, bits of silk
+      and cloth, and hair and leather; and here from time immemorial a holy man
+      had sat and prayed. At the gateway Kaid salaamed humbly, and spoke to the
+      holy man, who, as he passed, raised his voice shrilly in an appeal to
+      Allah, commending Kaid to mercy and everlasting favour. On every side eyes
+      burned with religious zeal, and excited faces were turned towards the
+      Effendina. At a certain point there were little groups of men with faces
+      more set than excited. They had a look of suppressed expectancy. Kald
+      neared them, passed them, and, as he did so, they looked at each other in
+      consternation. They were Sharif&rsquo;s confederates, fanatics carefully chosen.
+      The attempt on Kaid&rsquo;s life should have been made opposite the spot where
+      they stood. They craned their necks in effort to find the Christian
+      tent-maker, but in vain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly they heard a cry, a loud voice calling. It was Rahib the
+      tent-maker. He was beside Kaid&rsquo;s stirrups, but no weapon was in his hand;
+      and his voice was calling blessings down on the Effendina&rsquo;s head for
+      having pardoned and saved from death his one remaining son, the joy of his
+      old age. In all the world there was no prince like Kaid, said the
+      tent-maker; none so bountiful and merciful and beautiful in the eyes of
+      men. God grant him everlasting days, the beloved friend of his people,
+      just to all and greatly to be praised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the soldiers drove the old man away with kindly insistence&mdash;for
+      Kaid had thrown him a handful of gold&mdash;Mizraim, the Chief Eunuch,
+      laughed wickedly. As Nahoum had said, the greatest of all weapons was the
+      mocking finger. He and Mizraim had had their way with the governor of the
+      prisons, and the murderer had gone in safety, while the father stayed to
+      bless Kaid. Rahib the tent-maker had fooled the plotters. They were mad in
+      derision. They did not know that Kaid was as innocent as themselves of
+      having pardoned the tent-maker&rsquo;s son. Their moment had passed; they could
+      not overtake it; the match had spluttered and gone out at the fuel laid
+      for the fire of fanaticism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The morning of David&rsquo;s departure came. While yet it was dark he had risen,
+      and had made his last preparations. When he came into the open air and
+      mounted, it was not yet sunrise, and in that spectral early light, which
+      is all Egypt&rsquo;s own, Cairo looked like some dream-city in a forgotten
+      world. The Mokattam Hills were like vast dun barriers guarding and
+      shutting in the ghostly place, and, high above all, the minarets of the
+      huge mosque upon the lofty rocks were impalpable fingers pointing an
+      endless flight. The very trees seemed so little real and substantial that
+      they gave the eye the impression that they might rise and float away. The
+      Nile was hung with mist, a trailing cloud unwound from the breast of the
+      Nile-mother. At last the sun touched the minarets of the splendid mosque
+      with shafts of light, and over at Ghizeh and Sakkarah the great pyramids,
+      lifting their heads from the wall of rolling blue mist below, took the
+      morning&rsquo;s crimson radiance with the dignity of four thousand years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the decks of the little steamer which was to carry them south David,
+      Ebn Ezra, Lacey, and Mahommed waited. Presently Kaid came, accompanied by
+      his faithful Nubians, their armour glowing in the first warm light of the
+      rising sun, and crowds of people, who had suddenly emerged, ran shrilling
+      to the waterside behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kaid&rsquo;s pale face had all last night&rsquo;s friendliness, as he bade David
+      farewell with great honour, and commended him to the care of Allah; and
+      the swords of the Nubians clashed against their breasts and on their
+      shields in salaam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But there was another farewell to make; and it was made as David&rsquo;s foot
+      touched the deck of the steamer. Once again David looked at Nahoum as he
+      had done six years ago, in the little room where they had made their bond
+      together. There was the same straight look in Nahoum&rsquo;s eyes. Was he not to
+      be trusted? Was it not his own duty to trust? He clasped Nahoum&rsquo;s hand in
+      farewell, and turned away. But as he gave the signal to start, and the
+      vessel began to move, Nahoum came back. He leaned over the widening space
+      and said in a low tone, as David again drew near:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is still an account which should be settled, Saadat. It has waited
+      long; but God is with the patient. There is the account of Foorgat Bey.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The light fled from David&rsquo;s eyes and his heart stopped beating for a
+      moment. When his eyes saw the shore again Nahoum was gone with Kaid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0035" id="link2HCH0035">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXV. THE FLIGHT OF THE WOUNDED
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+       &ldquo;And Mario can soothe with a tenor note
+        The souls in purgatory.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Non ti scordar di mi!&rdquo; The voice rang out with passionate stealthy
+      sweetness, finding its way into far recesses of human feeling. Women of
+      perfect poise and with the confident look of luxury and social fame
+      dropped their eyes abstractedly on the opera-glasses lying in their laps,
+      or the programmes they mechanically fingered, and recalled, they knew not
+      why&mdash;for what had it to do with this musical narration of a tragic
+      Italian tale!&mdash;the days when, in the first flush of their wedded
+      life, they had set a seal of devotion and loyalty and love upon their
+      arms, which, long ago, had gone to the limbo of lost jewels, with the
+      chaste, fresh desires of worshipping hearts. Young egotists, supremely
+      happy and defiant in the pride of the fact that they loved each other, and
+      that it mattered little what the rest of the world enjoyed, suffered, and
+      endured&mdash;these were suddenly arrested in their buoyant and solitary
+      flight, and stirred restlessly in their seats. Old men whose days of work
+      were over; who no longer marshalled their legions, or moved at a nod great
+      ships upon the waters in masterful manoeuvres; whose voices were heard no
+      more in chambers of legislation, lashing partisan feeling to a height of
+      cruelty or lulling a storm among rebellious followers; whose intellects no
+      longer devised vast schemes of finance, or applied secrets of science to
+      transform industry&mdash;these heard the enthralling cry of a soul with
+      the darkness of eternal loss gathering upon it, and drew back within
+      themselves; for they too had cried like this one time or another in their
+      lives. Stricken, they had cried out, and ambition had fled away, leaving
+      behind only the habit of living, and of work and duty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Hylda, in the Duchess of Snowdon&rsquo;s box, listened with a face which
+      showed nothing of what she felt, and looking straight at the stage before
+      her, the words of a poem she had learned but yesterday came to her mind,
+      and wove themselves into the music thrilling from the voice in the stage
+      prison:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;And what is our failure here but a triumph&rsquo;s evidence
+    For the fulness of the days? Have we withered or agonised?
+   Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue
+    thence?
+    Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should be prized?&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what is our failure here but a triumph&rsquo;s evidence?&rdquo; Was it then so?
+      The long weeks which had passed since that night at Hamley, when she had
+      told Eglington the truth about so many things, had brought no peace, no
+      understanding, no good news from anywhere. The morning after she had
+      spoken with heart laid bare. Eglington had essayed to have a
+      reconciliation; but he had come as the martyr, as one injured. His egotism
+      at such a time, joined to his attempt to make light of things, of treating
+      what had happened as a mere &ldquo;moment of exasperation,&rdquo; as &ldquo;one of those
+      episodes inseparable from the lives of the high-spirited,&rdquo; only made her
+      heart sink and grow cold, almost as insensible as the flesh under a spray
+      of ether. He had been neither wise nor patient. She had not slept after
+      that bitter, terrible scene, and the morning had found her like one
+      battered by winter seas, every nerve desperately alert to pain, yet tears
+      swimming at her heart and ready to spring to her eyes at a touch of the
+      real thing, the true note&mdash;and she knew so well what the true thing
+      was! Their great moment had passed, had left her withdrawn into herself,
+      firmly, yet without heart, performing the daily duties of life, gay before
+      the world, the delightful hostess, the necessary and graceful figure at so
+      many functions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even as Soolsby had done, who went no further than to tell Eglington his
+      dark tale, and told no one else, withholding it from &ldquo;Our Man&rdquo;; as Sybil
+      Lady Eglington had shrunk when she had been faced by her obvious duty, so
+      Hylda hesitated, but from better reason than either. To do right in the
+      matter was to strike her husband&mdash;it must be a blow now, since her
+      voice had failed. To do right was to put in the ancient home and house of
+      Eglington one whom he&mdash;with anger and without any apparent desire to
+      have her altogether for himself, all the riches of her life and love&mdash;had
+      dared to say commanded her sympathy and interest, not because he was a man
+      dispossessed of his rights, but because he was a man possessed of that to
+      which he had no right. The insult had stung her, had driven her back into
+      a reserve, out of which she seemed unable to emerge. How could she compel
+      Eglington to do right in this thing&mdash;do right by his own father&rsquo;s
+      son?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, that father&rsquo;s son was once more imperilling his life, once more
+      putting England&rsquo;s prestige in the balance in the Soudan, from which he had
+      already been delivered twice as though by miracles. Since he had gone,
+      months before, there had been little news; but there had been much public
+      anxiety; and she knew only too well that there had been &lsquo;pourparlers&rsquo; with
+      foreign ministers, from which no action came safe-guarding David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many a human being has realised the apathy, the partial paralysis of the
+      will, succeeding a great struggle, which has exhausted the vital forces.
+      Many a general who has fought a desperate and victorious fight after a
+      long campaign, and amid all the anxieties and miseries of war, has failed
+      to follow up his advantage, from a sudden lesion of the power for action
+      in him. He has stepped from the iron routine of daily effort into a sudden
+      freedom, and his faculties have failed him, the iron of his will has
+      vanished. So it was with Hylda. She waited for she knew not what. Was it
+      some dim hope that Eglington might see the right as she saw it? That he
+      might realise how unreal was this life they were living, outwardly
+      peaceful and understanding, deluding the world, but inwardly a place of
+      tears. How she dreaded the night and its recurrent tears, and the hours
+      when she could not sleep, and waited for the joyless morning, as one lost
+      on the moor, blanched with cold, waits for the sun-rise! Night after night
+      at a certain hour&mdash;the hour when she went to bed at last after that
+      poignant revelation to Eglington&mdash;she wept, as she had wept then,
+      heart-broken tears of disappointment, disillusion, loneliness; tears for
+      the bitter pity of it all; for the wasting and wasted opportunities; for
+      the common aim never understood or planned together; for the precious
+      hours lived in an air of artificial happiness and social excitement; for a
+      perfect understanding missed; for the touch which no longer thrilled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the end of it all must come. She was looking frail and delicate, and
+      her beauty, newly refined, and with a fresh charm, as of mystery or pain,
+      was touched by feverishness. An old impatience once hers was vanished, and
+      Kate Heaver would have given a month&rsquo;s wages for one of those flashes of
+      petulance of other days ever followed by a smile. Now the smile was all
+      too often there, the patient smile which comes to those who have suffered.
+      Hardness she felt at times, where Eglington was concerned, for he seemed
+      to need her now not at all, to be self-contained, self-dependent&mdash;almost
+      arrogantly so; but she did not show it, and she was outwardly patient.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In his heart of hearts Eglington believed that she loved him, that her
+      interest in David was only part of her idealistic temperament&mdash;the
+      admiration of a woman for a man of altruistic aims; but his hatred of
+      David, of what David was, and of his irrefutable claims, reacted on her.
+      Perverseness and his unhealthy belief that he would master her in the end,
+      that she would one day break down and come to him, willing to take his
+      view in all things, and to be his slave&mdash;all this drove him farther
+      and farther on a fatal, ever-broadening path.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Success had spoiled him. He applied his gifts in politics, daringly
+      unscrupulous, superficially persuasive, intellectually insinuating, to his
+      wife; and she, who had been captured once by all these things, was not to
+      be captured again. She knew what alone could capture her; and, as she sat
+      and watched the singers on the stage now, the divine notes of that
+      searching melody still lingering in her heart, there came a sudden wonder
+      whether Eglington&rsquo;s heart could not be wakened. She knew that it never had
+      been, that he had never known love, the transfiguring and reclaiming
+      passion. No, no, surely it could not be too late&mdash;her marriage with
+      him had only come too soon! He had ridden over her without mercy; he had
+      robbed her of her rightful share of the beautiful and the good; he had
+      never loved her; but if love came to him, if he could but once realise how
+      much there was of what he had missed! If he did not save himself&mdash;and
+      her&mdash;what would be the end? She felt the cords drawing her elsewhere;
+      the lure of a voice she had heard in an Egyptian garden was in her ears.
+      One night at Hamley, in an abandonment of grief-life hurt her so&mdash;she
+      had remembered the prophecy she had once made that she would speak to
+      David, and that he would hear; and she had risen from her seat, impelled
+      by a strange new feeling, and had cried: &ldquo;Speak! speak to me!&rdquo; As plainly
+      as she had ever heard anything in her life, she had heard his voice speak
+      to her a message that sank into the innermost recesses of her being, and
+      she had been more patient afterwards. She had no doubt whatever; she had
+      spoken to him, and he had answered; but the answer was one which all the
+      world might have heard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Down deep in her nature was an inalienable loyalty, was a simple,
+      old-fashioned feeling that &ldquo;they two,&rdquo; she and Eglington, should cleave
+      unto each other till death should part. He had done much to shatter that
+      feeling; but now, as she listened to Mario&rsquo;s voice, centuries of
+      predisposition worked in her, and a great pity awoke in her heart. Could
+      she not save him, win him, wake him, cure him of the disease of Self?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The thought brought a light to her eyes which had not been there for many
+      a day. Out of the deeps of her soul this mist of a pure selflessness rose,
+      the spirit of that idealism which was the real chord of sympathy between
+      her and Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, she would, this once again, try to win the heart of this man; and so
+      reach what was deeper than heart, and so also give him that without which
+      his life must be a failure in the end, as Sybil Eglington had said. How
+      often had those bitter anguished words of his mother rung in her ears&mdash;&ldquo;So
+      brilliant and unscrupulous, like yourself; but, oh, so sure of winning a
+      great place in the world... so calculating and determined and ambitious!&rdquo;
+       They came to her now, flashed between the eager solicitous eyes of her
+      mind and the scene of a perfect and everlasting reconciliation which it
+      conjured up&mdash;flashed and were gone; for her will rose up and blurred
+      them into mist; and other words of that true palimpsest of Sybil
+      Eglington&rsquo;s broken life came instead: &ldquo;And though he loves me little, as
+      he loves you little too, yet he is my son, and for what he is we are both
+      responsible one way or another.&rdquo; As the mother, so the wife. She said to
+      herself now in sad paraphrase, &ldquo;And though he loves me little, yet he is
+      my husband, and for what he is it may be that I am in some sense
+      responsible.&rdquo; Yet he is my husband! All that it was came to her; the
+      closed door, the drawn blinds; the intimacy which shut them away from all
+      the world; the things said which can only be said without desecration
+      between two honest souls who love each other; and that sweet isolation
+      which makes marriage a separate world, with its own sacred revelation.
+      This she had known; this had been; and though the image of the sacred
+      thing had been defaced, yet the shrine was not destroyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For she believed that each had kept the letter of the law; that, whatever
+      his faults, he had turned his face to no other woman. If she had not made
+      his heart captive and drawn him by an ever-shortening cord of attraction,
+      yet she was sure that none other had any influence over him, that, as he
+      had looked at her in those short-lived days of his first devotion, he
+      looked at no other. The way was clear yet. There was nothing
+      irretrievable, nothing irrevocable, which would for ever stain the memory
+      and tarnish the gold of life when the perfect love should be minted.
+      Whatever faults of mind or disposition or character were his&mdash;or hers&mdash;there
+      were no sins against the pledges they had made, nor the bond into which
+      they had entered. Life would need no sponge. Memory might still live on
+      without a wound or a cowl of shame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was all part of the music to which she listened, and she was almost
+      oblivious of the brilliant throng, the crowded boxes, or of the Duchess of
+      Snowdon sitting near her strangely still, now and again scanning the
+      beautiful face beside her with a reflective look. The Duchess loved the
+      girl&mdash;she was but a girl, after all&mdash;as she had never loved any
+      of her sex; it had come to be the last real interest of her life. To her
+      eyes, dimmed with much seeing, blurred by a garish kaleidoscope of
+      fashionable life, there had come a look which was like the ghost of a look
+      she had, how many decades ago.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently, as she saw Hylda&rsquo;s eyes withdraw from the stage, and look at
+      her with a strange, soft moisture and a new light in them, she laid her
+      fan confidently on her friend&rsquo;s knee, and said in her abrupt whimsical
+      voice: &ldquo;You like it, my darling; your eyes are as big as saucers. You look
+      as if you&rsquo;d been seeing things, not things on that silly stage, but what
+      Verdi felt when he wrote the piece, or something of more account than
+      that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I&rsquo;ve been seeing things,&rdquo; Hylda answered with a smile which came
+      from a new-born purpose, the dream of an idealist. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been seeing
+      things that Verdi did not see, and of more account, too.... Do you suppose
+      the House is up yet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A strange look flashed into the Duchess&rsquo;s eyes, which had been watching
+      her with as much pity as interest. Hylda had not been near the House of
+      Commons this session, though she had read the reports with her usual care.
+      She had shunned the place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, did you expect Eglington?&rdquo; the Duchess asked idly, yet she was
+      watchful too, alert for every movement in this life where the footsteps of
+      happiness were falling by the edge of a precipice, over which she would
+      not allow herself to look. She knew that Hylda did not expect Eglington,
+      for the decision to come to the opera was taken at the last moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course not&mdash;he doesn&rsquo;t know we are here. But if it wasn&rsquo;t too
+      late, I thought I&rsquo;d go down and drive him home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess veiled her look. Here was some new development in the history
+      which had been torturing her old eyes, which had given her and Lord
+      Windlehurst as many anxious moments as they had known in many a day, and
+      had formed them into a vigilance committee of two, who waited for the
+      critical hour when they should be needed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll go at once if you like,&rdquo; she replied. &ldquo;The opera will be over soon.
+      We sent word to Windlehurst to join us, you remember, but he won&rsquo;t come
+      now; it&rsquo;s too late. So, we&rsquo;ll go, if you like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She half rose, but the door of the box opened, and Lord Windlehurst looked
+      in quizzically. There was a smile on his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m late, I know; but you&rsquo;ll forgive me&mdash;you&rsquo;ll forgive me, dear
+      lady,&rdquo; he added to Hylda, &ldquo;for I&rsquo;ve been listening to your husband making
+      a smashing speech for a bad cause.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hylda smiled. &ldquo;Then I must go and congratulate him,&rdquo; she answered, and
+      withdrew her hand from that of Lord Windlehurst, who seemed to hold it
+      longer than usual, and pressed it in a fatherly way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid the House is up,&rdquo; he rejoined, as Hylda turned for her
+      opera-cloak; &ldquo;and I saw Eglington leave Palace Yard as I came away.&rdquo; He
+      gave a swift, ominous glance towards the Duchess, which Hylda caught, and
+      she looked at each keenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s seldom I sit in the Peers&rsquo; Gallery,&rdquo; continued Windlehurst; &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t
+      like going back to the old place much. It seems empty and hollow. But I
+      wouldn&rsquo;t have missed Eglington&rsquo;s fighting speech for a good deal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was it about?&rdquo; asked Hylda as they left the box. She had a sudden
+      throb of the heart. Was it the one great question, that which had been
+      like a gulf of fire between them?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Turkey&mdash;the unpardonable Turk,&rdquo; answered Windlehurst. &ldquo;As good a
+      defence of a bad case as I ever heard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Eglington would do that well,&rdquo; said the Duchess enigmatically,
+      drawing her cloak around her and adjusting her hair. Hylda looked at her
+      sharply, and Lord Windlehurst slyly, but the Duchess seemed oblivious of
+      having said anything out of the way, and added: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a gift seeing all
+      that can be said for a bad cause, and saying it, and so making the other
+      side make their case so strong that the verdict has to be just.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Duchess, it doesn&rsquo;t always work out that way,&rdquo; rejoined Windlehurst
+      with a dry laugh. &ldquo;Sometimes the devil&rsquo;s advocate wins.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not very complimentary to my husband,&rdquo; retorted Hylda, looking
+      him in the eyes, for she was not always sure when he was trying to baffle
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not so sure of that. He hasn&rsquo;t won his case yet. He has only staved
+      off the great attack. It&rsquo;s coming&mdash;soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the great attack? What has the Government, or the Foreign Office,
+      done or left undone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, my dear&mdash;&rdquo; Suddenly Lord Windlehurst remembered himself,
+      stopped, put up his eyeglass, and with great interest seemed to watch a
+      gay group of people opposite; for the subject of attack was Egypt and the
+      Government&rsquo;s conduct in not helping David, in view not alone of his
+      present danger, but of the position of England in the country, on which
+      depended the security of her highway to the East. Windlehurst was a good
+      actor, and he had broken off his words as though the group he was now
+      watching had suddenly claimed his attention. &ldquo;Well, well, Duchess,&rdquo; he
+      said reflectively, &ldquo;I see a new nine days&rsquo; wonder yonder.&rdquo; Then, in
+      response to a reminder from Hylda, he continued: &ldquo;Ah, yes, the attack! Oh,
+      Persia&mdash;Persia, and our feeble diplomacy, my dear lady, though you
+      mustn&rsquo;t take that as my opinion, opponent as I am. That&rsquo;s the charge,
+      Persia&mdash;and her cats.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess breathed a sigh of relief; for she knew what Windlehurst had
+      been going to say, and she shrank from seeing what she felt she would see,
+      if Egypt and Claridge Pasha&rsquo;s name were mentioned. That night at Harnley
+      had burnt a thought into her mind which she did not like. Not that she had
+      any pity for Eglington; her thought was all for this girl she loved. No
+      happiness lay in the land of Egypt for her, whatever her unhappiness here;
+      and she knew that Hylda must be more unhappy still before she was ever
+      happy again, if that might be. There was that concerning Eglington which
+      Hylda did not know, yet which she must know one day&mdash;and then! But
+      why were Hylda&rsquo;s eyes so much brighter and softer and deeper to-night?
+      There was something expectant, hopeful, brooding in them. They belonged
+      not to the life moving round her, but were shining in a land of their own,
+      a land of promise. By an instinct in each of them they stood listening for
+      a moment to the last strains of the opera. The light leaped higher in
+      Hylda&rsquo;s eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beautiful&mdash;oh, so beautiful!&rdquo; she said, her hand touching the
+      Duchess&rsquo;s arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess gave the slim warm fingers a spasmodic little squeeze. &ldquo;Yes,
+      darling, beautiful,&rdquo; she rejoined; and then the crowd began to pour out
+      behind them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their carriages were at the door. Lord Windlehurst put Hylda in. &ldquo;The
+      House is up,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You are going on somewhere?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;home,&rdquo; she said, and smiled into his old, kind, questioning
+      eyes. &ldquo;Home!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Home!&rdquo; he murmured significantly as he turned towards the Duchess and her
+      carriage. &ldquo;Home!&rdquo; he repeated, and shook his head sadly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I drive you to your house?&rdquo; the Duchess asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I&rsquo;ll go with you to your door, and walk back to my cell. Home!&rdquo; he
+      growled to the footman, with a sardonic note in the voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they drove away, the Duchess turned to him abruptly. &ldquo;What did you mean
+      by your look when you said you had seen Eglington drive away from the
+      House?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, my dear Betty, she&mdash;the fly-away&mdash;drives him home now. It
+      has come to that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To her house&mdash;Windlehurst, oh, Windlehurst!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sank back in the cushions, and gave what was as near a sob as she had
+      given in many a day. Windlehurst took her hand. &ldquo;No, not so bad as that
+      yet. She drove him to his club. Don&rsquo;t fret, my dear Betty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Home! Hylda watched the shops, the houses, the squares, as she passed
+      westward, her mind dwelling almost happily on the new determination to
+      which she had come. It was not love that was moving her, not love for him,
+      but a deeper thing. He had brutally killed love&mdash;the full life of it&mdash;those
+      months ago; but there was a deep thing working in her which was as near
+      nobility as the human mind can feel. Not in a long time had she neared her
+      home with such expectation and longing. Often on the doorstep she had shut
+      her eyes to the light and warmth and elegance of it, because of that which
+      she did not see. Now, with a thrill of pleasure, she saw its doors open.
+      It was possible Eglington might have come home already. Lord Windlehurst
+      had said that he had left the House. She did not ask if he was in&mdash;it
+      had not been her custom for a long time&mdash;and servants were curious
+      people; but she looked at the hall-table. Yes, there was a hat which had
+      evidently just been placed there, and gloves, and a stick. He was at home,
+      then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She hurried to her room, dropped her opera-cloak on a chair, looked at
+      herself in the glass, a little fluttered and critical, and then crossed
+      the hallway to Eglington&rsquo;s bedroom. She listened for a moment. There was
+      no sound. She turned the handle of the door softly, and opened it. A light
+      was burning low, but the room was empty. It was as she thought, he was in
+      his study, where he spent hours sometimes after he came home, reading
+      official papers. She went up the stairs, at first swiftly, then more
+      slowly, then with almost lagging feet. Why did she hesitate? Why should a
+      woman falter in going to her husband&mdash;to her own one man of all the
+      world? Was it not, should it not be, ever the open door between them?
+      Confidence&mdash;confidence&mdash;could she not have it, could she not get
+      it now at last? She had paused; but now she moved on with quicker step,
+      purpose in her face, her eyes softly lighted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly she saw on the floor an opened letter. She picked it up, and, as
+      she did so, involuntarily observed the writing. Almost mechanically she
+      glanced at the contents. Her heart stood still. The first words scorched
+      her eyes.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;Eglington&mdash;Harry, dearest,&rdquo; it said, &ldquo;you shall not go to sleep
+   to-night without a word from me. This will make you think of me
+   when....&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Frozen, struck as by a mortal blow, Hylda looked at the signature. She
+      knew it&mdash;the cleverest, the most beautiful adventuress which the
+      aristocracy and society had produced. She trembled from head to foot, and
+      for a moment it seemed that she must fall. But she steadied herself and
+      walked firmly to Eglington&rsquo;s door. Turning the handle softly, she stepped
+      inside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not hear her. He was leaning over a box of papers, and they rustled
+      loudly under his hand. He was humming to himself that song she heard an
+      hour ago in Il Trovatore, that song of passion and love and tragedy. It
+      sent a wave of fresh feeling over her. She could not go on&mdash;could not
+      face him, and say what she must say. She turned and passed swiftly from
+      the room, leaving the door open, and hurried down the staircase. Eglington
+      heard now, and wheeled round. He saw the open door, listened to the rustle
+      of her skirts, knew that she had been there. He smiled, and said to
+      himself:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She came to me, as I said she would. I shall master her&mdash;the full
+      surrender, and then&mdash;life will be easy then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hylda hurried down the staircase to her room, saw Kate Heaver waiting,
+      beckoned to her, caught up her opera-cloak, and together they passed down
+      the staircase to the front door. Heaver rang a bell, a footman appeared,
+      and, at a word, called a cab. A minute later they were ready:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Snowdon House,&rdquo; Hylda said; and they passed into the night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0036" id="link2HCH0036">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXVI. &ldquo;IS IT ALWAYS SO&mdash;IN LIFE?&rdquo;
+     </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess and her brother, an ex-diplomatist, now deaf and patiently
+      amiable and garrulous, had met on the doorstep of Snowdon House, and
+      together they insisted on Lord Windlehurst coming in for a talk. The two
+      men had not met for a long time, and the retired official had been one of
+      Lord Windlehurst&rsquo;s own best appointments in other days. The Duchess had
+      the carriage wait in consequence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ex-official could hear little, but he had cultivated the habit of
+      talking constantly and well. There were some voices, however, which he
+      could hear more distinctly than others, and Lord Windlehurst&rsquo;s was one of
+      them&mdash;clear, well-modulated, and penetrating. Sipping brandy and
+      water, Lord Windlehurst gave his latest quip. They were all laughing
+      heartily, when the butler entered the room and said, &ldquo;Lady Eglington is
+      here, and wishes to see your Grace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As the butler left the room, the Duchess turned despairingly to
+      Windlehurst, who had risen, and was paler than the Duchess. &ldquo;It has come,&rdquo;
+       she said, &ldquo;oh, it has come! I can&rsquo;t face it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it doesn&rsquo;t matter about you facing it,&rdquo; Lord Windlehurst rejoined.
+      &ldquo;Go to her and help her, Betty. You know what to do&mdash;the one thing.&rdquo;
+       He took her hand and pressed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She dashed the tears from her eyes and drew herself together, while her
+      brother watched her benevolently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had not heard what was said. Betty had always been impulsive, he
+      thought to himself, and here was some one in trouble&mdash;they all came
+      to her, and kept her poor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go to bed, Dick,&rdquo; the Duchess said to him, and hurried from the room. She
+      did not hesitate now. Windlehurst had put the matter in the right way. Her
+      pain was nothing, mere moral cowardice; but Hylda&mdash;!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She entered the other room as quickly as rheumatic limbs would permit.
+      Hylda stood waiting, erect, her eyes gazing blankly before her and rimmed
+      by dark circles, her face haggard and despairing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before the Duchess could reach her, she said in a hoarse whisper: &ldquo;I have
+      left him&mdash;I have left him. I have come to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With a cry of pity the Duchess would have taken the stricken girl in her
+      arms, but Hylda held out a shaking hand with the letter in it which had
+      brought this new woe and this crisis foreseen by Lord Windlehurst. &ldquo;There&mdash;there
+      it is. He goes from me to her&mdash;to that!&rdquo; She thrust the letter into
+      the Duchess&rsquo;s fingers. &ldquo;You knew&mdash;you knew! I saw the look that
+      passed between you and Windlehurst at the opera. I understand all now. He
+      left the House of Commons with her&mdash;and you knew, oh, you knew! All
+      the world knows&mdash;every one knew but me.&rdquo; She threw up her hands. &ldquo;But
+      I&rsquo;ve left him&mdash;I&rsquo;ve left him, for ever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now the Duchess had her in her arms, and almost forcibly drew her to a
+      sofa. &ldquo;Darling, my darling,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you must not give way. It is not
+      so bad as you think. You must let me help to make you understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hylda laughed hysterically. &ldquo;Not so bad as I think! Read&mdash;read it,&rdquo;
+       she said, taking the letter from the Duchess&rsquo;s fingers and holding it
+      before her face. &ldquo;I found it on the staircase. I could not help but read
+      it.&rdquo; She sat and clasped and unclasped her hands in utter misery. &ldquo;Oh, the
+      shame of it, the bitter shame of it! Have I not been a good wife to him?
+      Have I not had reason to break my heart? But I waited, and I wanted to be
+      good and to do right. And to-night I was going to try once more&mdash;I
+      felt it in the opera. I was going to make one last effort for his sake. It
+      was for his sake I meant to make it, for I thought him only hard and
+      selfish, and that he had never loved; and if he only loved, I thought&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She broke off, wringing her hands and staring into space, the ghost of the
+      beautiful figure that had left the Opera House with shining eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess caught the cold hands. &ldquo;Yes, yes, darling, I know. I
+      understand. So does Windlehurst. He loves you as much as I do. We know
+      there isn&rsquo;t much to be got out of life; but we always hoped you would get
+      more than anybody else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hylda shrank, then raised her head, and looked at the Duchess with an
+      infinite pathos. &ldquo;Oh, is it always so&mdash;in life? Is no one true? Is
+      every one betrayed sometime? I would die&mdash;yes, a thousand times yes,
+      I would rather die than bear this. What do I care for life&mdash;it has
+      cheated me! I meant well, and I tried to do well, and I was true to him in
+      word and deed even when I suffered most, even when&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess laid a cheek against the burning head. &ldquo;I understand, my own
+      dear. I understand&mdash;altogether.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you cannot know,&rdquo; the broken girl replied; &ldquo;but through everything I
+      was true; and I have been tempted too when my heart was aching so, when
+      the days were so empty, the nights so long, and my heart hurt&mdash;hurt
+      me. But now, it is over, everything is done. You will keep me here&mdash;ah,
+      say you will keep me here till everything can be settled, and I can go
+      away&mdash;far away&mdash;far&mdash;!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped with a gasping cry, and her eyes suddenly strained into the
+      distance, as though a vision of some mysterious thing hung before her. The
+      Duchess realised that that temptation, which has come to so many
+      disillusioned mortals, to end it all, to find quiet somehow, somewhere out
+      in the dark, was upon her. She became resourceful and persuasively
+      commanding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But no, my darling,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you are going nowhere. Here in London is
+      your place now. And you must not stay here in my house. You must go back
+      to your home. Your place is there. For the present, at any rate, there
+      must be no scandal. Suspicion is nothing, talk is nothing, and the world
+      forgets&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I do not care for the world or its forgetting!&rdquo; the wounded girl
+      replied. &ldquo;What is the world to me! I wanted my own world, the world of my
+      four walls, quiet and happy, and free from scandal and shame. I wanted
+      love and peace there, and now...!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must be guided by those who love you. You are too young to decide
+      what is best for yourself. You must let Windlehurst and me think for you;
+      and, oh, my darling, you cannot know how much I care for your best good!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot, will not, bear the humiliation and the shame. This letter here&mdash;you
+      see!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the letter of a woman who has had more affaires than any man in
+      London. She is preternaturally clever, my dear&mdash;Windlehurst would
+      tell you so. The brilliant and unscrupulous, the beautiful and the bad,
+      have a great advantage in this world. Eglington was curious, that is all.
+      It is in the breed of the Eglingtons to go exploring, to experiment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hylda started. Words from the letter Sybil Lady Eglington had left behind
+      her rushed into her mind: &ldquo;Experiment, subterfuge, secrecy. &lsquo;Reaping where
+      you had not sowed, and gathering where you had not strawed.&rsquo; Always
+      experiment, experiment, experiment!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have only been married three years,&rdquo; she moaned. &ldquo;Yes, yes, my darling;
+      but much may happen after three days of married life, and love may come
+      after twenty years. The human heart is a strange thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was patient&mdash;I gave him every chance. He has been false and
+      shameless. I will not go on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess pressed both hands hard, and made a last effort, looking into
+      the deep troubled eyes with her own grown almost beautiful with feeling&mdash;the
+      faded world-worn eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will go back to-night-at once,&rdquo; she said firmly. &ldquo;To-morrow you will
+      stay in bed till noon-at any rate, till I come. I promise you that you
+      shall not be treated with further indignity. Your friends will stand by
+      you, the world will be with you, if you do nothing rash, nothing that
+      forces it to babble and scold. But you must play its game, my dearest.
+      I&rsquo;ll swear that the worst has not happened. She drove him to his club,
+      and, after a man has had a triumph, a woman will not drive him to his club
+      if&mdash;my darling, you must trust me! If there must be the great smash,
+      let it be done in a way that will prevent you being smashed also in the
+      world&rsquo;s eyes. You can live, and you will live. Is there nothing for you to
+      do? Is there no one for whom you would do something, who would be
+      heart-broken if you&mdash;if you went mad now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly a great change passed over Hylda. &ldquo;Is there no one for whom you
+      would do something?&rdquo; Just as in the desert a question like this had lifted
+      a man out of a terrible and destroying apathy, so this searching appeal
+      roused in Hylda a memory and a pledge. &ldquo;Is there no one for whom you would
+      do something?&rdquo; Was life, then, all over? Was her own great grief all? Was
+      her bitter shame the end?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She got to her feet tremblingly. &ldquo;I will go back,&rdquo; she said slowly and
+      softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Windlehurst will take you home,&rdquo; the Duchess rejoined eagerly. &ldquo;My
+      carriage is at the door.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A moment afterwards Lord Windlehurst took Hylda&rsquo;s hands in his and held
+      them long. His old, querulous eyes were like lamps of safety; his smile
+      had now none of that cynicism with which he had aroused and chastened the
+      world. The pitiful understanding of life was there and a consummate
+      gentleness. He gave her his arm, and they stepped out into the moonlit
+      night. &ldquo;So peaceful, so bright!&rdquo; he said, looking round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will come at noon to-morrow,&rdquo; called the Duchess from the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A light was still shining in Eglington&rsquo;s study when the carriage drove up.
+      With a latch-key Hylda admitted herself and her maid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The storm had broken, the flood had come. The storm was over, but the
+      flood swept far and wide.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0037" id="link2HCH0037">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXVII. THE FLYING SHUTTLE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Hour after hour of sleeplessness. The silver-tongued clock remorselessly
+      tinkled the quarters, and Hylda lay and waited for them with a hopeless
+      strained attention. In vain she tried devices to produce that monotony of
+      thought which sometimes brings sleep. Again and again, as she felt that
+      sleep was coming at last, the thought of the letter she had found flashed
+      through her mind with words of fire, and it seemed as if there had been
+      poured through every vein a subtle irritant. Just such a surging,
+      thrilling flood she had felt in the surgeon&rsquo;s chair when she was a girl
+      and an anesthetic had been given. But this wave of sensation led to no
+      oblivion, no last soothing intoxication. Its current beat against her
+      heart until she could have cried out from the mere physical pain, the
+      clamping grip of her trouble. She withered and grew cold under the torture
+      of it all&mdash;the ruthless spoliation of everything which made life
+      worth while or the past endurable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About an hour after she had gone to bed she heard Eglington&rsquo;s step. It
+      paused at her door. She trembled with apprehension lest he should enter.
+      It was many a day since he had done so, but also she had not heard his
+      step pause at her door for many a day. She could not bear to face it all
+      now; she must have time to think, to plan her course&mdash;the last course
+      of all. For she knew that the next step must be the last step in her old
+      life, and towards a new life, whatever that might be. A great sigh of
+      relief broke from her as she heard his door open and shut, and silence
+      fell on everything, that palpable silence which seems to press upon the
+      night-watcher with merciless, smothering weight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How terribly active her brain was! Pictures&mdash;it was all vivid
+      pictures, that awful visualisation of sorrow which, if it continues,
+      breaks the heart or wrests the mind from its sanity. If only she did not
+      see! But she did see Eglington and the Woman together, saw him look into
+      her eyes, take her hands, put his arm round her, draw her face to his! Her
+      heart seemed as if it must burst, her lips cried out. With a great effort
+      of the will she tried to hide from these agonies of the imagination, and
+      again she would approach those happy confines of sleep, which are the only
+      refuge to the lacerated heart; and then the weapon of time on the
+      mantelpiece would clash on the shield of the past, and she was wide awake
+      again. At last, in desperation, she got out of bed, hurried to the
+      fireplace, caught the little sharp-tongued recorder in a nervous grasp,
+      and stopped it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As she was about to get into bed again, she saw a pile of letters lying on
+      the table near her pillow. In her agitation she had not noticed them, and
+      the devoted Heaver had not drawn her attention to them. Now, however, with
+      a strange premonition, she quickly glanced at the envelopes. The last one
+      of all was less aristocratic-looking than the others; the paper of the
+      envelope was of the poorest, and it had a foreign look. She caught it up
+      with an exclamation. The handwriting was that of her cousin Lacey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She got into bed with a mind suddenly swept into a new atmosphere, and
+      opened the flimsy cover. Shutting her eyes, she lay still for a moment&mdash;still
+      and vague; she was only conscious of one thing, that a curtain had dropped
+      on the terrible pictures she had seen, and that her mind was in a
+      comforting quiet. Presently she roused herself, and turned the letter over
+      in her hand. It was not long&mdash;was that because its news was bad news?
+      The first chronicles of disaster were usually brief! She smoothed the
+      paper out-it had been crumpled and was a little soiled-and read it
+      swiftly. It ran:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   DEAR LADY COUSIN&mdash;As the poet says, &ldquo;Man is born to trouble as the
+   sparks fly upward,&rdquo; and in Egypt the sparks set the stacks on fire
+   oftener than anywhere else, I guess. She outclasses Mexico as a
+   &ldquo;precious example&rdquo; in this respect. You needn&rsquo;t go looking for
+   trouble in Mexico; it&rsquo;s waiting for you kindly. If it doesn&rsquo;t find
+   you to-day, well, manana. But here it comes running like a native
+   to his cooking-pot at sunset in Ramadan. Well, there have been
+   &ldquo;hard trials&rdquo; for the Saadat. His cotton-mills were set on fire-
+   can&rsquo;t you guess who did it? And now, down in Cairo, Nahoum runs
+   Egypt; for a messenger that got through the tribes worrying us tells
+   us that Kaid is sick, and Nahoum the Armenian says, you shall, and
+   you shan&rsquo;t, now. Which is another way of saying, that between us
+   and the front door of our happy homes there are rattlesnakes that
+   can sting&mdash;Nahoum&rsquo;s arm is long, and his traitors are crawling under
+   the canvas of our tents!
+
+   I&rsquo;m not complaining for myself. I asked for what I&rsquo;ve got, and,
+   dear Lady Cousin, I put up some cash for it, too, as a man should.
+   No, I don&rsquo;t mind for myself, fond as I am of loafing, sort of
+   pottering round where the streets are in the hands of a pure police;
+   for I&rsquo;ve seen more, done more, thought more, up here, than in all my
+   life before; and I&rsquo;ve felt a country heaving under the touch of one
+   of God&rsquo;s men&mdash;it gives you minutes that lift you out of the dust and
+   away from the crawlers. And I&rsquo;d do it all over a thousand times for
+   him, and for what I&rsquo;ve got out of it. I&rsquo;ve lived. But, to speak
+   right out plain, I don&rsquo;t know how long this machine will run.
+   There&rsquo;s been a plant of the worst kind. Tribes we left friendly
+   under a year ago are out against us; cities that were faithful have
+   gone under to rebels. Nahoum has sowed the land with the tale that
+   the Saadat means to abolish slavery, to take away the powers of the
+   great sheikhs, and to hand the country over to the Turk. Ebn Ezra
+   Bey has proofs of the whole thing, and now at last the Saadat knows
+   too late that his work has been spoiled by the only man who could
+   spoil it. The Saadat knows it, but does he rave and tear his hair?
+   He says nothing. He stands up like a rock before the riot of
+   treachery and bad luck and all the terrible burden he has to carry
+   here. If he wasn&rsquo;t a Quaker I&rsquo;d say he had the pride of an
+   archangel. You can bend him, but you can&rsquo;t break him; and it takes
+   a lot to bend him. Men desert, but he says others will come to take
+   their place. And so they do. It&rsquo;s wonderful, in spite of the holy
+   war that&rsquo;s being preached, and all the lies about him sprinkled over
+   this part of Africa, how they all fear him, and find it hard to be
+   out on the war-path against him. We should be gorging the vultures
+   if he wasn&rsquo;t the wonder he is. We need boats. Does he sit down and
+   wring his hands? No, he organises, and builds them&mdash;out of scraps.
+   Hasn&rsquo;t he enough food for a long siege? He goes himself to the
+   tribes that have stored food in their cities, and haven&rsquo;t yet
+   declared against him, and he puts a hand on their hard hearts, and
+   takes the sulkiness out of their eyes, and a fleet of ghiassas comes
+   down to us loaded with dourha. The defences of this place are
+   nothing. Does he fold his hands like a man of peace that he is,
+   and say, &lsquo;Thy will be done&rsquo;? Not the Saadat. He gets two soldier-
+   engineers, one an Italian who murdered his wife in Italy twenty
+   years ago, and one a British officer that cheated at cards and had
+   to go, and we&rsquo;ve got defences that&rsquo;ll take some negotiating. That&rsquo;s
+   the kind of man he is; smiling to cheer others when their hearts are
+   in their boots, stern like a commander-in-chief when he&rsquo;s got to
+   punish, and then he does it like steel; but I&rsquo;ve seen him afterwards
+   in his tent with a face that looks sixty, and he&rsquo;s got to travel a
+   while yet before he&rsquo;s forty. None of us dares be as afraid as we
+   could be, because a look at him would make us so ashamed we&rsquo;d have
+   to commit suicide. He hopes when no one else would ever hope. The
+   other day I went to his tent to wait for him, and I saw his Bible
+   open on the table. A passage was marked. It was this:
+
+   &ldquo;Behold, I have taken out of thy hand the cup of trembling, even the
+   dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again: But
+   I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have
+   said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over; and thou hast laid
+   thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over.&rdquo;
+ 
+   I&rsquo;d like to see Nahoum with that cup of trembling in his hand, and
+   I&rsquo;ve got an idea, too, that it will be there yet. I don&rsquo;t know how
+   it is, but I never can believe the worst will happen to the Saadat.
+   Reading those verses put hope into me. That&rsquo;s why I&rsquo;m writing to
+   you, on the chance of this getting through by a native who is
+   stealing down the river with a letter from the Saadat to Nahoum, and
+   one to Kaid, and one to the Foreign Minister in London, and one to
+   your husband. If they reach the hands they&rsquo;re meant for, it may be
+   we shall pan out here yet. But there must be display of power; an
+   army must be sent, without delay, to show the traitors that the game
+   is up. Five thousand men from Cairo under a good general would do
+   it. Will Nahoum send them? Does Kaid, the sick man, know? I&rsquo;m not
+   banking on Kaid. I think he&rsquo;s on his last legs. Unless pressure is
+   put on him, unless some one takes him by the throat and says: If you
+   don&rsquo;t relieve Claridge Pasha and the people with him, you will go to
+   the crocodiles, Nahoum won&rsquo;t stir. So, I am writing to you.
+   England can do it. The lord, your husband, can do it. England will
+   have a nasty stain on her flag if she sees this man go down without
+   a hand lifted to save him. He is worth another Alma to her
+   prestige. She can&rsquo;t afford to see him slaughtered here, where he&rsquo;s
+   fighting the fight of civilisation. You see right through this
+   thing, I know, and I don&rsquo;t need to palaver any more about it. It
+   doesn&rsquo;t matter about me. I&rsquo;ve had a lot for my money, and I&rsquo;m no
+   use&mdash;or I wouldn&rsquo;t be, if anything happened to the Saadat. No one
+   would drop a knife and fork at the breakfast-table when my obit was
+   read out&mdash;well, yes, there&rsquo;s one, cute as she can be, but she&rsquo;s lost
+   two husbands already, and you can&rsquo;t be hurt so bad twice in the same
+   place. But the Saadat, back him, Hylda&mdash;I&rsquo;ll call you that at this
+   distance. Make Nahoum move. Send four or five thousand men before
+   the day comes when famine does its work and they draw the bowstring
+   tight.
+
+   Salaam and salaam, and the post is going out, and there&rsquo;s nothing in
+   the morning paper; and, as Aunt Melissa used to say: &ldquo;Well, so much
+   for so much!&rdquo; One thing I forgot. I&rsquo;m lucky to be writing to you
+   at all. If the Saadat was an old-fashioned overlord, I shouldn&rsquo;t be
+   here. I got into a bad corner three days ago with a dozen Arabs&mdash;
+   I&rsquo;d been doing a little work with a friendly tribe all on my own,
+   and I almost got caught by this loose lot of fanatics. I shot
+   three, and galloped for it. I knew the way through the mines
+   outside, and just escaped by the skin of my teeth. Did the Saadat,
+   as a matter of discipline, have me shot for cowardice? Cousin
+   Hylda, my heart was in my mouth as I heard them yelling behind me&mdash;
+   and I never enjoyed a dinner so much in my life. Would the Saadat
+   have run from them? Say, he&rsquo;d have stayed and saved his life too.
+   Well, give my love to the girls!
+
+          Your affectionate cousin,
+
+                    Tom LACEY.
+
+   P.S.-There&rsquo;s no use writing to me. The letter service is bad. Send
+   a few thousand men by military parcel-post, prepaid, with some red
+   seals&mdash;majors and colonels from Aldershot will do. They&rsquo;ll give the
+   step to the Gyppies. T.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Hylda closed her eyes. A fever had passed from her veins. Here lay her
+      duty before her&mdash;the redemption of the pledge she had made. Whatever
+      her own sorrow, there was work before her; a supreme effort must be made
+      for another. Even now it might be too late. She must have strength for
+      what she meant to do. She put the room in darkness, and resolutely
+      banished thought from her mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sun had been up for hours before she waked. Eglington had gone to the
+      Foreign Office. The morning papers were full of sensational reports
+      concerning Claridge Pasha and the Soudan. A Times leader sternly
+      admonished the Government.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0038" id="link2HCH0038">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXVIII. JASPER KIMBER SPEAKS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      That day the adjournment of the House of Commons was moved &ldquo;To call
+      attention to an urgent matter of public importance&rdquo;&mdash;the position of
+      Claridge Pasha in the Soudan. Flushed with the success of last night&rsquo;s
+      performance, stung by the attacks of the Opposition morning papers,
+      confident in the big majority behind, which had cheered him a few hours
+      before, viciously resenting the letter he had received from David that
+      morning, Eglington returned such replies to the questions put to him that
+      a fire of angry mutterings came from the forces against him. He might have
+      softened the growing resentment by a change of manner, but his
+      intellectual arrogance had control of him for the moment; and he said to
+      himself that he had mastered the House before, and he would do so now.
+      Apart from his deadly antipathy to his half-brother, and the gain to
+      himself&mdash;to his credit, the latter weighed with him not so much, so
+      set was he on a stubborn course&mdash;if David disappeared for ever, there
+      was at bottom a spirit of anti-expansion, of reaction against England&rsquo;s
+      world-wide responsibilities. He had no largeness of heart or view
+      concerning humanity. He had no inherent greatness, no breadth of policy.
+      With less responsibility taken, there would be less trouble, national and
+      international&mdash;that was his point of view; that had been his view
+      long ago at the meeting at Heddington; and his weak chief had taken it,
+      knowing nothing of the personal elements behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The disconcerting factor in the present bitter questioning in the House
+      was, that it originated on his own side. It was Jasper Kimber who had
+      launched the questions, who moved the motion for adjournment. Jasper had
+      had a letter from Kate Heaver that morning early, which sent him to her,
+      and he had gone to the House to do what he thought to be his duty. He did
+      it boldly, to the joy of the Opposition, and with a somewhat sullen
+      support from many on his own side. Now appeared Jasper&rsquo;s own inner disdain
+      of the man who had turned his coat for office. It gave a lead to a latent
+      feeling among members of the ministerial party, of distrust, and of
+      suspicion that they were the dupes of a mind of abnormal cleverness which,
+      at bottom, despised them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With flashing eyes and set lips, vigilant and resourceful, Eglington
+      listened to Jasper Kimber&rsquo;s opening remarks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By unremitting industry Jasper had made a place for himself in the House.
+      The humour and vitality of his speeches, and his convincing advocacy of
+      the cause of the &ldquo;factory folk,&rdquo; had gained him a hearing. Thickset, under
+      middle size, with an arm like a giant and a throat like a bull, he had
+      strong common sense, and he gave the impression that he would wear his
+      heart out for a good friend or a great cause, but that if he chose to be
+      an enemy he would be narrow, unrelenting, and persistent. For some time
+      the House had been aware that he had more than a gift for criticism of the
+      Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His speech began almost stumblingly, his h&rsquo;s ran loose, and his grammar
+      became involved, but it was seen that he meant business, that he had that
+      to say which would give anxiety to the Government, that he had a case
+      wherein were the elements of popular interest and appeal, and that he was
+      thinking and speaking as thousands outside the House would think and
+      speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had waited for this hour. Indirectly he owed to Claridge Pasha all that
+      he had become. The day in which David knocked him down saw the depths of
+      his degradation reached, and, when he got up, it was to start on a new
+      life uncertainly, vaguely at first, but a new life for all that. He knew,
+      from a true source, of Eglington&rsquo;s personal hatred of Claridge Pasha,
+      though he did not guess their relationship; and all his interest was
+      enlisted for the man who had, as he knew, urged Kate Heaver to marry
+      himself&mdash;and Kate was his great ambition now. Above and beyond these
+      personal considerations was a real sense of England&rsquo;s duty to the man who
+      was weaving the destiny of a new land.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t England&rsquo;s business?&rdquo; he retorted, in answer to an interjection
+      from a faithful soul behind the ministerial Front Bench. &ldquo;Well, it wasn&rsquo;t
+      the business of the Good Samaritan to help the man that had been robbed
+      and left for dead by the wayside; but he did it. As to David Claridge&rsquo;s
+      work, some have said that&mdash;I&rsquo;ve no doubt it&rsquo;s been said in the
+      Cabinet, and it is the thing the Under-Secretary would say as naturally as
+      he would flick a fly from his boots&mdash;that it&rsquo;s a generation too soon.
+      Who knows that? I suppose there was those that thought John the Baptist
+      was baptising too soon, that Luther preached too soon, and Savonarola was
+      in too great a hurry, all because he met his death and his enemies
+      triumphed&mdash;and Galileo and Hampden and Cromwell and John Howard were
+      all too soon. Who&rsquo;s to be judge of that? God Almighty puts it into some
+      men&rsquo;s minds to work for a thing that&rsquo;s a great, and maybe an impossible,
+      thing, so far as the success of the moment is concerned. Well, for a thing
+      that has got to be done some time, the seed has to be sown, and it&rsquo;s
+      always sown by men like Claridge Pasha, who has shown millions of people&mdash;barbarians
+      and half-civilised alike&mdash;what a true lover of the world can do. God
+      knows, I think he might have stayed and found a cause in England, but he
+      elected to go to the ravaging Soudan, and he is England there, the best of
+      it. And I know Claridge Pasha&mdash;from his youth up I have seen him, and
+      I stand here to bear witness of what the working men of England will say
+      to-morrow. Right well the noble lord yonder knows that what I say is true.
+      He has known it for years. Claridge Pasha would never have been in his
+      present position, if the noble lord had not listened to the enemies of
+      Claridge Pasha and of this country, in preference to those who know and
+      hold the truth as I tell it here to-day. I don&rsquo;t know whether the noble
+      lord has repented or not; but I do say that his Government will rue it, if
+      his answer is not the one word &lsquo;Intervention!&rsquo; Mistaken, rash or not,
+      dreamer if you like, Claridge Pasha should be relieved now, and his policy
+      discussed afterwards. I don&rsquo;t envy the man who holds a contrary opinion;
+      he&rsquo;ll be ashamed of it some day. But&rdquo;&mdash;he pointed towards Eglington&mdash;&ldquo;but
+      there sits the minister in whose hands his fate has been. Let us hope that
+      this speech of mine needn&rsquo;t have been made, and that I&rsquo;ve done injustice
+      to his patriotism and to the policy he will announce.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A set-back, a sharp set-back,&rdquo; said Lord Windlehurst, in the Peers&rsquo; 
+      Gallery, as the cheers of the Opposition and of a good number of
+      ministerialists sounded through the Chamber. There were those on the
+      Treasury Bench who saw danger ahead. There was an attempt at a conference,
+      but Kimber&rsquo;s seconder only said a half-dozen words, and sat down, and
+      Eglington had to rise before any definite confidences could be exchanged.
+      One word only he heard behind him as he got up. It was the word,
+      &ldquo;Temporise,&rdquo; and it came from the Prime Minister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eglington was in no mood for temporising. Attack only nerved him. He was a
+      good and ruthless fighter; and last night&rsquo;s intoxication of success was
+      still in his brain. He did not temporise. He did not leave a way of
+      retreat open for the Prime Minister, who would probably wind up the
+      debate. He fought with skill, but he fought without gloves, and the House
+      needed gentle handling. He had the gift of effective speech to a rare
+      degree, and when he liked he could be insinuating and witty, but he had
+      not genuine humour or good feeling, and the House knew it. In debate he
+      was biting, resourceful, and unscrupulous. He made the fatal mistake of
+      thinking that intellect and gifts of fence, followed by a brilliant
+      peroration, in which he treated the commonplaces of experienced minds as
+      though they were new discoveries and he was their Columbus, could
+      accomplish anything. He had never had a political crisis, but one had come
+      now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In his reply he first resorted to arguments of high politics, historical,
+      informative, and, in a sense, commanding; indeed, the House became
+      restless under what seemed a piece of intellectual dragooning. Signs of
+      impatience appeared on his own side, and, when he ventured on a solemn
+      warning about hampering ministers who alone knew the difficulties of
+      diplomacy and the danger of wounding the susceptibilities of foreign and
+      friendly countries, the silence was broken by a voice that said
+      sneeringly, &ldquo;The kid-glove Government!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he began to lose place with the Chamber. He was conscious of it, and
+      shifted his ground, pointing out the dangers of doing what the other
+      nations interested in Egypt were not prepared to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you asked them? Have you pressed them?&rdquo; was shouted across the
+      House. Eglington ignored the interjections. &ldquo;Answer! Answer!&rdquo; was called
+      out angrily, but he shrugged a shoulder and continued his argument. If a
+      man insisted on using a flying-machine before the principle was fully
+      mastered and applied&mdash;if it could be mastered and applied&mdash;it
+      must not be surprising if he was killed. Amateurs sometimes took
+      preposterous risks without the advice of the experts. If Claridge Pasha
+      had asked the advice of the English Government, or of any of the
+      Chancellories of Europe, as to his incursions into the Soudan and his
+      premature attempts at reform, he would have received expert advice that
+      civilisation had not advanced to that stage in this portion of the world
+      which would warrant his experiments. It was all very well for one man to
+      run vast risks and attempt quixotic enterprises, but neither he nor his
+      countrymen had any right to expect Europe to embroil itself on his
+      particular account.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this point he was met by angry cries of dissent, which did not come
+      from the Opposition alone. His lips set, he would not yield. The
+      Government could not hold itself responsible for Claridge Pasha&rsquo;s relief,
+      nor in any sense for his present position. However, from motives of
+      humanity, it would make representations in the hope that the Egyptian
+      Government would act; but it was not improbable, in view of past
+      experiences of Claridge Pasha, that he would extricate himself from his
+      present position, perhaps had done so already. Sympathy and sentiment were
+      natural and proper manifestations of human society, but governments were,
+      of necessity, ruled by sterner considerations. The House must realise that
+      the Government could not act as though it were wholly a free agent, or as
+      if its every move would not be matched by another move on the part of
+      another Power or Powers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then followed a brilliant and effective appeal to his own party to trust
+      the Government, to credit it with feeling and with a due regard for
+      English prestige and the honour brought to it by Claridge Pasha&rsquo;s personal
+      qualities, whatever might be thought of his crusading enterprises. The
+      party must not fall into the trap of playing the game of the Opposition.
+      Then, with some supercilious praise of the &ldquo;worthy sentiments&rdquo; of Jasper
+      Kimber&rsquo;s speech and a curt depreciation of its reasoning, he declared
+      that: &ldquo;No Government can be ruled by clamour. The path to be trodden by
+      this Government will be lighted by principles of progress and
+      civilisation, humanity and peace, the urbane power of reason, and the
+      persuasive influence of just consideration for the rights of others,
+      rather than the thunder and the threat of the cannon and the sword!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sat down amid the cheers of a large portion of his party, for the end
+      of his speech had been full of effective if meretricious appeal. But the
+      debate that followed showed that the speech had been a failure. He had not
+      uttered one warm or human word concerning Claridge Pasha, and it was felt
+      and said, that no pledge had been given to insure the relief of the man
+      who had caught the imagination of England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The debate was fierce and prolonged. Eglington would not agree to any
+      modification of his speech, to any temporising. Arrogant and insistent, he
+      had his way, and, on a division, the Government was saved by a mere
+      handful of votes&mdash;votes to save the party, not to indorse Eglington&rsquo;s
+      speech or policy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Exasperated and with jaw set, but with a defiant smile, Eglington drove
+      straight home after the House rose. He found Hylda in the library with an
+      evening paper in her hands. She had read and reread his speech, and had
+      steeled herself for &ldquo;the inevitable hour,&rdquo; to this talk which would decide
+      for ever their fate and future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eglington entered the room smiling. He remembered the incident of the
+      night before, when she came to his study and then hurriedly retreated. He
+      had been defiant and proudly disdainful at the House and on the way home;
+      but in his heart of hearts he was conscious of having failed to have his
+      own way; and, like such men, he wanted assurance that he could not err,
+      and he wanted sympathy. Almost any one could have given it to him, and he
+      had a temptation to seek that society which was his the evening before;
+      but he remembered that she was occupied where he could not reach her, and
+      here was Hylda, from whom he had been estranged, but who must surely have
+      seen by now that at Hamley she had been unreasonable, and that she must
+      trust his judgment. So absorbed was he with self and the failure of his
+      speech, that, for a moment, he forgot the subject of it, and what that
+      subject meant to them both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you think of my speech, Hylda?&rdquo; he asked, as he threw himself
+      into a chair. &ldquo;I see you have been reading it. Is it a full report?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She handed the paper over. &ldquo;Quite full,&rdquo; she answered evenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He glanced down the columns. &ldquo;Sentimentalists!&rdquo; he said as his eye caught
+      an interjection. &ldquo;Cant!&rdquo; he added. Then he looked at Hylda, and remembered
+      once again on whom and what his speech had been made. He saw that her face
+      was very pale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you think of my speech?&rdquo; he repeated stubbornly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you think an answer necessary, I regard it as wicked and unpatriotic,&rdquo;
+       she answered firmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I suppose you would,&rdquo; he rejoined bitingly. She got to her feet
+      slowly, a flush passing over her face. &ldquo;If you think I would, did you not
+      think that a great many other people would think so too, and for the same
+      reason?&rdquo; she asked, still evenly, but very slowly. &ldquo;Not for the same
+      reason,&rdquo; he rejoined in a low, savage voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do not treat me well,&rdquo; she said, with a voice that betrayed no hurt,
+      no indignation. It seemed to state a fact deliberately; that was all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, please,&rdquo; she added quickly, as she saw him rise to his feet with
+      anger trembling at his lips. &ldquo;Do not say what is on your tongue to say.
+      Let us speak quietly to-night. It is better; and I am tired of strife,
+      spoken and unspoken. I have got beyond that. But I want to speak of what
+      you did to-day in Parliament.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you have said it was wicked and unpatriotic,&rdquo; he rejoined, sitting
+      down again and lighting a cigar, in an attempt to be composed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What you said was that; but I am concerned with what you did. Did your
+      speech mean that you would not press the Egyptian Government to relieve
+      Claridge Pasha at once?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that the conclusion you draw from my words?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; but I wish to know beyond doubt if that is what you mean the country
+      to believe?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is what I mean you to believe, my dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shrank from the last two words, but still went on quietly, though her
+      eyes burned and she shivered. &ldquo;If you mean that you will do nothing, it
+      will ruin you and your Government,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;Kimber was right, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kimber was inspired from here,&rdquo; he interjected sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She put her hand upon herself. &ldquo;Do you think I would intrigue against you?
+      Do you think I would stoop to intrigue?&rdquo; she asked, a hand clasping and
+      unclasping a bracelet on her wrist, her eyes averted, for very shame that
+      he should think the thought he had uttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It came from this house&mdash;the influence,&rdquo; he rejoined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot say. It is possible,&rdquo; she answered; &ldquo;but you cannot think that I
+      connive with my maid against you. I think Kimber has reasons of his own
+      for acting as he did to-day. He speaks for many besides himself; and he
+      spoke patriotically this afternoon. He did his duty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I did not? Do you think I act alone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did not do your duty, and I think that you are not alone responsible.
+      That is why I hope the Government will be influenced by public feeling.&rdquo;
+       She came a step nearer to him. &ldquo;I ask you to relieve Claridge Pasha at any
+      cost. He is your father&rsquo;s son. If you do not, when all the truth is known,
+      you will find no shelter from the storm that will break over you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will tell&mdash;the truth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not know yet what I shall do,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;It will depend on you;
+      but it is your duty to tell the truth, not mine. That does not concern me;
+      but to save Claridge Pasha does concern me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I have known.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her heart panted for a moment with a wild indignation; but she quieted
+      herself, and answered almost calmly: &ldquo;If you refuse to do that which is
+      honourable&mdash;and human, then I shall try to do it for you while yet I
+      bear your name. If you will not care for your family honour, then I shall
+      try to do so. If you will not do your duty, then I will try to do it for
+      you.&rdquo; She looked him determinedly in the eyes. &ldquo;Through you I have lost
+      nearly all I cared to keep in the world. I should like to feel that in
+      this one thing you acted honourably.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sprang to his feet, bursting with anger, in spite of the inward
+      admonition that much that he prized was in danger, that any breach with
+      Hylda would be disastrous. But self-will and his native arrogance
+      overruled the monitor within, and he said: &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t preach to me, don&rsquo;t play
+      the martyr. You will do this and you will do that! You will save my honour
+      and the family name! You will relieve Claridge Pasha, you will do what
+      Governments choose not to do; you will do what your husband chooses not to
+      do&mdash;Well, I say that you will do what your husband chooses to do, or
+      take the consequences.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I will take the consequences,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;I will save
+      Claridge Pasha, if it is possible. It is no boast. I will do it, if it can
+      be done at all, if it is God&rsquo;s will that it should be done; and in doing
+      it I shall be conscious that you and I will do nothing together again&mdash;never!
+      But that will not stop me; it will make me do it, the last right thing,
+      before the end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was so quiet, so curiously quiet. Her words had a strange solemnity, a
+      tragic apathy. What did it mean? He had gone too far, as he had done
+      before. He had blundered viciously, as he had blundered before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She spoke again before he could collect his thoughts and make reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not ask for too much, I think, and I could have forgiven and
+      forgotten all the hurts you have given me, if it were not for one thing.
+      You have been unjust, hard, selfish, and suspicious. Suspicious&mdash;of
+      me! No one else in all the world ever thought of me what you have thought.
+      I have done all I could. I have honourably kept the faith. But you have
+      spoiled it all. I have no memory that I care to keep. It is stained. My
+      eyes can never bear to look upon the past again, the past with you&mdash;never.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned to leave the room. He caught her arm. &ldquo;You will wait till you
+      hear what I have to say,&rdquo; he cried in anger. Her last words had stung him
+      so, her manner was so pitilessly scornful. It was as though she looked
+      down on him from a height. His old arrogance fought for mastery over his
+      apprehension. What did she know? What did she mean? In any case he must
+      face it out, be strong&mdash;and merciful and affectionate afterwards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait, Hylda,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We must talk this out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She freed her arm. &ldquo;There is nothing to talk out,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;So far
+      as our relations are concerned, all reason for talk is gone.&rdquo; She drew the
+      fatal letter from the sash at her waist. &ldquo;You will think so too when you
+      read this letter again.&rdquo; She laid it on the table beside him, and, as he
+      opened and glanced at it, she left the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood with the letter in his hand, dumfounded. &ldquo;Good God!&rdquo; he said, and
+      sank into a chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0039" id="link2HCH0039">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXIX. FAITH JOURNEYS TO LONDON
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Faith withdrew her eyes from Hylda&rsquo;s face, and they wandered helplessly
+      over the room. They saw, yet did not see; and even in her trouble there
+      was some subconscious sense softly commenting on the exquisite refinement
+      and gentle beauty which seemed to fill the room; but the only definite
+      objects which the eyes registered at the moment were the flowers filling
+      every corner. Hylda had been lightly adjusting a clump of roses when she
+      entered; and she had vaguely noticed how pale was the face that bent over
+      the flowers, how pale and yet how composed&mdash;as she had seen a Quaker
+      face, after some sorrow had passed over it, and left it like a quiet sea
+      in the sun, when wreck and ruin were done. It was only a swift impression,
+      for she could think of but one thing, David and his safety. She had come
+      to Hylda, she said, because of Lord Eglington&rsquo;s position, and she could
+      not believe that the Government would see David&rsquo;s work undone and David
+      killed by the slave-dealers of Africa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hylda&rsquo;s reply had given her no hope that Eglington would keep the promise
+      he had made that evening long ago when her father had come upon them by
+      the old mill, and because of which promise she had forgiven Eglington so
+      much that was hard to forgive. Hylda had spoken with sorrowful decision,
+      and then this pause had come, in which Faith tried to gain composure and
+      strength. There was something strangely still in the two women. From the
+      far past, through Quaker ancestors, there had come to Hylda now this grey
+      mist of endurance and self-control and austere reserve. Yet behind it all,
+      beneath it all, a wild heart was beating.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently, as they looked into each other&rsquo;s eyes, and Faith dimly
+      apprehended something of Hylda&rsquo;s distress and its cause, Hylda leaned over
+      and spasmodically pressed her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is so, Faith,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;They will do nothing. International
+      influences are too strong.&rdquo; She paused. &ldquo;The Under-Secretary for Foreign
+      Affairs will do nothing; but yet we must hope. Claridge Pasha has saved
+      himself in the past; and he may do so now, even though it is all ten times
+      worse. Then, there is another way. Nahoum Pasha can save him, if he can be
+      saved. And I am going to Egypt&mdash;to Nahoum.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Faith&rsquo;s face blanched. Something of the stark truth swept into her brain.
+      She herself had suffered&mdash;her own life had been maimed, it had had
+      its secret bitterness. Her love for her sister&rsquo;s son was that of a mother,
+      sister, friend combined, and he was all she had in life. That he lived,
+      that she might cherish the thought of him living, was the one thing she
+      had; and David must be saved, if that might be; but this girl&mdash;was
+      she not a girl, ten years younger than herself?&mdash;to go to Egypt to do&mdash;what?
+      She herself lived out of the world, but she knew the world! To go to
+      Egypt, and&mdash;&ldquo;Thee will not go to Egypt. What can thee do?&rdquo; she
+      pleaded, something very like a sob in her voice. &ldquo;Thee is but a woman, and
+      David would not be saved at such a price, and I would not have him saved
+      so. Thee will not go. Say thee will not. He is all God has left to me in
+      life; but thee to go&mdash;ah, no! It is a bitter world&mdash;and what
+      could thee do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hylda looked at her reflectively. Should she tell Faith all, and take her
+      to Egypt? No, she could not take her without telling her all, and that was
+      impossible now. There might come a time when this wise and tender soul
+      might be taken into the innermost chambers, when all the truth might be
+      known; but the secret of David&rsquo;s parentage was Eglington&rsquo;s concern most of
+      all, and she would not speak now; and what was between Nahoum and David
+      was David&rsquo;s concern; and she had kept his secret all these years. No,
+      Faith might not know now, and might not come with her. On this mission she
+      must go alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hylda rose to her feet, still keeping hold of Faith&rsquo;s hand. &ldquo;Go back to
+      Hamley and wait there,&rdquo; she said, in a colourless voice. &ldquo;You can do
+      nothing; it may be I can do much. Whatever can be done I can do, since
+      England will not act. Pray for his safety. It is all you can do. It is
+      given to some to work, to others to pray. I must work now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She led Faith towards the door; she could not endure more; she must hold
+      herself firm for the journey and the struggle before her. If she broke
+      down now she could not go forward; and Faith&rsquo;s presence roused in her an
+      emotion almost beyond control.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the door she took both of Faith&rsquo;s hands in hers, and kissed her cheek.
+      &ldquo;It is your place to stay; you will see that it is best. Good-bye,&rdquo; she
+      added hurriedly, and her eyes were so blurred that she could scarcely see
+      the graceful, demure figure pass into the sunlit street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That afternoon Lord Windlehurst entered the Duchess of Snowdon&rsquo;s presence
+      hurried and excited. She started on seeing his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has happened?&rdquo; she asked breathlessly. &ldquo;She is gone,&rdquo; he answered.
+      &ldquo;Our girl has gone to Egypt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess almost staggered to her feet. &ldquo;Windlehurst&mdash;gone!&rdquo; she
+      gasped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I called to see her. Her ladyship had gone into the country, the footman
+      said. I saw the butler, a faithful soul, who would die&mdash;or clean the
+      area steps&mdash;for her. He was discreet; but he knew what you and I are
+      to her. It was he got the tickets&mdash;for Marseilles and Egypt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess began to cry silently. Big tears ran down a face from which
+      the glow of feeling had long fled, but her eyes were sad enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gone&mdash;gone! It is the end!&rdquo; was all she could say. Lord Windlehurst
+      frowned, though his eyes were moist. &ldquo;We must act at once. You must go to
+      Egypt, Betty. You must catch her at Marseilles. Her boat does not sail for
+      three days. She thought it went sooner, as it was advertised to do. It is
+      delayed&mdash;I&rsquo;ve found that out. You can start to-night, and&mdash;and
+      save the situation. You will do it, Betty?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will do anything you say, as I have always done.&rdquo; She dried her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is a good girl. We must do all we can. I&rsquo;ll arrange everything for
+      you myself. I&rsquo;ve written this paragraph to go into the papers to-morrow
+      morning: &lsquo;The Duchess of Snowdon, accompanied by Lady Eglington, left
+      London last night for the Mediterranean via Calais, to be gone for two
+      months or more.&rsquo; That is simple and natural. I&rsquo;ll see Eglington. He must
+      make no fuss. He thinks she has gone to Hamley, so the butler says. There,
+      it&rsquo;s all clear. Your work is cut out, Betty, and I know you will do it as
+      no one else can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Windlehurst,&rdquo; she answered, with a hand clutching at his arm, &ldquo;if we
+      fail, it will kill me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If she fails, it will kill her,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;and she is very young.
+      What is in her mind, who can tell? But she thinks she can help Claridge
+      somehow. We must save her, Betty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I used to think you had no real feeling, Windlehurst. You didn&rsquo;t show
+      it,&rdquo; she said in a low voice. &ldquo;Ah, that was because you had too much,&rdquo; he
+      answered. &ldquo;I had to wait till you had less.&rdquo; He took out his watch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0040" id="link2HCH0040">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XL. HYLDA SEEKS NAHOUM
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was as though she had gone to sleep the night before, and waked again
+      upon this scene unchanged, brilliant, full of colour, a chaos of
+      decoration&mdash;confluences of noisy, garish streams of life, eddies of
+      petty labour. Craftsmen crowded one upon the other in dark bazaars;
+      merchants chattered and haggled on their benches; hawkers clattered and
+      cried their wares. It was a people that lived upon the streets, for all
+      the houses seemed empty and forsaken. The sais ran before the Pasha&rsquo;s
+      carriage, the donkey-boys shrieked for their right of way, a train of
+      camels calmly forced its passage through the swirling crowds, supercilious
+      and heavy-laden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed but yesterday since she had watched with amused eyes the
+      sherbet-sellers clanking their brass saucers, the carriers streaming the
+      water from the bulging goatskins into the earthen bottles, crying, &ldquo;Allah
+      be praised, here is coolness for thy throat for ever!&rdquo; the idle singer
+      chanting to the soft kanoon, the chess-players in the shade of a high
+      wall, lost to the world, the dancing-girls with unveiled, shameless faces,
+      posturing for evil eyes. Nothing had changed these past six years. Yet
+      everything had changed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She saw it all as in a dream, for her mind had no time for reverie or
+      retrospect; it was set on one thing only.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet behind the one idea possessing her there was a subconscious self
+      taking note of all these sights and sounds, and bringing moisture to her
+      eyes. Passing the house which David had occupied on that night when he and
+      she and Nahoum and Mizraim had met, the mist of feeling almost blinded
+      her; for there at the gate sat the bowab who had admitted her then, and
+      with apathetic eyes had watched her go, in the hour when it seemed that
+      she and David Claridge had bidden farewell for ever, two driftwood spars
+      that touched and parted in the everlasting sea. Here again in the Palace
+      square were Kaid&rsquo;s Nubians in their glittering armour as of silver and
+      gold, drawn up as she had seen them drawn then, to be reviewed by their
+      overlord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She swept swiftly through the streets and bazaars on her mission to
+      Nahoum. &ldquo;Lady Eglington&rdquo; had asked for an interview, and Nahoum had
+      granted it without delay. He did not associate her with the girl for whom
+      David Claridge had killed Foorgat Pey, and he sent his own carriage to
+      bring her to the Palace. No time had been lost, for it was less than
+      twenty-four hours since she had arrived in Cairo, and very soon she would
+      know the worst or the best. She had put her past away for the moment, and
+      the Duchess of Snowdon had found at Marseilles a silent, determined, yet
+      gentle-tongued woman, who refused to look back, or to discuss anything
+      vital to herself and Eglington, until what she had come to Egypt to do was
+      accomplished. Nor would she speak of the future, until the present had
+      been fully declared and she knew the fate of David Claridge. In Cairo
+      there were only varying rumours: that he was still holding out; that he
+      was lost; that he had broken through; that he was a prisoner&mdash;all
+      without foundation upon which she could rely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As she neared the Palace entrance, a female fortune-teller ran forward,
+      thrusting towards her a gazelle&rsquo;s skin, filled with the instruments of her
+      mystic craft, and crying out: &ldquo;I divine-I reveal! What is present I
+      manifest! What is absent I declare! What is future I show! Beautiful one,
+      hear me. It is all written. To thee is greatness, and thy heart&rsquo;s desire.
+      Hear all! See! Wait for the revealing. Thou comest from afar, but thy
+      fortune is near. Hear and see. I divine&mdash;I reveal. Beautiful one,
+      what is future I show.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hylda&rsquo;s eyes looked at the poor creature eagerly, pathetically. If it
+      could only be, if she could but see one step ahead! If the veil could but
+      be lifted! She dropped some silver into the folds of the gazelle-skin and
+      waved the Gipsy away. &ldquo;There is darkness, it is all dark, beautiful one,&rdquo;
+       cried the woman after her, &ldquo;but it shall be light. I show&mdash;I reveal!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inside these Palace walls there was a revealer of more merit, as she so
+      well and bitterly knew. He could raise the veil&mdash;a dark and dangerous
+      necromancer, with a flinty heart and a hand that had waited long to
+      strike. Had it struck its last blow?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Outside Nahoum&rsquo;s door she had a moment of utter weakness, when her knees
+      smote together, and her throat became parched; but before the door had
+      swung wide and her eyes swept the cool and shadowed room, she was as
+      composed as on that night long ago when she had faced the man who knew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nahoum was standing in a waiting and respectful attitude as she entered.
+      He advanced towards her and bowed low, but stopped dumfounded, as he saw
+      who she was. Presently he recovered himself; but he offered no further
+      greeting than to place a chair for her where her face was in the shadow
+      and his in the light&mdash;time of crisis as it was, she noticed this and
+      marvelled at him. His face was as she had seen it those years ago. It
+      showed no change whatever. The eyes looked at her calmly, openly, with no
+      ulterior thought behind, as it might seem. The high, smooth forehead, the
+      full but firm lips, the brown, well-groomed beard, were all indicative of
+      a nature benevolent and refined. Where did the duplicity lie? Her mind
+      answered its own question on the instant; it lay in the brain and the
+      tongue. Both were masterly weapons, an armament so complete that it
+      controlled the face and eyes and outward man into a fair semblance of
+      honesty. The tongue&mdash;she remembered its insinuating and adroit power,
+      and how it had deceived the man she had come to try and save. She must not
+      be misled by it. She felt it was to be a struggle between them, and she
+      must be alert and persuasive, and match him word for word, move for move.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am happy to welcome you here, madame,&rdquo; he said in English. &ldquo;It is years
+      since we met; yet time has passed you by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She flushed ever so slightly&mdash;compliment from Nahoum Pasha! Yet she
+      must not resent anything to-day; she must get what she came for, if it was
+      possible. What had Lacey said? &ldquo;A few thousand men by parcel-post, and
+      some red seals-British officers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We meet under different circumstances,&rdquo; she replied meaningly. &ldquo;You were
+      asking a great favour then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, but of you, madame?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you appealed to me when you were doubtful of the result.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, madame, it may be so&mdash;but, yes, you are right; I thought you
+      were Claridge Pasha&rsquo;s kinswoman, I remember.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excellency, you said you thought I was Claridge Pasha&rsquo;s kinswoman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you are not?&rdquo; he asked reflectively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not understand the slight change that passed over her face. His
+      kinswoman&mdash;Claridge Pasha&rsquo;s kinswoman!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was not his kinswoman,&rdquo; she answered calmly. &ldquo;You came to ask a favour
+      then of Claridge Pasha; your life-work to do under him. I remember your
+      words: &lsquo;I can aid thee in thy great task. Thou wouldst remake our Egypt,
+      and my heart is with you. I would rescue, not destroy.... I would labour,
+      but my master has taken away from me the anvil, the fire, and the hammer,
+      and I sit without the door like an armless beggar.&rsquo; Those were your words,
+      and Claridge Pasha listened and believed, and saved your life and gave you
+      work; and now again you have power greater than all others in Egypt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame, I congratulate you on a useful memory. May it serve you as the
+      hill-fountain the garden in the city! Those indeed were my words. I hear
+      myself from your lips, and yet recognise myself, if that be not vanity.
+      But, madame, why have you sought me? What is it you wish to know&mdash;to
+      hear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at her innocently, as though he did not know her errand; as
+      though beyond, in the desert, there was no tragedy approaching&mdash;or
+      come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excellency, you are aware that I have come to ask for news of Claridge
+      Pasha.&rdquo; She leaned forward slightly, but, apart from her tightly
+      interlaced fingers, it would not have been possible to know that she was
+      under any strain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You come to me instead of to the Effendina. May I ask why, madame? Your
+      husband&rsquo;s position&mdash;I did not know you were Lord Eglington&rsquo;s wife&mdash;would
+      entitle you to the highest consideration.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew that Nahoum Pasha would have the whole knowledge, while the
+      Effendina would have part only. Excellency, will you not tell me what news
+      You have? Is Claridge Pasha alive?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame, I do not know. He is in the desert. He was surrounded. For over a
+      month there has been no word-none. He is in danger. His way by the river
+      was blocked. He stayed too long. He might have escaped, but he would
+      insist on saving the loyal natives, on remaining with them, since he could
+      not bring them across the desert; and the river and the desert are silent.
+      Nothing comes out of that furnace yonder. Nothing comes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He bent his eyes upon her complacently. Her own dropped. She could not
+      bear that he should see the misery in them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have come to try and save him, madame. What did you expect to do?
+      Your Government did not strengthen my hands; your husband did nothing&mdash;nothing
+      that could make it possible for me to act. There are many nations here,
+      alas! Your husband does not take so great an interest in the fate of
+      Claridge Pasha as yourself, madame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She ignored the insult. She had determined to endure everything, if she
+      might but induce this man to do the thing that could be done&mdash;if it
+      was not too late. Before she could frame a reply, he said urbanely:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But that is not to be expected. There was that between Claridge Pasha and
+      yourself which would induce you to do all you might do for him, to be
+      anxious for his welfare. Gratitude is a rare thing&mdash;as rare as the
+      flower of the century&mdash;aloe; but you have it, madame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no chance to misunderstand him. Foorgat Bey&mdash;he knew the
+      truth, and had known it all these years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excellency,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;if through me, Claridge Pasha&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One moment, madame,&rdquo; he interrupted, and, opening a drawer, took out a
+      letter. &ldquo;I think that what you would say may be found here, with much else
+      that you will care to know. It is the last news of Claridge Pasha&mdash;a
+      letter from him. I understand all you would say to me; but he who has most
+      at stake has said it, and, if he failed, do you think, madame, that you
+      could succeed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He handed her the letter with a respectful salutation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the hour he left, madame, he came to know that the name of Foorgat Bey
+      was not blotted from the book of Time, nor from Fate&rsquo;s reckoning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After all these years! Her instinct had been true, then, that night so
+      long ago. The hand that took the letter trembled slightly in spite of her
+      will, but it was not the disclosure Nahoum had made which caused her
+      agitation. This letter she held was in David Claridge&rsquo;s hand, the first
+      she had ever seen, and, maybe, the last that he had ever written, or that
+      any one would ever see, a document of tears. But no, there were no tears
+      in this letter! As Hylda read it the trembling passed from her fingers,
+      and a great thrilling pride possessed her. If tragedy had come, then it
+      had fallen like a fire from heaven, not like a pestilence rising from the
+      earth. Here indeed was that which justified all she had done, what she was
+      doing now, what she meant to do when she had read the last word of it and
+      the firm, clear signature beneath.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;Excellency [the letter began in English], I came into the desert
+   and into the perils I find here, with your last words in my ear,
+   &lsquo;There is the matter of Foorgat Bey.&rsquo; The time you chose to speak
+   was chosen well for your purpose, but ill for me. I could not turn
+   back, I must go on. Had I returned, of what avail? What could I do
+   but say what I say here, that my hand killed Foorgat Bey; that I had
+   not meant to kill him, though at the moment I struck I took no heed
+   whether he lived or died. Since you know of my sorrowful deed, you
+   also know why Foorgat Bey was struck down. When, as I left the bank
+   of the Nile, your words blinded my eyes, my mind said in its misery:
+   &lsquo;Now, I see!&rsquo; The curtains fell away from between you and me, and I
+   saw all that you had done for vengeance and revenge. You knew all
+   on that night when you sought your life of me and the way back to
+   Kaid&rsquo;s forgiveness. I see all as though you spoke it in my ear.
+   You had reason to hurt me, but you had no reason for hurting Egypt,
+   as you have done. I did not value my life, as you know well, for it
+   has been flung into the midst of dangers for Egypt&rsquo;s sake, how
+   often! It was not cowardice which made me hide from you and all the
+   world the killing of Foorgat Bey. I desired to face the penalty,
+   for did not my act deny all that I had held fast from my youth up?
+   But there was another concerned&mdash;a girl, but a child in years, as
+   innocent and true a being as God has ever set among the dangers of
+   this life, and, by her very innocence and unsuspecting nature, so
+   much more in peril before such unscrupulous wiles as were used by
+   Foorgat Bey.
+
+   &ldquo;I have known you many years, Nahoum, and dark and cruel as your
+   acts have been against the work I gave my life to do, yet I think
+   that there was ever in you, too, the root of goodness. Men would
+   call your acts treacherous if they knew what you had done; and so
+   indeed they were; but yet I have seen you do things to others&mdash;not
+   to me&mdash;which could rise only from the fountain of pure waters. Was
+   it partly because I killed Foorgat and partly because I came to
+   place and influence and power, that you used me so, and all that I
+   did? Or was it the East at war with the West, the immemorial feud
+   and foray?
+
+   &ldquo;This last I will believe; for then it will seem to be something
+   beyond yourself&mdash;centuries of predisposition, the long stain of the
+   indelible&mdash;that drove you to those acts of matricide. Ay, it is
+   that! For, Armenian as you are, this land is your native land, and
+   in pulling down what I have built up&mdash;with you, Nahoum, with you&mdash;
+   you have plunged the knife into the bosom of your mother. Did it
+   never seem to you that the work which you did with me was a good
+   work&mdash;the reduction of the corvee, the decrease of conscription, the
+   lessening of taxes of the fellah, the bridges built, the canals dug,
+   the seed distributed, the plague stayed, the better dwellings for
+   the poor in the Delta, the destruction of brigandage, the slow
+   blotting-out of exaction and tyranny under the kourbash, the quiet
+   growth of law and justice, the new industries started&mdash;did not all
+   these seem good to you, as you served the land with me, your great
+   genius for finance, ay, and your own purse, helping on the things
+   that were dear to me, for Egypt&rsquo;s sake? Giving with one hand
+   freely, did your soul not misgive you when you took away with the
+   other?
+
+   &ldquo;When you tore down my work, you were tearing down your own; for,
+   more than the material help I thought you gave in planning and
+   shaping reforms, ay, far more than all, was the feeling in me which
+   helped me over many a dark place, that I had you with me, that I was
+   not alone. I trusted you, Nahoum. A life for a life you might have
+   had for the asking; but a long torture and a daily weaving of the
+   web of treachery&mdash;that has taken more than my life; it has taken
+   your own, for you have killed the best part of yourself, that which
+   you did with me; and here in an ever-narrowing circle of death I say
+   to you that you will die with me. Power you have, but it will
+   wither in your grasp. Kaid will turn against you; for with my
+   failure will come a dark reaction in his mind, which feels the cloud
+   of doom drawing over it. Without me, with my work falling about his
+   ears, he will, as he did so short a time ago, turn to Sharif and
+   Higli and the rest; and the only comfort you will have will be that
+   you destroyed the life of him who killed your brother. Did you love
+   your brother? Nay, not more than did I, for I sent his soul into
+   the void, and I would gladly have gone after it to ask God for the
+   pardon of all his sins&mdash;and mine. Think: I hid the truth, but why?
+   Because a woman would suffer an unmerited scandal and shame.
+   Nothing could recall Foorgat Bey; but for that silence I gave my
+   life, for the land which was his land. Do you betray it, then?
+
+   &ldquo;And now, Nahoum, the gulf in which you sought to plunge me when you
+   had ruined all I did is here before me. The long deception has
+   nearly done its work. I know from Ebn Ezra Bey what passed between
+   you. They are out against me&mdash;the slave-dealers&mdash;from Senaar to
+   where I am. The dominion of Egypt is over here. Yet I could
+   restore it with a thousand men and a handful of European officers,
+   had I but a show of authority from Cairo, which they think has
+   deserted me.
+
+   &ldquo;I am shut up here with a handful of men who can fight and thousands
+   who cannot fight, and food grows scarcer, and my garrison is worn
+   and famished; but each day I hearten them with the hope that you
+   will send me a thousand men from Cairo. One steamer pounding here
+   from the north with men who bring commands from the Effendina, and
+   those thousands out yonder beyond my mines and moats and guns will
+   begin to melt away. Nahoum, think not that you shall triumph over
+   David Claridge. If it be God&rsquo;s will that I shall die here, my work
+   undone, then, smiling, I shall go with step that does not falter, to
+   live once more; and another day the work that I began will rise
+   again in spite of you or any man.
+
+   &ldquo;Nahoum, the killing of Foorgat Bey has been like a cloud upon all
+   my past. You know me, and you know I do not lie. Yet I do not
+   grieve that I hid the thing&mdash;it was not mine only; and if ever you
+   knew a good woman, and in dark moments have turned to her, glad that
+   she was yours, think what you would have done for her, how you would
+   have sheltered her against aught that might injure her, against
+   those things women are not made to bear. Then think that I hid the
+   deed for one who was a stranger to me, whose life must ever lay far
+   from mine, and see clearly that I did it for a woman&rsquo;s sake, and not
+   for this woman&rsquo;s sake; for I had never seen her till the moment I
+   struck Foorgat Bey into silence and the tomb. Will you not
+   understand, Nahoum?
+
+   &ldquo;Yonder, I see the tribes that harry me. The great guns firing make
+   the day a burden, the nights are ever fretted by the dangers of
+   surprise, and there is scarce time to bury the dead whom sickness
+   and the sword destroy. From the midst of it all my eyes turn to you
+   in Cairo, whose forgiveness I ask for the one injury I did you;
+   while I pray that you will seek pardon for all that you have done to
+   me and to those who will pass with me, if our circle is broken.
+   Friend, Achmet the Ropemaker is here fighting for Egypt. Art thou
+   less, then, than Achmet? So, God be with thee.
+
+                    &ldquo;DAVID CLARIDGE.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Without a pause Hylda had read the letter from the first word to the last.
+      She was too proud to let this conspirator and traitor see what David&rsquo;s
+      words could do to her. When she read the lines concerning herself, she
+      became cold from head to foot, but she knew that Nahoum never took his
+      eyes from her face, and she gave no outward sign of what was passing
+      within. When she had finished it, she folded it up calmly, her eyes dwelt
+      for a moment on the address upon the envelope, and then she handed it back
+      to Nahoum without a word. She looked him in the eyes and spoke. &ldquo;He saved
+      your life, he gave you all you had lost. It was not his fault that Prince
+      Kaid chose him for his chief counsellor. You would be lying where your
+      brother lies, were it not for Claridge Pasha.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may be; but the luck was with me; and I have my way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She drew herself together to say what was hard to say. &ldquo;Excellency, the
+      man who was killed deserved to die. Only by lies, only by subterfuge, only
+      because I was curious to see the inside of the Palace, and because I had
+      known him in London, did I, without a thought of indiscretion, give myself
+      to his care to come here. I was so young; I did not know life, or men&mdash;or
+      Egyptians.&rdquo; The last word was uttered with low scorn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He glanced up quickly, and for the first time she saw a gleam of malice in
+      his eyes. She could not feel sorry she had said it, yet she must remove
+      the impression if possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What Claridge Pasha did, any man would have done, Excellency. He struck,
+      and death was an accident. Foorgat&rsquo;s temple struck the corner of a
+      pedestal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His death was instant. He would have killed Claridge Pasha if it had been
+      possible&mdash;he tried to do so. But, Excellency, if you have a daughter,
+      if you ever had a child, what would you have done if any man had&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the East daughters are more discreet; they tempt men less,&rdquo; he
+      answered quietly, and fingered the string of beads he carried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet you would have done as Claridge Pasha did. That it was your brother
+      was an accident, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was an accident that the penalty must fall on Claridge Pasha, and on
+      you, madame. I did not choose the objects of penalty. Destiny chose them,
+      as Destiny chose Claridge Pasha as the man who should supplant me, who
+      should attempt to do these mad things for Egypt against the judgment of
+      the world&mdash;against the judgment of your husband. Shall I have better
+      judgment than the chancellories of Europe and England&mdash;and Lord
+      Eglington?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excellency, you know what moves other nations; but it is for Egypt to act
+      for herself. You ask me why I did not go to the Effendina. I come to you
+      because I know that you could circumvent the Effendina, even if he sent
+      ten thousand men. It is the way in Egypt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame, you have insight&mdash;will you not look farther still, and see
+      that, however good Claridge Pasha&rsquo;s work might be some day in the far
+      future, it is not good to-day. It is too soon. At the beginning of the
+      twentieth century, perhaps. Men pay the penalty of their mistakes. A man&rsquo;s
+      life&rdquo;&mdash;he watched her closely with his wide, benevolent eyes&mdash;&ldquo;is
+      neither here nor there, nor a few thousands, in the destiny of a nation. A
+      man who ventures into a lion&rsquo;s den must not be surprised if he goes as
+      Harrik went&mdash;ah, perhaps you do not know how Harrik went! A man who
+      tears at the foundations of a house must not be surprised if the timbers
+      fall on him and on his workmen. It is Destiny that Claridge Pasha should
+      be the slayer of my brother, and a danger to Egypt, and one whose life is
+      so dear to you, madame. You would have it otherwise, and so would I, but
+      we must take things as they are&mdash;and you see that letter. It is seven
+      weeks since then, and it may be that the circle has been broken. Yet it
+      may not be so. The circle may be smaller, but not broken.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She felt how he was tempting her from word to word with a merciless
+      ingenuity; yet she kept to her purpose; and however hopeless it seemed,
+      she would struggle on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excellency,&rdquo; she said in a low, pleading tone, &ldquo;has he not suffered
+      enough? Has he not paid the price of that life which you would not bring
+      back if you could? No, in those places of your mind where no one can see
+      lies the thought that you would not bring back Foorgat Bey. It is not an
+      eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth that has moved you; it has not been
+      love of Foorgat Bey; it has been the hatred of the East for the West. And
+      yet you are a Christian! Has Claridge Pasha not suffered enough,
+      Excellency? Have you not had your fill of revenge? Have you not done
+      enough to hurt a man whose only crime was that he killed a man to save a
+      woman, and had not meant to kill?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet he says in his letter that the thought of killing would not have
+      stopped him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does one think at such a moment? Did he think? There was no time. It was
+      the work of an instant. Ah, Fate was not kind, Excellency! If it had been,
+      I should have been permitted to kill Foorgat Bey with my own hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should have found it hard to exact the penalty from you, madame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The words were uttered in so neutral a way that they were enigmatical, and
+      she could not take offence or be sure of his meaning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Think, Excellency. Have you ever known one so selfless, so good, so true?
+      For humanity&rsquo;s sake, would you not keep alive such a man? If there were a
+      feud as old as Adam between your race and his, would you not before this
+      life of sacrifice lay down the sword and the bitter challenge? He gave you
+      his hand in faith and trust, because your God was his God, your prophet
+      and lord his prophet and lord. Such faith should melt your heart. Can you
+      not see that he tried to make compensation for Foorgat&rsquo;s death, by giving
+      you your life and setting you where you are now, with power to save or
+      kill him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You call him great; yet I am here in safety, and he is&mdash;where he is.
+      Have you not heard of the strife of minds and wills? He represented the
+      West, I the East. He was a Christian, so was I; the ground of our battle
+      was a fair one, and&mdash;and I have won.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The ground of battle fair!&rdquo; she protested bitterly. &ldquo;He did not know that
+      there was strife between you. He did not fight you. I think that he always
+      loved you, Excellency. He would have given his life for you, if it had
+      been in danger. Is there in that letter one word that any man could wish
+      unwritten when the world was all ended for all men? But no, there was no
+      strife between you&mdash;there was only hatred on your part. He was so
+      much greater than you that you should feel no rivalry, no strife. The
+      sword he carries cuts as wide as Time. You are of a petty day in a petty
+      land. Your mouth will soon be filled with dust, and you will be forgotten.
+      He will live in the history of the world. Excellency, I plead for him
+      because I owe him so much: he killed a man and brought upon himself a
+      lifelong misery for me. It is all I can do, plead to you who know the
+      truth about him&mdash;yes, you know the truth&mdash;to make an effort to
+      save him. It may be too late; but yet God may be waiting for you to lift
+      your hand. You said the circle may be smaller, but it may be unbroken
+      still. Will you not do a great thing once, and win a woman&rsquo;s gratitude,
+      and the thanks of the world, by trying to save one who makes us think
+      better of humanity? Will you not have the name of Nahoum Pasha linked with
+      his&mdash;with his who thought you were his friend? Will you not save
+      him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He got slowly to his feet, a strange look in his eyes. &ldquo;Your words are
+      useless. I will not save him for your sake; I will not save him for the
+      world&rsquo;s sake; I will not save him&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A cry of pain and grief broke from her, and she buried her face in her
+      hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;I will not save him for any other sake than his own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused. Slowly, as dazed as though she had received a blow, Hylda
+      raised her face and her hands dropped in her lap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For any other sake than his own!&rdquo; Her eyes gazed at him in a bewildered,
+      piteous way. What did he mean? His voice seemed to come from afar off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you think that you could save him? That I would listen to you, if I
+      did not listen to him? No, no, madame. Not even did he conquer me; but
+      something greater than himself within himself, it conquered me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She got to her feet gasping, her hands stretched out. &ldquo;Oh, is it true&mdash;is
+      it true?&rdquo; she cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The West has conquered,&rdquo; he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will help him&mdash;you will try to save him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When, a month ago, I read the letter you have read, I tried to save him.
+      I sent secretly four thousand men who were at Wady Halfa to relieve him&mdash;if
+      it could be done; five hundred to push forward on the quickest of the
+      armed steamers, the rest to follow as fast as possible. I did my best.
+      That was a month ago, and I am waiting&mdash;waiting and hoping, madame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly she broke down. Tears streamed from her eyes. She sank into the
+      chair, and sobs shook her from head to foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be patient, be composed, madame,&rdquo; Nahoum said gently. &ldquo;I have tried you
+      greatly&mdash;forgive me. Nay, do not weep. I have hope. We may hear from
+      him at any moment now,&rdquo; he added softly, and there was a new look in his
+      wide blue eyes as they were bent on her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0041" id="link2HCH0041">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLI. IN THE LAND OF SHINAR
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;Then I said to the angel that talked with me, Whither do these bear
+   the Ephah?
+
+   &ldquo;And he said unto me, To build it an house in the land of Shinar;
+   and it shall be established, and set there upon her own base.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      David raised his head from the paper he was studying. He looked at Lacey
+      sharply. &ldquo;And how many rounds of ammunition?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ten thousand, Saadat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How many shells?&rdquo; he continued, making notes upon the paper before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Three hundred, Saadat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How many hundredweight of dourha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eighty&mdash;about.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how many mouths to feed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Five thousand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How many fighters go with the mouths?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nine hundred and eighty-of a kind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And of the best?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, say, five hundred.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee said six hundred three days ago, Lacey.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sixty were killed or wounded on Sunday, and forty I reckon in the others,
+      Saadat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The dark eyes flashed, the lips set. &ldquo;The fire was sickening&mdash;they
+      fell back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Saadat, they reflected&mdash;at the wrong time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They ran?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not back&mdash;they were slow in getting on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But they fought it out?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They had to&mdash;root hog, or die. You see, Saadat, in that five hundred
+      I&rsquo;m only counting the invincibles, the up-and-at-&rsquo;ems, the blind-goers
+      that &lsquo;d open the lid of Hell and jump in after the enemy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The pale face lighted. &ldquo;So many! I would not have put the estimate half so
+      high. Not bad for a dark race fighting for they know not what!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They know that all right; they are fighting for you, Saadat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David seemed not to hear. &ldquo;Five hundred&mdash;so many, and the enemy so
+      near, the temptation so great.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The deserters are all gone to Ali Wad Hei, Saadat. For a month there have
+      been only the deserted.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A hardness crept into the dark eyes. &ldquo;Only the deserted!&rdquo; He looked out to
+      where the Nile lost itself in the northern distance. &ldquo;I asked Nahoum for
+      one thousand men, I asked England for the word which would send them. I
+      asked for a thousand, but even two hundred would turn the scale&mdash;the
+      sign that the Inglesi had behind him Cairo and London. Twenty weeks, and
+      nothing comes!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He got to his feet slowly and walked up and down the room for a moment,
+      glancing out occasionally towards the clump of palms which marked the
+      disappearance of the Nile into the desert beyond his vision. At intervals
+      a cannon-shot crashed upon the rarefied air, as scores of thousands had
+      done for months past, torturing to ear and sense and nerve. The confused
+      and dulled roar of voices came from the distance also; and, looking out to
+      the landward side, David saw a series of movements of the besieging
+      forces, under the Arab leader, Ali Wad Hei. Here a loosely formed body of
+      lancers and light cavalry cantered away towards the south, converging upon
+      the Nile; there a troop of heavy cavalry in glistening mail moved nearer
+      to the northern defences; and between, battalions of infantry took up new
+      positions, while batteries of guns moved nearer to the river, curving upon
+      the palace north and south. Suddenly David&rsquo;s eyes flashed fire. He turned
+      to Lacey eagerly. Lacey was watching with eyes screwed up shrewdly, his
+      forehead shining with sweat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Saadat,&rdquo; he said suddenly, &ldquo;this isn&rsquo;t the usual set of quadrilles. It&rsquo;s
+      the real thing. They&rsquo;re watching the river&mdash;waiting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But south!&rdquo; was David&rsquo;s laconic response. At the same moment he struck a
+      gong. An orderly entered. Giving swift instructions, he turned to Lacey
+      again. &ldquo;Not Cairo&mdash;Darfur,&rdquo; he added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ebn Ezra Bey coming! Ali Wad Hei&rsquo;s got word from up the Nile, I guess.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David nodded, and his face clouded. &ldquo;We should have had word also,&rdquo; he
+      said sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a knock at the door, and Mahommed Hassan entered, supporting an
+      Arab, down whose haggard face blood trickled from a wound in the head,
+      while an arm hung limp at his side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Behold, Saadat&mdash;from Ebn Ezra Bey,&rdquo; Mahommed said. The man drooped
+      beside him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David caught a tin cup from a shelf, poured some liquor into it, and held
+      it to the lips of the fainting man. &ldquo;Drink,&rdquo; he said. The Arab drank
+      greedily, and, when he had finished, gave a long sigh of satisfaction.
+      &ldquo;Let him sit,&rdquo; David added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the man was seated on a sheepskin, the huge Mahommed squatting behind
+      like a sentinel, David questioned him. &ldquo;What is thy name&mdash;thy news?&rdquo;
+       he asked in Arabic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am called Feroog. I come from Ebn Ezra Bey, to whom be peace!&rdquo; he
+      answered. &ldquo;Thy messenger, Saadat, behold he died of hunger and thirst, and
+      his work became mine. Ebn Ezra Bey came by the river....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is near?&rdquo; asked David impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is twenty miles away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou camest by the desert?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By the desert, Saadat, as Ebn Ezra effendi comes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By the desert! But thou saidst he came by the river.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Saadat, yonder, forty miles from where we are, the river makes a great
+      curve. There the effendi landed in the night with four hundred men to
+      march hither. But he commanded that the boats should come on slowly and
+      receive the attack in the river, while he came in from the desert.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David&rsquo;s eye flashed. &ldquo;A great device. They will be here by midnight, then,
+      perhaps?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At midnight, Saadat, by the blessing of God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How wert thou wounded?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came upon two of the enemy. They were mounted. I fought them. Upon the
+      horse of one I came here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The other?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God is merciful, Saadat. He is in the bosom of God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How many men come by the river?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But fifty, Saadat,&rdquo; was the answer, &ldquo;but they have sworn by the stone in
+      the Kaabah not to surrender.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And those who come with the effendi, with Ebn Ezra Bey, are they as those
+      who will not surrender?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Half of them are so. They were with thee, as was I, Saadat, when the
+      great sickness fell upon us, and were healed by thee, and afterwards
+      fought with thee.&rdquo; David nodded abstractedly, and motioned to Mahommed to
+      take the man away; then he said to Lacey: &ldquo;How long do you think we can
+      hold out?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall have more men, but also more rifles to fire, and more mouths to
+      fill, if Ebn Ezra gets in, Saadat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David raised his head. &ldquo;But with more rifles to fire away your ten
+      thousand rounds&rdquo;&mdash;he tapped the paper on the table&mdash;&ldquo;and eat the
+      eighty hundredweight of dourha, how long can we last?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If they are to fight, and with full stomachs, and to stake everything on
+      that one fight, then we can last two days. No more, I reckon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I make it one day,&rdquo; answered David. &ldquo;In three days we shall have no food,
+      and unless help comes from Cairo, we must die or surrender. It is not well
+      to starve on the chance of help coming, and then die fighting with weak
+      arms and broken spirit. Therefore, we must fight to morrow, if Ebn Ezra
+      gets in to-night. I think we shall fight well,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;You think so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a born fighter, Saadat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A shadow fell on David&rsquo;s face, and his lips tightened. &ldquo;I was not born a
+      fighter, Lacey. The day we met first no man had ever died by my hand or by
+      my will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are three who must die at sunset&mdash;an hour from now-by thy
+      will, Saadat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A startled look came into David&rsquo;s face. &ldquo;Who?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Three Pashas, Saadat. They have been recaptured.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Recaptured!&rdquo; rejoined David mechanically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Achmet Pasha got them from under the very noses of the sheikhs before
+      sunrise this morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Achmet&mdash;Achmet Pasha!&rdquo; A light came into David&rsquo;s face again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will keep faith with Achmet, Saadat. He risked his life to get them.
+      They betrayed you, and betrayed three hundred good men to death. If they
+      do not die, those who fight for you will say that it doesn&rsquo;t matter
+      whether men fight for you or betray you, they get the same stuff off the
+      same plate. If we are going to fight to-morrow, it ought to be with a
+      clean bill of health.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They served me well so long&mdash;ate at my table, fought with me. But&mdash;but
+      traitors must die, even as Harrik died.&rdquo; A stern look came into his face.
+      He looked round the great room slowly. &ldquo;We have done our best,&rdquo; he said.
+      &ldquo;I need not have failed, if there had been no treachery....&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it hadn&rsquo;t been for Nahoum!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David raised his head. Supreme purpose came into his bearing. A grave
+      smile played at his lips, as he gave that quick toss of the head which had
+      been a characteristic of both Eglington and himself. His eyes shone-a
+      steady, indomitable light. &ldquo;I will not give in. I still have hope. We are
+      few and they are many, but the end of a battle has never been sure. We may
+      not fail even now. Help may come from Cairo even to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, somehow you&rsquo;ve always pulled through before, Saadat. When I&rsquo;ve been
+      most frightened I&rsquo;ve perked up and stiffened my backbone, remembering your
+      luck. I&rsquo;ve seen a blue funk evaporate by thinking of how things always
+      come your way just when the worst seems at the worst.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David smiled as he caught up a small cane and prepared to go. Looking out
+      of a window, he stroked his thin, clean-shaven face with a lean finger.
+      Presently a movement in the desert arrested his attention. He put a
+      field-glass to his eyes, and scanned the field of operations closely once
+      more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-good!&rdquo; he burst out cheerfully. &ldquo;Achmet has done the one thing
+      possible. The way to the north will be still open. He has flung his men
+      between the Nile and the enemy, and now the batteries are at work.&rdquo;
+       Opening the door, they passed out. &ldquo;He has anticipated my orders,&rdquo; he
+      added. &ldquo;Come, Lacey, it will be an anxious night. The moon is full, and
+      Ebn Ezra Bey has his work cut out&mdash;sharp work for all of us, and...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lacey could not hear the rest of his words in the roar of the artillery.
+      David&rsquo;s steamers in the river were pouring shot into the desert where the
+      enemy lay, and Achmet&rsquo;s &ldquo;friendlies&rdquo; and the Egyptians were making good
+      their new position. As David and Lacey, fearlessly exposing themselves to
+      rifle fire, and taking the shortest and most dangerous route to where
+      Achmet fought, rode swiftly from the palace, Ebn Ezra&rsquo;s three steamers
+      appeared up the river, and came slowly down to where David&rsquo;s gunboats lay.
+      Their appearance was greeted by desperate discharges of artillery from the
+      forces under Ali Wad Hei, who had received word of their coming two hours
+      before, and had accordingly redisposed his attacking forces. But for
+      Achmet&rsquo;s sharp initiative, the boldness of the attempt to cut off the way
+      north and south would have succeeded, and the circle of fire and sword
+      would have been complete. Achmet&rsquo;s new position had not been occupied
+      before, for men were too few, and the position he had just left was now
+      exposed to attack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Never since the siege began had the foe shown such initiative and
+      audacity. They had relied on the pressure of famine and decimation by
+      sickness, the steady effects of sorties, with consequent fatalities and
+      desertions, to bring the Liberator of the Slaves to his knees. Ebn Ezra
+      Bey had sought to keep quiet the sheikhs far south, but he had been shut
+      up in Darffur for months, and had been in as bad a plight as David. He
+      had, however, broken through at last. His ruse in leaving the steamers in
+      the night and marching across the desert was as courageous as it was
+      perilous, for, if discovered before he reached the beleaguered place,
+      nothing could save his little force from destruction. There was one way in
+      from the desert to the walled town, and it was through that space which
+      Achmet and his men had occupied, and on which Ali Wad Hei might now, at
+      any moment, throw his troops.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David&rsquo;s heart sank as he saw the danger. From the palace he had sent an
+      orderly with a command to an officer to move forward and secure the
+      position, but still the gap was open, and the men he had ordered to
+      advance remained where they were. Every minute had its crisis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Lacey and himself left the town the misery of the place smote him in
+      the eyes. Filth, refuse, debris filled the streets. Sick and dying men
+      called to him from dark doorways, children and women begged for bread,
+      carcasses lay unburied, vultures hovering above them&mdash;his tireless
+      efforts had not been sufficient to cope with the daily horrors of the
+      siege. But there was no sign of hostility to him. Voices called blessings
+      on him from dark doorways, lips blanching in death commended him to Allah,
+      and now and then a shrill call told of a fighter who had been laid low,
+      but who had a spirit still unbeaten. Old men and women stood over their
+      cooking-pots waiting for the moment of sunset; for it was Ramadan, and the
+      faithful fasted during the day&mdash;as though every day was not a fast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sunset was almost come, as David left the city and galloped away to send
+      forces to stop the gap of danger before it was filled by the foe. Sunset&mdash;the
+      Three Pashas were to die at sunset! They were with Achmet, and in a few
+      moments they would be dead. As David and Lacey rode hard, they suddenly
+      saw a movement of men on foot at a distant point of the field, and then a
+      small mounted troop, fifty at most, detach themselves from the larger
+      force and, in close formation, gallop fiercely down on the position which
+      Achmet had left. David felt a shiver of anxiety and apprehension as he saw
+      this sharp, sweeping advance. Even fifty men, well intrenched, could hold
+      the position until the main body of Ali Wad Hei&rsquo;s infantry came on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They rode hard, but harder still rode Ali Wad Hei&rsquo;s troop of daring Arabs.
+      Nearer and nearer they came. Suddenly from the trenches, which they had
+      thought deserted, David saw jets of smoke rise, and a half-dozen of the
+      advancing troop fell from their saddles, their riderless horses galloping
+      on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David&rsquo;s heart leaped: Achmet had, then, left men behind, hidden from view;
+      and these were now defending the position. Again came the jets of smoke,
+      and again more Arabs dropped from their saddles. But the others still came
+      on. A thousand feet away others fell. Twenty-two of the fifty had already
+      gone. The rest fired their rifles as they galloped. But now, to David&rsquo;s
+      relief, his own forces, which should have moved half an hour before, were
+      coming swiftly down to cut off the approach of Ali Wad Hei&rsquo;s infantry, and
+      he turned his horse upon the position where a handful of men were still
+      emptying the saddles of the impetuous enemy. But now all that were left of
+      the fifty were upon the trenches. Then came the flash of swords, puffs of
+      smoke, the thrust of lances, and figures falling from the screaming,
+      rearing horses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lacey&rsquo;s pistol was in his hand, David&rsquo;s sword was gripped tight, as they
+      rushed upon the melee. Lacey&rsquo;s pistol snapped, and an Arab fell; again,
+      and another swayed in his saddle. David&rsquo;s sword swept down, and a turbaned
+      head was gashed by a mortal stroke. As he swung towards another horseman,
+      who had struck down a defender of the trenches, an Arab raised himself in
+      his saddle and flung a lance with a cry of terrible malice; but, even as
+      he did so, a bullet from Lacey&rsquo;s pistol pierced his shoulder. The shot had
+      been too late to stop the lance, but sufficient to divert its course. It
+      caught David in the flesh of the body under the arm&mdash;a slight wound
+      only. A few inches to the right, however, and his day would have been
+      done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The remaining Arabs turned and fled. The fight was over. As David,
+      dismounting, stood with dripping sword in his hand, in imagination, he
+      heard the voice of Kaid say to him, as it said that night when he killed
+      Foorgat Bey: &ldquo;Hast thou never killed a man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For an instant it blinded him, then he was conscious that, on the ground
+      at his feet, lay one of the Three Pashas who were to die at sunset. It was
+      sunset now, and the man was dead. Another of the Three sat upon the ground
+      winding his thigh with the folds of a dead Arab&rsquo;s turban, blood streaming
+      from his gashed face. The last of the trio stood before David, stoical and
+      attentive. For a moment David looked at the Three, the dead man and the
+      two living men, and then suddenly turned to where the opposing forces were
+      advancing. His own men were now between the position and Ali Wad Hei&rsquo;s
+      shouting fanatics. They would be able to reach and defend the post in
+      time. He turned and gave orders. There were only twenty men besides the
+      two pashas, whom his commands also comprised. Two small guns were in
+      place. He had them trained on that portion of the advancing infantry of
+      Ali Wad Hei not yet covered by his own forces. Years of work and
+      responsibility had made him master of many things, and long ago he had
+      learned the work of an artilleryman. In a moment a shot, well directed,
+      made a gap in the ranks of the advancing foe. An instant afterwards a shot
+      from the other gun fired by the unwounded pasha, who, in his youth, had
+      been an officer of artillery, added to the confusion in the swerving
+      ranks, and the force hesitated; and now from Ebn Ezra Bey&rsquo;s river
+      steamers, which had just arrived, there came a flank fire. The force
+      wavered. From David&rsquo;s gun another shot made havoc. They turned and fell
+      back quickly. The situation was saved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As if by magic the attack of the enemy all over the field ceased. By
+      sunset they had meant to finish this enterprise, which was to put the
+      besieged wholly in their hands, and then to feast after the day&rsquo;s fasting.
+      Sunset had come, and they had been foiled; but hunger demanded the feast.
+      The order to cease firing and retreat sounded, and three thousand men
+      hurried back to the cooking-pot, the sack of dourha, and the prayer mat.
+      Malaish, if the infidel Inglesi was not conquered to-day, he should be
+      beaten and captured and should die to-morrow! And yet there were those
+      among them who had a well-grounded apprehension that the &ldquo;Inglesi&rdquo; would
+      win in the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the trenches, where five men had died so bravely, and a traitorous
+      pasha had paid the full penalty of a crime and won a soldier&rsquo;s death,
+      David spoke to his living comrades. As he prepared to return to the city,
+      he said to the unwounded pasha: &ldquo;Thou wert to die at sunset; it was thy
+      sentence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the pasha answered: &ldquo;Saadat, as for death&mdash;I am ready to die, but
+      have I not fought for thee?&rdquo; David turned to the wounded pasha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did Achmet Pasha spare thee?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He did not spare us, Saadat. Those who fought with us but now were to
+      shoot us at sunset, and remain here till other troops came. Before sunset
+      we saw the danger, since no help came. Therefore we fought to save this
+      place for thee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David looked them in the eyes. &ldquo;Ye were traitors,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and for an
+      example it was meet that ye should die. But this that ye have done shall
+      be told to all who fight to-morrow, and men will know why it is I pardon
+      treachery. Ye shall fight again, if need be, betwixt this hour and
+      morning, and ye shall die, if need be. Ye are willing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Both men touched their foreheads, their lips, and their breasts. &ldquo;Whether
+      it be death or it be life, Inshallah, we are true to thee, Saadat!&rdquo; one
+      said, and the other repeated the words after him. As they salaamed David
+      left them, and rode forward to the advancing forces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon the roof of the palace Mahommed Hassan watched and waited, his eyes
+      scanning sharply the desert to the south, his ears strained to catch that
+      stir of life which his accustomed ears had so often detected in the
+      desert, when no footsteps, marching, or noises could be heard. Below, now
+      in the palace, now in the defences, his master, the Saadat, planned for
+      the last day&rsquo;s effort on the morrow, gave directions to the officers, sent
+      commands to Achmet Pasha, arranged for the disposition of his forces, with
+      as strange a band of adherents and subordinates as ever men had&mdash;adventurers,
+      to whom adventure in their own land had brought no profit; members of that
+      legion of the non-reputable, to whom Cairo offered no home; Levantines,
+      who had fled from that underground world where every coin of reputation is
+      falsely minted, refugees from the storm of the world&rsquo;s disapproval. There
+      were Greeks with Austrian names; Armenians, speaking Italian as their
+      native tongue; Italians of astonishing military skill, whose services were
+      no longer required by their offended country; French Pizarros with a
+      romantic outlook, even in misery, intent to find new El Dorados;
+      Englishmen, who had cheated at cards and had left the Horse Guards for
+      ever behind; Egyptian intriguers, who had been banished for being less
+      successful than greater intriguers; but also a band of good gallant men of
+      every nation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon all these, during the siege, Mahommed Hassan had been a
+      self-appointed spy, and had indirectly added to that knowledge which made
+      David&rsquo;s decisive actions to circumvent intrigue and its consequences seem
+      almost supernatural. In his way Mahommed was a great man. He knew that
+      David would endure no spying, and it was creditable to his subtlety and
+      skill that he was able to warn his master, without being himself suspected
+      of getting information by dark means. On the palace roof Mahommed was
+      happy to-night. Tomorrow would be a great day, and, since the Saadat was
+      to control its destiny, what other end could there be but happiness? Had
+      not the Saadat always ridden over all that had been in his way? Had not
+      he, Mahommed, ever had plenty to eat and drink, and money to send to
+      Manfaloot to his father there, and to bribe when bribing was needed?
+      Truly, life was a boon! With a neboot of dom-wood across his knees he sat
+      in the still, moonlit night, peering into that distance whence Ebn Ezra
+      Bey and his men must come, the moon above tranquil and pleasant and
+      alluring, and the desert beneath, covered as it was with the outrages and
+      terrors of war, breathing softly its ancient music, that delicate vibrant
+      humming of the latent activities. In his uncivilised soul Mahommed Hassan
+      felt this murmur, and even as he sat waiting to know whether a little army
+      would steal out of the south like phantoms into this circle the Saadat had
+      drawn round him, he kept humming to himself&mdash;had he not been, was he
+      not now, an Apollo to numberless houris who had looked down at him from
+      behind mooshrabieh screens, or waited for him in the palm-grove or the
+      cane-field? The words of his song were not uttered aloud, but yet he sang
+      them silently&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;Every night long and all night my spirit is moaning and crying
+   O dear gazelle, that has taken away my peace!
+   Ah! if my beloved come not, my eyes will be blinded with weeping
+   Moon of my joy, come to me, hark to the call of my soul!&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      Over and over he kept chanting the song. Suddenly, however, he leaned
+      farther forward and strained his ears. Yes, at last, away to the
+      south-east, there was life stirring, men moving&mdash;moving quickly. He
+      got to his feet slowly, still listening, stood for a moment motionless,
+      then, with a cry of satisfaction, dimly saw a moving mass in the white
+      moonlight far over by the river. Ebn Ezra Bey and his men were coming. He
+      started below, and met David on the way up. He waited till David had
+      mounted the roof, then he pointed. &ldquo;Now, Saadat!&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They have stolen in?&rdquo; David peered into the misty whiteness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are almost in, Saadat. Nothing can stop them now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is well done. Go and ask Ebn Ezra effendi to come hither,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly a shot was fired, then a hoarse shout came over the desert, then
+      there was silence again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are in, Saadat,&rdquo; said Mahommed Hassan.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+       .......................
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Day broke over a hazy plain. On both sides of the Nile the river mist
+      spread wide, and the army of Ali Wad Hei and the defending forces were
+      alike veiled from each other and from the desert world beyond. Down the
+      river for scores of miles the mist was heavy, and those who moved within
+      it and on the waters of the Nile could not see fifty feet ahead. Yet
+      through this heavy veil there broke gently a little fleet of phantom
+      vessels, the noise of the paddle-wheels and their propellers muffled as
+      they moved slowly on. Never had vessels taken such risks on the Nile
+      before, never had pilots trusted so to instinct, for there were sand-banks
+      and ugly drifts of rock here and there. A safe journey for phantom ships;
+      but these armed vessels, filled by men with white, eager faces and others
+      with dark Egyptian features, were no phantoms. They bristled with weapons,
+      and armed men crowded every corner of space. For full two hours from the
+      first streak of light they had travelled swiftly, taking chances not to be
+      taken save in some desperate moment. The moment was desperate enough, if
+      not for them. They were going to the relief of besieged men, with a
+      message from Nahoum Pasha to Claridge Pasha, and with succour. They had
+      looked for a struggle up this river as they neared the beleaguered city;
+      but, as they came nearer and nearer, not a gun fired at them from the
+      forts on the banks out of the mists. If they were heard they still were
+      safe from the guns, for they could not be seen, and those on shore could
+      not know whether they were friend or foe. Like ghostly vessels they passed
+      on, until at last they could hear the stir and murmur of life along the
+      banks of the stream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Boom! boom! boom! Through the mist the guns of the city were pouring shot
+      and shell out into Ali Wad Hei&rsquo;s camp, and Ali Wad Hei laughed
+      contemptuously. Surely now the Inglesi was altogether mad, and to-day,
+      this day after prayers at noon, he should be shot like a mad dog, for
+      yesterday&rsquo;s defeat had turned some of his own adherent sheikhs into angry
+      critics. He would not wait for starvation to compel the infidel to
+      surrender. He would win freedom to deal in human flesh and blood, and make
+      slave-markets where he willed, and win glory for the Lord Mahomet, by
+      putting this place to the sword; and, when it was over, he would have the
+      Inglesi&rsquo;s head carried on a pole through the city for the faithful to mock
+      at, a target for the filth of the streets. So, by the will of Allah, it
+      should be done!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Boom! boom! boom! The Inglesi was certainly mad, for never had there been
+      so much firing in any long day in all the siege as in this brief hour this
+      morning. It was the act of a fool, to fire his shot and shell into the
+      mist without aim, without a clear target. Ali Wad Hei scorned to make any
+      reply with his guns, but sat in desultory counsel with his sheikhs,
+      planning what should be done when the mists had cleared away. But
+      yesterday evening the Arab chief had offered to give the Inglesi life if
+      he would surrender and become a Muslim, and swear by the Lord Mahomet; but
+      late in the night he had received a reply which left only one choice, and
+      that was to disembowel the infidel, and carry his head aloft on a spear.
+      The letter he had received ran thus in Arabic:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   &ldquo;To Ali Wad Hei and All with Him:
+
+   &ldquo;We are here to live or to die as God wills, and not as ye will. I
+   have set my feet on the rock, and not by threats of any man shall I
+   be moved. But I say that for all the blood that ye have shed here
+   there will be punishment, and for the slaves which ye have slain or
+   sold there will be high price paid. Ye have threatened the city and
+   me&mdash;take us if ye can. Ye are seven to one. Why falter all these
+   months? If ye will not come to us, we shall come to you, rebellious
+   ones, who have drawn the sword against your lawful ruler, the
+   Effendina.
+
+                  &ldquo;CLARIDGE PASHA&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      It was a rhetorical document couched in the phraseology they best
+      understood; and if it begat derision, it also begat anger; and the
+      challenge David had delivered would be met when the mists had lifted from
+      the river and the plain. But when the first thinning of the mists began,
+      when the sun began to dissipate the rolling haze, Ali Wad Hei and his
+      rebel sheikhs were suddenly startled by rifle-fire at close quarters, by
+      confused noises, and the jar and roar of battle. Now the reason for the
+      firing of the great guns was plain. The noise was meant to cover the
+      advance of David&rsquo;s men. The little garrison, which had done no more than
+      issue in sorties, was now throwing its full force on the enemy in a last
+      desperate endeavour. It was either success or absolute destruction. David
+      was staking all, with the last of his food, the last of his ammunition,
+      the last of his hopes. All round the field the movement was forward, till
+      the circle had widened to the enemy&rsquo;s lines; while at the old defences
+      were only handfuls of men. With scarce a cry David&rsquo;s men fell on the
+      unprepared foe; and he himself, on a grey Arab, a mark for any lance or
+      spear and rifle, rode upon that point where Ali Wad Hei&rsquo;s tent was set.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But after the first onset, in which hundreds were killed, there began the
+      real noise of battle&mdash;fierce shouting, the shrill cries of wounded
+      and maddened horses as they struck with their feet, and bit as fiercely at
+      the fighting foe as did their masters. The mist cleared slowly, and, when
+      it had wholly lifted, the fight was spread over every part of the field of
+      siege. Ali Wad Hei&rsquo;s men had gathered themselves together after the first
+      deadly onslaught, and were fighting fiercely, shouting the Muslim
+      battle-cry, &ldquo;Allah hu achbar!&rdquo; Able to bring up reinforcements, the great
+      losses at first sustained were soon made up, and the sheer weight of
+      numbers gave them courage and advantage. By rushes with lance and sword
+      and rifle they were able, at last, to drive David&rsquo;s men back upon their
+      old defences with loss. Then charge upon charge ensued, and each charge,
+      if it cost them much, cost the besieged more, by reason of their fewer
+      numbers. At one point, however, the besieged became again the attacking
+      party. This was where Achmet Pasha had command. His men on one side of the
+      circle, as Ebn Ezra Bey&rsquo;s men on the other, fought with a valour as
+      desperate as the desert ever saw. But David, galloping here and there to
+      order, to encourage, to prevent retreat at one point, or to urge attack at
+      another, saw that the doom of his gallant force was certain; for the enemy
+      were still four to one, in spite of the carnage of the first attack.
+      Bullets hissed past him. One carried away a button, one caught the tip of
+      his ear, one pierced the fez he wore; but he felt nothing of this, saw
+      nothing. He was buried in the storm of battle preparing for the end, for
+      the final grim defence, when his men would retreat upon the one last
+      strong fort, and there await their fate. From this absorption he was
+      roused by Lacey, who came galloping towards him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve come, Saadat, they&rsquo;ve come at last! We&rsquo;re saved&mdash;oh, my God,
+      you bet we&rsquo;re all right now! See! See, Saadat!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David saw. Five steamers carrying the Egyptian flag were bearing around
+      the point where the river curved below the town, and converging upon
+      David&rsquo;s small fleet. Presently the steamers opened fire, to encourage the
+      besieged, who replied with frenzied shouts of joy, and soon there poured
+      upon the sands hundreds of men in the uniform of the Effendina. These came
+      forward at the double, and, with a courage which nothing could withstand,
+      the whole circle spread out again upon the discomfited tribes of Ali Wad
+      Hei. Dismay, confusion, possessed the Arabs. Their river-watchers had
+      failed them, God had hidden His face from them; and when Ali Wad Hei and
+      three of his emirs turned and rode into the desert, their forces broke and
+      ran also, pursued by the relentless men who had suffered the tortures of
+      siege so long. The chase was short, however, for they were desert folk,
+      and they returned to loot the camp which had menaced them so long.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Only the new-comers, Nahoum&rsquo;s men, carried the hunt far; and they brought
+      back with them a body which their leader commanded to be brought to a
+      great room of the palace. Towards sunset David and Ebn Ezra Bey and Lacey
+      came together to this room. The folds of loose linen were lifted from the
+      face, and all three looked at it long in silence. At last Lacey spoke:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He got what he wanted; the luck was with him. It&rsquo;s better than
+      Leperland.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the bosom of Allah there is peace,&rdquo; said Ebn Ezra. &ldquo;It is well with
+      Achmet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With misty eyes David stooped and took the dead man&rsquo;s hand in his for a
+      moment. Then he rose to his feet and turned away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Nahoum also&mdash;and Nahoum,&rdquo; he said presently. &ldquo;Read this,&rdquo; he
+      added, and put a letter from Nahoum into Ebn Ezra&rsquo;s hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lacey reverently covered Achmet&rsquo;s face. &ldquo;Say, he got what he wanted,&rdquo; he
+      said again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0042" id="link2HCH0042">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLII. THE LOOM OF DESTINY
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was many a day since the Duchess of Snowdon had seen a sunrise, and the
+      one on which she now gazed from the deck of the dahabieh Nefert, filled
+      her with a strange new sense of discovery and revelation. Her perceptions
+      were arrested and a little confused, and yet the undercurrent of feeling
+      was one of delight and rejuvenation. Why did this sunrise bring back, all
+      at once, the day when her one lost child was born, and she looked out of
+      the windows of Snowdon Hall, as she lay still and nerveless, and thought
+      how wonderful and sweet and green was the world she saw and the sky that
+      walled it round? Sunrise over the Greek Temple of Philae and the splendid
+      ruins of a farther time towering beside it! In her sight were the wide,
+      islanded Nile, where Cleopatra loitered with Antony, the foaming, crashing
+      cataracts above, the great quarries from which ancient temples had been
+      hewed, unfinished obelisks and vast blocks of stone left where bygone
+      workmen had forsaken them, when the invader came and another dynasty
+      disappeared into that partial oblivion from which the Egyptian still
+      emerges triumphant over all his conquerors, unchanged in form and feature.
+      Something of its meaning got into her mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder what Windlehurst would think of it. He always had an eye for
+      things like that,&rdquo; she murmured; and then caught her breath, as she added:
+      &ldquo;He always liked beauty.&rdquo; She looked at her wrinkled, childish hands. &ldquo;But
+      sunsets never grow old,&rdquo; she continued, with no apparent relevance. &ldquo;La,
+      la, we were young once!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her eyes were lost again in the pinkish glow spreading over the grey-brown
+      sand of the desert, over the palm-covered island near. &ldquo;And now it&rsquo;s
+      others&rsquo; turn, or ought to be,&rdquo; she murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked to where, not far away, Hylda stood leaning over the railing of
+      the dahabieh, her eyes fixed in reverie on the farthest horizon line of
+      the unpeopled, untravelled plain of sand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, poor thing, it&rsquo;s not her turn,&rdquo; she added, as Hylda, with a long
+      sigh, turned and went below. Tears gathered in her pale blue eyes. &ldquo;Not
+      yet&mdash;with Eglington alive. And perhaps it would be best if the other
+      never came back. I could have made the world better worth living in if I
+      had had the chance&mdash;and I wouldn&rsquo;t have been a duchess! La! La!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She relapsed into reverie, an uncommon experience for her; and her mind
+      floated indefinitely from one thing to another, while she was half
+      conscious of the smell of coffee permeating the air, and of the low
+      resonant notes of the Nubian boys, as, with locked shoulders, they
+      scrubbed the decks of a dahabieh near by with hempshod feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently, however, she was conscious of another sound&mdash;the soft clip
+      of oars, joined to the guttural, explosive song of native rowers; and,
+      leaning over the rail, she saw a boat draw alongside the Nefert. From it
+      came the figure of Nahoum Pasha, who stepped briskly on deck, in his
+      handsome face a light which flashed an instant meaning to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know&mdash;I know! Claridge Pasha&mdash;you have heard?&rdquo; she said
+      excitedly, as he came to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled and nodded. &ldquo;A messenger has arrived. Within a few hours he
+      should be here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then it was all false that he was wounded&mdash;ah, that horrible story
+      of his death!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bismillah, it was not all false! The night before the great battle he was
+      slightly wounded in the side. He neglected it, and fever came on; but he
+      survived. His first messengers to us were killed, and that is why the news
+      of the relief came so late. But all is well at last. I have come to say so
+      to Lady Eglington&mdash;even before I went to the Effendina.&rdquo; He made a
+      gesture towards a huge and gaily-caparisoned dahabieh not far away. &ldquo;Kaid
+      was right about coming here. His health is better. He never doubted
+      Claridge Pasha&rsquo;s return; it was une idee fixe. He believes a magic hand
+      protects the Saadat, and that, adhering to him, he himself will carry high
+      the flower of good fortune and live for ever. Kismet! I will not wait to
+      see Lady Eglington. I beg to offer to her my congratulations on the
+      triumph of her countryman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His words had no ulterior note; but there was a shadow in his eyes which
+      in one not an Oriental would have seemed sympathy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pasha, Pasha!&rdquo; the Duchess called after him, as he turned to leave; &ldquo;tell
+      me, is there any news from England&mdash;from the Government?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From Lord Eglington? No,&rdquo; Nahoum answered meaningly. &ldquo;I wrote to him. Did
+      the English Government desire to send a message to Claridge Pasha, if the
+      relief was accomplished? That is what I asked. But there is no word.
+      Malaish, Egypt will welcome him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She followed his eyes. Two score of dahabiehs lay along the banks of the
+      Nile, and on the shore were encampments of soldiers, while flags were
+      flying everywhere. Egypt had followed the lead of the Effendina. Claridge
+      Pasha&rsquo;s star was in its zenith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Nahoum&rsquo;s boat was rowed away, Hylda came on deck again, and the Duchess
+      hastened to her. Hylda caught the look in her face. &ldquo;What has happened? Is
+      there news? Who has been here?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess took her hands. &ldquo;Nahoum has gone to tell Prince Kaid. He came
+      to you with the good news first,&rdquo; she said with a flutter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She felt Hylda&rsquo;s hands turn cold. A kind of mist filled the dark eyes, and
+      the slim, beautiful figure swayed slightly. An instant only, and then the
+      lips smiled, and Hylda said in a quavering voice: &ldquo;They will be so glad in
+      England.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, my darling, that is what Nahoum said.&rdquo; She gave Nahoum&rsquo;s
+      message to her. &ldquo;Now they&rsquo;ll make him a peer, I suppose, after having
+      deserted him. So English!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not understand why Hylda&rsquo;s hands trembled so, why so strange a
+      look came into her face, but, in an instant, the rare and appealing eyes
+      shone again with a light of agitated joy, and suddenly Hylda leaned over
+      and kissed her cheek.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Smell the coffee,&rdquo; she said with assumed gaiety. &ldquo;Doesn&rsquo;t fair-and-sixty
+      want her breakfast? Sunrise is a splendid tonic.&rdquo; She laughed feverishly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My darling, I hadn&rsquo;t seen the sun rise in thirty years, not since the
+      night I first met Windlehurst at a Foreign Office ball.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have always been great friends?&rdquo; Hylda stole a look at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the queer part of it; I was so stupid, and he so clever. But
+      Windlehurst has a way of letting himself down to your level. He always
+      called me Betty after my boy died, just as if I was his equal. La, la, but
+      I was proud when he first called me that&mdash;the Prime Minister of
+      England. I&rsquo;m going to watch the sun rise again to-morrow, my darling. I
+      didn&rsquo;t know it was so beautiful, and gave one such an appetite.&rdquo; She broke
+      a piece of bread, and, not waiting to butter it, almost stuffed it into
+      her mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hylda leaned over and pressed her arm. &ldquo;What a good mother Betty it is!&rdquo;
+       she said tenderly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently they were startled by the shrill screaming of a steamer whistle,
+      followed by the churning of the paddles, as she drove past and drew to the
+      bank near them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a steamer from Cairo, with letters, no doubt,&rdquo; said Hylda; and the
+      Duchess nodded assent, and covertly noted her look, for she knew that no
+      letters had arrived from Eglington since Hylda had left England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A half-hour later, as the Duchess sat on deck, a great straw hat tied
+      under her chin with pale-blue ribbons, like a child of twelve, she was
+      startled by seeing the figure of a farmer-looking person with a shock of
+      grey-red hair, a red face, and with great blue eyes, appear before her in
+      the charge of Hylda&rsquo;s dragoman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This has come to speak with my lady,&rdquo; the dragoman said, &ldquo;but my lady is
+      riding into the desert there.&rdquo; He pointed to the sands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess motioned the dragoman away, and scanned the face of the
+      new-comer shrewdly. Where had she seen this strange-looking English
+      peasant, with the rolling walk of a sailor?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is your name, and where do you come from?&rdquo; she asked, not without
+      anxiety, for there was something ominous and suggestive in the old man&rsquo;s
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I come from Hamley, in England, and my name is Soolsby, your grace. I
+      come to see my Lady Eglington.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now she remembered him. She had seen him in Hamley more than once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have come far; have you important news for her ladyship? Is there
+      anything wrong?&rdquo; she asked with apparent composure, but with heavy
+      premonition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, news that counts, I bring,&rdquo; answered Soolsby, &ldquo;or I hadn&rsquo;t come this
+      long way. &lsquo;Tis a long way at sixty-five.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, yes, at our age it is a long way,&rdquo; rejoined the Duchess in a
+      friendly voice, suddenly waving away the intervening air of class, for she
+      was half a peasant at heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, and we both come for the same end, I suppose,&rdquo; Soolsby added; &ldquo;and a
+      costly business it is. But what matters, so be that you help her ladyship
+      and I help Our Man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And who is &lsquo;Our Man&rsquo;?&rdquo; was the rejoinder. &ldquo;Him that&rsquo;s coming safe here
+      from the South&mdash;David Claridge,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Ay, &lsquo;twas the first
+      thing I heard when I landed here, me that he come all these thousand miles
+      to see him, if so be he was alive.&rdquo; Just then he caught sight of Kate
+      Heaver climbing the stair to the deck where they were. His face flushed;
+      he hurried forward and gripped her by the arm, as her feet touched the
+      upper deck. &ldquo;Kate-ay, &lsquo;tis Kate!&rdquo; he cried. Then he let go her arm and
+      caught a hand in both of his and fondled it. &ldquo;Ay, ay, &lsquo;tis Kate!&rdquo; &ldquo;What is
+      it brings you, Soolsby?&rdquo; Kate asked anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Tis not Jasper, and &lsquo;tis not the drink-ay, I&rsquo;ve been sober since, ever
+      since, Kate, lass,&rdquo; he answered stoutly. &ldquo;Quick, quick, tell me what it
+      is!&rdquo; she said, frowning. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve not come here for naught, Soolsby.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still holding her hand, he leaned over and whispered in her ear. For an
+      instant she stood as though transfixed, and then, with a curious muffled
+      cry, broke away from him and turned to go below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Keep your mouth shut, lass, till proper time,&rdquo; he called after her, as
+      she descended the steps hastily again. Then he came slowly back to the
+      Duchess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked her in the face&mdash;he was so little like a peasant, so much
+      more like a sailor here with his feet on the deck of a floating thing.
+      &ldquo;Your grace is a good friend to her ladyship,&rdquo; he said at last
+      deliberately, &ldquo;and &lsquo;tis well that you tell her ladyship. As good a friend
+      to her you&rsquo;ve been, I doubt not, as that I&rsquo;ve been to him that&rsquo;s coming
+      from beyond and away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go on, man, go on. I want to know what startled Heaver yonder, what you
+      have come to say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg pardon, your grace. One doesn&rsquo;t keep good news waiting, and &lsquo;tis
+      not good news for her ladyship I bring, even if it be for Claridge Pasha,
+      for there was no love lost &lsquo;twixt him and second-best lordship that&rsquo;s
+      gone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Speak, man, speak it out, and no more riddles,&rdquo; she interrupted sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, he that was my Lord Eglington is gone foreign&mdash;he is dead,&rdquo; he
+      said slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess fell back in her chair. For an instant the desert, the
+      temples, the palms, the Nile waters faded, and she was in some middle
+      world, in which Soolsby&rsquo;s voice seemed coming muffled and deep across a
+      dark flood; then she recovered herself, and gave a little cry, not unlike
+      that which Kate gave a few moments before, partly of pain, partly of
+      relief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, he&rsquo;s dead and buried, too, and in the Quaker churchyard. Miss
+      Claridge would have it so. And none in Hamley said nay, not one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess murmured to herself. Eglington was dead&mdash;Eglington was
+      dead&mdash;Eglington was dead! And David Claridge was coming out of the
+      desert, was coming to-day-now!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did it happen?&rdquo; she asked, faintly, at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Things went wrong wi&rsquo; him&mdash;bad wrong in Parliament and everywhere,
+      and he didn&rsquo;t take it well. He stood the world off like-ay, he had no
+      temper for black days. He shut himself up at Hamley in his chemical place,
+      like his father, like his father before him. When the week-end came, there
+      he was all day and night among his bottles and jars and wires. He was
+      after summat big in experiment for explosives, so the papers said, and so
+      he said himself before he died, to Miss Claridge&mdash;ay, &lsquo;twas her he
+      deceived and treated cruel, that come to him when he was shattered by his
+      experimenting. No patience, he had at last&mdash;and reckless in his
+      chemical place, and didn&rsquo;t realise what his hands was doing. &lsquo;Twas so he
+      told her, that forgave him all his deceit, and held him in her arms when
+      he died. Not many words he had to speak; but he did say that he had never
+      done any good to any one&mdash;ay, I was standing near behind his bed and
+      heard all, for I was thinking of her alone with him, and so I would be
+      with her, and she would have it so. Ay, and he said that he had misused
+      cruel her that had loved him, her ladyship, that&rsquo;s here. He said he had
+      misused her because he had never loved her truly, only pride and vainglory
+      being in his heart. Then he spoke summat to her that was there to forgive
+      him and help him over the stile &lsquo;twixt this field and it that&rsquo;s Beyond and
+      Away, which made her cry out in pain and say that he must fix his thoughts
+      on other things. And she prayed out loud for him, for he would have no
+      parson there. She prayed and prayed as never priest or parson prayed, and
+      at last he got quiet and still, and, when she stopped praying, he did not
+      speak or open his eyes for a longish while. But when the old clock on the
+      stable was striking twelve, he opened his eyes wide, and when it had
+      stopped, he said: &lsquo;It is always twelve by the clock that stops at noon.
+      I&rsquo;ve done no good. I&rsquo;ve earned my end.&rsquo; He looked as though he was waiting
+      for the clock to go on striking, half raising himself up in bed, with Miss
+      Faith&rsquo;s arm under his head. He whispered to her then&mdash;he couldn&rsquo;t
+      speak by this time. &lsquo;It&rsquo;s twelve o&rsquo;clock,&rsquo; he said. Then there came some
+      words I&rsquo;ve heard the priest say at Mass, &lsquo;Vanitas, Vanitatum,&rsquo;&mdash;that
+      was what he said. And her he&rsquo;d lied to, there with him, laying his head
+      down on the pillow, as if he was her child going to sleep. So, too, she
+      had him buried by her father, in the Quaker burying-ground&mdash;ay, she
+      is a saint on earth, I warrant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For a moment after he had stopped the Duchess did not speak, but kept
+      untying and tying the blue ribbons under her chin, her faded eyes still
+      fastened on him, burning with the flame of an emotion which made them dark
+      and young again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So, it&rsquo;s all over,&rdquo; she said, as though to herself. &ldquo;They were all alike,
+      from old Broadbrim, the grandfather, down to this one, and back to William
+      the Conqueror.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Like as peas in a pod,&rdquo; exclaimed Soolsby&mdash;&ldquo;all but one, all but
+      one, and never satisfied with what was in their own garden, but peeking,
+      peeking beyond the hedge, and climbing and getting a fall. That&rsquo;s what
+      they&rsquo;ve always been evermore.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His words aroused the Duchess, and the air became a little colder about
+      her-after all, the division between the classes and the masses must be
+      kept, and the Eglingtons were no upstarts. &ldquo;You will say nothing about
+      this till I give you leave to speak,&rdquo; she commanded. &ldquo;I must tell her
+      ladyship.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soolsby drew himself up a little, nettled at her tone. &ldquo;It is your grace&rsquo;s
+      place to tell her ladyship,&rdquo; he responded; &ldquo;but I&rsquo;ve taken ten years&rsquo; 
+      savings to come to Egypt, and not to do any one harm, but good, if so be I
+      might.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess relented at once. She got to her feet as quickly as she could,
+      and held out her hand to him. &ldquo;You are a good man, and a friend worth
+      having, I know, and I shall like you to be my friend, Mr. Soolsby,&rdquo; she
+      said impulsively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took her hand and shook it awkwardly, his lips working. &ldquo;Your grace, I
+      understand. I&rsquo;ve got naught to live for except my friends. Money&rsquo;s naught,
+      naught&rsquo;s naught, if there isn&rsquo;t a friend to feel a crunch at his heart
+      when summat bad happens to you. I&rsquo;d take my affydavy that there&rsquo;s no
+      better friend in the world than your grace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled at him. &ldquo;And so we are friends, aren&rsquo;t we? And I am to tell her
+      ladyship, and you are to say &lsquo;naught.&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But to the Egyptian, to him, your grace, it is my place to speak&mdash;to
+      Claridge Pasha, when he comes.&rdquo; The Duchess looked at him quizzically.
+      &ldquo;How does Lord Eglington&rsquo;s death concern Claridge Pasha?&rdquo; she asked rather
+      anxiously. Had there been gossip about Hylda? Had the public got a hint of
+      the true story of her flight, in spite of all Windlehurst had done? Was
+      Hylda&rsquo;s name smirched, now, when all would be set right? Had everything
+      come too late, as it were?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s two ways that his lordship&rsquo;s death concerns Claridge Pasha,&rdquo;
+       answered Soolsby shrewdly, for though he guessed the truth concerning
+      Hylda and David, his was not a leaking tongue. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s two ways it
+      touches him. There&rsquo;ll be a new man in the Foreign Office&mdash;Lord
+      Eglington was always against Claridge Pasha; and there&rsquo;s matters of land
+      betwixt the two estates&mdash;matters of land that&rsquo;s got to be settled
+      now,&rdquo; he continued, with determined and successful evasion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess was deceived. &ldquo;But you will not tell Claridge Pasha until I
+      have told her ladyship and I give you leave? Promise that,&rdquo; she urged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not tell him until then,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Look, look, your grace,&rdquo;
+       he added, suddenly pointing towards the southern horizon, &ldquo;there he comes!
+      Ay, &lsquo;tis Our Man, I doubt not&mdash;Our Man evermore!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miles away there appeared on the horizon a dozen camels being ridden
+      towards Assouan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our Man evermore,&rdquo; repeated the Duchess, with a trembling smile. &ldquo;Yes, it
+      is surely he. See, the soldiers are moving. They&rsquo;re going to ride out to
+      meet him.&rdquo; She made a gesture towards the far shore where Kaid&rsquo;s men were
+      saddling their horses, and to Nahoum&rsquo;s and Kaid&rsquo;s dahabiehs, where there
+      was a great stir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s one from Hamley will meet them first,&rdquo; Soolsby said, and pointed
+      to where Hylda, in the desert, was riding towards the camels coming out of
+      the south.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess threw up her hands. &ldquo;Dear me, dear me,&rdquo; she said in distress,
+      &ldquo;if she only knew!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s thousands of women that&rsquo;d ride out mad to meet him,&rdquo; said Soolsby
+      carefully; &ldquo;women that likes to see an Englishman that&rsquo;s done his duty&mdash;ay,
+      women and men, that&rsquo;d ride hard to welcome him back from the grave. Her
+      ladyship&rsquo;s as good a patriot as any,&rdquo; he added, watching the Duchess out
+      of the corners of his eyes, his face turned to the desert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duchess looked at him quizzically, and was satisfied with her
+      scrutiny. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re a man of sense,&rdquo; she replied brusquely, and gathered up
+      her skirts. &ldquo;Find me a horse or a donkey, and I&rsquo;ll go too,&rdquo; she added
+      whimsically. &ldquo;Patriotism is such a nice sentiment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For David and Lacey the morning had broken upon a new earth. Whatever of
+      toil and tribulation the future held in store, this day marked a step
+      forward in the work to which David had set his life. A way had been cloven
+      through the bloody palisades of barbarism, and though the dark races might
+      seek to hold back the forces which drain the fens, and build the bridges,
+      and make the desert blossom as the rose, which give liberty and preserve
+      life, the good end was sure and near, whatever of rebellion and disorder
+      and treachery intervened. This was the larger, graver issue; but they felt
+      a spring in the blood, and their hearts were leaping, because of the
+      thought that soon they would clasp hands again with all from which they
+      had been exiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Saadat, think of it: a bed with four feet, and linen sheets, and
+      sleeping till any time in the morning, and, If you please, sir,
+      breakfast&rsquo;s on the table.&rsquo; Say, it&rsquo;s great, and we&rsquo;re in it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David smiled. &ldquo;Thee did very well, friend, without such luxuries. Thee is
+      not skin and bone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lacey mopped his forehead. &ldquo;Well, I&rsquo;ve put on a layer or two since the
+      relief. It&rsquo;s being scared that takes the flesh off me. I never was
+      intended for the &lsquo;stricken field.&rsquo; Poetry and the hearth-stone was my real
+      vocation&mdash;and a bit of silver mining to blow off steam with,&rdquo; he
+      added with a chuckle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David laughed and tapped his arm. &ldquo;That is an old story now, thy
+      cowardice. Thee should be more original.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s worth not being original, Saadat, to hear you thee and thou me as
+      you used to do. It&rsquo;s like old times&mdash;the oldest, first times. You&rsquo;ve
+      changed a lot, Saadat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not in anything that matters, I hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not in anything that matters to any one that matters. To me it&rsquo;s the same
+      as it ever was, only more so. It isn&rsquo;t that, for you are you. But you&rsquo;ve
+      had disappointment, trouble, hard nuts to crack, and all you could do to
+      escape the rocks being rolled down the Egyptian hill onto you; and it&rsquo;s
+      left its mark.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I grown so different?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lacey&rsquo;s face shone under the look that was turned towards him. &ldquo;Say,
+      Saadat, you&rsquo;re the same old red sandstone; but I missed the thee and thou.
+      I sort of hankered after it; it gets me where I&rsquo;m at home with myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David laughed drily. &ldquo;Well, perhaps I&rsquo;ve missed something in you. Thee
+      never says now&mdash;not since thee went south a year ago, &lsquo;Well, give my
+      love to the girls.&rsquo; Something has left its mark, friend,&rdquo; he added
+      teasingly; for his spirits were boyish to-day; he was living in the
+      present. There had gone from his eyes and from the lines of his figure the
+      melancholy which Hylda had remarked when he was in England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, now, I never noticed,&rdquo; rejoined Lacey. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s got me. Looks as if
+      I wasn&rsquo;t as friendly as I used to be, doesn&rsquo;t it? But I am&mdash;I am,
+      Saadat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought that the widow in Cairo, perhaps&mdash;&rdquo; Lacey chuckled. &ldquo;Say,
+      perhaps it was&mdash;cute as she can be, maybe, wouldn&rsquo;t like it, might be
+      prejudiced.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly David turned sharply to Lacey. &ldquo;Thee spoke of silver mining just
+      now. I owe thee something like two hundred thousand pounds, I think&mdash;Egypt
+      and I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lacey winked whimsically at himself under the rim of his helmet. &ldquo;Are you
+      drawing back from those concessions, Saadat?&rdquo; he asked with apparent
+      ruefulness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drawing back? No! But does thee think they are worth&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lacey assumed an injured air. &ldquo;If a man that&rsquo;s made as much money as me
+      can&rsquo;t be trusted to look after a business proposition&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, well, then!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Saadat, I don&rsquo;t want you to think I&rsquo;ve taken a mean advantage of
+      you; and if&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David hastened to put the matter right. &ldquo;No, no; thee must be the judge!&rdquo;
+       He smiled sceptically. &ldquo;In any case, thee has done a good deed in a great
+      way, and it will do thee no harm in the end. In one way the investment
+      will pay a long interest, as long as the history of Egypt runs. Ah, see,
+      the houses of Assouan, the palms, the river, the masts of the dahabiehs!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lacey quickened his camel&rsquo;s steps, and stretched out a hand to the
+      inviting distance. &ldquo;&lsquo;My, it&rsquo;s great,&rdquo; he said, and his eyes were blinking
+      with tears. Presently he pointed. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a woman riding to meet us, Saa
+      dat. Golly, can&rsquo;t she ride! She means to be in it&mdash;to salute the
+      returning brave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not glance at David. If he had done so, he would have seen that
+      David&rsquo;s face had taken on a strange look, just such a look as it wore that
+      night in the monastery when he saw Hylda in a vision and heard her say:
+      &ldquo;Speak, speak to me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There had shot into David&rsquo;s mind the conviction that the woman riding
+      towards them was Hylda. Hylda, the first to welcome him back, Hylda&mdash;Lady
+      Eglington! Suddenly his face appeared to tighten and grow thin. It was all
+      joy and torture at once. He had fought this fight out with himself&mdash;had
+      he not done so? Had he not closed his heart to all but duty and Egypt? Yet
+      there she was riding out of the old life, out of Hamley, and England, and
+      all that had happened in Cairo, to meet him. Nearer and nearer she came.
+      He could not see the face, but yet he knew. He quickened his camel and
+      drew ahead of Lacey. Lacey did not understand, he did not recognise Hylda
+      as yet; but he knew by instinct the Saadat&rsquo;s wishes, and he motioned the
+      others to ride more slowly, while he and they watched horsemen coming out
+      from Assouan towards them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David urged his camel on. Presently he could distinguish the features of
+      the woman riding towards him. It was Hylda. His presentiment, his instinct
+      had been right. His heart beat tumultuously, his hand trembled, he grew
+      suddenly weak; but he summoned up his will, and ruled himself to something
+      like composure. This, then, was his home-coming from the far miseries and
+      trials and battle-fields&mdash;to see her face before all others, to hear
+      her voice first. What miracle had brought this thing to pass, this
+      beautiful, bitter, forbidden thing? Forbidden! Whatever the cause of her
+      coming, she must not see what he felt for her. He must deal fairly by her
+      and by Eglington; he must be true to that real self which had emerged from
+      the fiery trial in the monastery. Bronzed as he was, his face showed no
+      paleness; but, as he drew near her, it grew pinched and wan from the
+      effort at self-control. He set his lips and rode on, until he could see
+      her eyes looking into his&mdash;eyes full of that which he had never seen
+      in any eyes in all the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What had been her feelings during that ride in the desert? She had not
+      meant to go out to meet him. After she heard that he was coming, her
+      desire was to get away from all the rest of the world, and be alone with
+      her thoughts. He was coming, he was safe, and her work was done. What she
+      had set out to do was accomplished&mdash;to bring him back, if it was
+      God&rsquo;s will, out of the jaws of death, for England&rsquo;s sake, for the world&rsquo;s
+      sake, for his sake, for her own sake. For her own sake? Yes, yes, in spite
+      of all, for her own sake. Whatever lay before, now, for this one hour, for
+      this moment of meeting he should be hers. But meet him, where? Before all
+      the world, with a smile of conventional welcome on her lips, with the same
+      hand-clasp that any friend and lover of humanity would give him?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The desert air blew on her face, keen, sweet, vibrant, thrilling. What he
+      had heard that night at the monastery, the humming life of the land of
+      white fire&mdash;the desert, the million looms of all the weavers of the
+      world weaving, this she heard in the sunlight, with the sand rising like
+      surf behind her horse&rsquo;s heels. The misery and the tyranny and the
+      unrequited love were all behind her, the disillusion and the loss and the
+      undeserved insult to her womanhood&mdash;all, all were sunk away into the
+      unredeemable past. Here, in Egypt, where she had first felt the stir of
+      life&rsquo;s passion and pain and penalty, here, now, she lost herself in a
+      beautiful, buoyant dream. She was riding out to meet the one man of all
+      men, hero, crusader, rescuer&mdash;ah, that dreadful night in the Palace,
+      and Foorgat&rsquo;s face! But he was coming, who had made her live, to whom she
+      had called, to whom her soul had spoken in its grief and misery. Had she
+      ever done aught to shame the best that was in herself&mdash;and had she
+      not been sorely tempted? Had she not striven to love Eglington even when
+      the worst was come, not alone at her own soul&rsquo;s command, but because she
+      knew that this man would have it so? Broken by her own sorrow, she had
+      left England, Eglington&mdash;all, to keep her pledge to help him in his
+      hour of need, to try and save him to the world, if that might be. So she
+      had come to Nahoum, who was binding him down on the bed of torture and of
+      death. And yet, alas! not herself had conquered Nahoum, but David, as
+      Nahoum had said. She herself had not done this one thing which would have
+      compensated for all that she had suffered. This had not been permitted;
+      but it remained that she had come here to do it, and perhaps he would
+      understand when he saw her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, she knew he would understand! She flung up her head to the sun and
+      the pulse-stirring air, and, as she did so, she saw his cavalcade
+      approaching. She was sure it was he, even when he was far off, by the same
+      sure instinct that convinced him. For an instant she hesitated. She would
+      turn back, and meet him with the crowd. Then she looked around. The desert
+      was deserted by all save herself and himself and those who were with him.
+      No. Her mind was made up. She would ride forward. She would be the first
+      to welcome him back to life and the world. He and she would meet alone in
+      the desert. For one minute they would be alone, they two, with the world
+      afar, they two, to meet, to greet&mdash;and to part. Out of all that Fate
+      had to give of sorrow and loss, this one delectable moment, no matter what
+      came after.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;David!&rdquo; she cried with beating heart, and rode on, harder and harder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now she saw him ride ahead of the others. Ah, he knew that it was she,
+      though he could not see her face! Nearer and nearer. Now they looked into
+      each other&rsquo;s eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She saw him stop his camel and make it kneel for the dismounting. She
+      stopped her horse also, and slid to the ground, and stood waiting, one
+      hand upon the horse&rsquo;s neck. He hastened forward, then stood still, a few
+      feet away, his eyes on hers, his helmet off, his brown hair, brown as when
+      she first saw it&mdash;peril and hardship had not thinned or greyed it.
+      For a moment they stood so, for a moment of revealing and understanding,
+      but speechless; and then, suddenly, and with a smile infinitely touching,
+      she said, as he had heard her say in the monastery&mdash;the very words:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Speak&mdash;speak to me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took her hand in his. &ldquo;There is no need&mdash;I have said all,&rdquo; he
+      answered, happiness and trouble at once in his eyes. Then his face grew
+      calmer. &ldquo;Thee has made it worth while living on,&rdquo; he added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was gaining control of herself also. &ldquo;I said that I would come when I
+      was needed,&rdquo; she answered less, tremblingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee came alone?&rdquo; he asked gently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From Assouan, yes,&rdquo; she said in a voice still unsteady. &ldquo;I was riding out
+      to be by myself, and then I saw you coming, and I rode on. I thought I
+      should like to be the first to say: &lsquo;Well done,&rsquo; and &lsquo;God bless you!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He drew in a long breath, then looked at her keenly. &ldquo;Lord Eglington is in
+      Egypt also?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her face did not change. She looked him in the eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Eglington would not come to help you. I came to Nahoum, as I said I
+      would.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee has a good memory,&rdquo; he rejoined simply. &ldquo;I am a good friend,&rdquo; she
+      answered, then suddenly her face flushed up, her breast panted, her eyes
+      shone with a brightness almost intolerable to him, and he said in a low,
+      shaking voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is all fighting, all fighting. We have done our best; and thee has
+      made all possible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;David!&rdquo; she said in a voice scarce above a whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee and me have far to go,&rdquo; he said in a voice not louder than her own,
+      &ldquo;but our ways may not be the same.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She understood, and a newer life leaped up in her. She knew that he loved
+      her&mdash;that was sufficient; the rest would be easier now. Sacrifice,
+      all, would be easier. To part, yes, and for evermore; but to know that she
+      had been truly loved&mdash;who could rob her of that?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See,&rdquo; she said lightly, &ldquo;your people are waiting&mdash;and there, why,
+      there is my cousin Lacey. Tom, oh, Cousin Tom!&rdquo; she called eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lacey rode down on them. &ldquo;I swan, but I&rsquo;m glad,&rdquo; he said, as he dropped
+      from his horse. &ldquo;Cousin Hylda, I&rsquo;m blest if I don&rsquo;t feel as if I could
+      sing like Aunt Melissa.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may kiss me, Cousin Tom,&rdquo; she said, as she took his hands in hers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He flushed, was embarrassed, then snatched a kiss from her cheek. &ldquo;Say,
+      I&rsquo;m in it, ain&rsquo;t I? And you were in it first, eh, Cousin Hylda? The rest
+      are nowhere&mdash;there they come from Assouan, Kaid, Nahoum, and the
+      Nubians. Look at &lsquo;em glisten!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A hundred of Kaid&rsquo;s Nubians in their glittering armour made three sides of
+      a quickly moving square, in the centre of which, and a little ahead, rode
+      Kaid and Nahoum, while behind the square-in parade and gala dress-trooped
+      hundreds of soldiers and Egyptians and natives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Swiftly the two cavalcades approached each other, the desert ringing with
+      the cries of the Bedouins, the Nubians, and the fellaheen. They met on an
+      upland of sand, from which the wide valley of the Nile and its wild
+      cataracts could be seen. As men meet who parted yesterday, Kaid, Nahoum,
+      and David met, but Kaid&rsquo;s first quiet words to David had behind them a
+      world of meaning:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I also have come back, Saadat, to whom be the bread that never moulds and
+      the water that never stales!&rdquo; he said, with a look in his face which had
+      not been there for many a day. Superstition had set its mark on him&mdash;on
+      Claridge Pasha&rsquo;s safety depended his own, that was his belief; and the
+      look of this thin, bronzed face, with its living fire, gave him vital
+      assurance of length of days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And David answered: &ldquo;May thy life be the nursling of Time, Effendina. I
+      bring the tribute of the rebel lions once more to thy hand. What was
+      thine, and was lost, is thine once more. Peace and salaam!&rdquo; Between Nahoum
+      and David there were no words at first at all. They shook hands like
+      Englishmen, looking into each other&rsquo;s eyes, and with pride of what Nahoum,
+      once, in his duplicity, had called &ldquo;perfect friendship.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lacey thought of this now as he looked on; and not without a sense of
+      irony, he said under his breath, &ldquo;Almost thou persuadest me to be a
+      Christian!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But in Hylda&rsquo;s look, as it met Nahoum&rsquo;s, there was no doubt&mdash;what
+      woman doubts the convert whom she thinks she has helped to make?
+      Meanwhile, the Nubians smote their mailed breasts with their swords in
+      honour of David and Kaid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under the gleaming moon, the exquisite temple of Philae perched on its
+      high rock above the river, the fires on the shore, the masts of the
+      dahabiehs twinkling with lights, and the barbarous songs floating across
+      the water, gave the feeling of past centuries to the scene. From the
+      splendid boat which Kaid had placed at his disposal David looked out upon
+      it all, with emotions not yet wholly mastered by the true estimate of what
+      this day had brought to him. With a mind unsettled he listened to the
+      natives in the forepart of the boat and on the shore, beating the
+      darabukkeh and playing the kemengeh. Yet it was moving in a mist and on a
+      flood of greater happiness than he had ever known.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not know as yet that Eglington was gone for ever. He did not know
+      that the winds of time had already swept away all traces of the house of
+      ambition which Eglington had sought to build; and that his nimble tongue
+      and untrustworthy mind would never more delude and charm, and wanton with
+      truth. He did not know, but within the past hour Hylda knew; and now out
+      of the night Soolsby came to tell him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was roused from his reverie by Soolsby&rsquo;s voice saying: &ldquo;Hast nowt to
+      say to me, Egyptian?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It startled him, sounded ghostly in the moonlight; for why should he hear
+      Soolsby&rsquo;s voice on the confines of Egypt? But Soolsby came nearer, and
+      stood where the moonlight fell upon him, hat in hand, a rustic modern
+      figure in this Oriental world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David sprang to his feet and grasped the old man by the shoulders.
+      &ldquo;Soolsby, Soolsby,&rdquo; he said, with a strange plaintive-note in his voice,
+      yet gladly, too. &ldquo;Soolsby, thee is come here to welcome me! But has she
+      not come&mdash;Miss Claridge, Soolsby?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He longed for that true heart which had never failed him, the simple soul
+      whose life had been filled by thought and care of him, and whose every act
+      had for its background the love of sister for brother&mdash;for that was
+      their relation in every usual meaning&mdash;who, too frail and broken to
+      come to him now, waited for him by the old hearthstone. And so Soolsby, in
+      his own way, made him understand; for who knew them both better than this
+      old man, who had shared in David&rsquo;s destiny since the fatal day when Lord
+      Eglington had married Mercy Claridge in secret, had set in motion a long
+      line of tragic happenings?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, she would have come, she would have come,&rdquo; Soolsby answered, &ldquo;but she
+      was not fit for the journey, and there was little time, my lord.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did thee come, Soolsby? Only to welcome me back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I come to bring you back to England, to your duty there, my lord.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The first time Soolsby had used the words &ldquo;my lord,&rdquo; David had scarcely
+      noticed it, but its repetition struck him strangely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here, sometimes they call me Pasha and Saadat, but I am not &lsquo;my lord,&rsquo;&rdquo;
+       he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, but you are my lord, Egyptian, as sure as I&rsquo;ve kept my word to you
+      that I&rsquo;d drink no more, ay, on my sacred honour. So you are my lord; you
+      are Lord Eglington, my lord.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David stood rigid and almost unblinking as Soolsby told his tale,
+      beginning with the story of Eglington&rsquo;s death, and going back all the
+      years to the day of Mercy Claridge&rsquo;s marriage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And him that never was Lord Eglington, your own father&rsquo;s son, is dead and
+      gone, my lord; and you are come into your rights at last.&rdquo; This was the
+      end of the tale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a long time David stood looking into the sparkling night before him,
+      speechless and unmoving, his hands clasped behind him, his head bent
+      forward, as though in a dream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How, all in an instant, had life changed for him! How had Soolsby&rsquo;s tale
+      of Eglington&rsquo;s death filled him with a pity deeper than he had ever
+      felt-the futile, bitter, unaccomplished life, the audacious, brilliant
+      genius quenched, a genius got from the same source as his own resistless
+      energy and imagination, from the same wild spring. Gone&mdash;all gone,
+      with only pity to cover him, unloved, unloving, unbemoaned, save by the
+      Quaker girl whose true spirit he had hurt, save by the wife whom he had
+      cruelly wronged and tortured; and pity was the thing that moved them both,
+      unfathomable and almost maternal, in that sense of motherhood which, in
+      spite of love or passion, is behind both, behind all, in every true
+      woman&rsquo;s life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last David spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who knows of all this&mdash;of who I am, Soolsby?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lady Eglington and myself, my lord.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only she and you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only us two, Egyptian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then let it be so&mdash;for ever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soolsby was startled, dumfounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you will take your title and estates, my lord; you will take the
+      place which is your own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And prove my grandfather wrong? Had he not enough sorrow? And change my
+      life, all to please thee, Soolsby?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took the old man&rsquo;s shoulders in his hands again. &ldquo;Thee has done thy
+      duty as few in this world, Soolsby, and given friendship such as few give.
+      But thee must be content. I am David Claridge, and so shall remain ever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, since he has no male kin, the title dies, and all that&rsquo;s his will
+      go to her ladyship,&rdquo; Soolsby rejoined sourly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does thee grudge her ladyship what was his?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I grudge her what is yours, my lord&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly Soolsby paused, as though a new thought had come to him, and he
+      nodded to himself in satisfaction. &ldquo;Well, since you will have it so, it
+      will be so, Egyptian; but it is a queer fuddle, all of it; and where&rsquo;s the
+      way out, tell me that, my lord?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      David spoke impatiently. &ldquo;Call me &lsquo;my lord&rsquo; no more.... But I will go back
+      to England to her that&rsquo;s waiting at the Red Mansion, and you will
+      remember, Soolsby&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Slowly the great flotilla of dahabiehs floated with the strong current
+      down towards Cairo, the great sails swelling to the breeze that blew from
+      the Libyan Hills. Along the bank of the Nile thousands of Arabs and
+      fellaheen crowded to welcome &ldquo;the Saadat,&rdquo; bringing gifts of dates and
+      eggs and fowls and dourha and sweetmeats, and linen cloth; and even in the
+      darkness and in the trouble that was on her, and the harrowing regret that
+      she had not been with Eglington in his last hour&mdash;she little knew
+      what Eglington had said to Faith in that last hour&mdash;Hylda&rsquo;s heart was
+      soothed by the long, loud tribute paid to David.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As she sat in the evening light, David and Lacey came, and were received
+      by the Duchess of Snowdon, who could only say to David, as she held his
+      hand, &ldquo;Windlehurst sent his regards to you, his loving regards. He was
+      sure you would come home&mdash;come home. He wished he were in power for
+      your sake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So, for a few moments she talked vaguely, and said at last: &ldquo;But Lady
+      Eglington, she will be glad to see you, such old friends as you are,
+      though not so old as Windlehurst and me&mdash;thirty years, over thirty
+      la, la!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They turned to go to Hylda, and came face to face with Kate Heaver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kate looked at David as one would look who saw a lost friend return from
+      the dead. His eyes lighted, he held out his hand to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is good to see thee here,&rdquo; he said gently. &ldquo;And &lsquo;tis the cross-roads
+      once again, sir,&rdquo; she rejoined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thee means thee will marry Jasper?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ay, I will marry Jasper now,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;It has been a long waiting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It could not be till now,&rdquo; she responded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      David looked at her reflectively, and said: &ldquo;By devious ways the human
+      heart comes home. One can only stand in the door and wait. He has been
+      patient.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been patient, too,&rdquo; she answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the Duchess disappeared with David, a swift change came over Lacey. He
+      spun round on one toe, and, like a boy of ten, careered around the deck to
+      the tune of a negro song.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, things are all right in there with them two, and it&rsquo;s my turn now,&rdquo;
+       he said. &ldquo;Cute as she can be, and knows the game! Twice a widow, and knows
+      the game! Waiting, she is down in Cairo, where the orange blossom blows.
+      I&rsquo;m in it; we&rsquo;re all in it&mdash;every one of us. Cousin Hylda&rsquo;s free now,
+      and I&rsquo;ve got no past worth speaking of; and, anyhow, she&rsquo;ll understand,
+      down there in Cairo. Cute as she can be&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly he swung himself down to the deck below. &ldquo;The desert&rsquo;s the place
+      for me to-night,&rdquo; he said. Stepping ashore, he turned to where the Duchess
+      stood on the deck, gazing out into the night. &ldquo;Well, give my love to the
+      girls,&rdquo; he called, waving a hand upwards, as it were to the wide world,
+      and disappeared into the alluring whiteness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got to get a key-thought,&rdquo; he muttered to himself, as he walked
+      swiftly on, till only faint sounds came to him from the riverside. In the
+      letter he had written to Hylda, which was the turning-point of all for
+      her, he had spoken of these &ldquo;key-thoughts.&rdquo; With all the childishness he
+      showed at times, he had wisely felt his way into spheres where life had
+      depth and meaning. The desert had justified him to himself and before the
+      spirits of departed peoples, who wandered over the sands, until at last
+      they became sand also, and were blown hither and thither, to make beds for
+      thousands of desert wayfarers, or paths for camels&rsquo; feet, or a blinding
+      storm to overwhelm the traveller and the caravan; Life giving and taking,
+      and absorbing and destroying, and destroying and absorbing, till the
+      circle of human existence wheel to the full, and the task of Time be
+      accomplished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the gorse-grown common above Hamley, David and Faith, and David&rsquo;s
+      mother Mercy, had felt the same soul of things stirring&mdash;in the green
+      things of green England, in the arid wastes of the Libyan desert, on the
+      bosom of the Nile, where Mahommed Hassan now lay in a nugger singing a
+      song of passion, Nature, with burning voice, murmuring down the unquiet
+      world its message of the Final Peace through the innumerable years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_GLOS" id="link2H_GLOS">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      GLOSSARY
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Aiwa&mdash;&mdash;Yes.
+  Allah hu Achbar&mdash;&mdash;God is most Great.
+  Al&rsquo;mah&mdash;&mdash;Female professional singers, signifying &ldquo;a learned female.&rdquo;
+   Ardab&mdash;&mdash;A measure equivalent to five English bushels.
+
+  Backsheesh&mdash;&mdash;Tip, douceur.
+  Balass&mdash;&mdash;Earthen vessel for carrying water.
+  Bdsha&mdash;&mdash;Pasha.
+  Bersim&mdash;&mdash;Clover.
+  Bismillah&mdash;&mdash;In the name of God.
+  Bowdb&mdash;&mdash;A doorkeeper.
+
+  Dahabieh&mdash;&mdash;A Nile houseboat with large lateen sails.
+  Darabukkeh&mdash;&mdash;A drum made of a skin stretched over an earthenware funnel.
+  Dourha&mdash;&mdash;Maize.
+
+  Effendina&mdash;&mdash;Most noble.
+  El Azhar&mdash;&mdash;The Arab University at Cairo.
+
+  Fedddn&mdash;&mdash;A measure of land representing about an acre.
+  Fellah&mdash;&mdash;The Egyptian peasant.
+
+  Ghiassa&mdash;&mdash;Small boat.
+
+  Hakim&mdash;&mdash;Doctor.
+  Hasheesh&mdash;&mdash;Leaves of hemp.
+
+  Inshallah&mdash;&mdash;God willing.
+
+  Kdnoon&mdash;&mdash;A musical instrument like a dulcimer.
+  Kavass&mdash;&mdash;An orderly.
+  Kemengeh&mdash;&mdash;A cocoanut fiddle.
+  Khamsin&mdash;&mdash;A hot wind of Egypt and the Soudan.
+
+  Kourbash&mdash;&mdash;A whip, often made of rhinoceros hide.
+
+  La ilaha illa-llah&mdash;&mdash;There is no deity but God.
+
+  Malaish&mdash;&mdash;No matter.
+  Malboos&mdash;&mdash;Demented.
+  Mastaba&mdash;&mdash;A bench.
+  Medjidie&mdash;&mdash;A Turkish Order.
+  Mooshrabieh&mdash;&mdash;Lattice window.
+  Moufettish&mdash;&mdash;High Steward.
+  Mudir&mdash;&mdash;The Governor of a
+  Mudirieh, or province.
+  Muezzin&mdash;&mdash;The sheikh of the mosque who calls to prayer.
+
+  Narghileh&mdash;&mdash;A Persian pipe.
+  Nebool&mdash;&mdash;A quarter-staff.
+
+  Ramadan&mdash;&mdash;The Mahommedan season of fasting.
+
+  Saadat-el-bdsha&mdash;&mdash;Excellency Pasha.
+  Sdis&mdash;&mdash;Groom.
+  Sakkia&mdash;&mdash;The Persian water-wheel.
+  Salaam&mdash;&mdash;Eastern salutation.
+  Sheikh-el-beled&mdash;&mdash;Head of a village.
+
+  Tarboosh&mdash;&mdash;A Turkish turban.
+
+  Ulema&mdash;&mdash;Learned men.
+
+  Wakf&mdash;&mdash;Mahommedan Court dealing with succession, etc.
+  Welee&mdash;&mdash;A holy man or saint.
+
+  Yashmak&mdash;&mdash;A veil for the lower part of the face.
+  Yelek&mdash;&mdash;A long vest or smock.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     ETEXT EDITOR&rsquo;S BOOKMARKS:
+
+     A cloak of words to cover up the real thought behind
+     Antipathy of the man in the wrong to the man in the right
+     Antipathy of the lesser to the greater nature
+     Begin to see how near good is to evil
+     But the years go on, and friends have an end
+     Cherish any alleviating lie
+     Does any human being know what he can bear of temptation
+     Friendship means a giving and a getting
+     He&rsquo;s a barber-shop philosopher
+     Heaven where wives without number awaited him
+     Honesty was a thing he greatly desired&mdash;in others
+     How little we can know to-day what we shall feel tomorrow
+     How many conquests have been made in the name of God
+     Monotonously intelligent
+     No virtue in not falling, when you&rsquo;re not tempted
+     Of course I&rsquo;ve hated, or I wouldn&rsquo;t be worth a button
+     One does the work and another gets paid
+     Only the supremely wise or the deeply ignorant who never alter
+     Passion to forget themselves
+     Political virtue goes unrewarded
+     She knew what to say and what to leave unsaid
+     Smiling was part of his equipment
+     Sometimes the longest way round is the shortest way home
+     Soul tortured through different degrees of misunderstanding
+     The vague pain of suffered indifference
+     There is no habit so powerful as the habit of care of others
+     There&rsquo;s no credit in not doing what you don&rsquo;t want to do
+     To-morrow is no man&rsquo;s gift
+     Tricks played by Fact to discredit the imagination
+     Triumph of Oriental duplicity over Western civilisation
+     We want every land to do as we do; and we want to make &lsquo;em do it
+     We must live our dark hours alone
+     When God permits, shall man despair?
+     Woman&rsquo;s deepest right and joy and pain in one&mdash;to comfort
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
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+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </p>
+  </body>
+</html>
diff --git a/6267.txt b/6267.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..66c85bc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/6267.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,17460 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Weavers, Complete, by Gilbert Parker
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Weavers, Complete
+
+Author: Gilbert Parker
+
+Last Updated: March 14, 2009
+Release Date: October 18, 2006 [EBook #6267]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WEAVERS, COMPLETE ***
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WEAVERS
+
+By Gilbert Parker
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  BOOK I
+  I.        AS THE SPIRIT MOVED
+  II.       THE GATES OF THE WORLD
+  III.      BANISHED
+  IV.       THE CALL
+
+  BOOK II
+  V.        THE WIDER WAY
+  VI.       "HAST THOU NEVER BILLED A MANY"
+  VII.      THE COMPACT
+  VIII.     FOR HIS SOUL'S SAKE AND THE LAND'S SAKE
+  IX.       THE LETTER, THE NIGHT, AND THE WOMAN
+  X.        THE FOUR WHO KNEW
+  XI.       AGAINST THE HOUR OF MIDNIGHT
+  XII.      THE JEHAD AND THE LIONS
+  XIII.     ACHMET THE ROPEMAKER STRIKES
+  XIV.      BEYOND THE PALE
+
+  BOOK III
+  XV.       SOOLSBY'S HAND UPON THE CURTAIN
+  XVI.      THE DEBT AND THE ACCOUNTING
+  XVII.     THE WOMAN OF THE CROSS-ROADS
+  XVIII.    TIME, THE IDOL-BREAKER
+  XIX.      SHARPER THAN A SWORD
+  XX.       EACH AFTER HIS OWN ORDER
+  XXI.      "THERE IS NOTHING HIDDEN WHICH SHALL NOT BE REVEALED"
+  XXII.     AS IN A GLASS DARKLY
+  XXIII.    THE TENTS OF CUSHAN
+  XXIV.     THE QUESTIONER
+  XXV.      THE VOICE THROUGH THE DOOR
+  XXVI.     "I OWE YOU NOTHING"
+  XXVII.    THE AWAKENING
+
+  BOOK IV
+  XXVIII.   NAHOUM TURNS THE SCREW
+  XXIX.     THE RECOIL
+  XXX.      LACEY MOVES
+  XXXI.     THE STRUGGLE IN THE DESERT
+  XXXII.    FORTY STRIPES SAVE ONE
+  XXXIII.   THE DARK INDENTURE
+  XXXIV.    NAHOUM DROPS THE MASK
+
+  BOOK V
+  XXXV.     THE FLIGHT OF THE WOUNDED
+  XXXVI.    "IS IT ALWAYS SO-IN LIFE?"
+  XXXVII.   THE FLYING SHUTTLE
+  XXXVIII.  JASPER KIMBER SPEAKS
+  XXXIX.    FAITH JOURNEYS TO LONDON
+
+  BOOK VI
+  XL.       HYLDA SEEKS NAHOUM
+  XLI.      IN THE LAND OF SHINAR
+  XLII.     THE LOOM OF DESTINY
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+When I turn over the hundreds of pages of this book, I have a feeling
+that I am looking upon something for which I have no particular
+responsibility, though it has a strange contour of familiarity. It is as
+though one looks upon a scene in which one had lived and moved, with the
+friendly yet half-distant feeling that it once was one's own possession
+but is so no longer. I should think the feeling to be much like that of
+the old man whose sons, gone to distant places, have created their
+own plantations of life and have themselves become the masters of
+possessions. Also I suppose that when I read the story through again
+from the first page to the last, I shall recreate the feeling in which
+I lived when I wrote it, and it will become a part of my own identity
+again. That distance between himself and his work, however, which
+immediately begins to grow as soon as a book leaves the author's hands
+for those of the public, is a thing which, I suppose, must come to one
+who produces a work of the imagination. It is no doubt due to the fact
+that every piece of art which has individuality and real likeness to
+the scenes and character it is intended to depict is done in a kind of
+trance. The author, in effect, self-hypnotises himself, has created
+an atmosphere which is separate and apart from that of his daily
+surroundings, and by virtue of his imagination becomes absorbed in
+that atmosphere. When the book is finished and it goes forth, when the
+imagination is relaxed and the concentration of mind is withdrawn, the
+atmosphere disappears, and then. One experiences what I feel when I take
+up 'The Weavers' and, in a sense, wonder how it was done, such as it is.
+
+The frontispiece of the English edition represents a scene in the House
+of Commons, and this brings to my mind a warning which was given me
+similar to that on my entering new fields outside the one in which
+I first made a reputation in fiction. When, in a certain year, I
+determined that I would enter the House of Commons I had many friends
+who, in effect, wailed and gnashed their teeth. They said that it would
+be the death of my imaginative faculties; that I should never write
+anything any more; that all the qualities which make literature living
+and compelling would disappear. I thought this was all wrong then, and
+I know it is all wrong now. Political life does certainly interfere
+with the amount of work which an author may produce. He certainly cannot
+write a book every year and do political work as well, but if he does
+not attempt to do the two things on the same days, as it were, but in
+blocks of time devoted to each separately and respectively, he will
+only find, as I have found, that public life the conflict of it, the
+accompanying attrition of mind, the searching for the things which will
+solve the problems of national life, the multitudinous variations of
+character with which one comes in contact, the big issues suddenly
+sprung upon the congregation of responsible politicians, all are
+stimulating to the imagination, invigorating to the mind, and
+marvellously freshening to every literary instinct. No danger to the
+writer lies in doing political work, if it does not sap his strength
+and destroy his health. Apart from that, he should not suffer. The very
+spirit of statesmanship is imagination, vision; and the same quality
+which enables an author to realise humanity for a book is necessary for
+him to realise humanity in the crowded chamber of a Parliament.
+
+So far as I can remember, whatever was written of The Weavers, no critic
+said that it lacked imagination. Some critics said it was too crowded
+with incident; that there was enough incident in it for two novels; some
+said that the sweep was too wide, but no critic of authority declared
+that the book lacked vision or the vivacity of a living narrative. It
+is not likely that I shall ever write again a novel of Egypt, but I have
+made my contribution to Anglo-Egyptian literature, and I do not think I
+failed completely in showing the greatness of soul which enabled one man
+to keep the torch of civilisation, of truth, justice, and wholesome love
+alight in surroundings as offensive to civilisation as was Egypt in the
+last days of Ismail Pasha--a time which could be well typified by the
+words put by Bulwer Lytton in the mouth of Cardinal Richelieu:
+
+       "I found France rent asunder,
+        Sloth in the mart and schism in the temple;
+        Broils festering to rebellion; and weak laws
+        Rotting away with rust in antique sheaths.
+        I have re-created France; and, from the ashes
+        Of the old feudal and decrepit carcase,
+        Civilisation on her luminous wings
+        Soars, phoenix-like, to Jove!"
+
+Critics and readers have endeavoured to identify the main
+characteristics of The Weavers with figures in Anglo-Egyptian and
+official public life. David Claridge was, however, a creature of the
+imagination. It has been said that he was drawn from General Gordon. I
+am not conscious of having taken Gordon for David's prototype, though,
+as I was saturated with all that had been written about Gordon, there
+is no doubt that something of that great man may have found its way
+into the character of David Claridge. The true origin of David Claridge,
+however, may be found in a short story called 'All the World's Mad', in
+Donovan Pasha, which was originally published by Lady Randolph Churchill
+in an ambitious but defunct magazine called 'The Anglo-Saxon Review'.
+The truth is that David Claridge had his origin in a fairly close
+understanding of, and interest in, Quaker life. I had Quaker relatives
+through the marriage of a connection of my mother, and the original of
+Benn Claridge, the uncle of David, is still alive, a very old man, who
+in my boyhood days wore the broad brim and the straight preacher-like
+coat of the old-fashioned Quaker. The grandmother of my wife was also a
+Quaker, and used the "thee" and "thou" until the day of her death.
+
+Here let me say that criticism came to me from several quarters both
+in England and America on the use of these words thee and thou, and
+statements were made that the kind of speech which I put into David
+Claridge's mouth was not Quaker speech. For instance, they would not
+have it that a Quaker would say, "Thee will go with me"--as though they
+were ashamed of the sweet inaccuracy of the objective pronoun being used
+in the nominative; but hundreds of times I have myself heard Quakers
+use "thee" in just such a way in England and America. The facts are,
+however, that Quakers differ extensively in their habits, and there grew
+up in England among the Quakers in certain districts a sense of shame
+for false grammar which, to say the least, was very childish. To be
+deliberately and boldly ungrammatical, when you serve both euphony and
+simplicity, is merely to give archaic charm, not to be guilty of an
+offence. I have friends in Derbyshire who still say "Thee thinks,"
+etc., and I must confess that the picture of a Quaker rampant over my
+deliberate use of this well-authenticated form of speech produced to
+my mind only the effect of an infuriated sheep, when I remembered the
+peaceful attribute of Quaker life and character. From another quarter
+came the assurance that I was wrong when I set up a tombstone with a
+name upon it in a Quaker graveyard. I received a sarcastic letter from
+a lady on the borders of Sussex and Surrey upon this point, and I
+immediately sent her a first-class railway ticket to enable her to visit
+the Quaker churchyard at Croydon, in Surrey, where dead and gone Quakers
+have tombstones by the score, and inscriptions on them also. It is a
+good thing to be accurate; it is desperately essential in a novel.
+The average reader, in his triumph at discovering some slight error of
+detail, would consign a masterpiece of imagination, knowledge of life
+and character to the rubbish-heap.
+
+I believe that 'The Weavers' represents a wider outlook of life, closer
+understanding of the problems which perplex society, and a clearer
+view of the verities than any previous book written by me, whatever its
+popularity may have been. It appealed to the British public rather more
+than 'The Right of Way', and the great public of America and the Oversea
+Dominions gave it a welcome which enabled it to take its place beside
+'The Right of Way', the success of which was unusual.
+
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+This book is not intended to be an historical novel, nor are its
+characters meant to be identified with well-known persons connected with
+the history of England or of Egypt; but all that is essential in the
+tale is based upon, and drawn from, the life of both countries. Though
+Egypt has greatly changed during the past generation, away from Cairo
+and the commercial centres the wheels of social progress have turned but
+slowly, and much remains as it was in the days of which this book is a
+record in the spirit of the life, at least.
+
+                       G. P.
+
+
+     "Dost thou spread the sail, throw the spear, swing the axe, lay
+     thy hand upon the plough, attend the furnace door, shepherd the
+     sheep upon the hills, gather corn from the field, or smite the
+     rock in the quarry? Yet, whatever thy task, thou art even as
+     one who twists the thread and throws the shuttle, weaving the
+     web of Life. Ye are all weavers, and Allah the Merciful, does
+     He not watch beside the loom?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. AS THE SPIRIT MOVED
+
+The village lay in a valley which had been the bed of a great river in
+the far-off days when Ireland, Wales and Brittany were joined together
+and the Thames flowed into the Seine. The place had never known turmoil
+or stir. For generations it had lived serenely.
+
+Three buildings in the village stood out insistently, more by the
+authority of their appearance and position than by their size. One was a
+square, red-brick mansion in the centre of the village, surrounded by a
+high, redbrick wall enclosing a garden. Another was a big, low, graceful
+building with wings. It had once been a monastery. It was covered
+with ivy, which grew thick and hungry upon it, and it was called the
+Cloistered House. The last of the three was of wood, and of no great
+size--a severely plain but dignified structure, looking like some
+council-hall of a past era. Its heavy oak doors and windows with
+diamond panes, and its air of order, cleanliness and serenity, gave it
+a commanding influence in the picture. It was the key to the history of
+the village--a Quaker Meeting-house.
+
+Involuntarily the village had built itself in such a way that it made
+a wide avenue from the common at one end to the Meeting-house on the
+gorse-grown upland at the other. With a demure resistance to the will
+of its makers the village had made itself decorative. The people were
+unconscious of any attractiveness in themselves or in their village.
+There were, however, a few who felt the beauty stirring around them.
+These few, for their knowledge and for the pleasure which it brought,
+paid the accustomed price. The records of their lives were the only
+notable history of the place since the days when their forefathers
+suffered for the faith.
+
+One of these was a girl--for she was still but a child when she died;
+and she had lived in the Red Mansion with the tall porch, the wide
+garden behind, and the wall of apricots and peaches and clustering
+grapes. Her story was not to cease when she was laid away in the stiff
+graveyard behind the Meeting-house. It was to go on in the life of her
+son, whom to bring into the world she had suffered undeserved, and loved
+with a passion more in keeping with the beauty of the vale in which she
+lived than with the piety found on the high-backed seats in the Quaker
+Meeting-house. The name given her on the register of death was Mercy
+Claridge, and a line beneath said that she was the daughter of Luke
+Claridge, that her age at passing was nineteen years, and that "her soul
+was with the Lord."
+
+Another whose life had given pages to the village history was one of
+noble birth, the Earl of Eglington. He had died twenty years after the
+time when Luke Claridge, against the then custom of the Quakers, set up
+a tombstone to Mercy Claridge's memory behind the Meeting-house. Only
+thrice in those twenty years had he slept in a room of the Cloistered
+House. One of those occasions was the day on which Luke Claridge put up
+the grey stone in the graveyard, three years after his daughter's death.
+On the night of that day these two men met face to face in the garden of
+the Cloistered House. It was said by a passer-by, who had involuntarily
+overheard, that Luke Claridge had used harsh and profane words to Lord
+Eglington, though he had no inkling of the subject of the bitter talk.
+He supposed, however, that Luke had gone to reprove the other for a
+wasteful and wandering existence; for desertion of that Quaker religion
+to which his grandfather, the third Earl of Eglington, had turned in
+the second half of his life, never visiting his estates in Ireland, and
+residing here among his new friends to his last day. This listener--John
+Fairley was his name--kept his own counsel. On two other occasions had
+Lord Eglington visited the Cloistered House in the years that passed,
+and remained many months. Once he brought his wife and child. The former
+was a cold, blue-eyed Saxon of an old family, who smiled distantly upon
+the Quaker village; the latter, a round-headed, warm-faced youth, with a
+bold, menacing eye, who probed into this and that, rushed here and there
+as did his father; now built a miniature mill; now experimented at some
+peril in the laboratory which had been arranged in the Cloistered House
+for scientific experiments; now shot partridges in the fields where
+partridges had not been shot for years; and was as little in the picture
+as his adventurous father, though he wore a broad-brimmed hat, smiling
+the while at the pain it gave to the simple folk around him.
+
+And yet once more the owner of the Cloistered House returned alone. The
+blue-eyed lady was gone to her grave; the youth was abroad. This time
+he came to die. He was found lying on the floor of his laboratory with
+a broken retort in fragments beside him. With his servant, Luke
+Claridge was the first to look upon him lying in the wreck of his last
+experiment, a spirit-lamp still burning above him, in the grey light
+of a winter's morning. Luke Claridge closed the eyes, straightened
+the body, and crossed the hands over the breast which had been the
+laboratory of many conflicting passions of life.
+
+The dead man had left instructions that his body should be buried in the
+Quaker graveyard, but Luke Claridge and the Elders prevented that--he
+had no right to the privileges of a Friend; and, as the only son was
+afar, and no near relatives pressed the late Earl's wishes, the ancient
+family tomb in Ireland received all that was left of the owner of the
+Cloistered House, which, with the estates in Ireland and the title,
+passed to the wandering son.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE GATES OF THE WORLD
+
+Stillness in the Meeting-house, save for the light swish of one
+graveyard-tree against the window-pane, and the slow breathing of the
+Quaker folk who filled every corner. On the long bench at the upper
+end of the room the Elders sat motionless, their hands on their knees,
+wearing their hats; the women in their poke-bonnets kept their gaze upon
+their laps. The heads of all save three were averted, and they were
+Luke Claridge, his only living daughter, called Faith, and his dead
+daughter's son David, who kept his eyes fixed on the window where the
+twig flicked against the pane. The eyes of Faith, who sat on a bench at
+one side, travelled from David to her father constantly; and if, once or
+twice, the plain rebuke of Luke Claridge's look compelled her eyes
+upon her folded hands, still she was watchful and waiting, and seemed
+demurely to defy the convention of unblinking silence. As time went on,
+others of her sex stole glances at Mercy's son from the depths of their
+bonnets; and at last, after over an hour, they and all were drawn to
+look steadily at the young man upon whose business this Meeting of
+Discipline had been called. The air grew warmer and warmer, but no one
+became restless; all seemed as cool of face and body as the grey gowns
+and coats with grey steel buttons which they wore.
+
+At last a shrill voice broke the stillness. Raising his head, one of the
+Elders said: "Thee will stand up, friend." He looked at David.
+
+With a slight gesture of relief the young man stood up. He was good
+to look at-clean-shaven, broad of brow, fine of figure, composed of
+carriage, though it was not the composure of the people by whom he was
+surrounded. They were dignified, he was graceful; they were consistently
+slow of movement, but at times his quick gestures showed that he had
+not been able to train his spirit to that passiveness by which he
+lived surrounded. Their eyes were slow and quiet, more meditative than
+observant; his were changeful in expression, now abstracted, now dark
+and shining as though some inner fire was burning. The head, too, had
+a habit of coming up quickly with an almost wilful gesture, and with an
+air which, in others, might have been called pride.
+
+"What is thy name?" said another owl-like Elder to him.
+
+A gentle, half-amused smile flickered at the young man's lips for an
+instant, then, "David Claridge--still," he answered.
+
+His last word stirred the meeting. A sort of ruffle went through the
+atmosphere, and now every eye was fixed and inquiring. The word was
+ominous. He was there on his trial, and for discipline; and it was
+thought by all that, as many days had passed since his offence was
+committed, meditation and prayer should have done their work. Now,
+however, in the tone of his voice, as it clothed the last word, there
+was something of defiance. On the ear of his grandfather, Luke Claridge,
+it fell heavily. The old man's lips closed tightly, he clasped his hands
+between his knees with apparent self-repression.
+
+The second Elder who had spoken was he who had once heard Luke Claridge
+use profane words in the Cloistered House. Feeling trouble ahead, and
+liking the young man and his brother Elder, Luke Claridge, John Fairley
+sought now to take the case into his own hands.
+
+"Thee shall never find a better name, David," he said, "if thee live a
+hundred years. It hath served well in England. This thee didst do.
+While the young Earl of Eglington was being brought home, with noise
+and brawling, after his return to Parliament, thee mingled among the
+brawlers; and because some evil words were said of thy hat and thy
+apparel, thee laid about thee, bringing one to the dust, so that his
+life was in peril for some hours to come. Jasper Kimber was his name."
+
+"Were it not that the smitten man forgave thee, thee would now be in a
+prison cell," shrilly piped the Elder who had asked his name.
+
+"The fight was fair," was the young man's reply. "Though I am a Friend,
+the man was English."
+
+"Thee was that day a son of Belial," rejoined the shrill Elder. "Thee
+did use thy hands like any heathen sailor--is it not the truth?"
+
+"I struck the man. I punished him--why enlarge?"
+
+"Thee is guilty?"
+
+"I did the thing."
+
+"That is one charge against thee. There are others. Thee was seen
+to drink of spirits in a public-house at Heddington that day.
+Twice--thrice, like any drunken collier."
+
+"Twice," was the prompt correction.
+
+There was a moment's pause, in which some women sighed and others folded
+and unfolded their hands on their laps; the men frowned.
+
+"Thee has been a dark deceiver," said the shrill Elder again, and with
+a ring of acrid triumph; "thee has hid these things from our eyes many
+years, but in one day thee has uncovered all. Thee--"
+
+"Thee is charged," interposed Elder Fairley, "with visiting a play this
+same day, and with seeing a dance of Spain following upon it."
+
+"I did not disdain the music," said the young man drily; "the flute,
+of all instruments, has a mellow sound." Suddenly his eyes darkened, he
+became abstracted, and gazed at the window where the twig flicked softly
+against the pane, and the heat of summer palpitated in the air. "It has
+good grace to my ear," he added slowly.
+
+Luke Claridge looked at him intently. He began to realize that there
+were forces stirring in his grandson which had no beginning in Claridge
+blood, and were not nurtured in the garden with the fruited wall. He was
+not used to problems; he had only a code, which he had rigidly kept. He
+had now a glimmer of something beyond code or creed.
+
+He saw that the shrill Elder was going to speak. He intervened. "Thee is
+charged, David," he said coldly, "with kissing a woman--a stranger and
+a wanton--where the four roads meet 'twixt here and yonder town." He
+motioned towards the hills.
+
+"In the open day," added the shrill Elder, a red spot burning on each
+withered cheek.
+
+"The woman was comely," said the young man, with a tone of irony,
+recovering an impassive look.
+
+A strange silence fell, the women looked down; yet they seemed not so
+confounded as the men. After a moment they watched the young man with
+quicker flashes of the eye.
+
+"The answer is shameless," said the shrill Elder. "Thy life is that of a
+carnal hypocrite."
+
+The young man said nothing. His face had become very pale, his lips were
+set, and presently he sat down and folded his arms.
+
+"Thee is guilty of all?" asked John Fairley.
+
+His kindly eye was troubled, for he had spent numberless hours in this
+young man's company, and together they had read books of travel and
+history, and even the plays of Shakespeare and Marlowe, though drama was
+anathema to the Society of Friends--they did not realize it in the life
+around them. That which was drama was either the visitation of God or
+the dark deeds of man, from which they must avert their eyes. Their own
+tragedies they hid beneath their grey coats and bodices; their dirty
+linen they never washed in public, save in the scandal such as this
+where the Society must intervene. Then the linen was not only washed,
+but duly starched, sprinkled, and ironed.
+
+"I have answered all. Judge by my words," said David gravely.
+
+"Has repentance come to thee? Is it thy will to suffer that which we
+may decide for thy correction?" It was Elder Fairley who spoke. He was
+determined to control the meeting and to influence its judgment. He
+loved the young man.
+
+David made no reply; he seemed lost in thought. "Let the discipline
+proceed--he hath an evil spirit," said the shrill Elder.
+
+"His childhood lacked in much," said Elder Fairley patiently.
+
+To most minds present the words carried home--to every woman who had a
+child, to every man who had lost a wife and had a motherless son. This
+much they knew of David's real history, that Mercy Claridge, his mother,
+on a visit to the house of an uncle at Portsmouth, her mother's brother,
+had eloped with and was duly married to the captain of a merchant ship.
+They also knew that, after some months, Luke Claridge had brought her
+home; and that before her child was born news came that the ship her
+husband sailed had gone down with all on board. They knew likewise that
+she had died soon after David came, and that her father, Luke Claridge,
+buried her in her maiden name, and brought the boy up as his son,
+not with his father's name but bearing that name so long honoured in
+England, and even in the far places of the earth--for had not Benn
+Claridge, Luke's brother, been a great carpet-merchant, traveller, and
+explorer in Asia Minor, Egypt, and the Soudan--Benn Claridge of the
+whimsical speech, the pious life? All this they knew; but none of them,
+to his or her knowledge, had ever seen David's father. He was legendary;
+though there was full proof that the girl had been duly married. That
+had been laid before the Elders by Luke Claridge on an occasion when
+Benn Claridge, his brother was come among them again from the East.
+
+At this moment of trial David was thinking of his uncle, Benn Claridge,
+and of his last words fifteen years before when going once again to the
+East, accompanied by the Muslim chief Ebn Ezra, who had come with him
+to England on the business of his country. These were Benn Claridge's
+words: "Love God before all, love thy fellow-man, and thy conscience
+will bring thee safe home, lad."
+
+"If he will not repent, there is but one way," said the shrill Elder.
+
+"Let there be no haste," said Luke Claridge, in a voice that shook a
+little in his struggle for self-control.
+
+Another heretofore silent Elder, sitting beside John Fairley, exchanged
+words in a whisper with him, and then addressed them. He was a very
+small man with a very high stock and spreading collar, a thin face, and
+large wide eyes. He kept his chin down in his collar, but spoke at the
+ceiling like one blind, though his eyes were sharp enough on occasion.
+His name was Meacham.
+
+"It is meet there shall be time for sorrow and repentance," he said.
+"This, I pray you all, be our will: that for three months David live
+apart, even in the hut where lived the drunken chair-maker ere he
+disappeared and died, as rumour saith--it hath no tenant. Let it be that
+after to-morrow night at sunset none shall speak to him till that time
+be come, the first day of winter. Till that day he shall speak to no
+man, and shall be despised of the world, and--pray God--of himself. Upon
+the first day of winter let it be that he come hither again and speak
+with us."
+
+On the long stillness of assent that followed there came a voice across
+the room, from within a grey-and-white bonnet, which shadowed a delicate
+face shining with the flame of the spirit within. It was the face of
+Faith Claridge, the sister of the woman in the graveyard, whose soul
+was "with the Lord," though she was but one year older and looked much
+younger than her nephew, David.
+
+"Speak, David," she said softly. "Speak now. Doth not the spirit move
+thee?"
+
+She gave him his cue, for he had of purpose held his peace till all had
+been said; and he had come to say some things which had been churning
+in his mind too long. He caught the faint cool sarcasm in her tone, and
+smiled unconsciously at her last words. She, at least, must have reasons
+for her faith in him, must have grounds for his defence in painful days
+to come; for painful they must be, whether he stayed to do their
+will, or went into the fighting world where Quakers were few and life
+composite of things they never knew in Hamley.
+
+He got to his feet and clasped his hands behind his back. After an
+instant he broke silence.
+
+"All those things of which I am accused, I did; and for them is asked
+repentance. Before that day on which I did these things was there
+complaint, or cause for it? Was my life evil? Did I think in secret that
+which might not be done openly? Well, some things I did secretly. Ye
+shall hear of them. I read where I might, and after my taste, many
+plays, and found in them beauty and the soul of deep things. Tales
+I have read, but a few, and John Milton, and Chaucer, and Bacon, and
+Montaigne, and Arab poets also, whose books my uncle sent me. Was this
+sin in me?"
+
+"It drove to a day of shame for thee," said the shrill Elder.
+
+He took no heed, but continued: "When I was a child I listened to the
+lark as it rose from the meadow; and I hid myself in the hedge that,
+unseen, I might hear it sing; and at night I waited till I could hear
+the nightingale. I have heard the river singing, and the music of the
+trees. At first I thought that this must be sin, since ye condemn the
+human voice that sings, but I could feel no guilt. I heard men and women
+sing upon the village green, and I sang also. I heard bands of music.
+One instrument seemed to me more than all the rest. I bought one
+like it, and learned to play. It was the flute--its note so soft and
+pleasant. I learned to play it--years ago--in the woods of Beedon beyond
+the hill, and I have felt no guilt from then till now. For these things
+I have no repentance."
+
+"Thee has had good practice in deceit," said the shrill Elder.
+
+Suddenly David's manner changed. His voice became deeper; his eyes
+took on that look of brilliance and heat which had given Luke Claridge
+anxious thoughts.
+
+"I did, indeed, as the spirit moved me, even as ye have done."
+
+"Blasphemer, did the spirit move thee to brawl and fight, to drink and
+curse, to kiss a wanton in the open road? What hath come upon thee?"
+Again it was the voice of the shrill Elder.
+
+"Judge me by the truth I speak," he answered. "Save in these things my
+life has been an unclasped book for all to read."
+
+"Speak to the charge of brawling and drink, David," rejoined the little
+Elder Meacham with the high collar and gaze upon the ceiling.
+
+"Shall I not speak when I am moved? Ye have struck swiftly; I will draw
+the arrow slowly from the wound. But, in truth, ye had good right to
+wound. Naught but kindness have I had among you all; and I will answer.
+Straightly have I lived since my birth. Yet betimes a torturing unrest
+of mind was used to come upon me as I watched the world around us. I
+saw men generous to their kind, industrious and brave, beloved by
+their fellows; and I have seen these same men drink and dance and give
+themselves to coarse, rough play like young dogs in a kennel. Yet, too,
+I have seen dark things done in drink--the cheerful made morose, the
+gentle violent. What was the temptation? What the secret? Was it but the
+low craving of the flesh, or was it some primitive unrest, or craving of
+the soul, which, clouded and baffled by time and labour and the wear of
+life, by this means was given the witched medicament--a false freedom, a
+thrilling forgetfulness? In ancient days the high, the humane, in search
+of cure for poison, poisoned themselves, and then applied the antidote.
+He hath little knowledge and less pity for sin who has never sinned.
+The day came when all these things which other men did in my sight I
+did--openly. I drank with them in the taverns--twice I drank. I met a
+lass in the way. I kissed her. I sat beside her at the roadside and she
+told me her brief, sad, evil story. One she had loved had left her. She
+was going to London. I gave her what money I had--"
+
+"And thy watch," said a whispering voice from the Elders' bench.
+
+"Even so. And at the cross-roads I bade her goodbye with sorrow."
+
+"There were those who saw," said the shrill voice from the bench.
+
+"They saw what I have said--no more. I had never tasted spirits in my
+life. I had never kissed a woman's lips. Till then I had never struck my
+fellow-man; but before the sun went down I fought the man who drove the
+lass in sorrow into the homeless world. I did not choose to fight; but
+when I begged the man Jasper Kimber for the girl's sake to follow and
+bring her back, and he railed at me and made to fight me, I took off my
+hat, and there I laid him in the dust."
+
+"No thanks to thee that he did not lie in his grave," observed the
+shrill Elder.
+
+"In truth I hit hard," was the quiet reply.
+
+"How came thee expert with thy fists?" asked Elder Fairley, with the
+shadow of a smile.
+
+"A book I bought from London, a sack of corn, a hollow leather ball, and
+an hour betimes with the drunken chair-maker in the hut by the lime-kiln
+on the hill. He was once a sailor and a fighting man."
+
+A look of blank surprise ran slowly along the faces of the Elders. They
+were in a fog of misunderstanding and reprobation.
+
+"While yet my father"--he looked at Luke Claridge, whom he had ever been
+taught to call his father--"shared the great business at Heddington, and
+the ships came from Smyrna and Alexandria, I had some small duties, as
+is well known. But that ceased, and there was little to do. Sports are
+forbidden among us here, and my body grew sick, because the mind had no
+labour. The world of work has thickened round us beyond the hills. The
+great chimneys rise in a circle as far as eye can see on yonder crests;
+but we slumber and sleep."
+
+"Enough, enough," said a voice from among the women. "Thee has a friend
+gone to London--thee knows the way. It leads from the cross-roads!"
+
+Faith Claridge, who had listened to David's speech, her heart panting,
+her clear grey eyes--she had her mother's eyes--fixed benignly on him,
+turned to the quarter whence the voice came. Seeing who it was--a widow
+who, with no demureness, had tried without avail to bring Luke Claridge
+to her--her lips pressed together in a bitter smile, and she said to her
+nephew clearly:
+
+"Patience Spielman hath little hope of thee, David. Hope hath died in
+her."
+
+A faint, prim smile passed across the faces of all present, for all knew
+Faith's allusion, and it relieved the tension of the past half-hour.
+From the first moment David began to speak he had commanded his hearers.
+His voice was low and even; but it had also a power which, when put to
+sudden quiet use, compelled the hearer to an almost breathless silence,
+not so much to the meaning of the words, but to the tone itself, to
+the man behind it. His personal force was remarkable. Quiet and pale
+ordinarily, his clear russet-brown hair falling in a wave over his
+forehead, when roused, he seemed like some delicate engine made to do
+great labours. As Faith said to him once, "David, thee looks as though
+thee could lift great weights lightly." When roused, his eyes lighted
+like a lamp, the whole man seemed to pulsate. He had shocked, awed,
+and troubled his listeners. Yet he had held them in his power, and was
+master of their minds. The interjections had but given him new means to
+defend himself. After Faith had spoken he looked slowly round.
+
+"I am charged with being profane," he said. "I do not remember. But
+is there none among you who has not secretly used profane words and,
+neither in secret nor openly, has repented? I am charged with drinking.
+On one day of my life I drank openly. I did it because something in me
+kept crying out, 'Taste and see!' I tasted and saw, and know; and I know
+that oblivion, that brief pitiful respite from trouble, which this
+evil tincture gives. I drank to know; and I found it lure me into a new
+careless joy. The sun seemed brighter, men's faces seemed happier,
+the world sang about me, the blood ran swiftly, thoughts swarmed in
+my brain. My feet were on the mountains, my hands were on the sails of
+great ships; I was a conqueror. I understood the drunkard in the first
+withdrawal begotten of this false stimulant. I drank to know. Is there
+none among you who has, though it be but once, drunk secretly as I drank
+openly? If there be none, then I am condemned."
+
+"Amen," said Elder Fairley's voice from the bench. "In the open way by
+the cross-roads I saw a woman. I saw she was in sorrow. I spoke to her.
+Tears came to her eyes. I took her hand, and we sat down together. Of
+the rest I have told you. I kissed her--a stranger. She was comely. And
+this I know, that the matter ended by the cross-roads, and that by and
+forbidden paths have easy travel. I kissed the woman openly--is there
+none among you who has kissed secretly, and has kept the matter hidden?
+For him I struck and injured, it was fair. Shall a man be beaten like a
+dog? Kimber would have beaten me."
+
+"Wherein has it all profited?" asked the shrill Elder querulously.
+
+"I have knowledge. None shall do these things hereafter but I shall
+understand. None shall go venturing, exploring, but I shall pray for
+him."
+
+"Thee will break thy heart and thy life exploring," said Luke Claridge
+bitterly. Experiment in life he did not understand, and even Benn
+Claridge's emigration to far lands had ever seemed to him a monstrous
+and amazing thing, though it ended in the making of a great business in
+which he himself had prospered, and from which he had now retired. He
+suddenly realized that a day of trouble was at hand with this youth on
+whom his heart doted, and it tortured him that he could not understand.
+
+"By none of these things shall I break my life," was David's answer now.
+
+For a moment he stood still and silent, then all at once he stretched
+out his hands to them. "All these things I did were against our faith.
+I desire forgiveness. I did them out of my own will; I will take up your
+judgment. If there be no more to say, I will make ready to go to old
+Soolsby's hut on the hill till the set time be passed."
+
+There was a long silence. Even the shrill Elder's head was buried in
+his breast. They were little likely to forego his penalty. There was
+a gentle inflexibility in their natures born of long restraint
+and practised determination. He must go out into blank silence and
+banishment until the first day of winter. Yet, recalcitrant as they held
+him, their secret hearts were with him, for there was none of them but
+had had happy commerce with him; and they could think of no more bitter
+punishment than to be cut off from their own society for three months.
+They were satisfied he was being trained back to happiness and honour.
+
+A new turn was given to events, however. The little wizened Elder
+Meacham said: "The flute, friend--is it here?"
+
+"I have it here," David answered.
+
+"Let us have music, then."
+
+"To what end?" interjected the shrill Elder.
+
+"He hath averred he can play," drily replied the other. "Let us judge
+whether vanity breeds untruth in him."
+
+The furtive brightening of the eyes in the women was represented in
+the men by an assumed look of abstraction in most; in others by a bland
+assumption of judicial calm. A few, however, frowned, and would have
+opposed the suggestion, but that curiosity mastered them. These watched
+with darkening interest the flute, in three pieces, drawn from an inner
+pocket and put together swiftly.
+
+David raised the instrument to his lips, blew one low note, and then
+a little run of notes, all smooth and soft. Mellowness and a sober
+sweetness were in the tone. He paused a moment after this, and seemed
+questioning what to play. And as he stood, the flute in his hands, his
+thoughts took flight to his Uncle Benn, whose kindly, shrewd face and
+sharp brown eyes were as present to him, and more real, than those of
+Luke Claridge, whom he saw every day. Of late when he had thought of
+his uncle, however, alternate depression and lightness of spirit had
+possessed him. Night after night he had troubled sleep, and he had
+dreamed again and again that his uncle knocked at his door, or came and
+stood beside his bed and spoke to him. He had wakened suddenly and said
+"Yes" to a voice which seemed to call to him.
+
+Always his dreams and imaginings settled round his Uncle Benn, until
+he had found himself trying to speak to the little brown man across the
+thousand leagues of land and sea. He had found, too, in the past that
+when he seemed to be really speaking to his uncle, when it seemed
+as though the distance between them had been annihilated, that soon
+afterwards there came a letter from him. Yet there had not been more
+than two or three a year. They had been, however, like books of many
+pages, closely written, in Arabic, in a crabbed characteristic hand, and
+full of the sorrow and grandeur and misery of the East. How many books
+on the East David had read he would hardly have been able to say; but
+something of the East had entered into him, something of the philosophy
+of Mahomet and Buddha, and the beauty of Omar Khayyam had given a
+touch of colour and intellect to the narrow faith in which he had been
+schooled. He had found himself replying to a question asked of him in
+Heddington, as to how he knew that there was a God, in the words of a
+Muslim quoted by his uncle: "As I know by the tracks in the sand whether
+a Man or Beast has passed there, so the heaven with its stars, the earth
+with its fruits, show me that God has passed." Again, in reply to the
+same question, the reply of the same Arab sprang to his lips--"Does the
+Morning want a Light to see it by?"
+
+As he stood with his flute--his fingers now and then caressingly rising
+and falling upon its little caverns, his mind travelled far to those
+regions he had never seen, where his uncle traded, and explored.
+Suddenly, the call he had heard in his sleep now came to him in this
+waking reverie. His eyes withdrew from the tree at the window, as if
+startled, and he almost called aloud in reply; but he realised where
+he was. At last, raising the flute to his lips, as the eyes of Luke
+Claridge closed with very trouble, he began to play.
+
+Out in the woods of Beedon he had attuned his flute to the stir of
+leaves, the murmur of streams, the song of birds, the boom and burden
+of storm; and it was soft and deep as the throat of the bell-bird of
+Australian wilds. Now it was mastered by the dreams he had dreamed
+of the East: the desert skies, high and clear and burning, the desert
+sunsets, plaintive and peaceful and unvaried--one lovely diffusion, in
+which day dies without splendour and in a glow of pain. The long velvety
+tread of the camel, the song of the camel-driver, the monotonous chant
+of the river-man, with fingers mechanically falling on his little drum,
+the cry of the eagle of the Libyan Hills, the lap of the heavy waters
+of the Dead Sea down by Jericho, the battle-call of the Druses beyond
+Damascus, the lonely gigantic figures at the mouth of the temple of Abou
+Simbel, looking out with the eternal question to the unanswering desert,
+the delicate ruins of moonlit Baalbec, with the snow mountains hovering
+above, the green oases, and the deep wells where the caravans lay down
+in peace--all these were pouring their influences on his mind in the
+little Quaker village of Hamley where life was so bare, so grave.
+
+The music he played was all his own, was instinctively translated from
+all other influences into that which they who listened to him could
+understand. Yet that sensuous beauty which the Quaker Society was so
+concerned to banish from any part in their life was playing upon them
+now, making the hearts of the women beat fast, thrilling them, turning
+meditation into dreams, and giving the sight of the eyes far visions
+of pleasure. So powerful was this influence that the shrill Elder twice
+essayed to speak in protest, but was prevented by the wizened Elder
+Meacham. When it seemed as if the aching, throbbing sweetness must
+surely bring denunciation, David changed the music to a slow mourning
+cadence. It was a wail of sorrow, a march to the grave, a benediction,
+a soft sound of farewell, floating through the room and dying away into
+the mid-day sun.
+
+There came a long silence after, and David sat with unmoving look upon
+the distant prospect through the window. A woman's sob broke the air.
+Faith's handkerchief was at her eyes. Only one quick sob, but it
+had been wrung from her by the premonition suddenly come that the
+brother--he was brother more than nephew--over whom her heart had
+yearned had, indeed, come to the cross-roads, and that their ways would
+henceforth divide. The punishment or banishment now to be meted out to
+him was as nothing. It meant a few weeks of disgrace, of ban, of what,
+in effect, was self-immolation, of that commanding justice of the
+Society which no one yet save the late Earl of Eglington had defied.
+David could refuse to bear punishment, but such a possibility had never
+occurred to her or to any one present. She saw him taking his punishment
+as surely as though the law of the land had him in its grasp. It was not
+that which she was fearing. But she saw him moving out of her life. To
+her this music was the prelude of her tragedy.
+
+A moment afterwards Luke Claridge arose and spoke to David in austere
+tones: "It is our will that thee begone to the chair-maker's but upon
+the hill till three months be passed, and that none have speech with
+thee after sunset to-morrow even."
+
+"Amen," said all the Elders.
+
+"Amen," said David, and put his flute into his pocket, and rose to go.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. BANISHED
+
+The chair-maker's hut lay upon the north hillside about half-way between
+the Meeting-house at one end of the village and the common at the other
+end. It commanded the valley, had no house near it, and was sheltered
+from the north wind by the hill-top which rose up behind it a hundred
+feet or more. No road led to it--only a path up from the green of the
+village, winding past a gulley and the deep cuts of old rivulets now
+over grown by grass or bracken. It got the sun abundantly, and it was
+protected from the full sweep of any storm. It had but two rooms, the
+floor was of sanded earth, but it had windows on three sides, east,
+west, and south, and the door looked south. Its furniture was a plank
+bed, a few shelves, a bench, two chairs, some utensils, a fireplace
+of stone, a picture of the Virgin and Child, and of a cardinal of the
+Church of Rome with a red hat--for the chair-maker had been a Roman
+Catholic, the only one of that communion in Hamley. Had he been a
+Protestant his vices would have made him anathema, but, being what he
+was, his fellow-villagers had treated him with kindness.
+
+After the half-day in which he was permitted to make due preparations,
+lay in store of provisions, and purchase a few sheep and hens, hither
+came David Claridge. Here, too, came Faith, who was permitted one hour
+with him before he began his life of willing isolation. Little was said
+as they made the journey up the hill, driving the sheep before them,
+four strong lads following with necessities--flour, rice, potatoes, and
+suchlike.
+
+Arrived, the goods were deposited inside the hut, the lads were
+dismissed, and David and Faith were left alone. David looked at his
+watch. They had still a handful of minutes before the parting. These
+flew fast, and yet, seated inside the door, and looking down at the
+village which the sun was bathing in the last glowing of evening,
+they remained silent. Each knew that a great change had come in their
+hitherto unchanging life, and it was difficult to separate premonition
+from substantial fact. The present fact did not represent all they felt,
+though it represented all on which they might speak together now.
+
+Looking round the room, at last Faith said: "Thee has all thee needs,
+David? Thee is sure?"
+
+He nodded. "I know not yet how little man may need. I have lived in
+plenty."
+
+At that moment her eyes rested on the Cloistered House.
+
+"The Earl of Eglington would not call it plenty." A shade passed over
+David's face. "I know not how he would measure. Is his own field so
+wide?"
+
+"The spread of a peacock's feather."
+
+"What does thee know of him?" David asked the question absently.
+
+"I have eyes to see, Davy." The shadows from that seeing were in her
+eyes as she spoke, but he did not observe them.
+
+"Thee sees but with half an eye," she continued. "With both mine I have
+seen horses and carriages, and tall footmen, and wine and silver, and
+gilded furniture, and fine pictures, and rolls of new carpet--of Uncle
+Benn's best carpets, Davy--and a billiard-table, and much else."
+
+A cloud slowly gathered over David's face, and he turned to her with an
+almost troubled surprise. "Thee has seen these things--and how?"
+
+"One day--thee was in Devon--one of the women was taken ill. They sent
+for me because the woman asked it. She was a Papist; but she begged that
+I should go with her to the hospital, as there was no time to send
+to Heddington for a nurse. She had seen me once in the house of the
+toll-gate keeper. Ill as she was, I could have laughed, for, as we went
+in the Earl's carriage to the hospital-thirty miles it was--she said she
+felt at home with me, my dress being so like a nun's. It was then I saw
+the Cloistered House within and learned what was afoot."
+
+"In the Earl's carriage indeed--and the Earl?"
+
+"He was in Ireland, burrowing among those tarnished baubles, his titles,
+and stripping the Irish Peter to clothe the English Paul."
+
+"He means to make Hamley his home? From Ireland these furnishings come?"
+
+"So it seems. Henceforth the Cloistered House will have its doors flung
+wide. London and all the folk of Parliament will flutter along the dunes
+of Hamley."
+
+"Then the bailiff will sit yonder within a year, for he is but a starved
+Irish peer."
+
+"He lives to-day as though he would be rich tomorrow. He bids for fame
+and fortune, Davy."
+
+"'Tis as though a shirtless man should wear a broadcloth coat over a
+cotton vest."
+
+"The world sees only the broadcloth coat. For the rest--"
+
+"For the rest, Faith?"
+
+"They see the man's face, and--"
+
+His eyes were embarrassed. A thought had flashed into his mind which he
+considered unworthy, for this girl beside him was little likely to dwell
+upon the face of a renegade peer, whose living among them was a constant
+reminder of his father's apostasy. She was too fine, dwelt in such high
+spheres, that he could not think of her being touched by the glittering
+adventures of this daring young member of Parliament, whose book of
+travels had been published, only to herald his understood determination
+to have office in the Government, not in due time, but in his own time.
+What could there be in common between the sophisticated Eglington and
+this sweet, primitively wholesome Quaker girl?
+
+Faith read what was passing in his mind. She flushed--slowly flushed
+until her face--and eyes were one soft glow, then she laid a hand upon
+his arm and said: "Davy, I feel the truth about him--no more. Nothing of
+him is for thee or me. His ways are not our ways." She paused, and then
+said solemnly: "He hath a devil. That I feel. But he hath also a mind,
+and a cruel will. He will hew a path, or make others hew it for him.
+He will make or break. Nothing will stand in his way, neither man nor
+thing, those he loves nor those he hates. He will go on--and to go on,
+all means, so they be not criminal, will be his. Men will prophesy great
+things for him--they do so now. But nothing they prophesy, Davy, keeps
+pace with his resolve."
+
+"How does thee know these things?"
+
+His question was one of wonder and surprise. He had never before seen in
+her this sharp discernment and criticism.
+
+"How know I, Davy? I know him by studying thee. What thee is not he is.
+What he is thee is not." The last beams of the sun sent a sudden glint
+of yellow to the green at their feet from the western hills, rising far
+over and above the lower hills of the village, making a wide ocean of
+light, at the bottom of which lay the Meeting-house and the Cloistered
+House, and the Red Mansion with the fruited wall, and all the others,
+like dwellings at the bottom of a golden sea. David's eyes were on the
+distance, and the far-seeing look was in his face which had so deeply
+impressed Faith in the Meeting-house, by which she had read his future.
+
+"And shall I not also go on?" he asked.
+
+"How far, who can tell?"
+
+There was a plaintive note in her voice--the unavailing and sad protest
+of the maternal spirit, of the keeper of the nest, who sees the brood
+fly safely away, looking not back.
+
+"What does thee see for me afar, Faith?" His look was eager.
+
+"The will of God, which shall be done," she said with a sudden
+resolution, and stood up. Her hands were lightly clasped before her like
+those of Titian's Mater Dolorosa among the Rubens and Tintorettos of the
+Prado, a lonely figure, whose lot it was to spend her life for others.
+Even as she already had done; for thrice she had refused marriages
+suitable and possible to her. In each case she had steeled her heart
+against loving, that she might be all in all to her sister's child and
+to her father. There is no habit so powerful as the habit of care of
+others. In Faith it came as near being a passion as passion could have
+a place in her even-flowing blood, under that cool flesh, governed by
+a heart as fair as the apricot blossoms on the wall in her father's
+garden. She had been bitterly hurt in the Meeting-house; as bitterly as
+is many a woman when her lover has deceived her. David had acknowledged
+before them all that he had played the flute secretly for years! That he
+should have played it was nothing; that she should not have shared his
+secret, and so shared his culpability before them all, was a wound which
+would take long to heal.
+
+She laid her hand upon his shoulder suddenly with a nervous little
+motion.
+
+"And the will of God thee shall do to His honour, though thee is outcast
+to-day.... But, Davy, the music-thee kept it from me."
+
+He looked up at her steadily; he read what was in her mind.
+
+"I hid it so, because I would not have thy conscience troubled. Thee
+would go far to smother it for me; and I was not so ungrateful to thee.
+I did it for good to thee."
+
+A smile passed across her lips. Never was woman so grateful, never wound
+so quickly healed. She shook her head sadly at him, and stilling the
+proud throbbing of her heart, she said:
+
+"But thee played so well, Davy!"
+
+He got up and turned his head away, lest he should laugh outright. Her
+reasoning--though he was not worldly enough to call it feminine, and
+though it scarce tallied with her argument--seemed to him quite her own.
+
+"How long have we?" he said over his shoulder. "The sun is yet five
+minutes up, or more," she said, a little breathlessly, for she saw his
+hand inside his coat, and guessed his purpose.
+
+"But thee will not dare to play--thee will not dare," she said, but more
+as an invitation than a rebuke. "Speech was denied me here, but not my
+music. I find no sin in it."
+
+She eagerly watched him adjust the flute. Suddenly she drew to him the
+chair from the doorway, and beckoned him to sit down. She sat where she
+could see the sunset.
+
+The music floated through the room and down the hillside, a searching
+sweetness.
+
+She kept her face ever on the far hills. It went on and on. At last it
+stopped. David roused himself, as from a dream. "But it is dark!"
+he said, startled. "It is past the time thee should be with me. My
+banishment began at sunset."
+
+"Are all the sins to be thine?" she asked calmly. She had purposely let
+him play beyond the time set for their being together.
+
+"Good-night, Davy." She kissed him on the cheek. "I will keep the music
+for the sin's remembrance," she added, and went out into the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE CALL
+
+
+"England is in one of those passions so creditable to her moral sense,
+so illustrative of her unregulated virtues. We are living in the first
+excitement and horror of the news of the massacre of Christians
+at Damascus. We are full of righteous and passionate indignation.
+'Punish--restore the honour of the Christian nations' is the proud
+appeal of prelate, prig, and philanthropist, because some hundreds of
+Christians who knew their danger, yet chose to take up their abode in a
+fanatical Muslim city of the East, have suffered death."
+
+The meeting had been called in answer to an appeal from Exeter Hall.
+Lord Eglington had been asked to speak, and these were among his closing
+words.
+
+He had seen, as he thought, an opportunity for sensation. Politicians of
+both sides, the press on all hands, were thundering denunciations upon
+the city of Damascus, sitting insolent and satiated in its exquisite
+bloom of pear and nectarine, and the deed itself was fading into that
+blank past of Eastern life where there "are no birds in last year's
+nest." If he voyaged with the crowd, his pennant would be lost in the
+clustering sails! So he would move against the tide, and would startle,
+even if he did not convince.
+
+"Let us not translate an inflamed religious emotion into a war," he
+continued. "To what good? Would it restore one single life in Damascus?
+Would it bind one broken heart? Would it give light to one darkened
+home? Let us have care lest we be called a nation of hypocrites. I will
+neither support nor oppose the resolution presented; I will content
+myself with pointing the way to a greater national self-respect."
+
+Mechanically, a few people who had scarcely apprehended the full force
+of his remarks began to applaud; but there came cries of "'Sh! 'Sh!" and
+the clapping of hands suddenly stopped. For a moment there was absolute
+silence, in which the chairman adjusted his glasses and fumbled with the
+agenda paper in his confusion, scarcely knowing what to do. The speaker
+had been expected to second the resolution, and had not done so. There
+was an awkward silence. Then, in a loud whisper, some one said:
+
+"David, David, do thee speak."
+
+It was the voice of Faith Claridge. Perturbed and anxious, she had come
+to the meeting with her father. They had not slept for nights, for the
+last news they had had of Benn Claridge was from the city of Damascus,
+and they were full of painful apprehensions.
+
+It was the eve of the first day of winter, and David's banishment was
+over. Faith had seen David often at a distance--how often had she stood
+in her window and looked up over the apricot-wall to the chair-maker's
+hut on the hill! According to his penalty David had never come to
+Hamley village, but had lived alone, speaking to no one, avoided by all,
+working out his punishment. Only the day before the meeting he had read
+of the massacre at Damascus from a newspaper which had been left on
+his doorstep overnight. Elder Fairley had so far broken the covenant of
+ostracism and boycott, knowing David's love for his Uncle Benn.
+
+All that night David paced the hillside in anxiety and agitation,
+and saw the sun rise upon a new world--a world of freedom, of
+home-returning, yet a world which, during the past four months, had
+changed so greatly that it would never seem the same again.
+
+The sun was scarce two hours high when Faith and her father mounted the
+hill to bring him home again. He had, however, gone to Heddington
+to learn further news of the massacre. He was thinking of his Uncle
+Benn-all else could wait. His anxiety was infinitely greater than
+that of Luke Claridge, for his mind had been disturbed by frequent
+premonitions; and those sudden calls in his sleep-his uncle's
+voice--ever seemed to be waking him at night. He had not meant to speak
+at the meeting, but the last words of the speaker decided him; he was
+in a flame of indignation. He heard the voice of Faith whisper over the
+heads of the people. "David, David, do thee speak." Turning, he met her
+eyes, then rose to his feet, came steadily to the platform, and raised a
+finger towards the chairman.
+
+A great whispering ran through the audience. Very many recognised
+him, and all had heard of him--the history of his late banishment and
+self-approving punishment were familiar to them. He climbed the steps
+of the platform alertly, and the chairman welcomed him with nervous
+pleasure. Any word from a Quaker, friendly to the feeling of national
+indignation, would give the meeting the new direction which all desired.
+
+Something in the face of the young man, grown thin and very pale during
+the period of long thought and little food in the lonely and meditative
+life he had led; something human and mysterious in the strange tale of
+his one day's mad doings, fascinated them. They had heard of the liquor
+he had drunk, of the woman he had kissed at the cross-roads, of the
+man he had fought, of his discipline and sentence. His clean, shapely
+figure, and the soft austerity of the neat grey suit he wore, his
+broad-brimmed hat pushed a little back, showing well a square white
+forehead--all conspired to send a wave of feeling through the audience,
+which presently broke into cheering.
+
+Beginning with the usual formality, he said: "I am obliged to differ
+from nearly every sentiment expressed by the Earl of Eglington, the
+member for Levizes, who has just taken his seat."
+
+There was an instant's pause, the audience cheered, and cries of delight
+came from all parts of the house. "All good counsel has its sting," he
+continued, "but the good counsel of him who has just spoken is a sting
+in a wound deeper than the skin. The noble Earl has bidden us to be
+consistent and reasonable. I have risen here to speak for that to which
+mere consistency and reason may do cruel violence. I am a man of peace,
+I am the enemy of war--it is my faith and creed; yet I repudiate the
+principle put forward by the Earl of Eglington, that you shall not
+clinch your hand for the cause which is your heart's cause, because, if
+you smite, the smiting must be paid for."
+
+He was interrupted by cheers and laughter, for the late event in his own
+life came to them to point his argument.
+
+"The nation that declines war may be refusing to inflict that just
+punishment which alone can set the wrong-doers on the better course. It
+is not the faith of that Society to which I belong to decline correction
+lest it may seem like war."
+
+The point went home significantly, and cheering followed. "The high
+wall of Tibet, a stark refusal to open the door to the wayfarer, I can
+understand; but, friend"--he turned to the young peer--"friend, I cannot
+understand a defence of him who opens the door upon terms of mutual
+hospitality, and then, in the red blood of him who has so contracted,
+blots out the just terms upon which they have agreed. Is that thy faith,
+friend?"
+
+The repetition of the word friend was almost like a gibe, though it was
+not intended as such. There was none present, however, but knew of the
+defection of the Earl's father from the Society of Friends, and they
+chose to interpret the reference to a direct challenge. It was a
+difficult moment for the young Earl, but he only smiled, and cherished
+anger in his heart.
+
+For some minutes David spoke with force and power, and he ended with
+passionate solemnity. His voice rang out: "The smoke of this burning
+rises to Heaven, the winds that wail over scattered and homeless dust
+bear a message of God to us. In the name of Mahomet, whose teaching
+condemns treachery and murder, in the name of the Prince of Peace, who
+taught that justice which makes for peace, I say it is England's duty
+to lay the iron hand of punishment upon this evil city and on the
+Government in whose orbit it shines with so deathly a light. I fear it
+is that one of my family and of my humble village lies beaten to death
+in Damascus. Yet not because of that do I raise my voice here to-day.
+These many years Benn Claridge carried his life in his hands, and in
+a good cause it was held like the song of a bird, to be blown from his
+lips in the day of the Lord. I speak only as an Englishman. I ask you
+to close your minds against the words of this brilliant politician, who
+would have you settle a bill of costs written in Christian blood, by a
+promise to pay, got through a mockery of armed display in those waters
+on which once looked the eyes of the Captain of our faith. Humanity has
+been put in the witness-box of the world; let humanity give evidence."
+
+Women wept. Men waved their hats and cheered; the whole meeting rose to
+its feet and gave vent to its feelings.
+
+For some moments the tumult lasted, Eglington looking on with face
+unmoved. As David turned to leave the table, however, he murmured,
+"Peacemaker! Peacemaker!" and smiled sarcastically.
+
+As the audience resumed their seats, two people were observed making
+their way to the platform. One was Elder Fairley, leading the way to a
+tall figure in a black robe covering another coloured robe, and wearing
+a large white turban. Not seeing the new-comers, the chairman was about
+to put the resolution; but a protesting hand from John Fairley stopped
+him, and in a strange silence the two new-comers mounted the platform.
+David rose and advanced to meet them. There flashed into his mind that
+this stranger in Eastern garb was Ebn Ezra Bey, the old friend of Benn
+Claridge, of whom his uncle had spoken and written so much. The same
+instinct drew Ebn Ezra Bey to him--he saw the uncle's look in the
+nephew's face. In a breathless stillness the Oriental said in perfect
+English, with a voice monotonously musical:
+
+"I came to thy house and found thee not. I have a message for thee from
+the land where thine uncle sojourned with me."
+
+He took from a wallet a piece of paper and passed it to David, adding:
+"I was thine uncle's friend. He hath put off his sandals and walketh
+with bare feet!" David read eagerly.
+
+"It is time to go, Davy," the paper said. "All that I have is thine. Go
+to Egypt, and thee shall find it so. Ebn Ezra Bey will bring thee. Trust
+him as I have done. He is a true man, though the Koran be his faith.
+They took me from behind, Davy, so that I was spared temptation--I die
+as I lived, a man of peace. It is too late to think how it might have
+gone had we met face to face; but the will of God worketh not according
+to our will. I can write no more. Luke, Faith, and Davy--dear Davy, the
+night has come, and all's well. Good morrow, Davy. Can you not hear me
+call? I have called thee so often of late! Good morrow! Good morrow!...
+I doff my hat, Davy--at last--to God!"
+
+David's face whitened. All his visions had been true visions, his dreams
+true dreams. Brave Benn Claridge had called to him at his door--"Good
+morrow! Good morrow! Good morrow!" Had he not heard the knocking and the
+voice? Now all was made clear. His path lay open before him--a far land
+called him, his quiet past was infinite leagues away. Already the staff
+was in his hands and the cross-roads were sinking into the distance
+behind. He was dimly conscious of the wan, shocked face of Faith in the
+crowd beneath him, which seemed blurred and swaying, of the bowed
+head of Luke Claridge, who, standing up, had taken off his hat in the
+presence of this news of his brother's death which he saw written in
+David's face. David stood for a moment before the great throng, numb and
+speechless. "It is a message from Damascus," he said at last, and could
+say no more.
+
+Ebn Ezra Bey turned a grave face upon the audience.
+
+"Will you hear me?" he said. "I am an Arab." "Speak--speak!" came from
+every side.
+
+"The Turk hath done his evil work in Damascus," he said. "All the
+Christians are dead--save one; he hath turned Muslim, and is safe." His
+voice had a note of scorn. "It fell sudden and swift like a storm in
+summer. There were no paths to safety. Soldiers and those who led them
+shared in the slaying. As he and I who had travelled far together these
+many years sojourned there in the way of business, I felt the air grow
+colder, I saw the cloud gathering. I entreated, but he would not go. If
+trouble must come, then he would be with the Christians in their peril.
+At last he saw with me the truth. He had a plan of escape. There was a
+Christian weaver with his wife in a far quarter--against my entreaty he
+went to warn them. The storm broke. He was the first to fall, smitten in
+'that street called Straight.' I found him soon after. Thus did he speak
+to me--even in these words: 'The blood of women and children shed
+here to-day shall cry from the ground. Unprovoked the host has turned
+wickedly upon his guest. The storm has been sown, and the whirlwind must
+be reaped. Out of this evil good shall come. Shall not the Judge of all
+the earth do right?' These were his last words to me then. As his life
+ebbed out, he wrote a letter which I have brought hither to one"--he
+turned to David--"whom he loved. At the last he took off his hat, and
+lay with it in his hands, and died.... I am a Muslim, but the God of
+pity, of justice, and of right is my God; and in His name be it said
+that was a crime of Sheitan the accursed."
+
+In a low voice the chairman put the resolution. The Earl of Eglington
+voted in its favour.
+
+Walking the hills homeward with Ebn Ezra Bey, Luke, Faith, and John
+Fairley, David kept saying over to himself the words of Benn Claridge:
+"I have called thee so often of late. Good morrow! Good morrow! Good
+morrow! Can you not hear me call?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE WIDER WAY
+
+Some months later the following letter came to David Claridge in Cairo
+from Faith Claridge in Hamley:
+
+   David, I write thee from the village and the land of the people
+   which thou didst once love so well. Does thee love them still?
+   They gave thee sour bread to eat ere thy going, but yet thee didst
+   grind the flour for the baking. Thee didst frighten all who knew
+   thee with thy doings that mad midsummer time. The tavern, the
+   theatre, the cross-roads, and the cockpit--was ever such a day!
+
+   Now, Davy, I must tell of a strange thing. But first, a moment.
+   Thee remembers the man Kimber smitten by thee at the public-house on
+   that day? What think thee has happened? He followed to London the
+   lass kissed by thee, and besought her to return and marry him. This
+   she refused at first with anger; but afterwards she said that, if in
+   three years he was of the same mind, and stayed sober and hard-
+   working meanwhile, she would give him an answer, she would consider.
+   Her head was high. She has become maid to a lady of degree, who has
+   well befriended her.
+
+   How do I know these things? Even from Jasper Kimber, who, on his
+   return from London, was taken to his bed with fever. Because of the
+   hard blows dealt him by thee, I went to make amends. He welcomed
+   me, and soon opened his whole mind. That mind has generous moments,
+   David, for he took to being thankful for thy knocks.
+
+   Now for the strange thing I hinted. After visiting Jasper Kimber at
+   Heddington, as I came back over the hill by the path we all took
+   that day after the Meeting--Ebn Ezra Bey, my father, Elder Fairley,
+   and thee and me--I drew near the chairmaker's but where thee lived
+   alone all those sad months. It was late evening; the sun had set.
+   Yet I felt that I must needs go and lay my hand in love upon the
+   door of the empty hut which had been ever as thee left it. So I
+   came down the little path swiftly, and then round the great rock,
+   and up towards the door. But, as I did so, my heart stood still,
+   for I heard voices. The door was open, but I could see no one. Yet
+   there the voices sounded, one sharp and peevish with anger, the
+   other low and rough. I could not hear what was said. At last, a
+   figure came from the door and went quickly down the hillside. Who,
+   think thee, was it? Even "neighbour Eglington." I knew the walk
+   and the forward thrust of the head. Inside the hut all was still.
+   I drew near with a kind of fear, but yet I came to the door and
+   looked in.
+
+   As I looked into the dusk, my limbs trembled under me, for who
+   should be sitting there, a half-finished chair between his knees,
+   but Soolsby the old chair-maker! Yes, it was he. There he sat
+   looking at me with his staring blue eyes and shock of redgrey hair.
+   "Soolsby! Soolsby!" said I, my heart hammering at my breast; for
+   was not Soolsby dead and buried? His eyes stared at me in fright.
+   "Why do you come?" he said in a hoarse whisper. "Is he dead, then?
+   Has harm come to him?"
+
+   By now I had recovered myself, for it was no ghost I saw, but a
+   human being more distraught than was myself. "Do you not know me,
+   Soolsby?" I asked. "You are Mercy Claridge from beyond--beyond and
+   away," he answered dazedly. "I am Faith Claridge, Soolsby,"
+   answered I. He started, peered forward at me, and for a moment he
+   did not speak; then the fear went from his face. "Ay, Faith
+   Claridge, as I said," he answered, with apparent understanding, his
+   stark mood passing. "No, thee said Mercy Claridge, Soolsby," said
+   I, "and she has been asleep these many years." "Ay, she has slept
+   soundly, thanks be to God!" he replied, and crossed himself. "Why
+   should thee call me by her name?" I inquired. "Ay, is not her tomb
+   in the churchyard?" he answered, and added quickly, "Luke Claridge
+   and I are of an age to a day--which, think you, will go first?"
+
+   He stopped weaving, and peered over at me with his staring blue
+   eyes, and I felt a sudden quickening of the heart. For, at the
+   question, curtains seemed to drop from all around me, and leave me
+   in the midst of pains and miseries, in a chill air that froze me to
+   the marrow. I saw myself alone--thee in Egypt and I here, and none
+   of our blood and name beside me. For we are the last, Davy, the
+   last of the Claridges. But I said coldly, and with what was near to
+   anger, that he should link his name and fate with that of Luke
+   Claridge: "Which of ye two goes first is God's will, and according
+   to His wisdom. Which, think thee," added I--and now I cannot
+   forgive myself for saying it--"which, think thee, would do least
+   harm in going?" "I know which would do most good," he answered,
+   with a harsh laugh in his throat. Yet his blue eyes looked kindly
+   at me, and now he began to nod pleasantly. I thought him a little
+   mad, but yet his speech had seemed not without dark meaning. "Thee
+   has had a visitor," I said to him presently. He laughed in a
+   snarling way that made me shrink, and answered: "He wanted this and
+   he wanted that--his high-handed, second-best lordship. Ay, and he
+   would have it, because it pleased him to have it--like his father
+   before him. A poor sparrow on a tree-top, if you tell him he must
+   not have it, he will hunt it down the world till it is his, as
+   though it was a bird of paradise. And when he's seen it fall at
+   last, he'll remember but the fun of the chase; and the bird may get
+   to its tree-top again--if it can--if it can--if it can, my lord!
+   That is what his father was, the last Earl, and that is what he is
+   who left my door but now. He came to snatch old Soolsby's palace,
+   his nest on the hill, to use it for a telescope, or such whimsies.
+   He has scientific tricks like his father before him. Now is it
+   astronomy, and now chemistry, and suchlike; and always it is the
+   Eglington mind, which let God A'mighty make it as a favour. He
+   would have old Soolsby's palace for his spy-glass, would he then?
+   It scared him, as though I was the devil himself, to find me here.
+   I had but come back in time--a day later, and he would have sat here
+   and seen me in the Pit below before giving way. Possession's nine
+   points were with me; and here I sat and faced him; and here he
+   stormed, and would do this and should do that; and I went on with my
+   work. Then he would buy my Colisyum, and I wouldn't sell it for all
+   his puffball lordship might offer. Isn't the house of the snail as
+   much to him as the turtle's shell to the turtle? I'll have no
+   upstart spilling his chemicals here, or devilling the stars from a
+   seat on my roof." "Last autumn," said I, "David Claridge was housed
+   here. Thy palace was a prison then." "I know well of that.
+   Haven't I found his records here? And do you think his makeshift
+   lordship did not remind me?" "Records? What records, Soolsby?"
+   asked I, most curious. "Writings of his thoughts which he forgot--
+   food for mind and body left in the cupboard." "Give them to me upon
+   this instant, Soolsby," said I. "All but one," said he, "and that
+   is my own, for it was his mind upon Soolsby the drunken chair-maker.
+   God save him from the heathen sword that slew his uncle. Two better
+   men never sat upon a chair!" He placed the papers in my hand, all
+   save that one which spoke of him. Ah, David, what with the flute
+   and the pen, banishment was no pain to thee!... He placed the
+   papers, save that one, in my hands, and I, womanlike, asked again
+   for all. "Some day," said he, "come, and I will read it to you.
+   Nay, I will give you a taste of it now," he added, as he brought
+   forth the writing. "Thus it reads."
+
+   Here are thy words, Davy. What think thee of them now?
+
+   "As I dwell in this house I know Soolsby as I never knew him when he
+   lived, and though, up here, I spent many an hour with him. Men
+   leave their impressions on all around them. The walls which have
+   felt their look and their breath, the floor which has taken their
+   footsteps, the chairs in which they have sat, have something of
+   their presence. I feel Soolsby here at times so sharply that it
+   would seem he came again and was in this room, though he is dead and
+   gone. I ask him how it came he lived here alone; how it came that
+   he made chairs, he, with brains enough to build great houses or
+   great bridges; how it was that drink and he were such friends; and
+   how he, a Catholic, lived here among us Quakers, so singular,
+   uncompanionable, and severe. I think it true, and sadly true, that
+   a man with a vice which he is able to satisfy easily and habitually,
+   even as another satisfies a virtue, may give up the wider actions of
+   the world and the possibilities of his life for the pleasure which
+   his one vice gives him, and neither miss nor desire those greater
+   chances of virtue or ambition which he has lost. The simplicity of
+   a vice may be as real as the simplicity of a virtue."
+
+   Ah, David, David, I know not what to think of those strange words;
+   but old Soolsby seemed well to understand thee, and he called thee
+   "a first-best gentleman." Is my story long? Well, it was so
+   strange, and it fixed itself upon my mind so deeply, and thy
+   writings at the hut have been so much in my hands and in my mind,
+   that I have put it all down here. When I asked Soolsby how it came
+   he had been rumoured dead, he said that he himself had been the
+   cause of it; but for what purpose he would not say, save that he was
+   going a long voyage, and had made up his mind to return no more. "I
+   had a friend," he said, "and I was set to go and see that friend
+   again.... But the years go on, and friends have an end. Life
+   spills faster than the years," he said. And he would say no more,
+   but would walk with me even to my father's door. "May the Blessed
+   Virgin and all the Saints be with you," he said at parting, "if you
+   will have a blessing from them. And tell him who is beyond and away
+   in Egypt that old Soolsby's busy making a chair for him to sit in
+   when the scarlet cloth is spread, and the East and West come to
+   salaam before him. Tell him the old man says his fluting will be
+   heard."
+
+   And now, David, I have told thee all, nearly. Remains to say that
+   thy one letter did our hearts good. My father reads it over and
+   over, and shakes his head sadly, for, truth is, he has a fear that
+   the world may lay its hand upon thee. One thing I do observe, his
+   heart is hard set against Lord Eglington. In degree it has ever
+   been so; but now it is like a constant frown upon his forehead. I
+   see him at his window looking out towards the Cloistered House; and
+   if our neighbour comes forth, perhaps upon his hunter, or now in his
+   cart, or again with his dogs, he draws his hat down upon his eyes
+   and whispers to himself. I think he is ever setting thee off
+   against Lord Eglington; and that is foolish, for Eglington is but a
+   man of the earth earthy. His is the soul of the adventurer.
+
+   Now what more to be set down? I must ask thee how is thy friend Ebn
+   Ezra Bey? I am glad thee did find all he said was true, and that in
+   Damascus thee was able to set a mark by my uncle's grave. But that
+   the Prince Pasha of Egypt has set up a claim against my uncle's
+   property is evil news; though, thanks be to God, as my father says,
+   we have enough to keep us fed and clothed and housed. But do thee
+   keep enough of thy inheritance to bring thee safe home again to
+   those who love thee. England is ever grey, Davy, but without thee
+   it is grizzled--all one "Quaker drab," as says the Philistine. But
+   it is a comely and a good land, and here we wait for thee.
+
+   In love and remembrance.
+
+   I am thy mother's sister, thy most loving friend.
+
+                       FAITH.
+
+David received this letter as he was mounting a huge white Syrian donkey
+to ride to the Mokattam Hills, which rise sharply behind Cairo, burning
+and lonely and large. The cities of the dead Khalifas and Mamelukes
+separated them from the living city where the fellah toiled, and Arab,
+Bedouin, Copt strove together to intercept the fruits of his toiling, as
+it passed in the form of taxes to the Palace of the Prince Pasha; while
+in the dark corners crouched, waiting, the cormorant usurers--Greeks,
+Armenians, and Syrians, a hideous salvage corps, who saved the house
+of a man that they might at last walk off with his shirt and the cloth
+under which he was carried to his grave. In a thousand narrow streets
+and lanes, in the warm glow of the bazaars, in earth-damp huts, by
+blistering quays, on the myriad ghiassas on the river, from long before
+sunrise till the sunset-gun boomed from the citadel rising beside the
+great mosque whose pinnacles seem to touch the blue, the slaves of
+the city of Prince Kaid ground out their lives like corn between the
+millstones.
+
+David had been long enough in Egypt to know what sort of toiling it was.
+A man's labour was not his own. The fellah gave labour and taxes and
+backsheesh and life to the State, and the long line of tyrants above
+him, under the sting of the kourbash; the high officials gave backsheesh
+to the Prince Pasha, or to his Mouffetish, or to his Chief Eunuch, or to
+his barber, or to some slave who had his ear.
+
+But all the time the bright, unclouded sun looked down on a smiling
+land, and in Cairo streets the din of the hammers, the voices of the
+boys driving heavily laden donkeys, the call of the camel-drivers
+leading their caravans into the great squares, the clang of the brasses
+of the sherbet-sellers, the song of the vendor of sweetmeats, the drone
+of the merchant praising his wares, went on amid scenes of wealth and
+luxury, and the city glowed with colour and gleamed with light. Dark
+faces grinned over the steaming pot at the door of the cafes, idlers
+on the benches smoked hasheesh, female street-dancers bared their faces
+shamelessly to the men, and indolent musicians beat on their tiny drums,
+and sang the song of "O Seyyid," or of "Antar"; and the reciter gave
+his sing-song tale from a bench above his fellows. Here a devout Muslim,
+indifferent to the presence of strangers, turned his face to the East,
+touched his forehead to the ground, and said his prayers. There, hung to
+a tree by a deserted mosque near by, the body of one who was with
+them all an hour before, and who had paid the penalty for some real
+or imaginary crime; while his fellows blessed Allah that the storm had
+passed them by. Guilt or innocence did not weigh with them; and the dead
+criminal, if such he were, who had drunk his glass of water and prayed
+to Allah, was, in their sight, only fortunate and not disgraced, and had
+"gone to the bosom of Allah." Now the Muezzin from a minaret called to
+prayer, and the fellah in his cotton shirt and yelek heard, laid his
+load aside, and yielded himself to his one dear illusion, which would
+enable him to meet with apathy his end--it might be to-morrow!--and go
+forth to that plenteous heaven where wives without number awaited him,
+where fields would yield harvests without labour, where rich food in
+gold dishes would be ever at his hand. This was his faith.
+
+David had now been in the country six months, rapidly perfecting his
+knowledge of Arabic, speaking it always to his servant Mahommed Hassan,
+whom he had picked from the streets. Ebn Ezra Bey had gone upon his own
+business to Fazougli, the tropical Siberia of Egypt, to liberate, by
+order of Prince Kaid,--and at a high price--a relative banished there.
+David had not yet been fortunate with his own business--the settlement
+of his Uncle Benn's estate--though the last stages of negotiation with
+the Prince Pasha seemed to have been reached. When he had brought the
+influence of the British Consulate to bear, promises were made, doors
+were opened wide, and Pasha and Bey offered him coffee and talked to
+him sympathetically. They had respect for him more than for most Franks,
+because the Prince Pasha had honoured him with especial favour. Perhaps
+because David wore his hat always and the long coat with high collar
+like a Turk, or because Prince Kaid was an acute judge of human nature,
+and also because honesty was a thing he greatly desired--in others--and
+never found near his own person; however it was, he had set David high
+in his esteem at once. This esteem gave greater certainty that any
+backsheesh coming from the estate of Benn Claridge would not be sifted
+through many hands on its way to himself. Of Benn Claridge Prince Kaid
+had scarcely even heard until he died; and, indeed, it was only within
+the past few years that the Quaker merchant had extended his business to
+Egypt and had made his headquarters at Assiout, up the river.
+
+David's donkey now picked its way carefully through the narrow streets
+of the Moosky. Arabs and fellaheen squatting at street corners looked at
+him with furtive interest. A foreigner of this character they had never
+before seen, with coat buttoned up like an Egyptian official in the
+presence of his superior, and this wide, droll hat on his head. David
+knew that he ran risks, that his confidence invited the occasional
+madness of a fanatical mind, which makes murder of the infidel a
+passport to heaven; but as a man he took his chances, and as a Christian
+he believed he would suffer no mortal hurt till his appointed time. He
+was more Oriental, more fatalist, than he knew. He had also early in his
+life learned that an honest smile begets confidence; and his face, grave
+and even a little austere in outline, was usually lighted by a smile.
+
+From the Mokattam Hills, where he read Faith's letter again, his back
+against one of the forts which Napoleon had built in his Egyptian days,
+he scanned the distance. At his feet lay the great mosque, and the
+citadel, whose guns controlled the city, could pour into it a lava
+stream of shot and shell. The Nile wound its way through the green
+plains, stretching as far to the north as eye could see between the opal
+and mauve and gold of the Libyan Hills. Far over in the western vista a
+long line of trees, twining through an oasis flanking the city, led out
+to a point where the desert abruptly raised its hills of yellow sand.
+Here, enormous, lonely, and cynical, the pyramids which Cheops had
+built, the stone sphinx of Ghizeh, kept faith with the desert in the
+glow of rainless land-reminders ever that the East, the mother of
+knowledge, will by knowledge prevail; that:
+
+          "The thousand years of thy insolence
+          The thousand years of thy faith,
+          Will be paid in fiery recompense,
+          And a thousand years of bitter death."
+
+"The sword--for ever the sword," David said to himself, as he looked:
+"Rameses and David and Mahomet and Constantine, and how many conquests
+have been made in the name of God! But after other conquests there have
+been peace and order and law. Here in Egypt it is ever the sword, the
+survival of the strongest."
+
+As he made his way down the hillside again he fell to thinking upon all
+Faith had written. The return of the drunken chair-maker made a deep
+impression on him--almost as deep as the waking dreams he had had of his
+uncle calling him.
+
+"Soolsby and me--what is there between Soolsby and me?" he asked himself
+now as he made his way past the tombs of the Mamelukes. "He and I are
+as far apart as the poles, and yet it comes to me now, with a strange
+conviction, that somehow my life will be linked with that of the drunken
+Romish chair-maker. To what end?" Then he fell to thinking of his Uncle
+Benn. The East was calling him. "Something works within me to hold me
+here, a work to do."
+
+From the ramparts of the citadel he watched the sun go down, bathing the
+pyramids in a purple and golden light, throwing a glamour over all
+the western plain, and making heavenly the far hills with a plaintive
+colour, which spoke of peace and rest, but not of hope. As he stood
+watching, he was conscious of people approaching. Voices mingled, there
+was light laughter, little bursts of admiration, then lower tones,
+and then he was roused by a voice calling. He turned round. A group of
+people were moving towards the exit from the ramparts, and near himself
+stood a man waving an adieu.
+
+"Well, give my love to the girls," said the man cheerily. Merry faces
+looked back and nodded, and in a moment they were gone. The man turned
+round, and looked at David, then he jerked his head in a friendly sort
+of way and motioned towards the sunset.
+
+"Good enough, eh?"
+
+"Surely, for me," answered David. On the instant he liked the red,
+wholesome face, and the keen, round, blue eyes, the rather opulent
+figure, the shrewd, whimsical smile, all aglow now with beaming
+sentimentality, which had from its softest corner called out: "Well,
+give my love to the girls."
+
+"Quaker, or I never saw Germantown and Philadelphy," he continued, with
+a friendly manner quite without offence. "I put my money on Quakers
+every time."
+
+"But not from Germantown or Philadelphia," answered David, declining a
+cigar which his new acquaintance offered.
+
+"Bet you, I know that all right. But I never saw Quakers anywhere else,
+and I meant the tribe and not the tent. English, I bet? Of course, or
+you wouldn't be talking the English language--though I've heard they
+talk it better in Boston than they do in England, and in Chicago they're
+making new English every day and improving on the patent. If Chicago
+can't have the newest thing, she won't have anything. 'High hopes that
+burn like stars sublime,' has Chicago. She won't let Shakespeare or
+Milton be standards much longer. She won't have it--simply won't have
+England swaggering over the English language. Oh, she's dizzy, is
+Chicago--simply dizzy. I was born there. Parents, one Philadelphy, one
+New York, one Pawtucket--the Pawtucket one was the step-mother. Father
+liked his wives from the original States; but I was born in Chicago. My
+name is Lacey--Thomas Tilman Lacey of Chicago."
+
+"I thank thee," said David.
+
+"And you, sir?"
+
+"David Claridge."
+
+"Of--?"
+
+"Of Hamley."
+
+"Mr. Claridge of Hamley. Mr. Claridge, I am glad to meet you." They
+shook hands. "Been here long, Mr. Claridge?"
+
+"A few months only."
+
+"Queer place--gilt-edged dust-bin; get anything you like here, from a
+fresh gutter-snipe to old Haroun-al-Raschid. It's the biggest jack-pot
+on earth. Barnum's the man for this place--P. T. Barnum. Golly, how
+the whole thing glitters and stews! Out of Shoobra his High Jinks Pasha
+kennels with his lions and lives with his cellars of gold, as if he
+was going to take them with him where he's going--and he's going fast.
+Here--down here, the people, the real people, sweat and drudge between
+a cake of dourha, an onion, and a balass of water at one end of the day,
+and a hemp collar and their feet off the ground at the other."
+
+"You have seen much of Egypt?" asked David, feeling a strange confidence
+in the garrulous man, whose frankness was united to shrewdness and a
+quick, observant eye.
+
+"How much of Egypt I've seen, the Egypt where more men get lost,
+strayed, and stolen than die in their beds every day, the Egypt where
+a eunuch is more powerful than a minister, where an official will toss
+away a life as I'd toss this cigar down there where the last Mameluke
+captain made his great jump, where women--Lord A'mighty! where women are
+divorced by one evil husband, by the dozen, for nothing they ever did
+or left undone, and yet 'd be cut to pieces by their own fathers if they
+learned that 'To step aside is human--' Mr. Claridge, of that Egypt I
+don't know much more'n would entitle me to say, How d'ye do. But it's
+enough for me. You've seen something--eh?"
+
+"A little. It is not civilised life here. Yet--yet a few strong
+patriotic men--"
+
+Lacey looked quizzically at David.
+
+"Say," he said, "I thought that about Mexico once. I said
+Manana--this Manana is the curse of Mexico. It's always
+to-morrow--to-morrow--to-morrow. Let's teach 'em to do things to-day.
+Let's show 'em what business means. Two million dollars went into that
+experiment, but Manana won. We had good hands, but it had the joker.
+After five years I left, with a bald head at twenty-nine, and a little
+book of noble thoughts--Tips for the Tired, or Things you can say To-day
+on what you can do to-morrow. I lost my hair worrying, but I learned
+to be patient. The Dagos wanted to live in their own way, and they did.
+It's one thing to be a missionary and say the little word in season;
+it's another to run your soft red head against a hard stone wall. I went
+to Mexico a conquistador, I left it a child of time, who had learned to
+smile; and I left some millions behind me, too. I said to an old Padre
+down there that I knew--we used to meet in the Cafe Manrique and drink
+chocolate--I said to him, 'Padre, the Lord's Prayer is a mistake down
+here.' 'Si, senor,' he said, and smiled his far-away smile at me. 'Yes,'
+said I, 'for you say in the Lord's Prayer, "Give us this day our daily
+bread."' 'Si, senor,' he says, 'but we do not expect it till to-morrow!'
+The Padre knew from the start, but I learned at great expense, and went
+out of business--closed up shop for ever, with a bald head and my Tips
+for the Tired. Well, I've had more out of it all, I guess, than if I'd
+trebled the millions and wiped Manana off the Mexican coat of arms."
+
+"You think it would be like that here?" David asked abstractedly.
+
+Lacey whistled. "There the Government was all right and the people all
+wrong. Here the people are all right and the Government all wrong. Say,
+it makes my eyes water sometimes to see the fellah slogging away. He's
+a Jim-dandy--works all day and half the night, and if the tax-gatherer
+isn't at the door, wakes up laughing. I saw one"--his light blue eyes
+took on a sudden hardness--"laughing on the other side of his mouth one
+morning. They were 'kourbashing' his feet; I landed on them as the soles
+came away. I hit out." His face became grave, he turned the cigar round
+in his mouth. "It made me feel better, but I had a close call. Lucky for
+me that in Mexico I got into the habit of carrying a pop-gun. It saved
+me then. But it isn't any use going on these special missions. We
+Americans think a lot of ourselves. We want every land to do as we do;
+and we want to make 'em do it. But a strong man here at the head, with
+a sword in his hand, peace in his heart, who'd be just and poor--how can
+you make officials honest when you take all you can get yourself--! But,
+no, I guess it's no good. This is a rotten cotton show."
+
+Lacey had talked so much, not because he was garrulous only, but because
+the inquiry in David's eyes was an encouragement to talk. Whatever his
+misfortunes in Mexico had been, his forty years sat lightly on him, and
+his expansive temperament, his childlike sentimentality, gave him
+an appearance of beaming, sophisticated youth. David was slowly
+apprehending these things as he talked--subconsciously, as it were; for
+he was seeing pictures of the things he himself had observed, through
+the lens of another mind, as primitive in some regards as his own, but
+influenced by different experiences.
+
+"Say, you're the best listener I ever saw," added Lacey, with a laugh.
+
+David held out his hand. "Thee sees things clearly," he answered.
+
+Lacey grasped his hand.
+
+At that moment an orderly advanced towards them. "He's after us--one of
+the Palace cavalry," said Lacey.
+
+"Effendi--Claridge Effendi! May his grave be not made till the
+karadh-gatherers return," said the orderly to David.
+
+"My name is Claridge," answered David.
+
+"To the hotel, effendi, first, then to the Mokattam Hills after thee,
+then here--from the Effendina, on whom be God's peace, this letter for
+thee."
+
+David took the letter. "I thank thee, friend," he said.
+
+As he read it, Lacey said to the orderly in Arabic "How didst thou know
+he was here?"
+
+The orderly grinned wickedly.
+
+"Always it is known what place the effendi honours. It is not dark where
+he uncovers his face."
+
+Lacey gave a low whistle.
+
+"Say, you've got a pull in this show," he said, as David folded up the
+letter and put it in his pocket.
+
+"In Egypt, if the master smiles on you, the servant puts his nose in the
+dust."
+
+"The Prince Pasha bids me to dinner at the Palace to-night. I have no
+clothes for such affairs. Yet--" His mind was asking itself if this was
+a door opening, which he had no right to shut with his own hand. There
+was no reason why he should not go; therefore there might be a
+reason why he should go. It might be, it no doubt was, in the way of
+facilitating his business. He dismissed the orderly with an affirmative
+and ceremonial message to Prince Kaid--and a piece of gold.
+
+"You've learned the custom of the place," said Lacey, as he saw the gold
+piece glitter in the brown palm of the orderly.
+
+"I suppose the man's only pay is in such service," rejoined David. "It
+is a land of backsheesh. The fault is not with the people; it is with
+the rulers. I am not sorry to share my goods with the poor."
+
+"You'll have a big going concern here in no time," observed Lacey. "Now,
+if I had those millions I left in Mexico--" Suddenly he stopped. "Is it
+you that's trying to settle up an estate here--at Assiout--belonged to
+an uncle?"
+
+David inclined his head.
+
+"They say that you and Prince Kaid are doing the thing yourselves, and
+that the pashas and judges and all the high-mogul sharks of the Medjidie
+think that the end of the world has come. Is that so?"
+
+"It is so, if not completely so. There are the poor men and humble--the
+pashas and judges and the others of the Medjidie, as thee said, are not
+poor. But such as the orderly yonder--" He paused meditatively.
+
+Lacey looked at David with profound respect. "You make the poorest your
+partners, your friends. I see, I see. Jerusalem, that's masterly! I
+admire you. It's a new way in this country." Then, after a moment:
+"It'll do--by golly, it'll do! Not a bit more costly, and you do some
+good with it. Yes--it--will--do."
+
+"I have given no man money save in charity and for proper service done
+openly," said David, a little severely.
+
+"Say--of course. And that's just what isn't done here. Everything goes
+to him who hath, and from him who hath not is taken away even that which
+he hath. One does the work and another gets paid--that's the way here.
+But you, Mr. Claridge, you clinch with the strong man at the top, and,
+down below, you've got as your partners the poor man, whose name is
+Legion. If you get a fall out of the man at the top, you're solid with
+the Legion. And if the man at the top gets up again and salaams and
+strokes your hand, and says, 'Be my brother,' then it's a full Nile,
+and the fig-tree putteth forth its tender branches, and the date-palm
+flourisheth, and at the village pond the thanksgiving turkey gobbles and
+is glad. 'Selah'!"
+
+The sunset gun boomed out from the citadel. David turned to go, and
+Lacey added:
+
+"I'm waiting for a pasha who's taking toll of the officers inside
+there--Achmet Pasha. They call him the Ropemaker, because so many pass
+through his hands to the Nile. The Old Muslin I call him, because he's
+so diaphanous. Thinks nobody can see through him, and there's nobody
+that can't. If you stay long in Egypt, you'll find that Achmet is the
+worst, and Nahoum the Armenian the deepest, pasha in all this sickening
+land. Achmet is cruel as a tiger to any one that stands in his way;
+Nahoum, the whale, only opens out to swallow now and then; but when
+Nahoum does open out, down goes Jonah, and never comes up again. He's
+a deep one, and a great artist is Nahoum. I'll bet a dollar you'll see
+them both to-night at the Palace--if Kaid doesn't throw them to the
+lions for their dinner before yours is served. Here one shark is
+swallowed by another bigger, till at last the only and original
+sea-serpent swallows 'em all."
+
+As David wound his way down the hills, Lacey waved a hand after him.
+
+"Well, give my love to the girls," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. "HAST THOU NEVER KILLED A MAN?"
+
+"Claridge Effendi!"
+
+As David moved forward, his mind was embarrassed by many impressions.
+He was not confused, but the glitter and splendour, the Oriental
+gorgeousness of the picture into which he stepped, excited his
+eye, roused some new sense in him. He was a curious figure in those
+surroundings. The consuls and agents of all the nations save one were
+in brilliant uniform, and pashas, generals, and great officials were
+splendid in gold braid and lace, and wore flashing Orders on their
+breasts. David had been asked for half-past eight o'clock, and he was
+there on the instant; yet here was every one assembled, the Prince Pasha
+included. As he walked up the room he suddenly realised this fact, and,
+for a moment, he thought he had made a mistake; but again he remembered
+distinctly that the letter said half-past eight, and he wondered now
+if this had been arranged by the Prince--for what purpose? To afford
+amusement to the assembled company? He drew himself up with dignity, his
+face became graver. He had come in a Quaker suit of black broadcloth,
+with grey steel buttons, and a plain white stock; and he wore his
+broad-brimmed hat--to the consternation of the British Consul-General
+and the Europeans present, to the amazement of the Turkish and native
+officials, who eyed him keenly. They themselves wore red tarbooshes, as
+did the Prince; yet all of them knew that the European custom of showing
+respect was by doffing the hat. The Prince Pasha had settled that with
+David, however, at their first meeting, when David had kept on his hat
+and offered Kaid his hand.
+
+Now, with amusement in his eyes, Prince Kaid watched David coming up the
+great hall. What his object was in summoning David for an hour when
+all the court and all the official Europeans should be already present,
+remained to be seen. As David entered, Kaid was busy receiving salaams,
+and returning greeting, but with an eye to the singularly boyish yet
+gallant figure approaching. By the time David had reached the group, the
+Prince Pasha was ready to receive him.
+
+"Friend, I am glad to welcome thee," said the Effendina, sly humour
+lurking at the corner of his eye. Conscious of the amazement of all
+present, he held out his hand to David.
+
+"May thy coming be as the morning dew, friend," he added, taking David's
+willing hand.
+
+"And thy feet, Kaid, wall in goodly paths, by the grace of God the
+compassionate and merciful."
+
+As a wind, unfelt, stirs the leaves of a forest, making it rustle
+delicately, a whisper swept through the room. Official Egypt was
+dumfounded. Many had heard of David, a few had seen him, and now all
+eyed with inquisitive interest one who defied so many of the customs of
+his countrymen; who kept on his hat; who used a Mahommedan salutation
+like a true believer; whom the Effendina honoured--and presently
+honoured in an unusual degree by seating him at table opposite himself,
+where his Chief Chamberlain was used to sit.
+
+During dinner Kaid addressed his conversation again and again to David,
+asking questions put to disconcert the consuls and other official folk
+present, confident in the naive reply which would be returned. For there
+was a keen truthfulness in the young man's words which, however suave
+and carefully balanced, however gravely simple and tactful, left no
+doubt as to their meaning. There was nothing in them which could be
+challenged, could be construed into active criticism of men or things;
+and yet much he said was horrifying. It made Achmet Pasha sit up
+aghast, and Nahoum Pasha, the astute Armenian, for a long time past the
+confidant and favourite of the Prince Pasha, laugh in his throat; for,
+if there was a man in Egypt who enjoyed the thrust of a word or the
+bite of a phrase, it was Nahoum. Christian though he was, he was,
+nevertheless, Oriental to his farthermost corner, and had the culture of
+a French savant. He had also the primitive view of life, and the morals
+of a race who, in the clash of East and West, set against Western
+character and directness, and loyalty to the terms of a bargain, the
+demoralised cunning of the desert folk; the circuitous tactics of those
+who believed that no man spoke the truth directly, that it must ever
+be found beneath devious and misleading words, to be tracked like a
+panther, as an Antipodean bushman once said, "through the sinuosities
+of the underbrush." Nahoum Pasha had also a rich sense of grim humour.
+Perhaps that was why he had lived so near the person of the Prince, had
+held office so long. There were no Grand Viziers in Egypt; but he was
+as much like one as possible, and he had one uncommon virtue, he was
+greatly generous. If he took with his right hand he gave with his left;
+and Mahommedan as well as Copt and Armenian, and beggars of every race
+and creed, hung about his doors each morning to receive the food and
+alms he gave freely.
+
+After one of David's answers to Kaid, which had had the effect
+of causing his Highness to turn a sharp corner of conversation by
+addressing himself to the French consul, Nahoum said suavely:
+
+"And so, monsieur, you think that we hold life lightly in the East--that
+it is a characteristic of civilisation to make life more sacred, to
+cherish it more fondly?"
+
+He was sitting beside David, and though he asked the question casually,
+and with apparent intention only of keeping talk going, there was a
+lurking inquisition in his eye. He had seen enough to-night to make
+him sure that Kaid had once more got the idea of making a European
+his confidant and adviser; to introduce to his court one of those
+mad Englishmen who cared nothing for gold--only for power; who loved
+administration for the sake of administration and the foolish joy of
+labour. He was now set to see what sort of match this intellect could
+play, when faced by the inherent contradictions present in all truths or
+the solutions of all problems.
+
+"It is one of the characteristics of that which lies behind
+civilisation, as thee and me have been taught," answered David.
+
+Nahoum was quick in strategy, but he was unprepared for David's
+knowledge that he was an Armenian Christian, and he had looked for
+another answer.
+
+But he kept his head and rose to the occasion. "Ah, it is high, it is
+noble, to save life--it is so easy to destroy it," he answered. "I saw
+his Highness put his life in danger once to save a dog from drowning. To
+cherish the lives of others, and to be careless of our own; to give
+that of great value as though it were of no worth--is it not the
+Great Lesson?" He said it with such an air of sincerity, with such
+dissimulation, that, for the moment, David was deceived. There was,
+however, on the face of the listening Kaid a curious, cynical smile. He
+had heard all, and he knew the sardonic meaning behind Nahoum's words.
+
+Fat High Pasha, the Chief Chamberlain, the corrupt and corruptible,
+intervened. "It is not so hard to be careless when care would be
+useless," he said, with a chuckle. "When the khamsin blows the
+dust-storms upon the caravan, the camel-driver hath no care for his
+camels. 'Malaish!' he says, and buries his face in his yelek."
+
+"Life is beautiful and so difficult--to save," observed Nahoum, in
+a tone meant to tempt David on one hand and to reach the ears of the
+notorious Achmet Pasha, whose extortions, cruelties, and taxations had
+built his master's palaces, bribed his harem, given him money to pay
+the interest on his European loans, and made himself the richest man in
+Egypt, whose spies were everywhere, whose shadow was across every man's
+path. Kaid might slay, might toss a pasha or a slave into the Nile now
+and then, might invite a Bey to visit him, and stroke his beard and call
+him brother and put diamond-dust in the coffee he drank, so that he
+died before two suns came and went again, "of inflammation and a natural
+death"; but he, Achmet Pasha, was the dark Inquisitor who tortured every
+day, for whose death all men prayed, and whom some would have slain, but
+that another worse than himself might succeed him.
+
+At Nahoum's words the dusky brown of Achmet's face turned as black as
+the sudden dilation of the pupil of an eye deepens its hue, and he said
+with a guttural accent:
+
+"Every man hath a time to die."
+
+"But not his own time," answered Nahoum maliciously.
+
+"It would appear that in Egypt he hath not always the choice of the
+fashion or the time," remarked David calmly. He had read the malice
+behind their words, and there had flashed into his own mind tales told
+him, with every circumstance of accuracy, of deaths within and without
+the Palace. Also he was now aware that Nahoum had mocked him. He was
+concerned to make it clear that he was not wholly beguiled.
+
+"Is there, then, for a man choice of fashion or time in England,
+effendi?" asked Nahoum, with assumed innocence.
+
+"In England it is a matter between the Giver and Taker of life and
+himself--save where murder does its work," said David.
+
+"And here it is between man and man--is it that you would say?" asked
+Nahoum.
+
+"There seem wider privileges here," answered David drily.
+
+"Accidents will happen, privileges or no," rejoined Nahoum, with
+lowering eyelids.
+
+The Prince intervened. "Thy own faith forbids the sword, forbids war,
+or--punishment."
+
+"The Prophet I follow was called the Prince of Peace, friend," answered
+David, bowing gravely across the table.
+
+"Hast thou never killed a man?" asked Kaid, with interest in his eyes.
+He asked the question as a man might ask another if he had never visited
+Paris.
+
+"Never, by the goodness of God, never," answered David.
+
+"Neither in punishment nor in battle?"
+
+"I am neither judge nor soldier, friend."
+
+"Inshallah, thou hast yet far to go! Thou art young yet. Who can tell?"
+
+"I have never so far to go as that, friend," said David, in a voice that
+rang a little.
+
+"To-morrow is no man's gift."
+
+David was about to answer, but chancing to raise his eyes above the
+Prince Pasha's head, his glance was arrested and startled by seeing a
+face--the face of a woman-looking out of a panel in a mooshrabieh screen
+in a gallery above. He would not have dwelt upon the incident, he would
+have set it down to the curiosity of a woman of the harem, but that
+the face looking out was that of an English girl, and peering over her
+shoulder was the dark, handsome face of an Egyptian or a Turk.
+
+Self-control was the habit of his life, the training of his faith,
+and, as a rule, his face gave little evidence of inner excitement.
+Demonstration was discouraged, if not forbidden, among the Quakers, and
+if, to others, it gave a cold and austere manner, in David it tempered
+to a warm stillness the powerful impulses in him, the rivers of feeling
+which sometimes roared through his veins.
+
+Only Nahoum Pasha had noticed his arrested look, so motionless did he
+sit; and now, without replying, he bowed gravely and deferentially to
+Kaid, who rose from the table. He followed with the rest. Presently the
+Prince sent Higli Pasha to ask his nearer presence.
+
+The Prince made a motion of his hand, and the circle withdrew. He waved
+David to a seat.
+
+"To-morrow thy business shall be settled," said the Prince suavely, "and
+on such terms as will not startle. Death-tribute is no new thing in the
+East. It is fortunate for thee that the tribute is from thy hand to my
+hand, and not through many others to mine."
+
+"I am conscious I have been treated with favour, friend," said David.
+"I would that I might show thee kindness. Though how may a man of no
+account make return to a great Prince?"
+
+"By the beard of my father, it is easily done, if thy kindness is a
+real thing, and not that which makes me poorer the more I have of it--as
+though one should be given a herd of horses which must not be sold but
+still must be fed."
+
+"I have given thee truth. Is not truth cheaper than falsehood?"
+
+"It is the most expensive thing in Egypt; so that I despair of buying
+thee. Yet I would buy thee to remain here--here at my court; here by my
+hand which will give thee the labour thou lovest, and will defend thee
+if defence be needed. Thou hast not greed, thou hast no thirst for
+honour, yet thou hast wisdom beyond thy years. Kaid has never besought
+men, but he beseeches thee. Once there was in Egypt, Joseph, a wise
+youth, who served a Pharaoh, and was his chief counsellor, and it was
+well with the land. Thy name is a good name; well-being may follow thee.
+The ages have gone, and the rest of the world has changed, but Egypt is
+the same Egypt, the Nile rises and falls, and the old lean years and fat
+years come and go. Though I am in truth a Turk, and those who serve
+and rob me here are Turks, yet the fellah is the same as he was five
+thousand years ago. What Joseph the Israelite did, thou canst do; for
+I am no more unjust than was that Rameses whom Joseph served. Wilt thou
+stay with me?"
+
+David looked at Kaid as though he would read in his face the reply that
+he must make, but he did not see Kaid; he saw, rather, the face of
+one he had loved more than Jonathan had been loved by the young
+shepherd-prince of Israel. In his ears he heard the voice that had
+called him in his sleep-the voice of Benn Claridge; and, at the same
+instant, there flashed into his mind a picture of himself fighting
+outside the tavern beyond Hamley and bidding farewell to the girl at the
+crossroads.
+
+"Friend, I cannot answer thee now," he said, in a troubled voice.
+
+Kaid rose. "I will give thee an hour to think upon it. Come with me." He
+stepped forward. "To-morrow I will answer thee, Kaid."
+
+"To-morrow there is work for thee to do. Come." David followed him.
+
+The eyes that followed the Prince and the Quaker were not friendly.
+What Kaid had long foreshadowed seemed at hand: the coming of a European
+counsellor and confidant. They realised that in the man who had just
+left the room with Kaid there were characteristics unlike those they had
+ever met before in Europeans.
+
+"A madman," whispered High Pasha to Achmet the Ropemaker.
+
+"Then his will be the fate of the swine of Gadarene," said Nahoum Pasha,
+who had heard.
+
+"At least one need not argue with a madman." The face of Achmet the
+Ropemaker was not more pleasant than his dark words.
+
+"It is not the madman with whom you have to deal, but his keeper,"
+rejoined Nahoum.
+
+Nahoum's face was heavier than usual. Going to weight, he was still
+muscular and well groomed. His light brown beard and hair and blue eyes
+gave him a look almost Saxon, and bland power spoke in his face and in
+every gesture.
+
+He was seldom without the string of beads so many Orientals love
+to carry, and, Armenian Christian as he was, the act seemed almost
+religious. It was to him, however, like a ground-wire in telegraphy--it
+carried off the nervous force tingling in him and driving him to
+impulsive action, while his reputation called for a constant outward
+urbanity, a philosophical apathy. He had had his great fight for place
+and power, alien as he was in religion, though he had lived in Egypt
+since a child. Bar to progress as his religion had been at first, it had
+been an advantage afterwards; for, through it, he could exclude himself
+from complications with the Wakfs, the religious court of the Muslim
+creed, which had lands to administer, and controlled the laws of
+marriage and inheritance. He could shrug his shoulders and play with his
+beads, and urbanely explain his own helplessness and ineligibility when
+his influence was summoned, or it was sought to entangle him in warring
+interests. Oriental through and through, the basis of his creed was
+similar to that of a Muslim: Mahomet was a prophet and Christ was a
+prophet. It was a case of rival prophets--all else was obscured into a
+legend, and he saw the strife of race in the difference of creed. For
+the rest, he flourished the salutations and language of the Arab as
+though they were his own, and he spoke Arabic as perfectly as he did
+French and English.
+
+He was the second son of his father. The first son, who was but a year
+older, and was as dark as he was fair, had inherited--had seized--all
+his father's wealth. He had lived abroad for some years in France and
+England. In the latter place he had been one of the Turkish Embassy,
+and, having none of the outward characteristics of the Turk, and being
+in appearance more of a Spaniard than an Oriental, he had, by his gifts,
+his address and personal appearance, won the good-will of the Duchess of
+Middlesex, and had had that success all too flattering to the soul of a
+libertine. It had, however, been the means of his premature retirement
+from England, for his chief at the Embassy had a preference for an
+Oriental entourage. He was called Foorgat Bey.
+
+Sitting at table, Nahoum alone of all present had caught David's
+arrested look, and, glancing up, had seen the girl's face at the panel
+of mooshrabieh, and had seen also over her shoulder the face of his
+brother, Foorgat Bey. He had been even more astonished than David,
+and far more disturbed. He knew his brother's abilities; he knew his
+insinuating address--had he not influenced their father to give him
+wealth while he was yet alive? He was aware also that his brother had
+visited the Palace often of late. It would seem as though the Prince
+Pasha was ready to make him, as well as David, a favourite. But the
+face of the girl--it was an English face! Familiar with the Palace,
+and bribing when it was necessary to bribe, Foorgat Bey had evidently
+brought her to see the function, there where all women were forbidden.
+He could little imagine Foorgat doing this from mere courtesy; he could
+not imagine any woman, save one wholly sophisticated, or one entirely
+innocent, trusting herself with him--and in such a place. The girl's
+face, though not that of one in her teens, had seemed to him a very
+flower of innocence.
+
+But, as he stood telling his beads, abstractedly listening to the
+scandal talked by Achmet and Higli, he was not thinking of his brother,
+but of the two who had just left the chamber. He was speculating as
+to which room they were likely to enter. They had not gone by the door
+convenient to passage to Kaid's own apartments. He would give much to
+hear the conversation between Kaid and the stranger; he was all too
+conscious of its purport. As he stood thinking, Kaid returned. After
+looking round the room for a moment, the Prince came slowly over to
+Nahoum, and, stretching out a hand, stroked his beard.
+
+"Oh, brother of all the wise, may thy sun never pass its noon!" said
+Kaid, in a low, friendly voice.
+
+Despite his will, a shudder passed through Nahoum Pasha's frame.
+How often in Egypt this gesture and such words were the prelude to
+assassination, from which there was no escape save by death itself. Into
+Nahoum's mind there flashed the words of an Arab teacher, "There is
+no refuge from God but God Himself," and he found himself blindly
+wondering, even as he felt Kaid's hand upon his beard and listened to
+the honeyed words, what manner of death was now preparing for him, and
+what death of his own contriving should intervene. Escape, he knew,
+there was none, if his death was determined on; for spies were
+everywhere, and slaves in the pay of Kaid were everywhere, and such as
+were not could be bought or compelled, even if he took refuge in the
+house of a foreign consul. The lean, invisible, ghastly arm of death
+could find him, if Kaid willed, though he delved in the bowels of the
+Cairene earth, or climbed to an eagle's eyrie in the Libyan Hills.
+Whether it was diamond-dust or Achmet's thin thong that stopped the
+breath, it mattered not; it was sure. Yet he was not of the breed to
+tremble under the descending sword, and he had long accustomed himself
+to the chance of "sudden demise." It had been chief among the chances he
+had taken when he entered the high and perilous service of Kaid. Now,
+as he felt the secret joy of these dark spirits surrounding him--Achmet,
+and High Pasha, who kept saying beneath his breath in thankfulness
+that it was not his turn, Praise be to God!--as he, felt their secret
+self-gratulations, and their evil joy over his prospective downfall,
+he settled himself steadily, made a low salutation to Kaid, and calmly
+awaited further speech. It came soon enough.
+
+"It is written upon a cucumber leaf--does not the world read it?--that
+Nahoum Pasha's form shall cast a longer shadow than the trees; so that
+every man in Egypt shall, thinking on him, be as covetous as Ashaah, who
+knew but one thing more covetous than himself--the sheep that mistook
+the rainbow for a rope of hay, and, jumping for it, broke his neck."
+
+Kaid laughed softly at his own words.
+
+With his eye meeting Kaid's again, after a low salaam, Nahoum made
+answer:
+
+"I would that the lance of my fame might sheathe itself in the breasts
+of thy enemies, Effendina."
+
+"Thy tongue does that office well," was the reply. Once more Kaid laid
+a gentle hand upon Nahoum's beard. Then, with a gesture towards the
+consuls and Europeans, he said to them in French: "If I might but beg
+your presence for yet a little time!" Then he turned and walked away. He
+left by a door leading to his own apartments.
+
+When he had gone, Nahoum swung slowly round and faced the agitated
+groups.
+
+"He who sleeps with one eye open sees the sun rise first," he said, with
+a sarcastic laugh. "He who goes blindfold never sees it set."
+
+Then, with a complacent look upon them all, he slowly left the room by
+the door out of which David and Kaid had first passed.
+
+Outside the room his face did not change. His manner had not been
+bravado. It was as natural to him as David's manner was to himself. Each
+had trained himself in his own way to the mastery of his will, and the
+will in each was stronger than any passion of emotion in them. So far
+at least it had been so. In David it was the outcome of his faith,
+in Nahoum it was the outcome of his philosophy, a simple, fearless
+fatalism.
+
+David had been left by Kaid in a small room, little more than an
+alcove, next to a larger room richly furnished. Both rooms belonged to a
+spacious suite which lay between the harem and the major portion of the
+Palace. It had its own entrance and exits from the Palace, opening on
+the square at the front, at the back opening on its own garden, which
+also had its own exits to the public road. The quarters of the Chief
+Eunuch separated the suite from the harem, and Mizraim, the present
+Chief Eunuch, was a man of power in the Palace, knew more secrets, was
+more courted, and was richer than some of the princes. Nahoum had an
+office in the Palace, also, which gave him the freedom of the place, and
+brought him often in touch with the Chief Eunuch. He had made Mizraim
+a fast friend ever since the day he had, by an able device, saved the
+Chief Eunuch from determined robbery by the former Prince Pasha, with
+whom he had suddenly come out of favour.
+
+When Nahoum left the great salon, he directed his steps towards the
+quarters of the Chief Eunuch, thinking of David, with a vague desire
+for pursuit and conflict. He was too much of a philosopher to seek to do
+David physical injury--a futile act; for it could do him no good in the
+end, could not mend his own fortunes; and, merciless as he could be on
+occasion, he had no love of bloodshed. Besides, the game afoot was not
+of his making, and he was ready to await the finish, the more so because
+he was sure that to-morrow would bring forth momentous things. There was
+a crisis in the Soudan, there was trouble in the army, there was
+dark conspiracy of which he knew the heart, and anything might happen
+to-morrow! He had yet some cards to play, and Achmet and Higli--and
+another very high and great--might be delivered over to Kaid's deadly
+purposes rather than himself tomorrow. What he knew Kaid did not know.
+He had not meant to act yet; but new facts faced him, and he must make
+one struggle for his life. But as he went towards Mizraim's quarters he
+saw no sure escape from the stage of those untoward events, save by the
+exit which is for all in some appointed hour.
+
+He was not, however, more perplexed and troubled than David, who, in
+the little room where he had been brought and left alone with coffee and
+cigarettes, served by a slave from some distant portion of the Palace,
+sat facing his future.
+
+David looked round the little room. Upon the walls hung weapons of every
+kind--from a polished dagger of Toledo to a Damascus blade, suits of
+chain armour, long-handled, two-edged Arab swords, pistols which had
+been used in the Syrian wars of Ibrahim, lances which had been taken
+from the Druses at Palmyra, rude battle-axes from the tribes of the
+Soudan, and neboots of dom-wood which had done service against
+Napoleon at Damietta. The cushions among which he sat had come from
+Constantinople, the rug at his feet from Tiflis, the prayer-rug on the
+wall from Mecca.
+
+All that he saw was as unlike what he had known in past years as though
+he had come to Mars or Jupiter. All that he had heard recalled to him
+his first readings in the Old Testament--the story of Nebuchadnezzar, of
+Belshazzar, of Ahasuerus--of Ahasuerus! He suddenly remembered the
+face he had seen looking down at the Prince's table from the panel of
+mooshrabieh. That English face--where was it? Why was it there? Who
+was the man with her? Whose the dark face peering scornfully over her
+shoulder? The face of an English girl in that place dedicated to sombre
+intrigue, to the dark effacement of women, to the darker effacement of
+life, as he well knew, all too often! In looking at this prospect for
+good work in the cause of civilisation, he was not deceived, he was not
+allured. He knew into what subterranean ways he must walk, through what
+mazes of treachery and falsehood he must find his way; and though he
+did not know to the full the corruption which it was his duty to Kaid
+to turn to incorruption, he knew enough to give his spirit pause. What
+would be--what could be--the end? Would he not prove to be as much out
+of place as was the face of that English girl? The English girl! England
+rushed back upon him--the love of those at home; of his father, the only
+father he had ever known; of Faith, the only mother or sister he had
+ever known; of old John Fairley; the love of the woods and the hills
+where he had wandered came upon him. There was work to do in England,
+work too little done--the memory of the great meeting at Heddington
+flashed upon him. Could his labour and his skill, if he had any, not be
+used there? Ah, the green fields, the soft grey skies, the quiet vale,
+the brave, self-respecting, toiling millions, the beautiful sense of law
+and order and goodness! Could his gifts and labours not be used there?
+Could not--
+
+He was suddenly startled by a smothered cry, then a call of distress. It
+was the voice of a woman.
+
+He started up. The voice seemed to come from a room at his right; not
+that from which he had entered, but one still beyond this where he was.
+He sprang towards the wall and examined it swiftly. Finding a division
+in the tapestry, he ran his fingers quickly and heavily down the crack
+between. It came upon the button of a spring. He pressed it, the door
+yielded, and, throwing it back, he stepped into the room-to see a woman
+struggling to resist the embraces and kisses of a man. The face was that
+of the girl who had looked out of the panel in the mooshrabieh screen.
+Then it was beautiful in its mirth and animation, now it was pale
+and terror-stricken, as with one free hand she fiercely beat the face
+pressed to hers.
+
+The girl only had seen David enter. The man was not conscious of his
+presence till he was seized and flung against the wall. The violence of
+the impact brought down at his feet two weapons from the wall above
+him. He seized one-a dagger-and sprang to his feet. Before he could move
+forward or raise his arm, however, David struck him a blow in the neck
+which flung him upon a square marble pedestal intended for a statue.
+In falling his head struck violently a sharp corner of the pedestal. He
+lurched, rolled over on the floor, and lay still.
+
+The girl gave a choking cry. David quickly stooped and turned the body
+over. There was a cut where the hair met the temple. He opened the
+waistcoat and thrust his hand inside the shirt. Then he felt the pulse
+of the limp wrist.
+
+For a moment he looked at the face steadily, almost contemplatively it
+might have seemed, and then drew both arms close to the body.
+
+Foorgat Bey, the brother of Nahoum Pasha, was dead.
+
+Rising, David turned, as if in a dream, to the girl. He made a motion of
+the hand towards the body. She understood. Dismay was in her face, but
+the look of horror and desperation was gone. She seemed not to realise,
+as did David, the awful position in which they were placed, the deed
+which David had done, the significance of the thing that lay at their
+feet.
+
+"Where are thy people?" said David. "Come, we will go to them."
+
+"I have no people here," she said, in a whisper.
+
+"Who brought thee?"
+
+She made a motion behind her towards the body. David glanced down. The
+eyes of the dead man were open. He stooped and closed them gently. The
+collar and tie were disarranged; he straightened them, then turned again
+to her.
+
+"I must take thee away," he said calmly. "But it must be secretly."
+He looked around, perplexed. "We came secretly. My maid is outside the
+garden--in a carriage. Oh, come, let us go, let us escape. They will
+kill you--!" Terror came into her face again. "Thee, not me, is in
+danger--name, goodness, future, all.... Which way did thee come?"
+
+"Here--through many rooms--" She made a gesture to curtains beyond. "But
+we first entered through doors with sphinxes on either side, with a room
+where was a statue of Mehemet Ali."
+
+It was the room through which David had come with Kaid. He took her
+hand. "Come quickly. I know the way. It is here," he said, pointing to
+the panel-door by which he had entered.
+
+Holding her hand still, as though she were a child, he led her quickly
+from the room, and shut the panel behind them. As they passed through,
+a hand drew aside the curtains on the other side of the room which they
+were leaving.
+
+Presently the face of Nahoum Pasha followed the hand. A swift glance
+to the floor, then he ran forward, stooped down, and laid a hand on his
+brother's breast. The slight wound on the forehead answered his rapid
+scrutiny. He realised the situation as plainly as if it had been written
+down for him--he knew his brother well.
+
+Noiselessly he moved forward and touched the spring of the door through
+which the two had gone. It yielded, and he passed through, closed the
+door again and stealthily listened, then stole a look into the farther
+chamber. It was empty. He heard the outer doors close. For a moment he
+listened, then went forward and passed through into the hall. Softly
+turning the handle of the big wooden doors which faced him, he opened
+them an inch or so, and listened. He could hear swiftly retreating
+footsteps. Presently he heard the faint noise of a gate shutting. He
+nodded his head, and was about to close the doors and turn away, when
+his quick ear detected footsteps again in the garden. Some one--the man,
+of course--was returning.
+
+"May fire burn his eyes for ever! He would talk with Kald, then go again
+among them all, and so pass out unsuspected and safe. For who but I--who
+but I could say he did it? And I--what is my proof? Only the words which
+I speak."
+
+A scornful, fateful smile passed over his face. "'Hast thou never killed
+a man?' said Kaid. 'Never,' said he--'by the goodness of God, never!'
+The voice of Him of Galilee, the hand of Cain, the craft of Jael. But
+God is with the patient."
+
+He went hastily and noiselessly-his footfall was light for so heavy a
+man-through the large room to the farther side from that by which David
+and Kaid had first entered. Drawing behind a clump of palms near a door
+opening to a passage leading to Mizraim's quarters, he waited. He saw
+David enter quickly, yet without any air of secrecy, and pass into the
+little room where Kaid had left him.
+
+For a long time there was silence.
+
+The reasons were clear in Nahoum's mind why he should not act yet. A new
+factor had changed the equation which had presented itself a short half
+hour ago.
+
+A new factor had also entered into the equation which had been presented
+to David by Kaid with so flattering an insistence. He sat in the place
+where Kaid had left him, his face drawn and white, his eyes burning, but
+with no other "sign of agitation. He was frozen and still. His look was
+fastened now upon the door by which the Prince Pasha would enter, now
+upon the door through which he had passed to the rescue of the English
+girl, whom he had seen drive off safely with her maid. In their swift
+passage from the Palace to the carriage, a thing had been done of even
+greater moment than the killing of the sensualist in the next room.
+In the journey to the gateway the girl David served had begged him to
+escape with her. This he had almost sharply declined; it would be no
+escape, he had said. She had urged that no one knew. He had replied that
+Kaid would come again for him, and suspicion would be aroused if he were
+gone.
+
+"Thee has safety," he had said. "I will go back. I will say that I
+killed him. I have taken a life, I will pay for it as is the law."
+
+Excited as she was, she had seen the inflexibility of his purpose. She
+had seen the issue also clearly. He would give himself up, and the whole
+story would be the scandal of Europe.
+
+"You have no right to save me only to kill me," she had said
+desperately. "You would give your life, but you would destroy that
+which is more than life to me. You did not intend to kill him. It was
+no murder, it was punishment." Her voice had got harder. "He would have
+killed my life because he was evil. Will you kill it because you are
+good? Will you be brave, quixotic, but not pitiful?... No, no, no!"
+she had said, as his hand was upon the gate, "I will not go unless you
+promise that you will hide the truth, if you can." She had laid her hand
+upon his shoulder with an agonised impulse. "You will hide it for a girl
+who will cherish your memory her whole life long. Ah--God bless you!"
+
+She had felt that she conquered before he spoke as, indeed, he did not
+speak, but nodded his head and murmured something indistinctly. But that
+did not matter, for she had won; she had a feeling that all would be
+well. Then he had placed her in her carriage, and she was driven swiftly
+away, saying to herself half hysterically: "I am safe, I am safe. He
+will keep his word."
+
+Her safety and his promise were the new factor which changed the
+equation for which Kaid would presently ask the satisfaction. David's
+life had suddenly come upon problems for which his whole past was no
+preparation. Conscience, which had been his guide in every situation,
+was now disarmed, disabled, and routed. It had come to terms.
+
+In going quickly through the room, they had disarranged a table. The
+girl's cloak had swept over it, and a piece of brie-a-brae had been
+thrown upon the floor. He got up and replaced it with an attentive
+air. He rearranged the other pieces on the table mechanically, seeing,
+feeling another scene, another inanimate thing which must be for ever
+and for ever a picture burning in his memory. Yet he appeared to be
+casually doing a trivial and necessary act. He did not definitely
+realise his actions; but long afterwards he could have drawn an accurate
+plan of the table, could have reproduced upon it each article in its
+exact place as correctly as though it had been photographed. There were
+one or two spots of dust or dirt on the floor, brought in by his boots
+from the garden. He flicked them aside with his handkerchief.
+
+How still it was! Or was it his life which had become so still? It
+seemed as if the world must be noiseless, for not a sound of the life in
+other parts of the Palace came to him, not an echo or vibration of the
+city which stirred beyond the great gateway. Was it the chilly hand of
+death passing over everything, and smothering all the activities? His
+pulses, which, but a few minutes past, were throbbing and pounding like
+drums in his ears, seemed now to flow and beat in very quiet. Was this,
+then, the way that murderers felt, that men felt who took human life--so
+frozen, so little a part of their surroundings? Did they move as dead
+men among the living, devitalised, vacuous calm?
+
+His life had been suddenly twisted out of recognition. All that his
+habit, his code, his morals, his religion, had imposed upon him had
+been overturned in one moment. To take a human life, even in battle, was
+against the code by which he had ever been governed, yet he had taken
+life secretly, and was hiding it from the world.
+
+Accident? But had it been necessary to strike at all? His presence alone
+would have been enough to save the girl from further molestation; but,
+he had thrown himself upon the man like a tiger. Yet, somehow, he felt
+no sorrow for that. He knew that if again and yet again he were placed
+in the same position he would do even as he had done--even as he had
+done with the man Kimber by the Fox and Goose tavern beyond Hamley. He
+knew that the blow he had given then was inevitable, and he had never
+felt real repentance. Thinking of that blow, he saw its sequel in the
+blow he had given now. Thus was that day linked with the present, thus
+had a blow struck in punishment of the wrong done the woman at the
+crossroads been repeated in the wrong done the girl who had just left
+him.
+
+A sound now broke the stillness. It was a door shutting not far off.
+Kaid was coming. David turned his face towards the room where Foorgat
+Bey was lying dead. He lifted his arms with a sudden passionate gesture.
+The blood came rushing through his veins again. His life, which had
+seemed suspended, was set free; and an exaltation of sorrow, of pain, of
+action, possessed him.
+
+"I have taken a life, O my God!" he murmured. "Accept mine in service
+for this land. What I have done in secret, let me atone for in secret,
+for this land--for this poor land, for Christ's sake!"
+
+Footsteps were approaching quickly. With a great effort of the will he
+ruled himself to quietness again. Kaid entered, and stood before him in
+silence. David rose. He looked Kaid steadily in the eyes. "Well?" said
+Kaid placidly.
+
+"For Egypt's sake I will serve thee," was the reply. He held out his
+hand. Kaid took it, but said, in smiling comment on the action: "As the
+Viceroy's servant there is another way!"
+
+"I will salaam to-morrow, Kaid," answered David.
+
+"It is the only custom of the place I will require of thee, effendi.
+Come."
+
+A few moments later they were standing among the consuls and officials
+in the salon.
+
+"Where is Nahoum?" asked Kaid, looking round on the agitated throng.
+
+No one answered. Smiling, Kaid whispered in David's ear.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE COMPACT
+
+One by one the lights went out in the Palace. The excited guests were
+now knocking at the doors of Cairene notables, bent upon gossip of the
+night's events, or were scouring the bazaars for ears into which to
+pour the tale of how David was exalted and Nahoum was brought low; how,
+before them all, Kaid had commanded Nahoum to appear at the Palace in
+the morning at eleven, and the Inglesi, as they had named David, at ten.
+But they declared to all who crowded upon their words that the Inglesi
+left the Palace with a face frozen white, as though it was he that had
+met debacle, while Nahoum had been as urbane and cynical as though he
+had come to the fulness of his power.
+
+Some, on hearing this, said: "Beware Nahoum!" But those who had been at
+the Palace said: "Beware the Inglesi!" This still Quaker, with the white
+shining face and pontifical hat, with his address of "thee" and "thou,"
+and his forms of speech almost Oriental in their imagery and simplicity,
+himself an archaism, had impressed them with a sense of power. He had
+prompted old Diaz Pasha to speak of him as a reincarnation, so separate
+and withdrawn he seemed at the end of the evening, yet with an uncanny
+mastery in his dark brown eyes. One of the Ulema, or holy men, present
+had said in reply to Diaz: "It is the look of one who hath walked with
+Death and bought and sold with Sheitan the accursed." To Nahoum Pasha,
+Dim had said, as the former left the Palace, a cigarette between his
+fingers: "Sleep not nor slumber, Nahoum. The world was never lost by
+one earthquake." And Nahoum had replied with a smooth friendliness: "The
+world is not reaped in one harvest."
+
+"The day is at hand--the East against the West," murmured old Diaz, as
+he passed on.
+
+"The day is far spent," answered Nahoum, in a voice unheard by Diaz;
+and, with a word to his coachman, who drove off quickly, he disappeared
+in the shrubbery.
+
+A few minutes later he was tapping at the door of Mizraim, the Chief
+Eunuch. Three times he tapped in the same way. Presently the door
+opened, and he stepped inside. The lean, dark figure of Mizraim bowed
+low; the long, slow fingers touched the forehead, the breast, and the
+lips.
+
+"May God preserve thy head from harm, excellency, and the night give
+thee sleep," said Mizraim. He looked inquiringly at Nahoum.
+
+"May thy head know neither heat nor cold, and thy joys increase,"
+responded Nahoum mechanically, and sat down.
+
+To an European it would have seemed a shameless mockery to have wished
+joy to this lean, hateful dweller in the between-worlds; to Nahoum
+it was part of a life which was all ritual and intrigue, gabbling
+superstition and innate fatalism, decorated falsehood and a brave
+philosophy.
+
+"I have work for thee at last, Mizraim," said Nahoum.
+
+"At last?"
+
+"Thou hast but played before. To-night I must see the sweat of thy
+brow."
+
+Mizraim's cold fingers again threw themselves against his breast,
+forehead, and lips, and he said:
+
+"As a woman swims in a fountain, so shall I bathe in sweat for thee, who
+hath given with one hand and hath never taken with the other."
+
+"I did thee service once, Mizraim--eh?"
+
+"I was as a bird buffeted by the wind; upon thy masts my feet found
+rest. Behold, I build my nest in thy sails, excellency."
+
+"There are no birds in last year's nest, Mizraim, thou dove," said
+Nahoum, with a cynical smile. "When I build, I build. Where I swear by
+the stone of the corner, there am I from dark to dark and from dawn to
+dawn, pasha." Suddenly he swept his hand low to the ground and a ghastly
+sort of smile crossed over his face. "Speak--I am thy servant. Shall I
+not hear? I will put my hand in the entrails of Egypt, and wrench them
+forth for thee."
+
+He made a gesture so cruelly, so darkly, suggestive that Nahoum turned
+his head away. There flashed before his mind the scene of death in
+which his own father had lain, butchered like a beast in the shambles, a
+victim to the rage of Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Mehemet Ali.
+
+"Then listen, and learn why I have need of thee to-night."
+
+First, Nahoum told the story of David's coming, and Kaid's treatment of
+himself, the foreshadowing of his own doom. Then of David and the girl,
+and the dead body he had seen; of the escape of the girl, of David's
+return with Kaid--all exactly as it had happened, save that he did; not
+mention the name of the dead man.
+
+It did not astonish Mizraim that Nahoum had kept all this secret. That
+crime should be followed by secrecy and further crime, if need be,
+seems natural to the Oriental mind. Mizraim had seen removal follow upon
+removal, and the dark Nile flowed on gloomily, silently, faithful to the
+helpless ones tossed into its bosom. It would much have astonished him
+if Nahoum had not shown a gaping darkness somewhere in his tale, and he
+felt for the key to the mystery.
+
+"And he who lies dead, excellency?"
+
+"My brother."
+
+"Foorgat Bey!"
+
+"Even he, Mizraim. He lured the girl here--a mad man ever. The other
+madman was in the next room. He struck--come, and thou shalt see."
+
+Together they felt their way through the passages and rooms, and
+presently entered the room where Foorgat Bey was lying. Nahoum struck a
+light, and, as he held the candle, Mizraim knelt and examined the body
+closely. He found the slight wound on the temple, then took the candle
+from Nahoum and held it close to the corner of the marble pedestal. A
+faint stain of blood was there. Again he examined the body, and ran his
+fingers over the face and neck. Suddenly he stopped, and held the light
+close to the skin beneath the right jaw. He motioned, and Nahoum laid
+his fingers also on the spot. There was a slight swelling.
+
+"A blow with the fist, excellency--skilful, and English." He looked
+inquiringly at Nahoum. "As a weasel hath a rabbit by the throat, so is
+the Inglesi in thy hands."
+
+Nahoum shook his head. "And if I went to Kaid, and said, 'This is the
+work of the Inglesi,' would he believe? Kaid would hang me for the
+lie--would it be truth to him? What proof have I, save the testimony of
+mine own eyes? Egypt would laugh at that. Is it the time, while yet the
+singers are beneath the windows, to assail the bride? All bridegrooms
+are mad. It is all sunshine and morning with the favourite, the Inglesi.
+Only when the shadows lengthen may he be stricken. Not now."
+
+"Why dost thou hide this from Kaid, O thou brother of the eagle?"
+
+"For my gain and thine, keeper of the gate. To-night I am weak, because
+I am poor. To-morrow I shall be rich and, it may be, strong. If Kaid
+knew of this tonight, I should be a prisoner before cockcrow. What
+claims has a prisoner? Kaid would be in my brother's house at dawn,
+seizing all that is there and elsewhere, and I on my way to Fazougli, to
+be strangled or drowned."
+
+"O wise and far-seeing! Thine eye pierces the earth. What is there to
+do? What is my gain--what thine?"
+
+"Thy gain? The payment of thy debt to me." Mizraim's face lengthened.
+His was a loathsome sort of gratitude. He was willing to pay in kind;
+but what Oriental ever paid a debt without a gift in return, even as a
+bartering Irishman demands his lucky penny.
+
+"So be it, excellency, and my life is thine to spill upon the ground, a
+scarlet cloth for thy feet. And backsheesh?"
+
+Nahoum smiled grimly. "For backsheesh, thy turban full of gold."
+
+Mizraim's eyes glittered-the dull black shine of a mongrel terrier's. He
+caught the sleeve of Nahoum's coat and kissed it, then kissed his hand.
+
+Thus was their bargain made over the dead body; and Mizraim had an
+almost superstitious reverence for the fulfilment of a bond, the one
+virtue rarely found in the Oriental. Nothing else had he, but of all men
+in Egypt he was the best instrument Nahoum could have chosen; and of all
+men in Egypt he was the one man who could surely help him.
+
+"What is there now to do, excellency?"
+
+"My coachman is with the carriage at the gate by which the English girl
+left. It is open still. The key is in Foorgat's pocket, no doubt; stolen
+by him, no doubt also.... This is my design. Thou wilt drive him"--he
+pointed to the body--"to his palace, seated in the carriage as though he
+were alive. There is a secret entrance. The bowab of the gate will show
+the way; I know it not. But who will deny thee? Thou comest from high
+places--from Kaid. Who will speak of this? Will the bowab? In the
+morning Foorgat will be found dead in his bed! The slight bruise thou
+canst heal--thou canst?"
+
+Mizraim nodded. "I can smooth it from the sharpest eye."
+
+"At dawn he will be found dead; but at dawn I shall be knocking at his
+gates. Before the world knows I shall be in possession. All that is
+his shall be mine, for at once the men of law shall be summoned, and my
+inheritance secured before Kaid shall even know of his death. I shall
+take my chances for my life."
+
+"And the coachman, and the bowab, and others it may be?"
+
+"Shall not these be with thee--thou, Kaid's keeper of the harem, the
+lion at the door of his garden of women? Would it be strange that
+Foorgat, who ever flew at fruit above his head, perilous to get or keep,
+should be found on forbidden ground, or in design upon it? Would it be
+strange to the bowab or the slave that he should return with thee stark
+and still? They would but count it mercy of Kaid that he was not given
+to the serpents of the Nile. A word from thee--would one open his mouth?
+Would not the shadow of thy hand, of the swift doom, be over them? Would
+not a handful of gold bind them to me? Is not the man dead? Are they not
+mine--mine to bind or break as I will?"
+
+"So be it! Wisdom is of thee as the breath of man is his life. I will
+drive Foorgat Bey to his home."
+
+A few moments later all that was left of Foorgat Bey was sitting in his
+carriage beside Mizraim the Chief Eunuch--sitting upright, stony, and
+still, and in such wise was driven swiftly to his palace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. FOR HIS SOUL'S SAKE AND THE LAND'S SAKE
+
+David came to know a startling piece of news the next morning-that
+Foorgat Bey had died of heart-disease in his bed, and was so found by
+his servants. He at once surmised that Foorgat's body had been carried
+out of the Palace; no doubt that it might not be thought he had come
+to his death by command of Kaid. His mind became easier. Death, murder,
+crime in Egypt was not a nine days' wonder; it scarce outlived one day.
+When a man was gone none troubled. The dead man was in the bosom of
+Allah; then why should the living be beset or troubled? If there was
+foul play, why make things worse by sending another life after the life
+gone, even in the way of justice?
+
+The girl David saved had told him her own name, and had given him the
+name of the hotel at which she was staying. He had an early breakfast,
+and prepared to go to her hotel, wishing to see her once more. There
+were things to be said for the first and last time and then be buried
+for ever. She must leave the country at once. In this sick, mad land, in
+this whirlpool of secret murder and conspiracy, no one could tell what
+plot was hatching, what deeds were forward; and he could not yet be sure
+that no one save himself and herself knew who had killed Foorgat Bey.
+Her perfect safety lay in instant flight. It was his duty to see that
+she went, and at once--this very day. He would go and see her.
+
+He went to the hotel. There he learned that, with her aunt, she had left
+that morning for Alexandria en route to England.
+
+He approved her wisdom, he applauded her decision. Yet--yet, somehow,
+as he bent his footsteps towards his lodgings again he had a sense of
+disappointment, of revelation. What might happen to him--evidently that
+had not occurred to her. How could she know but that his life might be
+in danger; that, after all, they might have been seen leaving the fatal
+room? Well, she had gone, and with all his heart he was glad that she
+was safe.
+
+His judgment upon last night's event was not coloured by a single
+direct criticism upon the girl. But he could not prevent the suggestion
+suddenly flashing into his mind that she had thought of herself first
+and last. Well, she had gone; and he was here to face the future,
+unencumbered by aught save the weight of his own conscience.
+
+Yet, the weight of his conscience! His feet were still free--free for
+one short hour before he went to Kaid; but his soul was in chains. As he
+turned his course to the Nile, and crossed over the great bridge, there
+went clanking by in chains a hundred conscripts, torn from their homes
+in the Fayoum, bidding farewell for ever to their friends, receiving
+their last offerings, for they had no hope of return. He looked at their
+haggard and dusty faces, at their excoriated ankles, and his eyes closed
+in pain. All they felt he felt. What their homes were to them, these
+fellaheen, dragged forth to defend their country, to go into the desert
+and waste their lives under leaders tyrannous, cruel, and incompetent,
+his old open life, his innocence, his integrity, his truthfulness and
+character, were to him. By an impulsive act, by a rash blow, he had
+asserted his humanity; but he had killed his fellow-man in anger. He
+knew that as that fatal blow had been delivered, there was no thought
+of punishment--it was blind anger and hatred: it was the ancient
+virus working which had filled the world with war, and armed it at the
+expense, the bitter and oppressive expense, of the toilers and the poor.
+The taxes for wars were wrung out of the sons of labour and sorrow.
+These poor fellaheen had paid taxes on everything they possessed. Taxes,
+taxes, nothing but taxes from the cradle! Their lands, houses, and
+palm-trees would be taxed still, when they would reap no more. And
+having given all save their lives, these lives they must now give under
+the whip and the chain and the sword.
+
+As David looked at them in their single blue calico coverings, in which
+they had lived and slept-shivering in the cold night air upon the bare
+ground--these thoughts came to him; and he had a sudden longing to
+follow them and put the chains upon his own arms and legs, and go forth
+and suffer with them, and fight and die? To die were easy. To fight?...
+Was it then come to that? He was no longer a man of peace, but a man
+of the sword; no longer a man of the palm and the evangel, but a man of
+blood and of crime! He shrank back out of the glare of the sun; for it
+suddenly seemed to him that there was written upon his fore head, "This
+is a brother of Cain." For the first time in his life he had a shrinking
+from the light, and from the sun which he had loved like a Persian, had,
+in a sense, unconsciously worshipped.
+
+He was scarcely aware where he was. He had wandered on until he had come
+to the end of the bridge and into the great groups of traffickers who,
+at this place, made a market of their wares. Here sat a seller of sugar
+cane; there wandered, clanking his brasses, a merchant of sweet waters;
+there shouted a cheap-jack of the Nile the virtues of a knife from
+Sheffield. Yonder a camel-driver squatted and counted his earnings; and
+a sheepdealer haggled with the owner of a ghiassa bound for the sands of
+the North. The curious came about him and looked at him, but he did not
+see or hear. He sat upon a stone, his gaze upon the river, following
+with his eyes, yet without consciously observing, the dark riverine
+population whose ways are hidden, who know only the law of the river and
+spend their lives in eluding pirates and brigands now, and yet again the
+peaceful porters of commerce.
+
+To his mind, never a criminal in this land but less a criminal than he!
+For their standard was a standard of might the only right; but he--his
+whole life had been nurtured in an atmosphere of right and justice, had
+been a spiritual demonstration against force. He was with out fear, as
+he was without an undue love of life. The laying down of his life had
+never been presented to him; and yet, now that his conscience was his
+only judge, and it condemned him, he would gladly have given his life to
+pay the price of blood.
+
+That was impossible. His life was not his own to give, save by suicide;
+and that would be the unpardonable insult to God and humanity. He
+had given his word to the woman, and he would keep it. In those brief
+moments she must have suffered more than most men suffer in a long life.
+Not her hand, however, but his, had committed the deed. And yet a sudden
+wave of pity for her rushed over him, because the conviction seized him
+that she would also in her heart take upon herself the burden of his
+guilt as though it were her own. He had seen it in the look of her face
+last night.
+
+For the sake of her future it was her duty to shield herself from any
+imputation which might as unjustly as scandalously arise, if the facts
+of that black hour ever became known. Ever became known? The thought
+that there might be some human eye which had seen, which knew, sent a
+shiver through him.
+
+"I would give my life a thousand times rather than that," he said
+aloud to the swift-flowing river. His head sank on his breast. His lips
+murmured in prayer:
+
+"But be merciful to me, Thou just Judge of Israel, for Thou hast made
+me, and Thou knowest whereof I am made. Here will I dedicate my life to
+Thee for the land's sake. Not for my soul's sake, O my God! If it be
+Thy will, let my soul be cast away; but for the soul of him whose body I
+slew, and for his land, let my life be the long sacrifice."
+
+Dreams he had had the night before--terrible dreams, which he could
+never forget; dreams of a fugitive being hunted through the world,
+escaping and eluding, only to be hemmed in once more; on and on till he
+grew grey and gaunt, and the hunt suddenly ended in a great morass, into
+which he plunged with the howling world behind him. The grey, dank mists
+came down on him, his footsteps sank deeper and deeper, and ever the
+cries, as of damned spirits, grew in his ears. Mocking shapes flitted
+past him, the wings of obscene birds buffeted him, the morass grew up
+about him; and now it was all a red moving mass like a dead sea heaving
+about him. With a moan of agony he felt the dolorous flood above his
+shoulders, and then a cry pierced the gloom and the loathsome misery,
+and a voice he knew called to him, "David, David, I am coming!" and he
+had awaked with the old hallucination of his uncle's voice calling to
+him in the dawn.
+
+It came to him now as he sat by the water-side, and he raised his face
+to the sun and to the world. The idlers had left him alone; none were
+staring at him now. They were all intent on their own business, each man
+labouring after his kind. He heard the voice of a riverman as he toiled
+at a rope standing on the corn that filled his ghiassa from end to
+end, from keel to gunwale. The man was singing a wild chant of cheerful
+labour, the soul of the hard-smitten of the earth rising above the rack
+and burden of the body:
+
+     "O, the garden where to-day we sow and to-morrow we reap!
+     O, the sakkia turning by the garden walls;
+     O, the onion-field and the date-tree growing,
+     And my hand on the plough-by the blessing of God;
+     Strength of my soul, O my brother, all's well!"
+
+The meaning of the song got into his heart. He pressed his hand to his
+breast with a sudden gesture. It touched something hard. It was his
+flute. Mechanically he had put it in his pocket when he dressed in the
+morning. He took it out and looked at it lovingly. Into it he had poured
+his soul in the old days--days, centuries away, it seemed now. It should
+still be the link with the old life. He rose and walked towards his home
+again. The future spread clearly before him. Rapine, murder, tyranny,
+oppression, were round him on every side, and the ruler of the land
+called him to his counsels. Here a great duty lay--his life for this
+land, his life, and his love, and his faith. He would expiate his crime
+and his sin, the crime of homicide for which he alone was responsible,
+the sin of secrecy for which he and another were responsible. And that
+other? If only there had been but one word of understanding between them
+before she left!
+
+At the door of his house stood the American whom he had met at the
+citadel yesterday-it seemed a hundred years ago.
+
+"I've got a letter for you," Lacey said. "The lady's aunt and herself
+are cousins of mine more or less removed, and originally at home in the
+U. S. A. a generation ago. Her mother was an American. She didn't know
+your name--Miss Hylda Maryon, I mean. I told her, but there wasn't time
+to put it on." He handed over the unaddressed envelope.
+
+David opened the letter, and read:
+
+"I have seen the papers. I do not understand what has happened, but I
+know that all is well. If it were not so, I would not go. That is the
+truth. Grateful I am, oh, believe me! So grateful that I do not yet know
+what is the return which I must make. But the return will be made. I
+hear of what has come to you--how easily I might have destroyed all! My
+thoughts blind me. You are great and good; you will know at least that
+I go because it is the only thing to do. I fly from the storm with a
+broken wing. Take now my promise to pay what I owe in the hour Fate
+wills--or in the hour of your need. You can trust him who brings this to
+you; he is a distant cousin of my own. Do not judge him by his odd and
+foolish words. They hide a good character, and he has a strong nature.
+He wants work to do. Can you give it? Farewell."
+
+David put the letter in his pocket, a strange quietness about his heart.
+
+He scarcely realised what Lacey was saying. "Great girl that. Troubled
+about something in England, I guess. Going straight back."
+
+David thanked him for the letter. Lacey became red in the face. He
+tried to say something, but failed. "Thee wishes to say something to me,
+friend?" asked David.
+
+"I'm full up; I can't speak. But, say--"
+
+"I am going to the Palace now. Come back at noon if you will."
+
+He wrung David's hand in gratitude. "You're going to do it. You're going
+to do it. I see it. It's a great game--like Abe Lincoln's. Say, let me
+black your boots while you're doing it, will you?"
+
+David pressed his hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE LETTER, THE NIGHT, AND THE WOMAN
+
+   "To-day has come the fulfilment of my dream, Faith. I am given to
+   my appointed task; I am set on a road of life in which there is no
+   looking back. My dreams of the past are here begun in very truth
+   and fact. When, in the night, I heard Uncle Benn calling, when in
+   the Meeting-house voices said, 'Come away, come away, and labour,
+   thou art idle,' I could hear my heart beat in the ardour to be off.
+   Yet I knew not whither. Now I know.
+
+   "Last night the Prince Pasha called me to his Council, made me
+   adviser, confidant, as one who has the ear of his captain--after he
+   had come to terms with me upon that which Uncle Benn left of land
+   and gold. Think not that he tempted me.
+
+   "Last night I saw favourites look upon me with hate because of
+   Kaid's favour, though the great hall was filled with show of
+   cheerful splendour, and men smiled and feasted. To-day I know that
+   in the Palace where I was summoned to my first: duty with the
+   Prince, every step I took was shadowed, every motion recorded, every
+   look or word noted and set down. I have no fear of them. They are
+   not subtle enough for the unexpected acts of honesty in the life of
+   a true man. Yet I do not wonder men fail to keep honest in the
+   midst of this splendour, where all is strife as to who shall have
+   the Prince's favour; who shall enjoy the fruits of bribery,
+   backsheesh, and monopoly; who shall wring from the slave and the
+   toil-ridden fellah the coin his poor body mints at the corvee, in
+   his own taxed fields of dourha and cucumbers.
+
+   "Is this like anything we ever dreamed at Hamley, Faith? Yet here
+   am I set, and here shall I stay till the skein be ravelled out.
+   Soon I shall go into the desert upon a mission to the cities of the
+   South, to Dongola, Khartoum, and Darfur and beyond; for there is
+   trouble yonder, and war is near, unless it is given to me to bring
+   peace. So I must bend to my study of Arabic, which I am thankful I
+   learned long ago. And I must not forget to say that I shall take
+   with me on my journey that faithful Muslim Ebn Ezra. Others I shall
+   take also, but of them I shall write hereafter.
+
+   "I shall henceforth be moving in the midst of things which I was
+   taught to hate. I pray that I may not hate them less as time goes
+   on. To-morrow I shall breathe the air of intrigue, shall hear
+   footsteps of spies behind me wherever I go; shall know that even the
+   roses in the garden have ears; that the ground under my feet will
+   telegraph my thoughts. Shall I be true? Shall I at last whisper,
+   and follow, and evade, believe in no one, much less in myself, steal
+   in and out of men's confidences to use them for my own purposes?
+   Does any human being know what he can bear of temptation or of the
+   daily pressure of the life around him? what powers of resistance
+   are in his soul? how long the vital energy will continue to throw
+   off the never-ending seduction, the freshening force of evil?
+   Therein lies the power of evil, that it is ever new, ever fortified
+   by continuous conquest and achievements. It has the rare fire of
+   aggression; is ever more upon the offence than upon the defence;
+   has, withal, the false lure of freedom from restraint, the throbbing
+   force of sympathy.
+
+   "Such things I dreamed not of in Soolsby's but upon the hill, Faith,
+   though, indeed, that seemed a time of trial and sore-heartedness.
+   How large do small issues seem till we have faced the momentous
+   things! It is true that the larger life has pleasures and expanding
+   capacities; but it is truer still that it has perils, events which
+   try the soul as it is never tried in the smaller life--unless,
+   indeed, the soul be that of the Epicurean. The Epicurean I well
+   understand, and in his way I might have walked with a wicked grace.
+   I have in me some hidden depths of luxury, a secret heart of
+   pleasure, an understanding for the forbidden thing. I could have
+   walked the broad way with a laughing heart, though, in truth, habit
+   of mind and desire have kept me in the better path. But offences
+   must come, and woe to him from whom the offence cometh! I have
+   begun now, and only now, to feel the storms that shake us to our
+   farthest cells of life. I begin to see how near good is to evil;
+   how near faith is to unfaith; and how difficult it is to judge from
+   actions only; how little we can know to-day what we shall feel
+   tomorrow. Yet one must learn to see deeper, to find motive, not in
+   acts that shake the faith, but in character which needs no
+   explanation, which--"
+
+He paused, disturbed. Then he raised his head, as though not conscious
+of what was breaking the course of his thoughts. Presently he realised
+a low, hurried knocking at his door. He threw a hand over his eyes, and
+sprang up. An instant later the figure of a woman, deeply veiled, stood
+within the room, beside the table where he had been writing. There was
+silence as they faced each other, his back against the door.
+
+"Oh, do you not know me?" she said at last, and sank into the chair
+where he had been sitting.
+
+The question was unnecessary, and she knew it was so; but she could
+not bear the strain of the silence. She seemed to have risen out of the
+letter he had been writing; and had he not been writing of her--of what
+concerned them both? How mean and small-hearted he had been, to have
+thought for an instant that she had not the highest courage, though in
+going she had done the discreeter, safer thing. But she had come--she
+had come!
+
+All this was in his eyes, though his face was pale and still. He
+was almost rigid with emotion, for the ancient habit of repose and
+self-command of the Quaker people was upon him.
+
+"Can you not see--do you not know?" she repeated, her back upon him now,
+her face still veiled, her hands making a swift motion of distress.
+
+"Has thee found in the past that thee is so soon forgotten?"
+
+"Oh, do not blame me!" She raised her veil suddenly, and showed a face
+as pale as his own, and in the eyes a fiery brightness. "I did not know.
+It was so hard to come--do not blame me. I went to Alexandria--I felt
+that I must fly; the air around me seemed full of voices crying out. Did
+you not understand why I went?"
+
+"I understand," he said, coming forward slowly. "Thee should not have
+returned. In the way I go now the watchers go also."
+
+"If I had not come, you would never have understood," she answered
+quickly. "I am not sorry I went. I was so frightened, so shaken. My only
+thought was to get away from the terrible Thing. But I should have been
+sorry all my life long had I not come back to tell you what I feel, and
+that I shall never forget. All my life I shall be grateful. You have
+saved me from a thousand deaths. Ah, if I could give you but one life!
+Yet--yet--oh, do not think but that I would tell you the whole truth,
+though I am not wholly truthful. See, I love my place in the world more
+than I love my life; and but for you I should have lost all."
+
+He made a protesting motion. "The debt is mine, in truth. But for you I
+should never have known what, perhaps--" He paused.
+
+His eyes were on hers, gravely speaking what his tongue faltered to say.
+She looked and looked, but did not understand. She only saw troubled
+depths, lighted by a soul of kindling purpose. "Tell me," she said,
+awed.
+
+"Through you I have come to know--" He paused again. What he was going
+to say, truthful though it was, must hurt her, and she had been sorely
+hurt already. He put his thoughts more gently, more vaguely.
+
+"By what happened I have come to see what matters in life. I was behind
+the hedge. I have broken through upon the road. I know my goal now. The
+highway is before me."
+
+She felt the tragedy in his words, and her voice shook as she spoke. "I
+wish I knew life better. Then I could make a better answer. You are on
+the road, you say. But I feel that it is a hard and cruel road--oh, I
+understand that at least! Tell me, please, tell me the whole truth. You
+are hiding from me what you feel. I have upset your life, have I not?
+You are a Quaker, and Quakers are better than all other Christian
+people, are they not? Their faith is peace, and for me, you--" She
+covered her face with her hands for an instant, but turned quickly and
+looked him in the eyes: "For me you put your hand upon the clock of a
+man's life, and stopped it."
+
+She got to her feet with a passionate gesture, but he put a hand gently
+upon her arm, and she sank back again. "Oh, it was not you; it was I who
+did it!" she said. "You did what any man of honour would have done, what
+a brother would have done."
+
+"What I did is a matter for myself only," he responded quickly. "Had
+I never seen your face again it would have been the same. You were the
+occasion; the thing I did had only one source, my own heart and mind.
+There might have been another way; but for that way, or for the way I
+did take, you could not be responsible."
+
+"How generous you are!" Her eyes swam with tears; she leaned over the
+table where he had been writing, and the tears dropped upon his letter.
+Presently she realised this, and drew back, then made as though to dry
+the tears from the paper with her handkerchief. As she did so the words
+that he had written met her eye: "'But offences must come, and woe to
+him from whom the offence cometh!' I have begun now, and only now, to
+feel the storms that shake us to our farthest cells of life."
+
+She became very still. He touched her arm and said heavily: "Come away,
+come away."
+
+She pointed to the words she had read. "I could not help but see, and
+now I know what this must mean to you."
+
+"Thee must go at once," he urged. "Thee should not have come. Thee was
+safe--none knew. A few hours and it would all have been far behind. We
+might never have met again."
+
+Suddenly she gave a low, hysterical laugh. "You think you hide the real
+thing from me. I know I'm ignorant and selfish and feeble-minded, but I
+can see farther than you think. You want to tell the truth about--about
+it, because you are honest and hate hiding things, because you want to
+be punished, and so pay the price. Oh, I can understand! If it were not
+for me you would not...." With a sudden wild impulse she got to her
+feet. "And you shall not," she cried. "I will not have it." Colour came
+rushing to her cheeks.
+
+"I will not have it. I will not put myself so much in your debt. I will
+not demand so much of you. I will face it all. I will stand alone."
+
+There was a touch of indignation in her voice. Somehow she seemed moved
+to anger against him. Her hands were clasped at her side rigidly, her
+pulses throbbing. He stood looking at her fixedly, as though trying
+to realise her. His silence agitated her still further, and she spoke
+excitedly:
+
+"I could have, would have, killed him myself without a moment's regret.
+He had planned, planned--ah, God, can you not see it all! I would
+have taken his life without a thought. I was mad to go upon such an
+adventure, but I meant no ill. I had not one thought that I could not
+have cried out from the housetops, and he had in his heart--he had what
+you saw. But you repent that you killed him--by accident, it was by
+accident. Do you realise how many times others have been trapped by him
+as was I? Do you not see what he was--as I see now? Did he not say as
+much to me before you came, when I was dumb with terror? Did he not make
+me understand what his whole life had been? Did I not see in a flash
+the women whose lives he had spoiled and killed? Would I have had pity?
+Would I have had remorse? No, no, no! I was frightened when it was done,
+I was horrified, but I was not sorry; and I am not sorry. It was to be.
+It was the true end to his vileness. Ah!"
+
+She shuddered, and buried her face in her hands for a moment, then went
+on: "I can never forgive myself for going to the Palace with him. I was
+mad for experience, for mystery; I wanted more than the ordinary share
+of knowledge. I wanted to probe things. Yet I meant no wrong. I thought
+then nothing of which I shall ever be ashamed. But I shall always be
+ashamed because I knew him, because he thought that I--oh, if I were a
+man, I should be glad that I had killed him, for the sake of all honest
+women!"
+
+He remained silent. His look was not upon her, he seemed lost in a
+dream; but his face was fixed in trouble.
+
+She misunderstood his silence. "You had the courage, the impulse to--to
+do it," she said keenly; "you have not the courage to justify it. I will
+not have it so.
+
+"I will tell the truth to all the world. I will not shrink I shrank
+yesterday because I was afraid of the world; to-day I will face it, I
+will--"
+
+She stopped suddenly, and another look flashed into her face. Presently
+she spoke in a different tone; a new light had come upon her mind. "But
+I see," she added. "To tell all is to make you the victim, too, of what
+he did. It is in your hands; it is all in your hands; and I cannot speak
+unless--unless you are ready also."
+
+There was an unintended touch of scorn in her voice. She had been
+troubled and tried beyond bearing, and her impulsive nature revolted
+at his silence. She misunderstood him, or, if she did not wholly
+misunderstand him, she was angry at what she thought was a needless
+remorse or sensitiveness. Did not the man deserve his end?
+
+"There is only one course to pursue," he rejoined quietly, "and that is
+the course we entered upon last night. I neither doubted yourself nor
+your courage. Thee must not turn back now. Thee must not alter the
+course which was your own making, and the only course which thee could,
+or I should, take. I have planned my life according to the word I gave
+you. I could not turn back now. We are strangers, and we must remain so.
+Thee will go from here now, and we must not meet again. I am--"
+
+"I know who you are," she broke in. "I know what your religion is; that
+fighting and war and bloodshed is a sin to you."
+
+"I am of no family or place in England," he went on calmly. "I come of
+yeoman and trading stock; I have nothing in common with people of rank.
+Our lines of life will not cross. It is well that it should be so. As
+to what happened--that which I may feel has nothing to do with whether I
+was justified or no. But if thee has thought that I have repented doing
+what I did, let that pass for ever from your mind. I know that I should
+do the same, yes, even a hundred times. I did according to my nature.
+Thee must not now be punished cruelly for a thing thee did not do.
+Silence is the only way of safety or of justice. We must not speak of
+this again. We must each go our own way."
+
+Her eyes were moist. She reached out a hand to him timidly. "Oh, forgive
+me," she added brokenly, "I am so vain, so selfish, and that makes one
+blind to the truth. It is all clearer now. You have shown me that I was
+right in my first impulse, and that is all I can say for myself. I shall
+pray all my life that it will do you no harm in the end."
+
+She remained silent, for a moment adjusting her veil, preparing to go.
+Presently she spoke again: "I shall always want to know about you--what
+is happening to you. How could it be otherwise?"
+
+She was half realising one of the deepest things in existence, that the
+closest bond between two human beings is a bond of secrecy upon a thing
+which vitally, fatally concerns both or either. It is a power at once
+malevolent and beautiful. A secret like that of David and Hylda will
+do in a day what a score of years could not accomplish, will insinuate
+confidences which might never be given to the nearest or dearest. In
+neither was any feeling of the heart begotten by their experiences; and
+yet they had gone deeper in each other's lives than any one either
+had known in a lifetime. They had struck a deeper note than love or
+friendship. They had touched the chord of a secret and mutual experience
+which had gone so far that their lives would be influenced by it for
+ever after. Each understood this in a different way.
+
+Hylda looked towards the letter lying on the table. It had raised in
+her mind, not a doubt, but an undefined, undefinable anxiety. He saw the
+glance, and said: "I was writing to one who has been as a sister to me.
+She was my mother's sister though she is almost as young as I. Her name
+is Faith. There is nothing there of what concerns thee and me, though
+it would make no difference if she knew." Suddenly a thought seemed to
+strike him. "The secret is of thee and me. There is safety. If it became
+another's, there might be peril. The thing shall be between us only, for
+ever?"
+
+"Do you think that I--"
+
+"My instinct tells me a woman of sensitive mind might one day, out of an
+unmerciful honesty, tell her husband--"
+
+"I am not married-"
+
+"But one day--"
+
+She interrupted him. "Sentimental egotism will not rule me. Tell me,"
+she added, "tell me one thing before I go. You said that your course was
+set. What is it?"
+
+"I remain here," he answered quietly. "I remain in the service of Prince
+Kaid."
+
+"It is a dreadful government, an awful service--"
+
+"That is why I stay."
+
+"You are going to try and change things here--you alone?"
+
+"I hope not alone, in time."
+
+"You are going to leave England, your friends, your family, your
+place--in Hamley, was it not? My aunt has read of you--my cousin--" she
+paused.
+
+"I had no place in Hamley. Here is my place. Distance has little to do
+with understanding or affection. I had an uncle here in the East for
+twenty-five years, yet I knew him better than all others in the world.
+Space is nothing if minds are in sympathy. My uncle talked to me over
+seas and lands. I felt him, heard him speak."
+
+"You think that minds can speak to minds, no matter what the
+distance--real and definite things?"
+
+"If I were parted from one very dear to me, I would try to say to him
+or her what was in my mind, not by written word only, but by the flying
+thought."
+
+She sat down suddenly, as though overwhelmed. "Oh, if that were
+possible!" she said. "If only one could send a thought like that!" Then
+with an impulse, and the flicker of a sad smile, she reached out a hand.
+"If ever in the years to come you want to speak to me, will you try to
+make me understand, as your uncle did with you?"
+
+"I cannot tell," he answered. "That which is deepest within us obeys
+only the laws of its need. By instinct it turns to where help lies, as
+a wild deer, fleeing, from captivity, makes for the veldt and the
+watercourse."
+
+She got to her feet again. "I want to pay my debt," she said solemnly.
+"It is a debt that one day must be paid--so awful--so awful!" A swift
+change passed over her. She shuddered, and grew white. "I said brave
+words just now," she added in a hoarse whisper, "but now I see him lying
+there cold and still, and you stooping over him. I see you touch his
+breast, his pulse. I see you close his eyes. One instant full of the
+pulse of life, the next struck out into infinite space. Oh, I shall
+never--how can I ever-forget!" She turned her head away from him, then
+composed herself again, and said quietly, with anxious eyes: "Why was
+nothing said or done? Perhaps they are only waiting. Perhaps they know.
+Why was it announced that he died in his bed at home?"
+
+"I cannot tell. When a man in high places dies in Egypt, it may be one
+death or another. No one inquires too closely. He died in Kaid Pasha's
+Palace, where other men have died, and none has inquired too closely.
+To-day they told me at the Palace that his carriage was seen to leave
+with himself and Mizraim the Chief Eunuch. Whatever the object, he was
+secretly taken to his house from the Palace, and his brother Nahoum
+seized upon his estate in the early morning.
+
+"I think that no one knows the truth. But it is all in the hands of
+God. We can do nothing more. Thee must go. Thee should not have come.
+In England thee will forget, as thee should forget. In Egypt I shall
+remember, as I should remember."
+
+"Thee," she repeated softly. "I love the Quaker thee. My grandmother was
+an American Quaker. She always spoke like that. Will you not use thee
+and thou in speaking to me, always?"
+
+"We are not likely to speak together in any language in the future," he
+answered. "But now thee must go, and I will--"
+
+"My cousin, Mr. Lacey, is waiting for me in the garden," she answered.
+"I shall be safe with him." She moved towards the door. He caught the
+handle to turn it, when there came the noise of loud talking, and the
+sound of footsteps in the court-yard. He opened the door slightly and
+looked out, then closed it quickly. "It is Nahoum Pasha," he said.
+"Please, the other room," he added, and pointed to a curtain. "There is
+a window leading on a garden. The garden-gate opens on a street leading
+to the Ezbekiah Square and your hotel."
+
+"But, no, I shall stay here," she said. She drew down her veil, then
+taking from her pocket another, arranged it also, so that her face was
+hidden.
+
+"Thee must go," he said--"go quickly." Again he pointed.
+
+"I will remain," she rejoined, with determination, and seated herself in
+a chair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE FOUR WHO KNEW
+
+There was a knocking at the door. David opened it. Nahoum Pasha stepped
+inside, and stood still a moment looking at Hylda. Then he made low
+salutation to her, touched his hand to his lips and breast saluting
+David, and waited.
+
+"What is thy business, pasha?" asked David quietly, and motioned towards
+a chair.
+
+"May thy path be on the high hills, Saadat-el-basha. I come for a favour
+at thy hands." Nahoum sat down. "What favour is mine to give to Nahoum
+Pasha?"
+
+"The Prince has given thee supreme place--it was mine but yesterday. It
+is well. To the deserving be the fruits of deserving."
+
+"Is merit, then, so truly rewarded here?" asked David quietly.
+
+"The Prince saw merit at last when he chose your Excellency for
+councillor."
+
+"How shall I show merit, then, in the eyes of Nahoum Pasha?"
+
+"Even by urging the Prince to give me place under him again. Not as
+heretofore--that is thy place--yet where it may be. I have capacity. I
+can aid thee in the great task. Thou wouldst remake our Egypt--and my
+heart is with you. I would rescue, not destroy. In years gone by I
+tried to do good to this land, and I failed. I was alone. I had not the
+strength to fight the forces around me. I was overcome. I had too little
+faith. But my heart was with the right--I am an Armenian and a Christian
+of the ancient faith. I am in sorrow. Death has humbled me. My brother
+Foorgat Bey--may flowers bloom for ever on his grave!--he is dead,"--his
+eyes were fixed on those of David, as with a perfectly assured
+candour--"and my heart is like an empty house. But man must not be idle
+and live--if Kaid lets me live. I have riches. Are not Foorgat's riches
+mine, his Palace, his gardens, his cattle, and his plantations, are they
+not mine? I may sit in the court-yard and hear the singers, may listen
+to the tale-tellers by the light of the moon; I may hear the tales of
+Al-Raschid chanted by one whose tongue never falters, and whose voice
+is like music; after the manner of the East I may give bread and meat
+to the poor at sunset; I may call the dancers to the feast. But what
+comfort shall it give? I am no longer a youth. I would work. I would
+labour for the land of Egypt, for by work shall we fulfil ourselves,
+redeem ourselves. Saadat, I would labour, but my master has taken away
+from me the anvil, the fire, and the hammer, and I sit without the door
+like an armless beggar. What work to do in Egypt save to help the land,
+and how shall one help, save in the Prince's service? There can be no
+reform from outside. If I laboured for better things outside Kaid's
+Palace, how long dost thou think I should escape the Nile, or the
+diamond-dust in my coffee? The work which I did, is it not so that it,
+with much more, falls now to thy hands, Saadat, with a confidence from
+Kaid that never was mine?"
+
+"I sought not the office."
+
+"Have I a word of blame? I come to ask for work to do with thee. Do I
+not know Prince Kaid? He had come to distrust us all. As stale water
+were we in his taste. He had no pleasure in us, and in our deeds he
+found only stones of stumbling. He knew not whom to trust. One by one we
+all had yielded to ceaseless intrigue and common distrust of each other,
+until no honest man was left; till all were intent to save their lives
+by holding power; for in this land to lose power is to lose life. No man
+who has been in high place, has had the secrets of the Palace and the
+ear of the Prince, lives after he has lost favour. The Prince, for his
+safety, must ensure silence, and the only silence in Egypt is the grave.
+In thee, Saadat, Kaid has found an honest man. Men will call thee mad,
+if thou remainest honest, but that is within thine own bosom and with
+fate. For me, thou hast taken my place, and more. Malaish, it is the
+decree of fate, and I have no anger. I come to ask thee to save my life,
+and then to give me work."
+
+"How shall I save thy life?"
+
+"By reconciling the Effendina to my living, and then by giving me
+service, where I shall be near to thee; where I can share with thee,
+though it be as the ant beside the beaver, the work of salvation in
+Egypt. I am rich since my brother was--" He paused; no covert look was
+in his eyes, no sign of knowledge, nothing but meditation and sorrowful
+frankness--"since Foorgat passed away in peace, praise be to God! He lay
+on his bed in the morning, when one came to wake him, like a sleeping
+child, no sign of the struggle of death upon him."
+
+A gasping sound came from the chair where Hylda sat; but he took no
+notice. He appeared to be unconscious of David's pain-drawn face, as
+he sat with hands upon his knees, his head bent forward listening, as
+though lost to the world.
+
+"So did Foorgat, my brother, die while yet in the fulness of his
+manhood, life beating high in his veins, with years before him to
+waste. He was a pleasure-lover, alas! he laid up no treasure of work
+accomplished; and so it was meet that he should die as he lived, in a
+moment of ease. And already he is forgotten. It is the custom here.
+He might have died by diamond-dust, and men would have set down their
+coffee-cups in surprise, and then would have forgotten; or he might have
+been struck down by the hand of an assassin, and, unless it was in the
+Palace, none would have paused to note it. And so the sands sweep over
+his steps upon the shore of time."
+
+After the first exclamation of horror, Hylda had sat rigid, listening
+as though under a spell. Through her veil she gazed at Nahoum with a
+cramping pain at her heart, for he seemed ever on the verge of the truth
+she dreaded; and when he spoke the truth, as though unconsciously, she
+felt she must cry out and rush from the room. He recalled to her the
+scene in the little tapestried room as vividly as though it was there
+before her eyes, and it had for the moment all the effect of a hideous
+nightmare. At last, however, she met David's eyes, and they guided her,
+for in them was a steady strength and force which gave her confidence.
+At first he also had been overcome inwardly, but his nerves were cool,
+his head was clear, and he listened to Nahoum, thinking out his course
+meanwhile.
+
+He owed this man much. He had taken his place, and by so doing had
+placed his life in danger. He had killed the brother upon the same
+day that he had dispossessed the favourite of office; and the debt was
+heavy. In office Nahoum had done after his kind, after the custom of
+the place and the people; and yet, as it would seem, the man had had
+stirrings within him towards a higher path. He, at any rate, had not
+amassed riches out of his position, and so much could not be said of
+any other servant of the Prince Pasha. Much he had heard of Nahoum's
+powerful will, hidden under a genial exterior, and behind his friendly,
+smiling blue eyes. He had heard also of cruelty--of banishment, and of
+enemies removed from his path suddenly, never to be seen again; but,
+on the whole, men spoke with more admiration of him than of any other
+public servant, Armenian Christian in a Mahommedan country though he
+was. That very day Kaid had said that if Nahoum had been less eager to
+control the State, he might still have held his place. Besides, the man
+was a Christian--of a mystic, half-legendary, obscure Christianity; yet
+having in his mind the old faith, its essence and its meaning, perhaps.
+Might not this Oriental mind, with that faith, be a power to redeem
+the land? It was a wonderful dream, in which he found the way, as he
+thought, to atone somewhat to this man for a dark injury done.
+
+When Nahoum stopped speaking David said: "But if I would have it, if it
+were well that it should be, I doubt I have the power to make it so."
+
+"Saadat-el-bdsha, Kaid believes in thee to-day; he will not believe
+to-morrow if thou dost remain without initiative. Action, however
+startling, will be proof of fitness. His Highness shakes a long spear.
+Those who ride with him must do battle with the same valour. Excellency,
+I have now great riches--since Death smote Foorgat Bey in the
+forehead"--still his eyes conveyed no meaning, though Hylda shrank
+back--"and I would use them for the good thou wouldst do here. Money
+will be needed, and sufficient will not be at thy hand-not till new
+ledgers be opened, new balances struck."
+
+He turned to Hylda quietly, and with a continued air of innocence said:
+"Shall it not be so-madame? Thou, I doubt not, are of his kin. It would
+seem so, though I ask pardon if it be not so--wilt thou not urge his
+Excellency to restore me to Kaid's favour? I know little of the English,
+though I know them humane and honest; but my brother, Foorgat Bey, he
+was much among them, lived much in England, was a friend to many great
+English. Indeed, on the evening that he died I saw him in the gallery of
+the banquet-room with an English lady--can one be mistaken in an English
+face? Perhaps he cared for her; perhaps that was why he smiled as he lay
+upon his bed, never to move again. Madame, perhaps in England thou mayst
+have known my brother. If that is so, I ask thee to speak for me to his
+Excellency. My life is in danger, and I am too young to go as my brother
+went. I do not wish to die in middle age, as my brother died."
+
+He had gone too far. In David's mind there was no suspicion that Nahoum
+knew the truth. The suggestion in his words had seemed natural; but,
+from the first, a sharp suspicion was in the mind of Hylda, and his last
+words had convinced her that if Nahoum did not surely know the truth,
+he suspected it all too well. Her instinct had pierced far; and as she
+realised his suspicions, perhaps his certainty, and heard his words of
+covert insult, which, as she saw, David did not appreciate, anger and
+determination grew in her. Yet she felt that caution must mark her
+words, and that nothing but danger lay in resentment. She felt the
+everlasting indignity behind the quiet, youthful eyes, the determined
+power of the man; but she saw also that, for the present, the course
+Nahoum suggested was the only course to take. And David must not even
+feel the suspicion in her own mind, that Nahoum knew or suspected the
+truth. If David thought that Nahoum knew, the end of all would come at
+once. It was clear, however, that Nahoum meant to be silent, or he would
+have taken another course of action. Danger lay in every direction, but,
+to her mind, the least danger lay in following Nahoum's wish.
+
+She slowly raised her veil, showing a face very still now, with eyes as
+steady as David's. David started at her action, he thought it rash; but
+the courage of it pleased him, too.
+
+"You are not mistaken," she said slowly in French; "your brother was
+known to me. I had met him in England. It will be a relief to all his
+friends to know that he passed away peacefully." She looked him in the
+eyes determinedly. "Monsieur Claridge is not my kinsman, but he is my
+fellow-countryman. If you mean well by monsieur, your knowledge and your
+riches should help him on his way. But your past is no guarantee of good
+faith, as you will acknowledge."
+
+He looked her in the eyes with a far meaning. "But I am giving
+guarantees of good faith now," he said softly. "Will you--not?"
+
+She understood. It was clear that he meant peace, for the moment at
+least.
+
+"If I had influence I would advise him to reconcile you to Prince Kaid,"
+she said quietly, then turned to David with an appeal in her eyes.
+
+David stood up. "I will do what I can," he said. "If thee means as well
+by Egypt as I mean by thee, all may be well for all."
+
+"Saadat! Saadat!" said Nahoum, with show of assumed feeling, and made
+salutation. Then to Hylda, making lower salutation still, he said: "Thou
+hast lifted from my neck the yoke. Thou hast saved me from the shadow
+and the dust. I am thy slave." His eyes were like a child's, wide and
+confiding.
+
+He turned towards the door, and was about to open it, when there came
+a knocking, and he stepped back. Hylda drew down her veil. David opened
+the door cautiously and admitted Mizraim the Chief Eunuch. Mizraim's
+eyes searched the room, and found Nahoum.
+
+"Pasha," he said to Nahoum, "may thy bones never return to dust, nor the
+light of thine eyes darken! There is danger."
+
+Nahoum nodded, but did not speak.
+
+"Shall I speak, then?" He paused and made low salutation to David,
+saying, "Excellency, I am thine ox to be slain."
+
+"Speak, son of the flowering oak," said Nahoum, with a sneer in his
+voice. "What blessing dost thou bring?"
+
+"The Effendina has sent for thee."
+
+Nahoum's eyes flashed. "By thee, lion of Abdin?" The lean, ghastly being
+smiled. "He has sent a company of soldiers and Achmet Pasha."
+
+"Achmet! Is it so? They are here, Mizraim, watcher of the morning?"
+
+"They are at thy palace--I am here, light of Egypt."
+
+"How knewest thou I was here?"
+
+Mizraim salaamed. "A watch was set upon thee this morning early. The
+watcher was of my slaves. He brought the word to me that thou wast here
+now. A watcher also was set upon thee, Excellency"--he turned to David.
+"He also was of my slaves. Word was delivered to his Highness that
+thou"--he turned to Nahoum again--"wast in thy palace, and Achmet Pasha
+went thither. He found thee not. Now the city is full of watchers, and
+Achmet goes from bazaar to bazaar, from house to house which thou was
+wont to frequent--and thou art here."
+
+"What wouldst thou have me do, Mizraim?"
+
+"Thou art here; is it the house of a friend or a foe?" Nahoum did
+not answer. His eyes were fixed in thought upon the floor, but he was
+smiling. He seemed without fear.
+
+"But if this be the house of a friend, is he safe here?" asked David.
+
+"For this night, it may be," answered Mizraim, "till other watchers be
+set, who are no slaves of mine. Tonight, here, of all places in Cairo,
+he is safe; for who could look to find him where thou art who hast taken
+from him his place and office, Excellency--on whom the stars shine
+for ever! But in another day, if my lord Nahoum be not forgiven by the
+Effendina, a hundred watchers will pierce the darkest corner of the
+bazaar, the smallest room in Cairo."
+
+David turned to Nahoum. "Peace be to thee, friend. Abide here till
+to-morrow, when I will speak for thee to his Highness, and, I trust,
+bring thee pardon. It shall be so--but I shall prevail," he added, with
+slow decision; "I shall prevail with him. My reasons shall convince his
+Highness."
+
+"I can help thee with great reasons, Saadat," said Nahoum. "Thou shalt
+prevail. I can tell thee that which will convince Kaid."
+
+While they were speaking, Hylda had sat motionless watching. At first
+it seemed to her that a trap had been set, and that David was to be the
+victim of Oriental duplicity; but revolt, as she did, from the miserable
+creature before them, she saw at last that he spoke the truth.
+
+"Thee will remain under this roof to-night, pasha?" asked David.
+
+"I will stay if thy goodness will have it so," answered Nahoum slowly.
+"It is not my way to hide, but when the storm comes it is well to
+shelter."
+
+Salaaming low, Mizraim withdrew, his last glance being thrown towards
+Hylda, who met his look with a repugnance which made her face rigid.
+She rose and put on her gloves. Nahoum rose also, and stood watching her
+respectfully.
+
+"Thee will go?" asked David, with a movement towards her.
+
+She inclined her head. "We have finished our business, and it is late,"
+she answered.
+
+David looked at Nahoum. "Thee will rest here, pasha, in peace. In a
+moment I will return." He took up his hat.
+
+There was a sudden flash of Nahoum's eyes, as though he saw an outcome
+of the intention which pleased him, but Hylda, saw the flash, and her
+senses were at once alarmed.
+
+"There is no need to accompany me," she said. "My cousin waits for me."
+
+David opened the door leading into the court-yard. It was dark, save for
+the light of a brazier of coals. A short distance away, near the outer
+gate, glowed a star of red light, and the fragrance of a strong cigar
+came over.
+
+"Say, looking for me?" said a voice, and a figure moved towards David.
+"Yours to command, pasha, yours to command." Lacey from Chicago held out
+his hand.
+
+"Thee is welcome, friend," said David.
+
+"She's ready, I suppose. Wonderful person, that. Stands on her own feet
+every time. She don't seem as though she came of the same stock as me,
+does she?"
+
+"I will bring her if thee will wait, friend."
+
+"I'm waiting." Lacey drew back to the gateway again and leaned against
+the wall, his cigar blazing in the dusk.
+
+A moment later David appeared in the garden again, with the slim,
+graceful figure of the girl who stood "upon her own feet." David drew
+her aside for a moment. "Thee is going at once to England?" he asked.
+
+"To-morrow to Alexandria. There is a steamer next day for Marseilles. In
+a fortnight more I shall be in England."
+
+"Thee must forget Egypt," he said. "Remembrance is not a thing of the
+will," she answered.
+
+"It is thy duty to forget. Thee is young, and it is spring with thee.
+Spring should be in thy heart. Thee has seen a shadow; but let it not
+fright thee."
+
+"My only fear is that I may forget," she answered.
+
+"Yet thee will forget."
+
+With a motion towards Lacey he moved to the gate. Suddenly she turned
+to him and touched his arm. "You will be a great man herein Egypt," she
+said. "You will have enemies without number. The worst of your enemies
+always will be your guest to-night."
+
+He did not, for a moment, understand. "Nahoum?" he asked. "I take his
+place. It would not be strange; but I will win him to me."
+
+"You will never win him," she answered. "Oh, trust my instinct in this!
+Watch him. Beware of him." David smiled slightly. "I shall have need to
+beware of many. I am sure thee does well to caution me. Farewell," he
+added.
+
+"If it should be that I can ever help you--" she said, and paused.
+
+"Thee has helped me," he replied. "The world is a desert. Caravans from
+all quarters of the sun meet at the cross-roads. One gives the other
+food or drink or medicine, and they move on again. And all grows dim
+with time. And the camel-drivers are forgotten; but the cross-roads
+remain, and the food and the drink and the medicine and the cattle
+helped each caravan upon the way. Is it not enough?"
+
+She placed her hand in his. It lay there for a moment. "God be with
+thee, friend," he said.
+
+The next instant Thomas Tilman Lacey's drawling voice broke the silence.
+
+"There's something catching about these nights in Egypt. I suppose it's
+the air. No wind--just the stars, and the ultramarine, and the nothing
+to do but lay me down and sleep. It doesn't give you the jim-jumps like
+Mexico. It makes you forget the world, doesn't it? You'd do things here
+that you wouldn't do anywhere else."
+
+The gate was opened by the bowab, and the two passed through. David was
+standing by the brazier, his hand held unconsciously over the coals,
+his eyes turned towards them. The reddish flame from the fire lit up his
+face under the broad-brimmed hat. His head, slightly bowed, was thrust
+forward to the dusk. Hylda looked at him steadily for a moment. Their
+eyes met, though hers were in the shade. Again Lacey spoke. "Don't be
+anxious. I'll see her safe back. Good-bye. Give my love to the girls."
+
+David stood looking at the closed gate with eyes full of thought and
+wonder and trouble. He was not thinking of the girl. There was no
+sentimental reverie in his look. Already his mind was engaged in
+scrutiny of the circumstances in which he was set. He realised fully his
+situation. The idealism which had been born with him had met its reward
+in a labour herculean at the least, and the infinite drudgery of the
+practical issues came in a terrible pressure of conviction to his mind.
+The mind did not shrink from any thought of the dangers in which he
+would be placed, from any vision of the struggle he must have with
+intrigue, and treachery and vileness. In a dim, half-realised way he
+felt that honesty and truth would be invincible weapons with a people
+who did not know them. They would be embarrassed, if not baffled, by a
+formula of life and conduct which they could not understand.
+
+It was not these matters that vexed him now, but the underlying forces
+of life set in motion by the blow which killed a fellow-man. This fact
+had driven him to an act of redemption unparalleled in its intensity and
+scope; but he could not tell--and this was the thought that shook his
+being--how far this act itself, inspiring him to a dangerous and immense
+work in life, would sap the best that was in him, since it must remain
+a secret crime, for which he could not openly atone. He asked himself as
+he stood by the brazier, the bowab apathetically rolling cigarettes at
+his feet, whether, in the flow of circumstance, the fact that he could
+not make open restitution, or take punishment for his unlawful act,
+would undermine the structure of his character. He was on the threshold
+of his career: action had not yet begun; he was standing like a swimmer
+on a high shore, looking into depths beneath which have never been
+plumbed by mortal man, wondering what currents, what rocks, lay beneath
+the surface of the blue. Would his strength, his knowledge, his skill,
+be equal to the enterprise? Would he emerge safe and successful, or be
+carried away by some strong undercurrent, be battered on unseen rocks?
+
+He turned with a calm face to the door behind which sat the displaced
+favourite of the Prince, his mind at rest, the trouble gone out of his
+eyes.
+
+"Uncle Benn! Uncle Benn!" he said to himself, with a warmth at his heart
+as he opened the door and stepped inside.
+
+Nahoum sat sipping coffee. A cigarette was between his fingers. He
+touched his hand to his forehead and his breast as David closed the door
+and hung his hat upon a nail. David's servant, Mahommed Hassan, whom
+he had had since first he came to Egypt, was gliding from the room--a
+large, square-shouldered fellow of over six feet, dressed in a plain
+blue yelek, but on his head the green turban of one who had done a
+pilgrimage to Mecca. Nahoum waved a hand after Mahommed and said:
+
+"Whence came thy servant sadat?"
+
+"He was my guide to Cairo. I picked him from the street."
+
+Nahoum smiled. There was no malice in the smile, only, as it might seem,
+a frank humour. "Ah, your Excellency used independent judgment. Thou art
+a judge of men. But does it make any difference that the man is a thief
+and a murderer--a murderer?"
+
+David's eyes darkened, as they were wont to do when he was moved or
+shocked.
+
+"Shall one only deal, then, with those who have neither stolen nor
+slain--is that the rule of the just in Egypt?"
+
+Nahoum raised his eyes to the ceiling as though in amiable inquiry, and
+began to finger a string of beads as a nun might tell her paternosters.
+"If that were the rule," he answered, after a moment, "how should any
+man be served in Egypt? Hereabouts is a man's life held cheap, else
+I had not been thy guest to-night; and Kaid's Palace itself would be
+empty, if every man in it must be honest. But it is the custom of the
+place for political errors to be punished by a hidden hand; we do not
+call it murder."
+
+"What is murder, friend?"
+
+"It is such a crime as that of Mahommed yonder, who killed--"
+
+David interposed. "I do not wish to know his crime. That is no affair
+between thee and me."
+
+Nahoum fingered his beads meditatively. "It was an affair of the
+housetops in his town of Manfaloot. I have only mentioned it because I
+know what view the English take of killing, and how set thou art to have
+thy household above reproach, as is meet in a Christian home. So, I
+took it, would be thy mind--which Heaven fill with light for Egypt's
+sake!--that thou wouldst have none about thee who were not above
+reproach, neither liars, nor thieves, nor murderers."
+
+"But thee would serve with me, friend," rejoined David quietly. "Thee
+has men's lives against thy account."
+
+"Else had mine been against their account."
+
+"Was it not so with Mahommed? If so, according to the custom of the
+land, then Mahommed is as immune as thou art."
+
+"Saadat, like thee I am a Christian, yet am I also Oriental, and what
+is crime with one race is none with another. At the Palace two days past
+thou saidst thou hadst never killed a man; and I know that thy religion
+condemns killing even in war. Yet in Egypt thou wilt kill, or thou
+shalt thyself be killed, and thy aims will come to naught. When, as thou
+wouldst say, thou hast sinned, hast taken a man's life, then thou wilt
+understand. Thou wilt keep this fellow Mahommed, then?"
+
+"I understand, and I will keep him."
+
+"Surely thy heart is large and thy mind great. It moveth above small
+things. Thou dost not seek riches here?"
+
+"I have enough; my wants are few."
+
+"There is no precedent for one in office to withhold his hand from
+profit and backsheesh."
+
+"Shall we not try to make a precedent?"
+
+"Truthfulness will be desolate--like a bird blown to sea, beating
+'gainst its doom."
+
+"Truth will find an island in the sea."
+
+"If Egypt is that sea, Saadat, there is no island."
+
+David came over close to Nahoum, and looked him in the eyes.
+
+"Surely I can speak to thee, friend, as to one understanding. Thou art
+a Christian--of the ancient fold. Out of the East came the light. Thy
+Church has preserved the faith. It is still like a lamp in the mist and
+the cloud in the East. Thou saidst but now that thy heart was with my
+purpose. Shall the truth that I would practise here not find an island
+in this sea--and shall it not be the soul of Nahoum Pasha?"
+
+"Have I not given my word? Nay, then, I swear it by the tomb of my
+brother, whom Death met in the highway, and because he loved the sun,
+and the talk of men, and the ways of women, rashly smote him out of the
+garden of life into the void. Even by his tomb I swear it."
+
+"Hast thou, then, such malice against Death? These things cannot happen
+save by the will of God."
+
+"And by the hand of man. But I have no cause for revenge. Foorgat died
+in his sleep like a child. Yet if it had been the hand of man, Prince
+Kaid or any other, I would not have held my hand until I had a life for
+his."
+
+"Thou art a Christian, yet thou wouldst meet one wrong by another?"
+
+"I am an Oriental." Then, with a sudden change of manner, he added: "But
+thou hast a Christianity the like of which I have never seen. I will
+learn of thee, Saadat, and thou shalt learn of me also many things which
+I know. They will help thee to understand Egypt and the place where thou
+wilt be set--if so be my life is saved, and by thy hand."
+
+Mahommed entered, and came to David. "Where wilt thou sleep, Saadat?" he
+asked.
+
+"The pasha will sleep yonder," David replied, pointing to another room.
+"I will sleep here." He laid a hand upon the couch where he sat.
+
+Nahoum rose and, salaaming, followed Mahommed to the other room.
+
+In a few moments the house was still, and remained so for hours. Just
+before dawn the curtain of Nahoum's room was drawn aside, the Armenian
+entered stealthily, and moved a step towards the couch where David lay.
+Suddenly he was stopped by a sound. He glanced towards a corner near
+David's feet. There sat Mahommed watching, a neboot of dom-wood across
+his knees.
+
+Their eyes remained fixed upon each other for a moment. Then Nahoum
+passed back into his bedroom as stealthily as he had come.
+
+Mahommed looked closely at David. He lay with an arm thrown over
+his head, resting softly, a moisture on his forehead as on that of a
+sleeping child.
+
+"Saadat! Saadat!" said Mahommed softly to the sleeping figure, scarcely
+above his breath, and then with his eyes upon the curtained room
+opposite, began to whisper words from the Koran:
+
+"In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful--"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. 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. He was less stoical and apathetic than most
+Egyptians. Also he was absurdly vain, and he knew that his vanity would
+receive rough usage.
+
+Now the door swung open, and a portly figure entered quickly. For so
+large a man Prince Kaid was light and subtle in his movements. His face
+was mobile, his eye keen and human.
+
+Achmet salaamed low. "The gardens of the First Heaven be thine, and the
+uttermost joy, Effendina," he said elaborately.
+
+"A thousand colours to the rainbow of thy happiness," answered Kaid
+mechanically, and seated himself cross-legged on a divan, taking a
+narghileh from the black slave who had glided ghostlike behind him.
+
+"What hour didst thou find him? Where hast thou placed him?" he added,
+after a moment.
+
+Achmet salaamed once more. "I have burrowed without ceasing, but the
+holes are empty, Effendina," he returned, abjectly and nervously.
+
+He had need to be concerned. The reply was full of amazement and anger.
+"Thou hast not found him? Thou hast not brought Nahoum to me?" Kaid's
+eyes were growing reddish; no good sign for those around him, for any
+that crossed him or his purposes.
+
+"A hundred eyes failed to search him out. Ten thousand piastres did not
+find him; the kourbash did not reveal him."
+
+Kaid's frown grew heavier. "Thou shalt bring Nahoum to me by midnight
+to-morrow!"
+
+"But if he has escaped, Effendina?" Achmet asked desperately. He had a
+peasant's blood; fear of power was ingrained.
+
+"What was thy business but to prevent escape? Son of a Nile crocodile,
+if he has escaped, thou too shalt escape from Egypt--into Fazougli.
+Fool, Nahoum is no coward. He would remain. He is in Egypt."
+
+"If he be in Egypt, I will find him, Effendina. Have I ever failed?
+When thou hast pointed, have I not brought? Have there not been many,
+Effendina? Should I not bring Nahoum, who has held over our heads the
+rod?"
+
+Kaid looked at him meditatively, and gave no answer to the question. "He
+reached too far," he muttered. "Egypt has one master only."
+
+The door opened softly and the black slave stole in. His lips moved, but
+scarce a sound travelled across the room. Kaid understood, and made a
+gesture. An instant afterwards the vast figure of Higli Pasha bulked
+into the room. Again there were elaborate salutations and salaams, and
+Kaid presently said:
+
+"Foorgat?"
+
+"Effendina," answered High, "it is not known how he died. He was in this
+Palace alive at night. In the morning he was found in bed at his own
+home."
+
+"There was no wound?"
+
+"None, Effendina."
+
+"The thong?"
+
+"There was no mark, Effendina."
+
+"Poison?"
+
+"There was no sign, Effendina."
+
+"Diamond-dust?"
+
+"Impossible, Effendina. There was not time. He was alive and well here
+at the Palace at eleven, and--" Kaid made an impatient gesture. "By the
+stone in the Kaabah, but it is not reasonable that Foorgat should die in
+his bed like a babe and sleep himself into heaven! Fate meant him for
+a violent end; but ere that came there was work to do for me. He had
+a gift for scenting treason--and he had treasure." His eyes shut and
+opened again with a look not pleasant to see. "But since it was that he
+must die so soon, then the loan he promised must now be a gift from the
+dead, if he be dead, if he be not shamming. Foorgat was a dire jester."
+
+"But now it is no jest, Effendina. He is in his grave."
+
+"In his grave! Bismillah! In his grave, dost thou say?"
+
+High's voice quavered. "Yesterday before sunset, Effendina. By Nahoum's
+orders."
+
+"I ordered the burial for to-day. By the gates of hell, but who shall
+disobey me!"
+
+"He was already buried when the Effendina's orders came," High pleaded
+anxiously.
+
+"Nahoum should have been taken yesterday," he rejoined, with malice in
+his eyes.
+
+"If I had received the orders of the Effendina on the night when the
+Effendina dismissed Nahoum--" Achmet said softly, and broke off.
+
+"A curse upon thine eyes that did not see thy duty!" Kaid replied
+gloomily. Then he turned to High. "My seal has been put upon Foorgat's
+doors? His treasure-places have been found? The courts have been
+commanded as to his estate, the banks--"
+
+"It was too late, Effendina," replied High hopelessly. Kaid got to his
+feet slowly, rage possessing him. "Too late! Who makes it too late when
+I command?"
+
+"When Foorgat was found dead, Nahoum at once seized the palace and the
+treasures. Then he went to the courts and to the holy men, and claimed
+succession. That was while it was yet early morning. Then he instructed
+the banks. The banks hold Foorgat's fortune against us, Effendina."
+
+"Foorgat had turned Mahommedan. Nahoum is a Christian. My will is law.
+Shall a Christian dog inherit from a true believer? The courts, the
+Wakfs shall obey me. And thou, son of a burnt father, shalt find Nahoum!
+Kaid shall not be cheated. Foorgat pledged the loan. It is mine. Allah
+scorch thine eyes!" he added fiercely to Achmet, "but thou shalt find
+this Christian gentleman, Nahoum."
+
+Suddenly, with a motion of disgust, he sat down, and taking the stem of
+the narghileh, puffed vigorously in silence. Presently in a red fury he
+cried: "Go--go--go, and bring me back by midnight Nahoum, and Foorgat's
+treasures, to the last piastre. Let every soldier be a spy, if thine own
+spies fail."
+
+As they turned to go, the door opened again, the black slave appeared,
+and ushered David into the room. David salaamed, but not low, and stood
+still.
+
+On the instant Kaid changed, The rage left his face. He leaned forward
+eagerly, the cruel and ugly look faded slowly from his eyes.
+
+"May thy days of life be as a river with sands of gold, effendi," he
+said gently. He had a voice like music. "May the sun shine in thy heart
+and fruits of wisdom flourish there, Effendina," answered David quietly.
+He saluted the others gravely, and his eyes rested upon Achmet in a way
+which Higli Pasha noted for subsequent gossip.
+
+Kaid pulled at his narghileh for a moment, mumbling good-humouredly to
+himself and watching the smoke reel away; then, with half-shut eyes, he
+said to David: "Am I master in Egypt or no, effendi?"
+
+"In ruling this people the Prince of Egypt stands alone," answered
+David. "There is no one between him and the people. There is no
+Parliament."
+
+"It is in my hand, then, to give or to withhold, to make or to break?"
+Kaid chuckled to have this tribute, as he thought, from a Christian, who
+did not blink at Oriental facts, and was honest.
+
+David bowed his head to Kaid's words.
+
+"Then if it be my hand that lifts up or casts down, that rewards or that
+punishes, shall my arm not stretch into the darkest corner of Egypt to
+bring forth a traitor? Shall it not be so?"
+
+"It belongs to thy power," answered David. "It is the ancient custom of
+princes here. Custom is law, while it is yet the custom."
+
+Kaid looked at him enigmatically for a moment, then smiled grimly--he
+saw the course of the lance which David had thrown. He bent his look
+fiercely on Achmet and Higli. "Ye have heard. Truth is on his lips. I
+have stretched out my arm. Ye are my arm, to reach for and gather in
+Nahoum and all that is his." He turned quickly to David again. "I have
+given this hawk, Achmet, till to-morrow night to bring Nahoum to me," he
+explained.
+
+"And if he fails--a penalty? He will lose his place?" asked David, with
+cold humour.
+
+"More than his place," Kaid rejoined, with a cruel smile.
+
+"Then is his place mine, Effendina," rejoined David, with a look which
+could give Achmet no comfort. "Thou will bring Nahoum--thou?" asked
+Kaid, in amazement.
+
+"I have brought him," answered David. "Is it not my duty to know the
+will of the Effendina and to do it, when it is just and right?"
+
+"Where is he--where does he wait?" questioned Kaid eagerly.
+
+"Within the Palace--here," replied David. "He awaits his fate in thine
+own dwelling, Effendina." Kaid glowered upon Achmet. "In the years which
+Time, the Scytheman, will cut from thy life, think, as thou fastest at
+Ramadan or feastest at Beiram, how Kaid filled thy plate when thou wast
+a beggar, and made thee from a dog of a fellah into a pasha. Go to thy
+dwelling, and come here no more," he added sharply. "I am sick of thy
+yellow, sinful face."
+
+Achmet made no reply, but, as he passed beyond the door with Higli, he
+said in a whisper: "Come--to Harrik and the army! He shall be deposed.
+The hour is at hand." High answered him faintly, however. He had not the
+courage of the true conspirator, traitor though he was.
+
+As they disappeared, Kaid made a wide gesture of friendliness to David,
+and motioned to a seat, then to a narghileh. David seated himself, took
+the stem of a narghileh in his mouth for an instant, then laid it down
+again and waited.
+
+"Nahoum--I do not understand," Kaid said presently, his eyes gloating.
+
+"He comes of his own will, Effendina."
+
+"Wherefore?" Kaid could not realise the truth. This truth was not
+Oriental on the face of it. "Effendina, he comes to place his life in
+thy hands. He would speak with thee."
+
+"How is it thou dost bring him?"
+
+"He sought me to plead for him with thee, and because I knew his peril,
+I kept him with me and brought him hither but now."
+
+"Nahoum went to thee?" Kaid's eyes peered abstractedly into the distance
+between the almost shut lids. That Nahoum should seek David, who had
+displaced him from his high office, was scarcely Oriental, when his
+every cue was to have revenge on his rival. This was a natural sequence
+to his downfall. It was understandable. But here was David safe and
+sound. Was it, then, some deeper scheme of future vengeance? The
+Oriental instinctively pierced the mind of the Oriental. He could have
+realised fully the fierce, blinding passion for revenge which had almost
+overcome Nahoum's calculating mind in the dark night, with his foe in
+the next room, which had driven him suddenly from his bed to fall upon
+David, only to find Mahommed Hassan watching--also with the instinct of
+the Oriental.
+
+Some future scheme of revenge? Kaid's eyes gleamed red. There would
+be no future for Nahoum. "Why did Nahoum go to thee?" he asked again
+presently.
+
+"That I might beg his life of thee, Highness, as I said," David replied.
+
+"I have not ordered his death."
+
+David looked meditatively at him. "It was agreed between us yesterday
+that I should speak plainly--is it not so?"
+
+Kaid nodded, and leaned back among the cushions.
+
+"If what the Effendina intends is fulfilled, there is no other way but
+death for Nahoum," added David. "What is my intention, effendi?"
+
+"To confiscate the fortune left by Foorgat Bey. Is it not so?"
+
+"I had a pledge from Foorgat--a loan."
+
+"That is the merit of the case, Effendina. I am otherwise concerned.
+There is the law. Nahoum inherits. Shouldst thou send him to Fazougli,
+he would still inherit."
+
+"He is a traitor."
+
+"Highness, where is the proof?"
+
+"I know. My friends have disappeared one by one--Nahoum. Lands have been
+alienated from me--Nahoum. My income has declined--Nahoum. I have given
+orders and they have not been fulfilled--Nahoum. Always, always some
+rumour of assassination, or of conspiracy, or the influence and secret
+agents of the Sultan--all Nahoum. He is a traitor. He has grown rich
+while I borrow from Europe to pay my army and to meet the demands of the
+Sultan."
+
+"What man can offer evidence in this save the Effendina who would profit
+by his death?"
+
+"I speak of what I know. I satisfy myself. It is enough."
+
+"Highness, there is a better way; to satisfy the people, for whom thee
+lives. None should stand between. Is not the Effendina a father to
+them?"
+
+"The people! Would they not say Nahoum had got his due if he were
+blotted from their sight?"
+
+"None has been so generous to the poor, so it is said by all. His hand
+has been upon the rich only. Now, Effendina, he has brought hither the
+full amount of all he has received and acquired in thy service. He would
+offer it in tribute."
+
+Kaid smiled sardonically. "It is a thin jest. When a traitor dies the
+State confiscates his goods!"
+
+"Thee calls him traitor. Does thee believe he has ever conspired against
+thy life?"
+
+Kaid shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Let me answer for thee, Effendina. Again and again he has defeated
+conspiracy. He has blotted it out--by the sword and other means. He has
+been a faithful servant to his Prince at least. If he has done after the
+manner of all others in power here, the fault is in the system, not in
+the man alone. He has been a friend to thee, Kaid."
+
+"I hope to find in thee a better."
+
+"Why should he not live?"
+
+"Thou hast taken his place."
+
+"Is it, then, the custom to destroy those who have served thee, when
+they cease to serve?" David rose to his feet quickly. His face was
+shining with a strange excitement. It gave him a look of exaltation, his
+lips quivered with indignation. "Does thee kill because there is silence
+in the grave?"
+
+Kaid blew a cloud of smoke slowly. "Silence in the grave is a fact
+beyond dispute," he said cynically.
+
+"Highness, thee changes servants not seldom," rejoined David meaningly.
+"It may be that my service will be short. When I go, will the long arm
+reach out for me in the burrows where I shall hide?"
+
+Kaid looked at him with ill-concealed admiration. "Thou art an
+Englishman, not an Egyptian, a guest, not a subject, and under no law
+save my friendship." Then he added scornfully: "When an Englishman in
+England leaves office, no matter how unfaithful, though he be a friend
+of any country save his own, they send him to the House of Lords--or so
+I was told in France when I was there. What does it matter to thee what
+chances to Nahoum? Thou hast his place with me. My secrets are thine.
+They shall all be thine--for years I have sought an honest man. Thou art
+safe whether to go or to stay."
+
+"It may be so. I heed it not. My life is as that of a gull--if the wind
+carry it out to sea, it is lost. As my uncle went I shall go one day.
+Thee will never do me ill; but do I not know that I shall have foes at
+every corner, behind every mooshrabieh screen, on every mastaba, in the
+pasha's court-yard, by every mosque? Do I not know in what peril I serve
+Egypt?"
+
+"Yet thou wouldst keep alive Nahoum! He will dig thy grave deep, and
+wait long."
+
+"He will work with me for Egypt, Effendina." Kaid's face darkened.
+
+"What is thy meaning?"
+
+"I ask Nahoum's life that he may serve under me, to do those things thou
+and I planned yesterday--the land, taxation, the army, agriculture, the
+Soudan. Together we will make Egypt better and greater and richer--the
+poor richer, even though the rich be poorer."
+
+"And Kaid--poorer?"
+
+"When Egypt is richer, the Prince is richer, too. Is not the Prince
+Egypt? Highness, yesterday--yesterday thee gave me my commission. If
+thee will not take Nahoum again into service to aid me, I must not
+remain. I cannot work alone."
+
+"Thou must have this Christian Oriental to work with thee?" He looked at
+David closely, then smiled sardonically, but with friendliness to David
+in his eyes. "Nahoum has prayed to work with thee, to be a slave where
+he was master? He says to thee that he would lay his heart upon the
+altar of Egypt?" Mordant, questioning humour was in his voice.
+
+David inclined his head.
+
+"He would give up all that is his?"
+
+"It is so, Effendina."
+
+"All save Foorgat's heritage?"
+
+"It belonged to their father. It is a due inheritance."
+
+Kaid laughed sarcastically. "It was got in Mehemet Ali's service."
+
+"Nathless, it is a heritage, Effendina. He would give that fortune back
+again to Egypt in work with me, as I shall give of what is mine, and of
+what I am, in the name of God, the all-merciful!"
+
+The smile faded out of Kaid's face, and wonder settled on it. What
+manner of man was this? His life, his fortune for Egypt, a country alien
+to him, which he had never seen till six months ago! What kind of being
+was behind the dark, fiery eyes and the pale, impassioned face? Was
+he some new prophet? If so, why should he not have cast a spell upon
+Nahoum? Had he not bewitched himself, Kaid, one of the ablest princes
+since Alexander or Amenhotep? Had Nahoum, then, been mastered and won?
+Was ever such power? In how many ways had it not been shown! He had
+fought for his uncle's fortune, and had got it at last yesterday without
+a penny of backsheesh. Having got his will, he was now ready to give
+that same fortune to the good of Egypt--but not to beys and pashas and
+eunuchs (and that he should have escaped Mizraim was the marvel beyond
+all others!), or even to the Prince Pasha; but to that which would make
+"Egypt better and greater and richer--the poor richer, even though the
+rich be poorer!" Kaid chuckled to himself at that. To make the rich
+poorer would suit him well, so long as he remained rich. And, if riches
+could be got, as this pale Frank proposed, by less extortion from the
+fellah and less kourbash, so much the happier for all.
+
+He was capable of patriotism, and this Quaker dreamer had stirred it in
+him a little. Egypt, industrial in a real sense; Egypt, paying her own
+way without tyranny and loans: Egypt, without corvee, and with an army
+hired from a full public purse; Egypt, grown strong and able to resist
+the suzerainty and cruel tribute--that touched his native goodness of
+heart, so long, in disguise; it appealed to the sense of leadership in
+him; to the love of the soil deep in his bones; to regard for the common
+people--for was not his mother a slave? Some distant nobleness trembled
+in him, while yet the arid humour of the situation flashed into his
+eyes, and, getting to his feet, he said to David: "Where is Nahoum?"
+
+David told him, and he clapped his hands. The black slave entered,
+received an order, and disappeared. Neither spoke, but Kaid's face was
+full of cheerfulness.
+
+Presently Nahoum entered and salaamed low, then put his hand upon
+his turban. There was submission, but no cringing or servility in his
+manner. His blue eyes looked fearlessly before him. His face was not
+paler than its wont. He waited for Kaid to speak.
+
+"Peace be to thee," Kaid murmured mechanically.
+
+"And to thee, peace, O Prince," answered Nahoum. "May the feet of Time
+linger by thee, and Death pass thy house forgetful."
+
+There was silence for a moment, and then Kaid spoke again. "What are thy
+properties and treasure?" he asked sternly.
+
+Nahoum drew forth a paper from his sleeve, and handed it to Kaid without
+a word. Kaid glanced at it hurriedly, then said: "This is but nothing.
+What hast thou hidden from me?"
+
+"It is all I have got in thy service, Highness," he answered boldly.
+"All else I have given to the poor; also to spies--and to the army."
+
+"To spies--and to the army?" asked Kaid slowly, incredulously.
+
+"Wilt thou come with me to the window, Effendina?" Kaid, wondering, went
+to the great windows which looked on to the Palace square. There, drawn
+up, were a thousand mounted men as black as ebony, wearing shining white
+metal helmets and fine chain-armour and swords and lances like medieval
+crusaders. The horses, too, were black, and the mass made a barbaric
+display belonging more to another period in the world's history. This
+regiment of Nubians Kaid had recruited from the far south, and had
+maintained at his own expense. When they saw him at the window now,
+their swords clashed on their thighs and across their breasts, and they
+raised a great shout of greeting.
+
+"Well?" asked Kaid, with a ring to the voice. "They are loyal,
+Effendina, every man. But the army otherwise is honeycombed with
+treason. Effendina, my money has been busy in the army paying
+and bribing officers, and my spies were costly. There has been
+sedition--conspiracy; but until I could get the full proofs I waited; I
+could but bribe and wait. Were it not for the money I had spent, there
+might have been another Prince of Egypt."
+
+Kald's face darkened. He was startled, too. He had been taken unawares.
+"My brother Harrik--!"
+
+"And I should have lost my place, lost all for which I cared. I had no
+love for money; it was but a means. I spent it for the State--for the
+Effendina, and to keep my place. I lost my place, however, in another
+way."
+
+"Proofs! Proofs!" Kaid's voice was hoarse with feeling.
+
+"I have no proofs against Prince Harrik, no word upon paper. But there
+are proofs that the army is seditious, that, at any moment, it may
+revolt."
+
+"Thou hast kept this secret?" questioned Kaid darkly and suspiciously.
+
+"The time had not come. Read, Effendina," he added, handing some papers
+over.
+
+"But it is the whole army!" said Kaid aghast, as he read. He was
+convinced.
+
+"There is only one guilty," returned Nahoum. Their eyes met. Oriental
+fatalism met inveterate Oriental distrust and then instinctively Kaid's
+eyes turned to David. In the eyes of the Inglesi was a different thing.
+The test of the new relationship had come. Ferocity was in his heart,
+a vitriolic note was in his voice as he said to David, "If this be
+true--the army rotten, the officers disloyal, treachery under every
+tunic--bismillah, speak!"
+
+"Shall it not be one thing at a time, Effendina?" asked David. He made a
+gesture towards Nahoum. Kaid motioned to a door. "Wait yonder," he said
+darkly to Nahoum. As the door opened, and Nahoum disappeared leisurely
+and composedly, David caught a glimpse of a guard of armed Nubians in
+leopard-skins filed against the white wall of the other room.
+
+"What is thy intention towards Nahoum, Effendina?" David asked
+presently.
+
+Kaid's voice was impatient. "Thou hast asked his life--take it; it
+is thine; but if I find him within these walls again until I give him
+leave, he shall go as Foorgat went."
+
+"What was the manner of Foorgat's going?" asked David quietly.
+
+"As a wind blows through a court-yard, and the lamp goes out, so he
+went--in the night. Who can say? Wherefore speculate? He is gone. It is
+enough. Were it not for thee, Egypt should see Nahoum no more."
+
+David sighed, and his eyes closed for an instant. "Effendina, Nahoum has
+proved his faith--is it not so?" He pointed to the documents in Kaid's
+hands.
+
+A grim smile passed over Kaid's face. Distrust of humanity, incredulity,
+cold cynicism, were in it. "Wheels within wheels, proofs within proofs,"
+he said. "Thou hast yet to learn the Eastern heart. When thou seest
+white in the East, call it black, for in an instant it will be black.
+Malaish, it is the East! Have I not trusted--did I not mean well by all?
+Did I not deal justly? Yet my justice was but darkness of purpose, the
+hidden terror to them all. So did I become what thou findest me and dost
+believe me--a tyrant, in whose name a thousand do evil things of which I
+neither hear nor know. Proof! When a woman lies in your arms, it is not
+the moment to prove her fidelity. Nahoum has crawled back to my feet
+with these things, and by the beard of the Prophet they are true!" He
+looked at the papers with loathing. "But what his purpose was when he
+spied upon and bribed my army I know not. Yet, it shall be said, he has
+held Harrik back--Harrik, my brother. Son of Sheitan and slime of the
+Nile, have I not spared Harrik all these years!"
+
+"Hast thou proof, Effendina?"
+
+"I have proof enough; I shall have more soon. To save their lives,
+these, these will tell. I have their names here." He tapped the papers.
+"There are ways to make them tell. Now, speak, effendi, and tell me what
+I shall do to Harrik."
+
+"Wouldst thou proclaim to Egypt, to the Sultan, to the world that
+the army is disloyal? If these guilty men are seized, can the army
+be trusted? Will it not break away in fear? Yonder Nubians are not
+enough--a handful lost in the melee. Prove the guilt of him who
+perverted the army and sought to destroy thee. Punish him."
+
+"How shall there be proof save through those whom he has perverted?
+There is no writing."
+
+"There is proof," answered David calmly.
+
+"Where shall I find it?" Kaid laughed contemptuously.
+
+"I have the proof," answered David gravely. "Against Harrik?"
+
+"Against Prince Harrik Pasha."
+
+"Thou--what dost thou know?"
+
+"A woman of the Prince heard him give instructions for thy disposal,
+Effendina, when the Citadel should turns its guns upon Cairo and the
+Palace. She was once of thy harem. Thou didst give her in marriage, and
+she came to the harem of Prince Harrik at last. A woman from without who
+sang to her--a singing girl, an al'mah--she trusted with the paper to
+warn thee, Effendina, in her name. Her heart had remembrance of thee.
+Her foster-brother Mahommed Hassan is my servant. Him she told, and
+Mahommed laid the matter before me this morning. Here is a sign by which
+thee will remember her, so she said. Zaida she was called here." He
+handed over an amulet which had one red gem in the centre.
+
+Kaid's face had set into fierce resolution, but as he took the amulet
+his eyes softened.
+
+"Zaida. Inshallah! Zaida, she was called. She has the truth almost of
+the English. She could not lie ever. My heart smote me concerning her,
+and I gave her in marriage." Then his face darkened again, and his teeth
+showed in malice. A demon was roused in him. He might long ago have
+banished the handsome and insinuating Harrik, but he had allowed him
+wealth and safety--and now...
+
+His intention was unmistakable.
+
+"He shall die the death," he said. "Is it not so?" he added fiercely to
+David, and gazed at him fixedly. Would this man of peace plead for the
+traitor, the would-be fratricide?
+
+"He is a traitor; he must die," answered David slowly.
+
+Kald's eyes showed burning satisfaction. "If he were thy brother, thou
+wouldst kill him?"
+
+"I would give a traitor to death for the country's sake. There is no
+other way."
+
+"To-night he shall die."
+
+"But with due trial, Effendina?"
+
+"Trial--is not the proof sufficient?"
+
+"But if he confess, and give evidence himself, and so offer himself to
+die?"
+
+"Is Harrik a fool?" answered Kaid, with scorn.
+
+"If there be a trial and sentence is given, the truth concerning the
+army must appear. Is that well? Egypt will shake to its foundations--to
+the joy of its enemies."
+
+"Then he shall die secretly."
+
+"The Prince Pasha of Egypt will be called a murderer."
+
+Kaid shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"The Sultan--Europe--is it well?"
+
+"I will tell the truth," Kaid rejoined angrily.
+
+"If the Effendina will trust me, Prince Harrik shall confess his crime
+and pay the penalty also."
+
+"What is thy purpose?"
+
+"I will go to his palace and speak with him."
+
+"Seize him?"
+
+"I have no power to seize him, Effendina."
+
+"I will give it. My Nubians shall go also."
+
+"Effendina, I will go alone. It is the only way. There is great danger
+to the throne. Who can tell what a night will bring forth?"
+
+"If Harrik should escape--"
+
+"If I were an Egyptian and permitted Harrik to escape, my life would pay
+for my failure. If I failed, thou wouldst not succeed. If I am to serve
+Egypt, there must be trust in me from thee, or it were better to pause
+now. If I go, as I shall go, alone, I put my life in danger--is it not
+so?"
+
+Suddenly Kaid sat down again among his cushions. "Inshallah! In the name
+of God, be it so. Thou art not as other men. There is something in thee
+above my thinking. But I will not sleep till I see thee again."
+
+"I shall see thee at midnight, Effendina. Give me the ring from thy
+finger."
+
+Kaid passed it over, and David put it in his pocket. Then he turned to
+go.
+
+"Nahoum?" he asked.
+
+"Take him hence. Let him serve thee if it be thy will. Yet I cannot
+understand it. The play is dark. Is he not an Oriental?"
+
+"He is a Christian."
+
+Kaid laughed sourly, and clapped his hands for the slave.
+
+In a moment David and Nahoum were gone. "Nahoum, a Christian!
+Bismillah!" murmured Kaid scornfully, then fell to pondering darkly over
+the evil things he had heard.
+
+Meanwhile the Nubians in their glittering armour waited without in the
+blistering square.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. THE JEHAD AND THE LIONS
+
+"Allah hu Achbar! Allah hu Achbar! Ashhadu an la illaha illalla!"
+The sweetly piercing, resonant voice of the Muezzin rang far and
+commandingly on the clear evening air, and from bazaar and crowded
+street the faithful silently hurried to the mosques, leaving their
+slippers at the door, while others knelt where the call found them, and
+touched their foreheads to the ground.
+
+In his palace by the Nile, Harrik, the half-brother of the Prince Pasha,
+heard it, and breaking off from conversation with two urgent visitors,
+passed to an alcove near, dropping a curtain behind him. Kneeling
+reverently on the solitary furniture of the room--a prayer-rug from
+Medina--he lost himself as completely in his devotions as though his
+life were an even current of unforbidden acts and motives.
+
+Cross-legged on the great divan of the room he had left, his less pious
+visitors, unable to turn their thoughts from the dark business on which
+they had come, smoked their cigarettes, talking to each other in tones
+so low as would not have been heard by a European, and with apparent
+listlessness.
+
+Their manner would not have indicated that they were weighing matters of
+life and death, of treason and infamy, of massacre and national shame.
+Only the sombre, smouldering fire of their eyes was evidence of the
+lighted fuse of conspiracy burning towards the magazine. One look of
+surprise had been exchanged when Harrik Pasha left them suddenly--time
+was short for what they meant to do; but they were Muslims, and they
+resigned themselves.
+
+"The Inglesi must be the first to go; shall a Christian dog rule over
+us?"
+
+It was Achmet the Ropemaker who spoke, his yellow face wrinkling with
+malice, though his voice but murmured hoarsely.
+
+"Nahoum will kill him." Higli Pasha laughed low--it was like the gurgle
+of water in the narghileh--a voice of good nature and persuasiveness
+from a heart that knew no virtue. "Bismillah! Who shall read the meaning
+of it? Why has he not already killed?"
+
+"Nahoum would choose his own time--after he has saved his life by the
+white carrion. Kaid will give him his life if the Inglesi asks. The
+Inglesi, he is mad. If he were not mad, he would see to it that Nahoum
+was now drying his bones in the sands."
+
+"What each has failed to do for the other shall be done for them,"
+answered Achmet, a hateful leer on his immobile features. "To-night many
+things shall be made right. To-morrow there will be places empty and
+places filled. Egypt shall begin again to-morrow."
+
+"Kaid?"
+
+Achmet stopped smoking for a moment. "When the khamsin comes, when the
+camels stampede, and the children of the storm fall upon the caravan,
+can it be foretold in what way Fate shall do her work? So but the end be
+the same--malaish! We shall be content tomorrow."
+
+Now he turned and looked at his companion as though his mind had chanced
+on a discovery. "To him who first brings word to a prince who inherits,
+that the reigning prince is dead, belong honour and place," he said.
+
+"Then shall it be between us twain," said High, and laid his hot palm
+against the cold, snaky palm of the other. "And he to whom the honour
+falls shall help the other."
+
+"Aiwa, but it shall be so," answered Achmet, and then they spoke in
+lower tones still, their eyes on the curtain behind which Harrik prayed.
+
+Presently Harrik entered, impassive, yet alert, his slight, handsome
+figure in sharp contrast to the men lounging in the cushions before him,
+who salaamed as he came forward. The features were finely chiselled, the
+forehead white and high, the lips sensuous, the eyes fanatical, the look
+concentrated yet abstracted. He took a seat among the cushions, and,
+after a moment, said to Achmet, in a voice abnormally deep and powerful:
+"Diaz--there is no doubt of Diaz?"
+
+"He awaits the signal. The hawk flies not swifter than Diaz will act."
+
+"The people--the bazaars--the markets?"
+
+"As the air stirs a moment before the hurricane comes, so the whisper
+has stirred them. From one lip to another, from one street to another,
+from one quarter to another, the word has been passed--'Nahoum was
+a Christian, but Nahoum was an Egyptian whose heart was Muslim. The
+stranger is a Christian and an Inglesi. Reason has fled from the Prince
+Pasha, the Inglesi has bewitched him. But the hour of deliverance
+draweth nigh. Be ready! To-night!' So has the whisper gone."
+
+Harrik's eyes burned. "God is great," he said. "The time has come. The
+Christians spoil us. From France, from England, from Austria--it is
+enough. Kaid has handed us over to the Greek usurers, the Inglesi and
+the Frank are everywhere. And now this new-comer who would rule Kaid,
+and lay his hand upon Egypt like Joseph of old, and bring back Nahoum,
+to the shame of every Muslim--behold, the spark is to the tinder, it
+shall burn."
+
+"And the hour, Effendina?"
+
+"At midnight. The guns to be trained on the Citadel, the Palace
+surrounded. Kaid's Nubians?"
+
+"A hundred will be there, Effendina, the rest a mile away at their
+barracks." Achmet rubbed his cold palms together in satisfaction.
+
+"And Prince Kaid, Effendina?" asked Higli cautiously.
+
+The fanatical eyes turned away. "The question is foolish--have ye no
+brains?" he said impatiently.
+
+A look of malignant triumph flashed from Achmet to High, and he said,
+scarce above a whisper: "May thy footsteps be as the wings of the eagle,
+Effendina. The heart of the pomegranate is not redder than our hearts
+are red for thee. Cut deep into our hearts, and thou shalt find the last
+beat is for thee--and for the Jehad!"
+
+"The Jehad--ay, the Jehad! The time is at hand," answered Harrik,
+glowering at the two. "The sword shall not be sheathed till we have
+redeemed Egypt. Go your ways, effendis, and peace be on you and on all
+the righteous worshippers of God!"
+
+As High and Achmet left the palace, the voice of a holy man--admitted
+everywhere and treated with reverence--chanting the Koran, came
+somnolently through the court-yard: "Bismillah hirrahmah, nirraheem.
+Elhamdu lillahi sabbila!"
+
+Rocking his body backwards and forwards and dwelling sonorously on each
+vowel, the holy man seemed the incarnation of Muslim piety; but as the
+two conspirators passed him with scarce a glance, and made their way to
+a small gate leading into the great garden bordering on the Nile, his
+eyes watched them sharply. When they had passed through, he turned
+towards the windows of the harem, still chanting. For a long time he
+chanted. An occasional servant came and went, but his voice ceased not,
+and he kept his eyes fixed ever on the harem windows.
+
+At last his watching had its reward. Something fluttered from a window
+to the ground. Still chanting, he rose and began walking round the great
+court-yard. Twice he went round, still chanting, but the third time he
+stooped to pick up a little strip of linen which had fallen from the
+window, and concealed it in his sleeve. Presently he seated himself
+again, and, still chanting, spread out the linen in his palm and read
+the characters upon it. For an instant there was a jerkiness to the
+voice, and then it droned on resonantly again. Now the eyes of the holy
+man were fixed on the great gates through which strangers entered, and
+he was seated in the way which any one must take who came to the palace
+doors.
+
+It was almost dark, when he saw the bowab, after repeated knocking,
+sleepily and grudgingly open the gates to admit a visitor. There seemed
+to be a moment's hesitation on the bowab's part, but he was presently
+assured by something the visitor showed him, and the latter made his way
+deliberately to the palace doors. As the visitor neared the holy man,
+who chanted on monotonously, he was suddenly startled to hear between
+the long-drawn syllables the quick words in Arabic:
+
+"Beware, Saadat! See, I am Mahommed Hassan, thy servant! At midnight
+they surround Kaid's palace--Achmet and Higli--and kill the Prince
+Pasha. Return, Saadat. Harrik will kill thee."
+
+David made no sign, but with a swift word to the faithful Mahommed
+Hassan, passed on, and was presently admitted to the palace. As the
+doors closed behind him, he would hear the voice of the holy man still
+chanting: "Waladalleen--Ameen-Ameen! Waladalleen--Ameen!"
+
+The voice followed him, fainter and fainter, as he passed through the
+great bare corridors with the thick carpets on which the footsteps made
+no sound, until it came, soft and undefined, as it were from a great
+distance. Then suddenly there fell upon him a sense of the peril of his
+enterprise. He had been left alone in the vast dim hall while a slave,
+made obsequious by the sight of the ring of the Prince Pasha, sought
+his master. As he waited he was conscious that people were moving about
+behind the great screens of mooshrabieh which separated this room from
+others, and that eyes were following his every motion. He had gained
+easy ingress to this place; but egress was a matter of some speculation.
+The doors which had closed behind him might swing one way only! He had
+voluntarily put himself in the power of a man whose fatal secret he
+knew. He only felt a moment's apprehension, however. He had been moved
+to come from a whisper in his soul; and he had the sure conviction of
+the predestinarian that he was not to be the victim of "The Scytheman"
+before his appointed time. His mind resumed its composure, and he
+watchfully waited the return of the slave.
+
+Suddenly he was conscious of some one behind him, though he had heard
+no one approach. He swung round and was met by the passive face of the
+black slave in personal attendance on Harrik. The slave did not speak,
+but motioned towards a screen at the end of the room, and moved towards
+it. David followed. As they reached it, a broad panel opened, and they
+passed through, between a line of black slaves. Then there was a sudden
+darkness, and a moment later David was ushered into a room blazing with
+light. Every inch of the walls was hung with red curtains. No door was
+visible. He was conscious of this as the panel clicked behind him, and
+the folds of the red velvet caught his shoulder in falling. Now he saw
+sitting on a divan on the opposite side of the room Prince Harrik.
+
+David had never before seen him, and his imagination had fashioned a
+different personality. Here was a combination of intellect, refinement,
+and savagery. The red, sullen lips stamped the delicate, fanatical face
+with cruelty and barbaric indulgence, while yet there was an intensity
+in the eyes that showed the man was possessed of an idea which
+mastered him--a root-thought. David was at once conscious of a complex
+personality, of a man in whom two natures fought. He understood it.
+By instinct the man was a Mahdi, by heredity he was a voluptuary, that
+strange commingling of the religious and the evil found in so many
+criminals. In some far corner of his nature David felt something akin.
+The rebellion in his own blood against the fine instinct of his Quaker
+faith and upbringing made him grasp the personality before him. Had he
+himself been born in these surroundings, under these influences! The
+thought flashed through his mind like lightning, even as he bowed before
+Harrik, who salaamed and said: "Peace be unto thee!" and motioned him to
+a seat on a divan near and facing him.
+
+"What is thy business with me, effendi?" asked Harrik.
+
+"I come on the business of the Prince Pasha," answered David.
+
+Harrik touched his fez mechanically, then his breast and lips, and a
+cruel smile lurked at the corners of his mouth as he rejoined:
+
+"The feet of them who wear the ring of their Prince wait at no man's
+door. The carpet is spread for them. They go and they come as the feet
+of the doe in the desert. Who shall say, They shall not come; who shall
+say, They shall not return!"
+
+Though the words were spoken with an air of ingenuous welcome, David
+felt the malignity in the last phrase, and knew that now was come
+the most fateful moment of his life. In his inner being he heard the
+dreadful challenge of Fate. If he failed in his purpose with this
+man, he would never begin his work in Egypt. Of his life he did not
+think--his life was his purpose, and the one was nothing without the
+other. No other man would have undertaken so Quixotic an enterprise,
+none would have exposed himself so recklessly to the dreadful accidents
+of circumstance. There had been other ways to overcome this crisis, but
+he had rejected them for a course fantastic and fatal when looked at in
+the light of ordinary reason. A struggle between the East and the West
+was here to be fought out between two wills; between an intellectual
+libertine steeped in Oriental guilt and cruelty and self-indulgence, and
+a being selfless, human, and in an agony of remorse for a life lost by
+his hand.
+
+Involuntarily David's eyes ran round the room before he replied. How
+many slaves and retainers waited behind those velvet curtains?
+
+Harrik saw the glance and interpreted it correctly. With a look of
+dark triumph he clapped his hands. As if by magic fifty black slaves
+appeared, armed with daggers. They folded their arms and waited like
+statues.
+
+David made no sign of discomposure, but said slowly: "Dost thou think I
+did not know my danger, Eminence? Do I seem to thee such a fool? I came
+alone as one would come to the tent of a Bedouin chief whose son one had
+slain, and ask for food and safety. A thousand men were mine to command,
+but I came alone. Is thy guest imbecile? Let them go. I have that to say
+which is for Prince Harrik's ear alone."
+
+An instant's hesitation, and Harrik motioned the slaves away. "What is
+the private word for my ear?" he asked presently, fingering the stem of
+the narghileh.
+
+"To do right by Egypt, the land of thy fathers and thy land; to do right
+by the Prince Pasha, thy brother."
+
+"What is Egypt to thee? Why shouldst thou bring thine insolence here?
+Couldst thou not preach in thine own bazaars beyond the sea?"
+
+David showed no resentment. His reply was composed and quiet. "I am come
+to save Egypt from the work of thy hands."
+
+"Dog of an unbeliever, what hast thou to do with me, or the work of my
+hands?"
+
+David held up Kaid's ring, which had lain in his hand. "I come from the
+master of Egypt--master of thee, and of thy life, and of all that is
+thine."
+
+"What is Kaid's message to me?" Harrik asked, with an effort at
+unconcern, for David's boldness had in it something chilling to his
+fierce passion and pride.
+
+"The word of the Effendina is to do right by Egypt, to give thyself to
+justice and to peace."
+
+"Have done with parables. To do right by Egypt wherein, wherefore?" The
+eyes glinted at David like bits of fiery steel.
+
+"I will interpret to thee, Eminence."
+
+"Interpret." Harrik muttered to himself in rage. His heart was dark, he
+thirsted for the life of this arrogant Inglesi. Did the fool not see his
+end? Midnight was at hand! He smiled grimly.
+
+"This is the interpretation, O Prince! Prince Harrik has conspired
+against his brother the Prince Pasha, has treacherously seduced officers
+of the army, has planned to seize Cairo, to surround the Palace and take
+the life of the Prince of Egypt. For months, Prince, thee has done this:
+and the end of it is that thee shall do right ere it be too late. Thee
+is a traitor to thy country and thy lawful lord."
+
+Harrik's face turned pale; the stem of the narghileh shook in his
+fingers. All had been discovered, then! But there was a thing of dark
+magic here. It was not a half-hour since he had given the word to strike
+at midnight, to surround the Palace, and to seize the Prince Pasha.
+Achmet--Higli, had betrayed him, then! Who other? No one else knew save
+Zaida, and Zaida was in the harem. Perhaps even now his own palace was
+surrounded. If it was so, then, come what might, this masterful Inglesi
+should pay the price. He thought of the den of lions hard by, of the
+cage of tigers-the menagerie not a thousand feet away. He could hear the
+distant roaring now, and his eyes glittered. The Christian to the wild
+beasts! That at least before the end. A Muslim would win heaven by
+sending a Christian to hell.
+
+Achmet--Higli! No others knew. The light of a fateful fanaticism was in
+his eyes. David read him as an open book, and saw the madness come upon
+him.
+
+"Neither Higli, nor Achmet, nor any of thy fellow-conspirators has
+betrayed thee," David said. "God has other voices to whisper the truth
+than those who share thy crimes. I have ears, and the air is full of
+voices."
+
+Harrik stared at him. Was this Inglesi, then, with the grey coat,
+buttoned to the chin, and the broad black hat which remained on his head
+unlike the custom of the English--was he one of those who saw visions
+and dreamed dreams, even as himself! Had he not heard last night a voice
+whisper through the dark "Harrik, Harrik, flee to the desert! The lions
+are loosed upon thee!" Had he not risen with the voice still in his ears
+and fled to the harem, seeking Zaida, she who had never cringed before
+him, whose beauty he had conquered, but whose face turned from him when
+he would lay his lips on hers? And, as he fled, had he not heard, as it
+were, footsteps lightly following him--or were they going before him?
+Finding Zaida, had he not told her of the voice, and had she not said:
+"In the desert all men are safe--safe from themselves and safe from
+others; from their own acts and from the acts of others"? Were the
+lions, then, loosed upon him? Had he been betrayed?
+
+Suddenly the thought flashed into his mind that his challenger would not
+have thrust himself into danger, given himself to the mouth of the Pit,
+if violence were intended. There was that inside his robe, than which
+lightning would not be more quick to slay. Had he not been a hunter of
+repute? Had he not been in deadly peril with wild beasts, and was he
+not quicker than they? This man before him was like no other he had ever
+met. Did voices speak to him? Were there, then, among the Christians
+such holy men as among the Muslims, who saw things before they happened,
+and read the human mind? Were there sorcerers among them, as among the
+Arabs?
+
+In any case his treason was known. What were to be the consequences?
+Diamond-dust in his coffee? To be dropped into the Nile like a dog?
+To be smothered in his sleep?--For who could be trusted among all his
+slaves and retainers when it was known he was disgraced, and that the
+Prince Pasha would be happier if Harrik were quiet for ever?
+
+Mechanically he drew out his watch and looked at it. It was nine
+o'clock. In three hours more would have fallen the coup. But from this
+man's words he knew that the stroke was now with the Prince Pasha.
+Yet, if this pale Inglesi, this Christian sorcerer, knew the truth in
+a vision only, and had not declared it to Kaid, there might still be
+a chance of escape. The lions were near--it would be a joy to give a
+Christian to the lions to celebrate the capture of Cairo and the throne.
+He listened intently to the distant rumble of the lions. There was one
+cage dedicated to vengeance. Five human beings on whom his terrible
+anger fell in times past had been thrust into it alive. Two were slaves,
+one was an enemy, one an invader of his harem, and one was a woman, his
+wife, his favourite, the darling of his heart. When his chief eunuch
+accused her of a guilty love, he had given her paramour and herself
+to that awful death. A stroke of the vast paw, a smothered roar as the
+teeth gave into the neck of the beautiful Fatima, and then--no more.
+Fanaticism had caught a note of savage music that tuned it to its
+height.
+
+"Why art thou here? For what hast thou come? Do the spirit voices give
+thee that counsel?" he snarled.
+
+"I am come to ask Prince Harrik to repair the wrong he has done. When
+the Prince Pasha came to know of thy treason--"
+
+Harrik started. "Kaid believes thy tale of treason?" he burst out.
+
+"Prince Kaid knows the truth," answered David quietly. "He might have
+surrounded this palace with his Nubians, and had thee shot against the
+palace walls. That would have meant a scandal in Egypt and in Europe. I
+besought him otherwise. It may be the scandal must come, but in another
+way, and--"
+
+"That I, Harrik, must die?" Harrik's voice seemed far away. In his own
+ears it sounded strange and unusual. All at once the world seemed to be
+a vast vacuum in which his brain strove for air, and all his senses were
+numbed and overpowered. Distempered and vague, his soul seemed spinning
+in an aching chaos. It was being overpowered by vast elements, and life
+and being were atrophied in a deadly smother. The awful forces behind
+visible being hung him in the middle space between consciousness
+and dissolution. He heard David's voice, at first dimly, then
+understandingly.
+
+"There is no other way. Thou art a traitor. Thou wouldst have been a
+fratricide. Thou wouldst have put back the clock in Egypt by a
+hundred years, even to the days of the Mamelukes--a race of slaves and
+murderers. God ordained that thy guilt should be known in time. Prince,
+thou art guilty. It is now but a question how thou shalt pay the debt of
+treason."
+
+In David's calm voice was the ring of destiny. It was dispassionate,
+judicial; it had neither hatred nor pity. It fell on Harrik's ear as
+though from some far height. Destiny, the controller--who could escape
+it?
+
+Had he not heard the voices in the night--"The lions are loosed upon
+thee"? He did not answer David now, but murmured to himself like one in
+a dream.
+
+David saw his mood, and pursued the startled mind into the pit of
+confusion. "If it become known to Europe that the army is disloyal,
+that its officers are traitors like thee, what shall we find? England,
+France, Turkey, will land an army of occupation. Who shall gainsay
+Turkey if she chooses to bring an army here and recover control, remove
+thy family from Egypt, and seize upon its lands and goods? Dost thou not
+see that the hand of God has been against thee? He has spoken, and thy
+evil is discovered."
+
+He paused. Still Harrik did not reply, but looked at him with dilated,
+fascinated eyes. Death had hypnotised him, and against death and destiny
+who could struggle? Had not a past Prince Pasha of Egypt safeguarded
+himself from assassination all his life, and, in the end, had he not
+been smothered in his sleep by slaves?
+
+"There are two ways only," David continued--"to be tried and die
+publicly for thy crimes, to the shame of Egypt, its present peril, and
+lasting injury; or to send a message to those who conspired with thee,
+commanding them to return to their allegiance, and another to the Prince
+Pasha, acknowledging thy fault, and exonerating all others. Else, how
+many of thy dupes shall die! Thy choice is not life or death, but how
+thou shalt die, and what thou shalt do for Egypt as thou diest. Thou
+didst love Egypt, Eminence?"
+
+David's voice dropped low, and his last words had a suggestion which
+went like an arrow to the source of all Harrik's crimes, and that also
+which redeemed him in a little. It got into his inner being. He roused
+himself and spoke, but at first his speech was broken and smothered.
+
+"Day by day I saw Egypt given over to the Christians," he said. "The
+Greek, the Italian, the Frenchman, the Englishman, everywhere they
+reached out, their hands and took from us our own. They defiled our
+mosques; they corrupted our life; they ravaged our trade, they stole
+our customers, they crowded us from the streets where once the faithful
+lived alone. Such as thou had the ear of the Prince, and such as Nahoum,
+also an infidel, who favoured the infidels of Europe. And now thou hast
+come, the most dangerous of them all! Day by day the Muslim has loosed
+his hold on Cairo, and Alexandria, and the cities of Egypt. Street upon
+street knows him no more. My heart burned within me. I conspired for
+Egypt's sake. I would have made her Muslim once again. I would have
+fought the Turk and the Frank, as did Mehemet Ali; and if the infidels
+came, I would have turned them back; or if they would not go, I would
+have destroyed them here. Such as thou should have been stayed at the
+door. In my own house I would have been master. We seek not to take up
+our abode in other nations and in the cities of the infidel. Shall we
+give place to them on our own mastaba, in our own court-yard--hand to
+them the keys of our harems? I would have raised the Jehad if they vexed
+me with their envoys and their armies." He paused, panting.
+
+"It would not have availed," was David's quiet answer. "This land may
+not be as Tibet--a prison for its own people. If the door opens outward,
+then must it open inward also. Egypt is the bridge between the East and
+the West. Upon it the peoples of all nations pass and repass. Thy plan
+was folly, thy hope madness, thy means to achieve horrible. Thy dream is
+done. The army will not revolt, the Prince will not be slain. Now only
+remains what thou shalt do for Egypt--"
+
+"And thou--thou wilt be left here to lay thy will upon Egypt. Kaid's ear
+will be in thy hand--thou hast the sorcerer's eye. I know thy meaning.
+Thou wouldst have me absolve all, even Achmet, and Higli, and Diaz, and
+the rest, and at thy bidding go out into the desert"--he paused--"or
+into the grave."
+
+"Not into the desert," rejoined David firmly. "Thou wouldst not rest.
+There, in the desert, thou wouldst be a Mahdi. Since thou must die, wilt
+thou not order it after thine own choice? It is to die for Egypt."
+
+"Is this the will of Kaid?" asked Harrik, his voice thick with wonder,
+his brain still dulled by the blow of Fate.
+
+"It was not the Effendina's will, but it hath his assent. Wilt thou
+write the word to the army and also to the Prince?"
+
+He had conquered. There was a moment's hesitation, then Harrik picked
+up paper and ink that lay near, and said: "I will write to Kaid. I will
+have naught to do with the army."
+
+"It shall be the whole, not the part," answered David determinedly. "The
+truth is known. It can serve no end to withhold the writing to the army.
+Remember what I have said to thee. The disloyalty of the army must not
+be known. Canst thou not act after the will of Allah, the all-powerful,
+the all-just, the all-merciful?"
+
+There was an instant's pause, and then suddenly Harrik placed the paper
+in his palm and wrote swiftly and at some length to Kaid. Laying it
+down, he took another and wrote but a few words--to Achmet and Diaz.
+This message said in brief, "Do not strike. It is the will of Allah.
+The army shall keep faithful until the day of the Mahdi be come. I spoke
+before the time. I go to the bosom of my Lord Mahomet."
+
+He threw the papers on the floor before David, who picked them up, read
+them, and put them into his pocket.
+
+"It is well," he said. "Egypt shall have peace. And thou, Eminence?"
+
+"Who shall escape Fate? What I have written I have written."
+
+David rose and salaamed. Harrik rose also. "Thou wouldst go, having
+accomplished thy will?" Harrik asked, a thought flashing to his mind
+again, in keeping with his earlier purpose. Why should this man be left
+to trouble Egypt?
+
+David touched his breast. "I must bear thy words to the Palace and the
+Citadel."
+
+"Are there not slaves for messengers?" Involuntarily Harrik turned his
+eyes to the velvet curtains. No fear possessed David, but he felt the
+keenness of the struggle, and prepared for the last critical moment of
+fanaticism.
+
+"It were a foolish thing to attempt my death," he said calmly. "I have
+been thy friend to urge thee to do that which saves thee from public
+shame, and Egypt from peril. I came alone, because I had no fear that
+thou wouldst go to thy death shaming hospitality."
+
+"Thou wast sure I would give myself to death?"
+
+"Even as that I breathe. Thou wert mistaken; a madness possessed thee;
+but thou, I knew, wouldst choose the way of honour. I too have had
+dreams--and of Egypt. If it were for her good, I would die for her."
+
+"Thou art mad. But the mad are in the hands of God, and--"
+
+Suddenly Harrik stopped. There came to his ears two distant sounds--the
+faint click of horses' hoofs and that dull rumble they had heard as they
+talked, a sound he loved, the roar of his lions.
+
+He clapped his hands twice, the curtains parted opposite, and a slave
+slid silently forward.
+
+"Quick! The horses! What are they? Bring me word," he said.
+
+The slave vanished. For a moment there was silence. The eyes of the two
+men met. In the minds of both was the same thing.
+
+"Kaid! The Nubians!" Harrik said, at last. David made no response.
+
+The slave returned, and his voice murmured softly, as though the matter
+were of no concern: "The Nubians--from the Palace." In an instant he was
+gone again.
+
+"Kaid had not faith in thee," Harrik said grimly. "But see, infidel
+though thou art, thou trustest me, and thou shalt go thy way. Take them
+with thee, yonder jackals of the desert. I will not go with them. I did
+not choose to live; others chose for me; but I will die after my own
+choice. Thou hast heard a voice, even as I. It is too late to flee to
+the desert. Fate tricks me. 'The lions are loosed on thee'--so the
+voice said to me in the night. Hark! dost thou not hear them--the lions,
+Harrik's lions, got out of the uttermost desert?"
+
+David could hear the distant roar, for the menagerie was even part of
+the palace itself.
+
+"Go in peace," continued Harrik soberly and with dignity, "and when
+Egypt is given to the infidel and Muslims are their slaves, remember
+that Harrik would have saved it for his Lord Mahomet, the Prophet of
+God."
+
+He clapped his hands, and fifty slaves slid from behind the velvet
+curtains.
+
+"I have thy word by the tomb of thy mother that thou wilt take the
+Nubians hence, and leave me in peace?" he asked.
+
+David raised a hand above his head. "As I have trusted thee, trust thou
+me, Harrik, son of Mahomet." Harrik made a gesture of dismissal, and
+David salaamed and turned to go. As the curtains parted for his exit, he
+faced Harrik again. "Peace be to thee," he said.
+
+But, seated in his cushions, the haggard, fanatical face of Harrik was
+turned from him, the black, flaring eyes fixed on vacancy. The curtain
+dropped behind David, and through the dim rooms and corridors he passed,
+the slaves gliding beside him, before him, and behind him, until they
+reached the great doors. As they swung open and the cool night breeze
+blew in his face, a great suspiration of relief passed from him. What
+he had set out to do would be accomplished in all. Harrik would keep his
+word. It was the only way.
+
+As he emerged from the doorway some one fell at his feet, caught his
+sleeve and kissed it. It was Mahommed Hassan. Behind Mahommed was a
+little group of officers and a hundred stalwart Nubians. David motioned
+them towards the great gates, and, without speaking, passed swiftly down
+the pathway and emerged upon the road without. A moment later he was
+riding towards the Citadel with Harrik's message to Achmet. In the
+red-curtained room Harrik sat alone, listening until he heard the far
+clatter of hoofs, and knew that the Nubians were gone. Then the other
+distant sound which had captured his ear came to him again. In his fancy
+it grew louder and louder. With it came the voice that called him in the
+night, the voice of a woman--of the wife he had given to the lions for
+a crime against him which she did not commit, which had haunted him all
+the years. He had seen her thrown to the king of them all, killed in one
+swift instant, and dragged about the den by her warm white neck--this
+slave wife from Albania, his adored Fatima. And when, afterwards, he
+came to know the truth, and of her innocence, from the chief eunuch who
+with his last breath cleared her name, a terrible anger and despair had
+come upon him. Time and intrigue and conspiracy had distracted his mind,
+and the Jehad became the fixed aim and end of his life. Now this was
+gone. Destiny had tripped him up. Kaid and the infidel Inglesi had won.
+
+As the one great passion went out like smoke, the woman he loved, whom
+he had given to the lions, the memory of her, some haunting part of
+her, possessed him, overcame him. In truth, he had heard a voice in the
+night, but not the voice of a spirit. It was the voice of Zaida, who,
+preying upon his superstitious mind--she knew the hallucination which
+possessed him concerning her he had cast to the lions--and having given
+the terrible secret to Kaid, whom she had ever loved, would still save
+Harrik from the sure vengeance which must fall upon him. Her design had
+worked, but not as she intended. She had put a spell of superstition on
+him, and the end would be accomplished, but not by flight to the desert.
+
+Harrik chose the other way. He had been a hunter.
+
+He was without fear. The voice of the woman he loved called him. It came
+to him through the distant roar of the lions as clear as when, with one
+cry of "Harrik!" she had fallen beneath the lion's paw. He knew now why
+he had kept the great beast until this hour, though tempted again and
+again to slay him.
+
+Like one in a dream, he drew a dagger from the cushions where he sat,
+and rose to his feet. Leaving the room and passing dark groups of
+waiting slaves, he travelled empty chambers and long corridors, the
+voices of the lions growing nearer and nearer. He sped faster now, and
+presently came to two great doors, on which he knocked thrice. The doors
+opened, and two slaves held up lights for him to enter. Taking a torch
+from one of them, he bade them retire, and the doors clanged behind
+them.
+
+Harrik held up the torch and came nearer. In the centre of the room was
+a cage in which one great lion paced to and fro in fury. It roared
+at him savagely. It was his roar which had come to Harrik through the
+distance and the night. He it was who had carried Fatima, the beloved,
+about his cage by that neck in which Harrik had laid his face so often.
+
+The hot flush of conflict and the long anger of the years were on him.
+Since he must die, since Destiny had befooled him, left him the victim
+of the avengers, he would end it here. Here, against the thing of savage
+hate which had drunk of the veins and crushed the bones of his fair
+wife, he would strike one blow deep and strong and shed the blood of
+sacrifice before his own was shed.
+
+He thrust the torch into the ground, and, with the dagger grasped
+tightly, carefully opened the cage and stepped inside. The door clicked
+behind him. The lion was silent now, and in a far corner prepared to
+spring, crouching low.
+
+"Fatima!" Harrik cried, and sprang forward as the wild beast rose at
+him. He struck deep, drew forth the dagger--and was still.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. ACHMET THE ROPEMAKER STRIKES
+
+War! War! The chains of the conscripts clanked in the river villages;
+the wailing of the women affrighted the pigeons in a thousand dovecotes
+on the Nile; the dust of despair was heaped upon the heads of the old,
+who knew that their young would no more return, and that the fields of
+dourha would go ungathered, the water-channels go unattended, and
+the onion-fields be bare. War! War! War! The strong, the
+broad-shouldered--Aka, Mahmoud, Raschid, Selim, they with the bodies
+of Seti and the faces of Rameses, in their blue yeleks and unsandalled
+feet--would go into the desert as their forefathers did for the Shepherd
+Kings. But there would be no spoil for them--no slaves with swelling
+breasts and lips of honey; no straight-limbed servants of their pleasure
+to wait on them with caressing fingers; no rich spoils carried back from
+the fields of war to the mud hut, the earth oven, and the thatched roof;
+no rings of soft gold and necklaces of amber snatched from the fingers
+and bosoms of the captive and the dead. Those days were no more. No
+vision of loot or luxury allured these. They saw only the yellow sand,
+the ever-receding oasis, the brackish, undrinkable water, the withered
+and fruitless date-tree, handfuls of dourha for their food by day, and
+the keen, sharp night to chill their half-dead bodies in a half-waking
+sleep. And then the savage struggle for life--with all the gain to the
+pashas and the beys, and those who ruled over them; while their own
+wounds grew foul, and, in the torturing noon-day heat of the white
+waste, Death reached out and dragged them from the drooping lines
+to die. Fighting because they must fight--not patriot love, nor
+understanding, nor sacrifice in their hearts. War! War! War! War!
+
+David had been too late to stop it. It had grown to a head with
+revolution and conspiracy. For months before he came conscripts had
+been gathered in the Nile country from Rosetta to Assouan, and here and
+there, far south, tribes had revolted. He had come to power too late
+to devise another course. One day, when this war was over, he would go
+alone, save for a faithful few, to deal with these tribes and peoples
+upon another plane than war; but here and now the only course was that
+which had been planned by Kaid and those who counselled him. Troubled by
+a deep danger drawing near, Kaid had drawn him into his tough service,
+half-blindly catching at his help, with a strange, almost superstitious
+belief that luck and good would come from the alliance; seeing in him
+a protection against wholesale robbery and debt--were not the English
+masters of finance, and was not this Englishman honest, and with a brain
+of fire and an eye that pierced things?
+
+David had accepted the inevitable. The war had its value. It would draw
+off to the south--he would see that it was so--Achmet and Higli and Diaz
+and the rest, who were ever a danger. Not to himself: he did not think
+of that; but to Kaid and to Egypt. They had been out-manoeuvred,
+beaten, foiled, knew who had foiled them and what they had escaped;
+congratulated themselves, but had no gratitude to him, and still plotted
+his destruction. More than once his death had been planned, but the dark
+design had come to light--now from the workers of the bazaars, whose
+wires of intelligence pierced everywhere; now from some hungry fellah
+whose yelek he had filled with cakes of dourha beside a bread-shop;
+now from Mahommed Hassan, who was for him a thousand eyes and feet and
+hands, who cooked his food, and gathered round him fellaheen or Copts
+or Soudanese or Nubians whom he himself had tested and found true, and
+ruled them with a hand of plenty and a rod of iron. Also, from Nahoum's
+spies he learned of plots and counterplots, chiefly on Achmet's part;
+and these he hid from Kaid, while he trusted Nahoum--and not without
+reason, as yet.
+
+The day of Nahoum's wrath and revenge was not yet come; it was his deep
+design to lay the foundation for his own dark actions strong on a
+rock of apparent confidence and devotion. A long torture and a great
+over-whelming was his design. He knew himself to be in the scheme of
+a master-workman, and by-and-by he would blunt the chisel and bend the
+saw; but not yet. Meanwhile, he hated, admired, schemed, and got a sweet
+taste on his tongue from aiding David to foil Achmet--Higli and Diaz
+were of little account; only the injury they felt in seeing the sluices
+being closed on the stream of bribery and corruption kept them in the
+toils of Achmet's conspiracy. They had saved their heads, but they had
+not learned their lesson yet; and Achmet, blinded by rage, not at all.
+Achmet did not understand clemency. One by one his plots had failed,
+until the day came when David advised Kaid to send him and his friends
+into the Soudan, with the punitive expedition under loyal generals. It
+was David's dream that, in the field of war, a better spirit might enter
+into Achmet and his friends; that patriotism might stir in them.
+
+The day was approaching when the army must leave. Achmet threw dice once
+more.
+
+Evening was drawing down. Over the plaintive pink and golden glow of
+sunset was slowly being drawn a pervasive silver veil of moonlight. A
+caravan of camels hunched alone in the middle distance, making for the
+western desert. Near by, village life manifested itself in heavily laden
+donkeys; in wolfish curs stealing away with refuse into the waste; in
+women, upright and modest, bearing jars of water on their heads; in
+evening fires, where the cover of the pot clattered over the boiling
+mass within; in the voice of the Muezzin calling to prayer.
+
+Returning from Alexandria to Cairo in the special train which Kaid had
+sent for him, David watched the scene with grave and friendly interest.
+There was far, to go before those mud huts of the thousand years would
+give place to rational modern homes; and as he saw a solitary horseman
+spread his sheepskin on the ground and kneel to say his evening prayer,
+as Mahomet had done in his flight between Mecca and Medina, the distance
+between the Egypt of his desire and the ancient Egypt that moved round
+him sharply impressed his mind, and the magnitude of his task settled
+heavily on his spirit.
+
+"But it is the beginning--the beginning," he said aloud to himself,
+looking out upon the green expanses of dourha and Lucerne, and eyeing
+lovingly the cotton-fields here and there, the origin of the industrial
+movement he foresaw--"and some one had to begin. The rest is as it must
+be--"
+
+There was a touch of Oriental philosophy in his mind--was it not Galilee
+and the Nazarene, that Oriental source from which Mahomet also drew? But
+he added to the "as it must be" the words, "and as God wills." He was
+alone in the compartment with Lacey, whose natural garrulity had had a
+severe discipline in the months that had passed since he had asked to
+be allowed to black David's boots. He could now sit for an hour silent,
+talking to himself, carrying on unheard conversations. Seeing David's
+mood, he had not spoken twice on this journey, but had made notes in a
+little "Book of Experience,"--as once he had done in Mexico. At last,
+however, he raised his head, and looked eagerly out of the window as
+David did, and sniffed.
+
+"The Nile again," he said, and smiled. The attraction of the Nile was
+upon him, as it grows on every one who lives in Egypt. The Nile and
+Egypt--Egypt and the Nile--its mystery, its greatness, its benevolence,
+its life-giving power, without which Egypt is as the Sahara, it conquers
+the mind of every man at last.
+
+"The Nile, yes," rejoined David, and smiled also. "We shall cross it
+presently."
+
+Again they relapsed into silence, broken only by the clang, clang of the
+metal on the rails, and then presently another, more hollow sound--the
+engine was upon the bridge. Lacey got up and put his head out of the
+window. Suddenly there was a cry of fear and horror over his head, a
+warning voice shrieking:
+
+"The bridge is open--we are lost. Effendi--master--Allah!" It was the
+voice of Mahommed Hassan, who had been perched on the roof of the car.
+
+Like lightning Lacey realised the danger, and saw the only way of
+escape. He swung open the door, even as the engine touched the edge
+of the abyss and shrieked its complaint under the hand of the
+terror-stricken driver, caught David's shoulder, and cried: "Jump-jump
+into the river--quick!"
+
+As the engine toppled, David jumped--there was no time to think,
+obedience was the only way. After him sprang, far down into the
+grey-blue water, Lacey and Mahommed. When they came again to the
+surface, the little train with its handful of human freight had
+disappeared.
+
+Two people had seen the train plunge to destruction--the solitary
+horseman whom David had watched kneel upon his sheepskin, and who now
+from a far hill had seen the disaster, but had not seen the three jump
+for their lives, and a fisherman on the bank, who ran shouting towards a
+village standing back from the river.
+
+As the fisherman sped shrieking and beckoning to the villagers, David,
+Lacey, and Mahommed fought for their lives in the swift current,
+swimming at an angle upstream towards the shore; for, as Mahommed warned
+them, there were rocks below. Lacey was a good swimmer, but he was
+heavy, and David was a better, but Mahommed had proved his merit in the
+past on many an occasion when the laws of the river were reaching out
+strong hands for him. Now, as Mahommed swam, he kept moaning to himself,
+cursing his father and his father's son, as though he himself were to
+blame for the crime which had been committed. Here was a plot, and
+he had discovered more plots than one against his master. The
+bridge-opener--when he found him he would take him into the desert and
+flay him alive; and find him he would. His watchful eyes were on the hut
+by the bridge where this man should be. No one was visible. He cursed
+the man and all his ancestry and all his posterity, sleeping and waking,
+until the day when he, Mahommed, would pinch his flesh with red hot
+irons. But now he had other and nearer things to occupy him, for in
+the fierce struggle towards the shore Lacey found himself failing, and
+falling down the stream. Presently both Mahommed and David were beside
+him, Lacey angrily protesting to David that he must save himself.
+
+"Say, think of Egypt and all the rest. You've got to save yourself--let
+me splash along!" he spluttered, breathing hard, his shoulders low in
+the water, his mouth almost submerged.
+
+But David and Mahommed fought along beside him, each determined that it
+must be all or none; and presently the terror-stricken fisherman who
+had roused the village, still shrieking deliriously, came upon them in a
+flat-bottomed boat manned by four stalwart fellaheen, and the tragedy of
+the bridge was over. But not the tragedy of Achmet the Ropemaker.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. BEYOND THE PALE
+
+Mahommed Hassan had vowed a vow in the river, and he kept it in so far
+as was seemly. His soul hungered for the face of the bridge-opener, and
+the hunger grew. He was scarce passed from the shivering Nile into a dry
+yelek, had hardly taken a juicy piece from the cooking-pot at the house
+of the village sheikh, before he began to cultivate friends who could
+help him, including the sheikh himself; for what money Mahommed lacked
+was supplied by Lacey, who had a reasoned confidence in him, and by
+the fiercely indignant Kaid himself, to whom Lacey and Mahommed went
+secretly, hiding their purpose from David. So, there were a score of
+villages where every sheikh, eager for gold, listened for the whisper
+of the doorways, and every slave and villager listened at the sheikh's
+door. But neither to sheikh nor to villager was it given to find the
+man.
+
+But one evening there came a knocking at the door of the house which
+Mahommed still kept in the lowest Muslim quarter of the town, a woman
+who hid her face and was of more graceful figure than was familiar in
+those dark purlieus. The door was at once opened, and Mahommed, with a
+cry, drew her inside.
+
+"Zaida--the peace of God be upon thee," he said, and gazed lovingly yet
+sadly upon her, for she had greatly changed.
+
+"And upon thee peace, Mahommed," she answered, and sat upon the floor,
+her head upon her breast.
+
+"Thou hast trouble at," he said, and put some cakes of dourha and a
+meated cucumber beside her. She touched the food with her fingers, but
+did not eat. "Is thy grief, then, for thy prince who gave himself to the
+lions?" he asked.
+
+"Inshallah! Harrik is in the bosom of Allah. He is with Fatima in the
+fields of heaven--was I as Fatima to him? Nay, the dead have done with
+hurting."
+
+"Since that night thou hast been lost, even since Harrik went. I
+searched for thee, but thou wert hid. Surely, thou knewest mine eyes
+were aching and my heart was cast down--did not thou and I feed at the
+same breast?"
+
+"I was dead, and am come forth from the grave; but I shall go again into
+the dark where all shall forget, even I myself; but there is that which
+I would do, which thou must do for me, even as I shall do good to thee,
+that which is the desire of my heart."
+
+"Speak, light of the morning and blessing of thy mother's soul," he
+said, and crowded into his mouth a roll of meat and cucumber. "Against
+thy feddan shall be set my date-tree; it hath been so ever."
+
+"Listen then, and by the stone of the Kaabah, keep the faith which has
+been throe and mine since my mother, dying, gave me to thy mother, whose
+milk gave me health and, in my youth, beauty--and, in my youth, beauty!"
+Suddenly she buried her face in her veil, and her body shook with sobs
+which had no voice. Presently she continued: "Listen, and by Abraham and
+Christ and all the Prophets, and by Mahomet the true revealer, give me
+thine aid. When Harrik gave his life to the lions, I fled to her whom I
+had loved in the house of Kaid--Laka the Syrian, afterwards the wife of
+Achmet Pasha. By Harrik's death I was free--no more a slave. Once Laka
+had been the joy of Achmet's heart, but, because she had no child, she
+was despised and forgotten. Was it not meet I should fly to her whose
+sorrow would hide my loneliness? And so it was--I was hidden in the
+harem of Achmet. But miserable tongues--may God wither them!--told
+Achmet of my presence. And though I was free, and not a bondswoman, he
+broke upon my sleep...."
+
+Mahommed's eyes blazed, his dark skin blackened like a coal, and he
+muttered maledictions between his teeth. "... In the morning there was
+a horror upon me, for which there is no name. But I laughed also when
+I took a dagger and stole from the harem to find him in the quarters
+beyond the women's gate. I found him, but I held my hand, for one was
+with him who spake with a tone of anger and of death, and I listened.
+Then, indeed, I rejoiced for thee, for I have found thee a road to
+honour and fortune. The man was a bridge-opener--" "Ah!--O, light of a
+thousand eyes, fruit of the tree of Eden!" cried Mahommed, and fell on
+his knees at her feet, and would have kissed them, but that, with a cry,
+she said: "Nay, nay, touch me not. But listen.... Ay, it was Achmet who
+sought to drown thy Pasha in the Nile. Thou shalt find the man in the
+little street called Singat in the Moosky, at the house of Haleel the
+date-seller."
+
+Mahommed rocked backwards and forwards in his delight. "Oh, now art thou
+like a lamp of Paradise, even as a star which leadeth an army of stars,
+beloved," he said. He rubbed his hands together. "Thy witness and
+his shall send Achmet to a hell of scorpions, and I shall slay the
+bridge-opener with my own hand--hath not the Effendina secretly said so
+to me, knowing that my Pasha, the Inglesi, upon whom be peace for ever
+and forever, would forgive him. Ah, thou blossom of the tree of trees--"
+
+She rose hastily, and when he would have kissed her hand she drew back
+to the wall. "Touch me not--nay, then, Mahommed, touch me not--"
+
+"Why should I not pay thee honour, thou princess among women? Hast thou
+not the brain of a man, and thy beauty, like thy heart, is it not--"
+
+She put out both her hands and spoke sharply. "Enough, my brother," she
+said. "Thou hast thy way to great honour. Thou shalt yet have a thousand
+feddans of well-watered land and slaves to wait upon thee. Get thee to
+the house of Haleel. There shall the blow fall on the head of Achmet,
+the blow which was mine to strike, but that Allah stayed my hand that
+I might do thee and thy Pasha good, and to give the soul-slayer and the
+body-slayer into the hands of Kaid, upon whom be everlasting peace!" Her
+voice dropped low. "Thou saidst but now that I had beauty. Is there yet
+any beauty in my face?" She lowered her yashmak and looked at him with
+burning eyes.
+
+"Thou art altogether beautiful," he answered, "but there is a
+strangeness to thy beauty like none I have seen; as if upon the face of
+an angel there fell a mist--nay, I have not words to make it plain to
+thee."
+
+With a great sigh, and yet with the tenseness gone from her eyes, she
+slowly drew the veil up again till only her eyes were visible. "It is
+well," she answered. "Now, I have heard that to-morrow night Prince Kaid
+will sit in the small court-yard of the blue tiles by the harem to feast
+with his friends, ere the army goes into the desert at the next sunrise.
+Achmet is bidden to the feast."
+
+"It is so, O beloved!"
+
+"There will be dancers and singers to make the feast worthy?"
+
+"At such a time it will be so."
+
+"Then this thou shalt do. See to it that I shall be among the singers,
+and when all have danced and sung, that I shall sing, and be brought
+before Kaid."
+
+"Inshallah! It shall be so. Thou dost desire to see Kaid--in truth, thou
+hast memory, beloved."
+
+She made a gesture of despair. "Go upon thy business. Dost thou not
+desire the blood of Achmet and the bridge-opener?"
+
+Mahommed laughed, and joyfully beat his breast, with whispered
+exclamations, and made ready to go. "And thou?" he asked.
+
+"Am I not welcome here?" she replied wearily. "O, my sister, thou art
+the master of my life and all that I have," he exclaimed, and a moment
+afterwards he was speeding towards Kaid's Palace.
+
+For the first time since the day of his banishment Achmet the Ropemaker
+was invited to Kaid's Palace. Coming, he was received with careless
+consideration by the Prince. Behind his long, harsh face and sullen eyes
+a devil was raging, because of all his plans that had gone awry, and
+because the man he had sought to kill still served the Effendina,
+putting a blight upon Egypt. To-morrow he, Achmet, must go into the
+desert with the army, and this hated Inglesi would remain behind to have
+his will with Kaid. The one drop of comfort in his cup was the fact that
+the displeasure of the Effendina against himself was removed, and that
+he had, therefore, his foot once more inside the Palace. When he came
+back from the war he would win his way to power again. Meanwhile, he
+cursed the man who had eluded the death he had prepared for him. With
+his own eyes had he not seen, from the hill top, the train plunge to
+destruction, and had he not once more got off his horse and knelt upon
+his sheepskin and given thanks to Allah--a devout Arab obeying the
+sunset call to prayer, as David had observed from the train?
+
+One by one, two by two, group by group, the unveiled dancers came and
+went; the singers sang behind the screen provided for them, so that none
+might see their faces, after the custom. At last, however, Kaid and his
+guests grew listless, and smoked and talked idly. Yet there was in the
+eyes of Kaid a watchfulness unseen by any save a fellah who squatted in
+a corner eating sweetmeats, and a hidden singer waiting until she should
+be called before the Prince Pasha. The singer's glances continually
+flashed between Kaid and Achmet. At last, with gleaming eyes, she saw
+six Nubian slaves steal silently behind Achmet. One, also, of great
+strength, came suddenly and stood before him. In his hands was a
+leathern thong.
+
+Achmet saw, felt the presence of the slaves behind him, and shrank back
+numbed and appalled. A mist came before his eyes; the voice he heard
+summoning him to stand up seemed to come from infinite distances. The
+hand of doom had fallen like a thunderbolt. The leathern thong in the
+hands of the slave was the token of instant death. There was no chance
+of escape. The Nubians had him at their mercy. As his brain struggled
+to regain its understanding, he saw, as in a dream, David enter the
+court-yard and come towards Kaid.
+
+Suddenly David stopped in amazement, seeing Achmet. Inquiringly he
+looked at Kaid, who spoke earnestly to him in a low tone. Whereupon
+David turned his head away, but after a moment fixed his eyes on Achmet.
+
+Kaid motioned all his startled guests to come nearer. Then in strong,
+unmerciful voice he laid Achmet's crime before them, and told the story
+of the bridge-opener, who had that day expiated his crime in the desert
+by the hands of Mahommed--but not with torture, as Mahommed had hoped
+might be.
+
+"What shall be his punishment--so foul, so wolfish?" Kaid asked of them
+all. A dozen voices answered, some one terrible thing, some another.
+
+"Mercy!" moaned Achmet aghast. "Mercy, Saadat!" he cried to David.
+
+David looked at him calmly. There was little mercy in his eyes as he
+answered: "Thy crimes sent to their death in the Nile those who never
+injured thee. Dost thou quarrel with justice? Compose thy soul, and I
+pray only the Effendina to give thee that seemly death thou didst deny
+thy victims." He bowed respectfully to Kaid.
+
+Kaid frowned. "The ways of Egypt are the ways of Egypt, and not of the
+land once thine," he answered shortly. Then, under the spell of that
+influence which he had never yet been able to resist, he added to the
+slaves: "Take him aside. I will think upon it. But he shall die at
+sunrise ere the army goes. Shall not justice be the gift of Kaid for an
+example and a warning? Take him away a little. I will decide."
+
+As Achmet and the slaves disappeared into a dark corner of the
+court-yard, Kaid rose to his feet, and, upon the hint, his guests,
+murmuring praises of his justice and his mercy and his wisdom, slowly
+melted from the court-yard; but once outside they hastened to proclaim
+in the four quarters of Cairo how yet again the English Pasha had picked
+from the Tree of Life an apple of fortune.
+
+The court-yard was now empty, save for the servants of the Prince, David
+and Mahommed, and two officers in whom David had advised Kaid to put
+trust. Presently one of these officers said: "There is another singer,
+and the last. Is it the Effendina's pleasure?"
+
+Kaid made a gesture of assent, sat down, and took the stem of a
+narghileh between his lips. For a moment there was silence, and then,
+out upon the sweet, perfumed night, over which the stars hung brilliant
+and soft and near, a voice at first quietly, then fully, and palpitating
+with feeling, poured forth an Eastern love song:
+
+     "Take thou thy flight, O soul! Thou hast no more
+     The gladness of the morning! Ah, the perfumed roses
+     My love laid on my bosom as I slept!
+     How did he wake me with his lips upon mine eyes,
+     How did the singers carol--the singers of my soul
+     That nest among the thoughts of my beloved!...
+     All silent now, the choruses are gone,
+     The windows of my soul are closed; no more
+     Mine eyes look gladly out to see my lover come.
+     There is no more to do, no more to say:
+     Take flight, my soul, my love returns no more!"
+
+At the first note Kaid started, and his eyes fastened upon the screen
+behind which sat the singer. Then, as the voice, in sweet anguish,
+filled the court-yard, entrancing them all, rose higher and higher, fell
+and died away, he got to his feet, and called out hoarsely: "Come--come
+forth!"
+
+Slowly a graceful, veiled figure came from behind the great screen. He
+took a step forward.
+
+"Zaida! Zaida!" he said gently, amazedly.
+
+She salaamed low. "Forgive me, O my lord!" she said, in a whispering
+voice, drawing her veil about her head. "It was my soul's desire to look
+upon thy face once more."
+
+"Whither didst thou go at Harrik's death? I sent to find thee, and give
+thee safety; but thou wert gone, none knew where."
+
+"O my lord, what was I but a mote in thy sun, that thou shouldst seek
+me?"
+
+Kaid's eyes fell, and he murmured to himself a moment, then he said
+slowly: "Thou didst save Egypt, thou and my friend"--he gestured towards
+David"--and my life also, and all else that is worth. Therefore bounty,
+and safety, and all thy desires were thy due. Kaid is no ingrate--no, by
+the hand of Moses that smote at Sinai!"
+
+She made a pathetic motion of her hands. "By Harrik's death I am free, a
+slave no longer. O my lord, where I go bounty and famine are the same."
+
+Kaid took a step forward. "Let me see thy face," he said, something
+strange in her tone moving him with awe.
+
+She lowered her veil and looked him in the eyes. Her wan beauty smote
+him, conquered him, the exquisite pain in her face filled Kaid's eyes
+with foreboding, and pierced his heart.
+
+"O cursed day that saw thee leave these walls! I did it for thy
+good--thou wert so young; thy life was all before thee! But now--come,
+Zaida, here in Kaid's Palace thou shalt have a home, and be at peace,
+for I see that thou hast suffered. Surely it shall be said that Kaid
+honours thee." He reached out to take her hand.
+
+She had listened like one in a dream, but, as he was about to touch her,
+she suddenly drew back, veiled her face, save for the eyes, and said in
+a voice of agony: "Unclean, unclean! My lord, I am a leper!"
+
+An awed and awful silence fell upon them all. Kaid drew back as though
+smitten by a blow.
+
+Presently, upon the silence, her voice sharp with agony said: "I am a
+leper, and I go to that desert place which my lord has set apart for
+lepers, where, dead to the world, I shall watch the dreadful years come
+and go. Behold, I would die, but that I have a sister there these many
+years, and her sick soul lives in loneliness. O my lord, forgive me!
+Here was I happy; here of old I did sing to thee, and I came to sing to
+thee once more a death-song. Also, I came to see thee do justice, ere I
+went from thy face for ever."
+
+Kaid's head was lowered on his breast. He shuddered. "Thou art so
+beautiful--thy voice, all! Thou wouldst see justice--speak! Justice
+shall be made plain before thee."
+
+Twice she essayed to speak, and could not; but from his sweetmeats and
+the shadows Mahommed crept forward, kissed the ground before Kaid, and
+said: "Effendina, thou knowest me as the servant of thy high servant,
+Claridge Pasha."
+
+"I know thee--proceed."
+
+"Behold, she whom God has smitten, man smote first. I am her
+foster-brother--from the same breast we drew the food of life. Thou
+wouldst do justice, O Effendina; but canst thou do double justice--ay,
+a thousandfold? Then"--his voice raised almost shrilly--"then do it
+upon Achmet Pasha. She--Zaida--told me where I should find the
+bridge-opener."
+
+"Zaida once more!" Kaid murmured.
+
+"She had learned all in Achmet's harem--hearing speech between Achmet
+and the man whom thou didst deliver to my hands yesterday."
+
+"Zaida-in Achmet's harem?" Kaid turned upon her.
+
+Swiftly she told her dreadful tale, how, after Achmet had murdered all
+of her except her body, she rose up to kill herself; but fainting, fell
+upon a burning brazier, and her hand thrust accidentally in the live
+coals felt no pain. "And behold, O my lord, I knew I was a leper; and I
+remembered my sister and lived on." So she ended, in a voice numbed and
+tuneless.
+
+Kaid trembled with rage, and he cried in a loud voice: "Bring Achmet
+forth."
+
+As the slave sped upon the errand, David laid a hand on Kaid's arm, and
+whispered to him earnestly. Kaid's savage frown cleared away, and his
+rage calmed down; but an inflexible look came into his face, a look
+which petrified the ruined Achmet as he salaamed before him.
+
+"Know thy punishment, son of a dog with a dog's heart, and prepare for
+a daily death," said Kaid. "This woman thou didst so foully wrong, even
+when thou didst wrong her, she was a leper."
+
+A low cry broke from Achmet, for now when death came he must go unclean
+to the after-world, forbidden Allah's presence. Broken and abject he
+listened.
+
+"She knew not, till thou wert gone," continued Kaid. "She is innocent
+before the law. But thou--beast of the slime--hear thy sentence. There
+is in the far desert a place where lepers live. There, once a year, one
+caravan comes, and, at the outskirts of the place unclean, leaves food
+and needful things for another year, and returns again to Egypt after
+many days. From that place there is no escape--the desert is as the sea,
+and upon that sea there is no ghiassa to sail to a farther shore. It is
+the leper land. Thither thou shalt go to wait upon this woman thou hast
+savagely wronged, and upon her kind, till thou diest. It shall be so."
+
+"Mercy! Mercy!" Achmet cried, horror-stricken, and turned to David.
+"Thou art merciful. Speak for me, Saadat."
+
+"When didst thou have mercy?" asked David. "Thy crimes are against
+humanity."
+
+Kaid made a motion, and, with dragging feet, Achmet passed from the
+haunts of familiar faces.
+
+For a moment Kaid stood and looked at Zaida, rigid and stricken in that
+awful isolation which is the leper's doom. Her eyes were closed, but her
+head was high. "Wilt thou not die?" Kaid asked her gently.
+
+She shook her head slowly, and her hands folded on her breast. "My
+sister is there," she said at last. There was an instant's stillness,
+then Kaid added with a voice of grief: "Peace be upon thee, Zaida.
+Life is but a spark. If death comes not to-day, it will tomorrow, for
+thee--for me. Inshallah, peace be upon thee!"
+
+She opened her eyes and looked at him. Seeing what was in his face, they
+lighted with a great light for a moment.
+
+"And upon thee peace, O my lord, for ever and for ever!" she said
+softly, and, turning, left the court-yard, followed at a distance by
+Mahommed Hassan.
+
+Kaid remained motionless looking after her.
+
+David broke in on his abstraction. "The army at sunrise--thou wilt speak
+to it, Effendina?"
+
+Kaid roused himself. "What shall I say?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"Tell them they shall be clothed and fed, and to every man or his family
+three hundred piastres at the end."
+
+"Who will do this?" asked Kaid incredulously. "Thou, Effendina--Egypt
+and thou and I."
+
+"So be it," answered Kaid.
+
+As they left the court-yard, he said suddenly to an officer behind him:
+
+"The caravan to the Place of Lepers--add to the stores fifty camel-loads
+this year, and each year hereafter. Have heed to it. Ere it starts, come
+to me. I would see all with mine own eyes."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. SOOLSBY'S HAND UPON THE CURTAIN
+
+Faith raised her eyes from the paper before her and poised her head
+meditatively.
+
+"How long is it, friend, since--"
+
+"Since he went to Egypt?"
+
+"Nay, since thee--"
+
+"Since I went to Mass?" he grumbled humorously.
+
+She laughed whimsically. "Nay, then, since thee made the promise--"
+
+"That I would drink no more till his return--ay, that was my bargain;
+till then and no longer! I am not to be held back then, unless I change
+my mind when I see him. Well, 'tis three years since--"
+
+"Three years! Time hasn't flown. Is it not like an old memory, his
+living here in this house, Soolsby, and all that happened then?"
+
+Soolsby looked at her over his glasses, resting his chin on the back
+of the chair he was caning, and his lips worked in and out with a
+suppressed smile.
+
+"Time's got naught to do with you. He's afeard of you," he continued.
+"He lets you be."
+
+"Friend, thee knows I am almost an old woman now." She made marks
+abstractedly upon the corner of a piece of paper. "Unless my hair turns
+grey presently I must bleach it, for 'twill seem improper it should
+remain so brown."
+
+She smoothed it back with her hand. Try as she would to keep it trim
+after the manner of her people, it still waved loosely on her forehead
+and over her ears. And the grey bonnet she wore but added piquancy to
+its luxuriance, gave a sweet gravity to the demure beauty of the face it
+sheltered.
+
+"I am thirty now," she murmured, with a sigh, and went on writing.
+
+The old man's fingers moved quickly among the strips of cane, and, after
+a silence, without raising his head, he said: "Thirty, it means naught."
+
+"To those without understanding," she rejoined drily.
+
+"'Tis tough understanding why there's no wedding-ring on yonder finger.
+There's been many a man that's wanted it, that's true--the Squire's son
+from Bridgley, the lord of Axwood Manor, the long soldier from Shipley
+Wood, and doctors, and such folk aplenty. There's where understanding
+fails."
+
+Faith's face flushed, then it became pale, and her eyes, suffused,
+dropped upon the paper before her. At first it seemed as though she must
+resent his boldness; but she had made a friend of him these years past,
+and she knew he meant no rudeness. In the past they had talked of things
+deeper and more intimate still. Yet there was that in his words which
+touched a sensitive corner of her nature.
+
+"Why should I be marrying?" she asked presently. "There was my sister's
+son all those years. I had to care for him."
+
+"Ay, older than him by a thimbleful!" he rejoined.
+
+"Nay, till he came to live in this hut alone older by many a year. Since
+then he is older than me by fifty. I had not thought of marriage before
+he went away. Squire's son, soldier, or pillman, what were they to me!
+He needed me. They came, did they? Well, and if they came?"
+
+"And since the Egyptian went?"
+
+A sort of sob came into her throat. "He does not need me, but he may--he
+will one day; and then I shall be ready. But now--"
+
+Old Soolsby's face turned away. His house overlooked every house in
+the valley beneath: he could see nearly every garden; he could even
+recognise many in the far streets. Besides, there hung along two nails
+on the wall a telescope, relic of days when he sailed the main. The
+grounds of the Cloistered House and the fruit-decked garden-wall of the
+Red Mansion were ever within his vision. Once, twice, thrice, he had
+seen what he had seen, and dark feelings, harsh emotions, had been
+roused in him.
+
+"He will need us both--the Egyptian will need us both one day," he
+answered now; "you more than any, me because I can help him, too--ay,
+I can help him. But married or single you could help him; so why waste
+your days here?"
+
+"Is it wasting my days to stay with my father? He is lonely, most lonely
+since our Davy went away; and troubled, too, for the dangers of that
+life yonder. His voice used to shake when he prayed, in those days when
+Davy was away in the desert, down at Darfur and elsewhere among the
+rebel tribes. He frightened me then, he was so stern and still. Ah, but
+that day when we knew he was safe, I was eighteen, and no more!" she
+added, smiling. "But, think you, I could marry while my life is so tied
+to him and to our Egyptian?"
+
+No one looking at her limpid, shining blue eyes but would have set
+her down for twenty-three or twenty-four, for not a line showed on
+her smooth face; she was exquisite of limb and feature, and had the
+lissomeness of a girl of fifteen. There was in her eyes, however, an
+unquiet sadness; she had abstracted moments when her mind seemed fixed
+on some vexing problem. Such a mood suddenly came upon her now. The
+pen lay by the paper untouched, her hands folded in her lap, and a long
+silence fell upon them, broken only by the twanging of the strips of
+cane in Soolsby's hands. At last, however, even this sound ceased; and
+the two scarce moved as the sun drew towards the middle afternoon. At
+last they were roused by the sound of a horn, and, looking down, they
+saw a four-in-hand drawing smartly down the road to the village over the
+gorse-spread common, till it stopped at the Cloistered House. As Faith
+looked, her face slightly flushed. She bent forward till she saw one
+figure get down and, waving a hand to the party on the coach as it moved
+on, disappear into the gateway of the Cloistered House.
+
+"What is the office they have given him?" asked Soolsby, disapproval in
+his tone, his eyes fixed on the disappearing figure.
+
+"They have made Lord Eglington Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs," she
+answered.
+
+"And what means that to a common mind?"
+
+"That what his Government does in Egypt will mean good or bad to our
+Egyptian," she returned.
+
+"That he can do our man good or ill?" Soolsby asked sharply--"that he,
+yonder, can do that?"
+
+She inclined her head.
+
+"When I see him doing ill--well, when I see him doing that"--he snatched
+up a piece of wood from the floor--"then I will break him, so!"
+
+He snapped the stick across his knee, and threw the pieces on the
+ground. He was excited. He got to his feet and walked up and down the
+little room, his lips shut tight, his round eyes flaring.
+
+Faith watched him in astonishment. In the past she had seen his face
+cloud over, his eyes grow sulky, at the mention of Lord Eglington's
+name; she knew that Soolsby hated him; but his aversion now was more
+definite and violent than he had before shown, save on that night long
+ago when David went first to Egypt, and she had heard hard words between
+them in this same hut. She supposed it one of those antipathies which
+often grow in inverse ratio to the social position of those concerned.
+She replied in a soothing voice:
+
+"Then we shall hope that he will do our Davy only good."
+
+"You would not wish me to break his lordship? You would not wish it?" He
+came over to her, and looked sharply at her. "You would not wish it?" he
+repeated meaningly.
+
+She evaded his question. "Lord Eglington will be a great man one day
+perhaps," she answered. "He has made his way quickly. How high he has
+climbed in three years--how high!"
+
+Soolsby's anger was not lessened. "Pooh! Pooh! He is an Earl. An Earl
+has all with him at the start--name, place, and all. But look at our
+Egyptian! Look at Egyptian David--what had he but his head and an honest
+mind? What is he? He is the great man of Egypt. Tell me, who helped
+Egyptian David? That second-best lordship yonder, he crept about coaxing
+this one and wheedling that. I know him--I know him. He wheedles and
+wheedles. No matter whether 'tis a babe or an old woman, he'll talk, and
+talk, and talk, till they believe in him, poor folks! No one's too small
+for his net. There's Martha Higham yonder. She's forty five. If he sees
+her, as sure as eggs he'll make love to her, and fill her ears with
+words she'd never heard before, and 'd never hear at all if not from
+him. Ay, there's no man too sour and no woman too old that he'll not
+blandish, if he gets the chance."
+
+As he spoke Faith shut her eyes, and her fingers clasped tightly
+together--beautiful long, tapering fingers, like those in Romney's
+pictures. When he stopped, her eyes opened slowly, and she gazed before
+her down towards that garden by the Red Mansion where her lifetime had
+been spent.
+
+"Thee says hard words, Soolsby," she rejoined gently. "But maybe thee
+is right." Then a flash of humour passed over her face. "Suppose we
+ask Martha Higham if the Earl has 'blandished' her. If the Earl has
+blandished Martha, he is the very captain of deceit. Why, he has himself
+but twenty-eight years. Will a man speak so to one older than himself,
+save in mockery? So, if thee is right in this, then--then if he speak
+well to deceive and to serve his turn, he will also speak ill; and he
+will do ill when it may serve his turn; and so he may do our Davy ill,
+as thee says, Soolsby."
+
+She rose to her feet and made as if to go, but she kept her face from
+him. Presently, however, she turned and looked at him. "If he does ill
+to Davy, there will be those like thee, Soolsby, who will not spare
+him."
+
+His fingers opened and shut maliciously, he nodded dour assent. After an
+instant, while he watched her, she added: "Thee has not heard my lord is
+to marry?"
+
+"Marry--who is the blind lass?"
+
+"Her name is Maryon, Miss Hylda Maryon: and she has a great fortune. But
+within a month it is to be."
+
+"Thee remembers the woman of the cross-roads, her that our Davy--"
+
+"Her the Egyptian kissed, and put his watch in her belt--ay, Kate
+Heaver!"
+
+"She is now maid to her Lord Eglington will wed. She is to spend
+to-night with us."
+
+"Where is her lad that was, that the Egyptian rolled like dough in a
+trough?"
+
+"Jasper Kimber? He is at Sheffield. He has been up and down, now sober
+for a year, now drunken for a month, now in, now out of a place, until
+this past year. But for this whole year he has been sober, and he
+may keep his pledge. He is working in the trades-unions. Among his
+fellow-workers he is called a politician--if loud speaking and boasting
+can make one. Yet if these doings give him stimulant instead of drink,
+who shall complain?"
+
+Soolsby's head was down. He was looking out over the far hills, while
+the strips of cane were idle in his hands. "Ay, 'tis true--'tis true,"
+he nodded. "Give a man an idee which keeps him cogitating, makes him
+think he's greater than he is, and sets his pulses beating, why, that's
+the cure to drink. Drink is friendship and good company and big thoughts
+while it lasts; and it's lonely without it, if you've been used to it.
+Ay, but Kimber's way is best. Get an idee in your noddle, to do a thing
+that's more to you than work or food or bed, and 'twill be more than
+drink, too."
+
+He nodded to himself, then began weaving the strips of cane furiously.
+Presently he stopped again, and threw his head back with a chuckle.
+"Now, wouldn't it be a joke, a reg'lar first-class joke, if Kimber
+and me both had the same idee, if we was both workin' for the same
+thing--an' didn't know it? I reckon it might be so."
+
+"What end is thee working for, friend? If the public prints speak true,
+Kimber is working to stand for Parliament against Lord Eglington."
+
+Soolsby grunted and laughed in his throat. "Now, is that the game of
+Mister Kimber? Against my Lord Eglington! Hey, but that's a joke, my
+lord!"
+
+"And what is thee working for, Soolsby?"
+
+"What do I be working for? To get the Egyptian back to England--what
+else?"
+
+"That is no joke."
+
+"Ay, but 'tis a joke." The old man chuckled. "'Tis the best joke in the
+boilin'." He shook his head and moved his body backwards and forwards
+with glee. "Me and Kimber! Me and Kimber!" he roared, "and neither of us
+drunk for a year--not drunk for a whole year. Me and Kimber--and him!"
+
+Faith put her hand on his shoulder. "Indeed, I see no joke, but only
+that which makes my heart thankful, Soolsby."
+
+"Ay, you will be thankful, you will be thankful, by-and-by," he said,
+still chuckling, and stood up respectfully to show her out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. THE DEBT AND THE ACCOUNTING
+
+His forehead frowning, but his eyes full of friendliness, Soolsby
+watched Faith go down the hillside and until she reached the main road.
+Here, instead of going to the Red Mansion, she hesitated a moment, and
+then passed along a wooded path leading to the Meetinghouse, and the
+graveyard. It was a perfect day of early summer, the gorse was in full
+bloom, and the may and the hawthorn were alive with colour. The path
+she had taken led through a narrow lane, overhung with blossoms and
+greenery. By bearing away to the left into another path, and making a
+detour, she could reach the Meeting-house through a narrow lane leading
+past a now disused mill and a small, strong stream flowing from the hill
+above.
+
+As she came down the hill, other eyes than Soolsby's watched her. From
+his laboratory--the laboratory in which his father had worked, in which
+he had lost his life--Eglington had seen the trim, graceful figure. He
+watched it till it moved into the wooded path. Then he left his garden,
+and, moving across a field, came into the path ahead of her. Walking
+swiftly, he reached the old mill, and waited.
+
+She came slowly, now and again stooping to pick a flower and place it in
+her belt. Her bonnet was slung on her arm, her hair had broken a little
+loose and made a sort of hood round the face, so still, so composed,
+into which the light of steady, soft, apprehending eyes threw a gentle
+radiance. It was a face to haunt a man when the storm of life was
+round him. It had, too, a courage which might easily become a delicate
+stubbornness, a sense of duty which might become sternness, if roused by
+a sense of wrong to herself or others.
+
+She reached the mill and stood and listened towards the stream and
+the waterfall. She came here often. The scene quieted her in moods of
+restlessness which came from a feeling that her mission was interrupted,
+that half her life's work had been suddenly taken from her. When David
+went, her life had seemed to shrivel; for with him she had developed as
+he had developed; and when her busy care of him was withdrawn, she had
+felt a sort of paralysis which, in a sense, had never left her. Then
+suitors had come--the soldier from Shipley Wood, the lord of Axwood
+Manor, and others, and, in a way, a new sense was born in her, though
+she was alive to the fact that the fifteen thousand pounds inherited
+from her Uncle Benn had served to warm the air about her into a wider
+circle. Yet it was neither to soldier, nor squire, nor civil engineer,
+nor surgeon that the new sense stirring in her was due. The spring was
+too far beneath to be found by them.
+
+When, at last, she raised her head, Lord Eglington was in the path,
+looking at her with a half-smile. She did not start, but her face turned
+white, and a mist came before her eyes.
+
+Quickly, however, as though fearful lest he should think he could
+trouble her composure, she laid a hand upon herself.
+
+He came near to her and held out his hand. "It has been a long six
+months since we met here," he said.
+
+She made no motion to take his hand. "I find days grow shorter as I
+grow older," she rejoined steadily, and smoothed her hair with her hand,
+making ready to put on her bonnet.
+
+"Ah, do not put it on," he urged quickly, with a gesture. "It becomes
+you so--on your arm."
+
+She had regained her self-possession. Pride, the best weapon of a woman,
+the best tonic, came to her resource. "Thee loves to please thee at any
+cost," she replied. She fastened the grey strings beneath her chin.
+
+"Would it be costly to keep the bonnet on your arm?"
+
+"It is my pleasure to have it on my head, and my pleasure has some value
+to myself."
+
+"A moment ago," he rejoined laughing, "it was your pleasure to have it
+on your arm."
+
+"Are all to be monotonous except Lord Eglington? Is he to have the only
+patent of change?"
+
+"Do I change?" He smiled at her with a sense of inquisition, with an air
+that seemed to say, "I have lifted the veil of this woman's heart; I am
+the master of the situation."
+
+She did not answer to the obvious meaning of his words, but said:
+
+"Thee has done little else but change, so far as eye can see. Thee and
+thy family were once of Quaker faith, but thee is a High Churchman now.
+Yet they said a year ago thee was a sceptic or an infidel."
+
+"There is force in what you say," he replied. "I have an inquiring mind;
+I am ever open to reason. Confucius said: 'It is only the supremely wise
+or the deeply ignorant who never alter.'"
+
+"Thee has changed politics. Thee made a 'sensation, but that was not
+enough. Thee that was a rebel became a deserter."
+
+He laughed. "Ah, I was open to conviction! I took my life in my hands,
+defied consequences." He laughed again.
+
+"It brought office."
+
+"I am Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs," he murmured complacently.
+
+"Change is a policy with thee, I think. It has paid thee well, so it
+would seem."
+
+"Only a fair rate of interest for the capital invested and the risks
+I've taken," he answered with an amused look.
+
+"I do not think that interest will increase. Thee has climbed quickly,
+but fast climbing is not always safe climbing."
+
+His mood changed. His voice quickened, his face lowered. "You think I
+will fail? You wish me to fail?"
+
+"In so far as thee acts uprightly, I wish thee well. But if, out of
+office, thee disregards justice and conscience and the rights of others,
+can thee be just and faithful in office? Subtlety will not always avail.
+The strong man takes the straight course. Subtlety is not intellect."
+
+He flushed. She had gone to the weakest point in his defences. His
+vanity was being hurt. She had an advantage now.
+
+"You are wrong," he protested. "You do not understand public life, here
+in a silly Quaker village."
+
+"Does thee think that all that happens in 'public life' is of
+consequence? That is not sensible. Thee is in the midst of a thousand
+immaterial things, though they have importance for the moment. But the
+chief things that matter to all, does thee not know that a 'silly Quaker
+village' may realise them to the full--more fully because we see them
+apart from the thousand little things that do not matter? I remember a
+thing in political life that mattered. It was at Heddington after the
+massacre at Damascus. Does thee think that we did not know thee spoke
+without principle then, and only to draw notice?"
+
+"You would make me into a demagogue," he said irritably.
+
+"Thee is a demagogue," she answered candidly.
+
+"Why did you never say all this to me long ago? Years have passed since
+then, and since then you and I have--have been friends. You have--"
+
+He paused, for she made a protesting motion, and a fire sprang into her
+eyes. Her voice got colder. "Thee made me believe--ah, how many times
+did we speak together? Six times it was, not more. Thee made me believe
+that what I thought or said helped thee to see things better. Thee
+said I saw things truly like a child, with the wisdom of a woman. Thee
+remembers that?"
+
+"It was so," he put in hastily.
+
+"No, not for a moment so, though I was blinded to think for an instant
+that it was. Thee subtly took the one way which could have made me
+listen to thee. Thee wanted help, thee said; and if a word of mine could
+help thee now and then, should I withhold it, so long as I thought thee
+honest?"
+
+"Do you think I was not honest in wanting your friendship?"
+
+"Nay, it was not friendship thee wanted, for friendship means a giving
+and a getting. Thee was bent on getting what was, indeed, of but little
+value save to the giver; but thee gave nothing; thee remembered nothing
+of what was given thee."
+
+"It is not so, it is not so," he urged eagerly, nervously. "I gave, and
+I still give."
+
+"In those old days, I did not understand," she went on, "what it
+was thee wanted. I know now. It was to know the heart and mind of a
+woman--of a woman older than thee. So that thee should have such sort
+of experience, though I was but a foolish choice of the experiment.
+They say thee has a gift for chemistry like thy father; but if thee
+experiments no more wisely in the laboratory than with me, thee will not
+reach distinction."
+
+"Your father hated my father and did not believe in him, I know not why,
+and you are now hating and disbelieving me."
+
+"I do not know why my father held the late Earl in abhorrence; I know he
+has no faith in thee; and I did ill in listening to thee, in believing
+for one moment there was truth in thee. But no, no, I think I never
+believed it. I think that even when thee said most, at heart I believed
+least."
+
+"You doubt that? You doubt all I said to you?" he urged softly, coming
+close to her.
+
+She drew aside slightly. She had steeled herself for this inevitable
+interview, and there was no weakening of her defences; but a great
+sadness came into her eyes, and spread over her face, and to this was
+added, after a moment, a pity which showed the distance she was from
+him, the safety in which she stood.
+
+"I remember that the garden was beautiful, and that thee spoke as though
+thee was part of the garden. Thee remembers that, at our meeting in the
+Cloistered House, when the woman was ill, I had no faith in thee; but
+thee spoke with grace, and turned common things round about, so that
+they seemed different to the ear from any past hearing; and I listened.
+I did not know, and I do not know now, why it is my duty to shun any
+of thy name, and above all thyself; but it has been so commanded by my
+father all my life; and though what he says may be in a little wrong, in
+much it must ever be right."
+
+"And so, from a hatred handed down, your mind has been tuned to shun
+even when your heart was learning to give me a home--Faith?"
+
+She straightened herself. "Friend, thee will do me the courtesy to
+forget to use my Christian name. I am not a child-indeed, I am well
+on in years"--he smiled--"and thee has no friendship or kinship for
+warrant. If my mind was tuned to shun thee, I gave proof that it was
+willing to take thee at thine own worth, even against the will of my
+father, against the desire of David, who knew thee better than I--he
+gauged thee at first glance."
+
+"You have become a philosopher and a statesman," he said ironically.
+"Has your nephew, the new Joseph in Egypt, been giving you instructions
+in high politics? Has he been writing the Epistles of David to the
+Quakers?"
+
+"Thee will leave his name apart," she answered with dignity. "I have
+studied neither high politics nor statesmanship, though in the days when
+thee did flatter me thee said I had a gift for such things. Thee did
+not speak the truth. And now I will say that I do not respect thee. No
+matter how high thee may climb, still I shall not respect thee; for thee
+will ever gain ends by flattery, by subtlety, and by using every man and
+every woman for selfish ends. Thee cannot be true-not even to that which
+by nature is greatest in thee.".
+
+He withered under her words.
+
+"And what is greatest in me?" he asked abruptly, his coolness and
+self-possession striving to hold their own.
+
+"That which will ruin thee in the end." Her eyes looked beyond his
+into the distance, rapt and shining; she seemed scarcely aware of
+his presence. "That which will bring thee down--thy hungry spirit of
+discovery. It will serve thee no better than it served the late Earl.
+But thee it will lead into paths ending in a gulf of darkness."
+
+"Deborah!" he answered, with a rasping laugh. "Continuez! Forewarned is
+forearmed."
+
+"No, do not think I shall be glad," she answered, still like one in a
+dream. "I shall lament it as I lament--as I lament now. All else fades
+away into the end which I see for thee. Thee will live alone without a
+near and true friend, and thee will die alone, never having had a true
+friend. Thee will never be a true friend, thee will never love truly
+man or woman, and thee will never find man or woman who will love thee
+truly, or will be with thee to aid thee in the dark and falling days."
+
+"Then," he broke in sharply, querulously, "then, I will stand alone. I
+shall never come whining that I have been ill-used, to fate or fortune,
+to men or to the Almighty."
+
+"That I believe. Pride will build up in thee a strength which will be
+like water in the end. Oh, my lord," she added, with a sudden change in
+her voice and manner, "if thee could only be true--thee who never has
+been true to any one!"
+
+"Why does a woman always judge a man after her own personal experience
+with him, or what she thinks is her own personal experience?"
+
+A robin hopped upon the path before her. She watched it for a moment
+intently, then lifted her head as the sound of a bell came through
+the wood to her. She looked up at the sun, which was slanting towards
+evening. She seemed about to speak, but with second thought, moved on
+slowly past the mill and towards the Meeting-house. He stepped on beside
+her. She kept her eyes fixed in front of her, as though oblivious of his
+presence.
+
+"You shall hear me speak. You shall listen to what I have to say, though
+it is for the last time," he urged stubbornly. "You think ill of me. Are
+you sure you are not pharisaical?"
+
+"I am honest enough to say that which hurts me in the saying. I do not
+forget that to believe thee what I think is to take all truth from what
+thee said to me last year, and again this spring when the tulips first
+came and there was good news from Egypt."
+
+"I said," he rejoined boldly, "that I was happier with you than with any
+one else alive. I said that what you thought of me meant more to me than
+what any one else in the world thought; and that I say now, and will
+always say it."
+
+The old look of pity came into her face. "I am older than thee by two
+years," she answered quaintly, "and I know more of real life, though I
+have lived always here. I have made the most of the little I have seen;
+thee has made little of the much that thee has seen. Thee does not know
+the truth concerning thee. Is it not, in truth, vanity which would have
+me believe in thee? If thee was happier with me than with any one
+alive, why then did thee make choice of a wife even in the days thee was
+speaking to me as no man shall ever speak again? Nothing can explain so
+base a fact. No, no, no, thee said to me what thee said to others, and
+will say again without shame. But--but see, I will forgive; yes, I will
+follow thee with good wishes, if thee will promise to help David, whom
+thee has ever disliked, as, in the place held by thee, thee can do now.
+Will thee offer this one proof, in spite of all else that disproves,
+that thee spoke any words of truth to me in the Cloistered House, in
+the garden by my father's house, by yonder mill, and hard by the
+Meeting-house yonder-near to my sister's grave by the willow-tree? Will
+thee do that for me?"
+
+He was about to reply, when there appeared in the path before them Luke
+Claridge. His back was upon them, but he heard their footsteps and
+swung round. As though turned to stone, he waited for them. As they
+approached, his lips, dry and pale, essayed to speak, but no sound came.
+A fire was in his eyes which boded no good. Amazement, horror, deadly
+anger, were all there, but, after a moment, the will behind the tumult
+commanded it, the wild light died away, and he stood calm and still
+awaiting them. Faith was as pale as when she had met Eglington. As she
+came nearer, Luke Claridge said, in a low voice:
+
+"How do I find thee in this company, Faith?" There was reproach
+unutterable in his voice, in his face. He seemed humiliated and shamed,
+though all the while a violent spirit in him was struggling for the
+mastery.
+
+"As I came this way to visit my sister's grave I met my lord by the
+mill. He spoke to me, and, as I wished a favour of him, I walked with
+him thither--but a little way. I was going to visit my sister's grave."
+
+"Thy sister's grave!" The fire flamed up again, but the masterful will
+chilled it down, and he answered: "What secret business can thee have
+with any of that name which I have cast out of knowledge or notice?"
+
+Ignorant as he was of the old man's cause for quarrel or dislike,
+Eglington felt himself aggrieved, and, therefore, with an advantage.
+
+"You had differences with my father, sir," he said. "I do not know
+what they were, but they lasted his lifetime, and all my life you have
+treated me with aversion. I am not a pestilence. I have never wronged
+you. I have lived your peaceful neighbour under great provocation, for
+your treatment would have done me harm if my place were less secure. I
+think I have cause for complaint."
+
+"I have never acted in haste concerning thee, or those who went before
+thee. What business had thee with him, Faith?" he asked again. His voice
+was dry and hard.
+
+Her impulse was to tell the truth, and so for ever have her conscience
+clear, for there would never be any more need for secrecy. The wheel of
+understanding between Eglington and herself had come full circle, and
+there was an end. But to tell the truth would be to wound her father, to
+vex him against Eglington even as he had never yet been vexed. Besides,
+it was hard, while Eglington was there, to tell what, after all, was
+the sole affair of her own life. In one literal sense, Eglington was
+not guilty of deceit. Never in so many words had he said to her: "I love
+you;" never had he made any promise to her or exacted one; he had done
+no more than lure her to feel one thing, and then to call it another
+thing. Also there was no direct and vital injury, for she had never
+loved him; though how far she had travelled towards that land of light
+and trial she could never now declare. These thoughts flashed through
+her mind as she stood looking at her father. Her tongue seemed
+imprisoned, yet her soft and candid eyes conquered the austerity in the
+old man's gaze.
+
+Eglington spoke for her.
+
+"Permit me to answer, neighbour," he said. "I wished to speak with
+your daughter, because I am to be married soon, and my wife will, at
+intervals, come here to live. I wished that she should not be shunned
+by you and yours as I have been. She would not understand, as I do not.
+Yours is a constant call to war, while all your religion is an appeal
+for peace. I wished to ask your daughter to influence you to make it
+possible for me and mine to live in friendship among you. My wife will
+have some claims upon you. Her mother was an American, of a Quaker
+family from Derbyshire. She has done nothing to merit your aversion."
+
+Faith listened astonished and baffled. Nothing of this had he said to
+her. Had he meant to say it to her? Had it been in his mind? Or was it
+only a swift adaptation to circumstances, an adroit means of working
+upon the sympathies of her father, who, she could see, was in a
+quandary? Eglington had indeed touched the old man as he had not been
+touched in thirty years and more by one of his name. For a moment the
+insinuating quality of the appeal submerged the fixed idea in a mind to
+which the name of Eglington was anathema.
+
+Eglington saw his advantage. He had felt his way carefully, and he
+pursued it quickly. "For the rest, your daughter asked what I was ready
+to offer--such help as, in my new official position, I can give to
+Claridge Pasha in Egypt. As a neighbour, as Minister in the Government,
+I will do what I can to aid him."
+
+Silent and embarrassed, the old man tried to find his way. Presently
+he said tentatively: "David Claridge has a title to the esteem of all
+civilised people." Eglington was quick with his reply. "If he succeeds,
+his title will become a concrete fact. There is no honour the Crown
+would not confer for such remarkable service."
+
+The other's face darkened. "I did not speak, I did not think, of handles
+to his name. I find no good in them, but only means for deceiving and
+deluding the world. Such honours as might make him baronet, or duke,
+would add not a cubit to his stature. If he had such a thing by
+right"--his voice hardened, his eyes grew angry once again--"I would
+wish it sunk into the sea."
+
+"You are hard on us, sir, who did not give ourselves our titles, but
+took them with our birth as a matter of course. There was nothing
+inspiring in them. We became at once distinguished and respectable by
+patent."
+
+He laughed good-humouredly. Then suddenly he changed, and his eyes took
+on a far-off look which Faith had seen so often in the eyes of David,
+but in David's more intense and meaning, and so different. With what
+deftness and diplomacy had he worked upon her father! He had crossed a
+stream which seemed impassable by adroit, insincere diplomacy.
+
+She saw that it was time to go, while yet Eglington's disparagement of
+rank and aristocracy was ringing in the old man's ears; though she knew
+there was nothing in Eglington's equipment he valued more than his
+title and the place it gave him. Grateful, however, for his successful
+intervention, Faith now held out her hand.
+
+"I must take my father away, or it will be sunset before we reach the
+Meeting-house," she said. "Goodbye-friend," she added gently.
+
+For an instant Luke Claridge stared at her, scarce comprehending that
+his movements were being directed by any one save himself. Truth was,
+Faith had come to her cross-roads in life. For the first time in her
+memory she had seen her father speak to an Eglington without harshness;
+and, as he weakened for a moment, she moved to take command of that
+weakness, though she meant it to seem like leading. While loving her
+and David profoundly, her father had ever been quietly imperious. If she
+could but gain ascendency even in a little, it might lead to a more open
+book of life for them both.
+
+Eglington held out his hand to the old man. "I have kept you too long,
+sir. Good-bye--if you will."
+
+The offered hand was not taken, but Faith slid hers into the old man's
+palm, and pressed it, and he said quietly to Eglington:
+
+"Good evening, friend."
+
+"And when I bring my wife, sir?" Eglington added, with a smile.
+
+"When thee brings the lady, there will be occasion to consider--there
+will be occasion then."
+
+Eglington raised his hat, and turned back upon the path he and Faith had
+travelled.
+
+The old man stood watching him until he was out of view. Then he seemed
+more himself. Still holding Faith's hand, he walked with her on the
+gorse-covered hill towards the graveyard.
+
+"Was it his heart spoke or his tongue--is there any truth in him?" he
+asked at last.
+
+Faith pressed his hand. "If he help Davy, father--"
+
+"If he help Davy; ay, if he help Davy! Nay, I cannot go to the
+graveyard, Faith. Take me home," he said with emotion.
+
+His hand remained in hers. She had conquered. She was set upon a new
+path of influence. Her hand was upon the door of his heart.
+
+"Thee is good to me, Faith," he said, as they entered the door of the
+Red Mansion.
+
+She glanced over towards the Cloistered House. Smoke was coming from the
+little chimney of the laboratory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. THE WOMAN OF THE CROSS-ROADS
+
+The night came down slowly. There was no moon, the stars were few, but
+a mellow warmth was in the air. At the window of her little sitting-room
+up-stairs Faith sat looking out into the stillness. Beneath was the
+garden with its profusion of flowers and fruit; away to the left was the
+common; and beyond-far beyond--was a glow in the sky, a suffused light,
+of a delicate orange, merging away into a grey-blueness, deepening
+into a darker blue; and then a purple depth, palpable and heavy with a
+comforting silence.
+
+There was something alluring and suggestive in the soft, smothered
+radiance. It had all the glamour of some distant place of pleasure and
+quiet joy, of happiness and ethereal being. It was, in fact, the far-off
+mirror of the flaming furnace of the great Heddington factories. The
+light of the sky above was a soft radiance, as of a happy Arcadian
+land; the fire of the toil beneath was the output of human striving, an
+intricate interweaving of vital forces which, like some Titanic machine,
+wrought out in pain--a vast destiny.
+
+As Faith looked, she thought of the thousands beneath struggling and
+striving, none with all desires satisfied, some in an agony of want and
+penury, all straining for the elusive Enough; like Sisyphus ever rolling
+the rock of labour up a hill too steep for them.
+
+Her mind flew to the man Kimber and his task of organising labour for
+its own advance. What a life-work for a man! Here might David have spent
+his days, here among his own countrymen, instead of in that far-off land
+where all the forces of centuries were fighting against him. Here the
+forces would have been fighting for him; the trend was towards the
+elevation of the standards of living and the wider rights of labour,
+to the amelioration of hard conditions of life among the poor. David's
+mind, with its equity, its balance, and its fire--what might it not have
+accomplished in shepherding such a cause, guiding its activity?
+
+The gate of the garden clicked. Kate Heaver had arrived. Faith got to
+her feet and left the room.
+
+A few minutes later the woman of the cross-roads was seated opposite
+Faith at the window. She had changed greatly since the day David had
+sent her on her way to London and into the unknown. Then there had been
+recklessness, something of coarseness, in the fine face. Now it was
+strong and quiet, marked by purpose and self-reliance.
+
+Ignorance had been her only peril in the past, as it had been the cause
+of her unhappy connection with Jasper Kimber. The atmosphere in which
+she was raised had been unmoral; it had not been consciously immoral.
+Her temper and her indignation against her man for drinking had been the
+means of driving them apart. He would have married her in those days, if
+she had given the word, for her will was stronger than his own; but she
+had broken from him in an agony of rage and regret and despised love.
+
+She was now, again, as she had been in those first days before she went
+with Jasper Kimber; when she was the rose-red angel of the quarters;
+when children were lured by the touch of her large, shapely hands; when
+she had been counted a great nurse among her neighbours. The old simple
+untutored sympathy was in her face.
+
+They sat for a long time in silence, and at length Faith said: "Thee is
+happy now with her who is to marry Lord Eglington?"
+
+Kate nodded, smiling. "Who could help but be happy with her! Yet a
+temper, too--so quick, and then all over in a second. Ah, she is one
+that'd break her heart if she was treated bad; but I'd be sorry for him
+that did it. For the like of her goes mad with hurting, and the mad cut
+with a big scythe."
+
+"Has thee seen Lord Eglington?"
+
+"Once before I left these parts and often in London." Her voice was
+constrained; she seemed not to wish to speak of him.
+
+"Is it true that Jasper Kimber is to stand against him for Parliament?"
+
+"I do not know. They say my lord has to do with foreign lands now. If he
+helps Mr. Claridge there, then it would be a foolish thing for Jasper to
+fight him; and so I've told him. You've got to stand by those that stand
+by you. Lord Eglington has his own way of doing things. There's not
+a servant in my lady's house that he hasn't made his friend. He's one
+that's bound to have his will. I heard my lady say he talks better than
+any one in England, and there's none she doesn't know from duchesses
+down."
+
+"She is beautiful?" asked Faith, with hesitation.
+
+"Taller than you, but not so beautiful."
+
+Faith sighed, and was silent for a moment, then she laid a hand upon the
+other's shoulder. "Thee has never said what happened when thee first got
+to London. Does thee care to say?"
+
+"It seems so long ago," was the reply.... "No need to tell of the
+journey to London. When I got there it frightened me at first. My head
+went round. But somehow it came to me what I should do. I asked my
+way to a hospital. I'd helped a many that was hurt at Heddington and
+thereabouts, and doctors said I was as good as them that was trained. I
+found a hospital at last, and asked for work, but they laughed at me--it
+was the porter at the door. I was not to be put down, and asked to see
+some one that had rights to say yes or no. So he opened the door and
+told me to go. I said he was no man to treat a woman so, and I would not
+go. Then a fine white-haired gentleman came forward. He had heard all we
+had said, standing in a little room at one side. He spoke a kind word
+or two, and asked me to go into the little room. Before I had time to
+think, he came to me with the matron, and left me with her. I told her
+the whole truth, and she looked at first as if she'd turn me out. But
+the end of it was I stayed there for the night, and in the morning the
+old gentleman came again, and with him his lady, as kind and sharp of
+tongue as himself, and as big as three. Some things she said made my
+tongue ache to speak back to her; but I choked it down. I went to her to
+be a sort of nurse and maid. She taught me how to do a hundred things,
+and by-and-by I couldn't be too thankful she had taken me in. I was with
+her till she died. Then, six months ago I went to Miss Maryon, who
+knew about me long before from her that died. With her I've been ever
+since--and so that's all."
+
+"Surely God has been kind to thee."
+
+"I'd have gone down--down--down, if it hadn't been for Mr. Claridge at
+the cross-roads."
+
+"Does thee think I shall like her that will live yonder?" She nodded
+towards the Cloistered House. "There's none but likes her. She will want
+a friend, I'm thinking. She'll be lonely by-and-by. Surely, she will be
+lonely."
+
+Faith looked at her closely, and at last leaned over, and again laid a
+soft hand on her shoulder. "Thee thinks that--why?"
+
+"He cares only what matters to himself. She will be naught to him but
+one that belongs. He'll never try to do her good. Doing good to any but
+himself never comes to his mind."
+
+"How does thee know him, to speak so surely?"
+
+"When, at the first, he gave me a letter for her one day, and slipped a
+sovereign into my hand, and nodded, and smiled at me, I knew him right
+enough. He never could be true to aught."
+
+"Did thee keep the sovereign?" Faith asked anxiously.
+
+"Ay, that I did. If he was for giving his money away, I'd take it fast
+enough. The gold gave father boots for a year. Why should I mind?"
+
+Faith's face suffused. How low was Eglington's estimate of humanity!
+
+In the silence that followed the door of her room opened, and her father
+entered. He held in one hand a paper, in the other a candle. His face
+was passive, but his eyes were burning.
+
+"David--David is coming," he cried, in a voice that rang. "Does thee
+hear, Faith? Davy is coming home!" A woman laughed exultantly. It was
+not Faith. But still two years passed before David came.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. TIME, THE IDOL-BREAKER
+
+Lord Windlehurst looked meditatively round the crowded and brilliant
+salon. His host, the Foreign Minister, had gathered in the vast golden
+chamber the most notable people of a most notable season, and in as
+critical a period of the world's politics as had been known for a
+quarter of a century. After a moment's survey, the ex-Prime-Minister
+turned to answer the frank and caustic words addressed to him by the
+Duchess of Snowdon concerning the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
+Presently he said:
+
+"But there is method in his haste, dear lady. He is good at his
+dangerous game. He plays high, he plunges; but, somehow, he makes it
+do. I've been in Parliament a generation or so, and I've never known an
+amateur more daring and skilful. I should have given him office had I
+remained in power. Look at him, and tell me if he wouldn't have been
+worth the backing."
+
+As Lord Windlehurst uttered the last word with an arid smile, he looked
+quizzically at the central figure of a group of people gaily talking.
+
+The Duchess impatiently tapped her knee with a fan. "Be thankful you
+haven't got him on your conscience," she rejoined. "I call Eglington
+unscrupulous and unreliable. He has but one god--getting on; and he
+has got on, with a vengeance. Whenever I look at that dear thing he's
+married, I feel there's no trusting Providence, who seems to make the
+deserving a footstool for the undeserving. I've known Hylda since she
+was ten, and I've known him since the minute he came into the world, and
+I've got the measure of both. She is the finest essence the middle class
+can distil, and he, oh, he's paraffin-vin ordinaire, if you like it
+better, a selfish, calculating adventurer!"
+
+Lord Windlehurst chuckled mordantly. "Adventurer! That's what they
+called me--with more reason. I spotted him as soon as he spoke in the
+House. There was devilry in him, and unscrupulousness, as you say; but,
+I confess, I thought it would give way to the more profitable habit of
+integrity, and that some cause would seize him, make him sincere and
+mistaken, and give him a few falls. But in that he was more original
+than I thought. He is superior to convictions. You don't think he
+married yonder Queen of Hearts from conviction, do you?"
+
+He nodded towards a corner where Hylda, under a great palm, and backed
+by a bank of flowers, stood surrounded by a group of people palpably
+amused and interested; for she had a reputation for wit--a wit that
+never hurt, and irony that was only whimsical.
+
+"No, there you are wrong," the Duchess answered. "He married from
+conviction, if ever a man did. Look at her beauty, look at her fortune,
+listen to her tongue. Don't you think conviction was easy?"
+
+Lord Windlehurst looked at Hylda approvingly. She has the real
+gift--little information, but much knowledge, the primary gift of public
+life. "Information is full of traps; knowledge avoids them, it
+reads men; and politics is men--and foreign affairs, perhaps! She is
+remarkable. I've made some hay in the political world, not so much as
+the babblers think, but I hadn't her ability at twenty-five."
+
+"Why didn't she see through Eglington?"
+
+"My dear Betty, he didn't give her time. He carried her off her feet.
+You know how he can talk."
+
+"That's the trouble. She was clever, and liked a clever man, and he--!"
+
+"Quite so. He'd disprove his own honest parentage, if it would help him
+on--as you say."
+
+"I didn't say it. Now don't repeat that as from me. I'm not clever
+enough to think of such things. But that Eglington lot--I knew his
+father and his grandfather. Old Broadbrim they called his grandfather
+after he turned Quaker, and he didn't do that till he had had his
+fling, so my father used to say. And Old Broadbrim's father was called
+I-want-to-know. He was always poking his nose into things, and playing
+at being a chemist-like this one and the one before. They all fly off.
+This one's father used to disappear for two or three years at a time.
+This one will fly off, too. You'll see!
+
+"He is too keen on Number One for that, I fancy. He calculates like a
+mathematician. As cool as a cracksman of fame and fancy."
+
+The Duchess dropped the fan in her lap. "My dear, I've said nothing as
+bad as that about him. And there he is at the Foreign Office!"
+
+"Yet, what has he done, Betty, after all? He has never cheated at cards,
+or forged a cheque, or run away with his neighbour's wife."
+
+"There's no credit in not doing what you don't want to do. There's no
+virtue in not falling, when you're not tempted. Neighbour's wife! He
+hasn't enough feeling to face it. Oh no, he'll not break the heart of
+his neighbour's wife. That's melodrama, and he's a cold-blooded artist.
+He will torture that sweet child over there until she poisons him, or
+runs away."
+
+"Isn't he too clever for that? She has a million!"
+
+"He'll not realise it till it's all over. He's too selfish to see--how I
+hate him!"
+
+Lord Windlehurst smiled indulgently at her. "Ah, you never hated any
+one--not even the Duke."
+
+"I will not have you take away my character. Of course I've hated, or
+I wouldn't be worth a button. I'm not the silly thing you've always
+thought me."
+
+His face became gentler. "I've always thought you one of the wisest
+women of this world--adventurous, but wise. If it weren't too late, if
+my day weren't over, I'd ask the one great favour, Betty, and--"
+
+She tapped his arm sharply with her fan. "What a humbug you are--the
+Great Pretender! But tell me, am I not right about Eglington?"
+
+Windlehurst became grave. "Yes, you are right--but I admire him, too. He
+is determined to test himself to the full. His ambition is boundless and
+ruthless, but his mind has a scientific turn--the obligation of energy
+to apply itself, of intelligence to engage itself to the farthest limit.
+But service to humanity--"
+
+"Service to humanity!" she sniffed.
+
+"Of course he would think it 'flap-doodle'--except in a speech; but I
+repeat, I admire him. Think of it all. He was a poor Irish peer, with
+no wide circle of acquaintance, come of a family none too popular.
+He strikes out a course for himself--a course which had its dangers,
+because it was original. He determines to become celebrated--by becoming
+notorious first. He uses his title as a weapon for advancement as though
+he were a butter merchant. He plans carefully and adroitly. He writes
+a book of travel. It is impudent, and it traverses the observations of
+authorities, and the scientific geographers prance with rage. That was
+what he wished. He writes a novel. It sets London laughing at me, his
+political chief. He knew me well enough to be sure I would not resent
+it. He would have lampooned his grandmother, if he was sure she
+would not, or could not, hurt him. Then he becomes more audacious. He
+publishes a monograph on the painters of Spain, artificial, confident,
+rhetorical, acute: as fascinating as a hide-and-seek drawing-room
+play--he is so cleverly escaping from his ignorance and indiscretions
+all the while. Connoisseurs laugh, students of art shriek a little, and
+Ruskin writes a scathing letter, which was what he had played for. He
+had got something for nothing cheaply. The few who knew and despised him
+did not matter, for they were able and learned and obscure, and, in
+the world where he moves, most people are superficial, mediocre,
+and 'tuppence coloured.' It was all very brilliant. He pursued his
+notoriety, and got it."
+
+"Industrious Eglington!"
+
+"But, yes, he is industrious. It is all business. It was an enormous
+risk, rebelling against his party, and leaving me, and going over; but
+his temerity justified itself, and it didn't matter to him that people
+said he went over to get office as we were going out. He got the
+office-and people forget so soon. Then, what does he do--"
+
+"He brings out another book, and marries a wife, and abuses his old
+friends--and you."
+
+"Abuse? With his tongue in his cheek, hoping that I should reply.
+Dev'lishly ingenious! But on that book of Electricity and Disease he
+scored. In most other things he's a barber-shop philosopher, but in
+science he has got a flare, a real talent. So he moves modestly in this
+thing, for which he had a fine natural gift and more knowledge than he
+ever had before in any department, whose boundaries his impertinent and
+ignorant mind had invaded. That book gave him a place. It wasn't full
+of new things, but it crystallised the discoveries, suggestions, and
+expectations of others; and, meanwhile, he had got a name at no cost.
+He is so various. Look at it dispassionately, and you will see much to
+admire in his skill. He pleases, he amuses, he startles, he baffles, he
+mystifies."
+
+The Duchess made an impatient exclamation. "The silly newspapers call
+him a 'remarkable man, a personality.' Now, believe me, Windlehurst,
+he will overreach himself one of these days, and he'll come down like a
+stick."
+
+"There you are on solid ground. He thinks that Fate is with him, and
+that, in taking risks, he is infallible. But the best system breaks at
+political roulette sooner or later. You have got to work for something
+outside yourself, something that is bigger than the game, or the end is
+sickening."
+
+"Eglington hasn't far to go, if that's the truth."
+
+"Well, well, when it comes, we must help him--we must help him up
+again."
+
+The Duchess nervously adjusted her wig, with ludicrously tiny fingers
+for one so ample, and said petulantly: "You are incomprehensible. He has
+been a traitor to you and to your party, he has thrown mud at you, he
+has played with principles as my terrier plays with his rubber ball, and
+yet you'll run and pick him up when he falls, and--"
+
+"'And kiss the spot to make it well,'" he laughed softly, then added
+with a sigh: "Able men in public life are few; 'far too few, for half
+our tasks; we can spare not one.' Besides, my dear Betty, there is his
+pretty lass o' London."
+
+The Duchess was mollified at once. "I wish she had been my girl," she
+said, in a voice a little tremulous. "She never needed looking after.
+Look at the position she has made for herself. Her father wouldn't go
+into society, her mother knew a mere handful of people, and--"
+
+"She knew you, Betty."
+
+"Well, suppose I did help her a little--I was only a kind of reference.
+She did the rest. She's set a half-dozen fashions herself--pure genius.
+She was born to lead. Her turnouts were always a little smarter, her
+horses travelled a little faster, than other people's. She took risks,
+too, but she didn't play a game; she only wanted to do things well. We
+all gasped when she brought Adelaide to recite from 'Romeo and Juliet'
+at an evening party, but all London did the same the week after."
+
+"She discovered, and the Duchess of Snowdon applied the science. Ah,
+Betty, don't think I don't agree. She has the gift. She has temperament.
+No woman should have temperament. She hasn't scope enough to wear it out
+in some passion for a cause. Men are saved in spite of themselves by the
+law of work. Forty comes to a man of temperament, and then a passion for
+a cause seizes him, and he is safe. A woman of temperament at forty is
+apt to cut across the bows of iron-clad convention and go down. She has
+temperament, has my lady yonder, and I don't like the look of her eyes
+sometimes. There's dark fire smouldering in them. She should have a
+cause; but a cause to a woman now-a-days means 'too little of pleasure,
+too much of pain,' for others."
+
+"What was your real cause, Windlehurst? You had one, I suppose, for
+you've never had a fall."
+
+"My cause? You ask that? Behold the barren figtree! A lifetime in my
+country's service, and you who have driven me home from the House in
+your own brougham, and told me that you understood--oh, Betty!"
+
+She laughed. "You'll say something funny as you're dying, Windlehurst."
+
+"Perhaps. But it will be funny to know that presently I'll have a secret
+that none of you know, who watch me 'launch my pinnace into the dark.'
+But causes? There are hundreds, and all worth while. I've come here
+to-night for a cause--no, don't start, it's not you, Betty, though
+you are worth any sacrifice. I've come here to-night to see a modern
+Paladin, a real crusader:
+
+"'Then felt I like some watcher of the skies, When a new planet swims
+into his ken.'"
+
+"Yes, that's poetry, Windlehurst, and you know I love it-I've always
+kept yours. But who's the man--the planet?"
+
+"Egyptian Claridge."
+
+"Ah, he is in England?"
+
+"He will be here to-night; you shall see him."
+
+"Really! What is his origin?"
+
+He told her briefly, adding: "I've watched the rise of Claridge Pasha.
+I've watched his cause grow, and now I shall see the man--ah, but here
+comes our lass o' London!"
+
+The eyes of both brightened, and a whimsical pleasure came to the
+mask-like face of Lord Windlehurst. There was an eager and delighted
+look in Hylda's face also as she quickly came to them, her cavaliers
+following.
+
+The five years that had passed since that tragic night in Cairo had been
+more than kind to her. She was lissome, radiant, and dignified, her face
+was alive with expression, and a delicate grace was in every movement.
+The dark lashes seemed to have grown longer, the brown hair fuller, the
+smile softer and more alluring.
+
+"She is an invaluable asset to the Government," Lord Windlehurst
+murmured as she came. "No wonder the party helped the marriage on.
+London conspired for it, her feet got tangled in the web--and he gave
+her no time to think. Thinking had saved her till he came."
+
+By instinct Lord Windlehurst knew. During the first year after the
+catastrophe at Kaid's Palace Hylda could scarcely endure the advances
+made by her many admirers, the greatly eligible and the eager
+ineligible, all with as real an appreciation of her wealth as of her
+personal attributes. But she took her place in London life with more
+than the old will to make for herself, with the help of her aunt
+Conyngham, an individual position.
+
+The second year after her visit to Egypt she was less haunted by the
+dark episode of the Palace, memory tortured her less; she came to think
+of David and the part he had played with less agitation. At first the
+thought of him had moved her alternately to sympathy and to revolt. His
+chivalry had filled her with admiration, with a sense of confidence,
+of dependence, of touching and vital obligation; but there was, too,
+another overmastering feeling. He had seen her life naked, as it
+were, stripped of all independence, with the knowledge of a dangerous
+indiscretion which, to say the least, was a deformity; and she inwardly
+resented it, as one would resent the exposure of a long-hidden physical
+deformity, even by the surgeon who saved one's life. It was not a very
+lofty attitude of mind, but it was human--and feminine.
+
+These moods had been always dissipated, however, when she recalled,
+as she did so often, David as he stood before Nahoum Pasha, his soul
+fighting in him to make of his enemy--of the man whose brother he had
+killed--a fellow-worker in the path of altruism he had mapped out for
+himself. David's name had been continually mentioned in telegraphic
+reports and journalistic correspondence from Egypt; and from this source
+she had learned that Nahoum Pasha was again high in the service of
+Prince Kaid. When the news of David's southern expedition to the
+revolting slave-dealing tribes began to appear, she was deeply roused.
+Her agitation was the more intense because she never permitted
+herself to talk of him to others, even when his name was discussed at
+dinner-tables, accompanied by strange legends of his origin and stranger
+romances regarding his call to power by Kaid.
+
+She had surrounded him with romance; he seemed more a hero of history
+than of her own real and living world, a being apart. Even when there
+came rumblings of disaster, dark dangers to be conquered by the Quaker
+crusader, it all was still as of another life. True it was, that when
+his safe return to Cairo was announced she had cried with joy and
+relief; but there was nothing emotional or passionate in her feeling;
+it was the love of the lower for the higher, the hero-worship of an
+idealist in passionate gratitude.
+
+And, amid it all, her mind scarcely realised that they would surely meet
+again. At the end of the second year the thought had receded into an
+almost indefinite past. She was beginning to feel that she had lived
+two lives, and that this life had no direct or vital bearing upon her
+previous existence, in which David had moved. Yet now and then the
+perfume of the Egyptian garden, through which she had fled to escape
+from tragedy, swept over her senses, clouded her eyes in the daytime,
+made them burn at night.
+
+At last she had come to meet and know Eglington. From the first moment
+they met he had directed his course towards marriage. He was the man
+of the moment. His ambition seemed but patriotism, his ardent and
+overwhelming courtship the impulse of a powerful nature. As Lord
+Windlehurst had said, he carried her off her feet, and, on a wave of
+devotion and popular encouragement, he had swept her to the altar.
+
+The Duchess held both her hands for a moment, admiring her, and,
+presently, with a playful remark upon her unselfishness, left her alone
+with Lord Windlehurst.
+
+As they talked, his mask-like face became lighted from the brilliant
+fire in the inquisitorial eyes, his lips played with topics of the
+moment in a mordant fashion, which drew from her flashing replies.
+Looking at her, he was conscious of the mingled qualities of three races
+in her--English, Welsh, and American-Dutch of the Knickerbocker strain;
+and he contrasted her keen perception and her exquisite sensitiveness
+with the purebred Englishwomen round him, stately, kindly, handsome, and
+monotonously intelligent.
+
+"Now I often wonder," he said, conscious of, but indifferent to, the
+knowledge that he and the brilliant person beside him were objects of
+general attention--"I often wonder, when I look at a gathering like
+this, how many undiscovered crimes there are playing about among us.
+They never do tell--or shall I say, we never do tell?"
+
+All day, she knew not why, Hylda had been nervous and excited. Without
+reason his words startled her. Now there flashed before her eyes a room
+in a Palace at Cairo, and a man lying dead before her. The light slowly
+faded out of her eyes, leaving them almost lustreless, but her face was
+calm, and the smile on her lips stayed. She fanned herself slowly, and
+answered nonchalantly: "Crime is a word of many meanings. I read in the
+papers of political crimes--it is a common phrase; yet the criminals
+appear to go unpunished."
+
+"There you are wrong," he answered cynically. "The punishment is, that
+political virtue goes unrewarded, and in due course crime is the only
+refuge to most. Yet in politics the temptation to be virtuous is great."
+
+She laughed now with a sense of relief. The intellectual stimulant
+had brought back the light to her face. "How is it, then, with
+you--inveterate habit or the strain of the ages? For they say you have
+not had your due reward."
+
+He smiled grimly. "Ah, no, with me virtue is the act of an inquiring
+mind--to discover where it will lead me. I began with political crime--I
+was understood! I practise political virtue: it embarrasses the world,
+it fogs them, it seems original, because so unnecessary. Mine is the
+scientific life. Experiment in old substances gives new--well, say, new
+precipitations. But you are scientific, too. You have a laboratory, and
+have much to do--with retorts."
+
+"No, you are thinking of my husband. The laboratory is his."
+
+"But the retorts are yours."
+
+"The precipitations are his."
+
+"Ah, well, at least you help him to fuse the constituents!... But now,
+be quite confidential to an old man who has experimented too. Is your
+husband really an amateur scientist, or is he a scientific amateur? Is
+it a pose or a taste? I fiddled once--and wrote sonnets; one was a pose,
+the other a taste."
+
+It was mere persiflage, but it was a jest which made an unintended
+wound. Hylda became conscious of a sudden sharp inquiry going on in her
+mind. There flashed into it the question, Does Eglington's heart ever
+really throb for love of any object or any cause? Even in moments of
+greatest intimacy, soon after marriage, when he was most demonstrative
+towards her, he had seemed preoccupied, except when speaking about
+himself and what he meant to do. Then he made her heart throb in
+response to his confident, ardent words--concerning himself. But his own
+heart, did it throb? Or was it only his brain that throbbed?
+
+Suddenly, with an exclamation, she involuntarily laid a hand upon
+Windlehurst's arm. She was looking down the room straight before her
+to a group of people towards which other groups were now converging,
+attracted by one who seemed to be a centre of interest.
+
+Presently the eager onlookers drew aside, and Lord Windlehurst observed
+moving up the room a figure he had never seen before. The new-comer was
+dressed in a grey and blue official dress, unrelieved save by silver
+braid at the collar and at the wrists. There was no decoration, but
+on the head was a red fez, which gave prominence to the white,
+broad forehead, with the dark hair waving away behind the ears. Lord
+Windlehurst held his eye-glass to his eye in interested scrutiny. "H'm,"
+he said, with lips pursed out, "a most notable figure, a most remarkable
+face! My dear, there's a fortune in that face. It's a national asset."
+
+He saw the flush, the dumb amazement, the poignant look in Lady
+Eglington's face, and registered it in his mind. "Poor thing," he said
+to himself, "I wonder what it is all about--I wonder. I thought she had
+no unregulated moments. She gave promise of better things." The Foreign
+Minister was bringing his guest towards them. The new-comer did not look
+at them till within a few steps of where they stood. Then his eyes met
+those of Lady Eglington. For an instant his steps were arrested. A swift
+light came into his face, softening its quiet austerity and strength.
+
+It was David.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. SHARPER THAN A SWORD
+
+A glance of the eye was the only sign of recognition between David and
+Hylda; nothing that others saw could have suggested that they had ever
+met before. Lord Windlehurst at once engaged David in conversation.
+
+At first when Hylda had come back from Egypt, those five years ago, she
+had often wondered what she would think or do if she ever were to see
+this man again; whether, indeed, she could bear it. Well, the moment and
+the man had come. Her eyes had gone blind for an instant; it had seemed
+for one sharp, crucial moment as though she could not bear it; then the
+gulf of agitation was passed, and she had herself in hand.
+
+While her mind was engaged subconsciously with what Lord Windlehurst and
+David said, comprehending it all, and, when Lord Windlehurst appealed
+to her, offering by a word contribution to the 'pourparler', she was
+studying David as steadily as her heated senses would permit her.
+
+He seemed to her to have put on twenty years in the steady force of his
+personality--in the composure of his bearing, in the self-reliance of
+his look, though his face and form were singularly youthful. The face
+was handsome and alight, the look was that of one who weighed things;
+yet she was conscious of a great change. The old delicate quality of
+the features was not so marked, though there was nothing material in the
+look, and the head had not a sordid line, while the hand that he now
+and again raised, brushing his forehead meditatively, had gained much in
+strength and force. Yet there was something--something different, that
+brought a slight cloud into her eyes. It came to her now, a certain
+melancholy in the bearing of the figure, erect and well-balanced as it
+was. Once the feeling came, the certainty grew. And presently she found
+a strange sadness in the eyes, something that lurked behind all that he
+did and all that he was, some shadow over the spirit. It was even more
+apparent when he smiled.
+
+As she was conscious of this new reading of him, a motion arrested her
+glance, a quick lifting of the head to one side, as though the mind had
+suddenly been struck by an idea, the glance flying upward in abstracted
+questioning. This she had seen in her husband, too, the same brisk
+lifting of the head, the same quick smiling. Yet this face, unlike
+Eglington's, expressed a perfect single-mindedness; it wore the look of
+a self-effacing man of luminous force, a concentrated battery of energy.
+Since she had last seen him every sign of the provincial had vanished.
+He was now the well-modulated man of affairs, elegant in his simplicity
+of dress, with the dignified air of the intellectual, yet with the
+decision of a man who knew his mind.
+
+Lord Windlehurst was leaving. Now David and she were alone. Without
+a word they moved on together through the throng, the eyes of all
+following them, until they reached a quiet room at one end of the salon,
+where were only a few people watching the crowd pass the doorway.
+
+"You will be glad to sit," he said, motioning her to a chair beside some
+palms. Then, with a change of tone, he added: "Thee is not sorry I am
+come?"
+
+Thee--the old-fashioned simple Quaker word! She put her fingers to her
+eyes. Her senses were swimming with a distant memory. The East was in
+her brain, the glow of the skies, the gleam of the desert, the swish of
+the Nile, the cry of the sweet-seller, the song of the dance-girl,
+the strain of the darabukkeh, the call of the skis. She saw again the
+ghiassas drifting down the great river, laden with dourha; she saw the
+mosque of the blue tiles with its placid fountain, and its handful of
+worshippers praying by the olive-tree. She watched the moon rise above
+the immobile Sphinx, she looked down on the banqueters in the Palace,
+David among them, and Foorgat Bey beside her. She saw Foorgat Bey again
+lying dead at her feet. She heard the stir of the leaves; she caught the
+smell of the lime-trees in the Palace garden as she fled. She recalled
+her reckless return to Cairo from Alexandria. She remembered the little
+room where she and David, Nahoum and Mizraim, crossed a bridge over a
+chasm, and stood upon ground which had held good till now--till this
+hour, when the man who had played a most vital part in her life had
+come again out of a land which, by some forced obliquity of mind and
+stubbornness of will, she had assured herself she would never see again.
+
+She withdrew her hand from her eyes, and saw him looking at her calmly,
+though his face was alight. "Thee is fatigued," he said. "This is labour
+which wears away the strength." He made a motion towards the crowd.
+
+She smiled a very little, and said: "You do not care for such things as
+this, I know. Your life has its share of it, however, I suppose."
+
+He looked out over the throng before he answered. "It seems an eddy of
+purposeless waters. Yet there is great depth beneath, or there were no
+eddy; and where there is depth and the eddy there is danger--always." As
+he spoke she became almost herself again. "You think that deep natures
+have most perils?"
+
+"Thee knows it is so. Human nature is like the earth: the deeper the
+plough goes into the soil unploughed before, the more evil substance is
+turned up--evil that becomes alive as soon as the sun and the air fall
+upon it."
+
+"Then, women like me who pursue a flippant life, who ride in this
+merry-go-round"--she made a gesture towards the crowd beyond--"who
+have no depth, we are safest, we live upon the surface." Her gaiety was
+forced; her words were feigned.
+
+"Thee has passed the point of danger, thee is safe," he answered
+meaningly.
+
+"Is that because I am not deep, or because the plough has been at work?"
+she asked. "In neither case I am not sure you are right."
+
+"Thee is happily married," he said reflectively; "and the prospect is
+fair."
+
+"I think you know my husband," she said in answer, and yet not in
+answer.
+
+"I was born in Hamley where he has a place--thee has been there?" he
+asked eagerly.
+
+"Not yet. We are to go next Sunday, for the first time to the Cloistered
+House. I had not heard that my husband knew you, until I saw in
+the paper a few days ago that your home was in Hamley. Then I asked
+Eglington, and he told me that your family and his had been neighbours
+for generations."
+
+"His father was a Quaker," David rejoined, "but he forsook the faith."
+
+"I did not know," she answered, with some hesitation. There was no
+reason why, when she and Eglington had talked of Hamley, he should not
+have said his own father had once been a Quaker; yet she had dwelt so
+upon the fact that she herself had Quaker blood, and he had laughed
+so much over it, with the amusement of the superior person, that his
+silence on this one point struck her now with a sense of confusion.
+
+"You are going to Hamley--we shall meet there?" she continued.
+
+"To-day I should have gone, but I have business at the Foreign Office
+to-morrow. One needs time to learn that all 'private interests and
+partial affections' must be sacrificed to public duty."
+
+"But you are going soon? You will be there on Sunday?"
+
+"I shall be there to-morrow night, and Sunday, and for one long week at
+least. Hamley is the centre of the world, the axle of the universe--you
+shall see. You doubt it?" he added, with a whimsical smile.
+
+"I shall dispute most of what you say, and all that you think, if you do
+not continue to use the Quaker 'thee' and 'thou'--ungrammatical as you
+are so often."
+
+"Thee is now the only person in London, or in England, with whom I use
+'thee' and 'thou.' I am no longer my own master, I am a public servant,
+and so I must follow custom."
+
+"It is destructive of personality. The 'thee' and 'thou' belong to you.
+I wonder if the people of Hamley will say 'thee' and 'thou' to me. I
+hope, I do hope they will."
+
+"Thee may be sure they will. They are no respecters of persons there.
+They called your husband's father Robert--his name was Robert. Friend
+Robert they called him, and afterwards they called him Robert Denton
+till he died."
+
+"Will they call me Hylda?" she asked, with a smile. "More like they will
+call thee Friend Hylda; it sounds simple and strong," he replied.
+
+"As they call Claridge Pasha Friend David," she answered, with a smile.
+"David is a good name for a strong man."
+
+"That David threw a stone from a sling and smote a giant in the
+forehead. The stone from this David's sling falls into the ocean and is
+lost beneath the surface."
+
+His voice had taken on a somewhat sombre tone, his eyes looked away
+into the distance; yet he smiled too, and a hand upon his knee suddenly
+closed in sympathy with an inward determination.
+
+A light of understanding came into her face. They had been keeping
+things upon the surface, and, while it lasted, he seemed a lesser man
+than she had thought him these past years. But now--now there was the
+old unschooled simplicity, the unique and lonely personality, the homely
+soul and body bending to one root-idea, losing themselves in a wave
+of duty. Again he was to her, once more, the dreamer, the worker, the
+conqueror--the conqueror of her own imagination. She had in herself the
+soul of altruism, the heart of the crusader. Touched by the fire of
+a great idea, she was of those who could have gone out into the world
+without wallet or scrip, to work passionately for some great end.
+
+And she had married the Earl of Eglington!
+
+She leaned towards David, and said eagerly: "But you are satisfied--you
+are satisfied with your work for poor Egypt?"
+
+"Thee says 'poor Egypt,'" he answered, "and thee says well. Even now she
+is not far from the day of Rameses and Joseph. Thee thinks perhaps thee
+knows Egypt--none knows her."
+
+"You know her--now?"
+
+He shook his head slowly. "It is like putting one's ear to the mouth of
+the Sphinx. Yet sometimes, almost in despair, when I have lain down in
+the desert beside my camel, set about with enemies, I have got a message
+from the barren desert, the wide silence, and the stars." He paused.
+
+"What is the message that comes?" she asked softly. "It is always the
+same: Work on! Seek not to know too much, nor think that what you do is
+of vast value. Work, because it is yours to be adjusting the machinery
+in your own little workshop of life to the wide mechanism of the
+universe and time. One wheel set right, one flying belt adjusted, and
+there is a step forward to the final harmony--ah, but how I preach!" he
+added hastily.
+
+His eyes were fixed on hers with a great sincerity, and they were
+clear and shining, yet his lips were smiling--what a trick they had of
+smiling! He looked as though he should apologise for such words in such
+a place.
+
+She rose to her feet with a great suspiration, with a light in her eyes
+and a trembling smile.
+
+"But no, no, no, you inspire one. Thee inspires me," she said, with a
+little laugh, in which there was a note of sadness. "I may use 'thee,'
+may I not, when I will? I am a little a Quaker also, am I not? My people
+came from Derbyshire, my American people, that is--and only forty years
+ago. Almost thee persuades me to be a Quaker now," she added. "And
+perhaps I shall be, too," she went on, her eyes fixed on the crowd
+passing by, Eglington among them.
+
+David saw Eglington also, and moved forward with her.
+
+"We shall meet in Hamley," she said composedly, as she saw her husband
+leave the crush and come towards her. As Eglington noticed David, a
+curious enigmatical glance flashed from his eyes. He came forward,
+however, with outstretched hand.
+
+"I am sorry I was not at the Foreign Office when you called to-day.
+Welcome back to England, home--and beauty." He laughed in a rather
+mirthless way, but with a certain empressement, conscious, as he always
+was, of the onlookers. "You have had a busy time in Egypt?" he continued
+cheerfully, and laughed again.
+
+David laughed slightly, also, and Hylda noticed that it had a certain
+resemblance in its quick naturalness to that of her husband.
+
+"I am not sure that we are so busy there as we ought to be," David
+answered. "I have no real standards. I am but an amateur, and have known
+nothing of public life. But you should come and see."
+
+"It has been in my mind. An ounce of eyesight is worth a ton of print.
+My lady was there once, I believe"--he turned towards her--"but before
+your time, I think. Or did you meet there, perhaps?" He glanced at both
+curiously. He scarcely knew why a thought flashed into his mind--as
+though by some telepathic sense; for it had never been there before, and
+there was no reason for its being there now.
+
+Hylda saw what David was about to answer, and she knew instinctively
+that he would say they had never met. It shamed her. She intervened as
+she saw he was about to speak.
+
+"We were introduced for the first time to-night," she said; "but
+Claridge Pasha is part of my education in the world. It is a miracle
+that Hamley should produce two such men," she added gaily, and laid
+her fan upon her husband's arm lightly. "You should have been a Quaker,
+Harry, and then you two would have been--"
+
+"Two Quaker Don Quixotes," interrupted Eglington ironically.
+
+"I should not have called you a Don Quixote," his wife lightly rejoined,
+relieved at the turn things had taken. "I cannot imagine you tilting at
+wind-mills--"
+
+"Or saving maidens in distress? Well, perhaps not; but you do not
+suggest that Claridge Pasha tilts at windmills either--or saves maidens
+in distress. Though, now I come to think, there was an episode." He
+laughed maliciously. "Some time ago it was--a lass of the cross-roads. I
+think I heard of such an adventure, which did credit to Claridge Pasha's
+heart, though it shocked Hamley at the time. But I wonder, was the
+maiden really saved?"
+
+Lady Eglington's face became rigid. "Well, yes," she said slowly, "the
+maiden was saved. She is now my maid. Hamley may have been shocked, but
+Claridge Pasha has every reason to be glad that he helped a fellow-being
+in trouble."
+
+"Your maid--Heaver?" asked Eglington in surprise, a swift shadow
+crossing his face.
+
+"Yes; she only told me this morning. Perhaps she had seen that Claridge
+Pasha was coming to England. I had not, however. At any rate, Quixotism
+saved her."
+
+David smiled. "It is better than I dared to hope," he remarked quietly.
+
+"But that is not all," continued Hylda. "There is more. She had been
+used badly by a man who now wants to marry her--has tried to do so
+for years. Now, be prepared for a surprise, for it concerns you rather
+closely, Eglington. Fate is a whimsical jade. Whom do you think it is?
+Well, since you could never guess, it was Jasper Kimber."
+
+Eglington's eyes opened wide. "This is nothing but a coarse and
+impossible stage coincidence," he laughed. "It is one of those tricks
+played by Fact to discredit the imagination. Life is laughing at us
+again. The longer I live, the more I am conscious of being an object of
+derision by the scene-shifters in the wings of the stage. What a cynical
+comedy life is at the best!"
+
+"It all seems natural enough," rejoined David.
+
+"It is all paradox."
+
+"Isn't it all inevitable law? I have no belief in 'antic Fate.'"
+
+Hylda realised, with a new and poignant understanding, the difference of
+outlook on life between the two men. She suddenly remembered the words
+of Confucius, which she had set down in her little book of daily life:
+"By nature we approximate, it is only experience that drives us apart."
+
+David would have been content to live in the desert all his life for
+the sake of a cause, making no calculations as to reward. Eglington must
+ever have the counters for the game.
+
+"Well, if you do not believe in 'antic Fate,' you must be greatly
+puzzled as you go on," he rejoined, laughing; "especially in Egypt,
+where the East and the West collide, race against race, religion against
+religion, Oriental mind against Occidental intellect. You have an
+unusual quantity of Quaker composure, to see in it all 'inevitable
+law.' And it must be dull. But you always were, so they say in Hamley, a
+monument of seriousness."
+
+"I believe they made one or two exceptions," answered David drily. "I
+had assurances."
+
+Eglington laughed boyishly. "You are right. You achieved a name for
+humour in a day--'a glass, a kick, and a kiss,' it was. Do you have such
+days in Egypt?"
+
+"You must come and see," David answered lightly, declining to notice the
+insolence. "These are critical days there. The problems are worthy of
+your care. Will you not come?"
+
+Eglington was conscious of a peculiar persuasive influence over himself
+that he had never felt before. In proportion, however, as he felt its
+compelling quality, there came a jealousy of the man who was its cause.
+The old antagonism, which had had its sharpest expression the last time
+they had met on the platform at Heddington, came back. It was one strong
+will resenting another--as though there was not room enough in the wide
+world of being for these two atoms of life, sparks from the ceaseless
+wheel, one making a little brighter flash than the other for the moment,
+and then presently darkness, and the whirring wheel which threw them
+off, throwing off millions of others again.
+
+On the moment Eglington had a temptation to say something with an edge,
+which would show David that his success in Egypt hung upon the course
+that he himself and the weak Foreign Minister, under whom he served,
+would take. And this course would be his own course largely, since he
+had been appointed to be a force and strength in the Foreign Office
+which his chief did not supply. He refrained, however, and, on the
+moment, remembered the promise he had given to Faith to help David.
+
+A wave of feeling passed over him. His wife was beautiful, a creature
+of various charms, a centre of attraction. Yet he had never really loved
+her--so many sordid elements had entered into the thought of marriage
+with her, lowering the character of his affection. With a perversity
+which only such men know, such heart as he had turned to the unknown
+Quaker girl who had rebuked him, scathed him, laid bare his soul before
+himself, as no one ever had done. To Eglington it was a relief that
+there was one human being--he thought there was only one--who read him
+through and through; and that knowledge was in itself as powerful an
+influence as was the secret between David and Hylda. It was a kind
+of confessional, comforting to a nature not self-contained. Now he
+restrained his cynical intention to deal David a side-thrust, and
+quietly said:
+
+"We shall meet at Hamley, shall we not? Let us talk there, and not at
+the Foreign Office. You would care to go to Egypt, Hylda?"
+
+She forced a smile. "Let us talk it over at Hamley." With a smile to
+David she turned away to some friends.
+
+Eglington offered to introduce David to some notable people, but he said
+that he must go--he was fatigued after his journey. He had no wish to be
+lionised.
+
+As he left the salon, the band was playing a tune that made him close
+his eyes, as though against something he would not see. The band in
+Kaid's Palace had played it that night when he had killed Foorgat Bey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. EACH AFTER HIS OWN ORDER
+
+With the passing years new feelings had grown up in the heart of Luke
+Claridge. Once David's destiny and career were his own peculiar and
+self-assumed responsibility. "Inwardly convicted," he had wrenched
+the lad away from the natural circumstances of his life, and created a
+scheme of existence for him out of his own conscience--a pious egoist.
+
+After David went to Egypt, however, his mind involuntarily formed the
+resolution that "Davy and God should work it out together."
+
+He had grown very old in appearance, and his quiet face was almost
+painfully white; but the eyes burned with more fire than in the past.
+As the day approached when David should arrive in England, he walked by
+himself continuously, oblivious of the world round him. He spoke to no
+one, save the wizened Elder Meacham, and to John Fairley, who rightly
+felt that he had a share in the making of Claridge Pasha.
+
+With head perched in the air, and face half hidden in his great white
+collar, the wizened Elder, stopping Luke Claridge in the street one day,
+said:
+
+"Does thee think the lad will ride in Pharaoh's chariot here?"
+
+There were sly lines of humour about the mouth of the wizened Elder as
+he spoke, but Luke Claridge did not see.
+
+"Pride is far from his heart," he answered portentously. "He will ride
+in no chariot. He has written that he will walk here from Heddington,
+and none is to meet him."
+
+"He will come by the cross-roads, perhaps," rejoined the other piously.
+"Well, well, memory is a flower or a rod, as John Fox said, and the
+cross-roads have memories for him."
+
+Again flashes of humour crossed his face, for he had a wide humanity, of
+insufficient exercise.
+
+"He has made full atonement, and thee does ill to recall the past,
+Reuben," rejoined the other sternly.
+
+"If he has done no more that needs atonement than he did that day at the
+cross-roads, then has his history been worthy of Hamley," rejoined the
+wizened Elder, eyes shut and head buried in his collar. "Hamley made
+him--Hamley made him. We did not spare advice, or example, or any
+correction that came to our minds--indeed, it was almost a luxury. Think
+you, does he still play the flute--an instrument none too grave, Luke?"
+
+But, to this, Luke Claridge exclaimed impatiently and hastened on; and
+the little wizened Elder chuckled to himself all the way to the house of
+John Fairley. None in Hamley took such pride in David as did these two
+old men, who had loved him from a child, but had discreetly hidden their
+favour, save to each other. Many times they had met and prayed together
+in the weeks when his life was in notorious danger in the Soudan.
+
+As David walked through the streets of Heddington making for the open
+country, he was conscious of a new feeling regarding the place. It
+was familiar, but in a new sense. Its grimy, narrow streets, unlovely
+houses, with shut windows, summer though it was, and no softening
+influences anywhere, save here and there a box of sickly geraniums in
+the windows, all struck his mind in a way they had never done before.
+A mile away were the green fields, the woods, the roadsides gay with
+flowers and shrubs-loveliness was but over the wall, as it were; yet
+here the barrack-like houses, the grey, harsh streets, seemed like
+prison walls, and the people in them prisoners who, with every legal
+right to call themselves free, were as much captives as the criminal on
+some small island in a dangerous sea. Escape--where? Into the gulf of no
+work and degradation?
+
+They never lifted their eyes above the day's labour. They were scarce
+conscious of anything beyond. What were their pleasures? They had
+imitations of pleasures. To them a funeral or a wedding, a riot or a
+vociferous band, a dog-fight or a strike, were alike in this, that they
+quickened feelings which carried them out of themselves, gave them a
+sense of intoxication.
+
+Intoxication? David remembered the far-off day of his own wild rebellion
+in Hamley. From that day forward he had better realised that in the
+hearts of so many of the human race there was a passion to forget
+themselves; to blot out, if for a moment only, the troubles of life and
+time; or, by creating a false air of exaltation, to rise above
+them. Once in the desert, when men were dying round him of fever and
+dysentery, he had been obliged, exhausted and ill, scarce able to
+drag himself from his bed, to resort to an opiate to allay his own
+sufferings, that he might minister to others. He remembered how, in the
+atmosphere it had created--an intoxication, a soothing exhilaration and
+pervasive thrill--he had saved so many of his followers. Since then the
+temptation had come upon him often when trouble weighed or difficulties
+surrounded him--accompanied always by recurrence of fever--to resort to
+the insidious medicine. Though he had fought the temptation with every
+inch of his strength, he could too well understand those who sought for
+"surcease of pain".
+
+          "Seeking for surcease of pain,
+          Pilgrim to Lethe I came;
+          Drank not, for pride was too keen,
+          Stung by the sound of a name!"
+
+As the plough of action had gone deep into his life and laid bare his
+nature to the light, there had been exposed things which struggled for
+life and power in him, with the fiery strength which only evil has.
+
+The western heavens were aglow. On every hand the gorse and the may were
+in bloom, the lilacs were coming to their end, but wild rhododendrons
+were glowing in the bracken, as he stepped along the road towards the
+place where he was born. Though every tree and roadmark was familiar,
+yet he was conscious of a new outlook. He had left these quiet scenes
+inexperienced and untravelled, to be thrust suddenly into the thick of
+a struggle of nations over a sick land. He had worked in a vortex of
+debilitating local intrigue. All who had to do with Egypt gained except
+herself, and if she moved in revolt or agony, they threatened her.
+Once when resisting the pressure and the threats of war of a foreign
+diplomatist, he had, after a trying hour, written to Faith in a burst of
+passionate complaint, and his letter had ended with these words.
+
+          "In your onward march, O men,
+          White of face, in promise whiter,
+          You unsheath the sword, and then
+          Blame the wronged as the fighter.
+
+          "Time, ah, Time, rolls onward o'er
+          All these foetid fields of evil,
+          While hard at the nation's core
+          Eats the burning rust and weevill
+
+          "Nathless, out beyond the stars
+          Reigns the Wiser and the Stronger,
+          Seeing in all strifes and wars
+          Who the wronged, who the wronger."
+
+Privately he had spoken thus, but before the world he had given way to
+no impulse, in silence finding safety from the temptation to diplomatic
+evasion. Looking back over five years, he felt now that the sum of his
+accomplishment had been small.
+
+He did not realise the truth. When his hand was almost upon the object
+for which he had toiled and striven--whether pacifying a tribe, meeting
+a loan by honest means, building a barrage, irrigating the land,
+financing a new industry, or experimenting in cotton--it suddenly
+eluded him. Nahoum had snatched it away by subterranean wires. On such
+occasions Nahoum would shrug his shoulders, and say with a sigh, "Ah, my
+friend, let us begin again. We are both young; time is with us; and we
+will flourish palms in the face of Europe yet. We have our course set by
+a bright star. We will continue."
+
+Yet, withal, David was the true altruist. Even now as he walked this
+road which led to his old home, dear to him beyond all else, his
+thoughts kept flying to the Nile and to the desert.
+
+Suddenly he stopped. He was at the cross-roads. Here he had met Kate
+Heaver, here he had shamed his neighbours--and begun his work in life.
+He stood for a moment, smiling, as he looked at the stone where he
+had sat those years ago, his hand feeling instinctively for his flute.
+Presently he turned to the dusty road again.
+
+Walking quickly away, he swung into the path of the wood which would
+bring him by a short cut to Hamley, past Soolsby's cottage. Here was the
+old peace, the old joy of solitude among the healing trees. Experience
+had broadened his life, had given him a vast theatre of work; but the
+smell of the woods, the touch of the turf, the whispering of the trees,
+the song of the birds, had the ancient entry to his heart.
+
+At last he emerged on the hill where Soolsby lived. He had not meant, if
+he could help it, to speak to any one until he had entered the garden of
+the Red Mansion, but he had inadvertently come upon this place where he
+had spent the most momentous days of his life, and a feeling stronger
+than he cared to resist drew him to the open doorway. The afternoon
+sun was beating in over the threshold as he reached it, and, at his
+footstep, a figure started forward from the shadow of a corner.
+
+It was Kate Heaver.
+
+Surprise, then pain showed in her face; she flushed, was agitated.
+
+"I am sorry. It's too bad--it's hard on him you should see," she said in
+a breath, and turned her head away for an instant; but presently looked
+him in the face again, all trembling and eager. "He'll be sorry enough
+to-morrow," she added solicitously, and drew away from something, she
+had been trying to hide.
+
+Then David saw. On a bench against a wall lay old Soolsby--drunk. A
+cloud passed across his face and left it pale.
+
+"Of course," he said simply, and went over and touched the heaving
+shoulders reflectively. "Poor Soolsby!"
+
+"He's been sober four years--over four," she said eagerly. "When he knew
+you'd come again, he got wild, and he would have the drink in spite of
+all. Walking from Heddington, I saw him at the tavern, and brought him
+home."
+
+"At the tavern--" David said reflectively.
+
+"The Fox and Goose, sir." She turned her face away again, and David's
+head came up with a quick motion. There it was, five years ago, that he
+had drunk at the bar, and had fought Jasper Kimber.
+
+"Poor fellow!" he said again, and listened to Soolsby's stertorous
+breathing, as a physician looks at a patient whose case he cannot
+control, does not wholly understand.
+
+The hand of the sleeping man was suddenly raised, his head gave a jerk,
+and he said mumblingly: "Claridge for ever!"
+
+Kate nervously intervened. "It fair beat him, your coming back, sir.
+It's awful temptation, the drink. I lived in it for years, and it's
+cruel hard to fight it when you're worked up either way, sorrow or joy.
+There's a real pleasure in being drunk, I'm sure. While it lasts you're
+rich, and you're young, and you don't care what happens. It's kind of
+you to take it like this, sir, seeing you've never been tempted and
+mightn't understand." David shook his head sadly, and looked at Soolsby
+in silence.
+
+"I don't suppose he took a quarter what he used to take, but it made him
+drunk. 'Twas but a minute of madness. You've saved him right enough."
+
+"I was not blaming him. I understand--I understand."
+
+He looked at her clearly. She was healthy and fine-looking, with
+large, eloquent eyes. Her dress was severe and quiet, as became her
+occupation--a plain, dark grey, but the shapely fulness of the figure
+gave softness to the outlines. It was no wonder Jasper Kimber wished
+to marry her; and, if he did, the future of the man was sure. She had
+a temperament which might have made her an adventuress--or an
+opera-singer. She had been touched in time, and she had never looked
+back.
+
+"You are with Lady Eglington now, I have heard?" he asked.
+
+She nodded.
+
+"It was hard for you in London at first?"
+
+She met his look steadily. "It was easy in a way. I could see round me
+what was the right thing to do. Oh, that was what was so awful in the
+old life over there at Heddington,"--she pointed beyond the hill, "we
+didn't know what was good and what was bad. The poor people in big
+working-places like Heddington ain't much better than heathens,
+leastways as to most things that matter. They haven't got a sensible
+religion, not one that gets down into what they do. The parson doesn't
+reach them--he talks about church and the sacraments, and they don't get
+at what good it's going to do them. And the chapel preachers ain't much
+better. They talk and sing and pray, when what the people want is light,
+and hot water, and soap, and being shown how to live, and how to
+bring up children healthy and strong, and decent-cooked food. I'd have
+food-hospitals if I could, and I'd give the children in the schools one
+good meal a day. I'm sure the children of the poor go wrong and bad
+more through the way they live than anything. If only they was taught
+right--not as though they was paupers! Give me enough nurses of the
+right sort, and enough good, plain cooks, and meat three times a week,
+and milk and bread and rice and porridge every day, and I'd make a new
+place of any town in England in a year. I'd--"
+
+She stopped all at once, however, and flushing, said: "I didn't stop to
+think I was talking to you, sir."
+
+"I am glad you speak to me so," he answered gently. "You and I are both
+reformers at heart."
+
+"Me? I've done nothing, sir, not any good to anybody or anything."
+
+"Not to Jasper Kimber?"
+
+"You did that, sir; he says so; he says you made him."
+
+A quick laugh passed David's lips. "Men are not made so easily. I think
+I know the trowel and the mortar that built that wall! Thee will marry
+him, friend?"
+
+Her eyes burned as she looked at him. She had been eternally
+dispossessed of what every woman has the right to have--one memory
+possessing the elements of beauty. Even if it remain but for the moment,
+yet that moment is hers by right of her sex, which is denied the
+wider rights of those they love and serve. She had tasted the cup of
+bitterness and drunk of the waters of sacrifice. Married life had no
+lure for her. She wanted none of it. The seed of service had, however,
+taken root in a nature full of fire and light and power, undisciplined
+and undeveloped as it was. She wished to do something--the spirit of
+toil, the first habit of the life of the poor, the natural medium for
+the good that may be in them, had possession of her.
+
+This man was to her the symbol of work. To have cared for his home, to
+have looked after his daily needs, to have sheltered him humbly from
+little things, would have been her one true happiness. And this was
+denied her. Had she been a man, it would have been so easy. She could
+have offered to be his servant; could have done those things which she
+could do better than any, since hers would be a heart-service.
+
+But even as she looked at him now, she had a flash of insight and
+prescience. She had, from little things said or done, from newspapers
+marked and a hundred small indications, made up her mind that her
+mistress's mind dwelt much upon "the Egyptian." The thought flashed now
+that she might serve this man, after all; that a day might come when she
+could say that she had played a part in his happiness, in return for
+all he had done for her. Life had its chances--and strange things had
+happened. In her own mind she had decided that her mistress was not
+happy, and who could tell what might happen? Men did not live for ever!
+The thought came and went, but it left behind a determination to answer
+David as she felt.
+
+"I will not marry Jasper," she answered slowly. "I want work, not
+marriage."
+
+"There would be both," he urged.
+
+"With women there is the one or the other, not both."
+
+"Thee could help him. He has done credit to himself, and he can do good
+work for England. Thee can help him."
+
+"I want work alone, not marriage, sir."
+
+"He would pay thee his debt."
+
+"He owes me nothing. What happened was no fault of his, but of the life
+we were born in. He tired of me, and left me. Husbands tire of their
+wives, but stay on and beat them."
+
+"He drove thee mad almost, I remember."
+
+"Wives go mad and are never cured, so many of them. I've seen them die,
+poor things, and leave the little ones behind. I had the luck wi' me. I
+took the right turning at the cross-roads yonder."
+
+"Thee must be Jasper's wife if he asks thee again," he urged.
+
+"He will come when I call, but I will not call," she answered.
+
+"But still thee will marry him when the heart is ready," he persisted.
+"It shall be ready soon. He needs thee. Good-bye, friend. Leave Soolsby
+alone. He will be safe. And do not tell him that I have seen him so." He
+stooped over and touched the old man's shoulder gently.
+
+He held out his hand to her. She took it, then suddenly leaned over and
+kissed it. She could not speak.
+
+He stepped to the door and looked out. Behind the Red Mansion the sun
+was setting, and the far garden looked cool and sweet. He gave a happy
+sigh, and stepped out and down.
+
+As he disappeared, the woman dropped into a chair, her arms upon a
+table. Her body shook with sobs. She sat there for an hour, and then,
+when the sun was setting, she left the drunken man sleeping, and
+made her way down the hill to the Cloistered House. Entering, she was
+summoned to her mistress's room. "I did not expect my lady so soon," she
+said, surprised.
+
+"No; we came sooner than we expected. Where have you been?"
+
+"At Soolsby's hut on the hill, my lady."
+
+"Who is Soolsby?"
+
+Kate told her all she knew, and of what had happened that afternoon--but
+not all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. "THERE IS NOTHING HIDDEN WHICH SHALL NOT BE REVEALED"
+
+A fortnight had passed since they had come to Hamley--David, Eglington,
+and Hylda--and they had all travelled a long distance in mutual
+understanding during that time, too far, thought Luke Claridge, who
+remained neutral and silent. He would not let Faith go to the Cloistered
+House, though he made no protest against David going; because he
+recognised in these visits the duty of diplomacy and the business of
+the nation--more particularly David's business, which, in his eyes,
+swallowed all. Three times David had gone to the Cloistered House; once
+Hylda and he had met in the road leading to the old mill, and once at
+Soolsby's hut. Twice, also, in the garden of his old home he had seen
+her, when she came to visit Faith, who had captured her heart at once.
+Eglington and Faith had not met, however. He was either busy in his
+laboratory, or with his books, or riding over the common and through the
+woods, and their courses lay apart.
+
+But there came an afternoon when Hylda and David were a long hour
+together at the Cloistered House. They talked freely of his work in
+Egypt. At last she said: "And Nahoum Pasha?"
+
+"He has kept faith."
+
+"He is in high place again?"
+
+"He is a good administrator."
+
+"You put him there!"
+
+"Thee remembers what I said to him, that night in Cairo?"
+
+Hylda closed her eyes and drew in a long breath. Had there been a word
+spoken that night when she and David and Nahoum met which had not bitten
+into her soul! That David had done so much in Egypt without ruin or
+death was a tribute to his power. Nevertheless, though Nahoum had not
+struck yet, she was certain he would one day. All that David now told
+her of the vicissitudes of his plans, and Nahoum's sympathy and help,
+only deepened this conviction. She could well believe that Nahoum gave
+David money from his own pocket, which he replaced by extortion from
+other sources, while gaining credit with David for co-operation.
+Armenian Christian Nahoum might be, but he was ranged with the East
+against the West, with the reactionary and corrupt against advance,
+against civilisation and freedom and equality. Nahoum's Christianity was
+permeated with Orientalism, the Christian belief obscured by the theism
+of the Muslim. David was in a deadlier struggle than he knew. Yet it
+could serve no good end to attempt to warn him now. He had outlived
+peril so far; might it not be that, after all, he would win?
+
+So far she had avoided Nahoum's name in talks with David. She could
+scarcely tell why she did, save that it opened a door better closed, as
+it were; but the restraint had given way at last.
+
+"Thee remembers what I said that night?" David repeated slowly.
+
+"I remember--I understand. You devise your course and you never change.
+It is like building on a rock. That is why nothing happens to you as bad
+as might happen."
+
+"Nothing bad ever happens to me."
+
+"The philosophy of the desert," she commented smiling. "You are living
+in the desert even when you are here. This is a dream; the desert and
+Egypt only are real.
+
+"That is true, I think. I seem sometimes like a sojourner here, like a
+spirit 'revisiting the scenes of life and time.'" He laughed boyishly.
+
+"Yet you are happy here. I understand now why and how you are what you
+are. Even I that have been here so short a time feel the influence upon
+me. I breathe an air that, somehow, seems a native air. The spirit of
+my Quaker grandmother revives in me. Sometimes I sit hours thinking,
+scarcely stirring; and I believe I know now how people might speak to
+each other without words. Your Uncle Benn and you--it was so with
+you, was it not? You heard his voice speaking to you sometimes; you
+understood what he meant to say to you? You told me so long ago."
+
+David inclined his head. "I heard him speak as one might speak through
+a closed door. Sometimes, too, in the desert I have heard Faith speak to
+me."
+
+"And your grandfather?"
+
+"Never my grandfather--never. It would seem as though, in my thoughts,
+I could never reach him; as though masses of opaque things lay between.
+Yet he and I--there is love between us. I don't know why I never hear
+him."
+
+"Tell me of your childhood, of your mother. I have seen her grave under
+the ash by the Meeting-house, but I want to know of her from you."
+
+"Has not Faith told you?"
+
+"We have only talked of the present. I could not ask her; but I can ask
+you. I want to know of your mother and you together."
+
+"We were never together. When I opened my eyes she closed hers. It was
+so little to get for the life she gave. See, was it not a good face?"
+He drew from his pocket a little locket which Faith had given him years
+ago, and opened it before her.
+
+Hylda looked long. "She was exquisite," she said, "exquisite."
+
+"My father I never knew either. He was a captain of a merchant ship. He
+married her secretly while she was staying with an aunt at Portsmouth.
+He sailed away, my mother told my grandfather all, and he brought her
+home here. The marriage was regular, of course, but my grandfather,
+after announcing it, and bringing it before the Elders, declared that
+she should never see her husband again. She never did, for she died a
+few months after, when I came, and my father died very soon, also. I
+never saw him, and I do not know if he ever tried to see me. I never had
+any feeling about it. My grandfather was the only father I ever knew,
+and Faith, who was born a year before me, became like a sister to
+me, though she soon made other pretensions!" He laughed again, almost
+happily. "To gain an end she exercised authority as my aunt!"
+
+"What was your father's name?"
+
+"Fetherdon--James Fetherdon."
+
+"Fetherdon--James Fetherdon!" Involuntarily Hylda repeated the name
+after him. Where had she heard the name before--or where had she seen
+it? It kept flashing before her eyes. Where had she seen it? For days
+she had been rummaging among old papers in the library of the Cloistered
+House, and in an old box full of correspondence and papers of the late
+countess, who had died suddenly. Was it among them that she had seen the
+name? She could not tell. It was all vague, but that she had seen it or
+heard it she was sure.
+
+"Your father's people, you never knew them?"
+
+He shook his head. "Nor of them. Here was my home--I had no desire to
+discover them. We draw in upon ourselves here."
+
+"There is great force in such a life and such a people," she answered.
+"If the same concentration of mind could be carried into the wide life
+of the world, we might revolutionise civilisation; or vitalise and
+advance it, I mean--as you are doing in Egypt."
+
+"I have done nothing in Egypt. I have sounded the bugle--I have not had
+my fight."
+
+"That is true in a sense," she replied. "Your real struggle is before
+you. I do not know why I say it, but I do say it; I feel it. Something
+here"--she pressed her hand to her heart--"something here tells me that
+your day of battle is yet to come." Her eyes were brimming and full of
+excitement. "We must all help you." She gained courage with each word.
+"You must not fight alone. You work for civilisation; you must have
+civilisation behind you." Her hands clasped nervously; there was a catch
+in her throat. "You remember then, that I said I would call to you one
+day, as your Uncle Benn did, and you should hear and answer me. It shall
+not be that I will call. You--you will call, and I will help you if
+I can. I will help, no matter what may seem to prevent, if there is
+anything I can do. I, surely I, of all the world owe it to you to do
+what I can, always.
+
+"I owe so much--you did so much. Oh, how it haunts me! Sometimes in the
+night I wake with a start and see it all--all!"
+
+The flood which had been dyked back these years past had broken loose in
+her heart.
+
+Out of the stir and sweep of social life and duty, of official and
+political ambition-heart-hungry, for she had no child; heart-lonely,
+though she had scarce recognised it in the duties and excitements round
+her--she had floated suddenly into this backwater of a motionless life
+in Hamley. Its quiet had settled upon her, the shackles of her spirit
+had been loosed, and dropped from her; she had suddenly bathed her heart
+and soul in a freer atmosphere than they had ever known before. And
+David and Hamley had come together. The old impulses, dominated by a
+divine altruism, were swinging her out upon a course leading she knew
+not, reeked not, whither--for the moment reeked not. This man's career,
+the work he was set to do, the ideal before him, the vision of a land
+redeemed, captured her, carried her panting into a resolve which,
+however she might modify her speech or action, must be an influence in
+her life hereafter. Must the penance and the redemption be his only?
+This life he lived had come from what had happened to her and to him in
+Egypt. In a deep sense her life was linked with his.
+
+In a flash David now felt the deep significance of their relations. A
+curtain seemed suddenly to have been drawn aside. He was blinded for a
+moment. Her sympathy, her desire to help, gave him a new sense of hope
+and confidence, but--but there was no room in his crusade for any woman;
+the dear egotism of a life-dream was masterful in him, possessed him.
+
+Yet, if ever his heart might have dwelt upon a woman with thought of the
+future, this being before him--he drew himself up with a start!... He
+was going to Egypt again in a few days; they might probably never meet
+again--would not, no doubt--should not. He had pressed her husband to go
+to Egypt, but now he would not encourage it; he must "finish his journey
+alone."
+
+He looked again in her eyes, and their light and beauty held him. His
+own eyes swam. The exaltation of a great idea was upon them, was a bond
+of fate between them. It was a moment of peril not fully realised by
+either. David did realise, however, that she was beautiful beyond all
+women he had ever seen--or was he now for the first time really aware
+of the beauty of woman? She had an expression, a light of eye and face,
+finely alluring beyond mere outline of feature. Yet the features were
+there, too, regular and fine; and her brown hair waving away from her
+broad, white forehead over eyes a greyish violet in colour gave her a
+classic distinction. In the quietness of the face there was that
+strain of the Quaker, descending to her through three generations, yet
+enlivened by a mind of impulse and genius.
+
+They stood looking at each other for a moment, in which both had taken
+a long step forward in life's experience. But presently his eyes looked
+beyond her, as though at something that fascinated them.
+
+"Of what are you thinking? What do you see?" she asked.
+
+"You, leaving the garden of my house in Cairo, I standing by the fire,"
+he answered, closing his eyes for an instant.
+
+"It is what I saw also," she said breathlessly. "It is what I saw and
+was thinking of that instant." When, as though she must break away from
+the cords of feeling drawing her nearer and nearer to him, she said,
+with a little laugh, "Tell me again of my Chicago cousin? I have not had
+a letter for a year."
+
+"Lacey, he is with me always. I should have done little had it not been
+for him. He has remarkable resource; he is never cast down. He has but
+one fault."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"He is no respecter of persons. His humour cuts deep. He has a wide
+heart for your sex. When leaving the court of the King of Abyssinia he
+said to his Majesty: 'Well, good-bye, King. Give my love to the girls.'"
+
+She laughed again. "How absurd and childish he is! But he is true and
+able. And how glad you should be that you are able to make true friends,
+without an effort. Yesterday I met neighbour Fairley, and another little
+old Elder who keeps his chin in his collar and his eyes on the sky. They
+did little else but sing your praises. One might have thought that you
+had invented the world-or Hamley."
+
+"Yet they would chafe if I were to appear among them without these." He
+glanced down at the Quaker clothes he wore, and made a gesture towards
+the broadbrimmed hat reposing on a footstool near by.
+
+"It is good to see that you are not changed, not spoiled at all," she
+remarked, smiling. "Though, indeed, how could you be, who always work
+for others and never for yourself? All I envy you is your friends. You
+make them and keep them so."
+
+She sighed, and a shadow came into her eyes suddenly. She was thinking
+of Eglington. Did he make friends--true friends? In London--was there
+one she knew who would cleave to him for love of him? In England--had
+she ever seen one? In Hamley, where his people had been for so many
+generations, had she found one?
+
+Herself? Yes, she was his true friend. She would do what would she not
+do to help him, to serve his interests? What had she not done since she
+married Her fortune, it was his; her every waking hour had been filled
+with something devised to help him on his way. Had he ever said to her:
+"Hylda, you are a help to me"? He had admired her--but was he singular
+in that? Before she married there were many--since, there had been
+many--who had shown, some with tact and carefulness, others with a
+crudeness making her shudder, that they admired her; and, if they
+might, would have given their admiration another name with other
+manifestations. Had she repelled it all? She had been too sure of
+herself to draw her skirts about her; she was too proud to let any man
+put her at any disadvantage. She had been safe, because her heart had
+been untouched. The Duchess of Snowdon, once beautiful, but now with
+a face like a mask, enamelled and rouged and lifeless, had said to her
+once: "My dear, I ought to have died at thirty. When I was twenty-three
+I wanted to squeeze the orange dry in a handful of years, and then go
+out suddenly, and let the dust of forgetfulness cover my bones. I had
+one child, a boy, and would have no more; and I squeezed the orange! But
+I didn't go at thirty, and yet the orange was dry. My boy died; and you
+see what I am--a fright, I know it; and I dress like a child of twenty;
+and I can't help it."
+
+There had been moments, once, when Hylda, too, had wished to squeeze the
+orange dry, but something behind, calling to her, had held her back. She
+had dropped her anchor in perilous seas, but it had never dragged.
+
+"Tell me how to make friends--and keep them," she added gaily.
+
+"If it be true I make friends, thee taught me how," he answered, "for
+thee made me a friend, and I forget not the lesson."
+
+She smiled. "Thee has learnt another lesson too well," she answered
+brightly. "Thee must not flatter. It is not that which makes thee keep
+friends. Thee sees I also am speaking as they do in Hamley--am I not
+bold? I love the grammarless speech."
+
+"Then use it freely to-day, for this is farewell," he answered, not
+looking at her.
+
+"This--is--farewell," she said slowly, vaguely. Why should it startle
+her so? "You are going so soon--where?"
+
+"To-morrow to London, next week to Egypt."
+
+She laid a hand upon herself, for her heart was beating violently. "Thee
+is not fair to give no warning--there is so much to say," she said, in
+so low a tone that he could scarcely hear her. "There is the future,
+your work, what we are to do here to help. What I am to do.
+
+"Thee will always be a friend to Egypt, I know," he answered. "She needs
+friends. Thee has a place where thee can help."
+
+"Will not right be done without my voice?" she asked, her eyes half
+closing. "There is the Foreign Office, and English policy, and the
+ministers, and--and Eglington. What need of me?"
+
+He saw the thought had flashed into her mind that he did not trust her
+husband. "Thee knows and cares for Egypt, and knowing and caring make
+policy easier to frame," he rejoined.
+
+Suddenly a wave of feeling went over her. He whose life had been flung
+into this field of labour by an act of her own, who should help him but
+herself?
+
+But it all baffled her, hurt her, shook her. She was not free to help as
+she wished. Her life belonged to another; and he exacted the payment of
+tribute to the uttermost farthing. She was blinded by the thought. Yet
+she must speak. "I will come to Egypt--we will come to Egypt," she said
+quickly. "Eglington shall know, too; he shall understand. You shall have
+his help. You shall not work alone."
+
+"Thee can work here," he said. "It may not be easy for Lord Eglington to
+come."
+
+"You pressed it on him."
+
+Their eyes met. She suddenly saw what was in his mind.
+
+"You know best what will help you most," she added gently.
+
+"You will not come?" he asked.
+
+"I will not say I will not come--not ever," she answered firmly. "It may
+be I should have to come." Resolution was in her eyes. She was thinking
+of Nahoum. "I may have to come," she added after a pause, "to do right
+by you."
+
+He read her meaning. "Thee will never come," he continued confidently.
+He held out his hand. "Perhaps I shall see you in town," she rejoined,
+as her hand rested in his, and she looked away. "When do you start for
+Egypt?"
+
+"To-morrow week, I think," he answered. "There is much to do."
+
+"Perhaps we shall meet in town," she repeated. But they both knew they
+would not.
+
+"Farewell," he said, and picked up his hat.
+
+As he turned again, the look in her eyes brought the blood to his face,
+then it became pale. A new force had come into his life.
+
+"God be good to thee," he said, and turned away.
+
+She watched him leave the room and pass through the garden.
+
+"David! David!" she said softly after him.
+
+At the other end of the room her husband, who had just entered, watched
+her. He heard her voice, but did not hear what she said.
+
+"Come, Hylda, and have some music," he said brusquely.
+
+She scrutinised him calmly. His face showed nothing. His look was
+enigmatical.
+
+"Chopin is the thing for me," he said, and opened the piano.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. AS IN A GLASS DARKLY
+
+It was very quiet and cool in the Quaker Meeting-house, though outside
+there was the rustle of leaves, the low din of the bees, the whistle
+of a bird, or the even tread of horses' hoofs as they journeyed on the
+London road. The place was full. For a half-hour the worshippers had sat
+voiceless. They were waiting for the spirit to move some one to speak.
+As they waited, a lady entered and glided into a seat. Few saw, and
+these gave no indication of surprise, though they were little used
+to strangers, and none of the name borne by this lady had entered the
+building for many years. It was Hylda.
+
+At last the silence was broken. The wizened Elder, with eyes upon the
+ceiling and his long white chin like ivory on his great collar, began to
+pray, sitting where he was, his hands upon his knees. He prayed for all
+who wandered "into by and forbidden paths." He prayed for one whose work
+was as that of Joseph, son of Jacob; whose footsteps were now upon the
+sea, and now upon the desert; whose way was set among strange gods and
+divers heresies--"'For there must also be heresies, that they which are
+approved may be made manifest among the weak.'" A moment more, and
+then he added: "He hath been tried beyond his years; do Thou uphold his
+hands. Once with a goad did we urge him on, when in ease and sloth he
+was among us, but now he spurreth on his spirit and body in too great
+haste. O put Thy hand upon the bridle, Lord, that He ride soberly upon
+Thy business."
+
+There was a longer silence now, but at last came the voice of Luke
+Claridge.
+
+"Father of the fatherless," he said, "my days are as the sands in the
+hour-glass hastening to their rest; and my place will soon be empty. He
+goeth far, and I may not go with him. He fighteth alone, like him that
+strove with wild beasts at Ephesus; do Thou uphold him that he may bring
+a nation captive. And if a viper fasten on his hand, as chanced to Paul
+of old, give him grace to strike it off without hurt. O Lord, he is
+to me, Thy servant, as the one ewe lamb; let him be Thine when Thou
+gatherest for Thy vineyard!"
+
+"And if a viper fasten on his hand--" David passed his hand across his
+forehead and closed his eyes. The beasts at Ephesus he had fought, and
+he would fight them again--there was fighting enough to do in the land
+of Egypt. And the viper would fasten on his hand--it had fastened on his
+hand, and he had struck it off; but it would come again, the dark thing
+against which he had fought in the desert.
+
+Their prayers had unnerved him, had got into that corner of his nature
+where youth and its irresponsibility loitered yet. For a moment he was
+shaken, and then, looking into the faces of the Elders, said: "Friends,
+I go again upon paths that lead into the wilderness. I know not if I
+ever shall return. Howsoe'er that may be, I shall walk with firmer step
+because of all ye do for me."
+
+He closed his eyes and prayed: "O God, I go into the land of ancient
+plagues and present pestilence. If it be Thy will, bring me home to this
+good land, when my task is done. If not, by Thy goodness let me be as a
+stone set by the wayside for others who come after; and save me from the
+beast and from the viper. 'Thou art faithful, who wilt not suffer us
+to be tempted above that we are able; but wilt with the temptation also
+make a way of escape, that we may be able to bear it!'"
+
+He sat down, and all grew silent again; but suddenly some one sobbed
+aloud-sobbed, and strove to stay the sobbing, and could not, and,
+getting up, hastened towards the door.
+
+It was Faith. David heard, and came quickly after her. As he took her
+arm gently, his eyes met those of Hylda. She rose and came out also.
+
+"Will thee take her home?" he said huskily. "I can bear no more."
+
+Hylda placed her arm round Faith, and led her out under the trees and
+into the wood. As they went, Faith looked back.
+
+"Oh, forgive me, forgive me, Davy," she said softly.
+
+Three lights burned in Hamley: one in the Red Mansion, one in the
+Cloistered House, and one in Soolsby's hut upon the hill. In the Red
+Mansion old Luke Claridge, his face pale with feeling, his white
+hair tumbling about, his head thrust forward, his eyes shining, sat
+listening, as Faith read aloud letters which Benn Claridge had written
+from the East many years before. One letter, written from Bagdad, he
+made her read twice. The faded sheet had in it the glow and glamour of
+the East; it was like a heart beating with life; emotion rose and fell
+in it like the waves of the sea. Once the old man interrupted Faith.
+
+"Davy--it is as though Davy spoke. It is like Davy--both Claridge, both
+Claridge," he said. "But is it not like Davy? Davy is doing what it was
+in Benn's heart to do. Benn showed the way; Benn called, and Davy came."
+
+He laid both hands upon his knees and raised his eyes. "O Lord, I have
+sought to do according to Thy will," he whispered. He was thinking of a
+thing he had long hidden. Through many years he had no doubt, no qualm;
+but, since David had gone to Egypt, some spirit of unquiet had worked
+in him. He had acted against the prayer of his own wife, lying in her
+grave--a quiet-faced woman, who had never crossed him, who had never
+shown a note of passion in all her life, save in one thing concerning
+David. Upon it, like some prophetess, she had flamed out. With the
+insight which only women have where children are concerned, she had told
+him that he would live to repent of what he had done. She had died soon
+after, and was laid beside the deserted young mother, whose days had
+budded and blossomed, and fallen like petals to the ground, while yet it
+was the spring.
+
+Luke Claridge had understood neither, not his wife when she had said:
+"Thee should let the Lord do His own work, Luke," nor his dying daughter
+Mercy, whose last words had been: "With love and sorrow I have sowed;
+he shall reap rejoicing--my babe. Thee will set him in the garden in the
+sun, where God may find him--God will not pass him by. He will take him
+by the hand and lead him home." The old man had thought her touched by
+delirium then, though her words were but the parable of a mind fed by
+the poetry of life, by a shy spirit, to which meditation gave fancy and
+farseeing. David had come by his idealism honestly. The half-mystical
+spirit of his Uncle Benn had flowed on to another generation through
+the filter of a woman's sad soul. It had come to David a pure force, a
+constructive and practical idealism.
+
+Now, as Faith read, there were ringing in the old man's ears the words
+which David's mother had said before she closed her eyes and passed
+away: "Set him in the garden in the sun, where God may find him--God
+will not pass him by." They seemed to weave themselves into the
+symbolism of Benn Claridge's letter, written from the hills of Bagdad.
+
+"But," the letter continued, "the Governor passed by with his suite, the
+buckles of the harness of his horses all silver, his carriage shining
+with inlay of gold, his turban full of precious stones. When he had
+passed, I said to a shepherd standing by, 'If thou hadst all his wealth,
+shepherd, what wouldst thou do?' and he answered, 'If I had his wealth,
+I would sit on the south side of my house in the sun all day and every
+day.' To a messenger of the Palace, who must ever be ready night and day
+to run at his master's order, I asked the same. He replied, 'If I had
+all the Effendina's wealth, I would sleep till I died.' To a blind
+beggar, shaking the copper in his cup in the highways, pleading dumbly
+to those who passed, I made similar inquisition, and he replied 'If the
+wealth of the exalted one were mine, I would sit on the mastaba by the
+bake-house, and eat three times a day, save at Ramadan, when I would
+bless Allah the compassionate and merciful, and breakfast at sunset with
+the flesh of a kid and a dish of dates.' To a woman at the door of a
+tomb hung with relics of hundreds of poor souls in misery, who besought
+the buried saint to intercede for her with Allah, I made the same
+catechism, and she answered, 'Oh, effendi, if his wealth were mine, I
+would give my son what he has lost.' 'What has he lost, woman?' said
+I; and she answered: 'A little house with a garden, and a flock of
+ten goats, a cow and a dovecote, his inheritance of which he has been
+despoiled by one who carried a false debt 'gainst his dead father.' And
+I said to her: 'But if thy wealth were as that of the ruler of the city,
+thy son would have no need of the little house and garden and the flock
+of goats, and a cow and a dovecote.' Whereupon she turned upon me in
+bitterness, and said: 'Were they not his own as the seed of his father?
+Shall not one cherish that which is his own, which cometh from seed
+to seed? Is it not the law?' 'But,' said I, 'if his wealth were thine,
+there would be herds of cattle, and flocks of sheep, and carpets spread,
+and the banquet-tables, and great orchards.' But she stubbornly shook
+her head. 'Where the eagle built shall not the young eagle nest? How
+should God meet me in the way and bless him who stood not by his birth
+right? The plot of ground was the lad's, and all that is thereon. I pray
+thee, mock me not.' God knows I did not mock her, for her words were
+wisdom. So did it work upon me that, after many days, I got for the lad
+his own again, and there he is happier, and his mother happier, than the
+Governor in his palace. Later I did learn some truths from the shepherd,
+the messenger, and the beggar, and the woman with the child; but chiefly
+from the woman and the child. The material value has no relation to the
+value each sets upon that which is his own. Behind this feeling lies the
+strength of the world. Here on this hill of Bagdad I am thinking these
+things. And, Luke, I would have thee also think on my story of the woman
+and the child. There is in it a lesson for thee."
+
+When Luke Claridge first read this letter years before, he had put
+it from him sternly. Now he heard it with a soft emotion. He took the
+letter from Faith at last and put it in his pocket. With no apparent
+relevancy, and laying his hand on Faith's shoulder, he said:
+
+"We have done according to our conscience by Davy--God is our witness,
+so!"
+
+She leaned her cheek against his hand, but did not speak.
+
+In Soolsby's hut upon the hill David sat talking to the old chair-maker.
+Since his return he had visited the place several times, only to find
+Soolsby absent. The old man, on awaking from his drunken sleep, had been
+visited by a terrible remorse, and, whenever he had seen David coming,
+had fled into the woods. This evening, however, David came in the dark,
+and Soolsby was caught.
+
+When David entered first, the old man broke down. He could not speak,
+but leaned upon the back of a chair, and though his lips moved, no sound
+came forth. But David took him by the shoulders and set him down, and
+laughed gently in his face, and at last Soolsby got voice and said:
+
+"Egyptian! O Egyptian!"
+
+Then his tongue was loosened and his eye glistened, and he poured out
+question after question, many pertinent, some whimsical, all frankly
+answered by David. But suddenly he stopped short, and his eyes sank
+before the other, who had laid a hand upon his knee.
+
+"But don't, Egyptian, don't! Don't have aught to do with me. I'm only a
+drunken swine. I kept sober four years, as she knows--as the Angel down
+yonder in the Red Mansion knows; but the day you came, going out to meet
+you, I got drunk--blind drunk. I had only been pretending all the time.
+I was being coaxed along--made believe I was a real man, I suppose.
+But I wasn't. I was a pillar of sand. When pressure came I just broke
+down--broke down, Egyptian. Don't be surprised if you hear me grunt.
+It's my natural speech. I'm a hog, a drink-swilling hog. I wasn't decent
+enough to stay sober till you had said 'Good day,' and 'How goes it,
+Soolsby?' I tried it on; it was no good. I began to live like a man, but
+I've slipped back into the ditch. You didn't know that, did you?"
+
+David let him have his say, and then in a low voice said: "Yes, I
+knew thee had been drinking, Soolsby." He started. "She told you--Kate
+Heaver--"
+
+"She did not tell me. I came and found you here with her. You were
+asleep."
+
+"A drunken sweep!" He spat upon the ground in disgust at himself.
+
+"I ought never have comeback here," he added. "It was no place for me.
+But it drew me. I didn't belong; but it drew me."
+
+"Thee belongs to Hamley. Thee is an honour to Hamley, Soolsby."
+
+Soolsby's eyes widened; the blurred look of rage and self-reproach in
+them began to fade away.
+
+"Thee has made a fight, Soolsby, to conquer a thing that has had thee by
+the throat. There's no fighting like it. It means a watching every hour,
+every minute--thee can never take the eye off it. Some days it's easy,
+some days it's hard, but it's never so easy that you can say, 'There is
+no need to watch.' In sleep it whispers and wakes you; in the morning,
+when there are no shadows, it casts a shadow on the path. It comes
+between you and your work; you see it looking out of the eyes of a
+friend. And one day, when you think it has been conquered, that you have
+worn it down into oblivion and the dust, and you close your eyes and
+say, 'I am master,' up it springs with fury from nowhere you can see,
+and catches you by the throat; and the fight begins again. But you sit
+stronger, and the fight becomes shorter; and after many battles, and
+you have learned never to be off guard, to know by instinct where every
+ambush is, then at last the victory is yours. It is hard, it is bitter,
+and sometimes it seems hardly worth the struggle. But it is--it is worth
+the struggle, dear old man."
+
+Soolsby dropped on his knees and caught David by the arms. "How did you
+know-how did you know?" he asked hoarsely. "It's been just as you say.
+You've watched some one fighting?"
+
+"I have watched some one fighting--fighting," answered David clearly,
+but his eyes were moist.
+
+"With drink, the same as me?"
+
+"No, with opium--laudanum."
+
+"Oh, I've heard that's worse, that it makes you mad, the wanting it."
+
+"I have seen it so."
+
+"Did the man break down like me?"
+
+"Only once, but the fight is not yet over with him."
+
+"Was he--an Englishman?"
+
+David inclined his head. "It's a great thing to have a temptation to
+fight, Soolsby. Then we can understand others."
+
+"It's not always true, Egyptian, for you have never had temptation to
+fight. Yet you know it all."
+
+"God has been good to me," David answered, putting a hand on the old
+man's shoulder. "And thee is a credit to Hamley, friend. Thee will never
+fall again."
+
+"You know that--you say that to me! Then, by Mary the mother of God, I
+never will be a swine again," he said, getting to his feet.
+
+"Well, good-bye, Soolsby. I go to-morrow," David said presently.
+
+Soolsby frowned; his lips worked. "When will you come back?" he asked
+eagerly.
+
+David smiled. "There is so much to do, they may not let me come--not
+soon. I am going into the desert again."
+
+Soolsby was shaking. He spoke huskily. "Here is your place," he said.
+"You shall come back--Oh, but you shall come back, here, where you
+belong."
+
+David shook his head and smiled, and clasped the strong hand again. A
+moment later he was gone. From the door of the but Soolsby muttered to
+himself:
+
+"I will bring you back. If Luke Claridge doesn't, then I will bring you
+back. If he dies, I will bring you--no, by the love of God, I will bring
+you back while he lives!"
+
+       ...........................
+
+Two thousand miles away, in a Nile village, women sat wailing in dark
+doorways, dust on their heads, black mantles covering their faces. By
+the pond where all the people drank, performed their ablutions, bathed
+their bodies and rinsed their mouths, sat the sheikh-el-beled, the
+village chief, taking counsel in sorrow with the barber, the holy man,
+and others. Now speaking, now rocking their bodies to and fro, in the
+evening sunlight, they sat and watched the Nile in flood covering the
+wide wastes of the Fayoum, spreading over the land rich deposits of
+earth from the mountains of Abyssinia. When that flood subsided there
+would be fields to be planted with dourha and onions and sugar-cane; but
+they whose strong arms should plough and sow and wield the sickle, the
+youth, the upstanding ones, had been carried off in chains to serve in
+the army of Egypt, destined for the far Soudan, for hardship, misery,
+and death, never to see their kindred any more. Twice during three
+months had the dread servant of the Palace come and driven off
+their best like sheep to the slaughter. The brave, the stalwart, the
+bread-winners, were gone; and yet the tax-gatherer would come and press
+for every impost--on the onion-field, the date-palm, the dourha-field,
+and the clump of sugar-cane, as though the young men, the toilers,
+were still there. The old and infirm, the children, the women, must now
+double and treble their labour. The old men must go to the corvee, and
+mend the banks of the Nile for the Prince and his pashas, providing
+their own food, their own tools, their own housing, if housing there
+would be--if it was more than sleeping under a bush by the riverside, or
+crawling into a hole in the ground, their yeleks their clothes by day,
+their only covering at night.
+
+They sat like men without hope, yet with the proud, bitter mien of
+those who had known good and had lost it, had seen content and now were
+desolate.
+
+Presently one--a lad--the youngest of them, lifted up his voice and
+began to chant a recitative, while another took a small drum and beat
+it in unison. He was but just recovered from an illness, or he had gone
+also in chains to die for he knew not what, leaving behind without hope
+all that he loved:
+
+     "How has the cloud fallen, and the leaf withered on the tree,
+     The lemon-tree, that standeth by the door.
+     The melon and the date have gone bitter to the taste,
+     The weevil, it has eaten at the core
+     The core of my heart, the mildew findeth it.
+     My music, it is but the drip of tears,
+     The garner empty standeth, the oven hath no fire,
+     Night filleth me with fears.
+     O Nile that floweth deeply, hast thou not heard his voice?
+     His footsteps hast thou covered with thy flood?
+     He was as one who lifteth up the yoke,
+     He was as one who taketh off the chain,
+     As one who sheltereth from the rain,
+     As one who scattereth bread to the pigeons flying.
+     His purse was at his side, his mantle was for me,
+     For any who passeth were his mantle and his purse,
+     And now like a gourd is he withered from our eyes.
+     His friendship, it was like a shady wood
+     Whither has he gone?--Who shall speak for us?
+     Who shall save us from the kourbash and the stripes?
+     Who shall proclaim us in the palace?
+     Who shall contend for us in the gate?
+     The sakkia turneth no more; the oxen they are gone;
+     The young go forth in chains, the old waken in the night,
+     They waken and weep, for the wheel turns backward,
+     And the dark days are come again upon us--
+     Will he return no more?
+     His friendship was like a shady wood,
+     O Nile that floweth deeply, hast thou not heard his voice?
+     Hast thou covered up his footsteps with thy flood?
+     The core of my heart, the mildew findeth it!"
+
+Another-an old man-took up the strain, as the drum kept time to the beat
+of the voice with its undulating call and refrain:
+
+"When his footsteps were among us there was peace; War entered not the
+village, nor the call of war. Now our homes are as those that have
+no roofs. As a nest decayed, as a cave forsaken, As a ship that lieth
+broken on the beach, Is the house where we were born. Out in the desert
+did we bury our gold, We buried it where no man robbed us, for his arm
+was strong. Now are the jars empty, gold did not avail To save our young
+men, to keep them from the chains. God hath swallowed his voice, or the
+sea hath drowned it, Or the Nile hath covered him with its flood; Else
+would he come when our voices call. His word was honey in the prince's
+ear Will he return no more?"
+
+And now the sheikh-el-beled spoke. "It hath been so since Nahoum Pasha
+passed this way four months agone. He hath changed all. War will not
+avail. David Pasha, he will come again. His word is as the centre of
+the world. Ye have no hope, because ye see the hawks among the starving
+sheep. But the shepherd will return from behind the hill, and the hawks
+will flee away.
+
+"... Behold, once was I in the desert. Listen, for mine are the words
+of one who hath travelled far--was I not at Damascus and Palmyra and
+Bagdad, and at Medina by the tomb of Mahomet?"
+
+Reverently he touched the green turban on his head, evidence of his
+journey to Mahomet's tomb. "Once in the desert I saw afar off an oasis
+of wood and water, and flying things, and houses where a man might rest.
+And I got me down from my camel, and knelt upon my sheepskin, and gave
+thanks in the name of Allah. Thereupon I mounted again and rode on
+towards that goodly place. But as I rode it vanished from my sight. Then
+did I mourn. Yet once again I saw the trees, and flocks of pigeons and
+waving fields, and I was hungry and thirsty, and longed exceedingly. Yet
+got I down, and, upon my sheep-skin, once more gave thanks to Allah. And
+I mounted thereafter in haste and rode on; but once again was I mocked.
+Then I cried aloud in my despair. It was in my heart to die upon the
+sheep-skin where I had prayed; for I was burned up within, and there
+seemed naught to do but say malaish, and go hence. But that goodly sight
+came again. My heart rebelled that I should be so mocked. I bent down
+my head upon my camel that I might not see, yet once more I loosed the
+sheep-skin. Lifting up my heart, I looked again, and again I took hope
+and rode on. Farther and farther I rode, and lo! I was no longer mocked;
+for I came to a goodly place of water and trees, and was saved. So shall
+it be with us. We have looked for his coming again, and our hearts
+have fallen and been as ashes, for that he has not come. Yet there be
+mirages, and one day soon David Pasha will come hither, and our pains
+shall be eased."
+
+"Aiwa, aiwa--yes, yes," cried the lad who had sung to them.
+
+"Aiwa, aiwa," rang softly over the pond, where naked children stooped to
+drink.
+
+The smell of the cooking-pots floated out from the mud-houses near by.
+
+"Malaish," said one after another, "I am hungry. He will come
+again-perhaps to-morrow." So they moved towards the houses over the way.
+
+One cursed his woman for wailing in the doorway; one snatched the lid
+from a cooking-pot; one drew from an oven cakes of dourha, and gave them
+to those who had none; one knelt and bowed his forehead to the ground in
+prayer; one shouted the name of him whose coming they desired.
+
+So was David missed in Egypt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. THE TENTS OF CUSHAN
+
+     "I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction, and the curtains
+     of the Land of Midian did tremble."
+
+A Hurdy-Gurdy was standing at the corner, playing with shrill insistence
+a medley of Scottish airs. Now "Loch Lomond" pleaded for pennies from
+the upper windows:
+
+       "For you'll tak' the high road,
+        and I'll tak' the low road,
+        And I'll be in Scotland before ye:
+        But I and my true love will never meet again,
+        On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond!"
+
+The hurdy-gurdy was strident and insistent, but for a long time no
+response came. At last, however, as the strains of "Loch Lomond" ceased,
+a lady appeared on the balcony of a drawing-room, and, leaning over a
+little forest of flowers and plants, threw a half-crown to the sorry
+street-musician. She watched the grotesque thing trundle away, then
+entering the house again, took a 'cello from the corner of the room and
+tuned the instrument tenderly. It was Hylda.
+
+Something of the peace of Hamley had followed her to London, but the
+poignant pain of it had come also. Like Melisande, she had looked into
+the quiet pool of life and had seen her own face, its story and its
+foreshadowings. Since then she had been "apart." She had watched life
+move on rather than shared in its movement. Things stood still for her.
+That apathy of soul was upon her which follows the inward struggle
+that exhausts the throb and fret of inward emotions, leaving the mind
+dominant, the will in abeyance.
+
+She had become conscious that her fate and future were suspended over
+a chasm, as, on the trapeze of a balloon, an adventurous aeronaut hangs
+uncertain over the hungry sea, waiting for the coming wind which will
+either blow the hazardous vessel to its doom or to safe refuge on the
+land.
+
+She had not seen David after he left Hamley. Their last words had been
+spoken at the Meeting-house, when he gave Faith to her care. That scene
+came back to her now, and a flush crept slowly over her face and faded
+away again. She was recalling, too, the afternoon of that day when she
+and David had parted in the drawing-room of the Cloistered House, and
+Eglington had asked her to sing. She thought of the hours with Eglington
+that followed, first at the piano and afterwards in the laboratory,
+where in his long blue smock he made experiments. Had she not been
+conscious of something enigmatical in his gaiety that afternoon, in his
+cheerful yet cheerless words, she would have been deeply impressed by
+his appreciation of her playing, and his keen reflections on the merits
+of the composers; by his still keener attention to his subsequent
+experiments, and his amusing comments upon them. But, somehow, that very
+cheerless cheerfulness seemed to proclaim him superficial. Though she
+had no knowledge of science, she instinctively doubted his earnestness
+even in this work, which certainly was not pursued for effect. She
+had put the feeling from her, but it kept returning. She felt that
+in nothing did he touch the depths. Nothing could possess him wholly;
+nothing inherent could make him self-effacing.
+
+Yet she wondered, too, if she was right, when she saw his fox-terrier
+watching him, ever watching him with his big brown eyes as he buoyantly
+worked, and saw him stoop to pat its head. Or was this, after all, mere
+animalism, mere superficial vitality, love of health and being? She
+shuddered, and shut her eyes, for it came home to her that to him she
+was just such a being of health, vitality and comeliness, on a little
+higher plane. She put the thought from her, but it had had its birth,
+and it would not down. He had immense vitality, he was tireless, and
+abundant in work and industry; he went from one thing to another with
+ease and swiftly changing eagerness. Was it all mere force--mere man and
+mind? Was there no soul behind it? There in the laboratory she had
+laid her hand on the terrier, and prayed in her heart that she might
+understand him for her own good, her own happiness, and his. Above all
+else she wanted to love him truly, and to be loved truly, and duty was
+to her a daily sacrifice, a constant memorial. She realised to the full
+that there lay before her a long race unilluminated by the sacred lamp
+which, lighted at the altar, should still be burning beside the grave.
+
+Now, as she thought of him, she kept saying to herself: "We should have
+worked out his life together. Work together would have brought peace. He
+shuts me out--he shuts me out."
+
+At last she drew the bow across the instrument, once, twice, and then
+she began to play, forgetful of the world. She had a contralto voice,
+and she sang with a depth of feeling and a delicate form worthy of a
+professional; on the piano she was effective and charming, but into the
+'cello she poured her soul.
+
+For quite an hour she played with scarce an interruption. At last, with
+a sigh, she laid the instrument against her knee and gazed out of the
+window. As she sat lost in her dream--a dream of the desert--a servant
+entered with letters. One caught her eye. It was from Egypt--from
+her cousin Lacey. Her heart throbbed violently, yet she opened the
+official-looking envelope with steady fingers. She would not admit even
+to her self that news from the desert could move her so. She began to
+read slowly, but presently, with a little cry, she hastened through the
+pages. It ran:
+
+                       THE SOUDAN.
+
+   DEAR LADY COUSIN,
+
+   I'm still not certain how I ought to style you, but I thought I'd
+   compromise as per above. Anyway, it's a sure thing that I haven't
+   bothered you much with country-cousin letters. I figure, however,
+   that you've put some money in Egypt, so to speak, and what happens
+   to this sandy-eyed foundling of the Nile you would like to know. So
+   I've studied the only "complete letter-writer" I could find between
+   the tropic of Capricorn and Khartoum, and this is the contemptible
+   result, as the dagos in Mexico say. This is a hot place by reason
+   of the sun that shines above us, and likewise it is hot because of
+   the niggers that swarm around us. I figure, if we get out of this
+   portion of the African continent inside our skins, that we will have
+   put up a pretty good bluff, and pulled off a ticklish proposition.
+
+   It's a sort of early Christian business. You see, David the Saadat
+   is great on moral suasion--he's a master of it; and he's never
+   failed yet--not altogether; though there have been minutes by a
+   stop-watch when I've thought it wouldn't stand the strain. Like the
+   Mississippi steamboat which was so weak that when the whistle blew
+   the engines stopped! When those frozen minutes have come to us,
+   I've tried to remember the correct religious etiquette, but I've not
+   had much practise since I stayed with Aunt Melissa, and lived on
+   skim-milk and early piety. When things were looking as bad as they
+   did for Dives, "Now I lay me down to sleep," and "For what we are
+   about to receive," was all that I could think of. But the Saadat,
+   he's a wonder from Wondertown. With a little stick, or maybe his
+   flute under his arm, he'll smile and string these heathen along,
+   when you'd think they weren't waiting for anybody. A spear took off
+   his fez yesterday. He never blinked--he's a jim-dandy at keeping
+   cool; and when a hundred mounted heathens made a rush down on him
+   the other day, spears sticking out like quills on a porcupine--2.5
+   on the shell-road the chargers were going--did he stir? Say, he
+   watched 'em as if they were playing for his benefit. And sure
+   enough, he was right. They parted either side of him when they were
+   ten feet away, and there he was quite safe, a blessing in the storm,
+   a little rock island in the rapids--but I couldn't remember a proper
+   hymn of praise to say.
+
+   There's no getting away from the fact that he's got a will or
+   something, a sort of force different from most of us, or perhaps any
+   of us. These heathen feel it, and keep their hands off him. They
+   say he's mad, but they've got great respect for mad people, for they
+   think that God has got their souls above with Him, and that what's
+   left behind on earth is sacred. He talks to'em, too, like a father
+   in Israel; tells 'em they must stop buying and selling slaves, and
+   that if they don't he will have to punish them! And I sit holding
+   my sides, for we're only two white men and forty "friendlies"
+   altogether, and two revolvers among us; and I've got the two! And
+   they listen to his blarneying, and say, "Aiwa, Saadat! aiwa,
+   Saadat!" as if he had an army of fifty thousand behind him.
+   Sometimes I've sort of hinted that his canoe was carrying a lot of
+   sail; but my! he believes in it all as if there wasn't a spear or a
+   battle-axe or a rifle within a hundred miles of him. We've been at
+   this for two months now, and a lot of ground we covered till we got
+   here. I've ridden the gentle camel at the rate of sixty and seventy
+   miles a day--sort of sweeping through the land, making treaties,
+   giving presents, freeing slaves, appointing governors and sheikhs-
+   el-beled, doing it as if we owned the continent. He mesmerised 'em,
+   simply mesmerised 'em-till we got here. I don't know what happened
+   then. Now we're distinctly rating low, the laugh is on us somehow.
+   But he--mind it? He goes about talking to the sheikhs as though we
+   were all eating off the same corn-cob, and it seems to stupefy them;
+   they don't grasp it. He goes on arranging for a post here and a
+   station there, and it never occurs to him that it ain't really
+   actual. He doesn't tell me, and I don't ask him, for I came along
+   to wipe his stirrups, so to speak. I put my money on him, and I'm
+   not going to worry him. He's so dead certain in what he does, and
+   what he is, that I don't lose any sleep guessing about him. It will
+   be funny if we do win out on this proposition--funnier than
+   anything.
+
+   Now, there's one curious thing about it all which ought to be
+   whispered, for I'm only guessing, and I'm not a good guesser; I
+   guessed too much in Mexico about three railways and two silvermines.
+   The first two days after we came here, everything was all right.
+   Then there came an Egyptian, Halim Bey, with a handful of niggers
+   from Cairo, and letters for Claridge Pasha.
+
+   From that minute there was trouble. I figure it out this way: Halim
+   was sent by Nahoum Pasha to bring letters that said one thing to the
+   Saadat, and, when quite convenient, to say other things to Mustafa,
+   the boss-sheikh of this settlement. Halim Bey has gone again, but
+   he has left his tale behind him. I'd stake all I lost, and more
+   than I ever expect to get out of Mexico on that, and maybe I'll get
+   a hatful out of Mexico yet. I had some good mining propositions
+   down there. The Saadat believes in Nahoum, and has made Nahoum what
+   he is; and on the surface Nahoum pretends to help him; but he is
+   running underground all the time. I'd like to help give him a villa
+   at Fazougli. When the Saadat was in England there was a bad time in
+   Egypt. I was in Cairo; I know. It was the same bad old game--the
+   corvee, the kourbash, conscription, a war manufactured to fill the
+   pockets of a few, while the poor starved and died. It didn't come
+   off, because the Saadat wasn't gone long enough, and he stopped it
+   when he came back. But Nahoumhe laid the blame on others, and the
+   Saadat took his word for it, and, instead of a war, there came this
+   expedition of his own.
+
+   Ten days later.--Things have happened. First, there's been awful
+   sickness among the natives, and the Saadat has had his chance. His
+   medicine-chest was loaded, he had a special camel for it--and he has
+   fired it off. Night and day he has worked, never resting, never
+   sleeping, curing most, burying a few. He looks like a ghost now,
+   but it's no use saying or doing anything. He says: "Sink your own
+   will; let it be subject to a higher, and you need take no thought."
+   It's eating away his life and strength, but it has given us our
+   return tickets, I guess. They hang about him as if he was Moses in
+   the wilderness smiting the rock. It's his luck. Just when I get
+   scared to death, and run down and want a tonic, and it looks as if
+   there'd be no need to put out next week's washing, then his luck
+   steps in, and we get another run. But it takes a heap out of a man,
+   getting scared. Whenever I look on a lot of green trees and cattle
+   and horses, and the sun, to say nothing of women and children, and
+   listen to music, or feel a horse eating up the ground under me, 2.10
+   in the sand, I hate to think of leaving it, and I try to prevent it.
+   Besides, I don't like the proposition of going, I don't know where.
+   That's why I get seared. But he says that it's no more than turning
+   down the light and turning it up again. They used to call me a
+   dreamer in Mexico, because I kept seeing things that no one else had
+   thought of, and laid out railways and tapped mines for the future;
+   but I was nothing to him. I'm a high-and-dry hedge-clipper
+   alongside. I'm betting on him all the time; but no one seems to be
+   working to make his dreams come true, except himself. I don't
+   count; I'm no good, no real good. I'm only fit to run the
+   commissariat, and see that he gets enough to eat, and has a safe
+   camel, and so on.
+
+   Why doesn't some one else help him? He's working for humanity.
+   Give him half a chance, and Haroun-al-Raschid won't be in it. Kaid
+   trusts him, depends on him, stands by him, but doesn't seem to know
+   how to help him when help would do most good. The Saadat does it
+   all himself; and if it wasn't that the poor devil of a fellah sees
+   what he's doing, and cottons to him, and the dervishes and Arabs
+   feel he's right, he might as well leave. But it's just there he
+   counts. There's something about him, something that's Quaker in
+   him, primitive, silent, and perceptive--if that's a real word--which
+   makes them feel that he's honest, and isn't after anything for
+   himself. Arabs don't talk much; they make each other understand
+   without many words. They think with all their might on one thing at
+   a time, and they think things into happening--and so does he. He's
+   a thousand years old, which is about as old-fashioned as I mean, and
+   as wise, and as plain to read as though you'd write the letters of
+   words as big as a date-palm. That's where he makes the running with
+   them, and they can read their title clear to mansions in the skies!
+
+   You should hear him talk with Ebn Ezra Bey--perhaps you don't know
+   of Ezra? He was a friend of his Uncle Benn, and brought the news of
+   his massacre to England, and came back with the Saadat. Well, three
+   days ago Ebn Ezra came, and there came with him, too, Halim Bey, the
+   Egyptian, who had brought the letters to us from Cairo. Elm Ezra
+   found him down the river deserted by his niggers, and sick with this
+   new sort of fever, which the Saadat is knocking out of time. And
+   there he lies, the Saadat caring for him as though he was his
+   brother. But that's his way; though, now I come to think of it, the
+   Saadat doesn't suspect what I suspect, that Halim Bey brought word
+   from Nahoum to our sheikhs here to keep us here, or lose us, or do
+   away with us. Old Ebn Ezra doesn't say much himself, doesn't say
+   anything about that; but he's guessing the same as me. And the
+   Saadat looks as though he was ready for his grave, but keeps going,
+   going, going. He never seems to sleep. What keeps him alive I
+   don't know. Sometimes I feel clean knocked out myself with the
+   little I do, but he's a travelling hospital all by his lonesome.
+
+   Later.--I had to stop writing, for things have been going on--
+   several. I can see that Ebn Ezra has told the Saadat things that
+   make him want to get away to Cairo as soon as possible. That it's
+   Nahoum Pasha and others--oh, plenty of others, of course--I'm
+   certain; but what the particular game is I don't know. Perhaps you
+   know over in England, for you're nearer Cairo than we are by a few
+   miles, and you've got the telegraph. Perhaps there's a revolution,
+   perhaps there's been a massacre of Europeans, perhaps Turkey is
+   kicking up a dust, perhaps Europe is interfering--all of it, all at
+   once.
+
+   Later still.--I've found out it's a little of all, and the Saadat is
+   ready to go. I guess he can go now pretty soon, for the worst of
+   the fever is over. But something has happened that's upset him--
+   knocked him stony for a minute. Halim Bey was killed last night--by
+   order of the sheikhs, I'm told; but the sheikhs won't give it away.
+   When the Saadat went to them, his eyes blazing, his face pale as a
+   sheet, and as good as swore at them, and treated them as though he'd
+   string them up the next minute, they only put their hands on their
+   heads, and said they were "the fallen leaves for his foot to
+   scatter," the "snow on the hill for his breath to melt"; but they
+   wouldn't give him any satisfaction. So he came back and shut
+   himself up in his tent, and he sits there like a ghost all
+   shrivelled up for want of sleep, and his eyes like a lime-kiln
+   burning; for now he knows this at least, that Halim Bey had brought
+   some word from Kaid's Palace that set these Arabs against him, and
+   nearly stopped my correspondence. You see, there's a widow in
+   Cairo--she's a sister of the American consul, and I've promised to
+   take her with a party camping in the Fayoum--cute as she can be, and
+   plays the guitar. But it's all right now, except that the Saadat is
+   running too close and fine. If he has any real friends in England
+   among the Government people, or among those who can make the
+   Government people sit up, and think what's coming to Egypt and to
+   him, they'll help him now when he needs it. He'll need help real
+   bad when he gets back to Cairo--if we get that far. It isn't yet a
+   sure thing, for we've got to fight in the next day or two--I forgot
+   to tell you that sooner. There's a bull-Arab on the rampage with
+   five thousand men, and he's got a claim out on our sheikh, Mustafa,
+   for ivory he has here, and there's going to be a scrimmage. We've
+   got to make for a better position to-morrow, and meet Abdullah, the
+   bull-Arab, further down the river. That's one reason why Mustafa
+   and all our friends here are so sweet on us now. They look on the
+   Saadat as a kind of mascot, and they think that he can wipe out the
+   enemy with his flute, which they believe is a witch-stick to work
+   wonders.
+
+   He's just sent for me to come, and I must stop soon. Say, he hasn't
+   had sleep for a fortnight. It's too much; he can't stand it. I
+   tried it, and couldn't. It wore me down. He's killing himself for
+   others. I can't manage him; but I guess you could. I apologise,
+   dear Lady Cousin. I'm only a hayseed, and a failure, but I guess
+   you'll understand that I haven't thought only of myself as I wrote
+   this letter. The higher you go in life the more you'll understand;
+   that's your nature. I'll get this letter off by a nigger to-morrow,
+   with those the Saadat is sending through to Cairo by some
+   friendlies. It's only a chance; but everything's chance here now.
+   Anyhow, it's safer than leaving it till the scrimmage. If you get
+   this, won't you try and make the British Government stand by the
+   Saadat? Your husband, the lord, could pull it off, if he tried; and
+   if you ask him, I guess he'd try. I must be off now. David Pasha
+   will be waiting. Well, give my love to the girls!
+
+        Your affectionate cousin,
+
+                    TOM LACEY.
+
+   P. S.--I've got a first-class camel for our scrimmage day after
+   to-morrow. Mustafa sent it to me this morning. I had a fight on
+   mules once, down at Oaxaca, but that was child's play. This will be
+   "slaughter in the pan," if the Saadat doesn't stop it somehow.
+   Perhaps he will. If I wasn't so scared I'd wish he couldn't stop
+   it, for it will be a way-up Barbarian scrap, the tongs and the
+   kettle, a bully panjandrum. It gets mighty dull in the desert when
+   you're not moving. But "it makes to think," as the French say.
+   Since I came out here I've had several real centre thoughts, sort of
+   main principles-key-thoughts, that's it. What I want now is a sort
+   of safety-ring to string 'em on and keep 'em safe; for I haven't a
+   good memory, and I get mighty rattled sometimes. Thoughts like
+   these are like the secret of a combination lock; they let you into
+   the place where the gold and securities and title-deeds of life are.
+   Trouble is, I haven't got a safety-ring, and I'm certain to lose
+   them. I haven't got what you'd call an intellectual memory. Things
+   come in flashes to me out of experiences, and pull me up short, and
+   I say, "Yes, that's it--that's it; I understand." I see why it's
+   so, and what it means, and where it leads, and how far it spreads.
+   It's five thousand years old. Adam thought it after Cain killed
+   Abel, or Abel thought it just before he died, or Eve learned it from
+   Lilith, or it struck Abraham when he went to sacrifice Isaac.
+   Sometimes things hit me deep like that here in the desert. Then I
+   feel I can see just over on the horizon the tents of Moab in the
+   wilderness; that yesterday and to-day are the same; that I've
+   crossed the prairies of the everlasting years, and am playing about
+   with Ishmael in the wild hills, or fighting with Ahab. Then the
+   world and time seem pretty small potatoes.
+
+   You see how it is. I never was trained to think, and I get stunned
+   by thoughts that strike me as being dug right out of the centre.
+   Sometimes I'd like to write them down; but I can't write; I can only
+   talk as I'm talking to you. If you weren't so high up, and so much
+   cleverer than I am, and such a thinker, I'd like you to be my
+   safety-ring, if you would. I could tell the key-thoughts to you
+   when they came to me, before I forgot them with all their bearings;
+   and by-and-by they'd do me a lot of good when I got away from this
+   influence, and back into the machinery of the Western world again.
+   If you could come out here, if you could feel what I feel here--and
+   you would feel a thousand times as much--I don't know what you
+   wouldn't do.
+
+   It's pretty wonderful. The nights with the stars so white and
+   glittering, and so near that you'd think you could reach up and hand
+   them down; the dark, deep, blue beyond; such a width of life all
+   round you, a sort of never-ending space, that everything you ever
+   saw or did seems little, and God so great in a kind of hovering
+   sense like a pair of wings; and all the secrets of time coming out
+   of it all, and sort of touching your face like a velvet wind. I
+   expect you'll think me sentimental, a first-class squash out of the
+   pumpkin-garden; but it's in the desert, and it gets into you and
+   saturates you, till you feel that this is a kind of middle space
+   between the world of cities, and factories, and railways, and
+   tenement-houses, and the quiet world to come--a place where they
+   think out things for the benefit of future generations, and convey
+   them through incarnations, or through the desert. Say, your
+   ladyship, I'm a chatterer, I'm a two-cent philosopher, I'm a baby;
+   but you are too much like your grandmother, who was the daughter of
+   a Quaker like David Pasha, to laugh at me.
+
+   I've got a suit of fine chain-armour which I bought of an Arab down
+   by Darfur. I'm wondering if it would be too cowardly to wear it in
+   the scrap that's coming. I don't know, though, but what I'll wear
+   it, I get so scared. But it will be a frightful hot thing under my
+   clothes, and it's hot enough without that, so I'm not sure. It
+   depends how much my teeth chatter when I see "the dawn of battle."
+
+   I've got one more thing before I stop. I'm going to send you a
+   piece of poetry which the Saadat wrote, and tore in two, and threw
+   away. He was working off his imagination, I guess, as you have to
+   do out here. I collected it and copied it, and put in the
+   punctuation--he didn't bother about that. Perhaps he can't
+   punctuate. I don't understand quite what the poetry means, but
+   maybe you will. Anyway, you'll see that it's a real desert piece.
+   Here it is:
+
+             "THE DESERT ROAD
+
+       "In the sands I lived in a hut of palm,
+        There was never a garden to see;
+        There was never a path through the desert calm,
+        Nor a way through its storms for me.
+
+       "Tenant was I of a lone domain;
+        The far pale caravans wound
+        To the rim of the sky, and vanished again;
+        My call in the waste was drowned.
+
+       "The vultures came and hovered and fled;
+        And once there stole to my door
+        A white gazelle, but its eyes were dread
+        With the hurt of the wounds it bore.
+
+       "It passed in the dusk with a foot of fear,
+        And the white cold mists rolled in;
+
+        "And my heart was the heart of a stricken deer,
+        Of a soul in the snare of sin.
+
+       "My days they withered like rootless things,
+        And the sands rolled on, rolled wide;
+        Like a pelican I, with broken wings,
+        Like a drifting barque on the tide.
+
+       "But at last, in the light of a rose-red day,
+        In the windless glow of the morn,
+        From over the hills and from far away,
+        You came--ah, the joy of the morn!
+
+       "And wherever your footsteps fell, there crept
+        A path--it was fair and wide:
+        A desert road which no sands have swept,
+        Where never a hope has died.
+
+       "I followed you forth, and your beauty held
+        My heart like an ancient song;
+        By that desert road to the blossoming plains
+        I came-and the way was long!
+
+       "So I set my course by the light of your eyes;
+        I care not what fate may send;
+        On the road I tread shine the love-starred skies--
+        The road with never an end."
+
+   Not many men can do things like that, and the other things, too,
+   that he does. Perhaps he will win through, by himself, but is it
+   fair to have him run the risk? If he ever did you a good turn, as
+   you once said to me he did, won't you help him now? You are on the
+   inside of political things, and if you make up your mind to help,
+   nothing will stop you--that was your grandmother's way. He ought to
+   get his backing pretty soon, or it won't be any good.... I
+   hear him at his flute. I expect he's tired waiting for me. Well,
+   give my love to the girls!
+                         T. L.
+
+As Hylda read, she passed through phases of feeling begotten of new
+understanding which shook her composure. She had seen David and all that
+David was doing; Egypt, and all that was threatening the land through
+the eyes of another who told the whole truth--except about his own
+cowardice, which was untrue. She felt the issues at stake. While the
+mention of David's personal danger left her sick for a moment, she saw
+the wider peril also to the work he had set out to do.
+
+What was the thing without the man? It could not exist--it had no
+meaning. Where was he now? What had been the end of the battle? He
+had saved others, had he saved himself? The most charmed life must be
+pierced by the shaft of doom sooner or later; but he was little more
+than a youth yet, he had only just begun!
+
+"And the Saadat looks as though he was ready for his grave--but keeps
+going, going, going!" The words kept ringing in her ears. Again: "And
+he sits there like a ghost all shrivelled up for want of sleep, and
+his eyes like a lime-kiln burning.... He hasn't had sleep for a
+fortnight.... He's killing himself for others."
+
+Her own eyes were shining with a dry, hot light, her lips were
+quivering, but her hands upon the letter were steady and firm. What
+could she do?
+
+She went to a table, picked up the papers, and scanned them hurriedly.
+Not a word about Egypt. She thought for a moment, then left the
+drawing-room. Passing up a flight of stairs to her husband's study, she
+knocked and entered. It was empty; but Eglington was in the house, for a
+red despatch-box lay open on his table. Instinctively she glanced at the
+papers exposed in the box, and at the letters beside it. The document
+on the top of the pile in the box related to Cyprus--the name caught her
+eye. Another document was half-exposed beneath it. Her hand went to her
+heart. She saw the words, "Soudan" and "Claridge Pasha." She reached for
+it, then drew back her hand, and her eyes closed as though to shut it
+out from her sight. Why should she not see it? They were her husband's
+papers, husband and wife were one. Husband and wife one! She shrank
+back. Were they one? An overmastering desire was on her. It seemed
+terrible to wait, when here before her was news of David, of life or
+death. Suddenly she put out her hand and drew the Cyprus paper over the
+Egyptian document, so that she might not see it.
+
+As she did so the door opened on her, and Eglington entered. He had seen
+the swift motion of her hand, and again a look peculiar to him crossed
+his face, enigmatical, cynical, not pleasant to see.
+
+She turned on him slowly, and he was aware of her inward distress to
+some degree, though her face was ruled to quietness.
+
+He nodded at her and smiled. She shrank, for she saw in his nod and his
+smile that suggestion of knowing all about everything and everybody, and
+thinking the worst, which had chilled her so often. Even in their short
+married life it had chilled those confidences which she would gladly
+have poured out before him, if he had been a man with an open soul. Had
+there been joined to his intellect and temperament a heart capable of
+true convictions and abiding love, what a man he might have been!
+But his intellect was superficial, and his temperament was dangerous,
+because there were not the experiences of a soul of truth to give the
+deeper hold upon the meaning of life. She shrank now, as, with a little
+laugh and glancing suggestively at the despatch-box, he said:
+
+"And what do you think of it all?"
+
+She felt as though something was crushing her heart within its grasp,
+and her eyes took on a new look of pain. "I did not read the papers,"
+she answered quietly.
+
+"I saw them in your fingers. What creatures women are--so dishonourable
+in little things," he said ironically.
+
+She laid a hand on his. "I did not read them, Harry," she urged.
+
+He smiled and patted her arm. "There, there, it doesn't matter," he
+laughed. He watched her narrowly. "It matters greatly," she answered
+gently, though his words had cut her like a knife. "I did not read the
+papers. I only saw the word 'Cyprus' on the first paper, and I pushed it
+over the paper which had the word 'Egypt' on it 'Egypt' and
+'Claridge,' lest I should read it. I did not wish to read it. I am not
+dishonourable, Harry."
+
+He had hurt her more than he had ever done; and only the great matter
+at stake had prevented the lesser part of her from bursting forth in
+indignation, from saying things which she did not wish to say. She had
+given him devotion--such devotion, such self-effacement in his career as
+few women ever gave. Her wealth--that was so little in comparison with
+the richness of her nature--had been his; and yet his vast egotism took
+it all as his right, and she was repaid in a kind of tyranny, the more
+galling and cruel because it was wielded by a man of intellect and
+culture, and ancient name and tradition. If he had been warned that
+he was losing his wife's love, he would have scouted the idea, his
+self-assurance was so strong, his vanity complete. If, however, he
+had been told that another man was thinking of his wife, he would have
+believed it, as he believed now that David had done; and he cherished
+that belief, and let resentment grow. He was the Earl of Eglington, and
+no matter what reputation David had reached, he was still a member of
+a Quaker trader's family, with an origin slightly touched with scandal.
+Another resentment, however, was steadily rising in him. It galled him
+that Hylda should take so powerful an interest in David's work in Egypt;
+and he knew now that she had always done so. It did not ease his vexed
+spirit to know that thousands of others of his fellow-countrymen did the
+same. They might do so, but she was his wife, and his own work was the
+sun round which her mind and interest should revolve.
+
+"Why should you be so keen about Egypt and Claridge Pasha?" he said to
+her now.
+
+Her face hardened a little. Had he the right to torture her so? To
+suspect her? She could read it in his eyes. Her conscience was clear.
+She was no man's slave. She would not be any man's slave. She was master
+of her own soul. What right had he to catechise her--as though she
+were a servant or a criminal? But she checked the answer on her tongue,
+because she was hurt deeper than words could express, and she said,
+composedly:
+
+"I have here a letter from my cousin Lacey, who is with Claridge Pasha.
+It has news of him, of events in the Soudan. He had fever, there was to
+be a fight, and I wished to know if you had any later news. I thought
+that document there might contain news, but I did not read it. I
+realised that it was not yours, that it belonged to the Government, that
+I had no right. Perhaps you will tell me if you have news. Will you?"
+She leaned against the table wearily, holding her letter.
+
+"Let me read your letter first," he said wilfully.
+
+A mist seemed to come before her eyes; but she was schooled to
+self-command, and he did not see he had given her a shock. Her first
+impulse was to hand the letter over at once; then there came the
+remembrance of all it contained, all it suggested. Would he see all it
+suggested? She recalled the words Lacey had used regarding a service
+which David had once done her. If Eglington asked, what could she say?
+It was not her secret alone, it was another's. Would she have the right,
+even if she wished it, to tell the truth, or part of the truth? Or,
+would she be entitled to relate some immaterial incident which would
+evade the real truth? What good could it do to tell the dark story?
+What could it serve? Eglington would horribly misunderstand it--that
+she knew. There were the verses also. They were more suggestive than
+anything else, though, indeed, they might have referred to another
+woman, or were merely impersonal; but she felt that was not so. And
+there was Eglington's innate unbelief in man and woman! Her first
+impulse held, however. She would act honestly. She would face whatever
+there was to face. She would not shelter herself; she would not give
+him the right in the future to say she had not dealt fairly by him, had
+evaded any inquest of her life or mind which he might make.
+
+She gave him the letter, her heart standing still, but she was filled
+with a regnant determination to defend herself, to defend David against
+any attack, or from any consequences.
+
+All her life and hopes seemed hanging in the balance, as he began
+to read the letter. With fear she saw his face cloud over, heard an
+impatient exclamation pass his lips. She closed her eyes to gather
+strength for the conflict which was upon her. He spoke, and she vaguely
+wondered what passage in the letter had fixed his attention. His voice
+seemed very far away. She scarcely understood. But presently it pierced
+the clouds of numbness between them, and she realised what he was
+saying:
+
+"Vulgar fellow--I can't congratulate you upon your American cousin.
+So, the Saadat is great on moral suasion, master of it--never failed
+yet--not altogether--and Aunt Melissa and skim-milk and early piety!'
+And 'the Saadat is a wonder from Wondertown'--like a side-show to a
+circus, a marvel on the flying trapeze! Perhaps you can give me the
+sense of the letter, if there is any sense in it. I can't read his
+writing, and it seems interminable. Would you mind?"
+
+A sigh of relief broke from her. A weight slipped away from her heart
+and brain. It was as though one in armour awaited the impact of a heavy,
+cruel, overwhelming foe, who suddenly disappeared, and the armour fell
+from the shoulders, and breath came easily once again.
+
+"Would you mind?" he repeated drily, as he folded up the letter slowly.
+
+He handed it back to her, the note of sarcasm in his voice pricking her
+like the point of a dagger. She felt angered with herself that he could
+rouse her temper by such small mean irony. She had a sense of bitter
+disappointment in him--or was it a deep hurt?--that she had not made him
+love her, truly love her. If he had only meant the love that he swore
+before they had married! Why had he deceived her? It had all been in
+his hands, her fate and future; but almost before the bridal flowers had
+faded, she had come to know two bitter things: that he had married with
+a sordid mind; that he was incapable of the love which transmutes
+the half-comprehending, half-developed affection of the maid into
+the absorbing, understanding, beautiful passion of the woman. She had
+married not knowing what love and passion were; uncomprehending, and
+innocent because uncomprehending; with a fine affection, but capable
+of loving wholly. One thing had purified her motives and her life--the
+desire to share with Eglington his public duty and private hopes, to be
+his confidante, his friend, his coadjutor, proud of him, eager for
+him, determined to help him. But he had blocked the path to all inner
+companionship. He did no more than let her share the obvious and outer
+responsibilities of his life. From the vital things, if there were vital
+things, she was shut out. What would she not give for one day of simple
+tenderness and quiet affection, a true day with a true love!
+
+She was now perfectly composed. She told him the substance of the
+letter, of David's plight, of the fever, of the intended fight, of
+Nahoum Pasha, of the peril to David's work. He continued to interrogate
+her, while she could have shrieked out the question, "What is in yonder
+document? What do you know? Have you news of his safety?" Would he never
+stop his questioning? It was trying her strength and patience beyond
+endurance. At last he drew the document slowly from the despatch-box,
+and glanced up and down it musingly. "I fancy he won the battle," he
+said slowly, "for they have news of him much farther down the river. But
+from this letter I take it he is not yet within the zone of safety--so
+Nahoum Pasha says." He flicked the document upwards with his thumb.
+
+"What is our Government doing to help him?" she asked, checking her
+eagerness.
+
+His heart had gradually hardened towards Egypt. Power had emphasised a
+certain smallness in him. Personal considerations informed the policy of
+the moment. He was not going to be dragged at the chariot-wheels of
+the Quaker. To be passive, when David in Egypt had asked for active
+interest; to delay, when urgency was important to Claridge Pasha;
+to speak coldly on Egyptian affairs to his chief, the weak Foreign
+Secretary, this was the policy he had begun.
+
+So he answered now: "It is the duty of the Egyptian Government to help
+him--of Prince Kaid, of Nahoum Pasha, who is acting for him in his
+absence, who governs finance, and therefore the army. Egypt does not
+belong to England."
+
+"Nahoum Pasha is his enemy. He will do nothing to help, unless you force
+him."
+
+"Why do you say that?"
+
+"Because I know Nahoum Pasha."
+
+"When did you know Nahoum?"
+
+"In Egypt, years ago."
+
+"Your acquaintance is more varied than I thought," he said
+sarcastically.
+
+"Oh, do not speak to me like that!" she returned, in a low, indignant
+voice.
+
+"Do not patronise me; do not be sarcastic."
+
+"Do not be so sensitive," he answered unemotionally.
+
+"You surely do not mean that you--that the Government will not help him?
+He is doing the work of Europe, of civilisation, of Christianity there.
+He is sacrificing himself for the world. Do you not see it? Oh, but you
+do! You would realise his work if you knew Egypt as I have seen it."
+
+"Expediency must govern the policy of nations," he answered critically.
+
+"But, if through your expediency he is killed like a rat in a trap, and
+his work goes to pieces--all undone! Is there no right in the matter?"
+
+"In affairs of state other circumstances than absolute 'right' enter.
+Here and there the individual is sacrificed who otherwise would be
+saved--if it were expedient."
+
+"Oh, Eglington! He is of your own county, of your own village, is your
+neighbour, a man of whom all England should be proud. You can intervene
+if you will be just, and say you will. I know that intervention has been
+discussed in the Cabinet."
+
+"You say he is of my county. So are many people, and yet they are not
+county people. A neighbour he was, but more in a Scriptural than social
+sense." He was hurting her purposely.
+
+She made a protesting motion of her hand. "No, no, no, do not be so
+small. This is a great matter. Do a great thing now; help it to be done
+for your own honour, for England's honour--for a good man's sake, for
+your country's sake."
+
+There came a knock at the door. An instant afterwards a secretary
+entered. "A message from the Prime Minister, sir." He handed over a
+paper.
+
+"Will you excuse me?" he asked Hylda suavely, in his eyes the
+enigmatical look that had chilled her so often before. She felt that
+her appeal had been useless. She prepared to leave the room. He took her
+hand, kissed it gallantly, and showed her out. It was his way--too civil
+to be real.
+
+Blindly she made her way to her room. Inside, she suddenly swayed and
+sank fainting to the ground, as Kate Heaver ran forward to her. Kate
+saw the letter in the clinched hand. Loosening it, she read two or three
+sentences with a gasp. They contained Tom Lacey's appeal for David. She
+lifted Hylda's head to her shoulder with endearing words, and chafed the
+cold hands, murmuring to herself the while.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. THE QUESTIONER
+
+"What has thee come to say?"
+
+Sitting in his high-backed chair, Luke Claridge seemed a part of its
+dignified severity. In the sparsely furnished room with its uncarpeted
+floor, its plain teak table, its high wainscoting and undecorated walls,
+the old man had the look of one who belonged to some ancient consistory,
+a judge whose piety would march with an austerity that would save a
+human soul by destroying the body, if need be.
+
+A crisis had come, vaguely foreseen, sombrely eluded. A questioner was
+before him who, poor, unheeded, an ancient victim of vice, could yet
+wield a weapon whose sweep of wounds would be wide. Stern and masterful
+as he looked in his arid isolation, beneath all was a shaking anxiety.
+
+He knew well what the old chair-maker had come to say, but, in the
+prologue of the struggle before him, he was unwittingly manoeuvring for
+position.
+
+"Speak," he added presently, as Soolsby fumbled in his great loose
+pockets, and drew forth a paper. "What has thee to say?"
+
+Without a word, Soolsby handed over the paper, but the other would not
+take it.
+
+"What is it?" he asked, his lips growing pale. "Read--if thee can read."
+
+The gibe in the last words made the colour leap into Soolsby's face, and
+a fighting look came. He too had staved off this inevitable hour, had
+dreaded it, but now his courage shot up high.
+
+"Doost think I have forgotten how to read since the day I put my hand to
+a writing you've hid so long from them it most concerns? Ay, I can
+read, and I can write, and I will prove that I can speak too before I've
+done."
+
+"Read--read," rejoined the old man hoarsely, his hands tightly gripping
+the chair-arm.
+
+"The fever caught him at Shendy--that is the place--"
+
+"He is not dead--David is not dead?" came the sharp, pained
+interruption. The old man's head strained forward, his eyes were misty
+and dazed.
+
+Soolsby's face showed no pity for the other's anxiety; it had a kind
+of triumph in it. "Nay, he is living," he answered. "He got well of the
+fever, and came to Cairo, but he's off again into the desert. It's the
+third time. You can't be tempting Providence for ever. This paper here
+says it's too big a job for one man--like throwing a good life away.
+Here in England is his place, it says. And so say I; and so I have come
+to say, and to hear you say so, too. What is he there? One man against a
+million. What put it in his head that he thinks he can do it?"
+
+His voice became lower; he fixed his eyes meaningly on the other. "When
+a man's life got a twist at the start, no wonder it flies off madlike
+to do the thing that isn't to be done, and leave undone the thing that's
+here for it to do. Doost think a straight line could come from the
+crooked line you drew for him?"
+
+"He is safe--he is well and strong again?" asked the old man painfully.
+Suddenly he reached out a hand for the paper. "Let me read," he said, in
+a voice scarce above a whisper.
+
+He essayed to take the paper calmly, but it trembled in his hands. He
+spread it out and fumbled for his glasses, but could not find them, and
+he gazed helplessly at the page before him. Soolsby took the paper from
+him and read slowly:
+
+"... Claridge Pasha has done good work in Egypt, but he is a generation
+too soon, it may be two or three too soon. We can but regard this fresh
+enterprise as a temptation to Fate to take from our race one of the
+most promising spirits and vital personalities which this generation has
+produced. It is a forlorn hope. Most Englishmen familiar with Claridge
+Pasha's life and aims will ask--"
+
+An exclamation broke from the old man. In the pause which followed he
+said: "It was none of my doing. He went to Egypt against my will."
+
+"Ay, so many a man's said that's not wanted to look his own acts
+straight in the face. If Our Man had been started different, if he'd
+started in the path where God A'mighty dropped him, and not in the path
+Luke Claridge chose, would he have been in Egypt to-day wearing out his
+life? He's not making carpets there, he's only beating them."
+
+The homely illustration drawn from the business in which he had been
+interested so many years went home to Claridge's mind. He shrank back,
+and sat rigid, his brows drawing over the eyes, till they seemed sunk
+in caverns of the head. Suddenly Soolsby's voice rose angrily. Luke
+Claridge seemed so remorseless and unyielding, so set in his vanity
+and self-will! Soolsby misread the rigid look in the face, the pale
+sternness. He did not know that there had suddenly come upon Luke
+Claridge the full consciousness of an agonising truth--that all he had
+done where David was concerned had been a mistake. The hard look, the
+sternness, were the signals of a soul challenging itself.
+
+"Ay, you've had your own will," cried Soolsby mercilessly. "You've said
+to God A'mighty that He wasn't able to work out to a good end what He'd
+let happen; and so you'd do His work for Him. You kept the lad hid away
+from the people that belonged to him, you kept him out of his own, and
+let others take his birthright. You put a shame upon him, hiding who his
+father and his father's people were, and you put a shame upon her that
+lies in the graveyard--as sweet a lass, as good, as ever lived on
+earth. Ay, a shame and a scandal! For your eyes were shut always to
+the sidelong looks, your ears never heard the things people said--'A
+good-for-nothing ship-captain, a scamp and a ne'er-do-weel, one that had
+a lass at every port, and, maybe, wives too; one that none knew or ever
+had seen--a pirate maybe, or a slave-dealer, or a jail-bird, for all
+they knew! Married--oh yes, married right enough, but nothing else--not
+even a home. Just a ring on the finger, and then, beyond and away!'
+Around her life that brought into the world our lad yonder you let a
+cloud draw down; and you let it draw round his, too, for he didn't even
+bear his father's name--much less knew who his father was--or live in
+his father's home, or come by his own in the end. You gave the lad shame
+and scandal. Do you think, he didn't feel it, was it much or little? He
+wasn't walking in the sun, but--"
+
+"Mercy! Mercy!" broke in the old man, his hand before his eyes. He was
+thinking of Mercy, his daughter, of the words she had said to him when
+she died, "Set him in the sun, father, where God can find him," and her
+name now broke from his lips.
+
+Soolsby misunderstood. "Ay, there'll be mercy when right's been done
+Our Man, and not till then. I've held my tongue for half a lifetime, but
+I'll speak now and bring him back. Ay, he shall come back and take
+the place that is his, and all that belongs to him. That lordship
+yonder--let him go out into the world and make his place as the Egyptian
+did. He's had his chance to help Our Man, and he has only hurt, not
+helped him. We've had enough of his second-best lordship and his ways."
+
+The old man's face was painful in its stricken stillness now. He had
+regained control of himself, his brain had recovered greatly from its
+first suffusion of excitement.
+
+"How does thee know my lord yonder has hurt and not helped him?" he
+asked in an even voice, his lips tightening, however. "How does thee
+know it surely?"
+
+"From Kate Heaver, my lady's maid. My lady's illness--what was it?
+Because she would help Our Man, and, out of his hatred, yonder second
+son said that to her which no woman can bear that's a true woman; and
+then, what with a chill and fever, she's been yonder ailing these weeks
+past. She did what she could for him, and her husband did what he could
+against him."
+
+The old man settled back in his chair again. "Thee has kept silent all
+these years? Thee has never told any that lives?"
+
+"I gave my word to her that died--to our Egyptian's mother--that I would
+never speak unless you gave me leave to speak, or if you should die
+before me. It was but a day before the lad was born. So have I kept my
+word. But now you shall speak. Ay, then, but you shall speak, or I'll
+break my word to her, to do right by her son. She herself would speak
+if she was here, and I'll answer her, if ever I see her after Purgatory,
+for speaking now."
+
+The old man drew himself up in his chair as though in pain, and said
+very slowly, almost thickly: "I shall answer also for all I did. The
+spirit moved me. He is of my blood--his mother was dead--in his veins
+is the blood that runs in mine. His father--aristocrat, spendthrift,
+adventurer, renegade, who married her in secret, and left her, bidding
+her return to me, until he came again, and she to bear him a child--was
+he fit to bring up the boy?"
+
+He breathed heavily, his face became wan and haggard, as he continued:
+"Restless on land or sea, for ever seeking some new thing, and when he
+found it, and saw what was therein, he turned away forgetful. God put it
+into my heart to abjure him and the life around him. The Voice made me
+rescue the child from a life empty and bare and heartless and proud.
+When he returned, and my child was in her grave, he came to me in
+secret; he claimed the child of that honest lass whom he had married
+under a false name. I held my hand lest I should kill him, man of peace
+as I am. Even his father--Quaker though he once became--did we not know
+ere the end that he had no part or lot with us, that he but experimented
+with his soul, as with all else? Experiment--experiment--experiment,
+until at last an Eglington went exploring in my child's heart, and sent
+her to her grave--the God of Israel be her rest and refuge! What should
+such high-placed folk do stooping out of their sphere to us who walk in
+plain paths? What have we in common with them? My soul would have none
+of them--masks of men, the slaves of riches and titles, and tyrants over
+the poor."
+
+His voice grew hoarse and high, and his head bent forward. He spoke as
+though forgetful of Soolsby's presence: "As the East is from the West,
+so were we separate from these lovers of this world, the self-indulgent,
+the hard-hearted, the proud. I chose for the child that he should stay
+with me and not go to him, to remain among his own people and his own
+class. He was a sinister, an evil man. Was the child to be trusted with
+him?"
+
+"The child was his own child," broke in Soolsby. "Your daughter was his
+lady--the Countess of Eglington! Not all the Quakers in heaven or earth
+could alter that. His first-born son is Earl of Eglington, and has been
+so these years past; and you, nor his second-best lordship there, nor
+all the courts in England can alter that.... Ay, I've kept my peace,
+but I will speak out now. I was with the Earl--James Fetherdon he called
+himself--when he married her that's gone to heaven, if any ever went to
+heaven; and I can prove all. There's proof aplenty, and 'tis a pity,
+ay, God's pity! that 'twas not used long ago. Well I knew, as the years
+passed, that the Earl's heart was with David, but he had not the courage
+to face it all, so worn away was the man in him. Ah, if the lad had
+always been with him--who can tell?--he might have been different!
+Whether so or not, it was the lad's right to take his place his mother
+gave him, let be whatever his father was. 'Twas a cruel thing done to
+him. His own was his own, to run his race as God A'mighty had laid the
+hurdles, not as Luke Claridge willed. I'm sick of seeing yonder fellow
+in Our Man's place, he that will not give him help, when he may; he that
+would see him die like a dog in the desert, brother or no brother--"
+
+"He does not know--Lord Eglington does not know the truth?" interposed
+the old man in a heavy whisper. "He does not know, but, if he knew,
+would it matter to him! So much the more would he see Our Man die yonder
+in the sands. I know the breed. I know him yonder, the skim-milk lord.
+There is no blood of justice, no milk of kindness in him. Do you think
+his father that I friended in this thing--did he ever give me a penny,
+or aught save that hut on the hill that was not worth a pound a year?
+Did he ever do aught to show that he remembered?--Like father like son.
+I wanted naught. I held my peace, not for him, but for her--for the
+promise I made her when she smiled at me and said: 'If I shouldn't
+be seeing thee again, Soolsby, remember; and if thee can ever prove a
+friend to the child that is to be, prove it.' And I will prove it now.
+He must come back to his own. Right's right, and I will have it so. More
+brains you may have, and wealth you have, but not more common sense than
+any common man like me. If the spirit moved you to hold your peace, it
+moves me to make you speak. With all your meek face you've been a hard,
+stiff-necked man, a tyrant too, and as much an aristocrat to such as
+me as any lord in the land. But I've drunk the mug of silence to the
+bottom. I've--" He stopped short, seeing a strange look come over the
+other's face, then stepped forward quickly as the old man half rose from
+his chair, murmuring thickly:
+
+"Mercy--David, my lord, come--!" he muttered, and staggered, and fell
+into Soolsby's arms.
+
+His head dropped forward on his breast, and with a great sigh he sank
+into unconsciousness. Soolsby laid him on a couch, and ran to the door
+and called aloud for help.
+
+       ..........................
+
+The man of silence was silent indeed now. In the room where paralysis
+had fallen on him a bed was brought, and he lay nerveless on the verge
+of a still deeper silence. The hours went by. His eyes opened, he saw
+and recognised them all, but his look rested only on Faith and Soolsby;
+and, as time went on, these were the only faces to which he gave an
+answering look of understanding. Days wore away, but he neither spoke
+nor moved.
+
+People came and went softly, and he gave no heed. There was ever a
+trouble in his eyes when they were open. Only when Soolsby came did it
+seem to lessen. Faith saw this, and urged Soolsby to sit by him. She had
+questioned much concerning what had happened before the stroke fell,
+but Soolsby said only that the old man had been greatly troubled about
+David. Once Lady Eglington, frail and gentle and sympathetic, came, but
+the trouble deepened in his eyes, and the lids closed over them, so that
+he might not see her face.
+
+When she had gone, Soolsby, who had been present and had interpreted the
+old man's look according to a knowledge all his own, came over to the
+bed, leaned down and whispered: "I will speak now."
+
+Then the eyes opened, and a smile faintly flickered at the mouth.
+
+"I will speak now," Soolsby said again into the old man's ear.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV. THE VOICE THROUGH THE DOOR
+
+That night Soolsby tapped at the door of the lighted laboratory of the
+Cloistered House where Lord Eglington was at work; opened it, peered in,
+and stepped inside.
+
+With a glass retort in his hand Eglington faced him. "What's this--what
+do you want?" he demanded.
+
+"I want to try an experiment," answered Soolsby grimly.
+
+"Ah, a scientific turn!" rejoined Eglington coolly--looking at him
+narrowly, however. He was conscious of danger of some kind.
+
+Then for a minute neither spoke. Now that Soolsby had come to the moment
+for which he had waited for so many years, the situation was not what he
+had so often prefigured. The words he had chosen long ago were gone from
+his memory; in his ignorance of what had been a commonplace to Soolsby's
+dark reflection so long, the man he had meant to bring low stood up
+before him on his own ground, powerful and unabashed.
+
+Eglington wore a blue smock, and over his eyes was a green shade
+to protect them from the light, but they peered sharply out at the
+chair-maker, and were boldly alive to the unexpected. He was no physical
+coward, and, in any case, what reason had he for physical fear in the
+presence of this man weakened by vice and age? Yet ever since he was a
+boy there had existed between them an antagonism which had shown itself
+in many ways. There had ever been something sinister in Soolsby's
+attitude to his father and himself.
+
+Eglington vaguely knew that now he was to face some trial of mind and
+nerve, but with great deliberation he continued dropping liquid from a
+bottle into the glass retort he carried, his eyes, however, watchful of
+his visitor, who involuntarily stared around the laboratory.
+
+It was fifteen years since Soolsby had been in this room; and then he
+had faced this man's father with a challenge on his tongue such as he
+meant to speak now. The smell of the chemicals, the carboys filled with
+acids, the queer, tapering glasses with engraved measurements showing
+against the coloured liquids, the great blue bottles, the mortars and
+pestles, the microscopic instruments--all brought back the far-off,
+acrid scene between the late Earl and himself. Nothing had changed,
+except that now there were wires which gave out hissing sparks,
+electrical instruments invented since the earlier day; except that this
+man, gently dropping acids into the round white bottle upon a crystal
+which gave off musty fumes, was bolder, stronger, had more at stake than
+the other.
+
+Slowly Eglington moved back to put the retort on a long table against
+the wall, and Soolsby stepped forward till he stood where the electric
+sparks were gently hissing about him. Now Eglington leaned against the
+table, poured some alcohol on his fingers to cleanse the acid from them,
+and wiped them with a piece of linen, while he looked inquiringly at
+Soolsby. Still, Soolsby did not speak. Eglington lit a cigarette, and
+took away the shade from his eyes.
+
+"Well, now, what is your experiment?" he asked, "and why bring it here?
+Didn't you know the way to the stables or the scullery?"
+
+"I knew my way better here," answered Soolsby, steadying himself.
+
+"Ah, you've been here often?" asked Eglington nonchalantly, yet feeling
+for the cause of this midnight visit.
+
+"It is fifteen years since I was here, my lord. Then I came to see the
+Earl of Eglington."
+
+"And so history repeats itself every fifteen years! You came to see
+the Earl of Eglington then; you come to see the Earl of Eglington
+again--after fifteen years!"
+
+"I come to speak with him that's called the Earl of Eglington."
+
+Eglington's eyes half closed, as though the light hurt them. "That
+sounds communistic, or is it pure Quakerism? I believe they used to call
+my father Friend Robert till he backslided. But you are not a Quaker,
+Soolsby, so why be too familiar? Or is it merely the way of the old
+family friend?"
+
+"I knew your father before you were born, my lord--he troosted me then."
+
+"So long? And fifteen years ago--here?" He felt a menace, vague and
+penetrating. His eyes were hard and cruel.
+
+"It wasn't a question of troost then; 'twas one of right or
+wrong--naught else."
+
+"Ah--and who was right, and what was wrong?" At that moment there came
+a tap at the door leading into the living part of the house, and the
+butler entered. "The doctor--he has used up all his oxygen, my lord. He
+begs to know if you can give him some for Mr. Claridge. Mr. Claridge is
+bad to-night."
+
+A sinister smile passed over Eglington's face. "Who brings the message,
+Garry?"
+
+"A servant--Miss Claridge's, my lord."
+
+An ironical look came into Eglington's eyes; then they softened a
+little. In a moment he placed a jar of oxygen in the butler's hands.
+
+"My compliments to Miss Claridge, and I am happy to find my laboratory
+of use at last to my neighbours," he said, and the door closed upon the
+man.
+
+Then he came back thoughtfully. Soolsby had not moved.
+
+"Do you know what oxygen's for, Soolsby?" he asked quizzically.
+
+"No, my lord, I've never heerd tell of it."
+
+"Well, if you brought the top of Ben Lomond to the bottom of a
+coal-mine--breath to the breathless--that's it.
+
+"You've been doing that to Mr. Claridge, my lord?"
+
+"A little oxygen more or less makes all the difference to a man--it
+probably will to neighbour Claridge, Soolsby; and so I've done him a
+good turn."
+
+A grim look passed over Soolsby's face. "It's the first, I'm thinking,
+my lord, and none too soon; and it'll be the last, I'm thinking, too.
+It's many a year since this house was neighbourly to that."
+
+Eglington's eyes almost closed, as he studied the other's face; then he
+said: "I asked you a little while ago who was right and what was wrong
+when you came to see my father here fifteen years ago. Well?"
+
+Suddenly a thought flashed into his eyes, and it seemed to course
+through his veins like some anaesthetic, for he grew very still, and a
+minute passed before he added quietly: "Was it a thing between my father
+and Luke Claridge? There was trouble--well, what was it?" All at once
+he seemed to rise above the vague anxiety that possessed him, and he
+fingered inquiringly a long tapering glass of acids on the bench beside
+him. "There's been so much mystery, and I suppose it was nothing, after
+all. What was it all about? Or do you know--eh? Fifteen years ago you
+came to see my father, and now you have come to see me--all in the light
+o' the moon, as it were; like a villain in a play. Ah, yes, you said
+it was to make an experiment--yet you didn't know what oxygen was! It's
+foolish making experiments, unless you know what you are playing with,
+Soolsby. See, here are two glasses." He held them up. "If I poured one
+into the other, we'd have an experiment--and you and I would be picked
+up in fragments and carried away in a basket. And that wouldn't be a
+successful experiment, Soolsby."
+
+"I'm not so sure of that, my lord. Some things would be put right then."
+
+"H'm, there would be a new Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and--"
+
+"And Claridge Pasha would come back from Egypt, my lord," was the sharp
+interjection. Suddenly Soolsby's anger flared up, his hands twitched.
+"You had your chance to be a friend to him, my lord. You promised
+her yonder at the Red Mansion that you would help him--him that never
+wronged you, him you always wronged, and you haven't lifted hand to help
+him in his danger. A moment since you asked me who was right and what
+was wrong. You shall know. If you had treated him right, I'd have held
+my peace, and kept my word to her that's gone these thirty-odd years.
+I'll hold it no more, and so I told Luke Claridge. I've been silent, but
+not for your father's sake or yours, for he was as cruel as you, with no
+heart, and a conscience like a pin's head, not big enough for use... Ay,
+you shall know. You are no more the Earl of Eglington than me.
+
+"The Earl of Eglington is your elder brother, called David Claridge."
+
+As Soolsby's words poured forth passionately, weighty, Eglington
+listened like one in a dream. Since this man entered the laboratory
+fifty reasons for his coming had flashed across his mind; he had
+prepared himself at many corners for defence, he had rallied every
+mental resource, he had imagined a dozen dangerous events which his
+father and Luke Claridge shared--with the balance against his father;
+but this thing was beyond all speculation. Yet on the instant the words
+were said he had a conviction of their inevitable truth. Even as they
+were uttered, kaleidoscopic memories rushed in, and David's face,
+figure, personal characteristics, flashed before him. He saw, he felt,
+the likeness to his father and himself; a thousand things were explained
+that could only be explained by this fatal fact launched at him without
+warning. It was as though, fully armed for his battle of life, he had
+suddenly been stripped of armour and every weapon, and left naked on
+the field. But he had the mind of the gamester, and the true gamester's
+self-control. He had taken chances so often that the tornado of ill-luck
+left him standing.
+
+"What proof have you?" he asked quietly. Soolsby's explicit answer left
+no ground for doubt. He had not asked the question with any idea of
+finding gaps in the evidence, but rather to find if there were a chance
+for resistance, of escape, anywhere. The marriage certificate existed;
+identification of James Fetherdon with his father could be established
+by Soolsby and Luke Claridge.
+
+Soolsby and Luke Claridge! Luke Claridge--he could not help but smile
+cynically, for he was composed and calculating now. A few minutes ago
+he had sent a jar of oxygen to keep Luke Claridge alive! But for it one
+enemy to his career, to his future, would be gone. He did not shrink
+from the thought. Born a gentleman, there were in him some degenerate
+characteristics which heart could not drown or temperament refine.
+Selfishness was inwoven with every fibre of his nature.
+
+Now, as he stood with eyes fixed on Soolsby, the world seemed to narrow
+down to this laboratory. It was a vacuum where sensation was suspended,
+and the million facts of ordinary existence disappeared into inactivity.
+There was a fine sense of proportion in it all. Only the bare essential
+things that concerned him remained: David Claridge was the Earl of
+Eglington, this man before him knew, Luke Claridge knew; and there was
+one thing yet to know! When he spoke his voice showed no excitement--the
+tones were even, colourless.
+
+"Does he know?" In these words he acknowledged that he believed the tale
+told him.
+
+Soolsby had expected a different attitude; he was not easier in mind
+because his story had not been challenged. He blindly felt working in
+the man before him a powerful mind, more powerful because it faced the
+truth unflinchingly; but he knew that this did not mean calm acceptance
+of the consequences. He, not Eglington, was dazed and embarrassed, was
+not equal to the situation. He moved uneasily, changed his position.
+
+"Does he know?" Eglington questioned again quietly. There was no need
+for Eglington to explain who he was.
+
+"Of course he does not know--I said so. If he knew, do you think he'd be
+in Egypt and you here, my lord?"
+
+Eglington was very quiet. His intellect more than his passions were now
+at work.
+
+"I am not sure. You never can tell. This might not mean much to him. He
+has got his work cut out; he wasn't brought up to this. What he has done
+is in line with the life he has lived as a pious Quaker. What good would
+it do to bring him back? I have been brought up to it; I am used to it;
+I have worked things out 'according to the state of life to which I was
+called.' Take what I've always had away from me, and I am crippled; give
+him what he never had, and it doesn't work into his scheme. It would
+do him no good and me harm--Where's the use? Besides, I am still my
+father's son. Don't you see how unreasonable you are? Luke Claridge was
+right. He knew that he and his belonged to a different sphere. He didn't
+speak. Why do you speak now after all these years when we are all set in
+our grooves? It's silly to disturb us, Soolsby."
+
+The voice was low, persuasive, and searching; the mind was working as it
+had never worked before, to achieve an end by peaceful means, when war
+seemed against him. And all the time he was fascinated by the fact that
+Soolsby's hand was within a few inches of a live electric wire, which,
+if he touched, would probably complete "the experiment" he had come
+to make; and what had been the silence of a generation would continue
+indefinitely. It was as though Fate had deliberately tempted him and
+arranged the necessary conditions, for Soolsby's feet were in a little
+pool of liquid which had been spilled on the floor--the experiment was
+exact and real.
+
+For minutes he had watched Soolsby's hand near the wire-had watched as
+he talked, and his talk was his argument for non-interference against
+warning the man who had come to destroy him and his career. Why had Fate
+placed that hand so near the wire there, and provided the other perfect
+conditions for tragedy? Why should he intervene? It would never have
+crossed his mind to do Soolsby harm, yet here, as the man's arm was
+stretched out to strike him, Fate offered an escape. Luke Claridge was
+stricken with paralysis, no doubt would die; Soolsby alone stood in his
+way.
+
+"You see, Soolsby, it has gone on too long," he added, in a low,
+penetrating tone. "It would be a crime to alter things now. Give him the
+earldom and the estates, and his work in Egypt goes to pieces; he will
+be spoiled for all he wants to do. I've got my faults, but, on the
+whole, I'm useful, and I play my part here, as I was born to it, as well
+as most. Anyhow, it's no robbery for me to have what has been mine by
+every right except the accident of being born after him. I think you'll
+see that you will do a good thing to let it all be. Luke Claridge, if
+he was up and well, wouldn't thank you for it--have you got any right to
+give him trouble, too? Besides, I've saved his life to-night, and... and
+perhaps I might save yours, Soolsby, if it was in danger."
+
+Soolsby's hand had moved slightly. It was only an inch from the wire.
+For an instant the room was terribly still.
+
+An instant, and it might be too late. An instant, and Soolsby would be
+gone. Eglington watched the hand which had been resting on the table
+turn slowly over to the wire. Why should he intervene? Was it his
+business? This thing was not his doing. Destiny had laid the train of
+circumstance and accident, and who was stronger than Destiny? In spite
+of himself his eyes fixed themselves on Soolsby's hand. It was but a
+hair's breadth from the wire. The end would come now. Suddenly a voice
+was heard outside the door. "Eglington!" it called.
+
+Soolsby started, his hand drew spasmodically away from the wire, and he
+stepped back quickly.
+
+The door opened, and Hylda entered.
+
+"Mr. Claridge is dead, Eglington," she said. Destiny had decided.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI. "I OWE YOU NOTHING"
+
+Beside the grave under the willow-tree another grave had been made.
+It was sprinkled with the fallen leaves of autumn. In the Red Mansion
+Faith's delicate figure moved forlornly among relics of an austere,
+beloved figure vanished from the apricot-garden and the primitive
+simplicity of wealth combined with narrow thought.
+
+Since her father's death, the bereaved girl had been occupied by matters
+of law and business, by affairs of the estate; but the first pressure
+was over, long letters had been written to David which might never reach
+him; and now, when the strain was withdrawn, the gentle mind was lost in
+a grey mist of quiet suffering. In Hamley there were but two in whom she
+had any real comfort and help--Lady Eglington and the old chair-maker.
+Of an afternoon or evening one or the other was to be seen in the long
+high-wainscoted room, where a great fire burned, or in the fruitless
+garden where the breeze stirred the bare branches.
+
+Almost as deep a quiet brooded in the Cloistered House as in the home
+where mourning enjoined movement in a minor key. Hylda had not recovered
+wholly from the illness which had stricken her down on that day in
+London when she had sought news of David from Eglington, at such cost to
+her peace and health and happiness. Then had come her slow convalescence
+in Hamley, and long days of loneliness, in which Eglington seemed to
+retreat farther and farther from her inner life. Inquiries had poured in
+from friends in town, many had asked to come and see her; flowers came
+from one or two who loved her benignly, like Lord Windlehurst; and now
+and then she had some cheerful friend with her who cared for music or
+could sing; and then the old home rang; but she was mostly alone, and
+Eglington was kept in town by official business the greater part of each
+week. She did not gain strength as quickly as she ought to have done,
+and this was what brought the Duchess of Snowdon down on a special
+mission one day of early November.
+
+Ever since the night she had announced Luke Claridge's death to
+Eglington, had discovered Soolsby with him, had seen the look in her
+husband's face and caught the tension of the moment on which she had
+broken, she had been haunted by a hovering sense of trouble. What had
+Soolsby been doing in the laboratory at that time of night? What was the
+cause of this secret meeting? All Hamley knew--she had long known--how
+Luke Claridge had held the Cloistered House in abhorrence, and she knew
+also that Soolsby worshipped David and Faith, and, whatever the cause
+of the family antipathy, championed it. She was conscious of a shadow
+somewhere, and behind it all was the name of David's father, James
+Fetherdon. That last afternoon when she had talked with him, and he had
+told her of his life, she had recalled the name as one she had seen or
+heard, and it had floated into her mind at last that she had seen it
+among the papers and letters of the late Countess of Eglington.
+
+As the look in Eglington's face the night she came upon him and Soolsby
+in the laboratory haunted her, so the look in her own face had haunted
+Soolsby. Her voice announcing Luke Claridge's death had suddenly opened
+up a new situation to him. It stunned him; and afterwards, as he saw
+Hylda with Faith in the apricot-garden, or walking in the grounds of the
+Cloistered House hour after hour alone or with her maid, he became vexed
+by a problem greater than had yet perplexed him. It was one thing to
+turn Eglington out of his lands and home and title; it was another thing
+to strike this beautiful being, whose smile had won him from the first,
+whose voice, had he but known, had saved his life. Perhaps the truth in
+some dim way was conveyed to him, for he came to think of her a little
+as he thought of Faith.
+
+Since the moment when he had left the laboratory and made his way to the
+Red Mansion, he and Eglington had never met face to face; and he avoided
+a meeting. He was not a blackmailer, he had no personal wrongs to
+avenge, he had not sprung the bolt of secrecy for evil ends; and when
+he saw the possible results of his disclosure, he was unnerved. His mind
+had seen one thing only, the rights of "Our Man," the wrong that had
+been done him and his mother; but now he saw how the sword of justice,
+which he had kept by his hand these many years, would cut both ways.
+His mind was troubled, too, that he had spoken while yet Luke Claridge
+lived, and so broken his word to Mercy Claridge. If he had but waited
+till the old man died--but one brief half-hour--his pledge would have
+been kept. Nothing had worked out wholly as he expected. The heavens had
+not fallen. The "second-best lordship" still came and went, the wheels
+went round as usual. There was no change; yet, as he sat in his hut and
+looked down into the grounds of the Cloistered House, he kept saying to
+himself.
+
+"It had to be told. It's for my lord now. He knows the truth. I'll wait
+and see. It's for him to do right by Our Man that's beyond and away."
+
+The logic and fairness of this position, reached after much thinking,
+comforted him. He had done his duty so far. If, in the end, the
+"second-best lordship" failed to do his part, hid the truth from the
+world, refused to do right by his half-brother, the true Earl, then
+would be time to act again. Also he waited for word out of Egypt; and he
+had a superstitious belief that David would return, that any day might
+see him entering the door of the Red Mansion.
+
+Eglington himself was haunted by a spectre which touched his elbow by
+day, and said: "You are not the Earl of Eglington," and at night laid
+a clammy finger on his forehead, waking him, and whispering in his ear:
+"If Soolsby had touched the wire, all would now be well!" And as deep as
+thought and feeling in him lay, he felt that Fate had tricked
+him--Fate and Hylda. If Hylda had not come at that crucial instant, the
+chairmaker's but on the hill would be empty. Why had not Soolsby told
+the world the truth since? Was the man waiting to see what course he
+himself would take? Had the old chair-maker perhaps written the truth to
+the Egyptian--to his brother David.
+
+His brother! The thought irritated every nerve in him. No note of
+kindness or kinship or blood stirred in him. If, before, he had
+had innate antagonism and a dark, hovering jealousy, he had a black
+repugnance now--the antipathy of the lesser to the greater nature, of
+the man in the wrong to the man in the right.
+
+And behind it all was the belief that his wife had set David above
+him--by how much or in what fashion he did not stop to consider; but it
+made him desire that death and the desert would swallow up his father's
+son and leave no trace behind.
+
+Policy? His work in the Foreign Office now had but one policy so far
+as Egypt was concerned. The active sophistry in him made him advocate
+non-intervention in Egyptian affairs as diplomatic wisdom, though it was
+but personal purpose; and he almost convinced himself that he was acting
+from a national stand-point. Kaid and Claridge Pasha pursued their
+course of civilisation in the Soudan, and who could tell what danger
+might not bring forth? If only Soolsby held his peace yet a while!
+
+Did Faith know? Luke Claridge was gone without speaking, but had Soolsby
+told Faith? How closely had he watched the faces round him at Luke
+Claridge's funeral, to see if they betrayed any knowledge!
+
+Anxious days had followed that night in the laboratory. His boundless
+egotism had widened the chasm between Hylda and himself, which had been
+made on the day when she fell ill in London, with Lacey's letter in
+her hand. It had not grown less in the weeks that followed. He nursed
+a grievance which had, so far as he knew, no foundation in fact; he was
+vaguely jealous of a man--his brother--thousands of miles away; he was
+not certain how far Hylda had pierced the disguise of sincerity which he
+himself had always worn, or how far she understood him. He thought that
+she shrank from what she had seen of his real self, much or little, and
+he was conscious of so many gifts and abilities and attractive personal
+qualities that he felt a sense of injury. Yet what would his position
+be without her? Suppose David should return and take the estates and
+titles, and suppose that she should close her hand upon her fortune and
+leave him, where would he be?
+
+He thought of all this as he sat in his room at the Foreign Office
+and looked over St. James's Park, his day's work done. He was suddenly
+seized by a new-born anxiety, for he had been so long used to the open
+purse and the unchecked stream of gold, had taken it so much as a matter
+of course, as not to realise the possibility of its being withdrawn.
+He was conscious of a kind of meanness and ugly sordidness in the
+suggestion; but the stake--his future, his career, his position in the
+world--was too high to allow him to be too chivalrous. His sense of the
+real facts was perverted. He said to himself that he must be practical.
+
+Moved by the new thought, he seized a time-table and looked up the
+trains. He had been ten days in town, receiving every morning a little
+note from Hylda telling of what she had done each day; a calm, dutiful
+note, written without pretence, and out of a womanly affection with
+which she surrounded the man who, it seemed once--such a little while
+ago--must be all in all to her. She had no element of pretence in her.
+What she could give she gave freely, and it was just what it appeared to
+be. He had taken it all as his due, with an underlying belief that, if
+he chose to make love to her again, he could blind her to all else in
+the world. Hurt vanity and egotism and jealousy had prevented him from
+luring her back to that fine atmosphere in which he had hypnotised her
+so few years ago. But suddenly, as he watched the swans swimming in the
+pond below, a new sense of approaching loss, all that Hylda had meant
+in his march and progress, came upon him; and he hastened to return to
+Hamley.
+
+Getting out of the train at Heddington, he made up his mind to walk home
+by the road that David had taken on his return from Egypt, and he left
+word at the station that he would send for his luggage.
+
+His first objective was Soolsby's hut, and, long before he reached it,
+darkness had fallen. From a light shining through the crack of the blind
+he knew that Soolsby was at home. He opened the door and entered without
+knocking. Soolsby was seated at a table, a map and a newspaper spread
+out before him. Egypt and David, always David and Egypt!
+
+Soolsby got to his feet slowly, his eyes fixed inquiringly on his
+visitor.
+
+"I didn't knock," said Eglington, taking off his greatcoat and reaching
+for a chair; then added, as he seated himself: "Better sit down,
+Soolsby."
+
+After a moment he continued: "Do you mind my smoking?"
+
+Soolsby did not reply, but sat down again. He watched Eglington light a
+cigar and stretch out his hands to the wood fire with an air of comfort.
+
+A silence followed. Eglington appeared to forget the other's presence,
+and to occupy himself with thoughts that glimmered in the fire.
+
+At last Soolsby said moodily: "What have you come for, my lord?"
+
+"Oh, I am my lord still, am I?" Eglington returned lazily. "Is it a
+genealogical tree you are studying there?" He pointed to the map.
+
+"I've studied your family tree with care, as you should know, my lord;
+and a map of Egypt"--he tapped the parchment before him--"goes well with
+it. And see, my lord, Egypt concerns you too. Lord Eglington is there,
+and 'tis time he was returning-ay, 'tis time."
+
+There was a baleful look in Soolsby's eyes. Whatever he might think,
+whatever considerations might arise at other times, a sinister feeling
+came upon him when Eglington was with him.
+
+"And, my lord," he went on, "I'd be glad to know that you've sent for
+him, and told him the truth."
+
+"Have you?" Eglington flicked the ash from his cigar, speaking coolly.
+
+Soolsby looked at him with his honest blue eyes aflame, and answered
+deliberately: "I was not for taking your place, my lord. 'Twas my duty
+to tell you, but the rest was between you and the Earl of Eglington."
+
+"That was thoughtful of you, Soolsby. And Miss Claridge?"
+
+"I told you that night, my lord, that only her father and myself knew;
+and what was then is now."
+
+A look of relief stole across Eglington's face. "Of course--of course.
+These things need a lot of thought, Soolsby. One must act with care--no
+haste, no flurry, no mistakes."
+
+"I would not wait too long, my lord, or be too careful." There was
+menace in the tone.
+
+"But if you go at things blind, you're likely to hurt where you don't
+mean to hurt. When you're mowing in a field by a school-house, you must
+look out for the children asleep in the grass. Sometimes the longest way
+round is the shortest way home."
+
+"Do you mean to do it or not, my lord? I've left it to you as a
+gentleman."
+
+"It's going to upset more than you think, Soolsby. Suppose he, out
+there in Egypt"--he pointed again to the map--"doesn't thank me for the
+information. Suppose he says no, and--"
+
+"Right's right. Give him the chance, my lord. How can you know, unless
+you tell him the truth?"
+
+"Do you like living, Soolsby?"
+
+"Do you want to kill me, my lord?"
+
+There was a dark look in Eglington's face. "But answer me, do you want
+to live?"
+
+"I want to live long enough to see the Earl of Eglington in his own
+house."
+
+"Well, I've made that possible. The other night when you were telling me
+your little story, you were near sending yourself into eternity--as
+near as I am knocking this ash off my cigar." His little finger almost
+touched the ash. "Your hand was as near touching a wire charged with
+death. I saw it. It would have been better for me if you had gone; but I
+shut off the electricity. Suppose I hadn't, could I have been blamed?
+It would have been an accident. Providence did not intervene; I did. You
+owe me something, Soolsby."
+
+Soolsby stared at him almost blindly for a moment. A mist was before his
+eyes; but through the mist, though he saw nothing of this scene in
+which he now was, he saw the laboratory, and himself and Eglington, and
+Eglington's face as it peered at him, and, just before the voice called
+outside, Eglington's eyes fastened on his hand. It all flashed upon him
+now, and he saw himself starting back at the sound of the voice.
+
+Slowly he got up now, went to the door, and opened it. "My lord, it is
+not true," he said. "You have not spoken like a gentleman. It was
+my lady's voice that saved me. This is my castle, my lord--you lodge
+yonder." He pointed down into the darkness where the lights of the
+village shone. "I owe you nothing. I pay my debts. Pay yours, my lord,
+to him that's beyond and away."
+
+Eglington kept his countenance as he drew on his great-coat and slowly
+passed from the house.
+
+"I ought to have let you die, Soolsby. Y'ou'll think better of this
+soon. But it's quite right to leave the matter to me. It may take a
+little time, but everything will come right. Justice shall be done.
+Well, good night, Soolsby. You live too much alone, and imagination is a
+bad thing for the lonely. Good night-good night."
+
+Going down the hill quickly, he said to himself: "A sort of second sight
+he had about that wire. But time is on my side, time and the Soudan--and
+'The heathen in his blindness....' I will keep what is mine. I will keep
+it!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII. THE AWAKENING
+
+In her heart of hearts Hylda had not greatly welcomed the Duchess of
+Snowdon to Hamley. There was no one whose friendship she prized more;
+but she was passing through a phase of her life when she felt that
+she was better apart, finding her own path by those intuitions and
+perceptions which belonged to her own personal experience. She vaguely
+felt, what all realise sooner or later, that we must live our dark hours
+alone.
+
+Yet the frank downright nature of the once beautiful, now faded,
+Duchess, the humorous glimmer in the pale-blue eyes, the droll irony
+and dry truth of her speech, appealed to Hylda, made her smile a warm
+greeting when she would rather have been alone. For, a few days before,
+she had begun a quest which had absorbed her, fascinated her. The miner,
+finding his way across the gap of a reef to pick up the vein of quartz
+at some distant and uncertain point, could not have been more lost
+to the world than was the young wife searching for a family skeleton,
+indefinitely embodied in her imagination by the name, James Fetherdon.
+
+Pile after pile of papers and letters of the late Earl and his Countess
+had passed through her hands from chaos to order. As she had read, hour
+after hour, the diaries of the cold, blue-eyed woman, Sybil Eglington,
+who had lived without love of either husband or son, as they, in turn,
+lived without love of each other, she had been overwhelmed by the
+revelation of a human heart, whose powers of expression were smothered
+by a shy and awkward temperament. The late Countess's letters were the
+unclothing of a heart which had never expanded to the eyes of those
+whose love would have broken up a natural reserve, which became at last
+a proud coldness, and gave her a reputation for lack of feeling that she
+carried to her grave.
+
+In the diaries which Hylda unearthed--the Countess had died
+suddenly--was the muffled cry of a soul tortured through different
+degrees of misunderstanding; from the vague pain of suffered
+indifference, of being left out of her husband's calculations, to the
+blank neglect narrowing her life down to a tiny stream of duty, which
+was finally lost in the sands. She had died abroad, and alone, save for
+her faithful maid, who, knowing the chasm that lay between her mistress
+and her lord, had brought her letters and papers back to the Cloistered
+House, and locked them away with all the other papers and correspondence
+which the Countess had accumulated.
+
+Among these papers was a letter to the late Lord Eglington written the
+day before she died. In the haste and confusion ensuing on her death,
+the maid had not seen it. It had never reached his hands, but lay in a
+pocket of the dead woman's writing-portfolio, which Hylda had explored
+without discovering. Only a few hours, however, before the Duchess
+of Snowdon came, Hylda had found again an empty envelope on which was
+written the name, James Fetherdon. The writing on the envelope was that
+of Sybil Lady Eglington.
+
+When she discovered the envelope, a sense of mystery and premonition
+possessed her. What was the association between the Countess of
+Eglington and James Fetherdon, the father of David Claridge? In vain she
+searched among the voluminous letters and papers, for it would seem that
+the dead woman had saved every letter she received, and kept copies of
+numberless letters she had written. But she had searched without avail.
+Even the diaries, curiously frank and without reserve, never mentioned
+the name, so far as she could find, though here and there were strange
+allusive references, hints of a trouble that weighed her down, phrases
+of exasperation and defiance. One phrase, or the idea in it, was,
+however, much repeated in the diaries during the course of years, and
+towards the last almost feverishly emphasised--"Why should I bear it for
+one who would bear nothing for me, for his sake, who would do nothing
+for my sake? Is it only the mother in me, not the love in me?"
+
+These words were haunting Hylda's brain when the telegram from the
+Duchess of Snowdon came. They followed her to Heddington, whither she
+went in the carriage to bring her visitor to Hamley, and kept repeating
+themselves at the back of her mind through the cheerful rallying of the
+Duchess, who spread out the wings of good-humour and motherly freedom
+over her.
+
+After all, it was an agreeable thing to be taken possession of, and "put
+in her proper place," as the Duchess said; made to understand that her
+own affairs were not so important, after all; and that it was far more
+essential to hear the charming gossip about the new and most popular
+Princess of Wales, or the quarrel between Dickens and Thackeray. Yet,
+after dinner, in the little sitting-room, where the Duchess, in a white
+gown with great pink bows, fitter for a girl fresh from Confirmation,
+and her cheeks with their fixed colour, which changed only at the
+discretion of her maid, babbled of nothing that mattered, Hylda's mind
+kept turning to the book of life an unhappy woman had left behind her.
+The sitting-room had been that of the late Countess also, and on the
+wall was an oil-painting of her, stately and distant and not very
+alluring, though the mouth had a sweetness which seemed unable to break
+into a smile.
+
+"What was she really like--that wasn't her quite, was it?" asked Hylda,
+at last, leaning her chin on the hand which held the 'cello she had been
+playing.
+
+"Oh, yes, it's Sybil Eglington, my dear, but done in wood; and she
+wasn't the graven image that makes her out to be. That's as most people
+saw her; as the fellow that painted her saw her; but she had another
+side to her. She disapproved of me rather, because I was squeezing the
+orange dry, and trying to find yesterday's roses in to-morrow's garden.
+But she didn't shut her door in my face--it's hard to do that to a
+Duchess; which is one of the few advantages of living naked in the
+street, as it were, with only the strawberry leaves to clothe you. No,
+Sybil Eglington was a woman who never had her chance. Your husband's
+forbears were difficult, my dear. They didn't exactly draw you out.
+She needed drawing out; and her husband drove her back into her corner,
+where she sulked rather till she died--died alone at Wiesbaden, with
+a German doctor, a stray curate, and a stuttering maid to wish her bon
+voyage. Yet I fancy she went glad enough, for she had no memories, not
+even an affaire to repent of, and to cherish. La, la! she wasn't so
+stupid, Sybil there, and she was an ornament to her own sex and the
+despair of the other. His Serene Highness Heinrich of Saxe-Gunden
+fancied the task of breaking that ice, and he was an adept and an
+Apollo, but it broke his reputation instead.
+
+"No doubt she is happy now. I shall probably never see!"
+
+In spite of the poignant nature of the talk, Hylda could not but smile
+at the last words.
+
+"Don't despair," she rejoined; "one star differeth from another star in
+glory, but that is no reason why they should not be on visiting terms."
+
+"My dear, you may laugh--you may laugh, but I am sixty-five, and I
+am not laughing at the idea of what company I may be obliged to keep
+presently. In any case I'm sure I shall not be comfortable. If I'm
+where she is, I shall be dull; if I'm where her husband is, I'll have
+no reputation; and if there is one thing I want, it is a spotless
+reputation--sometime."
+
+Hylda laughed--the manner and the voice were so droll--but her face
+saddened too, and her big eyes with the drooping lashes looked up
+pensively at the portrait of her husband's mother.
+
+"Was it ever a happy family, or a lucky family?" she asked.
+
+"It's lucky now, and it ought to be happy now," was the meaning reply.
+
+Hylda made no answer, but caught the strings of the 'cello lightly,
+and shook her head reprovingly, with a smile meant to be playful. For a
+moment she played, humming to herself, and then the Duchess touched the
+hand that was drawing the bow softly across the strings. She had behind
+her garishness a gift for sympathy and a keen intuition, delicacy, and
+allusiveness. She knew what to say and what to leave unsaid, when her
+heart was moved.
+
+"My darling," she said now, "you are not quite happy; but that is
+because you don't allow yourself to get well. You've never recovered
+from your attack last summer; and you won't, until you come out into
+the world again and see people. This autumn you ought to have been at
+Homburg or at Aix, where you'd take a little cure of waters and a great
+deal of cure of people. You were born to bask in friendship and the sun,
+and to draw from the world as much as you deserve, a little from many,
+for all you give in return. Because, dearest, you are a very agreeable
+person, with enough wit and humanity to make it worth the world's while
+to conspire to make you do what will give it most pleasure, and let
+yourself get most--and that's why I've come."
+
+"What a person of importance I am!" answered Hylda, with a laugh that
+was far from mirthful, though she caught the plump, wrinkled little hand
+of the Duchess and pressed it. "But really I'm getting well here
+fast. I'm very strong again. It is so restful, and one's days go by so
+quietly."
+
+"Yet, I'm not sure that it's rest you want. I don't think it is. You
+want tonics--men and women and things. Monte Carlo would do you a world
+of good--I'd go with you. Eglington gambles here"--she watched Hylda
+closely--"why shouldn't you gamble there?"
+
+"Eglington gambles?" Hylda's face took on a frightened look, then
+it cleared again, and she smiled. "Oh, of course, with international
+affairs, you mean. Well, I must stay here and be the croupier."
+
+"Nonsense! Eglington is his own croupier. Besides, he is so much in
+London, and you so much here. You sit with the distaff; he throws the
+dice."
+
+Hylda's lips tightened a little. Her own inner life, what Eglington was
+to her or she to Eglington, was for the ears of no human being, however
+friendly. She had seen little of him of late, but in one sense that had
+been a relief, though she would have done anything to make that feeling
+impossible. His rather precise courtesy and consideration, when he
+was with her, emphasised the distance between "the first fine careless
+rapture" and this grey quiet. And, strange to say, though in the first
+five years after the Cairo days and deeds, Egypt seemed an infinite
+space away, and David a distant, almost legendary figure, now Egypt
+seemed but beyond the door--as though, opening it, she would stand
+near him who represented the best of all that she might be capable of
+thinking. Yet all the time she longed for Eglington to come and say one
+word, which would be like touching the lever of the sluice-gates of
+her heart, to let loose the flood. As the space grew between her and
+Eglington, her spirit trembled, she shrank back, because she saw that
+sea towards which she was drifting.
+
+As she did not answer the last words of the Duchess, the latter said
+presently: "When do you expect Eglington?"
+
+"Not till the week-end; it is a busy week with him," Hylda answered;
+then added hastily, though she had not thought of it till this moment:
+"I shall probably go up to town with you to-morrow."
+
+She did not know that Eglington was already in the house, and had given
+orders to the butler that she was not to be informed of his arrival for
+the present.
+
+"Well, if you get that far, will you come with me to the Riviera, or
+to Florence, or Sicily--or Cairo?" the other asked, adjusting her
+gold-brown wig with her babyish hands.
+
+Cairo! Cairo! A light shot up into Hylda's eyes. The Duchess had spoken
+without thought, but, as she spoke, she watched the sudden change in
+Hylda. What did it mean? Cairo--why should Cairo have waked her so?
+Suddenly she recalled certain vague references of Lord Windlehurst, and,
+for the first time, she associated Hylda with Claridge Pasha in a way
+which might mean much, account for much, in this life she was leading.
+
+"Perhaps! Perhaps!" answered Hylda abstractedly, after a moment.
+
+The Duchess got to her feet. She had made progress. She would let her
+medicine work.
+
+"I'm going to bed, my dear. I'm sixty-five, and I take my sleep when I
+can get it. Think it over, Sicily--Cairo!"
+
+She left the room, saying to herself that Eglington was a fool, and
+that danger was ahead. "But I hold a red light--poor darling!" she said
+aloud, as she went up the staircase. She did not know that Eglington,
+standing in a deep doorway, heard her, and seized upon the words eagerly
+and suspiciously, and turned them over in his mind.
+
+Below, at the desk where Eglington's mother used to write, Hylda sat
+with a bundle of letters before her. For some moments she opened,
+glanced through them, and put them aside. Presently she sat back in her
+chair, thinking--her mind was invaded by the last words of the Duchess;
+and somehow they kept repeating themselves with the words in the late
+Countess's diary: "Is it only the mother in me, not the love in me?"
+Mechanically her hand moved over the portfolio of the late Countess, and
+it involuntarily felt in one of its many pockets. Her hand came upon
+a letter. This had remained when the others had been taken out. It was
+addressed to the late Earl, and was open. She hesitated a moment, then,
+with a strange premonition and a tightening of her heart-strings, she
+spread it out and read it.
+
+At first she could scarcely see because of the mist in her eyes; but
+presently her sight cleared, and she read quickly, her cheeks burning
+with excitement, her heart throbbing violently. The letter was the
+last expression of a disappointed and barren life. The slow, stammering
+tongue of an almost silent existence had found the fulness of speech.
+The fountains of the deep had been broken up, and Sybil Eglington's
+repressed emotions, undeveloped passions, tortured by mortal sufferings,
+and refined and vitalised by the atmosphere blown in upon her last hours
+from the Hereafter, were set free, given voice and power at last.
+
+The letter reviewed the life she had lived with her husband during
+twenty-odd years, reproved herself for not speaking out and telling him
+his faults at the beginning, and for drawing in upon herself, when she
+might have compelled him to a truer understanding; and, when all
+that was said, called him to such an account as only the dying might
+make--the irrevocable, disillusionising truth which may not be altered,
+the poignant record of failure and its causes.
+
+   "... I could not talk well, I never could, as a girl," the
+   letter ran; "and you could talk like one inspired, and so
+   speciously, so overwhelmingly, that I felt I could say nothing in
+   disagreement, not anything but assent; while all the time I felt how
+   hollow was so much you said--a cloak of words to cover up the real
+   thought behind. Before I knew the truth, I felt the shadow of
+   secrecy in your life. When you talked most, I felt you most
+   secretive, and the feeling slowly closed the door upon all frankness
+   and sympathy and open speech between us. I was always shy and self-
+   conscious and self-centred, and thought little of myself; and I
+   needed deep love and confidence and encouragement to give out what
+   was in me. I gave nothing out, nothing to you that you wanted, or
+   sought for, or needed. You were complete, self-contained. Harry,
+   my beloved babe Harry, helped at first; but, as the years went on,
+   he too began to despise me for my little intellect and slow
+   intelligence, and he grew to be like you in all things--and
+   secretive also, though I tried so hard to be to him what a mother
+   should be. Oh, Bobby, Bobby--I used to call you that in the days
+   before we were married, and I will call you that now when all is
+   over and done--why did you not tell me all? Why did you not tell me
+   that my boy, my baby Harry, was not your only child, that there had
+   been another wife, and that your eldest son was alive?
+
+   "I know all. I have known all for years. The clergyman who married
+   you to Mercy Claridge was a distant relative of my mother's, and
+   before he died he told me. When you married her, he knew you only
+   as James Fetherdon, but, years afterwards, he saw and recognised
+   you. He held his peace then, but at last he came to me. And I did
+   not speak. I was not strong enough, nor good enough, to face the
+   trouble of it all. I could not endure the scandal, to see my own
+   son take the second place--he is so brilliant and able and
+   unscrupulous, like yourself; but, oh, so sure of winning a great
+   place in the world, surer than yourself ever was, he is so
+   calculating and determined and ambitious! And though he loves me
+   little, as he loves you little, too, yet he is my son, and for what
+   he is we are both responsible, one way or another; and I had not the
+   courage to give him the second place, and the Quaker, David
+   Claridge, the first place. Why Luke Claridge, his grandfather,
+   chose the course he did, does not concern me, no more than why you
+   chose secrecy, and kept your own firstborn legitimate son, of whom
+   you might well be proud, a stranger to you and his rights all these
+   years. Ah, Eglington, you never knew what love was, you never had
+   a heart--experiment, subterfuge, secrecy, 'reaping where you had
+   not sowed, and gathering where you had not strawed.' Always,
+   experiment, experiment, experiment!
+
+   "I shall be gone in a few hours--I feel it, but before I go I must
+   try to do right, and to warn you. I have had such bad dreams about
+   you and Harry--they haunt me--that I am sure you will suffer
+   terribly, will have some awful tragedy, unless you undo what was
+   done long ago, and tell the truth to the world, and give your titles
+   and estates where they truly belong. Near to death, seeing how
+   little life is, and how much right is in the end, I am sure that I
+   was wrong in holding my peace; for Harry cannot prosper with this
+   black thing behind him, and you cannot die happy if you smother up
+   the truth. Night after night I have dreamed of you in your
+   laboratory, a vague, dark, terrifying dream of you in that
+   laboratory which I have hated so. It has always seemed to me the
+   place where some native evil and cruelty in your blood worked out
+   its will. I know I am an ignorant woman, with no brain, but God has
+   given me clear sight at the last, and the things I see are true
+   things, and I must warn you. Remember that...."
+
+The letter ended there. She had been interrupted or seized with illness,
+and had never finished it, and had died a few hours afterwards; and the
+letter was now, for the first time, read by her whom it most concerned,
+into whose heart and soul the words sank with an immitigable pain
+and agonised amazement. A few moments with this death-document had
+transformed Hylda's life.
+
+Her husband and--and David, were sons of the same father; and the
+name she bore, the home in which she was living, the estates the title
+carried, were not her husband's, but another's--David's. She fell back
+in her chair, white and faint, but, with a great effort, she conquered
+the swimming weakness which blinded her. Sons of the same father! The
+past flashed before her, the strange likeness she had observed, the
+trick of the head, the laugh, the swift gesture, the something in the
+voice. She shuddered as she had done in reading the letter. But they
+were related only in name, in some distant, irreconcilable way--in a way
+which did not warrant the sudden scarlet flush that flooded her face.
+Presently she recovered herself. She--what did she suffer, compared
+with her who wrote this revelation of a lifetime of pain, of bitter and
+torturing knowledge! She looked up at the picture on the wall, at
+the still, proud, emotionless face, the conventional, uninspired
+personality, behind which no one had seen, which had agonised alone till
+the last. With what tender yet pitiless hand had she laid bare the lives
+of her husband and her son! How had the neglected mother told the bitter
+truth of him to whom she had given birth! "So brilliant and able, and
+unscrupulous, like yourself; but, oh, sure of winning a great place
+in the world... so calculating and determined and ambitious.... That
+laboratory which I have hated so. It has always seemed to me the
+place where some native evil and cruelty in your blood worked out its
+will...."
+
+With a deep-drawn sigh Hylda said to herself: "If I were dying
+to-morrow, would I say that? She loved them so--at first must have loved
+them so; and yet this at the last! And I--oh, no, no, no!" She looked at
+a portrait of Eglington on the table near, touched it caressingly, and
+added, with a sob in her voice: "Oh, Harry, no, it is not true! It is
+not native evil and cruelty in your blood. It has all been a mistake.
+You will do right. We will do right, Harry. You will suffer, it will
+hurt, the lesson will be hard--to give up what has meant so much to you;
+but we will work it out together, you and I, my very dear. Oh, say that
+we shall, that...." She suddenly grew silent. A tremor ran through her,
+she became conscious of his presence near her, and turned, as though he
+were behind her. There was nothing. Yet she felt him near, and, as she
+did so, the soul-deep feeling with which she had spoken to the portrait
+fled. Why was it that, so often, when absent from him, her imagination
+helped her to make excuses for him, inspired her to press the real truth
+out of sight, and to make believe that he was worthy of a love which,
+but through some inner fault of her own, might be his altogether, and
+all the love of which he was capable might be hers?
+
+She felt him near her, and the feelings possessing her a moment before
+slowly chilled and sank away. Instinctively her eyes glanced towards
+the door. She saw the handle turn, and she slipped the letter inside the
+portfolio again.
+
+The door opened briskly now, and Eglington entered with what his enemies
+in the newspaper press had called his "professional smile"--a criticism
+which had angered his wife, chiefly because it was so near the truth.
+He smiled. Smiling was part of his equipment, and was for any one at any
+time that suited him.
+
+Her eyes met his, and he noted in her something that he had never seen
+before. Something had happened. The Duchess of Snowdon was in the house;
+had it anything to do with her? Had she made trouble? There was trouble
+enough without her. He came forward, took Hylda's hand and kissed it,
+then kissed her on the cheek. As he did so, she laid a hand on his arm
+with a sudden impulse, and pressed it. Though his presence had chilled
+the high emotions of a few moments before, yet she had to break to him
+a truth which would hurt him, dismay him, rob his life of so much that
+helped it; and a sudden protective, maternal sense was roused in her,
+reached out to shelter him as he faced his loss and the call of duty.
+
+"You have just come?" she said, in a voice that, to herself, seemed far
+away.
+
+"I have been here some hours," he answered. Secrecy again--always
+the thing that had chilled the dead woman, and laid a cold hand upon
+herself--"I felt the shadow of secrecy in your life. When you talked
+most I felt you most secretive, and the feeling slowly closed the door
+upon all frankness and sympathy and open speech between us."
+
+"Why did you not see me--dine with me?" she asked. "What can
+the servants think?" Even in such a crisis the little things had
+place--habit struck its note in the presence of her tragedy.
+
+"You had the Duchess of Snowdon, and we are not precisely congenial;
+besides, I had much to do in the laboratory. I'm working for that new
+explosive of which I told you. There's fame and fortune in it, and I'm
+on the way. I feel it coming"--his eyes sparkled a little. "I made it
+right with the servants; so don't be apprehensive."
+
+"I have not seen you for nearly a week. It doesn't seem--friendly."
+
+"Politics and science are stern masters," he answered gaily.
+
+"They leave little time for your mistress," she rejoined meaningly.
+
+"Who is my mistress?"
+
+"Well, I am not greatly your wife," she replied. "I have the dregs of
+your life. I help you--I am allowed to help you--so little, to share so
+little in the things that matter to you."
+
+"Now, that's imagination and misunderstanding," he rejoined. "It has
+helped immensely your being such a figure in society, and entertaining
+so much, and being so popular, at any rate until very lately."
+
+"I do not misunderstand," she answered gravely. "I do not share your
+real life. I do not help you where your brain works, in the plans and
+purposes and hopes that lie behind all that you do--oh, yes, I know your
+ambitions and what positions you are aiming for; but there is something
+more than that. There is the object of it all, the pulse of it, the
+machinery down, down deep in your being that drives it all. Oh, I am not
+a child! I have some intellect, and I want--I want that we should work
+it out together."
+
+In spite of all that had come and gone, in spite of the dead mother's
+words and all her own convictions, seeing trouble coming upon him, she
+wanted to make one last effort for what might save their lives--her
+life--from shipwreck in the end. If she failed now, she foresaw a
+bitter, cynical figure working out his life with a narrowing soul, a
+hard spirit unrelieved by the softening influence of a great love--even
+yet the woman in her had a far-off hope that, where the law had made
+them one by book and scrip, the love which should consecrate such a
+union, lift it above an almost offensive relation, might be theirs. She
+did not know how much of her heart, of her being, was wandering over
+the distant sands of Egypt, looking for its oasis. Eglington had never
+needed or wanted more than she had given him--her fortune, her person,
+her charm, her ability to play an express and definite part in his
+career. It was this material use to which she was so largely assigned,
+almost involuntarily but none the less truly, that had destroyed all of
+the finer, dearer, more delicate intimacy invading his mind sometimes,
+more or less vaguely, where Faith was concerned. So extreme was his
+egotism that it had never occurred to him, as it had done to the Duchess
+of Snowdon and Lord Windlehurst, that he might lose Hylda herself as
+well as her fortune; that the day might come when her high spirit could
+bear it no longer. As the Duchess of Snowdon had said: "It would all
+depend upon the other man, whoever he might be."
+
+So he answered her with superficial cheerfulness now; he had not the
+depth of soul to see that they were at a crisis, and that she could bear
+no longer the old method of treating her as though she were a child, to
+be humoured or to be dominated.
+
+"Well, you see all there is," he answered; "you are so imaginative,
+crying for some moon there never was in any sky."
+
+In part he had spoken the truth. He had no high objects or ends or
+purposes. He wanted only success somehow or another, and there was no
+nobility of mind or aspiration behind it. In her heart of hearts she
+knew it; but it was the last cry of her soul to him, seeking, though in
+vain, for what she had never had, could never have.
+
+"What have you been doing?" he added, looking at the desk where she
+had sat, glancing round the room. "Has the Duchess left any rags on
+the multitude of her acquaintances? I wonder that you can make yourself
+contented here with nothing to do. You don't look much stronger. I'm
+sure you ought to have a change. My mother was never well here; though,
+for the matter of that, she was never very well anywhere. I suppose it's
+the laboratory that attracts me here, as it did my father, playing with
+the ancient forces of the world in these Arcadian surroundings--Arcady
+without beauty or Arcadians." He glanced up at his mother's picture.
+"No, she never liked it--a very silent woman, secretive almost."
+
+Suddenly her eyes flared up. Anger possessed her. She choked it down.
+Secretive--the poor bruised soul who had gone to her grave with a broken
+heart!
+
+"She secretive? No, Eglington," she rejoined gravely, "she was
+congealed. She lived in too cold an air. She was not secretive, but yet
+she kept a secret--another's."
+
+Again Eglington had the feeling which possessed him when he entered the
+room. She had changed. There was something in her tone, a meaning, he
+had never heard before. He was startled. He recalled the words of the
+Duchess as she went up the staircase.
+
+What was it all about?
+
+"Whose secrets did she keep?" he asked, calmly enough.
+
+"Your father's, yours, mine," she replied, in a whisper almost.
+
+"Secret? What secret? Good Lord, such mystery!" He laughed mirthlessly.
+
+She came close to him. "I am sorry--sorry, Harry," she said with
+difficulty. "It will hurt you, shock you so. It will be a blow to you,
+but you must bear it."
+
+She tried to speak further, but her heart was beating so violently that
+she could not. She turned quickly to the portfolio on the desk, drew
+forth the fatal letter, and, turning to the page which contained the
+truth concerning David, handed it to him. "It is there," she said.
+
+He had great self-control. Before looking at the page to which she had
+directed his attention, he turned the letter over slowly, fingering the
+pages one by one. "My mother to my father," he remarked.
+
+Instinctively he knew what it contained. "You have been reading my
+mother's correspondence," he added in cold reproof.
+
+"Do you forget that you asked me to arrange her papers?" she retorted,
+stung by his suggestion.
+
+"Your imagination is vivid," he exclaimed. Then he bethought himself
+that, after all, he might sorely need all she could give, if things
+went against him, and that she was the last person he could afford to
+alienate; "but I do remember that I asked you that," he added--"no doubt
+foolishly."
+
+"Read what is there," she broke in, "and you will see that it was not
+foolish, that it was meant to be." He felt a cold dead hand reaching
+out from the past to strike him; but he nerved himself, and his eyes
+searched the paper with assumed coolness-even with her he must still be
+acting. The first words he saw were: "Why did you not tell me that my
+boy, my baby Harry, was not your only child, and that your eldest son
+was alive?"
+
+So that was it, after all. Even his mother knew. Master of his nerves
+as he was, it blinded him for a moment. Presently he read on--the whole
+page--and lingered upon the words, that he might have time to think what
+he must say to Hylda. Nothing of the tragedy of his mother touched him,
+though he was faintly conscious of a revelation of a woman he had
+never known, whose hungering caresses had made him, as a child, rather
+peevish, when a fit of affection was not on him. Suddenly, as he read
+the lines touching himself, "Brilliant and able and unscrupulous.... and
+though he loves me little, as he loves you little too," his eye lighted
+up with anger, his face became pale--yet he had borne the same truths
+from Faith without resentment, in the wood by the mill that other year.
+For a moment he stood infuriated, then, going to the fireplace, he
+dropped the letter on the coals, as Hylda, in horror, started forward to
+arrest his hand.
+
+"Oh, Eglington--but no--no! It is not honourable. It is proof of all!"
+
+He turned upon her slowly, his face rigid, a strange, cold light in his
+eyes. "If there is no more proof than that, you need not vex your mind,"
+he said, commanding his voice to evenness.
+
+A bitter anger was on him. His mother had read him through and
+through--he had not deceived her even; and she had given evidence
+against him to Hylda, who, he had ever thought, believed in him
+completely. Now there was added to the miserable tale, that first
+marriage, and the rights of David--David, the man who, he was convinced,
+had captured her imagination. Hurt vanity played a disproportionate part
+in this crisis.
+
+The effect on him had been different from what Hylda had anticipated.
+She had pictured him stricken and dumfounded by the blow. It had never
+occurred to her, it did not now, that he had known the truth; for, of
+course, to know the truth was to speak, to restore to David his own,
+to step down into the second and unconsidered place. After all, to her
+mind, there was no disgrace. The late Earl had married secretly, but he
+had been duly married, and he did not marry again until Mercy Claridge
+was dead. The only wrong was to David, whose grandfather had been even
+more to blame than his own father. She had looked to help Eglington in
+this moment, and now there seemed nothing for her to do. He was superior
+to the situation, though it was apparent in his pale face and rigid
+manner that he had been struck hard.
+
+She came near to him, but there was no encouragement to her to play
+that part which is a woman's deepest right and joy and pain in one--to
+comfort her man in trouble, sorrow, or evil. Always, always, he stood
+alone, whatever the moment might be, leaving her nothing to do--"playing
+his own game with his own weapons," as he had once put it. Yet there was
+strength in it too, and this came to her mind now, as though in excuse
+for whatever else there was in the situation which, against her will,
+repelled her.
+
+"I am so sorry for you," she said at last.
+
+"What do you mean?" he asked.
+
+"To lose all that has been yours so long."
+
+This was their great moment. The response to this must be the touchstone
+of their lives. A--half dozen words might alter all the future, might
+be the watch word to the end of all things. Involuntarily her heart
+fashioned the response he ought to give--"I shall have you left, Hylda."
+
+The air seemed to grow oppressive, and the instant's silence a torture,
+and, when he spoke, his words struck a chill to her heart--rough notes
+of pain. "I have not lost yet," were his words.
+
+She shrank. "You will not hide it. You will do right by--by him," she
+said with difficulty.
+
+"Let him establish his claim to the last item of fact," he said with
+savage hate.
+
+"Luke Claridge knew. The proofs are but just across the way, no doubt,"
+she answered, almost coldly, so had his words congealed her heart.
+
+Their great moment had passed. It was as though a cord had snapped that
+held her to him, and in the recoil she had been thrown far off from him.
+Swift as his mind worked, it had not seen his opportunity to win her to
+his cause, to asphyxiate her high senses, her quixotic justice, by that
+old flood of eloquence and compelling persuasion of the emotions with
+which he had swept her to the altar--an altar of sacrifice. He had
+not even done what he had left London to do--make sure of her, by an
+alluring flattery and devotion, no difficult duty with one so beautiful
+and desirable; though neither love of beauty nor great desire was strong
+enough in him to divert him from his course for an hour, save by his own
+initiative. His mother's letter had changed it all. A few hours before
+he had had a struggle with Soolsby, and now another struggle on the
+same theme was here. Fate had dealt illy with him, who had ever been its
+spoiled child and favourite. He had not learned yet the arts of defence
+against adversity.
+
+"Luke Claridge is dead," he answered sharply. "But you will tell--him,
+you will write to Egypt and tell your brother?" she said, the conviction
+slowly coming to her that he would not.
+
+"It is not my duty to displace myself, to furnish evidence against
+myself--"
+
+"You have destroyed the evidence," she intervened, a little scornfully.
+
+"If there were no more than that--" He shrugged his shoulders
+impatiently.
+
+"Do you know there is more?" she asked searchingly. "In whose interests
+are you speaking?" he rejoined, with a sneer. A sudden fury possessed
+him. Claridge Pasha--she was thinking of him!
+
+"In yours--your conscience, your honour."
+
+"There is over thirty years' possession on my side," he rejoined.
+
+"It is not as if it were going from your family," she argued.
+
+"Family--what is he to me!"
+
+"What is any one to you?" she returned bitterly.
+
+"I am not going to unravel a mystery in order to facilitate the cutting
+of my own throat."
+
+"It might be worth while to do something once for another's sake than
+your own--it would break the monotony," she retorted, all her sense
+tortured by his words, and even more so by his manner.
+
+Long ago Faith had said in Soolsby's but that he "blandished" all with
+whom he came in contact; but Hylda realised with a lacerated heart that
+he had ceased to blandish her. Possession had altered that. Yet how had
+he vowed to her in those sweet tempestuous days of his courtship when
+the wind of his passion blew so hard! Had one of the vows been kept?
+
+Even as she looked at him now, words she had read some days before
+flashed through her mind--they had burnt themselves into her brain:
+
+          "Broken faith is the crown of evils,
+          Broken vows are the knotted thongs
+          Set in the hands of laughing devils,
+          To scourge us for deep wrongs.
+
+          "Broken hearts, when all is ended,
+          Bear the better all after-stings;
+          Bruised once, the citadel mended,
+          Standeth through all things."
+
+Suddenly he turned upon her with aggrieved petulance. "Why are you so
+eager for proof?"
+
+"Oh, I have," she said, with a sudden flood of tears in her voice,
+though her eyes were dry--"I have the feeling your mother had, that
+nothing will be well until you undo the wrong your father did. I know
+it was not your fault. I feel for you--oh, believe me, I feel as I have
+never felt, could never feel, for myself. It was brought on you by your
+father, but you must be the more innocent because he was so guilty. You
+have had much out of it, it has helped you on your way. It does not mean
+so much now. By-and-by another--an English-peerage may be yours by your
+own achievement. Let it go. There is so much left, Harry. It is a small
+thing in a world of work. It means nothing to me." Once again, even when
+she had given up all hope, seeing what was the bent of his mind--once
+again she made essay to win him out of his selfishness. If he would only
+say, "I have you left," how she would strive to shut all else out of her
+life!
+
+He was exasperated. His usual prescience and prudence forsook him. It
+angered him that she should press him to an act of sacrifice for the
+man who had so great an influence upon her. Perversity possessed him.
+Lifelong egotism was too strong for wisdom, or discretion.
+
+Suddenly he caught her hands in both of his and said hoarsely: "Do you
+love me--answer me, do you love me with all your heart and soul? The
+truth now, as though it were your last word on earth."
+
+Always self. She had asked, if not in so many words, for a little love,
+something for herself to feed on in the darkening days for him, for her,
+for both; and he was thinking only of himself.
+
+She shrank, but her hands lay passive in his. "No, not with all my heart
+and soul--but, oh--!"
+
+He flung her hands from him. "No, not with all your heart and soul--I
+know! You are willing to sacrifice me for him, and you think I do not
+understand."
+
+She drew herself up, with burning cheeks and flashing eyes. "You
+understand nothing--nothing. If you had ever understood me, or any human
+being, or any human heart, you would not have ruined all that might
+have given you an undying love, something that would have followed
+you through fire and flood to the grave. You cannot love. You do not
+understand love. Self--self, always self. Oh, you are mad, mad, to have
+thrown it all away, all that might have given happiness! All that I
+have, all that I am, has been at your service; everything has been bent
+and tuned to your pleasure, for your good. All has been done for
+you, with thought of you and your position and your advancement, and
+now--now, when you have killed all that might have been yours, you cry
+out in anger that it is dying, and you insinuate what you should kill
+another for insinuating. Oh, the wicked, cruel folly of it all! You
+suggest--you dare! I never heard a word from David Claridge that might
+not be written on the hoardings. His honour is deeper than that which
+might attach to the title of Earl of Eglington."
+
+She seemed to tower above him. For an instant she looked him in the eyes
+with frigid dignity, but a great scorn in her face. Then she went to the
+door--he hastened to open it for her.
+
+"You will be very sorry for this," he said stubbornly. He was too
+dumfounded to be discreet, too suddenly embarrassed by the turn affairs
+had taken. He realised too late that he had made a mistake, that he had
+lost his hold upon her.
+
+As she passed through, there suddenly flashed before her mind the scene
+in the laboratory with the chairmaker. She felt the meaning of it now.
+
+"You do not intend to tell him--perhaps Soolsby has done so," she said
+keenly, and moved on to the staircase.
+
+He was thunderstruck at her intuition. "Why do you want to rob
+yourself?" he asked after her vaguely. She turned back. "Think of your
+mother's letter that you destroyed," she rejoined solemnly and quietly.
+"Was it right?"
+
+He shut the door, and threw himself into a chair. "I will put it
+straight with her to-morrow," he said helplessly.
+
+He sat for a half-hour silent, planning his course.
+
+At last there came a tap at the door, and the butler appeared.
+
+"Some one from the Foreign Office, my lord," he said. A moment
+afterwards a young official, his subordinate, entered. "There's the
+deuce to pay in Egypt, sir; I've brought the despatch," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII. NAHOUM TURNS THE SCREW
+
+Laughing to himself, Higli Pasha sat with the stem of a narghileh in his
+mouth. His big shoulders kept time to the quivering of his fat stomach.
+He was sitting in a small court-yard of Nahoum Pasha's palace, waiting
+for its owner to appear. Meanwhile he exercised a hilarious patience.
+The years had changed him little since he had been sent on that
+expedition against the southern tribes which followed hard on David's
+appointment to office. As David had expected, few of the traitorous
+officers returned. Diaz had ignominiously died of the bite of a
+tarantula before a blow had been struck, but Higli had gratefully
+received a slight wound in the first encounter, which enabled him
+to beat a safe retreat to Cairo. He alone of the chief of the old
+conspirators was left. Achmet was still at the Place of Lepers, and the
+old nest of traitors was scattered for ever.
+
+Only Nahoum and Higli were left, and between these two there had never
+been partnership or understanding. Nahoum was not the man to trust to
+confederates, and Higli Pasha was too contemptible a coadjutor. Nahoum
+had faith in no one save Mizraim the Chief Eunuch, but Mizraim alone was
+better than a thousand; and he was secret--and terrible. Yet Higli had a
+conviction that Nahoum's alliance with David was a sham, and that David
+would pay the price of misplaced confidence one day. More than once when
+David's plans had had a set-back, Higli had contrived a meeting with
+Nahoum, to judge for himself the true position.
+
+For his visit to-day he had invented a reason--a matter of finance; but
+his real reason was concealed behind the malevolent merriment by which
+he was now seized. So absorbed was he that he did not heed the approach
+of another visitor down an angle of the court-yard. He was roused by a
+voice.
+
+"Well, what's tickling you so, pasha?"
+
+The voice was drawling, and quite gentle; but at the sound of it,
+Higli's laugh stopped short, and the muscles of his face contracted.
+If there was one man of whom he had a wholesome fear--why, he could not
+tell--it was this round-faced, abrupt, imperturbable American, Claridge
+Pasha's right-hand man. Legends of resourcefulness and bravery had
+gathered round his name. "Who's been stroking your chin with a feather,
+pasha?" he continued, his eye piercing the other like a gimlet.
+
+"It was an amusing tale I heard at Assiout, effendi," was Higli's
+abashed and surly reply.
+
+"Oh, at Assiout!" rejoined Lacey. "Yes, they tell funny stories at
+Assiout. And when were you at Assiout, pasha?"
+
+"Two days ago, effendi."
+
+"And so you thought you'd tell the funny little story to Nahoum as quick
+as could be, eh? He likes funny stories, same as you--damn, nice, funny
+little stories, eh?"
+
+There was something chilly in Lacey's voice now, which Higli did
+not like; something much too menacing and contemptuous for a mere
+man-of-all-work to the Inglesi. Higli bridled up, his eyes glared
+sulkily.
+
+"It is but my own business if I laugh or if I curse, effendi," he
+replied, his hand shaking a little on the stem of the narghileh.
+
+"Precisely, my diaphanous polyandrist; but it isn't quite your own
+affair what you laugh at--not if I know it!"
+
+"Does the effendi think I was laughing at him?"
+
+"The effendi thinks not. The effendi knows that the descendant of a
+hundred tigers was laughing at the funny little story, of how the two
+cotton-mills that Claridge Pasha built were burned down all in one
+night, and one of his steamers sent down the cataract at Assouan. A
+knock-down blow for Claridge Pasha, eh? That's all you thought of,
+wasn't it? And it doesn't matter to you that the cotton-mills made
+thousands better off, and started new industries in Egypt. No, it only
+matters to you that Claridge Pasha loses half his fortune, and that you
+think his feet are in the quicksands, and 'll be sucked in, to make an
+Egyptian holiday. Anything to discredit him here, eh? I'm not sure what
+else you know; but I'll find out, my noble pasha, and if you've had
+your hand in it--but no, you ain't game-cock enough for that! But if
+you were, if you had a hand in the making of your funny little story,
+there's a nutcracker that 'd break the shell of that joke--"
+
+He turned round quickly, seeing a shadow and hearing a movement. Nahoum
+was but a few feet away. There was a bland smile on his face, a look of
+innocence in his magnificent blue eye. As he met Lacey's look, the smile
+left his lips, a grave sympathy appeared to possess them, and he spoke
+softly:
+
+"I know the thing that burns thy heart, effendi, to whom be the flowers
+of hope and the fruits of merit. It is even so, a great blow has fallen.
+Two hours since I heard. I went at once to see Claridge Pasha, but found
+him not. Does he know, think you?" he added sadly.
+
+"May your heart never be harder than it is, pasha, and when I left the
+Saadat an hour ago, he did not know. His messenger hadn't a steamer
+like Higli Pasha there. But he was coming to see you; and that's why I'm
+here. I've been brushing the flies off this sore on the hump of Egypt
+while waiting." He glanced with disdain at Higli.
+
+A smile rose like liquid in the eye of Nahoum and subsided, then he
+turned to Higli inquiringly.
+
+"I have come on business, Excellency; the railway to Rosetta, and--"
+
+"To-morrow--or the next day," responded Nahoum irritably, and turned
+again to Lacey.
+
+As Higli's huge frame disappeared through a gateway, Nahoum motioned
+Lacey to a divan, and summoned a slave for cooling drinks. Lacey's eyes
+now watched him with an innocence nearly as childlike as his own. Lacey
+well knew that here was a foe worthy of the best steel. That he was a
+foe, and a malignant foe, he had no doubt whatever; he had settled the
+point in his mind long ago; and two letters he had received from Lady
+Eglington, in which she had said in so many words, "Watch Nahoum!"
+had made him vigilant and intuitive. He knew, meanwhile, that he was
+following the trail of a master-hunter who covered up his tracks. Lacey
+was as certain as though he had the book of Nahoum's mind open in his
+hand, that David's work had been torn down again--and this time with
+dire effect--by this Armenian, whom David trusted like a brother. But
+the black doors that closed on the truth on every side only made him
+more determined to unlock them; and, when he faltered as to his own
+powers, he trusted Mahommed Hassan, whose devotion to David had given
+him eyes that pierced dark places.
+
+"Surely the God of Israel has smitten Claridge Pasha sorely. My
+heart will mourn to look upon his face. The day is insulting in its
+brightness," continued Nahoum with a sigh, his eyes bent upon Lacey,
+dejection in his shoulders.
+
+Lacey started. "The God of Israel!" How blasphemous it sounded from the
+lips of Nahoum, Oriental of Orientals, Christian though he was also!
+
+"I think, perhaps, you'll get over it, pasha. Man is born to trouble,
+and you've got a lot of courage. I guess you could see other people bear
+a pile of suffering, and never flinch."
+
+Nahoum appeared not to notice the gibe. "It is a land of suffering,
+effendi," he sighed, "and one sees what one sees."
+
+"Have you any idea, any real sensible idea, how those cotton-mills got
+afire?" Lacey's eyes were fixed on Nahoum's face.
+
+The other met his gaze calmly. "Who can tell! An accident, perhaps,
+or--"
+
+"Or some one set the mills on fire in several places at once--they say
+the buildings flamed out in every corner; and it was the only time in a
+month they hadn't been running night and day. Funny, isn't it?"
+
+"It looks like the work of an enemy, effendi." Nahoum shook his head
+gravely. "A fortune destroyed in an hour, as it were. But we shall get
+the dog. We shall find him. There is no hole deep enough to hide him
+from us."
+
+"Well, I wouldn't go looking in holes for him, pasha.
+
+"He isn't any cave-dweller, that incendiary; he's an artist--no palace
+is too unlikely for him. No, I wouldn't go poking in mud-huts to find
+him."
+
+"Thou dost not think that Higli Pasha--" Nahoum seemed startled out
+of equanimity by the thought. Lacey eyed him meditatively, and said
+reflectively: "Say, you're an artist, pasha. You are a guesser of the
+first rank. But I'd guess again. Higli Pasha would have done it, if it
+had ever occurred to him; and he'd had the pluck. But it didn't, and he
+hadn't. What I can't understand is that the artist that did it should
+have done it before Claridge Pasha left for the Soudan. Here we were
+just about to start; and if we'd got away south, the job would have done
+more harm, and the Saadat would have been out of the way. No, I can't
+understand why the firebug didn't let us get clean away; for if the
+Saadat stays here, he'll be where he can stop the underground mining."
+
+Nahoum's self-control did not desert him, though he fully realised that
+this man suspected him. On the surface Lacey was right. It would have
+seemed better to let David go, and destroy his work afterwards, but he
+had been moved by other considerations, and his design was deep. His
+own emissaries were in the Soudan, announcing David's determination to
+abolish slavery, secretly stirring up feeling against him, preparing for
+the final blow to be delivered, when he went again among the southern
+tribes. He had waited and waited, and now the time was come. Had he,
+Nahoum, not agreed with David that the time had come for the slave-trade
+to go? Had he not encouraged him to take this bold step, in the sure
+belief that it would overwhelm him, and bring him an ignominious death,
+embittered by total failure of all he had tried to do?
+
+For years he had secretly loosened the foundations of David's work,
+and the triumph of Oriental duplicity over Western civilisation and
+integrity was sweet in his mouth. And now there was reason to believe
+that, at last, Kaid was turning against the Inglesi. Everything would
+come at once. If all that he had planned was successful, even this man
+before him should aid in his master's destruction.
+
+"If it was all done by an enemy," he said, in answer to Lacey, at last,
+"would it all be reasoned out like that? Is hatred so logical? Dost
+thou think Claridge Pasha will not go now? The troops are ready at
+Wady-Halfa, everything is in order; the last load of equipment has gone.
+Will not Claridge Pasha find the money somehow? I will do what I can. My
+heart is moved to aid him."
+
+"Yes, you'd do what you could, pasha," Lacey rejoined enigmatically,
+"but whether it would set the Saadat on his expedition or not is a
+question. But I guess, after all, he's got to go. He willed it so.
+People may try to stop him, and they may tear down what he does, but he
+does at last what he starts to do, and no one can prevent him--not any
+one. Yes, he's going on this expedition; and he'll have the money,
+too." There was a strange, abstracted look in his face, as though he saw
+something which held him fascinated.
+
+Presently, as if with an effort, he rose to his feet, took the red
+fez from his head, and fanned himself with it for a moment. "Don't you
+forget it, pasha; the Saadat will win. He can't be beaten, not in a
+thousand years. Here he comes."
+
+Nahoum got to his feet, as David came quickly through the small gateway
+of the court-yard, his head erect, his lips smiling, his eyes sweeping
+the place. He came forward briskly to them. It was plain he had not
+heard the evil news.
+
+"Peace be to thee, Saadat, and may thy life be fenced about with
+safety!" said Nahoum.
+
+David laid a hand on Lacey's arm and squeezed it, smiling at him with
+such friendship that Lacey's eyes moistened, and he turned his head
+away.
+
+There was a quiet elation in David's look. "We are ready at last," he
+said, looking from one to the other. "Well, well," he added, almost
+boyishly, "has thee nothing to say, Nahoum?"
+
+Nahoum turned his head away as though overcome. David's face grew
+instantly grave. He turned to Lacey. Never before had he seen Lacey's
+face with a look like this. He grasped Lacey's arm. "What is it?" he
+asked quietly. "What does thee want to say to me?"
+
+But Lacey could not speak, and David turned again to Nahoum. "What is
+there to say to me?" he asked. "Something has happened--what is it?...
+Come, many things have happened before. This can be no worse. Do thee
+speak," he urged gently.
+
+"Saadat," said Nahoum, as though under the stress of feeling, "the
+cotton-mills at Tashah and Mini are gone--burned to the ground."
+
+For a moment David looked at him without sight in his eyes, and his face
+grew very pale. "Excellency, all in one night, the besom of destruction
+was abroad," he heard Nahoum say, as though from great depths below him.
+He slowly turned his head to look at Lacey. "Is this true?" he asked at
+last in an unsteady voice. Lacey could not speak, but inclined his head.
+
+David's figure seemed to shrink for a moment, his face had a withered
+look, and his head fell forward in a mood of terrible dejection.
+
+"Saadat! Oh, my God, Saadat, don't take it so!" said Lacey brokenly, and
+stepped between David and Nahoum. He could not bear that the stricken
+face and figure should be seen by Nahoum, whom he believed to be
+secretly gloating. "Saadat," he said brokenly, "God has always been with
+you; He hasn't forgotten you now.
+
+"The work of years," David murmured, and seemed not to hear.
+
+"When God permits, shall man despair?" interposed Nahoum, in a voice
+that lingered on the words. Nahoum accomplished what Lacey had failed to
+do. His voice had pierced to some remote corner in David's nature, and
+roused him. Was it that doubt, suspicion, had been wakened at last? Was
+some sensitive nerve touched, that this Oriental should offer Christian
+comfort to him in his need--to him who had seen the greater light? Or
+was it that some unreality in the words struck a note which excited
+a new and subconscious understanding? Perhaps it was a little of all
+three. He did not stop to inquire. In crises such as that through which
+he was passing, the mind and body act without reason, rather by the
+primal instinct, the certain call of the things that were before reason
+was.
+
+"God is with the patient," continued Nahoum; and Lacey set his teeth to
+bear this insult to all things. But Nahoum accomplished what he had not
+anticipated. David straightened himself up, and clasped his hands behind
+him. By a supreme effort of the will he controlled himself, and the
+colour came back faintly to his face. "God's will be done," he said, and
+looked Nahoum calmly in the eyes. "It was no accident," he added with
+conviction. "It was an enemy of Egypt." Suddenly the thing rushed over
+him again, going through his veins like a poisonous ether, and clamping
+his heart as with iron. "All to do over again!" he said brokenly, and
+again he caught Lacey's arm.
+
+With an uncontrollable impulse Lacey took David's hand in his own warm,
+human grasp.
+
+"Once I thought I lost everything in Mexico, Saadat, and I understand
+what you feel. But all wasn't lost in Mexico, as I found at last, and I
+got something, too, that I didn't put in. Say, let us go from here. God
+is backing you, Saadat. Isn't it all right--same as ever?"
+
+David was himself again. "Thee is a good man," he said, and through the
+sadness of his eyes there stole a smile. "Let us go," he said. Then he
+added in a businesslike way: "To-morrow at seven, Nahoum. There is much
+to do."
+
+He turned towards the gate with Lacey, where the horses waited. Mahommed
+Hassan met them as they prepared to mount. He handed David a letter.
+It was from Faith, and contained the news of Luke Claridge's death.
+Everything had come at once. He stumbled into the saddle with a moan.
+
+"At last I have drawn blood," said Nahoum to himself with grim
+satisfaction, as they disappeared. "It is the beginning of the end. It
+will crush him-I saw it in his eyes. God of Israel, I shall rule again
+in Egypt!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX. THE RECOIL
+
+
+It was a great day in the Muslim year. The Mahmal, or Sacred Carpet, was
+leaving Cairo on its long pilgrimage of thirty-seven days to Mecca and
+Mahomet's tomb. Great guns boomed from the Citadel, as the gorgeous
+procession, forming itself beneath the Mokattam Hills, began its slow
+march to where, seated in the shade of an ornate pavilion, Prince Kaid
+awaited its approach to pay devout homage. Thousands looked down at the
+scene from the ramparts of the Citadel, from the overhanging cliffs,
+and from the tops of the houses that hung on the ledges of rock rising
+abruptly from the level ground, to which the last of the famed Mamelukes
+leaped to their destruction.
+
+Now to Prince Kaid's ears there came from hundreds of hoarse throats the
+cry: "Allah! Allah! May thy journey be with safety to Arafat!" mingling
+with the harsh music of the fifes and drums.
+
+Kaid looked upon the scene with drawn face and lowering brows. His
+retinue watched him with alarm. A whisper had passed that, two nights
+before, the Effendina had sent in haste for a famous Italian physician
+lately come to Cairo, and that since his visit Kaid had been sullen and
+depressed. It was also the gossip of the bazaars that he had suddenly
+shown favour to those of the Royal House and to other reactionaries, who
+had been enemies to the influence of Claridge Pasha.
+
+This rumour had been followed by an official proclamation that no
+Europeans or Christians would be admitted to the ceremony of the Sacred
+Carpet.
+
+Thus it was that Kaid looked out on a vast multitude of Muslims, in
+which not one European face showed, and from lip to lip there passed the
+word, "Harrik--Harrik--remember Harrik! Kaid turns from the infidel!"
+
+They crowded near the great pavilion--as near as the mounted Nubians
+would permit--to see Kaid's face; while he, with eyes wandering over
+the vast assemblage, was lost in dark reflections. For a year he had
+struggled against a growing conviction that some obscure disease was
+sapping his strength. He had hid it from every one, until, at last,
+distress and pain had overcome him. The verdict of the Italian expert
+was that possible, but by no means certain, cure might come from an
+operation which must be delayed for a month or more.
+
+Suddenly, the world had grown unfamiliar to him; he saw it from afar;
+but his subconscious self involuntarily registered impressions, and he
+moved mechanically through the ceremonies and duties of the immediate
+present. Thrown back upon himself, to fight his own fight, with the
+instinct of primary life his mind involuntarily drew for refuge to
+the habits and predispositions of youth; and for two days he had shut
+himself away from the activities with which David and Nahoum were
+associated. Being deeply engaged with the details of the expedition to
+the Soudan, David had not gone to the Palace; and he was unaware of the
+turn which things had taken.
+
+Three times, with slow and stately steps, the procession wound in a
+circle in the great square, before it approached the pavilion where the
+Effendina sat, the splendid camels carrying the embroidered tent wherein
+the Carpet rested, and that which bore the Emir of the pilgrims, moving
+gracefully like ships at sea. Naked swordsmen, with upright and shining
+blades, were followed by men on camels bearing kettle-drums. After them
+came Arab riders with fresh green branches fastened to the saddles like
+plumes, while others carried flags and banners emblazoned with texts
+and symbols. Troops of horsemen in white woollen cloaks, sheikhs and
+Bedouins with flowing robes and huge turbans, religious chiefs of the
+great sects, imperturbable and statuesque, were in strange contrast to
+the shouting dervishes and camel-drivers and eager pilgrims.
+
+At last the great camel with its sacred burden stopped in front of
+Kaid for his prayer and blessing. As he held the tassels, lifted the
+gold-fringed curtain, and invoked Allah's blessing, a half-naked sheikh
+ran forward, and, raising his hand high above his head, cried shrilly:
+"Kaid, Kaid, hearken!"
+
+Rough hands caught him away, but Kaid commanded them to desist; and the
+man called a blessing on him; and cried aloud:
+
+"Listen, O Kaid, son of the stars and the light of day. God hath exalted
+thee. Thou art the Egyptian of all the Egyptians. In thy hand is power.
+But thou art mortal even as I. Behold, O Kaid, in the hour that I was
+born thou wast born, I in the dust without thy Palace wall, thou amid
+the splendid things. But thy star is my star. Behold, as God ordains,
+the Tree of Life was shaken on the night when all men pray and cry aloud
+to God--even the Night of the Falling Leaves. And I watched the falling
+leaves; and I saw my leaf, and it was withered, but only a little
+withered, and so I live yet a little. But I looked for thy leaf, thou
+who wert born in that moment when I waked to the world. I looked long,
+but I found no leaf, neither green nor withered. But I looked again upon
+my leaf, and then I saw that thy name now was also upon my leaf, and
+that it was neither green nor withered; but was a leaf that drooped as
+when an evil wind has passed and drunk its life. Listen, O Kaid! Upon
+the tomb of Mahomet I will set my lips, and it may be that the leaf of
+my life will come fresh and green again. But thou--wilt thou not
+come also to the lord Mahomet's tomb? Or"--he paused and raised his
+voice--"or wilt thou stay and lay thy lips upon the cross of the
+infidel? Wilt thou--"
+
+He could say no more, for Kaid's face now darkened with anger. He made
+a gesture, and, in an instant, the man was gagged and bound, while a
+sullen silence fell upon the crowd. Kaid suddenly became aware of this
+change of feeling, and looked round him. Presently his old prudence
+and subtlety came back, his face cleared a little, and he called aloud,
+"Unloose the man, and let him come to me." An instant after, the man was
+on his knees, silent before him.
+
+"What is thy name?" Kaid asked.
+
+"Kaid Ibrahim, Effendina," was the reply.
+
+"Thou hast misinterpreted thy dream, Kaid Ibrahim," answered the
+Effendina. "The drooping leaf was token of the danger in which thy life
+should be, and my name upon thy leaf was token that I should save thee
+from death. Behold, I save thee. Inshallah, go in peace! There is no God
+but God, and the Cross is the sign of a false prophet. Thou art mad. God
+give thee a new mind. Go."
+
+The man was presently lost in the sweltering, half-frenzied crowd; but
+he had done his work, and his words rang in the ears of Kaid as he rode
+away.
+
+A few hours afterwards, bitter and rebellious, murmuring to himself,
+Kaid sat in a darkened room of his Nile Palace beyond the city. So
+few years on the throne, so young, so much on which to lay the hand of
+pleasure, so many millions to command; and yet the slave at his door had
+a surer hold on life and all its joys and lures than he, Prince Kaid,
+ruler of Egypt! There was on him that barbaric despair which has taken
+dreadful toll of life for the decree of destiny. Across the record of
+this day, as across the history of many an Eastern and pagan tyrant, was
+written: "He would not die alone." That the world should go on when he
+was gone, that men should buy and sell and laugh and drink, and flaunt
+it in the sun, while he, Prince Kaid, would be done with it all.
+
+He was roused by the rustling of a robe. Before him stood the Arab
+physician, Sharif Bey, who had been in his father's house and his own
+for a lifetime. It was many a year since his ministrations to Kaid had
+ceased; but he had remained on in the Palace, doing service to those
+who received him, and--it was said by the evil-tongued--granting
+certificates of death out of harmony with dark facts, a sinister and
+useful figure. His beard was white, his face was friendly, almost
+benevolent, but his eyes had a light caught from no celestial flame.
+
+His look was confident now, as his eyes bent on Kaid. He had lived long,
+he had seen much, he had heard of the peril that had been foreshadowed
+by the infidel physician; and, by a sure instinct, he knew that his
+own opportunity had come. He knew that Kaid would snatch at any offered
+comfort, would cherish any alleviating lie, would steal back from
+science and civilisation and the modern palace to the superstition of
+the fellah's hut. Were not all men alike when the neboot of Fate struck
+them down into the terrible loneliness of doom, numbing their minds?
+Luck would be with him that offered first succour in that dark hour.
+Sharif had come at the right moment for Sharif.
+
+Kaid looked at him with dull yet anxious eyes. "Did I not command that
+none should enter?" he asked presently in a thick voice.
+
+"Am I not thy physician, Effendina, to whom be the undying years? When
+the Effendina is sick, shall I not heal? Have I not waited like a dog
+at thy door these many years, till that time would come when none could
+heal thee save Sharif?"
+
+"What canst thou give me?"
+
+"What the infidel physician gave thee not--I can give thee hope. Hast
+thou done well, oh, Effendina, to turn from thine own people? Did not
+thine own father, and did not Mehemet Ali, live to a good age? Who
+were their physicians? My father and I, and my father's father, and his
+father's father."
+
+"Thou canst cure me altogether?" asked Kaid hesitatingly.
+
+"Wilt thou not have faith in one of thine own race? Will the infidel
+love thee as do we, who are thy children and thy brothers, who are
+to thee as a nail driven in the wall, not to be moved? Thou shalt
+live--Inshallah, thou shalt have healing and length of days!"
+
+He paused at a gesture from Kaid, for a slave had entered and stood
+waiting.
+
+"What dost thou here? Wert thou not commanded?" asked Kaid.
+
+"Effendina, Claridge Pasha is waiting," was the reply.
+
+Kaid frowned, hesitated; then, with a sudden resolve, made a gesture of
+dismissal to Sharif Bey, and nodded David's admittance to the slave.
+
+As David entered, he passed Sharif Bey, and something in the look on
+the Arab physician's face--a secret malignancy and triumph--struck him
+strangely. And now a fresh anxiety and apprehension rose in his mind as
+he glanced at Kaid. The eye was heavy and gloomy, the face was clouded,
+the lips once so ready to smile at him were sullen and smileless now.
+David stood still, waiting.
+
+"I did not expect thee till to-morrow, Saadat," said Kaid moodily at
+last.
+
+"The business is urgent?"
+
+"Effendina," said David, with every nerve at tension, yet with outward
+self-control, "I have to report--" He paused, agitated; then, in a firm
+voice, he told of the disaster which had befallen the cotton-mills and
+the steamer.
+
+As David spoke, Kaid's face grew darker, his fingers fumbled vaguely
+with the linen of the loose white robe he wore. When the tale was
+finished he sat for a moment apparently stunned by the news, then he
+burst out fiercely:
+
+"Bismillah, am I to hear only black words to-day? Hast thou naught to
+say but this--the fortune of Egypt burned to ashes!"
+
+David held back the quick retort that came to his tongue.
+
+"Half my fortune is in the ashes," he answered with dignity. "The rest
+came from savings never made before by this Government. Is the work less
+worthy in thy sight, Effendina, because it has been destroyed? Would thy
+life be less great and useful because a blow took thee from behind?"
+
+Kaid's face turned black. David had bruised an open wound.
+
+"What is my life to thee--what is thy work to me?"
+
+"Thy life is dear to Egypt, Effendina," urged David soothingly, "and my
+labour for Egypt has been pleasant in thine eyes till now."
+
+"Egypt cannot be saved against her will," was the moody response. "What
+has come of the Western hand upon the Eastern plough?" His face grew
+blacker; his heart was feeding on itself.
+
+"Thou, the friend of Egypt, hast come of it, Effendina."
+
+"Harrik was right, Harrik was right," Kaid answered, with stubborn gloom
+and anger. "Better to die in our own way, if we must die, than live in
+the way of another. Thou wouldst make of Egypt another England; thou
+wouldst civilise the Soudan--bismillah, it is folly!"
+
+"That is not the way Mehemet Ali thought, nor Ibrahim. Nor dost thou
+think so, Effendina," David answered gravely. "A dark spirit is on thee.
+Wouldst thou have me understand that what we have done together, thou
+and I, was ill done, that the old bad days were better?"
+
+"Go back to thine own land," was the surly answer. "Nation after nation
+ravaged Egypt, sowed their legions here, but the Egyptian has lived them
+down. The faces of the fellaheen are the faces of Thotmes and Seti. Go
+back. Egypt will travel her own path. We are of the East; we are Muslim.
+What is right to you is wrong to us. Ye would make us over--give us
+cotton beds and wooden floors and fine flour of the mill, and cleanse
+the cholera-hut with disinfectants, but are these things all? How many
+of your civilised millions would die for their prophet Christ? Yet
+all Egypt would rise up from the mud-floor, the dourha-field and the
+mud-hut, and would come out to die for Mahomet and Allah--ay, as
+Harrik knew, as Harrik knew! Ye steal into corners, and hide behind the
+curtains of your beds to pray; we pray where the hour of prayer finds
+us--in the street, in the market-place, where the house is building,
+the horse being shod, or the money-changers are. Ye hear the call of
+civilisation, but we heap the Muezzin--"
+
+He stopped, and searched mechanically for his watch. "It is the hour the
+Muezzin calls," said David gently. "It is almost sunset. Shall I open
+the windows that the call may come to us?" he added.
+
+While Kaid stared at him, his breast heaving with passion, David went to
+a window and opened the shutters wide.
+
+The Palace faced the Nile, which showed like a tortuous band of blue and
+silver a mile or so away. Nothing lay between but the brown sand, and
+here and there a handful of dark figures gliding towards the river, or a
+little train of camels making for the bare grey hills from the ghiassas
+which had given them their desert loads. The course of the Nile was
+marked by a wide fringe of palms showing blue and purple, friendly and
+ancient and solitary. Beyond the river and the palms lay the grey-brown
+desert, faintly touched with red. So clear was the sweet evening air
+that the irregular surface of the desert showed for a score of miles as
+plainly as though it were but a step away. Hummocks of sand--tombs and
+fallen monuments gave a feeling as of forgotten and buried peoples; and
+the two vast pyramids of Sakkarah stood up in the plaintive glow of
+the evening skies, majestic and solemn, faithful to the dissolved and
+absorbed races who had built them. Curtains of mauve and saffron-red
+were hung behind them, and through a break of cloud fringing the horizon
+a yellow glow poured, to touch the tips of the pyramids with poignant
+splendour. But farther over to the right, where Cairo lay, there hung
+a bluish mist, palpable and delicate, out of which emerged the vast
+pyramids of Cheops; and beside it the smiling inscrutable Sphinx faced
+the changeless centuries. Beyond the pyramids the mist deepened into a
+vast deep cloud of blue and purple, which seemed the end to some mystic
+highway untravelled by the sons of men.
+
+Suddenly there swept over David a wave of feeling such as had passed
+over Kaid, though of a different nature. Those who had built the
+pyramids were gone, Cheops and Thotmes and Amenhotep and Chefron and the
+rest. There had been reformers in those lost races; one age had sought
+to better the last, one man had toiled to save--yet there only remained
+offensive bundles of mummied flesh and bone and a handful of relics
+in tombs fifty centuries old. Was it all, then, futile? Did it matter,
+then, whether one man laboured or a race aspired?
+
+Only for a moment these thoughts passed through his mind; and then,
+as the glow through the broken cloud on the opposite horizon suddenly
+faded, and veils of melancholy fell over the desert and the river and
+the palms, there rose a call, sweetly shrill, undoubtingly insistent.
+Sunset had come, and, with it, the Muezzin's call to prayer from the
+minaret of a mosque hard by.
+
+David was conscious of a movement behind him--that Kaid was praying with
+hands uplifted; and out on the sands between the window and the river
+he saw kneeling figures here and there, saw the camel-drivers halt their
+trains, and face the East with hands uplifted. The call went on--"La
+ilaha illa-llah!"
+
+It called David, too. The force and searching energy and fire in it
+stole through his veins, and drove from him the sense of futility
+and despondency which had so deeply added to his trouble. There was
+something for him, too, in that which held infatuated the minds of so
+many millions.
+
+A moment later Kaid and he faced each other again. "Effendina," he said,
+"thou wilt not desert our work now?"
+
+"Money--for this expedition? Thou hast it?" Kaid asked ironically.
+
+"I have but little money, and it must go to rebuild the mills,
+Effendina. I must have it of thee."
+
+"Let them remain in their ashes."
+
+"But thousands will have no work."
+
+"They had work before they were built, they will have work now they are
+gone."
+
+"Effendina, I stayed in Egypt at thy request. The work is thy work. Wilt
+thou desert it?"
+
+"The West lured me--by things that seemed. Now I know things as they
+are."
+
+"They will lure thee again to-morrow," said David firmly, but with a
+weight on his spirit. His eyes sought and held Kaid's. "It is too late
+to go back; we must go forward or we shall lose the Soudan, and a Mahdi
+and his men will be in Cairo in ten years."
+
+For an instant Kaid was startled. The old look of energy and purpose
+leaped up into his eye; but it faded quickly again. If, as the Italian
+physician more than hinted, his life hung by a thread, did it matter
+whether the barbarian came to Cairo? That was the business of those who
+came after. If Sharif was right, and his life was saved, there would be
+time enough to set things right.
+
+"I will not pour water on the sands to make an ocean," he answered.
+"Will a ship sail on the Sahara? Bismillah, it is all a dream! Harrik
+was right. But dost thou think to do with me as thou didst with Harrik?"
+he sneered. "Is it in thy mind?"
+
+David's patience broke down under the long provocation. "Know then,
+Effendina," he said angrily, "that I am not thy subject, nor one
+beholden to thee, nor thy slave. Upon terms well understood, I have
+laboured here. I have kept my obligations, and it is thy duty to keep
+thy obligations, though the hand of death were on thee. I know not what
+has poisoned thy mind, and driven thee from reason and from justice. I
+know that, Prince Pasha of Egypt as thou art, thou art as bound to me as
+any fellah that agrees to tend my door or row my boat. Thy compact
+with me is a compact with England, and it shall be kept, if thou art an
+honest man. Thou mayst find thousands in Egypt who will serve thee at
+any price, and bear thee in any mood. I have but one price. It is well
+known to thee. I will not be the target for thy black temper. This is
+not the middle ages; I am an Englishman, not a helot. The bond must
+be kept; thou shalt not play fast and loose. Money must be found; the
+expedition must go. But if thy purpose is now Harrik's purpose, then
+Europe should know, and Egypt also should know. I have been thy right
+hand, Effendina; I will not be thy old shoe, to be cast aside at thy
+will."
+
+In all the days of his life David had never flamed out as he did now.
+Passionate as his words were, his manner was strangely quiet, but his
+white and glistening face and his burning eyes showed how deep was his
+anger.
+
+As he spoke, Kaid sank upon the divan. Never had he been challenged so.
+With his own people he had ever been used to cringing and abasement, and
+he had played the tyrant, and struck hard and cruelly, and he had
+been feared; but here, behind David's courteous attitude, there was a
+scathing arraignment of his conduct which took no count of consequence.
+In other circumstances his vanity would have shrunk under this whip of
+words, but his native reason and his quick humour would have justified
+David. In this black distemper possessing him, however, only outraged
+egotism prevailed. His hands clenched and unclenched, his lips were
+drawn back on his teeth in rage.
+
+When David had finished, Kaid suddenly got to his feet and took a step
+forward with a malediction, but a faintness seized him and he staggered
+back. When he raised his head again David was gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX. LACEY MOVES
+
+If there was one glistening bead of sweat on the bald pate of Lacey of
+Chicago there were a thousand; and the smile on his face was not less
+shining and unlimited. He burst into the rooms of the palace where David
+had residence, calling: "Oyez! Oyez! Saadat! Oh, Pasha of the Thousand
+Tails! Oyez! Oyez!"
+
+Getting no answer, he began to perform a dance round the room, which in
+modern days is known as the negro cake-walk. It was not dignified, but
+it would have been less dignified still performed by any other living
+man of forty-five with a bald head and a waist-band ten inches too
+large. Round the room three times he went, and then he dropped on a
+divan. He gasped, and mopped his face and forehead, leaving a little
+island of moisture on the top of his head untouched. After a moment, he
+gained breath and settled down a little. Then he burst out:
+
+     "Are you coming to my party, O effendi?
+     There'll be high jinks, there'll be welcome, there'll be room;
+     For to-morrow we are pulling stakes for Shendy.
+     Are you coming to my party, O Nahoum?"
+
+"Say, I guess that's pretty good on the spur of the moment," he wheezed,
+and, taking his inseparable note book from his pocket, wrote the
+impromptu down. "I guess She'll like that-it rings spontaneous. She'll
+be tickled, tickled to death, when she knows what's behind it." He
+repeated it with gusto. "She'll dote on it," he added--the person to
+whom he referred being the sister of the American Consul, the little
+widow, "cute as she can be," of whom he had written to Hylda in the
+letter which had brought a crisis in her life. As he returned the
+note-book to his pocket a door opened. Mahommed Hassan slid forward into
+the room, and stood still, impassive and gloomy. Lacey beckoned, and
+said grotesquely:
+
+    "'Come hither, come hither, my little daughter,
+     And do not tremble so!'"
+
+A sort of scornful patience was in Mahommed's look, but he came nearer
+and waited.
+
+"Squat on the ground, and smile a smile of mirth, Mahommed," Lacey said
+riotously. "'For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o'
+the May!'"
+
+Mahommed's face grew resentful. "O effendi, shall the camel-driver laugh
+when the camels are lost in the khamsin and the water-bottle is empty?"
+
+"Certainly not, O son of the spreading palm; but this is not a desert,
+nor a gaudy caravan. This is a feast of all angels. This is the day when
+Nahoum the Nefarious is to be buckled up like a belt, and ridden in a
+ring. Where is the Saadat?"
+
+"He is gone, effendi! Like a mist on the face of the running water, so
+was his face; like eyes that did not see, so was his look. 'Peace be to
+thee, Mahommed, thou art faithful as Zaida,' he said, and he mounted and
+rode into the desert. I ran after till he was come to the edge of the
+desert; but he sent me back, saying that I must wait for thee; and this
+word I was to say, that Prince Kaid had turned his face darkly from him,
+and that the finger of Sharif--"
+
+"That fanatical old quack--Harrik's friend!"
+
+"--that the finger of Sharif was on his pulse; but the end of all was in
+the hands of God."
+
+"Oh yes, exactly, the finger of Sharif on his pulse! The old story-the
+return to the mother's milk, throwing back to all the Pharaohs. Well,
+what then?" he added cheerfully, his smile breaking out again. "Where
+has he gone, our Saadat?"
+
+"To Ebn Ezra Bey at the Coptic Monastery by the Etl Tree, where your
+prophet Christ slept when a child."
+
+Lacey hummed to himself meditatively. "A sort of last powwow--Rome
+before the fall. Everything wrong, eh? Kaid turned fanatic, Nahoum on
+the tiles watching for the Saadat to fall, things trembling for want of
+hard cash. That's it, isn't it, Mahommed?"
+
+Mahommed nodded, but his look was now alert, and less sombre. He had
+caught at something vital and confident in Lacey's tone. He drew nearer,
+and listened closely.
+
+"Well, now, my gentle gazelle, listen unto me," continued Lacey. He
+suddenly leaned forward, and spoke in subdued but rapid tones. "Say,
+Mahommed, once upon a time there was an American man, with a shock of
+red hair, and a nature like a spring-lock. He went down to Mexico, with
+a million or two of his own money got honestly by an undisputed will
+from an undisputed father--you don't understand that, but it doesn't
+matter--and with a few millions of other people's money, for to gamble
+in mines and railways and banks and steamship companies--all to do with
+Mexico what the Saadat has tried to do in Egypt with less money; but not
+for the love of Allah, same as him. This American was going to conquer
+like Cortez, but his name was Thomas Tilman Lacey, and he had a lot of
+gall. After years of earnest effort, he lost his hair and the millions
+of the Infatuated Conquistadores. And by-and-by he came to Cairo with
+a thimbleful of income, and began to live again. There was a civil
+war going on in his own country, but he thought that one out of forty
+millions would not be strictly missed. So he stayed in Egypt; and the
+tale of his days in Egypt, is it not written with a neboot of domwood in
+the book of Mahommed Hassan the scribe?"
+
+He paused and beamed upon the watchful Mahommed, who, if he did not
+understand all that had been said, was in no difficulty as to the drift
+and meaning of the story.
+
+"Aiwa, effendi," he urged impatiently. "It is a long ride to the Etl
+Tree, and the day is far spent."
+
+"Inshallah, you shall hear, my turtle-dove! One day there came to Cairo,
+in great haste, a man from Mexico, looking for the foolish one called T.
+T. Lacey, bearing glad news. And the man from Mexico blew his trumpet,
+and straightway T. T. Lacey fell down dismayed. The trumpet said that
+a million once lost in Mexico was returned, with a small flock of other
+millions; for a mine, in which it was sunk, had burst forth with a stony
+stream of silver. And behold! Thomas Tilman Lacey, the despised waster
+of his patrimony and of other people's treasure, is now, O son of the
+fig-flower, richer than Kaid Pasha and all his eunuchs."
+
+Suddenly Mahommed Hassan leaned forward, then backward, and, after the
+fashion of desert folk, gave a shrill, sweet ululation that seemed to
+fill the palace.
+
+"Say, that's A1," Lacey said, when Mahommed's voice sank to a whisper
+of wild harmony. "Yes, you can lick my boots, my noble sheikh of
+Manfaloot," he added, as Mahommed caught his feet and bent his head upon
+them. "I wanted to do something like that myself. Kiss 'em, honey; it'll
+do you good."
+
+After a moment, Mahommed drew back and squatted before him in an
+attitude of peace and satisfaction. "The Saadat--you will help him? You
+will give him money?"
+
+"Let's put it in this way, Mahommed: I'll invest in an expedition out of
+which I expect to get something worth while--concessions for mines
+and railways, et cetera." He winked a round, blue eye. "Business is
+business, and the way to get at the Saadat is to talk business; but you
+can make up your mind that,
+
+    "'To-morrow, we are pulling stakes for Shendy!
+     Are you coming to my party, O Nahoum?'"
+
+"By the prophet Abraham, but the news is great news," said Mahommed with
+a grin. "But the Effendina?"
+
+"Well, I'll try and square the Effendina," answered Lacey. "Perhaps the
+days of backsheesh aren't done in Egypt, after all."
+
+"And Nahoum Pasha?" asked Mahommed, with a sinister look.
+
+"Well, we'll try and square him, too, but in another way."
+
+"The money, it is in Egypt?" queried Mahommed, whose idea was that money
+to be real must be seen. "Something that's as handy and as marketable,"
+answered Lacey. "I can raise half a million to-morrow; and that will do
+a lot of what we want. How long will it take to ride to the monastery?"
+
+Mahommed told him.
+
+Lacey was about to leave the room, when he heard a voice outside.
+"Nahoum!" he said, and sat down again on the divan. "He has come to see
+the Saadat, I suppose; but it'll do him good to see me, perhaps. Open
+the sluices, Mahommed."
+
+Yes, Nahoum would be glad to see the effendi, since Claridge Pasha was
+not in Cairo. When would Claridge Pasha return? If, then, the effendi
+expected to see the Saadat before his return to Cairo, perhaps he would
+convey a message. He could not urge his presence on the Saadat, since he
+had not been honoured with any communication since yesterday.
+
+"Well, that's good-mannered, anyhow, pasha," said Lacey with cheerful
+nonchalance. "People don't always know when they're wanted or not
+wanted."
+
+Nahoum looked at him guardedly, sighed and sat down. "Things have grown
+worse since yesterday," he said. "Prince Kaid received the news badly."
+He shook his head. "He has not the gift of perfect friendship. That is
+a Christian characteristic; the Muslim does not possess it. It was too
+strong to last, maybe--my poor beloved friend, the Saadat."
+
+"Oh, it will last all right," rejoined Lacey coolly. "Prince Kaid has
+got a touch of jaundice, I guess. He knows a thing when he finds it,
+even if he hasn't the gift of 'perfect friendship,' same as Christians
+like you and me. But even you and me don't push our perfections too
+far--I haven't noticed you going out of your way to do things for your
+'poor beloved friend, the Saadat'."
+
+"I have given him time, energy, experience--money."
+
+Lacey nodded. "True. And I've often wondered why, when I've seen the
+things you didn't give and the things you took away."
+
+Nahoum's eyes half closed. Lacey was getting to close quarters with
+suspicion and allusion; but it was not his cue to resent them yet.
+
+"I had come now to offer him help; to advance him enough to carry
+through his expedition."
+
+"Well, that sounds generous, but I guess he would get on without it,
+pasha. He would not want to be under any more obligations to you."
+
+"He is without money. He must be helped."
+
+"Just so."
+
+"He cannot go to the treasury, and Prince Kaid has refused. Why should
+he decline help from his friend?" Suddenly Lacey changed his tactics. He
+had caught a look in Nahoum's eyes which gave him a new thought. "Well,
+if you've any proposition, pasha, I'll take it to him. I'll be seeing
+him to-night."
+
+"I can give him fifty thousand pounds."
+
+"It isn't enough to save the situation, pasha."
+
+"It will help him over the first zareba."
+
+"Are there any conditions?"
+
+"There are no conditions, effendi."
+
+"And interest?"
+
+"There would be no interest in money."
+
+"Other considerations?"
+
+"Yes, other considerations, effendi."
+
+"If they were granted, would there be enough still in the stocking to
+help him over a second zareba--or a third, perhaps?"
+
+"That would be possible, even likely, I think. Of course we speak in
+confidence, effendi."
+
+"The confidence of the 'perfect friendship.'"
+
+"There may be difficulty, because the Saadat is sensitive; but it is the
+only way to help him. I can get the money from but one source; and to
+get it involves an agreement."
+
+"You think his Excellency would not just jump at it--that it might hurt
+some of his prejudices, eh?"
+
+"So, effendi."
+
+"And me--where am I in it, pasha?"
+
+"Thou hast great influence with his Excellency."
+
+"I am his servant--I don't meddle with his prejudices, pasha."
+
+"But if it were for his own good, to save his work here."
+
+Lacey yawned almost ostentatiously. "I guess if he can't save it himself
+it can't be saved, not even when you reach out the hand of perfect
+friendship. You've been reaching out for a long time, pasha, and it
+didn't save the steamer or the cotton-mills; and it didn't save us when
+we were down by Sobat a while ago, and you sent Halim Bey to teach us to
+be patient. We got out of that nasty corner by sleight of hand, but not
+your sleight of hand, pasha. Your hand is a quick hand, but a sharp eye
+can see the trick, and then it's no good, not worth a button."
+
+There was something savage behind Nahoum's eyes, but they did not show
+it; they blinked with earnest kindness and interest. The time would come
+when Lacey would go as his master should go, and the occasion was
+not far off now; but it must not be forced. Besides, was this fat,
+amorous-looking factotum of Claridge Pasha's as Spartan-minded as his
+master? Would he be superior to the lure of gold? He would see. He spoke
+seriously, with apparent solicitude.
+
+"Thou dost not understand, effendi. Claridge Pasha must have money.
+Prestige is everything in Egypt, it is everything with Kaid. If Claridge
+Pasha rides on as though nothing has happened--and money is the only
+horse that can carry him--Kaid will not interfere, and his black mood
+may pass; but any halting now and the game is done."
+
+"And you want the game to go on right bad, don't you? Well, I guess
+you're right. Money is the only winner in this race. He's got to have
+money, sure. How much can you raise? Oh, yes, you told me! Well, I don't
+think it's enough; he's got to have three times that; and if he can't
+get it from the Government, or from Kaid, it's a bad lookout. What's the
+bargain you have in your mind?"
+
+"That the slave-trade continue, effendi."
+
+Lacey did not wink, but he had a shock of surprise. On the instant he
+saw the trap--for the Saadat and for himself.
+
+"He would not do it--not for money, pasha."
+
+"He would not be doing it for money. The time is not ripe for it, it is
+too dangerous. There is a time for all things. If he will but wait!"
+
+"I wouldn't like to be the man that'd name the thing to him. As you say,
+he's got his prejudices. They're stronger than in most men."
+
+"It need not be named to him. Thou canst accept the money for him,
+and when thou art in the Soudan, and he is going to do it, thou canst
+prevent it."
+
+"Tell him that I've taken the money and that he's used it, and he
+oughtn't to go back on the bargain I made for him? So that he'll be
+bound by what I did?"
+
+"It is the best way, effendi."
+
+"He'd be annoyed," said Lacey with a patient sigh.
+
+"He has a great soul; but sometimes he forgets that expediency is the
+true policy."
+
+"Yet he's done a lot of things without it. He's never failed in what he
+set out to do. What he's done has been kicked over, but he's done it all
+right, somehow, at last."
+
+"He will not be able to do this, effendi, except with my help--and
+thine."
+
+"He's had quite a lot of things almost finished, too," said Lacey
+reflectively, "and then a hand reached out in the dark and cut the
+wires--cut them when he was sleeping, and he didn't know; cut them when
+he was waking, and he wouldn't understand; cut them under his own eyes,
+and he wouldn't see; because the hand that cut them was the hand of the
+perfect friend."
+
+He got slowly to his feet, as a cloud of colour drew over the face of
+Nahoum and his eyes darkened with astonishment and anger. Lacey put his
+hands in his pockets and waited till Nahoum also rose. Then he gathered
+the other's eyes to his, and said with drawling scorn:
+
+"So, you thought I didn't understand! You thought I'd got a brain like
+a peanut, and wouldn't drop onto your game or the trap you've set. You'd
+advance money--got from the slave-dealers to prevent the slave-trade
+being stopped! If Claridge Pasha took it and used it, he could never
+stop the slave-trade. If I took it and used it for him on the same
+terms, he couldn't stop the slave-trade, though he might know no more
+about the bargain than a babe unborn. And if he didn't stand by the
+bargain I made, and did prohibit slave-dealing, nothing'd stop the
+tribes till they marched into Cairo. He's been safe so far, because they
+believed in him, and because he'd rather die a million deaths than go
+crooked. Say, I've been among the Dagos before--down in Mexico--and I'm
+onto you. I've been onto you for a good while; though there was nothing
+I could spot certain; but now I've got you, and I'll break the 'perfect
+friendship' or I'll eat my shirt. I'll--"
+
+He paused, realising the crisis in which David was moving, and that
+perils were thick around their footsteps. But, even as he thought of
+them, he remembered David's own frank, fearless audacity in danger and
+difficulty, and he threw discretion to the winds. He flung his flag
+wide, and believed with a belief as daring as David's that all would be
+well.
+
+"Well, what wilt thou do?" asked Nahoum with cool and deadly menace.
+"Thou wilt need to do it quickly, because, if it is a challenge, within
+forty-eight hours Claridge Pasha and thyself will be gone from Egypt--or
+I shall be in the Nile."
+
+"I'll take my chances, pasha," answered Lacey, with equal coolness. "You
+think you'll win. It's not the first time I've had to tackle men like
+you--they've got the breed in Mexico. They beat me there, but I learned
+the game, and I've learned a lot from you, too. I never knew what your
+game was here. I only know that the Saadat saved your life, and got
+you started again with Kaid. I only know that you called yourself a
+Christian, and worked on him till he believed in you, and Hell might
+crackle round you, but he'd believe, till he saw your contract signed
+with the Devil--and then he'd think the signature forged. But he's got
+to know now. We are not going out of Egypt, though you may be going to
+the Nile; but we are going to the Soudan, and with Kaid's blessing, too.
+You've put up the bluff, and I take it. Be sure you've got Kaid solid,
+for, if you haven't, he'll be glad to know where you keep the money you
+got from the slave-dealers."
+
+Nahoum shrugged his shoulders. "Who has seen the money? Where is the
+proof? Kaid would know my reasons. It is not the first time virtue has
+been tested in Egypt, or the first time that it has fallen."
+
+In spite of himself Lacey laughed. "Say, that's worthy of a great
+Christian intellect. You are a bright particular star, pasha. I take it
+back--they'd learn a lot from you in Mexico. But the only trouble with
+lying is, that the demand becomes so great you can't keep all the cards
+in your head, and then the one you forget does you. The man that isn't
+lying has the pull in the long run. You are out against us, pasha, and
+we'll see how we stand in forty-eight hours. You have some cards up your
+sleeve, I suppose; but--well, I'm taking you on. I'm taking you on with
+a lot of joy, and some sorrow, too, for we might have pulled off a big
+thing together, you and Claridge Pasha, with me to hold the stirrups.
+Now it's got to be war. You've made it so. It's a pity, for when we grip
+there'll be a heavy fall."
+
+"For a poor man thou hast a proud stomach."
+
+"Well, I'll admit the stomach, pasha. It's proud; and it's strong, too;
+it's stood a lot in Egypt; it's standing a lot to-day."
+
+"We'll ease the strain, perhaps," sneered Nahoum. He made a perfunctory
+salutation and walked briskly from the room.
+
+Mahommed Hassan crept in, a malicious grin on his face. Danger and
+conflict were as meat and drink to him.
+
+"Effendi, God hath given thee a wasp's sting to thy tongue. It is well.
+Nahoum Pasha hath Mizraim: the Saadat hath thee and me."
+
+"There's the Effendina," said Lacey reflectively. "Thou saidst thou
+would 'square' him, effendi."
+
+"I say a lot," answered Lacey rather ruefully. "Come, Mahommed, the
+Saadat first, and the sooner the better."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI. THE STRUGGLE IN THE DESERT
+
+   "And His mercy is on them that fear Him throughout all generations."
+
+On the clear, still evening air the words rang out over the desert,
+sonorous, imposing, peaceful. As the notes of the verse died away the
+answer came from other voices in deep, appealing antiphonal:
+
+   "He hath showed strength with His arm, He hath scattered the proud
+   in the imagination of their hearts."
+
+Beyond the limits of the monastery there was not a sign of life; neither
+beast nor bird, nor blade of grass, nor any green thing; only the
+perfect immemorial blue, and in the east a misty moon, striving in vain
+to offer light which the earth as yet rejected for the brooding radiance
+of the descending sun. But at the great door of the monastery there grew
+a stately palm, and near by an ancient acacia-tree; and beyond the stone
+chapel there was a garden of struggling shrubs and green things, with
+one rose-tree which scattered its pink leaves from year to year upon the
+loam, since no man gathered bud or blossom.
+
+The triumphant call of the Magnificat, however beautiful, seemed
+strangely out of place in this lonely island in a sea of sand. It
+was the song of a bannered army, marching over the battle-field with
+conquering voices, and swords as yet unsheathed and red, carrying
+the spoils of conquest behind the laurelled captain of the host. The
+crumbling and ancient walls were surrounded by a moat which a stranger's
+foot crossed hardly from moon to moon, which the desert wayfarer sought
+rarely, since it was out of the track of caravans, and because food was
+scant in the refectory of this Coptic brotherhood. It was scarce five
+hours' ride from the Palace of the Prince Pasha: but it might have been
+a thousand miles away, so profoundly separate was it from the world of
+vital things and deeds of men.
+
+As the chant rang out, confident, majestic, and serene, carried by
+voices of power and shrill sweetness, which only the desert can produce,
+it might have seemed to any listener that this monastery was all that
+remained of some ancient kingdom of brimming, active cities, now lying
+beneath the obliterating sand, itself the monument and memorial of a
+breath of mercy of the Destroyer, the last refuge of a few surviving
+captains of a departed greatness. Hidden by the grey, massive walls,
+built as it were to resist the onset of a ravaging foe, the swelling
+voices might well have been those of some ancient order of valiant
+knights, whose banners hung above them, the 'riclame' of their deeds.
+But they were voices and voices only; for they who sang were as unkempt
+and forceless as the lonely wall which shut them in from the insistent
+soul of the desert.
+
+Desolation? The desert was not desolate. Its face was bare and burning,
+it slaked no man's thirst, gave no man food, save where scattered oases
+were like the breasts of a vast mother eluding the aching lips of her
+parched children; but the soul of the desert was living and inspiring,
+beating with vitality. It was life that burned like flame. If the
+water-skin was dry and the date-bag empty it smothered and destroyed;
+but it was life; and to those who ventured into its embrace, obeying the
+conditions of the sharp adventure, it gave what neither sea, nor green
+plain, nor high mountain, nor verdant valley could give--a consuming
+sense of power, which found its way to the deepest recesses of being.
+Out upon the vast sea of sand, where the descending sun was spreading a
+note of incandescent colour, there floated the grateful words:
+
+   "He remembering His mercy hath holpen His servant Israel; as He
+   promised to our forefathers, Abraham, and his seed for ever."
+
+Then the antiphonal ceased; and together the voices of all within the
+place swelled out in the Gloria and the Amen, and seemed to pass away
+in ever-receding vibrations upon the desert, till it was lost in the
+comforting sunset.
+
+As the last note died away, a voice from beneath the palm-tree near
+the door, deeper than any that had come from within, said reverently:
+"Ameen-Ameen!"
+
+He who spoke was a man well over sixty years, with a grey beard, lofty
+benign forehead, and the eyes of a scholar and a dreamer. As he uttered
+the words of spiritual assent, alike to the Muslim and the Christian
+religion, he rose to his feet, showing the figure of a man of action,
+alert, well-knit, authoritative. Presently he turned towards the East
+and stretched a robe upon the ground, and with stately beauty of gesture
+he spread out his hands, standing for a moment in the attitude of
+aspiration. Then, kneeling, he touched his turbaned head to the ground
+three times, and as the sun drew down behind the sharp, bright line of
+sand that marked the horizon, he prayed devoutly and long. It was Ebn
+Ezra Bey.
+
+Muslim though he was, he had visited this monastery many times, to study
+the ancient Christian books which lay in disordered heaps in an ill-kept
+chamber, books which predated the Hegira, and were as near to the life
+of the Early Church as the Scriptures themselves--or were so reputed.
+Student and pious Muslim as he was, renowned at El Azhar and at every
+Muslim university in the Eastern world, he swore by the name of Christ
+as by that of Abraham, Isaac, and all the prophets, though to him
+Mahomet was the last expression of Heaven's will to mankind. At first
+received at the monastery with unconcealed aversion, and not without
+danger to himself, he had at last won to him the fanatical monks, who,
+in spirit, kept this ancient foundation as rigid to their faith as
+though it were in mediaeval times. And though their discipline was
+lax, and their daily duties orderless, this was Oriental rather than
+degenerate. Here Ebn Ezra had stayed for weeks at a time in the past,
+not without some religious scandal, long since forgotten.
+
+His prayers ended, he rose up slowly, once more spread out his hands in
+ascription, and was about to enter the monastery, when, glancing towards
+the west, he saw a horseman approaching. An instinct told him who it
+was before he could clearly distinguish the figure, and his face lighted
+with a gentle and expectant smile. Then his look changed.
+
+"He is in trouble," he murmured. "As it was with his uncle in Damascus,
+so will it be with him. Malaish, we are in the will of God!"
+
+The hand that David laid in Ebn Ezra's was hot and nervous, the eyes
+that drank in the friendship of the face which had seen two Claridges
+emptying out their lives in the East were burning and famished by long
+fasting of the spirit, forced abstinence from the pleasures of success
+and fruition-haunting, desiring eyes, where flamed a spirit which
+consumed the body and the indomitable mind. The lips, however, had their
+old trick of smiling, though the smile which greeted Ebn Ezra Bey had a
+melancholy which touched the desert-worn, life-spent old Arab as he had
+not been touched since a smile, just like this, flashed up at him from
+the weather-stained, dying face of quaint Benn Claridge in a street of
+Damascus. The natural duplicity of the Oriental had been abashed and
+inactive before the simple and astounding honesty of these two Quaker
+folk.
+
+He saw crisis written on every feature of the face before him. Yet the
+scanty meal they ate with the monks in the ancient room was enlivened
+by the eager yet quiet questioning of David, to whom the monks responded
+with more spirit than had been often seen in this arid retreat. The
+single torch which spluttered from the wall as they drank their coffee
+lighted up faces as strange, withdrawn, and unconsciously secretive
+as ever gathered to greet a guest. Dim tales had reached them of this
+Christian reformer and administrator, scraps of legend from stray
+camel-drivers, a letter from the Patriarch commanding them to pray
+blessings on his labours--who could tell what advantage might not come
+to the Coptic Church through him, a Christian! On the dull, torpid
+faces, light seemed struggling to live for a moment, as David talked.
+It was as though something in their meagre lives, which belonged to
+undeveloped feelings, was fighting for existence--a light struggling to
+break through murky veils of inexperience.
+
+Later, in the still night, however--still, though air vibrated
+everywhere, as though the desert breathed an ether which was to fill
+men's veins with that which quieted the fret and fever of life's
+disillusions and forgeries and failures--David's speech with Ebn Ezra
+Bey was of a different sort. If, as it seems ever in the desert, an
+invisible host of beings, once mortal, now immortal, but suspensive and
+understanding, listened to the tale he unfolded, some glow of pity must
+have possessed them; for it was an Iliad of herculean struggle against
+absolute disaster, ending with the bitter news of his grandfather's
+death. It was the story of AEdipus overcome by events too strong for
+soul to bear. In return, as the stars wheeled on, and the moon stole to
+the zenith, majestic and slow, Ebn Ezra offered to his troubled friend
+only the philosophy of the predestinarian, mingled with the calm of the
+stoic. But something antagonistic to his own dejection, to the Muslim's
+fatalism, emerged from David's own altruism, to nerve him to hope
+and effort still. His unconquerable optimism rose determinedly to the
+surface, even as he summed up and related the forces working against
+him.
+
+"They have all come at once," he said; "all the activities opposing me,
+just as though they had all been started long ago at different points,
+with a fixed course to run, and to meet and give me a fall in the hour
+when I could least resist. You call it Fate. I call it what it proves
+itself to be. But here it is a hub of danger and trouble, and the spokes
+of disaster are flying to it from all over the compass, to make the
+wheel that will grind me; and all the old troop of Palace intriguers and
+despoilers are waiting to heat the tire and fasten it on the machine
+of torture. Kaid has involved himself in loans which press, in foolish
+experiments in industry without due care; and now from ill-health and
+bad temper comes a reaction towards the old sinister rule, when the
+Prince shuts his eyes and his agents ruin and destroy. Three nations
+who have intrigued against my work see their chance, and are at Kaid's
+elbow. The fate of the Soudan is in the balance. It is all as the shake
+of a feather. I can save it if I go; but, just as I am ready, my mills
+burn down, my treasury dries up, Kaid turns his back on me, and the toil
+of years is swept away in a night. Thee sees it is terrible, friend?"
+
+Ebn Ezra looked at him seriously and sadly for a moment, and then said:
+"Is it given one man to do all? If many men had done these things, then
+there had been one blow for each. Now all falls on thee, Saadat. Is it
+the will of God that one man should fling the lance, fire the cannon,
+dig the trenches, gather food for the army, drive the horses on to
+battle, and bury the dead? Canst thou do all?"
+
+David's eyes brightened to the challenge. "There was the work to do, and
+there were not the many to do it. My hand was ready; the call came; I
+answered. I plunged into the river of work alone."
+
+"Thou didst not know the strength of the currents, the eddies and the
+whirlpools, the hidden rocks--and the shore is far off, Saadat."
+
+"It is not so far but that, if I could get breath to gather strength,
+I should reach the land in time. Money--ah, but enough for this
+expedition! That over, order, quiet yonder, my own chosen men as
+governors, and I could"--he pointed towards the southern horizon--"I
+could plant my foot in Cairo, and from the centre control the great
+machinery--with Kaid's help; and God's help. A sixth of a million, and
+Kaid's hand behind me, and the boat would lunge free of the sand-banks
+and churn on, and churn on.... Friend," he added, with the winning
+insistence that few found it possible to resist, "if all be well, and we
+go thither, wilt thou become the governor-general yonder? With thee
+to rule justly where there is most need of justice, the end would be
+sure--if it be the will of God."
+
+Ebn Ezra Bey sat for a moment looking into the worn, eager face,
+indistinct in the moonlight, then answered slowly: "I am seventy, and
+the years smite hard as they pass, and there or here, it little matters
+when I go, as I must go; and whether it be to bend the lance, or bear
+the flag before thee, or rule a Mudirieh, what does it matter! I will
+go with thee," he added hastily; "but it is better thou shouldst not
+go. Within the last three days I have news from the South. All that thou
+hast done there is in danger now. The word for revolt has passed from
+tribe to tribe. A tongue hath spoken, and a hand hath signalled"--his
+voice lowered--"and I think I know the tongue and the hand!" He paused;
+then, as David did not speak, continued: "Thou who art wise in most
+things, dost decline to seek for thy foe in him who eateth from the same
+dish with thee. Only when it is too late thou wilt defend thyself and
+all who keep faith with thee."
+
+David's face clouded. "Nahoum, thou dost mean Nahoum? But thou dost not
+understand, and there is no proof."
+
+"As a camel knows the coming storm while yet the sky is clear, by that
+which the eye does not see, so do I feel Nahoum. The evils thou hast
+suffered, Saadat, are from his hand, if from any hand in Egypt--"
+
+Suddenly he leaned over and touched David's arm. "Saadat, it is of no
+avail. There is none in Egypt that desires good; thy task is too great.
+All men will deceive thee; if not now, yet in time. If Kaid favours thee
+once more, and if it is made possible for thee to go to the Soudan, yet
+I pray thee to stay here. Better be smitten here, where thou canst get
+help from thine own country, if need be, than yonder, where they but
+wait to spoil thy work and kill thee. Thou art young; wilt thou throw
+thy life away? Art thou not needed here as there? For me it is nothing,
+whether it be now or in a few benumbing years; but for thee--is there no
+one whom thou lovest so well that thou wouldst not shelter thy life to
+spare that life sorrow? Is there none that thou lovest so, and that will
+love thee to mortal sorrow, if thou goest without care to thy end too
+soon?"
+
+As a warm wind suddenly sweeps across the cool air of a summer evening
+for an instant, suffocating and unnerving, so Ebn Ezra's last words
+swept across David's spirit. His breath came quicker, his eyes half
+closed. "Is there none that thou lovest so, and that will love thee to
+mortal sorrow, if--"
+
+As a hand secretly and swiftly slips the lever that opens the
+sluice-gates of a dike, while the watchman turns away for a moment to
+look at the fields which the waters enrich and the homes of poor folk
+whom the gates defend, so, in a moment, when off his guard, worn with
+watching and fending, as it were, Ebn Ezra had sprung the lever, and
+a flood of feeling swept over David, drowned him in its impulse and
+pent-up force.
+
+"Is there none that thou lovest so--" Of what use had been all his
+struggle and his pain since that last day in Hamley--his dark fighting
+days in the desert with Lacey and Mahommed, and his handful of faithful
+followers, hemmed in by dangers, the sands swarming with Arabs who
+feathered now to his safety, now to his doom, and his heart had hungered
+for what he had denied it with a will that would not be conquered?
+Wasted by toil and fever and the tension of danger and the care of
+others dependent on him, he had also fought a foe which was ever at
+his elbow, ever whispered its comfort and seduction in his ear, the
+insidious and peace-giving, exalting opiate that had tided him over some
+black places, and then had sought for mastery of him when he was back
+again in the world of normal business and duty, where it appealed not as
+a medicine, but as a perilous luxury. And fighting this foe, which had
+a voice so soothing, and words like the sound of murmuring waters, and
+a cool and comforting hand that sought to lead him into gardens of
+stillness and passive being, where he could no more hear the clangour
+and vexing noises of a world that angered and agonised, there had also
+been the lure of another passion of the heart, which was too perilously
+dear to contemplate. Eyes that were beautiful, and their beauty was not
+for him; a spirit that was bright and glowing, but the brightness and
+the glow might not renew his days. It was hard to fight alone. Alone he
+was, for only to one may the doors within doors be opened-only to one
+so dear that all else is everlastingly distant may the true tale of the
+life beneath life be told. And it was not for him--nothing of this;
+not even the thought of it; for to think of it was to desire it, and to
+desire it was to reach out towards it; and to reach out towards it was
+the end of all. There had been moments of abandonment to the alluring
+dream, such as when he wrote the verses which Lacey had sent to Hylda
+from the desert; but they were few. Oft-repeated, they would have filled
+him with an agitated melancholy impossible to be borne in the life which
+must be his.
+
+So it had been. The deeper into life and its labours and experiences he
+had gone, the greater had been his temptations, born of two passions,
+one of the body and its craving, the other of the heart and its desires:
+and he had fought on--towards the morning.
+
+"Is there none that thou lovest so, and that will love thee to mortal
+sorrow, if thou goest without care to thy end too soon?" The desert, the
+dark monastery, the acacia tree, the ancient palm, the ruinous garden,
+disappeared. He only saw a face which smiled at him, as it had done 'by
+the brazier in the garden at Cairo, that night when she and Nahoum and
+himself and Mizraim had met in the room of his house by the Ezbekieh
+gardens, and she had gone out to her old life in England, and he had
+taken up the burden of the East--that long six years ago. His head
+dropped in his hands, and all that was beneath the Quaker life he
+had led so many years, packed under the crust of form and habit, and
+regulated thought, and controlled emotion, broke forth now, and had its
+way with him.
+
+He turned away staggering and self-reproachful from the first question,
+only to face the other--"And that will love thee to mortal sorrow, if
+thou goest without care to thy end too soon." It was a thought he had
+never let himself dwell on for an instant in all the days since they
+had last met. He had driven it back to its covert, even before he could
+recognise its face. It was disloyal to her, an offence against all that
+she was, an affront to his manhood to let the thought have place in his
+mind even for one swift moment. She was Lord Eglington's wife--there
+could be no sharing of soul and mind and body and the exquisite devotion
+of a life too dear for thought. Nothing that she was to Eglington could
+be divided with another, not for an hour, not by one act of impulse; or
+else she must be less, she that might have been, if there had been no
+Eglington--
+
+An exclamation broke from him, and, as one crying out in one's sleep
+wakes himself, so the sharp cry of his misery woke him from the trance
+of memory that had been upon him, and he slowly became conscious of Ebn
+Ezra standing before him. Their eyes met, and Ebn Ezra spoke:
+
+"The will of Allah be thy will, Saadat. If it be to go to the Soudan,
+I am thine; if it be to stay, I am thy servant and thy brother. But
+whether it be life or death, thou must sleep, for the young are like
+water without sleep. Thou canst not live in strength nor die with
+fortitude without it. For the old, malaish, old age is between a
+sleeping and a waking! Come, Saadat! Forget not, thou must ride again to
+Cairo at dawn."
+
+David got slowly to his feet and turned towards the monastery. The
+figure of a monk stood in the doorway with a torch to light him to his
+room.
+
+He turned to Ebn Ezra again. "Does thee think that I have aught of his
+courage--my Uncle Benn? Thou knowest me--shall I face it out as did he?"
+
+"Saadat," the old man answered, pointing, "yonder acacia, that was he,
+quick to grow and short to live; but thou art as this date-palm, which
+giveth food to the hungry, and liveth through generations. Peace be upon
+thee," he added at the doorway, as the torch flickered towards the room
+where David was to lie.
+
+"And upon thee, peace!" answered David gently, and followed the smoky
+light to an inner chamber. The room in which David found himself was
+lofty and large, but was furnished with only a rough wooden bed, a rug,
+and a brazier. Left alone, he sat down on the edge of the bed, and,
+for a few moments, his mind strayed almost vaguely from one object to
+another. From two windows far up in the wall the moonlight streamed in,
+making bars of light aslant the darkness.
+
+Not a sound broke the stillness. Yet, to his sensitive nerves, the air
+seemed tingling with sensation, stirring with unseen activities. Here
+the spirit of the desert seemed more insistent in its piercing vitality,
+because it was shut in by four stone walls.
+
+Mechanically he took off his coat, and was about to fold and lay it
+on the rug beside the bed, when something hard in one of the pockets
+knocked against his knee. Searching, he found and drew forth a small
+bottle which, for many a month past, had lain in the drawer of a table
+where he had placed it on his return from the Soudan. It was an evil
+spirit which sent this tiny phial to his hand at a moment when he had
+paid out of the full treasury of his strength and will its accumulated
+deposit, leaving him with a balance on which no heavy draft could be
+made. His pulse quickened, then his body stiffened with the effort at
+self-control.
+
+Who placed this evil elixir in his pocket? What any enemy of his work
+had done was nothing to what might be achieved by the secret foe, who
+had placed this anodyne within his reach at this the most critical
+moment of his life. He remembered the last time he had used it--in the
+desert: two days of forgetfulness to the world, when it all moved by
+him, the swarming Arabs, the train of camels, the loads of ivory, the
+slimy crocodile on the sandbanks, the vultures hovering above unburied
+carcasses, the kourbash descending on shining black shoulders,
+corrugating bare brown bodies into cloven skin and lacerated flesh,
+a fight between champions of two tribes who clasped and smote and
+struggled and rained blows, and, both mortally wounded, still writhed in
+last conflict upon the ground--and Mahommed Hassan ever at the tent door
+or by his side, towering, watchful, sullen to all faces without, smiling
+to his own, with dog-like look waiting for any motion of his hand or any
+word.... Ah, Mahommed Hassan, it was he! Mahommed had put this phial in
+his pocket. His bitter secret was not hidden from Mahommed. And this was
+an act of supreme devotion--to put at his hand the lulling, inspiring
+draught. Did this fellah servant know what it meant--the sin of it, the
+temptation, the terrible joy, the blessed quiet; and then, the agonising
+remorse, the withering self-hatred and torturing penitence? No, Mahommed
+only knew that when the Saadat was gone beyond his strength, when the
+sleepless nights and feverish days came in the past, in their great
+troubles, when men were dying and only the Saadat could save, that this
+cordial lifted him out of misery and storm into calm. Yet Mahommed must
+have divined that it was a thing against which his soul revolted, or he
+would have given it to him openly. In the heart and mind of the giant
+murderer, however, must have been the thought that now when trouble
+was upon his master again, trouble which might end all, this supreme
+destroyer of pain and dark memory and present misery, would give him the
+comfort he needed--and that he would take it.
+
+If he had not seen it, this sudden craving would not have seized him for
+this eager beguiling, this soothing benevolence. Yet here it was in his
+hand; and even as it lay in his cold fingers--how cold they were, and
+his head how burning!--the desire for it surged up in him. And, as
+though the thing itself had the magical power to summon up his troubles,
+that it might offer the apathy and stimulus in one--even as it lured
+him, his dangers, his anxieties, the black uncertainties massed,
+multiplied and aggressive, rose before him, buffeted him, caught at his
+throat, dragged down his shoulders, clutched at his heart.
+
+Now, with a cry of agony, he threw the phial on the ground, and, sinking
+on the bed, buried his face in his hands and moaned, and fought for
+freedom from the cords tightening round him. It was for him to realise
+now how deep are the depths to which the human soul can sink, even while
+labouring to climb. Once more the sense of awful futility was on him: of
+wasted toil and blenched force, veins of energy drained of their blood,
+hope smitten in the way, and every dear dream shattered. Was it, then,
+all ended? Was his work indeed fallen, and all his love undone? Was his
+own redemption made impossible? He had offered up his life to this land
+to atone for a life taken when she--when she first looked up with eyes
+of gratitude, eyes that haunted him. Was it, then, unacceptable? Was it
+so that he must turn his back upon this long, heart-breaking but beloved
+work, this panacea for his soul, without which he could not pay the
+price of blood?
+
+Go back to England--to Hamley where all had changed, where the old man
+he loved no longer ruled in the Red Mansion, where all that had been
+could be no more? Go to some other land, and there begin again another
+such a work? Were there not vast fields of human effort, effort such
+as his, where he could ease the sorrow of living by the joy of a divine
+altruism? Go back to Hamley? Ah, no, a million times, no! That life was
+dead, it was a cycle of years behind him. There could be no return.
+He was in a maelstrom of agony, his veins were afire, his lips were
+parched. He sprang from his bed, knelt down, and felt for the little
+phial he had flung aside. After a moment his hand caught it, clutched
+it. But, even at the crest of the wave of temptation, words that he
+had heard one night in Hamley, that last night of all, flashed into his
+mind--the words of old Luke Claridge's prayer, "And if a viper fasten on
+his hand, O Lord--"
+
+Suddenly he paused. That scene in the old Meetinghouse swam before his
+eyes, got into his brain. He remembered the words of his own prayer,
+and how he had then retreated upon the Power that gave him power, for a
+draught of the one true tincture which braced the heart to throw itself
+upon the spears of trial. Now the trial had come, and that which was
+in him as deep as being, the habit of youth, the mother-fibre and
+predisposition, responded to the draught he had drunk then. As a body
+freed from the quivering, unrelenting grasp of an electric battery
+subsides into a cool quiet, so, through his veins seemed to pass an
+ether which stilled the tumult, the dark desire to drink the potion in
+his hand, and escape into that irresponsible, artificial world, where he
+had before loosened his hold on activity.
+
+The phial slipped from his fingers to the floor. He sank upon the side
+of the bed, and, placing his hands on his knees, he whispered a few
+broken words that none on earth was meant to hear. Then he passed into
+a strange and moveless quiet of mind and body. Many a time in days gone
+by--far-off days--had he sat as he was doing now, feeling his mind pass
+into a soft, comforting quiet, absorbed in a sensation of existence,
+as it were between waking and sleeping, where doors opened to new
+experience and understanding, where the mind seemed to loose itself from
+the bonds of human necessity and find a freer air.
+
+Now, as he sat as still as the stone in the walls around him, he was
+conscious of a vision forming itself before his eyes. At first it was
+indefinite, vague, without clear form, but at last it became a room
+dimly outlined, delicately veiled, as it were. Then it seemed, not that
+the mist cleared, but that his eyes became stronger, and saw through the
+delicate haze; and now the room became wholly, concretely visible.
+
+It was the room in which he had said good-bye to Hylda. As he gazed like
+one entranced, he saw a figure rise from a couch, pale, agitated, and
+beautiful, and come forward, as it were, towards him. But suddenly the
+mist closed in again upon the scene, a depth of darkness passed his
+eyes, and he heard a voice say: "Speak--speak to me!"
+
+He heard her voice as distinctly as though she were beside him--as,
+indeed, she had stood before him but an instant ago.
+
+Getting slowly to his feet, into the night he sent an answer to the
+call.
+
+Would she hear? She had said long ago that she would speak to him so.
+Perhaps she had tried before. But now at last he had heard and answered.
+Had she heard? Time might tell--if ever they met again. But how good,
+and quiet, and serene was the night!
+
+He composed himself to sleep, but, as he lay waiting for that coverlet
+of forgetfulness to be drawn over him, he heard the sound of bells soft
+and clear. Just such bells he had heard upon the common at Hamley. Was
+it, then, the outcome of his vision--a sweet hallucination? He leaned
+upon his elbow and listened.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII. FORTY STRIPES SAVE ONE
+
+The bells that rang were not the bells of Hamley; they were part of no
+vision or hallucination, and they drew David out of his chamber into
+the night. A little group of three stood sharply silhouetted against the
+moonlight, and towering above them was the spare, commanding form of Ebn
+Ezra Bey. Three camels crouched near, and beside them stood a Nubian lad
+singing to himself the song of the camel-driver:
+
+     "Fleet is thy foot: thou shalt rest by the Etl tree;
+     Water shalt thou drink from the blue-deep well;
+     Allah send His gard'ner with the green bersim,
+     For thy comfort, fleet one, by the Etl tree.
+     As the stars fly, have thy footsteps flown
+     Deep is the well, drink, and be still once more;
+     Till the pursuing winds panting have found thee
+     And, defeated, sink still beside thee--
+     By the well and the Etl tree."
+
+For a moment David stood in the doorway listening to the low song of
+the camel-driver. Then he came forward. As he did so, one of the two who
+stood with Ebn Ezra moved towards the monastery door slowly. It was
+a monk with a face which, even in this dim light, showed a deathly
+weariness. The eyes looked straight before him, as though they saw
+nothing of the world, only a goal to make, an object to be accomplished.
+The look of the face went to David's heart--the kinship of pain was
+theirs.
+
+"Peace be to thee," David said gently, as the other passed him.
+
+There was an instant's pause, and then the monk faced him with fingers
+uplifted. "The grace of God be upon thee, David," he said, and his eyes,
+drawn back from the world where they had been exploring, met the other's
+keenly. Then he wheeled and entered the monastery.
+
+"The grace of God be upon thee, David!" How strange it sounded, this
+Christian blessing in response to his own Oriental greeting, out in
+this Eastern waste. His own name, too. It was as though he had been
+transported to the ancient world where "Brethren" were so few that they
+called each other by their "Christian" names--even as they did in Hamley
+to-day. In Hamley to-day! He closed his eyes, a tremor running through
+his body; and then, with an effort which stilled him to peace again, he
+moved forward, and was greeted by Ebn Ezra, from whom the third member
+of the little group had now drawn apart nearer to the acacia-tree, and
+was seated on a rock that jutted from the sand. "What is it?" David
+asked.
+
+"Wouldst thou not sleep, Saadat? Sleep is more to thee now than aught
+thou mayst hear from any man. To all thou art kind save thyself."
+
+"I have rested," David answered, with a measured calmness, revealing to
+his friend the change which had come since they parted an hour before.
+They seated themselves under the palm-tree, and were silent for a
+moment, then Ebn Ezra said:
+
+"These come from the Place of Lepers."
+
+David started slightly. "Zaida?" he asked, with a sigh of pity.
+
+"The monk who passed thee but now goes every year to the Place of Lepers
+with the caravan, for a brother of this order stays yonder with the
+afflicted, seeing no more the faces of this world which he has left
+behind. Afar off from each other they stand--as far as eye can see--and
+after the manner of their faith they pray to Allah, and he who has just
+left us finds a paper fastened with a stone upon the sand at a certain
+place where he waits. He touches it not, but reads it as it lies, and,
+having read, heaps sand upon it. And the message which the paper gives
+is for me."
+
+"For thee? Hast thou there one who--"
+
+"There was one, my father's son, though we were of different mothers;
+and in other days, so many years ago, he did great wrong to me, and not
+to me alone,"--the grey head bowed in sorrow--"but to one dearer to me
+than life. I hated him, and would have slain him, but the mind of Allah
+is not the mind of man; and he escaped me. Then he was stricken with
+leprosy, and was carried to the place from whence no leper returns. At
+first my heart rejoiced; then, at last, I forgave him, Saadat--was he
+not my father's son, and was the woman not gone to the bosom of Allah,
+where is peace? So I forgave and sorrowed for him--who shall say what
+miseries are those which, minute to minute, day after day, and year upon
+year, repeat themselves, till it is an endless flaying of the body and
+burning of the soul! Every year I send a message to him, and every year
+now this Christian monk--there is no Sheikh-el-Islam yonder--brings back
+the written message which he finds in the sand."
+
+"And thee has had a message to-night?"
+
+"The last that may come--God be praised, he goeth to his long home. It
+was written in his last hour. There was no hope; he is gone. And so, one
+more reason showeth why I should go where thou goest, Saadat."
+
+Casting his eyes toward the figure by the acacia-tree, his face clouded
+and he pondered anxiously, looking at David the while. Twice he essayed
+to speak, but paused.
+
+David's eyes followed his look. "What is it? Who is he--yonder?"
+
+The other rose to his feet. "Come and see, Saadat," he replied. "Seeing,
+thou wilt know what to do."
+
+"Zaida--is it of Zaida?" David asked.
+
+"The man will answer for himself, Saadat." Coming within a few feet of
+the figure crouched upon the rock, Ebn Ezra paused and stretched out
+a hand. "A moment, Saadat. Dost thou not see, dost thou not recognise
+him?"
+
+David intently studied the figure, which seemed unconscious of their
+presence. The shoulders were stooping and relaxed as though from great
+fatigue, but David could see that the figure was that of a tall man. The
+head was averted, but a rough beard covered the face, and, in the light
+of the fire, one hand that clutched it showed long and skinny and yellow
+and cruel. The hand fascinated David's eyes. Where had he seen it? It
+flashed upon him--a hand clutching a robe, in a frenzy of fear, in the
+court-yard of the blue tiles, in Kaid's Palace--Achmet the Ropemaker! He
+drew back a step.
+
+"Achmet," he said in a low voice. The figure stirred, the hand dropped
+from the beard and clutched the knee; but the head was not raised, and
+the body remained crouching and listless.
+
+"He escaped?" David said, turning to Ebn Ezra Bey.
+
+"I know not by what means--a camel-driver bribed, perhaps, and a camel
+left behind for him. After the caravan had travelled a day's journey he
+joined it. None knew what to do. He was not a leper, and he was armed."
+
+"Leave him with me," said David.
+
+Ebn Ezra hesitated. "He is armed; he was thy foe--"
+
+"I am armed also," David answered enigmatically, and indicated by a
+gesture that he wished to be left alone. Ebn Ezra drew away towards the
+palm-tree, and stood at this distance watching anxiously, for he knew
+what dark passions seize upon the Oriental--and Achmet had many things
+for which to take vengeance.
+
+David stood for a moment, pondering, his eyes upon the deserter. "God
+greet thee as thou goest, and His goodness befriend thee," he said
+evenly. There was silence, and no movement. "Rise and speak," he added
+sternly. "Dost thou not hear? Rise, Achmet Pasha!"
+
+Achmet Pasha! The head of the desolate wretch lifted, the eyes glared at
+David for an instant, as though to see whether he was being mocked, and
+then the spare figure stretched itself, and the outcast stood up. The
+old lank straightness was gone, the shoulders were bent, the head was
+thrust forward, as though the long habit of looking into dark places had
+bowed it out of all manhood.
+
+"May grass spring under thy footstep, Saadat," he said, in a thick
+voice, and salaamed awkwardly--he had been so long absent from life's
+formularies.
+
+"What dost thou here, pasha?" asked David formally. "Thy sentence had no
+limit."
+
+"I could not die there," said the hollow voice, and the head sank
+farther forward. "Year after year I lived there, but I could not die
+among them. I was no leper; I am no leper. My penalty was my penalty,
+and I paid it to the full, piastre by piastre of my body and my mind. It
+was not one death, it was death every hour, every day I stayed. I had no
+mind. I could not think. Mummy-cloths were round my brain; but the fire
+burned underneath and would not die. There was the desert, but my limbs
+were like rushes. I had no will, and I could not flee. I was chained to
+the evil place. If I stayed it was death, if I went it was death."
+
+"Thou art armed now," said David suggestively. Achmet laid a hand
+fiercely upon a dagger under his robe. "I hid it. I was afraid. I could
+not die--my hand was like a withered leaf; it could not strike; my heart
+poured out like water. Once I struck a leper, that he might strike and
+kill me; but he lay upon the ground and wept, for all his anger, which
+had been great, died in him at last. There was none other given to anger
+there. The leper has neither anger, nor mirth, nor violence, nor peace.
+It is all the black silent shame--and I was no leper."
+
+"Why didst thou come? What is there but death for thee here, or anywhere
+thou goest! Kaid's arm will find thee; a thousand hands wait to strike
+thee."
+
+"I could not die there--Dost thou think that I repent?" he added with
+sudden fierceness. "Is it that which would make me repent? Was I worse
+than thousands of others? I have come out to die--to fight and die.
+Aiwa, I have come to thee, whom I hated, because thou canst give me
+death as I desire it. My mother was an Arab slave from Senaar, and
+she was got by war, and all her people. War and fighting were their
+portion--as they ate, as they drank and slept. In the black years behind
+me among the Unclean, there was naught to fight--could one fight the
+dead, and the agony of death, and the poison of the agony! Life, it is
+done for me--am I not accursed? But to die fighting--ay, fighting for
+Egypt, since it must be, and fighting for thee, since it must be; to
+strike, and strike, and strike, and earn death! Must the dog, because he
+is a dog, die in the slime? Shall he not be driven from the village to
+die in the clean sand? Saadat, who will see in me Achmet Pasha, who did
+with Egypt what he willed, and was swept away by the besom in thy hand?
+Is there in me aught of that Achmet that any should know?"
+
+"None would know thee for that Achmet," answered David.
+
+"I know, it matters not how--at last a letter found me, and the way
+of escape--that thou goest again to the Soudan. There will be fighting
+there--"
+
+"Not by my will," interrupted David.
+
+"Then by the will of Sheitan the accursed; but there will be
+fighting--am I not an Arab, do I not know? Thou hast not conquered yet.
+Bid me go where thou wilt, do what thou wilt, so that I may be among the
+fighters, and in the battle forget what I have seen. Since I am unclean,
+and am denied the bosom of Allah, shall I not go as a warrior to Hell,
+where men will fear me? Speak, Saadat, canst thou deny me this?"
+
+Nothing of repentance, so far as he knew, moved the dark soul; but, like
+some evil spirit, he would choose the way to his own doom, the place and
+the manner of it: a sullen, cruel, evil being, unyielding in his evil,
+unmoved by remorse--so far as he knew. Yet he would die fighting, and
+for Egypt "and for thee, if it must be so. To strike, to strike, to
+strike, and earn death!" What Achmet did not see, David saw, the glimmer
+of light breaking through the cloud of shame and evil and doom. Yonder
+in the Soudan more problems than one would be solved, more lives than
+one be put to the extreme test. He did not answer Achmet's question yet.
+"Zaida--?" he said in a low voice. The pathos of her doom had been a
+dark memory.
+
+Achmet's voice dropped lower as he answered. "She lived till the day her
+sister died. I never saw her face; but I was sent to bear each day to
+her door the food she ate and a balass of water; and I did according to
+my sentence. Yet I heard her voice. And once, at last, the day she
+died, she spoke to me, and said from inside the hut: 'Thy work is done,
+Achmet. Go in peace.' And that night she lay down on her sister's grave,
+and in the morning she was found dead upon it."
+
+David's eyes were blinded with tears. "It was too long," he said at
+last, as though to himself.
+
+"That day," continued Achmet, "there fell ill with leprosy the Christian
+priest from this place who had served in that black service so long;
+and then a fire leapt up in me. Zaida was gone--I had brought food and
+a balass of water to her door those many times; there was naught to do,
+since she was gone--"
+
+Suddenly David took a step nearer to him and looked into the sullen and
+drooping eyes. "Thou shalt go with me, Achmet. I will do this unlawful
+act for thee. At daybreak I will give thee orders. Thou shalt join
+me far from here--if I go to the Soudan," he added, with a sudden
+remembrance of his position; and he turned away slowly.
+
+After a moment, with muttered words, Achmet sank down upon the stone
+again, drew a cake of dourha from his inner robe, and began to eat.
+
+The camel-boy had lighted a fire, and he sat beside it warming his hands
+at the blaze and still singing to himself:
+
+  "The bed of my love I will sprinkle with attar of roses,
+   The face of my love I will touch with the balm
+   With the balm of the tree from the farthermost wood,
+   From the wood without end, in the world without end.
+   My love holds the cup to my lips, and I drink of the cup,
+   And the attar of roses I sprinkle will soothe like the evening dew,
+   And the balm will be healing and sleep, and the cup I will drink,
+   I will drink of the cup my love holds to my lips--"
+
+David stood listening. What power was there in desert life that could
+make this poor camel-driver, at the end of a long day of weariness and
+toil and little food and drink, sing a song of content and cheerfulness?
+The little needed, the little granted, and no thought beyond--save the
+vision of one who waited in the hut by the onion-field. He gathered
+himself together and tuned his mind to the scene through which he had
+just passed, and then to the interview he would have with Kaid on the
+morrow. A few hours ago he had seen no way out of it all--he had had no
+real hope that Kaid would turn to him again; but the last two hours had
+changed all that. Hope was alive in him. He had fought a desperate fight
+with himself, and he had conquered. Then had come Achmet, unrepentant,
+degraded still, but with the spirit of Something glowing--Achmet to die
+for a cause, driven by that Something deep beneath the degradation and
+the crime. He had hope, and, as the camel-driver's voice died away,
+and he lay down with a sheep-skin over him and went instantly to sleep,
+David drew to the fire and sat down beside it. Presently Ebn Ezra came
+to urge him to go to bed, but he would not. He had slept, he said; he
+had slept and rested, and the night was good--he would wait. Then the
+other brought rugs and blankets, and gave David some, and lay down
+beside the fire, and watched and waited for he knew not what. Ever and
+ever his eyes were on David, and far back under the acacia-tree Achmet
+slept as he had not slept since his doom fell on him.
+
+At last Ebn Ezra Bey also slept; but David was awake with the night and
+the benevolent moon and the marching stars. The spirit of the desert
+was on him, filling him with its voiceless music. From the infinite
+stretches of sand to the south came the irresistible call of life, as
+soft as the leaves in a garden of roses, as deep as the sea. This world
+was still, yet there seemed a low, delicate humming, as of multitudinous
+looms at a distance so great that the ear but faintly caught it--the
+sound of the weavers of life and destiny and eternal love, the hands of
+the toilers of all the ages spinning and spinning on; and he was part
+of it, not abashed or dismayed because he was but one of the illimitable
+throng.
+
+The hours wore on, but still he sat there, peace in all his heart,
+energy tingling softly through every vein, the wings of hope fluttering
+at his ear.
+
+At length the morning came, and, from the west, with the rising sun,
+came a traveller swiftly, making for where he was. The sleepers stirred
+around him and waked and rose. The little camp became alive. As the
+traveller neared the fresh-made fire, David saw that it was Lacey. He
+went eagerly to meet him.
+
+"Thee has news," he said. "I see it is so." He held Lacey's hand in his.
+
+"Say, you are going on that expedition, Saadat. You wanted money. Will a
+quarter of a million do?" David's eyes caught fire.
+
+From the monastery there came the voices of the monks:
+
+   "O be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with
+   gladness, and come before His presence with a song."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII. THE DARK INDENTURE
+
+Nahoum had forgotten one very important thing: that what affected David
+as a Christian in Egypt would tell equally against himself. If, in his
+ill-health and dejection, Kaid drank deep of the cup of Mahomet, the
+red eyes of fanaticism would be turned upon the Armenian, as upon the
+European Christian. He had forgotten it for the moment, but when, coming
+into Kaid's Palace, a little knot of loiterers spat upon the ground and
+snarled, "Infidel--Nazarene!" with contempt and hatred, the significance
+of the position came home to him. He made his way to a far quarter of
+the Palace, thoughtfully weighing the circumstances, and was met by
+Mizraim.
+
+Mizraim salaamed. "The height of thy renown be as the cedar of Lebanon,
+Excellency."
+
+"May thy feet tread the corn of everlasting fortune, son of Mahomet."
+
+They entered the room together. Nahoum looked at Mizraim curiously. He
+was not satisfied with what he saw. Mizraim's impassive face had little
+expression, but the eyes were furtively eager and sinister.
+
+"Well, so it is, and if it is, what then?" asked Nahoum coolly.
+
+"Ki di, so it is," answered Mizraim, and a ghastly smile came to his
+lips. This infidel pasha, Nahoum, had a mind that pierced to the meaning
+of words ere they were spoken. Mizraim's hand touched his forehead,
+his breast, his lips, and, clasping and unclasping his long, snakelike
+fingers, he began the story he had come to tell.
+
+"The Inglesi, whom Allah confound, the Effendina hath blackened by a
+look, his words have smitten him in the vital parts--"
+
+"Mizraim, thou dove, speak to the purpose!" Mizraim showed a dark
+pleasure at the interruption. Nahoum was impatient, anxious; that made
+the tale better worth telling.
+
+"Sharif and the discontented ones who dare not act, like the vultures,
+they flee the living man, but swoop upon the corpse. The consuls of
+those countries who love not England or Claridge Pasha, and the holy
+men, and the Cadi, all scatter smouldering fires. There is a spirit in
+the Palace and beyond which is blowing fast to a great flame."
+
+"Then, so it is, great one, and what bodes it?"
+
+"It may kill the Inglesi; but it will also sweep thee from the fields of
+life where thou dost flourish."
+
+"It is not against the foreigner, but against the Christian, Mizraim?"
+
+"Thy tongue hath wisdom, Excellency."
+
+"Thou art a Muslim--"
+
+"Why do I warn thee? For service done to me; and because there is none
+other worth serving in Egypt. Behold, it is my destiny to rule others,
+to serve thee."
+
+"Once more thy turban full of gold, Mizraim, if thou dost service now
+that hath meaning and is not a belching of wind and words. Thou hast
+a thing to say--say it, and see if Nahoum hath lost his wit, or hath a
+palsied arm."
+
+"Then behold, pasha. Are not my spies in all the Palace? Is not my
+scourge heavier than the whip of the horned horse? Ki di, so it is. This
+I have found. Sharif hath, with others, made a plot which hath enough
+powder in it to shake Egypt, and toss thee from thy high place into the
+depths. There is a Christian--an Armenian, as it chances; but he was
+chosen because he was a Christian, and for that only. His name is Rahib.
+He is a tent-maker. He had three sons. They did kill an effendi who
+had cheated them of their land. Two of them were hanged last week; the
+other, caught but a few days since, is to hang within three days. To-day
+Kaid goes to the Mosque of Mahmoud, as is the custom at this festival.
+The old man hath been persuaded to attempt the life of Kaid, upon
+condition that his son--his Benjamin--is set free. It will be but
+an attempt at Kaid's life, no more; but the cry will go forth that a
+Christian did the thing; and the Muslim flame will leap high."
+
+"And the tent-maker?" asked Nahoum musingly, though he was turning over
+the tale in his mind, seeing behind it and its far consequences.
+
+"Malaish, what does it matter! But he is to escape, and they are to
+hang another Christian in his stead for the attempt on Kaid. It hath no
+skill, but it would suffice. With the dervishes gone malboos, and the
+faithful drunk with piety--canst thou not see the issue, pasha? Blood
+will be shed."
+
+"The Jews of Europe would be angry," said Nahoum grimly but evenly.
+"The loans have been many, and Kaid has given a lien by the new canal
+at Suez. The Jews will be angry," he repeated, "and for every drop of
+Christian blood shed there would be a lanced vein here. But that would
+not bring back Nahoum Pasha," he continued cynically. "Well, this is thy
+story, Mizraim; this is what they would do. Now what hast thou done to
+stop their doing?"
+
+"Am I not a Muslim? Shall I give Sharif to the Nile?"
+
+Nahoum smiled darkly. "There is a simpler way. Thy mind ever runs on the
+bowstring and the sword. These are great, but there is a greater. It is
+the mocking finger. At midnight, when Kaid goes to the Mosque Mahmoud,
+a finger will mock the plotters till they are buried in confusion. Thou
+knowest the governor of the prisons--has he not need of something? Hath
+he never sought favours of thee?"
+
+"Bismillah, but a week ago!"
+
+"Then, listen, thou shepherd of the sheep--"
+
+He paused, as there came a tap at the door, and a slave entered
+hurriedly and addressed Nahoum. "The effendi, Ebn Ezra Bey, whom thou
+didst set me to watch, he hath entered the Palace, and asks for the
+Effendina."
+
+Nahoum started, and his face clouded, but his eyes flashed fire. He
+tossed the slave a coin. "Thou hast done well. Where is he now?"
+
+"He waits in the hall, where is the statue of Mehemet Ali and the
+lions."
+
+"In an hour, Mizraim, thou shalt hear what I intend. Peace be to thee!"
+
+"And on thee, peace!" answered Mizraim, as Nahoum passed from the room,
+and walked hastily towards the hall where he should find Ebn Ezra Bey.
+Nearing the spot, he brought his step to a deliberate slowness, and
+appeared not to notice the stately Arab till almost upon him.
+
+"Salaam, effendi," he said smoothly, yet with inquisition in his eye,
+with malice in his tone.
+
+"Salaam, Excellency."
+
+"Thou art come on the business of thy master?"
+
+"Who is my master, Excellency?"
+
+"Till yesterday it was Claridge Pasha. Hast thou then forsaken him in
+his trouble--the rat from the sinking ship?"
+
+A flush passed over Ebn Ezra Bey's face, and his mouth opened with a
+gasp of anger. Oriental though he was, he was not as astute as this
+Armenian Christian, who was purposely insulting him, that he might, in
+a moment of heat, snatch from him the business he meant to lay before
+Kaid. Nahoum had not miscalculated.
+
+"I have but one master, Excellency," Ebn Ezra answered quietly at last,
+"and I have served him straightly. Hast thou done likewise?"
+
+"What is straight to thee might well be crooked to me, effendi."
+
+"Thou art crooked as the finger of a paralytic."
+
+"Yet I have worked in peace with Claridge Pasha for these years past,
+even until yesterday, when thou didst leave him to his fate."
+
+"His ship will sail when thine is crumbling on the sands, and all thou
+art is like a forsaken cockatrice's nest."
+
+"Is it this thou hast come to say to the Effendina?"
+
+"What I have come to say to the Effendina is for the world to know after
+it hath reached his ears. I know thee, Nahoum Pasha. Thou art a traitor.
+Claridge Pasha would abolish slavery, and thou dost receive great sums
+of gold from the slave-dealers to prevent it."
+
+"Is it this thou wilt tell Kaid?" Nahoum asked with a sneer. "And hast
+thou proofs?"
+
+"Even this day they have come to my hands from the south."
+
+"Yet I think the proofs thou hast will not avail; and I think that thou
+wilt not show them to Kaid. The gift of second thinking is a great gift.
+Thou must find greater reason for seeking the Effendina."
+
+"That too shall be. Gold thou hadst to pay the wages of the soldiers of
+the south. Thou didst keep the gold and order the slave-hunt; and the
+soldiers of the Effendina have been paid in human flesh and blood--ten
+thousand slaves since Claridge Pasha left the Soudan, and three thousand
+dead upon the desert sands, abandoned by those who hunted them when
+water grew scarce and food failed. To-day shall see thy fall."
+
+At his first words Nahoum had felt a shock, from which his spirit
+reeled; but an inspiration came to him on the moment; and he listened
+with a saturnine coolness to the passionate words of the indignant
+figure towering above him. When Ebn Ezra had finished, he replied
+quietly:
+
+"It is even as thou sayest, effendi. The soldiers were paid in slaves
+got in the slave-hunt; and I have gold from the slave-dealers. I needed
+it, for the hour is come when I must do more for Egypt than I have ever
+done."
+
+With a gesture of contempt Ebn Ezra made to leave, seeing an official
+of the Palace in the distance. Nahoum stopped him. "But, one moment ere
+thou dost thrust thy hand into the cockatrice's den. Thou dost measure
+thyself against Nahoum? In patience and with care have I trained myself
+for the battle. The bulls of Bashan may roar, yet my feet are shod with
+safety. Thou wouldst go to Kaid and tell him thy affrighted tale. I tell
+thee, thou wilt not go. Thou hast reason yet, though thy blood is hot.
+Thou art to Claridge Pasha like a brother--as to his uncle before him,
+who furnished my father's palace with carpets. The carpets still soften
+the fall of my feet in my father's palace, as they did soften the fall
+of my brother's feet, the feet of Foorgat Bey."
+
+He paused, looking at Ebn Ezra with quiet triumph, though his eyes had
+ever that smiling innocence which had won David in days gone by. He was
+turning his words over on the tongue with a relish born of long waiting.
+
+"Come," he said presently--"come, and I will give thee reason why thou
+wilt not speak with Kaid to-day. This way, effendi."
+
+He led the other into a little room hung about with rugs and tapestry,
+and, going to the wall, he touched a spring. "One moment here, effendi,"
+he added quietly. The room was as it had been since David last stood
+within it.
+
+"In this room, effendi," Nahoum said with cold deliberation, "Claridge
+Pasha killed my brother, Foorgat Bey."
+
+Ebn Ezra fell back as though he had been struck. Swiftly Nahoum told
+him the whole truth--even to the picture of the brougham, and the rigid,
+upright figure passing through the night to Foorgat's palace, the gaunt
+Mizraim piloting the equipage of death.
+
+"I have held my peace for my own reasons, effendi. Wilt thou then force
+me to speak? If thou dost still cherish Claridge Pasha, wilt thou see
+him ruined? Naught but ruin could follow the telling of the tale at this
+moment--his work, his life, all done. The scandal, the law, vengeance!
+But as it is now, Kaid may turn to him again; his work may yet go on--he
+has had the luck of angels, and Kaid is fickle. Who can tell?"
+
+Abashed and overwhelmed, Ebn Ezra Bey looked at him keenly. "To tell
+of Foorgat Bey would ruin thee also," he said. "That thou knowest. The
+trick--would Kaid forgive it? Claridge Pasha would not be ruined alone."
+
+"Be it so. If thou goest to Kaid with thy story, I go to Egypt with
+mine. Choose."
+
+Ebn Ezra turned to go. "The high God judge between him and thee," he
+said, and, with bowed head, left the Palace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV. NAHOUM DROPS THE MASK "CLARIDGE PASHA!"
+
+At the sound of the words, announced in a loud voice, hundreds of heads
+were turned towards the entrance of the vast salon, resplendent with
+gilded mirrors, great candelabra and chandeliers, golden hangings, and
+divans glowing with robes of yellow silk.
+
+It was the anniversary of Kaid's succession, and all entitled to come
+poured into the splendid chamber. The showy livery of the officials,
+the loose, spacious, gorgeous uniforms of the officers, with the curved
+jewelled scimitars and white turbans, the rich silk robes of the Ulema,
+robe over robe of coloured silk with flowing sleeves and sumptuous
+silken vests, the ample dignity of noble-looking Arabs in immense white
+turbans, the dark straight Stambouli coat of the officials, made a
+picture of striking variety and colour and interest.
+
+About the centre of the room, laying palm to palm again and yet again,
+touching lips and forehead and breast, speaking with slow, leisurely,
+voices, were two Arab sheikhs from the far Soudan. One of these showed
+a singular interest in the movements of Nahoum Pasha as he entered the
+chamber, and an even greater interest in David when he was announced;
+but as David, in his journey up the chamber, must pass near him, he
+drew behind a little group of officials, who whispered to each other
+excitedly as David came on. More than once before this same Sheikh
+Abdullah had seen David, and once they had met, and had made a treaty of
+amity, and Abdullah had agreed to deal in slaves no more; and yet within
+three months had sent to Cairo two hundred of the best that could be
+found between Khartoum and Senaar. His business, of which Ebn Ezra Bey
+had due knowledge, had now been with Nahoum. The business of the other
+Arab, a noble-looking and wiry Bedouin from the South, had been with Ebn
+Ezra Bey, and each hid his business from his friend. Abdullah murmured
+to himself as David passed--a murmur of admiration and astonishment. He
+had heard of the disfavour in which the Inglesi was; but, as he looked
+at David's face with its quiet smile, the influence which he felt in the
+desert long ago came over him again.
+
+"By Allah," he said aloud abstractedly, "it is a face that will not hide
+when the khamsin blows! Who shall gainsay it? If he were not an infidel
+he would be a Mahdi."
+
+To this his Bedouin friend replied: "As the depths of the pool at Ghebel
+Farik, so are his eyes. You shall dip deep and you shall not find the
+bottom. Bismillah, I would fight Kaid's Nubians, but not this infidel
+pasha!"
+
+Never had David appeared to such advantage. The victory over himself the
+night before, the message of hope that had reached him at the monastery
+in the desert, the coming of Lacey, had given him a certain quiet
+masterfulness not reassuring to his foes.
+
+As he entered the chamber but now, there flashed into his mind the
+scene six years ago when, an absolute stranger, he had stepped into this
+Eastern salon, and had heard his name called out to the great throng:
+"Claridge efendi!"
+
+He addressed no one, but he bowed to the group of foreign
+consuls-general, looking them steadily in the eyes. He knew their
+devices and what had been going on of late, he was aware that his fall
+would mean a blow to British prestige, and the calmness of his gaze
+expressed a fortitude which had a disconcerting effect upon the group.
+The British Consul-General stood near by. David advanced to him, and,
+as he did so, the few who surrounded the Consul-General fell back. David
+held out his hand. Somewhat abashed and ill at ease, the Consul-General
+took it.
+
+"Have you good news from Downing Street?" asked David quietly.
+
+The Consul-General hesitated for an instant, and then said: "There is
+no help to be had for you or for what you are doing in that quarter."
+He lowered his voice. "I fear Lord Eglington does not favour you; and he
+controls the Foreign Minister. I am very sorry. I have done my best, but
+my colleagues, the other consuls, are busy--with Lord Eglington."
+
+David turned his head away for an instant. Strange how that name sent
+a thrill through him, stirred his blood! He did not answer the
+Consul-General, and the latter continued:
+
+"Is there any hope? Is the breach with Kaid complete?"
+
+David smiled gravely. "We shall see presently. I have made no change in
+my plans on the basis of a breach."
+
+At that moment he caught sight of Nahoum some distance away and moved
+towards him. Out of the corner of his eye Nahoum saw David coming, and
+edged away towards that point where Kaid would enter, and where the
+crowd was greater. As he did so Kaid appeared. A thrill went through
+the chamber. Contrary to his custom, he was dressed in the old native
+military dress of Mehemet Ali. At his side was a jewelled scimitar,
+and in his turban flashed a great diamond. In his hand he carried a
+snuff-box, covered with brilliants, and on his breast were glittering
+orders.
+
+The eyes of the reactionaries flashed with sinister pleasure when they
+saw Kaid. This outward display of Orientalism could only be a reflex of
+the mind. It was the outer symbol of Kaid's return to the spirit of
+the old days, before the influence of the Inglesi came upon him. Every
+corrupt and intriguing mind had a palpitation of excitement.
+
+In Nahoum the sight of Kaid produced mixed feelings. If, indeed, this
+display meant reaction towards an entourage purely Arab, Egyptian, and
+Muslim, then it was no good omen for his Christian self. He drew near,
+and placed himself where Kaid could see him. Kaid's manner was cheerful,
+but his face showed the effect of suffering, physical and mental.
+Presently there entered behind him Sharif Bey, whose appearance was the
+signal for a fresh demonstration. Now, indeed, there could be no doubt
+as to Kaid's reaction. Yet if Sharif had seen Mizraim's face evilly
+gloating near by he would have been less confident.
+
+David was standing where Kaid must see him, but the Effendina gave no
+sign of recognition. This was so significant that the enemies of David
+rejoiced anew. The day of the Inglesi was over. Again and again did
+Kaid's eye wander over David's head.
+
+David remained calm and watchful, neither avoiding nor yet seeking the
+circle in which Kaid moved. The spirit with which he had entered the
+room, however, remained with him, even when he saw Kaid summon to him
+some of the most fanatical members of the court circle, and engage them
+in talk for a moment. But as this attention grew more marked, a cloud
+slowly gathered in the far skies of his mind.
+
+There was one person in the great assembly, however, who seemed to be
+unduly confident. It was an ample, perspiring person in evening dress,
+who now and again mopped a prematurely bald head, and who said to
+himself, as Kaid talked to the reactionaries:
+
+"Say, Kald's overdoing it. He's putting potted chicken on the butter.
+But it's working all right-r-i-g-h-t. It's worth the backsheesh!"
+
+At this moment Kaid fastened David with his look, and spoke in a tone so
+loud that people standing at some distance were startled.
+
+"Claridge Pasha!"
+
+In the hush that followed David stepped forward. "May the bounty of the
+years be thine, Saadat," Kaid said in a tone none could misunderstand.
+
+"May no tree in thy orchard wither, Effendina," answered David in a firm
+voice.
+
+Kaid beckoned him near, and again he spoke loudly: "I have proved thee,
+and found thee as gold tried seven times by the fire, Saadat. In the
+treasury of my heart shall I store thee up. Thou art going to the Soudan
+to finish the work Mehemet Ali began. I commend thee to Allah, and will
+bid thee farewell at sunrise--I and all who love Egypt."
+
+There was a sinister smile on his lips, as his eyes wandered over
+the faces of the foreign consuls-general. The look he turned on the
+intriguers of the Palace was repellent; he reserved for Sharif a moody,
+threatening glance, and the desperate hakim shrank back confounded from
+it. His first impulse was to flee from the Palace and from Cairo; but he
+bethought himself of the assault to be made on Kaid by the tent-maker,
+as he passed to the mosque a few hours later, and he determined to
+await the issue of that event. Exchanging glances with confederates, he
+disappeared, as Kaid laid a hand on David's arm and drew him aside.
+
+After viewing the great throng cynically for a moment Kaid said:
+"To-morrow thou goest. A month hence the hakim's knife will find the
+thing that eats away my life. It may be they will destroy it and save
+me; if not, we shall meet no more."
+
+David looked into his eyes. "Not in a month shall thy work be completed,
+Effendina. Thou shalt live. God and thy strong will shall make it so."
+
+A light stole over the superstitious face. "No device or hatred,
+or plot, has prevailed against thee," Kaid said eagerly. "Thou hast
+defeated all--even when I turned against thee in the black blood of
+despair. Thou hast conquered me even as thou didst Harrik."
+
+"Thou dost live," returned David drily. "Thou dost live for Egypt's
+sake, even as Harrik died for Egypt's sake, and as others shall die."
+
+"Death hath tracked thee down how often! Yet with a wave of the hand
+thou hast blinded him, and his blow falls on the air. Thou art beset by
+a thousand dangers, yet thou comest safe through all. Thou art an honest
+man. For that I besought thee to stay with me. Never didst thou lie to
+me. Good luck hath followed thee. Kismet! Stay with me, and it may be
+I shall be safe also. This thought came to me in the night, and in the
+morning was my reward, for Lacey effendi came to me and said, even as
+I say now, that thou wilt bring me good luck; and even in that hour, by
+the mercy of God, a loan much needed was negotiated. Allah be praised!"
+
+A glint of humour shot into David's eyes. Lacey--a loan--he read it
+all! Lacey had eased the Prince Pasha's immediate and pressing financial
+needs--and, "Allah be praised!" Poor human nature--backsheesh to a
+Prince regnant!
+
+"Effendina," he said presently, "thou didst speak of Harrik. One there
+was who saved thee then--"
+
+"Zaida!" A change passed over Kaid's face.
+
+"Speak! Thou hast news of her? She is gone?" Briefly David told him how
+Zaida was found upon her sister's grave. Kaid's face was turned away as
+he listened.
+
+"She spoke no word of me?" Kaid said at last. "To whom should she
+speak?" David asked gently. "But the amulet thou gavest her, set with
+one red jewel, it was clasped in her hand in death."
+
+Suddenly Kaid's anger blazed. "Now shall Achmet die," he burst out.
+"His hands and feet shall be burnt off, and he shall be thrown to the
+vultures."
+
+"The Place of the Lepers is sacred even from thee, Effendina," answered
+David gravely. "Yet Achmet shall die even as Harrik died. He shall die
+for Egypt and for thee, Effendina."
+
+Swiftly he drew the picture of Achmet at the monastery in the desert.
+"I have done the unlawful thing, Effendina," he said at last, "but thou
+wilt make it lawful. He hath died a thousand deaths--all save one."
+
+"Be it so," answered Kaid gloomily, after a moment; then his face
+lighted with cynical pleasure as he scanned once more the faces of the
+crowd before him. At last his eyes fastened on Nahoum. He turned to
+David.
+
+"Thou dost still desire Nahoum in his office?" he asked keenly.
+
+A troubled look came into David's eyes, then it cleared away, and he
+said firmly: "For six years we have worked together, Effendina. I am
+surety for his loyalty to thee."
+
+"And his loyalty to thee?"
+
+A pained look crossed over David's face again, but he said with a will
+that fought all suspicion down: "The years bear witness."
+
+Kaid shrugged his shoulders slightly. "The years have perjured
+themselves ere this. Yet, as thou sayest, Nahoum is a Christian," he
+added, with irony scarcely veiled.
+
+Now he moved forward with David towards the waiting court. David
+searched the groups of faces for Nahoum in vain. There were things to
+be said to Nahoum before he left on the morrow, last suggestions to be
+given. Nahoum could not be seen.
+
+Nahoum was gone, as were also Sharif and his confederates, and in
+the lofty Mosque of Mahmoud soft lights were hovering, while the
+Sheikh-el-Islam waited with Koran and scimitar for the ruler of Egypt to
+pray to God and salute the Lord Mahomet.
+
+At the great gateway in the Street of the Tent Makers Kaid paused on his
+way to the Mosque Mahmoud. The Gate was studded with thousands of nails,
+which fastened to its massive timbers relics of the faithful, bits of
+silk and cloth, and hair and leather; and here from time immemorial a
+holy man had sat and prayed. At the gateway Kaid salaamed humbly, and
+spoke to the holy man, who, as he passed, raised his voice shrilly in
+an appeal to Allah, commending Kaid to mercy and everlasting favour.
+On every side eyes burned with religious zeal, and excited faces were
+turned towards the Effendina. At a certain point there were little
+groups of men with faces more set than excited. They had a look of
+suppressed expectancy. Kald neared them, passed them, and, as he did
+so, they looked at each other in consternation. They were Sharif's
+confederates, fanatics carefully chosen. The attempt on Kaid's life
+should have been made opposite the spot where they stood. They craned
+their necks in effort to find the Christian tent-maker, but in vain.
+
+Suddenly they heard a cry, a loud voice calling. It was Rahib the
+tent-maker. He was beside Kaid's stirrups, but no weapon was in his
+hand; and his voice was calling blessings down on the Effendina's head
+for having pardoned and saved from death his one remaining son, the joy
+of his old age. In all the world there was no prince like Kaid, said the
+tent-maker; none so bountiful and merciful and beautiful in the eyes of
+men. God grant him everlasting days, the beloved friend of his people,
+just to all and greatly to be praised.
+
+As the soldiers drove the old man away with kindly insistence--for Kaid
+had thrown him a handful of gold--Mizraim, the Chief Eunuch, laughed
+wickedly. As Nahoum had said, the greatest of all weapons was the
+mocking finger. He and Mizraim had had their way with the governor
+of the prisons, and the murderer had gone in safety, while the father
+stayed to bless Kaid. Rahib the tent-maker had fooled the plotters. They
+were mad in derision. They did not know that Kaid was as innocent as
+themselves of having pardoned the tent-maker's son. Their moment had
+passed; they could not overtake it; the match had spluttered and gone
+out at the fuel laid for the fire of fanaticism.
+
+The morning of David's departure came. While yet it was dark he had
+risen, and had made his last preparations. When he came into the open
+air and mounted, it was not yet sunrise, and in that spectral early
+light, which is all Egypt's own, Cairo looked like some dream-city in a
+forgotten world. The Mokattam Hills were like vast dun barriers guarding
+and shutting in the ghostly place, and, high above all, the minarets of
+the huge mosque upon the lofty rocks were impalpable fingers pointing
+an endless flight. The very trees seemed so little real and substantial
+that they gave the eye the impression that they might rise and float
+away. The Nile was hung with mist, a trailing cloud unwound from the
+breast of the Nile-mother. At last the sun touched the minarets of the
+splendid mosque with shafts of light, and over at Ghizeh and Sakkarah
+the great pyramids, lifting their heads from the wall of rolling blue
+mist below, took the morning's crimson radiance with the dignity of four
+thousand years.
+
+On the decks of the little steamer which was to carry them south David,
+Ebn Ezra, Lacey, and Mahommed waited. Presently Kaid came, accompanied
+by his faithful Nubians, their armour glowing in the first warm light
+of the rising sun, and crowds of people, who had suddenly emerged, ran
+shrilling to the waterside behind him.
+
+Kaid's pale face had all last night's friendliness, as he bade David
+farewell with great honour, and commended him to the care of Allah; and
+the swords of the Nubians clashed against their breasts and on their
+shields in salaam.
+
+But there was another farewell to make; and it was made as David's foot
+touched the deck of the steamer. Once again David looked at Nahoum as
+he had done six years ago, in the little room where they had made their
+bond together. There was the same straight look in Nahoum's eyes. Was he
+not to be trusted? Was it not his own duty to trust? He clasped Nahoum's
+hand in farewell, and turned away. But as he gave the signal to start,
+and the vessel began to move, Nahoum came back. He leaned over the
+widening space and said in a low tone, as David again drew near:
+
+"There is still an account which should be settled, Saadat. It has
+waited long; but God is with the patient. There is the account of
+Foorgat Bey."
+
+The light fled from David's eyes and his heart stopped beating for a
+moment. When his eyes saw the shore again Nahoum was gone with Kaid.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV. THE FLIGHT OF THE WOUNDED
+
+       "And Mario can soothe with a tenor note
+        The souls in purgatory."
+
+"Non ti scordar di mi!" The voice rang out with passionate stealthy
+sweetness, finding its way into far recesses of human feeling. Women
+of perfect poise and with the confident look of luxury and social fame
+dropped their eyes abstractedly on the opera-glasses lying in their
+laps, or the programmes they mechanically fingered, and recalled, they
+knew not why--for what had it to do with this musical narration of a
+tragic Italian tale!--the days when, in the first flush of their wedded
+life, they had set a seal of devotion and loyalty and love upon their
+arms, which, long ago, had gone to the limbo of lost jewels, with the
+chaste, fresh desires of worshipping hearts. Young egotists, supremely
+happy and defiant in the pride of the fact that they loved each
+other, and that it mattered little what the rest of the world enjoyed,
+suffered, and endured--these were suddenly arrested in their buoyant and
+solitary flight, and stirred restlessly in their seats. Old men whose
+days of work were over; who no longer marshalled their legions, or moved
+at a nod great ships upon the waters in masterful manoeuvres; whose
+voices were heard no more in chambers of legislation, lashing partisan
+feeling to a height of cruelty or lulling a storm among rebellious
+followers; whose intellects no longer devised vast schemes of finance,
+or applied secrets of science to transform industry--these heard the
+enthralling cry of a soul with the darkness of eternal loss gathering
+upon it, and drew back within themselves; for they too had cried like
+this one time or another in their lives. Stricken, they had cried out,
+and ambition had fled away, leaving behind only the habit of living, and
+of work and duty.
+
+As Hylda, in the Duchess of Snowdon's box, listened with a face which
+showed nothing of what she felt, and looking straight at the stage
+before her, the words of a poem she had learned but yesterday came to
+her mind, and wove themselves into the music thrilling from the voice in
+the stage prison:
+
+  "And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence
+    For the fulness of the days? Have we withered or agonised?
+   Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue
+    thence?
+    Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should be prized?"
+
+"And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence?" Was it then so?
+The long weeks which had passed since that night at Hamley, when she had
+told Eglington the truth about so many things, had brought no peace,
+no understanding, no good news from anywhere. The morning after she
+had spoken with heart laid bare. Eglington had essayed to have a
+reconciliation; but he had come as the martyr, as one injured. His
+egotism at such a time, joined to his attempt to make light of things,
+of treating what had happened as a mere "moment of exasperation," as
+"one of those episodes inseparable from the lives of the high-spirited,"
+only made her heart sink and grow cold, almost as insensible as the
+flesh under a spray of ether. He had been neither wise nor patient. She
+had not slept after that bitter, terrible scene, and the morning had
+found her like one battered by winter seas, every nerve desperately
+alert to pain, yet tears swimming at her heart and ready to spring to
+her eyes at a touch of the real thing, the true note--and she knew so
+well what the true thing was! Their great moment had passed, had left
+her withdrawn into herself, firmly, yet without heart, performing the
+daily duties of life, gay before the world, the delightful hostess, the
+necessary and graceful figure at so many functions.
+
+Even as Soolsby had done, who went no further than to tell Eglington his
+dark tale, and told no one else, withholding it from "Our Man"; as Sybil
+Lady Eglington had shrunk when she had been faced by her obvious duty,
+so Hylda hesitated, but from better reason than either. To do right in
+the matter was to strike her husband--it must be a blow now, since her
+voice had failed. To do right was to put in the ancient home and house
+of Eglington one whom he--with anger and without any apparent desire
+to have her altogether for himself, all the riches of her life and
+love--had dared to say commanded her sympathy and interest, not because
+he was a man dispossessed of his rights, but because he was a man
+possessed of that to which he had no right. The insult had stung her,
+had driven her back into a reserve, out of which she seemed unable to
+emerge. How could she compel Eglington to do right in this thing--do
+right by his own father's son?
+
+Meanwhile, that father's son was once more imperilling his life, once
+more putting England's prestige in the balance in the Soudan, from which
+he had already been delivered twice as though by miracles. Since he had
+gone, months before, there had been little news; but there had been
+much public anxiety; and she knew only too well that there had been
+'pourparlers' with foreign ministers, from which no action came
+safe-guarding David.
+
+Many a human being has realised the apathy, the partial paralysis of the
+will, succeeding a great struggle, which has exhausted the vital forces.
+Many a general who has fought a desperate and victorious fight after
+a long campaign, and amid all the anxieties and miseries of war, has
+failed to follow up his advantage, from a sudden lesion of the power for
+action in him. He has stepped from the iron routine of daily effort into
+a sudden freedom, and his faculties have failed him, the iron of his
+will has vanished. So it was with Hylda. She waited for she knew not
+what. Was it some dim hope that Eglington might see the right as she
+saw it? That he might realise how unreal was this life they were living,
+outwardly peaceful and understanding, deluding the world, but inwardly
+a place of tears. How she dreaded the night and its recurrent tears, and
+the hours when she could not sleep, and waited for the joyless morning,
+as one lost on the moor, blanched with cold, waits for the sun-rise!
+Night after night at a certain hour--the hour when she went to bed at
+last after that poignant revelation to Eglington--she wept, as she
+had wept then, heart-broken tears of disappointment, disillusion,
+loneliness; tears for the bitter pity of it all; for the wasting and
+wasted opportunities; for the common aim never understood or planned
+together; for the precious hours lived in an air of artificial happiness
+and social excitement; for a perfect understanding missed; for the touch
+which no longer thrilled.
+
+But the end of it all must come. She was looking frail and delicate,
+and her beauty, newly refined, and with a fresh charm, as of mystery
+or pain, was touched by feverishness. An old impatience once hers was
+vanished, and Kate Heaver would have given a month's wages for one of
+those flashes of petulance of other days ever followed by a smile. Now
+the smile was all too often there, the patient smile which comes to
+those who have suffered. Hardness she felt at times, where Eglington
+was concerned, for he seemed to need her now not at all, to be
+self-contained, self-dependent--almost arrogantly so; but she did not
+show it, and she was outwardly patient.
+
+In his heart of hearts Eglington believed that she loved him, that
+her interest in David was only part of her idealistic temperament--the
+admiration of a woman for a man of altruistic aims; but his hatred of
+David, of what David was, and of his irrefutable claims, reacted on her.
+Perverseness and his unhealthy belief that he would master her in the
+end, that she would one day break down and come to him, willing to take
+his view in all things, and to be his slave--all this drove him farther
+and farther on a fatal, ever-broadening path.
+
+Success had spoiled him. He applied his gifts in politics, daringly
+unscrupulous, superficially persuasive, intellectually insinuating, to
+his wife; and she, who had been captured once by all these things, was
+not to be captured again. She knew what alone could capture her; and,
+as she sat and watched the singers on the stage now, the divine notes of
+that searching melody still lingering in her heart, there came a sudden
+wonder whether Eglington's heart could not be wakened. She knew that
+it never had been, that he had never known love, the transfiguring
+and reclaiming passion. No, no, surely it could not be too late--her
+marriage with him had only come too soon! He had ridden over her without
+mercy; he had robbed her of her rightful share of the beautiful and the
+good; he had never loved her; but if love came to him, if he could but
+once realise how much there was of what he had missed! If he did not
+save himself--and her--what would be the end? She felt the cords drawing
+her elsewhere; the lure of a voice she had heard in an Egyptian garden
+was in her ears. One night at Hamley, in an abandonment of grief-life
+hurt her so--she had remembered the prophecy she had once made that she
+would speak to David, and that he would hear; and she had risen from her
+seat, impelled by a strange new feeling, and had cried: "Speak! speak
+to me!" As plainly as she had ever heard anything in her life, she had
+heard his voice speak to her a message that sank into the innermost
+recesses of her being, and she had been more patient afterwards. She had
+no doubt whatever; she had spoken to him, and he had answered; but the
+answer was one which all the world might have heard.
+
+Down deep in her nature was an inalienable loyalty, was a simple,
+old-fashioned feeling that "they two," she and Eglington, should cleave
+unto each other till death should part. He had done much to shatter
+that feeling; but now, as she listened to Mario's voice, centuries of
+predisposition worked in her, and a great pity awoke in her heart. Could
+she not save him, win him, wake him, cure him of the disease of Self?
+
+The thought brought a light to her eyes which had not been there
+for many a day. Out of the deeps of her soul this mist of a pure
+selflessness rose, the spirit of that idealism which was the real chord
+of sympathy between her and Egypt.
+
+Yes, she would, this once again, try to win the heart of this man; and
+so reach what was deeper than heart, and so also give him that without
+which his life must be a failure in the end, as Sybil Eglington had
+said. How often had those bitter anguished words of his mother rung in
+her ears--"So brilliant and unscrupulous, like yourself; but, oh,
+so sure of winning a great place in the world... so calculating and
+determined and ambitious!" They came to her now, flashed between
+the eager solicitous eyes of her mind and the scene of a perfect and
+everlasting reconciliation which it conjured up--flashed and were gone;
+for her will rose up and blurred them into mist; and other words of
+that true palimpsest of Sybil Eglington's broken life came instead: "And
+though he loves me little, as he loves you little too, yet he is my son,
+and for what he is we are both responsible one way or another." As the
+mother, so the wife. She said to herself now in sad paraphrase, "And
+though he loves me little, yet he is my husband, and for what he is it
+may be that I am in some sense responsible." Yet he is my husband! All
+that it was came to her; the closed door, the drawn blinds; the intimacy
+which shut them away from all the world; the things said which can
+only be said without desecration between two honest souls who love each
+other; and that sweet isolation which makes marriage a separate world,
+with its own sacred revelation. This she had known; this had been; and
+though the image of the sacred thing had been defaced, yet the shrine
+was not destroyed.
+
+For she believed that each had kept the letter of the law; that,
+whatever his faults, he had turned his face to no other woman. If she
+had not made his heart captive and drawn him by an ever-shortening cord
+of attraction, yet she was sure that none other had any influence over
+him, that, as he had looked at her in those short-lived days of his
+first devotion, he looked at no other. The way was clear yet. There was
+nothing irretrievable, nothing irrevocable, which would for ever stain
+the memory and tarnish the gold of life when the perfect love should be
+minted. Whatever faults of mind or disposition or character were his--or
+hers--there were no sins against the pledges they had made, nor the bond
+into which they had entered. Life would need no sponge. Memory might
+still live on without a wound or a cowl of shame.
+
+It was all part of the music to which she listened, and she was almost
+oblivious of the brilliant throng, the crowded boxes, or of the Duchess
+of Snowdon sitting near her strangely still, now and again scanning the
+beautiful face beside her with a reflective look. The Duchess loved the
+girl--she was but a girl, after all--as she had never loved any of her
+sex; it had come to be the last real interest of her life. To her eyes,
+dimmed with much seeing, blurred by a garish kaleidoscope of fashionable
+life, there had come a look which was like the ghost of a look she had,
+how many decades ago.
+
+Presently, as she saw Hylda's eyes withdraw from the stage, and look at
+her with a strange, soft moisture and a new light in them, she laid her
+fan confidently on her friend's knee, and said in her abrupt whimsical
+voice: "You like it, my darling; your eyes are as big as saucers. You
+look as if you'd been seeing things, not things on that silly stage, but
+what Verdi felt when he wrote the piece, or something of more account
+than that."
+
+"Yes, I've been seeing things," Hylda answered with a smile which came
+from a new-born purpose, the dream of an idealist. "I've been seeing
+things that Verdi did not see, and of more account, too.... Do you
+suppose the House is up yet?"
+
+A strange look flashed into the Duchess's eyes, which had been watching
+her with as much pity as interest. Hylda had not been near the House
+of Commons this session, though she had read the reports with her usual
+care. She had shunned the place.
+
+"Why, did you expect Eglington?" the Duchess asked idly, yet she was
+watchful too, alert for every movement in this life where the footsteps
+of happiness were falling by the edge of a precipice, over which she
+would not allow herself to look. She knew that Hylda did not expect
+Eglington, for the decision to come to the opera was taken at the last
+moment.
+
+"Of course not--he doesn't know we are here. But if it wasn't too late,
+I thought I'd go down and drive him home."
+
+The Duchess veiled her look. Here was some new development in the
+history which had been torturing her old eyes, which had given her and
+Lord Windlehurst as many anxious moments as they had known in many a
+day, and had formed them into a vigilance committee of two, who waited
+for the critical hour when they should be needed.
+
+"We'll go at once if you like," she replied. "The opera will be over
+soon. We sent word to Windlehurst to join us, you remember, but he won't
+come now; it's too late. So, we'll go, if you like."
+
+She half rose, but the door of the box opened, and Lord Windlehurst
+looked in quizzically. There was a smile on his face.
+
+"I'm late, I know; but you'll forgive me--you'll forgive me, dear lady,"
+he added to Hylda, "for I've been listening to your husband making a
+smashing speech for a bad cause."
+
+Hylda smiled. "Then I must go and congratulate him," she answered, and
+withdrew her hand from that of Lord Windlehurst, who seemed to hold it
+longer than usual, and pressed it in a fatherly way.
+
+"I'm afraid the House is up," he rejoined, as Hylda turned for her
+opera-cloak; "and I saw Eglington leave Palace Yard as I came away." He
+gave a swift, ominous glance towards the Duchess, which Hylda caught,
+and she looked at each keenly.
+
+"It's seldom I sit in the Peers' Gallery," continued Windlehurst; "I
+don't like going back to the old place much. It seems empty and hollow.
+But I wouldn't have missed Eglington's fighting speech for a good deal."
+
+"What was it about?" asked Hylda as they left the box. She had a sudden
+throb of the heart. Was it the one great question, that which had been
+like a gulf of fire between them?
+
+"Oh, Turkey--the unpardonable Turk," answered Windlehurst. "As good a
+defence of a bad case as I ever heard."
+
+"Yes, Eglington would do that well," said the Duchess enigmatically,
+drawing her cloak around her and adjusting her hair. Hylda looked at her
+sharply, and Lord Windlehurst slyly, but the Duchess seemed oblivious of
+having said anything out of the way, and added: "It's a gift seeing all
+that can be said for a bad cause, and saying it, and so making the other
+side make their case so strong that the verdict has to be just."
+
+"Dear Duchess, it doesn't always work out that way," rejoined
+Windlehurst with a dry laugh. "Sometimes the devil's advocate wins."
+
+"You are not very complimentary to my husband," retorted Hylda, looking
+him in the eyes, for she was not always sure when he was trying to
+baffle her.
+
+"I'm not so sure of that. He hasn't won his case yet. He has only staved
+off the great attack. It's coming--soon."
+
+"What is the great attack? What has the Government, or the Foreign
+Office, done or left undone?"
+
+"Well, my dear--" Suddenly Lord Windlehurst remembered himself, stopped,
+put up his eyeglass, and with great interest seemed to watch a gay
+group of people opposite; for the subject of attack was Egypt and the
+Government's conduct in not helping David, in view not alone of his
+present danger, but of the position of England in the country, on which
+depended the security of her highway to the East. Windlehurst was a good
+actor, and he had broken off his words as though the group he was now
+watching had suddenly claimed his attention. "Well, well, Duchess,"
+he said reflectively, "I see a new nine days' wonder yonder." Then, in
+response to a reminder from Hylda, he continued: "Ah, yes, the attack!
+Oh, Persia--Persia, and our feeble diplomacy, my dear lady, though you
+mustn't take that as my opinion, opponent as I am. That's the charge,
+Persia--and her cats."
+
+The Duchess breathed a sigh of relief; for she knew what Windlehurst had
+been going to say, and she shrank from seeing what she felt she would
+see, if Egypt and Claridge Pasha's name were mentioned. That night at
+Harnley had burnt a thought into her mind which she did not like. Not
+that she had any pity for Eglington; her thought was all for this girl
+she loved. No happiness lay in the land of Egypt for her, whatever her
+unhappiness here; and she knew that Hylda must be more unhappy still
+before she was ever happy again, if that might be. There was that
+concerning Eglington which Hylda did not know, yet which she must know
+one day--and then! But why were Hylda's eyes so much brighter and softer
+and deeper to-night? There was something expectant, hopeful, brooding in
+them. They belonged not to the life moving round her, but were shining
+in a land of their own, a land of promise. By an instinct in each of
+them they stood listening for a moment to the last strains of the opera.
+The light leaped higher in Hylda's eyes.
+
+"Beautiful--oh, so beautiful!" she said, her hand touching the Duchess's
+arm.
+
+The Duchess gave the slim warm fingers a spasmodic little squeeze. "Yes,
+darling, beautiful," she rejoined; and then the crowd began to pour out
+behind them.
+
+Their carriages were at the door. Lord Windlehurst put Hylda in. "The
+House is up," he said. "You are going on somewhere?"
+
+"No--home," she said, and smiled into his old, kind, questioning eyes.
+"Home!"
+
+"Home!" he murmured significantly as he turned towards the Duchess and
+her carriage. "Home!" he repeated, and shook his head sadly.
+
+"Shall I drive you to your house?" the Duchess asked.
+
+"No, I'll go with you to your door, and walk back to my cell. Home!" he
+growled to the footman, with a sardonic note in the voice.
+
+As they drove away, the Duchess turned to him abruptly. "What did you
+mean by your look when you said you had seen Eglington drive away from
+the House?"
+
+"Well, my dear Betty, she--the fly-away--drives him home now. It has
+come to that."
+
+"To her house--Windlehurst, oh, Windlehurst!"
+
+She sank back in the cushions, and gave what was as near a sob as she
+had given in many a day. Windlehurst took her hand. "No, not so bad as
+that yet. She drove him to his club. Don't fret, my dear Betty."
+
+Home! Hylda watched the shops, the houses, the squares, as she passed
+westward, her mind dwelling almost happily on the new determination to
+which she had come. It was not love that was moving her, not love for
+him, but a deeper thing. He had brutally killed love--the full life of
+it--those months ago; but there was a deep thing working in her which
+was as near nobility as the human mind can feel. Not in a long time
+had she neared her home with such expectation and longing. Often on the
+doorstep she had shut her eyes to the light and warmth and elegance
+of it, because of that which she did not see. Now, with a thrill of
+pleasure, she saw its doors open. It was possible Eglington might have
+come home already. Lord Windlehurst had said that he had left the House.
+She did not ask if he was in--it had not been her custom for a
+long time--and servants were curious people; but she looked at the
+hall-table. Yes, there was a hat which had evidently just been placed
+there, and gloves, and a stick. He was at home, then.
+
+She hurried to her room, dropped her opera-cloak on a chair, looked at
+herself in the glass, a little fluttered and critical, and then crossed
+the hallway to Eglington's bedroom. She listened for a moment. There
+was no sound. She turned the handle of the door softly, and opened it. A
+light was burning low, but the room was empty. It was as she thought,
+he was in his study, where he spent hours sometimes after he came home,
+reading official papers. She went up the stairs, at first swiftly, then
+more slowly, then with almost lagging feet. Why did she hesitate? Why
+should a woman falter in going to her husband--to her own one man of
+all the world? Was it not, should it not be, ever the open door between
+them? Confidence--confidence--could she not have it, could she not get
+it now at last? She had paused; but now she moved on with quicker step,
+purpose in her face, her eyes softly lighted.
+
+Suddenly she saw on the floor an opened letter. She picked it up, and,
+as she did so, involuntarily observed the writing. Almost mechanically
+she glanced at the contents. Her heart stood still. The first words
+scorched her eyes.
+
+   "Eglington--Harry, dearest," it said, "you shall not go to sleep
+   to-night without a word from me. This will make you think of me
+   when...."
+
+Frozen, struck as by a mortal blow, Hylda looked at the signature.
+She knew it--the cleverest, the most beautiful adventuress which the
+aristocracy and society had produced. She trembled from head to foot,
+and for a moment it seemed that she must fall. But she steadied herself
+and walked firmly to Eglington's door. Turning the handle softly, she
+stepped inside.
+
+He did not hear her. He was leaning over a box of papers, and they
+rustled loudly under his hand. He was humming to himself that song she
+heard an hour ago in Il Trovatore, that song of passion and love and
+tragedy. It sent a wave of fresh feeling over her. She could not go
+on--could not face him, and say what she must say. She turned and passed
+swiftly from the room, leaving the door open, and hurried down the
+staircase. Eglington heard now, and wheeled round. He saw the open door,
+listened to the rustle of her skirts, knew that she had been there. He
+smiled, and said to himself:
+
+"She came to me, as I said she would. I shall master her--the full
+surrender, and then--life will be easy then."
+
+Hylda hurried down the staircase to her room, saw Kate Heaver waiting,
+beckoned to her, caught up her opera-cloak, and together they passed
+down the staircase to the front door. Heaver rang a bell, a footman
+appeared, and, at a word, called a cab. A minute later they were ready:
+
+"Snowdon House," Hylda said; and they passed into the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI. "IS IT ALWAYS SO--IN LIFE?"
+
+The Duchess and her brother, an ex-diplomatist, now deaf and patiently
+amiable and garrulous, had met on the doorstep of Snowdon House, and
+together they insisted on Lord Windlehurst coming in for a talk. The two
+men had not met for a long time, and the retired official had been one
+of Lord Windlehurst's own best appointments in other days. The Duchess
+had the carriage wait in consequence.
+
+The ex-official could hear little, but he had cultivated the habit of
+talking constantly and well. There were some voices, however, which he
+could hear more distinctly than others, and Lord Windlehurst's was one
+of them--clear, well-modulated, and penetrating. Sipping brandy and
+water, Lord Windlehurst gave his latest quip. They were all laughing
+heartily, when the butler entered the room and said, "Lady Eglington is
+here, and wishes to see your Grace."
+
+As the butler left the room, the Duchess turned despairingly to
+Windlehurst, who had risen, and was paler than the Duchess. "It has
+come," she said, "oh, it has come! I can't face it."
+
+"But it doesn't matter about you facing it," Lord Windlehurst rejoined.
+"Go to her and help her, Betty. You know what to do--the one thing." He
+took her hand and pressed it.
+
+She dashed the tears from her eyes and drew herself together, while her
+brother watched her benevolently.
+
+He had not heard what was said. Betty had always been impulsive, he
+thought to himself, and here was some one in trouble--they all came to
+her, and kept her poor.
+
+"Go to bed, Dick," the Duchess said to him, and hurried from the room.
+She did not hesitate now. Windlehurst had put the matter in the right
+way. Her pain was nothing, mere moral cowardice; but Hylda--!
+
+She entered the other room as quickly as rheumatic limbs would permit.
+Hylda stood waiting, erect, her eyes gazing blankly before her and
+rimmed by dark circles, her face haggard and despairing.
+
+Before the Duchess could reach her, she said in a hoarse whisper: "I
+have left him--I have left him. I have come to you."
+
+With a cry of pity the Duchess would have taken the stricken girl in her
+arms, but Hylda held out a shaking hand with the letter in it which
+had brought this new woe and this crisis foreseen by Lord Windlehurst.
+"There--there it is. He goes from me to her--to that!" She thrust the
+letter into the Duchess's fingers. "You knew--you knew! I saw the look
+that passed between you and Windlehurst at the opera. I understand all
+now. He left the House of Commons with her--and you knew, oh, you knew!
+All the world knows--every one knew but me." She threw up her hands.
+"But I've left him--I've left him, for ever."
+
+Now the Duchess had her in her arms, and almost forcibly drew her to a
+sofa. "Darling, my darling," she said, "you must not give way. It is not
+so bad as you think. You must let me help to make you understand."
+
+Hylda laughed hysterically. "Not so bad as I think! Read--read it," she
+said, taking the letter from the Duchess's fingers and holding it before
+her face. "I found it on the staircase. I could not help but read it."
+She sat and clasped and unclasped her hands in utter misery. "Oh, the
+shame of it, the bitter shame of it! Have I not been a good wife to him?
+Have I not had reason to break my heart? But I waited, and I wanted to
+be good and to do right. And to-night I was going to try once more--I
+felt it in the opera. I was going to make one last effort for his sake.
+It was for his sake I meant to make it, for I thought him only hard and
+selfish, and that he had never loved; and if he only loved, I thought--"
+
+She broke off, wringing her hands and staring into space, the ghost of
+the beautiful figure that had left the Opera House with shining eyes.
+
+The Duchess caught the cold hands. "Yes, yes, darling, I know. I
+understand. So does Windlehurst. He loves you as much as I do. We know
+there isn't much to be got out of life; but we always hoped you would
+get more than anybody else."
+
+Hylda shrank, then raised her head, and looked at the Duchess with an
+infinite pathos. "Oh, is it always so--in life? Is no one true? Is every
+one betrayed sometime? I would die--yes, a thousand times yes, I would
+rather die than bear this. What do I care for life--it has cheated me!
+I meant well, and I tried to do well, and I was true to him in word and
+deed even when I suffered most, even when--"
+
+The Duchess laid a cheek against the burning head. "I understand, my own
+dear. I understand--altogether."
+
+"But you cannot know," the broken girl replied; "but through everything
+I was true; and I have been tempted too when my heart was aching so,
+when the days were so empty, the nights so long, and my heart hurt--hurt
+me. But now, it is over, everything is done. You will keep me here--ah,
+say you will keep me here till everything can be settled, and I can go
+away--far away--far--!"
+
+She stopped with a gasping cry, and her eyes suddenly strained into the
+distance, as though a vision of some mysterious thing hung before her.
+The Duchess realised that that temptation, which has come to so many
+disillusioned mortals, to end it all, to find quiet somehow, somewhere
+out in the dark, was upon her. She became resourceful and persuasively
+commanding.
+
+"But no, my darling," she said, "you are going nowhere. Here in London
+is your place now. And you must not stay here in my house. You must go
+back to your home. Your place is there. For the present, at any rate,
+there must be no scandal. Suspicion is nothing, talk is nothing, and the
+world forgets--"
+
+"Oh, I do not care for the world or its forgetting!" the wounded girl
+replied. "What is the world to me! I wanted my own world, the world
+of my four walls, quiet and happy, and free from scandal and shame. I
+wanted love and peace there, and now...!"
+
+"You must be guided by those who love you. You are too young to decide
+what is best for yourself. You must let Windlehurst and me think for
+you; and, oh, my darling, you cannot know how much I care for your best
+good!"
+
+"I cannot, will not, bear the humiliation and the shame. This letter
+here--you see!"
+
+"It is the letter of a woman who has had more affaires than any man in
+London. She is preternaturally clever, my dear--Windlehurst would tell
+you so. The brilliant and unscrupulous, the beautiful and the bad, have
+a great advantage in this world. Eglington was curious, that is all. It
+is in the breed of the Eglingtons to go exploring, to experiment."
+
+Hylda started. Words from the letter Sybil Lady Eglington had left
+behind her rushed into her mind: "Experiment, subterfuge, secrecy.
+'Reaping where you had not sowed, and gathering where you had not
+strawed.' Always experiment, experiment, experiment!"
+
+"I have only been married three years," she moaned. "Yes, yes, my
+darling; but much may happen after three days of married life, and love
+may come after twenty years. The human heart is a strange thing."
+
+"I was patient--I gave him every chance. He has been false and
+shameless. I will not go on."
+
+The Duchess pressed both hands hard, and made a last effort, looking
+into the deep troubled eyes with her own grown almost beautiful with
+feeling--the faded world-worn eyes.
+
+"You will go back to-night-at once," she said firmly. "To-morrow you
+will stay in bed till noon-at any rate, till I come. I promise you that
+you shall not be treated with further indignity. Your friends will stand
+by you, the world will be with you, if you do nothing rash, nothing that
+forces it to babble and scold. But you must play its game, my dearest.
+I'll swear that the worst has not happened. She drove him to his club,
+and, after a man has had a triumph, a woman will not drive him to his
+club if--my darling, you must trust me! If there must be the great
+smash, let it be done in a way that will prevent you being smashed also
+in the world's eyes. You can live, and you will live. Is there nothing
+for you to do? Is there no one for whom you would do something, who
+would be heart-broken if you--if you went mad now?"
+
+Suddenly a great change passed over Hylda. "Is there no one for whom
+you would do something?" Just as in the desert a question like this had
+lifted a man out of a terrible and destroying apathy, so this searching
+appeal roused in Hylda a memory and a pledge. "Is there no one for whom
+you would do something?" Was life, then, all over? Was her own great
+grief all? Was her bitter shame the end?
+
+She got to her feet tremblingly. "I will go back," she said slowly and
+softly.
+
+"Windlehurst will take you home," the Duchess rejoined eagerly. "My
+carriage is at the door."
+
+A moment afterwards Lord Windlehurst took Hylda's hands in his and held
+them long. His old, querulous eyes were like lamps of safety; his smile
+had now none of that cynicism with which he had aroused and chastened
+the world. The pitiful understanding of life was there and a consummate
+gentleness. He gave her his arm, and they stepped out into the moonlit
+night. "So peaceful, so bright!" he said, looking round.
+
+"I will come at noon to-morrow," called the Duchess from the doorway.
+
+A light was still shining in Eglington's study when the carriage drove
+up. With a latch-key Hylda admitted herself and her maid.
+
+The storm had broken, the flood had come. The storm was over, but the
+flood swept far and wide.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII. THE FLYING SHUTTLE
+
+Hour after hour of sleeplessness. The silver-tongued clock remorselessly
+tinkled the quarters, and Hylda lay and waited for them with a hopeless
+strained attention. In vain she tried devices to produce that monotony
+of thought which sometimes brings sleep. Again and again, as she felt
+that sleep was coming at last, the thought of the letter she had found
+flashed through her mind with words of fire, and it seemed as if there
+had been poured through every vein a subtle irritant. Just such a
+surging, thrilling flood she had felt in the surgeon's chair when she
+was a girl and an anesthetic had been given. But this wave of sensation
+led to no oblivion, no last soothing intoxication. Its current beat
+against her heart until she could have cried out from the mere physical
+pain, the clamping grip of her trouble. She withered and grew cold under
+the torture of it all--the ruthless spoliation of everything which made
+life worth while or the past endurable.
+
+About an hour after she had gone to bed she heard Eglington's step. It
+paused at her door. She trembled with apprehension lest he should enter.
+It was many a day since he had done so, but also she had not heard his
+step pause at her door for many a day. She could not bear to face it all
+now; she must have time to think, to plan her course--the last course
+of all. For she knew that the next step must be the last step in her old
+life, and towards a new life, whatever that might be. A great sigh of
+relief broke from her as she heard his door open and shut, and silence
+fell on everything, that palpable silence which seems to press upon the
+night-watcher with merciless, smothering weight.
+
+How terribly active her brain was! Pictures--it was all vivid pictures,
+that awful visualisation of sorrow which, if it continues, breaks the
+heart or wrests the mind from its sanity. If only she did not see! But
+she did see Eglington and the Woman together, saw him look into her
+eyes, take her hands, put his arm round her, draw her face to his!
+Her heart seemed as if it must burst, her lips cried out. With a
+great effort of the will she tried to hide from these agonies of the
+imagination, and again she would approach those happy confines of sleep,
+which are the only refuge to the lacerated heart; and then the weapon of
+time on the mantelpiece would clash on the shield of the past, and
+she was wide awake again. At last, in desperation, she got out of bed,
+hurried to the fireplace, caught the little sharp-tongued recorder in a
+nervous grasp, and stopped it.
+
+As she was about to get into bed again, she saw a pile of letters lying
+on the table near her pillow. In her agitation she had not noticed
+them, and the devoted Heaver had not drawn her attention to them.
+Now, however, with a strange premonition, she quickly glanced at the
+envelopes. The last one of all was less aristocratic-looking than the
+others; the paper of the envelope was of the poorest, and it had a
+foreign look. She caught it up with an exclamation. The handwriting was
+that of her cousin Lacey.
+
+She got into bed with a mind suddenly swept into a new atmosphere,
+and opened the flimsy cover. Shutting her eyes, she lay still for a
+moment--still and vague; she was only conscious of one thing, that a
+curtain had dropped on the terrible pictures she had seen, and that her
+mind was in a comforting quiet. Presently she roused herself, and turned
+the letter over in her hand. It was not long--was that because its news
+was bad news? The first chronicles of disaster were usually brief! She
+smoothed the paper out-it had been crumpled and was a little soiled-and
+read it swiftly. It ran:
+
+   DEAR LADY COUSIN--As the poet says, "Man is born to trouble as the
+   sparks fly upward," and in Egypt the sparks set the stacks on fire
+   oftener than anywhere else, I guess. She outclasses Mexico as a
+   "precious example" in this respect. You needn't go looking for
+   trouble in Mexico; it's waiting for you kindly. If it doesn't find
+   you to-day, well, manana. But here it comes running like a native
+   to his cooking-pot at sunset in Ramadan. Well, there have been
+   "hard trials" for the Saadat. His cotton-mills were set on fire-
+   can't you guess who did it? And now, down in Cairo, Nahoum runs
+   Egypt; for a messenger that got through the tribes worrying us tells
+   us that Kaid is sick, and Nahoum the Armenian says, you shall, and
+   you shan't, now. Which is another way of saying, that between us
+   and the front door of our happy homes there are rattlesnakes that
+   can sting--Nahoum's arm is long, and his traitors are crawling under
+   the canvas of our tents!
+
+   I'm not complaining for myself. I asked for what I've got, and,
+   dear Lady Cousin, I put up some cash for it, too, as a man should.
+   No, I don't mind for myself, fond as I am of loafing, sort of
+   pottering round where the streets are in the hands of a pure police;
+   for I've seen more, done more, thought more, up here, than in all my
+   life before; and I've felt a country heaving under the touch of one
+   of God's men--it gives you minutes that lift you out of the dust and
+   away from the crawlers. And I'd do it all over a thousand times for
+   him, and for what I've got out of it. I've lived. But, to speak
+   right out plain, I don't know how long this machine will run.
+   There's been a plant of the worst kind. Tribes we left friendly
+   under a year ago are out against us; cities that were faithful have
+   gone under to rebels. Nahoum has sowed the land with the tale that
+   the Saadat means to abolish slavery, to take away the powers of the
+   great sheikhs, and to hand the country over to the Turk. Ebn Ezra
+   Bey has proofs of the whole thing, and now at last the Saadat knows
+   too late that his work has been spoiled by the only man who could
+   spoil it. The Saadat knows it, but does he rave and tear his hair?
+   He says nothing. He stands up like a rock before the riot of
+   treachery and bad luck and all the terrible burden he has to carry
+   here. If he wasn't a Quaker I'd say he had the pride of an
+   archangel. You can bend him, but you can't break him; and it takes
+   a lot to bend him. Men desert, but he says others will come to take
+   their place. And so they do. It's wonderful, in spite of the holy
+   war that's being preached, and all the lies about him sprinkled over
+   this part of Africa, how they all fear him, and find it hard to be
+   out on the war-path against him. We should be gorging the vultures
+   if he wasn't the wonder he is. We need boats. Does he sit down and
+   wring his hands? No, he organises, and builds them--out of scraps.
+   Hasn't he enough food for a long siege? He goes himself to the
+   tribes that have stored food in their cities, and haven't yet
+   declared against him, and he puts a hand on their hard hearts, and
+   takes the sulkiness out of their eyes, and a fleet of ghiassas comes
+   down to us loaded with dourha. The defences of this place are
+   nothing. Does he fold his hands like a man of peace that he is,
+   and say, 'Thy will be done'? Not the Saadat. He gets two soldier-
+   engineers, one an Italian who murdered his wife in Italy twenty
+   years ago, and one a British officer that cheated at cards and had
+   to go, and we've got defences that'll take some negotiating. That's
+   the kind of man he is; smiling to cheer others when their hearts are
+   in their boots, stern like a commander-in-chief when he's got to
+   punish, and then he does it like steel; but I've seen him afterwards
+   in his tent with a face that looks sixty, and he's got to travel a
+   while yet before he's forty. None of us dares be as afraid as we
+   could be, because a look at him would make us so ashamed we'd have
+   to commit suicide. He hopes when no one else would ever hope. The
+   other day I went to his tent to wait for him, and I saw his Bible
+   open on the table. A passage was marked. It was this:
+
+   "Behold, I have taken out of thy hand the cup of trembling, even the
+   dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again: But
+   I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have
+   said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over; and thou hast laid
+   thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over."
+
+   I'd like to see Nahoum with that cup of trembling in his hand, and
+   I've got an idea, too, that it will be there yet. I don't know how
+   it is, but I never can believe the worst will happen to the Saadat.
+   Reading those verses put hope into me. That's why I'm writing to
+   you, on the chance of this getting through by a native who is
+   stealing down the river with a letter from the Saadat to Nahoum, and
+   one to Kaid, and one to the Foreign Minister in London, and one to
+   your husband. If they reach the hands they're meant for, it may be
+   we shall pan out here yet. But there must be display of power; an
+   army must be sent, without delay, to show the traitors that the game
+   is up. Five thousand men from Cairo under a good general would do
+   it. Will Nahoum send them? Does Kaid, the sick man, know? I'm not
+   banking on Kaid. I think he's on his last legs. Unless pressure is
+   put on him, unless some one takes him by the throat and says: If you
+   don't relieve Claridge Pasha and the people with him, you will go to
+   the crocodiles, Nahoum won't stir. So, I am writing to you.
+   England can do it. The lord, your husband, can do it. England will
+   have a nasty stain on her flag if she sees this man go down without
+   a hand lifted to save him. He is worth another Alma to her
+   prestige. She can't afford to see him slaughtered here, where he's
+   fighting the fight of civilisation. You see right through this
+   thing, I know, and I don't need to palaver any more about it. It
+   doesn't matter about me. I've had a lot for my money, and I'm no
+   use--or I wouldn't be, if anything happened to the Saadat. No one
+   would drop a knife and fork at the breakfast-table when my obit was
+   read out--well, yes, there's one, cute as she can be, but she's lost
+   two husbands already, and you can't be hurt so bad twice in the same
+   place. But the Saadat, back him, Hylda--I'll call you that at this
+   distance. Make Nahoum move. Send four or five thousand men before
+   the day comes when famine does its work and they draw the bowstring
+   tight.
+
+   Salaam and salaam, and the post is going out, and there's nothing in
+   the morning paper; and, as Aunt Melissa used to say: "Well, so much
+   for so much!" One thing I forgot. I'm lucky to be writing to you
+   at all. If the Saadat was an old-fashioned overlord, I shouldn't be
+   here. I got into a bad corner three days ago with a dozen Arabs--
+   I'd been doing a little work with a friendly tribe all on my own,
+   and I almost got caught by this loose lot of fanatics. I shot
+   three, and galloped for it. I knew the way through the mines
+   outside, and just escaped by the skin of my teeth. Did the Saadat,
+   as a matter of discipline, have me shot for cowardice? Cousin
+   Hylda, my heart was in my mouth as I heard them yelling behind me--
+   and I never enjoyed a dinner so much in my life. Would the Saadat
+   have run from them? Say, he'd have stayed and saved his life too.
+   Well, give my love to the girls!
+
+          Your affectionate cousin,
+
+                    Tom LACEY.
+
+   P.S.-There's no use writing to me. The letter service is bad. Send
+   a few thousand men by military parcel-post, prepaid, with some red
+   seals--majors and colonels from Aldershot will do. They'll give the
+   step to the Gyppies. T.
+
+Hylda closed her eyes. A fever had passed from her veins. Here lay her
+duty before her--the redemption of the pledge she had made. Whatever her
+own sorrow, there was work before her; a supreme effort must be made for
+another. Even now it might be too late. She must have strength for what
+she meant to do. She put the room in darkness, and resolutely banished
+thought from her mind.
+
+The sun had been up for hours before she waked. Eglington had gone to
+the Foreign Office. The morning papers were full of sensational reports
+concerning Claridge Pasha and the Soudan. A Times leader sternly
+admonished the Government.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII. JASPER KIMBER SPEAKS
+
+That day the adjournment of the House of Commons was moved "To call
+attention to an urgent matter of public importance"--the position of
+Claridge Pasha in the Soudan. Flushed with the success of last night's
+performance, stung by the attacks of the Opposition morning papers,
+confident in the big majority behind, which had cheered him a few hours
+before, viciously resenting the letter he had received from David that
+morning, Eglington returned such replies to the questions put to him
+that a fire of angry mutterings came from the forces against him. He
+might have softened the growing resentment by a change of manner, but
+his intellectual arrogance had control of him for the moment; and he
+said to himself that he had mastered the House before, and he would do
+so now. Apart from his deadly antipathy to his half-brother, and the
+gain to himself--to his credit, the latter weighed with him not so much,
+so set was he on a stubborn course--if David disappeared for ever, there
+was at bottom a spirit of anti-expansion, of reaction against England's
+world-wide responsibilities. He had no largeness of heart or view
+concerning humanity. He had no inherent greatness, no breadth of policy.
+With less responsibility taken, there would be less trouble, national
+and international--that was his point of view; that had been his view
+long ago at the meeting at Heddington; and his weak chief had taken it,
+knowing nothing of the personal elements behind.
+
+The disconcerting factor in the present bitter questioning in the House
+was, that it originated on his own side. It was Jasper Kimber who had
+launched the questions, who moved the motion for adjournment. Jasper had
+had a letter from Kate Heaver that morning early, which sent him to her,
+and he had gone to the House to do what he thought to be his duty. He
+did it boldly, to the joy of the Opposition, and with a somewhat sullen
+support from many on his own side. Now appeared Jasper's own inner
+disdain of the man who had turned his coat for office. It gave a lead
+to a latent feeling among members of the ministerial party, of distrust,
+and of suspicion that they were the dupes of a mind of abnormal
+cleverness which, at bottom, despised them.
+
+With flashing eyes and set lips, vigilant and resourceful, Eglington
+listened to Jasper Kimber's opening remarks.
+
+By unremitting industry Jasper had made a place for himself in the
+House. The humour and vitality of his speeches, and his convincing
+advocacy of the cause of the "factory folk," had gained him a hearing.
+Thickset, under middle size, with an arm like a giant and a throat like
+a bull, he had strong common sense, and he gave the impression that he
+would wear his heart out for a good friend or a great cause, but that if
+he chose to be an enemy he would be narrow, unrelenting, and persistent.
+For some time the House had been aware that he had more than a gift for
+criticism of the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
+
+His speech began almost stumblingly, his h's ran loose, and his grammar
+became involved, but it was seen that he meant business, that he had
+that to say which would give anxiety to the Government, that he had a
+case wherein were the elements of popular interest and appeal, and that
+he was thinking and speaking as thousands outside the House would think
+and speak.
+
+He had waited for this hour. Indirectly he owed to Claridge Pasha all
+that he had become. The day in which David knocked him down saw the
+depths of his degradation reached, and, when he got up, it was to start
+on a new life uncertainly, vaguely at first, but a new life for all
+that. He knew, from a true source, of Eglington's personal hatred of
+Claridge Pasha, though he did not guess their relationship; and all his
+interest was enlisted for the man who had, as he knew, urged Kate Heaver
+to marry himself--and Kate was his great ambition now. Above and beyond
+these personal considerations was a real sense of England's duty to the
+man who was weaving the destiny of a new land.
+
+"It isn't England's business?" he retorted, in answer to an interjection
+from a faithful soul behind the ministerial Front Bench. "Well, it
+wasn't the business of the Good Samaritan to help the man that had been
+robbed and left for dead by the wayside; but he did it. As to David
+Claridge's work, some have said that--I've no doubt it's been said
+in the Cabinet, and it is the thing the Under-Secretary would say as
+naturally as he would flick a fly from his boots--that it's a generation
+too soon. Who knows that? I suppose there was those that thought John
+the Baptist was baptising too soon, that Luther preached too soon, and
+Savonarola was in too great a hurry, all because he met his death and
+his enemies triumphed--and Galileo and Hampden and Cromwell and John
+Howard were all too soon. Who's to be judge of that? God Almighty puts
+it into some men's minds to work for a thing that's a great, and maybe
+an impossible, thing, so far as the success of the moment is concerned.
+Well, for a thing that has got to be done some time, the seed has to
+be sown, and it's always sown by men like Claridge Pasha, who has shown
+millions of people--barbarians and half-civilised alike--what a true
+lover of the world can do. God knows, I think he might have stayed and
+found a cause in England, but he elected to go to the ravaging Soudan,
+and he is England there, the best of it. And I know Claridge Pasha--from
+his youth up I have seen him, and I stand here to bear witness of what
+the working men of England will say to-morrow. Right well the noble
+lord yonder knows that what I say is true. He has known it for years.
+Claridge Pasha would never have been in his present position, if the
+noble lord had not listened to the enemies of Claridge Pasha and of this
+country, in preference to those who know and hold the truth as I tell
+it here to-day. I don't know whether the noble lord has repented or not;
+but I do say that his Government will rue it, if his answer is not the
+one word 'Intervention!' Mistaken, rash or not, dreamer if you like,
+Claridge Pasha should be relieved now, and his policy discussed
+afterwards. I don't envy the man who holds a contrary opinion; he'll be
+ashamed of it some day. But"--he pointed towards Eglington--"but there
+sits the minister in whose hands his fate has been. Let us hope that
+this speech of mine needn't have been made, and that I've done injustice
+to his patriotism and to the policy he will announce."
+
+"A set-back, a sharp set-back," said Lord Windlehurst, in the Peers'
+Gallery, as the cheers of the Opposition and of a good number of
+ministerialists sounded through the Chamber. There were those on
+the Treasury Bench who saw danger ahead. There was an attempt at a
+conference, but Kimber's seconder only said a half-dozen words, and sat
+down, and Eglington had to rise before any definite confidences could
+be exchanged. One word only he heard behind him as he got up. It was the
+word, "Temporise," and it came from the Prime Minister.
+
+Eglington was in no mood for temporising. Attack only nerved him. He was
+a good and ruthless fighter; and last night's intoxication of success
+was still in his brain. He did not temporise. He did not leave a way
+of retreat open for the Prime Minister, who would probably wind up the
+debate. He fought with skill, but he fought without gloves, and the
+House needed gentle handling. He had the gift of effective speech to a
+rare degree, and when he liked he could be insinuating and witty, but he
+had not genuine humour or good feeling, and the House knew it. In debate
+he was biting, resourceful, and unscrupulous. He made the fatal mistake
+of thinking that intellect and gifts of fence, followed by a brilliant
+peroration, in which he treated the commonplaces of experienced minds
+as though they were new discoveries and he was their Columbus, could
+accomplish anything. He had never had a political crisis, but one had
+come now.
+
+In his reply he first resorted to arguments of high politics,
+historical, informative, and, in a sense, commanding; indeed, the House
+became restless under what seemed a piece of intellectual dragooning.
+Signs of impatience appeared on his own side, and, when he ventured on a
+solemn warning about hampering ministers who alone knew the difficulties
+of diplomacy and the danger of wounding the susceptibilities of foreign
+and friendly countries, the silence was broken by a voice that said
+sneeringly, "The kid-glove Government!"
+
+Then he began to lose place with the Chamber. He was conscious of it,
+and shifted his ground, pointing out the dangers of doing what the other
+nations interested in Egypt were not prepared to do.
+
+"Have you asked them? Have you pressed them?" was shouted across the
+House. Eglington ignored the interjections. "Answer! Answer!" was called
+out angrily, but he shrugged a shoulder and continued his argument. If
+a man insisted on using a flying-machine before the principle was fully
+mastered and applied--if it could be mastered and applied--it must not
+be surprising if he was killed. Amateurs sometimes took preposterous
+risks without the advice of the experts. If Claridge Pasha had asked
+the advice of the English Government, or of any of the Chancellories of
+Europe, as to his incursions into the Soudan and his premature attempts
+at reform, he would have received expert advice that civilisation had
+not advanced to that stage in this portion of the world which would
+warrant his experiments. It was all very well for one man to run
+vast risks and attempt quixotic enterprises, but neither he nor his
+countrymen had any right to expect Europe to embroil itself on his
+particular account.
+
+At this point he was met by angry cries of dissent, which did not
+come from the Opposition alone. His lips set, he would not yield.
+The Government could not hold itself responsible for Claridge Pasha's
+relief, nor in any sense for his present position. However, from motives
+of humanity, it would make representations in the hope that the Egyptian
+Government would act; but it was not improbable, in view of past
+experiences of Claridge Pasha, that he would extricate himself from his
+present position, perhaps had done so already. Sympathy and sentiment
+were natural and proper manifestations of human society, but governments
+were, of necessity, ruled by sterner considerations. The House must
+realise that the Government could not act as though it were wholly a
+free agent, or as if its every move would not be matched by another move
+on the part of another Power or Powers.
+
+Then followed a brilliant and effective appeal to his own party to trust
+the Government, to credit it with feeling and with a due regard for
+English prestige and the honour brought to it by Claridge Pasha's
+personal qualities, whatever might be thought of his crusading
+enterprises. The party must not fall into the trap of playing the game
+of the Opposition. Then, with some supercilious praise of the "worthy
+sentiments" of Jasper Kimber's speech and a curt depreciation of its
+reasoning, he declared that: "No Government can be ruled by clamour. The
+path to be trodden by this Government will be lighted by principles
+of progress and civilisation, humanity and peace, the urbane power
+of reason, and the persuasive influence of just consideration for the
+rights of others, rather than the thunder and the threat of the cannon
+and the sword!"
+
+He sat down amid the cheers of a large portion of his party, for the end
+of his speech had been full of effective if meretricious appeal. But the
+debate that followed showed that the speech had been a failure. He had
+not uttered one warm or human word concerning Claridge Pasha, and it was
+felt and said, that no pledge had been given to insure the relief of the
+man who had caught the imagination of England.
+
+The debate was fierce and prolonged. Eglington would not agree to any
+modification of his speech, to any temporising. Arrogant and insistent,
+he had his way, and, on a division, the Government was saved by a mere
+handful of votes--votes to save the party, not to indorse Eglington's
+speech or policy.
+
+Exasperated and with jaw set, but with a defiant smile, Eglington drove
+straight home after the House rose. He found Hylda in the library with
+an evening paper in her hands. She had read and reread his speech, and
+had steeled herself for "the inevitable hour," to this talk which would
+decide for ever their fate and future.
+
+Eglington entered the room smiling. He remembered the incident of the
+night before, when she came to his study and then hurriedly retreated.
+He had been defiant and proudly disdainful at the House and on the way
+home; but in his heart of hearts he was conscious of having failed to
+have his own way; and, like such men, he wanted assurance that he could
+not err, and he wanted sympathy. Almost any one could have given it
+to him, and he had a temptation to seek that society which was his the
+evening before; but he remembered that she was occupied where he could
+not reach her, and here was Hylda, from whom he had been estranged,
+but who must surely have seen by now that at Hamley she had been
+unreasonable, and that she must trust his judgment. So absorbed was he
+with self and the failure of his speech, that, for a moment, he forgot
+the subject of it, and what that subject meant to them both.
+
+"What do you think of my speech, Hylda?" he asked, as he threw himself
+into a chair. "I see you have been reading it. Is it a full report?"
+
+She handed the paper over. "Quite full," she answered evenly.
+
+He glanced down the columns. "Sentimentalists!" he said as his eye
+caught an interjection. "Cant!" he added. Then he looked at Hylda, and
+remembered once again on whom and what his speech had been made. He saw
+that her face was very pale.
+
+"What do you think of my speech?" he repeated stubbornly.
+
+"If you think an answer necessary, I regard it as wicked and
+unpatriotic," she answered firmly.
+
+"Yes, I suppose you would," he rejoined bitingly. She got to her feet
+slowly, a flush passing over her face. "If you think I would, did you
+not think that a great many other people would think so too, and for
+the same reason?" she asked, still evenly, but very slowly. "Not for the
+same reason," he rejoined in a low, savage voice.
+
+"You do not treat me well," she said, with a voice that betrayed no
+hurt, no indignation. It seemed to state a fact deliberately; that was
+all.
+
+"No, please," she added quickly, as she saw him rise to his feet with
+anger trembling at his lips. "Do not say what is on your tongue to say.
+Let us speak quietly to-night. It is better; and I am tired of strife,
+spoken and unspoken. I have got beyond that. But I want to speak of what
+you did to-day in Parliament."
+
+"Well, you have said it was wicked and unpatriotic," he rejoined,
+sitting down again and lighting a cigar, in an attempt to be composed.
+
+"What you said was that; but I am concerned with what you did. Did your
+speech mean that you would not press the Egyptian Government to relieve
+Claridge Pasha at once?"
+
+"Is that the conclusion you draw from my words?" he asked.
+
+"Yes; but I wish to know beyond doubt if that is what you mean the
+country to believe?"
+
+"It is what I mean you to believe, my dear."
+
+She shrank from the last two words, but still went on quietly, though
+her eyes burned and she shivered. "If you mean that you will do nothing,
+it will ruin you and your Government," she answered. "Kimber was right,
+and--"
+
+"Kimber was inspired from here," he interjected sharply.
+
+She put her hand upon herself. "Do you think I would intrigue against
+you? Do you think I would stoop to intrigue?" she asked, a hand clasping
+and unclasping a bracelet on her wrist, her eyes averted, for very shame
+that he should think the thought he had uttered.
+
+"It came from this house--the influence," he rejoined.
+
+"I cannot say. It is possible," she answered; "but you cannot think that
+I connive with my maid against you. I think Kimber has reasons of his
+own for acting as he did to-day. He speaks for many besides himself; and
+he spoke patriotically this afternoon. He did his duty."
+
+"And I did not? Do you think I act alone?"
+
+"You did not do your duty, and I think that you are not alone
+responsible. That is why I hope the Government will be influenced by
+public feeling." She came a step nearer to him. "I ask you to relieve
+Claridge Pasha at any cost. He is your father's son. If you do not, when
+all the truth is known, you will find no shelter from the storm that
+will break over you."
+
+"You will tell--the truth?"
+
+"I do not know yet what I shall do," she answered. "It will depend on
+you; but it is your duty to tell the truth, not mine. That does not
+concern me; but to save Claridge Pasha does concern me."
+
+"So I have known."
+
+Her heart panted for a moment with a wild indignation; but she quieted
+herself, and answered almost calmly: "If you refuse to do that which
+is honourable--and human, then I shall try to do it for you while yet
+I bear your name. If you will not care for your family honour, then I
+shall try to do so. If you will not do your duty, then I will try to
+do it for you." She looked him determinedly in the eyes. "Through you I
+have lost nearly all I cared to keep in the world. I should like to feel
+that in this one thing you acted honourably."
+
+He sprang to his feet, bursting with anger, in spite of the inward
+admonition that much that he prized was in danger, that any breach
+with Hylda would be disastrous. But self-will and his native arrogance
+overruled the monitor within, and he said: "Don't preach to me, don't
+play the martyr. You will do this and you will do that! You will save my
+honour and the family name! You will relieve Claridge Pasha, you will do
+what Governments choose not to do; you will do what your husband chooses
+not to do--Well, I say that you will do what your husband chooses to do,
+or take the consequences."
+
+"I think I will take the consequences," she answered. "I will save
+Claridge Pasha, if it is possible. It is no boast. I will do it, if it
+can be done at all, if it is God's will that it should be done; and in
+doing it I shall be conscious that you and I will do nothing together
+again--never! But that will not stop me; it will make me do it, the last
+right thing, before the end."
+
+She was so quiet, so curiously quiet. Her words had a strange solemnity,
+a tragic apathy. What did it mean? He had gone too far, as he had done
+before. He had blundered viciously, as he had blundered before.
+
+She spoke again before he could collect his thoughts and make reply.
+
+"I did not ask for too much, I think, and I could have forgiven and
+forgotten all the hurts you have given me, if it were not for one thing.
+You have been unjust, hard, selfish, and suspicious. Suspicious--of me!
+No one else in all the world ever thought of me what you have thought.
+I have done all I could. I have honourably kept the faith. But you have
+spoiled it all. I have no memory that I care to keep. It is stained.
+My eyes can never bear to look upon the past again, the past with
+you--never."
+
+She turned to leave the room. He caught her arm. "You will wait till you
+hear what I have to say," he cried in anger. Her last words had stung
+him so, her manner was so pitilessly scornful. It was as though she
+looked down on him from a height. His old arrogance fought for mastery
+over his apprehension. What did she know? What did she mean? In any
+case he must face it out, be strong--and merciful and affectionate
+afterwards.
+
+"Wait, Hylda," he said. "We must talk this out."
+
+She freed her arm. "There is nothing to talk out," she answered. "So far
+as our relations are concerned, all reason for talk is gone." She drew
+the fatal letter from the sash at her waist. "You will think so too when
+you read this letter again." She laid it on the table beside him, and,
+as he opened and glanced at it, she left the room.
+
+He stood with the letter in his hand, dumfounded. "Good God!" he said,
+and sank into a chair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX. FAITH JOURNEYS TO LONDON
+
+Faith withdrew her eyes from Hylda's face, and they wandered helplessly
+over the room. They saw, yet did not see; and even in her trouble
+there was some subconscious sense softly commenting on the exquisite
+refinement and gentle beauty which seemed to fill the room; but the
+only definite objects which the eyes registered at the moment were the
+flowers filling every corner. Hylda had been lightly adjusting a clump
+of roses when she entered; and she had vaguely noticed how pale was the
+face that bent over the flowers, how pale and yet how composed--as she
+had seen a Quaker face, after some sorrow had passed over it, and left
+it like a quiet sea in the sun, when wreck and ruin were done. It was
+only a swift impression, for she could think of but one thing, David and
+his safety. She had come to Hylda, she said, because of Lord Eglington's
+position, and she could not believe that the Government would see
+David's work undone and David killed by the slave-dealers of Africa.
+
+Hylda's reply had given her no hope that Eglington would keep the
+promise he had made that evening long ago when her father had come upon
+them by the old mill, and because of which promise she had forgiven
+Eglington so much that was hard to forgive. Hylda had spoken with
+sorrowful decision, and then this pause had come, in which Faith tried
+to gain composure and strength. There was something strangely still in
+the two women. From the far past, through Quaker ancestors, there had
+come to Hylda now this grey mist of endurance and self-control and
+austere reserve. Yet behind it all, beneath it all, a wild heart was
+beating.
+
+Presently, as they looked into each other's eyes, and Faith dimly
+apprehended something of Hylda's distress and its cause, Hylda leaned
+over and spasmodically pressed her hand.
+
+"It is so, Faith," she said. "They will do nothing. International
+influences are too strong." She paused. "The Under-Secretary for Foreign
+Affairs will do nothing; but yet we must hope. Claridge Pasha has saved
+himself in the past; and he may do so now, even though it is all ten
+times worse. Then, there is another way. Nahoum Pasha can save him, if
+he can be saved. And I am going to Egypt--to Nahoum."
+
+Faith's face blanched. Something of the stark truth swept into her
+brain. She herself had suffered--her own life had been maimed, it had
+had its secret bitterness. Her love for her sister's son was that of a
+mother, sister, friend combined, and he was all she had in life. That
+he lived, that she might cherish the thought of him living, was the
+one thing she had; and David must be saved, if that might be; but this
+girl--was she not a girl, ten years younger than herself?--to go to
+Egypt to do--what? She herself lived out of the world, but she knew the
+world! To go to Egypt, and--"Thee will not go to Egypt. What can thee
+do?" she pleaded, something very like a sob in her voice. "Thee is but
+a woman, and David would not be saved at such a price, and I would not
+have him saved so. Thee will not go. Say thee will not. He is all
+God has left to me in life; but thee to go--ah, no! It is a bitter
+world--and what could thee do?"
+
+Hylda looked at her reflectively. Should she tell Faith all, and take
+her to Egypt? No, she could not take her without telling her all, and
+that was impossible now. There might come a time when this wise and
+tender soul might be taken into the innermost chambers, when all
+the truth might be known; but the secret of David's parentage was
+Eglington's concern most of all, and she would not speak now; and what
+was between Nahoum and David was David's concern; and she had kept his
+secret all these years. No, Faith might not know now, and might not come
+with her. On this mission she must go alone.
+
+Hylda rose to her feet, still keeping hold of Faith's hand. "Go back
+to Hamley and wait there," she said, in a colourless voice. "You can do
+nothing; it may be I can do much. Whatever can be done I can do, since
+England will not act. Pray for his safety. It is all you can do. It is
+given to some to work, to others to pray. I must work now."
+
+She led Faith towards the door; she could not endure more; she must hold
+herself firm for the journey and the struggle before her. If she broke
+down now she could not go forward; and Faith's presence roused in her an
+emotion almost beyond control.
+
+At the door she took both of Faith's hands in hers, and kissed her
+cheek. "It is your place to stay; you will see that it is best.
+Good-bye," she added hurriedly, and her eyes were so blurred that she
+could scarcely see the graceful, demure figure pass into the sunlit
+street.
+
+That afternoon Lord Windlehurst entered the Duchess of Snowdon's
+presence hurried and excited. She started on seeing his face.
+
+"What has happened?" she asked breathlessly. "She is gone," he answered.
+"Our girl has gone to Egypt."
+
+The Duchess almost staggered to her feet. "Windlehurst--gone!" she
+gasped.
+
+"I called to see her. Her ladyship had gone into the country, the
+footman said. I saw the butler, a faithful soul, who would die--or clean
+the area steps--for her. He was discreet; but he knew what you and I are
+to her. It was he got the tickets--for Marseilles and Egypt."
+
+The Duchess began to cry silently. Big tears ran down a face from which
+the glow of feeling had long fled, but her eyes were sad enough.
+
+"Gone--gone! It is the end!" was all she could say. Lord Windlehurst
+frowned, though his eyes were moist. "We must act at once. You must go
+to Egypt, Betty. You must catch her at Marseilles. Her boat does not
+sail for three days. She thought it went sooner, as it was advertised to
+do. It is delayed--I've found that out. You can start to-night, and--and
+save the situation. You will do it, Betty?"
+
+"I will do anything you say, as I have always done." She dried her eyes.
+
+"She is a good girl. We must do all we can. I'll arrange everything for
+you myself. I've written this paragraph to go into the papers to-morrow
+morning: 'The Duchess of Snowdon, accompanied by Lady Eglington, left
+London last night for the Mediterranean via Calais, to be gone for two
+months or more.' That is simple and natural. I'll see Eglington. He
+must make no fuss. He thinks she has gone to Hamley, so the butler says.
+There, it's all clear. Your work is cut out, Betty, and I know you will
+do it as no one else can."
+
+"Oh, Windlehurst," she answered, with a hand clutching at his arm, "if
+we fail, it will kill me."
+
+"If she fails, it will kill her," he answered, "and she is very young.
+What is in her mind, who can tell? But she thinks she can help Claridge
+somehow. We must save her, Betty."
+
+"I used to think you had no real feeling, Windlehurst. You didn't show
+it," she said in a low voice. "Ah, that was because you had too much,"
+he answered. "I had to wait till you had less." He took out his watch.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL. HYLDA SEEKS NAHOUM
+
+It was as though she had gone to sleep the night before, and waked
+again upon this scene unchanged, brilliant, full of colour, a chaos
+of decoration--confluences of noisy, garish streams of life, eddies
+of petty labour. Craftsmen crowded one upon the other in dark bazaars;
+merchants chattered and haggled on their benches; hawkers clattered and
+cried their wares. It was a people that lived upon the streets, for all
+the houses seemed empty and forsaken. The sais ran before the Pasha's
+carriage, the donkey-boys shrieked for their right of way, a train
+of camels calmly forced its passage through the swirling crowds,
+supercilious and heavy-laden.
+
+It seemed but yesterday since she had watched with amused eyes the
+sherbet-sellers clanking their brass saucers, the carriers streaming
+the water from the bulging goatskins into the earthen bottles, crying,
+"Allah be praised, here is coolness for thy throat for ever!" the idle
+singer chanting to the soft kanoon, the chess-players in the shade of a
+high wall, lost to the world, the dancing-girls with unveiled, shameless
+faces, posturing for evil eyes. Nothing had changed these past six
+years. Yet everything had changed.
+
+She saw it all as in a dream, for her mind had no time for reverie or
+retrospect; it was set on one thing only.
+
+Yet behind the one idea possessing her there was a subconscious self
+taking note of all these sights and sounds, and bringing moisture to her
+eyes. Passing the house which David had occupied on that night when
+he and she and Nahoum and Mizraim had met, the mist of feeling almost
+blinded her; for there at the gate sat the bowab who had admitted her
+then, and with apathetic eyes had watched her go, in the hour when it
+seemed that she and David Claridge had bidden farewell for ever, two
+driftwood spars that touched and parted in the everlasting sea. Here
+again in the Palace square were Kaid's Nubians in their glittering
+armour as of silver and gold, drawn up as she had seen them drawn then,
+to be reviewed by their overlord.
+
+She swept swiftly through the streets and bazaars on her mission to
+Nahoum. "Lady Eglington" had asked for an interview, and Nahoum had
+granted it without delay. He did not associate her with the girl for
+whom David Claridge had killed Foorgat Pey, and he sent his own carriage
+to bring her to the Palace. No time had been lost, for it was less than
+twenty-four hours since she had arrived in Cairo, and very soon she
+would know the worst or the best. She had put her past away for the
+moment, and the Duchess of Snowdon had found at Marseilles a silent,
+determined, yet gentle-tongued woman, who refused to look back, or to
+discuss anything vital to herself and Eglington, until what she had
+come to Egypt to do was accomplished. Nor would she speak of the future,
+until the present had been fully declared and she knew the fate of David
+Claridge. In Cairo there were only varying rumours: that he was still
+holding out; that he was lost; that he had broken through; that he was a
+prisoner--all without foundation upon which she could rely.
+
+As she neared the Palace entrance, a female fortune-teller ran forward,
+thrusting towards her a gazelle's skin, filled with the instruments of
+her mystic craft, and crying out: "I divine-I reveal! What is present
+I manifest! What is absent I declare! What is future I show! Beautiful
+one, hear me. It is all written. To thee is greatness, and thy heart's
+desire. Hear all! See! Wait for the revealing. Thou comest from afar,
+but thy fortune is near. Hear and see. I divine--I reveal. Beautiful
+one, what is future I show."
+
+Hylda's eyes looked at the poor creature eagerly, pathetically. If it
+could only be, if she could but see one step ahead! If the veil
+could but be lifted! She dropped some silver into the folds of the
+gazelle-skin and waved the Gipsy away. "There is darkness, it is all
+dark, beautiful one," cried the woman after her, "but it shall be light.
+I show--I reveal!"
+
+Inside these Palace walls there was a revealer of more merit, as she so
+well and bitterly knew. He could raise the veil--a dark and dangerous
+necromancer, with a flinty heart and a hand that had waited long to
+strike. Had it struck its last blow?
+
+Outside Nahoum's door she had a moment of utter weakness, when her knees
+smote together, and her throat became parched; but before the door had
+swung wide and her eyes swept the cool and shadowed room, she was as
+composed as on that night long ago when she had faced the man who knew.
+
+Nahoum was standing in a waiting and respectful attitude as she entered.
+He advanced towards her and bowed low, but stopped dumfounded, as he saw
+who she was. Presently he recovered himself; but he offered no further
+greeting than to place a chair for her where her face was in the shadow
+and his in the light--time of crisis as it was, she noticed this and
+marvelled at him. His face was as she had seen it those years ago. It
+showed no change whatever. The eyes looked at her calmly, openly, with
+no ulterior thought behind, as it might seem. The high, smooth forehead,
+the full but firm lips, the brown, well-groomed beard, were all
+indicative of a nature benevolent and refined. Where did the duplicity
+lie? Her mind answered its own question on the instant; it lay in
+the brain and the tongue. Both were masterly weapons, an armament so
+complete that it controlled the face and eyes and outward man into a
+fair semblance of honesty. The tongue--she remembered its insinuating
+and adroit power, and how it had deceived the man she had come to try
+and save. She must not be misled by it. She felt it was to be a struggle
+between them, and she must be alert and persuasive, and match him word
+for word, move for move.
+
+"I am happy to welcome you here, madame," he said in English. "It is
+years since we met; yet time has passed you by."
+
+She flushed ever so slightly--compliment from Nahoum Pasha! Yet she must
+not resent anything to-day; she must get what she came for, if it was
+possible. What had Lacey said? "A few thousand men by parcel-post, and
+some red seals-British officers."
+
+"We meet under different circumstances," she replied meaningly. "You
+were asking a great favour then."
+
+"Ah, but of you, madame?"
+
+"I think you appealed to me when you were doubtful of the result."
+
+"Well, madame, it may be so--but, yes, you are right; I thought you were
+Claridge Pasha's kinswoman, I remember."
+
+"Excellency, you said you thought I was Claridge Pasha's kinswoman."
+
+"And you are not?" he asked reflectively.
+
+He did not understand the slight change that passed over her face. His
+kinswoman--Claridge Pasha's kinswoman!
+
+"I was not his kinswoman," she answered calmly. "You came to ask
+a favour then of Claridge Pasha; your life-work to do under him. I
+remember your words: 'I can aid thee in thy great task. Thou wouldst
+remake our Egypt, and my heart is with you. I would rescue, not
+destroy.... I would labour, but my master has taken away from me the
+anvil, the fire, and the hammer, and I sit without the door like an
+armless beggar.' Those were your words, and Claridge Pasha listened and
+believed, and saved your life and gave you work; and now again you have
+power greater than all others in Egypt."
+
+"Madame, I congratulate you on a useful memory. May it serve you as the
+hill-fountain the garden in the city! Those indeed were my words. I hear
+myself from your lips, and yet recognise myself, if that be not vanity.
+But, madame, why have you sought me? What is it you wish to know--to
+hear?"
+
+He looked at her innocently, as though he did not know her errand; as
+though beyond, in the desert, there was no tragedy approaching--or come.
+
+"Excellency, you are aware that I have come to ask for news of Claridge
+Pasha." She leaned forward slightly, but, apart from her tightly
+interlaced fingers, it would not have been possible to know that she was
+under any strain.
+
+"You come to me instead of to the Effendina. May I ask why, madame? Your
+husband's position--I did not know you were Lord Eglington's wife--would
+entitle you to the highest consideration."
+
+"I knew that Nahoum Pasha would have the whole knowledge, while the
+Effendina would have part only. Excellency, will you not tell me what
+news You have? Is Claridge Pasha alive?"
+
+"Madame, I do not know. He is in the desert. He was surrounded. For over
+a month there has been no word-none. He is in danger. His way by the
+river was blocked. He stayed too long. He might have escaped, but he
+would insist on saving the loyal natives, on remaining with them, since
+he could not bring them across the desert; and the river and the desert
+are silent. Nothing comes out of that furnace yonder. Nothing comes."
+
+He bent his eyes upon her complacently. Her own dropped. She could not
+bear that he should see the misery in them.
+
+"You have come to try and save him, madame. What did you expect to
+do? Your Government did not strengthen my hands; your husband did
+nothing--nothing that could make it possible for me to act. There are
+many nations here, alas! Your husband does not take so great an interest
+in the fate of Claridge Pasha as yourself, madame."
+
+She ignored the insult. She had determined to endure everything, if she
+might but induce this man to do the thing that could be done--if it was
+not too late. Before she could frame a reply, he said urbanely:
+
+"But that is not to be expected. There was that between Claridge Pasha
+and yourself which would induce you to do all you might do for him, to
+be anxious for his welfare. Gratitude is a rare thing--as rare as the
+flower of the century--aloe; but you have it, madame."
+
+There was no chance to misunderstand him. Foorgat Bey--he knew the
+truth, and had known it all these years.
+
+"Excellency," she said, "if through me, Claridge Pasha--"
+
+"One moment, madame," he interrupted, and, opening a drawer, took out
+a letter. "I think that what you would say may be found here, with
+much else that you will care to know. It is the last news of Claridge
+Pasha--a letter from him. I understand all you would say to me; but
+he who has most at stake has said it, and, if he failed, do you think,
+madame, that you could succeed?"
+
+He handed her the letter with a respectful salutation.
+
+"In the hour he left, madame, he came to know that the name of Foorgat
+Bey was not blotted from the book of Time, nor from Fate's reckoning."
+
+After all these years! Her instinct had been true, then, that night so
+long ago. The hand that took the letter trembled slightly in spite of
+her will, but it was not the disclosure Nahoum had made which caused her
+agitation. This letter she held was in David Claridge's hand, the first
+she had ever seen, and, maybe, the last that he had ever written, or
+that any one would ever see, a document of tears. But no, there were
+no tears in this letter! As Hylda read it the trembling passed from her
+fingers, and a great thrilling pride possessed her. If tragedy had come,
+then it had fallen like a fire from heaven, not like a pestilence rising
+from the earth. Here indeed was that which justified all she had done,
+what she was doing now, what she meant to do when she had read the last
+word of it and the firm, clear signature beneath.
+
+   "Excellency [the letter began in English], I came into the desert
+   and into the perils I find here, with your last words in my ear,
+   'There is the matter of Foorgat Bey.' The time you chose to speak
+   was chosen well for your purpose, but ill for me. I could not turn
+   back, I must go on. Had I returned, of what avail? What could I do
+   but say what I say here, that my hand killed Foorgat Bey; that I had
+   not meant to kill him, though at the moment I struck I took no heed
+   whether he lived or died. Since you know of my sorrowful deed, you
+   also know why Foorgat Bey was struck down. When, as I left the bank
+   of the Nile, your words blinded my eyes, my mind said in its misery:
+   'Now, I see!' The curtains fell away from between you and me, and I
+   saw all that you had done for vengeance and revenge. You knew all
+   on that night when you sought your life of me and the way back to
+   Kaid's forgiveness. I see all as though you spoke it in my ear.
+   You had reason to hurt me, but you had no reason for hurting Egypt,
+   as you have done. I did not value my life, as you know well, for it
+   has been flung into the midst of dangers for Egypt's sake, how
+   often! It was not cowardice which made me hide from you and all the
+   world the killing of Foorgat Bey. I desired to face the penalty,
+   for did not my act deny all that I had held fast from my youth up?
+   But there was another concerned--a girl, but a child in years, as
+   innocent and true a being as God has ever set among the dangers of
+   this life, and, by her very innocence and unsuspecting nature, so
+   much more in peril before such unscrupulous wiles as were used by
+   Foorgat Bey.
+
+   "I have known you many years, Nahoum, and dark and cruel as your
+   acts have been against the work I gave my life to do, yet I think
+   that there was ever in you, too, the root of goodness. Men would
+   call your acts treacherous if they knew what you had done; and so
+   indeed they were; but yet I have seen you do things to others--not
+   to me--which could rise only from the fountain of pure waters. Was
+   it partly because I killed Foorgat and partly because I came to
+   place and influence and power, that you used me so, and all that I
+   did? Or was it the East at war with the West, the immemorial feud
+   and foray?
+
+   "This last I will believe; for then it will seem to be something
+   beyond yourself--centuries of predisposition, the long stain of the
+   indelible--that drove you to those acts of matricide. Ay, it is
+   that! For, Armenian as you are, this land is your native land, and
+   in pulling down what I have built up--with you, Nahoum, with you--
+   you have plunged the knife into the bosom of your mother. Did it
+   never seem to you that the work which you did with me was a good
+   work--the reduction of the corvee, the decrease of conscription, the
+   lessening of taxes of the fellah, the bridges built, the canals dug,
+   the seed distributed, the plague stayed, the better dwellings for
+   the poor in the Delta, the destruction of brigandage, the slow
+   blotting-out of exaction and tyranny under the kourbash, the quiet
+   growth of law and justice, the new industries started--did not all
+   these seem good to you, as you served the land with me, your great
+   genius for finance, ay, and your own purse, helping on the things
+   that were dear to me, for Egypt's sake? Giving with one hand
+   freely, did your soul not misgive you when you took away with the
+   other?
+
+   "When you tore down my work, you were tearing down your own; for,
+   more than the material help I thought you gave in planning and
+   shaping reforms, ay, far more than all, was the feeling in me which
+   helped me over many a dark place, that I had you with me, that I was
+   not alone. I trusted you, Nahoum. A life for a life you might have
+   had for the asking; but a long torture and a daily weaving of the
+   web of treachery--that has taken more than my life; it has taken
+   your own, for you have killed the best part of yourself, that which
+   you did with me; and here in an ever-narrowing circle of death I say
+   to you that you will die with me. Power you have, but it will
+   wither in your grasp. Kaid will turn against you; for with my
+   failure will come a dark reaction in his mind, which feels the cloud
+   of doom drawing over it. Without me, with my work falling about his
+   ears, he will, as he did so short a time ago, turn to Sharif and
+   Higli and the rest; and the only comfort you will have will be that
+   you destroyed the life of him who killed your brother. Did you love
+   your brother? Nay, not more than did I, for I sent his soul into
+   the void, and I would gladly have gone after it to ask God for the
+   pardon of all his sins--and mine. Think: I hid the truth, but why?
+   Because a woman would suffer an unmerited scandal and shame.
+   Nothing could recall Foorgat Bey; but for that silence I gave my
+   life, for the land which was his land. Do you betray it, then?
+
+   "And now, Nahoum, the gulf in which you sought to plunge me when you
+   had ruined all I did is here before me. The long deception has
+   nearly done its work. I know from Ebn Ezra Bey what passed between
+   you. They are out against me--the slave-dealers--from Senaar to
+   where I am. The dominion of Egypt is over here. Yet I could
+   restore it with a thousand men and a handful of European officers,
+   had I but a show of authority from Cairo, which they think has
+   deserted me.
+
+   "I am shut up here with a handful of men who can fight and thousands
+   who cannot fight, and food grows scarcer, and my garrison is worn
+   and famished; but each day I hearten them with the hope that you
+   will send me a thousand men from Cairo. One steamer pounding here
+   from the north with men who bring commands from the Effendina, and
+   those thousands out yonder beyond my mines and moats and guns will
+   begin to melt away. Nahoum, think not that you shall triumph over
+   David Claridge. If it be God's will that I shall die here, my work
+   undone, then, smiling, I shall go with step that does not falter, to
+   live once more; and another day the work that I began will rise
+   again in spite of you or any man.
+
+   "Nahoum, the killing of Foorgat Bey has been like a cloud upon all
+   my past. You know me, and you know I do not lie. Yet I do not
+   grieve that I hid the thing--it was not mine only; and if ever you
+   knew a good woman, and in dark moments have turned to her, glad that
+   she was yours, think what you would have done for her, how you would
+   have sheltered her against aught that might injure her, against
+   those things women are not made to bear. Then think that I hid the
+   deed for one who was a stranger to me, whose life must ever lay far
+   from mine, and see clearly that I did it for a woman's sake, and not
+   for this woman's sake; for I had never seen her till the moment I
+   struck Foorgat Bey into silence and the tomb. Will you not
+   understand, Nahoum?
+
+   "Yonder, I see the tribes that harry me. The great guns firing make
+   the day a burden, the nights are ever fretted by the dangers of
+   surprise, and there is scarce time to bury the dead whom sickness
+   and the sword destroy. From the midst of it all my eyes turn to you
+   in Cairo, whose forgiveness I ask for the one injury I did you;
+   while I pray that you will seek pardon for all that you have done to
+   me and to those who will pass with me, if our circle is broken.
+   Friend, Achmet the Ropemaker is here fighting for Egypt. Art thou
+   less, then, than Achmet? So, God be with thee.
+
+                    "DAVID CLARIDGE."
+
+Without a pause Hylda had read the letter from the first word to the
+last. She was too proud to let this conspirator and traitor see what
+David's words could do to her. When she read the lines concerning
+herself, she became cold from head to foot, but she knew that Nahoum
+never took his eyes from her face, and she gave no outward sign of what
+was passing within. When she had finished it, she folded it up calmly,
+her eyes dwelt for a moment on the address upon the envelope, and then
+she handed it back to Nahoum without a word. She looked him in the eyes
+and spoke. "He saved your life, he gave you all you had lost. It was not
+his fault that Prince Kaid chose him for his chief counsellor. You would
+be lying where your brother lies, were it not for Claridge Pasha."
+
+"It may be; but the luck was with me; and I have my way."
+
+She drew herself together to say what was hard to say. "Excellency, the
+man who was killed deserved to die. Only by lies, only by subterfuge,
+only because I was curious to see the inside of the Palace, and because
+I had known him in London, did I, without a thought of indiscretion,
+give myself to his care to come here. I was so young; I did not know
+life, or men--or Egyptians." The last word was uttered with low scorn.
+
+He glanced up quickly, and for the first time she saw a gleam of malice
+in his eyes. She could not feel sorry she had said it, yet she must
+remove the impression if possible.
+
+"What Claridge Pasha did, any man would have done, Excellency. He
+struck, and death was an accident. Foorgat's temple struck the corner of
+a pedestal.
+
+"His death was instant. He would have killed Claridge Pasha if it
+had been possible--he tried to do so. But, Excellency, if you have a
+daughter, if you ever had a child, what would you have done if any man
+had--"
+
+"In the East daughters are more discreet; they tempt men less," he
+answered quietly, and fingered the string of beads he carried.
+
+"Yet you would have done as Claridge Pasha did. That it was your brother
+was an accident, and--"
+
+"It was an accident that the penalty must fall on Claridge Pasha, and
+on you, madame. I did not choose the objects of penalty. Destiny chose
+them, as Destiny chose Claridge Pasha as the man who should supplant me,
+who should attempt to do these mad things for Egypt against the judgment
+of the world--against the judgment of your husband. Shall I have
+better judgment than the chancellories of Europe and England--and Lord
+Eglington?"
+
+"Excellency, you know what moves other nations; but it is for Egypt to
+act for herself. You ask me why I did not go to the Effendina. I come to
+you because I know that you could circumvent the Effendina, even if he
+sent ten thousand men. It is the way in Egypt."
+
+"Madame, you have insight--will you not look farther still, and see
+that, however good Claridge Pasha's work might be some day in the far
+future, it is not good to-day. It is too soon. At the beginning of the
+twentieth century, perhaps. Men pay the penalty of their mistakes. A
+man's life"--he watched her closely with his wide, benevolent eyes--"is
+neither here nor there, nor a few thousands, in the destiny of a nation.
+A man who ventures into a lion's den must not be surprised if he goes
+as Harrik went--ah, perhaps you do not know how Harrik went! A man who
+tears at the foundations of a house must not be surprised if the timbers
+fall on him and on his workmen. It is Destiny that Claridge Pasha should
+be the slayer of my brother, and a danger to Egypt, and one whose life
+is so dear to you, madame. You would have it otherwise, and so would
+I, but we must take things as they are--and you see that letter. It is
+seven weeks since then, and it may be that the circle has been broken.
+Yet it may not be so. The circle may be smaller, but not broken."
+
+She felt how he was tempting her from word to word with a merciless
+ingenuity; yet she kept to her purpose; and however hopeless it seemed,
+she would struggle on.
+
+"Excellency," she said in a low, pleading tone, "has he not suffered
+enough? Has he not paid the price of that life which you would not bring
+back if you could? No, in those places of your mind where no one can see
+lies the thought that you would not bring back Foorgat Bey. It is not
+an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth that has moved you; it has
+not been love of Foorgat Bey; it has been the hatred of the East for
+the West. And yet you are a Christian! Has Claridge Pasha not suffered
+enough, Excellency? Have you not had your fill of revenge? Have you not
+done enough to hurt a man whose only crime was that he killed a man to
+save a woman, and had not meant to kill?"
+
+"Yet he says in his letter that the thought of killing would not have
+stopped him."
+
+"Does one think at such a moment? Did he think? There was no time. It
+was the work of an instant. Ah, Fate was not kind, Excellency! If it
+had been, I should have been permitted to kill Foorgat Bey with my own
+hands."
+
+"I should have found it hard to exact the penalty from you, madame."
+
+The words were uttered in so neutral a way that they were enigmatical,
+and she could not take offence or be sure of his meaning.
+
+"Think, Excellency. Have you ever known one so selfless, so good, so
+true? For humanity's sake, would you not keep alive such a man? If there
+were a feud as old as Adam between your race and his, would you
+not before this life of sacrifice lay down the sword and the bitter
+challenge? He gave you his hand in faith and trust, because your God was
+his God, your prophet and lord his prophet and lord. Such faith should
+melt your heart. Can you not see that he tried to make compensation for
+Foorgat's death, by giving you your life and setting you where you are
+now, with power to save or kill him?"
+
+"You call him great; yet I am here in safety, and he is--where he is.
+Have you not heard of the strife of minds and wills? He represented the
+West, I the East. He was a Christian, so was I; the ground of our battle
+was a fair one, and--and I have won."
+
+"The ground of battle fair!" she protested bitterly. "He did not know
+that there was strife between you. He did not fight you. I think that he
+always loved you, Excellency. He would have given his life for you, if
+it had been in danger. Is there in that letter one word that any man
+could wish unwritten when the world was all ended for all men? But no,
+there was no strife between you--there was only hatred on your part. He
+was so much greater than you that you should feel no rivalry, no strife.
+The sword he carries cuts as wide as Time. You are of a petty day in a
+petty land. Your mouth will soon be filled with dust, and you will be
+forgotten. He will live in the history of the world. Excellency, I plead
+for him because I owe him so much: he killed a man and brought upon
+himself a lifelong misery for me. It is all I can do, plead to you who
+know the truth about him--yes, you know the truth--to make an effort to
+save him. It may be too late; but yet God may be waiting for you to lift
+your hand. You said the circle may be smaller, but it may be unbroken
+still. Will you not do a great thing once, and win a woman's gratitude,
+and the thanks of the world, by trying to save one who makes us think
+better of humanity? Will you not have the name of Nahoum Pasha linked
+with his--with his who thought you were his friend? Will you not save
+him?"
+
+He got slowly to his feet, a strange look in his eyes. "Your words are
+useless. I will not save him for your sake; I will not save him for the
+world's sake; I will not save him--"
+
+A cry of pain and grief broke from her, and she buried her face in her
+hands.
+
+"--I will not save him for any other sake than his own."
+
+He paused. Slowly, as dazed as though she had received a blow, Hylda
+raised her face and her hands dropped in her lap.
+
+"For any other sake than his own!" Her eyes gazed at him in a
+bewildered, piteous way. What did he mean? His voice seemed to come from
+afar off.
+
+"Did you think that you could save him? That I would listen to you, if
+I did not listen to him? No, no, madame. Not even did he conquer me; but
+something greater than himself within himself, it conquered me."
+
+She got to her feet gasping, her hands stretched out. "Oh, is it
+true--is it true?" she cried.
+
+"The West has conquered," he answered.
+
+"You will help him--you will try to save him?"
+
+"When, a month ago, I read the letter you have read, I tried to save
+him. I sent secretly four thousand men who were at Wady Halfa to relieve
+him--if it could be done; five hundred to push forward on the quickest
+of the armed steamers, the rest to follow as fast as possible. I did
+my best. That was a month ago, and I am waiting--waiting and hoping,
+madame."
+
+Suddenly she broke down. Tears streamed from her eyes. She sank into the
+chair, and sobs shook her from head to foot.
+
+"Be patient, be composed, madame," Nahoum said gently. "I have tried you
+greatly--forgive me. Nay, do not weep. I have hope. We may hear from
+him at any moment now," he added softly, and there was a new look in his
+wide blue eyes as they were bent on her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI. IN THE LAND OF SHINAR
+
+   "Then I said to the angel that talked with me, Whither do these bear
+   the Ephah?
+
+   "And he said unto me, To build it an house in the land of Shinar;
+   and it shall be established, and set there upon her own base."
+
+David raised his head from the paper he was studying. He looked at Lacey
+sharply. "And how many rounds of ammunition?" he asked.
+
+"Ten thousand, Saadat."
+
+"How many shells?" he continued, making notes upon the paper before him.
+
+"Three hundred, Saadat."
+
+"How many hundredweight of dourha?"
+
+"Eighty--about."
+
+"And how many mouths to feed?"
+
+"Five thousand."
+
+"How many fighters go with the mouths?"
+
+"Nine hundred and eighty-of a kind."
+
+"And of the best?'
+
+"Well, say, five hundred."
+
+"Thee said six hundred three days ago, Lacey."
+
+"Sixty were killed or wounded on Sunday, and forty I reckon in the
+others, Saadat."
+
+The dark eyes flashed, the lips set. "The fire was sickening--they fell
+back?"
+
+"Well, Saadat, they reflected--at the wrong time."
+
+"They ran?"
+
+"Not back--they were slow in getting on."
+
+"But they fought it out?"
+
+"They had to--root hog, or die. You see, Saadat, in that five hundred
+I'm only counting the invincibles, the up-and-at-'ems, the blind-goers
+that 'd open the lid of Hell and jump in after the enemy."
+
+The pale face lighted. "So many! I would not have put the estimate half
+so high. Not bad for a dark race fighting for they know not what!"
+
+"They know that all right; they are fighting for you, Saadat."
+
+David seemed not to hear. "Five hundred--so many, and the enemy so near,
+the temptation so great."
+
+"The deserters are all gone to Ali Wad Hei, Saadat. For a month there
+have been only the deserted."
+
+A hardness crept into the dark eyes. "Only the deserted!" He looked out
+to where the Nile lost itself in the northern distance. "I asked Nahoum
+for one thousand men, I asked England for the word which would send
+them. I asked for a thousand, but even two hundred would turn the
+scale--the sign that the Inglesi had behind him Cairo and London. Twenty
+weeks, and nothing comes!"
+
+He got to his feet slowly and walked up and down the room for a moment,
+glancing out occasionally towards the clump of palms which marked
+the disappearance of the Nile into the desert beyond his vision. At
+intervals a cannon-shot crashed upon the rarefied air, as scores of
+thousands had done for months past, torturing to ear and sense and
+nerve. The confused and dulled roar of voices came from the distance
+also; and, looking out to the landward side, David saw a series of
+movements of the besieging forces, under the Arab leader, Ali Wad Hei.
+Here a loosely formed body of lancers and light cavalry cantered away
+towards the south, converging upon the Nile; there a troop of heavy
+cavalry in glistening mail moved nearer to the northern defences; and
+between, battalions of infantry took up new positions, while batteries
+of guns moved nearer to the river, curving upon the palace north and
+south. Suddenly David's eyes flashed fire. He turned to Lacey eagerly.
+Lacey was watching with eyes screwed up shrewdly, his forehead shining
+with sweat.
+
+"Saadat," he said suddenly, "this isn't the usual set of quadrilles.
+It's the real thing. They're watching the river--waiting."
+
+"But south!" was David's laconic response. At the same moment he struck
+a gong. An orderly entered. Giving swift instructions, he turned to
+Lacey again. "Not Cairo--Darfur," he added.
+
+"Ebn Ezra Bey coming! Ali Wad Hei's got word from up the Nile, I guess."
+
+David nodded, and his face clouded. "We should have had word also," he
+said sharply.
+
+There was a knock at the door, and Mahommed Hassan entered, supporting
+an Arab, down whose haggard face blood trickled from a wound in the
+head, while an arm hung limp at his side.
+
+"Behold, Saadat--from Ebn Ezra Bey," Mahommed said. The man drooped
+beside him.
+
+David caught a tin cup from a shelf, poured some liquor into it, and
+held it to the lips of the fainting man. "Drink," he said. The
+Arab drank greedily, and, when he had finished, gave a long sigh of
+satisfaction. "Let him sit," David added.
+
+When the man was seated on a sheepskin, the huge Mahommed squatting
+behind like a sentinel, David questioned him. "What is thy name--thy
+news?" he asked in Arabic.
+
+"I am called Feroog. I come from Ebn Ezra Bey, to whom be peace!" he
+answered. "Thy messenger, Saadat, behold he died of hunger and thirst,
+and his work became mine. Ebn Ezra Bey came by the river...."
+
+"He is near?" asked David impatiently.
+
+"He is twenty miles away."
+
+"Thou camest by the desert?"
+
+"By the desert, Saadat, as Ebn Ezra effendi comes."
+
+"By the desert! But thou saidst he came by the river."
+
+"Saadat, yonder, forty miles from where we are, the river makes a great
+curve. There the effendi landed in the night with four hundred men to
+march hither. But he commanded that the boats should come on slowly and
+receive the attack in the river, while he came in from the desert."
+
+David's eye flashed. "A great device. They will be here by midnight,
+then, perhaps?"
+
+"At midnight, Saadat, by the blessing of God."
+
+"How wert thou wounded?"
+
+"I came upon two of the enemy. They were mounted. I fought them. Upon
+the horse of one I came here."
+
+"The other?"
+
+"God is merciful, Saadat. He is in the bosom of God."
+
+"How many men come by the river?"
+
+"But fifty, Saadat," was the answer, "but they have sworn by the stone
+in the Kaabah not to surrender."
+
+"And those who come with the effendi, with Ebn Ezra Bey, are they as
+those who will not surrender?"
+
+"Half of them are so. They were with thee, as was I, Saadat, when the
+great sickness fell upon us, and were healed by thee, and afterwards
+fought with thee." David nodded abstractedly, and motioned to Mahommed
+to take the man away; then he said to Lacey: "How long do you think we
+can hold out?"
+
+"We shall have more men, but also more rifles to fire, and more mouths
+to fill, if Ebn Ezra gets in, Saadat."
+
+David raised his head. "But with more rifles to fire away your ten
+thousand rounds"--he tapped the paper on the table--"and eat the eighty
+hundredweight of dourha, how long can we last?"
+
+"If they are to fight, and with full stomachs, and to stake everything
+on that one fight, then we can last two days. No more, I reckon."
+
+"I make it one day," answered David. "In three days we shall have no
+food, and unless help comes from Cairo, we must die or surrender. It is
+not well to starve on the chance of help coming, and then die fighting
+with weak arms and broken spirit. Therefore, we must fight to morrow, if
+Ebn Ezra gets in to-night. I think we shall fight well," he added. "You
+think so?"
+
+"You are a born fighter, Saadat."
+
+A shadow fell on David's face, and his lips tightened. "I was not born a
+fighter, Lacey. The day we met first no man had ever died by my hand or
+by my will."
+
+"There are three who must die at sunset--an hour from now-by thy will,
+Saadat."
+
+A startled look came into David's face. "Who?" he asked.
+
+"The Three Pashas, Saadat. They have been recaptured."
+
+"Recaptured!" rejoined David mechanically.
+
+"Achmet Pasha got them from under the very noses of the sheikhs before
+sunrise this morning."
+
+"Achmet--Achmet Pasha!" A light came into David's face again.
+
+"You will keep faith with Achmet, Saadat. He risked his life to get
+them. They betrayed you, and betrayed three hundred good men to death.
+If they do not die, those who fight for you will say that it doesn't
+matter whether men fight for you or betray you, they get the same stuff
+off the same plate. If we are going to fight to-morrow, it ought to be
+with a clean bill of health."
+
+"They served me well so long--ate at my table, fought with me. But--but
+traitors must die, even as Harrik died." A stern look came into his
+face. He looked round the great room slowly. "We have done our best," he
+said. "I need not have failed, if there had been no treachery...."
+
+"If it hadn't been for Nahoum!"
+
+David raised his head. Supreme purpose came into his bearing. A grave
+smile played at his lips, as he gave that quick toss of the head which
+had been a characteristic of both Eglington and himself. His eyes
+shone-a steady, indomitable light. "I will not give in. I still have
+hope. We are few and they are many, but the end of a battle has never
+been sure. We may not fail even now. Help may come from Cairo even
+to-morrow."
+
+"Say, somehow you've always pulled through before, Saadat. When
+I've been most frightened I've perked up and stiffened my backbone,
+remembering your luck. I've seen a blue funk evaporate by thinking of
+how things always come your way just when the worst seems at the worst."
+
+David smiled as he caught up a small cane and prepared to go. Looking
+out of a window, he stroked his thin, clean-shaven face with a lean
+finger. Presently a movement in the desert arrested his attention.
+He put a field-glass to his eyes, and scanned the field of operations
+closely once more.
+
+"Good-good!" he burst out cheerfully. "Achmet has done the one thing
+possible. The way to the north will be still open. He has flung his
+men between the Nile and the enemy, and now the batteries are at work."
+Opening the door, they passed out. "He has anticipated my orders," he
+added. "Come, Lacey, it will be an anxious night. The moon is full, and
+Ebn Ezra Bey has his work cut out--sharp work for all of us, and..."
+
+Lacey could not hear the rest of his words in the roar of the artillery.
+David's steamers in the river were pouring shot into the desert where
+the enemy lay, and Achmet's "friendlies" and the Egyptians were making
+good their new position. As David and Lacey, fearlessly exposing
+themselves to rifle fire, and taking the shortest and most dangerous
+route to where Achmet fought, rode swiftly from the palace, Ebn Ezra's
+three steamers appeared up the river, and came slowly down to where
+David's gunboats lay. Their appearance was greeted by desperate
+discharges of artillery from the forces under Ali Wad Hei, who had
+received word of their coming two hours before, and had accordingly
+redisposed his attacking forces. But for Achmet's sharp initiative, the
+boldness of the attempt to cut off the way north and south would have
+succeeded, and the circle of fire and sword would have been complete.
+Achmet's new position had not been occupied before, for men were too
+few, and the position he had just left was now exposed to attack.
+
+Never since the siege began had the foe shown such initiative and
+audacity. They had relied on the pressure of famine and decimation by
+sickness, the steady effects of sorties, with consequent fatalities and
+desertions, to bring the Liberator of the Slaves to his knees. Ebn Ezra
+Bey had sought to keep quiet the sheikhs far south, but he had been shut
+up in Darffur for months, and had been in as bad a plight as David. He
+had, however, broken through at last. His ruse in leaving the steamers
+in the night and marching across the desert was as courageous as it was
+perilous, for, if discovered before he reached the beleaguered place,
+nothing could save his little force from destruction. There was one way
+in from the desert to the walled town, and it was through that space
+which Achmet and his men had occupied, and on which Ali Wad Hei might
+now, at any moment, throw his troops.
+
+David's heart sank as he saw the danger. From the palace he had sent
+an orderly with a command to an officer to move forward and secure the
+position, but still the gap was open, and the men he had ordered to
+advance remained where they were. Every minute had its crisis.
+
+As Lacey and himself left the town the misery of the place smote him in
+the eyes. Filth, refuse, debris filled the streets. Sick and dying men
+called to him from dark doorways, children and women begged for bread,
+carcasses lay unburied, vultures hovering above them--his tireless
+efforts had not been sufficient to cope with the daily horrors of
+the siege. But there was no sign of hostility to him. Voices called
+blessings on him from dark doorways, lips blanching in death commended
+him to Allah, and now and then a shrill call told of a fighter who had
+been laid low, but who had a spirit still unbeaten. Old men and women
+stood over their cooking-pots waiting for the moment of sunset; for it
+was Ramadan, and the faithful fasted during the day--as though every day
+was not a fast.
+
+Sunset was almost come, as David left the city and galloped away to
+send forces to stop the gap of danger before it was filled by the foe.
+Sunset--the Three Pashas were to die at sunset! They were with Achmet,
+and in a few moments they would be dead. As David and Lacey rode hard,
+they suddenly saw a movement of men on foot at a distant point of the
+field, and then a small mounted troop, fifty at most, detach themselves
+from the larger force and, in close formation, gallop fiercely down on
+the position which Achmet had left. David felt a shiver of anxiety and
+apprehension as he saw this sharp, sweeping advance. Even fifty men,
+well intrenched, could hold the position until the main body of Ali Wad
+Hei's infantry came on.
+
+They rode hard, but harder still rode Ali Wad Hei's troop of daring
+Arabs. Nearer and nearer they came. Suddenly from the trenches,
+which they had thought deserted, David saw jets of smoke rise, and
+a half-dozen of the advancing troop fell from their saddles, their
+riderless horses galloping on.
+
+David's heart leaped: Achmet had, then, left men behind, hidden from
+view; and these were now defending the position. Again came the jets of
+smoke, and again more Arabs dropped from their saddles. But the others
+still came on. A thousand feet away others fell. Twenty-two of the fifty
+had already gone. The rest fired their rifles as they galloped. But now,
+to David's relief, his own forces, which should have moved half an hour
+before, were coming swiftly down to cut off the approach of Ali Wad
+Hei's infantry, and he turned his horse upon the position where a
+handful of men were still emptying the saddles of the impetuous enemy.
+But now all that were left of the fifty were upon the trenches. Then
+came the flash of swords, puffs of smoke, the thrust of lances, and
+figures falling from the screaming, rearing horses.
+
+Lacey's pistol was in his hand, David's sword was gripped tight, as they
+rushed upon the melee. Lacey's pistol snapped, and an Arab fell; again,
+and another swayed in his saddle. David's sword swept down, and a
+turbaned head was gashed by a mortal stroke. As he swung towards another
+horseman, who had struck down a defender of the trenches, an Arab raised
+himself in his saddle and flung a lance with a cry of terrible malice;
+but, even as he did so, a bullet from Lacey's pistol pierced his
+shoulder. The shot had been too late to stop the lance, but sufficient
+to divert its course. It caught David in the flesh of the body under the
+arm--a slight wound only. A few inches to the right, however, and his
+day would have been done.
+
+The remaining Arabs turned and fled. The fight was over. As David,
+dismounting, stood with dripping sword in his hand, in imagination, he
+heard the voice of Kaid say to him, as it said that night when he killed
+Foorgat Bey: "Hast thou never killed a man?"
+
+For an instant it blinded him, then he was conscious that, on the ground
+at his feet, lay one of the Three Pashas who were to die at sunset. It
+was sunset now, and the man was dead. Another of the Three sat upon the
+ground winding his thigh with the folds of a dead Arab's turban, blood
+streaming from his gashed face. The last of the trio stood before David,
+stoical and attentive. For a moment David looked at the Three, the
+dead man and the two living men, and then suddenly turned to where
+the opposing forces were advancing. His own men were now between the
+position and Ali Wad Hei's shouting fanatics. They would be able to
+reach and defend the post in time. He turned and gave orders. There
+were only twenty men besides the two pashas, whom his commands also
+comprised. Two small guns were in place. He had them trained on that
+portion of the advancing infantry of Ali Wad Hei not yet covered by his
+own forces. Years of work and responsibility had made him master of many
+things, and long ago he had learned the work of an artilleryman. In a
+moment a shot, well directed, made a gap in the ranks of the advancing
+foe. An instant afterwards a shot from the other gun fired by the
+unwounded pasha, who, in his youth, had been an officer of artillery,
+added to the confusion in the swerving ranks, and the force hesitated;
+and now from Ebn Ezra Bey's river steamers, which had just arrived,
+there came a flank fire. The force wavered. From David's gun another
+shot made havoc. They turned and fell back quickly. The situation was
+saved.
+
+As if by magic the attack of the enemy all over the field ceased. By
+sunset they had meant to finish this enterprise, which was to put
+the besieged wholly in their hands, and then to feast after the day's
+fasting. Sunset had come, and they had been foiled; but hunger demanded
+the feast. The order to cease firing and retreat sounded, and three
+thousand men hurried back to the cooking-pot, the sack of dourha,
+and the prayer mat. Malaish, if the infidel Inglesi was not conquered
+to-day, he should be beaten and captured and should die to-morrow! And
+yet there were those among them who had a well-grounded apprehension
+that the "Inglesi" would win in the end.
+
+By the trenches, where five men had died so bravely, and a traitorous
+pasha had paid the full penalty of a crime and won a soldier's death,
+David spoke to his living comrades. As he prepared to return to the
+city, he said to the unwounded pasha: "Thou wert to die at sunset; it
+was thy sentence."
+
+And the pasha answered: "Saadat, as for death--I am ready to die, but
+have I not fought for thee?" David turned to the wounded pasha.
+
+"Why did Achmet Pasha spare thee?"
+
+"He did not spare us, Saadat. Those who fought with us but now were
+to shoot us at sunset, and remain here till other troops came. Before
+sunset we saw the danger, since no help came. Therefore we fought to
+save this place for thee."
+
+David looked them in the eyes. "Ye were traitors," he said, "and for an
+example it was meet that ye should die. But this that ye have done shall
+be told to all who fight to-morrow, and men will know why it is I pardon
+treachery. Ye shall fight again, if need be, betwixt this hour and
+morning, and ye shall die, if need be. Ye are willing?"
+
+Both men touched their foreheads, their lips, and their breasts.
+"Whether it be death or it be life, Inshallah, we are true to thee,
+Saadat!" one said, and the other repeated the words after him. As they
+salaamed David left them, and rode forward to the advancing forces.
+
+Upon the roof of the palace Mahommed Hassan watched and waited, his eyes
+scanning sharply the desert to the south, his ears strained to catch
+that stir of life which his accustomed ears had so often detected in the
+desert, when no footsteps, marching, or noises could be heard. Below,
+now in the palace, now in the defences, his master, the Saadat,
+planned for the last day's effort on the morrow, gave directions to the
+officers, sent commands to Achmet Pasha, arranged for the disposition of
+his forces, with as strange a band of adherents and subordinates as ever
+men had--adventurers, to whom adventure in their own land had brought
+no profit; members of that legion of the non-reputable, to whom Cairo
+offered no home; Levantines, who had fled from that underground world
+where every coin of reputation is falsely minted, refugees from the
+storm of the world's disapproval. There were Greeks with Austrian
+names; Armenians, speaking Italian as their native tongue; Italians of
+astonishing military skill, whose services were no longer required by
+their offended country; French Pizarros with a romantic outlook, even
+in misery, intent to find new El Dorados; Englishmen, who had cheated
+at cards and had left the Horse Guards for ever behind; Egyptian
+intriguers, who had been banished for being less successful than greater
+intriguers; but also a band of good gallant men of every nation.
+
+Upon all these, during the siege, Mahommed Hassan had been a
+self-appointed spy, and had indirectly added to that knowledge
+which made David's decisive actions to circumvent intrigue and its
+consequences seem almost supernatural. In his way Mahommed was a great
+man. He knew that David would endure no spying, and it was creditable
+to his subtlety and skill that he was able to warn his master, without
+being himself suspected of getting information by dark means. On the
+palace roof Mahommed was happy to-night. Tomorrow would be a great day,
+and, since the Saadat was to control its destiny, what other end could
+there be but happiness? Had not the Saadat always ridden over all that
+had been in his way? Had not he, Mahommed, ever had plenty to eat and
+drink, and money to send to Manfaloot to his father there, and to
+bribe when bribing was needed? Truly, life was a boon! With a neboot of
+dom-wood across his knees he sat in the still, moonlit night, peering
+into that distance whence Ebn Ezra Bey and his men must come, the
+moon above tranquil and pleasant and alluring, and the desert beneath,
+covered as it was with the outrages and terrors of war, breathing
+softly its ancient music, that delicate vibrant humming of the latent
+activities. In his uncivilised soul Mahommed Hassan felt this murmur,
+and even as he sat waiting to know whether a little army would steal out
+of the south like phantoms into this circle the Saadat had drawn round
+him, he kept humming to himself--had he not been, was he not now, an
+Apollo to numberless houris who had looked down at him from behind
+mooshrabieh screens, or waited for him in the palm-grove or the
+cane-field? The words of his song were not uttered aloud, but yet he
+sang them silently--
+
+  "Every night long and all night my spirit is moaning and crying
+   O dear gazelle, that has taken away my peace!
+   Ah! if my beloved come not, my eyes will be blinded with weeping
+   Moon of my joy, come to me, hark to the call of my soul!"
+
+Over and over he kept chanting the song. Suddenly, however, he leaned
+farther forward and strained his ears. Yes, at last, away to the
+south-east, there was life stirring, men moving--moving quickly. He
+got to his feet slowly, still listening, stood for a moment motionless,
+then, with a cry of satisfaction, dimly saw a moving mass in the white
+moonlight far over by the river. Ebn Ezra Bey and his men were coming.
+He started below, and met David on the way up. He waited till David had
+mounted the roof, then he pointed. "Now, Saadat!" he said.
+
+"They have stolen in?" David peered into the misty whiteness.
+
+"They are almost in, Saadat. Nothing can stop them now."
+
+"It is well done. Go and ask Ebn Ezra effendi to come hither," he said.
+
+Suddenly a shot was fired, then a hoarse shout came over the desert,
+then there was silence again.
+
+"They are in, Saadat," said Mahommed Hassan.
+
+       .......................
+
+Day broke over a hazy plain. On both sides of the Nile the river mist
+spread wide, and the army of Ali Wad Hei and the defending forces were
+alike veiled from each other and from the desert world beyond. Down the
+river for scores of miles the mist was heavy, and those who moved within
+it and on the waters of the Nile could not see fifty feet ahead. Yet
+through this heavy veil there broke gently a little fleet of phantom
+vessels, the noise of the paddle-wheels and their propellers muffled
+as they moved slowly on. Never had vessels taken such risks on the
+Nile before, never had pilots trusted so to instinct, for there were
+sand-banks and ugly drifts of rock here and there. A safe journey for
+phantom ships; but these armed vessels, filled by men with white, eager
+faces and others with dark Egyptian features, were no phantoms. They
+bristled with weapons, and armed men crowded every corner of space.
+For full two hours from the first streak of light they had travelled
+swiftly, taking chances not to be taken save in some desperate moment.
+The moment was desperate enough, if not for them. They were going to
+the relief of besieged men, with a message from Nahoum Pasha to Claridge
+Pasha, and with succour. They had looked for a struggle up this river as
+they neared the beleaguered city; but, as they came nearer and nearer,
+not a gun fired at them from the forts on the banks out of the mists. If
+they were heard they still were safe from the guns, for they could not
+be seen, and those on shore could not know whether they were friend or
+foe. Like ghostly vessels they passed on, until at last they could hear
+the stir and murmur of life along the banks of the stream.
+
+Boom! boom! boom! Through the mist the guns of the city were pouring
+shot and shell out into Ali Wad Hei's camp, and Ali Wad Hei laughed
+contemptuously. Surely now the Inglesi was altogether mad, and to-day,
+this day after prayers at noon, he should be shot like a mad dog, for
+yesterday's defeat had turned some of his own adherent sheikhs into
+angry critics. He would not wait for starvation to compel the infidel
+to surrender. He would win freedom to deal in human flesh and blood, and
+make slave-markets where he willed, and win glory for the Lord Mahomet,
+by putting this place to the sword; and, when it was over, he would have
+the Inglesi's head carried on a pole through the city for the faithful
+to mock at, a target for the filth of the streets. So, by the will of
+Allah, it should be done!
+
+Boom! boom! boom! The Inglesi was certainly mad, for never had there
+been so much firing in any long day in all the siege as in this brief
+hour this morning. It was the act of a fool, to fire his shot and shell
+into the mist without aim, without a clear target. Ali Wad Hei scorned
+to make any reply with his guns, but sat in desultory counsel with his
+sheikhs, planning what should be done when the mists had cleared away.
+But yesterday evening the Arab chief had offered to give the Inglesi
+life if he would surrender and become a Muslim, and swear by the Lord
+Mahomet; but late in the night he had received a reply which left only
+one choice, and that was to disembowel the infidel, and carry his head
+aloft on a spear. The letter he had received ran thus in Arabic:
+
+   "To Ali Wad Hei and All with Him:
+
+   "We are here to live or to die as God wills, and not as ye will. I
+   have set my feet on the rock, and not by threats of any man shall I
+   be moved. But I say that for all the blood that ye have shed here
+   there will be punishment, and for the slaves which ye have slain or
+   sold there will be high price paid. Ye have threatened the city and
+   me--take us if ye can. Ye are seven to one. Why falter all these
+   months? If ye will not come to us, we shall come to you, rebellious
+   ones, who have drawn the sword against your lawful ruler, the
+   Effendina.
+
+                  "CLARIDGE PASHA"
+
+
+It was a rhetorical document couched in the phraseology they best
+understood; and if it begat derision, it also begat anger; and the
+challenge David had delivered would be met when the mists had lifted
+from the river and the plain. But when the first thinning of the mists
+began, when the sun began to dissipate the rolling haze, Ali Wad Hei
+and his rebel sheikhs were suddenly startled by rifle-fire at close
+quarters, by confused noises, and the jar and roar of battle. Now the
+reason for the firing of the great guns was plain. The noise was meant
+to cover the advance of David's men. The little garrison, which had done
+no more than issue in sorties, was now throwing its full force on the
+enemy in a last desperate endeavour. It was either success or absolute
+destruction. David was staking all, with the last of his food, the
+last of his ammunition, the last of his hopes. All round the field the
+movement was forward, till the circle had widened to the enemy's lines;
+while at the old defences were only handfuls of men. With scarce a cry
+David's men fell on the unprepared foe; and he himself, on a grey Arab,
+a mark for any lance or spear and rifle, rode upon that point where Ali
+Wad Hei's tent was set.
+
+But after the first onset, in which hundreds were killed, there began
+the real noise of battle--fierce shouting, the shrill cries of wounded
+and maddened horses as they struck with their feet, and bit as fiercely
+at the fighting foe as did their masters. The mist cleared slowly, and,
+when it had wholly lifted, the fight was spread over every part of the
+field of siege. Ali Wad Hei's men had gathered themselves together after
+the first deadly onslaught, and were fighting fiercely, shouting the
+Muslim battle-cry, "Allah hu achbar!" Able to bring up reinforcements,
+the great losses at first sustained were soon made up, and the sheer
+weight of numbers gave them courage and advantage. By rushes with lance
+and sword and rifle they were able, at last, to drive David's men back
+upon their old defences with loss. Then charge upon charge ensued, and
+each charge, if it cost them much, cost the besieged more, by reason of
+their fewer numbers. At one point, however, the besieged became again
+the attacking party. This was where Achmet Pasha had command. His men on
+one side of the circle, as Ebn Ezra Bey's men on the other, fought with
+a valour as desperate as the desert ever saw. But David, galloping here
+and there to order, to encourage, to prevent retreat at one point, or
+to urge attack at another, saw that the doom of his gallant force was
+certain; for the enemy were still four to one, in spite of the carnage
+of the first attack. Bullets hissed past him. One carried away a button,
+one caught the tip of his ear, one pierced the fez he wore; but he
+felt nothing of this, saw nothing. He was buried in the storm of battle
+preparing for the end, for the final grim defence, when his men would
+retreat upon the one last strong fort, and there await their fate. From
+this absorption he was roused by Lacey, who came galloping towards him.
+
+"They've come, Saadat, they've come at last! We're saved--oh, my God,
+you bet we're all right now! See! See, Saadat!"
+
+David saw. Five steamers carrying the Egyptian flag were bearing around
+the point where the river curved below the town, and converging upon
+David's small fleet. Presently the steamers opened fire, to encourage
+the besieged, who replied with frenzied shouts of joy, and soon there
+poured upon the sands hundreds of men in the uniform of the Effendina.
+These came forward at the double, and, with a courage which nothing
+could withstand, the whole circle spread out again upon the discomfited
+tribes of Ali Wad Hei. Dismay, confusion, possessed the Arabs. Their
+river-watchers had failed them, God had hidden His face from them; and
+when Ali Wad Hei and three of his emirs turned and rode into the desert,
+their forces broke and ran also, pursued by the relentless men who had
+suffered the tortures of siege so long. The chase was short, however,
+for they were desert folk, and they returned to loot the camp which had
+menaced them so long.
+
+Only the new-comers, Nahoum's men, carried the hunt far; and they
+brought back with them a body which their leader commanded to be brought
+to a great room of the palace. Towards sunset David and Ebn Ezra Bey and
+Lacey came together to this room. The folds of loose linen were lifted
+from the face, and all three looked at it long in silence. At last Lacey
+spoke:
+
+"He got what he wanted; the luck was with him. It's better than
+Leperland."
+
+"In the bosom of Allah there is peace," said Ebn Ezra. "It is well with
+Achmet."
+
+With misty eyes David stooped and took the dead man's hand in his for a
+moment. Then he rose to his feet and turned away.
+
+"And Nahoum also--and Nahoum," he said presently. "Read this," he added,
+and put a letter from Nahoum into Ebn Ezra's hand.
+
+Lacey reverently covered Achmet's face. "Say, he got what he wanted," he
+said again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII. THE LOOM OF DESTINY
+
+It was many a day since the Duchess of Snowdon had seen a sunrise, and
+the one on which she now gazed from the deck of the dahabieh Nefert,
+filled her with a strange new sense of discovery and revelation.
+Her perceptions were arrested and a little confused, and yet the
+undercurrent of feeling was one of delight and rejuvenation. Why did
+this sunrise bring back, all at once, the day when her one lost child
+was born, and she looked out of the windows of Snowdon Hall, as she lay
+still and nerveless, and thought how wonderful and sweet and green was
+the world she saw and the sky that walled it round? Sunrise over the
+Greek Temple of Philae and the splendid ruins of a farther time towering
+beside it! In her sight were the wide, islanded Nile, where Cleopatra
+loitered with Antony, the foaming, crashing cataracts above, the great
+quarries from which ancient temples had been hewed, unfinished obelisks
+and vast blocks of stone left where bygone workmen had forsaken them,
+when the invader came and another dynasty disappeared into that partial
+oblivion from which the Egyptian still emerges triumphant over all his
+conquerors, unchanged in form and feature. Something of its meaning got
+into her mind.
+
+"I wonder what Windlehurst would think of it. He always had an eye for
+things like that," she murmured; and then caught her breath, as she
+added: "He always liked beauty." She looked at her wrinkled, childish
+hands. "But sunsets never grow old," she continued, with no apparent
+relevance. "La, la, we were young once!"
+
+Her eyes were lost again in the pinkish glow spreading over the
+grey-brown sand of the desert, over the palm-covered island near. "And
+now it's others' turn, or ought to be," she murmured.
+
+She looked to where, not far away, Hylda stood leaning over the railing
+of the dahabieh, her eyes fixed in reverie on the farthest horizon line
+of the unpeopled, untravelled plain of sand.
+
+"No, poor thing, it's not her turn," she added, as Hylda, with a long
+sigh, turned and went below. Tears gathered in her pale blue eyes. "Not
+yet--with Eglington alive. And perhaps it would be best if the other
+never came back. I could have made the world better worth living in if I
+had had the chance--and I wouldn't have been a duchess! La! La!"
+
+She relapsed into reverie, an uncommon experience for her; and her
+mind floated indefinitely from one thing to another, while she was half
+conscious of the smell of coffee permeating the air, and of the low
+resonant notes of the Nubian boys, as, with locked shoulders, they
+scrubbed the decks of a dahabieh near by with hempshod feet.
+
+Presently, however, she was conscious of another sound--the soft clip
+of oars, joined to the guttural, explosive song of native rowers; and,
+leaning over the rail, she saw a boat draw alongside the Nefert. From
+it came the figure of Nahoum Pasha, who stepped briskly on deck, in his
+handsome face a light which flashed an instant meaning to her.
+
+"I know--I know! Claridge Pasha--you have heard?" she said excitedly, as
+he came to her.
+
+He smiled and nodded. "A messenger has arrived. Within a few hours he
+should be here."
+
+"Then it was all false that he was wounded--ah, that horrible story of
+his death!"
+
+"Bismillah, it was not all false! The night before the great battle he
+was slightly wounded in the side. He neglected it, and fever came on;
+but he survived. His first messengers to us were killed, and that is
+why the news of the relief came so late. But all is well at last. I have
+come to say so to Lady Eglington--even before I went to the Effendina."
+He made a gesture towards a huge and gaily-caparisoned dahabieh not far
+away. "Kaid was right about coming here. His health is better. He never
+doubted Claridge Pasha's return; it was une idee fixe. He believes a
+magic hand protects the Saadat, and that, adhering to him, he himself
+will carry high the flower of good fortune and live for ever. Kismet!
+I will not wait to see Lady Eglington. I beg to offer to her my
+congratulations on the triumph of her countryman."
+
+His words had no ulterior note; but there was a shadow in his eyes which
+in one not an Oriental would have seemed sympathy.
+
+"Pasha, Pasha!" the Duchess called after him, as he turned to leave;
+"tell me, is there any news from England--from the Government?"
+
+"From Lord Eglington? No," Nahoum answered meaningly. "I wrote to him.
+Did the English Government desire to send a message to Claridge Pasha,
+if the relief was accomplished? That is what I asked. But there is no
+word. Malaish, Egypt will welcome him!"
+
+She followed his eyes. Two score of dahabiehs lay along the banks of the
+Nile, and on the shore were encampments of soldiers, while flags
+were flying everywhere. Egypt had followed the lead of the Effendina.
+Claridge Pasha's star was in its zenith.
+
+As Nahoum's boat was rowed away, Hylda came on deck again, and the
+Duchess hastened to her. Hylda caught the look in her face. "What has
+happened? Is there news? Who has been here?" she asked.
+
+The Duchess took her hands. "Nahoum has gone to tell Prince Kaid. He
+came to you with the good news first," she said with a flutter.
+
+She felt Hylda's hands turn cold. A kind of mist filled the dark eyes,
+and the slim, beautiful figure swayed slightly. An instant only, and
+then the lips smiled, and Hylda said in a quavering voice: "They will be
+so glad in England."
+
+"Yes, yes, my darling, that is what Nahoum said." She gave Nahoum's
+message to her. "Now they'll make him a peer, I suppose, after having
+deserted him. So English!"
+
+She did not understand why Hylda's hands trembled so, why so strange a
+look came into her face, but, in an instant, the rare and appealing eyes
+shone again with a light of agitated joy, and suddenly Hylda leaned over
+and kissed her cheek.
+
+"Smell the coffee," she said with assumed gaiety. "Doesn't
+fair-and-sixty want her breakfast? Sunrise is a splendid tonic." She
+laughed feverishly.
+
+"My darling, I hadn't seen the sun rise in thirty years, not since the
+night I first met Windlehurst at a Foreign Office ball."
+
+"You have always been great friends?" Hylda stole a look at her.
+
+"That's the queer part of it; I was so stupid, and he so clever. But
+Windlehurst has a way of letting himself down to your level. He always
+called me Betty after my boy died, just as if I was his equal. La, la,
+but I was proud when he first called me that--the Prime Minister of
+England. I'm going to watch the sun rise again to-morrow, my darling.
+I didn't know it was so beautiful, and gave one such an appetite." She
+broke a piece of bread, and, not waiting to butter it, almost stuffed it
+into her mouth.
+
+Hylda leaned over and pressed her arm. "What a good mother Betty it is!"
+she said tenderly.
+
+Presently they were startled by the shrill screaming of a steamer
+whistle, followed by the churning of the paddles, as she drove past and
+drew to the bank near them.
+
+"It is a steamer from Cairo, with letters, no doubt," said Hylda; and
+the Duchess nodded assent, and covertly noted her look, for she knew
+that no letters had arrived from Eglington since Hylda had left England.
+
+A half-hour later, as the Duchess sat on deck, a great straw hat tied
+under her chin with pale-blue ribbons, like a child of twelve, she was
+startled by seeing the figure of a farmer-looking person with a shock of
+grey-red hair, a red face, and with great blue eyes, appear before her
+in the charge of Hylda's dragoman.
+
+"This has come to speak with my lady," the dragoman said, "but my lady
+is riding into the desert there." He pointed to the sands.
+
+The Duchess motioned the dragoman away, and scanned the face of the
+new-comer shrewdly. Where had she seen this strange-looking English
+peasant, with the rolling walk of a sailor?
+
+"What is your name, and where do you come from?" she asked, not without
+anxiety, for there was something ominous and suggestive in the old man's
+face.
+
+"I come from Hamley, in England, and my name is Soolsby, your grace. I
+come to see my Lady Eglington."
+
+Now she remembered him. She had seen him in Hamley more than once.
+
+"You have come far; have you important news for her ladyship? Is there
+anything wrong?" she asked with apparent composure, but with heavy
+premonition.
+
+"Ay, news that counts, I bring," answered Soolsby, "or I hadn't come
+this long way. 'Tis a long way at sixty-five."
+
+"Well, yes, at our age it is a long way," rejoined the Duchess in a
+friendly voice, suddenly waving away the intervening air of class, for
+she was half a peasant at heart.
+
+"Ay, and we both come for the same end, I suppose," Soolsby added;
+"and a costly business it is. But what matters, so be that you help her
+ladyship and I help Our Man."
+
+"And who is 'Our Man'?" was the rejoinder. "Him that's coming safe here
+from the South--David Claridge," he answered. "Ay, 'twas the first thing
+I heard when I landed here, me that he come all these thousand miles
+to see him, if so be he was alive." Just then he caught sight of Kate
+Heaver climbing the stair to the deck where they were. His face flushed;
+he hurried forward and gripped her by the arm, as her feet touched the
+upper deck. "Kate-ay, 'tis Kate!" he cried. Then he let go her arm and
+caught a hand in both of his and fondled it. "Ay, ay, 'tis Kate!" "What
+is it brings you, Soolsby?" Kate asked anxiously.
+
+"'Tis not Jasper, and 'tis not the drink-ay, I've been sober since, ever
+since, Kate, lass," he answered stoutly. "Quick, quick, tell me what it
+is!" she said, frowning. "You've not come here for naught, Soolsby."
+
+Still holding her hand, he leaned over and whispered in her ear. For an
+instant she stood as though transfixed, and then, with a curious muffled
+cry, broke away from him and turned to go below.
+
+"Keep your mouth shut, lass, till proper time," he called after her, as
+she descended the steps hastily again. Then he came slowly back to the
+Duchess.
+
+He looked her in the face--he was so little like a peasant, so much more
+like a sailor here with his feet on the deck of a floating thing. "Your
+grace is a good friend to her ladyship," he said at last deliberately,
+"and 'tis well that you tell her ladyship. As good a friend to her
+you've been, I doubt not, as that I've been to him that's coming from
+beyond and away."
+
+"Go on, man, go on. I want to know what startled Heaver yonder, what you
+have come to say."
+
+"I beg pardon, your grace. One doesn't keep good news waiting, and
+'tis not good news for her ladyship I bring, even if it be for Claridge
+Pasha, for there was no love lost 'twixt him and second-best lordship
+that's gone."
+
+"Speak, man, speak it out, and no more riddles," she interrupted
+sharply.
+
+"Then, he that was my Lord Eglington is gone foreign--he is dead," he
+said slowly.
+
+The Duchess fell back in her chair. For an instant the desert, the
+temples, the palms, the Nile waters faded, and she was in some middle
+world, in which Soolsby's voice seemed coming muffled and deep across
+a dark flood; then she recovered herself, and gave a little cry, not
+unlike that which Kate gave a few moments before, partly of pain, partly
+of relief.
+
+"Ay, he's dead and buried, too, and in the Quaker churchyard. Miss
+Claridge would have it so. And none in Hamley said nay, not one."
+
+The Duchess murmured to herself. Eglington was dead--Eglington was
+dead--Eglington was dead! And David Claridge was coming out of the
+desert, was coming to-day-now!
+
+"How did it happen?" she asked, faintly, at last.
+
+"Things went wrong wi' him--bad wrong in Parliament and everywhere, and
+he didn't take it well. He stood the world off like-ay, he had no temper
+for black days. He shut himself up at Hamley in his chemical place, like
+his father, like his father before him. When the week-end came, there he
+was all day and night among his bottles and jars and wires. He was after
+summat big in experiment for explosives, so the papers said, and so he
+said himself before he died, to Miss Claridge--ay, 'twas her he deceived
+and treated cruel, that come to him when he was shattered by his
+experimenting. No patience, he had at last--and reckless in his chemical
+place, and didn't realise what his hands was doing. 'Twas so he told
+her, that forgave him all his deceit, and held him in her arms when he
+died. Not many words he had to speak; but he did say that he had never
+done any good to any one--ay, I was standing near behind his bed and
+heard all, for I was thinking of her alone with him, and so I would be
+with her, and she would have it so. Ay, and he said that he had misused
+cruel her that had loved him, her ladyship, that's here. He said he
+had misused her because he had never loved her truly, only pride and
+vainglory being in his heart. Then he spoke summat to her that was there
+to forgive him and help him over the stile 'twixt this field and it
+that's Beyond and Away, which made her cry out in pain and say that he
+must fix his thoughts on other things. And she prayed out loud for him,
+for he would have no parson there. She prayed and prayed as never priest
+or parson prayed, and at last he got quiet and still, and, when she
+stopped praying, he did not speak or open his eyes for a longish while.
+But when the old clock on the stable was striking twelve, he opened his
+eyes wide, and when it had stopped, he said: 'It is always twelve by
+the clock that stops at noon. I've done no good. I've earned my end.'
+He looked as though he was waiting for the clock to go on striking,
+half raising himself up in bed, with Miss Faith's arm under his head.
+He whispered to her then--he couldn't speak by this time. 'It's twelve
+o'clock,' he said. Then there came some words I've heard the priest say
+at Mass, 'Vanitas, Vanitatum,'--that was what he said. And her he'd lied
+to, there with him, laying his head down on the pillow, as if he was her
+child going to sleep. So, too, she had him buried by her father, in the
+Quaker burying-ground--ay, she is a saint on earth, I warrant."
+
+For a moment after he had stopped the Duchess did not speak, but kept
+untying and tying the blue ribbons under her chin, her faded eyes still
+fastened on him, burning with the flame of an emotion which made them
+dark and young again.
+
+"So, it's all over," she said, as though to herself. "They were all
+alike, from old Broadbrim, the grandfather, down to this one, and back
+to William the Conqueror."
+
+"Like as peas in a pod," exclaimed Soolsby--"all but one, all but one,
+and never satisfied with what was in their own garden, but peeking,
+peeking beyond the hedge, and climbing and getting a fall. That's what
+they've always been evermore."
+
+His words aroused the Duchess, and the air became a little colder about
+her-after all, the division between the classes and the masses must be
+kept, and the Eglingtons were no upstarts. "You will say nothing about
+this till I give you leave to speak," she commanded. "I must tell her
+ladyship."
+
+Soolsby drew himself up a little, nettled at her tone. "It is your
+grace's place to tell her ladyship," he responded; "but I've taken ten
+years' savings to come to Egypt, and not to do any one harm, but good,
+if so be I might."
+
+The Duchess relented at once. She got to her feet as quickly as she
+could, and held out her hand to him. "You are a good man, and a
+friend worth having, I know, and I shall like you to be my friend, Mr.
+Soolsby," she said impulsively.
+
+He took her hand and shook it awkwardly, his lips working. "Your grace,
+I understand. I've got naught to live for except my friends. Money's
+naught, naught's naught, if there isn't a friend to feel a crunch at his
+heart when summat bad happens to you. I'd take my affydavy that there's
+no better friend in the world than your grace."
+
+She smiled at him. "And so we are friends, aren't we? And I am to tell
+her ladyship, and you are to say 'naught.'
+
+"But to the Egyptian, to him, your grace, it is my place to speak--to
+Claridge Pasha, when he comes." The Duchess looked at him quizzically.
+"How does Lord Eglington's death concern Claridge Pasha?" she asked
+rather anxiously. Had there been gossip about Hylda? Had the public got
+a hint of the true story of her flight, in spite of all Windlehurst had
+done? Was Hylda's name smirched, now, when all would be set right? Had
+everything come too late, as it were?
+
+"There's two ways that his lordship's death concerns Claridge Pasha,"
+answered Soolsby shrewdly, for though he guessed the truth concerning
+Hylda and David, his was not a leaking tongue. "There's two ways it
+touches him. There'll be a new man in the Foreign Office--Lord Eglington
+was always against Claridge Pasha; and there's matters of land betwixt
+the two estates--matters of land that's got to be settled now," he
+continued, with determined and successful evasion.
+
+The Duchess was deceived. "But you will not tell Claridge Pasha until I
+have told her ladyship and I give you leave? Promise that," she urged.
+
+"I will not tell him until then," he answered. "Look, look, your grace,"
+he added, suddenly pointing towards the southern horizon, "there he
+comes! Ay, 'tis Our Man, I doubt not--Our Man evermore!"
+
+Miles away there appeared on the horizon a dozen camels being ridden
+towards Assouan.
+
+"Our Man evermore," repeated the Duchess, with a trembling smile. "Yes,
+it is surely he. See, the soldiers are moving. They're going to ride out
+to meet him." She made a gesture towards the far shore where Kaid's men
+were saddling their horses, and to Nahoum's and Kaid's dahabiehs, where
+there was a great stir.
+
+"There's one from Hamley will meet them first," Soolsby said, and
+pointed to where Hylda, in the desert, was riding towards the camels
+coming out of the south.
+
+The Duchess threw up her hands. "Dear me, dear me," she said in
+distress, "if she only knew!"
+
+"There's thousands of women that'd ride out mad to meet him," said
+Soolsby carefully; "women that likes to see an Englishman that's done
+his duty--ay, women and men, that'd ride hard to welcome him back from
+the grave. Her ladyship's as good a patriot as any," he added, watching
+the Duchess out of the corners of his eyes, his face turned to the
+desert.
+
+The Duchess looked at him quizzically, and was satisfied with her
+scrutiny. "You're a man of sense," she replied brusquely, and gathered
+up her skirts. "Find me a horse or a donkey, and I'll go too," she added
+whimsically. "Patriotism is such a nice sentiment."
+
+For David and Lacey the morning had broken upon a new earth. Whatever
+of toil and tribulation the future held in store, this day marked a
+step forward in the work to which David had set his life. A way had been
+cloven through the bloody palisades of barbarism, and though the dark
+races might seek to hold back the forces which drain the fens, and build
+the bridges, and make the desert blossom as the rose, which give liberty
+and preserve life, the good end was sure and near, whatever of rebellion
+and disorder and treachery intervened. This was the larger, graver
+issue; but they felt a spring in the blood, and their hearts were
+leaping, because of the thought that soon they would clasp hands again
+with all from which they had been exiled.
+
+"Say, Saadat, think of it: a bed with four feet, and linen sheets,
+and sleeping till any time in the morning, and, If you please, sir,
+breakfast's on the table.' Say, it's great, and we're in it!"
+
+David smiled. "Thee did very well, friend, without such luxuries. Thee
+is not skin and bone."
+
+Lacey mopped his forehead. "Well, I've put on a layer or two since
+the relief. It's being scared that takes the flesh off me. I never was
+intended for the 'stricken field.' Poetry and the hearth-stone was my
+real vocation--and a bit of silver mining to blow off steam with," he
+added with a chuckle.
+
+David laughed and tapped his arm. "That is an old story now, thy
+cowardice. Thee should be more original.
+
+"It's worth not being original, Saadat, to hear you thee and thou me
+as you used to do. It's like old times--the oldest, first times. You've
+changed a lot, Saadat."
+
+"Not in anything that matters, I hope."
+
+"Not in anything that matters to any one that matters. To me it's the
+same as it ever was, only more so. It isn't that, for you are you. But
+you've had disappointment, trouble, hard nuts to crack, and all you
+could do to escape the rocks being rolled down the Egyptian hill onto
+you; and it's left its mark."
+
+"Am I grown so different?"
+
+Lacey's face shone under the look that was turned towards him. "Say,
+Saadat, you're the same old red sandstone; but I missed the thee and
+thou. I sort of hankered after it; it gets me where I'm at home with
+myself."
+
+David laughed drily. "Well, perhaps I've missed something in you. Thee
+never says now--not since thee went south a year ago, 'Well, give my
+love to the girls.' Something has left its mark, friend," he added
+teasingly; for his spirits were boyish to-day; he was living in the
+present. There had gone from his eyes and from the lines of his figure
+the melancholy which Hylda had remarked when he was in England.
+
+"Well, now, I never noticed," rejoined Lacey. "That's got me. Looks as
+if I wasn't as friendly as I used to be, doesn't it? But I am--I am,
+Saadat."
+
+"I thought that the widow in Cairo, perhaps--" Lacey chuckled. "Say,
+perhaps it was--cute as she can be, maybe, wouldn't like it, might be
+prejudiced."
+
+Suddenly David turned sharply to Lacey. "Thee spoke of silver mining
+just now. I owe thee something like two hundred thousand pounds, I
+think--Egypt and I."
+
+Lacey winked whimsically at himself under the rim of his helmet. "Are
+you drawing back from those concessions, Saadat?" he asked with apparent
+ruefulness.
+
+"Drawing back? No! But does thee think they are worth--"
+
+Lacey assumed an injured air. "If a man that's made as much money as me
+can't be trusted to look after a business proposition--"
+
+"Oh, well, then!"
+
+"Say, Saadat, I don't want you to think I've taken a mean advantage of
+you; and if--"
+
+David hastened to put the matter right. "No, no; thee must be the
+judge!" He smiled sceptically. "In any case, thee has done a good deed
+in a great way, and it will do thee no harm in the end. In one way the
+investment will pay a long interest, as long as the history of Egypt
+runs. Ah, see, the houses of Assouan, the palms, the river, the masts of
+the dahabiehs!"
+
+Lacey quickened his camel's steps, and stretched out a hand to the
+inviting distance. "'My, it's great," he said, and his eyes were
+blinking with tears. Presently he pointed. "There's a woman riding
+to meet us, Saa dat. Golly, can't she ride! She means to be in it--to
+salute the returning brave."
+
+He did not glance at David. If he had done so, he would have seen that
+David's face had taken on a strange look, just such a look as it wore
+that night in the monastery when he saw Hylda in a vision and heard her
+say: "Speak, speak to me!"
+
+There had shot into David's mind the conviction that the woman
+riding towards them was Hylda. Hylda, the first to welcome him back,
+Hylda--Lady Eglington! Suddenly his face appeared to tighten and grow
+thin. It was all joy and torture at once. He had fought this fight out
+with himself--had he not done so? Had he not closed his heart to all
+but duty and Egypt? Yet there she was riding out of the old life, out
+of Hamley, and England, and all that had happened in Cairo, to meet him.
+Nearer and nearer she came. He could not see the face, but yet he
+knew. He quickened his camel and drew ahead of Lacey. Lacey did not
+understand, he did not recognise Hylda as yet; but he knew by instinct
+the Saadat's wishes, and he motioned the others to ride more slowly,
+while he and they watched horsemen coming out from Assouan towards them.
+
+David urged his camel on. Presently he could distinguish the features
+of the woman riding towards him. It was Hylda. His presentiment, his
+instinct had been right. His heart beat tumultuously, his hand trembled,
+he grew suddenly weak; but he summoned up his will, and ruled himself to
+something like composure. This, then, was his home-coming from the
+far miseries and trials and battle-fields--to see her face before all
+others, to hear her voice first. What miracle had brought this thing to
+pass, this beautiful, bitter, forbidden thing? Forbidden! Whatever the
+cause of her coming, she must not see what he felt for her. He must deal
+fairly by her and by Eglington; he must be true to that real self which
+had emerged from the fiery trial in the monastery. Bronzed as he was,
+his face showed no paleness; but, as he drew near her, it grew pinched
+and wan from the effort at self-control. He set his lips and rode on,
+until he could see her eyes looking into his--eyes full of that which he
+had never seen in any eyes in all the world.
+
+What had been her feelings during that ride in the desert? She had not
+meant to go out to meet him. After she heard that he was coming, her
+desire was to get away from all the rest of the world, and be alone with
+her thoughts. He was coming, he was safe, and her work was done. What
+she had set out to do was accomplished--to bring him back, if it was
+God's will, out of the jaws of death, for England's sake, for the
+world's sake, for his sake, for her own sake. For her own sake? Yes,
+yes, in spite of all, for her own sake. Whatever lay before, now, for
+this one hour, for this moment of meeting he should be hers. But meet
+him, where? Before all the world, with a smile of conventional welcome
+on her lips, with the same hand-clasp that any friend and lover of
+humanity would give him?
+
+The desert air blew on her face, keen, sweet, vibrant, thrilling. What
+he had heard that night at the monastery, the humming life of the land
+of white fire--the desert, the million looms of all the weavers of the
+world weaving, this she heard in the sunlight, with the sand rising
+like surf behind her horse's heels. The misery and the tyranny and the
+unrequited love were all behind her, the disillusion and the loss and
+the undeserved insult to her womanhood--all, all were sunk away into the
+unredeemable past. Here, in Egypt, where she had first felt the stir of
+life's passion and pain and penalty, here, now, she lost herself in a
+beautiful, buoyant dream. She was riding out to meet the one man of all
+men, hero, crusader, rescuer--ah, that dreadful night in the Palace, and
+Foorgat's face! But he was coming, who had made her live, to whom she
+had called, to whom her soul had spoken in its grief and misery. Had she
+ever done aught to shame the best that was in herself--and had she not
+been sorely tempted? Had she not striven to love Eglington even when
+the worst was come, not alone at her own soul's command, but because she
+knew that this man would have it so? Broken by her own sorrow, she had
+left England, Eglington--all, to keep her pledge to help him in his hour
+of need, to try and save him to the world, if that might be. So she had
+come to Nahoum, who was binding him down on the bed of torture and of
+death. And yet, alas! not herself had conquered Nahoum, but David, as
+Nahoum had said. She herself had not done this one thing which would
+have compensated for all that she had suffered. This had not been
+permitted; but it remained that she had come here to do it, and perhaps
+he would understand when he saw her.
+
+Yes, she knew he would understand! She flung up her head to the sun
+and the pulse-stirring air, and, as she did so, she saw his cavalcade
+approaching. She was sure it was he, even when he was far off, by the
+same sure instinct that convinced him. For an instant she hesitated. She
+would turn back, and meet him with the crowd. Then she looked around.
+The desert was deserted by all save herself and himself and those who
+were with him. No. Her mind was made up. She would ride forward. She
+would be the first to welcome him back to life and the world. He and she
+would meet alone in the desert. For one minute they would be alone, they
+two, with the world afar, they two, to meet, to greet--and to part. Out
+of all that Fate had to give of sorrow and loss, this one delectable
+moment, no matter what came after.
+
+"David!" she cried with beating heart, and rode on, harder and harder.
+
+Now she saw him ride ahead of the others. Ah, he knew that it was she,
+though he could not see her face! Nearer and nearer. Now they looked
+into each other's eyes.
+
+She saw him stop his camel and make it kneel for the dismounting. She
+stopped her horse also, and slid to the ground, and stood waiting, one
+hand upon the horse's neck. He hastened forward, then stood still, a few
+feet away, his eyes on hers, his helmet off, his brown hair, brown as
+when she first saw it--peril and hardship had not thinned or greyed it.
+For a moment they stood so, for a moment of revealing and understanding,
+but speechless; and then, suddenly, and with a smile infinitely
+touching, she said, as he had heard her say in the monastery--the very
+words:
+
+"Speak--speak to me!"
+
+He took her hand in his. "There is no need--I have said all," he
+answered, happiness and trouble at once in his eyes. Then his face grew
+calmer. "Thee has made it worth while living on," he added.
+
+She was gaining control of herself also. "I said that I would come when
+I was needed," she answered less, tremblingly.
+
+"Thee came alone?" he asked gently.
+
+"From Assouan, yes," she said in a voice still unsteady. "I was riding
+out to be by myself, and then I saw you coming, and I rode on. I thought
+I should like to be the first to say: 'Well done,' and 'God bless you!'"
+
+He drew in a long breath, then looked at her keenly. "Lord Eglington is
+in Egypt also?" he asked.
+
+Her face did not change. She looked him in the eyes.
+
+"No, Eglington would not come to help you. I came to Nahoum, as I said I
+would."
+
+"Thee has a good memory," he rejoined simply. "I am a good friend," she
+answered, then suddenly her face flushed up, her breast panted, her eyes
+shone with a brightness almost intolerable to him, and he said in a low,
+shaking voice:
+
+"It is all fighting, all fighting. We have done our best; and thee has
+made all possible."
+
+"David!" she said in a voice scarce above a whisper.
+
+"Thee and me have far to go," he said in a voice not louder than her
+own, "but our ways may not be the same."
+
+She understood, and a newer life leaped up in her. She knew that he
+loved her--that was sufficient; the rest would be easier now. Sacrifice,
+all, would be easier. To part, yes, and for evermore; but to know that
+she had been truly loved--who could rob her of that?
+
+"See," she said lightly, "your people are waiting--and there, why, there
+is my cousin Lacey. Tom, oh, Cousin Tom!" she called eagerly.
+
+Lacey rode down on them. "I swan, but I'm glad," he said, as he dropped
+from his horse. "Cousin Hylda, I'm blest if I don't feel as if I could
+sing like Aunt Melissa."
+
+"You may kiss me, Cousin Tom," she said, as she took his hands in hers.
+
+He flushed, was embarrassed, then snatched a kiss from her cheek. "Say,
+I'm in it, ain't I? And you were in it first, eh, Cousin Hylda? The
+rest are nowhere--there they come from Assouan, Kaid, Nahoum, and the
+Nubians. Look at 'em glisten!"
+
+A hundred of Kaid's Nubians in their glittering armour made three sides
+of a quickly moving square, in the centre of which, and a little
+ahead, rode Kaid and Nahoum, while behind the square-in parade and gala
+dress-trooped hundreds of soldiers and Egyptians and natives.
+
+Swiftly the two cavalcades approached each other, the desert ringing
+with the cries of the Bedouins, the Nubians, and the fellaheen. They
+met on an upland of sand, from which the wide valley of the Nile and its
+wild cataracts could be seen. As men meet who parted yesterday, Kaid,
+Nahoum, and David met, but Kaid's first quiet words to David had behind
+them a world of meaning:
+
+"I also have come back, Saadat, to whom be the bread that never moulds
+and the water that never stales!" he said, with a look in his face which
+had not been there for many a day. Superstition had set its mark on
+him--on Claridge Pasha's safety depended his own, that was his belief;
+and the look of this thin, bronzed face, with its living fire, gave him
+vital assurance of length of days.
+
+And David answered: "May thy life be the nursling of Time, Effendina.
+I bring the tribute of the rebel lions once more to thy hand. What was
+thine, and was lost, is thine once more. Peace and salaam!" Between
+Nahoum and David there were no words at first at all. They shook hands
+like Englishmen, looking into each other's eyes, and with pride of what
+Nahoum, once, in his duplicity, had called "perfect friendship."
+
+Lacey thought of this now as he looked on; and not without a sense of
+irony, he said under his breath, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a
+Christian!"
+
+But in Hylda's look, as it met Nahoum's, there was no doubt--what woman
+doubts the convert whom she thinks she has helped to make? Meanwhile,
+the Nubians smote their mailed breasts with their swords in honour of
+David and Kaid.
+
+Under the gleaming moon, the exquisite temple of Philae perched on its
+high rock above the river, the fires on the shore, the masts of the
+dahabiehs twinkling with lights, and the barbarous songs floating across
+the water, gave the feeling of past centuries to the scene. From the
+splendid boat which Kaid had placed at his disposal David looked out
+upon it all, with emotions not yet wholly mastered by the true estimate
+of what this day had brought to him. With a mind unsettled he listened
+to the natives in the forepart of the boat and on the shore, beating the
+darabukkeh and playing the kemengeh. Yet it was moving in a mist and on
+a flood of greater happiness than he had ever known.
+
+He did not know as yet that Eglington was gone for ever. He did not know
+that the winds of time had already swept away all traces of the house of
+ambition which Eglington had sought to build; and that his nimble tongue
+and untrustworthy mind would never more delude and charm, and wanton
+with truth. He did not know, but within the past hour Hylda knew; and
+now out of the night Soolsby came to tell him.
+
+He was roused from his reverie by Soolsby's voice saying: "Hast nowt to
+say to me, Egyptian?"
+
+It startled him, sounded ghostly in the moonlight; for why should he
+hear Soolsby's voice on the confines of Egypt? But Soolsby came nearer,
+and stood where the moonlight fell upon him, hat in hand, a rustic
+modern figure in this Oriental world.
+
+David sprang to his feet and grasped the old man by the shoulders.
+"Soolsby, Soolsby," he said, with a strange plaintive-note in his voice,
+yet gladly, too. "Soolsby, thee is come here to welcome me! But has she
+not come--Miss Claridge, Soolsby?"
+
+He longed for that true heart which had never failed him, the simple
+soul whose life had been filled by thought and care of him, and whose
+every act had for its background the love of sister for brother--for
+that was their relation in every usual meaning--who, too frail and
+broken to come to him now, waited for him by the old hearthstone. And
+so Soolsby, in his own way, made him understand; for who knew them both
+better than this old man, who had shared in David's destiny since the
+fatal day when Lord Eglington had married Mercy Claridge in secret, had
+set in motion a long line of tragic happenings?
+
+"Ay, she would have come, she would have come," Soolsby answered, "but
+she was not fit for the journey, and there was little time, my lord."
+
+"Why did thee come, Soolsby? Only to welcome me back?"
+
+"I come to bring you back to England, to your duty there, my lord."
+
+The first time Soolsby had used the words "my lord," David had scarcely
+noticed it, but its repetition struck him strangely.
+
+"Here, sometimes they call me Pasha and Saadat, but I am not 'my lord,'"
+he said.
+
+"Ay, but you are my lord, Egyptian, as sure as I've kept my word to you
+that I'd drink no more, ay, on my sacred honour. So you are my lord; you
+are Lord Eglington, my lord."
+
+David stood rigid and almost unblinking as Soolsby told his tale,
+beginning with the story of Eglington's death, and going back all the
+years to the day of Mercy Claridge's marriage.
+
+"And him that never was Lord Eglington, your own father's son, is dead
+and gone, my lord; and you are come into your rights at last." This was
+the end of the tale.
+
+For a long time David stood looking into the sparkling night before him,
+speechless and unmoving, his hands clasped behind him, his head bent
+forward, as though in a dream.
+
+How, all in an instant, had life changed for him! How had Soolsby's
+tale of Eglington's death filled him with a pity deeper than he had ever
+felt-the futile, bitter, unaccomplished life, the audacious, brilliant
+genius quenched, a genius got from the same source as his own resistless
+energy and imagination, from the same wild spring. Gone--all gone,
+with only pity to cover him, unloved, unloving, unbemoaned, save by the
+Quaker girl whose true spirit he had hurt, save by the wife whom he had
+cruelly wronged and tortured; and pity was the thing that moved them
+both, unfathomable and almost maternal, in that sense of motherhood
+which, in spite of love or passion, is behind both, behind all, in every
+true woman's life.
+
+At last David spoke.
+
+"Who knows of all this--of who I am, Soolsby?"
+
+"Lady Eglington and myself, my lord."
+
+"Only she and you?"
+
+"Only us two, Egyptian."
+
+"Then let it be so--for ever."
+
+Soolsby was startled, dumfounded.
+
+"But you will take your title and estates, my lord; you will take the
+place which is your own."
+
+"And prove my grandfather wrong? Had he not enough sorrow? And change my
+life, all to please thee, Soolsby?"
+
+He took the old man's shoulders in his hands again. "Thee has done thy
+duty as few in this world, Soolsby, and given friendship such as few
+give. But thee must be content. I am David Claridge, and so shall remain
+ever."
+
+"Then, since he has no male kin, the title dies, and all that's his will
+go to her ladyship," Soolsby rejoined sourly.
+
+"Does thee grudge her ladyship what was his?"
+
+"I grudge her what is yours, my lord--"
+
+Suddenly Soolsby paused, as though a new thought had come to him, and he
+nodded to himself in satisfaction. "Well, since you will have it so, it
+will be so, Egyptian; but it is a queer fuddle, all of it; and where's
+the way out, tell me that, my lord?"
+
+David spoke impatiently. "Call me 'my lord' no more.... But I will go
+back to England to her that's waiting at the Red Mansion, and you will
+remember, Soolsby--"
+
+Slowly the great flotilla of dahabiehs floated with the strong current
+down towards Cairo, the great sails swelling to the breeze that blew
+from the Libyan Hills. Along the bank of the Nile thousands of Arabs and
+fellaheen crowded to welcome "the Saadat," bringing gifts of dates and
+eggs and fowls and dourha and sweetmeats, and linen cloth; and even
+in the darkness and in the trouble that was on her, and the harrowing
+regret that she had not been with Eglington in his last hour--she little
+knew what Eglington had said to Faith in that last hour--Hylda's heart
+was soothed by the long, loud tribute paid to David.
+
+As she sat in the evening light, David and Lacey came, and were received
+by the Duchess of Snowdon, who could only say to David, as she held his
+hand, "Windlehurst sent his regards to you, his loving regards. He was
+sure you would come home--come home. He wished he were in power for your
+sake."
+
+So, for a few moments she talked vaguely, and said at last: "But Lady
+Eglington, she will be glad to see you, such old friends as you are,
+though not so old as Windlehurst and me--thirty years, over thirty la,
+la!"
+
+They turned to go to Hylda, and came face to face with Kate Heaver.
+
+Kate looked at David as one would look who saw a lost friend return from
+the dead. His eyes lighted, he held out his hand to her.
+
+"It is good to see thee here," he said gently. "And 'tis the cross-roads
+once again, sir," she rejoined.
+
+"Thee means thee will marry Jasper?"
+
+"Ay, I will marry Jasper now," she answered. "It has been a long
+waiting."
+
+"It could not be till now," she responded.
+
+David looked at her reflectively, and said: "By devious ways the human
+heart comes home. One can only stand in the door and wait. He has been
+patient."
+
+"I have been patient, too," she answered.
+
+As the Duchess disappeared with David, a swift change came over Lacey.
+He spun round on one toe, and, like a boy of ten, careered around the
+deck to the tune of a negro song.
+
+"Say, things are all right in there with them two, and it's my turn
+now," he said. "Cute as she can be, and knows the game! Twice a widow,
+and knows the game! Waiting, she is down in Cairo, where the orange
+blossom blows. I'm in it; we're all in it--every one of us. Cousin
+Hylda's free now, and I've got no past worth speaking of; and, anyhow,
+she'll understand, down there in Cairo. Cute as she can be--"
+
+Suddenly he swung himself down to the deck below. "The desert's the
+place for me to-night," he said. Stepping ashore, he turned to where
+the Duchess stood on the deck, gazing out into the night. "Well, give my
+love to the girls," he called, waving a hand upwards, as it were to the
+wide world, and disappeared into the alluring whiteness.
+
+"I've got to get a key-thought," he muttered to himself, as he walked
+swiftly on, till only faint sounds came to him from the riverside. In
+the letter he had written to Hylda, which was the turning-point of
+all for her, he had spoken of these "key-thoughts." With all the
+childishness he showed at times, he had wisely felt his way into spheres
+where life had depth and meaning. The desert had justified him to
+himself and before the spirits of departed peoples, who wandered over
+the sands, until at last they became sand also, and were blown hither
+and thither, to make beds for thousands of desert wayfarers, or paths
+for camels' feet, or a blinding storm to overwhelm the traveller and
+the caravan; Life giving and taking, and absorbing and destroying, and
+destroying and absorbing, till the circle of human existence wheel to
+the full, and the task of Time be accomplished.
+
+On the gorse-grown common above Hamley, David and Faith, and David's
+mother Mercy, had felt the same soul of things stirring--in the green
+things of green England, in the arid wastes of the Libyan desert, on the
+bosom of the Nile, where Mahommed Hassan now lay in a nugger singing a
+song of passion, Nature, with burning voice, murmuring down the unquiet
+world its message of the Final Peace through the innumerable years.
+
+
+
+
+GLOSSARY
+
+  Aiwa----Yes.
+  Allah hu Achbar----God is most Great.
+  Al'mah----Female professional singers, signifying "a learned female."
+  Ardab----A measure equivalent to five English bushels.
+
+  Backsheesh----Tip, douceur.
+  Balass----Earthen vessel for carrying water.
+  Bdsha----Pasha.
+  Bersim----Clover.
+  Bismillah----In the name of God.
+  Bowdb----A doorkeeper.
+
+  Dahabieh----A Nile houseboat with large lateen sails.
+  Darabukkeh----A drum made of a skin stretched over an earthenware funnel.
+  Dourha----Maize.
+
+  Effendina----Most noble.
+  El Azhar----The Arab University at Cairo.
+
+  Fedddn----A measure of land representing about an acre.
+  Fellah----The Egyptian peasant.
+
+  Ghiassa----Small boat.
+
+  Hakim----Doctor.
+  Hasheesh----Leaves of hemp.
+
+  Inshallah----God willing.
+
+  Kdnoon----A musical instrument like a dulcimer.
+  Kavass----An orderly.
+  Kemengeh----A cocoanut fiddle.
+  Khamsin----A hot wind of Egypt and the Soudan.
+
+  Kourbash----A whip, often made of rhinoceros hide.
+
+  La ilaha illa-llah----There is no deity but God.
+
+  Malaish----No matter.
+  Malboos----Demented.
+  Mastaba----A bench.
+  Medjidie----A Turkish Order.
+  Mooshrabieh----Lattice window.
+  Moufettish----High Steward.
+  Mudir----The Governor of a
+  Mudirieh, or province.
+  Muezzin----The sheikh of the mosque who calls to prayer.
+
+  Narghileh----A Persian pipe.
+  Nebool----A quarter-staff.
+
+  Ramadan----The Mahommedan season of fasting.
+
+  Saadat-el-bdsha----Excellency Pasha.
+  Sdis----Groom.
+  Sakkia----The Persian water-wheel.
+  Salaam----Eastern salutation.
+  Sheikh-el-beled----Head of a village.
+
+  Tarboosh----A Turkish turban.
+
+  Ulema----Learned men.
+
+  Wakf----Mahommedan Court dealing with succession, etc.
+  Welee----A holy man or saint.
+
+  Yashmak----A veil for the lower part of the face.
+  Yelek----A long vest or smock.
+
+
+     ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+     A cloak of words to cover up the real thought behind
+     Antipathy of the man in the wrong to the man in the right
+     Antipathy of the lesser to the greater nature
+     Begin to see how near good is to evil
+     But the years go on, and friends have an end
+     Cherish any alleviating lie
+     Does any human being know what he can bear of temptation
+     Friendship means a giving and a getting
+     He's a barber-shop philosopher
+     Heaven where wives without number awaited him
+     Honesty was a thing he greatly desired--in others
+     How little we can know to-day what we shall feel tomorrow
+     How many conquests have been made in the name of God
+     Monotonously intelligent
+     No virtue in not falling, when you're not tempted
+     Of course I've hated, or I wouldn't be worth a button
+     One does the work and another gets paid
+     Only the supremely wise or the deeply ignorant who never alter
+     Passion to forget themselves
+     Political virtue goes unrewarded
+     She knew what to say and what to leave unsaid
+     Smiling was part of his equipment
+     Sometimes the longest way round is the shortest way home
+     Soul tortured through different degrees of misunderstanding
+     The vague pain of suffered indifference
+     There is no habit so powerful as the habit of care of others
+     There's no credit in not doing what you don't want to do
+     To-morrow is no man's gift
+     Tricks played by Fact to discredit the imagination
+     Triumph of Oriental duplicity over Western civilisation
+     We want every land to do as we do; and we want to make 'em do it
+     We must live our dark hours alone
+     When God permits, shall man despair?
+     Woman's deepest right and joy and pain in one--to comfort
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Weavers, Complete, by Gilbert Parker
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook The Weavers, by Gilbert Parker, Complete
+#94 in our series by Gilbert Parker
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
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+*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers*****
+
+
+Title: The Weavers, Complete
+
+Author: Gilbert Parker
+
+Release Date: August, 2004  [EBook #6267]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on November 14, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
+
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+
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WEAVERS, BY PARKER, ENTIRE ***
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WEAVERS
+
+By Gilbert Parker
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+BOOK I
+I.        AS THE SPIRIT MOVED
+II.       THE GATES OF THE WORLD
+III.      BANISHED
+IV.       THE CALL
+
+BOOK II
+
+V.        THE WIDER WAY
+VI.       "HAST THOU NEVER BILLED A MANY"
+VII.      THE COMPACT
+VIII.     FOR HIS SOUL'S SAKE AND THE LAND'S SAKE
+IX.       THE LETTER, THE NIGHT, AND THE WOMAN
+X.        THE FOUR WHO KNEW
+XI.       AGAINST THE HOUR OF MIDNIGHT
+XII.      THE JEHAD AND THE LIONS
+XIII.     ACHMET THE ROPEMAKER STRIKES
+XIV.      BEYOND THE PALE
+
+BOOK III
+XV.       SOOLSBY'S HAND UPON THE CURTAIN
+XVI.      THE DEBT AND THE ACCOUNTING
+XVII.     THE WOMAN OF THE CROSS-ROADS
+XVIII.    TIME, THE IDOL-BREAKER
+XIX.      SHARPER THAN A SWORD
+XX.       EACH AFTER HIS OWN ORDER
+XXI.      "THERE IS NOTHING HIDDEN WHICH SHALL NOT BE REVEALED"
+XXII.     AS IN A GLASS DARKLY
+XXIII.    THE TENTS OF CUSHAN
+XXIV.     THE QUESTIONER
+XXV.      THE VOICE THROUGH THE DOOR
+XXVI.     "I OWE YOU NOTHING"
+XXVII.    THE AWAKENING
+
+BOOK IV
+XXVIII.   NAHOUM TURNS THE SCREW
+XXIX.     THE RECOIL
+XXX.      LACEY MOVES
+XXXI.     THE STRUGGLE IN THE DESERT
+XXXII.    FORTY STRIPES SAVE ONE
+XXXIII.   THE DARK INDENTURE
+XXXIV.    NAHOUM DROPS THE MASK
+
+BOOK V
+XXXV.     THE FLIGHT OF THE WOUNDED
+XXXVI.    "IS IT ALWAYS SO-IN LIFE?"
+XXXVII.   THE FLYING SHUTTLE
+XXXVIII.  JASPER KIMBER SPEAKS
+XXXIX.    FAITH JOURNEYS TO LONDON
+
+BOOK VI
+XL.       HYLDA SEEKS NAHOUM
+XLI.      IN THE LAND OF SHINAR
+XLII.     THE LOOM OF DESTINY
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+When I turn over the hundreds of pages of this book, I have a feeling
+that I am looking upon something for which I have no particular
+responsibility, though it has a strange contour of familiarity.  It is as
+though one looks upon a scene in which one had lived and moved, with the
+friendly yet half-distant feeling that it once was one's own possession
+but is so no longer.  I should think the feeling to be much like that of
+the old man whose sons, gone to distant places, have created their own
+plantations of life and have themselves become the masters of
+possessions.  Also I suppose that when I read the story through again
+from the first page to the last, I shall recreate the feeling in which
+I lived when I wrote it, and it will become a part of my own identity
+again.  That distance between himself and his work, however, which
+immediately begins to grow as soon as a book leaves the author's hands
+for those of the public, is a thing which, I suppose, must come to one
+who produces a work of the imagination.  It is no doubt due to the fact
+that every piece of art which has individuality and real likeness to the
+scenes and character it is intended to depict is done in a kind of
+trance.  The author, in effect, self-hypnotises himself, has created
+an atmosphere which is separate and apart from that of his daily
+surroundings, and by virtue of his imagination becomes absorbed in that
+atmosphere.  When the book is finished and it goes forth, when the
+imagination is relaxed and the concentration of mind is withdrawn, the
+atmosphere disappears, and then.  One experiences what I feel when I take
+up 'The Weavers' and, in a sense, wonder how it was done, such as it is.
+
+The frontispiece of the English edition represents a scene in the House
+of Commons, and this brings to my mind a warning which was given me
+similar to that on my entering new fields outside the one in which I
+first made a reputation in fiction.  When, in a certain year, I
+determined that I would enter the House of Commons I had many friends
+who, in effect, wailed and gnashed their teeth.  They said that it would
+be the death of my imaginative faculties; that I should never write
+anything any more; that all the qualities which make literature living
+and compelling would disappear.  I thought this was all wrong then, and I
+know it is all wrong now.  Political life does certainly interfere with
+the amount of work which an author may produce.  He certainly cannot
+write a book every year and do political work as well, but if he does not
+attempt to do the two things on the same days, as it were, but in blocks
+of time devoted to each separately and respectively, he will only find,
+as I have found, that public life  the conflict of it, the accompanying
+attrition of mind, the searching for the things which will solve the
+problems of national life, the multitudinous variations of character with
+which one comes in contact, the big issues suddenly sprung upon the
+congregation of responsible politicians, all are stimulating to the
+imagination, invigorating to the mind, and marvellously freshening to
+every literary instinct.  No danger to the writer lies in doing political
+work, if it does not sap his strength and destroy his health.  Apart from
+that, he should not suffer.  The very spirit of statesmanship is
+imagination, vision; and the same quality which enables an author to
+realise humanity for a book is necessary for him to realise humanity in
+the crowded chamber of a Parliament.
+
+So far as I can remember, whatever was written of The Weavers, no critic
+said that it lacked imagination.  Some critics said it was too crowded
+with incident; that there was enough incident in it for two novels; some
+said that the sweep was too wide, but no critic of authority declared
+that the book lacked vision or the vivacity of a living narrative.  It is
+not likely that I shall ever write again a novel of Egypt, but I have
+made my contribution to Anglo-Egyptian literature, and I do not think I
+failed completely in showing the greatness of soul which enabled one man
+to keep the torch of civilisation, of truth, justice, and wholesome love
+alight in surroundings as offensive to civilisation as was Egypt in the
+last days of Ismail Pasha--a time which could be well typified by the
+words put by Bulwer Lytton in the mouth of Cardinal Richelieu:
+
+              "I found France rent asunder,
+               Sloth in the mart and schism in the temple;
+               Broils festering to rebellion; and weak laws
+               Rotting away with rust in antique sheaths.
+               I have re-created France; and, from the ashes
+               Of the old feudal and decrepit carcase,
+               Civilisation on her luminous wings
+               Soars, phoenix-like, to Jove!"
+
+Critics and readers have endeavoured to identify the main characteristics
+of The Weavers with figures in Anglo-Egyptian and official public life.
+David Claridge was, however, a creature of the imagination.  It has been
+said that he was drawn from General Gordon.  I am not conscious of having
+taken Gordon for David's prototype, though, as I was saturated with all
+that had been written about Gordon, there is no doubt that something of
+that great man may have found its way into the character of David
+Claridge.  The true origin of David Claridge, however, may be found in a
+short story called 'All the World's Mad', in Donovan Pasha, which was
+originally published by Lady Randolph Churchill in an ambitious but
+defunct magazine called 'The Anglo-Saxon Review'.  The truth is that
+David Claridge had his origin in a fairly close understanding of, and
+interest in, Quaker life.  I had Quaker relatives through the marriage of
+a connection of my mother, and the original of Benn Claridge, the uncle
+of David, is still alive, a very old man, who in my boyhood days wore the
+broad brim and the straight preacher-like coat of the old-fashioned
+Quaker.  The grandmother of my wife was also a Quaker, and used the
+"thee" and "thou" until the day of her death.
+
+Here let me say that criticism came to me from several quarters both in
+England and America on the use of these words thee and thou, and
+statements were made that the kind of speech which I put into David
+Claridge's mouth was not Quaker speech.  For instance, they would not
+have it that a Quaker would say, "Thee will go with me"--as though they
+were ashamed of the sweet inaccuracy of the objective pronoun being used
+in the nominative; but hundreds of times I have myself heard Quakers use
+"thee" in just such a way in England and America.  The facts are,
+however, that Quakers differ extensively in their habits, and there grew
+up in England among the Quakers in certain districts a sense of shame
+for false grammar which, to say the least, was very childish.  To be
+deliberately and boldly ungrammatical, when you serve both euphony and
+simplicity, is merely to give archaic charm, not to be guilty of an
+offence.  I have friends in Derbyshire who still say "Thee thinks,"
+etc., and I must confess that the picture of a Quaker rampant over my
+deliberate use of this well-authenticated form of speech produced to my
+mind only the effect of an infuriated sheep, when I remembered the
+peaceful attribute of Quaker life and character.  From another quarter
+came the assurance that I was wrong when I set up a tombstone with a name
+upon it in a Quaker graveyard.  I received a sarcastic letter from a lady
+on the borders of Sussex and Surrey upon this point, and I immediately
+sent her a first-class railway ticket to enable her to visit the Quaker
+churchyard at Croydon, in Surrey, where dead and gone Quakers have
+tombstones by the score, and inscriptions on them also.  It is a good
+thing to be accurate; it is desperately essential in a novel.  The
+average reader, in his triumph at discovering some slight error of
+detail, would consign a masterpiece of imagination, knowledge of life
+and character to the rubbish-heap.
+
+I believe that 'The Weavers' represents a wider outlook of life, closer
+understanding of the problems which perplex society, and a clearer view
+of the verities than any previous book written by me, whatever its
+popularity may have been.  It appealed to the British public rather more
+than 'The Right of Way', and the great public of America and the Oversea
+Dominions gave it a welcome which enabled it to take its place beside
+'The Right of Way', the success of which was unusual.
+
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+This book is not intended to be an historical novel, nor are its
+characters meant to be identified with well-known persons connected with
+the history of England or of Egypt; but all that is essential in the tale
+is based upon, and drawn from, the life of both countries.  Though Egypt
+has greatly changed during the past generation, away from Cairo and the
+commercial centres the wheels of social progress have turned but slowly,
+and much remains as it was in the days of which this book is a record in
+the spirit of the life, at least.
+                                             G. P.
+
+
+
+
+          "Dost thou spread the sail, throw the spear, swing the axe, lay
+          thy hand upon the plough, attend the furnace door, shepherd the
+          sheep upon the hills, gather corn from the field, or smite the
+          rock in the quarry?  Yet, whatever thy task, thou art even as
+          one who twists the thread and throws the shuttle, weaving the
+          web of Life.  Ye are all weavers, and Allah the Merciful, does
+          He not watch beside the loom?"
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+AS THE SPIRIT MOVED
+
+The village lay in a valley which had been the bed of a great river in
+the far-off days when Ireland, Wales and Brittany were joined together
+and the Thames flowed into the Seine.  The place had never known turmoil
+or stir.  For generations it had lived serenely.
+
+Three buildings in the village stood out insistently, more by the
+authority of their appearance and position than by their size.  One was a
+square, red-brick mansion in the centre of the village, surrounded by a
+high, redbrick wall enclosing a garden.  Another was a big, low, graceful
+building with wings.  It had once been a monastery.  It was covered with
+ivy, which grew thick and hungry upon it, and it was called the
+Cloistered House.  The last of the three was of wood, and of no great
+size--a severely plain but dignified structure, looking like some
+council-hall of a past era.  Its heavy oak doors and windows with diamond
+panes, and its air of order, cleanliness and serenity, gave it a
+commanding influence in the picture.  It was the key to the history of
+the village--a Quaker Meeting-house.
+
+Involuntarily the village had built itself in such a way that it made a
+wide avenue from the common at one end to the Meeting-house on the gorse-
+grown upland at the other.  With a demure resistance to the will of its
+makers the village had made itself decorative.  The people were
+unconscious of any attractiveness in themselves or in their village.
+There were, however, a few who felt the beauty stirring around them.
+These few, for their knowledge and for the pleasure which it brought,
+paid the accustomed price.  The records of their lives were the only
+notable history of the place since the days when their forefathers
+suffered for the faith.
+
+One of these was a girl--for she was still but a child when she died;
+and she had lived in the Red Mansion with the tall porch, the wide garden
+behind, and the wall of apricots and peaches and clustering grapes.  Her
+story was not to cease when she was laid away in the stiff graveyard
+behind the Meeting-house.  It was to go on in the life of her son, whom
+to bring into the world she had suffered undeserved, and loved with a
+passion more in keeping with the beauty of the vale in which she lived
+than with the piety found on the high-backed seats in the Quaker Meeting-
+house.  The name given her on the register of death was Mercy Claridge,
+and a line beneath said that she was the daughter of Luke Claridge, that
+her age at passing was nineteen years, and that "her soul was with the
+Lord."
+
+Another whose life had given pages to the village history was one of
+noble birth, the Earl of Eglington.  He had died twenty years after the
+time when Luke Claridge, against the then custom of the Quakers, set up a
+tombstone to Mercy Claridge's memory behind the Meeting-house.  Only
+thrice in those twenty years had he slept in a room of the Cloistered
+House.  One of those occasions was the day on which Luke Claridge put up
+the grey stone in the graveyard, three years after his daughter's death.
+On the night of that day these two men met face to face in the garden of
+the Cloistered House.  It was said by a passer-by, who had involuntarily
+overheard, that Luke Claridge had used harsh and profane words to Lord
+Eglington, though he had no inkling of the subject of the bitter talk.
+He supposed, however, that Luke had gone to reprove the other for a
+wasteful and wandering existence; for desertion of that Quaker religion
+to which his grandfather, the third Earl of Eglington, had turned in the
+second half of his life, never visiting his estates in Ireland, and
+residing here among his new friends to his last day.  This listener--John
+Fairley was his name--kept his own counsel.  On two other occasions had
+Lord Eglington visited the Cloistered House in the years that passed, and
+remained many months.  Once he brought his wife and child.  The former
+was a cold, blue-eyed Saxon of an old family, who smiled distantly upon
+the Quaker village; the latter, a round-headed, warm-faced youth, with a
+bold, menacing eye, who probed into this and that, rushed here and there
+as did his father; now built a miniature mill; now experimented at some
+peril in the laboratory which had been arranged in the Cloistered House
+for scientific experiments; now shot partridges in the fields where
+partridges had not been shot for years; and was as little in the picture
+as his adventurous father, though he wore a broad-brimmed hat, smiling
+the while at the pain it gave to the simple folk around him.
+
+And yet once more the owner of the Cloistered House returned alone.  The
+blue-eyed lady was gone to her grave; the youth was abroad.  This time he
+came to die.  He was found lying on the floor of his laboratory with a
+broken retort in fragments beside him.  With his servant, Luke Claridge
+was the first to look upon him lying in the wreck of his last experiment,
+a spirit-lamp still burning above him, in the grey light of a winter's
+morning.  Luke Claridge closed the eyes, straightened the body, and
+crossed the hands over the breast which had been the laboratory of many
+conflicting passions of life.
+
+The dead man had left instructions that his body should be buried in the
+Quaker graveyard, but Luke Claridge and the Elders prevented that--he had
+no right to the privileges of a Friend; and, as the only son was afar,
+and no near relatives pressed the late Earl's wishes, the ancient family
+tomb in Ireland received all that was left of the owner of the Cloistered
+House, which, with the estates in Ireland and the title, passed to the
+wandering son.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE GATES OF THE WORLD
+
+Stillness in the Meeting-house, save for the light swish of one
+graveyard-tree against the window-pane, and the slow breathing of the
+Quaker folk who filled every corner.  On the long bench at the upper end
+of the room the Elders sat motionless, their hands on their knees,
+wearing their hats; the women in their poke-bonnets kept their gaze upon
+their laps.  The heads of all save three were averted, and they were Luke
+Claridge, his only living daughter, called Faith, and his dead daughter's
+son David, who kept his eyes fixed on the window where the twig flicked
+against the pane.  The eyes of Faith, who sat on a bench at one side,
+travelled from David to her father constantly; and if, once or twice, the
+plain rebuke of Luke Claridge's look compelled her eyes upon her folded
+hands, still she was watchful and waiting, and seemed demurely to defy
+the convention of unblinking silence.  As time went on, others of her sex
+stole glances at Mercy's son from the depths of their bonnets; and at
+last, after over an hour, they and all were drawn to look steadily at the
+young man upon whose business this Meeting of Discipline had been called.
+The air grew warmer and warmer, but no one became restless; all seemed as
+cool of face and body as the grey gowns and coats with grey steel buttons
+which they wore.
+
+At last a shrill voice broke the stillness.  Raising his head, one of the
+Elders said: "Thee will stand up, friend."  He looked at David.
+
+With a slight gesture of relief the young man stood up.  He was good to
+look at-clean-shaven, broad of brow, fine of figure, composed of
+carriage, though it was not the composure of the people by whom he was
+surrounded.  They were dignified, he was graceful; they were consistently
+slow of movement, but at times his quick gestures showed that he had not
+been able to train his spirit to that passiveness by which he lived
+surrounded.  Their eyes were slow and quiet, more meditative than
+observant; his were changeful in expression, now abstracted, now dark and
+shining as though some inner fire was burning.  The head, too, had a
+habit of coming up quickly with an almost wilful gesture, and with an air
+which, in others, might have been called pride.
+
+"What is thy name?" said another owl-like Elder to him.
+
+A gentle, half-amused smile flickered at the young man's lips for an
+instant, then, "David Claridge--still," he answered.
+
+His last word stirred the meeting.  A sort of ruffle went through the
+atmosphere, and now every eye was fixed and inquiring.  The word was
+ominous.  He was there on his trial, and for discipline; and it was
+thought by all that, as many days had passed since his offence was
+committed, meditation and prayer should have done their work.  Now,
+however, in the tone of his voice, as it clothed the last word, there was
+something of defiance.  On the ear of his grandfather, Luke Claridge, it
+fell heavily.  The old man's lips closed tightly, he clasped his hands
+between his knees with apparent self-repression.
+
+The second Elder who had spoken was he who had once heard Luke Claridge
+use profane words in the Cloistered House.  Feeling trouble ahead, and
+liking the young man and his brother Elder, Luke Claridge, John Fairley
+sought now to take the case into his own hands.
+
+"Thee shall never find a better name, David," he said, "if thee live a
+hundred years.  It hath served well in England.  This thee didst do.
+While the young Earl of Eglington was being brought home, with noise and
+brawling, after his return to Parliament, thee mingled among the
+brawlers; and because some evil words were said of thy hat and thy
+apparel, thee laid about thee, bringing one to the dust, so that his life
+was in peril for some hours to come.  Jasper Kimber was his name."
+
+"Were it not that the smitten man forgave thee, thee would now be in a
+prison cell," shrilly piped the Elder who had asked his name.
+
+"The fight was fair," was the young man's reply.  "Though I am a Friend,
+the man was English."
+
+"Thee was that day a son of Belial," rejoined the shrill Elder.  "Thee
+did use thy hands like any heathen sailor--is it not the truth?"
+
+"I struck the man.  I punished him--why enlarge?"
+
+"Thee is guilty?"
+
+"I did the thing."
+
+"That is one charge against thee.  There are others.  Thee was seen to
+drink of spirits in a public-house at Heddington that day.  Twice--
+thrice, like any drunken collier."
+
+"Twice," was the prompt correction.
+
+There was a moment's pause, in which some women sighed and others folded
+and unfolded their hands on their laps; the men frowned.
+
+"Thee has been a dark deceiver," said the shrill Elder again, and with a
+ring of acrid triumph; "thee has hid these things from our eyes many
+years, but in one day thee has uncovered all.  Thee--"
+
+"Thee is charged," interposed Elder Fairley, "with visiting a play this
+same day, and with seeing a dance of Spain following upon it."
+
+"I did not disdain the music," said the young man drily; "the flute, of
+all instruments, has a mellow sound."  Suddenly his eyes darkened, he
+became abstracted, and gazed at the window where the twig flicked softly
+against the pane, and the heat of summer palpitated in the air.  "It has
+good grace to my ear," he added slowly.
+
+Luke Claridge looked at him intently.  He began to realize that there
+were forces stirring in his grandson which had no beginning in Claridge
+blood, and were not nurtured in the garden with the fruited wall.  He was
+not used to problems; he had only a code, which he had rigidly kept.  He
+had now a glimmer of something beyond code or creed.
+
+He saw that the shrill Elder was going to speak.  He intervened.  "Thee
+is charged, David," he said coldly, "with kissing a woman--a stranger and
+a wanton--where the four roads meet 'twixt here and yonder town."  He
+motioned towards the hills.
+
+"In the open day," added the shrill Elder, a red spot burning on each
+withered cheek.
+
+"The woman was comely," said the young man, with a tone of irony,
+recovering an impassive look.
+
+A strange silence fell, the women looked down; yet they seemed not so
+confounded as the men.  After a moment they watched the young man with
+quicker flashes of the eye.
+
+"The answer is shameless," said the shrill Elder.  "Thy life is that of a
+carnal hypocrite."
+
+The young man said nothing.  His face had become very pale, his lips were
+set, and presently he sat down and folded his arms.
+
+"Thee is guilty of all?" asked John Fairley.
+
+His kindly eye was troubled, for he had spent numberless hours in this
+young man's company, and together they had read books of travel and
+history, and even the plays of Shakespeare and Marlowe, though drama was
+anathema to the Society of Friends--they did not realize it in the life
+around them.  That which was drama was either the visitation of God or
+the dark deeds of man, from which they must avert their eyes.  Their own
+tragedies they hid beneath their grey coats and bodices; their dirty
+linen they never washed in public, save in the scandal such as this where
+the Society must intervene.  Then the linen was not only washed, but duly
+starched, sprinkled, and ironed.
+
+"I have answered all.  Judge by my words," said David gravely.
+
+"Has repentance come to thee?  Is it thy will to suffer that which we may
+decide for thy correction?" It was Elder Fairley who spoke.  He was
+determined to control the meeting and to influence its judgment.  He
+loved the young man.
+
+David made no reply; he seemed lost in thought.  "Let the discipline
+proceed--he hath an evil spirit," said the shrill Elder.
+
+"His childhood lacked in much," said Elder Fairley patiently.
+
+To most minds present the words carried home--to every woman who had a
+child, to every man who had lost a wife and had a motherless son.  This
+much they knew of David's real history, that Mercy Claridge, his mother,
+on a visit to the house of an uncle at Portsmouth, her mother's brother,
+had eloped with and was duly married to the captain of a merchant ship.
+They also knew that, after some months, Luke Claridge had brought her
+home; and that before her child was born news came that the ship her
+husband sailed had gone down with all on board.  They knew likewise that
+she had died soon after David came, and that her father, Luke Claridge,
+buried her in her maiden name, and brought the boy up as his son, not
+with his father's name but bearing that name so long honoured in England,
+and even in the far places of the earth--for had not Benn Claridge,
+Luke's brother, been a great carpet-merchant, traveller, and explorer in
+Asia Minor, Egypt, and the Soudan--Benn Claridge of the whimsical speech,
+the pious life?  All this they knew; but none of them, to his or her
+knowledge, had ever seen David's father.  He was legendary; though there
+was full proof that the girl had been duly married.  That had been laid
+before the Elders by Luke Claridge on an occasion when Benn Claridge, his
+brother was come among them again from the East.
+
+At this moment of trial David was thinking of his uncle, Benn Claridge,
+and of his last words fifteen years before when going once again to the
+East, accompanied by the Muslim chief Ebn Ezra, who had come with him to
+England on the business of his country.  These were Benn Claridge's
+words: "Love God before all, love thy fellow-man, and thy conscience will
+bring thee safe home, lad."
+
+"If he will not repent, there is but one way," said the shrill Elder.
+
+"Let there be no haste," said Luke Claridge, in a voice that shook a
+little in his struggle for self-control.
+
+Another heretofore silent Elder, sitting beside John Fairley, exchanged
+words in a whisper with him, and then addressed them.  He was a very
+small man with a very high stock and spreading collar, a thin face, and
+large wide eyes.  He kept his chin down in his collar, but spoke at the
+ceiling like one blind, though his eyes were sharp enough on occasion.
+His name was Meacham.
+
+"It is meet there shall be time for sorrow and repentance," he said.
+"This, I pray you all, be our will: that for three months David live
+apart, even in the hut where lived the drunken chair-maker ere he
+disappeared and died, as rumour saith--it hath no tenant.  Let it be that
+after to-morrow night at sunset none shall speak to him till that time be
+come, the first day of winter.  Till that day he shall speak to no man,
+and shall be despised of the world, and--pray God--of himself.  Upon the
+first day of winter let it be that he come hither again and speak with
+us."
+
+On the long stillness of assent that followed there came a voice across
+the room, from within a grey-and-white bonnet, which shadowed a delicate
+face shining with the flame of the spirit within.  It was the face of
+Faith Claridge, the sister of the woman in the graveyard, whose soul was
+"with the Lord," though she was but one year older and looked much
+younger than her nephew, David.
+
+"Speak, David," she said softly.  "Speak now.  Doth not the spirit move
+thee?"
+
+She gave him his cue, for he had of purpose held his peace till all had
+been said; and he had come to say some things which had been churning in
+his mind too long.  He caught the faint cool sarcasm in her tone, and
+smiled unconsciously at her last words.  She, at least, must have reasons
+for her faith in him, must have grounds for his defence in painful days
+to come; for painful they must be, whether he stayed to do their will, or
+went into the fighting world where Quakers were few and life composite of
+things they never knew in Hamley.
+
+He got to his feet and clasped his hands behind his back.  After an
+instant he broke silence.
+
+"All those things of which I am accused, I did; and for them is asked
+repentance.  Before that day on which I did these things was there
+complaint, or cause for it?  Was my life evil?  Did I think in secret
+that which might not be done openly?  Well, some things I did secretly.
+Ye shall hear of them.  I read where I might, and after my taste, many
+plays, and found in them beauty and the soul of deep things.  Tales I
+have read, but a few, and John Milton, and Chaucer, and Bacon, and
+Montaigne, and Arab poets also, whose books my uncle sent me.  Was this
+sin in me?"
+
+"It drove to a day of shame for thee," said the shrill Elder.
+
+He took no heed, but continued: "When I was a child I listened to the
+lark as it rose from the meadow; and I hid myself in the hedge that,
+unseen, I might hear it sing; and at night I waited till I could hear the
+nightingale.  I have heard the river singing, and the music of the trees.
+At first I thought that this must be sin, since ye condemn the human
+voice that sings, but I could feel no guilt.  I heard men and women sing
+upon the village green, and I sang also.  I heard bands of music.  One
+instrument seemed to me more than all the rest.  I bought one like it,
+and learned to play.  It was the flute--its note so soft and pleasant.
+I learned to play it--years ago--in the woods of Beedon beyond the hill,
+and I have felt no guilt from then till now.  For these things I have no
+repentance."
+
+"Thee has had good practice in deceit," said the shrill Elder.
+
+Suddenly David's manner changed.  His voice became deeper; his eyes took
+on that look of brilliance and heat which had given Luke Claridge anxious
+thoughts.
+
+"I did, indeed, as the spirit moved me, even as ye have done."
+
+"Blasphemer, did the spirit move thee to brawl and fight, to drink and
+curse, to kiss a wanton in the open road?  What hath come upon thee?"
+Again it was the voice of the shrill Elder.
+
+"Judge me by the truth I speak," he answered.  "Save in these things my
+life has been an unclasped book for all to read."
+
+"Speak to the charge of brawling and drink, David," rejoined the little
+Elder Meacham with the high collar and gaze upon the ceiling.
+
+"Shall I not speak when I am moved?  Ye have struck swiftly; I will draw
+the arrow slowly from the wound.  But, in truth, ye had good right to
+wound.  Naught but kindness have I had among you all; and I will answer.
+Straightly have I lived since my birth.  Yet betimes a torturing unrest
+of mind was used to come upon me as I watched the world around us.  I saw
+men generous to their kind, industrious and brave, beloved by their
+fellows; and I have seen these same men drink and dance and give
+themselves to coarse, rough play like young dogs in a kennel.  Yet, too,
+I have seen dark things done in drink--the cheerful made morose, the
+gentle violent.  What was the temptation?  What the secret?  Was it but
+the low craving of the flesh, or was it some primitive unrest, or craving
+of the soul, which, clouded and baffled by time and labour and the wear
+of life, by this means was given the witched medicament--a false freedom,
+a thrilling forgetfulness?  In ancient days the high, the humane, in
+search of cure for poison, poisoned themselves, and then applied the
+antidote.  He hath little knowledge and less pity for sin who has never
+sinned.  The day came when all these things which other men did in my
+sight I did--openly.  I drank with them in the taverns--twice I drank.
+I met a lass in the way.  I kissed her.  I sat beside her at the roadside
+and she told me her brief, sad, evil story.  One she had loved had left
+her.  She was going to London.  I gave her what money I had--"
+
+"And thy watch," said a whispering voice from the Elders' bench.
+
+"Even so.  And at the cross-roads I bade her goodbye with sorrow."
+
+"There were those who saw," said the shrill voice from the bench.
+
+"They saw what I have said--no more.  I had never tasted spirits in my
+life.  I had never kissed a woman's lips.  Till then I had never struck
+my fellow-man; but before the sun went down I fought the man who drove
+the lass in sorrow into the homeless world.  I did not choose to fight;
+but when I begged the man Jasper Kimber for the girl's sake to follow and
+bring her back, and he railed at me and made to fight me, I took off my
+hat, and there I laid him in the dust."
+
+"No thanks to thee that he did not lie in his grave," observed the shrill
+Elder.
+
+"In truth I hit hard," was the quiet reply.
+
+"How came thee expert with thy fists?" asked Elder Fairley, with the
+shadow of a smile.
+
+"A book I bought from London, a sack of corn, a hollow leather ball, and
+an hour betimes with the drunken chair-maker in the hut by the lime-kiln
+on the hill.  He was once a sailor and a fighting man."
+
+A look of blank surprise ran slowly along the faces of the Elders.  They
+were in a fog of misunderstanding and reprobation.
+
+"While yet my father"--he looked at Luke Claridge, whom he had ever been
+taught to call his father--"shared the great business at Heddington, and
+the ships came from Smyrna and Alexandria, I had some small duties, as is
+well known.  But that ceased, and there was little to do.  Sports are
+forbidden among us here, and my body grew sick, because the mind had no
+labour.  The world of work has thickened round us beyond the hills.  The
+great chimneys rise in a circle as far as eye can see on yonder crests;
+but we slumber and sleep."
+
+"Enough, enough," said a voice from among the women.  "Thee has a friend
+gone to London--thee knows the way.  It leads from the cross-roads!"
+
+Faith Claridge, who had listened to David's speech, her heart panting,
+her clear grey eyes--she had her mother's eyes--fixed benignly on him,
+turned to the quarter whence the voice came.  Seeing who it was--a widow
+who, with no demureness, had tried without avail to bring Luke Claridge
+to her--her lips pressed together in a bitter smile, and she said to her
+nephew clearly:
+
+"Patience Spielman hath little hope of thee, David.  Hope hath died in
+her."
+
+A faint, prim smile passed across the faces of all present, for all knew
+Faith's allusion, and it relieved the tension of the past half-hour.
+From the first moment David began to speak he had commanded his hearers.
+His voice was low and even; but it had also a power which, when put to
+sudden quiet use, compelled the hearer to an almost breathless silence,
+not so much to the meaning of the words, but to the tone itself, to the
+man behind it.  His personal force was remarkable.  Quiet and pale
+ordinarily, his clear russet-brown hair falling in a wave over his
+forehead, when roused, he seemed like some delicate engine made to do
+great labours.  As Faith said to him once, "David, thee looks as though
+thee could lift great weights lightly."  When roused, his eyes lighted
+like a lamp, the whole man seemed to pulsate.  He had shocked, awed, and
+troubled his listeners.  Yet he had held them in his power, and was
+master of their minds.  The interjections had but given him new means to
+defend himself.  After Faith had spoken he looked slowly round.
+
+"I am charged with being profane," he said.  "I do not remember.  But is
+there none among you who has not secretly used profane words and, neither
+in secret nor openly, has repented?  I am charged with drinking.  On one
+day of my life I drank openly.  I did it because something in me kept
+crying out, 'Taste and see!'  I tasted and saw, and know; and I know that
+oblivion, that brief pitiful respite from trouble, which this evil
+tincture gives.  I drank to know; and I found it lure me into a new
+careless joy.  The sun seemed brighter, men's faces seemed happier, the
+world sang about me, the blood ran swiftly, thoughts swarmed in my brain.
+My feet were on the mountains, my hands were on the sails of great ships;
+I was a conqueror.  I understood the drunkard in the first withdrawal
+begotten of this false stimulant.  I drank to know.  Is there none among
+you who has, though it be but once, drunk secretly as I drank openly?  If
+there be none, then I am condemned."
+
+"Amen," said Elder Fairley's voice from the bench.  "In the open way by
+the cross-roads I saw a woman.  I saw she was in sorrow.  I spoke to her.
+Tears came to her eyes.  I took her hand, and we sat down together.  Of
+the rest I have told you.  I kissed her--a stranger.  She was comely.
+And this I know, that the matter ended by the cross-roads, and that by
+and forbidden paths have easy travel.  I kissed the woman openly--is
+there none among you who has kissed secretly, and has kept the matter
+hidden?  For him I struck and injured, it was fair.  Shall a man be
+beaten like a dog?  Kimber would have beaten me."
+
+"Wherein has it all profited?" asked the shrill Elder querulously.
+
+"I have knowledge.  None shall do these things hereafter but I shall
+understand.  None shall go venturing, exploring, but I shall pray for
+him."
+
+"Thee will break thy heart and thy life exploring," said Luke Claridge
+bitterly.  Experiment in life he did not understand, and even Benn
+Claridge's emigration to far lands had ever seemed to him a monstrous and
+amazing thing, though it ended in the making of a great business in which
+he himself had prospered, and from which he had now retired.  He suddenly
+realized that a day of trouble was at hand with this youth on whom his
+heart doted, and it tortured him that he could not understand.
+
+"By none of these things shall I break my life," was David's answer now.
+
+For a moment he stood still and silent, then all at once he stretched out
+his hands to them.  "All these things I did were against our faith.  I
+desire forgiveness.  I did them out of my own will; I will take up your
+judgment.  If there be no more to say, I will make ready to go to old
+Soolsby's hut on the hill till the set time be passed."
+
+There was a long silence.  Even the shrill Elder's head was buried in
+his breast.  They were little likely to forego his penalty.  There was
+a gentle inflexibility in their natures born of long restraint and
+practised determination.  He must go out into blank silence and
+banishment until the first day of winter.  Yet, recalcitrant as they held
+him, their secret hearts were with him, for there was none of them but
+had had happy commerce with him; and they could think of no more bitter
+punishment than to be cut off from their own society for three months.
+They were satisfied he was being trained back to happiness and honour.
+
+A new turn was given to events, however.  The little wizened Elder
+Meacham said: "The flute, friend--is it here?"
+
+"I have it here," David answered.
+
+"Let us have music, then."
+
+"To what end?" interjected the shrill Elder.
+
+"He hath averred he can play," drily replied the other.  "Let us judge
+whether vanity breeds untruth in him."
+
+The furtive brightening of the eyes in the women was represented in the
+men by an assumed look of abstraction in most; in others by a bland
+assumption of judicial calm.  A few, however, frowned, and would have
+opposed the suggestion, but that curiosity mastered them.  These watched
+with darkening interest the flute, in three pieces, drawn from an inner
+pocket and put together swiftly.
+
+David raised the instrument to his lips, blew one low note, and then a
+little run of notes, all smooth and soft.  Mellowness and a sober
+sweetness were in the tone.  He paused a moment after this, and seemed
+questioning what to play.  And as he stood, the flute in his hands, his
+thoughts took flight to his Uncle Benn, whose kindly, shrewd face and
+sharp brown eyes were as present to him, and more real, than those of
+Luke Claridge, whom he saw every day.  Of late when he had thought of
+his uncle, however, alternate depression and lightness of spirit had
+possessed him.  Night after night he had troubled sleep, and he had
+dreamed again and again that his uncle knocked at his door, or came and
+stood beside his bed and spoke to him.  He had wakened suddenly and said
+"Yes" to a voice which seemed to call to him.
+
+Always his dreams and imaginings settled round his Uncle Benn, until he
+had found himself trying to speak to the little brown man across the
+thousand leagues of land and sea.  He had found, too, in the past that
+when he seemed to be really speaking to his uncle, when it seemed as
+though the distance between them had been annihilated, that soon
+afterwards there came a letter from him.  Yet there had not been more
+than two or three a year.  They had been, however, like books of many
+pages, closely written, in Arabic, in a crabbed characteristic hand, and
+full of the sorrow and grandeur and misery of the East.  How many books
+on the East David had read he would hardly have been able to say; but
+something of the East had entered into him, something of the philosophy
+of Mahomet and Buddha, and the beauty of Omar Khayyam had given a touch
+of colour and intellect to the narrow faith in which he had been
+schooled.  He had found himself replying to a question asked of him in
+Heddington, as to how he knew that there was a God, in the words of a
+Muslim quoted by his uncle: "As I know by the tracks in the sand whether
+a Man or Beast has passed there, so the heaven with its stars, the earth
+with its fruits, show me that God has passed."  Again, in reply to the
+same question, the reply of the same Arab sprang to his lips--"Does the
+Morning want a Light to see it by?"
+
+As he stood with his flute--his fingers now and then caressingly rising
+and falling upon its little caverns, his mind travelled far to those
+regions he had never seen, where his uncle traded, and explored.
+Suddenly, the call he had heard in his sleep now came to him in this
+waking reverie.  His eyes withdrew from the tree at the window, as if
+startled, and he almost called aloud in reply; but he realised where he
+was.  At last, raising the flute to his lips, as the eyes of Luke
+Claridge closed with very trouble, he began to play.
+
+Out in the woods of Beedon he had attuned his flute to the stir of
+leaves, the murmur of streams, the song of birds, the boom and burden of
+storm; and it was soft and deep as the throat of the bell-bird of
+Australian wilds.  Now it was mastered by the dreams he had dreamed of
+the East: the desert skies, high and clear and burning, the desert
+sunsets, plaintive and peaceful and unvaried--one lovely diffusion, in
+which day dies without splendour and in a glow of pain.  The long velvety
+tread of the camel, the song of the camel-driver, the monotonous chant of
+the river-man, with fingers mechanically falling on his little drum, the
+cry of the eagle of the Libyan Hills, the lap of the heavy waters of the
+Dead Sea down by Jericho, the battle-call of the Druses beyond Damascus,
+the lonely gigantic figures at the mouth of the temple of Abou Simbel,
+looking out with the eternal question to the unanswering desert, the
+delicate ruins of moonlit Baalbec, with the snow mountains hovering
+above, the green oases, and the deep wells where the caravans lay down in
+peace--all these were pouring their influences on his mind in the little
+Quaker village of Hamley where life was so bare, so grave.
+
+The music he played was all his own, was instinctively translated from
+all other influences into that which they who listened to him could
+understand.  Yet that sensuous beauty which the Quaker Society was so
+concerned to banish from any part in their life was playing upon them
+now, making the hearts of the women beat fast, thrilling them, turning
+meditation into dreams, and giving the sight of the eyes far visions of
+pleasure.  So powerful was this influence that the shrill Elder twice
+essayed to speak in protest, but was prevented by the wizened Elder
+Meacham.  When it seemed as if the aching, throbbing sweetness must
+surely bring denunciation, David changed the music to a slow mourning
+cadence.  It was a wail of sorrow, a march to the grave, a benediction, a
+soft sound of farewell, floating through the room and dying away into the
+mid-day sun.
+
+There came a long silence after, and David sat with unmoving look upon
+the distant prospect through the window.  A woman's sob broke the air.
+Faith's handkerchief was at her eyes.  Only one quick sob, but it had
+been wrung from her by the premonition suddenly come that the brother--
+he was brother more than nephew--over whom her heart had yearned had,
+indeed, come to the cross-roads, and that their ways would henceforth
+divide.  The punishment or banishment now to be meted out to him was as
+nothing.  It meant a few weeks of disgrace, of ban, of what, in effect,
+was self-immolation, of that commanding justice of the Society which no
+one yet save the late Earl of Eglington had defied.  David could refuse
+to bear punishment, but such a possibility had never occurred to her or
+to any one present.  She saw him taking his punishment as surely as
+though the law of the land had him in its grasp.  It was not that which
+she was fearing.  But she saw him moving out of her life.  To her this
+music was the prelude of her tragedy.
+
+A moment afterwards Luke Claridge arose and spoke to David in austere
+tones: "It is our will that thee begone to the chair-maker's but upon the
+hill till three months be passed, and that none have speech with thee
+after sunset to-morrow even."
+
+"Amen," said all the Elders.
+
+"Amen," said David, and put his flute into his pocket, and rose to go.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+BANISHED
+
+The chair-maker's hut lay upon the north hillside about half-way between
+the Meeting-house at one end of the village and the common at the other
+end.  It commanded the valley, had no house near it, and was sheltered
+from the north wind by the hill-top which rose up behind it a hundred
+feet or more.  No road led to it--only a path up from the green of the
+village, winding past a gulley and the deep cuts of old rivulets now
+over grown by grass or bracken.  It got the sun abundantly, and it was
+protected from the full sweep of any storm.  It had but two rooms, the
+floor was of sanded earth, but it had windows on three sides, east, west,
+and south, and the door looked south.  Its furniture was a plank bed, a
+few shelves, a bench, two chairs, some utensils, a fireplace of stone, a
+picture of the Virgin and Child, and of a cardinal of the Church of Rome
+with a red hat--for the chair-maker had been a Roman Catholic, the only
+one of that communion in Hamley.  Had he been a Protestant his vices
+would have made him anathema, but, being what he was, his fellow-
+villagers had treated him with kindness.
+
+After the half-day in which he was permitted to make due preparations,
+lay in store of provisions, and purchase a few sheep and hens, hither
+came David Claridge.  Here, too, came Faith, who was permitted one hour
+with him before he began his life of willing isolation.  Little was said
+as they made the journey up the hill, driving the sheep before them, four
+strong lads following with necessities--flour, rice, potatoes, and
+suchlike.
+
+Arrived, the goods were deposited inside the hut, the lads were
+dismissed, and David and Faith were left alone.  David looked at his
+watch.  They had still a handful of minutes before the parting.  These
+flew fast, and yet, seated inside the door, and looking down at the
+village which the sun was bathing in the last glowing of evening, they
+remained silent.  Each knew that a great change had come in their
+hitherto unchanging life, and it was difficult to separate premonition
+from substantial fact.  The present fact did not represent all they felt,
+though it represented all on which they might speak together now.
+
+Looking round the room, at last Faith said: "Thee has all thee needs,
+David?  Thee is sure?"
+
+He nodded.  "I know not yet how little man may need.  I have lived in
+plenty."
+
+At that moment her eyes rested on the Cloistered House.
+
+"The Earl of Eglington would not call it plenty."  A shade passed over
+David's face.  "I know not how he would measure.  Is his own field so
+wide?"
+
+"The spread of a peacock's feather."
+
+"What does thee know of him?" David asked the question absently.
+
+"I have eyes to see, Davy."  The shadows from that seeing were in her
+eyes as she spoke, but he did not observe them.
+
+"Thee sees but with half an eye," she continued.  "With both mine I have
+seen horses and carriages, and tall footmen, and wine and silver, and
+gilded furniture, and fine pictures, and rolls of new carpet--of Uncle
+Benn's best carpets, Davy--and a billiard-table, and much else."
+
+A cloud slowly gathered over David's face, and he turned to her with an
+almost troubled surprise.  "Thee has seen these things--and how?"
+
+"One day--thee was in Devon--one of the women was taken ill.  They sent
+for me because the woman asked it.  She was a Papist; but she begged that
+I should go with her to the hospital, as there was no time to send to
+Heddington for a nurse.  She had seen me once in the house of the toll-
+gate keeper.  Ill as she was, I could have laughed, for, as we went in
+the Earl's carriage to the hospital-thirty miles it was--she said she
+felt at home with me, my dress being so like a nun's.  It was then I saw
+the Cloistered House within and learned what was afoot."
+
+"In the Earl's carriage indeed--and the Earl?"
+
+"He was in Ireland, burrowing among those tarnished baubles, his titles,
+and stripping the Irish Peter to clothe the English Paul."
+
+"He means to make Hamley his home?  From Ireland these furnishings come?"
+
+"So it seems.  Henceforth the Cloistered House will have its doors flung
+wide.  London and all the folk of Parliament will flutter along the dunes
+of Hamley."
+
+"Then the bailiff will sit yonder within a year, for he is but a starved
+Irish peer."
+
+"He lives to-day as though he would be rich tomorrow.  He bids for fame
+and fortune, Davy."
+
+"'Tis as though a shirtless man should wear a broadcloth coat over a
+cotton vest."
+
+"The world sees only the broadcloth coat.  For the rest--"
+
+"For the rest, Faith?"
+
+"They see the man's face, and--"
+
+His eyes were embarrassed.  A thought had flashed into his mind which he
+considered unworthy, for this girl beside him was little likely to dwell
+upon the face of a renegade peer, whose living among them was a constant
+reminder of his father's apostasy.  She was too fine, dwelt in such high
+spheres, that he could not think of her being touched by the glittering
+adventures of this daring young member of Parliament, whose book of
+travels had been published, only to herald his understood determination
+to have office in the Government, not in due time, but in his own time.
+What could there be in common between the sophisticated Eglington and
+this sweet, primitively wholesome Quaker girl?
+
+Faith read what was passing in his mind.  She flushed--slowly flushed
+until her face--and eyes were one soft glow, then she laid a hand upon
+his arm and said: "Davy, I feel the truth about him--no more.  Nothing of
+him is for thee or me.  His ways are not our ways."  She paused, and then
+said solemnly: "He hath a devil.  That I feel.  But he hath also a mind,
+and a cruel will.  He will hew a path, or make others hew it for him.  He
+will make or break.  Nothing will stand in his way, neither man nor
+thing, those he loves nor those he hates.  He will go on--and to go on,
+all means, so they be not criminal, will be his.  Men will prophesy great
+things for him--they do so now.  But nothing they prophesy, Davy, keeps
+pace with his resolve."
+
+"How does thee know these things?"
+
+His question was one of wonder and surprise.  He had never before seen in
+her this sharp discernment and criticism.
+
+"How know I, Davy?  I know him by studying thee.  What thee is not he is.
+What he is thee is not."  The last beams of the sun sent a sudden glint
+of yellow to the green at their feet from the western hills, rising far
+over and above the lower hills of the village, making a wide ocean of
+light, at the bottom of which lay the Meeting-house and the Cloistered
+House, and the Red Mansion with the fruited wall, and all the others,
+like dwellings at the bottom of a golden sea.  David's eyes were on the
+distance, and the far-seeing look was in his face which had so deeply
+impressed Faith in the Meeting-house, by which she had read his future.
+
+"And shall I not also go on?" he asked.
+
+"How far, who can tell?"
+
+There was a plaintive note in her voice--the unavailing and sad protest
+of the maternal spirit, of the keeper of the nest, who sees the brood fly
+safely away, looking not back.
+
+"What does thee see for me afar, Faith?"  His look was eager.
+
+"The will of God, which shall be done," she said with a sudden
+resolution, and stood up.  Her hands were lightly clasped before her like
+those of Titian's Mater Dolorosa among the Rubens and Tintorettos of the
+Prado, a lonely figure, whose lot it was to spend her life for others.
+Even as she already had done; for thrice she had refused marriages
+suitable and possible to her.  In each case she had steeled her heart
+against loving, that she might be all in all to her sister's child and to
+her father.  There is no habit so powerful as the habit of care of
+others.  In Faith it came as near being a passion as passion could have a
+place in her even-flowing blood, under that cool flesh, governed by a
+heart as fair as the apricot blossoms on the wall in her father's garden.
+She had been bitterly hurt in the Meeting-house; as bitterly as is many a
+woman when her lover has deceived her.  David had acknowledged before
+them all that he had played the flute secretly for years!  That he should
+have played it was nothing; that she should not have shared his secret,
+and so shared his culpability before them all, was a wound which would
+take long to heal.
+
+She laid her hand upon his shoulder suddenly with a nervous little
+motion.
+
+"And the will of God thee shall do to His honour, though thee is outcast
+to-day.  .  .  .  But, Davy, the music-thee kept it from me."
+
+He looked up at her steadily; he read what was in her mind.
+
+"I hid it so, because I would not have thy conscience troubled.  Thee
+would go far to smother it for me; and I was not so ungrateful to thee.
+I did it for good to thee."
+
+A smile passed across her lips.  Never was woman so grateful, never wound
+so quickly healed.  She shook her head sadly at him, and stilling the
+proud throbbing of her heart, she said:
+
+"But thee played so well, Davy!"
+
+He got up and turned his head away, lest he should laugh outright.  Her
+reasoning--though he was not worldly enough to call it feminine, and
+though it scarce tallied with her argument--seemed to him quite her own.
+
+"How long have we?" he said over his shoulder.  "The sun is yet five
+minutes up, or more," she said, a little breathlessly, for she saw his
+hand inside his coat, and guessed his purpose.
+
+"But thee will not dare to play--thee will not dare," she said, but more
+as an invitation than a rebuke.  "Speech was denied me here, but not my
+music.  I find no sin in it."
+
+She eagerly watched him adjust the flute.  Suddenly she drew to him the
+chair from the doorway, and beckoned him to sit down.  She sat where she
+could see the sunset.
+
+The music floated through the room and down the hillside, a searching
+sweetness.
+
+She kept her face ever on the far hills.  It went on and on.  At last it
+stopped.  David roused himself, as from a dream.  "But it is dark!" he
+said, startled.  "It is past the time thee should be with me.  My
+banishment began at sunset."
+
+"Are all the sins to be thine?" she asked calmly.  She had purposely let
+him play beyond the time set for their being together.
+
+"Good-night, Davy."  She kissed him on the cheek.  "I will keep the music
+for the sin's remembrance," she added, and went out into the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE CALL
+
+"England is in one of those passions so creditable to her moral sense,
+so illustrative of her unregulated virtues.  We are living in the first
+excitement and horror of the news of the massacre of Christians at
+Damascus.  We are full of righteous and passionate indignation.  'Punish
+--restore the honour of the Christian nations' is the proud appeal of
+prelate, prig, and philanthropist, because some hundreds of Christians
+who knew their danger, yet chose to take up their abode in a fanatical
+Muslim city of the East, have suffered death."
+
+The meeting had been called in answer to an appeal from Exeter Hall.
+Lord Eglington had been asked to speak, and these were among his closing
+words.
+
+He had seen, as he thought, an opportunity for sensation.  Politicians
+of both sides, the press on all hands, were thundering denunciations upon
+the city of Damascus, sitting insolent and satiated in its exquisite
+bloom of pear and nectarine, and the deed itself was fading into that
+blank past of Eastern life where there "are no birds in last year's
+nest."  If he voyaged with the crowd, his pennant would be lost in the
+clustering sails!  So he would move against the tide, and would startle,
+even if he did not convince.
+
+"Let us not translate an inflamed religious emotion into a war," he
+continued.  "To what good?  Would it restore one single life in Damascus?
+Would it bind one broken heart?  Would it give light to one darkened
+home?  Let us have care lest we be called a nation of hypocrites.  I will
+neither support nor oppose the resolution presented; I will content
+myself with pointing the way to a greater national self-respect."
+
+Mechanically, a few people who had scarcely apprehended the full force of
+his remarks began to applaud; but there came cries of "'Sh! 'Sh!" and
+the clapping of hands suddenly stopped.  For a moment there was absolute
+silence, in which the chairman adjusted his glasses and fumbled with the
+agenda paper in his confusion, scarcely knowing what to do.  The speaker
+had been expected to second the resolution, and had not done so.  There
+was an awkward silence.  Then, in a loud whisper, some one said:
+
+"David, David, do thee speak."
+
+It was the voice of Faith Claridge.  Perturbed and anxious, she had come
+to the meeting with her father.  They had not slept for nights, for the
+last news they had had of Benn Claridge was from the city of Damascus,
+and they were full of painful apprehensions.
+
+It was the eve of the first day of winter, and David's banishment was
+over.  Faith had seen David often at a distance--how often had she stood
+in her window and looked up over the apricot-wall to the chair-maker's
+hut on the hill!  According to his penalty David had never come to Hamley
+village, but had lived alone, speaking to no one, avoided by all, working
+out his punishment.  Only the day before the meeting he had read of the
+massacre at Damascus from a newspaper which had been left on his doorstep
+overnight.  Elder Fairley had so far broken the covenant of ostracism and
+boycott, knowing David's love for his Uncle Benn.
+
+All that night David paced the hillside in anxiety and agitation, and saw
+the sun rise upon a new world--a world of freedom, of home-returning, yet
+a world which, during the past four months, had changed so greatly that
+it would never seem the same again.
+
+The sun was scarce two hours high when Faith and her father mounted the
+hill to bring him home again.  He had, however, gone to Heddington to
+learn further news of the massacre.  He was thinking of his Uncle Benn-
+all else could wait.  His anxiety was infinitely greater than that of
+Luke Claridge, for his mind had been disturbed by frequent premonitions;
+and those sudden calls in his sleep-his uncle's voice--ever seemed to be
+waking him at night.  He had not meant to speak at the meeting, but the
+last words of the speaker decided him; he was in a flame of indignation.
+He heard the voice of Faith whisper over the heads of the people.
+"David, David, do thee speak."  Turning, he met her eyes, then rose to
+his feet, came steadily to the platform, and raised a finger towards the
+chairman.
+
+A great whispering ran through the audience.  Very many recognised him,
+and all had heard of him--the history of his late banishment and self-
+approving punishment were familiar to them.  He climbed the steps of the
+platform alertly, and the chairman welcomed him with nervous pleasure.
+Any word from a Quaker, friendly to the feeling of national indignation,
+would give the meeting the new direction which all desired.
+
+Something in the face of the young man, grown thin and very pale during
+the period of long thought and little food in the lonely and meditative
+life he had led; something human and mysterious in the strange tale of
+his one day's mad doings, fascinated them.  They had heard of the liquor
+he had drunk, of the woman he had kissed at the cross-roads, of the man
+he had fought, of his discipline and sentence.  His clean, shapely
+figure, and the soft austerity of the neat grey suit he wore, his broad-
+brimmed hat pushed a little back, showing well a square white forehead--
+all conspired to send a wave of feeling through the audience, which
+presently broke into cheering.
+
+Beginning with the usual formality, he said: "I am obliged to differ from
+nearly every sentiment expressed by the Earl of Eglington, the member for
+Levizes, who has just taken his seat."
+
+There was an instant's pause, the audience cheered, and cries of delight
+came from all parts of the house.  "All good counsel has its sting," he
+continued, "but the good counsel of him who has just spoken is a sting in
+a wound deeper than the skin.  The noble Earl has bidden us to be
+consistent and reasonable.  I have risen here to speak for that to which
+mere consistency and reason may do cruel violence.  I am a man of peace,
+I am the enemy of war--it is my faith and creed; yet I repudiate the
+principle put forward by the Earl of Eglington, that you shall not clinch
+your hand for the cause which is your heart's cause, because, if you
+smite, the smiting must be paid for."
+
+He was interrupted by cheers and laughter, for the late event in his own
+life came to them to point his argument.
+
+"The nation that declines war may be refusing to inflict that just
+punishment which alone can set the wrong-doers on the better course.  It
+is not the faith of that Society to which I belong to decline correction
+lest it may seem like war."
+
+The point went home significantly, and cheering followed.  "The high
+wall of Tibet, a stark refusal to open the door to the wayfarer, I can
+understand; but, friend"--he turned to the young peer--"friend, I cannot
+understand a defence of him who opens the door upon terms of mutual
+hospitality, and then, in the red blood of him who has so contracted,
+blots out the just terms upon which they have agreed.  Is that thy faith,
+friend?"
+
+The repetition of the word friend was almost like a gibe, though it was
+not intended as such.  There was none present, however, but knew of the
+defection of the Earl's father from the Society of Friends, and they
+chose to interpret the reference to a direct challenge.  It was a
+difficult moment for the young Earl, but he only smiled, and cherished
+anger in his heart.
+
+For some minutes David spoke with force and power, and he ended with
+passionate solemnity.  His voice rang out: "The smoke of this burning
+rises to Heaven, the winds that wail over scattered and homeless dust
+bear a message of God to us.  In the name of Mahomet, whose teaching
+condemns treachery and murder, in the name of the Prince of Peace, who
+taught that justice which makes for peace, I say it is England's duty to
+lay the iron hand of punishment upon this evil city and on the Government
+in whose orbit it shines with so deathly a light.  I fear it is that one
+of my family and of my humble village lies beaten to death in Damascus.
+Yet not because of that do I raise my voice here to-day.  These many
+years Benn Claridge carried his life in his hands, and in a good cause it
+was held like the song of a bird, to be blown from his lips in the day of
+the Lord.  I speak only as an Englishman.  I ask you to close your minds
+against the words of this brilliant politician, who would have you settle
+a bill of costs written in Christian blood, by a promise to pay, got
+through a mockery of armed display in those waters on which once looked
+the eyes of the Captain of our faith.  Humanity has been put in the
+witness-box of the world; let humanity give evidence."
+
+Women wept.  Men waved their hats and cheered; the whole meeting rose to
+its feet and gave vent to its feelings.
+
+For some moments the tumult lasted, Eglington looking on with face
+unmoved.  As David turned to leave the table, however, he murmured,
+"Peacemaker!  Peacemaker!" and smiled sarcastically.
+
+As the audience resumed their seats, two people were observed making
+their way to the platform.  One was Elder Fairley, leading the way to a
+tall figure in a black robe covering another coloured robe, and wearing a
+large white turban.  Not seeing the new-comers, the chairman was about to
+put the resolution; but a protesting hand from John Fairley stopped him,
+and in a strange silence the two new-comers mounted the platform.  David
+rose and advanced to meet them.  There flashed into his mind that this
+stranger in Eastern garb was Ebn Ezra Bey, the old friend of Benn
+Claridge, of whom his uncle had spoken and written so much.  The same
+instinct drew Ebn Ezra Bey to him--he saw the uncle's look in the
+nephew's face.  In a breathless stillness the Oriental said in perfect
+English, with a voice monotonously musical:
+
+"I came to thy house and found thee not.  I have a message for thee from
+the land where thine uncle sojourned with me."
+
+He took from a wallet a piece of paper and passed it to David, adding: "I
+was thine uncle's friend.  He hath put off his sandals and walketh with
+bare feet!" David read eagerly.
+
+"It is time to go, Davy," the paper said.  "All that I have is thine.
+Go to Egypt, and thee shall find it so.  Ebn Ezra Bey will bring thee.
+Trust him as I have done.  He is a true man, though the Koran be his
+faith.  They took me from behind, Davy, so that I was spared temptation
+--I die as I lived, a man of peace.  It is too late to think how it might
+have gone had we met face to face; but the will of God worketh not
+according to our will.  I can write no more.  Luke, Faith, and Davy--dear
+Davy, the night has come, and all's well.  Good morrow, Davy.  Can you
+not hear me call?  I have called thee so often of late!  Good morrow!
+Good morrow!  .  .  .  I doff my hat, Davy--at last--to God!"
+
+David's face whitened.  All his visions had been true visions, his dreams
+true dreams.  Brave Benn Claridge had called to him at his door--" Good
+morrow!  Good morrow!  Good morrow!"  Had he not heard the knocking and
+the voice?  Now all was made clear.  His path lay open before him--a far
+land called him, his quiet past was infinite leagues away.  Already the
+staff was in his hands and the cross-roads were sinking into the distance
+behind.  He was dimly conscious of the wan, shocked face of Faith in the
+crowd beneath him, which seemed blurred and swaying, of the bowed head of
+Luke Claridge, who, standing up, had taken off his hat in the presence of
+this news of his brother's death which he saw written in David's face.
+David stood for a moment before the great throng, numb and speechless.
+"It is a message from Damascus," he said at last, and could say no more.
+
+Ebn Ezra Bey turned a grave face upon the audience.
+
+Will you hear me?" he said.  "I am an Arab."  "Speak--speak!" came from
+every side.
+
+"The Turk hath done his evil work in Damascus," he said.  "All the
+Christians are dead--save one; he hath turned Muslim, and is safe."  His
+voice had a note of scorn.  "It fell sudden and swift like a storm in
+summer.  There were no paths to safety.  Soldiers and those who led them
+shared in the slaying.  As he and I who had travelled far together these
+many years sojourned there in the way of business, I felt the air grow
+colder, I saw the cloud gathering.  I entreated, but he would not go.
+If trouble must come, then he would be with the Christians in their
+peril.  At last he saw with me the truth.  He had a plan of escape.
+There was a Christian weaver with his wife in a far quarter--against my
+entreaty he went to warn them.  The storm broke.  He was the first to
+fall, smitten in 'that street called Straight.'  I found him soon after.
+Thus did he speak to me--even in these words: 'The blood of women and
+children shed here to-day shall cry from the ground.  Unprovoked the host
+has turned wickedly upon his guest.  The storm has been sown, and the
+whirlwind must be reaped.  Out of this evil good shall come.  Shall not
+the Judge of all the earth do right?'  These were his last words to me
+then.  As his life ebbed out, he wrote a letter which I have brought
+hither to one"--he turned to David--"whom he loved.  At the last he took
+off his hat, and lay with it in his hands, and died.  .  .  .  I am a
+Muslim, but the God of pity, of justice, and of right is my God; and in
+His name be it said that was a crime of Sheitan the accursed."
+
+In a low voice the chairman put the resolution.  The Earl of Eglington
+voted in its favour.
+
+Walking the hills homeward with Ebn Ezra Bey, Luke, Faith, and John
+Fairley, David kept saying over to himself the words of Benn Claridge:
+"I have called thee so often of late.  Good morrow!  Good morrow!  Good
+morrow!  Can you not hear me call?"
+
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+There is no habit so powerful as the habit of care of others
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WEAVERS
+
+By Gilbert Parker
+
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+
+V.        THE WIDER WAY
+VI.       "HAST THOU NEVER BILLED A MANY"
+VII.      THE COMPACT
+VIII.     FOR HIS SOUL'S SAKE AND THE LAND'S SAKE
+IX.       THE LETTER, THE NIGHT, AND THE WOMAN
+X.        THE FOUR WHO KNEW
+XI.       AGAINST THE HOUR OF MIDNIGHT
+XII.      THE JEHAD AND THE LIONS
+XIII.     ACHMET THE ROPEMAKER STRIKES
+XIV.      BEYOND THE PALE
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE WIDER WAY
+
+Some months later the following letter came to David Claridge in Cairo
+from Faith Claridge in Hamley:
+
+     David, I write thee from the village and the land of the people
+     which thou didst once love so well.  Does thee love them still?
+     They gave thee sour bread to eat ere thy going, but yet thee didst
+     grind the flour for the baking.  Thee didst frighten all who knew
+     thee with thy doings that mad midsummer time.  The tavern, the
+     theatre, the cross-roads, and the cockpit--was ever such a day!
+
+     Now, Davy, I must tell of a strange thing.  But first, a moment.
+     Thee remembers the man Kimber smitten by thee at the public-house on
+     that day?  What think thee has happened?  He followed to London the
+     lass kissed by thee, and besought her to return and marry him.  This
+     she refused at first with anger; but afterwards she said that, if in
+     three years he was of the same mind, and stayed sober and hard-
+     working meanwhile, she would give him an answer, she would consider.
+     Her head was high.  She has become maid to a lady of degree, who has
+     well befriended her.
+
+     How do I know these things?  Even from Jasper Kimber, who, on his
+     return from London, was taken to his bed with fever.  Because of the
+     hard blows dealt him by thee, I went to make amends.  He welcomed
+     me, and soon opened his whole mind.  That mind has generous moments,
+     David, for he took to being thankful for thy knocks.
+
+     Now for the strange thing I hinted.  After visiting Jasper Kimber at
+     Heddington, as I came back over the hill by the path we all took
+     that day after the Meeting--Ebn Ezra Bey, my father, Elder Fairley,
+     and thee and me--I drew near the chairmaker's but where thee lived
+     alone all those sad months.  It was late evening; the sun had set.
+     Yet I felt that I must needs go and lay my hand in love upon the
+     door of the empty hut which had been ever as thee left it.  So I
+     came down the little path swiftly, and then round the great rock,
+     and up towards the door.  But, as I did so, my heart stood still,
+     for I heard voices.  The door was open, but I could see no one.  Yet
+     there the voices sounded, one sharp and peevish with anger, the
+     other low and rough.  I could not hear what was said.  At last, a
+     figure came from the door and went quickly down the hillside.  Who,
+     think thee, was it?  Even "neighbour Eglington."  I knew the walk
+     and the forward thrust of the head.  Inside the hut all was still.
+     I drew near with a kind of fear, but yet I came to the door and
+     looked in.
+
+     As I looked into the dusk, my limbs trembled under me, for who
+     should be sitting there, a half-finished chair between his knees,
+     but Soolsby the old chair-maker!  Yes, it was he.  There he sat
+     looking at me with his staring blue eyes and shock of redgrey hair.
+     "Soolsby!  Soolsby!" said I, my heart hammering at my breast; for
+     was not Soolsby dead and buried?  His eyes stared at me in fright.
+     "Why do you come?" he said in a hoarse whisper.  "Is he dead, then?
+     Has harm come to him?"
+
+     By now I had recovered myself, for it was no ghost I saw, but a
+     human being more distraught than was myself.  "Do you not know me,
+     Soolsby?" I asked.  "You are Mercy Claridge from beyond--beyond and
+     away," he answered dazedly.  "I am Faith Claridge, Soolsby,"
+     answered I.  He started, peered forward at me, and for a moment he
+     did not speak; then the fear went from his face.  "Ay, Faith
+     Claridge, as I said," he answered, with apparent understanding, his
+     stark mood passing.  "No, thee said Mercy Claridge, Soolsby," said
+     I, "and she has been asleep these many years."  "Ay, she has slept
+     soundly, thanks be to God!" he replied, and crossed himself.  "Why
+     should thee call me by her name?" I inquired.  "Ay, is not her tomb
+     in the churchyard?" he answered, and added quickly, "Luke Claridge
+     and I are of an age to a day--which, think you, will go first?"
+
+     He stopped weaving, and peered over at me with his staring blue
+     eyes, and I felt a sudden quickening of the heart.  For, at the
+     question, curtains seemed to drop from all around me, and leave me
+     in the midst of pains and miseries, in a chill air that froze me to
+     the marrow.  I saw myself alone--thee in Egypt and I here, and none
+     of our blood and name beside me.  For we are the last, Davy, the
+     last of the Claridges.  But I said coldly, and with what was near to
+     anger, that he should link his name and fate with that of Luke
+     Claridge: "Which of ye two goes first is God's will, and according
+     to His wisdom.  Which, think thee," added I--and now I cannot
+     forgive myself for saying it--"which, think thee, would do least
+     harm in going?"  "I know which would do most good," he answered,
+     with a harsh laugh in his throat.  Yet his blue eyes looked kindly
+     at me, and now he began to nod pleasantly.  I thought him a little
+     mad, but yet his speech had seemed not without dark meaning.  "Thee
+     has had a visitor," I said to him presently.  He laughed in a
+     snarling way that made me shrink, and answered: "He wanted this and
+     he wanted that--his high-handed, second-best lordship.  Ay, and he
+     would have it, because it pleased him to have it--like his father
+     before him.  A poor sparrow on a tree-top, if you tell him he must
+     not have it, he will hunt it down the world till it is his, as
+     though it was a bird of paradise.  And when he's seen it fall at
+     last, he'll remember but the fun of the chase; and the bird may get
+     to its tree-top again--if it can--if it can--if it can, my lord!
+     That is what his father was, the last Earl, and that is what he is
+     who left my door but now.  He came to snatch old Soolsby's palace,
+     his nest on the hill, to use it for a telescope, or such whimsies.
+     He has scientific tricks like his father before him.  Now is it
+     astronomy, and now chemistry, and suchlike; and always it is the
+     Eglington mind, which let God A'mighty make it as a favour.  He
+     would have old Soolsby's palace for his spy-glass, would he then?
+     It scared him, as though I was the devil himself, to find me here.
+     I had but come back in time--a day later, and he would have sat here
+     and seen me in the Pit below before giving way.  Possession's nine
+     points were with me; and here I sat and faced him; and here he
+     stormed, and would do this and should do that; and I went on with my
+     work.  Then he would buy my Colisyum, and I wouldn't sell it for all
+     his puffball lordship might offer.  Isn't the house of the snail as
+     much to him as the turtle's shell to the turtle?  I'll have no
+     upstart spilling his chemicals here, or devilling the stars from a
+     seat on my roof."  "Last autumn," said I, "David Claridge was housed
+     here.  Thy palace was a prison then."  "I know well of that.
+     Haven't I found his records here?  And do you think his makeshift
+     lordship did not remind me?"  "Records?  What records, Soolsby?"
+     asked I, most curious.  "Writings of his thoughts which he forgot--
+     food for mind and body left in the cupboard."  "Give them to me upon
+     this instant, Soolsby," said I.  "All but one," said he, "and that
+     is my own, for it was his mind upon Soolsby the drunken chair-maker.
+     God save him from the heathen sword that slew his uncle.  Two better
+     men never sat upon a chair!"  He placed the papers in my hand, all
+     save that one which spoke of him.  Ah, David, what with the flute
+     and the pen, banishment was no pain to thee!  .  .  .  He placed the
+     papers, save that one, in my hands, and I, womanlike, asked again
+     for all.  "Some day," said he, "come, and I will read it to you.
+     Nay, I will give you a taste of it now," he added, as he brought
+     forth the writing.  "Thus it reads."
+
+     Here are thy words, Davy.  What think thee of them now?
+
+     "As I dwell in this house I know Soolsby as I never knew him when he
+     lived, and though, up here, I spent many an hour with him.  Men
+     leave their impressions on all around them.  The walls which have
+     felt their look and their breath, the floor which has taken their
+     footsteps, the chairs in which they have sat, have something of
+     their presence.  I feel Soolsby here at times so sharply that it
+     would seem he came again and was in this room, though he is dead and
+     gone.  I ask him how it came he lived here alone; how it came that
+     he made chairs, he, with brains enough to build great houses or
+     great bridges; how it was that drink and he were such friends; and
+     how he, a Catholic, lived here among us Quakers, so singular,
+     uncompanionable, and severe.  I think it true, and sadly true, that
+     a man with a vice which he is able to satisfy easily and habitually,
+     even as another satisfies a virtue, may give up the wider actions of
+     the world and the possibilities of his life for the pleasure which
+     his one vice gives him, and neither miss nor desire those greater
+     chances of virtue or ambition which he has lost.  The simplicity of
+     a vice may be as real as the simplicity of a virtue."
+
+     Ah, David, David, I know not what to think of those strange words;
+     but old Soolsby seemed well to understand thee, and he called thee
+     "a first-best gentleman."  Is my story long?  Well, it was so
+     strange, and it fixed itself upon my mind so deeply, and thy
+     writings at the hut have been so much in my hands and in my mind,
+     that I have put it all down here.  When I asked Soolsby how it came
+     he had been rumoured dead, he said that he himself had been the
+     cause of it; but for what purpose he would not say, save that he was
+     going a long voyage, and had made up his mind to return no more.  "I
+     had a friend," he said, "and I was set to go and see that friend
+     again.  .  .  .  But the years go on, and friends have an end.  Life
+     spills faster than the years," he said.  And he would say no more,
+     but would walk with me even to my father's door.  "May the Blessed
+     Virgin and all the Saints be with you," he said at parting, "if you
+     will have a blessing from them.  And tell him who is beyond and away
+     in Egypt that old Soolsby's busy making a chair for him to sit in
+     when the scarlet cloth is spread, and the East and West come to
+     salaam before him.  Tell him the old man says his fluting will be
+     heard."
+
+     And now, David, I have told thee all, nearly.  Remains to say that
+     thy one letter did our hearts good.  My father reads it over and
+     over, and shakes his head sadly, for, truth is, he has a fear that
+     the world may lay its hand upon thee.  One thing I do observe, his
+     heart is hard set against Lord Eglington.  In degree it has ever
+     been so; but now it is like a constant frown upon his forehead.  I
+     see him at his window looking out towards the Cloistered House; and
+     if our neighbour comes forth, perhaps upon his hunter, or now in his
+     cart, or again with his dogs, he draws his hat down upon his eyes
+     and whispers to himself.  I think he is ever setting thee off
+     against Lord Eglington; and that is foolish, for Eglington is but a
+     man of the earth earthy.  His is the soul of the adventurer.
+
+     Now what more to be set down?  I must ask thee how is thy friend Ebn
+     Ezra Bey?  I am glad thee did find all he said was true, and that in
+     Damascus thee was able to set a mark by my uncle's grave.  But that
+     the Prince Pasha of Egypt has set up a claim against my uncle's
+     property is evil news; though, thanks be to God, as my father says,
+     we have enough to keep us fed and clothed and housed.  But do thee
+     keep enough of thy inheritance to bring thee safe home again to
+     those who love thee.  England is ever grey, Davy, but without thee
+     it is grizzled--all one "Quaker drab," as says the Philistine.  But
+     it is a comely and a good land, and here we wait for thee.
+
+     In love and remembrance.
+
+     I am thy mother's sister, thy most loving friend.
+
+                                             FAITH.
+
+
+David received this letter as he was mounting a huge white Syrian donkey
+to ride to the Mokattam Hills, which rise sharply behind Cairo, burning
+and lonely and large.  The cities of the dead Khalifas and Mamelukes
+separated them from the living city where the fellah toiled, and Arab,
+Bedouin, Copt strove together to intercept the fruits of his toiling, as
+it passed in the form of taxes to the Palace of the Prince Pasha; while
+in the dark corners crouched, waiting, the cormorant usurers--Greeks,
+Armenians, and Syrians, a hideous salvage corps, who saved the house of
+a man that they might at last walk off with his shirt and the cloth under
+which he was carried to his grave.  In a thousand narrow streets and
+lanes, in the warm glow of the bazaars, in earth-damp huts, by blistering
+quays, on the myriad ghiassas on the river, from long before sunrise till
+the sunset-gun boomed from the citadel rising beside the great mosque
+whose pinnacles seem to touch the blue, the slaves of the city of Prince
+Kaid ground out their lives like corn between the millstones.
+
+David had been long enough in Egypt to know what sort of toiling it was.
+A man's labour was not his own.  The fellah gave labour and taxes and
+backsheesh and life to the State, and the long line of tyrants above him,
+under the sting of the kourbash; the high officials gave backsheesh to
+the Prince Pasha, or to his Mouffetish, or to his Chief Eunuch, or to his
+barber, or to some slave who had his ear.
+
+But all the time the bright, unclouded sun looked down on a smiling land,
+and in Cairo streets the din of the hammers, the voices of the boys
+driving heavily laden donkeys, the call of the camel-drivers leading
+their caravans into the great squares, the clang of the brasses of the
+sherbet-sellers, the song of the vendor of sweetmeats, the drone of the
+merchant praising his wares, went on amid scenes of wealth and luxury,
+and the city glowed with colour and gleamed with light.  Dark faces
+grinned over the steaming pot at the door of the cafes, idlers on the
+benches smoked hasheesh, female street-dancers bared their faces
+shamelessly to the men, and indolent musicians beat on their tiny drums,
+and sang the song of "O Seyyid," or of "Antar"; and the reciter gave his
+sing-song tale from a bench above his fellows.  Here a devout Muslim,
+indifferent to the presence of strangers, turned his face to the East,
+touched his forehead to the ground, and said his prayers.  There, hung to
+a tree by a deserted mosque near by, the body of one who was with them
+all an hour before, and who had paid the penalty for some real or
+imaginary crime; while his fellows blessed Allah that the storm had
+passed them by.  Guilt or innocence did not weigh with them; and the dead
+criminal, if such he were, who had drunk his glass of water and prayed to
+Allah, was, in their sight, only fortunate and not disgraced, and had
+"gone to the bosom of Allah."  Now the Muezzin from a minaret called to
+prayer, and the fellah in his cotton shirt and yelek heard, laid his load
+aside, and yielded himself to his one dear illusion, which would enable
+him to meet with apathy his end--it might be to-morrow!--and go forth to
+that plenteous heaven where wives without number awaited him, where
+fields would yield harvests without labour, where rich food in gold
+dishes would be ever at his hand.  This was his faith.
+
+David had now been in the country six months, rapidly perfecting his
+knowledge of Arabic, speaking it always to his servant Mahommed Hassan,
+whom he had picked from the streets.  Ebn Ezra Bey had gone upon his own
+business to Fazougli, the tropical Siberia of Egypt, to liberate, by
+order of Prince Kaid,--and at a high price--a relative banished there.
+David had not yet been fortunate with his own business--the settlement
+of his Uncle Benn's estate--though the last stages of negotiation with
+the Prince Pasha seemed to have been reached.  When he had brought the
+influence of the British Consulate to bear, promises were made, doors
+were opened wide, and Pasha and Bey offered him coffee and talked to him
+sympathetically.  They had respect for him more than for most Franks,
+because the Prince Pasha had honoured him with especial favour.  Perhaps
+because David wore his hat always and the long coat with high collar like
+a Turk, or because Prince Kaid was an acute judge of human nature, and
+also because honesty was a thing he greatly desired--in others--and never
+found near his own person; however it was, he had set David high in his
+esteem at once.  This esteem gave greater certainty that any backsheesh
+coming from the estate of Benn Claridge would not be sifted through many
+hands on its way to himself.  Of Benn Claridge Prince Kaid had scarcely
+even heard until he died; and, indeed, it was only within the past few
+years that the Quaker merchant had extended his business to Egypt and had
+made his headquarters at Assiout, up the river.
+
+David's donkey now picked its way carefully through the narrow streets of
+the Moosky.  Arabs and fellaheen squatting at street corners looked at
+him with furtive interest.  A foreigner of this character they had never
+before seen, with coat buttoned up like an Egyptian official in the
+presence of his superior, and this wide, droll hat on his head.  David
+knew that he ran risks, that his confidence invited the occasional
+madness of a fanatical mind, which makes murder of the infidel a passport
+to heaven; but as a man he took his chances, and as a Christian he
+believed he would suffer no mortal hurt till his appointed time.  He was
+more Oriental, more fatalist, than he knew.  He had also early in his
+life learned that an honest smile begets confidence; and his face, grave
+and even a little austere in outline, was usually lighted by a smile.
+
+From the Mokattam Hills, where he read Faith's letter again, his back
+against one of the forts which Napoleon had built in his Egyptian days,
+he scanned the distance.  At his feet lay the great mosque, and the
+citadel, whose guns controlled the city, could pour into it a lava stream
+of shot and shell.  The Nile wound its way through the green plains,
+stretching as far to the north as eye could see between the opal and
+mauve and gold of the Libyan Hills.  Far over in the western vista a long
+line of trees, twining through an oasis flanking the city, led out to a
+point where the desert abruptly raised its hills of yellow sand.  Here,
+enormous, lonely, and cynical, the pyramids which Cheops had built, the
+stone sphinx of Ghizeh, kept faith with the desert in the glow of
+rainless land-reminders ever that the East, the mother of knowledge, will
+by knowledge prevail; that:
+
+                   "The thousand years of thy insolence
+                    The thousand years of thy faith,
+                    Will be paid in fiery recompense,
+                    And a thousand years of bitter death."
+
+
+"The sword--for ever the sword," David said to himself, as he looked:
+"Rameses and David and Mahomet and Constantine, and how many conquests
+have been made in the name of God!  But after other conquests there have
+been peace and order and law.  Here in Egypt it is ever the sword, the
+survival of the strongest."
+
+As he made his way down the hillside again he fell to thinking upon all
+Faith had written.  The return of the drunken chair-maker made a deep
+impression on him--almost as deep as the waking dreams he had had of his
+uncle calling him.
+
+"Soolsby and me--what is there between Soolsby and me?" he asked himself
+now as he made his way past the tombs of the Mamelukes.  "He and I are as
+far apart as the poles, and yet it comes to me now, with a strange
+conviction, that somehow my life will be linked with that of the drunken
+Romish chair-maker.  To what end?"  Then he fell to thinking of his Uncle
+Benn.  The East was calling him.  "Something works within me to hold me
+here, a work to do."
+
+From the ramparts of the citadel he watched the sun go down, bathing the
+pyramids in a purple and golden light, throwing a glamour over all the
+western plain, and making heavenly the far hills with a plaintive colour,
+which spoke of peace and rest, but not of hope.  As he stood watching, he
+was conscious of people approaching.  Voices mingled, there was light
+laughter, little bursts of admiration, then lower tones, and then he was
+roused by a voice calling.  He turned round.  A group of people were
+moving towards the exit from the ramparts, and near himself stood a man
+waving an adieu.
+
+"Well, give my love to the girls," said the man cheerily.  Merry faces
+looked back and nodded, and in a moment they were gone.  The man turned
+round, and looked at David, then he jerked his head in a friendly sort of
+way and motioned towards the sunset.
+
+"Good enough, eh?"
+
+"Surely, for me," answered David.  On the instant he liked the red,
+wholesome face, and the keen, round, blue eyes, the rather opulent
+figure, the shrewd, whimsical smile, all aglow now with beaming
+sentimentality, which had from its softest corner called out:
+"Well, give my love to the girls."
+
+"Quaker, or I never saw Germantown and Philadelphy," he continued, with a
+friendly manner quite without offence.  "I put my money on Quakers every
+time."
+
+"But not from Germantown or Philadelphia," answered David, declining a
+cigar which his new acquaintance offered.
+
+"Bet you, I know that all right.  But I never saw Quakers anywhere else,
+and I meant the tribe and not the tent.  English, I bet?  Of course, or
+you wouldn't be talking the English language--though I've heard they talk
+it better in Boston than they do in England, and in Chicago they're
+making new English every day and improving on the patent.  If Chicago
+can't have the newest thing, she won't have anything.  'High hopes that
+burn like stars sublime,' has Chicago.  She won't let Shakespeare or
+Milton be standards much longer.  She won't have it--simply won't have
+England swaggering over the English language.  Oh, she's dizzy, is
+Chicago--simply dizzy.  I was born there.  Parents, one Philadelphy, one
+New York, one Pawtucket--the Pawtucket one was the step-mother.  Father
+liked his wives from the original States; but I was born in Chicago.  My
+name is Lacey--Thomas Tilman Lacey of Chicago."
+
+"I thank thee," said David.
+
+"And you, sir?"
+
+"David Claridge."
+
+"Of--?"
+
+"Of Hamley."
+
+"Mr. Claridge of Hamley.  Mr. Claridge, I am glad to meet you."  They
+shook hands.  "Been here long, Mr. Claridge?"
+
+"A few months only."
+
+"Queer place--gilt-edged dust-bin; get anything you like here, from a
+fresh gutter-snipe to old Haroun-al-Raschid.  It's the biggest jack-pot
+on earth.  Barnum's the man for this place--P. T. Barnum.  Golly, how the
+whole thing glitters and stews!  Out of Shoobra his High Jinks Pasha
+kennels with his lions and lives with his cellars of gold, as if he was
+going to take them with him where he's going--and he's going fast.  Here
+--down here, the people, the real people, sweat and drudge between a cake
+of dourha, an onion, and a balass of water at one end of the day, and a
+hemp collar and their feet off the ground at the other."
+
+"You have seen much of Egypt?" asked David, feeling a strange confidence
+in the garrulous man, whose frankness was united to shrewdness and a
+quick, observant eye.
+
+"How much of Egypt I've seen, the Egypt where more men get lost, strayed,
+and stolen than die in their beds every day, the Egypt where a eunuch is
+more powerful than a minister, where an official will toss away a life as
+I'd toss this cigar down there where the last Mameluke captain made his
+great jump, where women--Lord A'mighty! where women are divorced by one
+evil husband, by the dozen, for nothing they ever did or left undone,
+and yet 'd be cut to pieces by their own fathers if they learned that
+'To step aside is human--'  Mr. Claridge, of that Egypt I don't know much
+more'n would entitle me to say, How d'ye do.  But it's enough for me.
+You've seen something--eh?"
+
+"A little.  It is not civilised life here.  Yet--yet a few strong
+patriotic men--"
+
+Lacey looked quizzically at David.
+
+"Say," he said, "I thought that about Mexico once.  I said Manana--
+this Manana is the curse of Mexico.  It's always to-morrow--to-morrow
+--to-morrow.  Let's teach 'em to do things to-day.  Let's show 'em what
+business means.  Two million dollars went into that experiment, but
+Manana won.  We had good hands, but it had the joker.  After five years
+I left, with a bald head at twenty-nine, and a little book of noble
+thoughts--Tips for the Tired, or Things you can say To-day on what you
+can do to-morrow.  I lost my hair worrying, but I learned to be patient.
+The Dagos wanted to live in their own way, and they did.  It's one thing
+to be a missionary and say the little word in season; it's another to
+run your soft red head against a hard stone wall.  I went to Mexico a
+conquistador, I left it a child of time, who had learned to smile; and
+I left some millions behind me, too.  I said to an old Padre down there
+that I knew--we used to meet in the Cafe Manrique and drink chocolate--
+I said to him, 'Padre, the Lord's Prayer is a mistake down here.'
+'Si, senor,' he said, and smiled his far-away smile at me.  'Yes,' said
+I, 'for you say in the Lord's Prayer, "Give us this day our daily
+bread."'  'Si, senor,' he says, 'but we do not expect it till to-morrow!'
+The Padre knew from the start, but I learned at great expense, and went
+out of business--closed up shop for ever, with a bald head and my Tips
+for the Tired.  Well, I've had more out of it all, I guess, than if I'd
+trebled the millions and wiped Manana off the Mexican coat of arms."
+
+"You think it would be like that here?" David asked abstractedly.
+
+Lacey whistled.  "There the Government was all right and the people all
+wrong.  Here the people are all right and the Government all wrong.  Say,
+it makes my eyes water sometimes to see the fellah slogging away.  He's a
+Jim-dandy--works all day and half the night, and if the tax-gatherer
+isn't at the door, wakes up laughing.  I saw one"--his light blue eyes
+took on a sudden hardness--"laughing on the other side of his mouth one
+morning.  They were 'kourbashing' his feet; I landed on them as the soles
+came away.  I hit out."  His face became grave, he turned the cigar round
+in his mouth.  "It made me feel better, but I had a close call.  Lucky
+for me that in Mexico I got into the habit of carrying a pop-gun.  It
+saved me then.  But it isn't any use going on these special missions.
+We Americans think a lot of ourselves.  We want every land to do as
+we do; and we want to make 'em do it.  But a strong man here at the
+head, with a sword in his hand, peace in his heart, who'd be just and
+poor--how can you make officials honest when you take all you can get
+yourself--!  But, no, I guess it's no good.  This is a rotten cotton
+show."
+
+Lacey had talked so much, not because he was garrulous only, but because
+the inquiry in David's eyes was an encouragement to talk.  Whatever his
+misfortunes in Mexico had been, his forty years sat lightly on him, and
+his expansive temperament, his childlike sentimentality, gave him an
+appearance of beaming, sophisticated youth.  David was slowly
+apprehending these things as he talked--subconsciously, as it were;
+for he was seeing pictures of the things he himself had observed, through
+the lens of another mind, as primitive in some regards as his own, but
+influenced by different experiences.
+
+"Say, you're the best listener I ever saw," added Lacey, with a laugh.
+
+David held out his hand.  "Thee sees things clearly," he answered.
+
+Lacey grasped his hand.
+
+At that moment an orderly advanced towards them.  "He's after us--one of
+the Palace cavalry," said Lacey.
+
+"Effendi--Claridge Effendi!  May his grave be not made till the karadh-
+gatherers return," said the orderly to David.
+
+"My name is Claridge," answered David.
+
+"To the hotel, effendi, first, then to the Mokattam Hills after thee,
+then here--from the Effendina, on whom be God's peace, this letter for
+thee."
+
+David took the letter.  "I thank thee, friend," he said.
+
+As he read it, Lacey said to the orderly in Arabic "How didst thou know
+he was here?"
+
+The orderly grinned wickedly.
+
+"Always it is known what place the effendi honours.  It is not dark where
+he uncovers his face."
+
+Lacey gave a low whistle.
+
+"Say, you've got a pull in this show," he said, as David folded up the
+letter and put it in his pocket.
+
+"In Egypt, if the master smiles on you, the servant puts his nose in the
+dust."
+
+"The Prince Pasha bids me to dinner at the Palace to-night.  I have no
+clothes for such affairs.  Yet--" His mind was asking itself if this was
+a door opening, which he had no right to shut with his own hand.  There
+was no reason why he should not go; therefore there might be a reason why
+he should go.  It might be, it no doubt was, in the way of facilitating
+his business.  He dismissed the orderly with an affirmative and
+ceremonial message to Prince Kaid--and a piece of gold.
+
+"You've learned the custom of the place," said Lacey, as he saw the gold
+piece glitter in the brown palm of the orderly.
+
+"I suppose the man's only pay is in such service," rejoined David.
+"It is a land of backsheesh.  The fault is not with the people; it is
+with the rulers.  I am not sorry to share my goods with the poor."
+
+"You'll have a big going concern here in no time," observed Lacey.  "Now,
+if I had those millions I left in Mexico--"  Suddenly he stopped.  "Is it
+you that's trying to settle up an estate here--at Assiout--belonged to an
+uncle?"
+
+David inclined his head.
+
+"They say that you and Prince Kaid are doing the thing yourselves, and
+that the pashas and judges and all the high-mogul sharks of the Medjidie
+think that the end of the world has come.  Is that so?"
+
+"It is so, if not completely so.  There are the poor men and humble--the
+pashas and judges and the others of the Medjidie, as thee said, are not
+poor.  But such as the orderly yonder--"  He paused meditatively.
+
+Lacey looked at David with profound respect.  "You make the poorest
+your partners, your friends.  I see, I see.  Jerusalem, that's masterly!
+I admire you.  It's a new way in this country."  Then, after a moment:
+"It'll do--by golly, it'll do!  Not a bit more costly, and you do some
+good with it.  Yes--it--will--do."
+
+"I have given no man money save in charity and for proper service done
+openly," said David, a little severely.
+
+"Say--of course.  And that's just what isn't done here.  Everything goes
+to him who hath, and from him who hath not is taken away even that which
+he hath.  One does the work and another gets paid--that's the way here.
+But you, Mr. Claridge, you clinch with the strong man at the top, and,
+down below, you've got as your partners the poor man, whose name is
+Legion.  If you get a fall out of the man at the top, you're solid with
+the Legion.  And if the man at the top gets up again and salaams and
+strokes your hand, and says, 'Be my brother,' then it's a full Nile, and
+the fig-tree putteth forth its tender branches, and the date-palm
+flourisheth, and at the village pond the thanksgiving turkey gobbles and
+is glad.  'Selah'!"
+
+The sunset gun boomed out from the citadel.  David turned to go, and
+Lacey added:
+
+"I'm waiting for a pasha who's taking toll of the officers inside there
+--Achmet Pasha.  They call him the Ropemaker, because so many pass
+through his hands to the Nile.  The Old Muslin I call him, because he's
+so diaphanous.  Thinks nobody can see through him, and there's nobody
+that can't.  If you stay long in Egypt, you'll find that Achmet is the
+worst, and Nahoum the Armenian the deepest, pasha in all this sickening
+land.  Achmet is cruel as a tiger to any one that stands in his way;
+Nahoum, the whale, only opens out to swallow now and then; but when
+Nahoum does open out, down goes Jonah, and never comes up again.  He's a
+deep one, and a great artist is Nahoum.  I'll bet a dollar you'll see
+them both to-night at the Palace--if Kaid doesn't throw them to the lions
+for their dinner before yours is served.  Here one shark is swallowed by
+another bigger, till at last the only and original sea-serpent swallows
+'em all."
+
+As David wound his way down the hills, Lacey waved a hand after him.
+
+"Well, give my love to the girls," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+"HAST THOU NEVER KILLED A MAN?"
+
+"Claridge Effendi!"
+
+As David moved forward, his mind was embarrassed by many impressions.
+He was not confused, but the glitter and splendour, the Oriental
+gorgeousness of the picture into which he stepped, excited his eye,
+roused some new sense in him.  He was a curious figure in those
+surroundings.  The consuls and agents of all the nations save one were
+in brilliant uniform, and pashas, generals, and great officials were
+splendid in gold braid and lace, and wore flashing Orders on their
+breasts.  David had been asked for half-past eight o'clock, and he was
+there on the instant; yet here was every one assembled, the Prince Pasha
+included.  As he walked up the room he suddenly realised this fact, and,
+for a moment, he thought he had made a mistake; but again he remembered
+distinctly that the letter said half-past eight, and he wondered now if
+this had been arranged by the Prince--for what purpose?  To afford
+amusement to the assembled company?  He drew himself up with dignity,
+his face became graver.  He had come in a Quaker suit of black
+broadcloth, with grey steel buttons, and a plain white stock; and he wore
+his broad-brimmed hat--to the consternation of the British Consul-General
+and the Europeans present, to the amazement of the Turkish and native
+officials, who eyed him keenly.  They themselves wore red tarbooshes, as
+did the Prince; yet all of them knew that the European custom of showing
+respect was by doffing the hat.  The Prince Pasha had settled that with
+David, however, at their first meeting, when David had kept on his hat
+and offered Kaid his hand.
+
+Now, with amusement in his eyes, Prince Kaid watched David coming up the
+great hall.  What his object was in summoning David for an hour when all
+the court and all the official Europeans should be already present,
+remained to be seen.  As David entered, Kaid was busy receiving salaams,
+and returning greeting, but with an eye to the singularly boyish yet
+gallant figure approaching.  By the time David had reached the group, the
+Prince Pasha was ready to receive him.
+
+"Friend, I am glad to welcome thee," said the Effendina, sly humour
+lurking at the corner of his eye.  Conscious of the amazement of all
+present, he held out his hand to David.
+
+"May thy coming be as the morning dew, friend," he added, taking David's
+willing hand.
+
+"And thy feet, Kaid, wall in goodly paths, by the grace of God the
+compassionate and merciful."
+
+As a wind, unfelt, stirs the leaves of a forest, making it rustle
+delicately, a whisper swept through the room.  Official Egypt was
+dumfounded.  Many had heard of David, a few had seen him, and now all
+eyed with inquisitive interest one who defied so many of the customs of
+his countrymen; who kept on his hat; who used a Mahommedan salutation
+like a true believer; whom the Effendina honoured--and presently honoured
+in an unusual degree by seating him at table opposite himself, where his
+Chief Chamberlain was used to sit.
+
+During dinner Kaid addressed his conversation again and again to David,
+asking questions put to disconcert the consuls and other official folk
+present, confident in the naive reply which would be returned.  For there
+was a keen truthfulness in the young man's words which, however suave and
+carefully balanced, however gravely simple and tactful, left no doubt as
+to their meaning.  There was nothing in them which could be challenged,
+could be construed into active criticism of men or things; and yet much
+he said was horrifying.  It made Achmet Pasha sit up aghast, and Nahoum
+Pasha, the astute Armenian, for a long time past the confidant and
+favourite of the Prince Pasha, laugh in his throat; for, if there was
+a man in Egypt who enjoyed the thrust of a word or the bite of a phrase,
+it was Nahoum.  Christian though he was, he was, nevertheless, Oriental
+to his farthermost corner, and had the culture of a French savant.  He
+had also the primitive view of life, and the morals of a race who, in the
+clash of East and West, set against Western character and directness, and
+loyalty to the terms of a bargain, the demoralised cunning of the desert
+folk; the circuitous tactics of those who believed that no man spoke the
+truth directly, that it must ever be found beneath devious and misleading
+words, to be tracked like a panther, as an Antipodean bushman once said,
+"through the sinuosities of the underbrush."  Nahoum Pasha had also a
+rich sense of grim humour.  Perhaps that was why he had lived so near the
+person of the Prince, had held office so long.  There were no Grand
+Viziers in Egypt; but he was as much like one as possible, and he had one
+uncommon virtue, he was greatly generous.  If he took with his right hand
+he gave with his left; and Mahommedan as well as Copt and Armenian, and
+beggars of every race and creed, hung about his doors each morning to
+receive the food and alms he gave freely.
+
+After one of David's answers to Kaid, which had had the effect of causing
+his Highness to turn a sharp corner of conversation by addressing himself
+to the French consul, Nahoum said suavely:
+
+"And so, monsieur, you think that we hold life lightly in the East--that
+it is a characteristic of civilisation to make life more sacred, to
+cherish it more fondly?"
+
+He was sitting beside David, and though he asked the question casually,
+and with apparent intention only of keeping talk going, there was a
+lurking inquisition in his eye.  He had seen enough to-night to make him
+sure that Kaid had once more got the idea of making a European his
+confidant and adviser; to introduce to his court one of those mad
+Englishmen who cared nothing for gold--only for power; who loved
+administration for the sake of administration and the foolish joy of
+labour.  He was now set to see what sort of match this intellect could
+play, when faced by the inherent contradictions present in all truths or
+the solutions of all problems.
+
+"It is one of the characteristics of that which lies behind civilisation,
+as thee and me have been taught," answered David.
+
+Nahoum was quick in strategy, but he was unprepared for David's knowledge
+that he was an Armenian Christian, and he had looked for another answer.
+
+But he kept his head and rose to the occasion.  "Ah, it is high, it is
+noble, to save life--it is so easy to destroy it," he answered.  "I saw
+his Highness put his life in danger once to save a dog from drowning.  To
+cherish the lives of others, and to be careless of our own; to give that
+of great value as though it were of no worth--is it not the Great
+Lesson?"  He said it with such an air of sincerity, with such
+dissimulation, that, for the moment, David was deceived.  There was,
+however, on the face of the listening Kaid a curious, cynical smile.
+He had heard all, and he knew the sardonic meaning behind Nahoum's words.
+
+Fat High Pasha, the Chief Chamberlain, the corrupt and corruptible,
+intervened.  "It is not so hard to be careless when care would be
+useless," he said, with a chuckle.  "When the khamsin blows the dust-
+storms upon the caravan, the camel-driver hath no care for his camels.
+'Malaish!' he says, and buries his face in his yelek."
+
+"Life is beautiful and so difficult--to save," observed Nahoum, in a tone
+meant to tempt David on one hand and to reach the ears of the notorious
+Achmet Pasha, whose extortions, cruelties, and taxations had built his
+master's palaces, bribed his harem, given him money to pay the interest
+on his European loans, and made himself the richest man in Egypt, whose
+spies were everywhere, whose shadow was across every man's path.  Kaid
+might slay, might toss a pasha or a slave into the Nile now and then,
+might invite a Bey to visit him, and stroke his beard and call him
+brother and put diamond-dust in the coffee he drank, so that he died
+before two suns came and went again, "of inflammation and a natural
+death"; but he, Achmet Pasha, was the dark Inquisitor who tortured every
+day, for whose death all men prayed, and whom some would have slain, but
+that another worse than himself might succeed him.
+
+At Nahoum's words the dusky brown of Achmet's face turned as black as the
+sudden dilation of the pupil of an eye deepens its hue, and he said with
+a guttural accent:
+
+"Every man hath a time to die."
+
+"But not his own time," answered Nahoum maliciously.
+
+"It would appear that in Egypt he hath not always the choice of the
+fashion or the time," remarked David calmly.  He had read the malice
+behind their words, and there had flashed into his own mind tales told
+him, with every circumstance of accuracy, of deaths within and without
+the Palace.  Also he was now aware that Nahoum had mocked him.  He was
+concerned to make it clear that he was not wholly beguiled.
+
+"Is there, then, for a man choice of fashion or time in England,
+effendi?" asked Nahoum, with assumed innocence.
+
+"In England it is a matter between the Giver and Taker of life and
+himself--save where murder does its work," said David.
+
+"And here it is between man and man--is it that you would say?" asked
+Nahoum.
+
+"There seem wider privileges here," answered David drily.
+
+"Accidents will happen, privileges or no," rejoined Nahoum, with lowering
+eyelids.
+
+The Prince intervened.  "Thy own faith forbids the sword, forbids war,
+or--punishment."
+
+"The Prophet I follow was called the Prince of Peace, friend," answered
+David, bowing gravely across the table.
+
+"Hast thou never killed a man?" asked Kaid, with interest in his eyes.
+He asked the question as a man might ask another if he had never visited
+Paris.
+
+"Never, by the goodness of God, never," answered David.
+
+"Neither in punishment nor in battle?"
+
+"I am neither judge nor soldier, friend."
+
+"Inshallah, thou hast yet far to go!  Thou art young yet.  Who can tell?"
+
+"I have never so far to go as that, friend," said David, in a voice that
+rang a little.
+
+"To-morrow is no man's gift."
+
+David was about to answer, but chancing to raise his eyes above the
+Prince Pasha's head, his glance was arrested and startled by seeing a
+face--the face of a woman-looking out of a panel in a mooshrabieh screen
+in a gallery above.  He would not have dwelt upon the incident, he would
+have set it down to the curiosity of a woman of the harem, but that the
+face looking out was that of an English girl, and peering over her
+shoulder was the dark, handsome face of an Egyptian or a Turk.
+
+Self-control was the habit of his life, the training of his faith,
+and, as a rule, his face gave little evidence of inner excitement.
+Demonstration was discouraged, if not forbidden, among the Quakers, and
+if, to others, it gave a cold and austere manner, in David it tempered to
+a warm stillness the powerful impulses in him, the rivers of feeling
+which sometimes roared through his veins.
+
+Only Nahoum Pasha had noticed his arrested look, so motionless did he
+sit; and now, without replying, he bowed gravely and deferentially to
+Kaid, who rose from the table.  He followed with the rest.  Presently the
+Prince sent Higli Pasha to ask his nearer presence.
+
+The Prince made a motion of his hand, and the circle withdrew.  He waved
+David to a seat.
+
+"To-morrow thy business shall be settled," said the Prince suavely, "and
+on such terms as will not startle.  Death-tribute is no new thing in the
+East.  It is fortunate for thee that the tribute is from thy hand to my
+hand, and not through many others to mine."
+
+"I am conscious I have been treated with favour, friend," said David.
+"I would that I might show thee kindness.  Though how may a man of no
+account make return to a great Prince?"
+
+"By the beard of my father, it is easily done, if thy kindness is a real
+thing, and not that which makes me poorer the more I have of it--as
+though one should be given a herd of horses which must not be sold but
+still must be fed."
+
+"I have given thee truth.  Is not truth cheaper than falsehood?"
+
+"It is the most expensive thing in Egypt; so that I despair of buying
+thee.  Yet I would buy thee to remain here--here at my court; here by my
+hand which will give thee the labour thou lovest, and will defend thee if
+defence be needed.  Thou hast not greed, thou hast no thirst for honour,
+yet thou hast wisdom beyond thy years.  Kaid has never besought men, but
+he beseeches thee.  Once there was in Egypt, Joseph, a wise youth, who
+served a Pharaoh, and was his chief counsellor, and it was well with the
+land.  Thy name is a good name; well-being may follow thee.  The ages
+have gone, and the rest of the world has changed, but Egypt is the same
+Egypt, the Nile rises and falls, and the old lean years and fat years
+come and go.  Though I am in truth a Turk, and those who serve and rob me
+here are Turks, yet the fellah is the same as he was five thousand years
+ago.  What Joseph the Israelite did, thou canst do; for I am no more
+unjust than was that Rameses whom Joseph served.  Wilt thou stay with
+me?"
+
+David looked at Kaid as though he would read in his face the reply that
+he must make, but he did not see Kaid; he saw, rather, the face of one he
+had loved more than Jonathan had been loved by the young shepherd-prince
+of Israel.  In his ears he heard the voice that had called him in his
+sleep-the voice of Benn Claridge; and, at the same instant, there flashed
+into his mind a picture of himself fighting outside the tavern beyond
+Hamley and bidding farewell to the girl at the crossroads.
+
+"Friend, I cannot answer thee now," he said, in a troubled voice.
+
+Kaid rose.  "I will give thee an hour to think upon it.  Come with me."
+He stepped forward.  "To-morrow I will answer thee, Kaid."
+
+"To-morrow there is work for thee to do.  Come."  David followed him.
+
+The eyes that followed the Prince and the Quaker were not friendly.  What
+Kaid had long foreshadowed seemed at hand: the coming of a European
+counsellor and confidant.  They realised that in the man who had just
+left the room with Kaid there were characteristics unlike those they had
+ever met before in Europeans.
+
+"A madman," whispered High Pasha to Achmet the Ropemaker.
+
+"Then his will be the fate of the swine of Gadarene," said Nahoum Pasha,
+who had heard.
+
+"At least one need not argue with a madman."  The face of Achmet the
+Ropemaker was not more pleasant than his dark words.
+
+"It is not the madman with whom you have to deal, but his keeper,"
+rejoined Nahoum.
+
+Nahoum's face was heavier than usual.  Going to weight, he was still
+muscular and well groomed.  His light brown beard and hair and blue eyes
+gave him a look almost Saxon, and bland power spoke in his face and in
+every gesture.
+
+He was seldom without the string of beads so many Orientals love to
+carry, and, Armenian Christian as he was, the act seemed almost
+religious.  It was to him, however, like a ground-wire in telegraphy--
+it carried off the nervous force tingling in him and driving him to
+impulsive action, while his reputation called for a constant outward
+urbanity, a philosophical apathy.  He had had his great fight for place
+and power, alien as he was in religion, though he had lived in Egypt
+since a child.  Bar to progress as his religion had been at first, it had
+been an advantage afterwards; for, through it, he could exclude himself
+from complications with the Wakfs, the religious court of the Muslim
+creed, which had lands to administer, and controlled the laws of marriage
+and inheritance.  He could shrug his shoulders and play with his beads,
+and urbanely explain his own helplessness and ineligibility when his
+influence was summoned, or it was sought to entangle him in warring
+interests.  Oriental through and through, the basis of his creed was
+similar to that of a Muslim: Mahomet was a prophet and Christ was a
+prophet.  It was a case of rival prophets--all else was obscured into a
+legend, and he saw the strife of race in the difference of creed.  For
+the rest, he flourished the salutations and language of the Arab as
+though they were his own, and he spoke Arabic as perfectly as he did
+French and English.
+
+He was the second son of his father.  The first son, who was but a year
+older, and was as dark as he was fair, had inherited--had seized--all his
+father's wealth.  He had lived abroad for some years in France and
+England.  In the latter place he had been one of the Turkish Embassy,
+and, having none of the outward characteristics of the Turk, and being
+in appearance more of a Spaniard than an Oriental, he had, by his gifts,
+his address and personal appearance, won the good-will of the Duchess of
+Middlesex, and had had that success all too flattering to the soul of a
+libertine.  It had, however, been the means of his premature retirement
+from England, for his chief at the Embassy had a preference for an
+Oriental entourage.  He was called Foorgat Bey.
+
+Sitting at table, Nahoum alone of all present had caught David's arrested
+look, and, glancing up, had seen the girl's face at the panel of
+mooshrabieh, and had seen also over her shoulder the face of his brother,
+Foorgat Bey.  He had been even more astonished than David, and far more
+disturbed.  He knew his brother's abilities; he knew his insinuating
+address--had he not influenced their father to give him wealth while he
+was yet alive?  He was aware also that his brother had visited the Palace
+often of late.  It would seem as though the Prince Pasha was ready to
+make him, as well as David, a favourite.  But the face of the girl--it
+was an English face!  Familiar with the Palace, and bribing when it was
+necessary to bribe, Foorgat Bey had evidently brought her to see the
+function, there where all women were forbidden.  He could little imagine
+Foorgat doing this from mere courtesy; he could not imagine any woman,
+save one wholly sophisticated, or one entirely innocent, trusting herself
+with him--and in such a place.  The girl's face, though not that of one
+in her teens, had seemed to him a very flower of innocence.
+
+But, as he stood telling his beads, abstractedly listening to the scandal
+talked by Achmet and Higli, he was not thinking of his brother, but of
+the two who had just left the chamber.  He was speculating as to which
+room they were likely to enter.  They had not gone by the door convenient
+to passage to Kaid's own apartments.  He would give much to hear the
+conversation between Kaid and the stranger; he was all too conscious of
+its purport.  As he stood thinking, Kaid returned.  After looking round
+the room for a moment, the Prince came slowly over to Nahoum, and,
+stretching out a hand, stroked his beard.
+
+"Oh, brother of all the wise, may thy sun never pass its noon!" said
+Kaid, in a low, friendly voice.
+
+Despite his will, a shudder passed through Nahoum Pasha's frame.
+How often in Egypt this gesture and such words were the prelude to
+assassination, from which there was no escape save by death itself.  Into
+Nahoum's mind there flashed the words of an Arab teacher, "There is no
+refuge from God but God Himself," and he found himself blindly wondering,
+even as he felt Kaid's hand upon his beard and listened to the honeyed
+words, what manner of death was now preparing for him, and what death of
+his own contriving should intervene.  Escape, he knew, there was none, if
+his death was determined on; for spies were everywhere, and slaves in the
+pay of Kaid were everywhere, and such as were not could be bought or
+compelled, even if he took refuge in the house of a foreign consul.  The
+lean, invisible, ghastly arm of death could find him, if Kaid willed,
+though he delved in the bowels of the Cairene earth, or climbed to an
+eagle's eyrie in the Libyan Hills.  Whether it was diamond-dust or
+Achmet's thin thong that stopped the breath, it mattered not; it was
+sure.  Yet he was not of the breed to tremble under the descending sword,
+and he had long accustomed himself to the chance of "sudden demise."  It
+had been chief among the chances he had taken when he entered the high
+and perilous service of Kaid.  Now, as he felt the secret joy of these
+dark spirits surrounding him--Achmet, and High Pasha, who kept saying
+beneath his breath in thankfulness that it was not his turn, Praise be to
+God!--as he, felt their secret self-gratulations, and their evil joy over
+his prospective downfall, he settled himself steadily, made a low
+salutation to Kaid, and calmly awaited further speech.  It came soon
+enough.
+
+"It is written upon a cucumber leaf--does not the world read it?--that
+Nahoum Pasha's form shall cast a longer shadow than the trees; so that
+every man in Egypt shall, thinking on him, be as covetous as Ashaah, who
+knew but one thing more covetous than himself--the sheep that mistook the
+rainbow for a rope of hay, and, jumping for it, broke his neck."
+
+Kaid laughed softly at his own words.
+
+With his eye meeting Kaid's again, after a low salaam, Nahoum made
+answer:
+
+"I would that the lance of my fame might sheathe itself in the breasts of
+thy enemies, Effendina."
+
+"Thy tongue does that office well," was the reply.  Once more Kaid laid
+a gentle hand upon Nahoum's beard.  Then, with a gesture towards the
+consuls and Europeans, he said to them in French: "If I might but beg
+your presence for yet a little time!"  Then he turned and walked away.
+He left by a door leading to his own apartments.
+
+When he had gone, Nahoum swung slowly round and faced the agitated
+groups.
+
+"He who sleeps with one eye open sees the sun rise first," he said, with
+a sarcastic laugh.  "He who goes blindfold never sees it set."
+
+Then, with a complacent look upon them all, he slowly left the room by
+the door out of which David and Kaid had first passed.
+
+Outside the room his face did not change.  His manner had not been
+bravado.  It was as natural to him as David's manner was to himself.
+Each had trained himself in his own way to the mastery of his will, and
+the will in each was stronger than any passion of emotion in them.  So
+far at least it had been so.  In David it was the outcome of his faith,
+in Nahoum it was the outcome of his philosophy, a simple, fearless
+fatalism.
+
+David had been left by Kaid in a small room, little more than an alcove,
+next to a larger room richly furnished.  Both rooms belonged to a
+spacious suite which lay between the harem and the major portion of the
+Palace.  It had its own entrance and exits from the Palace, opening on
+the square at the front, at the back opening on its own garden, which
+also had its own exits to the public road.  The quarters of the Chief
+Eunuch separated the suite from the harem, and Mizraim, the present Chief
+Eunuch, was a man of power in the Palace, knew more secrets, was more
+courted, and was richer than some of the princes.  Nahoum had an office
+in the Palace, also, which gave him the freedom of the place, and brought
+him often in touch with the Chief Eunuch.  He had made Mizraim a fast
+friend ever since the day he had, by an able device, saved the Chief
+Eunuch from determined robbery by the former Prince Pasha, with whom he
+had suddenly come out of favour.
+
+When Nahoum left the great salon, he directed his steps towards the
+quarters of the Chief Eunuch, thinking of David, with a vague desire for
+pursuit and conflict.  He was too much of a philosopher to seek to do
+David physical injury--a futile act; for it could do him no good in the
+end, could not mend his own fortunes; and, merciless as he could be on
+occasion, he had no love of bloodshed.  Besides, the game afoot was not
+of his making, and he was ready to await the finish, the more so because
+he was sure that to-morrow would bring forth momentous things.  There was
+a crisis in the Soudan, there was trouble in the army, there was dark
+conspiracy of which he knew the heart, and anything might happen
+to-morrow!  He had yet some cards to play, and Achmet and Higli--and
+another very high and great--might be delivered over to Kaid's deadly
+purposes rather than himself tomorrow.  What he knew Kaid did not know.
+He had not meant to act yet; but new facts faced him, and he must make
+one struggle for his life.  But as he went towards Mizraim's quarters he
+saw no sure escape from the stage of those untoward events, save by the
+exit which is for all in some appointed hour.
+
+He was not, however, more perplexed and troubled than David, who, in the
+little room where he had been brought and left alone with coffee and
+cigarettes, served by a slave from some distant portion of the Palace,
+sat facing his future.
+
+David looked round the little room.  Upon the walls hung weapons of every
+kind--from a polished dagger of Toledo to a Damascus blade, suits of
+chain armour, long-handled, two-edged Arab swords, pistols which had been
+used in the Syrian wars of Ibrahim, lances which had been taken from the
+Druses at Palmyra, rude battle-axes from the tribes of the Soudan, and
+neboots of dom-wood which had done service against Napoleon at Damietta.
+The cushions among which he sat had come from Constantinople, the rug at
+his feet from Tiflis, the prayer-rug on the wall from Mecca.
+
+All that he saw was as unlike what he had known in past years as though
+he had come to Mars or Jupiter.  All that he had heard recalled to him
+his first readings in the Old Testament--the story of Nebuchadnezzar, of
+Belshazzar, of Ahasuerus--of Ahasuerus!  He suddenly remembered the face
+he had seen looking down at the Prince's table from the panel of
+mooshrabieh.  That English face--where was it?  Why was it there?  Who
+was the man with her?  Whose the dark face peering scornfully over her
+shoulder?  The face of an English girl in that place dedicated to sombre
+intrigue, to the dark effacement of women, to the darker effacement of
+life, as he well knew, all too often!  In looking at this prospect for
+good work in the cause of civilisation, he was not deceived, he was not
+allured.  He knew into what subterranean ways he must walk, through what
+mazes of treachery and falsehood he must find his way; and though he did
+not know to the full the corruption which it was his duty to Kaid to turn
+to incorruption, he knew enough to give his spirit pause.  What would be
+--what could be--the end?  Would he not prove to be as much out of place
+as was the face of that English girl?  The English girl!  England rushed
+back upon him--the love of those at home; of his father, the only father
+he had ever known; of Faith, the only mother or sister he had ever known;
+of old John Fairley; the love of the woods and the hills where he had
+wandered came upon him.  There was work to do in England, work too little
+done--the memory of the great meeting at Heddington flashed upon him.
+Could his labour and his skill, if he had any, not be used there?  Ah,
+the green fields, the soft grey skies, the quiet vale, the brave, self-
+respecting, toiling millions, the beautiful sense of law and order and
+goodness!  Could his gifts and labours not be used there?  Could not--
+
+He was suddenly startled by a smothered cry, then a call of distress.
+It was the voice of a woman.
+
+He started up.  The voice seemed to come from a room at his right; not
+that from which he had entered, but one still beyond this where he was.
+He sprang towards the wall and examined it swiftly.  Finding a division
+in the tapestry, he ran his fingers quickly and heavily down the crack
+between.  It came upon the button of a spring.  He pressed it, the door
+yielded, and, throwing it back, he stepped into the room-to see a woman
+struggling to resist the embraces and kisses of a man.  The face was that
+of the girl who had looked out of the panel in the mooshrabieh screen.
+Then it was beautiful in its mirth and animation, now it was pale and
+terror-stricken, as with one free hand she fiercely beat the face pressed
+to hers.
+
+The girl only had seen David enter.  The man was not conscious of his
+presence till he was seized and flung against the wall.  The violence of
+the impact brought down at his feet two weapons from the wall above him.
+He seized one-a dagger-and sprang to his feet.  Before he could move
+forward or raise his arm, however, David struck him a blow in the neck
+which flung him upon a square marble pedestal intended for a statue.  In
+falling his head struck violently a sharp corner of the pedestal.  He
+lurched, rolled over on the floor, and lay still.
+
+The girl gave a choking cry.  David quickly stooped and turned the body
+over.  There was a cut where the hair met the temple.  He opened the
+waistcoat and thrust his hand inside the shirt.  Then he felt the pulse
+of the limp wrist.
+
+For a moment he looked at the face steadily, almost contemplatively it
+might have seemed, and then drew both arms close to the body.
+
+Foorgat Bey, the brother of Nahoum Pasha, was dead.
+
+Rising, David turned, as if in a dream, to the girl.  He made a motion of
+the hand towards the body.  She understood.  Dismay was in her face, but
+the look of horror and desperation was gone.  She seemed not to realise,
+as did David, the awful position in which they were placed, the deed
+which David had done, the significance of the thing that lay at their
+feet.
+
+"Where are thy people?" said David.  "Come, we will go to them."
+
+"I have no people here," she said, in a whisper.
+
+"Who brought thee?"
+
+She made a motion behind her towards the body.  David glanced down.  The
+eyes of the dead man were open.  He stooped and closed them gently.  The
+collar and tie were disarranged; he straightened them, then turned again
+to her.
+
+"I must take thee away," he said calmly.  "But it must be secretly."  He
+looked around, perplexed.  "We came secretly.  My maid is outside the
+garden--in a carriage.  Oh, come, let us go, let us escape.  They will
+kill you--!"  Terror came into her face again.  "Thee, not me, is in
+danger--name, goodness, future, all.  .  .  .  Which way did thee come?"
+
+"Here--through many rooms--" She made a gesture to curtains beyond.
+"But we first entered through doors with sphinxes on either side,
+with a room where was a statue of Mehemet Ali."
+
+It was the room through which David had come with Kaid.  He took her
+hand.  "Come quickly.  I know the way.  It is here," he said, pointing to
+the panel-door by which he had entered.
+
+Holding her hand still, as though she were a child, he led her quickly
+from the room, and shut the panel behind them.  As they passed through,
+a hand drew aside the curtains on the other side of the room which they
+were leaving.
+
+Presently the face of Nahoum Pasha followed the hand.  A swift glance to
+the floor, then he ran forward, stooped down, and laid a hand on his
+brother's breast.  The slight wound on the forehead answered his rapid
+scrutiny.  He realised the situation as plainly as if it had been written
+down for him--he knew his brother well.
+
+Noiselessly he moved forward and touched the spring of the door through
+which the two had gone.  It yielded, and he passed through, closed the
+door again and stealthily listened, then stole a look into the farther
+chamber.  It was empty.  He heard the outer doors close.  For a moment he
+listened, then went forward and passed through into the hall.  Softly
+turning the handle of the big wooden doors which faced him, he opened
+them an inch or so, and listened.  He could hear swiftly retreating
+footsteps.  Presently he heard the faint noise of a gate shutting.  He
+nodded his head, and was about to close the doors and turn away, when his
+quick ear detected footsteps again in the garden.  Some one--the man,
+of course--was returning.
+
+"May fire burn his eyes for ever!  He would talk with Kald, then go again
+among them all, and so pass out unsuspected and safe.  For who but I--who
+but I could say he did it?  And I--what is my proof?  Only the words
+which I speak."
+
+A scornful, fateful smile passed over his face.  "'Hast thou never killed
+a man?' said Kaid.  'Never,' said he--'by the goodness of God, never!'
+The voice of Him of Galilee, the hand of Cain, the craft of Jael.  But
+God is with the patient."
+
+He went hastily and noiselessly-his footfall was light for so heavy a
+man-through the large room to the farther side from that by which David
+and Kaid had first entered.  Drawing behind a clump of palms near a door
+opening to a passage leading to Mizraim's quarters, he waited.  He saw
+David enter quickly, yet without any air of secrecy, and pass into the
+little room where Kaid had left him.
+
+For a long time there was silence.
+
+The reasons were clear in Nahoum's mind why he should not act yet.  A new
+factor had changed the equation which had presented itself a short half
+hour ago.
+
+A new factor had also entered into the equation which had been presented
+to David by Kaid with so flattering an insistence.  He sat in the place
+where Kaid had left him, his face drawn and white, his eyes burning, but
+with no other "sign of agitation.  He was frozen and still.  His look was
+fastened now upon the door by which the Prince Pasha would enter, now
+upon the door through which he had passed to the rescue of the English
+girl, whom he had seen drive off safely with her maid.  In their swift
+passage from the Palace to the carriage, a thing had been done of even
+greater moment than the killing of the sensualist in the next room.  In
+the journey to the gateway the girl David served had begged him to escape
+with her.  This he had almost sharply declined; it would be no escape, he
+had said.  She had urged that no one knew.  He had replied that Kaid
+would come again for him, and suspicion would be aroused if he were gone.
+
+"Thee has safety," he had said.  "I will go back.  I will say that I
+killed him.  I have taken a life, I will pay for it as is the law."
+
+Excited as she was, she had seen the inflexibility of his purpose.  She
+had seen the issue also clearly.  He would give himself up, and the whole
+story would be the scandal of Europe.
+
+"You have no right to save me only to kill me," she had said desperately.
+"You would give your life, but you would destroy that which is more than
+life to me.  You did not intend to kill him.  It was no murder, it was
+punishment."  Her voice had got harder.  "He would have killed my life
+because he was evil.  Will you kill it because you are good?  Will you be
+brave, quixotic, but not pitiful?  .  .  .  No, no, no!" she had said,
+as his hand was upon the gate, "I will not go unless you promise that you
+will hide the truth, if you can."  She had laid her hand upon his
+shoulder with an agonised impulse.  "You will hide it for a girl who will
+cherish your memory her whole life long.  Ah--God bless you!"
+
+She had felt that she conquered before he spoke as, indeed, he did not
+speak, but nodded his head and murmured something indistinctly.  But that
+did not matter, for she had won; she had a feeling that all would be
+well.  Then he had placed her in her carriage, and she was driven swiftly
+away, saying to herself half hysterically: "I am safe, I am safe.  He
+will keep his word."
+
+Her safety and his promise were the new factor which changed the equation
+for which Kaid would presently ask the satisfaction.  David's life had
+suddenly come upon problems for which his whole past was no preparation.
+Conscience, which had been his guide in every situation, was now
+disarmed, disabled, and routed.  It had come to terms.
+
+In going quickly through the room, they had disarranged a table.  The
+girl's cloak had swept over it, and a piece of brie-a-brae had been
+thrown upon the floor.  He got up and replaced it with an attentive air.
+He rearranged the other pieces on the table mechanically, seeing, feeling
+another scene, another inanimate thing which must be for ever and for
+ever a picture burning in his memory.  Yet he appeared to be casually
+doing a trivial and necessary act.  He did not definitely realise his
+actions; but long afterwards he could have drawn an accurate plan of the
+table, could have reproduced upon it each article in its exact place as
+correctly as though it had been photographed.  There were one or two
+spots of dust or dirt on the floor, brought in by his boots from the
+garden.  He flicked them aside with his handkerchief.
+
+How still it was!  Or was it his life which had become so still?  It
+seemed as if the world must be noiseless, for not a sound of the life in
+other parts of the Palace came to him, not an echo or vibration of the
+city which stirred beyond the great gateway.  Was it the chilly hand of
+death passing over everything, and smothering all the activities?  His
+pulses, which, but a few minutes past, were throbbing and pounding like
+drums in his ears, seemed now to flow and beat in very quiet.  Was this,
+then, the way that murderers felt, that men felt who took human life--so
+frozen, so little a part of their surroundings?  Did they move as dead
+men among the living, devitalised, vacuous calm?
+
+His life had been suddenly twisted out of recognition.  All that his
+habit, his code, his morals, his religion, had imposed upon him had been
+overturned in one moment.  To take a human life, even in battle, was
+against the code by which he had ever been governed, yet he had taken
+life secretly, and was hiding it from the world.
+
+Accident?  But had it been necessary to strike at all?  His presence
+alone would have been enough to save the girl from further molestation;
+but, he had thrown himself upon the man like a tiger.  Yet, somehow, he
+felt no sorrow for that.  He knew that if again and yet again he were
+placed in the same position he would do even as he had done--even as he
+had done with the man Kimber by the Fox and Goose tavern beyond Hamley.
+He knew that the blow he had given then was inevitable, and he had never
+felt real repentance.  Thinking of that blow, he saw its sequel in the
+blow he had given now.  Thus was that day linked with the present, thus
+had a blow struck in punishment of the wrong done the woman at the
+crossroads been repeated in the wrong done the girl who had just left
+him.
+
+A sound now broke the stillness.  It was a door shutting not far off.
+Kaid was coming.  David turned his face towards the room where Foorgat
+Bey was lying dead.  He lifted his arms with a sudden passionate gesture.
+The blood came rushing through his veins again.  His life, which had
+seemed suspended, was set free; and an exaltation of sorrow, of pain, of
+action, possessed him.
+
+"I have taken a life, O my God!" he murmured.  "Accept mine in service
+for this land.  What I have done in secret, let me atone for in secret,
+for this land--for this poor land, for Christ's sake!"
+
+Footsteps were approaching quickly.  With a great effort of the will he
+ruled himself to quietness again.  Kaid entered, and stood before him in
+silence.  David rose.  He looked Kaid steadily in the eyes.  "Well?"
+said Kaid placidly.
+
+"For Egypt's sake I will serve thee," was the reply.  He held out his
+hand.  Kaid took it, but said, in smiling comment on the action: "As the
+Viceroy's servant there is another way!"
+
+"I will salaam to-morrow, Kaid," answered David.
+
+"It is the only custom of the place I will require of thee, effendi.
+Come."
+
+A few moments later they were standing among the consuls and officials in
+the salon.
+
+"Where is Nahoum?" asked Kaid, looking round on the agitated throng.
+
+No one answered.  Smiling, Kaid whispered in David's ear.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE COMPACT
+
+One by one the lights went out in the Palace.  The excited guests were
+now knocking at the doors of Cairene notables, bent upon gossip of the
+night's events, or were scouring the bazaars for ears into which to pour
+the tale of how David was exalted and Nahoum was brought low; how, before
+them all, Kaid had commanded Nahoum to appear at the Palace in the
+morning at eleven, and the Inglesi, as they had named David, at ten.  But
+they declared to all who crowded upon their words that the Inglesi left
+the Palace with a face frozen white, as though it was he that had met
+debacle, while Nahoum had been as urbane and cynical as though he had
+come to the fulness of his power.
+
+Some, on hearing this, said: "Beware Nahoum!"  But those who had been at
+the Palace said: "Beware the Inglesi!"  This still Quaker, with the white
+shining face and pontifical hat, with his address of "thee" and "thou,"
+and his forms of speech almost Oriental in their imagery and simplicity,
+himself an archaism, had impressed them with a sense of power.  He had
+prompted old Diaz Pasha to speak of him as a reincarnation, so separate
+and withdrawn he seemed at the end of the evening, yet with an uncanny
+mastery in his dark brown eyes.  One of the Ulema, or holy men, present
+had said in reply to Diaz: "It is the look of one who hath walked with
+Death and bought and sold with Sheitan the accursed."  To Nahoum Pasha,
+Dim had said, as the former left the Palace, a cigarette between his
+fingers: "Sleep not nor slumber, Nahoum.  The world was never lost by one
+earthquake."  And Nahoum had replied with a smooth friendliness: "The
+world is not reaped in one harvest."
+
+"The day is at hand--the East against the West," murmured old Diaz, as he
+passed on.
+
+"The day is far spent," answered Nahoum, in a voice unheard by Diaz; and,
+with a word to his coachman, who drove off quickly, he disappeared in the
+shrubbery.
+
+A few minutes later he was tapping at the door of Mizraim, the Chief
+Eunuch.  Three times he tapped in the same way.  Presently the door
+opened, and he stepped inside.  The lean, dark figure of Mizraim bowed
+low; the long, slow fingers touched the forehead, the breast, and the
+lips.
+
+"May God preserve thy head from harm, excellency, and the night give thee
+sleep," said Mizraim.  He looked inquiringly at Nahoum.
+
+"May thy head know neither heat nor cold, and thy joys increase,"
+responded Nahoum mechanically, and sat down.
+
+To an European it would have seemed a shameless mockery to have wished
+joy to this lean, hateful dweller in the between-worlds; to Nahoum it was
+part of a life which was all ritual and intrigue, gabbling superstition
+and innate fatalism, decorated falsehood and a brave philosophy.
+
+"I have work for thee at last, Mizraim," said Nahoum.
+
+"At last?"
+
+"Thou hast but played before.  To-night I must see the sweat of thy
+brow."
+
+Mizraim's cold fingers again threw themselves against his breast,
+forehead, and lips, and he said:
+
+"As a woman swims in a fountain, so shall I bathe in sweat for thee, who
+hath given with one hand and hath never taken with the other."
+
+"I did thee service once, Mizraim--eh?"
+
+"I was as a bird buffeted by the wind; upon thy masts my feet found rest.
+Behold, I build my nest in thy sails, excellency."
+
+"There are no birds in last year's nest, Mizraim, thou dove," said
+Nahoum, with a cynical smile.  "When I build, I build.  Where I swear by
+the stone of the corner, there am I from dark to dark and from dawn to
+dawn, pasha."  Suddenly he swept his hand low to the ground and a ghastly
+sort of smile crossed over his face.  "Speak--I am thy servant.  Shall I
+not hear?  I will put my hand in the entrails of Egypt, and wrench them
+forth for thee."
+
+He made a gesture so cruelly, so darkly, suggestive that Nahoum turned
+his head away.  There flashed before his mind the scene of death in which
+his own father had lain, butchered like a beast in the shambles, a victim
+to the rage of Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Mehemet Ali.
+
+"Then listen, and learn why I have need of thee to-night."
+
+First, Nahoum told the story of David's coming, and Kaid's treatment of
+himself, the foreshadowing of his own doom.  Then of David and the girl,
+and the dead body he had seen; of the escape of the girl, of David's
+return with Kaid--all exactly as it had happened, save that he did; not
+mention the name of the dead man.
+
+It did not astonish Mizraim that Nahoum had kept all this secret.  That
+crime should be followed by secrecy and further crime, if need be, seems
+natural to the Oriental mind.  Mizraim had seen removal follow upon
+removal, and the dark Nile flowed on gloomily, silently, faithful to the
+helpless ones tossed into its bosom.  It would much have astonished him
+if Nahoum had not shown a gaping darkness somewhere in his tale, and he
+felt for the key to the mystery.
+
+"And he who lies dead, excellency?"
+
+"My brother."
+
+"Foorgat Bey!"
+
+"Even he, Mizraim.  He lured the girl here--a mad man ever.  The other
+madman was in the next room.  He struck--come, and thou shalt see."
+
+Together they felt their way through the passages and rooms, and
+presently entered the room where Foorgat Bey was lying.  Nahoum struck a
+light, and, as he held the candle, Mizraim knelt and examined the body
+closely.  He found the slight wound on the temple, then took the candle
+from Nahoum and held it close to the corner of the marble pedestal.  A
+faint stain of blood was there.  Again he examined the body, and ran his
+fingers over the face and neck.  Suddenly he stopped, and held the light
+close to the skin beneath the right jaw.  He motioned, and Nahoum laid
+his fingers also on the spot.  There was a slight swelling.
+
+"A blow with the fist, excellency--skilful, and English."  He looked
+inquiringly at Nahoum.  "As a weasel hath a rabbit by the throat, so is
+the Inglesi in thy hands."
+
+Nahoum shook his head.  "And if I went to Kaid, and said, 'This is the
+work of the Inglesi,' would he believe?  Kaid would hang me for the lie--
+would it be truth to him?  What proof have I, save the testimony
+of mine own eyes?  Egypt would laugh at that.  Is it the time, while
+yet the singers are beneath the windows, to assail the bride?  All
+bridegrooms are mad.  It is all sunshine and morning with the favourite,
+the Inglesi.  Only when the shadows lengthen may he be stricken.  Not
+now."
+
+"Why dost thou hide this from Kaid, O thou brother of the eagle?"
+
+"For my gain and thine, keeper of the gate.  To-night I am weak, because
+I am poor.  To-morrow I shall be rich and, it may be, strong.  If Kaid
+knew of this tonight, I should be a prisoner before cockcrow.  What
+claims has a prisoner?  Kaid would be in my brother's house at dawn,
+seizing all that is there and elsewhere, and I on my way to Fazougli, to
+be strangled or drowned."
+
+"O wise and far-seeing!  Thine eye pierces the earth.  What is there to
+do?  What is my gain--what thine?"
+
+"Thy gain?  The payment of thy debt to me."  Mizraim's face lengthened.
+His was a loathsome sort of gratitude.  He was willing to pay in kind;
+but what Oriental ever paid a debt without a gift in return, even as a
+bartering Irishman demands his lucky penny.
+
+"So be it, excellency, and my life is thine to spill upon the ground, a
+scarlet cloth for thy feet.  And backsheesh?"
+
+Nahoum smiled grimly.  "For backsheesh, thy turban full of gold."
+
+Mizraim's eyes glittered-the dull black shine of a mongrel terrier's.  He
+caught the sleeve of Nahoum's coat and kissed it, then kissed his hand.
+
+Thus was their bargain made over the dead body; and Mizraim had an almost
+superstitious reverence for the fulfilment of a bond, the one virtue
+rarely found in the Oriental.  Nothing else had he, but of all men in
+Egypt he was the best instrument Nahoum could have chosen; and of all men
+in Egypt he was the one man who could surely help him.
+
+"What is there now to do, excellency?"
+
+"My coachman is with the carriage at the gate by which the English girl
+left.  It is open still.  The key is in Foorgat's pocket, no doubt;
+stolen by him, no doubt also.  .  .  .  This is my design.  Thou wilt
+drive him"--he pointed to the body--"to his palace, seated in the
+carriage as though he were alive.  There is a secret entrance.  The bowab
+of the gate will show the way; I know it not.  But who will deny thee?
+Thou comest from high places--from Kaid.  Who will speak of this?  Will
+the bowab?  In the morning Foorgat will be found dead in his bed!  The
+slight bruise thou canst heal--thou canst?"
+
+Mizraim nodded.  "I can smooth it from the sharpest eye."
+
+"At dawn he will be found dead; but at dawn I shall be knocking at his
+gates.  Before the world knows I shall be in possession.  All that is his
+shall be mine, for at once the men of law shall be summoned, and my
+inheritance secured before Kaid shall even know of his death.  I shall
+take my chances for my life."
+
+"And the coachman, and the bowab, and others it may be?"
+
+"Shall not these be with thee--thou, Kaid's keeper of the harem, the lion
+at the door of his garden of women?  Would it be strange that Foorgat,
+who ever flew at fruit above his head, perilous to get or keep, should be
+found on forbidden ground, or in design upon it?  Would it be strange to
+the bowab or the slave that he should return with thee stark and still?
+They would but count it mercy of Kaid that he was not given to the
+serpents of the Nile.  A word from thee--would one open his mouth?  Would
+not the shadow of thy hand, of the swift doom, be over them?  Would not
+a handful of gold bind them to me?  Is not the man dead?  Are they not
+mine--mine to bind or break as I will?"
+
+"So be it!  Wisdom is of thee as the breath of man is his life.  I will
+drive Foorgat Bey to his home."
+
+A few moments later all that was left of Foorgat Bey was sitting in his
+carriage beside Mizraim the Chief Eunuch--sitting upright, stony, and
+still, and in such wise was driven swiftly to his palace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+FOR HIS SOUL'S SAKE AND THE LAND'S SAKE
+
+David came to know a startling piece of news the next morning-that
+Foorgat Bey had died of heart-disease in his bed, and was so found by his
+servants.  He at once surmised that Foorgat's body had been carried out
+of the Palace; no doubt that it might not be thought he had come to his
+death by command of Kaid.  His mind became easier.  Death, murder, crime
+in Egypt was not a nine days' wonder; it scarce outlived one day.  When a
+man was gone none troubled.  The dead man was in the bosom of Allah; then
+why should the living be beset or troubled?  If there was foul play, why
+make things worse by sending another life after the life gone, even in
+the way of justice?
+
+The girl David saved had told him her own name, and had given him the
+name of the hotel at which she was staying.  He had an early breakfast,
+and prepared to go to her hotel, wishing to see her once more.  There
+were things to be said for the first and last time and then be buried for
+ever.  She must leave the country at once.  In this sick, mad land, in
+this whirlpool of secret murder and conspiracy, no one could tell what
+plot was hatching, what deeds were forward; and he could not yet be sure
+that no one save himself and herself knew who had killed Foorgat Bey.
+Her perfect safety lay in instant flight.  It was his duty to see that
+she went, and at once--this very day.  He would go and see her.
+
+He went to the hotel.  There he learned that, with her aunt, she had left
+that morning for Alexandria en route to England.
+
+He approved her wisdom, he applauded her decision.  Yet--yet, somehow,
+as he bent his footsteps towards his lodgings again he had a sense of
+disappointment, of revelation.  What might happen to him--evidently that
+had not occurred to her.  How could she know but that his life might be
+in danger; that, after all, they might have been seen leaving the fatal
+room?  Well, she had gone, and with all his heart he was glad that she
+was safe.
+
+His judgment upon last night's event was not coloured by a single
+direct criticism upon the girl.  But he could not prevent the suggestion
+suddenly flashing into his mind that she had thought of herself first and
+last.  Well, she had gone; and he was here to face the future,
+unencumbered by aught save the weight of his own conscience.
+
+Yet, the weight of his conscience!  His feet were still free--free for
+one short hour before he went to Kaid; but his soul was in chains.  As he
+turned his course to the Nile, and crossed over the great bridge, there
+went clanking by in chains a hundred conscripts, torn from their homes in
+the Fayoum, bidding farewell for ever to their friends, receiving their
+last offerings, for they had no hope of return.  He looked at their
+haggard and dusty faces, at their excoriated ankles, and his eyes closed
+in pain.  All they felt he felt.  What their homes were to them, these
+fellaheen, dragged forth to defend their country, to go into the desert
+and waste their lives under leaders tyrannous, cruel, and incompetent,
+his old open life, his innocence, his integrity, his truthfulness and
+character, were to him.  By an impulsive act, by a rash blow, he had
+asserted his humanity; but he had killed his fellow-man in anger.  He
+knew that as that fatal blow had been delivered, there was no thought of
+punishment--it was blind anger and hatred: it was the ancient virus
+working which had filled the world with war, and armed it at the expense,
+the bitter and oppressive expense, of the toilers and the poor.  The
+taxes for wars were wrung out of the sons of labour and sorrow.  These
+poor fellaheen had paid taxes on everything they possessed.  Taxes,
+taxes, nothing but taxes from the cradle!  Their lands, houses, and palm-
+trees would be taxed still, when they would reap no more.  And having
+given all save their lives, these lives they must now give under the whip
+and the chain and the sword.
+
+As David looked at them in their single blue calico coverings, in which
+they had lived and slept-shivering in the cold night air upon the bare
+ground--these thoughts came to him; and he had a sudden longing to follow
+them and put the chains upon his own arms and legs, and go forth and
+suffer with them, and fight and die?  To die were easy.  To fight?. . . .
+Was it then come to that?  He was no longer a man of peace, but a man of
+the sword; no longer a man of the palm and the evangel, but a man of
+blood and of crime!  He shrank back out of the glare of the sun; for it
+suddenly seemed to him that there was written upon his fore head, "This
+is a brother of Cain."  For the first time in his life he had a shrinking
+from the light, and from the sun which he had loved like a Persian, had,
+in a sense, unconsciously worshipped.
+
+He was scarcely aware where he was.  He had wandered on until he had come
+to the end of the bridge and into the great groups of traffickers who, at
+this place, made a market of their wares.  Here sat a seller of sugar
+cane; there wandered, clanking his brasses, a merchant of sweet waters;
+there shouted a cheap-jack of the Nile the virtues of a knife from
+Sheffield.  Yonder a camel-driver squatted and counted his earnings; and
+a sheepdealer haggled with the owner of a ghiassa bound for the sands of
+the North.  The curious came about him and looked at him, but he did not
+see or hear.  He sat upon a stone, his gaze upon the river, following
+with his eyes, yet without consciously observing, the dark riverine
+population whose ways are hidden, who know only the law of the river and
+spend their lives in eluding itpirates and brigands now, and yet again
+the peaceful porters of commerce.
+
+To his mind, never a criminal in this land but less a criminal than he!
+For their standard was a standard of might the only right; but he--his
+whole life had been nurtured in an atmosphere of right and justice, had
+been a spiritual demonstration against force.  He was with out fear, as
+he was without an undue love of life.  The laying down of his life had
+never been presented to him; and yet, now that his conscience was his
+only judge, and it condemned him, he would gladly have given his life to
+pay the price of blood.
+
+That was impossible.  His life was not his own to give, save by suicide;
+and that would be the unpardonable insult to God and humanity.  He had
+given his word to the woman, and he would keep it.  In those brief
+moments she must have suffered more than most men suffer in a long life.
+Not her hand, however, but his, had committed the deed.  And yet a sudden
+wave of pity for her rushed over him, because the conviction seized him
+that she would also in her heart take upon herself the burden of his
+guilt as though it were her own.  He had seen it in the look of her face
+last night.
+
+For the sake of her future it was her duty to shield herself from any
+imputation which might as unjustly as scandalously arise, if the facts of
+that black hour ever became known.  Ever became known?  The thought that
+there might be some human eye which had seen, which knew, sent a shiver
+through him.
+
+"I would give my life a thousand times rather than that," he said aloud
+to the swift-flowing river.  His head sank on his breast.  His lips
+murmured in prayer:
+
+"But be merciful to me, Thou just Judge of Israel, for Thou hast made me,
+and Thou knowest whereof I am made.  Here will I dedicate my life to Thee
+for the land's sake.  Not for my soul's sake, O my God!  If it be Thy
+will, let my soul be cast away; but for the soul of him whose body I
+slew, and for his land, let my life be the long sacrifice."
+
+Dreams he had had the night before--terrible dreams, which he could never
+forget; dreams of a fugitive being hunted through the world, escaping and
+eluding, only to be hemmed in once more; on and on till he grew grey and
+gaunt, and the hunt suddenly ended in a great morass, into which he
+plunged with the howling world behind him.  The grey, dank mists came
+down on him, his footsteps sank deeper and deeper, and ever the cries, as
+of damned spirits, grew in his ears.  Mocking shapes flitted past him,
+the wings of obscene birds buffeted him, the morass grew up about him;
+and now it was all a red moving mass like a dead sea heaving about him.
+With a moan of agony he felt the dolorous flood above his shoulders, and
+then a cry pierced the gloom and the loathsome misery, and a voice he
+knew called to him, "David, David, I am coming!" and he had awaked with
+the old hallucination of his uncle's voice calling to him in the dawn.
+
+It came to him now as he sat by the water-side, and he raised his face to
+the sun and to the world.  The idlers had left him alone; none were
+staring at him now.  They were all intent on their own business, each man
+labouring after his kind.  He heard the voice of a riverman as he toiled
+at a rope standing on the corn that filled his ghiassa from end to end,
+from keel to gunwale.  The man was singing a wild chant of cheerful
+labour, the soul of the hard-smitten of the earth rising above the rack
+and burden of the body:
+
+         "O, the garden where to-day we sow and to-morrow we reap!
+          O, the sakkia turning by the garden walls;
+          O, the onion-field and the date-tree growing,
+          And my hand on the plough-by the blessing of God;
+          Strength of my soul, O my brother, all's well!"
+
+The meaning of the song got into his heart.  He pressed his hand to his
+breast with a sudden gesture.  It touched something hard.  It was his
+flute.  Mechanically he had put it in his pocket when he dressed in the
+morning.  He took it out and looked at it lovingly.  Into it he had
+poured his soul in the old days--days, centuries away, it seemed now.  It
+should still be the link with the old life.  He rose and walked towards
+his home again.  The future spread clearly before him.  Rapine, murder,
+tyranny, oppression, were round him on every side, and the ruler of the
+land called him to his counsels.  Here a great duty lay--his life for
+this land, his life, and his love, and his faith.  He would expiate his
+crime and his sin, the crime of homicide for which he alone was
+responsible, the sin of secrecy for which he and another were
+responsible.  And that other?  If only there had been but one word
+of understanding between them before she left!
+
+At the door of his house stood the American whom he had met at the
+citadel yesterday-it seemed a hundred years ago.
+
+"I've got a letter for you," Lacey said.  "The lady's aunt and herself
+are cousins of mine more or less removed, and originally at home in the
+U. S. A.  a generation ago.  Her mother was an American.  She didn't know
+your name--Miss Hylda Maryon, I mean.  I told her, but there wasn't time
+to put it on."  He handed over the unaddressed envelope.
+
+David opened the letter, and read:
+
+"I have seen the papers.  I do not understand what has happened, but I
+know that all is well.  If it were not so, I would not go.  That is the
+truth.  Grateful I am, oh, believe me!  So grateful that I do not yet
+know what is the return which I must make.  But the return will be made.
+I hear of what has come to you--how easily I might have destroyed all!
+My thoughts blind me.  You are great and good; you will know at least
+that I go because it is the only thing to do.  I fly from the storm with
+a broken wing.  Take now my promise to pay what I owe in the hour Fate
+wills--or in the hour of your need.  You can trust him who brings this to
+you; he is a distant cousin of my own.  Do not judge him by his odd and
+foolish words.  They hide a good character, and he has a strong nature.
+He wants work to do.  Can you give it?  Farewell."
+
+David put the letter in his pocket, a strange quietness about his heart.
+
+He scarcely realised what Lacey was saying.  "Great girl that.  Troubled
+about something in England, I guess.  Going straight back."
+
+David thanked him for the letter.  Lacey became red in the face.  He
+tried to say something, but failed.  "Thee wishes to say something to me,
+friend?" asked David.
+
+"I'm full up; I can't speak.  But, say--"
+
+"I am going to the Palace now.  Come back at noon if you will."
+
+He wrung David's hand in gratitude.  "You're going to do it.  You're
+going to do it.  I see it.  It's a great game--like Abe Lincoln's.  Say,
+let me black your boots while you're doing it, will you?"
+
+David pressed his hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE LETTER, THE NIGHT, AND THE WOMAN
+
+     "To-day has come the fulfilment of my dream, Faith.  I am given to
+     my appointed task; I am set on a road of life in which there is no
+     looking back.  My dreams of the past are here begun in very truth
+     and fact.  When, in the night, I heard Uncle Benn calling, when in
+     the Meeting-house voices said, 'Come away, come away, and labour,
+     thou art idle,' I could hear my heart beat in the ardour to be off.
+     Yet I knew not whither.  Now I know.
+
+     "Last night the Prince Pasha called me to his Council, made me
+     adviser, confidant, as one who has the ear of his captain--after he
+     had come to terms with me upon that which Uncle Benn left of land
+     and gold.  Think not that he tempted me.
+
+     "Last night I saw favourites look upon me with hate because of
+     Kaid's favour, though the great hall was filled with show of
+     cheerful splendour, and men smiled and feasted.  To-day I know that
+     in the Palace where I was summoned to my first: duty with the
+     Prince, every step I took was shadowed, every motion recorded, every
+     look or word noted and set down.  I have no fear of them.  They are
+     not subtle enough for the unexpected acts of honesty in the life of
+     a true man.  Yet I do not wonder men fail to keep honest in the
+     midst of this splendour, where all is strife as to who shall have
+     the Prince's favour; who shall enjoy the fruits of bribery,
+     backsheesh, and monopoly; who shall wring from the slave and the
+     toil-ridden fellah the coin his poor body mints at the corvee, in
+     his own taxed fields of dourha and cucumbers.
+
+     "Is this like anything we ever dreamed at Hamley, Faith?  Yet here
+     am I set, and here shall I stay till the skein be ravelled out.
+     Soon I shall go into the desert upon a mission to the cities of the
+     South, to Dongola, Khartoum, and Darfur and beyond; for there is
+     trouble yonder, and war is near, unless it is given to me to bring
+     peace.  So I must bend to my study of Arabic, which I am thankful I
+     learned long ago.  And I must not forget to say that I shall take
+     with me on my journey that faithful Muslim Ebn Ezra.  Others I shall
+     take also, but of them I shall write hereafter.
+
+     "I shall henceforth be moving in the midst of things which I was
+     taught to hate.  I pray that I may not hate them less as time goes
+     on.  To-morrow I shall breathe the air of intrigue, shall hear
+     footsteps of spies behind me wherever I go; shall know that even the
+     roses in the garden have ears; that the ground under my feet will
+     telegraph my thoughts.  Shall I be true?  Shall I at last whisper,
+     and follow, and evade, believe in no one, much less in myself, steal
+     in and out of men's confidences to use them for my own purposes?
+     Does any human being know what he can bear of temptation or of the
+     daily pressure of the life around him?  what powers of resistance
+     are in his soul?  how long the vital energy will continue to throw
+     off the never-ending seduction, the freshening force of evil?
+     Therein lies the power of evil, that it is ever new, ever fortified
+     by continuous conquest and achievements.  It has the rare fire of
+     aggression; is ever more upon the offence than upon the defence;
+     has, withal, the false lure of freedom from restraint, the throbbing
+     force of sympathy.
+
+     "Such things I dreamed not of in Soolsby's but upon the hill, Faith,
+     though, indeed, that seemed a time of trial and sore-heartedness.
+     How large do small issues seem till we have faced the momentous
+     things!  It is true that the larger life has pleasures and expanding
+     capacities; but it is truer still that it has perils, events which
+     try the soul as it is never tried in the smaller life--unless,
+     indeed, the soul be that of the Epicurean.  The Epicurean I well
+     understand, and in his way I might have walked with a wicked grace.
+     I have in me some hidden depths of luxury, a secret heart of
+     pleasure, an understanding for the forbidden thing.  I could have
+     walked the broad way with a laughing heart, though, in truth, habit
+     of mind and desire have kept me in the better path.  But offences
+     must come, and woe to him from whom the offence cometh!  I have
+     begun now, and only now, to feel the storms that shake us to our
+     farthest cells of life.  I begin to see how near good is to evil;
+     how near faith is to unfaith; and how difficult it is to judge from
+     actions only; how little we can know to-day what we shall feel
+     tomorrow.  Yet one must learn to see deeper, to find motive, not in
+     acts that shake the faith, but in character which needs no
+     explanation, which--"
+
+He paused, disturbed.  Then he raised his head, as though not conscious
+of what was breaking the course of his thoughts.  Presently he realised a
+low, hurried knocking at his door.  He threw a hand over his eyes, and
+sprang up.  An instant later the figure of a woman, deeply veiled, stood
+within the room, beside the table where he had been writing.  There was
+silence as they faced each other, his back against the door.
+
+"Oh, do you not know me?" she said at last, and sank into the chair
+where he had been sitting.
+
+The question was unnecessary, and she knew it was so; but she could not
+bear the strain of the silence.  She seemed to have risen out of the
+letter he had been writing; and had he not been writing of her--of what
+concerned them both?  How mean and small-hearted he had been, to have
+thought for an instant that she had not the highest courage, though in
+going she had done the discreeter, safer thing.  But she had come--she
+had come!
+
+All this was in his eyes, though his face was pale and still.  He was
+almost rigid with emotion, for the ancient habit of repose and self-
+command of the Quaker people was upon him.
+
+"Can you not see--do you not know?" she repeated, her back upon him now,
+her face still veiled, her hands making a swift motion of distress.
+
+"Has thee found in the past that thee is so soon forgotten?"
+
+"Oh, do not blame me!"  She raised her veil suddenly, and showed a face
+as pale as his own, and in the eyes a fiery brightness.  "I did not know.
+It was so hard to come--do not blame me.  I went to Alexandria--I felt
+that I must fly; the air around me seemed full of voices crying out.  Did
+you not understand why I went?"
+
+"I understand," he said, coming forward slowly.  "Thee should not have
+returned.  In the way I go now the watchers go also."
+
+"If I had not come, you would never have understood," she answered
+quickly.  "I am not sorry I went.  I was so frightened, so shaken.  My
+only thought was to get away from the terrible Thing.  But I should have
+been sorry all my life long had I not come back to tell you what I feel,
+and that I shall never forget.  All my life I shall be grateful.  You
+have saved me from a thousand deaths.  Ah, if I could give you but one
+life!  Yet--yet--oh, do not think but that I would tell you the whole
+truth, though I am not wholly truthful.  See, I love my place in the
+world more than I love my life; and but for you I should have lost all."
+
+He made a protesting motion.  "The debt is mine, in truth.  But for you I
+should never have known what, perhaps--" He paused.
+
+His eyes were on hers, gravely speaking what his tongue faltered to say.
+She looked and looked, but did not understand.  She only saw troubled
+depths, lighted by a soul of kindling purpose.  "Tell me," she said,
+awed.
+
+"Through you I have come to know--"  He paused again.  What he was going
+to say, truthful though it was, must hurt her, and she had been sorely
+hurt already.  He put his thoughts more gently, more vaguely.
+
+"By what happened I have come to see what matters in life.  I was behind
+the hedge.  I have broken through upon the road.  I know my goal now.
+The highway is before me."
+
+She felt the tragedy in his words, and her voice shook as she spoke.  "I
+wish I knew life better.  Then I could make a better answer.  You are on
+the road, you say.  But I feel that it is a hard and cruel road--oh, I
+understand that at least!  Tell me, please, tell me the whole truth.  You
+are hiding from me what you feel.  I have upset your life, have I not?
+You are a Quaker, and Quakers are better than all other Christian people,
+are they not?  Their faith is peace, and for me, you--" She covered her
+face with her hands for an instant, but turned quickly and looked him in
+the eyes: "For me you put your hand upon the clock of a man's life, and
+stopped it."
+
+She got to her feet with a passionate gesture, but he put a hand gently
+upon her arm, and she sank back again.  "Oh, it was not you; it was I who
+did it!" she said.  "You did what any man of honour would have done,
+what a brother would have done."
+
+"What I did is a matter for myself only," he responded quickly.  "Had I
+never seen your face again it would have been the same.  You were the
+occasion; the thing I did had only one source, my own heart and mind.
+There might have been another way; but for that way, or for the way I did
+take, you could not be responsible."
+
+"How generous you are!"  Her eyes swam with tears; she leaned over the
+table where he had been writing, and the tears dropped upon his letter.
+Presently she realised this, and drew back, then made as though to dry
+the tears from the paper with her handkerchief.  As she did so the words
+that he had written met her eye: "'But offences must come, and woe to him
+from whom the offence cometh!'  I have begun now, and only now, to feel
+the storms that shake us to our farthest cells of life."
+
+She became very still.  He touched her arm and said heavily: "Come away,
+come away."
+
+She pointed to the words she had read.  "I could not help but see, and
+now I know what this must mean to you."
+
+"Thee must go at once," he urged.  "Thee should not have come.  Thee was
+safe--none knew.  A few hours and it would all have been far behind.  We
+might never have met again."
+
+Suddenly she gave a low, hysterical laugh.  "You think you hide the real
+thing from me.  I know I'm ignorant and selfish and feeble-minded, but I
+can see farther than you think.  You want to tell the truth about--about
+it, because you are honest and hate hiding things, because you want to be
+punished, and so pay the price.  Oh, I can understand!  If it were not
+for me you would not.  .  .  .  "  With a sudden wild impulse she got to
+her feet.  "And you shall not," she cried.  "I will not have it."  Colour
+came rushing to her cheeks.
+
+"I will not have it.  I will not put myself so much in your debt.  I will
+not demand so much of you.  I will face it all.  I will stand alone."
+
+There was a touch of indignation in her voice.  Somehow she seemed moved
+to anger against him.  Her hands were clasped at her side rigidly, her
+pulses throbbing.  He stood looking at her fixedly, as though trying to
+realise her.  His silence agitated her still further, and she spoke
+excitedly:
+
+"I could have, would have, killed him myself without a moment's regret.
+He had planned, planned--ah, God, can you not see it all!  I would have
+taken his life without a thought.  I was mad to go upon such an
+adventure, but I meant no ill.  I had not one thought that I could not
+have cried out from the housetops, and he had in his heart--he had what
+you saw.  But you repent that you killed him--by accident, it was by
+accident.  Do you realise how many times others have been trapped by him
+as was I?  Do you not see what he was--as I see now?  Did he not say as
+much to me before you came, when I was dumb with terror?  Did he not make
+me understand what his whole life had been?  Did I not see in a flash the
+women whose lives he had spoiled and killed?  Would I have had pity?
+Would I have had remorse?  No, no, no!  I was frightened when it was
+done, I was horrified, but I was not sorry; and I am not sorry.  It was
+to be.  It was thetrue end to his vileness.  Ah!"
+
+She shuddered, and buried her face in her hands for a moment, then went
+on: "I can never forgive myself for going to the Palace with him.  I was
+mad for experience, for mystery; I wanted more than the ordinary share of
+knowledge.  I wanted to probe things.  Yet I meant no wrong.  I thought
+then nothing of which I shall ever be ashamed.  But I shall always be
+ashamed because I knew him, because he thought that I--oh, if I were a
+man, I should be glad that I had killed him, for the sake of all honest
+women!"
+
+He remained silent.  His look was not upon her, he seemed lost in a
+dream; but his face was fixed in trouble.
+
+She misunderstood his silence.  "You had the courage, the impulse to--to
+do it," she said keenly; "you have not the courage to justify it.  I will
+not have it so.
+
+"I will tell the truth to all the world.  I will not shrink I shrank
+yesterday because I was afraid of the world; to-day I will face it, I
+will--"
+
+She stopped suddenly, and another look flashed into her face.  Presently
+she spoke in a different tone; a new light had come upon her mind.  "But
+I see," she added.  "To tell all is to make you the victim, too, of what
+he did.  It is in your hands; it is all in your hands; and I cannot speak
+unless--unless you are ready also."
+
+There was an unintended touch of scorn in her voice.  She had been
+troubled and tried beyond bearing, and her impulsive nature revolted at
+his silence.  She misunderstood him, or, if she did not wholly
+misunderstand him, she was angry at what she thought was a needless
+remorse or sensitiveness.  Did not the man deserve his end?
+
+"There is only one course to pursue," he rejoined quietly, "and that is
+the course we entered upon last night.  I neither doubted yourself nor
+your courage.  Thee must not turn back now.  Thee must not alter the
+course which was your own making, and the only course which thee could,
+or I should, take.  I have planned my life according to the word I gave
+you.  I could not turn back now.  We are strangers, and we must remain
+so.  Thee will go from here now, and we must not meet again.  I am--"
+
+"I know who you are," she broke in.  "I know what your religion is; that
+fighting and war and bloodshed is a sin to you."
+
+"I am of no family or place in England," he went on calmly.  "I come of
+yeoman and trading stock; I have nothing in common with people of rank.
+Our lines of life will not cross.  It is well that it should be so.  As
+to what happened--that which I may feel has nothing to do with whether I
+was justified or no.  But if thee has thought that I have repented doing
+what I did, let that pass for ever from your mind.  I know that I should
+do the same, yes, even a hundred times.  I did according to my nature.
+Thee must not now be punished cruelly for a thing thee did not do.
+Silence is the only way of safety or of justice.  We must not speak of
+this again.  We must each go our own way."
+
+Her eyes were moist.  She reached out a hand to him timidly.  "Oh,
+forgive me," she added brokenly, "I am so vain, so selfish, and that
+makes one blind to the truth.  It is all clearer now.  You have shown me
+that I was right in my first impulse, and that is all I can say for
+myself.  I shall pray all my life that it will do you no harm in the
+end."
+
+She remained silent, for a moment adjusting her veil, preparing to go.
+Presently she spoke again: "I shall always want to know about you--what
+is happening to you.  How could it be otherwise?"
+
+She was half realising one of the deepest things in existence, that the
+closest bond between two human beings is a bond of secrecy upon a thing
+which vitally, fatally concerns both or either.  It is a power at once
+malevolent and beautiful.  A secret like that of David and Hylda will do
+in a day what a score of years could not accomplish, will insinuate
+confidences which might never be given to the nearest or dearest.  In
+neither was any feeling of the heart begotten by their experiences; and
+yet they had gone deeper in each other's lives than any one either had
+known in a lifetime.  They had struck a deeper note than love or
+friendship.  They had touched the chord of a secret and mutual experience
+which had gone so far that their lives would be influenced by it for ever
+after.  Each understood this in a different way.
+
+Hylda looked towards the letter lying on the table.  It had raised in her
+mind, not a doubt, but an undefined, undefinable anxiety.  He saw the
+glance, and said: "I was writing to one who has been as a sister to me.
+She was my mother's sister though she is almost as young as I.  Her name
+is Faith.  There is nothing there of what concerns thee and me, though it
+would make no difference if she knew."  Suddenly a thought seemed to
+strike him.  "The secret is of thee and me.  There is safety.  If it
+became another's, there might be peril.  The thing shall be between us
+only, for ever?"
+
+"Do you think that I--"
+
+"My instinct tells me a woman of sensitive mind might one day, out of an
+unmerciful honesty, tell her husband--"
+
+"I am not married-"
+
+"But one day--"
+
+She interrupted him.  "Sentimental egotism will not rule me.  Tell me,"
+she added, "tell me one thing before I go.  You said that your course was
+set.  What is it?"
+
+"I remain here," he answered quietly.  "I remain in the service of Prince
+Kaid."
+
+"It is a dreadful government, an awful service--" "That is why I stay."
+
+"You are going to try and change things here--you alone?"
+
+"I hope not alone, in time."
+
+"You are going to leave England, your friends, your family, your place--
+in Hamley, was it not?  My aunt has read of you--my cousin--" she paused.
+
+"I had no place in Hamley.  Here is my place.  Distance has little to do
+with understanding or affection.  I had an uncle here in the East for
+twenty-five years, yet I knew him better than all others in the world.
+Space is nothing if minds are in sympathy.  My uncle talked to me over
+seas and lands.  I felt him, heard him speak."
+
+"You think that minds can speak to minds, no matter what the distance--
+real and definite things?"
+
+"If I were parted from one very dear to me, I would try to say to him or
+her what was in my mind, not by written word only, but by the flying
+thought."
+
+She sat down suddenly, as though overwhelmed.  "Oh, if that were
+possible!" she said.  "If only one could send a thought like that!"
+Then with an impulse, and the flicker of a sad smile, she reached out a
+hand.  "If ever in the years to come you want to speak to me, will you
+try to make me understand, as your uncle did with you?"
+
+"I cannot tell," he answered.  "That which is deepest within us obeys
+only the laws of its need.  By instinct it turns to where help lies,
+as a wild deer, fleeing, from captivity, makes for the veldt and the
+watercourse."
+
+She got to her feet again.  "I want to pay my debt," she said solemnly.
+"It is a debt that one day must be paid--so awful--so awful!"  A swift
+change passed over her.  She shuddered, and grew white.  "I said brave
+words just now," she added in a hoarse whisper, "but now I see him lying
+there cold and still, and you stooping over him.  I see you touch his
+breast, his pulse.  I see you close his eyes.  One instant full of the
+pulse of life, the next struck out into infinite space.  Oh, I shall
+never--how can I ever-forget!"  She turned her head away from him, then
+composed herself again, and said quietly, with anxious eyes: "Why was
+nothing said or done?  Perhaps they are only waiting.  Perhaps they know.
+Why was it announced that he died in his bed at home?"
+
+"I cannot tell.  When a man in high places dies in Egypt, it may be one
+death or another.  No one inquires too closely.  He died in Kaid Pasha's
+Palace, where other men have died, and none has inquired too closely.
+To-day they told me at the Palace that his carriage was seen to leave
+with himself and Mizraim the Chief Eunuch.  Whatever the object, he was
+secretly taken to his house from the Palace, and his brother Nahoum
+seized upon his estate in the early morning.
+
+"I think that no one knows the truth.  But it is all in the hands of God.
+We can do nothing more.  Thee must go.  Thee should not have come.  In
+England thee will forget, as thee should forget.  In Egypt I shall
+remember, as I should remember."
+
+"Thee," she repeated softly.  "I love the Quaker thee.  My grandmother
+was an American Quaker.  She always spoke like that.  Will you not use
+thee and thou in speaking to me, always?"
+
+"We are not likely to speak together in any language in the future," he
+answered.  "But now thee must go, and I will--"
+
+"My cousin, Mr. Lacey, is waiting for me in the garden," she answered.
+"I shall be safe with him."  She moved towards the door.  He caught the
+handle to turn it, when there came the noise of loud talking, and the
+sound of footsteps in the court-yard.  He opened the door slightly and
+looked out, then closed it quickly.  "It is Nahoum Pasha," he said.
+"Please, the other room," he added, and pointed to a curtain.  "There is
+a window leading on a garden.  The garden-gate opens on a street leading
+to the Ezbekiah Square and your hotel."
+
+"But, no, I shall stay here," she said.  She drew down her veil, then
+taking from her pocket another, arranged it also, so that her face was
+hidden.
+
+"Thee must go," he said--"go quickly."  Again he pointed.
+
+"I will remain," she rejoined, with determination, and seated herself in
+a chair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE FOUR WHO KNEW
+
+There was a knocking at the door.  David opened it.  Nahoum Pasha stepped
+inside, and stood still a moment looking at Hylda.  Then he made low
+salutation to her, touched his hand to his lips and breast saluting
+David, and waited.
+
+"What is thy business, pasha?" asked David quietly, and motioned towards
+a chair.
+
+"May thy path be on the high hills, Saadat-el-basha.  I come for a favour
+at thy hands."  Nahoum sat down.  "What favour is mine to give to Nahoum
+Pasha?"
+
+"The Prince has given thee supreme place--it was mine but yesterday.  It
+is well.  To the deserving be the fruits of deserving."
+
+"Is merit, then, so truly rewarded here?" asked David quietly.
+
+"The Prince saw merit at last when he chose your Excellency for
+councillor."
+
+"How shall I show merit, then, in the eyes of Nahoum Pasha?"
+
+"Even by urging the Prince to give me place under him again.  Not as
+heretofore--that is thy place--yet where it may be.  I have capacity.
+I can aid thee in the great task.  Thou wouldst remake our Egypt--and my
+heart is with you.  I would rescue, not destroy.  In years gone by I
+tried to do good to this land, and I failed.  I was alone.  I had not the
+strength to fight the forces around me.  I was overcome.  I had too
+little faith.  But my heart was with the right--I am an Armenian and a
+Christian of the ancient faith.  I am in sorrow.  Death has humbled me.
+My brother Foorgat Bey--may flowers bloom for ever on his grave!--he is
+dead,"--his eyes were fixed on those of David, as with a perfectly
+assured candour--"and my heart is like an empty house.  But man must not
+be idle and live--if Kaid lets me live.  I have riches.  Are not
+Foorgat's riches mine, his Palace, his gardens, his cattle, and his
+plantations, are they not mine?  I may sit in the court-yard and hear the
+singers, may listen to the tale-tellers by the light of the moon; I may
+hear the tales of Al-Raschid chanted by one whose tongue never falters,
+and whose voice is like music; after the manner of the East I may give
+bread and meat to the poor at sunset; I may call the dancers to the
+feast.  But what comfort shall it give?  I am no longer a youth.  I would
+work.  I would labour for the land of Egypt, for by work shall we fulfil
+ourselves, redeem ourselves.  Saadat, I would labour, but my master has
+taken away from me the anvil, the fire, and the hammer, and I sit without
+the door like an armless beggar.  What work to do in Egypt save to help
+the land, and how shall one help, save in the Prince's service?  There
+can be no reform from outside.  If I laboured for better things outside
+Kaid's Palace, how long dost thou think I should escape the Nile, or the
+diamond-dust in my coffee?  The work which I did, is it not so that it,
+with much more, falls now to thy hands, Saadat, with a confidence from
+Kaid that never was mine?"
+
+"I sought not the office."
+
+"Have I a word of blame?  I come to ask for work to do with thee.  Do I
+not know Prince Kaid?  He had come to distrust us all.  As stale water
+were we in his taste.  He had no pleasure in us, and in our deeds he
+found only stones of stumbling.  He knew not whom to trust.  One by one
+we all had yielded to ceaseless intrigue and common distrust of each
+other, until no honest man was left; till all were intent to save their
+lives by holding power; for in this land to lose power is to lose life.
+No man who has been in high place, has had the secrets of the Palace and
+the ear of the Prince, lives after he has lost favour.  The Prince, for
+his safety, must ensure silence, and the only silence in Egypt is the
+grave.  In thee, Saadat, Kaid has found an honest man.  Men will call
+thee mad, if thou remainest honest, but that is within thine own bosom
+and with fate.  For me, thou hast taken my place, and more.  Malaish, it
+is the decree of fate, and I have no anger.  I come to ask thee to save
+my life, and then to give me work."
+
+"How shall I save thy life?"
+
+"By reconciling the Effendina to my living, and then by giving me
+service, where I shall be near to thee; where I can share with thee,
+though it be as the ant beside the beaver, the work of salvation in
+Egypt.  I am rich since my brother was--"  He paused; no covert look was
+in his eyes, no sign of knowledge, nothing but meditation and sorrowful
+frankness--"since Foorgat passed away in peace, praise be to God!  He lay
+on his bed in the morning, when one came to wake him, like a sleeping
+child, no sign of the struggle of death upon him."
+
+A gasping sound came from the chair where Hylda sat; but he took no
+notice.  He appeared to be unconscious of David's pain-drawn face, as he
+sat with hands upon his knees, his head bent forward listening, as though
+lost to the world.
+
+"So did Foorgat, my brother, die while yet in the fulness of his manhood,
+life beating high in his veins, with years before him to waste.  He was a
+pleasure-lover, alas! he laid up no treasure of work accomplished; and so
+it was meet that he should die as he lived, in a moment of ease.  And
+already he is forgotten.  It is the custom here.  He might have died by
+diamond-dust, and men would have set down their coffee-cups in surprise,
+and then would have forgotten; or he might have been struck down by the
+hand of an assassin, and, unless it was in the Palace, none would have
+paused to note it.  And so the sands sweep over his steps upon the shore
+of time."
+
+After the first exclamation of horror, Hylda had sat rigid, listening
+as though under a spell.  Through her veil she gazed at Nahoum with a
+cramping pain at her heart, for he seemed ever on the verge of the truth
+she dreaded; and when he spoke the truth, as though unconsciously, she
+felt she must cry out and rush from the room.  He recalled to her the
+scene in the little tapestried room as vividly as though it was there
+before her eyes, and it had for the moment all the effect of a hideous
+nightmare.  At last, however, she met David's eyes, and they guided her,
+for in them was a steady strength and force which gave her confidence.
+At first he also had been overcome inwardly, but his nerves were cool,
+his head was clear, and he listened to Nahoum, thinking out his course
+meanwhile.
+
+He owed this man much.  He had taken his place, and by so doing had
+placed his life in danger.  He had killed the brother upon the same day
+that he had dispossessed the favourite of office; and the debt was heavy.
+In office Nahoum had done after his kind, after the custom of the place
+and the people; and yet, as it would seem, the man had had stirrings
+within him towards a higher path.  He, at any rate, had not amassed
+riches out of his position, and so much could not be said of any other
+servant of the Prince Pasha.  Much he had heard of Nahoum's powerful
+will, hidden under a genial exterior, and behind his friendly, smiling
+blue eyes.  He had heard also of cruelty--of banishment, and of enemies
+removed from his path suddenly, never to be seen again; but, on the
+whole, men spoke with more admiration of him than of any other public
+servant, Armenian Christian in a Mahommedan country though he was.  That
+very day Kaid had said that if Nahoum had been less eager to control the
+State, he might still have held his place.  Besides, the man was a
+Christian--of a mystic, half-legendary, obscure Christianity; yet having
+in his mind the old faith, its essence and its meaning, perhaps.  Might
+not this Oriental mind, with that faith, be a power to redeem the land?
+It was a wonderful dream, in which he found the way, as he thought, to
+atone somewhat to this man for a dark injury done.
+
+When Nahoum stopped speaking David said: "But if I would have it, if it
+were well that it should be, I doubt I have the power to make it so."
+
+"Saadat-el-bdsha, Kaid believes in thee to-day; he will not believe
+to-morrow if thou dost remain without initiative.  Action, however
+startling, will be proof of fitness.  His Highness shakes a long spear.
+Those who ride with him must do battle with the same valour.  Excellency,
+I have now great riches--since Death smote Foorgat Bey in the forehead"
+--still his eyes conveyed no meaning, though Hylda shrank back--"and I
+would use them for the good thou wouldst do here.  Money will be needed,
+and sufficient will not be at thy hand-not till new ledgers be opened,
+new balances struck."
+
+He turned to Hylda quietly, and with a continued air of innocence said:
+"Shall it not be so-madame?  Thou, I doubt not, are of his kin.  It would
+seem so, though I ask pardon if it be not so--wilt thou not urge his
+Excellency to restore me to Kaid's favour?  I know little of the English,
+though I know them humane and honest; but my brother, Foorgat Bey, he
+was much among them, lived much in England, was a friend to many great
+English.  Indeed, on the evening that he died I saw him in the gallery of
+the banquet-room with an English lady--can one be mistaken in an English
+face?  Perhaps he cared for her; perhaps that was why he smiled as he lay
+upon his bed, never to move again.  Madame, perhaps in England thou mayst
+have known my brother.  If that is so, I ask thee to speak for me to his
+Excellency.  My life is in danger, and I am too young to go as my brother
+went.  I do not wish to die in middle age, as my brother died."
+
+He had gone too far.  In David's mind there was no suspicion that Nahoum
+knew the truth.  The suggestion in his words had seemed natural; but,
+from the first, a sharp suspicion was in the mind of Hylda, and his last
+words had convinced her that if Nahoum did not surely know the truth, he
+suspected it all too well.  Her instinct had pierced far; and as she
+realised his suspicions, perhaps his certainty, and heard his words of
+covert insult, which, as she saw, David did not appreciate, anger and
+determination grew in her.  Yet she felt that caution must mark her
+words, and that nothing but danger lay in resentment.  She felt the
+everlasting indignity behind the quiet, youthful eyes, the determined
+power of the man; but she saw also that, for the present, the course
+Nahoum suggested was the only course to take.  And David must not even
+feel the suspicion in her own mind, that Nahoum knew or suspected the
+truth.  If David thought that Nahoum knew, the end of all would come at
+once.  It was clear, however, that Nahoum meant to be silent, or he would
+have taken another course of action.  Danger lay in every direction, but,
+to her mind, the least danger lay in following Nahoum's wish.
+
+She slowly raised her veil, showing a face very still now, with eyes as
+steady as David's.  David started at her action, he thought it rash; but
+the courage of it pleased him, too.
+
+"You are not mistaken," she said slowly in French; "your brother was
+known to me.  I had met him in England.  It will be a relief to all his
+friends to know that he passed away peacefully."  She looked him in the
+eyes determinedly.  "Monsieur Claridge is not my kinsman, but he is my
+fellow-countryman.  If you mean well by monsieur, your knowledge and your
+riches should help him on his way.  But your past is no guarantee of good
+faith, as you will acknowledge."
+
+He looked her in the eyes with a far meaning.  "But I am giving
+guarantees of good faith now," he said softly.  "Will you--not?"
+
+She understood.  It was clear that he meant peace, for the moment at
+least.
+
+"If I had influence I would advise him to reconcile you to Prince Kaid,"
+she said quietly, then turned to David with an appeal in her eyes.
+
+David stood up.  "I will do what I can," he said.  "If thee means as well
+by Egypt as I mean by thee, all may be well for all."
+
+"Saadat!  Saadat!" said Nahoum, with show of assumed feeling, and made
+salutation.  Then to Hylda, making lower salutation still, he said: "Thou
+hast lifted from my neck the yoke.  Thou hast saved me from the shadow
+and the dust.  I am thy slave."  His eyes were like a child's, wide and
+confiding.
+
+He turned towards the door, and was about to open it, when there came a
+knocking, and he stepped back.  Hylda drew down her veil.  David opened
+the door cautiously and admitted Mizraim the Chief Eunuch.  Mizraim's
+eyes searched the room, and found Nahoum.
+
+"Pasha," he said to Nahoum, "may thy bones never return to dust, nor the
+light of thine eyes darken!  There is danger."
+
+Nahoum nodded, but did not speak.
+
+"Shall I speak, then?"  He paused and made low salutation to David,
+saying, "Excellency, I am thine ox to be slain."
+
+"Speak, son of the flowering oak," said Nahoum, with a sneer in his
+voice.  "What blessing dost thou bring?"
+
+"The Effendina has sent for thee."
+
+Nahoum's eyes flashed.  "By thee, lion of Abdin?"  The lean, ghastly
+being smiled.  "He has sent a company of soldiers and Achmet Pasha."
+
+"Achmet!  Is it so?  They are here, Mizraim, watcher of the morning?"
+
+"They are at thy palace--I am here, light of Egypt."
+
+"How knewest thou I was here?"
+
+Mizraim salaamed.  "A watch was set upon thee this morning early.  The
+watcher was of my slaves.  He brought the word to me that thou wast here
+now.  A watcher also was set upon thee, Excellency"--he turned to David.
+"He also was of my slaves.  Word was delivered to his Highness that thou"
+--he turned to Nahoum again--"wast in thy palace, and Achmet Pasha
+went thither.  He found thee not.  Now the city is full of watchers, and
+Achmet goes from bazaar to bazaar, from house to house which thou was
+wont to frequent--and thou art here."
+
+"What wouldst thou have me do, Mizraim?"
+
+"Thou art here; is it the house of a friend or a foe?"  Nahoum did not
+answer.  His eyes were fixed in thought upon the floor, but he was
+smiling.  He seemed without fear.
+
+"But if this be the house of a friend, is he safe here?" asked David.
+
+"For this night, it may be," answered Mizraim, "till other watchers be
+set, who are no slaves of mine.  Tonight, here, of all places in Cairo,
+he is safe; for who could look to find him where thou art who hast taken
+from him his place and office, Excellency--on whom the stars shine for
+ever!  But in another day, if my lord Nahoum be not forgiven by the
+Effendina, a hundred watchers will pierce the darkest corner of the
+bazaar, the smallest room in Cairo."
+
+David turned to Nahoum.  "Peace be to thee, friend.  Abide here till
+to-morrow, when I will speak for thee to his Highness, and, I trust,
+bring thee pardon.  It shall be so--but I shall prevail," he added, with
+slow decision; "I shall prevail with him.  My reasons shall convince his
+Highness."
+
+"I can help thee with great reasons, Saadat," said Nahoum.  "Thou shalt
+prevail.  I can tell thee that which will convince Kaid."
+
+While they were speaking, Hylda had sat motionless watching.  At first
+it seemed to her that a trap had been set, and that David was to be the
+victim of Oriental duplicity; but revolt, as she did, from the miserable
+creature before them, she saw at last that he spoke the truth.
+
+"Thee will remain under this roof to-night, pasha?" asked David.
+
+"I will stay if thy goodness will have it so," answered Nahoum slowly.
+"It is not my way to hide, but when the storm comes it is well to
+shelter."
+
+Salaaming low, Mizraim withdrew, his last glance being thrown towards
+Hylda, who met his look with a repugnance which made her face rigid.  She
+rose and put on her gloves.  Nahoum rose also, and stood watching her
+respectfully.
+
+"Thee will go?" asked David, with a movement towards her.
+
+She inclined her head.  "We have finished our business, and it is late,"
+she answered.
+
+David looked at Nahoum.  "Thee will rest here, pasha, in peace.  In a
+moment I will return."  He took up his hat.
+
+There was a sudden flash of Nahoum's eyes, as though he saw an outcome of
+the intention which pleased him, but Hylda, saw the flash, and her senses
+were at once alarmed.
+
+"There is no need to accompany me," she said.  "My cousin waits for me."
+
+David opened the door leading into the court-yard.  It was dark, save for
+the light of a brazier of coals.  A short distance away, near the outer
+gate, glowed a star of red light, and the fragrance of a strong cigar
+came over.
+
+"Say, looking for me?" said a voice, and a figure moved towards David.
+"Yours to command, pasha, yours to command."  Lacey from Chicago held out
+his hand.
+
+"Thee is welcome, friend," said David.
+
+"She's ready, I suppose.  Wonderful person, that.  Stands on her own feet
+every time.  She don't seem as though she came of the same stock as me,
+does she?"
+
+"I will bring her if thee will wait, friend."
+
+"I'm waiting."  Lacey drew back to the gateway again and leaned against
+the wall, his cigar blazing in the dusk.
+
+A moment later David appeared in the garden again, with the slim,
+graceful figure of the girl who stood "upon her own feet."  David drew
+her aside for a moment.  "Thee is going at once to England?" he asked.
+
+"To-morrow to Alexandria.  There is a steamer next day for Marseilles.
+In a fortnight more I shall be in England."
+
+"Thee must forget Egypt," he said.  "Remembrance is not a thing of the
+will," she answered.
+
+"It is thy duty to forget.  Thee is young, and it is spring with thee.
+Spring should be in thy heart.  Thee has seen a shadow; but let it not
+fright thee."
+
+"My only fear is that I may forget," she answered.
+
+"Yet thee will forget."
+
+With a motion towards Lacey he moved to the gate.  Suddenly she turned to
+him and touched his arm.  "You will be a great man herein Egypt," she
+said.  "You will have enemies without number.  The worst of your enemies
+always will be your guest to-night."
+
+He did not, for a moment, understand.  "Nahoum?" he asked.  "I take his
+place.  It would not be strange; but I will win him to me."
+
+"You will never win him," she answered.  "Oh, trust my instinct in this!
+Watch him.  Beware of him."  David smiled slightly.  "I shall have need
+to beware of many.  I am sure thee does well to caution me.  Farewell,"
+he added.
+
+"If it should be that I can ever help you--" she said, and paused.
+
+"Thee has helped me," he replied.  "The world is a desert.  Caravans from
+all quarters of the sun meet at the cross-roads.  One gives the other
+food or drink or medicine, and they move on again.  And all grows dim
+with time.  And the camel-drivers are forgotten; but the cross-roads
+remain, and the food and the drink and the medicine and the cattle helped
+each caravan upon the way.  Is it not enough?"
+
+She placed her hand in his.  It lay there for a moment.  "God be with
+thee, friend," he said.
+
+The next instant Thomas Tilman Lacey's drawling voice broke the silence.
+
+"There's something catching about these nights in Egypt.  I suppose it's
+the air.  No wind--just the stars, and the ultramarine, and the nothing
+to do but lay me down and sleep.  It doesn't give you the jim-jumps like
+Mexico.  It makes you forget the world, doesn't it?  You'd do things here
+that you wouldn't do anywhere else."
+
+The gate was opened by the bowab, and the two passed through.  David was
+standing by the brazier, his hand held unconsciously over the coals, his
+eyes turned towards them.  The reddish flame from the fire lit up his
+face under the broad-brimmed hat.  His head, slightly bowed, was thrust
+forward to the dusk.  Hylda looked at him steadily for a moment.  Their
+eyes met, though hers were in the shade.  Again Lacey spoke.  "Don't be
+anxious.  I'll see her safe back.  Good-bye.  Give my love to the girls."
+
+David stood looking at the closed gate with eyes full of thought and
+wonder and trouble.  He was not thinking of the girl.  There was no
+sentimental reverie in his look.  Already his mind was engaged in
+scrutiny of the circumstances in which he was set.  He realised fully his
+situation.  The idealism which had been born with him had met its reward
+in a labour herculean at the least, and the infinite drudgery of the
+practical issues came in a terrible pressure of conviction to his mind.
+The mind did not shrink from any thought of the dangers in which he would
+be placed, from any vision of the struggle he must have with intrigue,
+and treachery and vileness.  In a dim, half-realised way he felt that
+honesty and truth would be invincible weapons with a people who did not
+know them.  They would be embarrassed, if not baffled, by a formula of
+life and conduct which they could not understand.
+
+It was not these matters that vexed him now, but the underlying forces of
+life set in motion by the blow which killed a fellow-man.  This fact had
+driven him to an act of redemption unparalleled in its intensity and
+scope; but he could not tell--and this was the thought that shook his
+being--how far this act itself, inspiring him to a dangerous and immense
+work in life, would sap the best that was in him, since it must remain a
+secret crime, for which he could not openly atone.  He asked himself as
+he stood by the brazier, the bowab apathetically rolling cigarettes at
+his feet, whether, in the flow of circumstance, the fact that he could
+not make open restitution, or take punishment for his unlawful act, would
+undermine the structure of his character.  He was on the threshold of his
+career: action had not yet begun; he was standing like a swimmer on a
+high shore, looking into depths beneath which have never been plumbed by
+mortal man, wondering what currents, what rocks, lay beneath the surface
+of the blue.  Would his strength, his knowledge, his skill, be equal to
+the enterprise?  Would he emerge safe and successful, or be carried away
+by some strong undercurrent, be battered on unseen rocks?
+
+He turned with a calm face to the door behind which sat the displaced
+favourite of the Prince, his mind at rest, the trouble gone out of his
+eyes.
+
+"Uncle Benn!  Uncle Benn!" he said to himself, with a warmth at his
+heart as he opened the door and stepped inside.
+
+Nahoum sat sipping coffee.  A cigarette was between his fingers.  He
+touched his hand to his forehead and his breast as David closed the door
+and hung his hat upon a nail.  David's servant, Mahommed Hassan, whom he
+had had since first he came to Egypt, was gliding from the room--a large,
+square-shouldered fellow of over six feet, dressed in a plain blue yelek,
+but on his head the green turban of one who had done a pilgrimage to
+Mecca.  Nahoum waved a hand after Mahommed and said:
+
+"Whence came thy servant sadat?"
+
+"He was my guide to Cairo.  I picked him from the street."
+
+Nahoum smiled.  There was no malice in the smile, only, as it might seem,
+a frank humour.  "Ah, your Excellency used independent judgment.  Thou
+art a judge of men.  But does it make any difference that the man is a
+thief and a murderer--a murderer?"
+
+David's eyes darkened, as they were wont to do when he was moved or
+shocked.
+
+"Shall one only deal, then, with those who have neither stolen nor slain
+--is that the rule of the just in Egypt?"
+
+Nahoum raised his eyes to the ceiling as though in amiable inquiry, and
+began to finger a string of beads as a nun might tell her paternosters.
+"If that were the rule," he answered, after a moment, "how should any man
+be served in Egypt?  Hereabouts is a man's life held cheap, else I had
+not been thy guest to-night; and Kaid's Palace itself would be empty, if
+every man in it must be honest.  But it is the custom of the place for
+political errors to be punished by a hidden hand; we do not call it
+murder."
+
+"What is murder, friend?"
+
+"It is such a crime as that of Mahommed yonder, who killed--"
+
+David interposed.  "I do not wish to know his crime.  That is no affair
+between thee and me."
+
+Nahoum fingered his beads meditatively.  "It was an affair of the
+housetops in his town of Manfaloot.  I have only mentioned it because I
+know what view the English take of killing, and how set thou art to have
+thy household above reproach, as is meet in a Christian home.  So, I took
+it, would be thy mind--which Heaven fill with light for Egypt's sake!--
+that thou wouldst have none about thee who were not above reproach,
+neither liars, nor thieves, nor murderers."
+
+"But thee would serve with me, friend," rejoined David quietly.  "Thee
+has men's lives against thy account."
+
+"Else had mine been against their account."
+
+"Was it not so with Mahommed?  If so, according to the custom of the
+land, then Mahommed is as immune as thou art."
+
+"Saadat, like thee I am a Christian, yet am I also Oriental, and what is
+crime with one race is none with another.  At the Palace two days past
+thou saidst thou hadst never killed a man; and I know that thy religion
+condemns killing even in war.  Yet in Egypt thou wilt kill, or thou shalt
+thyself be killed, and thy aims will come to naught.  When, as thou
+wouldst say, thou hast sinned, hast taken a man's life, then thou wilt
+understand.  Thou wilt keep this fellow Mahommed, then?"
+
+"I understand, and I will keep him."
+
+"Surely thy heart is large and thy mind great.  It moveth above small
+things.  Thou dost not seek riches here?"
+
+"I have enough; my wants are few."
+
+"There is no precedent for one in office to withhold his hand from profit
+and backsheesh."
+
+"Shall we not try to make a precedent?"
+
+"Truthfulness will be desolate--like a bird blown to sea, beating 'gainst
+its doom."
+
+"Truth will find an island in the sea."
+
+"If Egypt is that sea, Saadat, there is no island."
+
+David came over close to Nahoum, and looked him in the eyes.
+
+"Surely I can speak to thee, friend, as to one understanding.  Thou art a
+Christian--of the ancient fold.  Out of the East came the light.  Thy
+Church has preserved the faith.  It is still like a lamp in the mist and
+the cloud in the East.  Thou saidst but now that thy heart was with my
+purpose.  Shall the truth that I would practise here not find an island
+in this sea--and shall it not be the soul of Nahoum Pasha?"
+
+"Have I not given my word?  Nay, then, I swear it by the tomb of my
+brother, whom Death met in the highway, and because he loved the sun,
+and the talk of men, and the ways of women, rashly smote him out of the
+garden of life into the void.  Even by his tomb I swear it."
+
+"Hast thou, then, such malice against Death?  These things cannot happen
+save by the will of God."
+
+"And by the hand of man.  But I have no cause for revenge.  Foorgat died
+in his sleep like a child.  Yet if it had been the hand of man, Prince
+Kaid or any other, I would not have held my hand until I had a life for
+his."
+
+"Thou art a Christian, yet thou wouldst meet one wrong by another?"
+
+"I am an Oriental."  Then, with a sudden change of manner, he added:
+"But thou hast a Christianity the like of which I have never seen.  I
+will learn of thee, Saadat, and thou shalt learn of me also many things
+which I know.  They will help thee to understand Egypt and the place
+where thou wilt be set--if so be my life is saved, and by thy hand."
+
+Mahommed entered, and came to David.  "Where wilt thou sleep, Saadat?"
+he asked.
+
+"The pasha will sleep yonder," David replied, pointing to another room.
+"I will sleep here."  He laid a hand upon the couch where he sat.
+
+Nahoum rose and, salaaming, followed Mahommed to the other room.
+
+In a few moments the house was still, and remained so for hours.  Just
+before dawn the curtain of Nahoum's room was drawn aside, the Armenian
+entered stealthily, and moved a step towards the couch where David lay.
+Suddenly he was stopped by a sound.  He glanced towards a corner near
+David's feet.  There sat Mahommed watching, a neboot of dom-wood across
+his knees.
+
+Their eyes remained fixed upon each other for a moment.  Then Nahoum
+passed back into his bedroom as stealthily as he had come.
+
+Mahommed looked closely at David.  He lay with an arm thrown over his
+head, resting softly, a moisture on his forehead as on that of a sleeping
+child.
+
+"Saadat!  Saadat!" said Mahommed softly to the sleeping figure, scarcely
+above his breath, and then with his eyes upon the curtained room
+opposite, began to whisper words from the Koran:
+
+"In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful--"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+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.  He was less stoical and apathetic than most
+Egyptians.  Also he was absurdly vain, and he knew that his vanity would
+receive rough usage.
+
+Now the door swung open, and a portly figure entered quickly.  For so
+large a man Prince Kaid was light and subtle in his movements.  His face
+was mobile, his eye keen and human.
+
+Achmet salaamed low.  "The gardens of the First Heaven be thine, and the
+uttermost joy, Effendina," he said elaborately.
+
+"A thousand colours to the rainbow of thy happiness," answered Kaid
+mechanically, and seated himself cross-legged on a divan, taking a
+narghileh from the black slave who had glided ghostlike behind him.
+
+"What hour didst thou find him?  Where hast thou placed him?" he added,
+after a moment.
+
+Achmet salaamed once more.  "I have burrowed without ceasing, but the
+holes are empty, Effendina," he returned, abjectly and nervously.
+
+He had need to be concerned.  The reply was full of amazement and anger.
+"Thou hast not found him?  Thou hast not brought Nahoum to me?"  Kaid's
+eyes were growing reddish; no good sign for those around him, for any
+that crossed him or his purposes.
+
+"A hundred eyes failed to search him out.  Ten thousand piastres did not
+find him; the kourbash did not reveal him."
+
+Kaid's frown grew heavier.  "Thou shalt bring Nahoum to me by midnight
+to-morrow!"
+
+"But if he has escaped, Effendina?"  Achmet asked desperately.  He had a
+peasant's blood; fear of power was ingrained.
+
+"What was thy business but to prevent escape?  Son of a Nile crocodile,
+if he has escaped, thou too shalt escape from Egypt--into Fazougli.
+Fool, Nahoum is no coward.  He would remain.  He is in Egypt."
+
+"If he be in Egypt, I will find him, Effendina.  Have I ever failed?
+When thou hast pointed, have I not brought?  Have there not been many,
+Effendina?  Should I not bring Nahoum, who has held over our heads the
+rod?"
+
+Kaid looked at him meditatively, and gave no answer to the question.
+"He reached too far," he muttered.  "Egypt has one master only."
+
+The door opened softly and the black slave stole in.  His lips moved, but
+scarce a sound travelled across the room.  Kaid understood, and made a
+gesture.  An instant afterwards the vast figure of Higli Pasha bulked
+into the room.  Again there were elaborate salutations and salaams, and
+Kaid presently said:
+
+"Foorgat?"
+
+"Effendina," answered High, "it is not known how he died.  He was in this
+Palace alive at night.  In the morning he was found in bed at his own
+home."
+
+"There was no wound?"
+
+"None, Effendina."
+
+"The thong?"
+
+"There was no mark, Effendina."
+
+"Poison?"
+
+"There was no sign, Effendina."
+
+"Diamond-dust?"
+
+"Impossible, Effendina.  There was not time.  He was alive and well here
+at the Palace at eleven, and--" Kaid made an impatient gesture.  "By the
+stone in the Kaabah, but it is not reasonable that Foorgat should die in
+his bed like a babe and sleep himself into heaven!  Fate meant him for a
+violent end; but ere that came there was work to do for me.  He had a
+gift for scenting treason--and he had treasure."  His eyes shut and
+opened again with a look not pleasant to see.  "But since it was that he
+must die so soon, then the loan he promised must now be a gift from the
+dead, if he be dead, if he be not shamming.  Foorgat was a dire jester."
+
+"But now it is no jest, Effendina.  He is in his grave."
+
+"In his grave!  Bismillah!  In his grave, dost thou say?"
+
+High's voice quavered.  "Yesterday before sunset, Effendina.  By Nahoum's
+orders."
+
+"I ordered the burial for to-day.  By the gates of hell, but who shall
+disobey me!"
+
+"He was already buried when the Effendina's orders came," High pleaded
+anxiously.
+
+"Nahoum should have been taken yesterday," he rejoined, with malice in
+his eyes.
+
+"If I had received the orders of the Effendina on the night when the
+Effendina dismissed Nahoum--" Achmet said softly, and broke off.
+
+"A curse upon thine eyes that did not see thy duty!" Kaid replied
+gloomily.  Then he turned to High.  "My seal has been put upon Foorgat's
+doors?  His treasure-places have been found?  The courts have been
+commanded as to his estate, the banks--"
+
+"It was too late, Effendina," replied High hopelessly.  Kaid got to his
+feet slowly, rage possessing him.  "Too late!  Who makes it too late when
+I command?"
+
+"When Foorgat was found dead, Nahoum at once seized the palace and the
+treasures.  Then he went to the courts and to the holy men, and claimed
+succession.  That was while it was yet early morning.  Then he instructed
+the banks.  The banks hold Foorgat's fortune against us, Effendina."
+
+"Foorgat had turned Mahommedan.  Nahoum is a Christian.  My will is law.
+Shall a Christian dog inherit from a true believer?  The courts, the
+Wakfs shall obey me.  And thou, son of a burnt father, shalt find Nahoum!
+Kaid shall not be cheated.  Foorgat pledged the loan.  It is mine.  Allah
+scorch thine eyes!" he added fiercely to Achmet, "but thou shalt find
+this Christian gentleman, Nahoum."
+
+Suddenly, with a motion of disgust, he sat down, and taking the stem of
+the narghileh, puffed vigorously in silence.  Presently in a red fury he
+cried: "Go--go--go, and bring me back by midnight Nahoum, and Foorgat's
+treasures, to the last piastre.  Let every soldier be a spy, if thine own
+spies fail."
+
+As they turned to go, the door opened again, the black slave appeared,
+and ushered David into the room.  David salaamed, but not low, and stood
+still.
+
+On the instant Kaid changed,  The rage left his face.  He leaned forward
+eagerly, the cruel and ugly look faded slowly from his eyes.
+
+"May thy days of life be as a river with sands of gold, effendi," he said
+gently.  He had a voice like music.  "May the sun shine in thy heart and
+fruits of wisdom flourish there, Effendina," answered David quietly.  He
+saluted the others gravely, and his eyes rested upon Achmet in a way
+which Higli Pasha noted for subsequent gossip.
+
+Kaid pulled at his narghileh for a moment, mumbling good-humouredly to
+himself and watching the smoke reel away; then, with half-shut eyes, he
+said to David: "Am I master in Egypt or no, effendi?"
+
+"In ruling this people the Prince of Egypt stands alone," answered David.
+"There is no one between him and the people.  There is no Parliament."
+
+"It is in my hand, then, to give or to withhold, to make or to break?"
+Kaid chuckled to have this tribute, as he thought, from a Christian, who
+did not blink at Oriental facts, and was honest.
+
+David bowed his head to Kaid's words.
+
+"Then if it be my hand that lifts up or casts down, that rewards or that
+punishes, shall my arm not stretch into the darkest corner of Egypt to
+bring forth a traitor?  Shall it not be so?"
+
+"It belongs to thy power," answered David.  "It is the ancient custom of
+princes here.  Custom is law, while it is yet the custom."
+
+Kaid looked at him enigmatically for a moment, then smiled grimly--he
+saw the course of the lance which David had thrown.  He bent his look
+fiercely on Achmet and Higli.  "Ye have heard.  Truth is on his lips.
+I have stretched out my arm.  Ye are my arm, to reach for and gather in
+Nahoum and all that is his."  He turned quickly to David again.  "I have
+given this hawk, Achmet, till to-morrow night to bring Nahoum to me," he
+explained.
+
+"And if he fails--a penalty?  He will lose his place?" asked David, with
+cold humour.
+
+"More than his place," Kaid rejoined, with a cruel smile.
+
+"Then is his place mine, Effendina," rejoined David, with a look which
+could give Achmet no comfort.  "Thou will bring Nahoum--thou?" asked
+Kaid, in amazement.
+
+"I have brought him," answered David.  "Is it not my duty to know the
+will of the Effendina and to do it, when it is just and right?"
+
+"Where is he--where does he wait?" questioned Kaid eagerly.
+
+"Within the Palace--here," replied David.  "He awaits his fate in thine
+own dwelling, Effendina."  Kaid glowered upon Achmet.  "In the years
+which Time, the Scytheman, will cut from thy life, think, as thou fastest
+at Ramadan or feastest at Beiram, how Kaid filled thy plate when thou
+wast a beggar, and made thee from a dog of a fellah into a pasha.  Go to
+thy dwelling, and come here no more," he added sharply.  "I am sick of
+thy yellow, sinful face."
+
+Achmet made no reply, but, as he passed beyond the door with Higli, he
+said in a whisper: "Come--to Harrik and the army!  He shall be deposed.
+The hour is at hand."  High answered him faintly, however.  He had not
+the courage of the true conspirator, traitor though he was.
+
+As they disappeared, Kaid made a wide gesture of friendliness to David,
+and motioned to a seat, then to a narghileh.  David seated himself, took
+the stem of a narghileh in his mouth for an instant, then laid it down
+again and waited.
+
+"Nahoum--I do not understand," Kaid said presently, his eyes gloating.
+
+"He comes of his own will, Effendina."
+
+"Wherefore?"  Kaid could not realise the truth.  This truth was not
+Oriental on the face of it.  "Effendina, he comes to place his life in
+thy hands.  He would speak with thee."
+
+"How is it thou dost bring him?"
+
+"He sought me to plead for him with thee, and because I knew his peril,
+I kept him with me and brought him hither but now."
+
+"Nahoum went to thee?"  Kaid's eyes peered abstractedly into the distance
+between the almost shut lids.  That Nahoum should seek David, who had
+displaced him from his high office, was scarcely Oriental, when his every
+cue was to have revenge on his rival.  This was a natural sequence to his
+downfall.  It was understandable.  But here was David safe and sound.
+Was it, then, some deeper scheme of future vengeance?  The Oriental
+instinctively pierced the mind of the Oriental.  He could have realised
+fully the fierce, blinding passion for revenge which had almost overcome
+Nahoum's calculating mind in the dark night, with his foe in the next
+room, which had driven him suddenly from his bed to fall upon David, only
+to find Mahommed Hassan watching--also with the instinct of the Oriental.
+
+Some future scheme of revenge?  Kaid's eyes gleamed red.  There would be
+no future for Nahoum.  "Why did Nahoum go to thee?" he asked again
+presently.
+
+"That I might beg his life of thee, Highness, as I said," David replied.
+
+"I have not ordered his death."
+
+David looked meditatively at him.  "It was agreed between us yesterday
+that I should speak plainly--is it not so?"
+
+Kaid nodded, and leaned back among the cushions.
+
+"If what the Effendina intends is fulfilled, there is no other way but
+death for Nahoum," added David.  "What is my intention, effendi?"
+
+"To confiscate the fortune left by Foorgat Bey.  Is it not so?"
+
+"I had a pledge from Foorgat--a loan."
+
+"That is the merit of the case, Effendina.  I am otherwise concerned.
+There is the law.  Nahoum inherits.  Shouldst thou send him to Fazougli,
+he would still inherit."
+
+"He is a traitor."
+
+"Highness, where is the proof?"
+
+"I know.  My friends have disappeared one by one--Nahoum.  Lands have
+been alienated from me--Nahoum.  My income has declined--Nahoum.  I have
+given orders and they have not been fulfilled--Nahoum.  Always, always
+some rumour of assassination, or of conspiracy, or the influence and
+secret agents of the Sultan--all Nahoum.  He is a traitor.  He has grown
+rich while I borrow from Europe to pay my army and to meet the demands of
+the Sultan."
+
+"What man can offer evidence in this save the Effendina who would profit
+by his death?"
+
+"I speak of what I know.  I satisfy myself.  It is enough."
+
+"Highness, there is a better way; to satisfy the people, for whom thee
+lives.  None should stand between.  Is not the Effendina a father to
+them?"
+
+"The people!  Would they not say Nahoum had got his due if he were
+blotted from their sight?"
+
+"None has been so generous to the poor, so it is said by all.  His hand
+has been upon the rich only.  Now, Effendina, he has brought hither the
+full amount of all he has received and acquired in thy service.  He would
+offer it in tribute."
+
+Kaid smiled sardonically.  "It is a thin jest.  When a traitor dies the
+State confiscates his goods!"
+
+"Thee calls him traitor.  Does thee believe he has ever conspired against
+thy life?"
+
+Kaid shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Let me answer for thee, Effendina.  Again and again he has defeated
+conspiracy.  He has blotted it out--by the sword and other means.  He has
+been a faithful servant to his Prince at least.  If he has done after the
+manner of all others in power here, the fault is in the system, not in
+the man alone.  He has been a friend to thee, Kaid."
+
+"I hope to find in thee a better."
+
+"Why should he not live?"
+
+"Thou hast taken his place."
+
+"Is it, then, the custom to destroy those who have served thee, when they
+cease to serve?"  David rose to his feet quickly.  His face was shining
+with a strange excitement.  It gave him a look of exaltation, his lips
+quivered with indignation.  "Does thee kill because there is silence in
+the grave?"
+
+Kaid blew a cloud of smoke slowly.  "Silence in the grave is a fact
+beyond dispute," he said cynically.
+
+"Highness, thee changes servants not seldom," rejoined David meaningly.
+"It may be that my service will be short.  When I go, will the long arm
+reach out for me in the burrows where I shall hide?"
+
+Kaid looked at him with ill-concealed admiration.  "Thou art an
+Englishman, not an Egyptian, a guest, not a subject, and under no law
+save my friendship."  Then he added scornfully: "When an Englishman in
+England leaves office, no matter how unfaithful, though he be a friend of
+any country save his own, they send him to the House of Lords--or so I
+was told in France when I was there.  What does it matter to thee what
+chances to Nahoum?  Thou hast his place with me.  My secrets are thine.
+They shall all be thine--for years I have sought an honest man.  Thou art
+safe whether to go or to stay."
+
+"It may be so.  I heed it not.  My life is as that of a gull--if the wind
+carry it out to sea, it is lost.  As my uncle went I shall go one day.
+Thee will never do me ill; but do I not know that I shall have foes at
+every corner, behind every mooshrabieh screen, on every mastaba, in the
+pasha's court-yard, by every mosque?  Do I not know in what peril I serve
+Egypt?"
+
+"Yet thou wouldst keep alive Nahoum!  He will dig thy grave deep, and
+wait long."
+
+"He will work with me for Egypt, Effendina."  Kaid's face darkened.
+
+"What is thy meaning?"
+
+"I ask Nahoum's life that he may serve under me, to do those things thou
+and I planned yesterday--the land, taxation, the army, agriculture, the
+Soudan.  Together we will make Egypt better and greater and richer--the
+poor richer, even though the rich be poorer."
+
+"And Kaid--poorer?"
+
+"When Egypt is richer, the Prince is richer, too.  Is not the Prince
+Egypt?  Highness, yesterday--yesterday thee gave me my commission.  If
+thee will not take Nahoum again into service to aid me, I must not
+remain.  I cannot work alone."
+
+"Thou must have this Christian Oriental to work with thee?"  He looked at
+David closely, then smiled sardonically, but with friendliness to David
+in his eyes.  "Nahoum has prayed to work with thee, to be a slave where
+he was master?  He says to thee that he would lay his heart upon the
+altar of Egypt?"  Mordant, questioning humour was in his voice.
+
+David inclined his head.
+
+"He would give up all that is his?"
+
+"It is so, Effendina."
+
+"All save Foorgat's heritage?"
+
+"It belonged to their father.  It is a due inheritance."
+
+Kaid laughed sarcastically.  "It was got in Mehemet Ali's service."
+
+"Nathless, it is a heritage, Effendina.  He would give that fortune back
+again to Egypt in work with me, as I shall give of what is mine, and of
+what I am, in the name of God, the all-merciful!"
+
+The smile faded out of Kaid's face, and wonder settled on it.  What
+manner of man was this?  His life, his fortune for Egypt, a country alien
+to him, which he had never seen till six months ago!  What kind of being
+was behind the dark, fiery eyes and the pale, impassioned face?  Was he
+some new prophet?  If so, why should he not have cast a spell upon
+Nahoum?  Had he not bewitched himself, Kaid, one of the ablest princes
+since Alexander or Amenhotep?  Had Nahoum, then, been mastered and won?
+Was ever such power?  In how many ways had it not been shown!  He had
+fought for his uncle's fortune, and had got it at last yesterday without
+a penny of backsheesh.  Having got his will, he was now ready to give
+that same fortune to the good of Egypt--but not to beys and pashas and
+eunuchs (and that he should have escaped Mizraim was the marvel beyond
+all others!), or even to the Prince Pasha; but to that which would make
+"Egypt better and greater and richer--the poor richer, even though the
+rich be poorer!" Kaid chuckled to himself at that.  To make the rich
+poorer would suit him well, so long as he remained rich.  And, if riches
+could be got, as this pale Frank proposed, by less extortion from the
+fellah and less kourbash, so much the happier for all.
+
+He was capable of patriotism, and this Quaker dreamer had stirred it in
+him a little.  Egypt, industrial in a real sense; Egypt, paying her own
+way without tyranny and loans: Egypt, without corvee, and with an army
+hired from a full public purse; Egypt, grown strong and able to resist
+the suzerainty and cruel tribute--that touched his native goodness of
+heart, so long, in disguise; it appealed to the sense of leadership in
+him; to the love of the soil deep in his bones; to regard for the common
+people--for was not his mother a slave?  Some distant nobleness trembled
+in him, while yet the arid humour of the situation flashed into his eyes,
+and, getting to his feet, he said to David: "Where is Nahoum?"
+
+David told him, and he clapped his hands.  The black slave entered,
+received an order, and disappeared.  Neither spoke, but Kaid's face was
+full of cheerfulness.
+
+Presently Nahoum entered and salaamed low, then put his hand upon his
+turban.  There was submission, but no cringing or servility in his
+manner.  His blue eyes looked fearlessly before him.  His face was not
+paler than its wont.  He waited for Kaid to speak.
+
+"Peace be to thee," Kaid murmured mechanically.
+
+"And to thee, peace, O Prince," answered Nahoum.  "May the feet of Time
+linger by thee, and Death pass thy house forgetful."
+
+There was silence for a moment, and then Kaid spoke again.  "What are thy
+properties and treasure?" he asked sternly.
+
+Nahoum drew forth a paper from his sleeve, and handed it to Kaid without
+a word.  Kaid glanced at it hurriedly, then said: "This is but nothing.
+What hast thou hidden from me?"
+
+"It is all I have got in thy service, Highness," he answered boldly.
+"All else I have given to the poor; also to spies--and to the army."
+
+"To spies--and to the army?" asked Kaid slowly, incredulously.
+
+"Wilt thou come with me to the window, Effendina?"  Kaid, wondering, went
+to the great windows which looked on to the Palace square.  There, drawn
+up, were a thousand mounted men as black as ebony, wearing shining white
+metal helmets and fine chain-armour and swords and lances like medieval
+crusaders.  The horses, too, were black, and the mass made a barbaric
+display belonging more to another period in the world's history.  This
+regiment of Nubians Kaid had recruited from the far south, and had
+maintained at his own expense.  When they saw him at the window now,
+their swords clashed on their thighs and across their breasts, and they
+raised a great shout of greeting.
+
+"Well?" asked Kaid, with a ring to the voice.  "They are loyal,
+Effendina, every man.  But the army otherwise is honeycombed with
+treason.  Effendina, my money has been busy in the army paying and
+bribing officers, and my spies were costly.  There has been sedition--
+conspiracy; but until I could get the full proofs I waited; I could but
+bribe and wait.  Were it not for the money I had spent, there might have
+been another Prince of Egypt."
+
+Kald's face darkened.  He was startled, too.  He had been taken unawares.
+"My brother Harrik--!"
+
+"And I should have lost my place, lost all for which I cared.  I had no
+love for money; it was but a means.  I spent it for the State--for the
+Effendina, and to keep my place.  I lost my place, however, in another
+way."
+
+"Proofs!  Proofs!"  Kaid's voice was hoarse with feeling.
+
+"I have no proofs against Prince Harrik, no word upon paper.  But there
+are proofs that the army is seditious, that, at any moment, it may
+revolt."
+
+"Thou hast kept this secret?" questioned Kaid darkly and suspiciously.
+
+"The time had not come.  Read, Effendina," he added, handing some papers
+over.
+
+"But it is the whole army!" said Kaid aghast, as he read.  He was
+convinced.
+
+"There is only one guilty," returned Nahoum.  Their eyes met.  Oriental
+fatalism met inveterate Oriental distrust and then instinctively Kaid's
+eyes turned to David.  In the eyes of the Inglesi was a different thing.
+The test of the new relationship had come.  Ferocity was in his heart, a
+vitriolic note was in his voice as he said to David, "If this be true--
+the army rotten, the officers disloyal, treachery under every tunic--
+bismillah, speak!"
+
+"Shall it not be one thing at a time, Effendina?" asked David.  He made
+a gesture towards Nahoum.  Kaid motioned to a door.  "Wait yonder," he
+said darkly to Nahoum.  As the door opened, and Nahoum disappeared
+leisurely and composedly, David caught a glimpse of a guard of armed
+Nubians in leopard-skins filed against the white wall of the other room.
+
+"What is thy intention towards Nahoum, Effendina?" David asked
+presently.
+
+Kaid's voice was impatient.  "Thou hast asked his life--take it; it is
+thine; but if I find him within these walls again until I give him leave,
+he shall go as Foorgat went."
+
+"What was the manner of Foorgat's going?" asked David quietly.
+
+"As a wind blows through a court-yard, and the lamp goes out, so he went
+--in the night.  Who can say?  Wherefore speculate?  He is gone.  It is
+enough.  Were it not for thee, Egypt should see Nahoum no more."
+
+David sighed, and his eyes closed for an instant.  "Effendina, Nahoum has
+proved his faith--is it not so?"  He pointed to the documents in Kaid's
+hands.
+
+A grim smile passed over Kaid's face.  Distrust of humanity, incredulity,
+cold cynicism, were in it.  "Wheels within wheels, proofs within proofs,"
+he said.  "Thou hast yet to learn the Eastern heart.  When thou seest
+white in the East, call it black, for in an instant it will be black.
+Malaish, it is the East!  Have I not trusted--did I not mean well by all?
+Did I not deal justly?  Yet my justice was but darkness of purpose, the
+hidden terror to them all.  So did I become what thou findest me and dost
+believe me--a tyrant, in whose name a thousand do evil things of which I
+neither hear nor know.  Proof!  When a woman lies in your arms, it is not
+the moment to prove her fidelity.  Nahoum has crawled back to my feet
+with these things, and by the beard of the Prophet they are true!"  He
+looked at the papers with loathing.  "But what his purpose was when he
+spied upon and bribed my army I know not.  Yet, it shall be said, he has
+held Harrik back--Harrik, my brother.  Son of Sheitan and slime of the
+Nile, have I not spared Harrik all these years!"
+
+"Hast thou proof, Effendina?"
+
+"I have proof enough; I shall have more soon.  To save their lives,
+these, these will tell.  I have their names here."  He tapped the papers.
+"There are ways to make them tell.  Now, speak, effendi, and tell me what
+I shall do to Harrik."
+
+"Wouldst thou proclaim to Egypt, to the Sultan, to the world that the
+army is disloyal?  If these guilty men are seized, can the army be
+trusted?  Will it not break away in fear?  Yonder Nubians are not enough
+--a handful lost in the melee.  Prove the guilt of him who perverted the
+army and sought to destroy thee.  Punish him."
+
+"How shall there be proof save through those whom he has perverted?
+There is no writing."
+
+"There is proof," answered David calmly.
+
+"Where shall I find it?" Kaid laughed contemptuously.
+
+"I have the proof," answered David gravely.  "Against Harrik?"
+
+"Against Prince Harrik Pasha."
+
+"Thou--what dost thou know?"
+
+"A woman of the Prince heard him give instructions for thy disposal,
+Effendina, when the Citadel should turns its guns upon Cairo and the
+Palace.  She was once of thy harem.  Thou didst give her in marriage,
+and she came to the harem of Prince Harrik at last.  A woman from without
+who sang to her--a singing girl, an al'mah--she trusted with the paper to
+warn thee, Effendina, in her name.  Her heart had remembrance of thee.
+Her foster-brother Mahommed Hassan is my servant.  Him she told, and
+Mahommed laid the matter before me this morning.  Here is a sign by which
+thee will remember her, so she said.  Zaida she was called here."  He
+handed over an amulet which had one red gem in the centre.
+
+Kaid's face had set into fierce resolution, but as he took the amulet his
+eyes softened.
+
+"Zaida.  Inshallah!  Zaida, she was called.  She has the truth almost of
+the English.  She could not lie ever.  My heart smote me concerning her,
+and I gave her in marriage."  Then his face darkened again, and his teeth
+showed in malice.  A demon was roused in him.  He might long ago have
+banished the handsome and insinuating Harrik, but he had allowed him
+wealth and safety--and now .  .  .
+
+His intention was unmistakable.
+
+"He shall die the death," he said.  "Is it not so?" he added fiercely to
+David, and gazed at him fixedly.  Would this man of peace plead for the
+traitor, the would-be fratricide?
+
+"He is a traitor; he must die," answered David slowly.
+
+Kald's eyes showed burning satisfaction.  "If he were thy brother, thou
+wouldst kill him?"
+
+"I would give a traitor to death for the country's sake.  There is no
+other way."
+
+"To-night he shall die."
+
+"But with due trial, Effendina?"
+
+"Trial--is not the proof sufficient?"
+
+"But if he confess, and give evidence himself, and so offer himself to
+die?"
+
+"Is Harrik a fool?" answered Kaid, with scorn.
+
+If there be a trial and sentence is given, the truth concerning the army
+must appear.  Is that well?  Egypt will shake to its foundations--to the
+joy of its enemies."
+
+"Then he shall die secretly."
+
+"The Prince Pasha of Egypt will be called a murderer."
+
+Kaid shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"The Sultan--Europe--is it well?"
+
+"I will tell the truth," Kaid rejoined angrily.
+
+"If the Effendina will trust me, Prince Harrik shall confess his crime
+and pay the penalty also."
+
+"What is thy purpose?"
+
+"I will go to his palace and speak with him."
+
+"Seize him?"
+
+"I have no power to seize him, Effendina."
+
+"I will give it.  My Nubians shall go also."
+
+"Effendina, I will go alone.  It is the only way.  There is great danger
+to the throne.  Who can tell what a night will bring forth?"
+
+"If Harrik should escape--"
+
+"If I were an Egyptian and permitted Harrik to escape, my life would pay
+for my failure.  If I failed, thou wouldst not succeed.  If I am to serve
+Egypt, there must be trust in me from thee, or it were better to pause
+now.  If I go, as I shall go, alone, I put my life in danger--is it not
+so?"
+
+Suddenly Kaid sat down again among his cushions.  "Inshallah!  In the
+name of God, be it so.  Thou art not as other men.  There is something in
+thee above my thinking.  But I will not sleep till I see thee again."
+
+"I shall see thee at midnight, Effendina.  Give me the ring from thy
+finger."
+
+Kaid passed it over, and David put it in his pocket.  Then he turned to
+go.
+
+"Nahoum?" he asked.
+
+"Take him hence.  Let him serve thee if it be thy will.  Yet I cannot
+understand it.  The play is dark.  Is he not an Oriental?"
+
+"He is a Christian."
+
+Kaid laughed sourly, and clapped his hands for the slave.
+
+In a moment David and Nahoum were gone.  "Nahoum, a Christian!
+Bismillah!" murmured Kaid scornfully, then fell to pondering darkly over
+the evil things he had heard.
+
+Meanwhile the Nubians in their glittering armour waited without in the
+blistering square.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE JEHAD AND THE LIONS
+
+"Allah hu Achbar!  Allah hu Achbar!  Ashhadu an la illaha illalla!"  The
+sweetly piercing, resonant voice of the Muezzin rang far and commandingly
+on the clear evening air, and from bazaar and crowded street the faithful
+silently hurried to the mosques, leaving their slippers at the door,
+while others knelt where the call found them, and touched their foreheads
+to the ground.
+
+In his palace by the Nile, Harrik, the half-brother of the Prince Pasha,
+heard it, and breaking off from conversation with two urgent visitors,
+passed to an alcove near, dropping a curtain behind him.  Kneeling
+reverently on the solitary furniture of the room--a prayer-rug from
+Medina--he lost himself as completely in his devotions as though his life
+were an even current of unforbidden acts and motives.
+
+Cross-legged on the great divan of the room he had left, his less pious
+visitors, unable to turn their thoughts from the dark business on which
+they had come, smoked their cigarettes, talking to each other in tones so
+low as would not have been heard by a European, and with apparent
+listlessness.
+
+Their manner would not have indicated that they were weighing matters of
+life and death, of treason and infamy, of massacre and national shame.
+Only the sombre, smouldering fire of their eyes was evidence of the
+lighted fuse of conspiracy burning towards the magazine.  One look of
+surprise had been exchanged when Harrik Pasha left them suddenly--time
+was short for what they meant to do; but they were Muslims, and they
+resigned themselves.
+
+"The Inglesi must be the first to go; shall a Christian dog rule over
+us?"
+
+It was Achmet the Ropemaker who spoke, his yellow face wrinkling with
+malice, though his voice but murmured hoarsely.
+
+"Nahoum will kill him."  Higli Pasha laughed low--it was like the gurgle
+of water in the narghileh--a voice of good nature and persuasiveness from
+a heart that knew no virtue.  "Bismillah!  Who shall read the meaning of
+it?  Why has he not already killed?"
+
+"Nahoum would choose his own time--after he has saved his life by the
+white carrion.  Kaid will give him his life if the Inglesi asks.  The
+Inglesi, he is mad.  If he were not mad, he would see to it that Nahoum
+was now drying his bones in the sands."
+
+"What each has failed to do for the other shall be done for them,"
+answered Achmet, a hateful leer on his immobile features.  "To-night many
+things shall be made right.  To-morrow there will be places empty and
+places filled.  Egypt shall begin again to-morrow."
+
+"Kaid?"
+
+Achmet stopped smoking for a moment.  "When the khamsin comes, when the
+camels stampede, and the children of the storm fall upon the caravan, can
+it be foretold in what way Fate shall do her work?  So but the end be the
+same--malaish!  We shall be content tomorrow."
+
+Now he turned and looked at his companion as though his mind had chanced
+on a discovery.  "To him who first brings word to a prince who inherits,
+that the reigning prince is dead, belong honour and place," he said.
+
+"Then shall it be between us twain," said High, and laid his hot palm
+against the cold, snaky palm of the other.  "And he to whom the honour
+falls shall help the other."
+
+"Aiwa, but it shall be so," answered Achmet, and then they spoke in lower
+tones still, their eyes on the curtain behind which Harrik prayed.
+
+Presently Harrik entered, impassive, yet alert, his slight, handsome
+figure in sharp contrast to the men lounging in the cushions before him,
+who salaamed as he came forward.  The features were finely chiselled, the
+forehead white and high, the lips sensuous, the eyes fanatical, the look
+concentrated yet abstracted.  He took a seat among the cushions, and,
+after a moment, said to Achmet, in a voice abnormally deep and powerful:
+"Diaz--there is no doubt of Diaz?"
+
+"He awaits the signal.  The hawk flies not swifter than Diaz will act."
+
+"The people--the bazaars--the markets?"
+
+"As the air stirs a moment before the hurricane comes, so the whisper has
+stirred them.  From one lip to another, from one street to another, from
+one quarter to another, the word has been passed--'Nahoum was a
+Christian, but Nahoum was an Egyptian whose heart was Muslim.  The
+stranger is a Christian and an Inglesi.  Reason has fled from the Prince
+Pasha, the Inglesi has bewitched him.  But the hour of deliverance
+draweth nigh.  Be ready!  To-night!'  So has the whisper gone."
+
+Harrik's eyes burned.  "God is great," he said.  "The time has come.  The
+Christians spoil us.  From France, from England, from Austria--it is
+enough.  Kaid has handed us over to the Greek usurers, the Inglesi and
+the Frank are everywhere.  And now this new-comer who would rule Kaid,
+and lay his hand upon Egypt like Joseph of old, and bring back Nahoum,
+to the shame of every Muslim--behold, the spark is to the tinder, it
+shall burn."
+
+"And the hour, Effendina?"
+
+"At midnight.  The guns to be trained on the Citadel, the Palace
+surrounded.  Kaid's Nubians?"
+
+"A hundred will be there, Effendina, the rest a mile away at their
+barracks."  Achmet rubbed his cold palms together in satisfaction.
+
+"And Prince Kaid, Effendina?" asked Higli cautiously.
+
+The fanatical eyes turned away.  "The question is foolish--have ye no
+brains?" he said impatiently.
+
+A look of malignant triumph flashed from Achmet to High, and he said,
+scarce above a whisper: "May thy footsteps be as the wings of the eagle,
+Effendina.  The heart of the pomegranate is not redder than our hearts
+are red for thee.  Cut deep into our hearts, and thou shalt find the last
+beat is for thee--and for the Jehad!"
+
+"The Jehad--ay, the Jehad!  The time is at hand," answered Harrik,
+glowering at the two.  "The sword shall not be sheathed till we have
+redeemed Egypt.  Go your ways, effendis, and peace be on you and on all
+the righteous worshippers of God!"
+
+As High and Achmet left the palace, the voice of a holy man--admitted
+everywhere and treated with reverence--chanting the Koran, came
+somnolently through the court-yard: "Bismillah hirrahmah, nirraheem.
+Elhamdu lillahi sabbila!"
+
+Rocking his body backwards and forwards and dwelling sonorously on each
+vowel, the holy man seemed the incarnation of Muslim piety; but as the
+two conspirators passed him with scarce a glance, and made their way to a
+small gate leading into the great garden bordering on the Nile, his eyes
+watched them sharply.  When they had passed through, he turned towards
+the windows of the harem, still chanting.  For a long time he chanted.
+An occasional servant came and went, but his voice ceased not, and he
+kept his eyes fixed ever on the harem windows.
+
+At last his watching had its reward.  Something fluttered from a window
+to the ground.  Still chanting, he rose and began walking round the great
+court-yard.  Twice he went round, still chanting, but the third time he
+stooped to pick up a little strip of linen which had fallen from the
+window, and concealed it in his sleeve.  Presently he seated himself
+again, and, still chanting, spread out the linen in his palm and read the
+characters upon it.  For an instant there was a jerkiness to the voice,
+and then it droned on resonantly again.  Now the eyes of the holy man
+were fixed on the great gates through which strangers entered, and he was
+seated in the way which any one must take who came to the palace doors.
+
+It was almost dark, when he saw the bowab, after repeated knocking,
+sleepily and grudgingly open the gates to admit a visitor.  There seemed
+to be a moment's hesitation on the bowab's part, but he was presently
+assured by something the visitor showed him, and the latter made his way
+deliberately to the palace doors.  As the visitor neared the holy man,
+who chanted on monotonously, he was suddenly startled to hear between the
+long-drawn syllables the quick words in Arabic:
+
+
+"Beware, Saadat!  See, I am Mahommed Hassan, thy servant!  At midnight
+they surround Kaid's palace--Achmet and Higli--and kill the Prince Pasha.
+Return, Saadat.  Harrik will kill thee."
+
+David made no sign, but with a swift word to the faithful Mahommed
+Hassan, passed on, and was presently admitted to the palace.  As the
+doors closed behind him, he would hear the voice of the holy man still
+chanting: "Waladalleen--Ameen-Ameen!  Waladalleen--Ameen!"
+
+The voice followed him, fainter and fainter, as he passed through the
+great bare corridors with the thick carpets on which the footsteps made
+no sound, until it came, soft and undefined, as it were from a great
+distance.  Then suddenly there fell upon him a sense of the peril of his
+enterprise.  He had been left alone in the vast dim hall while a slave,
+made obsequious by the sight of the ring of the Prince Pasha, sought his
+master.  As he waited he was conscious that people were moving about
+behind the great screens of mooshrabieh which separated this room from
+others, and that eyes were following his every motion.  He had gained
+easy ingress to this place; but egress was a matter of some speculation.
+The doors which had closed behind him might swing one way only!  He had
+voluntarily put himself in the power of a man whose fatal secret he knew.
+He only felt a moment's apprehension, however.  He had been moved to come
+from a whisper in his soul; and he had the sure conviction of the
+predestinarian that he was not to be the victim of "The Scytheman" before
+his appointed time.  His mind resumed its composure, and he watchfully
+waited the return of the slave.
+
+Suddenly he was conscious of some one behind him, though he had heard no
+one approach.  He swung round and was met by the passive face of the
+black slave in personal attendance on Harrik.  The slave did not speak,
+but motioned towards a screen at the end of the room, and moved towards
+it.  David followed.  As they reached it, a broad panel opened, and they
+passed through, between a line of black slaves.  Then there was a sudden
+darkness, and a moment later David was ushered into a room blazing with
+light.  Every inch of the walls was hung with red curtains.  No door was
+visible.  He was conscious of this as the panel clicked behind him, and
+the folds of the red velvet caught his shoulder in falling.  Now he saw
+sitting on a divan on the opposite side of the room Prince Harrik.
+
+David had never before seen him, and his imagination had fashioned a
+different personality.  Here was a combination of intellect, refinement,
+and savagery.  The red, sullen lips stamped the delicate, fanatical face
+with cruelty and barbaric indulgence, while yet there was an intensity in
+the eyes that showed the man was possessed of an idea which mastered him
+--a root-thought.  David was at once conscious of a complex personality,
+of a man in whom two natures fought.  He understood it.  By instinct
+the man was a Mahdi, by heredity he was a voluptuary, that strange
+commingling of the religious and the evil found in so many criminals.
+In some far corner of his nature David felt something akin.  The
+rebellion in his own blood against the fine instinct of his Quaker faith
+and upbringing made him grasp the personality before him.  Had he himself
+been born in these surroundings, under these influences!  The thought
+flashed through his mind like lightning, even as he bowed before Harrik,
+who salaamed and said: "Peace be unto thee!" and motioned him to a seat
+on a divan near and facing him.
+
+"What is thy business with me, effendi?" asked Harrik.
+
+"I come on the business of the Prince Pasha," answered David.
+
+Harrik touched his fez mechanically, then his breast and lips, and a
+cruel smile lurked at the corners of his mouth as he rejoined:
+
+"The feet of them who wear the ring of their Prince wait at no man's
+door.  The carpet is spread for them.  They go and they come as the feet
+of the doe in the desert.  Who shall say, They shall not come; who shall
+say, They shall not return!"
+
+Though the words were spoken with an air of ingenuous welcome, David felt
+the malignity in the last phrase, and knew that now was come the most
+fateful moment of his life.  In his inner being he heard the dreadful
+challenge of Fate.  If he failed in his purpose with this man, he would
+never begin his work in Egypt.  Of his life he did not think--his life
+was his purpose, and the one was nothing without the other.  No other man
+would have undertaken so Quixotic an enterprise, none would have exposed
+himself so recklessly to the dreadful accidents of circumstance.  There
+had been other ways to overcome this crisis, but he had rejected them for
+a course fantastic and fatal when looked at in the light of ordinary
+reason.  A struggle between the East and the West was here to be fought
+out between two wills; between an intellectual libertine steeped in
+Oriental guilt and cruelty and self-indulgence, and a being selfless,
+human, and in an agony of remorse for a life lost by his hand.
+
+Involuntarily David's eyes ran round the room before he replied.  How
+many slaves and retainers waited behind those velvet curtains?
+
+Harrik saw the glance and interpreted it correctly.  With a look of dark
+triumph he clapped his hands.  As if by magic fifty black slaves
+appeared, armed with daggers.  They folded their arms and waited like
+statues.
+
+David made no sign of discomposure, but said slowly: "Dost thou think I
+did not know my danger, Eminence?  Do I seem to thee such a fool?  I came
+alone as one would come to the tent of a Bedouin chief whose son one had
+slain, and ask for food and safety.  A thousand men were mine to command,
+but I came alone.  Is thy guest imbecile?  Let them go.  I have that to
+say which is for Prince Harrik's ear alone."
+
+An instant's hesitation, and Harrik motioned the slaves away.  "What is
+the private word for my ear?" he asked presently, fingering the stem of
+the narghileh.
+
+"To do right by Egypt, the land of thy fathers and thy land; to do right
+by the Prince Pasha, thy brother."
+
+"What is Egypt to thee?  Why shouldst thou bring thine insolence here?
+Couldst thou not preach in thine own bazaars beyond the sea?"
+
+David showed no resentment.  His reply was composed and quiet.  "I am
+come to save Egypt from the work of thy hands."
+
+"Dog of an unbeliever, what hast thou to do with me, or the work of my
+hands?"
+
+David held up Kaid's ring, which had lain in his hand.  "I come from the
+master of Egypt--master of thee, and of thy life, and of all that is
+thine."
+
+"What is Kaid's message to me?" Harrik asked, with an effort at
+unconcern, for David's boldness had in it something chilling to his
+fierce passion and pride.
+
+"The word of the Effendina is to do right by Egypt, to give thyself to
+justice and to peace."
+
+"Have done with parables.  To do right by Egypt wherein, wherefore?"
+The eyes glinted at David like bits of fiery steel.
+
+"I will interpret to thee, Eminence."
+
+"Interpret."  Harrik muttered to himself in rage.  His heart was dark,
+he thirsted for the life of this arrogant Inglesi.  Did the fool not see
+his end?  Midnight was at hand!  He smiled grimly.
+
+"This is the interpretation, O Prince!  Prince Harrik has conspired
+against his brother the Prince Pasha, has treacherously seduced officers
+of the army, has planned to seize Cairo, to surround the Palace and take
+the life of the Prince of Egypt.  For months, Prince, thee has done this:
+and the end of it is that thee shall do right ere it be too late.  Thee
+is a traitor to thy country and thy lawful lord."
+
+Harrik's face turned pale; the stem of the narghileh shook in his
+fingers.  All had been discovered, then!  But there was a thing of dark
+magic here.  It was not a half-hour since he had given the word to strike
+at midnight, to surround the Palace, and to seize the Prince Pasha.
+Achmet--Higli, had betrayed him, then!  Who other?  No one else knew
+save Zaida, and Zaida was in the harem.  Perhaps even now his own palace
+was surrounded.  If it was so, then, come what might, this masterful
+Inglesi should pay the price.  He thought of the den of lions hard by,
+of the cage of tigers-the menagerie not a thousand feet away.  He could
+hear the distant roaring now, and his eyes glittered.  The Christian to
+the wild beasts!  That at least before the end.  A Muslim would win
+heaven by sending a Christian to hell.
+
+Achmet--Higli!  No others knew.  The light of a fateful fanaticism was in
+his eyes.  David read him as an open book, and saw the madness come upon
+him.
+
+"Neither Higli, nor Achmet, nor any of thy fellow-conspirators has
+betrayed thee," David said.  "God has other voices to whisper the truth
+than those who share thy crimes.  I have ears, and the air is full of
+voices."
+
+Harrik stared at him.  Was this Inglesi, then, with the grey coat,
+buttoned to the chin, and the broad black hat which remained on his head
+unlike the custom of the English--was he one of those who saw visions and
+dreamed dreams, even as himself!  Had he not heard last night a voice
+whisper through the dark "Harrik, Harrik, flee to the desert!  The lions
+are loosed upon thee!"  Had he not risen with the voice still in his ears
+and fled to the harem, seeking Zaida, she who had never cringed before
+him, whose beauty he had conquered, but whose face turned from him when
+he would lay his lips on hers?  And, as he fled, had he not heard, as it
+were, footsteps lightly following him--or were they going before him?
+Finding Zaida, had he not told her of the voice, and had she not said:
+"In the desert all men are safe--safe from themselves and safe from
+others; from their own acts and from the acts of others"?  Were the
+lions, then, loosed upon him?  Had he been betrayed?
+
+Suddenly the thought flashed into his mind that his challenger would not
+have thrust himself into danger, given himself to the mouth of the Pit,
+if violence were intended.  There was that inside his robe, than which
+lightning would not be more quick to slay.  Had he not been a hunter of
+repute?  Had he not been in deadly peril with wild beasts, and was he not
+quicker than they?  This man before him was like no other he had ever
+met.  Did voices speak to him?  Were there, then, among the Christians
+such holy men as among the Muslims, who saw things before they happened,
+and read the human mind?  Were there sorcerers among them, as among the
+Arabs?
+
+In any case his treason was known.  What were to be the consequences?
+Diamond-dust in his coffee?  To be dropped into the Nile like a dog?  To
+be smothered in his sleep?--For who could be trusted among all his slaves
+and retainers when it was known he was disgraced, and that the Prince
+Pasha would be happier if Harrik were quiet for ever?
+
+Mechanically he drew out his watch and looked at it.  It was nine
+o'clock.  In three hours more would have fallen the coup.  But from this
+man's words he knew that the stroke was now with the Prince Pasha.  Yet,
+if this pale Inglesi, this Christian sorcerer, knew the truth in a vision
+only, and had not declared it to Kaid, there might still be a chance of
+escape.  The lions were near--it would be a joy to give a Christian to
+the lions to celebrate the capture of Cairo and the throne.  He listened
+intently to the distant rumble of the lions.  There was one cage
+dedicated to vengeance.  Five human beings on whom his terrible anger
+fell in times past had been thrust into it alive.  Two were slaves, one
+was an enemy, one an invader of his harem, and one was a woman, his wife,
+his favourite, the darling of his heart.  When his chief eunuch accused
+her of a guilty love, he had given her paramour and herself to that awful
+death.  A stroke of the vast paw, a smothered roar as the teeth gave into
+the neck of the beautiful Fatima, and then--no more.  Fanaticism had
+caught a note of savage music that tuned it to its height.
+
+"Why art thou here?  For what hast thou come?  Do the spirit voices give
+thee that counsel?" he snarled.
+
+"I am come to ask Prince Harrik to repair the wrong he has done.  When
+the Prince Pasha came to know of thy treason--"
+
+Harrik started.  "Kaid believes thy tale of treason?" he burst out.
+
+"Prince Kaid knows the truth," answered David quietly.  "He might have
+surrounded this palace with his Nubians, and had thee shot against the
+palace walls.  That would have meant a scandal in Egypt and in Europe.
+I besought him otherwise.  It may be the scandal must come, but in
+another way, and--"
+
+"That I, Harrik, must die?"  Harrik's voice seemed far away.  In his own
+ears it sounded strange and unusual.  All at once the world seemed to be
+a vast vacuum in which his brain strove for air, and all his senses were
+numbed and overpowered.  Distempered and vague, his soul seemed spinning
+in an aching chaos.  It was being overpowered by vast elements, and life
+and being were atrophied in a deadly smother.  The awful forces behind
+visible being hung him in the middle space between consciousness and
+dissolution.  He heard David's voice, at first dimly, then
+understandingly.
+
+"There is no other way.  Thou art a traitor.  Thou wouldst have been a
+fratricide.  Thou wouldst have put back the clock in Egypt by a hundred
+years, even to the days of the Mamelukes--a race of slaves and murderers.
+God ordained that thy guilt should be known in time.  Prince, thou art
+guilty.  It is now but a question how thou shalt pay the debt of
+treason."
+
+In David's calm voice was the ring of destiny.  It was dispassionate,
+judicial; it had neither hatred nor pity.  It fell on Harrik's ear as
+though from some far height.  Destiny, the controller--who could escape
+it?
+
+Had he not heard the voices in the night--"The lions are loosed upon
+thee"?  He did not answer David now, but murmured to himself like one in
+a dream.
+
+David saw his mood, and pursued the startled mind into the pit of
+confusion.  "If it become known to Europe that the army is disloyal,
+that its officers are traitors like thee, what shall we find?  England,
+France, Turkey, will land an army of occupation.  Who shall gainsay
+Turkey if she chooses to bring an army here and recover control, remove
+thy family from Egypt, and seize upon its lands and goods?  Dost thou not
+see that the hand of God has been against thee?  He has spoken, and thy
+evil is discovered."
+
+He paused.  Still Harrik did not reply, but looked at him with dilated,
+fascinated eyes.  Death had hypnotised him, and against death and destiny
+who could struggle?  Had not a past Prince Pasha of Egypt safeguarded
+himself from assassination all his life, and, in the end, had he not been
+smothered in his sleep by slaves?
+
+"There are two ways only," David continued--"to be tried and die publicly
+for thy crimes, to the shame of Egypt, its present peril, and lasting
+injury; or to send a message to those who conspired with thee, commanding
+them to return to their allegiance, and another to the Prince Pasha,
+acknowledging thy fault, and exonerating all others.  Else, how many of
+thy dupes shall die!  Thy choice is not life or death, but how thou shalt
+die, and what thou shalt do for Egypt as thou diest.  Thou didst love
+Egypt, Eminence?"
+
+David's voice dropped low, and his last words had a suggestion which went
+like an arrow to the source of all Harrik's crimes, and that also which
+redeemed him in a little.  It got into his inner being.  He roused
+himself and spoke, but at first his speech was broken and smothered.
+
+"Day by day I saw Egypt given over to the Christians," he said.  "The
+Greek, the Italian, the Frenchman, the Englishman, everywhere they
+reached out, their hands and took from us our own.  They defiled our
+mosques; they corrupted our life; they ravaged our trade, they stole our
+customers, they crowded us from the streets where once the faithful lived
+alone.  Such as thou had the ear of the Prince, and such as Nahoum, also
+an infidel, who favoured the infidels of Europe.  And now thou hast come,
+the most dangerous of them all!  Day by day the Muslim has loosed his
+hold on Cairo, and Alexandria, and the cities of Egypt.  Street upon
+street knows him no more.  My heart burned within me.  I conspired for
+Egypt's sake.  I would have made her Muslim once again.  I would have
+fought the Turk and the Frank, as did Mehemet Ali; and if the infidels
+came, I would have turned them back; or if they would not go, I would
+have destroyed them here.  Such as thou should have been stayed at the
+door.  In my own house I would have been master.  We seek not to take up
+our abode in other nations and in the cities of the infidel.  Shall we
+give place to them on our own mastaba, in our own court-yard--hand to
+them the keys of our harems?  I would have raised the Jehad if they vexed
+me with their envoys and their armies."  He paused, panting.
+
+"It would not have availed," was David's quiet answer.  "This land may
+not be as Tibet--a prison for its own people.  If the door opens outward,
+then must it open inward also.  Egypt is the bridge between the East and
+the West.  Upon it the peoples of all nations pass and repass.  Thy plan
+was folly, thy hope madness, thy means to achieve horrible.  Thy dream is
+done.  The army will not revolt, the Prince will not be slain.  Now only
+remains what thou shalt do for Egypt--"
+
+"And thou--thou wilt be left here to lay thy will upon Egypt.  Kaid's ear
+will be in thy hand--thou hast the sorcerer's eye.  I know thy meaning.
+Thou wouldst have me absolve all, even Achmet, and Higli, and Diaz, and
+the rest, and at thy bidding go out into the desert"--he paused--"or into
+the grave."
+
+"Not into the desert," rejoined David firmly.  "Thou wouldst not rest.
+There, in the desert, thou wouldst be a Mahdi.  Since thou must die, wilt
+thou not order it after thine own choice?  It is to die for Egypt."
+
+"Is this the will of Kaid?" asked Harrik, his voice thick with wonder,
+his brain still dulled by the blow of Fate.
+
+"It was not the Effendina's will, but it hath his assent.  Wilt thou
+write the word to the army and also to the Prince?"
+
+He had conquered.  There was a moment's hesitation, then Harrik picked up
+paper and ink that lay near, and said: "I will write to Kaid.  I will
+have naught to do with the army."
+
+"It shall be the whole, not the part," answered David determinedly.  "The
+truth is known.  It can serve no end to withhold the writing to the army.
+Remember what I have said to thee.  The disloyalty of the army must not
+be known.  Canst thou not act after the will of Allah, the all-powerful,
+the all-just, the all-merciful?"
+
+There was an instant's pause, and then suddenly Harrik placed the paper
+in his palm and wrote swiftly and at some length to Kaid.  Laying it
+down, he took another and wrote but a few words--to Achmet and Diaz.
+This message said in brief, "Do not strike.  It is the will of Allah.
+The army shall keep faithful until the day of the Mahdi be come.
+I spoke before the time.  I go to the bosom of my Lord Mahomet."
+
+He threw the papers on the floor before David, who picked them up, read
+them, and put them into his pocket.
+
+"It is well," he said.  "Egypt shall have peace.  And thou, Eminence?"
+
+"Who shall escape Fate?  What I have written I have written."
+
+David rose and salaamed.  Harrik rose also.  "Thou wouldst go, having
+accomplished thy will?" Harrik asked, a thought flashing to his mind
+again, in keeping with his earlier purpose.  Why should this man be left
+to trouble Egypt?
+
+David touched his breast.  "I must bear thy words to the Palace and the
+Citadel."
+
+"Are there not slaves for messengers?"  Involuntarily Harrik turned his
+eyes to the velvet curtains.  No fear possessed David, but he felt the
+keenness of the struggle, and prepared for the last critical moment of
+fanaticism.
+
+"It were a foolish thing to attempt my death," he said calmly.  "I have
+been thy friend to urge thee to do that which saves thee from public
+shame, and Egypt from peril.  I came alone, because I had no fear that
+thou wouldst go to thy death shaming hospitality."
+
+"Thou wast sure I would give myself to death?"
+
+"Even as that I breathe.  Thou wert mistaken; a madness possessed thee;
+but thou, I knew, wouldst choose the way of honour.  I too have had
+dreams--and of Egypt.  If it were for her good, I would die for her."
+
+"Thou art mad.  But the mad are in the hands of God, and--"
+
+Suddenly Harrik stopped.  There came to his ears two distant sounds--the
+faint click of horses' hoofs and that dull rumble they had heard as they
+talked, a sound he loved, the roar of his lions.
+
+He clapped his hands twice, the curtains parted opposite, and a slave
+slid silently forward.
+
+"Quick!  The horses!  What are they?  Bring me word," he said.
+
+The slave vanished.  For a moment there was silence.  The eyes of the two
+men met.  In the minds of both was the same thing.
+
+"Kaid! The Nubians!" Harrik said, at last.  David made no response.
+
+The slave returned, and his voice murmured softly, as though the matter
+were of no concern: "The Nubians--from the Palace."  In an instant he was
+gone again.
+
+"Kaid had not faith in thee," Harrik said grimly.  "But see, infidel
+though thou art, thou trustest me, and thou shalt go thy way.  Take them
+with thee, yonder jackals of the desert.  I will not go with them.  I did
+not choose to live; others chose for me; but I will die after my own
+choice.  Thou hast heard a voice, even as I.  It is too late to flee to
+the desert.  Fate tricks me.  'The lions are loosed on thee'--so the
+voice said to me in the night.  Hark!  dost thou not hear them--the
+lions, Harrik's lions, got out of the uttermost desert?"
+
+David could hear the distant roar, for the menagerie was even part of the
+palace itself.
+
+"Go in peace," continued Harrik soberly and with dignity, "and when Egypt
+is given to the infidel and Muslims are their slaves, remember that
+Harrik would have saved it for his Lord Mahomet, the Prophet of God."
+
+He clapped his hands, and fifty slaves slid from behind the velvet
+curtains.
+
+"I have thy word by the tomb of thy mother that thou wilt take the
+Nubians hence, and leave me in peace?" he asked.
+
+David raised a hand above his head.  "As I have trusted thee, trust thou
+me, Harrik, son of Mahomet."  Harrik made a gesture of dismissal, and
+David salaamed and turned to go.  As the curtains parted for his exit,
+he faced Harrik again.  "Peace be to thee," he said.
+
+But, seated in his cushions, the haggard, fanatical face of Harrik was
+turned from him, the black, flaring eyes fixed on vacancy.  The curtain
+dropped behind David, and through the dim rooms and corridors he passed,
+the slaves gliding beside him, before him, and behind him, until they
+reached the great doors.  As they swung open and the cool night breeze
+blew in his face, a great suspiration of relief passed from him.  What he
+had set out to do would be accomplished in all.  Harrik would
+keep his word.  It was the only way.
+
+As he emerged from the doorway some one fell at his feet, caught his
+sleeve and kissed it.  It was Mahommed Hassan.  Behind Mahommed was a
+little group of officers and a hundred stalwart Nubians.  David motioned
+them towards the great gates, and, without speaking, passed swiftly down
+the pathway and emerged upon the road without.  A moment later he was
+riding towards the Citadel with Harrik's message to Achmet.  In the red-
+curtained room Harrik sat alone, listening until he heard the far clatter
+of hoofs, and knew that the Nubians were gone.  Then the other distant
+sound which had captured his ear came to him again.  In his fancy it grew
+louder and louder.  With it came the voice that called him in the night,
+the voice of a woman--of the wife he had given to the lions for a crime
+against him which she did not commit, which had haunted him all the
+years.  He had seen her thrown to the king of them all, killed in one
+swift instant, and dragged about the den by her warm white neck--this
+slave wife from Albania, his adored Fatima.  And when, afterwards, he
+came to know the truth, and of her innocence, from the chief eunuch who
+with his last breath cleared her name, a terrible anger and despair had
+come upon him.  Time and intrigue and conspiracy had distracted his mind,
+and the Jehad became the fixed aim and end of his life.  Now this was
+gone.  Destiny had tripped him up.  Kaid and the infidel Inglesi had won.
+
+As the one great passion went out like smoke, the woman he loved, whom
+he had given to the lions, the memory of her, some haunting part of her,
+possessed him, overcame him.  In truth, he had heard a voice in the
+night, but not the voice of a spirit.  It was the voice of Zaida, who,
+preying upon his superstitious mind--she knew the hallucination which
+possessed him concerning her he had cast to the lions--and having given
+the terrible secret to Kaid, whom she had ever loved, would still save
+Harrik from the sure vengeance which must fall upon him.  Her design had
+worked, but not as she intended.  She had put a spell of superstition on
+him, and the end would be accomplished, but not by flight to the desert.
+
+Harrik chose the other way.  He had been a hunter.
+
+He was without fear.  The voice of the woman he loved called him.  It
+came to him through the distant roar of the lions as clear as when, with
+one cry of "Harrik !" she had fallen beneath the lion's paw.  He knew now
+why he had kept the great beast until this hour, though tempted again and
+again to slay him.
+
+Like one in a dream, he drew a dagger from the cushions where he sat, and
+rose to his feet.  Leaving the room and passing dark groups of waiting
+slaves, he travelled empty chambers and long corridors, the voices of the
+lions growing nearer and nearer.  He sped faster now, and presently came
+to two great doors, on which he knocked thrice.  The doors opened, and
+two slaves held up lights for him to enter.  Taking a torch from one of
+them, he bade them retire, and the doors clanged behind them.
+
+Harrik held up the torch and came nearer.  In the centre of the room was
+a cage in which one great lion paced to and fro in fury.  It roared at
+him savagely.  It was his roar which had come to Harrik through the
+distance and the night.  He it was who had carried Fatima, the beloved,
+about his cage by that neck in which Harrik had laid his face so often.
+
+The hot flush of conflict and the long anger of the years were on him.
+Since he must die, since Destiny had befooled him, left him the victim of
+the avengers, he would end it here.  Here, against the thing of savage
+hate which had drunk of the veins and crushed the bones of his fair wife,
+he would strike one blow deep and strong and shed the blood of sacrifice
+before his own was shed.
+
+He thrust the torch into the ground, and, with the dagger grasped
+tightly, carefully opened the cage and stepped inside.  The door clicked
+behind him.  The lion was silent now, and in a far corner prepared to
+spring, crouching low.
+
+"Fatima!" Harrik cried, and sprang forward as the wild beast rose at
+him.  He struck deep, drew forth the dagger--and was still.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+ACHMET THE ROPEMAKER STRIKES
+
+War!  War!  The chains of the conscripts clanked in the river villages;
+the wailing of the women affrighted the pigeons in a thousand dovecotes
+on the Nile; the dust of despair was heaped upon the heads of the old,
+who knew that their young would no more return, and that the fields of
+dourha would go ungathered, the water-channels go unattended, and the
+onion-fields be bare.  War!  War!  War!  The strong, the broad-shouldered
+--Aka, Mahmoud, Raschid, Selim, they with the bodies of Seti and the
+faces of Rameses, in their blue yeleks and unsandalled feet--would go
+into the desert as their forefathers did for the Shepherd Kings.  But
+there would be no spoil for them--no slaves with swelling breasts and
+lips of honey; no straight-limbed servants of their pleasure to wait on
+them with caressing fingers; no rich spoils carried back from the fields
+of war to the mud hut, the earth oven, and the thatched roof; no rings of
+soft gold and necklaces of amber snatched from the fingers and bosoms of
+the captive and the dead.  Those days were no more.  No vision of loot or
+luxury allured these.  They saw only the yellow sand, the ever-receding
+oasis, the brackish, undrinkable water, the withered and fruitless date-
+tree, handfuls of dourha for their food by day, and the keen, sharp night
+to chill their half-dead bodies in a half-waking sleep.  And then the
+savage struggle for life--with all the gain to the pashas and the beys,
+and those who ruled over them; while their own wounds grew foul, and, in
+the torturing noon-day heat of the white waste, Death reached out and
+dragged them from the drooping lines to die.  Fighting because they must
+fight--not patriot love, nor understanding, nor sacrifice in their
+hearts.  War!  War!  War!  War!
+
+David had been too late to stop it.  It had grown to a head with
+revolution and conspiracy.  For months before he came conscripts had been
+gathered in the Nile country from Rosetta to Assouan, and here and there,
+far south, tribes had revolted.  He had come to power too late to devise
+another course.  One day, when this war was over, he would go alone, save
+for a faithful few, to deal with these tribes and peoples upon another
+plane than war; but here and now the only course was that which had been
+planned by Kaid and those who counselled him.  Troubled by a deep danger
+drawing near, Kaid had drawn him into his tough service, half-blindly
+catching at his help, with a strange, almost superstitious belief that
+luck and good would come from the alliance; seeing in him a protection
+against wholesale robbery and debt--were not the English masters of
+finance, and was not this Englishman honest, and with a brain of fire
+and an eye that pierced things?
+
+David had accepted the inevitable.  The war had its value.  It would draw
+off to the south--he would see that it was so--Achmet and Higli and Diaz
+and the rest, who were ever a danger.  Not to himself: he did not think
+of that; but to Kaid and to Egypt.  They had been out-manoeuvred, beaten,
+foiled, knew who had foiled them and what they had escaped; congratulated
+themselves, but had no gratitude to him, and still plotted his
+destruction.  More than once his death had been planned, but the dark
+design had come to light--now from the workers of the bazaars, whose
+wires of intelligence pierced everywhere; now from some hungry fellah
+whose yelek he had filled with cakes of dourha beside a bread-shop; now
+from Mahommed Hassan, who was for him a thousand eyes and feet and hands,
+who cooked his food, and gathered round him fellaheen or Copts or
+Soudanese or Nubians whom he himself had tested and found true, and ruled
+them with a hand of plenty and a rod of iron.  Also, from Nahoum's spies
+he learned of plots and counterplots, chiefly on Achmet's part; and these
+he hid from Kaid, while he trusted Nahoum--and not without reason, as
+yet.
+
+The day of Nahoum's wrath and revenge was not yet come; it was his deep
+design to lay the foundation for his own dark actions strong on a rock of
+apparent confidence and devotion.  A long torture and a great over-
+whelming was his design.  He knew himself to be in the scheme of a
+master-workman, and by-and-by he would blunt the chisel and bend the saw;
+but not yet.  Meanwhile, he hated, admired, schemed, and got a sweet
+taste on his tongue from aiding David to foil Achmet--Higli and Diaz were
+of little account; only the injury they felt in seeing the sluices being
+closed on the stream of bribery and corruption kept them in the toils of
+Achmet's conspiracy.  They had saved their heads, but they had not
+learned their lesson yet; and Achmet, blinded by rage, not at all.
+Achmet did not understand clemency.  One by one his plots had failed,
+until the day came when David advised Kaid to send him and his friends
+into the Soudan, with the punitive expedition under loyal generals.  It
+was David's dream that, in the field of war, a better spirit might enter
+into Achmet and his friends; that patriotism might stir in them.
+
+The day was approaching when the army must leave.  Achmet threw dice once
+more.
+
+Evening was drawing down.  Over the plaintive pink and golden glow of
+sunset was slowly being drawn a pervasive silver veil of moonlight.  A
+caravan of camels hunched alone in the middle distance, making for the
+western desert.  Near by, village life manifested itself in heavily laden
+donkeys; in wolfish curs stealing away with refuse into the waste; in
+women, upright and modest, bearing jars of water on their heads; in
+evening fires, where the cover of the pot clattered over the boiling mass
+within; in the voice of the Muezzin calling to prayer.
+
+Returning from Alexandria to Cairo in the special train which Kaid had
+sent for him, David watched the scene with grave and friendly interest.
+There was far, to go before those mud huts of the thousand years would
+give place to rational modern homes; and as he saw a solitary horseman
+spread his sheepskin on the ground and kneel to say his evening prayer,
+as Mahomet had done in his flight between Mecca and Medina, the distance
+between the Egypt of his desire and the ancient Egypt that moved round
+him sharply impressed his mind, and the magnitude of his task settled
+heavily on his spirit.
+
+"But it is the beginning--the beginning," he said aloud to himself,
+looking out upon the green expanses of dourha and Lucerne, and eyeing
+lovingly the cotton-fields here and there, the origin of the industrial
+movement he foresaw--"and some one had to begin.  The rest is as it must
+be--"
+
+There was a touch of Oriental philosophy in his mind--was it not Galilee
+and the Nazarene, that Oriental source from which Mahomet also drew?  But
+he added to the "as it must be" the words, "and as God wills."  He was
+alone in the compartment with Lacey, whose natural garrulity had had a
+severe discipline in the months that had passed since he had asked to be
+allowed to black David's boots.  He could now sit for an hour silent,
+talking to himself, carrying on unheard conversations.  Seeing David's
+mood, he had not spoken twice on this journey, but had made notes in a
+little "Book of Experience,"--as once he had done in Mexico.  At last,
+however, he raised his head, and looked eagerly out of the window as
+David did, and sniffed.
+
+"The Nile again," he said, and smiled.  The attraction of the Nile was
+upon him, as it grows on every one who lives in Egypt.  The Nile and
+Egypt--Egypt and the Nile--its mystery, its greatness, its benevolence,
+its life-giving power, without which Egypt is as the Sahara, it conquers
+the mind of every man at last.
+
+"The Nile, yes," rejoined David, and smiled also.  "We shall cross it
+presently."
+
+Again they relapsed into silence, broken only by the clang, clang of the
+metal on the rails, and then presently another, more hollow sound--the
+engine was upon the bridge.  Lacey got up and put his head out of the
+window.  Suddenly there was a cry of fear and horror over his head, a
+warning voice shrieking:
+
+"The bridge is open--we are lost.  Effendi--master--Allah!"  It was the
+voice of Mahommed Hassan, who had been perched on the roof of the car.
+
+Like lightning Lacey realised the danger, and saw the only way of escape.
+He swung open the door, even as the engine touched the edge of the abyss
+and shrieked its complaint under the hand of the terror-stricken
+driver, caught David's shoulder, and cried: "Jump-jump into the river--
+quick!"
+
+As the engine toppled, David jumped--there was no time to think,
+obedience was the only way.  After him sprang, far down into the grey-
+blue water, Lacey and Mahommed.  When they came again to the surface, the
+little train with its handful of human freight had disappeared.
+
+Two people had seen the train plunge to destruction--the solitary
+horseman whom David had watched kneel upon his sheepskin, and who now
+from a far hill had seen the disaster, but had not seen the three jump
+for their lives, and a fisherman on the bank, who ran shouting towards a
+village standing back from the river.
+
+As the fisherman sped shrieking and beckoning to the villagers, David,
+Lacey, and Mahommed fought for their lives in the swift current, swimming
+at an angle upstream towards the shore; for, as Mahommed warned them,
+there were rocks below.  Lacey was a good swimmer, but he was heavy, and
+David was a better, but Mahommed had proved his merit in the past on many
+an occasion when the laws of the river were reaching out strong hands for
+him.  Now, as Mahommed swam, he kept moaning to himself, cursing his
+father and his father's son, as though he himself were to blame for the
+crime which had been committed.  Here was a plot, and he had discovered
+more plots than one against his master.  The bridge-opener--when he found
+him he would take him into the desert and flay him alive; and find him he
+would.  His watchful eyes were on the hut by the bridge where this man
+should be.  No one was visible.  He cursed the man and all his ancestry
+and all his posterity, sleeping and waking, until the day when he,
+Mahommed, would pinch his flesh with red hot irons.  But now he had other
+and nearer things to occupy him, for in the fierce struggle towards the
+shore Lacey found himself failing, and falling down the stream.
+Presently both Mahommed and David were beside him, Lacey angrily
+protesting to David that he must save himself.
+
+"Say, think of Egypt and all the rest.  You've got to save yourself--let
+me splash along!" he spluttered, breathing hard, his shoulders low in
+the water, his mouth almost submerged.
+
+But David and Mahommed fought along beside him, each determined that it
+must be all or none; and presently the terror-stricken fisherman who had
+roused the village, still shrieking deliriously, came upon them in a
+flat-bottomed boat manned by four stalwart fellaheen, and the tragedy of
+the bridge was over.  But not the tragedy of Achmet the Ropemaker.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+BEYOND THE PALE
+
+Mahommed Hassan had vowed a vow in the river, and he kept it in so far as
+was seemly.  His soul hungered for the face of the bridge-opener, and the
+hunger grew.  He was scarce passed from the shivering Nile into a dry
+yelek, had hardly taken a juicy piece from the cooking-pot at the house
+of the village sheikh, before he began to cultivate friends who could
+help him, including the sheikh himself; for what money Mahommed lacked
+was supplied by Lacey, who had a reasoned confidence in him, and by the
+fiercely indignant Kaid himself, to whom Lacey and Mahommed went
+secretly, hiding their purpose from David.  So, there were a score of
+villages where every sheikh, eager for gold, listened for the whisper of
+the doorways, and every slave and villager listened at the sheikh's door.
+But neither to sheikh nor to villager was it given to find the man.
+
+But one evening there came a knocking at the door of the house which
+Mahommed still kept in the lowest Muslim quarter of the town, a woman who
+hid her face and was of more graceful figure than was familiar in those
+dark purlieus.  The door was at once opened, and Mahommed, with a cry,
+drew her inside.
+
+"Zaida--the peace of God be upon thee," he said, and gazed lovingly yet
+sadly upon her, for she had greatly changed.
+
+"And upon thee peace, Mahommed," she answered, and sat upon the floor,
+her head upon her breast.
+
+"Thou hast trouble  at," he said, and put some cakes of dourha and a
+meated cucumber beside her.  She touched the food with her fingers, but
+did not eat.  "Is thy grief, then, for thy prince who gave himself to the
+lions?" he asked.
+
+"Inshallah!  Harrik is in the bosom of Allah.  He is with Fatima in the
+fields of heaven--was I as Fatima to him?  Nay, the dead have done with
+hurting."
+
+"Since that night thou hast been lost, even since Harrik went.  I
+searched for thee, but thou wert hid.  Surely, thou knewest mine eyes
+were aching and my heart was cast down--did not thou and I feed at the
+same breast?"
+
+"I was dead, and am come forth from the grave; but I shall go again into
+the dark where all shall forget, even I myself; but there is that which I
+would do, which thou must do for me, even as I shall do good to thee,
+that which is the desire of my heart."
+
+"Speak, light of the morning and blessing of thy mother's soul," he said,
+and crowded into his mouth a roll of meat and cucumber.  "Against thy
+feddan shall be set my date-tree; it hath been so ever."
+
+"Listen then, and by the stone of the Kaabah, keep the faith which has
+been throe and mine since my mother, dying, gave me to thy mother, whose
+milk gave me health and, in my youth, beauty--and, in my youth, beauty!"
+Suddenly she buried her face in her veil, and her body shook with sobs
+which had no voice.  Presently she continued: "Listen, and by Abraham and
+Christ and all the Prophets, and by Mahomet the true revealer, give me
+thine aid.  When Harrik gave his life to the lions, I fled to her whom I
+had loved in the house of Kaid--Laka the Syrian, afterwards the wife of
+Achmet Pasha.  By Harrik's death I was free--no more a slave.  Once Laka
+had been the joy of Achmet's heart, but, because she had no child, she
+was despised and forgotten.  Was it not meet I should fly to her whose
+sorrow would hide my loneliness?  And so it was--I was hidden in the
+harem of Achmet.  But miserable tongues--may God wither them!--told
+Achmet of my presence.  And though I was free, and not a bondswoman, he
+broke upon my sleep.  .  .  ."
+
+Mahommed's eyes blazed, his dark skin blackened like a coal, and he
+muttered maledictions between his teeth.  ".  .  .  In the morning there
+was a horror upon me, for which there is no name.  But I laughed also
+when I took a dagger and stole from the harem to find him in the quarters
+beyond the women's gate.  I found him, but I held my hand, for one was
+with him who spake with a tone of anger and of death, and I listened.
+Then, indeed, I rejoiced for thee, for I have found thee a road to honour
+and fortune.  The man was a bridge-opener--" "Ah!--O, light of a thousand
+eyes, fruit of the tree of Eden!" cried Mahommed, and fell on his knees
+at her feet, and would have kissed them, but that, with a cry, she said:
+"Nay, nay, touch me not.  But listen.  .  .  .  Ay, it was Achmet who
+sought to drown thy Pasha in the Nile.  Thou shalt find the man in the
+little street called Singat in the Moosky, at the house of Haleel the
+date-seller."
+
+Mahommed rocked backwards and forwards in his delight.  "Oh, now art thou
+like a lamp of Paradise, even as a star which leadeth an army of stars,
+beloved," he said.  He rubbed his hands together.  "Thy witness and his
+shall send Achmet to a hell of scorpions, and I shall slay the bridge-
+opener with my own hand--hath not the Effendina secretly said so to me,
+knowing that my Pasha, the Inglesi, upon whom be peace for ever and
+forever, would forgive him.  Ah, thou blossom of the tree of trees--"
+
+She rose hastily, and when he would have kissed her hand she drew back to
+the wall.  "Touch me not--nay, then, Mahommed, touch me not--"
+
+"Why should I not pay thee honour, thou princess among women?  Hast thou
+not the brain of a man, and thy beauty, like thy heart, is it not--"
+
+She put out both her hands and spoke sharply.  "Enough, my brother,"
+she said.  "Thou hast thy way to great honour.  Thou shalt yet have a
+thousand feddans of well-watered land and slaves to wait upon thee.  Get
+thee to the house of Haleel.  There shall the blow fall on the head of
+Achmet, the blow which was mine to strike, but that Allah stayed my hand
+that I might do thee and thy Pasha good, and to give the soul-slayer and
+the body-slayer into the hands of Kaid, upon whom be everlasting peace!"
+Her voice dropped low.  "Thou saidst but now that I had beauty.  Is there
+yet any beauty in my face?"  She lowered her yashmak and looked at him
+with burning eyes.
+
+"Thou art altogether beautiful," he answered, "but there is a strangeness
+to thy beauty like none I have seen; as if upon the face of an angel
+there fell a mist--nay, I have not words to make it plain to thee."
+
+With a great sigh, and yet with the tenseness gone from her eyes, she
+slowly drew the veil up again till only her eyes were visible.  "It is
+well," she answered.  "Now, I have heard that to-morrow night Prince Kaid
+will sit in the small court-yard of the blue tiles by the harem to feast
+with his friends, ere the army goes into the desert at the next sunrise.
+Achmet is bidden to the feast."
+
+"It is so, O beloved!"
+
+"There will be dancers and singers to make the feast worthy?"
+
+"At such a time it will be so."
+
+"Then this thou shalt do.  See to it that I shall be among the singers,
+and when all have danced and sung, that I shall sing, and be brought
+before Kaid."
+
+"Inshallah!  It shall be so.  Thou dost desire to see Kaid--in truth,
+thou hast memory, beloved."
+
+She made a gesture of despair.  "Go upon thy business.  Dost thou not
+desire the blood of Achmet and the bridge-opener?"
+
+Mahommed laughed, and joyfully beat his breast, with whispered
+exclamations, and made ready to go.  "And thou?" he asked.
+
+"Am I not welcome here?" she replied wearily.  "O, my sister, thou art
+the master of my life and all that I have," he exclaimed, and a moment
+afterwards he was speeding towards Kaid's Palace.
+
+For the first time since the day of his banishment Achmet the Ropemaker
+was invited to Kaid's Palace.  Coming, he was received with careless
+consideration by the Prince.  Behind his long, harsh face and sullen eyes
+a devil was raging, because of all his plans that had gone awry, and
+because the man he had sought to kill still served the Effendina, putting
+a blight upon Egypt.  To-morrow he, Achmet, must go into the desert with
+the army, and this hated Inglesi would remain behind to have his will
+with Kaid.  The one drop of comfort in his cup was the fact that the
+displeasure of the Effendina against himself was removed, and that he
+had, therefore, his foot once more inside the Palace.  When he came back
+from the war he would win his way to power again.  Meanwhile, he cursed
+the man who had eluded the death he had prepared for him.  With his own
+eyes had he not seen, from the hill top, the train plunge to destruction,
+and had he not once more got off his horse and knelt upon his sheepskin
+and given thanks to Allah--a devout Arab obeying the sunset call to
+prayer, as David had observed from the train?
+
+One by one, two by two, group by group, the unveiled dancers came and
+went; the singers sang behind the screen provided for them, so that none
+might see their faces, after the custom.  At last, however, Kaid and his
+guests grew listless, and smoked and talked idly.  Yet there was in the
+eyes of Kaid a watchfulness unseen by any save a fellah who squatted in a
+corner eating sweetmeats, and a hidden singer waiting until she should be
+called before the Prince Pasha.  The singer's glances continually flashed
+between Kaid and Achmet.  At last, with gleaming eyes, she saw six Nubian
+slaves steal silently behind Achmet.  One, also, of great strength, came
+suddenly and stood before him.  In his hands was a leathern thong.
+
+Achmet saw, felt the presence of the slaves behind him, and shrank back
+numbed and appalled.  A mist came before his eyes; the voice he heard
+summoning him to stand up seemed to come from infinite distances.  The
+hand of doom had fallen like a thunderbolt.  The leathern thong in the
+hands of the slave was the token of instant death.  There was no chance
+of escape.  The Nubians had him at their mercy.  As his brain struggled
+to regain its understanding, he saw, as in a dream, David enter the
+court-yard and come towards Kaid.
+
+Suddenly David stopped in amazement, seeing Achmet.  Inquiringly he
+looked at Kaid, who spoke earnestly to him in a low tone.  Whereupon
+David turned his head away, but after a moment fixed his eyes on Achmet.
+
+Kaid motioned all his startled guests to come nearer.  Then in strong,
+unmerciful voice he laid Achmet's crime before them, and told the story
+of the bridge-opener, who had that day expiated his crime in the desert
+by the hands of Mahommed--but not with torture, as Mahommed had hoped
+might be.
+
+"What shall be his punishment--so foul, so wolfish?" Kaid asked of them
+all.  A dozen voices answered, some one terrible thing, some another.
+
+"Mercy!" moaned Achmet aghast.  "Mercy, Saadat!" he cried to David.
+
+David looked at him calmly.  There was little mercy in his eyes as he
+answered: "Thy crimes sent to their death in the Nile those who never
+injured thee.  Dost thou quarrel with justice?  Compose thy soul, and I
+pray only the Effendina to give thee that seemly death thou didst deny
+thy victims."  He bowed respectfully to Kaid.
+
+Kaid frowned.  "The ways of Egypt are the ways of Egypt, and not of the
+land once thine," he answered shortly.  Then, under the spell of that
+influence which he had never yet been able to resist, he added to the
+slaves: "Take him aside.  I will think upon it.  But he shall die at
+sunrise ere the army goes.  Shall not justice be the gift of Kaid for an
+example and a warning?  Take him away a little.  I will decide."
+
+As Achmet and the slaves disappeared into a dark corner of the court-
+yard, Kaid rose to his feet, and, upon the hint, his guests, murmuring
+praises of his justice and his mercy and his wisdom, slowly melted from
+the court-yard; but once outside they hastened to proclaim in the four
+quarters of Cairo how yet again the English Pasha had picked from the
+Tree of Life an apple of fortune.
+
+The court-yard was now empty, save for the servants of the Prince, David
+and Mahommed, and two officers in whom David had advised Kaid to put
+trust.  Presently one of these officers said: "There is another singer,
+and the last.  Is it the Effendina's pleasure?"
+
+Kaid made a gesture of assent, sat down, and took the stem of a narghileh
+between his lips.  For a moment there was silence, and then, out upon the
+sweet, perfumed night, over which the stars hung brilliant and soft and
+near, a voice at first quietly, then fully, and palpitating with feeling,
+poured forth an Eastern love song:
+
+         "Take thou thy flight, O soul!  Thou hast no more
+          The gladness of the morning!  Ah, the perfumed roses
+          My love laid on my bosom as I slept!
+          How did he wake me with his lips upon mine eyes,
+          How did the singers carol--the singers of my soul
+          That nest among the thoughts of my beloved! .  .  .
+          All silent now, the choruses are gone,
+          The windows of my soul are closed; no more
+          Mine eyes look gladly out to see my lover come.
+          There is no more to do, no more to say:
+          Take flight, my soul, my love returns no more!"
+
+At the first note Kaid started, and his eyes fastened upon the screen
+behind which sat the singer.  Then, as the voice, in sweet anguish,
+filled the court-yard, entrancing them all, rose higher and higher, fell
+and died away, he got to his feet, and called out hoarsely: "Come--come
+forth!"
+
+Slowly a graceful, veiled figure came from behind the great screen.  He
+took a step forward.
+
+"Zaida!  Zaida!" he said gently, amazedly.
+
+She salaamed low.  "Forgive me, O my lord!" she said, in a whispering
+voice, drawing her veil about her head.  "It was my soul's desire to look
+upon thy face once more."
+
+"Whither didst thou go at Harrik's death?  I sent to find thee, and give
+thee safety; but thou wert gone, none knew where."
+
+"O my lord, what was I but a mote in thy sun, that thou shouldst seek
+me?"
+
+Kaid's eyes fell, and he murmured to himself a moment, then he said
+slowly: "Thou didst save Egypt, thou and my friend"--he gestured towards
+David"--and my life also, and all else that is worth.  Therefore bounty,
+and safety, and all thy desires were thy due.  Kaid is no ingrate--no,
+by the hand of Moses that smote at Sinai!"
+
+She made a pathetic motion of her hands.  "By Harrik's death I am free, a
+slave no longer.  O my lord, where I go bounty and famine are the same."
+
+Kaid took a step forward.  "Let me see thy face," he said, something
+strange in her tone moving him with awe.
+
+She lowered her veil and looked him in the eyes.  Her wan beauty smote
+him, conquered him, the exquisite pain in her face filled Kaid's eyes
+with foreboding, and pierced his heart.
+
+"O cursed day that saw thee leave these walls!  I did it for thy good--
+thou wert so young; thy life was all before thee!  But now--come, Zaida,
+here in Kaid's Palace thou shalt have a home, and be at peace, for I see
+that thou hast suffered.  Surely it shall be said that Kaid honours
+thee."  He reached out to take her hand.
+
+She had listened like one in a dream, but, as he was about to touch her,
+she suddenly drew back, veiled her face, save for the eyes, and said in a
+voice of agony: "Unclean, unclean!  My lord, I am a leper!"
+
+An awed and awful silence fell upon them all.  Kaid drew back as though
+smitten by a blow.
+
+Presently, upon the silence, her voice sharp with agony said: "I am a
+leper, and I go to that desert place which my lord has set apart for
+lepers, where, dead to the world, I shall watch the dreadful years come
+and go.  Behold, I would die, but that I have a sister there these many
+years, and her sick soul lives in loneliness.  O my lord, forgive me!
+Here was I happy; here of old I did sing to thee, and I came to sing to
+thee once more a death-song.  Also, I came to see thee do justice, ere I
+went from thy face for ever."
+
+Kaid's head was lowered on his breast.  He shuddered.  "Thou art so
+beautiful--thy voice, all!  Thou wouldst see justice--speak!  Justice
+shall be made plain before thee."
+
+Twice she essayed to speak, and could not; but from his sweetmeats and
+the shadows Mahommed crept forward, kissed the ground before Kaid, and
+said: "Effendina, thou knowest me as the servant of thy high servant,
+Claridge Pasha."
+
+"I know thee--proceed."
+
+"Behold, she whom God has smitten, man smote first.  I am her foster-
+brother--from the same breast we drew the food of life.  Thou wouldst do
+justice, O Effendina; but canst thou do double justice--ay, a
+thousandfold?  Then"--his voice raised almost shrilly--"then do it upon
+Achmet Pasha.  She--Zaida--told me where I should find the bridge-
+opener."
+
+"Zaida once more!" Kaid murmured.
+
+"She had learned all in Achmet's harem--hearing speech between Achmet and
+the man whom thou didst deliver to my hands yesterday."
+
+"Zaida-in Achmet's harem?" Kaid turned upon her.
+
+Swiftly she told her dreadful tale, how, after Achmet had murdered all of
+her except her body, she rose up to kill herself; but fainting, fell upon
+a burning brazier, and her hand thrust accidentally in the live coals
+felt no pain.  "And behold, O my lord, I knew I was a leper; and I
+remembered my sister and lived on."  So she ended, in a voice numbed and
+tuneless.
+
+Kaid trembled with rage, and he cried in a loud voice: "Bring Achmet
+forth."
+
+As the slave sped upon the errand, David laid a hand on Kaid's arm, and
+whispered to him earnestly.  Kaid's savage frown cleared away, and his
+rage calmed down; but an inflexible look came into his face, a look which
+petrified the ruined Achmet as he salaamed before him.
+
+"Know thy punishment, son of a dog with a dog's heart, and prepare for a
+daily death," said Kaid.  "This woman thou didst so foully wrong, even
+when thou didst wrong her, she was a leper."
+
+A low cry broke from Achmet, for now when death came he must go unclean
+to the after-world, forbidden Allah's presence.  Broken and abject he
+listened.
+
+"She knew not, till thou wert gone," continued Kaid.  She is innocent
+before the law.  But thou--beast of the slime--hear thy sentence.  There
+is in the far desert a place where lepers live.  There, once a year, one
+caravan comes, and, at the outskirts of the place unclean, leaves food
+and needful things for another year, and returns again to Egypt after
+many days.  From that place there is no escape--the desert is as the sea,
+and upon that sea there is no ghiassa to sail to a farther shore.  It is
+the leper land.  Thither thou shalt go to wait upon this woman thou hast
+savagely wronged, and upon her kind, till thou diest.  It shall be so."
+
+"Mercy! Mercy!" Achmet cried, horror-stricken, and turned to David.
+"Thou art merciful.  Speak for me, Saadat."
+
+"When didst thou have mercy?" asked David.  "Thy crimes are against
+humanity."
+
+Kaid made a motion, and, with dragging feet, Achmet passed from the
+haunts of familiar faces.
+
+For a moment Kaid stood and looked at Zaida, rigid and stricken in that
+awful isolation which is the leper's doom.  Her eyes were closed, but her
+head was high.  "Wilt thou not die?" Kaid asked her gently.
+
+She shook her head slowly, and her hands folded on her breast.  "My
+sister is there," she said at last.  There was an instant's stillness,
+then Kaid added with a voice of grief: "Peace be upon thee, Zaida.  Life
+is but a spark.  If death comes not to-day, it will tomorrow, for thee--
+for me.  Inshallah, peace be upon thee!"
+
+She opened her eyes and looked at him.  Seeing what was in his face, they
+lighted with a great light for a moment.
+
+"And upon thee peace, O my lord, for ever and for ever!" she said
+softly, and, turning, left the court-yard, followed at a distance by
+Mahommed Hassan.
+
+Kaid remained motionless looking after her.
+
+David broke in on his abstraction.  "The army at sunrise--thou wilt speak
+to it, Effendina?"
+
+Kaid roused himself.  "What shall I say?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"Tell them they shall be clothed and fed, and to every man or his family
+three hundred piastres at the end."
+
+"Who will do this?" asked Kaid incredulously.  "Thou, Effendina--Egypt
+and thou and I."
+
+"So be it," answered Kaid.
+
+As they left the court-yard, he said suddenly to an officer behind him:
+
+"The caravan to the Place of Lepers--add to the stores fifty camel-loads
+this year, and each year hereafter.  Have heed to it.  Ere it starts,
+come to me.  I would see all with mine own eyes."
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Begin to see how near good is to evil
+But the years go on, and friends have an end
+Does any human being know what he can bear of temptation
+Heaven where wives without number awaited him
+Honesty was a thing he greatly desired--in others
+How little we can know to-day what we shall feel tomorrow
+How many conquests have been made in the name of God
+One does the work and another gets paid
+To-morrow is no man's gift
+We want every land to do as we do; and we want to make 'em do it
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WEAVERS
+
+By Gilbert Parker
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+
+XV.       SOOLSBY'S HAND UPON THE CURTAIN
+XVI.      THE DEBT AND THE ACCOUNTING
+XVII.     THE WOMAN OF THE CROSS-ROADS
+XVIII.    TIME, THE IDOL-BREAKER
+XIX.      SHARPER THAN A SWORD
+XX.       EACH AFTER HIS OWN ORDER
+XXI.      "THERE IS NOTHING HIDDEN WHICH SHALL NOT BE REVEALED"
+XXII.     AS IN A GLASS DARKLY
+XXIII.    THE TENTS OF CUSHAN
+XXIV.     THE QUESTIONER
+XXV.      THE VOICE THROUGH THE DOOR
+XXVI.     "I OWE YOU NOTHING"
+XXVII.    THE AWAKENING
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+SOOLSBY'S HAND UPON THE CURTAIN
+
+Faith raised her eyes from the paper before her and poised her head
+meditatively.
+
+"How long is it, friend, since--"
+
+"Since he went to Egypt?"
+
+"Nay, since thee--"
+
+"Since I went to Mass?" he grumbled humorously.
+
+She laughed whimsically.  "Nay, then, since thee made the promise--"
+
+"That I would drink no more till his return--ay, that was my bargain;
+till then and no longer!  I am not to be held back then, unless I change
+my mind when I see him.  Well, 'tis three years since--"
+
+"Three years!  Time hasn't flown.  Is it not like an old memory, his
+living here in this house, Soolsby, and all that happened then?"
+
+Soolsby looked at her over his glasses, resting his chin on the back of
+the chair he was caning, and his lips worked in and out with a suppressed
+smile.
+
+"Time's got naught to do with you.  He's afeard of you," he continued.
+"He lets you be."
+
+"Friend, thee knows I am almost an old woman now."  She made marks
+abstractedly upon the corner of a piece of paper.  "Unless my hair turns
+grey presently I must bleach it, for 'twill seem improper it should
+remain so brown."
+
+She smoothed it back with her hand.  Try as she would to keep it trim
+after the manner of her people, it still waved loosely on her forehead
+and over her ears.  And the grey bonnet she wore but added piquancy to
+its luxuriance, gave a sweet gravity to the demure beauty of the face it
+sheltered.
+
+"I am thirty now," she murmured, with a sigh, and went on writing.
+
+The old man's fingers moved quickly among the strips of cane, and, after
+a silence, without raising his head, he said: "Thirty, it means naught."
+
+"To those without understanding," she rejoined drily.
+
+"'Tis tough understanding why there's no wedding-ring on yonder finger.
+There's been many a man that's wanted it, that's true--the Squire's son
+from Bridgley, the lord of Axwood Manor, the long soldier from Shipley
+Wood, and doctors, and such folk aplenty.  There's where understanding
+fails."
+
+Faith's face flushed, then it became pale, and her eyes, suffused,
+dropped upon the paper before her.  At first it seemed as though she must
+resent his boldness; but she had made a friend of him these years past,
+and she knew he meant no rudeness.  In the past they had talked of things
+deeper and more intimate still.  Yet there was that in his words which
+touched a sensitive corner of her nature.
+
+"Why should I be marrying?" she asked presently.  "There was my sister's
+son all those years.  I had to care for him."
+
+"Ay, older than him by a thimbleful!" he rejoined.
+
+"Nay, till he came to live in this hut alone older by many a year.  Since
+then he is older than me by fifty.  I had not thought of marriage before
+he went away.  Squire's son, soldier, or pillman, what were they to me!
+He needed me.  They came, did they?  Well, and if they came?"
+
+"And since the Egyptian went?"
+
+A sort of sob came into her throat.  "He does not need me, but he may--he
+will one day; and then I shall be ready.  But now--"
+
+Old Soolsby's face turned away.  His house overlooked every house in the
+valley beneath: he could see nearly every garden; he could even recognise
+many in the far streets.  Besides, there hung along two nails on the wall
+a telescope, relic of days when he sailed the main.  The grounds of the
+Cloistered House and the fruit-decked garden-wall of the Red Mansion were
+ever within his vision.  Once, twice, thrice, he had seen what he had
+seen, and dark feelings, harsh emotions, had been roused in him.
+
+"He will need us both--the Egyptian will need us both one day," he
+answered now; "you more than any, me because I can help him, too--ay,
+I can help him.  But married or single you could help him; so why waste
+your days here?"
+
+"Is it wasting my days to stay with my father?  He is lonely, most lonely
+since our Davy went away; and troubled, too, for the dangers of that life
+yonder.  His voice used to shake when he prayed, in those days when Davy
+was away in the desert, down at Darfur and elsewhere among the rebel
+tribes.  He frightened me then, he was so stern and still.  Ah, but that
+day when we knew he was safe, I was eighteen, and no more!" she added,
+smiling.  "But, think you, I could marry while my life is so tied to him
+and to our Egyptian?"
+
+No one looking at her limpid, shining blue eyes but would have set her
+down for twenty-three or twenty-four, for not a line showed on her smooth
+face; she was exquisite of limb and feature, and had the lissomeness of a
+girl of fifteen.  There was in her eyes, however, an unquiet sadness; she
+had abstracted moments when her mind seemed fixed on some vexing problem.
+Such a mood suddenly came upon her now.  The pen lay by the paper
+untouched, her hands folded in her lap, and a long silence fell upon
+them, broken only by the twanging of the strips of cane in Soolsby's
+hands.  At last, however, even this sound ceased; and the two scarce
+moved as the sun drew towards the middle afternoon.  At last they were
+roused by the sound of a horn, and, looking down, they saw a four-in-hand
+drawing smartly down the road to the village over the gorse-spread
+common, till it stopped at the Cloistered House.  As Faith looked, her
+face slightly flushed.  She bent forward till she saw one figure get down
+and, waving a hand to the party on the coach as it moved on, disappear
+into the gateway of the Cloistered House.
+
+"What is the office they have given him?" asked Soolsby, disapproval in
+his tone, his eyes fixed on the disappearing figure.
+
+"They have made Lord Eglington Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs," she
+answered.
+
+"And what means that to a common mind?"
+
+"That what his Government does in Egypt will mean good or bad to our
+Egyptian," she returned.
+
+"That he can do our man good or ill?" Soolsby asked sharply--"that he,
+yonder, can do that?"
+
+She inclined her head.
+
+"When I see him doing ill--well, when I see him doing that"--he snatched
+up a piece of wood from the floor--"then I will break him, so!"
+
+He snapped the stick across his knee, and threw the pieces on the ground.
+He was excited.  He got to his feet and walked up and down the little
+room, his lips shut tight, his round eyes flaring.
+
+Faith watched him in astonishment.  In the past she had seen his face
+cloud over, his eyes grow sulky, at the mention of Lord Eglington's name;
+she knew that Soolsby hated him; but his aversion now was more definite
+and violent than he had before shown, save on that night long ago when
+David went first to Egypt, and she had heard hard words between them in
+this same hut.  She supposed it one of those antipathies which often grow
+in inverse ratio to the social position of those concerned.  She replied
+in a soothing voice:
+
+"Then we shall hope that he will do our Davy only good."
+
+"You would not wish me to break his lordship?  You would not wish it?"
+He came over to her, and looked sharply at her.  "You would not wish it?"
+he repeated meaningly.
+
+She evaded his question.  "Lord Eglington will be a great man one day
+perhaps," she answered.  "He has made his way quickly.  How high he has
+climbed in three years--how high!"
+
+Soolsby's anger was not lessened.  "Pooh!  Pooh!  He is an Earl.  An Earl
+has all with him at the start--name, place, and all.  But look at our
+Egyptian!  Look at Egyptian David--what had he but his head and an honest
+mind?  What is he?  He is the great man of Egypt.  Tell me, who helped
+Egyptian David?  That second-best lordship yonder, he crept about coaxing
+this one and wheedling that.  I know him--I know him.  He wheedles and
+wheedles.  No matter whether 'tis a babe or an old woman, he'll talk, and
+talk, and talk, till they believe in him, poor folks!  No one's too small
+for his net.  There's Martha Higham yonder.  She's forty five.  If he
+sees her, as sure as eggs he'll make love to her, and fill her ears with
+words she'd never heard before, and 'd never hear at all if not from him.
+Ay, there's no man too sour and no woman too old that he'll not blandish,
+if he gets the chance."
+
+As he spoke Faith shut her eyes, and her fingers clasped tightly
+together--beautiful long, tapering fingers, like those in Romney's
+pictures.  When he stopped, her eyes opened slowly, and she gazed before
+her down towards that garden by the Red Mansion where her lifetime had
+been spent.
+
+"Thee says hard words, Soolsby," she rejoined gently.  "But maybe thee is
+right."  Then a flash of humour passed over her face.  "Suppose we ask
+Martha Higham if the Earl has 'blandished' her.  If the Earl has
+blandished Martha, he is the very captain of deceit.  Why, he has himself
+but twenty-eight years.  Will a man speak so to one older than himself,
+save in mockery?  So, if thee is right in this, then--then if he speak
+well to deceive and to serve his turn, he will also speak ill; and he
+will do ill when it may serve his turn; and so he may do our Davy ill,
+as thee says, Soolsby."
+
+She rose to her feet and made as if to go, but she kept her face from
+him.  Presently, however, she turned and looked at him.  "If he does ill
+to Davy, there will be those like thee, Soolsby, who will not spare him."
+
+His fingers opened and shut maliciously, he nodded dour assent.  After an
+instant, while he watched her, she added: "Thee has not heard my lord is
+to marry?"
+
+"Marry--who is the blind lass?"
+
+"Her name is Maryon, Miss Hylda Maryon: and she has a great fortune.  But
+within a month it is to be."
+
+"Thee remembers the woman of the cross-roads, her that our Davy--"
+
+"Her the Egyptian kissed, and put his watch in her belt--ay,
+Kate Heaver!"
+
+"She is now maid to her Lord Eglington will wed.  She is to spend
+to-night with us."
+
+"Where is her lad that was, that the Egyptian rolled like dough in a
+trough?"
+
+"Jasper Kimber?  He is at Sheffield.  He has been up and down, now sober
+for a year, now drunken for a month, now in, now out of a place, until
+this past year.  But for this whole year he has been sober, and he may
+keep his pledge.  He is working in the trades-unions.  Among his fellow-
+workers he is called a politician--if loud speaking and boasting can make
+one.  Yet if these doings give him stimulant instead of drink, who shall
+complain?"
+
+Soolsby's head was down.  He was looking out over the far hills, while
+the strips of cane were idle in his hands.  "Ay, 'tis true--'tis true,"
+he nodded.  "Give a man an idee which keeps him cogitating, makes him
+think he's greater than he is, and sets his pulses beating, why, that's
+the cure to drink.  Drink is friendship and good company and big thoughts
+while it lasts; and it's lonely without it, if you've been used to it.
+Ay, but Kimber's way is best.  Get an idee in your noddle, to do a thing
+that's more to you than work or food or bed, and 'twill be more than
+drink, too."
+
+He nodded to himself, then began weaving the strips of cane furiously.
+Presently he stopped again, and threw his head back with a chuckle.
+"Now, wouldn't it be a joke, a reg'lar first-class joke, if Kimber and
+me both had the same idee, if we was both workin' for the same thing--
+an' didn't know it?  I reckon it might be so."
+
+"What end is thee working for, friend?  If the public prints speak true,
+Kimber is working to stand for Parliament against Lord Eglington."
+
+Soolsby grunted and laughed in his throat.  "Now, is that the game of
+Mister Kimber?  Against my Lord Eglington!  Hey, but that's a joke, my
+lord!"
+
+"And what is thee working for, Soolsby?"
+
+"What do I be working for?  To get the Egyptian back to England--what
+else?"
+
+"That is no joke."
+
+"Ay, but 'tis a joke."  The old man chuckled.  "'Tis the best joke in the
+boilin'."  He shook his head and moved his body backwards and forwards
+with glee.  "Me and Kimber!  Me and Kimber!" he roared, "and neither of
+us drunk for a year--not drunk for a whole year.  Me and Kimber--and
+him!"
+
+Faith put her hand on his shoulder.  "Indeed, I see no joke, but only
+that which makes my heart thankful, Soolsby."
+
+"Ay, you will be thankful, you will be thankful, by-and-by," he said,
+still chuckling, and stood up respectfully to show her out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE DEBT AND THE ACCOUNTING
+
+His forehead frowning, but his eyes full of friendliness, Soolsby watched
+Faith go down the hillside and until she reached the main road.  Here,
+instead of going to the Red Mansion, she hesitated a moment, and then
+passed along a wooded path leading to the Meetinghouse, and the
+graveyard.  It was a perfect day of early summer, the gorse was in full
+bloom, and the may and the hawthorn were alive with colour.  The path she
+had taken led through a narrow lane, overhung with blossoms and greenery.
+By bearing away to the left into another path, and making a detour, she
+could reach the Meeting-house through a narrow lane leading past a now
+disused mill and a small, strong stream flowing from the hill above.
+
+As she came down the hill, other eyes than Soolsby's watched her.  From
+his laboratory--the laboratory in which his father had worked, in which
+he had lost his life--Eglington had seen the trim, graceful figure.  He
+watched it till it moved into the wooded path.  Then he left his garden,
+and, moving across a field, came into the path ahead of her.  Walking
+swiftly, he reached the old mill, and waited.
+
+She came slowly, now and again stooping to pick a flower and place it in
+her belt.  Her bonnet was slung on her arm, her hair had broken a little
+loose and made a sort of hood round the face, so still, so composed, into
+which the light of steady, soft, apprehending eyes threw a gentle
+radiance.  It was a face to haunt a man when the storm of life was round
+him.  It had, too, a courage which might easily become a delicate
+stubbornness, a sense of duty which might become sternness, if roused by
+a sense of wrong to herself or others.
+
+She reached the mill and stood and listened towards the stream and the
+waterfall.  She came here often.  The scene quieted her in moods of
+restlessness which came from a feeling that her mission was interrupted,
+that half her life's work had been suddenly taken from her.  When David
+went, her life had seemed to shrivel; for with him she had developed as
+he had developed; and when her busy care of him was withdrawn, she had
+felt a sort of paralysis which, in a sense, had never left her.  Then
+suitors had come--the soldier from Shipley Wood, the lord of Axwood
+Manor, and others, and, in a way, a new sense was born in her, though she
+was alive to the fact that the fifteen thousand pounds inherited from her
+Uncle Benn had served to warm the air about her into a wider circle.  Yet
+it was neither to soldier, nor squire, nor civil engineer, nor surgeon
+that the new sense stirring in her was due.  The spring was too far
+beneath to be found by them.
+
+When, at last, she raised her head, Lord Eglington was in the path,
+looking at her with a half-smile.  She did not start, but her face turned
+white, and a mist came before her eyes.
+
+Quickly, however, as though fearful lest he should think he could trouble
+her composure, she laid a hand upon herself.
+
+He came near to her and held out his hand.  "It has been a long six
+months since we met here," he said.
+
+She made no motion to take his hand.  "I find days grow shorter as I grow
+older," she rejoined steadily, and smoothed her hair with her hand,
+making ready to put on her bonnet.
+
+"Ah, do not put it on," he urged quickly, with a gesture.  "It becomes
+you so--on your arm."
+
+She had regained her self-possession.  Pride, the best weapon of a woman,
+the best tonic, came to her resource.  "Thee loves to please thee at any
+cost," she replied.  She fastened the grey strings beneath her chin.
+
+"Would it be costly to keep the bonnet on your arm?"
+
+"It is my pleasure to have it on my head, and my pleasure has some value
+to myself."
+
+"A moment ago," he rejoined laughing, "it was your pleasure to have it on
+your arm."
+
+"Are all to be monotonous except Lord Eglington?  Is he to have the only
+patent of change?"
+
+"Do I change?"  He smiled at her with a sense of inquisition, with an air
+that seemed to say, "I have lifted the veil of this woman's heart; I am
+the master of the situation."
+
+She did not answer to the obvious meaning of his words, but said:
+
+"Thee has done little else but change, so far as eye can see.  Thee and
+thy family were once of Quaker faith, but thee is a High Churchman now.
+Yet they said a year ago thee was a sceptic or an infidel."
+
+"There is force in what you say," he replied.  "I have an inquiring mind;
+I am ever open to reason.  Confucius said: 'It is only the supremely wise
+or the deeply ignorant who never alter.'"
+
+"Thee has changed politics.  Thee made a 'sensation, but that was not
+enough.  Thee that was a rebel became a deserter."
+
+He laughed.  "Ah, I was open to conviction!  I took my life in my hands,
+defied consequences."  He laughed again.
+
+"It brought office."
+
+"I am Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs," he murmured complacently.
+
+"Change is a policy with thee, I think.  It has paid thee well, so it
+would seem."
+
+"Only a fair rate of interest for the capital invested and the risks I've
+taken," he answered with an amused look.
+
+"I do not think that interest will increase.  Thee has climbed quickly,
+but fast climbing is not always safe climbing."
+
+His mood changed.  His voice quickened, his face lowered.  "You think I
+will fail?  You wish me to fail?"
+
+"In so far as thee acts uprightly, I wish thee well.  But if, out of
+office, thee disregards justice and conscience and the rights of others,
+can thee be just and faithful in office?  Subtlety will not always avail.
+The strong man takes the straight course.  Subtlety is not intellect."
+
+He flushed.  She had gone to the weakest point in his defences.  His
+vanity was being hurt.  She had an advantage now.
+
+"You are wrong," he protested.  "You do not understand public life, here
+in a silly Quaker village."
+
+"Does thee think that all that happens in 'public life' is of
+consequence?  That is not sensible.  Thee is in the midst of a thousand
+immaterial things, though they have importance for the moment.  But the
+chief things that matter to all, does thee not know that a 'silly Quaker
+village' may realise them to the full--more fully because we see them
+apart from the thousand little things that do not matter?  I remember a
+thing in political life that mattered.  It was at Heddington after the
+massacre at Damascus.  Does thee think that we did not know thee spoke
+without principle then, and only to draw notice?"
+
+"You would make me into a demagogue," he said irritably.
+
+"Thee is a demagogue," she answered candidly.
+
+"Why did you never say all this to me long ago?  Years have passed since
+then, and since then you and I have--have been friends.  You have--"
+
+He paused, for she made a protesting motion, and a fire sprang into her
+eyes.  Her voice got colder.  "Thee made me believe--ah, how many times
+did we speak together?  Six times it was, not more.  Thee made me believe
+that what I thought or said helped thee to see things better.  Thee said
+I saw things truly like a child, with the wisdom of a woman.  Thee
+remembers that?"
+
+"It was so," he put in hastily.
+
+"No, not for a moment so, though I was blinded to think for an instant
+that it was.  Thee subtly took the one way which could have made me
+listen to thee.  Thee wanted help, thee said; and if a word of mine could
+help thee now and then, should I withhold it, so long as I thought thee
+honest?"
+
+"Do you think I was not honest in wanting your friendship?"
+
+"Nay, it was not friendship thee wanted, for friendship means a giving
+and a getting.  Thee was bent on getting what was, indeed, of but little
+value save to the giver; but thee gave nothing; thee remembered nothing
+of what was given thee."
+
+"It is not so, it is not so," he urged eagerly, nervously.  "I gave, and
+I still give."
+
+"In those old days, I did not understand," she went on, "what it was thee
+wanted.  I know now.  It was to know the heart and mind of a woman--of a
+woman older than thee.  So that thee should have such sort of experience,
+though I was but a foolish choice of the experiment.  They say thee has a
+gift for chemistry like thy father; but if thee experiments no more
+wisely in the laboratory than with me, thee will not reach distinction."
+
+"Your father hated my father and did not believe in him, I know not why,
+and you are now hating and disbelieving me."
+
+"I do not know why my father held the late Earl in abhorrence; I know he
+has no faith in thee; and I did ill in listening to thee, in believing
+for one moment there was truth in thee.  But no, no, I think I never
+believed it.  I think that even when thee said most, at heart I believed
+least."
+
+"You doubt that?  You doubt all I said to you?" he urged softly, coming
+close to her.
+
+She drew aside slightly.  She had steeled herself for this inevitable
+interview, and there was no weakening of her defences; but a great
+sadness came into her eyes, and spread over her face, and to this was
+added, after a moment, a pity which showed the distance she was from him,
+the safety in which she stood.
+
+"I remember that the garden was beautiful, and that thee spoke as though
+thee was part of the garden.  Thee remembers that, at our meeting in the
+Cloistered House, when the woman was ill, I had no faith in thee; but
+thee spoke with grace, and turned common things round about, so that they
+seemed different to the ear from any past hearing; and I listened.  I did
+not know, and I do not know now, why it is my duty to shun any of thy
+name, and above all thyself; but it has been so commanded by my father
+all my life; and though what he says may be in a little wrong, in much it
+must ever be right."
+
+"And so, from a hatred handed down, your mind has been tuned to shun even
+when your heart was learning to give me a home--Faith?"
+
+She straightened herself.  "Friend, thee will do me the courtesy to
+forget to use my Christian name.  I am not a child-indeed, I am well on
+in years"--he smiled--"and thee has no friendship or kinship for warrant.
+If my mind was tuned to shun thee, I gave proof that it was willing to
+take thee at thine own worth, even against the will of my father, against
+the desire of David, who knew thee better than I--he gauged thee at first
+glance."
+
+"You have become a philosopher and a statesman," he said ironically.
+"Has your nephew, the new Joseph in Egypt, been giving you instructions
+in high politics?  Has he been writing the Epistles of David to the
+Quakers?"
+
+"Thee will leave his name apart," she answered with dignity.  "I have
+studied neither high politics nor statesmanship, though in the days when
+thee did flatter me thee said I had a gift for such things.  Thee did not
+speak the truth.  And now I will say that I do not respect thee.  No
+matter how high thee may climb, still I shall not respect thee; for thee
+will ever gain ends by flattery, by subtlety, and by using every man and
+every woman for selfish ends.  Thee cannot be true-not even to that which
+by nature is greatest in thee.".
+
+He withered under her words.
+
+"And what is greatest in me?" he asked abruptly, his coolness and self-
+possession striving to hold their own.
+
+"That which will ruin thee in the end."  Her eyes looked beyond his into
+the distance, rapt and shining; she seemed scarcely aware of his
+presence.  "That which will bring thee down--thy hungry spirit of
+discovery.  It will serve thee no better than it served the late Earl.
+But thee it will lead into paths ending in a gulf of darkness."
+
+"Deborah!" he answered, with a rasping laugh.  "Continuez!  Forewarned
+is forearmed."
+
+"No, do not think I shall be glad," she answered, still like one in a
+dream.  "I shall lament it as I lament--as I lament now.  All else fades
+away into the end which I see for thee.  Thee will live alone without a
+near and true friend, and thee will die alone, never having had a true
+friend.  Thee will never be a true friend, thee will never love truly man
+or woman, and thee will never find man or woman who will love thee truly,
+or will be with thee to aid thee in the dark and falling days."
+
+"Then," he broke in sharply, querulously, "then, I will stand alone.
+I shall never come whining that I have been ill-used, to fate or fortune,
+to men or to the Almighty."
+
+"That I believe.  Pride will build up in thee a strength which will be
+like water in the end.  Oh, my lord," she added, with a sudden change in
+her voice and manner, "if thee could only be true--thee who never has
+been true to any one!"
+
+"Why does a woman always judge a man after her own personal experience
+with him, or what she thinks is her own personal experience?"
+
+A robin hopped upon the path before her.  She watched it for a moment
+intently, then lifted her head as the sound of a bell came through the
+wood to her.  She looked up at the sun, which was slanting towards
+evening.  She seemed about to speak, but with second thought, moved on
+slowly past the mill and towards the Meeting-house.  He stepped on beside
+her.  She kept her eyes fixed in front of her, as though oblivious of his
+presence.
+
+"You shall hear me speak.  You shall listen to what I have to say, though
+it is for the last time," he urged stubbornly.  "You think ill of me.
+Are you sure you are not pharisaical?"
+
+"I am honest enough to say that which hurts me in the saying.  I do not
+forget that to believe thee what I think is to take all truth from what
+thee said to me last year, and again this spring when the tulips first
+came and there was good news from Egypt."
+
+"I said," he rejoined boldly, "that I was happier with you than with any
+one else alive.  I said that what you thought of me meant more to me than
+what any one else in the world thought; and that I say now, and will
+always say it."
+
+The old look of pity came into her face.  "I am older than thee by two
+years," she answered quaintly, "and I know more of real life, though I
+have lived always here.  I have made the most of the little I have seen;
+thee has made little of the much that thee has seen.  Thee does not know
+the truth concerning thee.  Is it not, in truth, vanity which would have
+me believe in thee?  If thee was happier with me than with any one alive,
+why then did thee make choice of a wife even in the days thee was
+speaking to me as no man shall ever speak again?  Nothing can explain
+so base a fact.  No, no, no, thee said to me what thee said to others,
+and will say again without shame.  But--but see, I will forgive; yes, I
+will follow thee with good wishes, if thee will promise to help David,
+whom thee has ever disliked, as, in the place held by thee, thee can do
+now.  Will thee offer this one proof, in spite of all else that
+disproves, that thee spoke any words of truth to me in the Cloistered
+House, in the garden by my father's house, by yonder mill, and hard by
+the Meeting-house yonder-near to my sister's grave by the willow-tree?
+Will thee do that for me?"
+
+He was about to reply, when there appeared in the path before them Luke
+Claridge.  His back was upon them, but he heard their footsteps and swung
+round.  As though turned to stone, he waited for them.  As they
+approached, his lips, dry and pale, essayed to speak, but no sound came.
+A fire was in his eyes which boded no good.  Amazement, horror, deadly
+anger, were all there, but, after a moment, the will behind the tumult
+commanded it, the wild light died away, and he stood calm and still
+awaiting them.  Faith was as pale as when she had met Eglington.  As she
+came nearer, Luke Claridge said, in a low voice:
+
+"How do I find thee in this company, Faith?"  There was reproach
+unutterable in his voice, in his face.  He seemed humiliated and shamed,
+though all the while a violent spirit in him was struggling for the
+mastery.
+
+"As I came this way to visit my sister's grave I met my lord by the mill.
+He spoke to me, and, as I wished a favour of him, I walked with him
+thither--but a little way.  I was going to visit my sister's grave."
+
+"Thy sister's grave!"  The fire flamed up again, but the masterful will
+chilled it down, and he answered: "What secret business can thee have
+with any of that name which I have cast out of knowledge or notice?"
+
+Ignorant as he was of the old man's cause for quarrel or dislike,
+Eglington felt himself aggrieved, and, therefore, with an advantage.
+
+"You had differences with my father, sir," he said.  "I do not know what
+they were, but they lasted his lifetime, and all my life you have treated
+me with aversion.  I am not a pestilence.  I have never wronged you.
+I have lived your peaceful neighbour under great provocation, for your
+treatment would have done me harm if my place were less secure.  I think
+I have cause for complaint."
+
+"I have never acted in haste concerning thee, or those who went before
+thee.  What business had thee with him, Faith?" he asked again.  His
+voice was dry and hard.
+
+Her impulse was to tell the truth, and so for ever have her conscience
+clear, for there would never be any more need for secrecy.  The wheel of
+understanding between Eglington and herself had come full circle, and
+there was an end.  But to tell the truth would be to wound her father, to
+vex him against Eglington even as he had never yet been vexed.  Besides,
+it was hard, while Eglington was there, to tell what, after all, was the
+sole affair of her own life.  In one literal sense, Eglington was not
+guilty of deceit.  Never in so many words had he said to her: "I love
+you;" never had he made any promise to her or exacted one; he had done no
+more than lure her to feel one thing, and then to call it another thing.
+Also there was no direct and vital injury, for she had never loved him;
+though how far she had travelled towards that land of light and trial she
+could never now declare.  These thoughts flashed through her mind as she
+stood looking at her father.  Her tongue seemed imprisoned, yet her soft
+and candid eyes conquered the austerity in the old man's gaze.
+
+Eglington spoke for her.
+
+"Permit me to answer, neighbour," he said.  "I wished to speak with
+your daughter, because I am to be married soon, and my wife will, at
+intervals, come here to live.  I wished that she should not be shunned
+by you and yours as I have been.  She would not understand, as I do not.
+Yours is a constant call to war, while all your religion is an appeal for
+peace.  I wished to ask your daughter to influence you to make it
+possible for me and mine to live in friendship among you.  My wife will
+have some claims upon you.  Her mother was an American, of a Quaker
+family from Derbyshire.  She has done nothing to merit your aversion."
+
+Faith listened astonished and baffled.  Nothing of this had he said to
+her.  Had he meant to say it to her?  Had it been in his mind?  Or was it
+only a swift adaptation to circumstances, an adroit means of working upon
+the sympathies of her father, who, she could see, was in a quandary?
+Eglington had indeed touched the old man as he had not been touched in
+thirty years and more by one of his name.  For a moment the insinuating
+quality of the appeal submerged the fixed idea in a mind to which the
+name of Eglington was anathema.
+
+Eglington saw his advantage.  He had felt his way carefully, and he
+pursued it quickly.  "For the rest, your daughter asked what I was ready
+to offer--such help as, in my new official position, I can give to
+Claridge Pasha in Egypt.  As a neighbour, as Minister in the Government,
+I will do what I can to aid him."
+
+Silent and embarrassed, the old man tried to find his way.  Presently he
+said tentatively: "David Claridge has a title to the esteem of all
+civilised people."  Eglington was quick with his reply.  "If he succeeds,
+his title will become a concrete fact.  There is no honour the Crown
+would not confer for such remarkable service."
+
+The other's face darkened.  "I did not speak, I did not think, of handles
+to his name.  I find no good in them, but only means for deceiving and
+deluding the world.  Such honours as might make him baronet, or duke,
+would add not a cubit to his stature.  If he had such a thing by right"
+--his voice hardened, his eyes grew angry once again--"I would wish it
+sunk into the sea."
+
+"You are hard on us, sir, who did not give ourselves our titles, but took
+them with our birth as a matter of course.  There was nothing inspiring
+in them.  We became at once distinguished and respectable by patent."
+
+He laughed good-humouredly.  Then suddenly he changed, and his eyes took
+on a far-off look which Faith had seen so often in the eyes of David,
+but in David's more intense and meaning, and so different.  With what
+deftness and diplomacy had he worked upon her father!  He had crossed a
+stream which seemed impassable by adroit, insincere diplomacy.
+
+She saw that it was time to go, while yet Eglington's disparagement of
+rank and aristocracy was ringing in the old man's ears; though she knew
+there was nothing in Eglington's equipment he valued more than his title
+and the place it gave him.  Grateful, however, for his successful
+intervention, Faith now held out her hand.
+
+"I must take my father away, or it will be sunset before we reach the
+Meeting-house," she said.  "Goodbye-friend," she added gently.
+
+For an instant Luke Claridge stared at her, scarce comprehending that his
+movements were being directed by any one save himself.  Truth was, Faith
+had come to her cross-roads in life.  For the first time in her memory
+she had seen her father speak to an Eglington without harshness; and, as
+he weakened for a moment, she moved to take command of that weakness,
+though she meant it to seem like leading.  While loving her and David
+profoundly, her father had ever been quietly imperious.  If she could but
+gain ascendency even in a little, it might lead to a more open book of
+life for them both.
+
+Eglington held out his hand to the old man.  "I have kept you too long,
+sir.  Good-bye--if you will."
+
+The offered hand was not taken, but Faith slid hers into the old man's
+palm, and pressed it, and he said quietly to Eglington:
+
+"Good evening, friend."
+
+"And when I bring my wife, sir?" Eglington added, with a smile.
+
+"When thee brings the lady, there will be occasion to consider--there
+will be occasion then."
+
+Eglington raised his hat, and turned back upon the path he and Faith had
+travelled.
+
+The old man stood watching him until he was out of view.  Then he seemed
+more himself.  Still holding Faith's hand, he walked with her on the
+gorse-covered hill towards the graveyard.
+
+"Was it his heart spoke or his tongue--is there any truth in him?" he
+asked at last.
+
+Faith pressed his hand.  "If he help Davy, father--"
+
+"If he help Davy; ay, if he help Davy!  Nay, I cannot go to the
+graveyard, Faith.  Take me home," he said with emotion.
+
+His hand remained in hers.  She had conquered.  She was set upon a new
+path of influence.  Her hand was upon the door of his heart.
+
+"Thee is good to me, Faith," he said, as they entered the door of the Red
+Mansion.
+
+She glanced over towards the Cloistered House.  Smoke was coming from the
+little chimney of the laboratory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE WOMAN OF THE CROSS-ROADS
+
+The night came down slowly.  There was no moon, the stars were few, but a
+mellow warmth was in the air.  At the window of her little sitting-room
+up-stairs Faith sat looking out into the stillness.  Beneath was the
+garden with its profusion of flowers and fruit; away to the left was the
+common; and beyond-far beyond--was a glow in the sky, a suffused light,
+of a delicate orange, merging away into a grey-blueness, deepening into
+a darker blue; and then a purple depth, palpable and heavy with a
+comforting silence.
+
+There was something alluring and suggestive in the soft, smothered
+radiance.  It had all the glamour of some distant place of pleasure and
+quiet joy, of happiness and ethereal being.  It was, in fact, the far-off
+mirror of the flaming furnace of the great Heddington factories.  The
+light of the sky above was a soft radiance, as of a happy Arcadian land;
+the fire of the toil beneath was the output of human striving, an
+intricate interweaving of vital forces which, like some Titanic machine,
+wrought out in pain--a vast destiny.
+
+As Faith looked, she thought of the thousands beneath struggling and
+striving, none with all desires satisfied, some in an agony of want and
+penury, all straining for the elusive Enough; like Sisyphus ever rolling
+the rock of labour up a hill too steep for them.
+
+Her mind flew to the man Kimber and his task of organising labour for its
+own advance.  What a life-work for a man!  Here might David have spent
+his days, here among his own countrymen, instead of in that far-off land
+where all the forces of centuries were fighting against him.  Here the
+forces would have been fighting for him; the trend was towards the
+elevation of the standards of living and the wider rights of labour,
+to the amelioration of hard conditions of life among the poor.  David's
+mind, with its equity, its balance, and its fire--what might it not have
+accomplished in shepherding such a cause, guiding its activity?
+
+The gate of the garden clicked.  Kate Heaver had arrived.  Faith got to
+her feet and left the room.
+
+A few minutes later the woman of the cross-roads was seated opposite
+Faith at the window.  She had changed greatly since the day David had
+sent her on her way to London and into the unknown.  Then there had been
+recklessness, something of coarseness, in the fine face.  Now it was
+strong and quiet, marked by purpose and self-reliance.
+
+Ignorance had been her only peril in the past, as it had been the cause
+of her unhappy connection with Jasper Kimber.  The atmosphere in which
+she was raised had been unmoral; it had not been consciously immoral.
+Her temper and her indignation against her man for drinking had been the
+means of driving them apart.  He would have married her in those days, if
+she had given the word, for her will was stronger than his own; but she
+had broken from him in an agony of rage and regret and despised love.
+
+She was now, again, as she had been in those first days before she went
+with Jasper Kimber; when she was the rose-red angel of the quarters; when
+children were lured by the touch of her large, shapely hands; when she
+had been counted a great nurse among her neighbours.  The old simple
+untutored sympathy was in her face.
+
+They sat for a long time in silence, and at length Faith said: "Thee is
+happy now with her who is to marry Lord Eglington?"
+
+Kate nodded, smiling.  "Who could help but be happy with her!  Yet a
+temper, too--so quick, and then all over in a second.  Ah, she is one
+that'd break her heart if she was treated bad; but I'd be sorry for him
+that did it.  For the like of her goes mad with hurting, and the mad cut
+with a big scythe."
+
+"Has thee seen Lord Eglington?"
+
+"Once before I left these parts and often in London."  Her voice was
+constrained; she seemed not to wish to speak of him.
+
+"Is it true that Jasper Kimber is to stand against him for Parliament?"
+
+"I do not know.  They say my lord has to do with foreign lands now.  If
+he helps Mr. Claridge there, then it would be a foolish thing for Jasper
+to fight him; and so I've told him.  You've got to stand by those that
+stand by you.  Lord Eglington has his own way of doing things.  There's
+not a servant in my lady's house that he hasn't made his friend.  He's
+one that's bound to have his will.  I heard my lady say he talks better
+than any one in England, and there's none she doesn't know from duchesses
+down."
+
+"She is beautiful?" asked Faith, with hesitation.
+
+"Taller than you, but not so beautiful."
+
+Faith sighed, and was silent for a moment, then she laid a hand upon the
+other's shoulder.  "Thee has never said what happened when thee first got
+to London.  Does thee care to say?"
+
+"It seems so long ago," was the reply.  .  .  .  "No need to tell of the
+journey to London.  When I got there it frightened me at first.  My head
+went round.  But somehow it came to me what I should do.  I asked my way
+to a hospital.  I'd helped a many that was hurt at Heddington and
+thereabouts, and doctors said I was as good as them that was trained.
+I found a hospital at last, and asked for work, but they laughed at me--
+it was the porter at the door.  I was not to be put down, and asked to
+see some one that had rights to say yes or no.  So he opened the door and
+told me to go.  I said he was no man to treat a woman so, and I would not
+go.  Then a fine white-haired gentleman came forward.  He had heard all
+we had said, standing in a little room at one side.  He spoke a kind word
+or two, and asked me to go into the little room.  Before I had time to
+think, he came to me with the matron, and left me with her.  I told her
+the whole truth, and she looked at first as if she'd turn me out.  But
+the end of it was I stayed there for the night, and in the morning the
+old gentleman came again, and with him his lady, as kind and sharp of
+tongue as himself, and as big as three.  Some things she said made my
+tongue ache to speak back to her; but I choked it down.  I went to her to
+be a sort of nurse and maid.  She taught me how to do a hundred things,
+and by-and-by I couldn't be too thankful she had taken me in.  I was with
+her till she died.  Then, six months ago I went to Miss Maryon, who knew
+about me long before from her that died.  With her I've been ever since--
+and so that's all."
+
+"Surely God has been kind to thee."
+
+"I'd have gone down--down--down, if it hadn't been for Mr. Claridge at
+the cross-roads."
+
+"Does thee think I shall like her that will live yonder?" She nodded
+towards the Cloistered House.  "There's none but likes her.  She will
+want a friend, I'm thinking.  She'll be lonely by-and-by.  Surely, she
+will be lonely."
+
+Faith looked at her closely, and at last leaned over, and again laid a
+soft hand on her shoulder.  "Thee thinks that--why?"
+
+"He cares only what matters to himself.  She will be naught to him but
+one that belongs.  He'll never try to do her good.  Doing good to any but
+himself never comes to his mind."
+
+"How does thee know him, to speak so surely?"
+
+"When, at the first, he gave me a letter for her one day, and slipped a
+sovereign into my hand, and nodded, and smiled at me, I knew him right
+enough.  He never could be true to aught."
+
+"Did thee keep the sovereign?" Faith asked anxiously.
+
+"Ay, that I did.  If he was for giving his money away, I'd take it fast
+enough.  The gold gave father boots for a year.  Why should I mind?"
+
+Faith's face suffused.  How low was Eglington's estimate of humanity!
+
+In the silence that followed the door of her room opened, and her father
+entered.  He held in one hand a paper, in the other a candle.  His face
+was passive, but his eyes were burning.
+
+"David--David is coming," he cried, in a voice that rang.  "Does thee
+hear, Faith?  Davy is coming home!"  A woman laughed exultantly.  It was
+not Faith.  But still two years passed before David came.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+TIME, THE IDOL-BREAKER
+
+Lord Windlehurst looked meditatively round the crowded and brilliant
+salon.  His host, the Foreign Minister, had gathered in the vast golden
+chamber the most notable people of a most notable season, and in as
+critical a period of the world's politics as had been known for a quarter
+of a century.  After a moment's survey, the ex-Prime-Minister turned to
+answer the frank and caustic words addressed to him by the Duchess of
+Snowdon concerning the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs.  Presently he
+said:
+
+"But there is method in his haste, dear lady.  He is good at his
+dangerous game.  He plays high, he plunges; but, somehow, he makes it do.
+I've been in Parliament a generation or so, and I've never known an
+amateur more daring and skilful.  I should have given him office had I
+remained in power.  Look at him, and tell me if he wouldn't have been
+worth the backing."
+
+As Lord Windlehurst uttered the last word with an arid smile, he looked
+quizzically at the central figure of a group of people gaily talking.
+
+The Duchess impatiently tapped her knee with a fan.  "Be thankful you
+haven't got him on your conscience," she rejoined.  "I call Eglington
+unscrupulous and unreliable.  He has but one god--getting on; and he has
+got on, with a vengeance.  Whenever I look at that dear thing he's
+married, I feel there's no trusting Providence, who seems to make the
+deserving a footstool for the undeserving.  I've known Hylda since she
+was ten, and I've known him since the minute he came into the world, and
+I've got the measure of both.  She is the finest essence the middle class
+can distil, and he, oh, he's paraffin-vin ordinaire, if you like it
+better, a selfish, calculating adventurer!"
+
+Lord Windlehurst chuckled mordantly.  "Adventurer!  That's what they
+called me--with more reason.  I spotted him as soon as he spoke in the
+House.  There was devilry in him, and unscrupulousness, as you say; but,
+I confess, I thought it would give way to the more profitable habit of
+integrity, and that some cause would seize him, make him sincere and
+mistaken, and give him a few falls.  But in that he was more original
+than I thought.  He is superior to convictions.  You don't think he
+married yonder Queen of Hearts from conviction, do you?"
+
+He nodded towards a corner where Hylda, under a great palm, and backed by
+a bank of flowers, stood surrounded by a group of people palpably amused
+and interested; for she had a reputation for wit--a wit that never hurt,
+and irony that was only whimsical.
+
+"No, there you are wrong," the Duchess answered.  "He married from
+conviction, if ever a man did.  Look at her beauty, look at her fortune,
+listen to her tongue.  Don't you think conviction was easy?"
+
+Lord Windlehurst looked at Hylda approvingly.  She has the real gift--
+little information, but much knowledge, the primary gift of public life.
+Information is full of traps; knowledge avoids them, it reads men; and
+politics is men--and foreign affairs, perhaps!  She is remarkable.  I've
+made some hay in the political world, not so much as the babblers think,
+but I hadn't her ability at twenty-five."
+
+"Why didn't she see through Eglington?"
+
+"My dear Betty, he didn't give her time.  He carried her off her feet.
+You know how he can talk."
+
+"That's the trouble.  She was clever, and liked a clever man, and he--!"
+
+"Quite so.  He'd disprove his own honest parentage, if it would help him
+on--as you say."
+
+"I didn't say it.  Now don't repeat that as from me.  I'm not clever
+enough to think of such things.  But that Eglington lot--I knew his
+father and his grandfather.  Old Broadbrim they called his grandfather
+after he turned Quaker, and he didn't do that till he had had his fling,
+so my father used to say.  And Old Broadbrim's father was called I-want-
+to-know.  He was always poking his nose into things, and playing at being
+a chemist-like this one and the one before.  They all fly off.  This
+one's father used to disappear for two or three years at a time.  This
+one will fly off, too.  You'll see!
+
+"He is too keen on Number One for that, I fancy.  He calculates like a
+mathematician.  As cool as a cracksman of fame and fancy."
+
+The Duchess dropped the fan in her lap.  "My dear, I've said nothing as
+bad as that about him.  And there he is at the Foreign Office!"
+
+"Yet, what has he done, Betty, after all?  He has never cheated at cards,
+or forged a cheque, or run away with his neighbour's wife."
+
+"There's no credit in not doing what you don't want to do.  There's no
+virtue in not falling, when you're not tempted.  Neighbour's wife!  He
+hasn't enough feeling to face it.  Oh no, he'll not break the heart of
+his neighbour's wife.  That's melodrama, and he's a cold-blooded artist.
+He will torture that sweet child over there until she poisons him, or
+runs away."
+
+"Isn't he too clever for that?  She has a million!"
+
+"He'll not realise it till it's all over.  He's too selfish to see--how I
+hate him!"
+
+Lord Windlehurst smiled indulgently at her.  "Ah, you never hated any
+one--not even the Duke."
+
+"I will not have you take away my character.  Of course I've hated, or I
+wouldn't be worth a button.  I'm not the silly thing you've always
+thought me."
+
+His face became gentler.  "I've always thought you one of the wisest
+women of this world--adventurous, but wise.  If it weren't too late, if
+my day weren't over, I'd ask the one great favour, Betty, and--"
+
+She tapped his arm sharply with her fan.  "What a humbug you are--the
+Great Pretender!  But tell me, am I not right about Eglington?"
+
+Windlehurst became grave.  "Yes, you are right--but I admire him, too.
+He is determined to test himself to the full.  His ambition is boundless
+and ruthless, but his mind has a scientific turn--the obligation of
+energy to apply itself, of intelligence to engage itself to the farthest
+limit.  But service to humanity--"
+
+"Service to humanity!" she sniffed.
+
+"Of course he would think it 'flap-doodle'--except in a speech; but
+I repeat, I admire him.  Think of it all.  He was a poor Irish peer,
+with no wide circle of acquaintance, come of a family none too popular.
+He strikes out a course for himself--a course which had its dangers,
+because it was original.  He determines to become celebrated--by becoming
+notorious first.  He uses his title as a weapon for advancement as though
+he were a butter merchant.  He plans carefully and adroitly.  He writes
+a book of travel.  It is impudent, and it traverses the observations of
+authorities, and the scientific geographers prance with rage.  That was
+what he wished.  He writes a novel.  It sets London laughing at me, his
+political chief.  He knew me well enough to be sure I would not resent
+it.  He would have lampooned his grandmother, if he was sure she would
+not, or could not, hurt him.  Then he becomes more audacious.  He
+publishes a monograph on the painters of Spain, artificial, confident,
+rhetorical, acute: as fascinating as a hide-and-seek drawing-room play--
+he is so cleverly escaping from his ignorance and indiscretions all the
+while.  Connoisseurs laugh, students of art shriek a little, and Ruskin
+writes a scathing letter, which was what he had played for.  He had got
+something for nothing cheaply.  The few who knew and despised him did not
+matter, for they were able and learned and obscure, and, in the world
+where he moves, most people are superficial, mediocre, and 'tuppence
+coloured.' It was all very brilliant.  He pursued his notoriety, and got
+it."
+
+"Industrious Eglington!"
+
+"But, yes, he is industrious.  It is all business.  It was an enormous
+risk, rebelling against his party, and leaving me, and going over; but
+his temerity justified itself, and it didn't matter to him that people
+said he went over to get office as we were going out.  He got the office-
+and people forget so soon.  Then, what does he do--"
+
+"He brings out another book, and marries a wife, and abuses his old
+friends--and you."
+
+"Abuse?  With his tongue in his cheek, hoping that I should reply.
+Dev'lishly ingenious!  But on that book of Electricity and Disease he
+scored.  In most other things he's a barber-shop philosopher, but in
+science he has got a flare, a real talent.  So he moves modestly in this
+thing, for which he had a fine natural gift and more knowledge than he
+ever had before in any department, whose boundaries his impertinent and
+ignorant mind had invaded.  That book gave him a place.  It wasn't full
+of new things, but it crystallised the discoveries, suggestions, and
+expectations of others; and, meanwhile, he had got a name at no cost.  He
+is so various.  Look at it dispassionately, and you will see much to
+admire in his skill.  He pleases, he amuses, he startles, he baffles, he
+mystifies."
+
+The Duchess made an impatient exclamation.  "The silly newspapers call
+him a 'remarkable man, a personality.' Now, believe me, Windlehurst, he
+will overreach himself one of these days, and he'll come down like a
+stick."
+
+"There you are on solid ground.  He thinks that Fate is with him, and
+that, in taking risks, he is infallible.  But the best system breaks at
+political roulette sooner or later.  You have got to work for something
+outside yourself, something that is bigger than the game, or the end is
+sickening."
+
+"Eglington hasn't far to go, if that's the truth."
+
+"Well, well, when it comes, we must help him--we must help him up again."
+
+The Duchess nervously adjusted her wig, with ludicrously tiny fingers for
+one so ample, and said petulantly: "You are incomprehensible.  He has
+been a traitor to you and to your party, he has thrown mud at you, he has
+played with principles as my terrier plays with his rubber ball, and yet
+you'll run and pick him up when he falls, and--"
+
+"'And kiss the spot to make it well,'" he laughed softly, then added with
+a sigh: "Able men in public life are few; 'far too few, for half our
+tasks; we can spare not one.'  Besides, my dear Betty, there is his
+pretty lass o' London."
+
+The Duchess was mollified at once.  "I wish she had been my girl," she
+said, in a voice a little tremulous.  "She never needed looking after.
+Look at the position she has made for herself.  Her father wouldn't go
+into society, her mother knew a mere handful of people, and--"
+
+"She knew you, Betty."
+
+"Well, suppose I did help her a little--I was only a kind of reference.
+She did the rest.  She's set a half-dozen fashions herself--pure genius.
+She was born to lead.  Her turnouts were always a little smarter, her
+horses travelled a little faster, than other people's.  She took risks,
+too, but she didn't play a game; she only wanted to do things well.  We
+all gasped when she brought Adelaide to recite from 'Romeo and Juliet' at
+an evening party, but all London did the same the week after."
+
+"She discovered, and the Duchess of Snowdon applied the science.
+Ah, Betty, don't think I don't agree.  She has the gift.  She has
+temperament.  No woman should have temperament.  She hasn't scope enough
+to wear it out in some passion for a cause.  Men are saved in spite of
+themselves by the law of work.  Forty comes to a man of temperament,
+and then a passion for a cause seizes him, and he is safe.  A woman of
+temperament at forty is apt to cut across the bows of iron-clad
+convention and go down.  She has temperament, has my lady yonder, and I
+don't like the look of her eyes sometimes.  There's dark fire smouldering
+in them.  She should have a cause; but a cause to a woman now-a-days
+means 'too little of pleasure, too much of pain,' for others."
+
+"What was your real cause, Windlehurst?  You had one, I suppose, for
+you've never had a fall."
+
+"My cause?  You ask that?  Behold the barren figtree!  A lifetime in my
+country's service, and you who have driven me home from the House in your
+own brougham, and told me that you understood--oh, Betty!"
+
+She laughed.  "You'll say something funny as you're dying, Windlehurst."
+
+"Perhaps.  But it will be funny to know that presently I'll have a secret
+that none of you know, who watch me 'launch my pinnace into the dark.'
+But causes?  There are hundreds, and all worth while.  I've come here
+to-night for a cause--no, don't start, it's not you, Betty, though you
+are worth any sacrifice.  I've come here to-night to see a modern
+Paladin, a real crusader:
+
+"'Then felt I like some watcher of the skies, When a new planet swims
+into his ken.'"
+
+"Yes, that's poetry, Windlehurst, and you know I love it-I've always kept
+yours.  But who's the man--the planet?"
+
+"Egyptian Claridge."
+
+"Ah, he is in England?"
+
+"He will be here to-night; you shall see him."
+
+"Really!  What is his origin?"
+
+He told her briefly, adding: "I've watched the rise of Claridge Pasha.
+I've watched his cause grow, and now I shall see the man--ah, but here
+comes our lass o' London!"
+
+The eyes of both brightened, and a whimsical pleasure came to the mask-
+like face of Lord Windlehurst.  There was an eager and delighted look in
+Hylda's face also as she quickly came to them, her cavaliers following.
+
+The five years that had passed since that tragic night in Cairo had been
+more than kind to her.  She was lissome, radiant, and dignified, her face
+was alive with expression, and a delicate grace was in every movement.
+The dark lashes seemed to have grown longer, the brown hair fuller, the
+smile softer and more alluring.
+
+"She is an invaluable asset to the Government," Lord Windlehurst murmured
+as she came.  "No wonder the party helped the marriage on.  London
+conspired for it, her feet got tangled in the web--and he gave her no
+time to think.  Thinking had saved her till he came."
+
+By instinct Lord Windlehurst knew.  During the first year after the
+catastrophe at Kaid's Palace Hylda could scarcely endure the advances
+made by her many admirers, the greatly eligible and the eager ineligible,
+all with as real an appreciation of her wealth as of her personal
+attributes.  But she took her place in London life with more than the
+old will to make for herself, with the help of her aunt Conyngham,
+an individual position.
+
+The second year after her visit to Egypt she was less haunted by the dark
+episode of the Palace, memory tortured her less; she came to think of
+David and the part he had played with less agitation.  At first the
+thought of him had moved her alternately to sympathy and to revolt.
+His chivalry had filled her with admiration, with a sense of confidence,
+of dependence, of touching and vital obligation; but there was, too,
+another overmastering feeling.  He had seen her life naked, as it were,
+stripped of all independence, with the knowledge of a dangerous
+indiscretion which, to say the least, was a deformity; and she inwardly
+resented it, as one would resent the exposure of a long-hidden physical
+deformity, even by the surgeon who saved one's life.  It was not a very
+lofty attitude of mind, but it was human--and feminine.
+
+These moods had been always dissipated, however, when she recalled,
+as she did so often, David as he stood before Nahoum Pasha, his soul
+fighting in him to make of his enemy--of the man whose brother he had
+killed--a fellow-worker in the path of altruism he had mapped out for
+himself.  David's name had been continually mentioned in telegraphic
+reports and journalistic correspondence from Egypt; and from this source
+she had learned that Nahoum Pasha was again high in the service of Prince
+Kaid.  When the news of David's southern expedition to the revolting
+slave-dealing tribes began to appear, she was deeply roused.  Her
+agitation was the more intense because she never permitted herself to
+talk of him to others, even when his name was discussed at dinner-tables,
+accompanied by strange legends of his origin and stranger romances
+regarding his call to power by Kaid.
+
+She had surrounded him with romance; he seemed more a hero of history
+than of her own real and living world, a being apart.  Even when there
+came rumblings of disaster, dark dangers to be conquered by the Quaker
+crusader, it all was still as of another life.  True it was, that when
+his safe return to Cairo was announced she had cried with joy and relief;
+but there was nothing emotional or passionate in her feeling; it was the
+love of the lower for the higher, the hero-worship of an idealist in
+passionate gratitude.
+
+And, amid it all, her mind scarcely realised that they would surely meet
+again.  At the end of the second year the thought had receded into an
+almost indefinite past.  She was beginning to feel that she had lived
+two lives, and that this life had no direct or vital bearing upon her
+previous existence, in which David had moved.  Yet now and then the
+perfume of the Egyptian garden, through which she had fled to escape from
+tragedy, swept over her senses, clouded her eyes in the daytime, made
+them burn at night.
+
+At last she had come to meet and know Eglington.  From the first moment
+they met he had directed his course towards marriage.  He was the man of
+the moment.  His ambition seemed but patriotism, his ardent and
+overwhelming courtship the impulse of a powerful nature.  As Lord
+Windlehurst had said, he carried her off her feet, and, on a wave of
+devotion and popular encouragement, he had swept her to the altar,
+
+The Duchess held both her hands for a moment, admiring her, and,
+presently, with a playful remark upon her unselfishness, left her alone
+with Lord Windlehurst.
+
+As they talked, his mask-like face became lighted from the brilliant fire
+in the inquisitorial eyes, his lips played with topics of the moment in a
+mordant fashion, which drew from her flashing replies.  Looking at her,
+he was conscious of the mingled qualities of three races in her--English,
+Welsh, and American-Dutch of the Knickerbocker strain; and he contrasted
+her keen perception and her exquisite sensitiveness with the purebred
+Englishwomen round him, stately, kindly, handsome, and monotonously
+intelligent.
+
+"Now I often wonder," he said, conscious of, but indifferent to, the
+knowledge that he and the brilliant person beside him were objects of
+general attention--"I often wonder, when I look at a gathering like this,
+how many undiscovered crimes there are playing about among us.  They
+never do tell--or shall I say, we never do tell?"
+
+All day, she knew not why, Hylda had been nervous and excited.  Without
+reason his words startled her.  Now there flashed before her eyes a room
+in a Palace at Cairo, and a man lying dead before her.  The light slowly
+faded out of her eyes, leaving them almost lustreless, but her face was
+calm, and the smile on her lips stayed.  She fanned herself slowly, and
+answered nonchalantly: "Crime is a word of many meanings.  I read in the
+papers of political crimes--it is a common phrase; yet the criminals
+appear to go unpunished."
+
+"There you are wrong," he answered cynically.  "The punishment is, that
+political virtue goes unrewarded, and in due course crime is the only
+refuge to most.  Yet in politics the temptation to be virtuous is great."
+
+She laughed now with a sense of relief.  The intellectual stimulant
+had brought back the light to her face.  "How is it, then, with you--
+inveterate habit or the strain of the ages?  For they say you have not
+had your due reward."
+
+He smiled grimly.  "Ah, no, with me virtue is the act of an inquiring
+mind--to discover where it will lead me.  I began with political crime--
+I was understood!  I practise political virtue: it embarrasses the world,
+it fogs them, it seems original, because so unnecessary.  Mine is the
+scientific life.  Experiment in old substances gives new--well, say, new
+precipitations.  But you are scientific, too.  You have a laboratory, and
+have much to do--with retorts."
+
+"No, you are thinking of my husband.  The laboratory is his."
+
+"But the retorts are yours."
+
+"The precipitations are his."
+
+"Ah, well, at least you help him to fuse the constituents!  .  .  .  But
+now, be quite confidential to an old man who has experimented too.  Is
+your husband really an amateur scientist, or is he a scientific amateur?
+Is it a pose or a taste?  I fiddled once--and wrote sonnets; one was a
+pose, the other a taste."
+
+It was mere persiflage, but it was a jest which made an unintended wound.
+Hylda became conscious of a sudden sharp inquiry going on in her mind.
+There flashed into it the question, Does Eglington's heart ever really
+throb for love of any object or any cause?  Even in moments of greatest
+intimacy, soon after marriage, when he was most demonstrative towards
+her, he had seemed preoccupied, except when speaking about himself and
+what he meant to do.  Then he made her heart throb in response to his
+confident, ardent words--concerning himself.  But his own heart, did it
+throb?  Or was it only his brain that throbbed?
+
+Suddenly, with an exclamation, she involuntarily laid a hand upon
+Windlehurst's arm.  She was looking down the room straight before her to
+a group of people towards which other groups were now converging,
+attracted by one who seemed to be a centre of interest.
+
+Presently the eager onlookers drew aside, and Lord Windlehurst observed
+moving up the room a figure he had never seen before.  The new-comer was
+dressed in a grey and blue official dress, unrelieved save by silver
+braid at the collar and at the wrists.  There was no decoration, but on
+the head was a red fez, which gave prominence to the white, broad
+forehead, with the dark hair waving away behind the ears.  Lord
+Windlehurst held his eye-glass to his eye in interested scrutiny.  "H'm,"
+he said, with lips pursed out, "a most notable figure, a most remarkable
+face!  My dear, there's a fortune in that face.  It's a national asset."
+
+He saw the flush, the dumb amazement, the poignant look in Lady
+Eglington's face, and registered it in his mind.  "Poor thing," he said
+to himself, "I wonder what it is all about--I wonder.  I thought she had
+no unregulated moments.  She gave promise of better things."  The Foreign
+Minister was bringing his guest towards them.  The new-comer did not look
+at them till within a few steps of where they stood.  Then his eyes met
+those of Lady Eglington.  For an instant his steps were arrested.  A
+swift light came into his face, softening its quiet austerity and
+strength.
+
+It was David.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+SHARPER THAN A SWORD
+
+A glance of the eye was the only sign of recognition between David and
+Hylda; nothing that others saw could have suggested that they had ever
+met before.  Lord Windlehurst at once engaged David in conversation.
+
+At first when Hylda had come back from Egypt, those five years ago, she
+had often wondered what she would think or do if she ever were to see
+this man again; whether, indeed, she could bear it.  Well, the moment and
+the man had come.  Her eyes had gone blind for an instant; it had seemed
+for one sharp, crucial moment as though she could not bear it; then the
+gulf of agitation was passed, and she had herself in hand.
+
+While her mind was engaged subconsciously with what Lord Windlehurst and
+David said, comprehending it all, and, when Lord Windlehurst appealed to
+her, offering by a word contribution to the 'pourparler', she was
+studying David as steadily as her heated senses would permit her.
+
+He seemed to her to have put on twenty years in the steady force of his
+personality--in the composure of his bearing, in the self-reliance of his
+look, though his face and form were singularly youthful.  The face was
+handsome and alight, the look was that of one who weighed things; yet she
+was conscious of a great change.  The old delicate quality of the
+features was not so marked, though there was nothing material in the
+look, and the head had not a sordid line, while the hand that he now and
+again raised, brushing his forehead meditatively, had gained much in
+strength and force.  Yet there was something--something different, that
+brought a slight cloud into her eyes.  It came to her now, a certain
+melancholy in the bearing of the figure, erect and well-balanced as it
+was.  Once the feeling came, the certainty grew.  And presently she found
+a strange sadness in the eyes, something that lurked behind all that he
+did and all that he was, some shadow over the spirit.  It was even more
+apparent when he smiled.
+
+As she was conscious of this new reading of him, a motion arrested her
+glance, a quick lifting of the head to one side, as though the mind had
+suddenly been struck by an idea, the glance flying upward in abstracted
+questioning.  This she had seen in her husband, too, the same brisk
+lifting of the head, the same quick smiling.  Yet this face, unlike
+Eglington's, expressed a perfect single-mindedness; it wore the look of a
+self-effacing man of luminous force, a concentrated battery of energy.
+Since she had last seen him every sign of the provincial had vanished.
+He was now the well-modulated man of affairs, elegant in his simplicity
+of dress, with the dignified air of the intellectual, yet with the
+decision of a man who knew his mind.
+
+Lord Windlehurst was leaving.  Now David and she were alone.  Without a
+word they moved on together through the throng, the eyes of all following
+them, until they reached a quiet room at one end of the salon, where were
+only a few people watching the crowd pass the doorway.
+
+"You will be glad to sit," he said, motioning her to a chair beside some
+palms.  Then, with a change of tone, he added: "Thee is not sorry I am
+come?"
+
+Thee--the old-fashioned simple Quaker word!  She put her fingers to her
+eyes.  Her senses were swimming with a distant memory.  The East was in
+her brain, the glow of the skies, the gleam of the desert, the swish of
+the Nile, the cry of the sweet-seller, the song of the dance-girl, the
+strain of the darabukkeh, the call of the skis.  She saw again the
+ghiassas drifting down the great river, laden with dourha; she saw the
+mosque of the blue tiles with its placid fountain, and its handful of
+worshippers praying by the olive-tree.  She watched the moon rise above
+the immobile Sphinx, she looked down on the banqueters in the Palace,
+David among them, and Foorgat Bey beside her.  She saw Foorgat Bey again
+lying dead at her feet.  She heard the stir of the leaves; she caught the
+smell of the lime-trees in the Palace garden as she fled.  She recalled
+her reckless return to Cairo from Alexandria.  She remembered the little
+room where she and David, Nahoum and Mizraim, crossed a bridge over a
+chasm, and stood upon ground which had held good till now--till this
+hour, when the man who had played a most vital part in her life had
+come again out of a land which, by some forced obliquity of mind and
+stubbornness of will, she had assured herself she would never see again.
+
+She withdrew her hand from her eyes, and saw him looking at her calmly,
+though his face was alight.  "Thee is fatigued," he said.  "This is
+labour which wears away the strength."  He made a motion towards the
+crowd.
+
+She smiled a very little, and said: "You do not care for such things as
+this, I know.  Your life has its share of it, however, I suppose."
+
+He looked out over the throng before he answered.  "It seems an eddy of
+purposeless waters.  Yet there is great depth beneath, or there were no
+eddy; and where there is depth and the eddy there is danger--always."
+As he spoke she became almost herself again.  "You think that deep
+natures have most perils?"
+
+"Thee knows it is so.  Human nature is like the earth: the deeper the
+plough goes into the soil unploughed before, the more evil substance is
+turned up--evil that becomes alive as soon as the sun and the air fall
+upon it."
+
+"Then, women like me who pursue a flippant life, who ride in this merry-
+go-round"--she made a gesture towards the crowd beyond--"who have no
+depth, we are safest, we live upon the surface."  Her gaiety was forced;
+her words were feigned.
+
+"Thee has passed the point of danger, thee is safe," he answered
+meaningly.
+
+"Is that because I am not deep, or because the plough has been at work?"
+she asked.  "In neither case I am not sure you are right."
+
+"Thee is happily married," he said reflectively; "and the prospect is
+fair."
+
+"I think you know my husband," she said in answer, and yet not in answer.
+
+"I was born in Hamley where he has a place--thee has been there?" he
+asked eagerly.
+
+"Not yet.  We are to go next Sunday, for the first time to the Cloistered
+House.  I had not heard that my husband knew you, until I saw in the
+paper a few days ago that your home was in Hamley.  Then I asked
+Eglington, and he told me that your family and his had been neighbours
+for generations."
+
+"His father was a Quaker," David rejoined, "but he forsook the faith."
+
+"I did not know," she answered, with some hesitation.  There was no
+reason why, when she and Eglington had talked of Hamley, he should not
+have said his own father had once been a Quaker; yet she had dwelt so
+upon the fact that she herself had Quaker blood, and he had laughed so
+much over it, with the amusement of the superior person, that his silence
+on this one point struck her now with a sense of confusion.
+
+"You are going to Hamley--we shall meet there?" she continued.
+
+"To-day I should have gone, but I have business at the Foreign Office
+to-morrow.  One needs time to learn that all 'private interests and
+partial affections' must be sacrificed to public duty."
+
+"But you are going soon?  You will be there on Sunday?"
+
+"I shall be there to-morrow night, and Sunday, and for one long week at
+least.  Hamley is the centre of the world, the axle of the universe--you
+shall see.  You doubt it?" he added, with a whimsical smile.
+
+"I shall dispute most of what you say, and all that you think, if you do
+not continue to use the Quaker 'thee' and 'thou'--ungrammatical as you
+are so often."
+
+"Thee is now the only person in London, or in England, with whom I use
+'thee' and 'thou.'  I am no longer my own master, I am a public servant,
+and so I must follow custom."
+
+"It is destructive of personality.  The 'thee' and 'thou' belong to you.
+I wonder if the people of Hamley will say 'thee' and 'thou' to me.  I
+hope, I do hope they will."
+
+"Thee may be sure they will.  They are no respecters of persons there.
+They called your husband's father Robert--his name was Robert.  Friend
+Robert they called him, and afterwards they called him Robert Denton till
+he died."
+
+"Will they call me Hylda?" she asked, with a smile.  "More like they
+will call thee Friend Hylda; it sounds simple and strong," he replied.
+
+"As they call Claridge Pasha Friend David," she answered, with a smile.
+"David is a good name for a strong man."
+
+"That David threw a stone from a sling and smote a giant in the forehead.
+The stone from this David's sling falls into the ocean and is lost
+beneath the surface."
+
+His voice had taken on a somewhat sombre tone, his eyes looked away into
+the distance; yet he smiled too, and a hand upon his knee suddenly closed
+in sympathy with an inward determination.
+
+A light of understanding came into her face.  They had been keeping
+things upon the surface, and, while it lasted, he seemed a lesser man
+than she had thought him these past years.  But now--now there was the
+old unschooled simplicity, the unique and lonely personality, the homely
+soul and body bending to one root-idea, losing themselves in a wave of
+duty.  Again he was to her, once more, the dreamer, the worker, the
+conqueror--the conqueror of her own imagination.  She had in herself the
+soul of altruism, the heart of the crusader.  Touched by the fire of a
+great idea, she was of those who could have gone out into the world
+without wallet or scrip, to work passionately for some great end.
+
+And she had married the Earl of Eglington!
+
+She leaned towards David, and said eagerly: "But you are satisfied--you
+are satisfied with your work for poor Egypt?"
+
+"Thee says 'poor Egypt,'" he answered, "and thee says well.  Even now she
+is not far from the day of Rameses and Joseph.  Thee thinks perhaps thee
+knows Egypt--none knows her."
+
+"You know her--now?"
+
+He shook his head slowly.  "It is like putting one's ear to the mouth of
+the Sphinx.  Yet sometimes, almost in despair, when I have lain down in
+the desert beside my camel, set about with enemies, I have got a message
+from the barren desert, the wide silence, and the stars."  He paused.
+
+"What is the message that comes?" she asked softly.  "It is always the
+same: Work on!  Seek not to know too much, nor think that what you do is
+of vast value.  Work, because it is yours to be adjusting the machinery
+in your own little workshop of life to the wide mechanism of the universe
+and time.  One wheel set right, one flying belt adjusted, and there is a
+step forward to the final harmony--ah, but how I preach!" he added
+hastily.
+
+His eyes were fixed on hers with a great sincerity, and they were clear
+and shining, yet his lips were smiling--what a trick they had of smiling!
+He looked as though he should apologise for such words in such a place.
+
+She rose to her feet with a great suspiration, with a light in her eyes
+and a trembling smile.
+
+"But no, no, no, you inspire one.  Thee inspires me," she said, with a
+little laugh, in which there was a note of sadness.  "I may use 'thee,'
+may I not, when I will?  I am a little a Quaker also, am I not?  My
+people came from Derbyshire, my American people, that is--and only forty
+years ago.  Almost thee persuades me to be a Quaker now," she added.
+"And perhaps I shall be, too," she went on, her eyes fixed on the crowd
+passing by, Eglington among them.
+
+David saw Eglington also, and moved forward with her.
+
+"We shall meet in Hamley," she said composedly, as she saw her husband
+leave the crush and come towards her.  As Eglington noticed David,
+a curious enigmatical glance flashed from his eyes.  He came forward,
+however, with outstretched hand.
+
+"I am sorry I was not at the Foreign Office when you called to-day.
+Welcome back to England, home--and beauty."  He laughed in a rather
+mirthless way, but with a certain empressement, conscious, as he always
+was, of the onlookers.  "You have had a busy time in Egypt?" he
+continued cheerfully, and laughed again.
+
+David laughed slightly, also, and Hylda noticed that it had a certain
+resemblance in its quick naturalness to that of her husband.
+
+"I am not sure that we are so busy there as we ought to be," David
+answered.  "I have no real standards.  I am but an amateur, and have
+known nothing of public life.  But you should come and see."
+
+"It has been in my mind.  An ounce of eyesight is worth a ton of print.
+My lady was there once, I believe"--he turned towards her--"but before
+your time, I think.  Or did you meet there, perhaps?"  He glanced at both
+curiously.  He scarcely knew why a thought flashed into his mind--as
+though by some telepathic sense; for it had never been there before,
+and there was no reason for its being there now.
+
+Hylda saw what David was about to answer, and she knew instinctively that
+he would say they had never met.  It shamed her.  She intervened as she
+saw he was about to speak.
+
+"We were introduced for the first time to-night," she said; "but Claridge
+Pasha is part of my education in the world.  It is a miracle that Hamley
+should produce two such men," she added gaily, and laid her fan upon her
+husband's arm lightly.  "You should have been a Quaker, Harry, and then
+you two would have been--"
+
+"Two Quaker Don Quixotes," interrupted Eglington ironically.
+
+"I should not have called you a Don Quixote," his wife lightly rejoined,
+relieved at the turn things had taken.  "I cannot imagine you tilting at
+wind-mills--"
+
+"Or saving maidens in distress?  Well, perhaps not; but you do not
+suggest that Claridge Pasha tilts at windmills either--or saves maidens
+in distress.  Though, now I come to think, there was an episode."  He
+laughed maliciously.  "Some time ago it was--a lass of the cross-roads.
+I think I heard of such an adventure, which did credit to Claridge
+Pasha's heart, though it shocked Hamley at the time.  But I wonder,
+was the maiden really saved?"
+
+Lady Eglington's face became rigid.  "Well, yes," she said slowly, "the
+maiden was saved.  She is now my maid.  Hamley may have been shocked, but
+Claridge Pasha has every reason to be glad that he helped a fellow-being
+in trouble."
+
+"Your maid--Heaver?" asked Eglington in surprise, a swift shadow
+crossing his face.
+
+"Yes; she only told me this morning.  Perhaps she had seen that Claridge
+Pasha was coming to England.  I had not, however.  At any rate, Quixotism
+saved her."
+
+David smiled.  "It is better than I dared to hope," he remarked quietly.
+
+"But that is not all," continued Hylda.  "There is more.  She had been
+used badly by a man who now wants to marry her--has tried to do so for
+years.  Now, be prepared for a surprise, for it concerns you rather
+closely, Eglington.  Fate is a whimsical jade.  Whom do you think it is?
+Well, since you could never guess, it was Jasper Kimber."
+
+Eglington's eyes opened wide.  "This is nothing but a coarse and
+impossible stage coincidence," he laughed.  "It is one of those tricks
+played by Fact to discredit the imagination.  Life is laughing at us
+again.  The longer I live, the more I am conscious of being an object of
+derision by the scene-shifters in the wings of the stage.  What a cynical
+comedy life is at the best!"
+
+"It all seems natural enough," rejoined David.
+
+"It is all paradox."
+
+"Isn't it all inevitable law?  I have no belief in 'antic Fate.'"
+
+Hylda realised, with a new and poignant understanding, the difference of
+outlook on life between the two men.  She suddenly remembered the words
+of Confucius, which she had set down in her little book of daily life:
+"By nature we approximate, it is only experience that drives us apart."
+
+David would have been content to live in the desert all his life for the
+sake of a cause, making no calculations as to reward.  Eglington must
+ever have the counters for the game.
+
+"Well, if you do not believe in 'antic Fate,' you must be greatly puzzled
+as you go on," he rejoined, laughing; "especially in Egypt, where the
+East and the West collide, race against race, religion against religion,
+Oriental mind against Occidental intellect.  You have an unusual quantity
+of Quaker composure, to see in it all 'inevitable law.'  And it must be
+dull.  But you always were, so they say in Hamley, a monument of
+seriousness."
+
+"I believe they made one or two exceptions," answered David drily.
+"I had assurances."
+
+Eglington laughed boyishly.  "You are right.  You achieved a name for
+humour in a day--'a glass, a kick, and a kiss,' it was.  Do you have such
+days in Egypt?"
+
+"You must come and see," David answered lightly, declining to notice the
+insolence.  "These are critical days there.  The problems are worthy of
+your care.  Will you not come?"
+
+Eglington was conscious of a peculiar persuasive influence over himself
+that he had never felt before.  In proportion, however, as he felt its
+compelling quality, there came a jealousy of the man who was its cause.
+The old antagonism, which had had its sharpest expression the last time
+they had met on the platform at Heddington, came back.  It was one strong
+will resenting another--as though there was not room enough in the wide
+world of being for these two atoms of life, sparks from the ceaseless
+wheel, one making a little brighter flash than the other for the moment,
+and then presently darkness, and the whirring wheel which threw them off,
+throwing off millions of others again.
+
+On the moment Eglington had a temptation to say something with an edge,
+which would show David that his success in Egypt hung upon the course
+that he himself and the weak Foreign Minister, under whom he served,
+would take.  And this course would be his own course largely, since he
+had been appointed to be a force and strength in the Foreign Office which
+his chief did not supply.  He refrained, however, and, on the moment,
+remembered the promise he had given to Faith to help David.
+
+A wave of feeling passed over him.  His wife was beautiful, a creature of
+various charms, a centre of attraction.  Yet he had never really loved
+her--so many sordid elements had entered into the thought of marriage
+with her, lowering the character of his affection.  With a perversity
+which only such men know, such heart as he had turned to the unknown
+Quaker girl who had rebuked him, scathed him, laid bare his soul before
+himself, as no one ever had done.  To Eglington it was a relief that
+there was one human being--he thought there was only one--who read him
+through and through; and that knowledge was in itself as powerful an
+influence as was the secret between David and Hylda.  It was a kind of
+confessional, comforting to a nature not self-contained.  Now he
+restrained his cynical intention to deal David a side-thrust,
+and quietly said:
+
+"We shall meet at Hamley, shall we not?  Let us talk there, and not at
+the Foreign Office.  You would care to go to Egypt, Hylda?"
+
+She forced a smile.  "Let us talk it over at Hamley."  With a smile to
+David she turned away to some friends.
+
+Eglington offered to introduce David to some notable people, but he said
+that he must go--he was fatigued after his journey.  He had no wish to be
+lionised.
+
+As he left the salon, the band was playing a tune that made him close his
+eyes, as though against something he would not see.  The band in Kaid's
+Palace had played it that night when he had killed Foorgat Bey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+EACH AFTER HIS OWN ORDER
+
+With the passing years new feelings had grown up in the heart of Luke
+Claridge.  Once David's destiny and career were his own peculiar and
+self-assumed responsibility.  "Inwardly convicted," he had wrenched the
+lad away from the natural circumstances of his life, and created a scheme
+of existence for him out of his own conscience--a pious egoist.
+
+After David went to Egypt, however, his mind involuntarily formed the
+resolution that "Davy and God should work it out together."
+
+He had grown very old in appearance, and his quiet face was almost
+painfully white; but the eyes burned with more fire than in the past.
+As the day approached when David should arrive in England, he walked by
+himself continuously, oblivious of the world round him.  He spoke to no
+one, save the wizened Elder Meacham, and to John Fairley, who rightly
+felt that he had a share in the making of Claridge Pasha.
+
+With head perched in the air, and face half hidden in his great white
+collar, the wizened Elder, stopping Luke Claridge in the street one day,
+said:
+
+"Does thee think the lad will ride in Pharaoh's chariot here?"
+
+There were sly lines of humour about the mouth of the wizened Elder as he
+spoke, but Luke Claridge did not see.
+
+"Pride is far from his heart," he answered portentously.  "He will ride
+in no chariot.  He has written that he will walk here from Heddington,
+and none is to meet him."
+
+"He will come by the cross-roads, perhaps," rejoined the other piously.
+"Well, well, memory is a flower or a rod, as John Fox said, and the
+cross-roads have memories for him."
+
+Again flashes of humour crossed his face, for he had a wide humanity, of
+insufficient exercise.
+
+"He has made full atonement, and thee does ill to recall the past,
+Reuben," rejoined the other sternly.
+
+"If he has done no more that needs atonement than he did that day at the
+cross-roads, then has his history been worthy of Hamley," rejoined the
+wizened Elder, eyes shut and head buried in his collar.  "Hamley made
+him--Hamley made him.  We did not spare advice, or example, or any
+correction that came to our minds--indeed, it was almost a luxury.  Think
+you, does he still play the flute--an instrument none too grave, Luke?"
+
+But, to this, Luke Claridge exclaimed impatiently and hastened on; and
+the little wizened Elder chuckled to himself all the way to the house of
+John Fairley.  None in Hamley took such pride in David as did these two
+old men, who had loved him from a child, but had discreetly hidden their
+favour, save to each other.  Many times they had met and prayed together
+in the weeks when his life was in notorious danger in the Soudan.
+
+As David walked through the streets of Heddington making for the open
+country, he was conscious of a new feeling regarding the place.  It was
+familiar, but in a new sense.  Its grimy, narrow streets, unlovely
+houses, with shut windows, summer though it was, and no softening
+influences anywhere, save here and there a box of sickly geraniums in the
+windows, all struck his mind in a way they had never done before.  A mile
+away were the green fields, the woods, the roadsides gay with flowers and
+shrubs-loveliness was but over the wall, as it were; yet here the
+barrack-like houses, the grey, harsh streets, seemed like prison walls,
+and the people in them prisoners who, with every legal right to call
+themselves free, were as much captives as the criminal on some small
+island in a dangerous sea.  Escape--where?  Into the gulf of no work and
+degradation?
+
+They never lifted their eyes above the day's labour.  They were scarce
+conscious of anything beyond.  What were their pleasures?  They had
+imitations of pleasures.  To them a funeral or a wedding, a riot or a
+vociferous band, a dog-fight or a strike, were alike in this, that they
+quickened feelings which carried them out of themselves, gave them a
+sense of intoxication.
+
+Intoxication?  David remembered the far-off day of his own wild rebellion
+in Hamley.  From that day forward he had better realised that in the
+hearts of so many of the human race there was a passion to forget
+themselves; to blot out, if for a moment only, the troubles of life and
+time; or, by creating a false air of exaltation, to rise above them.
+Once in the desert, when men were dying round him of fever and dysentery,
+he had been obliged, exhausted and ill, scarce able to drag himself from
+his bed, to resort to an opiate to allay his own sufferings, that he
+might minister to others.  He remembered how, in the atmosphere it had
+created--an intoxication, a soothing exhilaration and pervasive thrill--
+he had saved so many of his followers.  Since then the temptation had
+come upon him often when trouble weighed or difficulties surrounded him
+--accompanied always by recurrence of fever--to resort to the insidious
+medicine.  Though he had fought the temptation with every inch of his
+strength, he could too well understand those who sought for "surcease of
+pain"
+
+                   "Seeking for surcease of pain,
+                    Pilgrim to Lethe I came;
+                    Drank not, for pride was too keen,
+                    Stung by the sound of a name!"
+
+As the plough of action had gone deep into his life and laid bare his
+nature to the light, there had been exposed things which struggled for
+life and power in him, with the fiery strength which only evil has.
+
+The western heavens were aglow.  On every hand the gorse and the may were
+in bloom, the lilacs were coming to their end, but wild rhododendrons
+were glowing in the bracken, as he stepped along the road towards the
+place where he was born.  Though every tree and roadmark was familiar,
+yet he was conscious of a new outlook.  He had left these quiet scenes
+inexperienced and untravelled, to be thrust suddenly into the thick of a
+struggle of nations over a sick land.  He had worked in a vortex of
+debilitating local intrigue.  All who had to do with Egypt gained except
+herself, and if she moved in revolt or agony, they threatened her.
+Once when resisting the pressure and the threats of war of a foreign
+diplomatist, he had, after a trying hour, written to Faith in a burst of
+passionate complaint, and his letter had ended with these words.
+
+                   "In your onward march, O men,
+                    White of face, in promise whiter,
+                    You unsheath the sword, and then
+                    Blame the wronged as the fighter.
+
+                   "Time, ah, Time, rolls onward o'er
+                    All these foetid fields of evil,
+                    While hard at the nation's core
+                    Eats the burning rust and weevill
+
+                   "Nathless, out beyond the stars
+                    Reigns the Wiser and the Stronger,
+                    Seeing in all strifes and wars
+                    Who the wronged, who the wronger."
+
+Privately he had spoken thus, but before the world he had given way to
+no impulse, in silence finding safety from the temptation to diplomatic
+evasion.  Looking back over five years, he felt now that the sum of his
+accomplishment had been small.
+
+He did not realise the truth.  When his hand was almost upon the object
+for which he had toiled and striven--whether pacifying a tribe, meeting a
+loan by honest means, building a barrage, irrigating the land, financing
+a new industry, or experimenting in cotton--it suddenly eluded him.
+Nahoum had snatched it away by subterranean wires.  On such occasions
+Nahoum would shrug his shoulders, and say with a sigh, "Ah, my friend,
+let us begin again.  We are both young; time is with us; and we will
+flourish palms in the face of Europe yet.  We have our course set by a
+bright star.  We will continue."
+
+Yet, withal, David was the true altruist.  Even now as he walked this
+road which led to his old home, dear to him beyond all else, his thoughts
+kept flying to the Nile and to the desert.
+
+Suddenly he stopped.  He was at the cross-roads.  Here he had met Kate
+Heaver, here he had shamed his neighbours--and begun his work in life.
+He stood for a moment, smiling, as he looked at the stone where he had
+sat those years ago, his hand feeling instinctively for his flute.
+Presently he turned to the dusty road again.
+
+Walking quickly away, he swung into the path of the wood which would
+bring him by a short cut to Hamley, past Soolsby's cottage.  Here was the
+old peace, the old joy of solitude among the healing trees.  Experience
+had broadened his life, had given him a vast theatre of work; but the
+smell of the woods, the touch of the turf, the whispering of the trees,
+the song of the birds, had the ancient entry to his heart.
+
+At last he emerged on the hill where Soolsby lived.  He had not meant, if
+he could help it, to speak to any one until he had entered the garden of
+the Red Mansion, but he had inadvertently come upon this place where he
+had spent the most momentous days of his life, and a feeling stronger
+than he cared to resist drew him to the open doorway.  The afternoon sun
+was beating in over the threshold as he reached it, and, at his footstep,
+a figure started forward from the shadow of a corner.
+
+It was Kate Heaver.
+
+Surprise, then pain showed in her face; she flushed, was agitated.
+
+"I am sorry.  It's too bad--it's hard on him you should see," she said in
+a breath, and turned her head away for an instant; but presently looked
+him in the face again, all trembling and eager.  "He'll be sorry enough
+to-morrow," she added solicitously, and drew away from something, she had
+been trying to hide.
+
+Then David saw.  On a bench against a wall lay old Soolsby--drunk.
+A cloud passed across his face and left it pale.
+
+"Of course," he said simply, and went over and touched the heaving
+shoulders reflectively.  "Poor Soolsby!"
+
+"He's been sober four years--over four," she said eagerly.  "When he knew
+you'd come again, he got wild, and he would have the drink in spite of
+all.  Walking from Heddington, I saw him at the tavern, and brought him
+home."
+
+"At the tavern--" David said reflectively.
+
+"The Fox and Goose, sir."  She turned her face away again, and David's
+head came up with a quick motion.  There it was, five years ago, that he
+had drunk at the bar, and had fought Jasper Kimber.
+
+"Poor fellow!" he said again, and listened to Soolsby's stertorous
+breathing, as a physician looks at a patient whose case he cannot
+control, does not wholly understand.
+
+The hand of the sleeping man was suddenly raised, his head gave a jerk,
+and he said mumblingly: "Claridge for ever!"
+
+Kate nervously intervened.  "It fair beat him, your coming back, sir.
+It's awful temptation, the drink.  I lived in it for years, and it's
+cruel hard to fight it when you're worked up either way, sorrow or joy.
+There's a real pleasure in being drunk, I'm sure.  While it lasts you're
+rich, and you're young, and you don't care what happens.  It's kind of
+you to take it like this, sir, seeing you've never been tempted and
+mightn't understand."  David shook his head sadly, and looked at Soolsby
+in silence.
+
+"I don't suppose he took a quarter what he used to take, but it made him
+drunk.  'Twas but a minute of madness.  You've saved him right enough."
+
+"I was not blaming him.  I understand--I understand."
+
+He looked at her clearly.  She was healthy and fine-looking, with large,
+eloquent eyes.  Her dress was severe and quiet, as became her occupation
+--a plain, dark grey, but the shapely fulness of the figure gave softness
+to the outlines.  It was no wonder Jasper Kimber wished to marry her;
+and, if he did, the future of the man was sure.  She had a temperament
+which might have made her an adventuress--or an opera-singer.  She had
+been touched in time, and she had never looked back.
+
+"You are with Lady Eglington now, I have heard?" he asked.
+
+She nodded.
+
+"It was hard for you in London at first?"
+
+She met his look steadily.  "It was easy in a way.  I could see round me
+what was the right thing to do.  Oh, that was what was so awful in the
+old life over there at Heddington,"--she pointed beyond the hill, "we
+didn't know what was good and what was bad.  The poor people in big
+working-places like Heddington ain't much better than heathens, leastways
+as to most things that matter.  They haven't got a sensible religion, not
+one that gets down into what they do.  The parson doesn't reach them--he
+talks about church and the sacraments, and they don't get at what good
+it's going to do them.  And the chapel preachers ain't much better.
+They talk and sing and pray, when what the people want is light,
+and hot water, and soap, and being shown how to live, and how to bring
+up children healthy and strong, and decent-cooked food.  I'd have food-
+hospitals if I could, and I'd give the children in the schools one good
+meal a day.  I'm sure the children of the poor go wrong and bad more
+through the way they live than anything.  If only they was taught right
+--not as though they was paupers!  Give me enough nurses of the right
+sort, and enough good, plain cooks, and meat three times a week, and milk
+and bread and rice and porridge every day, and I'd make a new place of
+any town in England in a year.  I'd--"
+
+She stopped all at once, however, and flushing, said: "I didn't stop to
+think I was talking to you, sir."
+
+"I am glad you speak to me so," he answered gently.  "You and I are both
+reformers at heart."
+
+"Me?  I've done nothing, sir, not any good to anybody or anything."
+
+"Not to Jasper Kimber?"
+
+"You did that, sir; he says so; he says you made him."
+
+A quick laugh passed David's lips.  "Men are not made so easily.  I think
+I know the trowel and the mortar that built that wall!  Thee will marry
+him, friend?"
+
+Her eyes burned as she looked at him.  She had been eternally
+dispossessed of what every woman has the right to have--one memory
+possessing the elements of beauty.  Even if it remain but for the moment,
+yet that moment is hers by right of her sex, which is denied the wider
+rights of those they love and serve.  She had tasted the cup of
+bitterness and drunk of the waters of sacrifice.  Married life had no
+lure for her.  She wanted none of it.  The seed of service had, however,
+taken root in a nature full of fire and light and power, undisciplined
+and undeveloped as it was.  She wished to do something--the spirit of
+toil, the first habit of the life of the poor, the natural medium for the
+good that may be in them, had possession of her.
+
+This man was to her the symbol of work.  To have cared for his home, to
+have looked after his daily needs, to have sheltered him humbly from
+little things, would have been her one true happiness.  And this was
+denied her.  Had she been a man, it would have been so easy.  She could
+have offered to be his servant; could have done those things which she
+could do better than any, since hers would be a heart-service.
+
+But even as she looked at him now, she had a flash of insight and
+prescience.  She had, from little things said or done, from newspapers
+marked and a hundred small indications, made up her mind that her
+mistress's mind dwelt much upon "the Egyptian."  The thought flashed now
+that she might serve this man, after all; that a day might come when she
+could say that she had played a part in his happiness, in return for all
+he had done for her.  Life had its chances--and strange things had
+happened.  In her own mind she had decided that her mistress was not
+happy, and who could tell what might happen?  Men did not live for ever!
+The thought came and went, but it left behind a determination to answer
+David as she felt.
+
+"I will not marry Jasper," she answered slowly.  "I want work, not
+marriage."
+
+"There would be both," he urged.
+
+"With women there is the one or the other, not both."
+
+"Thee could help him.  He has done credit to himself, and he can do good
+work for England.  Thee can help him."
+
+"I want work alone, not marriage, sir."
+
+"He would pay thee his debt."
+
+"He owes me nothing.  What happened was no fault of his, but of the life
+we were born in.  He tired of me, and left me.  Husbands tire of their
+wives, but stay on and beat them."
+
+"He drove thee mad almost, I remember."
+
+"Wives go mad and are never cured, so many of them.  I've seen them die,
+poor things, and leave the little ones behind.  I had the luck wi' me.
+I took the right turning at the cross-roads yonder."
+
+"Thee must be Jasper's wife if he asks thee again," he urged.
+
+"He will come when I call, but I will not call," she answered.
+
+"But still thee will marry him when the heart is ready," he persisted.
+"It shall be ready soon.  He needs thee.  Good-bye, friend.  Leave
+Soolsby alone.  He will be safe.  And do not tell him that I have seen
+him so."  He stooped over and touched the old man's shoulder gently.
+
+He held out his hand to her.  She took it, then suddenly leaned over and
+kissed it.  She could not speak.
+
+He stepped to the door and looked out.  Behind the Red Mansion the sun
+was setting, and the far garden looked cool and sweet.  He gave a happy
+sigh, and stepped out and down.
+
+As he disappeared, the woman dropped into a chair, her arms upon a table.
+Her body shook with sobs.  She sat there for an hour, and then, when the
+sun was setting, she left the drunken man sleeping, and made her way down
+the hill to the Cloistered House.  Entering, she was summoned to her
+mistress's room.  "I did not expect my lady so soon," she said,
+surprised.
+
+"No; we came sooner than we expected.  Where have you been?"
+
+"At Soolsby's hut on the hill, my lady."
+
+"Who is Soolsby?"
+
+Kate told her all she knew, and of what had happened that afternoon--but
+not all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+"THERE IS NOTHING HIDDEN WHICH SHALL NOT BE REVEALED"
+
+A fortnight had passed since they had come to Hamley--David, Eglington,
+and Hylda--and they had all travelled a long distance in mutual
+understanding during that time, too far, thought Luke Claridge, who
+remained neutral and silent.  He would not let Faith go to the Cloistered
+House, though he made no protest against David going; because he
+recognised in these visits the duty of diplomacy and the business of the
+nation--more particularly David's business, which, in his eyes, swallowed
+all.  Three times David had gone to the Cloistered House; once Hylda and
+he had met in the road leading to the old mill, and once at Soolsby's
+hut.  Twice, also, in the garden of his old home he had seen her, when
+she came to visit Faith, who had captured her heart at once.  Eglington
+and Faith had not met, however.  He was either busy in his laboratory,
+or with his books, or riding over the common and through the woods,
+and their courses lay apart.
+
+But there came an afternoon when Hylda and David were a long hour
+together at the Cloistered House.  They talked freely of his work in
+Egypt.  At last she said: "And Nahoum Pasha?"
+
+"He has kept faith."
+
+"He is in high place again?"
+
+"He is a good administrator."
+
+"You put him there!"
+
+"Thee remembers what I said to him, that night in Cairo?"
+
+Hylda closed her eyes and drew in a long breath.  Had there been a word
+spoken that night when she and David and Nahoum met which had not bitten
+into her soul!  That David had done so much in Egypt without ruin or
+death was a tribute to his power.  Nevertheless, though Nahoum had not
+struck yet, she was certain he would one day.  All that David now told
+her of the vicissitudes of his plans, and Nahoum's sympathy and help,
+only deepened this conviction.  She could well believe that Nahoum gave
+David money from his own pocket, which he replaced by extortion from
+other sources, while gaining credit with David for co-operation.
+Armenian Christian Nahoum might be, but he was ranged with the East
+against the West, with the reactionary and corrupt against advance,
+against civilisation and freedom and equality.  Nahoum's Christianity was
+permeated with Orientalism, the Christian belief obscured by the theism
+of the Muslim.  David was in a deadlier struggle than he knew.  Yet it
+could serve no good end to attempt to warn him now.  He had outlived
+peril so far; might it not be that, after all, he would win?
+
+So far she had avoided Nahoum's name in talks with David.  She could
+scarcely tell why she did, save that it opened a door better closed,
+as it were; but the restraint had given way at last.
+
+"Thee remembers what I said that night?" David repeated slowly.
+
+"I remember--I understand.  You devise your course and you never change.
+It is like building on a rock.  That is why nothing happens to you as bad
+as might happen."
+
+"Nothing bad ever happens to me."
+
+"The philosophy of the desert," she commented smiling.  "You are living
+in the desert even when you are here.  This is a dream; the desert and
+Egypt only are real.
+
+"That is true, I think.  I seem sometimes like a sojourner here, like a
+spirit 'revisiting the scenes of life and time.'"  He laughed boyishly.
+
+"Yet you are happy here.  I understand now why and how you are what you
+are.  Even I that have been here so short a time feel the influence upon
+me.  I breathe an air that, somehow, seems a native air.  The spirit of
+my Quaker grandmother revives in me.  Sometimes I sit hours thinking,
+scarcely stirring; and I believe I know now how people might speak to
+each other without words.  Your Uncle Benn and you--it was so with you,
+was it not?  You heard his voice speaking to you sometimes; you
+understood what he meant to say to you?  You told me so long ago."
+
+David inclined his head.  "I heard him speak as one might speak through
+a closed door.  Sometimes, too, in the desert I have heard Faith speak
+to me."
+
+"And your grandfather?"
+
+"Never my grandfather--never.  It would seem as though, in my thoughts,
+I could never reach him; as though masses of opaque things lay between.
+Yet he and I--there is love between us.  I don't know why I never hear
+him."
+
+"Tell me of your childhood, of your mother.  I have seen her grave under
+the ash by the Meeting-house, but I want to know of her from you."
+
+"Has not Faith told you?"
+
+"We have only talked of the present.  I could not ask her; but I can ask
+you.  I want to know of your mother and you together."
+
+"We were never together.  When I opened my eyes she closed hers.  It was
+so little to get for the life she gave.  See, was it not a good face?"
+He drew from his pocket a little locket which Faith had given him years
+ago, and opened it before her.
+
+Hylda looked long.  "She was exquisite," she said, "exquisite."
+
+"My father I never knew either.  He was a captain of a merchant ship.
+He married her secretly while she was staying with an aunt at Portsmouth.
+He sailed away, my mother told my grandfather all, and he brought her
+home here.  The marriage was regular, of course, but my grandfather,
+after announcing it, and bringing it before the Elders, declared that she
+should never see her husband again.  She never did, for she died a few
+months after, when I came, and my father died very soon, also.  I never
+saw him, and I do not know if he ever tried to see me.  I never had any
+feeling about it.  My grandfather was the only father I ever knew, and
+Faith, who was born a year before me, became like a sister to me, though
+she soon made other pretensions!"  He laughed again, almost happily.
+"To gain an end she exercised authority as my aunt!"
+
+"What was your father's name?"
+
+"Fetherdon--James Fetherdon."
+
+"Fetherdon--James Fetherdon !"  Involuntarily Hylda repeated the name
+after him.  Where had she heard the name before--or where had she seen
+it?  It kept flashing before her eyes.  Where had she seen it?  For days
+she had been rummaging among old papers in the library of the Cloistered
+House, and in an old box full of correspondence and papers of the late
+countess, who had died suddenly.  Was it among them that she had seen the
+name?  She could not tell.  It was all vague, but that she had seen it or
+heard it she was sure.
+
+"Your father's people, you never knew them?"
+
+He shook his head.  "Nor of them.  Here was my home--I had no desire to
+discover them.  We draw in upon ourselves here."
+
+"There is great force in such a life and such a people," she answered.
+"If the same concentration of mind could be carried into the wide life of
+the world, we might revolutionise civilisation; or vitalise and advance
+it, I mean--as you are doing in Egypt."
+
+"I have done nothing in Egypt.  I have sounded the bugle--I have not had
+my fight."
+
+"That is true in a sense," she replied.  "Your real struggle is before
+you.  I do not know why I say it, but I do say it; I feel it.  Something
+here"--she pressed her hand to her heart--"something here tells me that
+your day of battle is yet to come."  Her eyes were brimming and full of
+excitement.  "We must all help you."  She gained courage with each word.
+"You must not fight alone.  You work for civilisation; you must have
+civilisation behind you."  Her hands clasped nervously; there was a catch
+in her throat.  "You remember then, that I said I would call to you one
+day, as your Uncle Benn did, and you should hear and answer me.  It shall
+not be that I will call.  You--you will call, and I will help you if I
+can.  I will help, no matter what may seem to prevent, if there is
+anything I can do.  I, surely I, of all the world owe it to you to do
+what I can, always.
+
+"I owe so much--you did so much.  Oh, how it haunts me!  Sometimes in the
+night I wake with a start and see it all--all!"
+
+The flood which had been dyked back these years past had broken loose in
+her heart.
+
+Out of the stir and sweep of social life and duty, of official and
+political ambition-heart-hungry, for she had no child; heart-lonely,
+though she had scarce recognised it in the duties and excitements round
+her--she had floated suddenly into this backwater of a motionless life in
+Hamley.  Its quiet had settled upon her, the shackles of her spirit had
+been loosed, and dropped from her; she had suddenly bathed her heart and
+soul in a freer atmosphere than they had ever known before.  And David
+and Hamley had come together.  The old impulses, dominated by a divine
+altruism, were swinging her out upon a course leading she knew not,
+reeked not, whither--for the moment reeked not.  This man's career, the
+work he was set to do, the ideal before him, the vision of a land
+redeemed, captured her, carried her panting into a resolve which, however
+she might modify her speech or action, must be an influence in her life
+hereafter.  Must the penance and the redemption be his only?  This life
+he lived had come from what had happened to her and to him in Egypt.
+In a deep sense her life was linked with his.
+
+In a flash David now felt the deep significance of their relations.
+A curtain seemed suddenly to have been drawn aside.  He was blinded for
+a moment.  Her sympathy, her desire to help, gave him a new sense of hope
+and confidence, but--but there was no room in his crusade for any woman;
+the dear egotism of a life-dream was masterful in him, possessed him.
+
+Yet, if ever his heart might have dwelt upon a woman with thought of the
+future, this being before him--he drew himself up with a start!  .  .  .
+He was going to Egypt again in a few days; they might probably never meet
+again--would not, no doubt--should not.  He had pressed her husband to go
+to Egypt, but now he would not encourage it; he must "finish his journey
+alone."
+
+He looked again in her eyes, and their light and beauty held him.  His
+own eyes swam.  The exaltation of a great idea was upon them, was a bond
+of fate between them.  It was a moment of peril not fully realised by
+either.  David did realise, however, that she was beautiful beyond all
+women he had ever seen--or was he now for the first time really aware of
+the beauty of woman?  She had an expression, a light of eye and face,
+finely alluring beyond mere outline of feature.  Yet the features were
+there, too, regular and fine; and her brown hair waving away from her
+broad, white forehead over eyes a greyish violet in colour gave her a
+classic distinction.  In the quietness of the face there was that strain
+of the Quaker, descending to her through three generations, yet enlivened
+by a mind of impulse and genius.
+
+They stood looking at each other for a moment, in which both had taken a
+long step forward in life's experience.  But presently his eyes looked
+beyond her, as though at something that fascinated them.
+
+"Of what are you thinking?  What do you see?" she asked.
+
+"You, leaving the garden of my house in Cairo, I standing by the fire,"
+he answered, closing his eyes for an instant.
+
+"It is what I saw also," she said breathlessly.  "It is what I saw and
+was thinking of that instant."  When, as though she must break away from
+the cords of feeling drawing her nearer and nearer to him, she said, with
+a little laugh, "Tell me again of my Chicago cousin?  I have not had a
+letter for a year."
+
+"Lacey, he is with me always.  I should have done little had it not been
+for him.  He has remarkable resource; he is never cast down.  He has but
+one fault."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"He is no respecter of persons.  His humour cuts deep.  He has a wide
+heart for your sex.  When leaving the court of the King of Abyssinia he
+said to his Majesty: 'Well, good-bye, King.  Give my love to the girls.'"
+
+She laughed again.  "How absurd and childish he is!  But he is true and
+able.  And how glad you should be that you are able to make true friends,
+without an effort.  Yesterday I met neighbour Fairley, and another little
+old Elder who keeps his chin in his collar and his eyes on the sky.  They
+did little else but sing your praises.  One might have thought that you
+had invented the world-or Hamley."
+
+"Yet they would chafe if I were to appear among them without these."  He
+glanced down at the Quaker clothes he wore, and made a gesture towards
+the broadbrimmed hat reposing on a footstool near by.
+
+"It is good to see that you are not changed, not spoiled at all," she
+remarked, smiling.  "Though, indeed, how could you be, who always work
+for others and never for yourself?  All I envy you is your friends.  You
+make them and keep them so."
+
+She sighed, and a shadow came into her eyes suddenly.  She was thinking
+of Eglington.  Did he make friends--true friends?  In London--was there
+one she knew who would cleave to him for love of him?  In England--had
+she ever seen one?  In Hamley, where his people had been for so many
+generations, had she found one?
+
+Herself?  Yes, she was his true friend.  She would do what would she not
+do to help him, to serve his interests?  What had she not done since she
+married Her fortune, it was his; her every waking hour had been filled
+with something devised to help him on his way.  Had he ever said to her:
+"Hylda, you are a help to me"?  He had admired her--but was he singular
+in that?  Before she married there were many--since, there had been many
+--who had shown, some with tact and carefulness, others with a crudeness
+making her shudder, that they admired her; and, if they might, would have
+given their admiration another name with other manifestations.  Had she
+repelled it all?  She had been too sure of herself to draw her skirts
+about her; she was too proud to let any man put her at any disadvantage.
+She had been safe, because her heart had been untouched.  The Duchess of
+Snowdon, once beautiful, but now with a face like a mask, enamelled and
+rouged and lifeless, had said to her once: "My dear, I ought to have died
+at thirty.  When I was twenty-three I wanted to squeeze the orange dry in
+a handful of years, and then go out suddenly, and let the dust of
+forgetfulness cover my bones.  I had one child, a boy, and would have no
+more; and I squeezed the orange!  But I didn't go at thirty, and yet the
+orange was dry.  My boy died; and you see what I am--a fright, I know it;
+and I dress like a child of twenty; and I can't help it."
+
+There had been moments, once, when Hylda, too, had wished to squeeze the
+orange dry, but something behind, calling to her, had held her back.  She
+had dropped her anchor in perilous seas, but it had never dragged.
+
+"Tell me how to make friends--and keep them," she added gaily.
+
+"If it be true I make friends, thee taught me how," he answered, "for
+thee made me a friend, and I forget not the lesson."
+
+She smiled.  "Thee has learnt another lesson too well," she answered
+brightly.  "Thee must not flatter.  It is not that which makes thee keep
+friends.  Thee sees I also am speaking as they do in Hamley--am I not
+bold?  I love the grammarless speech."
+
+"Then use it freely to-day, for this is farewell," he answered, not
+looking at her.
+
+"This--is--farewell," she said slowly, vaguely.  Why should it startle
+her so?  "You are going so soon--where?"
+
+"To-morrow to London, next week to Egypt."
+
+She laid a hand upon herself, for her heart was beating violently.  "Thee
+is not fair to give no warning--there is so much to say," she said, in so
+low a tone that he could scarcely hear her.  "There is the future, your
+work, what we are to do here to help.  What I am to do.
+
+"Thee will always be a friend to Egypt, I know," he answered.  "She needs
+friends.  Thee has a place where thee can help."
+
+"Will not right be done without my voice?" she asked, her eyes half
+closing.  "There is the Foreign Office, and English policy, and the
+ministers, and--and Eglington.  What need of me?"
+
+He saw the thought had flashed into her mind that he did not trust her
+husband.  "Thee knows and cares for Egypt, and knowing and caring make
+policy easier to frame," he rejoined.
+
+Suddenly a wave of feeling went over her.  He whose life had been flung
+into this field of labour by an act of her own, who should help him but
+herself?
+
+But it all baffled her, hurt her, shook her.  She was not free to help as
+she wished.  Her life belonged to another; and he exacted the payment of
+tribute to the uttermost farthing.  She was blinded by the thought.  Yet
+she must speak.  "I will come to Egypt--we will come to Egypt," she said
+quickly.  "Eglington shall know, too; he shall understand.  You shall
+have his help.  You shall not work alone."
+
+"Thee can work here," he said.  "It may not be easy for Lord Eglington to
+come."
+
+"You pressed it on him."
+
+Their eyes met.  She suddenly saw what was in his mind.
+
+"You know best what will help you most," she added gently.
+
+"You will not come?" he asked.
+
+"I will not say I will not come--not ever," she answered firmly.  "It may
+be I should have to come."  Resolution was in her eyes.  She was thinking
+of Nahoum.  "I may have to come," she added after a pause, "to do right
+by you."
+
+He read her meaning.  "Thee will never come," he continued confidently.
+He held out his hand.  "Perhaps I shall see you in town," she rejoined,
+as her hand rested in his, and she looked away.  "When do you start for
+Egypt?"
+
+"To-morrow week, I think," he answered.  "There is much to do."
+
+"Perhaps we shall meet in town," she repeated.  But they both knew they
+would not.
+
+"Farewell," he said, and picked up his hat.
+
+As he turned again, the look in her eyes brought the blood to his face,
+then it became pale.  A new force had come into his life.
+
+"God be good to thee," he said, and turned away.
+
+She watched him leave the room and pass through the garden.
+
+"David!  David!" she said softly after him.
+
+At the other end of the room her husband, who had just entered, watched
+her.  He heard her voice, but did not hear what she said.
+
+"Come, Hylda, and have some music," he said brusquely.
+
+She scrutinised him calmly.  His face showed nothing.  His look was
+enigmatical.
+
+"Chopin is the thing for me," he said, and opened the piano.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+AS IN A GLASS DARKLY
+
+It was very quiet and cool in the Quaker Meeting-house, though outside
+there was the rustle of leaves, the low din of the bees, the whistle of a
+bird, or the even tread of horses' hoofs as they journeyed on the London
+road.  The place was full.  For a half-hour the worshippers had sat
+voiceless.  They were waiting for the spirit to move some one to speak.
+As they waited, a lady entered and glided into a seat.  Few saw, and
+these gave no indication of surprise, though they were little used to
+strangers, and none of the name borne by this lady had entered the
+building for many years.  It was Hylda.
+
+At last the silence was broken.  The wizened Elder, with eyes upon the
+ceiling and his long white chin like ivory on his great collar, began to
+pray, sitting where he was, his hands upon his knees.  He prayed for all
+who wandered "into by and forbidden paths."  He prayed for one whose work
+was as that of Joseph, son of Jacob; whose footsteps were now upon the
+sea, and now upon the desert; whose way was set among strange gods and
+divers heresies--"'For there must also be heresies, that they which are
+approved may be made manifest among the weak.'"  A moment more, and then
+he added: "He hath been tried beyond his years; do Thou uphold his hands.
+Once with a goad did we urge him on, when in ease and sloth he was among
+us, but now he spurreth on his spirit and body in too great haste.  O put
+Thy hand upon the bridle, Lord, that He ride soberly upon Thy business."
+
+There was a longer silence now, but at last came the voice of Luke
+Claridge.
+
+"Father of the fatherless," he said, "my days are as the sands in the
+hour-glass hastening to their rest; and my place will soon be empty.  He
+goeth far, and I may not go with him.  He fighteth alone, like him that
+strove with wild beasts at Ephesus; do Thou uphold him that he may bring
+a nation captive.  And if a viper fasten on his hand, as chanced to Paul
+of old, give him grace to strike it off without hurt.  O Lord, he is to
+me, Thy servant, as the one ewe lamb; let him be Thine when Thou
+gatherest for Thy vineyard!"
+
+"And if a viper fasten on his hand--" David passed his hand across his
+forehead and closed his eyes.  The beasts at Ephesus he had fought, and
+he would fight them again--there was fighting enough to do in the land of
+Egypt.  And the viper would fasten on his hand--it had fastened on his
+hand, and he had struck it off; but it would come again, the dark thing
+against which he had fought in the desert.
+
+Their prayers had unnerved him, had got into that corner of his nature
+where youth and its irresponsibility loitered yet.  For a moment he was
+shaken, and then, looking into the faces of the Elders, said: "Friends, I
+go again upon paths that lead into the wilderness.  I know not if I ever
+shall return.  Howsoe'er that may be, I shall walk with firmer step
+because of all ye do for me."
+
+He closed his eyes and prayed: "O God, I go into the land of ancient
+plagues and present pestilence.  If it be Thy will, bring me home to this
+good land, when my task is done.  If not, by Thy goodness let me be as a
+stone set by the wayside for others who come after; and save me from the
+beast and from the viper.  'Thou art faithful, who wilt not suffer us to
+be tempted above that we are able; but wilt with the temptation also make
+a way of escape, that we may be able to bear it!'"
+
+He sat down, and all grew silent again; but suddenly some one sobbed
+aloud-sobbed, and strove to stay the sobbing, and could not, and, getting
+up, hastened towards the door.
+
+It was Faith.  David heard, and came quickly after her.  As he took her
+arm gently, his eyes met those of Hylda.  She rose and came out also.
+
+"Will thee take her home?" he said huskily.  "I can bear no more."
+
+Hylda placed her arm round Faith, and led her out under the trees and
+into the wood.  As they went, Faith looked back.
+
+"Oh, forgive me, forgive me, Davy," she said softly.
+
+Three lights burned in Hamley: one in the Red Mansion, one in the
+Cloistered House, and one in Soolsby's hut upon the hill.  In the Red
+Mansion old Luke Claridge, his face pale with feeling, his white hair
+tumbling about, his head thrust forward, his eyes shining, sat listening,
+as Faith read aloud letters which Benn Claridge had written from the East
+many years before.  One letter, written from Bagdad, he made her read
+twice.  The faded sheet had in it the glow and glamour of the East; it
+was like a heart beating with life; emotion rose and fell in it like the
+waves of the sea.  Once the old man interrupted Faith.
+
+"Davy--it is as though Davy spoke.  It is like Davy--both Claridge, both
+Claridge," he said.  "But is it not like Davy?  Davy is doing what it was
+in Benn's heart to do.  Benn showed the way; Benn called, and Davy came."
+
+He laid both hands upon his knees and raised his eyes.  "O Lord, I have
+sought to do according to Thy will," he whispered.  He was thinking of a
+thing he had long hidden.  Through many years he had no doubt, no qualm;
+but, since David had gone to Egypt, some spirit of unquiet had worked in
+him.  He had acted against the prayer of his own wife, lying in her
+grave--a quiet-faced woman, who had never crossed him, who had never
+shown a note of passion in all her life, save in one thing concerning
+David.  Upon it, like some prophetess, she had flamed out.  With the
+insight which only women have where children are concerned, she had told
+him that he would live to repent of what he had done.  She had died soon
+after, and was laid beside the deserted young mother, whose days had
+budded and blossomed, and fallen like petals to the ground, while yet it
+was the spring.
+
+Luke Claridge had understood neither, not his wife when she had said:
+"Thee should let the Lord do His own work, Luke," nor his dying daughter
+Mercy, whose last words had been: "With love and sorrow I have sowed; he
+shall reap rejoicing--my babe.  Thee will set him in the garden in the
+sun, where God may find him--God will not pass him by.  He will take him
+by the hand and lead him home."  The old man had thought her touched by
+delirium then, though her words were but the parable of a mind fed by the
+poetry of life, by a shy spirit, to which meditation gave fancy and
+farseeing.  David had come by his idealism honestly.  The half-mystical
+spirit of his Uncle Benn had flowed on to another generation through the
+filter of a woman's sad soul.  It had come to David a pure force, a
+constructive and practical idealism.
+
+Now, as Faith read, there were ringing in the old man's ears the words
+which David's mother had said before she closed her eyes and passed away:
+"Set him in the garden in the sun, where God may find him--God will not
+pass him by."  They seemed to weave themselves into the symbolism of Benn
+Claridge's letter, written from the hills of Bagdad.
+
+"But," the letter continued, "the Governor passed by with his suite, the
+buckles of the harness of his horses all silver, his carriage shining
+with inlay of gold, his turban full of precious stones.  When he had
+passed, I said to a shepherd standing by, 'If thou hadst all his wealth,
+shepherd, what wouldst thou do?' and he answered, 'If I had his wealth, I
+would sit on the south side of my house in the sun all day and every
+day.'  To a messenger of the Palace, who must ever be ready night and day
+to run at his master's order, I asked the same.  He replied, 'If I had
+all the Effendina's wealth, I would sleep till I died.'  To a blind
+beggar, shaking the copper in his cup in the highways, pleading dumbly to
+those who passed, I made similar inquisition, and he replied 'If the
+wealth of the exalted one were mine, I would sit on the mastaba by the
+bake-house, and eat three times a day, save at Ramadan, when I would
+bless Allah the compassionate and merciful, and breakfast at sunset with
+the flesh of a kid and a dish of dates.'  To a woman at the door of a
+tomb hung with relics of hundreds of poor souls in misery, who besought
+the buried saint to intercede for her with Allah, I made the same
+catechism, and she answered, 'Oh, effendi, if his wealth were mine,
+I would give my son what he has lost.'  'What has he lost, woman?' said
+I; and she answered: 'A little house with a garden, and a flock of ten
+goats, a cow and a dovecote, his inheritance of which he has been
+despoiled by one who carried a false debt 'gainst his dead father.'  And
+I said to her: 'But if thy wealth were as that of the ruler of the city,
+thy son would have no need of the little house and garden and the flock
+of goats, and a cow and a dovecote.'  Whereupon she turned upon me in
+bitterness, and said: 'Were they not his own as the seed of his father?
+Shall not one cherish that which is his own, which cometh from seed to
+seed?  Is it not the law?'  'But,' said I, 'if his wealth were thine,
+there would be herds of cattle, and flocks of sheep, and carpets spread,
+and the banquet-tables, and great orchards.'  But she stubbornly shook
+her head.  'Where the eagle built shall not the young eagle nest?  How
+should God meet me in the way and bless him who stood not by his birth
+right?  The plot of ground was the lad's, and all that is thereon.
+I pray thee, mock me not.'  God knows I did not mock her, for her words
+were wisdom.  So did it work upon me that, after many days, I got for the
+lad his own again, and there he is happier, and his mother happier, than
+the Governor in his palace.  Later I did learn some truths from the
+shepherd, the messenger, and the beggar, and the woman with the child;
+but chiefly from the woman and the child.  The material value has no
+relation to the value each sets upon that which is his own.  Behind this
+feeling lies the strength of the world.  Here on this hill of Bagdad I am
+thinking these things.  And, Luke, I would have thee also think on my
+story of the woman and the child.  There is in it a lesson for thee."
+
+When Luke Claridge first read this letter years before, he had put it
+from him sternly.  Now he heard it with a soft emotion.  He took the
+letter from Faith at last and put it in his pocket.  With no apparent
+relevancy, and laying his hand on Faith's shoulder, he said:
+
+"We have done according to our conscience by Davy--God is our witness,
+so!"
+
+She leaned her cheek against his hand, but did not speak.
+
+In Soolsby's hut upon the hill David sat talking to the old chair-maker.
+Since his return he had visited the place several times, only to find
+Soolsby absent.  The old man, on awaking from his drunken sleep, had been
+visited by a terrible remorse, and, whenever he had seen David coming,
+had fled into the woods.  This evening, however, David came in the dark,
+and Soolsby was caught.
+
+When David entered first, the old man broke down.  He could not speak,
+but leaned upon the back of a chair, and though his lips moved, no sound
+came forth.  But David took him by the shoulders and set him down, and
+laughed gently in his face, and at last Soolsby got voice and said:
+
+"Egyptian!  O Egyptian!"
+
+Then his tongue was loosened and his eye glistened, and he poured out
+question after question, many pertinent, some whimsical, all frankly
+answered by David.  But suddenly he stopped short, and his eyes sank
+before the other, who had laid a hand upon his knee.
+
+"But don't, Egyptian, don't!  Don't have aught to do with me.  I'm only a
+drunken swine.  I kept sober four years, as she knows--as the Angel down
+yonder in the Red Mansion knows; but the day you came, going out to meet
+you, I got drunk--blind drunk.  I had only been pretending all the time.
+I was being coaxed along--made believe I was a real man, I suppose.  But
+I wasn't.  I was a pillar of sand.  When pressure came I just broke down
+--broke down, Egyptian.  Don't be surprised if you hear me grunt.  It's
+my natural speech.  I'm a hog, a drink-swilling hog.  I wasn't decent
+enough to stay sober till you had said 'Good day,' and 'How goes it,
+Soolsby?' I tried it on; it was no good.  I began to live like a man, but
+I've slipped back into the ditch.  You didn't know that, did you?"
+
+David let him have his say, and then in a low voice said: "Yes, I knew
+thee had been drinking, Soolsby."  He started.  "She told you--Kate
+Heaver--"
+
+"She did not tell me.  I came and found you here with her.  You were
+asleep."
+
+"A drunken sweep!"  He spat upon the ground in disgust at himself.
+
+"I ought never have comeback here," he added.  "It was no place for me.
+But it drew me.  I didn't belong; but it drew me."
+
+"Thee belongs to Hamley.  Thee is an honour to Hamley, Soolsby."
+
+Soolsby's eyes widened; the blurred look of rage and self-reproach in
+them began to fade away.
+
+"Thee has made a fight, Soolsby, to conquer a thing that has had thee by
+the throat.  There's no fighting like it.  It means a watching every
+hour, every minute--thee can never take the eye off it.  Some days it's
+easy, some days it's hard, but it's never so easy that you can say,
+'There is no need to watch.'  In sleep it whispers and wakes you; in the
+morning, when there are no shadows, it casts a shadow on the path.  It
+comes between you and your work; you see it looking out of the eyes of a
+friend.  And one day, when you think it has been conquered, that you have
+worn it down into oblivion and the dust, and you close your eyes and say,
+'I am master,' up it springs with fury from nowhere you can see, and
+catches you by the throat; and the fight begins again.  But you sit
+stronger, and the fight becomes shorter; and after many battles, and you
+have learned never to be off guard, to know by instinct where every
+ambush is, then at last the victory is yours.  It is hard, it is bitter,
+and sometimes it seems hardly worth the struggle.  But it is--it is worth
+the struggle, dear old man."
+
+Soolsby dropped on his knees and caught David by the arms.  "How did you
+know-how did you know?" he asked hoarsely.  "It's been just as you say.
+You've watched some one fighting?"
+
+"I have watched some one fighting--fighting," answered David clearly, but
+his eyes were moist.
+
+"With drink, the same as me?"
+
+"No, with opium--laudanum."
+
+"Oh, I've heard that's worse, that it makes you mad, the wanting it."
+
+"I have seen it so."
+
+"Did the man break down like me?"
+
+"Only once, but the fight is not yet over with him."  "Was he--an
+Englishman?"
+
+David inclined his head.  "It's a great thing to have a temptation to
+fight, Soolsby.  Then we can understand others."
+
+"It's not always true, Egyptian, for you have never had temptation to
+fight.  Yet you know it all."
+
+"God has been good to me," David answered, putting a hand on the old
+man's shoulder.  "And thee is a credit to Hamley, friend.  Thee will
+never fall again."
+
+"You know that--you say that to me!  Then, by Mary the mother of God, I
+never will be a swine again," he said, getting to his feet.
+
+"Well, good-bye, Soolsby.  I go to-morrow," David said presently.
+
+Soolsby frowned; his lips worked.  "When will you come back?" he asked
+eagerly.
+
+David smiled.  "There is so much to do, they may not let me come--not
+soon.  I am going into the desert again."
+
+Soolsby was shaking.  He spoke huskily.  "Here is your place," he said.
+"You shall come back--Oh, but you shall come back, here, where you
+belong."
+
+David shook his head and smiled, and clasped the strong hand again.  A
+moment later he was gone.  From the door of the but Soolsby muttered to
+himself:
+
+"I will bring you back.  If Luke Claridge doesn't, then I will bring you
+back.  If he dies, I will bring you--no, by the love of God, I will bring
+you back while he lives!"
+
+                    ...........................
+
+Two thousand miles away, in a Nile village, women sat wailing in dark
+doorways, dust on their heads, black mantles covering their faces.  By
+the pond where all the people drank, performed their ablutions, bathed
+their bodies and rinsed their mouths, sat the sheikh-el-beled, the
+village chief, taking counsel in sorrow with the barber, the holy man,
+and others.  Now speaking, now rocking their bodies to and fro, in the
+evening sunlight, they sat and watched the Nile in flood covering the
+wide wastes of the Fayoum, spreading over the land rich deposits of earth
+from the mountains of Abyssinia.  When that flood subsided there would be
+fields to be planted with dourha and onions and sugar-cane; but they
+whose strong arms should plough and sow and wield the sickle, the youth,
+the upstanding ones, had been carried off in chains to serve in the army
+of Egypt, destined for the far Soudan, for hardship, misery, and death,
+never to see their kindred any more.  Twice during three months had the
+dread servant of the Palace come and driven off their best like sheep to
+the slaughter.  The brave, the stalwart, the bread-winners, were gone;
+and yet the tax-gatherer would come and press for every impost--on the
+onion-field, the date-palm, the dourha-field, and the clump of sugar-
+cane, as though the young men, the toilers, were still there.  The old
+and infirm, the children, the women, must now double and treble their
+labour.  The old men must go to the corvee, and mend the banks of the
+Nile for the Prince and his pashas, providing their own food, their own
+tools, their own housing, if housing there would be--if it was more than
+sleeping under a bush by the riverside, or crawling into a hole in the
+ground, their yeleks their clothes by day, their only covering at night.
+
+They sat like men without hope, yet with the proud, bitter mien of those
+who had known good and had lost it, had seen content and now were
+desolate.
+
+Presently one--a lad--the youngest of them, lifted up his voice and began
+to chant a recitative, while another took a small drum and beat it in
+unison.  He was but just recovered from an illness, or he had gone also
+in chains to die for he knew not what, leaving behind without hope all
+that he loved:
+
+         "How has the cloud fallen, and the leaf withered on the tree,
+          The lemon-tree, that standeth by the door.
+          The melon and the date have gone bitter to the taste,
+          The weevil, it has eaten at the core
+          The core of my heart, the mildew findeth it.
+          My music, it is but the drip of tears,
+          The garner empty standeth, the oven hath no fire,
+          Night filleth me with fears.
+          O Nile that floweth deeply, hast thou not heard his voice?
+          His footsteps hast thou covered with thy flood?
+          He was as one who lifteth up the yoke,
+          He was as one who taketh off the chain,
+          As one who sheltereth from the rain,
+          As one who scattereth bread to the pigeons flying.
+          His purse was at his side, his mantle was for me,
+          For any who passeth were his mantle and his purse,
+          And now like a gourd is he withered from our eyes.
+          His friendship, it was like a shady wood
+          Whither has he gone?--Who shall speak for us?
+          Who shall save us from the kourbash and the stripes?
+          Who shall proclaim us in the palace?
+          Who shall contend for us in the gate?
+          The sakkia turneth no more; the oxen they are gone;
+          The young go forth in chains, the old waken in the night,
+          They waken and weep, for the wheel turns backward,
+          And the dark days are come again upon us--
+          Will he return no more?
+          His friendship was like a shady wood,
+          O Nile that floweth deeply, hast thou not heard his voice?
+          Hast thou covered up his footsteps with thy flood?
+          The core of my heart, the mildew findeth it!"
+
+Another-an old man-took up the strain, as the drum kept time to the beat
+of the voice with its undulating call and refrain:
+
+"When his footsteps were among us there was peace;
+War entered not the village, nor the call of war.
+Now our homes are as those that have no roofs.
+As a nest decayed, as a cave forsaken,
+As a ship that lieth broken on the beach,
+Is the house where we were born.
+Out in the desert did we bury our gold,
+We buried it where no man robbed us, for his arm was strong.
+Now are the jars empty, gold did not avail
+To save our young men, to keep them from the chains.
+God hath swallowed his voice, or the sea hath drowned it,
+Or the Nile hath covered him with its flood;
+Else would he come when our voices call.
+His word was honey in the prince's ear
+Will he return no more?"
+
+And now the sheikh-el-beled spoke.  "It hath been so since Nahoum Pasha
+passed this way four months agone.  He hath changed all.  War will not
+avail.  David Pasha, he will come again.  His word is as the centre of
+the world.  Ye have no hope, because ye see the hawks among the starving
+sheep.  But the shepherd will return from behind the hill, and the hawks
+will flee away.
+
+".  .  .  Behold, once was I in the desert.  Listen, for mine are the
+words of one who hath travelled far--was I not at Damascus and Palmyra
+and Bagdad, and at Medina by the tomb of Mahomet?"
+
+Reverently he touched the green turban on his head, evidence of his
+journey to Mahomet's tomb.  "Once in the desert I saw afar off an oasis
+of wood and water, and flying things, and houses where a man might rest.
+And I got me down from my camel, and knelt upon my sheepskin, and gave
+thanks in the name of Allah.  Thereupon I mounted again and rode on
+towards that goodly place.  But as I rode it vanished from my sight.
+Then did I mourn.  Yet once again I saw the trees, and flocks of pigeons
+and waving fields, and I was hungry and thirsty, and longed exceedingly.
+Yet got I down, and, upon my sheep-skin, once more gave thanks to Allah.
+And I mounted thereafter in haste and rode on; but once again was I
+mocked.  Then I cried aloud in my despair.  It was in my heart to die
+upon the sheep-skin where I had prayed; for I was burned up within, and
+there seemed naught to do but say malaish, and go hence.  But that goodly
+sight came again.  My heart rebelled that I should be so mocked.  I bent
+down my head upon my camel that I might not see, yet once more I loosed
+the sheep-skin.  Lifting up my heart, I looked again, and again I took
+hope and rode on.  Farther and farther I rode, and lo!  I was no longer
+mocked; for I came to a goodly place of water and trees, and was saved.
+So shall it be with us.  We have looked for his coming again, and our
+hearts have fallen and been as ashes, for that he has not come.  Yet
+there be mirages, and one day soon David Pasha will come hither, and our
+pains shall be eased."
+
+"Aiwa, aiwa--yes, yes," cried the lad who had sung to them.
+
+"Aiwa, aiwa," rang softly over the pond, where naked children stooped to
+drink.
+
+The smell of the cooking-pots floated out from the mud-houses near by.
+
+"Malaish," said one after another, "I am hungry.  He will come again-
+perhaps to-morrow."  So they moved towards the houses over the way.
+
+One cursed his woman for wailing in the doorway; one snatched the lid
+from a cooking-pot; one drew from an oven cakes of dourha, and gave them
+to those who had none; one knelt and bowed his forehead to the ground in
+prayer; one shouted the name of him whose coming they desired.
+
+So was David missed in Egypt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE TENTS OF CUSHAN
+
+          "I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction, and the curtains
+          of the Land of Midian did tremble."
+
+A Hurdy-Gurdy was standing at the corner, playing with shrill insistence
+a medley of Scottish airs.  Now "Loch Lomond" pleaded for pennies from
+the upper windows:
+
+              "For you'll tak' the high road,
+               and I'll tak' the low road,
+               And I'll be in Scotland before ye:
+               But I and my true love will never meet again,
+               On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond!"
+
+The hurdy-gurdy was strident and insistent, but for a long time no
+response came.  At last, however, as the strains of "Loch Lomond" ceased,
+a lady appeared on the balcony of a drawing-room, and, leaning over a
+little forest of flowers and plants, threw a half-crown to the sorry
+street-musician.  She watched the grotesque thing trundle away, then
+entering the house again, took a 'cello from the corner of the room and
+tuned the instrument tenderly.  It was Hylda.
+
+Something of the peace of Hamley had followed her to London, but the
+poignant pain of it had come also.  Like Melisande, she had looked into
+the quiet pool of life and had seen her own face, its story and its
+foreshadowings.  Since then she had been "apart."  She had watched life
+move on rather than shared in its movement.  Things stood still for her.
+That apathy of soul was upon her which follows the inward struggle that
+exhausts the throb and fret of inward emotions, leaving the mind
+dominant, the will in abeyance.
+
+She had become conscious that her fate and future were suspended over a
+chasm, as, on the trapeze of a balloon, an adventurous aeronaut hangs
+uncertain over the hungry sea, waiting for the coming wind which will
+either blow the hazardous vessel to its doom or to safe refuge on the
+land.
+
+She had not seen David after he left Hamley.  Their last words had been
+spoken at the Meeting-house, when he gave Faith to her care.  That scene
+came back to her now, and a flush crept slowly over her face and faded
+away again.  She was recalling, too, the afternoon of that day when she
+and David had parted in the drawing-room of the Cloistered House, and
+Eglington had asked her to sing.  She thought of the hours with Eglington
+that followed, first at the piano and afterwards in the laboratory, where
+in his long blue smock he made experiments.  Had she not been conscious
+of something enigmatical in his gaiety that afternoon, in his cheerful
+yet cheerless words, she would have been deeply impressed by his
+appreciation of her playing, and his keen reflections on the merits of
+the composers; by his still keener attention to his subsequent
+experiments, and his amusing comments upon them.  But, somehow, that very
+cheerless cheerfulness seemed to proclaim him superficial.  Though she
+had no knowledge of science, she instinctively doubted his earnestness
+even in this work, which certainly was not pursued for effect.  She had
+put the feeling from her, but it kept returning.  She felt that in
+nothing did he touch the depths.  Nothing could possess him wholly;
+nothing inherent could make him self-effacing.
+
+Yet she wondered, too, if she was right, when she saw his fox-terrier
+watching him, ever watching him with his big brown eyes as he buoyantly
+worked, and saw him stoop to pat its head.  Or was this, after all, mere
+animalism, mere superficial vitality, love of health and being?  She
+shuddered, and shut her eyes, for it came home to her that to him she was
+just such a being of health, vitality and comeliness, on a little higher
+plane.  She put the thought from her, but it had had its birth, and it
+would not down.  He had immense vitality, he was tireless, and abundant
+in work and industry; he went from one thing to another with ease and
+swiftly changing eagerness.  Was it all mere force--mere man and mind?
+Was there no soul behind it?  There in the laboratory she had laid her
+hand on the terrier, and prayed in her heart that she might understand
+him for her own good, her own happiness, and his.  Above all else she
+wanted to love him truly, and to be loved truly, and duty was to her a
+daily sacrifice, a constant memorial.  She realised to the full that
+there lay before her a long race unilluminated by the sacred lamp which,
+lighted at the altar, should still be burning beside the grave.
+
+Now, as she thought of him, she kept saying to herself: "We should have
+worked out his life together.  Work together would have brought peace.
+He shuts me out--he shuts me out."
+
+At last she drew the bow across the instrument, once, twice, and then she
+began to play, forgetful of the world.  She had a contralto voice, and
+she sang with a depth of feeling and a delicate form worthy of a
+professional; on the piano she was effective and charming, but into the
+'cello she poured her soul.
+
+For quite an hour she played with scarce an interruption.  At last, with
+a sigh, she laid the instrument against her knee and gazed out of the
+window.  As she sat lost in her dream--a dream of the desert--a servant
+entered with letters.  One caught her eye.  It was from Egypt--from her
+cousin Lacey.  Her heart throbbed violently, yet she opened the official-
+looking envelope with steady fingers.  She would not admit even to her
+self that news from the desert could move her so.  She began to read
+slowly, but presently, with a little cry, she hastened through the pages.
+It ran:
+
+                                             THE SOUDAN.
+
+     DEAR LADY COUSIN,
+
+     I'm still not certain how I ought to style you, but I thought I'd
+     compromise as per above.  Anyway, it's a sure thing that I haven't
+     bothered you much with country-cousin letters.  I figure, however,
+     that you've put some money in Egypt, so to speak, and what happens
+     to this sandy-eyed foundling of the Nile you would like to know.  So
+     I've studied the only "complete letter-writer" I could find between
+     the tropic of Capricorn and Khartoum, and this is the contemptible
+     result, as the dagos in Mexico say.  This is a hot place by reason
+     of the sun that shines above us, and likewise it is hot because of
+     the niggers that swarm around us.  I figure, if we get out of this
+     portion of the African continent inside our skins, that we will have
+     put up a pretty good bluff, and pulled off a ticklish proposition.
+
+     It's a sort of early Christian business.  You see, David the Saadat
+     is great on moral suasion--he's a master of it; and he's never
+     failed yet--not altogether; though there have been minutes by a
+     stop-watch when I've thought it wouldn't stand the strain.  Like the
+     Mississippi steamboat which was so weak that when the whistle blew
+     the engines stopped!  When those frozen minutes have come to us,
+     I've tried to remember the correct religious etiquette, but I've not
+     had much practise since I stayed with Aunt Melissa, and lived on
+     skim-milk and early piety.  When things were looking as bad as they
+     did for Dives, "Now I lay me down to sleep," and "For what we are
+     about to receive," was all that I could think of.  But the Saadat,
+     he's a wonder from Wondertown.  With a little stick, or maybe his
+     flute under his arm, he'll smile and string these heathen along,
+     when you'd think they weren't waiting for anybody.  A spear took off
+     his fez yesterday.  He never blinked--he's a jim-dandy at keeping
+     cool; and when a hundred mounted heathens made a rush down on him
+     the other day, spears sticking out like quills on a porcupine--2.5
+     on the shell-road the chargers were going--did he stir?  Say, he
+     watched 'em as if they were playing for his benefit.  And sure
+     enough, he was right.  They parted either side of him when they were
+     ten feet away, and there he was quite safe, a blessing in the storm,
+     a little rock island in the rapids--but I couldn't remember a proper
+     hymn of praise to say.
+
+     There's no getting away from the fact that he's got a will or
+     something, a sort of force different from most of us, or perhaps any
+     of us.  These heathen feel it, and keep their hands off him.  They
+     say he's mad, but they've got great respect for mad people, for they
+     think that God has got their souls above with Him, and that what's
+     left behind on earth is sacred.  He talks to'em, too, like a father
+     in Israel; tells 'em they must stop buying and selling slaves, and
+     that if they don't he will have to punish them!  And I sit holding
+     my sides, for we're only two white men and forty "friendlies"
+     altogether, and two revolvers among us; and I've got the two!  And
+     they listen to his blarneying, and say, "Aiwa, Saadat!  aiwa,
+     Saadat!" as if he had an army of fifty thousand behind him.
+     Sometimes I've sort of hinted that his canoe was carrying a lot of
+     sail; but my! he believes in it all as if there wasn't a spear or a
+     battle-axe or a rifle within a hundred miles of him.  We've been at
+     this for two months now, and a lot of ground we covered till we got
+     here.  I've ridden the gentle camel at the rate of sixty and seventy
+     miles a day--sort of sweeping through the land, making treaties,
+     giving presents, freeing slaves, appointing governors and sheikhs-
+     el-beled, doing it as if we owned the continent.  He mesmerised 'em,
+     simply mesmerised 'em-till we got here.  I don't know what happened
+     then.  Now we're distinctly rating low, the laugh is on us somehow.
+     But he--mind it?  He goes about talking to the sheikhs as though we
+     were all eating off the same corn-cob, and it seems to stupefy them;
+     they don't grasp it.  He goes on arranging for a post here and a
+     station there, and it never occurs to him that it ain't really
+     actual.  He doesn't tell me, and I don't ask him, for I came along
+     to wipe his stirrups, so to speak.  I put my money on him, and I'm
+     not going to worry him.  He's so dead certain in what he does, and
+     what he is, that I don't lose any sleep guessing about him.  It will
+     be funny if we do win out on this proposition--funnier than
+     anything.
+
+     Now, there's one curious thing about it all which ought to be
+     whispered, for I'm only guessing, and I'm not a good guesser; I
+     guessed too much in Mexico about three railways and two silvermines.
+     The first two days after we came here, everything was all right.
+     Then there came an Egyptian, Halim Bey, with a handful of niggers
+     from Cairo, and letters for Claridge Pasha.
+
+     From that minute there was trouble.  I figure it out this way: Halim
+     was sent by Nahoum Pasha to bring letters that said one thing to the
+     Saadat, and, when quite convenient, to say other things to Mustafa,
+     the boss-sheikh of this settlement.  Halim Bey has gone again, but
+     he has left his tale behind him.  I'd stake all I lost, and more
+     than I ever expect to get out of Mexico on that, and maybe I'll get
+     a hatful out of Mexico yet.  I had some good mining propositions
+     down there.  The Saadat believes in Nahoum, and has made Nahoum what
+     he is; and on the surface Nahoum pretends to help him; but he is
+     running underground all the time.  I'd like to help give him a villa
+     at Fazougli.  When the Saadat was in England there was a bad time in
+     Egypt.  I was in Cairo; I know.  It was the same bad old game--the
+     corvee, the kourbash, conscription, a war manufactured to fill the
+     pockets of a few, while the poor starved and died.  It didn't come
+     off, because the Saadat wasn't gone long enough, and he stopped it
+     when he came back.  But Nahoumhe laid the blame on others, and the
+     Saadat took his word for it, and, instead of a war, there came this
+     expedition of his own.
+
+     Ten days later.--Things have happened.  First, there's been awful
+     sickness among the natives, and the Saadat has had his chance.  His
+     medicine-chest was loaded, he had a special camel for it--and he has
+     fired it off.  Night and day he has worked, never resting, never
+     sleeping, curing most, burying a few.  He looks like a ghost now,
+     but it's no use saying or doing anything.  He says: "Sink your own
+     will; let it be subject to a higher, and you need take no thought."
+     It's eating away his life and strength, but it has given us our
+     return tickets, I guess.  They hang about him as if he was Moses in
+     the wilderness smiting the rock.  It's his luck.  Just when I get
+     scared to death, and run down and want a tonic, and it looks as if
+     there'd be no need to put out next week's washing, then his luck
+     steps in, and we get another run.  But it takes a heap out of a man,
+     getting scared.  Whenever I look on a lot of green trees and cattle
+     and horses, and the sun, to say nothing of women and children, and
+     listen to music, or feel a horse eating up the ground under me, 2.10
+     in the sand, I hate to think of leaving it, and I try to prevent it.
+     Besides, I don't like the proposition of going, I don't know where.
+     That's why I get seared.  But he says that it's no more than turning
+     down the light and turning it up again.  They used to call me a
+     dreamer in Mexico, because I kept seeing things that no one else had
+     thought of, and laid out railways and tapped mines for the future;
+     but I was nothing to him.  I'm a high-and-dry hedge-clipper
+     alongside.  I'm betting on him all the time; but no one seems to be
+     working to make his dreams come true, except himself.  I don't
+     count; I'm no good, no real good.  I'm only fit to run the
+     commissariat, and see that he gets enough to eat, and has a safe
+     camel, and so on.
+
+     Why doesn't some one else help him?  He's working for humanity.
+     Give him half a chance, and Haroun-al-Raschid won't be in it.  Kaid
+     trusts him, depends on him, stands by him, but doesn't seem to know
+     how to help him when help would do most good.  The Saadat does it
+     all himself; and if it wasn't that the poor devil of a fellah sees
+     what he's doing, and cottons to him, and the dervishes and Arabs
+     feel he's right, he might as well leave.  But it's just there he
+     counts.  There's something about him, something that's Quaker in
+     him, primitive, silent, and perceptive--if that's a real word--which
+     makes them feel that he's honest, and isn't after anything for
+     himself.  Arabs don't talk much; they make each other understand
+     without many words.  They think with all their might on one thing at
+     a time, and they think things into happening--and so does he.  He's
+     a thousand years old, which is about as old-fashioned as I mean, and
+     as wise, and as plain to read as though you'd write the letters of
+     words as big as a date-palm.  That's where he makes the running with
+     them, and they can read their title clear to mansions in the skies!
+
+     You should hear him talk with Ebn Ezra Bey--perhaps you don't know
+     of Ezra?  He was a friend of his Uncle Benn, and brought the news of
+     his massacre to England, and came back with the Saadat.  Well, three
+     days ago Ebn Ezra came, and there came with him, too, Halim Bey, the
+     Egyptian, who had brought the letters to us from Cairo.  Elm Ezra
+     found him down the river deserted by his niggers, and sick with this
+     new sort of fever, which the Saadat is knocking out of time.  And
+     there he lies, the Saadat caring for him as though he was his
+     brother.  But that's his way; though, now I come to think of it, the
+     Saadat doesn't suspect what I suspect, that Halim Bey brought word
+     from Nahoum to our sheikhs here to keep us here, or lose us, or do
+     away with us.  Old Ebn Ezra doesn't say much himself, doesn't say
+     anything about that; but he's guessing the same as me.  And the
+     Saadat looks as though he was ready for his grave, but keeps going,
+     going, going.  He never seems to sleep.  What keeps him alive I
+     don't know.  Sometimes I feel clean knocked out myself with the
+     little I do, but he's a travelling hospital all by his lonesome.
+
+     Later.--I had to stop writing, for things have been going on--
+     several.  I can see that Ebn Ezra has told the Saadat things that
+     make him want to get away to Cairo as soon as possible.  That it's
+     Nahoum Pasha and others--oh, plenty of others, of course--I'm
+     certain; but what the particular game is I don't know.  Perhaps you
+     know over in England, for you're nearer Cairo than we are by a few
+     miles, and you've got the telegraph.  Perhaps there's a revolution,
+     perhaps there's been a massacre of Europeans, perhaps Turkey is
+     kicking up a dust, perhaps Europe is interfering--all of it, all at
+     once.
+
+     Later still.--I've found out it's a little of all, and the Saadat is
+     ready to go.  I guess he can go now pretty soon, for the worst of
+     the fever is over.  But something has happened that's upset him-
+     knocked him stony for a minute.  Halim Bey was killed last night--by
+     order of the sheikhs, I'm told; but the sheikhs won't give it away.
+     When the Saadat went to them, his eyes blazing, his face pale as a
+     sheet, and as good as swore at them, and treated them as though he'd
+     string them up the next minute, they only put their hands on their
+     heads, and said they were "the fallen leaves for his foot to
+     scatter," the "snow on the hill for his breath to melt"; but they
+     wouldn't give him any satisfaction.  So he came back and shut
+     himself up in his tent, and he sits there like a ghost all
+     shrivelled up for want of sleep, and his eyes like a lime-kiln
+     burning; for now he knows this at least, that Halim Bey had brought
+     some word from Kaid's Palace that set these Arabs against him, and
+     nearly stopped my correspondence.  You see, there's a widow in
+     Cairo--she's a sister of the American consul, and I've promised to
+     take her with a party camping in the Fayoum--cute as she can be, and
+     plays the guitar.  But it's all right now, except that the Saadat is
+     running too close and fine.  If he has any real friends in England
+     among the Government people, or among those who can make the
+     Government people sit up, and think what's coming to Egypt and to
+     him, they'll help him now when he needs it.  He'll need help real
+     bad when he gets back to Cairo--if we get that far.  It isn't yet a
+     sure thing, for we've got to fight in the next day or two--I forgot
+     to tell you that sooner.  There's a bull-Arab on the rampage with
+     five thousand men, and he's got a claim out on our sheikh, Mustafa,
+     for ivory he has here, and there's going to be a scrimmage.  We've
+     got to make for a better position to-morrow, and meet Abdullah, the
+     bull-Arab, further down the river.  That's one reason why Mustafa
+     and all our friends here are so sweet on us now.  They look on the
+     Saadat as a kind of mascot, and they think that he can wipe out the
+     enemy with his flute, which they believe is a witch-stick to work
+     wonders.
+
+     He's just sent for me to come, and I must stop soon.  Say, he hasn't
+     had sleep for a fortnight.  It's too much; he can't stand it.  I
+     tried it, and couldn't.  It wore me down.  He's killing himself for
+     others.  I can't manage him; but I guess you could.  I apologise,
+     dear Lady Cousin.  I'm only a hayseed, and a failure, but I guess
+     you'll understand that I haven't thought only of myself as I wrote
+     this letter.  The higher you go in life the more you'll understand;
+     that's your nature.  I'll get this letter off by a nigger to-morrow,
+     with those the Saadat is sending through to Cairo by some
+     friendlies.  It's only a chance; but everything's chance here now.
+     Anyhow, it's safer than leaving it till the scrimmage.  If you get
+     this, won't you try and make the British Government stand by the
+     Saadat?  Your husband, the lord, could pull it off, if he tried; and
+     if you ask him, I guess he'd try.  I must be off now.  David Pasha
+     will be waiting.  Well, give my love to the girls!
+
+               Your affectionate cousin,
+
+                                        TOM LACEY.
+
+     P. S.--I've got a first-class camel for our scrimmage day after
+     to-morrow.  Mustafa sent it to me this morning.  I had a fight on
+     mules once, down at Oaxaca, but that was child's play.  This will be
+     "slaughter in the pan," if the Saadat doesn't stop it somehow.
+     Perhaps he will.  If I wasn't so scared I'd wish he couldn't stop
+     it, for it will be a way-up Barbarian scrap, the tongs and the
+     kettle, a bully panjandrum.  It gets mighty dull in the desert when
+     you're not moving.  But "it makes to think," as the French say.
+     Since I came out here I've had several real centre thoughts, sort of
+     main principles-key-thoughts, that's it.  What I want now is a sort
+     of safety-ring to string 'em on and keep 'em safe; for I haven't a
+     good memory, and I get mighty rattled sometimes.  Thoughts like
+     these are like the secret of a combination lock; they let you into
+     the place where the gold and securities and title-deeds of life are.
+     Trouble is, I haven't got a safety-ring, and I'm certain to lose
+     them.  I haven't got what you'd call an intellectual memory.  Things
+     come in flashes to me out of experiences, and pull me up short, and
+     I say, "Yes, that's it--that's it; I understand."  I see why it's
+     so, and what it means, and where it leads, and how far it spreads.
+     It's five thousand years old.  Adam thought it after Cain killed
+     Abel, or Abel thought it just before he died, or Eve learned it from
+     Lilith, or it struck Abraham when he went to sacrifice Isaac.
+     Sometimes things hit me deep like that here in the desert.  Then I
+     feel I can see just over on the horizon the tents of Moab in the
+     wilderness; that yesterday and to-day are the same; that I've
+     crossed the prairies of the everlasting years, and am playing about
+     with Ishmael in the wild hills, or fighting with Ahab.  Then the
+     world and time seem pretty small potatoes.
+
+     You see how it is.  I never was trained to think, and I get stunned
+     by thoughts that strike me as being dug right out of the centre.
+     Sometimes I'd like to write them down; but I can't write; I can only
+     talk as I'm talking to you.  If you weren't so high up, and so much
+     cleverer than I am, and such a thinker, I'd like you to be my
+     safety-ring, if you would.  I could tell the key-thoughts to you
+     when they came to me, before I forgot them with all their bearings;
+     and by-and-by they'd do me a lot of good when I got away from this
+     influence, and back into the machinery of the Western world again.
+     If you could come out here, if you could feel what I feel here--and
+     you would feel a thousand times as much--I don't know what you
+     wouldn't do.
+
+     It's pretty wonderful.  The nights with the stars so white and
+     glittering, and so near that you'd think you could reach up and hand
+     them down; the dark, deep, blue beyond; such a width of life all
+     round you, a sort of never-ending space, that everything you ever
+     saw or did seems little, and God so great in a kind of hovering
+     sense like a pair of wings; and all the secrets of time coming out
+     of it all, and sort of touching your face like a velvet wind.  I
+     expect you'll think me sentimental, a first-class squash out of the
+     pumpkin-garden; but it's in the desert, and it gets into you and
+     saturates you, till you feel that this is a kind of middle space
+     between the world of cities, and factories, and railways, and
+     tenement-houses, and the quiet world to come--a place where they
+     think out things for the benefit of future generations, and convey
+     them through incarnations, or through the desert.  Say, your
+     ladyship, I'm a chatterer, I'm a two-cent philosopher, I'm a baby;
+     but you are too much like your grandmother, who was the daughter of
+     a Quaker like David Pasha, to laugh at me.
+
+     I've got a suit of fine chain-armour which I bought of an Arab down
+     by Darfur.  I'm wondering if it would be too cowardly to wear it in
+     the scrap that's coming.  I don't know, though, but what I'll wear
+     it, I get so scared.  But it will be a frightful hot thing under my
+     clothes, and it's hot enough without that, so I'm not sure.  It
+     depends how much my teeth chatter when I see "the dawn of battle."
+
+     I've got one more thing before I stop.  I'm going to send you a
+     piece of poetry which the Saadat wrote, and tore in two, and threw
+     away.  He was working off his imagination, I guess, as you have to
+     do out here.  I collected it and copied it, and put in the
+     punctuation--he didn't bother about that.  Perhaps he can't
+     punctuate.  I don't understand quite what the poetry means, but
+     maybe you will.  Anyway, you'll see that it's a real desert piece.
+     Here it is:
+
+
+                         "THE DESERT ROAD
+
+              "In the sands I lived in a hut of palm,
+               There was never a garden to see;
+               There was never a path through the desert calm,
+               Nor a way through its storms for me.
+
+              "Tenant was I of a lone domain;
+               The far pale caravans wound
+               To the rim of the sky, and vanished again;
+               My call in the waste was drowned.
+
+              "The vultures came and hovered and fled;
+               And once there stole to my door
+               A white gazelle, but its eyes were dread
+               With the hurt of the wounds it bore.
+
+              "It passed in the dusk with a foot of fear,
+               And the white cold mists rolled in;
+
+               "And my heart was the heart of a stricken deer,
+               Of a soul in the snare of sin.
+
+              "My days they withered like rootless things,
+               And the sands rolled on, rolled wide;
+               Like a pelican I, with broken wings,
+               Like a drifting barque on the tide.
+
+              "But at last, in the light of a rose-red day,
+               In the windless glow of the morn,
+               From over the hills and from far away,
+               You came--ah, the joy of the morn!
+
+              "And wherever your footsteps fell, there crept
+               A path--it was fair and wide:
+               A desert road which no sands have swept,
+               Where never a hope has died.
+
+              "I followed you forth, and your beauty held
+               My heart like an ancient song;
+               By that desert road to the blossoming plains
+               I came-and the way was long!
+
+              "So I set my course by the light of your eyes;
+               I care not what fate may send;
+               On the road I tread shine the love-starred skies--
+               The road with never an end."
+
+     Not many men can do things like that, and the other things, too,
+     that he does.  Perhaps he will win through, by himself, but is it
+     fair to have him run the risk?  If he ever did you a good turn, as
+     you once said to me he did, won't you help him now?  You are on the
+     inside of political things, and if you make up your mind to help,
+     nothing will stop you--that was your grandmother's way.  He ought to
+     get his backing pretty soon, or it won't be any good.  .  .  .  I
+     hear him at his flute.  I expect he's tired waiting for me.  Well,
+     give my love to the girls!
+                                                  T.  L.
+
+
+As Hylda read, she passed through phases of feeling begotten of new
+understanding which shook her composure.  She had seen David and all that
+David was doing; Egypt, and all that was threatening the land through the
+eyes of another who told the whole truth--except about his own cowardice,
+which was untrue.  She felt the issues at stake.  While the mention of
+David's personal danger left her sick for a moment, she saw the wider
+peril also to the work he had set out to do.
+
+What was the thing without the man?  It could not exist--it had no
+meaning.  Where was he now?  What had been the end of the battle?  He had
+saved others, had he saved himself?  The most charmed life must be
+pierced by the shaft of doom sooner or later; but he was little more than
+a youth yet, he had only just begun!
+
+"And the Saadat looks as though he was ready for his grave--but keeps
+going, going, going.!"  The words kept ringing in her ears.  Again: "And
+he sits there like a ghost all shrivelled up for want of sleep, and his
+eyes like a lime-kiln burning.  .  .  .  He hasn't had sleep for a
+fortnight.  .  .  .  He's killing himself for others."
+
+Her own eyes were shining with a dry, hot light, her lips were quivering,
+but her hands upon the letter were steady and firm.  What could she do?
+
+She went to a table, picked up the papers, and scanned them hurriedly.
+Not a word about Egypt.  She thought for a moment, then left the drawing-
+room.  Passing up a flight of stairs to her husband's study, she knocked
+and entered.  It was empty; but Eglington was in the house, for a red
+despatch-box lay open on his table.  Instinctively she glanced at the
+papers exposed in the box, and at the letters beside it.  The document on
+the top of the pile in the box related to Cyprus--the name caught her
+eye.  Another document was half-exposed beneath it.  Her hand went to her
+heart.  She saw the words, "Soudan" and "Claridge Pasha."  She reached
+for it, then drew back her hand, and her eyes closed as though to shut it
+out from her sight.  Why should she not see it?  They were her husband's
+papers, husband and wife were one.  Husband and wife one!  She shrank
+back.  Were they one?  An overmastering desire was on her.  It seemed
+terrible to wait, when here before her was news of David, of life or
+death.  Suddenly she put out her hand and drew the Cyprus paper over the
+Egyptian document, so that she might not see it.
+
+As she did so the door opened on her, and Eglington entered.  He had seen
+the swift motion of her hand, and again a look peculiar to him crossed
+his face, enigmatical, cynical, not pleasant to see.
+
+She turned on him slowly, and he was aware of her inward distress to some
+degree, though her face was ruled to quietness.
+
+He nodded at her and smiled.  She shrank, for she saw in his nod and his
+smile that suggestion of knowing all about everything and everybody, and
+thinking the worst, which had chilled her so often.  Even in their short
+married life it had chilled those confidences which she would gladly have
+poured out before him, if he had been a man with an open soul.  Had there
+been joined to his intellect and temperament a heart capable of true
+convictions and abiding love, what a man he might have been!  But his
+intellect was superficial, and his temperament was dangerous, because
+there were not the experiences of a soul of truth to give the deeper hold
+upon the meaning of life.  She shrank now, as, with a little laugh and
+glancing suggestively at the despatch-box, he said:
+
+"And what do you think of it all?"
+
+She felt as though something was crushing her heart within its grasp, and
+her eyes took on a new look of pain.  "I did not read the papers," she
+answered quietly.
+
+"I saw them in your fingers.  What creatures women are--so dishonourable
+in little things," he said ironically.
+
+She laid a hand on his.  "I did not read them, Harry," she urged.
+
+He smiled and patted her arm.  "There, there, it doesn't matter," he
+laughed.  He watched her narrowly.  "It matters greatly," she answered
+gently, though his words had cut her like a knife.  "I did not read the
+papers.  I only saw the word 'Cyprus' on the first paper, and I pushed it
+over the paper which had the word 'Egypt' on it 'Egypt' and 'Claridge,'
+lest I should read it.  I did not wish to read it.  I am not
+dishonourable, Harry."
+
+He had hurt her more than he had ever done; and only the great matter
+at stake had prevented the lesser part of her from bursting forth in
+indignation, from saying things which she did not wish to say.  She had
+given him devotion--such devotion, such self-effacement in his career as
+few women ever gave.  Her wealth--that was so little in comparison with
+the richness of her nature--had been his; and yet his vast egotism took
+it all as his right, and she was repaid in a kind of tyranny, the more
+galling and cruel because it was wielded by a man of intellect and
+culture, and ancient name and tradition.  If he had been warned that
+he was losing his wife's love, he would have scouted the idea, his self-
+assurance was so strong, his vanity complete.  If, however, he had been
+told that another man was thinking of his wife, he would have believed
+it, as he believed now that David had done; and he cherished that belief,
+and let resentment grow.  He was the Earl of Eglington, and no matter
+what reputation David had reached, he was still a member of a Quaker
+trader's family, with an origin slightly touched with scandal.  Another
+resentment, however, was steadily rising in him.  It galled him that
+Hylda should take so powerful an interest in David's work in Egypt; and
+he knew now that she had always done so.  It did not ease his vexed
+spirit to know that thousands of others of his fellow-countrymen did the
+same.  They might do so, but she was his wife, and his own work was the
+sun round which her mind and interest should revolve.
+
+"Why should you be so keen about Egypt and Claridge Pasha?" he said to
+her now.
+
+Her face hardened a little.  Had he the right to torture her so?  To
+suspect her?  She could read it in his eyes.  Her conscience was clear.
+She was no man's slave.  She would not be any man's slave.  She was
+master of her own soul.  What right had he to catechise her--as though
+she were a servant or a criminal?  But she checked the answer on her
+tongue, because she was hurt deeper than words could express, and she
+said, composedly:
+
+"I have here a letter from my cousin Lacey, who is with Claridge Pasha.
+It has news of him, of events in the Soudan.  He had fever, there was to
+be a fight, and I wished to know if you had any later news.  I thought
+that document there might contain news, but I did not read it.  I
+realised that it was not yours, that it belonged to the Government, that
+I had no right.  Perhaps you will tell me if you have news.  Will you?"
+She leaned against the table wearily, holding her letter.
+
+"Let me read your letter first," he said wilfully.
+
+A mist seemed to come before her eyes; but she was schooled to self-
+command, and he did not see he had given her a shock.  Her first impulse
+was to hand the letter over at once; then there came the remembrance of
+all it contained, all it suggested.  Would he see all it suggested?  She
+recalled the words Lacey had used regarding a service which David had
+once done her.  If Eglington asked, what could she say?  It was not her
+secret alone, it was another's.  Would she have the right, even if she
+wished it, to tell the truth, or part of the truth?  Or, would she be
+entitled to relate some immaterial incident which would evade the real
+truth?  What good could it do to tell the dark story?  What could it
+serve?  Eglington would horribly misunderstand it--that she knew.  There
+were the verses also.  They were more suggestive than anything else,
+though, indeed, they might have referred to another woman, or were merely
+impersonal; but she felt that was not so.  And there was Eglington's
+innate unbelief in man and woman!  Her first impulse held, however.  She
+would act honestly.  She would face whatever there was to face.  She
+would not shelter herself; she would not give him the right in the future
+to say she had not dealt fairly by him, had evaded any inquest of her
+life or mind which he might make.
+
+She gave him the letter, her heart standing still, but she was filled
+with a regnant determination to defend herself, to defend David against
+any attack, or from any consequences.
+
+All her life and hopes seemed hanging in the balance, as he began to read
+the letter.  With fear she saw his face cloud over, heard an impatient
+exclamation pass his lips.  She closed her eyes to gather strength for
+the conflict which was upon her.  He spoke, and she vaguely wondered what
+passage in the letter had fixed his attention.  His voice seemed very far
+away.  She scarcely understood.  But presently it pierced the clouds of
+numbness between them, and she realised what he was saying:
+
+"Vulgar fellow--I can't congratulate you upon your American cousin.  So,
+the Saadat is great on moral suasion, master of it--never failed yet--not
+altogether--and Aunt Melissa and skim-milk and early piety!'  And 'the
+Saadat is a wonder from Wondertown'--like a side-show to a circus, a
+marvel on the flying trapeze!  Perhaps you can give me the sense of the
+letter, if there is any sense in it.  I can't read his writing, and it
+seems interminable.  Would you mind?"
+
+A sigh of relief broke from her.  A weight slipped away from her heart
+and brain.  It was as though one in armour awaited the impact of a heavy,
+cruel, overwhelming foe, who suddenly disappeared, and the armour fell
+from the shoulders, and breath came easily once again.
+
+"Would you mind?" he repeated drily, as he folded up the letter slowly.
+
+He handed it back to her, the note of sarcasm in his voice pricking her
+like the point of a dagger.  She felt angered with herself that he could
+rouse her temper by such small mean irony.  She had a sense of bitter
+disappointment in him--or was it a deep hurt?--that she had not made him
+love her, truly love her.  If he had only meant the love that he swore
+before they had married!  Why had he deceived her?  It had all been in
+his hands, her fate and future; but almost before the bridal flowers had
+faded, she had come to know two bitter things: that he had married with a
+sordid mind; that he was incapable of the love which transmutes the half-
+comprehending, half-developed affection of the maid into the absorbing,
+understanding, beautiful passion of the woman.  She had married not
+knowing what love and passion were; uncomprehending, and innocent because
+uncomprehending; with a fine affection, but capable of loving wholly.
+One thing had purified her motives and her life--the desire to share with
+Eglington his public duty and private hopes, to be his confidante, his
+friend, his coadjutor, proud of him, eager for him, determined to help
+him.  But he had blocked the path to all inner companionship.  He did no
+more than let her share the obvious and outer responsibilities of his
+life.  From the vital things, if there were vital things, she was shut
+out.  What would she not give for one day of simple tenderness and quiet
+affection, a true day with a true love!
+
+She was now perfectly composed.  She told him the substance of the
+letter, of David's plight, of the fever, of the intended fight, of Nahoum
+Pasha, of the peril to David's work.  He continued to interrogate her,
+while she could have shrieked out the question, "What is in yonder
+document?  What do you know?  Have you news of his safety?"  Would he
+never stop his questioning?  It was trying her strength and patience
+beyond endurance.  At last he drew the document slowly from the despatch-
+box, and glanced up and down it musingly.  "I fancy he won the battle,"
+he said slowly, "for they have news of him much farther down the river.
+But from this letter I take it he is not yet within the zone of safety--
+so Nahoum Pasha says."  He flicked the document upwards with his thumb.
+
+"What is our Government doing to help him?" she asked, checking her
+eagerness.
+
+His heart had gradually hardened towards Egypt.  Power had emphasised
+a certain smallness in him.  Personal considerations informed the policy
+of the moment.  He was not going to be dragged at the chariot-wheels of
+the Quaker.  To be passive, when David in Egypt had asked for active
+interest; to delay, when urgency was important to Claridge Pasha; to
+speak coldly on Egyptian affairs to his chief, the weak Foreign
+Secretary, this was the policy he had begun.
+
+So he answered now: "It is the duty of the Egyptian Government to help
+him--of Prince Kaid, of Nahoum Pasha, who is acting for him in his
+absence, who governs finance, and therefore the army.  Egypt does not
+belong to England."
+
+"Nahoum Pasha is his enemy.  He will do nothing to help, unless you force
+him."
+
+"Why do you say that?"
+
+"Because I know Nahoum Pasha."
+
+"When did you know Nahoum?"
+
+"In Egypt, years ago."
+
+"Your acquaintance is more varied than I thought," he said sarcastically.
+
+"Oh, do not speak to me like that!" she returned, in a low, indignant
+voice.
+
+"Do not patronise me; do not be sarcastic."
+
+"Do not be so sensitive," he answered unemotionally.
+
+"You surely do not mean that you--that the Government will not help him?
+He is doing the work of Europe, of civilisation, of Christianity there.
+He is sacrificing himself for the world.  Do you not see it?  Oh, but you
+do!  You would realise his work if you knew Egypt as I have seen it."
+
+"Expediency must govern the policy of nations," he answered critically.
+
+"But, if through your expediency he is killed like a rat in a trap, and
+his work goes to pieces--all undone!  Is there no right in the matter?"
+
+"In affairs of state other circumstances than absolute 'right' enter.
+Here and there the individual is sacrificed who otherwise would be saved
+--if it were expedient."
+
+"Oh, Eglington!  He is of your own county, of your own village, is your
+neighbour, a man of whom all England should be proud.  You can intervene
+if you will be just, and say you will.  I know that intervention has been
+discussed in the Cabinet."
+
+"You say he is of my county.  So are many people, and yet they are not
+county people.  A neighbour he was, but more in a Scriptural than social
+sense."  He was hurting her purposely.
+
+She made a protesting motion of her hand.  "No, no, no, do not be so
+small.  This is a great matter.  Do a great thing now; help it to be done
+for your own honour, for England's honour--for a good man's sake, for
+your country's sake."
+
+There came a knock at the door.  An instant afterwards a secretary
+entered.  "A message from the Prime Minister, sir."  He handed over a
+paper.
+
+"Will you excuse me?" he asked Hylda suavely, in his eyes the
+enigmatical look that had chilled her so often before.  She felt that her
+appeal had been useless.  She prepared to leave the room.  He took her
+hand, kissed it gallantly, and showed her out.  It was his way--too civil
+to be real.
+
+Blindly she made her way to her room.  Inside, she suddenly swayed and
+sank fainting to the ground, as Kate Heaver ran forward to her.  Kate saw
+the letter in the clinched hand.  Loosening it, she read two or three
+sentences with a gasp.  They contained Tom Lacey's appeal for David.  She
+lifted Hylda's head to her shoulder with endearing words, and chafed the
+cold hands, murmuring to herself the while.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE QUESTIONER
+
+"What has thee come to say?"
+
+Sitting in his high-backed chair, Luke Claridge seemed a part of its
+dignified severity.  In the sparsely furnished room with its uncarpeted
+floor, its plain teak table, its high wainscoting and undecorated walls,
+the old man had the look of one who belonged to some ancient consistory,
+a judge whose piety would march with an austerity that would save a human
+soul by destroying the body, if need be.
+
+A crisis had come, vaguely foreseen, sombrely eluded.  A questioner was
+before him who, poor, unheeded, an ancient victim of vice, could yet
+wield a weapon whose sweep of wounds would be wide.  Stern and masterful
+as he looked in his arid isolation, beneath all was a shaking anxiety.
+
+He knew well what the old chair-maker had come to say, but, in the
+prologue of the struggle before him, he was unwittingly manoeuvring for
+position.
+
+"Speak," he added presently, as Soolsby fumbled in his great loose
+pockets, and drew forth a paper.  "What has thee to say?"
+
+Without a word, Soolsby handed over the paper, but the other would not
+take it.
+
+"What is it?" he asked, his lips growing pale.  "Read--if thee can
+read."
+
+The gibe in the last words made the colour leap into Soolsby's face, and
+a fighting look came.  He too had staved off this inevitable hour, had
+dreaded it, but now his courage shot up high.
+
+"Doost think I have forgotten how to read since the day I put my hand to
+a writing you've hid so long from them it most concerns?  Ay, I can read,
+and I can write, and I will prove that I can speak too before I've done."
+
+"Read--read," rejoined the old man hoarsely, his hands tightly gripping
+the chair-arm.
+
+"The fever caught him at Shendy--that is the place--"
+
+"He is not dead--David is not dead?" came the sharp, pained
+interruption.  The old man's head strained forward, his eyes were misty
+and dazed.
+
+Soolsby's face showed no pity for the other's anxiety; it had a kind of
+triumph in it.  "Nay, he is living," he answered.  "He got well of the
+fever, and came to Cairo, but he's off again into the desert.  It's the
+third time.  You can't be tempting Providence for ever.  This paper here
+says it's too big a job for one man--like throwing a good life away.
+Here in England is his place, it says.  And so say I; and so I have come
+to say, and to hear you say so, too.  What is he there?  One man against
+a million.  What put it in his head that he thinks he can do it?"
+
+His voice became lower; he fixed his eyes meaningly on the other.  "When
+a man's life got a twist at the start, no wonder it flies off madlike to
+do the thing that isn't to be done, and leave undone the thing that's
+here for it to do.  Doost think a straight line could come from the
+crooked line you drew for him?"
+
+"He is safe--he is well and strong again?" asked the old man painfully.
+Suddenly he reached out a hand for the paper.  "Let me read," he said, in
+a voice scarce above a whisper.
+
+He essayed to take the paper calmly, but it trembled in his hands.  He
+spread it out and fumbled for his glasses, but could not find them, and
+he gazed helplessly at the page before him.  Soolsby took the paper from
+him and read slowly:
+
+".  .  .  Claridge Pasha has done good work in Egypt, but he is a
+generation too soon, it may be two or three too soon.  We can but regard
+this fresh enterprise as a temptation to Fate to take from our race one
+of the most promising spirits and vital personalities which this
+generation has produced.  It is a forlorn hope.  Most Englishmen familiar
+with Claridge Pasha's life and aims will ask--"
+
+An exclamation broke from the old man.  In the pause which followed he
+said: "It was none of my doing.  He went to Egypt against my will."
+
+"Ay, so many a man's said that's not wanted to look his own acts straight
+in the face.  If Our Man had been started different, if he'd started in
+the path where God A'mighty dropped him, and not in the path Luke
+Claridge chose, would he have been in Egypt to-day wearing out his life?
+He's not making carpets there, he's only beating them."
+
+The homely illustration drawn from the business in which he had been
+interested so many years went home to Claridge's mind.  He shrank back,
+and sat rigid, his brows drawing over the eyes, till they seemed sunk in
+caverns of the head.  Suddenly Soolsby's voice rose angrily.  Luke
+Claridge seemed so remorseless and unyielding, so set in his vanity and
+self-will!  Soolsby misread the rigid look in the face, the pale
+sternness.  He did not know that there had suddenly come upon Luke
+Claridge the full consciousness of an agonising truth--that all he had
+done where David was concerned had been a mistake.  The hard look, the
+sternness, were the signals of a soul challenging itself.
+
+"Ay, you've had your own will," cried Soolsby mercilessly.  "You've said
+to God A'mighty that He wasn't able to work out to a good end what He'd
+let happen; and so you'd do His work for Him.  You kept the lad hid away
+from the people that belonged to him, you kept him out of his own, and
+let others take his birthright.  You put a shame upon him, hiding who his
+father and his father's people were, and you put a shame upon her that
+lies in the graveyard--as sweet a lass, as good, as ever lived on earth.
+Ay, a shame and a scandal!  For your eyes were shut always to the
+sidelong looks, your ears never heard the things people said--'A good-
+for-nothing ship-captain, a scamp and a ne'er-do-weel, one that had a
+lass at every port, and, maybe, wives too; one that none knew or ever had
+seen--a pirate maybe, or a slave-dealer, or a jail-bird, for all they
+knew!  Married--oh yes, married right enough, but nothing else--not even
+a home.  Just a ring on the finger, and then, beyond and away!'  Around
+her life that brought into the world our lad yonder you let a cloud draw
+down; and you let it draw round his, too, for he didn't even bear his
+father's name--much less knew who his father was--or live in his father's
+home, or come by his own in the end.  You gave the lad shame and scandal.
+Do you think, he didn't feel it, was it much or little?  He wasn't
+walking in the sun, but--"
+
+"Mercy!  Mercy!" broke in the old man, his hand before his eyes.  He was
+thinking of Mercy, his daughter, of the words she had said to him when
+she died, "Set him in the sun, father, where God can find him," and her
+name now broke from his lips.
+
+Soolsby misunderstood.  "Ay, there'll be mercy when right's been done
+Our Man, and not till then.  I've held my tongue for half a lifetime, but
+I'll speak now and bring him back.  Ay, he shall come back and take the
+place that is his, and all that belongs to him.  That lordship yonder--
+let him go out into the world and make his place as the Egyptian did.
+He's had his chance to help Our Man, and he has only hurt, not helped
+him.  We've had enough of his second-best lordship and his ways."
+
+The old man's face was painful in its stricken stillness now.  He had
+regained control of himself, his brain had recovered greatly from its
+first suffusion of excitement.
+
+"How does thee know my lord yonder has hurt and not helped him?" he
+asked in an even voice, his lips tightening, however.  "How does thee
+know it surely?"
+
+"From Kate Heaver, my lady's maid.  My lady's illness--what was it?
+Because she would help Our Man, and, out of his hatred, yonder second son
+said that to her which no woman can bear that's a true woman; and then,
+what with a chill and fever, she's been yonder ailing these weeks past.
+She did what she could for him, and her husband did what he could against
+him."
+
+The old man settled back in his chair again.  "Thee has kept silent all
+these years?  Thee has never told any that lives?"
+
+"I gave my word to her that died--to our Egyptian's mother--that I would
+never speak unless you gave me leave to speak, or if you should die
+before me.  It was but a day before the lad was born.  So have I kept my
+word.  But now you shall speak.  Ay, then, but you shall speak, or I'll
+break my word to her, to do right by her son.  She herself would speak if
+she was here, and I'll answer her, if ever I see her after Purgatory, for
+speaking now."
+
+The old man drew himself up in his chair as though in pain, and said very
+slowly, almost thickly: "I shall answer also for all I did.  The spirit
+moved me.  He is of my blood--his mother was dead--in his veins is
+the blood that runs in mine.  His father--aristocrat, spendthrift,
+adventurer, renegade, who married her in secret, and left her, bidding
+her return to me, until he came again, and she to bear him a child--was
+he fit to bring up the boy?"
+
+He breathed heavily, his face became wan and haggard, as he continued:
+"Restless on land or sea, for ever seeking some new thing, and when he
+found it, and saw what was therein, he turned away forgetful.  God put it
+into my heart to abjure him and the life around him.  The Voice made me
+rescue the child from a life empty and bare and heartless and proud.
+When he returned, and my child was in her grave, he came to me in secret;
+he claimed the child of that honest lass whom he had married under a
+false name.  I held my hand lest I should kill him, man of peace as I am.
+Even his father--Quaker though he once became--did we not know ere the
+end that he had no part or lot with us, that he but experimented with his
+soul, as with all else?  Experiment--experiment--experiment, until at
+last an Eglington went exploring in my child's heart, and sent her to her
+grave--the God of Israel be her rest and refuge!  What should such high-
+placed folk do stooping out of their sphere to us who walk in plain
+paths?  What have we in common with them?  My soul would have none of
+them--masks of men, the slaves of riches and titles, and tyrants over the
+poor."
+
+His voice grew hoarse and high, and his head bent forward.  He spoke as
+though forgetful of Soolsby's presence: "As the East is from the West, so
+were we separate from these lovers of this world, the self-indulgent, the
+hard-hearted, the proud.  I chose for the child that he should stay with
+me and not go to him, to remain among his own people and his own class.
+He was a sinister, an evil man.  Was the child to be trusted with him?"
+
+"The child was his own child," broke in Soolsby.  "Your daughter was his
+lady--the Countess of Eglington!  Not all the Quakers in heaven or earth
+could alter that.  His first-born son is Earl of Eglington, and has been
+so these years past; and you, nor his second-best lordship there, nor all
+the courts in England can alter that.  .  .  .  Ay, I've kept my peace,
+but I will speak out now.  I was with the Earl--James Fetherdon he called
+himself--when he married her that's gone to heaven, if any ever went to
+heaven; and I can prove all.  There's proof aplenty, and 'tis a pity, ay,
+God's pity!  that 'twas not used long ago.  Well I knew, as the years
+passed, that the Earl's heart was with David, but he had not the courage
+to face it all, so worn away was the man in him.  Ah, if the lad had
+always been with him--who can tell?--he might have been different!
+Whether so or not, it was the lad's right to take his place his mother
+gave him, let be whatever his father was.  'Twas a cruel thing done to
+him.  His own was his own, to run his race as God A'mighty had laid the
+hurdles, not as Luke Claridge willed.  I'm sick of seeing yonder fellow
+in Our Man's place, he that will not give him help, when he may; he that
+would see him die like a dog in the desert, brother or no brother--"
+
+"He does not know--Lord Eglington does not know the truth?" interposed
+the old man in a heavy whisper.  "He does not know, but, if he knew,
+would it matter to him!  So much the more would he see Our Man die yonder
+in the sands.  I know the breed.  I know him yonder, the skim-milk lord.
+There is no blood of justice, no milk of kindness in him.  Do you think
+his father that I friended in this thing--did he ever give me a penny,
+or aught save that hut on the hill that was not worth a pound a year?
+Did he ever do aught to show that he remembered?--Like father like son.
+I wanted naught.  I held my peace, not for him, but for her--for the
+promise I made her when she smiled at me and said: 'If I shouldn't be
+seeing thee again, Soolsby, remember; and if thee can ever prove a friend
+to the child that is to be, prove it.'  And I will prove it now.  He must
+come back to his own.  Right's right, and I will have it so.  More brains
+you may have, and wealth you have, but not more common sense than any
+common man like me.  If the spirit moved you to hold your peace, it moves
+me to make you speak.  With all your meek face you've been a hard, stiff-
+necked man, a tyrant too, and as much an aristocrat to such as me as any
+lord in the land.  But I've drunk the mug of silence to the bottom.
+I've--" He stopped short, seeing a strange look come over the other's
+face, then stepped forward quickly as the old man half rose from his
+chair, murmuring thickly:
+
+"Mercy--David, my lord, come--!" he muttered, and staggered, and fell
+into Soolsby's arms.
+
+His head dropped forward on his breast, and with a great sigh he sank
+into unconsciousness.  Soolsby laid him on a couch, and ran to the door
+and called aloud for help.
+
+                    ..........................
+
+The man of silence was silent indeed now.  In the room where paralysis
+had fallen on him a bed was brought, and he lay nerveless on the verge of
+a still deeper silence.  The hours went by.  His eyes opened, he saw and
+recognised them all, but his look rested only on Faith and Soolsby; and,
+as time went on, these were the only faces to which he gave an answering
+look of understanding.  Days wore away, but he neither spoke nor moved.
+
+People came and went softly, and he gave no heed.  There was ever a
+trouble in his eyes when they were open.  Only when Soolsby came did it
+seem to lessen.  Faith saw this, and urged Soolsby to sit by him.  She
+had questioned much concerning what had happened before the stroke fell,
+but Soolsby said only that the old man had been greatly troubled about
+David.  Once Lady Eglington, frail and gentle and sympathetic, came, but
+the trouble deepened in his eyes, and the lids closed over them, so that
+he might not see her face.
+
+When she had gone, Soolsby, who had been present and had interpreted the
+old man's look according to a knowledge all his own, came over to the
+bed, leaned down and whispered: "I will speak now."
+
+Then the eyes opened, and a smile faintly flickered at the mouth.
+
+"I will speak now," Soolsby said again into the old man's ear.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE VOICE THROUGH THE DOOR
+
+That night Soolsby tapped at the door of the lighted laboratory of the
+Cloistered House where Lord Eglington was at work; opened it, peered in,
+and stepped inside.
+
+With a glass retort in his hand Eglington faced him.  "What's this--what
+do you want?" he demanded.
+
+"I want to try an experiment," answered Soolsby grimly.
+
+"Ah, a scientific turn!" rejoined Eglington coolly--looking at him
+narrowly, however.  He was conscious of danger of some kind.
+
+Then for a minute neither spoke.  Now that Soolsby had come to the moment
+for which he had waited for so many ,years, the situation was not what he
+had so often prefigured.  The words he had chosen long ago were gone from
+his memory; in his ignorance of what had been a commonplace to Soolsby's
+dark reflection so long, the man he had meant to bring low stood up
+before him on his own ground, powerful and unabashed.
+
+Eglington wore a blue smock, and over his eyes was a green shade to
+protect them from the light, but they peered sharply out at the chair-
+maker, and were boldly alive to the unexpected.  He was no physical
+coward, and, in any case, what reason had he for physical fear in the
+presence of this man weakened by vice and age?  Yet ever since he was a
+boy there had existed between them an antagonism which had shown itself
+in many ways.  There had ever been something sinister in Soolsby's
+attitude to his father and himself.
+
+Eglington vaguely knew that now he was to face some trial of mind and
+nerve, but with great deliberation he continued dropping liquid from a
+bottle into the glass retort he carried, his eyes, however, watchful of
+his visitor, who involuntarily stared around the laboratory.
+
+It was fifteen years since Soolsby had been in this room; and then he had
+faced this man's father with a challenge on his tongue such as he meant
+to speak now.  The smell of the chemicals, the carboys filled with acids,
+the queer, tapering glasses with engraved measurements showing against
+the coloured liquids, the great blue bottles, the mortars and pestles,
+the microscopic instruments--all brought back the far-off, acrid scene
+between the late Earl and himself.  Nothing had changed, except that now
+there were wires which gave out hissing sparks, electrical instruments
+invented since the earlier day; except that this man, gently dropping
+acids into the round white bottle upon a crystal which gave off musty
+fumes, was bolder, stronger, had more at stake than the other.
+
+Slowly Eglington moved back to put the retort on a long table against the
+wall, and Soolsby stepped forward till he stood where the electric sparks
+were gently hissing about him.  Now Eglington leaned against the table,
+poured some alcohol on his fingers to cleanse the acid from them, and
+wiped them with a piece of linen, while he looked inquiringly at Soolsby.
+Still, Soolsby did not speak.  Eglington lit a cigarette, and took away
+the shade from his eyes.
+
+"Well, now, what is your experiment?" he asked, "and why bring it here?
+Didn't you know the way to the stables or the scullery?"
+
+"I knew my way better here," answered Soolsby, steadying himself.
+
+"Ah, you've been here often?" asked Eglington nonchalantly, yet feeling
+for the cause of this midnight visit.
+
+"It is fifteen years since I was here, my lord.  Then I came to see the
+Earl of Eglington."
+
+"And so history repeats itself every fifteen years!  You came to see the
+Earl of Eglington then; you come to see the Earl of Eglington again--
+after fifteen years!"
+
+"I come to speak with him that's called the Earl of Eglington."
+
+Eglington's eyes half closed, as though the light hurt them.  "That
+sounds communistic, or is it pure Quakerism?  I believe they used to call
+my father Friend Robert till he backslided.  But you are not a Quaker,
+Soolsby, so why be too familiar?  Or is it merely the way of the old
+family friend?"
+
+"I knew your father before you were born, my lord--he troosted me then."
+
+"So long?  And fifteen years ago--here?"  He felt a menace, vague and
+penetrating.  His eyes were hard and cruel.
+
+"It wasn't a question of troost then; 'twas one of right or wrong--naught
+else."
+
+"Ah--and who was right, and what was wrong?"  At that moment there came a
+tap at the door leading into the living part of the house, and the butler
+entered.  "The doctor--he has used up all his oxygen, my lord.  He begs
+to know if you can give him some for Mr. Claridge.  Mr. Claridge is bad
+to-night."
+
+A sinister smile passed over Eglington's face.  "Who brings the message,
+Garry?"
+
+"A servant--Miss Claridge's, my lord."
+
+An ironical look came into Eglington's eyes; then they softened a little.
+In a moment he placed a jar of oxygen in the butler's hands.
+
+"My compliments to Miss Claridge, and I am happy to find my laboratory of
+use at last to my neighbours," he said, and the door closed upon the man.
+
+Then he came back thoughtfully.  Soolsby had not moved.
+
+"Do you know what oxygen's for, Soolsby?" he asked quizzically.
+
+"No, my lord, I've never heerd tell of it."
+
+"Well, if you brought the top of Ben Lomond to the bottom of a coal-mine
+--breath to the breathless--that's it.
+
+"You've been doing that to Mr. Claridge, my lord?"
+
+"A little oxygen more or less makes all the difference to a man--it
+probably will to neighbour Claridge, Soolsby; and so I've done him a good
+turn."
+
+A grim look passed over Soolsby's face.  "It's the first, I'm thinking,
+my lord, and none too soon; and it'll be the last, I'm thinking, too.
+It's many a year since this house was neighbourly to that."
+
+Eglington's eyes almost closed, as he studied the other's face; then he
+said: "I asked you a little while ago who was right and what was wrong
+when you came to see my father here fifteen years ago.  Well?"
+
+Suddenly a thought flashed into his eyes, and it seemed to course through
+his veins like some anaesthetic, for he grew very still, and a minute
+passed before he added quietly: "Was it a thing between my father and
+Luke Claridge?  There was trouble--well, what was it?"  All at once he
+seemed to rise above the vague anxiety that possessed him, and he
+fingered inquiringly a long tapering glass of acids on the bench beside
+him.  "There's been so much mystery, and I suppose it was nothing, after
+all.  What was it all about?  Or do you know--eh?  Fifteen years ago you
+came to see my father, and now you have come to see me--all in the light
+o' the moon, as it were; like a villain in a play.  Ah, yes, you said it
+was to make an experiment--yet you didn't know what oxygen was!  It's
+foolish making experiments, unless you know what you are playing with,
+Soolsby.  See, here are two glasses."  He held them up.  "If I poured one
+into the other, we'd have an experiment--and you and I would be picked up
+in fragments and carried away in a basket.  And that wouldn't be a
+successful experiment, Soolsby."
+
+"I'm not so sure of that, my lord.  Some things would be put right then."
+
+"H'm, there would be a new Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and--"
+
+"And Claridge Pasha would come back from Egypt, my lord," was the sharp
+interjection.  Suddenly Soolsby's anger flared up, his hands twitched.
+"You had your chance to be a friend to him, my lord.  You promised her
+yonder at the Red Mansion that you would help him--him that never wronged
+you, him you always wronged, and you haven't lifted hand to help him in
+his danger.  A moment since you asked me who was right and what was
+wrong.  You shall know.  If you had treated him right, I'd have held my
+peace, and kept my word to her that's gone these thirty-odd years.  I'll
+hold it no more, and so I told Luke Claridge.  I've been silent, but not
+for your father's sake or yours, for he was as cruel as you, with no
+heart, and a conscience like a pin's head, not big enough for use.  .  .
+Ay, you shall know.  You are no more the Earl of Eglington than me.
+
+"The Earl of Eglington is your elder brother, called David Claridge."
+
+As Soolsby's words poured forth passionately, weighty, Eglington listened
+like one in a dream.  Since this man entered the laboratory fifty reasons
+for his coming had flashed across his mind; he had prepared himself at
+many corners for defence, he had rallied every mental resource, he had
+imagined a dozen dangerous events which his father and Luke Claridge
+shared--with the balance against his father; but this thing was beyond
+all speculation.  Yet on the instant the words were said he had a
+conviction of their inevitable truth.  Even as they were uttered,
+kaleidoscopic memories rushed in, and David's face, figure, personal
+characteristics, flashed before him.  He saw, he felt, the likeness to
+his father and himself; a thousand things were explained that could only
+be explained by this fatal fact launched at him without warning.  It was
+as though, fully armed for his battle of life, he had suddenly been
+stripped of armour and every weapon, and left naked on the field.  But he
+had the mind of the gamester, and the true gamester's self-control.  He
+had taken chances so often that the tornado of ill-luck left him
+standing.
+
+"What proof have you?" he asked quietly.  Soolsby's explicit answer left
+no ground for doubt.  He had not asked the question with any idea of
+finding gaps in the evidence, but rather to find if there were a chance
+for resistance, of escape, anywhere.  The marriage certificate existed;
+identification of James Fetherdon with his father could be established by
+Soolsby and Luke Claridge.
+
+Soolsby and Luke Claridge!  Luke Claridge--he could not help but smile
+cynically, for he was composed and calculating now.  A few minutes ago
+he had sent a jar of oxygen to keep Luke Claridge alive!  But for it one
+enemy to his career, to his future, would be gone.  He did not shrink
+from the thought.  Born a gentleman, there were in him some degenerate
+characteristics which heart could not drown or temperament refine.
+Selfishness was inwoven with every fibre of his nature.
+
+Now, as he stood with eyes fixed on Soolsby, the world seemed to narrow
+down to this laboratory.  It was a vacuum where sensation was suspended,
+and the million facts of ordinary existence disappeared into inactivity.
+There was a fine sense of proportion in it all.  Only the bare essential
+things that concerned him remained: David Claridge was the Earl of
+Eglington, this man before him knew, Luke Claridge knew; and there was
+one thing yet to know!  When he spoke his voice showed no excitement--the
+tones were even, colourless.
+
+"Does he know?"  In these words he acknowledged that he believed the tale
+told him.
+
+Soolsby had expected a different attitude; he was not easier in mind
+because his story had not been challenged.  He blindly felt working in
+the man before him a powerful mind, more powerful because it faced the
+truth unflinchingly; but he knew that this did not mean calm acceptance
+of the consequences.  He, not Eglington, was dazed and embarrassed, was
+not equal to the situation.  He moved uneasily, changed his position.
+
+"Does he know?" Eglington questioned again quietly.  There was no need
+for Eglington to explain who he was.
+
+"Of course he does not know--I said so.  If he knew, do you think he'd be
+in Egypt and you here, my lord?"
+
+Eglington was very quiet.  His intellect more than his passions were now
+at work.
+
+"I am not sure.  You never can tell.  This might not mean much to him.
+He has got his work cut out; he wasn't brought up to this.  What he has
+done is in line with the life he has lived as a pious Quaker.  What good
+would it do to bring him back?  I have been brought up to it; I am used
+to it; I have worked things out 'according to the state of life to which
+I was called.'  Take what I've always had away from me, and I am
+crippled; give him what he never had, and it doesn't work into his
+scheme.  It would do him no good and me harm--Where's the use?  Besides,
+I am still my father's son.  Don't you see how unreasonable you are?
+Luke Claridge was right.  He knew that he and his belonged to a different
+sphere.  He didn't speak.  Why do you speak now after all these years
+when we are all set in our grooves?  It's silly to disturb us, Soolsby."
+
+The voice was low, persuasive, and searching; the mind was working as it
+had never worked before, to achieve an end by peaceful means, when war
+seemed against him.  And all the time he was fascinated by the fact that
+Soolsby's hand was within a few inches of a live electric wire, which, if
+he touched, would probably complete "the experiment" he had come to make;
+and what had been the silence of a generation would continue
+indefinitely.  It was as though Fate had deliberately tempted him and
+arranged the necessary conditions, for Soolsby's feet were in a little
+pool of liquid which had been spilled on the floor--the experiment was
+exact and real.
+
+For minutes he had watched Soolsby's hand near the wire-had watched as he
+talked, and his talk was his argument for non-interference against
+warning the man who had come to destroy him and his career.  Why had Fate
+placed that hand so near the wire there, and provided the other perfect
+conditions for tragedy?  Why should he intervene?  It would never have
+crossed his mind to do Soolsby harm, yet here, as the man's arm was
+stretched out to strike him, Fate offered an escape.  Luke Claridge was
+stricken with paralysis, no doubt would die; Soolsby alone stood in his
+way.
+
+"You see, Soolsby, it has gone on too long," he added, in a low,
+penetrating tone.  "It would be a crime to alter things now.  Give him
+the earldom and the estates, and his work in Egypt goes to pieces; he
+will be spoiled for all he wants to do.  I've got my faults, but, on the
+whole, I'm useful, and I play my part here, as I was born to it, as well
+as most.  Anyhow, it's no robbery for me to have what has been mine by
+every right except the accident of being born after him.  I think you'll
+see that you will do a good thing to let it all be.  Luke Claridge, if he
+was up and well, wouldn't thank you for it--have you got any right to
+give him trouble, too?  Besides, I've saved his life to-night, and. . . .
+and perhaps I might save yours, Soolsby, if it was in danger."
+
+Soolsby's hand had moved slightly.  It was only an inch from the wire.
+For an instant the room was terribly still.
+
+An instant, and it might be too late.  An instant, and Soolsby would be
+gone.  Eglington watched the hand which had been resting on the table
+turn slowly over to the wire.  Why should he intervene?  Was it his
+business?  This thing was not his doing.  Destiny had laid the train of
+circumstance and accident, and who was stronger than Destiny?  In spite
+of himself his eyes fixed themselves on Soolsby's hand.  It was but a
+hair's breadth from the wire.  The end would come now.  Suddenly a voice
+was heard outside the door.  "Eglington!" it called.
+
+Soolsby started, his hand drew spasmodically away from the wire, and he
+stepped back quickly.
+
+The door opened, and Hylda entered.
+
+"Mr. Claridge is dead, Eglington," she said.  Destiny had decided.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+"I OWE YOU NOTHING"
+
+Beside the grave under the willow-tree another grave had been made.  It
+was sprinkled with the fallen leaves of autumn.  In the Red Mansion
+Faith's delicate figure moved forlornly among relics of an austere,
+beloved figure vanished from the apricot-garden and the primitive
+simplicity of wealth combined with narrow thought.
+
+Since her father's death, the bereaved girl had been occupied by matters
+of law and business, by affairs of the estate; but the first pressure was
+over, long letters had been written to David which might never reach him;
+and now, when the strain was withdrawn, the gentle mind was lost in a
+grey mist of quiet suffering.  In Hamley there were but two in whom she
+had any real comfort and help--Lady Eglington and the old chair-maker.
+Of an afternoon or evening one or the other was to be seen in the long
+high-wainscoted room, where a great fire burned, or in the fruitless
+garden where the breeze stirred the bare branches.
+
+Almost as deep a quiet brooded in the Cloistered House as in the home
+where mourning enjoined movement in a minor key.  Hylda had not recovered
+wholly from the illness which had stricken her down on that day in London
+when she had sought news of David from Eglington, at such cost to her
+peace and health and happiness.  Then had come her slow convalescence in
+Hamley, and long days of loneliness, in which Eglington seemed to retreat
+farther and farther from her inner life.  Inquiries had poured in from
+friends in town, many had asked to come and see her; flowers came from
+one or two who loved her benignly, like Lord Windlehurst; and now and
+then she had some cheerful friend with her who cared for music or could
+sing; and then the old home rang; but she was mostly alone, and Eglington
+was kept in town by official business the greater part of each week.  She
+did not gain strength as quickly as she ought to have done, and this was
+what brought the Duchess of Snowdon down on a special mission one day of
+early November.
+
+Ever since the night she had announced Luke Claridge's death to
+Eglington, had discovered Soolsby with him, had seen the look in her
+husband's face and caught the tension of the moment on which she had
+broken, she had been haunted by a hovering sense of trouble.  What had
+Soolsby been doing in the laboratory at that time of night?  What was the
+cause of this secret meeting?  All Hamley knew--she had long known--how
+Luke Claridge had held the Cloistered House in abhorrence, and she knew
+also that Soolsby worshipped David and Faith, and, whatever the cause of
+the family antipathy, championed it.  She was conscious of a shadow
+somewhere, and behind it all was the name of David's father, James
+Fetherdon.  That last afternoon when she had talked with him, and he had
+told her of his life, she had recalled the name as one she had seen or
+heard, and it had floated into her mind at last that she had seen it
+among the papers and letters of the late Countess of Eglington.
+
+As the look in Eglington's face the night she came upon him and Soolsby
+in the laboratory haunted her, so the look in her own face had haunted
+Soolsby.  Her voice announcing Luke Claridge's death had suddenly opened
+up a new situation to him.  It stunned him; and afterwards, as he saw
+Hylda with Faith in the apricot-garden, or walking in the grounds of the
+Cloistered House hour after hour alone or with her maid, he became vexed
+by a problem greater than had yet perplexed him.  It was one thing to
+turn Eglington out of his lands and home and title; it was another thing
+to strike this beautiful being, whose smile had won him from the first,
+whose voice, had he but known, had saved his life.  Perhaps the truth in
+some dim way was conveyed to him, for he came to think of her a little as
+he thought of Faith.
+
+Since the moment when he had left the laboratory and made his way to the
+Red Mansion, he and Eglington had never met face to face; and he avoided
+a meeting.  He was not a blackmailer, he had no personal wrongs to
+avenge, he had not sprung the bolt of secrecy for evil ends; and when he
+saw the possible results of his disclosure, he was unnerved.  His mind
+had seen one thing only, the rights of "Our Man," the wrong that had been
+done him and his mother; but now he saw how the sword of justice, which
+he had kept by his hand these many years, would cut both ways.  His mind
+was troubled, too, that he had spoken while yet Luke Claridge lived, and
+so broken his word to Mercy Claridge.  If he had but waited till the old
+man died--but one brief half-hour--his pledge would have been kept.
+Nothing had worked out wholly as he expected.  The heavens had not
+fallen.  The "second-best lordship" still came and went, the wheels went
+round as usual.  There was no change; yet, as he sat in his hut and
+looked down into the grounds of the Cloistered House, he kept saying to
+himself.
+
+"It had to be told.  It's for my lord now.  He knows the truth.  I'll
+wait and see.  It's for him to do right by Our Man that's beyond and
+away."
+
+The logic and fairness of this position, reached after much thinking,
+comforted him.  He had done his duty so far.  If, in the end, the
+"second-best lordship" failed to do his part, hid the truth from the
+world, refused to do right by his half-brother, the true Earl, then would
+be time to act again.  Also he waited for word out of Egypt; and he had a
+superstitious belief that David would return, that any day might see him
+entering the door of the Red Mansion.
+
+Eglington himself was haunted by a spectre which touched his elbow by
+day, and said: "You are not the Earl of Eglington," and at night laid a
+clammy finger on his forehead, waking him, and whispering in his ear:
+"If Soolsby had touched the wire, all would now be well!"  And as deep as
+thought and feeling in him lay, he felt that Fate had tricked him--Fate
+and Hylda.  If Hylda had not come at that crucial instant, the
+chairmaker's but on the hill would be empty.  Why had not Soolsby told
+the world the truth since?  Was the man waiting to see what course he
+himself would take?  Had the old chair-maker perhaps written the truth
+to the Egyptian--to his brother David.
+
+His brother!  The thought irritated every nerve in him.  No note of
+kindness or kinship or blood stirred in him.  If, before, he had had
+innate antagonism and a dark, hovering jealousy, he had a black
+repugnance now--the antipathy of the lesser to the greater nature,
+of the man in the wrong to the man in the right.
+
+And behind it all was the belief that his wife had set David above him--
+by how much or in what fashion he did not stop to consider; but it made
+him desire that death and the desert would swallow up his father's son
+and leave no trace behind.
+
+Policy?  His work in the Foreign Office now had but one policy so far as
+Egypt was concerned.  The active sophistry in him made him advocate non-
+intervention in Egyptian affairs as diplomatic wisdom, though it was but
+personal purpose; and he almost convinced himself that he was acting from
+a national stand-point.  Kaid and Claridge Pasha pursued their course of
+civilisation in the Soudan, and who could tell what danger might not
+bring forth?  If only Soolsby held his peace yet a while!
+
+Did Faith know?  Luke Claridge was gone without speaking, but had Soolsby
+told Faith?  How closely had he watched the faces round him at Luke
+Claridge's funeral, to see if they betrayed any knowledge!
+
+Anxious days had followed that night in the laboratory.  His boundless
+egotism had widened the chasm between Hylda and himself, which had been
+made on the day when she fell ill in London, with Lacey's letter in her
+hand.  It had not grown less in the weeks that followed.  He nursed a
+grievance which had, so far as he knew, no foundation in fact; he was
+vaguely jealous of a man--his brother--thousands of miles away; he was
+not certain how far Hylda had pierced the disguise of sincerity which he
+himself had always worn, or how far she understood him.  He thought that
+she shrank from what she had seen of his real self, much or little, and
+he was conscious of so many gifts and abilities and attractive personal
+qualities that he felt a sense of injury.  Yet what would his position
+be without her?  Suppose David should return and take the estates and
+titles, and suppose that she should close her hand upon her fortune and
+leave him, where would he be?
+
+He thought of all this as he sat in his room at the Foreign Office and
+looked over St. James's Park, his day's work done.  He was suddenly
+seized by a new-born anxiety, for he had been so long used to the open
+purse and the unchecked stream of gold, had taken it so much as a matter
+of course, as not to realise the possibility of its being withdrawn.
+He was conscious of a kind of meanness and ugly sordidness in the
+suggestion; but the stake--his future, his career, his position in the
+world--was too high to allow him to be too chivalrous.  His sense of the
+real facts was perverted.  He said to himself that he must be practical.
+
+Moved by the new thought, he seized a time-table and looked up the
+trains.  He had been ten days in town, receiving every morning a little
+note from Hylda telling of what she had done each day; a calm, dutiful
+note, written without pretence, and out of a womanly affection with which
+she surrounded the man who, it seemed once--such a little while ago--must
+be all in all to her.  She had no element of pretence in her.  What she
+could give she gave freely, and it was just what it appeared to be.  He
+had taken it all as his due, with an underlying belief that, if he chose
+to make love to her again, he could blind her to all else in the world.
+Hurt vanity and egotism and jealousy had prevented him from luring her
+back to that fine atmosphere in which he had hypnotised her so few years
+ago.  But suddenly, as he watched the swans swimming in the pond below, a
+new sense of approaching loss, all that Hylda had meant in his march and
+progress, came upon him; and he hastened to return to Hamley.
+
+Getting out of the train at Heddington, he made up his mind to walk home
+by the road that David had taken on his return from Egypt, and he left
+word at the station that he would send for his luggage.
+
+His first objective was Soolsby's hut, and, long before he reached it,
+darkness had fallen.  From a light shining through the crack of the blind
+he knew that Soolsby was at home.  He opened the door and entered without
+knocking.  Soolsby was seated at a table, a map and a newspaper spread
+out before him.  Egypt and David, always David and Egypt!
+
+Soolsby got to his feet slowly, his eyes fixed inquiringly on his
+visitor.
+
+"I didn't knock," said Eglington, taking off his greatcoat and reaching
+for a chair; then added, as he seated himself: "Better sit down,
+Soolsby."
+
+After a moment he continued: "Do you mind my smoking?"
+
+Soolsby did not reply, but sat down again.  He watched Eglington light a
+cigar and stretch out his hands to the wood fire with an air of comfort.
+
+A silence followed.  Eglington appeared to forget the other's presence,
+and to occupy himself with thoughts that glimmered in the fire.
+
+At last Soolsby said moodily: "What have you come for, my lord?"
+
+"Oh, I am my lord still, am I?" Eglington returned lazily.  "Is it a
+genealogical tree you are studying there?"  He pointed to the map.
+
+"I've studied your family tree with care, as you should know, my lord;
+and a map of Egypt"--he tapped the parchment before him--"goes well with
+it.  And see, my lord, Egypt concerns you too.  Lord Eglington is there,
+and 'tis time he was returning-ay, 'tis time."
+
+There was a baleful look in Soolsby's eyes.  Whatever he might think,
+whatever considerations might arise at other times, a sinister feeling
+came upon him when Eglington was with him.
+
+"And, my lord," he went on, "I'd be glad to know that you've sent for
+him, and told him the truth."
+
+"Have you?"  Eglington flicked the ash from his cigar, speaking coolly.
+
+Soolsby looked at him with his honest blue eyes aflame, and answered
+deliberately: "I was not for taking your place, my lord.  'Twas my duty
+to tell you, but the rest was between you and the Earl of Eglington."
+
+"That was thoughtful of you, Soolsby.  And Miss Claridge?"
+
+"I told you that night, my lord, that only her father and myself knew;
+and what was then is now."
+
+A look of relief stole across Eglington's face.  "Of course--of course.
+These things need a lot of thought, Soolsby.  One must act with care--
+no haste, no flurry, no mistakes."
+
+"I would not wait too long, my lord, or be too careful."  There was
+menace in the tone.
+
+"But if you go at things blind, you're likely to hurt where you don't
+mean to hurt.  When you're mowing in a field by a school-house, you must
+look out for the children asleep in the grass.  Sometimes the longest way
+round is the shortest way home."
+
+"Do you mean to do it or not, my lord?  I've left it to you as a
+gentleman."
+
+"It's going to upset more than you think, Soolsby.  Suppose he, out there
+in Egypt"--he pointed again to the map--"doesn't thank me for the
+information.  Suppose he says no, and--"
+
+"Right's right.  Give him the chance, my lord.  How can you know, unless
+you tell him the truth?"
+
+"Do you like living, Soolsby?"
+
+"Do you want to kill me, my lord?"
+
+There was a dark look in Eglington's face.  "But answer me, do you want
+to live?"
+
+"I want to live long enough to see the Earl of Eglington in his own
+house."
+
+"Well, I've made that possible.  The other night when you were telling me
+your little story, you were near sending yourself into eternity--as near
+as I am knocking this ash off my cigar."  His little finger almost
+touched the ash.  "Your hand was as near touching a wire charged with
+death.  I saw it.  It would have been better for me if you had gone; but
+I shut off the electricity.  Suppose I hadn't, could I have been blamed?
+It would have been an accident.  Providence did not intervene; I did.
+You owe me something, Soolsby."
+
+Soolsby stared at him almost blindly for a moment.  A mist was before his
+eyes; but through the mist, though he saw nothing of this scene in which
+he now was, he saw the laboratory, and himself and Eglington, and
+Eglington's face as it peered at him, and, just before the voice called
+outside, Eglington's eyes fastened on his hand.  It all flashed upon him
+now, and he saw himself starting back at the sound of the voice.
+
+Slowly he got up now, went to the door, and opened it.  "My lord, it is
+not true," he said.  "You have not spoken like a gentleman.  It was my
+lady's voice that saved me.  This is my castle, my lord--you lodge
+yonder."  He pointed down into the darkness where the lights of the
+village shone.  "I owe you nothing.  I pay my debts.  Pay yours, my lord,
+to him that's beyond and away."
+
+Eglington kept his countenance as he drew on his great-coat and slowly
+passed from the house.
+
+"I ought to have let you die, Soolsby.  Y'ou'll think better of this
+soon.  But it's quite right to leave the matter to me.  It may take a
+little time, but everything will come right.  Justice shall be done.
+Well, good night, Soolsby.  You live too much alone, and imagination
+is a bad thing for the lonely.  Good night-good night."
+
+Going down the hill quickly, he said to himself: "A sort of second sight
+he had about that wire.  But time is on my side, time and the Soudan--
+and 'The heathen in his blindness.  .  .  .' I will keep what is mine.
+I will keep it!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE AWAKENING
+
+In her heart of hearts Hylda had not greatly welcomed the Duchess of
+Snowdon to Hamley.  There was no one whose friendship she prized more;
+but she was passing through a phase of her life when she felt that she
+was better apart, finding her own path by those intuitions and
+perceptions which belonged to her own personal experience.  She vaguely
+felt, what all realise sooner or later, that we must live our dark hours
+alone.
+
+Yet the frank downright nature of the once beautiful, now faded, Duchess,
+the humorous glimmer in the pale-blue eyes, the droll irony and dry truth
+of her speech, appealed to Hylda, made her smile a warm greeting when she
+would rather have been alone.  For, a few days before, she had begun a
+quest which had absorbed her, fascinated her.  The miner, finding his way
+across the gap of a reef to pick up the vein of quartz at some distant
+and uncertain point, could not have been more lost to the world than was
+the young wife searching for a family skeleton, indefinitely embodied in
+her imagination by the name, James Fetherdon.
+
+Pile after pile of papers and letters of the late Earl and his Countess
+had passed through her hands from chaos to order.  As she had read, hour
+after hour, the diaries of the cold, blue-eyed woman, Sybil Eglington,
+who had lived without love of either husband or son, as they, in turn,
+lived without love of each other, she had been overwhelmed by the
+revelation of a human heart, whose powers of expression were smothered by
+a shy and awkward temperament.  The late Countess's letters were the
+unclothing of a heart which had never expanded to the eyes of those whose
+love would have broken up a natural reserve, which became at last a proud
+coldness, and gave her a reputation for lack of feeling that she carried
+to her grave.
+
+In the diaries which Hylda unearthed--the Countess had died suddenly--
+was the muffled cry of a soul tortured through different degrees of
+misunderstanding; from the vague pain of suffered indifference, of being
+left out of her husband's calculations, to the blank neglect narrowing
+her life down to a tiny stream of duty, which was finally lost in the
+sands.  She had died abroad, and alone, save for her faithful maid, who,
+knowing the chasm that lay between her mistress and her lord, had brought
+her letters and papers back to the Cloistered House, and locked them away
+with all the other papers and correspondence which the Countess had
+accumulated.
+
+Among these papers was a letter to the late Lord Eglington written the
+day before she died.  In the haste and confusion ensuing on her death,
+the maid had not seen it.  It had never reached his hands, but lay in a
+pocket of the dead woman's writing-portfolio, which Hylda had explored
+without discovering.  Only a few hours, however, before the Duchess of
+Snowdon came, Hylda had found again an empty envelope on which was
+written the name, James Fetherdon.  The writing on the envelope was that
+of Sybil Lady Eglington.
+
+When she discovered the envelope, a sense of mystery and premonition
+possessed her.  What was the association between the Countess of
+Eglington and James Fetherdon, the father of David Claridge?  In vain she
+searched among the voluminous letters and papers, for it would seem that
+the dead woman had saved every letter she received, and kept copies of
+numberless letters she had written.  But she had searched without avail.
+Even the diaries, curiously frank and without reserve, never mentioned
+the name, so far as she could find, though here and there were strange
+allusive references, hints of a trouble that weighed her down, phrases of
+exasperation and defiance.  One phrase, or the idea in it, was, however,
+much repeated in the diaries during the course of years, and towards the
+last almost feverishly emphasised--"Why should I bear it for one who
+would bear nothing for me, for his sake, who would do nothing for my
+sake?  Is it only the mother in me, not the love in me?"
+
+These words were haunting Hylda's brain when the telegram from the
+Duchess of Snowdon came.  They followed her to Heddington, whither she
+went in the carriage to bring her visitor to Hamley, and kept repeating
+themselves at the back of her mind through the cheerful rallying of the
+Duchess, who spread out the wings of good-humour and motherly freedom
+over her.
+
+After all, it was an agreeable thing to be taken possession of, and "put
+in her proper place," as the Duchess said; made to understand that her
+own affairs were not so important, after all; and that it was far more
+essential to hear the charming gossip about the new and most popular
+Princess of Wales, or the quarrel between Dickens and Thackeray.  Yet,
+after dinner, in the little sitting-room, where the Duchess, in a white
+gown with great pink bows, fitter for a girl fresh from Confirmation, and
+her cheeks with their fixed colour, which changed only at the discretion
+of her maid, babbled of nothing that mattered, Hylda's mind kept turning
+to the book of life an unhappy woman had left behind her.  The sitting-
+room had been that of the late Countess also, and on the wall was an oil-
+painting of her, stately and distant and not very alluring, though the
+mouth had a sweetness which seemed unable to break into a smile.
+
+"What was she really like--that wasn't her quite, was it?" asked Hylda,
+at last, leaning her chin on the hand which held the 'cello she had been
+playing.
+
+"Oh, yes, it's Sybil Eglington, my dear, but done in wood; and she wasn't
+the graven image that makes her out to be.  That's as most people saw
+her; as the fellow that painted her saw her; but she had another side to
+her.  She disapproved of me rather, because I was squeezing the orange
+dry, and trying to find yesterday's roses in to-morrow's garden.  But she
+didn't shut her door in my face--it's hard to do that to a Duchess; which
+is one of the few advantages of living naked in the street, as it were,
+with only the strawberry leaves to clothe you.  No, Sybil Eglington was a
+woman who never had her chance.  Your husband's forbears were difficult,
+my dear.  They didn't exactly draw you out.  She needed drawing out; and
+her husband drove her back into her corner, where she sulked rather till
+she died--died alone at Wiesbaden, with a German doctor, a stray curate,
+and a stuttering maid to wish her bon voyage.  Yet I fancy she went glad
+enough, for she had no memories, not even an affaire to repent of, and to
+cherish.  La, la!  she wasn't so stupid, Sybil there, and she was an
+ornament to her own sex and the despair of the other.  His Serene
+Highness Heinrich of Saxe-Gunden fancied the task of breaking that ice,
+and he was an adept and an Apollo, but it broke his reputation instead.
+
+"No doubt she is happy now.  I shall probably never see!"
+
+In spite of the poignant nature of the talk, Hylda could not but smile at
+the last words.
+
+"Don't despair," she rejoined; "one star differeth from another star in
+glory, but that is no reason why they should not be on visiting terms."
+
+"My dear, you may laugh--you may laugh, but I am sixty-five, and I am not
+laughing at the idea of what company I may be obliged to keep presently.
+In any case I'm sure I shall not be comfortable.  If I'm where she is, I
+shall be dull; if I'm where her husband is, I'll have no reputation; and
+if there is one thing I want, it is a spotless reputation--sometime."
+
+Hylda laughed--the manner and the voice were so droll--but her face
+saddened too, and her big eyes with the drooping lashes looked up
+pensively at the portrait of her husband's mother.
+
+"Was it ever a happy family, or a lucky family?" she asked.
+
+"It's lucky now, and it ought to be happy now," was the meaning reply.
+
+Hylda made no answer, but caught the strings of the 'cello lightly, and
+shook her head reprovingly, with a smile meant to be playful.  For a
+moment she played, humming to herself, and then the Duchess touched the
+hand that was drawing the bow softly across the strings.  She had behind
+her garishness a gift for sympathy and a keen intuition, delicacy, and
+allusiveness.  She knew what to say and what to leave unsaid, when her
+heart was moved.
+
+"My darling," she said now, "you are not quite happy; but that is because
+you don't allow yourself to get well.  You've never recovered from your
+attack last summer; and you won't, until you come out into the world
+again and see people.  This autumn you ought to have been at Homburg or
+at Aix, where you'd take a little cure of waters and a great deal of cure
+of people.  You were born to bask in friendship and the sun, and to draw
+from the world as much as you deserve, a little from many, for all you
+give in return.  Because, dearest, you are a very agreeable person, with
+enough wit and humanity to make it worth the world's while to conspire to
+make you do what will give it most pleasure, and let yourself get most--
+and that's why I've come."
+
+"What a person of importance I am!" answered Hylda, with a laugh that
+was far from mirthful, though she caught the plump, wrinkled little hand
+of the Duchess and pressed it.  "But really I'm getting well here fast.
+I'm very strong again.  It is so restful, and one's days go by so
+quietly."
+
+"Yet, I'm not sure that it's rest you want.  I don't think it is.  You
+want tonics--men and women and things.  Monte Carlo would do you a world
+of good--I'd go with you.  Eglington gambles here"--she watched Hylda
+closely--"why shouldn't you gamble there?"
+
+"Eglington gambles?"  Hylda's face took on a frightened look, then it
+cleared again, and she smiled.  "Oh, of course, with international
+affairs, you mean.  Well, I must stay here and be the croupier."
+
+"Nonsense!  Eglington is his own croupier.  Besides, he is so much in
+London, and you so much here.  You sit with the distaff; he throws the
+dice."
+
+Hylda's lips tightened a little.  Her own inner life, what Eglington was
+to her or she to Eglington, was for the ears of no human being, however
+friendly.  She had seen little of him of late, but in one sense that had
+been a relief, though she would have done anything to make that feeling
+impossible.  His rather precise courtesy and consideration, when he was
+with her, emphasised the distance between "the first fine careless
+rapture" and this grey quiet.  And, strange to say, though in the first
+five years after the Cairo days and deeds, Egypt seemed an infinite space
+away, and David a distant, almost legendary figure, now Egypt seemed but
+beyond the door--as though, opening it, she would stand near him who
+represented the best of all that she might be capable of thinking.  Yet
+all the time she longed for Eglington to come and say one word, which
+would be like touching the lever of the sluice-gates of her heart, to let
+loose the flood.  As the space grew between her and Eglington, her spirit
+trembled, she shrank back, because she saw that sea towards which she was
+drifting.
+
+As she did not answer the last words of the Duchess, the latter said
+presently: "When do you expect Eglington?"
+
+"Not till the week-end; it is a busy week with him," Hylda answered; then
+added hastily, though she had not thought of it till this moment: "I
+shall probably go up to town with you to-morrow."
+
+She did not know that Eglington was already in the house, and had given
+orders to the butler that she was not to be informed of his arrival for
+the present.
+
+"Well, if you get that far, will you come with me to the Riviera, or to
+Florence, or Sicily--or Cairo?" the other asked, adjusting her gold-
+brown wig with her babyish hands.
+
+Cairo!  Cairo!  A light shot up into Hylda's eyes.  The Duchess had
+spoken without thought, but, as she spoke, she watched the sudden change
+in Hylda.  What did it mean?  Cairo--why should Cairo have waked her so?
+Suddenly she recalled certain vague references of Lord Windlehurst, and,
+for the first time, she associated Hylda with Claridge Pasha in a way
+which might mean much, account for much, in this life she was leading.
+
+"Perhaps!  Perhaps!" answered Hylda abstractedly, after a moment.
+
+The Duchess got to her feet.  She had made progress.  She would let her
+medicine work.
+
+"I'm going to bed, my dear.  I'm sixty-five, and I take my sleep when I
+can get it.  Think it over, Sicily--Cairo!"
+
+She left the room, saying to herself that Eglington was a fool, and that
+danger was ahead.  "But I hold a red light--poor darling!" she said
+aloud, as she went up the staircase.  She did not know that Eglington,
+standing in a deep doorway, heard her, and seized upon the words eagerly
+and suspiciously, and turned them over in his mind.
+
+Below, at the desk where Eglington's mother used to write, Hylda sat with
+a bundle of letters before her.  For some moments she opened, glanced
+through them, and put them aside.  Presently she sat back in her chair,
+thinking--her mind was invaded by the last words of the Duchess; and
+somehow they kept repeating themselves with the words in the late
+Countess's diary: "Is it only the mother in me, not the love in me?"
+Mechanically her hand moved over the portfolio of the late Countess, and
+it involuntarily felt in one of its many pockets.  Her hand came upon a
+letter.  This had remained when the others had been taken out.  It was
+addressed to the late Earl, and was open.  She hesitated a moment, then,
+with a strange premonition and a tightening of her heart-strings, she
+spread it out and read it.
+
+At first she could scarcely see because of the mist in her eyes; but
+presently her sight cleared, and she read quickly, her cheeks burning
+with excitement, her heart throbbing violently.  The letter was the last
+expression of a disappointed and barren life.  The slow, stammering
+tongue of an almost silent existence had found the fulness of speech.
+The fountains of the deep had been broken up, and Sybil Eglington's
+repressed emotions, undeveloped passions, tortured by mortal sufferings,
+and refined and vitalised by the atmosphere blown in upon her last hours
+from the Hereafter, were set free, given voice and power at last.
+
+The letter reviewed the life she had lived with her husband during
+twenty-odd years, reproved herself for not speaking out and telling him
+his faults at the beginning, and for drawing in upon herself, when she
+might have compelled him to a truer understanding; and, when all that was
+said, called him to such an account as only the dying might make--the
+irrevocable, disillusionising truth which may not be altered, the
+poignant record of failure and its causes.
+
+     ".  .  .  I could not talk well, I never could, as a girl," the
+     letter ran; "and you could talk like one inspired, and so
+     speciously, so overwhelmingly, that I felt I could say nothing in
+     disagreement, not anything but assent; while all the time I felt how
+     hollow was so much you said--a cloak of words to cover up the real
+     thought behind.  Before I knew the truth, I felt the shadow of
+     secrecy in your life.  When you talked most, I felt you most
+     secretive, and the feeling slowly closed the door upon all frankness
+     and sympathy and open speech between us.  I was always shy and self-
+     conscious and self-centred, and thought little of myself; and I
+     needed deep love and confidence and encouragement to give out what
+     was in me.  I gave nothing out, nothing to you that you wanted, or
+     sought for, or needed.  You were complete, self-contained.  Harry,
+     my beloved babe Harry, helped at first; but, as the years went on,
+     he too began to despise me for my little intellect and slow
+     intelligence, and he grew to be like you in all things--and
+     secretive also, though I tried so hard to be to him what a mother
+     should be.  Oh, Bobby, Bobby--I used to call you that in the days
+     before we were married, and I will call you that now when all is
+     over and done--why did you not tell me all?  Why did you not tell me
+     that my boy, my baby Harry, was not your only child, that there had
+     been another wife, and that your eldest son was alive?
+
+     "I know all.  I have known all for years.  The clergyman who married
+     you to Mercy Claridge was a distant relative of my mother's, and
+     before he died he told me.  When you married her, he knew you only
+     as James Fetherdon, but, years afterwards, he saw and recognised
+     you.  He held his peace then, but at last he came to me.  And I did
+     not speak.  I was not strong enough, nor good enough, to face the
+     trouble of it all.  I could not endure the scandal, to see my own
+     son take the second place--he is so brilliant and able and
+     unscrupulous, like yourself; but, oh, so sure of winning a great
+     place in the world, surer than yourself ever was, he is so
+     calculating and determined and ambitious!  And though he loves me
+     little, as he loves you little, too, yet he is my son, and for what
+     he is we are both responsible, one way or another; and I had not the
+     courage to give him the second place, and the Quaker, David
+     Claridge, the first place.  Why Luke Claridge, his grandfather,
+     chose the course he did, does not concern me, no more than why you
+     chose secrecy, and kept your own firstborn legitimate son, of whom
+     you might well be proud, a stranger to you and his rights all these
+     years.  Ah, Eglington, you never knew what love was, you never had
+     a heart--experiment, subterfuge, secrecy, 'reaping where you had
+     not sowed, and gathering where you had not strawed.'  Always,
+     experiment, experiment, experiment!
+
+     "I shall be gone in a few hours--I feel it, but before I go I must
+     try to do right, and to warn you.  I have had such bad dreams about
+     you and Harry--they haunt me--that I am sure you will suffer
+     terribly, will have some awful tragedy, unless you undo what was
+     done long ago, and tell the truth to the world, and give your titles
+     and estates where they truly belong.  Near to death, seeing how
+     little life is, and how much right is in the end, I am sure that I
+     was wrong in holding my peace; for Harry cannot prosper with this
+     black thing behind him, and you cannot die happy if you smother up
+     the truth.  Night after night I have dreamed of you in your
+     laboratory, a vague, dark, terrifying dream of you in that
+     laboratory which I have hated so.  It has always seemed to me the
+     place where some native evil and cruelty in your blood worked out
+     its will.  I know I am an ignorant woman, with no brain, but God has
+     given me clear sight at the last, and the things I see are true
+     things, and I must warn you.  Remember that.  .  .  ."
+
+The letter ended there.  She had been interrupted or seized with illness,
+and had never finished it, and had died a few hours afterwards; and the
+letter was now, for the first time, read by her whom it most concerned,
+into whose heart and soul the words sank with an immitigable pain and
+agonised amazement.  A few moments with this death-document had
+transformed Hylda's life.
+
+Her husband and--and David, were sons of the same father; and the name
+she bore, the home in which she was living, the estates the title
+carried, were not her husband's, but another's--David's.  She fell back
+in her chair, white and faint, but, with a great effort, she conquered
+the swimming weakness which blinded her.  Sons of the same father!  The
+past flashed before her, the strange likeness she had observed, the trick
+of the head, the laugh, the swift gesture, the something in the voice.
+She shuddered as she had done in reading the letter.  But they were
+related only in name, in some distant, irreconcilable way--in a way
+which did not warrant the sudden scarlet flush that flooded her face.
+Presently she recovered herself.  She--what did she suffer, compared
+with her who wrote this revelation of a lifetime of pain, of bitter and
+torturing knowledge!  She looked up at the picture on the wall, at the
+still, proud, emotionless face, the conventional, uninspired personality,
+behind which no one had seen, which had agonised alone till the last.
+With what tender yet pitiless hand had she laid bare the lives of her
+husband and her son!  How had the neglected mother told the bitter truth
+of him to whom she had given birth!  "So brilliant and able, and
+unscrupulous, like yourself; but, oh, sure of winning a great place in
+the world .  .  .  so calculating and determined and ambitious.  .  .  .
+That laboratory which I have hated so.  It has always seemed to me the
+place where some native evil and cruelty in your blood worked out its
+will.  .  .  ."
+
+With a deep-drawn sigh Hylda said to herself: "If I were dying to-morrow,
+would I say that?  She loved them so--at first must have loved them so;
+and yet this at the last!  And I--oh, no, no, no!"  She looked at a
+portrait of Eglington on the table near, touched it caressingly, and
+added, with a sob in her voice: "Oh, Harry, no, it is not true!  It is
+not native evil and cruelty in your blood.  It has all been a mistake.
+You will do right.  We will do right, Harry.  You will suffer, it will
+hurt, the lesson will be hard--to give up what has meant so much to you;
+but we will work it out together, you and I, my very dear.  Oh, say that
+we shall, that....  " She suddenly grew silent.  A tremor ran through
+her, she became conscious of his presence near her, and turned, as though
+he were behind her.  There was nothing.  Yet she felt him near, and,
+as she did so, the soul-deep feeling with which she had spoken to the
+portrait fled.  Why was it that, so often, when absent from him, her
+imagination helped her to make excuses for him, inspired her to press the
+real truth out of sight, and to make believe that he was worthy of a love
+which, but through some inner fault of her own, might be his altogether,
+and all the love of which he was capable might be hers?
+
+She felt him near her, and the feelings possessing her a moment before
+slowly chilled and sank away.  Instinctively her eyes glanced towards the
+door.  She saw the handle turn, and she slipped the letter inside the
+portfolio again.
+
+The door opened briskly now, and Eglington entered with what his enemies
+in the newspaper press had called his "professional smile"--a criticism
+which had angered his wife, chiefly because it was so near the truth.  He
+smiled.  Smiling was part of his equipment, and was for any one at any
+time that suited him.
+
+Her eyes met his, and he noted in her something that he had never seen
+before.  Something had happened.  The Duchess of Snowdon was in the
+house; had it anything to do with her?  Had she made trouble?  There was
+trouble enough without her.  He came forward, took Hylda's hand and
+kissed it, then kissed her on the cheek.  As he did so, she laid a hand
+on his arm with a sudden impulse, and pressed it.  Though his presence
+had chilled the high emotions of a few moments before, yet she had to
+break to him a truth which would hurt him, dismay him, rob his life of so
+much that helped it; and a sudden protective, maternal sense was roused
+in her, reached out to shelter him as he faced his loss and the call of
+duty.
+
+"You have just come?" she said, in a voice that, to herself, seemed far
+away.
+
+"I have been here some hours," he answered.  Secrecy again--always the
+thing that had chilled the dead woman, and laid a cold hand upon herself
+--"I felt the shadow of secrecy in your life.  When you talked most I
+felt you most secretive, and the feeling slowly closed the door upon all
+frankness and sympathy and open speech between us."
+
+"Why did you not see me--dine with me?" she asked.  "What can the
+servants think?"  Even in such a crisis the little things had place--
+habit struck its note in the presence of her tragedy.
+
+"You had the Duchess of Snowdon, and we are not precisely congenial;
+besides, I had much to do in the laboratory.  I'm working for that new
+explosive of which I told you.  There's fame and fortune in it, and I'm
+on the way.  I feel it coming"--his eyes sparkled a little.  "I made it
+right with the servants; so don't be apprehensive."
+
+"I have not seen you for nearly a week.  It doesn't seem--friendly."
+
+"Politics and science are stern masters," he answered gaily.
+
+"They leave little time for your mistress," she rejoined meaningly.
+
+"Who is my mistress?"
+
+"Well, I am not greatly your wife," she replied.  "I have the dregs of
+your life.  I help you--I am allowed to help you--so little, to share so
+little in the things that matter to you."
+
+"Now, that's imagination and misunderstanding," he rejoined.  "It has
+helped immensely your being such a figure in society, and entertaining
+so much, and being so popular, at any rate until very lately."
+
+"I do not misunderstand," she answered gravely.  "I do not share your
+real life.  I do not help you where your brain works, in the plans and
+purposes and hopes that lie behind all that you do--oh, yes, I know your
+ambitions and what positions you are aiming for; but there is something
+more than that.  There is the object of it all, the pulse of it, the
+machinery down, down deep in your being that drives it all.  Oh, I am not
+a child!  I have some intellect, and I want--I want that we should work
+it out together."
+
+In spite of all that had come and gone, in spite of the dead mother's
+words and all her own convictions, seeing trouble coming upon him, she
+wanted to make one last effort for what might save their lives--her life-
+-from shipwreck in the end.  If she failed now, she foresaw a bitter,
+cynical figure working out his life with a narrowing soul, a hard spirit
+unrelieved by the softening influence of a great love--even yet the woman
+in her had a far-off hope that, where the law had made them one by book
+and scrip, the love which should consecrate such a union, lift it above
+an almost offensive relation, might be theirs.  She did not know how much
+of her heart, of her being, was wandering over the distant sands of
+Egypt, looking for its oasis.  Eglington had never needed or wanted more
+than she had given him--her fortune, her person, her charm, her ability
+to play an express and definite part in his career.  It was this material
+use to which she was so largely assigned, almost involuntarily but none
+the less truly, that had destroyed all of the finer, dearer, more
+delicate intimacy invading his mind sometimes, more or less vaguely,
+where Faith was concerned.  So extreme was his egotism that it had never
+occurred to him, as it had done to the Duchess of Snowdon and Lord
+Windlehurst, that he might lose Hylda herself as well as her fortune;
+that the day might come when her high spirit could bear it no longer.  As
+the Duchess of Snowdon had said: "It would all depend upon the other man,
+whoever he might be."
+
+So he answered her with superficial cheerfulness now; he had not the
+depth of soul to see that they were at a crisis, and that she could bear
+no longer the old method of treating her as though she were a child, to
+be humoured or to be dominated.
+
+"Well, you see all there is," he answered; "you are so imaginative,
+crying for some moon there never was in any sky."
+
+In part he had spoken the truth.  He had no high objects or ends or
+purposes.  He wanted only success somehow or another, and there was no
+nobility of mind or aspiration behind it.  In her heart of hearts she
+knew it; but it was the last cry of her soul to him, seeking, though in
+vain, for what she had never had, could never have.
+
+"What have you been doing?" he added, looking at the desk where she had
+sat, glancing round the room.  "Has the Duchess left any rags on the
+multitude of her acquaintances?  I wonder that you can make yourself
+contented here with nothing to do.  You don't look much stronger.  I'm
+sure you ought to have a change.  My mother was never well here; though,
+for the matter of that, she was never very well anywhere.  I suppose it's
+the laboratory that attracts me here, as it did my father, playing with
+the ancient forces of the world in these Arcadian surroundings--Arcady
+without beauty or Arcadians."  He glanced up at his mother's picture.
+"No, she never liked it--a very silent woman, secretive almost."
+
+Suddenly her eyes flared up.  Anger possessed her.  She choked it down.
+Secretive--the poor bruised soul who had gone to her grave with a broken
+heart!
+
+"She secretive?  No, Eglington," she rejoined gravely, "she was
+congealed.  She lived in too cold an air.  She was not secretive, but yet
+she kept a secret--another's."
+
+Again Eglington had the feeling which possessed him when he entered the
+room.  She had changed.  There was something in her tone, a meaning, he
+had never heard before.  He was startled.  He recalled the words of the
+Duchess as she went up the staircase.
+
+What was it all about?
+
+"Whose secrets did she keep?" he asked, calmly enough.
+
+"Your father's, yours, mine," she replied, in a whisper almost.
+
+"Secret?  What secret?  Good Lord, such mystery!"  He laughed
+mirthlessly.
+
+She came close to him.  "I am sorry--sorry, Harry," she said with
+difficulty.  "It will hurt you, shock you so.  It will be a blow to you,
+but you must bear it."
+
+She tried to speak further, but her heart was beating so violently that
+she could not.  She turned quickly to the portfolio on the desk, drew
+forth the fatal letter, and, turning to the page which contained the
+truth concerning David, handed it to him.  "It is there," she said.
+
+He had great self-control.  Before looking at the page to which she had
+directed his attention, he turned the letter over slowly, fingering the
+pages one by one.  "My mother to my father," he remarked.
+
+Instinctively he knew what it contained.  "You have been reading my
+mother's correspondence," he added in cold reproof.
+
+"Do you forget that you asked me to arrange her papers?" she retorted,
+stung by his suggestion.
+
+"Your imagination is vivid," he exclaimed.  Then he bethought himself
+that, after all, he might sorely need all she could give, if things went
+against him, and that she was the last person he could afford to
+alienate; "but I do remember that I asked you that," he added--"no doubt
+foolishly."
+
+"Read what is there," she broke in, "and you will see that it was not
+foolish, that it was meant to be."  He felt a cold dead hand reaching out
+from the past to strike him; but he nerved himself, and his eyes searched
+the paper with assumed coolness-even with her he must still be acting.
+The first words he saw were: "Why did you not tell me that my boy, my
+baby Harry, was not your only child, and that your eldest son was alive?"
+
+So that was it, after all.  Even his mother knew.  Master of his nerves
+as he was, it blinded him for a moment.  Presently he read on--the whole
+page--and lingered upon the words, that he might have time to think what
+he must say to Hylda.  Nothing of the tragedy of his mother touched him,
+though he was faintly conscious of a revelation of a woman he had never
+known, whose hungering caresses had made him, as a child, rather peevish,
+when a fit of affection was not on him.  Suddenly, as he read the lines
+touching himself, "Brilliant and able and unscrupulous....  and though he
+loves me little, as he loves you little too," his eye lighted up with
+anger, his face became pale--yet he had borne the same truths from Faith
+without resentment, in the wood by the mill that other year.  For a
+moment he stood infuriated, then, going to the fireplace, he dropped the
+letter on the coals, as Hylda, in horror, started forward to arrest his
+hand.
+
+"Oh, Eglington--but no--no!  It is not honourable.  It is proof of all!"
+
+He turned upon her slowly, his face rigid, a strange, cold light in his
+eyes.  "If there is no more proof than that, you need not vex your mind,"
+he said, commanding his voice to evenness.
+
+A bitter anger was on him.  His mother had read him through and through--
+he had not deceived her even; and she had given evidence against him to
+Hylda, who, he had ever thought, believed in him completely.  Now there
+was added to the miserable tale, that first marriage, and the rights
+of David--David, the man who, he was convinced, had captured her
+imagination.  Hurt vanity played a disproportionate part in this crisis.
+
+The effect on him had been different from what Hylda had anticipated.
+She had pictured him stricken and dumfounded by the blow.  It had never
+occurred to her, it did not now, that he had known the truth; for,
+of course, to know the truth was to speak, to restore to David his own,
+to step down into the second and unconsidered place.  After all, to her
+mind, there was no disgrace.  The late Earl had married secretly, but he
+had been duly married, and he did not marry again until Mercy Claridge
+was dead.  The only wrong was to David, whose grandfather had been even
+more to blame than his own father.  She had looked to help Eglington in
+this moment, and now there seemed nothing for her to do.  He was superior
+to the situation, though it was apparent in his pale face and rigid
+manner that he had been struck hard.
+
+She came near to him, but there was no encouragement to her to play that
+part which is a woman's deepest right and joy and pain in one--to comfort
+her man in trouble, sorrow, or evil.  Always, always, he stood alone,
+whatever the moment might be, leaving her nothing to do--" playing his
+own game with his own weapons," as he had once put it.  Yet there was
+strength in it too, and this came to her mind now, as though in excuse
+for whatever else there was in the situation which, against her will,
+repelled her.
+
+"I am so sorry for you," she said at last.
+
+"What do you mean?" he asked.
+
+"To lose all that has been yours so long."
+
+This was their great moment.  The response to this must be the touchstone
+of their lives.  A--half dozen words might alter all the future, might be
+the watch word to the end of all things.  Involuntarily her heart
+fashioned the response he ought to give--"I shall have you left, Hylda."
+
+The air seemed to grow oppressive, and the instant's silence a torture,
+and, when he spoke, his words struck a chill to her heart--rough notes of
+pain.  "I have not lost yet," were his words.
+
+She shrank.  "You will not hide it.  You will do right by--by him," she
+said with difficulty.
+
+"Let him establish his claim to the last item of fact," he said with
+savage hate.
+
+"Luke Claridge knew.  The proofs are but just across the way, no doubt,"
+she answered, almost coldly, so had his words congealed her heart.
+
+Their great moment had passed.  It was as though a cord had snapped that
+held her to him, and in the recoil she had been thrown far off from him.
+Swift as his mind worked, it had not seen his opportunity to win her to
+his cause, to asphyxiate her high senses, her quixotic justice, by that
+old flood of eloquence and compelling persuasion of the emotions with
+which he had swept her to the altar--an altar of sacrifice.  He had not
+even done what he had left London to do--make sure of her, by an alluring
+flattery and devotion, no difficult duty with one so beautiful and
+desirable; though neither love of beauty nor great desire was strong
+enough in him to divert him from his course for an hour, save by his own
+initiative.  His mother's letter had changed it all.  A few hours before
+he had had a struggle with Soolsby, and now another struggle on the same
+theme was here.  Fate had dealt illy with him, who had ever been its
+spoiled child and favourite.  He had not learned yet the arts of defence
+against adversity.
+
+"Luke Claridge is dead," he answered sharply.  "But you will tell--him,
+you will write to Egypt and tell your brother?" she said, the conviction
+slowly coming to her that he would not.
+
+"It is not my duty to displace myself, to furnish evidence against
+myself--"
+
+"You have destroyed the evidence," she intervened, a little scornfully.
+
+"If there were no more than that--" He shrugged his shoulders
+impatiently.
+
+"Do you know there is more?" she asked searchingly.  "In whose interests
+are you speaking?" he rejoined, with a sneer.  A sudden fury possessed
+him.  Claridge Pasha--she was thinking of him!
+
+"In yours--your conscience, your honour."
+
+"There is over thirty years' possession on my side," he rejoined.
+
+"It is not as if it were going from your family," she argued.
+
+"Family--what is he to me!"
+
+"What is any one to you?" she returned bitterly.
+
+"I am not going to unravel a mystery in order to facilitate the cutting
+of my own throat."
+
+"It might be worth while to do something once for another's sake than
+your own--it would break the monotony," she retorted, all her sense
+tortured by his words, and even more so by his manner.
+
+Long ago Faith had said in Soolsby's but that he "blandished" all with
+whom he came in contact; but Hylda realised with a lacerated heart that
+he had ceased to blandish her.  Possession had altered that.  Yet how had
+he vowed to her in those sweet tempestuous days of his courtship when the
+wind of his passion blew so hard!  Had one of the vows been kept?
+
+Even as she looked at him now, words she had read some days before
+flashed through her mind--they had burnt themselves into her brain:
+
+                   "Broken faith is the crown of evils,
+                    Broken vows are the knotted thongs
+                    Set in the hands of laughing devils,
+                    To scourge us for deep wrongs.
+
+                   "Broken hearts, when all is ended,
+                    Bear the better all after-stings;
+                    Bruised once, the citadel mended,
+                    Standeth through all things."
+
+Suddenly he turned upon her with aggrieved petulance.  "Why are you so
+eager for proof?"
+
+"Oh, I have," she said, with a sudden flood of tears in her voice, though
+her eyes were dry--"I have the feeling your mother had, that nothing will
+be well until you undo the wrong your father did.  I know it was not your
+fault.  I feel for you--oh, believe me, I feel as I have never felt,
+could never feel, for myself.  It was brought on you by your father,
+but you must be the more innocent because he was so guilty.  You have had
+much out of it, it has helped you on your way.  It does not mean so much
+now.  By-and-by another--an English-peerage may be yours by your own
+achievement.  Let it go.  There is so much left, Harry.  It is a small
+thing in a world of work.  It means nothing to me."  Once again, even
+when she had given up all hope, seeing what was the bent of his mind--
+once again she made essay to win him out of his selfishness.  If he would
+only say, "I have you left," how she would strive to shut all else out of
+her life!
+
+He was exasperated.  His usual prescience and prudence forsook him.  It
+angered him that she should press him to an act of sacrifice for the man
+who had so great an influence upon her.  Perversity possessed him.
+Lifelong egotism was too strong for wisdom, or discretion.
+
+Suddenly he caught her hands in both of his and said hoarsely: "Do you
+love me--answer me, do you love me with all your heart and soul?  The
+truth now, as though it were your last word on earth."
+
+Always self.  She had asked, if not in so many words, for a little love,
+something for herself to feed on in the darkening days for him, for her,
+for both; and he was thinking only of himself.
+
+She shrank, but her hands lay passive in his.  "No, not with all my heart
+and soul--but, oh--!"
+
+He flung her hands from him.  "No, not with all your heart and soul--
+I know!  You are willing to sacrifice me for him, and you think I do not
+understand."
+
+She drew herself up, with burning cheeks and flashing eyes.  "You
+understand nothing--nothing.  If you had ever understood me, or any human
+being, or any human heart, you would not have ruined all that might have
+given you an undying love, something that would have followed you through
+fire and flood to the grave.  You cannot love.  You do not understand
+love.  Self--self, always self.  Oh, you are mad, mad, to have thrown it
+all away, all that might have given happiness!  All that I have, all that
+I am, has been at your service; everything has been bent and tuned to
+your pleasure, for your good.  All has been done for you, with thought
+of you and your position and your advancement, and now--now, when you
+have killed all that might have been yours, you cry out in anger that it
+is dying, and you insinuate what you should kill another for insinuating.
+Oh, the wicked, cruel folly of it all!  You suggest--you dare!  I never
+heard a word from David Claridge that might not be written on the
+hoardings.  His honour is deeper than that which might attach to the
+title of Earl of Eglington."
+
+She seemed to tower above him.  For an instant she looked him in the eyes
+with frigid dignity, but a great scorn in her face.  Then she went to the
+door--he hastened to open it for her.
+
+"You will be very sorry for this," he said stubbornly.  He was too
+dumfounded to be discreet, too suddenly embarrassed by the turn affairs
+had taken.  He realised too late that he had made a mistake, that he had
+lost his hold upon her.
+
+As she passed through, there suddenly flashed before her mind the scene
+in the laboratory with the chairmaker.  She felt the meaning of it now.
+
+"You do not intend to tell him--perhaps Soolsby has done so," she said
+keenly, and moved on to the staircase.
+
+He was thunderstruck at her intuition.  "Why do you want to rob
+yourself?" he asked after her vaguely.  She turned back.  "Think of your
+mother's letter that you destroyed," she rejoined solemnly and quietly.
+"Was it right?"
+
+He shut the door, and threw himself into a chair.  "I will put it
+straight with her to-morrow," he said helplessly.
+
+He sat for a half-hour silent, planning his course.
+
+At last there came a tap at the door, and the butler appeared.
+
+"Some one from the Foreign Office, my lord," he said.  A moment
+afterwards a young official, his subordinate, entered.  "There's the
+deuce to pay in Egypt, sir; I've brought the despatch," he said.
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+A cloak of words to cover up the real thought behind
+Antipathy of the lesser to the greater nature
+Antipathy of the man in the wrong to the man in the right
+Friendship means a giving and a getting
+He's a barber-shop philosopher
+Monotonously intelligent
+No virtue in not falling, when you're not tempted
+Of course I've hated, or I wouldn't be worth a button
+Only the supremely wise or the deeply ignorant who never alter
+Passion to forget themselves
+Political virtue goes unrewarded
+She knew what to say and what to leave unsaid
+Smiling was part of his equipment
+Sometimes the longest way round is the shortest way home
+Soul tortured through different degrees of misunderstanding
+The vague pain of suffered indifference
+There's no credit in not doing what you don't want to do
+Tricks played by Fact to discredit the imagination
+We must live our dark hours alone
+Woman's deepest right and joy and pain in one--to comfort
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WEAVERS
+
+By Gilbert Parker
+
+
+BOOK IV.
+
+
+XXVIII.   NAHOUM TURNS THE SCREW
+XXIX.     THE RECOIL
+XXX.      LACEY MOVES
+XXXI.     THE STRUGGLE IN THE DESERT
+XXXII.    FORTY STRIPES SAVE ONE
+XXXIII.   THE DARK INDENTURE
+XXXIV.    NAHOUM DROPS THE MASK
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+NAHOUM TURNS THE SCREW
+
+Laughing to himself, Higli Pasha sat with the stem of a narghileh in his
+mouth.  His big shoulders kept time to the quivering of his fat stomach.
+He was sitting in a small court-yard of Nahoum Pasha's palace, waiting
+for its owner to appear.  Meanwhile he exercised a hilarious patience.
+The years had changed him little since he had been sent on that
+expedition against the southern tribes which followed hard on David's
+appointment to office.  As David had expected, few of the traitorous
+officers returned.  Diaz had ignominiously died of the bite of a
+tarantula before a blow had been struck, but Higli had gratefully
+received a slight wound in the first encounter, which enabled him to beat
+a safe retreat to Cairo.  He alone of the chief of the old conspirators
+was left.  Achmet was still at the Place of Lepers, and the old nest of
+traitors was scattered for ever.
+
+Only Nahoum and Higli were left, and between these two there had never
+been partnership or understanding.  Nahoum was not the man to trust to
+confederates, and Higli Pasha was too contemptible a coadjutor.  Nahoum
+had faith in no one save Mizraim the Chief Eunuch, but Mizraim alone was
+better than a thousand; and he was secret--and terrible.  Yet Higli had a
+conviction that Nahoum's alliance with David was a sham, and that David
+would pay the price of misplaced confidence one day.  More than once when
+David's plans had had a set-back, Higli had contrived a meeting with
+Nahoum, to judge for himself the true position.
+
+For his visit to-day he had invented a reason--a matter of finance; but
+his real reason was concealed behind the malevolent merriment by which he
+was now seized.  So absorbed was he that he did not heed the approach of
+another visitor down an angle of the court-yard.  He was roused by a
+voice.
+
+"Well, what's tickling you so, pasha?"
+
+The voice was drawling, and quite gentle; but at the sound of it, Higli's
+laugh stopped short, and the muscles of his face contracted.  If there
+was one man of whom he had a wholesome fear--why, he could not tell--it
+was this round-faced, abrupt, imperturbable American, Claridge Pasha's
+right-hand man.  Legends of resourcefulness and bravery had gathered
+round his name.  "Who's been stroking your chin with a feather, pasha?"
+he continued, his eye piercing the other like a gimlet.
+
+"It was an amusing tale I heard at Assiout, effendi," was Higli's abashed
+and surly reply.
+
+"Oh, at Assiout!" rejoined Lacey.  "Yes, they tell funny stories at
+Assiout.  And when were you at Assiout, pasha?"
+
+"Two days ago, effendi."
+
+"And so you thought you'd tell the funny little story to Nahoum as quick
+as could be, eh?  He likes funny stories, same as you--damn, nice, funny
+little stories, eh?"
+
+There was something chilly in Lacey's voice now, which Higli did not
+like; something much too menacing and contemptuous for a mere man-of-all-
+work to the Inglesi.  Higli bridled up, his eyes glared sulkily.
+
+"It is but my own business if I laugh or if I curse, effendi," he
+replied, his hand shaking a little on the stem of the narghileh.
+
+"Precisely, my diaphanous polyandrist; but it isn't quite your own affair
+what you laugh at--not if I know it!"
+
+"Does the effendi think I was laughing at him?"
+
+"The effendi thinks not.  The effendi knows that the descendant of a
+hundred tigers was laughing at the funny little story, of how the two
+cotton-mills that Claridge Pasha built were burned down all in one night,
+and one of his steamers sent down the cataract at Assouan.  A knock-down
+blow for Claridge Pasha, eh?  That's all you thought of, wasn't it?  And
+it doesn't matter to you that the cotton-mills made thousands better off,
+and started new industries in Egypt.  No, it only matters to you that
+Claridge Pasha loses half his fortune, and that you think his feet are
+in the quicksands, and 'll be sucked in, to make an Egyptian holiday.
+Anything to discredit him here, eh?  I'm not sure what else you know; but
+I'll find out, my noble pasha, and if you've had your hand in it--but no,
+you ain't game-cock enough for that!  But if you were, if you had a hand
+in the making of your funny little story, there's a nutcracker that 'd
+break the shell of that joke--"
+
+He turned round quickly, seeing a shadow and hearing a movement.  Nahoum
+was but a few feet away.  There was a bland smile on his face, a look of
+innocence in his magnificent blue eye.  As he met Lacey's look, the smile
+left his lips, a grave sympathy appeared to possess them, and he spoke
+softly:
+
+"I know the thing that burns thy heart, effendi, to whom be the flowers
+of hope and the fruits of merit.  It is even so, a great blow has fallen.
+Two hours since I heard.  I went at once to see Claridge Pasha, but found
+him not.  Does he know, think you?" he added sadly.
+
+"May your heart never be harder than it is, pasha, and when I left the
+Saadat an hour ago, he did not know.  His messenger hadn't a steamer like
+Higli Pasha there.  But he was coming to see you; and that's why I'm
+here.  I've been brushing the flies off this sore on the hump of Egypt
+while waiting."  He glanced with disdain at Higli.
+
+A smile rose like liquid in the eye of Nahoum and subsided, then he
+turned to Higli inquiringly.
+
+"I have come on business, Excellency; the railway to Rosetta, and--"
+
+"To-morrow--or the next day," responded Nahoum irritably, and turned
+again to Lacey.
+
+As Higli's huge frame disappeared through a gateway, Nahoum motioned
+Lacey to a divan, and summoned a slave for cooling drinks.  Lacey's eyes
+now watched him with an innocence nearly as childlike as his own.  Lacey
+well knew that here was a foe worthy of the best steel.  That he was a
+foe, and a malignant foe, he had no doubt whatever; he had settled the
+point in his mind long ago; and two letters he had received from Lady
+Eglington, in which she had said in so many words, "Watch Nahoum!" had
+made him vigilant and intuitive.  He knew, meanwhile, that he was
+following the trail of a master-hunter who covered up his tracks.  Lacey
+was as certain as though he had the book of Nahoum's mind open in his
+hand, that David's work had been torn down again--and this time with dire
+effect--by this Armenian, whom David trusted like a brother.  But the
+black doors that closed on the truth on every side only made him more
+determined to unlock them; and, when he faltered as to his own powers,
+he trusted Mahommed Hassan, whose devotion to David had given him eyes
+that pierced dark places.
+
+"Surely the God of Israel has smitten Claridge Pasha sorely.  My heart
+will mourn to look upon his face.  The day is insulting in its
+brightness," continued Nahoum with a sigh, his eyes bent upon Lacey,
+dejection in his shoulders.
+
+Lacey started.  "The God of Israel!"  How blasphemous it sounded from the
+lips of Nahoum, Oriental of Orientals, Christian though he was also!
+
+"I think, perhaps, you'll get over it, pasha.  Man is born to trouble,
+and you've got a lot of courage.  I guess you could see other people bear
+a pile of suffering, and never flinch."
+
+Nahoum appeared not to notice the gibe.  "It is a land of suffering,
+effendi," he sighed, "and one sees what one sees."
+
+"Have you any idea, any real sensible idea, how those cotton-mills got
+afire?"  Lacey's eyes were fixed on Nahoum's face.
+
+The other met his gaze calmly.  "Who can tell!  An accident, perhaps,
+or--"
+
+"Or some one set the mills on fire in several places at once--they say
+the buildings flamed out in every corner; and it was the only time in a
+month they hadn't been running night and day.  Funny, isn't it?"
+
+"It looks like the work of an enemy, effendi."  Nahoum shook his head
+gravely.  "A fortune destroyed in an hour, as it were.  But we shall get
+the dog.  We shall find him.  There is no hole deep enough to hide him
+from us."
+
+"Well, I wouldn't go looking in holes for him, pasha.
+
+"He isn't any cave-dweller, that incendiary; he's an artist--no palace is
+too unlikely for him.  No, I wouldn't go poking in mud-huts to find him."
+
+"Thou dost not think that Higli Pasha--" Nahoum seemed startled out of
+equanimity by the thought.  Lacey eyed him meditatively, and said
+reflectively: "Say, you're an artist, pasha.  You are a guesser of the
+first rank.  But I'd guess again.  Higli Pasha would have done it, if it
+had ever occurred to him; and he'd had the pluck.  But it didn't, and he
+hadn't.  What I can't understand is that the artist that did it should
+have done it before Claridge Pasha left for the Soudan.  Here we were
+just about to start; and if we'd got away south, the job would have done
+more harm, and the Saadat would have been out of the way.  No, I can't
+understand why the firebug didn't let us get clean away; for if the
+Saadat stays here, he'll be where he can stop the underground mining."
+
+Nahoum's self-control did not desert him, though he fully realised that
+this man suspected him.  On the surface Lacey was right.  It would have
+seemed better to let David go, and destroy his work afterwards, but he
+had been moved by other considerations, and his design was deep.  His
+own emissaries were in the Soudan, announcing David's determination to
+abolish slavery, secretly stirring up feeling against him, preparing for
+the final blow to be delivered, when he went again among the southern
+tribes.  He had waited and waited, and now the time was come.  Had he,
+Nahoum, not agreed with David that the time had come for the slave-trade
+to go?  Had he not encouraged him to take this bold step, in the sure
+belief that it would overwhelm him, and bring him an ignominious death,
+embittered by total failure of all he had tried to do?
+
+For years he had secretly loosened the foundations of David's work, and
+the triumph of Oriental duplicity over Western civilisation and integrity
+was sweet in his mouth.  And now there was reason to believe that, at
+last, Kaid was turning against the Inglesi.  Everything would come at
+once.  If all that he had planned was successful, even this man before
+him should aid in his master's destruction.
+
+"If it was all done by an enemy," he said, in answer to Lacey, at last,
+"would it all be reasoned out like that?  Is hatred so logical?  Dost
+thou think Claridge Pasha will not go now?  The troops are ready at Wady-
+Halfa, everything is in order; the last load of equipment has gone.  Will
+not Claridge Pasha find the money somehow?  I will do what I can.  My
+heart is moved to aid him."
+
+"Yes, you'd do what you could, pasha," Lacey rejoined enigmatically, "but
+whether it would set the Saadat on his expedition or not is a question.
+But I guess, after all, he's got to go.  He willed it so.  People may try
+to stop him, and they may tear down what he does, but he does at last
+what he starts to do, and no one can prevent him--not any one.  Yes, he's
+going on this expedition; and he'll have the money, too."  There was a
+strange, abstracted look in his face, as though he saw something which
+held him fascinated.
+
+Presently, as if with an effort, he rose to his feet, took the red fez
+from his head, and fanned himself with it for a moment.  "Don't you
+forget it, pasha; the Saadat will win.  He can't be beaten, not in a
+thousand years.  Here he comes."
+
+Nahoum got to his feet, as David came quickly through the small gateway
+of the court-yard, his head erect, his lips smiling, his eyes sweeping
+the place.  He came forward briskly to them.  It was plain he had not
+heard the evil news.
+
+"Peace be to thee, Saadat, and may thy life be fenced about with safety!"
+said Nahoum.
+
+David laid a hand on Lacey's arm and squeezed it, smiling at him with
+such friendship that Lacey's eyes moistened, and he turned his head away.
+
+There was a quiet elation in David's look.  "We are ready at last," he
+said, looking from one to the other.  "Well, well," he added, almost
+boyishly, "has thee nothing to say, Nahoum?"
+
+Nahoum turned his head away as though overcome.  David's face grew
+instantly grave.  He turned to Lacey.  Never before had he seen Lacey's
+face with a look like this.  He grasped Lacey's arm.  "What is it?" he
+asked quietly.  "What does thee want to say to me?"
+
+But Lacey could not speak, and David turned again to Nahoum.  "What is
+there to say to me?" he asked.  "Something has happened--what is it?
+.  .  .  Come, many things have happened before.  This can be no worse.
+Do thee speak," he urged gently.
+
+"Saadat," said Nahoum, as though under the stress of feeling, "the
+cotton-mills at Tashah and Mini are gone--burned to the ground."
+
+For a moment David looked at him without sight in his eyes, and his face
+grew very pale.  "Excellency, all in one night, the besom of destruction
+was abroad," he heard Nahoum say, as though from great depths below him.
+He slowly turned his head to look at Lacey.  "Is this true?" he asked at
+last in an unsteady voice.  Lacey could not speak, but inclined his head.
+
+David's figure seemed to shrink for a moment, his face had a withered
+look, and his head fell forward in a mood of terrible dejection.
+
+"Saadat!  Oh, my God, Saadat, don't take it so!" said Lacey brokenly,
+and stepped between David and Nahoum.  He could not bear that the
+stricken face and figure should be seen by Nahoum, whom he believed to be
+secretly gloating.  "Saadat," he said brokenly, "God has always been with
+you; He hasn't forgotten you now.
+
+"The work of years," David murmured, and seemed not to hear.
+
+"When God permits, shall man despair?" interposed Nahoum, in a voice
+that lingered on the words.  Nahoum accomplished what Lacey had failed to
+do.  His voice had pierced to some remote corner in David's nature, and
+roused him.  Was it that doubt, suspicion, had been wakened at last?  Was
+some sensitive nerve touched, that this Oriental should offer Christian
+comfort to him in his need--to him who had seen the greater light?  Or
+was it that some unreality in the words struck a note which excited a new
+and subconscious understanding?  Perhaps it was a little of all three.
+He did not stop to inquire.  In crises such as that through which he was
+passing, the mind and body act without reason, rather by the primal
+instinct, the certain call of the things that were before reason was.
+
+"God is with the patient," continued Nahoum; and Lacey set his teeth to
+bear this insult to all things.  But Nahoum accomplished what he had not
+anticipated.  David straightened himself up, and clasped his hands behind
+him.  By a supreme effort of the will he controlled himself, and the
+colour came back faintly to his face.  "God's will be done," he said,
+and looked Nahoum calmly in the eyes.  "It was no accident," he added
+with conviction.  "It was an enemy of Egypt."  Suddenly the thing rushed
+over him again, going through his veins like a poisonous ether, and
+clamping his heart as with iron.  "All to do over again!" he said
+brokenly, and again he caught Lacey's arm.
+
+With an uncontrollable impulse Lacey took David's hand in his own warm,
+human grasp.
+
+"Once I thought I lost everything in Mexico, Saadat, and I understand
+what you feel.  But all wasn't lost in Mexico, as I found at last, and I
+got something, too, that I didn't put in.  Say, let us go from here.  God
+is backing you, Saadat.  Isn't it all right--same as ever?"
+
+David was himself again.  "Thee is a good man," he said, and through the
+sadness of his eyes there stole a smile.  "Let us go," he said.  Then he
+added in a businesslike way: "To-morrow at seven, Nahoum.  There is much
+to do."
+
+He turned towards the gate with Lacey, where the horses waited.  Mahommed
+Hassan met them as they prepared to mount.  He handed David a letter.
+It was from Faith, and contained the news of Luke Claridge's death.
+Everything had come at once.  He stumbled into the saddle with a moan.
+
+"At last I have drawn blood," said Nahoum to himself with grim
+satisfaction, as they disappeared.  "It is the beginning of the end.
+It will crush him-I saw it in his eyes.  God of Israel, I shall rule
+again in Egypt!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+THE RECOIL
+
+It was a great day in the Muslim year.  The Mahmal, or Sacred Carpet,
+was leaving Cairo on its long pilgrimage of thirty-seven days to Mecca
+and Mahomet's tomb.  Great guns boomed from the Citadel, as the gorgeous
+procession, forming itself beneath the Mokattam Hills, began its slow
+march to where, seated in the shade of an ornate pavilion, Prince Kaid
+awaited its approach to pay devout homage.  Thousands looked down at the
+scene from the ramparts of the Citadel, from the overhanging cliffs, and
+from the tops of the houses that hung on the ledges of rock rising
+abruptly from the level ground, to which the last of the famed Mamelukes
+leaped to their destruction.
+
+Now to Prince Kaid's ears there came from hundreds of hoarse throats the
+cry: "Allah!  Allah!  May thy journey be with safety to Arafat!"
+mingling with the harsh music of the fifes and drums.
+
+Kaid looked upon the scene with drawn face and lowering brows.  His
+retinue watched him with alarm.  A whisper had passed that, two nights
+before, the Effendina had sent in haste for a famous Italian physician
+lately come to Cairo, and that since his visit Kaid had been sullen and
+depressed.  It was also the gossip of the bazaars that he had suddenly
+shown favour to those of the Royal House and to other reactionaries,
+who had been enemies to the influence of Claridge Pasha.
+
+This rumour had been followed by an official proclamation that no
+Europeans or Christians would be admitted to the ceremony of the Sacred
+Carpet.
+
+Thus it was that Kaid looked out on a vast multitude of Muslims, in which
+not one European face showed, and from lip to lip there passed the word,
+"Harrik--Harrik--remember Harrik!  Kaid turns from the infidel!"
+
+They crowded near the great pavilion--as near as the mounted Nubians
+would permit--to see Kaid's face; while he, with eyes wandering over the
+vast assemblage, was lost in dark reflections.  For a year he had
+struggled against a growing conviction that some obscure disease was
+sapping his strength.  He had hid it from every one, until, at last,
+distress and pain had overcome him.  The verdict of the Italian expert
+was that possible, but by no means certain, cure might come from an
+operation which must be delayed for a month or more.
+
+Suddenly, the world had grown unfamiliar to him; he saw it from afar; but
+his subconscious self involuntarily registered impressions, and he moved
+mechanically through the ceremonies and duties of the immediate present.
+Thrown back upon himself, to fight his own fight, with the instinct of
+primary life his mind involuntarily drew for refuge to the habits and
+predispositions of youth; and for two days he had shut himself away from
+the activities with which David and Nahoum were associated.  Being deeply
+engaged with the details of the expedition to the Soudan, David had not
+gone to the Palace; and he was unaware of the turn which things had
+taken.
+
+Three times, with slow and stately steps, the procession wound in a
+circle in the great square, before it approached the pavilion where the
+Effendina sat, the splendid camels carrying the embroidered tent wherein
+the Carpet rested, and that which bore the Emir of the pilgrims, moving
+gracefully like ships at sea.  Naked swordsmen, with upright and shining
+blades, were followed by men on camels bearing kettle-drums.  After them
+came Arab riders with fresh green branches fastened to the saddles like
+plumes, while others carried flags and banners emblazoned with texts and
+symbols.  Troops of horsemen in white woollen cloaks, sheikhs and
+Bedouins with flowing robes and huge turbans, religious chiefs of the
+great sects, imperturbable and statuesque, were in strange contrast to
+the shouting dervishes and camel-drivers and eager pilgrims.
+
+At last the great camel with its sacred burden stopped in front of Kaid
+for his prayer and blessing.  As he held the tassels, lifted the gold-
+fringed curtain, and invoked Allah's blessing, a half-naked sheikh ran
+forward, and, raising his hand high above his head, cried shrilly:
+"Kaid, Kaid, hearken!"
+
+Rough hands caught him away, but Kaid commanded them to desist; and the
+man called a blessing on him; and cried aloud:
+
+"Listen, O Kaid, son of the stars and the light of day.  God hath exalted
+thee.  Thou art the Egyptian of all the Egyptians.  In thy hand is power.
+But thou art mortal even as I.  Behold, O Kaid, in the hour that I was
+born thou wast born, I in the dust without thy Palace wall, thou amid the
+splendid things.  But thy star is my star.  Behold, as God ordains, the
+Tree of Life was shaken on the night when all men pray and cry aloud to
+God--even the Night of the Falling Leaves.  And I watched the falling
+leaves; and I saw my leaf, and it was withered, but only a little
+withered, and so I live yet a little.  But I looked for thy leaf, thou
+who wert born in that moment when I waked to the world.  I looked long,
+but I found no leaf, neither green nor withered.  But I looked again upon
+my leaf, and then I saw that thy name now was also upon my leaf, and that
+it was neither green nor withered; but was a leaf that drooped as when an
+evil wind has passed and drunk its life.  Listen, O Kaid!  Upon the tomb
+of Mahomet I will set my lips, and it may be that the leaf of my life
+will come fresh and green again.  But thou--wilt thou not come also to
+the lord Mahomet's tomb?  Or"--he paused and raised his voice--"or wilt
+thou stay and lay thy lips upon the cross of the infidel?  Wilt thou--"
+
+He could say no more, for Kaid's face now darkened with anger.  He made a
+gesture, and, in an instant, the man was gagged and bound, while a sullen
+silence fell upon the crowd.  Kaid suddenly became aware of this change
+of feeling, and looked round him.  Presently his old prudence and
+subtlety came back, his face cleared a little, and he called aloud,
+"Unloose the man, and let him come to me."  An instant after, the man
+was on his knees, silent before him.
+
+"What is thy name?" Kaid asked.
+
+"Kaid Ibrahim, Effendina," was the reply.
+
+"Thou hast misinterpreted thy dream, Kaid Ibrahim," answered the
+Effendina.  "The drooping leaf was token of the danger in which thy life
+should be, and my name upon thy leaf was token that I should save thee
+from death.  Behold, I save thee.  Inshallah, go in peace!  There is no
+God but God, and the Cross is the sign of a false prophet.  Thou art mad.
+God give thee a new mind.  Go."
+
+The man was presently lost in the sweltering, half-frenzied crowd; but he
+had done his work, and his words rang in the ears of Kaid as he rode
+away.
+
+A few hours afterwards, bitter and rebellious, murmuring to himself, Kaid
+sat in a darkened room of his Nile Palace beyond the city.  So few years
+on the throne, so young, so much on which to lay the hand of pleasure, so
+many millions to command; and yet the slave at his door had a surer hold
+on life and all its joys and lures than he, Prince Kaid, ruler of Egypt!
+There was on him that barbaric despair which has taken dreadful toll of
+life for the decree of destiny.  Across the record of this day, as across
+the history of many an Eastern and pagan tyrant, was written: "He would
+not die alone."  That the world should go on when he was gone, that men
+should buy and sell and laugh and drink, and flaunt it in the sun, while
+he, Prince Kaid, would be done with it all.
+
+He was roused by the rustling of a robe.  Before him stood the Arab
+physician, Sharif Bey, who had been in his father's house and his own
+for a lifetime.  It was many a year since his ministrations to Kaid had
+ceased; but he had remained on in the Palace, doing service to those who
+received him, and--it was said by the evil-tongued--granting certificates
+of death out of harmony with dark facts, a sinister and useful figure.
+His beard was white, his face was friendly, almost benevolent, but his
+eyes had a light caught from no celestial flame.
+
+His look was confident now, as his eyes bent on Kaid.  He had lived long,
+he had seen much, he had heard of the peril that had been foreshadowed by
+the infidel physician; and, by a sure instinct, he knew that his own
+opportunity had come.  He knew that Kaid would snatch at any offered
+comfort, would cherish any alleviating lie, would steal back from
+science and civilisation and the modern palace to the superstition of the
+fellah's hut.  Were not all men alike when the neboot of Fate struck them
+down into the terrible loneliness of doom, numbing their minds?  Luck
+would be with him that offered first succour in that dark hour.  Sharif
+had come at the right moment for Sharif.
+
+Kaid looked at him with dull yet anxious eyes.  "Did I not command that
+none should enter?" he asked presently in a thick voice.
+
+"Am I not thy physician, Effendina, to whom be the undying years?  When
+the Effendina is sick, shall I not heal?  Have I not waited like a dog at
+thy door these many years, till that time would come when none could heal
+thee save Sharif?"
+
+"What canst thou give me?"
+
+"What the infidel physician gave thee not--I can give thee hope.  Hast
+thou done well, oh, Effendina, to turn from thine own people?  Did not
+thine own father, and did not Mehemet Ali, live to a good age?  Who were
+their physicians?  My father and I, and my father's father, and his
+father's father."
+
+"Thou canst cure me altogether?" asked Kaid hesitatingly.
+
+"Wilt thou not have faith in one of thine own race?  Will the infidel
+love thee as do we, who are thy children and thy brothers, who are to
+thee as a nail driven in the wall, not to be moved?  Thou shalt live--
+Inshallah, thou shalt have healing and length of days!"
+
+He paused at a gesture from Kaid, for a slave had entered and stood
+waiting.
+
+"What dost thou here?  Wert thou not commanded?" asked Kaid.
+
+"Effendina, Claridge Pasha is waiting," was the reply.
+
+Kaid frowned, hesitated; then, with a sudden resolve, made a gesture of
+dismissal to Sharif Bey, and nodded David's admittance to the slave.
+
+As David entered, he passed Sharif Bey, and something in the look on
+the Arab physician's face--a secret malignancy and triumph--struck him
+strangely.  And now a fresh anxiety and apprehension rose in his mind as
+he glanced at Kaid.  The eye was heavy and gloomy, the face was clouded,
+the lips once so ready to smile at him were sullen and smileless now.
+David stood still, waiting.
+
+"I did not expect thee till to-morrow, Saadat," said Kaid moodily at
+last.
+
+"The business is urgent?"  "Effendina," said David, with every nerve at
+tension, yet with outward self-control, "I have to report--" He paused,
+agitated; then, in a firm voice, he told of the disaster which had
+befallen the cotton-mills and the steamer.
+
+As David spoke, Kaid's face grew darker, his fingers fumbled vaguely with
+the linen of the loose white robe he wore.  When the tale was finished he
+sat for a moment apparently stunned by the news, then he burst out
+fiercely:
+
+"Bismillah, am I to hear only black words to-day?  Hast thou naught to
+say but this--the fortune of Egypt burned to ashes!"
+
+David held back the quick retort that came to his tongue.
+
+"Half my fortune is in the ashes," he answered with dignity.  "The rest
+came from savings never made before by this Government.  Is the work less
+worthy in thy sight, Effendina, because it has been destroyed?  Would thy
+life be less great and useful because a blow took thee from behind?"
+
+Kaid's face turned black.  David had bruised an open wound.
+
+"What is my life to thee--what is thy work to me?"
+
+"Thy life is dear to Egypt, Effendina," urged David soothingly, "and my
+labour for Egypt has been pleasant in thine eyes till now."
+
+"Egypt cannot be saved against her will," was the moody response.  "What
+has come of the Western hand upon the Eastern plough?"  His face grew
+blacker; his heart was feeding on itself.
+
+"Thou, the friend of Egypt, hast come of it, Effendina."
+
+"Harrik was right, Harrik was right," Kaid answered, with stubborn gloom
+and anger.  "Better to die in our own way, if we must die, than live in
+the way of another.  Thou wouldst make of Egypt another England; thou
+wouldst civilise the Soudan--bismillah, it is folly!"
+
+"That is not the way Mehemet Ali thought, nor Ibrahim.  Nor dost thou
+think so, Effendina," David answered gravely.  "A dark spirit is on thee.
+Wouldst thou have me understand that what we have done together, thou and
+I, was ill done, that the old bad days were better?"
+
+"Go back to thine own land," was the surly answer.  "Nation after nation
+ravaged Egypt, sowed their legions here, but the Egyptian has lived them
+down.  The faces of the fellaheen are the faces of Thotmes and Seti.  Go
+back.  Egypt will travel her own path.  We are of the East; we are
+Muslim.  What is right to you is wrong to us.  Ye would make us over--
+give us cotton beds and wooden floors and fine flour of the mill, and
+cleanse the cholera-hut with disinfectants, but are these things all?
+How many of your civilised millions would die for their prophet Christ?
+Yet all Egypt would rise up from the mud-floor, the dourha-field and the
+mud-hut, and would come out to die for Mahomet and Allah--ay, as Harrik
+knew, as Harrik knew!  Ye steal into corners, and hide behind the
+curtains of your beds to pray; we pray where the hour of prayer finds us
+--in the street, in the market-place, where the house is building, the
+horse being shod, or the money-changers are.  Ye hear the call of
+civilisation, but we heap the Muezzin--"
+
+He stopped, and searched mechanically for his watch.  "It is the hour the
+Muezzin calls," said David gently.  "It is almost sunset.  Shall I open
+the windows that the call may come to us?" he added.
+
+While Kaid stared at him, his breast heaving with passion, David went to
+a window and opened the shutters wide.
+
+The Palace faced the Nile, which showed like a tortuous band of blue and
+silver a mile or so away.  Nothing lay between but the brown sand, and
+here and there a handful of dark figures gliding towards the river, or a
+little train of camels making for the bare grey hills from the ghiassas
+which had given them their desert loads.  The course of the Nile was
+marked by a wide fringe of palms showing blue and purple, friendly and
+ancient and solitary.  Beyond the river and the palms lay the grey-brown
+desert, faintly touched with red.  So clear was the sweet evening air
+that the irregular surface of the desert showed for a score of miles as
+plainly as though it were but a step away.  Hummocks of sand--tombs and
+fallen monuments gave a feeling as of forgotten and buried peoples; and
+the two vast pyramids of Sakkarah stood up in the plaintive glow of the
+evening skies, majestic and solemn, faithful to the dissolved and
+absorbed races who had built them.  Curtains of mauve and saffron-red
+were hung behind them, and through a break of cloud fringing the horizon
+a yellow glow poured, to touch the tips of the pyramids with poignant
+splendour.  But farther over to the right, where Cairo lay, there hung a
+bluish mist, palpable and delicate, out of which emerged the vast
+pyramids of Cheops; and beside it the smiling inscrutable Sphinx faced
+the changeless centuries.  Beyond the pyramids the mist deepened into a
+vast deep cloud of blue and purple, which seemed the end to some mystic
+highway untravelled by the sons of men.
+
+Suddenly there swept over David a wave of feeling such as had passed over
+Kaid, though of a different nature.  Those who had built the pyramids
+were gone, Cheops and Thotmes and Amenhotep and Chefron and the rest.
+There had been reformers in those lost races; one age had sought to
+better the last, one man had toiled to save--yet there only remained
+offensive bundles of mummied flesh and bone and a handful of relics in
+tombs fifty centuries old.  Was it all, then, futile?  Did it matter,
+then, whether one man laboured or a race aspired?
+
+Only for a moment these thoughts passed through his mind; and then, as
+the glow through the broken cloud on the opposite horizon suddenly faded,
+and veils of melancholy fell over the desert and the river and the palms,
+there rose a call, sweetly shrill, undoubtingly insistent.  Sunset had
+come, and, with it, the Muezzin's call to prayer from the minaret of a
+mosque hard by.
+
+David was conscious of a movement behind him--that Kaid was praying with
+hands uplifted; and out on the sands between the window and the river he
+saw kneeling figures here and there, saw the camel-drivers halt their
+trains, and face the East with hands uplifted.  The call went on--"La
+ilaha illa-llah !"
+
+It called David, too.  The force and searching energy and fire in it
+stole through his veins, and drove from him the sense of futility and
+despondency which had so deeply added to his trouble.  There was
+something for him, too, in that which held infatuated the minds
+of so many millions.
+
+A moment later Kaid and he faced each other again.  "Effendina," he said,
+"thou wilt not desert our work now?"
+
+"Money--for this expedition?  Thou hast it?" Kaid asked ironically.
+
+"I have but little money, and it must go to rebuild the mills, Effendina.
+I must have it of thee."
+
+"Let them remain in their ashes."
+
+"But thousands will have no work."
+
+"They had work before they were built, they will have work now they are
+gone."
+
+"Effendina, I stayed in Egypt at thy request.  The work is thy work.
+Wilt thou desert it?"
+
+"The West lured me--by things that seemed.  Now I know things as they
+are."
+
+"They will lure thee again to-morrow," said David firmly, but with a
+weight on his spirit.  His eyes sought and held Kaid's.  "It is too late
+to go back; we must go forward or we shall lose the Soudan, and a Mahdi
+and his men will be in Cairo in ten years."
+
+For an instant Kaid was startled.  The old look of energy and purpose
+leaped up into his eye; but it faded quickly again.  If, as the Italian
+physician more than hinted, his life hung by a thread, did it matter
+whether the barbarian came to Cairo?  That was the business of those who
+came after.  If Sharif was right, and his life was saved, there would be
+time enough to set things right.
+
+"I will not pour water on the sands to make an ocean," he answered.
+"Will a ship sail on the Sahara?  Bismillah, it is all a dream!  Harrik
+was right.  But dost thou think to do with me as thou didst with Harrik?"
+he sneered.  "Is it in thy mind?"
+
+David's patience broke down under the long provocation.  "Know then,
+Effendina," he said angrily, "that I am not thy subject, nor one beholden
+to thee, nor thy slave.  Upon terms well understood, I have laboured
+here.  I have kept my obligations, and it is thy duty to keep thy
+obligations, though the hand of death were on thee.  I know not what has
+poisoned thy mind, and driven thee from reason and from justice.  I know
+that, Prince Pasha of Egypt as thou art, thou art as bound to me as any
+fellah that agrees to tend my door or row my boat.  Thy compact with me
+is a compact with England, and it shall be kept, if thou art an honest
+man.  Thou mayst find thousands in Egypt who will serve thee at any
+price, and bear thee in any mood.  I have but one price.  It is well
+known to thee.  I will not be the target for thy black temper.  This is
+not the middle ages; I am an Englishman, not a helot.  The bond must be
+kept; thou shalt not play fast and loose.  Money must be found; the
+expedition must go.  But if thy purpose is now Harrik's purpose, then
+Europe should know, and Egypt also should know.  I have been thy right
+hand, Effendina; I will not be thy old shoe, to be cast aside at thy
+will."
+
+In all the days of his life David had never flamed out as he did now.
+Passionate as his words were, his manner was strangely quiet, but his
+white and glistening face and his burning eyes showed how deep was his
+anger.
+
+As he spoke, Kaid sank upon the divan.  Never had he been challenged so.
+With his own people he had ever been used to cringing and abasement, and
+he had played the tyrant, and struck hard and cruelly, and he had been
+feared; but here, behind David's courteous attitude, there was a scathing
+arraignment of his conduct which took no count of consequence.  In other
+circumstances his vanity would have shrunk under this whip of words, but
+his native reason and his quick humour would have justified David.  In
+this black distemper possessing him, however, only outraged egotism
+prevailed.  His hands clenched and unclenched, his lips were drawn back
+on his teeth in rage.
+
+When David had finished, Kaid suddenly got to his feet and took a step
+forward with a malediction, but a faintness seized him and he staggered
+back.  When he raised his head again David was gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+LACEY MOVES
+
+If there was one glistening bead of sweat on the bald pate of Lacey of
+Chicago there were a thousand; and the smile on his face was not less
+shining and unlimited.  He burst into the rooms of the palace where David
+had residence, calling: "Oyez!  Oyez!  Saadat!  Oh, Pasha of the Thousand
+Tails!  Oyez!  Oyez!"
+
+Getting no answer, he began to perform a dance round the room, which in
+modern days is known as the negro cake-walk.  It was not dignified, but
+it would have been less dignified still performed by any other living man
+of forty-five with a bald head and a waist-band ten inches too large.
+Round the room three times he went, and then he dropped on a divan.  He
+gasped, and mopped his face and forehead, leaving a little island of
+moisture on the top of his head untouched.  After a moment, he gained
+breath and settled down a little.  Then he burst out:
+
+         "Are you coming to my party, O effendi?
+          There'll be high jinks, there'll be welcome, there'll be room;
+          For to-morrow we are pulling stakes for Shendy.
+          Are you coming to my party, O Nahoum?"
+
+"Say, I guess that's pretty good on the spur of the moment," he wheezed,
+and, taking his inseparable note book from his pocket, wrote the
+impromptu down.  "I guess She'll like that-it rings spontaneous.  She'll
+be tickled, tickled to death, when she knows what's behind it."  He
+repeated it with gusto.  "She'll dote on it," he added--the person to
+whom he referred being the sister of the American Consul, the little
+widow, "cute as she can be," of whom he had written to Hylda in the
+letter which had brought a crisis in her life.  As he returned the note-
+book to his pocket a door opened.  Mahommed Hassan slid forward into the
+room, and stood still, impassive and gloomy.  Lacey beckoned, and said
+grotesquely:
+
+        "'Come hither, come hither, my little daughter,
+          And do not tremble so!'"
+
+A sort of scornful patience was in Mahommed's look, but he came nearer
+and waited.
+
+"Squat on the ground, and smile a smile of mirth, Mahommed," Lacey said
+riotously.  "'For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o'
+the May!'"
+
+Mahommed's face grew resentful.  "O effendi, shall the camel-driver laugh
+when the camels are lost in the khamsin and the water-bottle is empty?"
+
+"Certainly not, O son of the spreading palm; but this is not a desert,
+nor a gaudy caravan.  This is a feast of all angels.  This is the day
+when Nahoum the Nefarious is to be buckled up like a belt, and ridden in
+a ring.  Where is the Saadat?"
+
+"He is gone, effendi!  Like a mist on the face of the running water, so
+was his face; like eyes that did not see, so was his look.  'Peace be to
+thee, Mahommed, thou art faithful as Zaida,' he said, and he mounted and
+rode into the desert.  I ran after till he was come to the edge of the
+desert; but he sent me back, saying that I must wait for thee; and this
+word I was to say, that Prince Kaid had turned his face darkly from him,
+and that the finger of Sharif--"
+
+"That fanatical old quack--Harrik's friend!"
+
+"--that the finger of Sharif was on his pulse; but the end of all was in
+the hands of God."
+
+"Oh yes, exactly, the finger of Sharif on his pulse!  The old story-the
+return to the mother's milk, throwing back to all the Pharaohs.  Well,
+what then?" he added cheerfully, his smile breaking out again.  "Where
+has he gone, our Saadat?"
+
+"To Ebn Ezra Bey at the Coptic Monastery by the Etl Tree, where your
+prophet Christ slept when a child."
+
+Lacey hummed to himself meditatively.  "A sort of last powwow--Rome
+before the fall.  Everything wrong, eh?  Kaid turned fanatic, Nahoum on
+the tiles watching for the Saadat to fall, things trembling for want of
+hard cash.  That's it, isn't it, Mahommed?"
+
+Mahommed nodded, but his look was now alert, and less sombre.  He had
+caught at something vital and confident in Lacey's tone.  He drew nearer,
+and listened closely.
+
+"Well, now, my gentle gazelle, listen unto me," continued Lacey.  He
+suddenly leaned forward, and spoke in subdued but rapid tones.  "Say,
+Mahommed, once upon a time there was an American man, with a shock of red
+hair, and a nature like a spring-lock.  He went down to Mexico, with a
+million or two of his own money got honestly by an undisputed will from
+an undisputed father--you don't understand that, but it doesn't matter--
+and with a few millions of other people's money, for to gamble in mines
+and railways and banks and steamship companies--all to do with Mexico
+what the Saadat has tried to do in Egypt with less money; but not for the
+love of Allah, same as him.  This American was going to conquer like
+Cortez, but his name was Thomas Tilman Lacey, and he had a lot of gall.
+After years of earnest effort, he lost his hair and the millions of the
+Infatuated Conquistadores.  And by-and-by he came to Cairo with a
+thimbleful of income, and began to live again.  There was a civil war
+going on in his own country, but he thought that one out of forty
+millions would not be strictly missed.  So he stayed in Egypt; and the
+tale of his days in Egypt, is it not written with a neboot of domwood in
+the book of Mahommed Hassan the scribe?"
+
+He paused and beamed upon the watchful Mahommed, who, if he did not
+understand all that had been said, was in no difficulty as to the drift
+and meaning of the story.
+
+"Aiwa, effendi," he urged impatiently.  "It is a long ride to the Etl
+Tree, and the day is far spent."
+
+"Inshallah, you shall hear, my turtle-dove!  One day there came to Cairo,
+in great haste, a man from Mexico, looking for the foolish one called T.
+T. Lacey, bearing glad news.  And the man from Mexico blew his trumpet,
+and straightway T. T. Lacey fell down dismayed.  The trumpet said that a
+million once lost in Mexico was returned, with a small flock of other
+millions; for a mine, in which it was sunk, had burst forth with a stony
+stream of silver.  And behold!  Thomas Tilman Lacey, the despised waster
+of his patrimony and of other people's treasure, is now, O son of the
+fig-flower, richer than Kaid Pasha and all his eunuchs."
+
+Suddenly Mahommed Hassan leaned forward, then backward, and, after the
+fashion of desert folk, gave a shrill, sweet ululation that seemed to
+fill the palace.
+
+"Say, that's A1," Lacey said, when Mahommed's voice sank to a whisper of
+wild harmony.  "Yes, you can lick my boots, my noble sheikh of
+Manfaloot," he added, as Mahommed caught his feet and bent his head upon
+them.  "I wanted to do something like that myself.  Kiss 'em, honey;
+it'll do you good."
+
+After a moment, Mahommed drew back and squatted before him in an attitude
+of peace and satisfaction.  "The Saadat--you will help him?  You will
+give him money?"
+
+"Let's put it in this way, Mahommed: I'll invest in an expedition out of
+which I expect to get something worth while--concessions for mines and
+railways, et cetera."  He winked a round, blue eye.  "Business is
+business, and the way to get at the Saadat is to talk business; but you
+can make up your mind that,
+
+        "'To-morrow, we are pulling stakes for Shendy!
+          Are you coming to my party, O Nahoum?'"
+
+"By the prophet Abraham, but the news is great news," said Mahommed with
+a grin.  "But the Effendina?"
+
+"Well, I'll try and square the Effendina," answered Lacey.  "Perhaps the
+days of backsheesh aren't done in Egypt, after all."
+
+"And Nahoum Pasha?" asked Mahommed, with a sinister look.
+
+"Well, we'll try and square him, too, but in another way."
+
+"The money, it is in Egypt?" queried Mahommed, whose idea was that money
+to be real must be seen.  "Something that's as handy and as marketable,"
+answered Lacey.  "I can raise half a million to-morrow; and that will do
+a lot of what we want.  How long will it take to ride to the monastery?"
+
+Mahommed told him.
+
+Lacey was about to leave the room, when he heard a voice outside.
+"Nahoum!" he said, and sat down again on the divan.  "He has come to see
+the Saadat, I suppose; but it'll do him good to see me, perhaps.  Open
+the sluices, Mahommed."
+
+Yes, Nahoum would be glad to see the effendi, since Claridge Pasha was
+not in Cairo.  When would Claridge Pasha return?  If, then, the effendi
+expected to see the Saadat before his return to Cairo, perhaps he would
+convey a message.  He could not urge his presence on the Saadat, since he
+had not been honoured with any communication since yesterday.
+
+"Well, that's good-mannered, anyhow, pasha," said Lacey with cheerful
+nonchalance.  "People don't always know when they're wanted or not
+wanted."
+
+Nahoum looked at him guardedly, sighed and sat down.  "Things have grown
+worse since yesterday," he said.  "Prince Kaid received the news badly."
+He shook his head.  "He has not the gift of perfect friendship.  That is
+a Christian characteristic; the Muslim does not possess it.  It was too
+strong to last, maybe--my poor beloved friend, the Saadat."
+
+"Oh, it will last all right," rejoined Lacey coolly.  "Prince Kaid has
+got a touch of jaundice, I guess.  He knows a thing when he finds it,
+even if he hasn't the gift of 'perfect friendship,' same as Christians
+like you and me.  But even you and me don't push our perfections too far
+--I haven't noticed you going out of your way to do things for your 'poor
+beloved friend, the Saadat'."
+
+"I have given him time, energy, experience--money."
+
+Lacey nodded.  "True.  And I've often wondered why, when I've seen the
+things you didn't give and the things you took away."
+
+Nahoum's eyes half closed.  Lacey was getting to close quarters with
+suspicion and allusion; but it was not his cue to resent them yet.
+
+"I had come now to offer him help; to advance him enough to carry through
+his expedition."
+
+"Well, that sounds generous, but I guess he would get on without it,
+pasha.  He would not want to be under any more obligations to you."
+
+"He is without money.  He must be helped."
+
+"Just so."
+
+"He cannot go to the treasury, and Prince Kaid has refused.  Why should
+he decline help from his friend?"  Suddenly Lacey changed his tactics.
+He had caught a look in Nahoum's eyes which gave him a new thought.
+"Well, if you've any proposition, pasha, I'll take it to him.  I'll be
+seeing him to-night."
+
+"I can give him fifty thousand pounds."
+
+"It isn't enough to save the situation, pasha."
+
+"It will help him over the first zareba."
+
+"Are there any conditions?"  "There are no conditions, effendi."  "And
+interest?"
+
+"There would be no interest in money."
+
+"Other considerations?"
+
+"Yes, other considerations, effendi."
+
+"If they were granted, would there be enough still in the stocking to
+help him over a second zareba--or a third, perhaps?"
+
+"That would be possible, even likely, I think.  Of course we speak in
+confidence, effendi."
+
+"The confidence of the 'perfect friendship.'"
+
+"There may be difficulty, because the Saadat is sensitive; but it is the
+only way to help him.  I can get the money from but one source; and to
+get it involves an agreement."
+
+"You think his Excellency would not just jump at it--that it might hurt
+some of his prejudices, eh?"
+
+"So, effendi."
+
+"And me--where am I in it, pasha?"
+
+"Thou hast great influence with his Excellency."
+
+"I am his servant--I don't meddle with his prejudices, pasha."
+
+"But if it were for his own good, to save his work here."
+
+Lacey yawned almost ostentatiously.  "I guess if he can't save it himself
+it can't be saved, not even when you reach out the hand of perfect
+friendship.  You've been reaching out for a long time, pasha, and it
+didn't save the steamer or the cotton-mills; and it didn't save us when
+we were down by Sobat a while ago, and you sent Halim Bey to teach us to
+be patient.  We got out of that nasty corner by sleight of hand, but not
+your sleight of hand, pasha.  Your hand is a quick hand, but a sharp eye
+can see the trick, and then it's no good, not worth a button."
+
+There was something savage behind Nahoum's eyes, but they did not show
+it; they blinked with earnest kindness and interest.  The time would come
+when Lacey would go as his master should go, and the occasion was not far
+off now; but it must not be forced.  Besides, was this fat, amorous-
+looking factotum of Claridge Pasha's as Spartan-minded as his master?
+Would he be superior to the lure of gold?  He would see.  He spoke
+seriously, with apparent solicitude.
+
+"Thou dost not understand, effendi.  Claridge Pasha must have money.
+Prestige is everything in Egypt, it is everything with Kaid.  If Claridge
+Pasha rides on as though nothing has happened--and money is the only
+horse that can carry him--Kaid will not interfere, and his black mood
+may pass; but any halting now and the game is done."
+
+"And you want the game to go on right bad, don't you?  Well, I guess
+you're right.  Money is the only winner in this race.  He's got to have
+money, sure.  How much can you raise?  Oh, yes, you told me!  Well, I
+don't think it's enough; he's got to have three times that; and if he
+can't get it from the Government, or from Kaid, it's a bad lookout.
+What's the bargain you have in your mind?"
+
+"That the slave-trade continue, effendi."
+
+Lacey did not wink, but he had a shock of surprise.  On the instant he
+saw the trap--for the Saadat and for himself.
+
+"He would not do it--not for money, pasha."
+
+"He would not be doing it for money.  The time is not ripe for it, it is
+too dangerous.  There is a time for all things.  If he will but wait!"
+
+"I wouldn't like to be the man that'd name the thing to him.  As you say,
+he's got his prejudices.  They're stronger than in most men."
+
+"It need not be named to him.  Thou canst accept the money for him, and
+when thou art in the Soudan, and he is going to do it, thou canst prevent
+it."
+
+"Tell him that I've taken the money and that he's used it, and he
+oughtn't to go back on the bargain I made for him?  So that he'll be
+bound by what I did?"
+
+"It is the best way, effendi."
+
+"He'd be annoyed," said Lacey with a patient sigh.
+
+"He has a great soul; but sometimes he forgets that expediency is the
+true policy."
+
+"Yet he's done a lot of things without it.  He's never failed in what he
+set out to do.  What he's done has been kicked over, but he's done it all
+right, somehow, at last."
+
+"He will not be able to do this, effendi, except with my help--and
+thine."
+
+"He's had quite a lot of things almost finished, too," said Lacey
+reflectively, "and then a hand reached out in the dark and cut the wires
+--cut them when he was sleeping, and he didn't know; cut them when he was
+waking, and he wouldn't understand; cut them under his own eyes, and he
+wouldn't see; because the hand that cut them was the hand of the perfect
+friend."
+
+He got slowly to his feet, as a cloud of colour drew over the face of
+Nahoum and his eyes darkened with astonishment and anger.  Lacey put his
+hands in his pockets and waited till Nahoum also rose.  Then he gathered
+the other's eyes to his, and said with drawling scorn:
+
+"So, you thought I didn't understand!  You thought I'd got a brain like a
+peanut, and wouldn't drop onto your game or the trap you've set.  You'd
+advance money--got from the slave-dealers to prevent the slave-trade
+being stopped!  If Claridge Pasha took it and used it, he could never
+stop the slave-trade.  If I took it and used it for him on the same
+terms, he couldn't stop the slave-trade, though he might know no more
+about the bargain than a babe unborn.  And if he didn't stand by the
+bargain I made, and did prohibit slave-dealing, nothing'd stop the tribes
+till they marched into Cairo.  He's been safe so far, because they
+believed in him, and because he'd rather die a million deaths than go
+crooked.  Say, I've been among the Dagos before--down in Mexico--and I'm
+onto you.  I've been onto you for a good while; though there was nothing
+I could spot certain; but now I've got you, and I'll break the 'perfect
+friendship' or I'll eat my shirt.  I'll--"
+
+He paused, realising the crisis in which David was moving, and that
+perils were thick around their footsteps.  But, even as he thought of
+them, he remembered David's own frank, fearless audacity in danger and
+difficulty, and he threw discretion to the winds.  He flung his flag
+wide, and believed with a belief as daring as David's that all would be
+well.
+
+"Well, what wilt thou do?" asked Nahoum with cool and deadly menace.
+"Thou wilt need to do it quickly, because, if it is a challenge, within
+forty-eight hours Claridge Pasha and thyself will be gone from Egypt--or
+I shall be in the Nile."
+
+"I'll take my chances, pasha," answered Lacey, with equal coolness.  "You
+think you'll win.  It's not the first time I've had to tackle men like
+you--they've got the breed in Mexico.  They beat me there, but I learned
+the game, and I've learned a lot from you, too.  I never knew what your
+game was here.  I only know that the Saadat saved your life, and got you
+started again with Kaid.  I only know that you called yourself a
+Christian, and worked on him till he believed in you, and Hell might
+crackle round you, but he'd believe, till he saw your contract signed
+with the Devil--and then he'd think the signature forged.  But he's got
+to know now.  We are not going out of Egypt, though you may be going to
+the Nile; but we are going to the Soudan, and with Kaid's blessing, too.
+You've put up the bluff, and I take it.  Be sure you've got Kaid solid,
+for, if you haven't, he'll be glad to know where you keep the money you
+got from the slave-dealers."
+
+Nahoum shrugged his shoulders.  "Who has seen the money?  Where is the
+proof?  Kaid would know my reasons.  It is not the first time virtue has
+been tested in Egypt, or the first time that it has fallen."
+
+In spite of himself Lacey laughed.  "Say, that's worthy of a great
+Christian intellect.  You are a bright particular star, pasha.  I take it
+back--they'd learn a lot from you in Mexico.  But the only trouble with
+lying is, that the demand becomes so great you can't keep all the cards
+in your head, and then the one you forget does you.  The man that isn't
+lying has the pull in the long run.  You are out against us, pasha, and
+we'll see how we stand in forty-eight hours.  You have some cards up your
+sleeve, I suppose; but--well, I'm taking you on.  I'm taking you on with
+a lot of joy, and some sorrow, too, for we might have pulled off a big
+thing together, you and Claridge Pasha, with me to hold the stirrups.
+Now it's got to be war.  You've made it so.  It's a pity, for when we
+grip there'll be a heavy fall."
+
+"For a poor man thou hast a proud stomach."
+
+"Well, I'll admit the stomach, pasha.  It's proud; and it's strong, too;
+it's stood a lot in Egypt; it's standing a lot to-day."
+
+"We'll ease the strain, perhaps," sneered Nahoum.  He made a perfunctory
+salutation and walked briskly from the room.
+
+Mahommed Hassan crept in, a malicious grin on his face.  Danger and
+conflict were as meat and drink to him.
+
+"Effendi, God hath given thee a wasp's sting to thy tongue.  It is well.
+Nahoum Pasha hath Mizraim: the Saadat hath thee and me."
+
+"There's the Effendina," said Lacey reflectively.  "Thou saidst thou
+would 'square' him, effendi."
+
+"I say a lot," answered Lacey rather ruefully.  "Come, Mahommed, the
+Saadat first, and the sooner the better."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE STRUGGLE IN THE DESERT
+
+     "And His mercy is on them that fear Him throughout all generations."
+
+On the clear, still evening air the words rang out over the desert,
+sonorous, imposing, peaceful.  As the notes of the verse died away the
+answer came from other voices in deep, appealing antiphonal:
+
+     "He hath showed strength with His arm, He hath scattered the proud
+     in the imagination of their hearts."
+
+Beyond the limits of the monastery there was not a sign of life; neither
+beast nor bird, nor blade of grass, nor any green thing; only the perfect
+immemorial blue, and in the east a misty moon, striving in vain to offer
+light which the earth as yet rejected for the brooding radiance of the
+descending sun.  But at the great door of the monastery there grew a
+stately palm, and near by an ancient acacia-tree; and beyond the stone
+chapel there was a garden of struggling shrubs and green things, with one
+rose-tree which scattered its pink leaves from year to year upon the
+loam, since no man gathered bud or blossom.
+
+The triumphant call of the Magnificat, however beautiful, seemed
+strangely out of place in this lonely island in a sea of sand.  It was
+the song of a bannered army, marching over the battle-field with
+conquering voices, and swords as yet unsheathed and red, carrying the
+spoils of conquest behind the laurelled captain of the host.  The
+crumbling and ancient walls were surrounded by a moat which a stranger's
+foot crossed hardly from moon to moon, which the desert wayfarer sought
+rarely, since it was out of the track of caravans, and because food was
+scant in the refectory of this Coptic brotherhood.  It was scarce five
+hours' ride from the Palace of the Prince Pasha: but it might have been a
+thousand miles away, so profoundly separate was it from the world of
+vital things and deeds of men.
+
+As the chant rang out, confident, majestic, and serene, carried by voices
+of power and shrill sweetness, which only the desert can produce, it
+might have seemed to any listener that this monastery was all that
+remained of some ancient kingdom of brimming, active cities, now lying
+beneath the obliterating sand, itself the monument and memorial of a
+breath of mercy of the Destroyer, the last refuge of a few surviving
+captains of a departed greatness.  Hidden by the grey, massive walls,
+built as it were to resist the onset of a ravaging foe, the swelling
+voices might well have been those of some ancient order of valiant
+knights, whose banners hung above them, the 'riclame' of their deeds.
+But they were voices and voices only; for they who sang were as unkempt
+and forceless as the lonely wall which shut them in from the insistent
+soul of the desert.
+
+Desolation?  The desert was not desolate.  Its face was bare and burning,
+it slaked no man's thirst, gave no man food, save where scattered oases
+were like the breasts of a vast mother eluding the aching lips of her
+parched children; but the soul of the desert was living and inspiring,
+beating with vitality.  It was life that burned like flame.  If the
+water-skin was dry and the date-bag empty it smothered and destroyed; but
+it was life; and to those who ventured into its embrace, obeying the
+conditions of the sharp adventure, it gave what neither sea, nor green
+plain, nor high mountain, nor verdant valley could give--a consuming
+sense of power, which found its way to the deepest recesses of being.
+Out upon the vast sea of sand, where the descending sun was spreading a
+note of incandescent colour, there floated the grateful words:
+
+     "He remembering His mercy hath holpen His servant Israel; as He
+     promised to our forefathers, Abraham, and his seed for ever."
+
+Then the antiphonal ceased; and together the voices of all within the
+place swelled out in the Gloria and the Amen, and seemed to pass away in
+ever-receding vibrations upon the desert, till it was lost in the
+comforting sunset.
+
+As the last note died away, a voice from beneath the palm-tree near the
+door, deeper than any that had come from within, said reverently: "Ameen-
+Ameen !"
+
+He who spoke was a man well over sixty years, with a grey beard, lofty
+benign forehead, and the eyes of a scholar and a dreamer.  As he uttered
+the words of spiritual assent, alike to the Muslim and the Christian
+religion, he rose to his feet, showing the figure of a man of action,
+alert, well-knit, authoritative.  Presently he turned towards the East
+and stretched a robe upon the ground, and with stately beauty of gesture
+he spread out his hands, standing for a moment in the attitude of
+aspiration.  Then, kneeling, he touched his turbaned head to the ground
+three times, and as the sun drew down behind the sharp, bright line of
+sand that marked the horizon, he prayed devoutly and long.  It was Ebn
+Ezra Bey.
+
+Muslim though he was, he had visited this monastery many times, to study
+the ancient Christian books which lay in disordered heaps in an ill-kept
+chamber, books which predated the Hegira, and were as near to the life of
+the Early Church as the Scriptures themselves--or were so reputed.
+Student and pious Muslim as he was, renowned at El Azhar and at every
+Muslim university in the Eastern world, he swore by the name of Christ as
+by that of Abraham, Isaac, and all the prophets, though to him Mahomet
+was the last expression of Heaven's will to mankind.  At first received
+at the monastery with unconcealed aversion, and not without danger to
+himself, he had at last won to him the fanatical monks, who, in spirit,
+kept this ancient foundation as rigid to their faith as though it were in
+mediaeval times.  And though their discipline was lax, and their daily
+duties orderless, this was Oriental rather than degenerate.  Here Ebn
+Ezra had stayed for weeks at a time in the past, not without some
+religious scandal, long since forgotten.
+
+His prayers ended, he rose up slowly, once more spread out his hands in
+ascription, and was about to enter the monastery, when, glancing towards
+the west, he saw a horseman approaching.  An instinct told him who it was
+before he could clearly distinguish the figure, and his face lighted with
+a gentle and expectant smile.  Then his look changed.
+
+"He is in trouble," he murmured.  "As it was with his uncle in Damascus,
+so will it be with him.  Malaish, we are in the will of God!"
+
+The hand that David laid in Ebn Ezra's was hot and nervous, the eyes that
+drank in the friendship of the face which had seen two Claridges emptying
+out their lives in the East were burning and famished by long fasting
+of the spirit, forced abstinence from the pleasures of success and
+fruition-haunting, desiring eyes, where flamed a spirit which consumed
+the body and the indomitable mind.  The lips, however, had their old
+trick of smiling, though the smile which greeted Ebn Ezra Bey had a
+melancholy which touched the desert-worn, life-spent old Arab as he had
+not been touched since a smile, just like this, flashed up at him from
+the weather-stained, dying face of quaint Benn Claridge in a street of
+Damascus.  The natural duplicity of the Oriental had been abashed and
+inactive before the simple and astounding honesty of these two Quaker
+folk.
+
+He saw crisis written on every feature of the face before him.  Yet the
+scanty meal they ate with the monks in the ancient room was enlivened by
+the eager yet quiet questioning of David, to whom the monks responded
+with more spirit than had been often seen in this arid retreat.  The
+single torch which spluttered from the wall as they drank their coffee
+lighted up faces as strange, withdrawn, and unconsciously secretive as
+ever gathered to greet a guest.  Dim tales had reached them of this
+Christian reformer and administrator, scraps of legend from stray camel-
+drivers, a letter from the Patriarch commanding them to pray blessings on
+his labours--who could tell what advantage might not come to the Coptic
+Church through him, a Christian!  On the dull, torpid faces, light seemed
+struggling to live for a moment, as David talked.  It was as though
+something in their meagre lives, which belonged to undeveloped feelings,
+was fighting for existence--a light struggling to break through murky
+veils of inexperience.
+
+Later, in the still night, however--still, though air vibrated
+everywhere, as though the desert breathed an ether which was to fill
+men's veins with that which quieted the fret and fever of life's
+disillusions and forgeries and failures--David's speech with Ebn Ezra Bey
+was of a different sort.  If, as it seems ever in the desert, an
+invisible host of beings, once mortal, now immortal, but suspensive and
+understanding, listened to the tale he unfolded, some glow of pity must
+have possessed them; for it was an Iliad of herculean struggle against
+absolute disaster, ending with the bitter news of his grandfather's
+death.  It was the story of AEdipus overcome by events too strong for
+soul to bear.  In return, as the stars wheeled on, and the moon stole to
+the zenith, majestic and slow, Ebn Ezra offered to his troubled friend
+only the philosophy of the predestinarian, mingled with the calm of the
+stoic.  But something antagonistic to his own dejection, to the Muslim's
+fatalism, emerged from David's own altruism, to nerve him to hope and
+effort still.  His unconquerable optimism rose determinedly to the
+surface, even as he summed up and related the forces working against him.
+
+"They have all come at once," he said; "all the activities opposing me,
+just as though they had all been started long ago at different points,
+with a fixed course to run, and to meet and give me a fall in the hour
+when I could least resist.  You call it Fate.  I call it what it proves
+itself to be.  But here it is a hub of danger and trouble, and the spokes
+of disaster are flying to it from all over the compass, to make the wheel
+that will grind me; and all the old troop of Palace intriguers and
+despoilers are waiting to heat the tire and fasten it on the machine of
+torture.  Kaid has involved himself in loans which press, in foolish
+experiments in industry without due care; and now from ill-health and bad
+temper comes a reaction towards the old sinister rule, when the
+Prince shuts his eyes and his agents ruin and destroy.  Three nations who
+have intrigued against my work see their chance, and are at Kaid's elbow.
+The fate of the Soudan is in the balance.  It is all as the shake of a
+feather.  I can save it if I go; but, just as I am ready, my mills burn
+down, my treasury dries up, Kaid turns his back on me, and the toil of
+years is swept away in a night.  Thee sees it is terrible, friend?"
+
+Ebn Ezra looked at him seriously and sadly for a moment, and then said:
+"Is it given one man to do all?  If many men had done these things, then
+there had been one blow for each.  Now all falls on thee, Saadat.  Is it
+the will of God that one man should fling the lance, fire the cannon, dig
+the trenches, gather food for the army, drive the horses on to battle,
+and bury the dead?  Canst thou do all?"
+
+David's eyes brightened to the challenge.  "There was the work to do, and
+there were not the many to do it.  My hand was ready; the call came; I
+answered.  I plunged into the river of work alone."
+
+"Thou didst not know the strength of the currents, the eddies and the
+whirlpools, the hidden rocks--and the shore is far off, Saadat."
+
+"It is not so far but that, if I could get breath to gather strength,
+I should reach the land in time.  Money--ah, but enough for this
+expedition!  That over, order, quiet yonder, my own chosen men as
+governors, and I could"--he pointed towards the southern horizon--
+"I could plant my foot in Cairo, and from the centre control the great
+machinery--with Kaid's help; and God's help.  A sixth of a million, and
+Kaid's hand behind me, and the boat would lunge free of the sand-banks
+and churn on, and churn on.  .  .  .  Friend," he added, with the winning
+insistence that few found it possible to resist, "if all be well, and we
+go thither, wilt thou become the governor-general yonder?  With thee to
+rule justly where there is most need of justice, the end would be sure--
+if it be the will of God."
+
+Ebn Ezra Bey sat for a moment looking into the worn, eager face,
+indistinct in the moonlight, then answered slowly: "I am seventy, and the
+years smite hard as they pass, and there or here, it little matters when
+I go, as I must go; and whether it be to bend the lance, or bear the flag
+before thee, or rule a Mudirieh, what does it matter!  I will go with
+thee," he added hastily; "but it is better thou shouldst not go.  Within
+the last three days I have news from the South.  All that thou hast done
+there is in danger now.  The word for revolt has passed from tribe to
+tribe.  A tongue hath spoken, and a hand hath signalled "--his voice
+lowered--" and I think I know the tongue and the hand!"  He paused; then,
+as David did not speak, continued: "Thou who art wise in most things,
+dost decline to seek for thy foe in him who eateth from the same dish
+with thee.  Only when it is too late thou wilt defend thyself and all who
+keep faith with thee."
+
+David's face clouded.  "Nahoum, thou dost mean Nahoum?  But thou dost not
+understand, and there is no proof."
+
+"As a camel knows the coming storm while yet the sky is clear, by that
+which the eye does not see, so do I feel Nahoum.  The evils thou hast
+suffered, Saadat, are from his hand, if from any hand in Egypt--"
+
+Suddenly he leaned over and touched David's arm.  "Saadat, it is of no
+avail.  There is none in Egypt that desires good; thy task is too great.
+All men will deceive thee; if not now, yet in time.  If Kaid favours thee
+once more, and if it is made possible for thee to go to the Soudan, yet I
+pray thee to stay here.  Better be smitten here, where thou canst get
+help from thine own country, if need be, than yonder, where they but wait
+to spoil thy work and kill thee.  Thou art young; wilt thou throw thy
+life away?  Art thou not needed here as there?  For me it is nothing,
+whether it be now or in a few benumbing years; but for thee--is there no
+one whom thou lovest so well that thou wouldst not shelter thy life to
+spare that life sorrow?  Is there none that thou lovest so, and that will
+love thee to mortal sorrow, if thou goest without care to thy end too
+soon?"
+
+As a warm wind suddenly sweeps across the cool air of a summer evening
+for an instant, suffocating and unnerving, so Ebn Ezra's last words swept
+across David's spirit.  His breath came quicker, his eyes half closed.
+"Is there none that thou lovest so, and that will love thee to mortal
+sorrow, if--"
+
+As a hand secretly and swiftly slips the lever that opens the sluice-
+gates of a dike, while the watchman turns away for a moment to look at
+the fields which the waters enrich and the homes of poor folk whom the
+gates defend, so, in a moment, when off his guard, worn with watching and
+fending, as it were, Ebn Ezra had sprung the lever, and a flood of
+feeling swept over David, drowned him in its impulse and pent-up force.
+
+"Is there none that thou lovest so--"  Of what use had been all his
+struggle and his pain since that last day in Hamley--his dark fighting
+days in the desert with Lacey and Mahommed, and his handful of faithful
+followers, hemmed in by dangers, the sands swarming with Arabs who
+feathered now to his safety, now to his doom, and his heart had hungered
+for what he had denied it with a will that would not be conquered?
+Wasted by toil and fever and the tension of danger and the care of
+others dependent on him, he had also fought a foe which was ever at his
+elbow, ever whispered its comfort and seduction in his ear, the insidious
+and peace-giving, exalting opiate that had tided him over some black
+places, and then had sought for mastery of him when he was back again in
+the world of normal business and duty, where it appealed not as a
+medicine, but as a perilous luxury.  And fighting this foe, which had a
+voice so soothing, and words like the sound of murmuring waters, and a
+cool and comforting hand that sought to lead him into gardens of
+stillness and passive being, where he could no more hear the clangour and
+vexing noises of a world that angered and agonised, there had also been
+the lure of another passion of the heart, which was too perilously dear
+to contemplate.  Eyes that were beautiful, and their beauty was not for
+him; a spirit that was bright and glowing, but the brightness and the
+glow might not renew his days.  It was hard to fight alone.  Alone he
+was, for only to one may the doors within doors be opened-only to one so
+dear that all else is everlastingly distant may the true tale of the life
+beneath life be told.  And it was not for him--nothing of this; not even
+the thought of it; for to think of it was to desire it, and to desire it
+was to reach out towards it; and to reach out towards it was the end of
+all.  There had been moments of abandonment to the alluring dream, such
+as when he wrote the verses which Lacey had sent to Hylda from the
+desert; but they were few.  Oft-repeated, they would have filled him with
+an agitated melancholy impossible to be borne in the life which must be
+his.
+
+So it had been.  The deeper into life and its labours and experiences he
+had gone, the greater had been his temptations, born of two passions, one
+of the body and its craving, the other of the heart and its desires: and
+he had fought on--towards the morning.
+
+"Is there none that thou lovest so, and that will love thee to mortal
+sorrow, if thou goest without care to thy end too soon?"  The desert, the
+dark monastery, the acacia tree, the ancient palm, the ruinous garden,
+disappeared.  He only saw a face which smiled at him, as it had done 'by
+the brazier in the garden at Cairo, that night when she and Nahoum and
+himself and Mizraim had met in the room of his house by the Ezbekieh
+gardens, and she had gone out to her old life in England, and he had
+taken up the burden of the East--that long six years ago.  His head
+dropped in his hands, and all that was beneath the Quaker life he had led
+so many years, packed under the crust of form and habit, and regulated
+thought, and controlled emotion, broke forth now, and had its way with
+him.
+
+He turned away staggering and self-reproachful from the first question,
+only to face the other--"And that will love thee to mortal sorrow, if
+thou goest without care to thy end too soon."  It was a thought he had
+never let himself dwell on for an instant in all the days since they had
+last met.  He had driven it back to its covert, even before he could
+recognise its face.  It was disloyal to her, an offence against all that
+she was, an affront to his manhood to let the thought have place in his
+mind even for one swift moment.  She was Lord Eglington's wife--there
+could be no sharing of soul and mind and body and the exquisite devotion
+of a life too dear for thought.  Nothing that she was to Eglington could
+be divided with another, not for an hour, not by one act of impulse; or
+else she must be less, she that might have been, if there had been no
+Eglington--
+
+An exclamation broke from him, and, as one crying out in one's sleep
+wakes himself, so the sharp cry of his misery woke him from the trance of
+memory that had been upon him, and he slowly became conscious of Ebn Ezra
+standing before him.  Their eyes met, and Ebn Ezra spoke:
+
+"The will of Allah be thy will, Saadat.  If it be to go to the Soudan,
+I am thine; if it be to stay, I am thy servant and thy brother.  But
+whether it be life or death, thou must sleep, for the young are like
+water without sleep.  Thou canst not live in strength nor die with
+fortitude without it.  For the old, malaish, old age is between a
+sleeping and a waking!  Come, Saadat!  Forget not, thou must ride again
+to Cairo at dawn."
+
+David got slowly to his feet and turned towards the monastery.  The
+figure of a monk stood in the doorway with a torch to light him to his
+room.
+
+He turned to Ebn Ezra again.  "Does thee think that I have aught of his
+courage--my Uncle Benn?  Thou knowest me--shall I face it out as did he?"
+
+"Saadat," the old man answered, pointing, "yonder acacia, that was he,
+quick to grow and short to live; but thou art as this date-palm, which
+giveth food to the hungry, and liveth through generations.  Peace be upon
+thee," he added at the doorway, as the torch flickered towards the room
+where David was to lie.
+
+"And upon thee, peace!" answered David gently, and followed the smoky
+light to an inner chamber.  The room in which David found himself was
+lofty and large, but was furnished with only a rough wooden bed, a rug,
+and a brazier.  Left alone, he sat down on the edge of the bed, and, for
+a few moments, his mind strayed almost vaguely from one object to
+another.  From two windows far up in the wall the moonlight streamed in,
+making bars of light aslant the darkness.
+
+Not a sound broke the stillness.  Yet, to his sensitive nerves, the air
+seemed tingling with sensation, stirring with unseen activities.  Here
+the spirit of the desert seemed more insistent in its piercing vitality,
+because it was shut in by four stone walls.
+
+Mechanically he took off his coat, and was about to fold and lay it on
+the rug beside the bed, when something hard in one of the pockets knocked
+against his knee.  Searching, he found and drew forth a small bottle
+which, for many a month past, had lain in the drawer of a table where he
+had placed it on his return from the Soudan.  It was an evil spirit which
+sent this tiny phial to his hand at a moment when he had paid out of the
+full treasury of his strength and will its accumulated deposit, leaving
+him with a balance on which no heavy draft could be made.  His pulse
+quickened, then his body stiffened with the effort at self-control.
+
+Who placed this evil elixir in his pocket?  What any enemy of his work
+had done was nothing to what might be achieved by the secret foe, who had
+placed this anodyne within his reach at this the most critical moment of
+his life.  He remembered the last time he had used it--in the desert:
+two days of forgetfulness to the world, when it all moved by him, the
+swarming Arabs, the train of camels, the loads of ivory, the slimy
+crocodile on the sandbanks, the vultures hovering above unburied
+carcasses, the kourbash descending on shining black shoulders,
+corrugating bare brown bodies into cloven skin and lacerated flesh, a
+fight between champions of two tribes who clasped and smote and struggled
+and rained blows, and, both mortally wounded, still writhed in last
+conflict upon the ground--and Mahommed Hassan ever at the tent door or by
+his side, towering, watchful, sullen to all faces without, smiling to his
+own, with dog-like look waiting for any motion of his hand or any
+word....  Ah, Mahommed Hassan, it was he!  Mahommed had put this phial in
+his pocket.  His bitter secret was not hidden from Mahommed.  And this
+was an act of supreme devotion--to put at his hand the lulling, inspiring
+draught.  Did this fellah servant know what it meant--the sin of it, the
+temptation, the terrible joy, the blessed quiet; and then, the agonising
+remorse, the withering self-hatred and torturing penitence?  No, Mahommed
+only knew that when the Saadat was gone beyond his strength, when the
+sleepless nights and feverish days came in the past, in their great
+troubles, when men were dying and only the Saadat could save, that this
+cordial lifted him out of misery and storm into calm.  Yet Mahommed must
+have divined that it was a thing against which his soul revolted, or he
+would have given it to him openly.  In the heart and mind of the giant
+murderer, however, must have been the thought that now when trouble was
+upon his master again, trouble which might end all, this supreme
+destroyer of pain and dark memory and present misery, would give him the
+comfort he needed--and that he would take it.
+
+If he had not seen it, this sudden craving would not have seized him for
+this eager beguiling, this soothing benevolence.  Yet here it was in his
+hand; and even as it lay in his cold fingers--how cold they were, and his
+head how burning!--the desire for it surged up in him.  And, as though
+the thing itself had the magical power to summon up his troubles, that it
+might offer the apathy and stimulus in one--even as it lured him, his
+dangers, his anxieties, the black uncertainties massed, multiplied and
+aggressive, rose before him, buffeted him, caught at his throat, dragged
+down his shoulders, clutched at his heart.
+
+Now, with a cry of agony, he threw the phial on the ground, and, sinking
+on the bed, buried his face in his hands and moaned, and fought for
+freedom from the cords tightening round him.  It was for him to realise
+now how deep are the depths to which the human soul can sink, even while
+labouring to climb.  Once more the sense of awful futility was on him: of
+wasted toil and blenched force, veins of energy drained of their blood,
+hope smitten in the way, and every dear dream shattered.  Was it, then,
+all ended?  Was his work indeed fallen, and all his love undone?  Was his
+own redemption made impossible?  He had offered up his life to this land
+to atone for a life taken when she--when she first looked up with eyes of
+gratitude, eyes that haunted him.  Was it, then, unacceptable?  Was it so
+that he must turn his back upon this long, heart-breaking but beloved
+work, this panacea for his soul, without which he could not pay the price
+of blood?
+
+Go back to England--to Hamley where all had changed, where the old man he
+loved no longer ruled in the Red Mansion, where all that had been could
+be no more?  Go to some other land, and there begin again another such a
+work?  Were there not vast fields of human effort, effort such as his,
+where he could ease the sorrow of living by the joy of a divine altruism?
+Go back to Hamley?  Ah, no, a million times, no!  That life was dead, it
+was a cycle of years behind him.  There could be no return.  He was in a
+maelstrom of agony, his veins were afire, his lips were parched.  He
+sprang from his bed, knelt down, and felt for the little phial he had
+flung aside.  After a moment his hand caught it, clutched it.  But, even
+at the crest of the wave of temptation, words that he had heard one night
+in Hamley, that last night of all, flashed into his mind--the words
+of old Luke Claridge's prayer, "And if a viper fasten on his hand,
+O Lord--"
+
+Suddenly he paused.  That scene in the old Meetinghouse swam before his
+eyes, got into his brain.  He remembered the words of his own prayer, and
+how he had then retreated upon the Power that gave him power, for a
+draught of the one true tincture which braced the heart to throw itself
+upon the spears of trial.  Now the trial had come, and that which was in
+him as deep as being, the habit of youth, the mother-fibre and
+predisposition, responded to the draught he had drunk then.  As a body
+freed from the quivering, unrelenting grasp of an electric battery
+subsides into a cool quiet, so, through his veins seemed to pass an ether
+which stilled the tumult, the dark desire to drink the potion in his
+hand, and escape into that irresponsible, artificial world, where he had
+before loosened his hold on activity.
+
+The phial slipped from his fingers to the floor.  He sank upon the side
+of the bed, and, placing his hands on his knees, he whispered a few
+broken words that none on earth was meant to hear.  Then he passed into a
+strange and moveless quiet of mind and body.  Many a time in days gone
+by--far-off days--had he sat as he was doing now, feeling his mind pass
+into a soft, comforting quiet, absorbed in a sensation of existence, as
+it were between waking and sleeping, where doors opened to new experience
+and understanding, where the mind seemed to loose itself from the bonds
+of human necessity and find a freer air.
+
+Now, as he sat as still as the stone in the walls around him, he was
+conscious of a vision forming itself before his eyes.  At first it was
+indefinite, vague, without clear form, but at last it became a room dimly
+outlined, delicately veiled, as it were.  Then it seemed, not that
+the mist cleared, but that his eyes became stronger, and saw through the
+delicate haze; and now the room became wholly, concretely visible.
+
+It was the room in which he had said good-bye to Hylda.  As he gazed like
+one entranced, he saw a figure rise from a couch, pale, agitated, and
+beautiful, and come forward, as it were, towards him.  But suddenly the
+mist closed in again upon the scene, a depth of darkness passed his eyes,
+and he heard a voice say: "Speak--speak to me!"
+
+He heard her voice as distinctly as though she were beside him--as,
+indeed, she had stood before him but an instant ago.
+
+Getting slowly to his feet, into the night he sent an answer to the call.
+
+Would she hear?  She had said long ago that she would speak to him so.
+Perhaps she had tried before.  But now at last he had heard and answered.
+Had she heard?  Time might tell--if ever they met again.  But how good,
+and quiet, and serene was the night!
+
+He composed himself to sleep, but, as he lay waiting for that coverlet of
+forgetfulness to be drawn over him, he heard the sound of bells soft and
+clear.  Just such bells he had heard upon the common at Hamley.  Was it,
+then, the outcome of his vision--a sweet hallucination?  He leaned upon
+his elbow and listened.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+FORTY STRIPES SAVE ONE
+
+The bells that rang were not the bells of Hamley; they were part of no
+vision or hallucination, and they drew David out of his chamber into the
+night.  A little group of three stood sharply silhouetted against the
+moonlight, and towering above them was the spare, commanding form of Ebn
+Ezra Bey.  Three camels crouched near, and beside them stood a Nubian lad
+singing to himself the song of the camel-driver:
+
+         "Fleet is thy foot: thou shalt rest by the Etl tree;
+          Water shalt thou drink from the blue-deep well;
+          Allah send His gard'ner with the green bersim,
+          For thy comfort, fleet one, by the Etl tree.
+          As the stars fly, have thy footsteps flown
+          Deep is the well, drink, and be still once more;
+          Till the pursuing winds panting have found thee
+          And, defeated, sink still beside thee--
+          By the well and the Etl tree."
+
+For a moment David stood in the doorway listening to the low song of the
+camel-driver.  Then he came forward.  As he did so, one of the two who
+stood with Ebn Ezra moved towards the monastery door slowly.  It was a
+monk with a face which, even in this dim light, showed a deathly
+weariness.  The eyes looked straight before him, as though they saw
+nothing of the world, only a goal to make, an object to be accomplished.
+The look of the face went to David's heart--the kinship of pain was
+theirs.
+
+"Peace be to thee," David said gently, as the other passed him.
+
+There was an instant's pause, and then the monk faced him with fingers
+uplifted.  "The grace of God be upon thee, David," he said, and his eyes,
+drawn back from the world where they had been exploring, met the other's
+keenly.  Then he wheeled and entered the monastery.
+
+"The grace of God be upon thee, David!"  How strange it sounded, this
+Christian blessing in response to his own Oriental greeting, out in this
+Eastern waste.  His own name, too.  It was as though he had been
+transported to the ancient world where "Brethren" were so few that they
+called each other by their "Christian" names--even as they did in Hamley
+to-day.  In Hamley to-day!  He closed his eyes, a tremor running through
+his body; and then, with an effort which stilled him to peace again, he
+moved forward, and was greeted by Ebn Ezra, from whom the third member of
+the little group had now drawn apart nearer to the acacia-tree, and was
+seated on a rock that jutted from the sand.  "What is it?" David asked.
+
+"Wouldst thou not sleep, Saadat?  Sleep is more to thee now than aught
+thou mayst hear from any man.  To all thou art kind save thyself."
+
+"I have rested," David answered, with a measured calmness, revealing to
+his friend the change which had come since they parted an hour before.
+They seated themselves under the palm-tree, and were silent for a moment,
+then Ebn Ezra said:
+
+"These come from the Place of Lepers."
+
+David started slightly.  "Zaida?" he asked, with a sigh of pity.
+
+"The monk who passed thee but now goes every year to the Place of Lepers
+with the caravan, for a brother of this order stays yonder with the
+afflicted, seeing no more the faces of this world which he has left
+behind.  Afar off from each other they stand--as far as eye can see--and
+after the manner of their faith they pray to Allah, and he who has just
+left us finds a paper fastened with a stone upon the sand at a certain
+place where he waits.  He touches it not, but reads it as it lies, and,
+having read, heaps sand upon it.  And the message which the paper gives
+is for me."
+
+"For thee?  Hast thou there one who--"
+
+"There was one, my father's son, though we were of different mothers; and
+in other days, so many years ago, he did great wrong to me, and not to me
+alone,"--the grey head bowed in sorrow--"but to one dearer to me than
+life.  I hated him, and would have slain him, but the mind of Allah is
+not the mind of man; and he escaped me.  Then he was stricken with
+leprosy, and was carried to the place from whence no leper returns.  At
+first my heart rejoiced; then, at last, I forgave him, Saadat--was he not
+my father's son, and was the woman not gone to the bosom of Allah, where
+is peace?  So I forgave and sorrowed for him--who shall say what miseries
+are those which, minute to minute, day after day, and year upon year,
+repeat themselves, till it is an endless flaying of the body and burning
+of the soul!  Every year I send a message to him, and every year now this
+Christian monk--there is no Sheikh-el-Islam yonder--brings back the
+written message which he finds in the sand."
+
+"And thee has had a message to-night?"
+
+"The last that may come--God be praised, he goeth to his long home.  It
+was written in his last hour.  There was no hope; he is gone.  And so,
+one more reason showeth why I should go where thou goest, Saadat."
+
+Casting his eyes toward the figure by the acacia-tree, his face clouded
+and he pondered anxiously, looking at David the while.  Twice he essayed
+to speak, but paused.
+
+David's eyes followed his look.  "What is it?  Who is he--yonder?"
+
+The other rose to his feet.  "Come and see, Saadat," he replied.
+"Seeing, thou wilt know what to do."
+
+"Zaida--is it of Zaida?" David asked.
+
+"The man will answer for himself, Saadat."  Coming within a few feet of
+the figure crouched upon the rock, Ebn Ezra paused and stretched out a
+hand.  "A moment, Saadat.  Dost thou not see, dost thou not recognise
+him?"
+
+David intently studied the figure, which seemed unconscious of their
+presence.  The shoulders were stooping and relaxed as though from great
+fatigue, but David could see that the figure was that of a tall man.  The
+head was averted, but a rough beard covered the face, and, in the light
+of the fire, one hand that clutched it showed long and skinny and yellow
+and cruel.  The hand fascinated David's eyes.  Where had he seen it?  It
+flashed upon him--a hand clutching a robe, in a frenzy of fear, in the
+court-yard of the blue tiles, in Kaid's Palace--Achmet the Ropemaker!
+He drew back a step.
+
+"Achmet," he said in a low voice.  The figure stirred, the hand dropped
+from the beard and clutched the knee; but the head was not raised, and
+the body remained crouching and listless.
+
+"He escaped?" David said, turning to Ebn Ezra Bey.
+
+"I know not by what means--a camel-driver bribed, perhaps, and a camel
+left behind for him.  After the caravan had travelled a day's journey he
+joined it.  None knew what to do.  He was not a leper, and he was armed."
+
+"Leave him with me," said David.
+
+Ebn Ezra hesitated.  "He is armed; he was thy foe--"
+
+"I am armed also," David answered enigmatically, and indicated by a
+gesture that he wished to be left alone.  Ebn Ezra drew away towards the
+palm-tree, and stood at this distance watching anxiously, for he knew
+what dark passions seize upon the Oriental--and Achmet had many things
+for which to take vengeance.
+
+David stood for a moment, pondering, his eyes upon the deserter.  "God
+greet thee as thou goest, and His goodness befriend thee," he said
+evenly.  There was silence, and no movement.  "Rise and speak," he added
+sternly.  "Dost thou not hear?  Rise, Achmet Pasha!"
+
+Achmet Pasha!  The head of the desolate wretch lifted, the eyes glared at
+David for an instant, as though to see whether he was being mocked, and
+then the spare figure stretched itself, and the outcast stood up.  The
+old lank straightness was gone, the shoulders were bent, the head was
+thrust forward, as though the long habit of looking into dark places had
+bowed it out of all manhood.
+
+"May grass spring under thy footstep, Saadat," he said, in a thick voice,
+and salaamed awkwardly--he had been so long absent from life's
+formularies.
+
+"What dost thou here, pasha?" asked David formally.  "Thy sentence had
+no limit."
+
+"I could not die there," said the hollow voice, and the head sank farther
+forward.  "Year after year I lived there, but I could not die among them.
+I was no leper; I am no leper.  My penalty was my penalty, and I paid
+it to the full, piastre by piastre of my body and my mind.  It was not
+one death, it was death every hour, every day I stayed.  I had no mind.
+I could not think.  Mummy-cloths were round my brain; but the fire burned
+underneath and would not die.  There was the desert, but my limbs were
+like rushes.  I had no will, and I could not flee.  I was chained to the
+evil place.  If I stayed it was death, if I went it was death."
+
+"Thou art armed now," said David suggestively.  Achmet laid a hand
+fiercely upon a dagger under his robe.  "I hid it.  I was afraid.  I
+could not die--my hand was like a withered leaf; it could not strike; my
+heart poured out like water.  Once I struck a leper, that he might strike
+and kill me; but he lay upon the ground and wept, for all his anger,
+which had been great, died in him at last.  There was none other given to
+anger there.  The leper has neither anger, nor mirth, nor violence, nor
+peace.  It is all the black silent shame--and I was no leper."
+
+"Why didst thou come?  What is there but death for thee here, or anywhere
+thou goest!  Kaid's arm will find thee; a thousand hands wait to strike
+thee."
+
+"I could not die there--Dost thou think that I repent?" he added with
+sudden fierceness.  "Is it that which would make me repent?  Was I worse
+than thousands of others?  I have come out to die--to fight and die.
+Aiwa, I have come to thee, whom I hated, because thou canst give me death
+as I desire it.  My mother was an Arab slave from Senaar, and she was got
+by war, and all her people.  War and fighting were their portion--as they
+ate, as they drank and slept.  In the black years behind me among the
+Unclean, there was naught to fight--could one fight the dead, and the
+agony of death, and the poison of the agony!  Life, it is done for me--
+am I not accursed?  But to die fighting--ay, fighting for Egypt, since it
+must be, and fighting for thee, since it must be; to strike, and strike,
+and strike, and earn death!  Must the dog, because he is a dog, die in
+the slime?  Shall he not be driven from the village to die in the clean
+sand?  Saadat, who will see in me Achmet Pasha, who did with Egypt what
+he willed, and was swept away by the besom in thy hand?  Is there in me
+aught of that Achmet that any should know?"
+
+"None would know thee for that Achmet," answered David.
+
+"I know, it matters not how--at last a letter found me, and the way of
+escape--that thou goest again to the Soudan.  There will be fighting
+there--"
+
+"Not by my will," interrupted David.
+
+"Then by the will of Sheitan the accursed; but there will be fighting--
+am I not an Arab, do I not know?  Thou hast not conquered yet.  Bid me go
+where thou wilt, do what thou wilt, so that I may be among the fighters,
+and in the battle forget what I have seen.  Since I am unclean, and am
+denied the bosom of Allah, shall I not go as a warrior to Hell, where men
+will fear me?  Speak, Saadat, canst thou deny me this?"
+
+Nothing of repentance, so far as he knew, moved the dark soul; but, like
+some evil spirit, he would choose the way to his own doom, the place and
+the manner of it: a sullen, cruel, evil being, unyielding in his evil,
+unmoved by remorse--so far as he knew.  Yet he would die fighting, and
+for Egypt "and for thee, if it must be so.  To strike, to strike, to
+strike, and earn death!"  What Achmet did not see, David saw, the glimmer
+of light breaking through the cloud of shame and evil and doom.  Yonder
+in the Soudan more problems than one would be solved, more lives than one
+be put to the extreme test.  He did not answer Achmet's question yet.
+"Zaida--?" he said in a low voice.  The pathos of her doom had been a
+dark memory.
+
+Achmet's voice dropped lower as he answered.  "She lived till the day her
+sister died.  I never saw her face; but I was sent to bear each day to
+her door the food she ate and a balass of water; and I did according to
+my sentence.  Yet I heard her voice.  And once, at last, the day she
+died, she spoke to me, and said from inside the hut: 'Thy work is done,
+Achmet.  Go in peace.'  And that night she lay down on her sister's
+grave, and in the morning she was found dead upon it."
+
+David's eyes were blinded with tears.  "It was too long," he said at
+last, as though to himself.
+
+"That day," continued Achmet, "there fell ill with leprosy the Christian
+priest from this place who had served in that black service so long; and
+then a fire leapt up in me.  Zaida was gone--I had brought food and a
+balass of water to her door those many times; there was naught to do,
+since she was gone--"
+
+Suddenly David took a step nearer to him and looked into the sullen and
+drooping eyes.  "Thou shalt go with me, Achmet.  I will do this unlawful
+act for thee.  At daybreak I will give thee orders.  Thou shalt join me
+far from here--if I go to the Soudan," he added, with a sudden
+remembrance of his position; and he turned away slowly.
+
+After a moment, with muttered words, Achmet sank down upon the stone
+again, drew a cake of dourha from his inner robe, and began to eat.
+
+The camel-boy had lighted a fire, and he sat beside it warming his hands
+at the blaze and still singing to himself:
+
+    "The bed of my love I will sprinkle with attar of roses,
+     The face of my love I will touch with the balm
+     With the balm of the tree from the farthermost wood,
+     From the wood without end, in the world without end.
+     My love holds the cup to my lips, and I drink of the cup,
+     And the attar of roses I sprinkle will soothe like the evening dew,
+     And the balm will be healing and sleep, and the cup I will drink,
+     I will drink of the cup my love holds to my lips--"
+
+David stood listening.  What power was there in desert life that could
+make this poor camel-driver, at the end of a long day of weariness and
+toil and little food and drink, sing a song of content and cheerfulness?
+The little needed, the little granted, and no thought beyond--save the
+vision of one who waited in the hut by the onion-field.  He gathered
+himself together and tuned his mind to the scene through which he had
+just passed, and then to the interview he would have with Kaid on the
+morrow.  A few hours ago he had seen no way out of it all--he had had no
+real hope that Kaid would turn to him again; but the last two hours had
+changed all that.  Hope was alive in him.  He had fought a desperate
+fight with himself, and he had conquered.  Then had come Achmet,
+unrepentant, degraded still, but with the spirit of Something glowing--
+Achmet to die for a cause, driven by that Something deep beneath the
+degradation and the crime.  He had hope, and, as the camel-driver's voice
+died away, and he lay down with a sheep-skin over him and went instantly
+to sleep, David drew to the fire and sat down beside it.  Presently Ebn
+Ezra came to urge him to go to bed, but he would not.  He had slept, he
+said; he had slept and rested, and the night was good--he would wait.
+Then the other brought rugs and blankets, and gave David some, and lay
+down beside the fire, and watched and waited for he knew not what.  Ever
+and ever his eyes were on David, and far back under the acacia-tree
+Achmet slept as he had not slept since his doom fell on him.
+
+At last Ebn Ezra Bey also slept; but David was awake with the night and
+the benevolent moon and the marching stars.  The spirit of the desert was
+on him, filling him with its voiceless music.  From the infinite
+stretches of sand to the south came the irresistible call of life, as
+soft as the leaves in a garden of roses, as deep as the sea.  This world
+was still, yet there seemed a low, delicate humming, as of multitudinous
+looms at a distance so great that the ear but faintly caught it--the
+sound of the weavers of life and destiny and eternal love, the hands of
+the toilers of all the ages spinning and spinning on; and he was part of
+it, not abashed or dismayed because he was but one of the illimitable
+throng.
+
+The hours wore on, but still he sat there, peace in all his heart, energy
+tingling softly through every vein, the wings of hope fluttering at his
+ear.
+
+At length the morning came, and, from the west, with the rising sun, came
+a traveller swiftly, making for where he was.  The sleepers stirred
+around him and waked and rose.  The little camp became alive.  As the
+traveller neared the fresh-made fire, David saw that it was Lacey.  He
+went eagerly to meet him.
+
+"Thee has news," he said.  "I see it is so."  He held Lacey's hand in
+his.
+
+"Say, you are going on that expedition, Saadat.  You wanted money.  Will
+a quarter of a million do?"  David's eyes caught fire.
+
+From the monastery there came the voices of the monks:
+
+     "O be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands.  Serve the Lord with
+     gladness, and come before His presence with a song."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+THE DARK INDENTURE
+
+Nahoum had forgotten one very important thing: that what affected David
+as a Christian in Egypt would tell equally against himself.  If, in his
+ill-health and dejection, Kaid drank deep of the cup of Mahomet, the red
+eyes of fanaticism would be turned upon the Armenian, as upon the
+European Christian.  He had forgotten it for the moment, but when, coming
+into Kaid's Palace, a little knot of loiterers spat upon the ground and
+snarled, "Infidel--Nazarene!" with contempt and hatred, the significance
+of the position came home to him.  He made his way to a far quarter of
+the Palace, thoughtfully weighing the circumstances, and was met by
+Mizraim.
+
+Mizraim salaamed.  "The height of thy renown be as the cedar of Lebanon,
+Excellency."
+
+"May thy feet tread the corn of everlasting fortune, son of Mahomet."
+
+They entered the room together.  Nahoum looked at Mizraim curiously.  He
+was not satisfied with what he saw.  Mizraim's impassive face had little
+expression, but the eyes were furtively eager and sinister.
+
+"Well, so it is, and if it is, what then?" asked Nahoum coolly.
+
+"Ki di, so it is," answered Mizraim, and a ghastly smile came to his
+lips.  This infidel pasha, Nahoum, had a mind that pierced to the meaning
+of words ere they were spoken.  Mizraim's hand touched his forehead, his
+breast, his lips, and, clasping and unclasping his long, snakelike
+fingers, he began the story he had come to tell.
+
+"The Inglesi, whom Allah confound, the Effendina hath blackened by a
+look, his words have smitten him in the vital parts--"
+
+"Mizraim, thou dove, speak to the purpose!"  Mizraim showed a dark
+pleasure at the interruption.  Nahoum was impatient, anxious; that made
+the tale better worth telling.
+
+"Sharif and the discontented ones who dare not act, like the vultures,
+they flee the living man, but swoop upon the corpse.  The consuls of
+those countries who love not England or Claridge Pasha, and the holy men,
+and the Cadi, all scatter smouldering fires.  There is a spirit in the
+Palace and beyond which is blowing fast to a great flame."
+
+"Then, so it is, great one, and what bodes it?"
+
+"It may kill the Inglesi; but it will also sweep thee from the fields of
+life where thou dost flourish."
+
+"It is not against the foreigner, but against the Christian, Mizraim?"
+
+"Thy tongue hath wisdom, Excellency."
+
+"Thou art a Muslim--"
+
+"Why do I warn thee?  For service done to me; and because there is none
+other worth serving in Egypt.  Behold, it is my destiny to rule others,
+to serve thee."
+
+"Once more thy turban full of gold, Mizraim, if thou dost service now
+that hath meaning and is not a belching of wind and words.  Thou hast a
+thing to say--say it, and see if Nahoum hath lost his wit, or hath a
+palsied arm."
+
+"Then behold, pasha.  Are not my spies in all the Palace?  Is not my
+scourge heavier than the whip of the horned horse?  Ki di, so it is.
+This I have found.  Sharif hath, with others, made a plot which hath
+enough powder in it to shake Egypt, and toss thee from thy high place
+into the depths.  There is a Christian--an Armenian, as it chances; but
+he was chosen because he was a Christian, and for that only.  His name is
+Rahib.  He is a tent-maker.  He had three sons.  They did kill an effendi
+who had cheated them of their land.  Two of them were hanged last week;
+the other, caught but a few days since, is to hang within three days.
+To-day Kaid goes to the Mosque of Mahmoud, as is the custom at this
+festival.  The old man hath been persuaded to attempt the life of Kaid,
+upon condition that his son--his Benjamin--is set free.  It will be but
+an attempt at Kaid's life, no more; but the cry will go forth that a
+Christian did the thing; and the Muslim flame will leap high."
+
+"And the tent-maker?" asked Nahoum musingly, though he was turning over
+the tale in his mind, seeing behind it and its far consequences.
+
+"Malaish, what does it matter!  But he is to escape, and they are to hang
+another Christian in his stead for the attempt on Kaid.  It hath no
+skill, but it would suffice.  With the dervishes gone malboos, and the
+faithful drunk with piety--canst thou not see the issue, pasha?  Blood
+will be shed."
+
+"The Jews of Europe would be angry," said Nahoum grimly but evenly.  "The
+loans have been many, and Kaid has given a lien by the new canal at Suez.
+The Jews will be angry," he repeated, "and for every drop of Christian
+blood shed there would be a lanced vein here.  But that would not bring
+back Nahoum Pasha," he continued cynically.  "Well, this is thy story,
+Mizraim; this is what they would do.  Now what hast thou done to stop
+their doing?"
+
+"Am I not a Muslim?  Shall I give Sharif to the Nile?"
+
+Nahoum smiled darkly.  "There is a simpler way.  Thy mind ever runs on
+the bowstring and the sword.  These are great, but there is a greater.
+It is the mocking finger.  At midnight, when Kaid goes to the Mosque
+Mahmoud, a finger will mock the plotters till they are buried in
+confusion.  Thou knowest the governor of the prisons--has he not need of
+something?  Hath he never sought favours of thee?"
+
+"Bismillah, but a week ago!"
+
+"Then, listen, thou shepherd of the sheep--"
+
+He paused, as there came a tap at the door, and a slave entered hurriedly
+and addressed Nahoum.  "The effendi, Ebn Ezra Bey, whom thou didst set me
+to watch, he hath entered the Palace, and asks for the Effendina."
+
+Nahoum started, and his face clouded, but his eyes flashed fire.  He
+tossed the slave a coin.  "Thou hast done well.  Where is he now?"
+
+"He waits in the hall, where is the statue of Mehemet Ali and the lions."
+
+"In an hour, Mizraim, thou shalt hear what I intend.  Peace be to thee!"
+
+"And on thee, peace!" answered Mizraim, as Nahoum passed from the room,
+and walked hastily towards the hall where he should find Ebn Ezra Bey.
+Nearing the spot, he brought his step to a deliberate slowness, and
+appeared not to notice the stately Arab till almost upon him.
+
+"Salaam, effendi," he said smoothly, yet with inquisition in his eye,
+with malice in his tone.
+
+"Salaam, Excellency."
+
+"Thou art come on the business of thy master?"
+
+"Who is my master, Excellency?"
+
+"Till yesterday it was Claridge Pasha.  Hast thou then forsaken him in
+his trouble--the rat from the sinking ship?"
+
+A flush passed over Ebn Ezra Bey's face, and his mouth opened with a gasp
+of anger.  Oriental though he was, he was not as astute as this Armenian
+Christian, who was purposely insulting him, that he might, in a moment of
+heat, snatch from him the business he meant to lay before Kaid.  Nahoum
+had not miscalculated.
+
+"I have but one master, Excellency," Ebn Ezra answered quietly at last,
+"and I have served him straightly.  Hast thou done likewise?"
+
+"What is straight to thee might well be crooked to me, effendi."
+
+"Thou art crooked as the finger of a paralytic."
+
+"Yet I have worked in peace with Claridge Pasha for these years past,
+even until yesterday, when thou didst leave him to his fate."
+
+"His ship will sail when thine is crumbling on the sands, and all thou
+art is like a forsaken cockatrice's nest."
+
+"Is it this thou hast come to say to the Effendina?"
+
+"What I have come to say to the Effendina is for the world to know after
+it hath reached his ears.  I know thee, Nahoum Pasha.  Thou art a
+traitor.  Claridge Pasha would abolish slavery, and thou dost receive
+great sums of gold from the slave-dealers to prevent it."
+
+"Is it this thou wilt tell Kaid?" Nahoum asked with a sneer.  "And hast
+thou proofs?"
+
+"Even this day they have come to my hands from the south."
+
+"Yet I think the proofs thou hast will not avail; and I think that thou
+wilt not show them to Kaid.  The gift of second thinking is a great gift.
+Thou must find greater reason for seeking the Effendina."
+
+"That too shall be.  Gold thou hadst to pay the wages of the soldiers of
+the south.  Thou didst keep the gold and order the slave-hunt; and the
+soldiers of the Effendina have been paid in human flesh and blood--ten
+thousand slaves since Claridge Pasha left the Soudan, and three thousand
+dead upon the desert sands, abandoned by those who hunted them when water
+grew scarce and food failed.  To-day shall see thy fall."
+
+At his first words Nahoum had felt a shock, from which his spirit reeled;
+but an inspiration came to him on the moment; and he listened with a
+saturnine coolness to the passionate words of the indignant figure
+towering above him.  When Ebn Ezra had finished, he replied quietly:
+
+"It is even as thou sayest, effendi.  The soldiers were paid in slaves
+got in the slave-hunt; and I have gold from the slave-dealers.  I needed
+it, for the hour is come when I must do more for Egypt than I have ever
+done."
+
+With a gesture of contempt Ebn Ezra made to leave, seeing an official of
+the Palace in the distance.  Nahoum stopped him.  "But, one moment ere
+thou dost thrust thy hand into the cockatrice's den.  Thou dost measure
+thyself against Nahoum?  In patience and with care have I trained myself
+for the battle.  The bulls of Bashan may roar, yet my feet are shod with
+safety.  Thou wouldst go to Kaid and tell him thy affrighted tale.  I
+tell thee, thou wilt not go.  Thou hast reason yet, though thy blood is
+hot.  Thou art to Claridge Pasha like a brother--as to his uncle before
+him, who furnished my father's palace with carpets.  The carpets still
+soften the fall of my feet in my father's palace, as they did soften the
+fall of my brother's feet, the feet of Foorgat Bey."
+
+He paused, looking at Ebn Ezra with quiet triumph, though his eyes had
+ever that smiling innocence which had won David in days gone by.  He was
+turning his words over on the tongue with a relish born of long waiting.
+
+"Come," he said presently--"come, and I will give thee reason why thou
+wilt not speak with Kaid to-day.  This way, effendi."
+
+He led the other into a little room hung about with rugs and tapestry,
+and, going to the wall, he touched a spring.  "One moment here, effendi,"
+he added quietly.  The room was as it had been since David last stood
+within it.
+
+"In this room, effendi," Nahoum said with cold deliberation, "Claridge
+Pasha killed my brother, Foorgat Bey."
+
+Ebn Ezra fell back as though he had been struck.  Swiftly Nahoum told him
+the whole truth--even to the picture of the brougham, and the rigid,
+upright figure passing through the night to Foorgat's palace, the gaunt
+Mizraim piloting the equipage of death.
+
+"I have held my peace for my own reasons, effendi.  Wilt thou then force
+me to speak?  If thou dost still cherish Claridge Pasha, wilt thou see
+him ruined?  Naught but ruin could follow the telling of the tale at this
+moment--his work, his life, all done.  The scandal, the law, vengeance!
+But as it is now, Kaid may turn to him again; his work may yet go on--he
+has had the luck of angels, and Kaid is fickle.  Who can tell?"
+
+Abashed and overwhelmed, Ebn Ezra Bey looked at him keenly.  "To tell of
+Foorgat Bey would ruin thee also," he said.  "That thou knowest.  The
+trick--would Kaid forgive it?  Claridge Pasha would not be ruined alone."
+
+"Be it so.  If thou goest to Kaid with thy story, I go to Egypt with
+mine.  Choose."
+
+Ebn Ezra turned to go.  "The high God judge between him and thee," he
+said, and, with bowed head, left the Palace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+NAHOUM DROPS THE MASK
+
+"CLARIDGE PASHA!"
+
+At the sound of the words, announced in a loud voice, hundreds of heads
+were turned towards the entrance of the vast salon, resplendent with
+gilded mirrors, great candelabra and chandeliers, golden hangings, and
+divans glowing with robes of yellow silk.
+
+It was the anniversary of Kaid's succession, and all entitled to come
+poured into the splendid chamber.  The showy livery of the officials, the
+loose, spacious, gorgeous uniforms of the officers, with the curved
+jewelled scimitars and white turbans, the rich silk robes of the Ulema,
+robe over robe of coloured silk with flowing sleeves and sumptuous silken
+vests, the ample dignity of noble-looking Arabs in immense white turbans,
+the dark straight Stambouli coat of the officials, made a picture of
+striking variety and colour and interest.
+
+About the centre of the room, laying palm to palm again and yet again,
+touching lips and forehead and breast, speaking with slow, leisurely,
+voices, were two Arab sheikhs from the far Soudan.  One of these showed a
+singular interest in the movements of Nahoum Pasha as he entered the
+chamber, and an even greater interest in David when he was announced; but
+as David, in his journey up the chamber, must pass near him, he drew
+behind a little group of officials, who whispered to each other excitedly
+as David came on.  More than once before this same Sheikh Abdullah had
+seen David, and once they had met, and had made a treaty of amity, and
+Abdullah had agreed to deal in slaves no more; and yet within three
+months had sent to Cairo two hundred of the best that could be found
+between Khartoum and Senaar.  His business, of which Ebn Ezra Bey had due
+knowledge, had now been with Nahoum.  The business of the other Arab, a
+noble-looking and wiry Bedouin from the South, had been with Ebn Ezra
+Bey, and each hid his business from his friend.  Abdullah murmured to
+himself as David passed--a murmur of admiration and astonishment.  He had
+heard of the disfavour in which the Inglesi was; but, as he looked at
+David's face with its quiet smile, the influence which he felt in the
+desert long ago came over him again.
+
+"By Allah," he said aloud abstractedly, "it is a face that will not hide
+when the khamsin blows!  Who shall gainsay it?  If he were not an infidel
+he would be a Mahdi."
+
+To this his Bedouin friend replied: "As the depths of the pool at Ghebel
+Farik, so are his eyes.  You shall dip deep and you shall not find the
+bottom.  Bismillah, I would fight Kaid's Nubians, but not this infidel
+pasha!"
+
+Never had David appeared to such advantage.  The victory over himself the
+night before, the message of hope that had reached him at the monastery
+in the desert, the coming of Lacey, had given him a certain quiet
+masterfulness not reassuring to his foes.
+
+As he entered the chamber but now, there flashed into his mind the scene
+six years ago when, an absolute stranger, he had stepped into this
+Eastern salon, and had heard his name called out to the great throng:
+"Claridge efendi!"
+
+He addressed no one, but he bowed to the group of foreign consuls-
+general, looking them steadily in the eyes.  He knew their devices and
+what had been going on of late, he was aware that his fall would mean a
+blow to British prestige, and the calmness of his gaze expressed a
+fortitude which had a disconcerting effect upon the group.  The British
+Consul-General stood near by.  David advanced to him, and, as he did so,
+the few who surrounded the Consul-General fell back.  David held out his
+hand.  Somewhat abashed and ill at ease, the Consul-General took it.
+
+"Have you good news from Downing Street?" asked David quietly.
+
+The Consul-General hesitated for an instant, and then said: "There is no
+help to be had for you or for what you are doing in that quarter."  He
+lowered his voice.  "I fear Lord Eglington does not favour you; and he
+controls the Foreign Minister.  I am very sorry.  I have done my best,
+but my colleagues, the other consuls, are busy--with Lord Eglington."
+
+David turned his head away for an instant.  Strange how that name sent a
+thrill through him, stirred his blood!  He did not answer the Consul-
+General, and the latter continued:
+
+"Is there any hope?  Is the breach with Kaid complete?"
+
+David smiled gravely.  "We shall see presently.  I have made no change in
+my plans on the basis of a breach."
+
+At that moment he caught sight of Nahoum some distance away and moved
+towards him.  Out of the corner of his eye Nahoum saw David coming, and
+edged away towards that point where Kaid would enter, and where the crowd
+was greater.  As he did so Kaid appeared.  A thrill went through the
+chamber.  Contrary to his custom, he was dressed in the old native
+military dress of Mehemet Ali.  At his side was a jewelled scimitar, and
+in his turban flashed a great diamond.  In his hand he carried a snuff-
+box, covered with brilliants, and on his breast were glittering orders.
+
+The eyes of the reactionaries flashed with sinister pleasure when they
+saw Kaid.  This outward display of Orientalism could only be a reflex of
+the mind.  It was the outer symbol of Kaid's return to the spirit of the
+old days, before the influence of the Inglesi came upon him.  Every
+corrupt and intriguing mind had a palpitation of excitement.
+
+In Nahoum the sight of Kaid produced mixed feelings.  If, indeed, this
+display meant reaction towards an entourage purely Arab, Egyptian, and
+Muslim, then it was no good omen for his Christian self.  He drew near,
+and placed himself where Kaid could see him.  Kaid's manner was cheerful,
+but his face showed the effect of suffering, physical and mental.
+Presently there entered behind him Sharif Bey, whose appearance was the
+signal for a fresh demonstration.  Now, indeed, there could be no doubt
+as to Kaid's reaction.  Yet if Sharif had seen Mizraim's face evilly
+gloating near by he would have been less confident.
+
+David was standing where Kaid must see him, but the Effendina gave no
+sign of recognition.  This was so significant that the enemies of David
+rejoiced anew.  The day of the Inglesi was over.  Again and again did
+Kaid's eye wander over David's head.
+
+David remained calm and watchful, neither avoiding nor yet seeking the
+circle in which Kaid moved.  The spirit with which he had entered the
+room, however, remained with him, even when he saw Kaid summon to him
+some of the most fanatical members of the court circle, and engage them
+in talk for a moment.  But as this attention grew more marked, a cloud
+slowly gathered in the far skies of his mind.
+
+There was one person in the great assembly, however, who seemed to be
+unduly confident.  It was an ample, perspiring person in evening dress,
+who now and again mopped a prematurely bald head, and who said to
+himself, as Kaid talked to the reactionaries:
+
+"Say, Kald's overdoing it.  He's putting potted chicken on the butter.
+But it's working all right-r-i-g-h-t.  It's worth the backsheesh!"
+
+At this moment Kaid fastened David with his look, and spoke in a tone so
+loud that people standing at some distance were startled.
+
+"Claridge Pasha!"
+
+In the hush that followed David stepped forward.  "May the bounty of the
+years be thine, Saadat," Kaid said in a tone none could misunderstand.
+
+"May no tree in thy orchard wither, Effendina," answered David in a firm
+voice.
+
+Kaid beckoned him near, and again he spoke loudly: "I have proved thee,
+and found thee as gold tried seven times by the fire, Saadat.  In the
+treasury of my heart shall I store thee up.  Thou art going to the Soudan
+to finish the work Mehemet Ali began.  I commend thee to Allah, and will
+bid thee farewell at sunrise--I and all who love Egypt."
+
+There was a sinister smile on his lips, as his eyes wandered over the
+faces of the foreign consuls-general.  The look he turned on the
+intriguers of the Palace was repellent; he reserved for Sharif a moody,
+threatening glance, and the desperate hakim shrank back confounded from
+it.  His first impulse was to flee from the Palace and from Cairo; but he
+bethought himself of the assault to be made on Kaid by the tent-maker, as
+he passed to the mosque a few hours later, and he determined to await the
+issue of that event.  Exchanging glances with confederates, he
+disappeared, as Kaid laid a hand on David's arm and drew him aside.
+
+After viewing the great throng cynically for a moment Kaid said: "To-
+morrow thou goest.  A month hence the hakim's knife will find the thing
+that eats away my life.  It may be they will destroy it and save me; if
+not, we shall meet no more."
+
+David looked into his eyes.  "Not in a month shall thy work be completed,
+Effendina.  Thou shalt live.  God and thy strong will shall make it so."
+
+A light stole over the superstitious face.  "No device or hatred, or
+plot, has prevailed against thee," Kaid said eagerly.  "Thou hast
+defeated all--even when I turned against thee in the black blood of
+despair.  Thou hast conquered me even as thou didst Harrik."
+
+"Thou dost live," returned David drily.  "Thou dost live for Egypt's
+sake, even as Harrik died for Egypt's sake, and as others shall die."
+
+"Death hath tracked thee down how often!  Yet with a wave of the hand
+thou hast blinded him, and his blow falls on the air.  Thou art beset by
+a thousand dangers, yet thou comest safe through all.  Thou art an honest
+man.  For that I besought thee to stay with me.  Never didst thou lie to
+me.  Good luck hath followed thee.  Kismet!  Stay with me, and it may be
+I shall be safe also.  This thought came to me in the night, and in the
+morning was my reward, for Lacey effendi came to me and said, even as I
+say now, that thou wilt bring me good luck; and even in that hour, by the
+mercy of God, a loan much needed was negotiated.  Allah be praised!"
+
+A glint of humour shot into David's eyes.  Lacey--a loan--he read it all!
+Lacey had eased the Prince Pasha's immediate and pressing financial
+needs--and, "Allah be praised!"  Poor human nature--backsheesh to a
+Prince regnant!
+
+"Effendina," he said presently, "thou didst speak of Harrik.  One there
+was who saved thee then--" "Zaida!"  A change passed over Kaid's face.
+"Speak!  Thou hast news of her?  She is gone?"  Briefly David told him
+how Zaida was found upon her sister's grave.  Kaid's face was turned away
+as he listened.
+
+"She spoke no word of me?" Kaid said at last.  "To whom should she
+speak?" David asked gently.  "But the amulet thou gavest her, set with
+one red jewel, it was clasped in her hand in death."
+
+Suddenly Kaid's anger blazed.  "Now shall Achmet die," he burst out.
+"His hands and feet shall be burnt off, and he shall be thrown to the
+vultures."
+
+"The Place of the Lepers is sacred even from thee, Effendina," answered
+David gravely.  "Yet Achmet shall die even as Harrik died.  He shall die
+for Egypt and for thee, Effendina."
+
+Swiftly he drew the picture of Achmet at the monastery in the desert.
+"I have done the unlawful thing, Effendina," he said at last, "but thou
+wilt make it lawful.  He hath died a thousand deaths--all save one."
+
+"Be it so," answered Kaid gloomily, after a moment; then his face lighted
+with cynical pleasure as he scanned once more the faces of the crowd
+before him.  At last his eyes fastened on Nahoum.  He turned to David.
+
+"Thou dost still desire Nahoum in his office?" he asked keenly.
+
+A troubled look came into David's eyes, then it cleared away, and he said
+firmly: "For six years we have worked together, Effendina.  I am surety
+for his loyalty to thee."
+
+"And his loyalty to thee?"
+
+A pained look crossed over David's face again, but he said with a will
+that fought all suspicion down: "The years bear witness."
+
+Kaid shrugged his shoulders slightly.  "The years have perjured
+themselves ere this.  Yet, as thou sayest, Nahoum is a Christian," he
+added, with irony scarcely veiled.
+
+Now he moved forward with David towards the waiting court.  David
+searched the groups of faces for Nahoum in vain.  There were things
+to be said to Nahoum before he left on the morrow, last suggestions
+to be given.  Nahoum could not be seen.
+
+Nahoum was gone, as were also Sharif and his confederates, and in the
+lofty Mosque of Mahmoud soft lights were hovering, while the Sheikh-el-
+Islam waited with Koran and scimitar for the ruler of Egypt to pray to
+God and salute the Lord Mahomet.
+
+At the great gateway in the Street of the Tent Makers Kaid paused on his
+way to the Mosque Mahmoud.  The Gate was studded with thousands of nails,
+which fastened to its massive timbers relics of the faithful, bits of
+silk and cloth, and hair and leather; and here from time immemorial a
+holy man had sat and prayed.  At the gateway Kaid salaamed humbly, and
+spoke to the holy man, who, as he passed, raised his voice shrilly in an
+appeal to Allah, commending Kaid to mercy and everlasting favour.  On
+every side eyes burned with religious zeal, and excited faces were turned
+towards the Effendina.  At a certain point there were little groups of
+men with faces more set than excited.  They had a look of suppressed
+expectancy.  Kald neared them, passed them, and, as he did so, they
+looked at each other in consternation.  They were Sharif's confederates,
+fanatics carefully chosen.  The attempt on Kaid's life should have been
+made opposite the spot where they stood.  They craned their necks in
+effort to find the Christian tent-maker, but in vain.
+
+Suddenly they heard a cry, a loud voice calling.  It was Rahib the tent-
+maker.  He was beside Kaid's stirrups, but no weapon was in his hand; and
+his voice was calling blessings down on the Effendina's head for having
+pardoned and saved from death his one remaining son, the joy of his old
+age.  In all the world there was no prince like Kaid, said the tent-
+maker; none so bountiful and merciful and beautiful in the eyes of men.
+God grant him everlasting days, the beloved friend of his people, just to
+all and greatly to be praised.
+
+As the soldiers drove the old man away with kindly insistence--for Kaid
+had thrown him a handful of gold--Mizraim, the Chief Eunuch, laughed
+wickedly.  As Nahoum had said, the greatest of all weapons was the
+mocking finger.  He and Mizraim had had their way with the governor of
+the prisons, and the murderer had gone in safety, while the father stayed
+to bless Kaid.  Rahib the tent-maker had fooled the plotters.  They were
+mad in derision.  They did not know that Kaid was as innocent as
+themselves of having pardoned the tent-maker's son.  Their moment had
+passed; they could not overtake it; the match had spluttered and gone out
+at the fuel laid for the fire of fanaticism.
+
+The morning of David's departure came.  While yet it was dark he had
+risen, and had made his last preparations.  When he came into the open
+air and mounted, it was not yet sunrise, and in that spectral early
+light, which is all Egypt's own, Cairo looked like some dream-city in a
+forgotten world.  The Mokattam Hills were like vast dun barriers guarding
+and shutting in the ghostly place, and, high above all, the minarets of
+the huge mosque upon the lofty rocks were impalpable fingers pointing an
+endless flight.  The very trees seemed so little real and substantial
+that they gave the eye the impression that they might rise and float
+away.  The Nile was hung with mist, a trailing cloud unwound from the
+breast of the Nile-mother.  At last the sun touched the minarets of the
+splendid mosque with shafts of light, and over at Ghizeh and Sakkarah the
+great pyramids, lifting their heads from the wall of rolling blue mist
+below, took the morning's crimson radiance with the dignity of four
+thousand years.
+
+On the decks of the little steamer which was to carry them south David,
+Ebn Ezra, Lacey, and Mahommed waited.  Presently Kaid came, accompanied
+by his faithful Nubians, their armour glowing in the first warm light of
+the rising sun, and crowds of people, who had suddenly emerged, ran
+shrilling to the waterside behind him.
+
+Kaid's pale face had all last night's friendliness, as he bade David
+farewell with great honour, and commended him to the care of Allah; and
+the swords of the Nubians clashed against their breasts and on their
+shields in salaam.
+
+But there was another farewell to make; and it was made as David's foot
+touched the deck of the steamer.  Once again David looked at Nahoum as he
+had done six years ago, in the little room where they had made their bond
+together.  There was the same straight look in Nahoum's eyes.  Was he not
+to be trusted?  Was it not his own duty to trust?  He clasped Nahoum's
+hand in farewell, and turned away.  But as he gave the signal to start,
+and the vessel began to move, Nahoum came back.  He leaned over the
+widening space and said in a low tone, as David again drew near:
+
+"There is still an account which should be settled, Saadat.  It has
+waited long; but God is with the patient.  There is the account of
+Foorgat Bey."
+
+The light fled from David's eyes and his heart stopped beating for a
+moment.  When his eyes saw the shore again Nahoum was gone with Kaid.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Cherish any alleviating lie
+Triumph of Oriental duplicity over Western civilisation
+When God permits, shall man despair?
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WEAVERS
+
+By Gilbert Parker
+
+
+BOOK V.
+
+
+XXXV.     THE FLIGHT OF THE WOUNDED
+XXXVI.    "IS IT ALWAYS SO-IN LIFE?"
+XXXVII.   THE FLYING SHUTTLE
+XXXVIII.  JASPER KIMBER SPEAKS
+XXXIX.    FAITH JOURNEYS TO LONDON
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+THE FLIGHT OF THE WOUNDED
+
+              "And Mario can soothe with a tenor note
+               The souls in purgatory."
+
+"Non ti scordar di mi!"  The voice rang out with passionate stealthy
+sweetness, finding its way into far recesses of human feeling.  Women of
+perfect poise and with the confident look of luxury and social fame
+dropped their eyes abstractedly on the opera-glasses lying in their laps,
+or the programmes they mechanically fingered, and recalled, they knew not
+why--for what had it to do with this musical narration of a tragic
+Italian tale!--the days when, in the first flush of their wedded life,
+they had set a seal of devotion and loyalty and love upon their arms,
+which, long ago, had gone to the limbo of lost jewels, with the chaste,
+fresh desires of worshipping hearts.  Young egotists, supremely happy and
+defiant in the pride of the fact that they loved each other, and that it
+mattered little what the rest of the world enjoyed, suffered, and
+endured--these were suddenly arrested in their buoyant and solitary
+flight, and stirred restlessly in their seats.  Old men whose days of
+work were over; who no longer marshalled their legions, or moved at a nod
+great ships upon the waters in masterful manoeuvres; whose voices were
+heard no more in chambers of legislation, lashing partisan feeling to a
+height of cruelty or lulling a storm among rebellious followers; whose
+intellects no longer devised vast schemes of finance, or applied secrets
+of science to transform industry--these heard the enthralling cry of a
+soul with the darkness of eternal loss gathering upon it, and drew back
+within themselves; for they too had cried like this one time or another
+in their lives.  Stricken, they had cried out, and ambition had fled
+away, leaving behind only the habit of living, and of work and duty.
+
+As Hylda, in the Duchess of Snowdon's box, listened with a face which
+showed nothing of what she felt, and looking straight at the stage before
+her, the words of a poem she had learned but yesterday came to her mind,
+and wove themselves into the music thrilling from the voice in the stage
+prison:
+
+    "And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence
+       For the fulness of the days?  Have we withered or agonised?
+     Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue
+        thence?
+       Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should be prized?"
+
+"And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence?  Was it then so?
+The long weeks which had passed since that night at Hamley, when she had
+told Eglington the truth about so many things, had brought no peace,
+no understanding, no good news from anywhere.  The morning after she
+had spoken with heart laid bare.  Eglington had essayed to have a
+reconciliation; but he had come as the martyr, as one injured.  His
+egotism at such a time, joined to his attempt to make light of things,
+of treating what had happened as a mere "moment of exasperation," as "one
+of those episodes inseparable from the lives of the high-spirited," only
+made her heart sink and grow cold, almost as insensible as the flesh
+under a spray of ether.  He had been neither wise nor patient.  She had
+not slept after that bitter, terrible scene, and the morning had found
+her like one battered by winter seas, every nerve desperately alert to
+pain, yet tears swimming at her heart and ready to spring to her eyes at
+a touch of the real thing, the true note--and she knew so well what the
+true thing was!  Their great moment had passed, had left her withdrawn
+into herself, firmly, yet without heart, performing the daily duties of
+life, gay before the world, the delightful hostess, the necessary and
+graceful figure at so many functions.
+
+Even as Soolsby had done, who went no further than to tell Eglington his
+dark tale, and told no one else, withholding it from "Our Man"; as Sybil
+Lady Eglington had shrunk when she had been faced by her obvious duty, so
+Hylda hesitated, but from better reason than either.  To do right in the
+matter was to strike her husband--it must be a blow now, since her voice
+had failed.  To do right was to put in the ancient home and house of
+Eglington one whom he--with anger and without any apparent desire to have
+her altogether for himself, all the riches of her life and love--had
+dared to say commanded her sympathy and interest, not because he was a
+man dispossessed of his rights, but because he was a man possessed of
+that to which he had no right.  The insult had stung her, had driven her
+back into a reserve, out of which she seemed unable to emerge.  How could
+she compel Eglington to do right in this thing--do right by his own
+father's son?
+
+Meanwhile, that father's son was once more imperilling his life, once
+more putting England's prestige in the balance in the Soudan, from which
+he had already been delivered twice as though by miracles.  Since he had
+gone, months before, there had been little news; but there had been much
+public anxiety; and she knew only too well that there had been
+'pourparlers' with foreign ministers, from which no action came safe-
+guarding David.
+
+Many a human being has realised the apathy, the partial paralysis of the
+will, succeeding a great struggle, which has exhausted the vital forces.
+Many a general who has fought a desperate and victorious fight after a
+long campaign, and amid all the anxieties and miseries of war, has failed
+to follow up his advantage, from a sudden lesion of the power for action
+in him.  He has stepped from the iron routine of daily effort into a
+sudden freedom, and his faculties have failed him, the iron of his will
+has vanished.  So it was with Hylda.  She waited for she knew not what.
+Was it some dim hope that Eglington might see the right as she saw it?
+That he might realise how unreal was this life they were living,
+outwardly peaceful and understanding, deluding the world, but inwardly a
+place of tears.  How she dreaded the night and its recurrent tears, and
+the hours when she could not sleep, and waited for the joyless morning,
+as one lost on the moor, blanched with cold, waits for the sun-rise!
+Night after night at a certain hour--the hour when she went to bed at
+last after that poignant revelation to Eglington--she wept, as she had
+wept then, heart-broken tears of disappointment, disillusion, loneliness;
+tears for the bitter pity of it all; for the wasting and wasted
+opportunities; for the common aim never understood or planned together;
+for the precious hours lived in an air of artificial happiness and social
+excitement; for a perfect understanding missed; for the touch which no
+longer thrilled.
+
+But the end of it all must come.  She was looking frail and delicate, and
+her beauty, newly refined, and with a fresh charm, as of mystery or pain,
+was touched by feverishness.  An old impatience once hers was vanished,
+and Kate Heaver would have given a month's wages for one of those flashes
+of petulance of other days ever followed by a smile.  Now the smile was
+all too often there, the patient smile which comes to those who have
+suffered.  Hardness she felt at times, where Eglington was concerned,
+for he seemed to need her now not at all, to be self-contained, self-
+dependent--almost arrogantly so; but she did not show it, and she was
+outwardly patient.
+
+In his heart of hearts Eglington believed that she loved him, that her
+interest in David was only part of her idealistic temperament--the
+admiration of a woman for a man of altruistic aims; but his hatred of
+David, of what David was, and of his irrefutable claims, reacted on her.
+Perverseness and his unhealthy belief that he would master her in the
+end, that she would one day break down and come to him, willing to take
+his view in all things, and to be his slave--all this drove him farther
+and farther on a fatal, ever-broadening path.
+
+Success had spoiled him.  He applied his gifts in politics, daringly
+unscrupulous, superficially persuasive, intellectually insinuating, to
+his wife; and she, who had been captured once by all these things, was
+not to be captured again.  She knew what alone could capture her; and,
+as she sat and watched the singers on the stage now, the divine notes of
+that searching melody still lingering in her heart, there came a sudden
+wonder whether Eglington's heart could not be wakened.  She knew that it
+never had been, that he had never known love, the transfiguring and
+reclaiming passion.  No, no, surely it could not be too late--her
+marriage with him had only come too soon!  He had ridden over her without
+mercy; he had robbed her of her rightful share of the beautiful and the
+good; he had never loved her; but if love came to him, if he could but
+once realise how much there was of what he had missed!  If he did not
+save himself--and her--what would be the end?  She felt the cords drawing
+her elsewhere; the lure of a voice she had heard in an Egyptian garden
+was in her ears.  One night at Hamley, in an abandonment of grief-life
+hurt her so--she had remembered the prophecy she had once made that she
+would speak to David, and that he would hear; and she had risen from her
+seat, impelled by a strange new feeling, and had cried: "Speak!  speak to
+me!"  As plainly as she had ever heard anything in her life, she had
+heard his voice speak to her a message that sank into the innermost
+recesses of her being, and she had been more patient afterwards.  She had
+no doubt whatever; she had spoken to him, and he had answered; but the
+answer was one which all the world might have heard.
+
+Down deep in her nature was an inalienable loyalty, was a simple,
+old-fashioned feeling that "they two," she and Eglington, should cleave
+unto each other till death should part.  He had done much to shatter
+that feeling; but now, as she listened to Mario's voice, centuries of
+predisposition worked in her, and a great pity awoke in her heart.  Could
+she not save him, win him, wake him, cure him of the disease of Self?
+
+The thought brought a light to her eyes which had not been there for many
+a day.  Out of the deeps of her soul this mist of a pure selflessness
+rose, the spirit of that idealism which was the real chord of sympathy
+between her and Egypt.
+
+Yes, she would, this once again, try to win the heart of this man; and so
+reach what was deeper than heart, and so also give him that without which
+his life must be a failure in the end, as Sybil Eglington had said.  How
+often had those bitter anguished words of his mother rung in her ears--
+"So brilliant and unscrupulous, like yourself; but, oh, so sure of
+winning a great place in the world .  .  .  so calculating and determined
+and ambitious !"  They came to her now, flashed between the eager
+solicitous eyes of her mind and the scene of a perfect and everlasting
+reconciliation which it conjured up--flashed and were gone; for her will
+rose up and blurred them into mist; and other words of that true
+palimpsest of Sybil Eglington's broken life came instead: "And though he
+loves me little, as he loves you little too, yet he is my son, and for
+what he is we are both responsible one way or another."  As the mother,
+so the wife.  She said to herself now in sad paraphrase, "And though he
+loves me little, yet he is my husband, and for what he is it may be that
+I am in some sense responsible."  Yet he is my husband!  All that it was
+came to her; the closed door, the drawn blinds; the intimacy which shut
+them away from all the world; the things said which can only be said
+without desecration between two honest souls who love each other; and
+that sweet isolation which makes marriage a separate world, with its own
+sacred revelation.  This she had known; this had been; and though the
+image of the sacred thing had been defaced, yet the shrine was not
+destroyed.
+
+For she believed that each had kept the letter of the law; that, whatever
+his faults, he had turned his face to no other woman.  If she had not
+made his heart captive and drawn him by an ever-shortening cord of
+attraction, yet she was sure that none other had any influence over him,
+that, as he had looked at her in those short-lived days of his first
+devotion, he looked at no other.  The way was clear yet.  There was
+nothing irretrievable, nothing irrevocable, which would for ever stain
+the memory and tarnish the gold of life when the perfect love should be
+minted.  Whatever faults of mind or disposition or character were his--
+or hers--there were no sins against the pledges they had made, nor the
+bond into which they had entered.  Life would need no sponge.  Memory
+might still live on without a wound or a cowl of shame.
+
+It was all part of the music to which she listened, and she was almost
+oblivious of the brilliant throng, the crowded boxes, or of the Duchess
+of Snowdon sitting near her strangely still, now and again scanning the
+beautiful face beside her with a reflective look.  The Duchess loved the
+girl--she was but a girl, after all--as she had never loved any of her
+sex; it had come to be the last real interest of her life.  To her eyes,
+dimmed with much seeing, blurred by a garish kaleidoscope of fashionable
+life, there had come a look which was like the ghost of a look she had,
+how many decades ago.
+
+Presently, as she saw Hylda's eyes withdraw from the stage, and look at
+her with a strange, soft moisture and a new light in them, she laid her
+fan confidently on her friend's knee, and said in her abrupt whimsical
+voice: "You like it, my darling; your eyes are as big as saucers.  You
+look as if you'd been seeing things, not things on that silly stage, but
+what Verdi felt when he wrote the piece, or something of more account
+than that."
+
+"Yes, I've been seeing things," Hylda answered with a smile which came
+from a new-born purpose, the dream of an idealist.  "I've been seeing
+things that Verdi did not see, and of more account, too.  .  .  .
+Do you suppose the House is up yet?"
+
+A strange look flashed into the Duchess's eyes, which had been watching
+her with as much pity as interest.  Hylda had not been near the House of
+Commons this session, though she had read the reports with her usual
+care.  She had shunned the place.
+
+"Why, did you expect Eglington?" the Duchess asked idly, yet she was
+watchful too, alert for every movement in this life where the footsteps
+of happiness were falling by the edge of a precipice, over which she
+would not allow herself to look.  She knew that Hylda did not expect
+Eglington, for the decision to come to the opera was taken at the last
+moment.
+
+"Of course not--he doesn't know we are here.  But if it wasn't too late,
+I thought I'd go down and drive him home."
+
+The Duchess veiled her look.  Here was some new development in the
+history which had been torturing her old eyes, which had given her and
+Lord Windlehurst as many anxious moments as they had known in many a day,
+and had formed them into a vigilance committee of two, who waited for the
+critical hour when they should be needed.
+
+"We'll go at once if you like," she replied.  "The opera will be over
+soon.  We sent word to Windlehurst to join us, you remember, but he won't
+come now; it's too late.  So, we'll go, if you like."
+
+She half rose, but the door of the box opened, and Lord Windlehurst
+looked in quizzically.  There was a smile on his face.
+
+"I'm late, I know; but you'll forgive me--you'll forgive me, dear lady,"
+he added to Hylda, "for I've been listening to your husband making a
+smashing speech for a bad cause."
+
+Hylda smiled.  "Then I must go and congratulate him," she answered, and
+withdrew her hand from that of Lord Windlehurst, who seemed to hold it
+longer than usual, and pressed it in a fatherly way.
+
+"I'm afraid the House is up," he rejoined, as Hylda turned for her opera-
+cloak; "and I saw Eglington leave Palace Yard as I came away."  He gave a
+swift, ominous glance towards the Duchess, which Hylda caught, and she
+looked at each keenly.
+
+"It's seldom I sit in the Peers' Gallery," continued Windlehurst;
+"I don't like going back to the old place much.  It seems empty and
+hollow.  But I wouldn't have missed Eglington's fighting speech for a
+good deal."
+
+"What was it about?" asked Hylda as they left the box.  She had a sudden
+throb of the heart.  Was it the one great question, that which had been
+like a gulf of fire between them?
+
+"Oh, Turkey--the unpardonable Turk," answered Windlehurst.  "As good a
+defence of a bad case as I ever heard."
+
+"Yes, Eglington would do that well," said the Duchess enigmatically,
+drawing her cloak around her and adjusting her hair.  Hylda looked at her
+sharply, and Lord Windlehurst slyly, but the Duchess seemed oblivious of
+having said anything out of the way, and added: "It's a gift seeing all
+that can be said for a bad cause, and saying it, and so making the other
+side make their case so strong that the verdict has to be just."
+
+"Dear Duchess, it doesn't always work out that way," rejoined Windlehurst
+with a dry laugh.  "Sometimes the devil's advocate wins."
+
+"You are not very complimentary to my husband," retorted Hylda, looking
+him in the eyes, for she was not always sure when he was trying to baffle
+her.
+
+"I'm not so sure of that.  He hasn't won his case yet.  He has only
+staved off the great attack.  It's coming--soon."
+
+"What is the great attack?  What has the Government, or the Foreign
+Office, done or left undone?"  "Well, my dear--" Suddenly Lord
+Windlehurst remembered himself, stopped, put up his eyeglass, and with
+great interest seemed to watch a gay group of people opposite; for the
+subject of attack was Egypt and the Government's conduct in not helping
+David, in view not alone of his present danger, but of the position of
+England in the country, on which depended the security of her highway to
+the East.  Windlehurst was a good actor, and he had broken off his words
+as though the group he was now watching had suddenly claimed his
+attention.  "Well, well, Duchess," he said reflectively, "I see a new
+nine days' wonder yonder."  Then, in response to a reminder from Hylda,
+he continued: "Ah, yes, the attack!  Oh, Persia--Persia, and our feeble
+diplomacy, my dear lady, though you mustn't take that as my opinion,
+opponent as I am.  That's the charge, Persia--and her cats."
+
+The Duchess breathed a sigh of relief; for she knew what Windlehurst had
+been going to say, and she shrank from seeing what she felt she would
+see, if Egypt and Claridge Pasha's name were mentioned.  That night at
+Harnley had burnt a thought into her mind which she did not like.  Not
+that she had any pity for Eglington; her thought was all for this girl
+she loved.  No happiness lay in the land of Egypt for her, whatever her
+unhappiness here; and she knew that Hylda must be more unhappy still
+before she was ever happy again, if that might be.  There was that
+concerning Eglington which Hylda did not know, yet which she must know
+one day--and then!  But why were Hylda's eyes so much brighter and softer
+and deeper to-night?  There was something expectant, hopeful, brooding in
+them.  They belonged not to the life moving round her, but were shining
+in a land of their own, a land of promise.  By an instinct in each of
+them they stood listening for a moment to the last strains of the opera.
+The light leaped higher in Hylda's eyes.
+
+"Beautiful--oh, so beautiful!" she said, her hand touching the Duchess's
+arm.
+
+The Duchess gave the slim warm fingers a spasmodic little squeeze.  "Yes,
+darling, beautiful," she rejoined; and then the crowd began to pour out
+behind them.
+
+Their carriages were at the door.  Lord Windlehurst put Hylda in.  "The
+House is up," he said.  "You are going on somewhere?"
+
+"No--home," she said, and smiled into his old, kind, questioning eyes.
+"Home!"
+
+"Home!" he murmured significantly as he turned towards the Duchess and
+her carriage.  "Home!" he repeated, and shook his head sadly.
+
+"Shall I drive you to your house?" the Duchess asked.
+
+"No, I'll go with you to your door, and walk back to my cell.  Home!" he
+growled to the footman, with a sardonic note in the voice.
+
+As they drove away, the Duchess turned to him abruptly.  "What did you
+mean by your look when you said you had seen Eglington drive away from
+the House?"
+
+"Well, my dear Betty, she--the fly-away--drives him home now.  It has
+come to that."
+
+"To her house--Windlehurst, oh, Windlehurst!"
+
+She sank back in the cushions, and gave what was as near a sob as she had
+given in many a day.  Windlehurst took her hand.  "No, not so bad as that
+yet.  She drove him to his club.  Don't fret, my dear Betty."
+
+Home!  Hylda watched the shops, the houses, the squares, as she passed
+westward, her mind dwelling almost happily on the new determination to
+which she had come.  It was not love that was moving her, not love for
+him, but a deeper thing.  He had brutally killed love--the full life of
+it--those months ago; but there was a deep thing working in her which was
+as near nobility as the human mind can feel.  Not in a long time had she
+neared her home with such expectation and longing.  Often on the doorstep
+she had shut her eyes to the light and warmth and elegance of it, because
+of that which she did not see.  Now, with a thrill of pleasure, she saw
+its doors open.  It was possible Eglington might have come home already.
+Lord Windlehurst had said that he had left the House.  She did not ask if
+he was in--it had not been her custom for a long time--and servants were
+curious people; but she looked at the hall-table.  Yes, there was a hat
+which had evidently just been placed there, and gloves, and a stick.  He
+was at home, then.
+
+She hurried to her room, dropped her opera-cloak on a chair, looked at
+herself in the glass, a little fluttered and critical, and then crossed
+the hallway to Eglington's bedroom.  She listened for a moment.  There
+was no sound.  She turned the handle of the door softly, and opened it.
+A light was burning low, but the room was empty.  It was as she thought,
+he was in his study, where he spent hours sometimes after he came home,
+reading official papers.  She went up the stairs, at first swiftly, then
+more slowly, then with almost lagging feet.  Why did she hesitate?  Why
+should a woman falter in going to her husband--to her own one man of all
+the world?  Was it not, should it not be, ever the open door between
+them?  Confidence--confidence--could she not have it, could she not get
+it now at last?  She had paused; but now she moved on with quicker step,
+purpose in her face, her eyes softly lighted.
+
+Suddenly she saw on the floor an opened letter.  She picked it up, and,
+as she did so, involuntarily observed the writing.  Almost mechanically
+she glanced at the contents.  Her heart stood still.  The first words
+scorched her eyes.
+
+     "Eglington--Harry, dearest," it said, "you shall not go to sleep
+     to-night without a word from me.  This will make you think of me
+     when .  .  .  "
+
+Frozen, struck as by a mortal blow, Hylda looked at the signature.  She
+knew it--the cleverest, the most beautiful adventuress which the
+aristocracy and society had produced.  She trembled from head to foot,
+and for a moment it seemed that she must fall.  But she steadied herself
+and walked firmly to Eglington's door.  Turning the handle softly, she
+stepped inside.
+
+He did not hear her.  He was leaning over a box of papers, and they
+rustled loudly under his hand.  He was humming to himself that song she
+heard an hour ago in Il Trovatore, that song of passion and love and
+tragedy.  It sent a wave of fresh feeling over her.  She could not go
+on--could not face him, and say what she must say.  She turned and passed
+swiftly from the room, leaving the door open, and hurried down the
+staircase.  Eglington heard now, and wheeled round.  He saw the open
+door, listened to the rustle of her skirts, knew that she had been there.
+He smiled, and said to himself:
+
+"She came to me, as I said she would.  I shall master her--the full
+surrender, and then--life will be easy then."
+
+Hylda hurried down the staircase to her room, saw Kate Heaver waiting,
+beckoned to her, caught up her opera-cloak, and together they passed down
+the staircase to the front door.  Heaver rang a bell, a footman appeared,
+and, at a word, called a cab.  A minute later they were ready:
+
+"Snowdon House," Hylda said; and they passed into the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+"IS IT ALWAYS SO--IN LIFE?"
+
+The Duchess and her brother, an ex-diplomatist, now deaf and patiently
+amiable and garrulous, had met on the doorstep of Snowdon House, and
+together they insisted on Lord Windlehurst coming in for a talk.  The two
+men had not met for a long time, and the retired official had been one of
+Lord Windlehurst's own best appointments in other days.  The Duchess had
+the carriage wait in consequence.
+
+The ex-official could hear little, but he had cultivated the habit of
+talking constantly and well.  There were some voices, however, which he
+could hear more distinctly than others, and Lord Windlehurst's was one of
+them--clear, well-modulated, and penetrating.  Sipping brandy and water,
+Lord Windlehurst gave his latest quip.  They were all laughing heartily,
+when the butler entered the room and said, "Lady Eglington is here, and
+wishes to see your Grace."
+
+As the butler left the room, the Duchess turned despairingly to
+Windlehurst, who had risen, and was paler than the Duchess.  "It has
+come," she said, "oh, it has come!  I can't face it."
+
+"But it doesn't matter about you facing it," Lord Windlehurst rejoined.
+"Go to her and help her, Betty.  You know what to do--the one thing."
+He took her hand and pressed it.
+
+She dashed the tears from her eyes and drew herself together, while her
+brother watched her benevolently.
+
+He had not heard what was said.  Betty had always been impulsive, he
+thought to himself, and here was some one in trouble--they all came to
+her, and kept her poor.
+
+"Go to bed, Dick," the Duchess said to him, and hurried from the room.
+She did not hesitate now.  Windlehurst had put the matter in the right
+way.  Her pain was nothing, mere moral cowardice; but Hylda--!
+
+She entered the other room as quickly as rheumatic limbs would permit.
+Hylda stood waiting, erect, her eyes gazing blankly before her and rimmed
+by dark circles, her face haggard and despairing.
+
+Before the Duchess could reach her, she said in a hoarse whisper: "I have
+left him--I have left him.  I have come to you."
+
+With a cry of pity the Duchess would have taken the stricken girl in her
+arms, but Hylda held out a shaking hand with the letter in it which had
+brought this new woe and this crisis foreseen by Lord Windlehurst.
+"There--there it is.  He goes from me to her--to that!"  She thrust the
+letter into the Duchess's fingers.  "You knew--you knew!  I saw the look
+that passed between you and Windlehurst at the opera.  I understand all
+now.  He left the House of Commons with her--and you knew, oh, you knew!
+All the world knows--every one knew but me."  She threw up her hands.
+"But I've left him--I've left him, for ever."
+
+Now the Duchess had her in her arms, and almost forcibly drew her to a
+sofa.  "Darling, my darling," she said, "you must not give way.  It is
+not so bad as you think.  You must let me help to make you understand."
+
+Hylda laughed hysterically.  "Not so bad as I think!  Read--read it,"
+she said, taking the letter from the Duchess's fingers and holding it
+before her face.  "I found it on the staircase.  I could not help but
+read it."  She sat and clasped and unclasped her hands in utter misery.
+"Oh, the shame of it, the bitter shame of it!  Have I not been a good
+wife to him?  Have I not had reason to break my heart?  But I waited,
+and I wanted to be good and to do right.  And to-night I was going to try
+once more--I felt it in the opera.  I was going to make one last effort
+for his sake.  It was for his sake I meant to make it, for I thought him
+only hard and selfish, and that he had never loved; and if he only loved,
+I thought--"
+
+She broke off, wringing her hands and staring into space, the ghost of
+the beautiful figure that had left the Opera House with shining eyes.
+
+The Duchess caught the cold hands.  "Yes, yes, darling, I know.  I
+understand.  So does Windlehurst.  He loves you as much as I do.  We know
+there isn't much to be got out of life; but we always hoped you would get
+more than anybody else."
+
+Hylda shrank, then raised her head, and looked at the Duchess with an
+infinite pathos.  "Oh, is it always so--in life?  Is no one true?  Is
+every one betrayed sometime?  I would die--yes, a thousand times yes, I
+would rather die than bear this.  What do I care for life--it has cheated
+me!  I meant well, and I tried to do well, and I was true to him in word
+and deed even when I suffered most, even when--"
+
+The Duchess laid a cheek against the burning head.  "I understand, my own
+dear.  I understand--altogether."
+
+"But you cannot know," the broken girl replied; "but through everything I
+was true; and I have been tempted too when my heart was aching so, when
+the days were so empty, the nights so long, and my heart hurt--hurt me.
+But now, it is over, everything is done.  You will keep me here--ah, say
+you will keep me here till everything can be settled, and I can go away
+--far away--far--!"
+
+She stopped with a gasping cry, and her eyes suddenly strained into the
+distance, as though a vision of some mysterious thing hung before her.
+The Duchess realised that that temptation, which has come to so many
+disillusioned mortals, to end it all, to find quiet somehow, somewhere
+out in the dark, was upon her.  She became resourceful and persuasively
+commanding.
+
+"But no, my darling," she said, "you are going nowhere.  Here in London
+is your place now.  And you must not stay here in my house.  You must go
+back to your home.  Your place is there.  For the present, at any rate,
+there must be no scandal.  Suspicion is nothing, talk is nothing, and the
+world forgets--"
+
+"Oh, I do not care for the world or its forgetting!" the wounded girl
+replied.  "What is the world to me!  I wanted my own world, the world of
+my four walls, quiet and happy, and free from scandal and shame.  I
+wanted love and peace there, and now .  .  .  !"
+
+"You must be guided by those who love you.  You are too young to decide
+what is best for yourself.  You must let Windlehurst and me think for
+you; and, oh, my darling, you cannot know how much I care for your best
+good!"
+
+"I cannot, will not, bear the humiliation and the shame.  This letter
+here--you see!"
+
+"It is the letter of a woman who has had more affaires than any man in
+London.  She is preternaturally clever, my dear--Windlehurst would tell
+you so.  The brilliant and unscrupulous, the beautiful and the bad, have
+a great advantage in this world.  Eglington was curious, that is all.
+It is in the breed of the Eglingtons to go exploring, to experiment."
+
+Hylda started.  Words from the letter Sybil Lady Eglington had left
+behind her rushed into her mind: "Experiment, subterfuge, secrecy.
+'Reaping where you had not sowed, and gathering where you had not
+strawed.' Always experiment, experiment, experiment!"
+
+"I have only been married three years," she moaned.  "Yes, yes, my
+darling; but much may happen after three days of married life, and love
+may come after twenty years.  The human heart is a strange thing."
+
+"I was patient--I gave him every chance.  He has been false and
+shameless.  I will not go on."
+
+The Duchess pressed both hands hard, and made a last effort, looking into
+the deep troubled eyes with her own grown almost beautiful with feeling
+--the faded world-worn eyes.
+
+"You will go back to-night-at once," she said firmly.  "To-morrow you
+will stay in bed till noon-at any rate, till I come.  I promise you that
+you shall not be treated with further indignity.  Your friends will stand
+by you, the world will be with you, if you do nothing rash, nothing that
+forces it to babble and scold.  But you must play its game, my dearest.
+I'll swear that the worst has not happened.  She drove him to his club,
+and, after a man has had a triumph, a woman will not drive him to his
+club if--my darling, you must trust me!  If there must be the great
+smash, let it be done in a way that will prevent you being smashed also
+in the world's eyes.  You can live, and you will live.  Is there nothing
+for you to do?  Is there no one for whom you would do something, who
+would be heart-broken if you--if you went mad now?"
+
+Suddenly a great change passed over Hylda.  "Is there no one for whom you
+would do something?"  Just as in the desert a question like this had
+lifted a man out of a terrible and destroying apathy, so this searching
+appeal roused in Hylda a memory and a pledge.  "Is there no one for whom
+you would do something?"  Was life, then, all over?  Was her own great
+grief all?  Was her bitter shame the end?
+
+She got to her feet tremblingly.  "I will go back," she said slowly and
+softly.
+
+"Windlehurst will take you home," the Duchess rejoined eagerly.  "My
+carriage is at the door."
+
+A moment afterwards Lord Windlehurst took Hylda's hands in his and held
+them long.  His old, querulous eyes were like lamps of safety; his smile
+had now none of that cynicism with which he had aroused and chastened the
+world.  The pitiful understanding of life was there and a consummate
+gentleness.  He gave her his arm, and they stepped out into the moonlit
+night.  "So peaceful, so bright!" he said, looking round.
+
+"I will come at noon to-morrow," called the Duchess from the doorway.
+
+A light was still shining in Eglington's study when the carriage drove
+up.  With a latch-key Hylda admitted herself and her maid.
+
+The storm had broken, the flood had come.  The storm was over, but the
+flood swept far and wide.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+THE FLYING SHUTTLE
+
+Hour after hour of sleeplessness.  The silver-tongued clock remorselessly
+tinkled the quarters, and Hylda lay and waited for them with a hopeless
+strained attention.  In vain she tried devices to produce that monotony
+of thought which sometimes brings sleep.  Again and again, as she felt
+that sleep was coming at last, the thought of the letter she had found
+flashed through her mind with words of fire, and it seemed as if there
+had been poured through every vein a subtle irritant.  Just such a
+surging, thrilling flood she had felt in the surgeon's chair when she was
+a girl and an anesthetic had been given.  But this wave of sensation led
+to no oblivion, no last soothing intoxication.  Its current beat against
+her heart until she could have cried out from the mere physical pain, the
+clamping grip of her trouble.  She withered and grew cold under the
+torture of it all--the ruthless spoliation of everything which made life
+worth while or the past endurable.
+
+About an hour after she had gone to bed she heard Eglington's step.  It
+paused at her door.  She trembled with apprehension lest he should enter.
+It was many a day since he had done so, but also she had not heard his
+step pause at her door for many a day.  She could not bear to face it all
+now; she must have time to think, to plan her course--the last course of
+all.  For she knew that the next step must be the last step in her old
+life, and towards a new life, whatever that might be.  A great sigh of
+relief broke from her as she heard his door open and shut, and silence
+fell on everything, that palpable silence which seems to press upon the
+night-watcher with merciless, smothering weight.
+
+How terribly active her brain was!  Pictures--it was all vivid pictures,
+that awful visualisation of sorrow which, if it continues, breaks the
+heart or wrests the mind from its sanity.  If only she did not see!  But
+she did see Eglington and the Woman together, saw him look into her eyes,
+take her hands, put his arm round her, draw her face to his!  Her heart
+seemed as if it must burst, her lips cried out.  With a great effort of
+the will she tried to hide from these agonies of the imagination, and
+again she would approach those happy confines of sleep, which are the
+only refuge to the lacerated heart; and then the weapon of time on the
+mantelpiece would clash on the shield of the past, and she was wide awake
+again.  At last, in desperation, she got out of bed, hurried to the
+fireplace, caught the little sharp-tongued recorder in a nervous grasp,
+and stopped it.
+
+As she was about to get into bed again, she saw a pile of letters lying
+on the table near her pillow.  In her agitation she had not noticed them,
+and the devoted Heaver had not drawn her attention to them.  Now,
+however, with a strange premonition, she quickly glanced at the
+envelopes.  The last one of all was less aristocratic-looking than the
+others; the paper of the envelope was of the poorest, and it had a
+foreign look.  She caught it up with an exclamation.  The handwriting was
+that of her cousin Lacey.
+
+She got into bed with a mind suddenly swept into a new atmosphere, and
+opened the flimsy cover.  Shutting her eyes, she lay still for a moment
+--still and vague; she was only conscious of one thing, that a curtain
+had dropped on the terrible pictures she had seen, and that her mind was
+in a comforting quiet.  Presently she roused herself, and turned the
+letter over in her hand.  It was not long--was that because its news was
+bad news?  The first chronicles of disaster were usually brief!  She
+smoothed the paper out-it had been crumpled and was a little soiled-and
+read it swiftly.  It ran:
+
+     DEAR LADY COUSIN--As the poet says, "Man is born to trouble as the
+     sparks fly upward," and in Egypt the sparks set the stacks on fire
+     oftener than anywhere else, I guess.  She outclasses Mexico as a
+     "precious example" in this respect.  You needn't go looking for
+     trouble in Mexico; it's waiting for you kindly.  If it doesn't find
+     you to-day, well, manana.  But here it comes running like a native
+     to his cooking-pot at sunset in Ramadan.  Well, there have been
+     "hard trials" for the Saadat.  His cotton-mills were set on fire-
+     can't you guess who did it?  And now, down in Cairo, Nahoum runs
+     Egypt; for a messenger that got through the tribes worrying us tells
+     us that Kaid is sick, and Nahoum the Armenian says, you shall, and
+     you shan't, now.  Which is another way of saying, that between us
+     and the front door of our happy homes there are rattlesnakes that
+     can sting--Nahoum's arm is long, and his traitors are crawling under
+     the canvas of our tents!
+
+     I'm not complaining for myself.  I asked for what I've got, and,
+     dear Lady Cousin, I put up some cash for it, too, as a man should.
+     No, I don't mind for myself, fond as I am of loafing, sort of
+     pottering round where the streets are in the hands of a pure police;
+     for I've seen more, done more, thought more, up here, than in all my
+     life before; and I've felt a country heaving under the touch of one
+     of God's men--it gives you minutes that lift you out of the dust and
+     away from the crawlers.  And I'd do it all over a thousand times for
+     him, and for what I've got out of it.  I've lived.  But, to speak
+     right out plain, I don't know how long this machine will run.
+     There's been a plant of the worst kind.  Tribes we left friendly
+     under a year ago are out against us; cities that were faithful have
+     gone under to rebels.  Nahoum has sowed the land with the tale that
+     the Saadat means to abolish slavery, to take away the powers of the
+     great sheikhs, and to hand the country over to the Turk.  Ebn Ezra
+     Bey has proofs of the whole thing, and now at last the Saadat knows
+     too late that his work has been spoiled by the only man who could
+     spoil it.  The Saadat knows it, but does he rave and tear his hair?
+     He says nothing.  He stands up like a rock before the riot of
+     treachery and bad luck and all the terrible burden he has to carry
+     here.  If he wasn't a Quaker I'd say he had the pride of an
+     archangel.  You can bend him, but you can't break him; and it takes
+     a lot to bend him.  Men desert, but he says others will come to take
+     their place.  And so they do.  It's wonderful, in spite of the holy
+     war that's being preached, and all the lies about him sprinkled over
+     this part of Africa, how they all fear him, and find it hard to be
+     out on the war-path against him.  We should be gorging the vultures
+     if he wasn't the wonder he is.  We need boats.  Does he sit down and
+     wring his hands?  No, he organises, and builds them--out of scraps.
+     Hasn't he enough food for a long siege?  He goes himself to the
+     tribes that have stored food in their cities, and haven't yet
+     declared against him, and he puts a hand on their hard hearts, and
+     takes the sulkiness out of their eyes, and a fleet of ghiassas comes
+     down to us loaded with dourha.  The defences of this place are
+     nothing.  Does he fold his hands like a man of peace that he is,
+     and say, 'Thy will be done'?  Not the Saadat.  He gets two soldier-
+     engineers, one an Italian who murdered his wife in Italy twenty
+     years ago, and one a British officer that cheated at cards and had
+     to go, and we've got defences that'll take some negotiating.  That's
+     the kind of man he is; smiling to cheer others when their hearts are
+     in their boots, stern like a commander-in-chief when he's got to
+     punish, and then he does it like steel; but I've seen him afterwards
+     in his tent with a face that looks sixty, and he's got to travel a
+     while yet before he's forty.  None of us dares be as afraid as we
+     could be, because a look at him would make us so ashamed we'd have
+     to commit suicide.  He hopes when no one else would ever hope.  The
+     other day I went to his tent to wait for him, and I saw his Bible
+     open on the table.  A passage was marked.  It was this:
+
+     "Behold, I have taken out of thy hand the cup of trembling, even the
+     dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again: "But
+     I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have
+     said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over; and thou hast laid
+     thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over.
+
+     I'd like to see Nahoum with that cup of trembling in his hand, and
+     I've got an idea, too, that it will be there yet.  I don't know how
+     it is, but I never can believe the worst will happen to the Saadat.
+     Reading those verses put hope into me.  That's why I'm writing to
+     you, on the chance of this getting through by a native who is
+     stealing down the river with a letter from the Saadat to Nahoum, and
+     one to Kaid, and one to the Foreign Minister in London, and one to
+     your husband.  If they reach the hands they're meant for, it may be
+     we shall pan out here yet.  But there must be display of power; an
+     army must be sent, without delay, to show the traitors that the game
+     is up.  Five thousand men from Cairo under a good general would do
+     it.  Will Nahoum send them?  Does Kaid, the sick man, know?  I'm not
+     banking on Kaid.  I think he's on his last legs.  Unless pressure is
+     put on him, unless some one takes him by the throat and says: If you
+     don't relieve Claridge Pasha and the people with him, you will go to
+     the crocodiles, Nahoum won't stir.  So, I am writing to you.
+     England can do it.  The lord, your husband, can do it.  England will
+     have a nasty stain on her flag if she sees this man go down without
+     a hand lifted to save him.  He is worth another Alma to her
+     prestige.  She can't afford to see him slaughtered here, where he's
+     fighting the fight of civilisation.  You see right through this
+     thing, I know, and I don't need to palaver any more about it.  It
+     doesn't matter about me.  I've had a lot for my money, and I'm no
+     use--or I wouldn't be, if anything happened to the Saadat.  No one
+     would drop a knife and fork at the breakfast-table when my obit was
+     read out--well, yes, there's one, cute as she can be, but she's lost
+     two husbands already, and you can't be hurt so bad twice in the same
+     place.  But the Saadat, back him, Hylda--I'll call you that at this
+     distance.  Make Nahoum move.  Send four or five thousand men before
+     the day comes when famine does its work and they draw the bowstring
+     tight.
+
+     Salaam and salaam, and the post is going out, and there's nothing in
+     the morning paper; and, as Aunt Melissa used to say: "Well, so much
+     for so much!"  One thing I forgot.  I'm lucky to be writing to you
+     at all.  If the Saadat was an old-fashioned overlord, I shouldn't be
+     here.  I got into a bad corner three days ago with a dozen Arabs--
+     I'd been doing a little work with a friendly tribe all on my own,
+     and I almost got caught by this loose lot of fanatics.  I shot
+     three, and galloped for it.  I knew the way through the mines
+     outside, and just escaped by the skin of my teeth.  Did the Saadat,
+     as a matter of discipline, have me shot for cowardice?  Cousin
+     Hylda, my heart was in my mouth as I heard them yelling behind me--
+     and I never enjoyed a dinner so much in my life.  Would the Saadat
+     have run from them?  Say, he'd have stayed and saved his life too.
+     Well, give my love to the girls!
+
+                    Your affectionate cousin,
+
+                                        Tom LACEY.
+
+     P.S.-There's no use writing to me.  The letter service is bad.  Send
+     a few thousand men by military parcel-post, prepaid, with some red
+     seals--majors and colonels from Aldershot will do.  They'll give the
+     step to the Gyppies.  T.
+
+
+Hylda closed her eyes.  A fever had passed from her veins.  Here lay her
+duty before her--the redemption of the pledge she had made.  Whatever her
+own sorrow, there was work before her; a supreme effort must be made for
+another.  Even now it might be too late.  She must have strength for what
+she meant to do.  She put the room in darkness, and resolutely banished
+thought from her mind.
+
+The sun had been up for hours before she waked.  Eglington had gone to
+the Foreign Office.  The morning papers were full of sensational reports
+concerning Claridge Pasha and the Soudan.  A Times leader sternly
+admonished the Government.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+JASPER KIMBER SPEAKS
+
+That day the adjournment of the House of Commons was moved "To call
+attention to an urgent matter of public importance"--the position of
+Claridge Pasha in the Soudan.  Flushed with the success of last night's
+performance, stung by the attacks of the Opposition morning papers,
+confident in the big majority behind, which had cheered him a few hours
+before, viciously resenting the letter he had received from David that
+morning, Eglington returned such replies to the questions put to him that
+a fire of angry mutterings came from the forces against him.  He might
+have softened the growing resentment by a change of manner, but his
+intellectual arrogance had control of him for the moment; and he said to
+himself that he had mastered the House before, and he would do so now.
+Apart from his deadly antipathy to his half-brother, and the gain to
+himself--to his credit, the latter weighed with him not so much, so set
+was he on a stubborn course--if David disappeared for ever, there was at
+bottom a spirit of anti-expansion, of reaction against England's world-
+wide responsibilities.  He had no largeness of heart or view concerning
+humanity.  He had no inherent greatness, no breadth of policy.  With
+less responsibility taken, there would be less trouble, national and
+international--that was his point of view; that had been his view long
+ago at the meeting at Heddington; and his weak chief had taken it,
+knowing nothing of the personal elements behind.
+
+The disconcerting factor in the present bitter questioning in the House
+was, that it originated on his own side.  It was Jasper Kimber who had
+launched the questions, who moved the motion for adjournment.  Jasper had
+had a letter from Kate Heaver that morning early, which sent him to her,
+and he had gone to the House to do what he thought to be his duty.  He
+did it boldly, to the joy of the Opposition, and with a somewhat sullen
+support from many on his own side.  Now appeared Jasper's own inner
+disdain of the man who had turned his coat for office.  It gave a lead to
+a latent feeling among members of the ministerial party, of distrust, and
+of suspicion that they were the dupes of a mind of abnormal cleverness
+which, at bottom, despised them.
+
+With flashing eyes and set lips, vigilant and resourceful, Eglington
+listened to Jasper Kimber's opening remarks.
+
+By unremitting industry Jasper had made a place for himself in the House.
+The humour and vitality of his speeches, and his convincing advocacy of
+the cause of the "factory folk," had gained him a hearing.  Thickset,
+under middle size, with an arm like a giant and a throat like a bull,
+he had strong common sense, and he gave the impression that he would wear
+his heart out for a good friend or a great cause, but that if he chose to
+be an enemy he would be narrow, unrelenting, and persistent.  For some
+time the House had been aware that he had more than a gift for criticism
+of the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
+
+His speech began almost stumblingly, his h's ran loose, and his grammar
+became involved, but it was seen that he meant business, that he had that
+to say which would give anxiety to the Government, that he had a case
+wherein were the elements of popular interest and appeal, and that he was
+thinking and speaking as thousands outside the House would think and
+speak.
+
+He had waited for this hour.  Indirectly he owed to Claridge Pasha all
+that he had become.  The day in which David knocked him down saw the
+depths of his degradation reached, and, when he got up, it was to start
+on a new life uncertainly, vaguely at first, but a new life for all that.
+He knew, from a true source, of Eglington's personal hatred of Claridge
+Pasha, though he did not guess their relationship; and all his interest
+was enlisted for the man who had, as he knew, urged Kate Heaver to marry
+himself--and Kate was his great ambition now.  Above and beyond these
+personal considerations was a real sense of England's duty to the man who
+was weaving the destiny of a new land.
+
+"It isn't England's business?" he retorted, in answer to an interjection
+from a faithful soul behind the ministerial Front Bench.  "Well, it
+wasn't the business of the Good Samaritan to help the man that had been
+robbed and left for dead by the wayside; but he did it.  As to David
+Claridge's work, some have said that--I've no doubt it's been said in the
+Cabinet, and it is the thing the Under-Secretary would say as naturally
+as he would flick a fly from his boots--that it's a generation too soon.
+Who knows that?  I suppose there was those that thought John the Baptist
+was baptising too soon, that Luther preached too soon, and Savonarola was
+in too great a hurry, all because he met his death and his enemies
+triumphed--and Galileo and Hampden and Cromwell and John Howard were all
+too soon.  Who's to be judge of that?  God Almighty puts it into some
+men's minds to work for a thing that's a great, and maybe an impossible,
+thing, so far as the success of the moment is concerned.  Well, for a
+thing that has got to be done some time, the seed has to be sown, and
+it's always sown by men like Claridge Pasha, who has shown millions of
+people--barbarians and half-civilised alike--what a true lover of the
+world can do.  God knows, I think he might have stayed and found a cause
+in England, but he elected to go to the ravaging Soudan, and he is
+England there, the best of it.  And I know Claridge Pasha--from his youth
+up I have seen him, and I stand here to bear witness of what the working
+men of England will say to-morrow.  Right well the noble lord yonder
+knows that what I say is true.  He has known it for years.  Claridge
+Pasha would never have been in his present position, if the noble lord
+had not listened to the enemies of Claridge Pasha and of this country, in
+preference to those who know and hold the truth as I tell it here to-day.
+I don't know whether the noble lord has repented or not; but I do say
+that his Government will rue it, if his answer is not the one word
+'Intervention!'  Mistaken, rash or not, dreamer if you like, Claridge
+Pasha should be relieved now, and his policy discussed afterwards.  I
+don't envy the man who holds a contrary opinion; he'll be ashamed of it
+some day.  But"--he pointed towards Eglington--"but there sits the
+minister in whose hands his fate has been.  Let us hope that this speech
+of mine needn't have been made, and that I've done injustice to his
+patriotism and to the policy he will announce."
+
+"A set-back, a sharp set-back," said Lord Windlehurst, in the Peers'
+Gallery, as the cheers of the Opposition and of a good number of
+ministerialists sounded through the Chamber.  There were those on the
+Treasury Bench who saw danger ahead.  There was an attempt at a
+conference, but Kimber's seconder only said a half-dozen words, and sat
+down, and Eglington had to rise before any definite confidences could be
+exchanged.  One word only he heard behind him as he got up.  It was the
+word, "Temporise," and it came from the Prime Minister.
+
+Eglington was in no mood for temporising.  Attack only nerved him.  He
+was a good and ruthless fighter; and last night's intoxication of success
+was still in his brain.  He did not temporise.  He did not leave a way of
+retreat open for the Prime Minister, who would probably wind up the
+debate.  He fought with skill, but he fought without gloves, and the
+House needed gentle handling.  He had the gift of effective speech to a
+rare degree, and when he liked he could be insinuating and witty, but he
+had not genuine humour or good feeling, and the House knew it.  In debate
+he was biting, resourceful, and unscrupulous.  He made the fatal mistake
+of thinking that intellect and gifts of fence, followed by a brilliant
+peroration, in which he treated the commonplaces of experienced minds as
+though they were new discoveries and he was their Columbus, could
+accomplish anything.  He had never had a political crisis, but one had
+come now.
+
+In his reply he first resorted to arguments of high politics, historical,
+informative, and, in a sense, commanding; indeed, the House became
+restless under what seemed a piece of intellectual dragooning.  Signs of
+impatience appeared on his own side, and, when he ventured on a solemn
+warning about hampering ministers who alone knew the difficulties of
+diplomacy and the danger of wounding the susceptibilities of foreign
+and friendly countries, the silence was broken by a voice that said
+sneeringly, "The kid-glove Government!"
+
+Then he began to lose place with the Chamber.  He was conscious of it,
+and shifted his ground, pointing out the dangers of doing what the other
+nations interested in Egypt were not prepared to do.
+
+"Have you asked them?  Have you pressed them?" was shouted across
+the House.  Eglington ignored the interjections.  "Answer!  Answer!"
+was called out angrily, but he shrugged a shoulder and continued his
+argument.  If a man insisted on using a flying-machine before the
+principle was fully mastered and applied--if it could be mastered and
+applied--it must not be surprising if he was killed.  Amateurs sometimes
+took preposterous risks without the advice of the experts.  If Claridge
+Pasha had asked the advice of the English Government, or of any of the
+Chancellories of Europe, as to his incursions into the Soudan and his
+premature attempts at reform, he would have received expert advice that
+civilisation had not advanced to that stage in this portion of the world
+which would warrant his experiments.  It was all very well for one man to
+run vast risks and attempt quixotic enterprises, but neither he nor his
+countrymen had any right to expect Europe to embroil itself on his
+particular account.
+
+At this point he was met by angry cries of dissent, which did not come
+from the Opposition alone.  His lips set, he would not yield.  The
+Government could not hold itself responsible for Claridge Pasha's relief,
+nor in any sense for his present position.  However, from motives of
+humanity, it would make representations in the hope that the Egyptian
+Government would act; but it was not improbable, in view of past
+experiences of Claridge Pasha, that he would extricate himself from his
+present position, perhaps had done so already.  Sympathy and sentiment
+were natural and proper manifestations of human society, but governments
+were, of necessity, ruled by sterner considerations.  The House must
+realise that the Government could not act as though it were wholly a free
+agent, or as if its every move would not be matched by another move on
+the part of another Power or Powers.
+
+Then followed a brilliant and effective appeal to his own party to
+trust the Government, to credit it with feeling and with a due regard
+for English prestige and the honour brought to it by Claridge Pasha's
+personal qualities, whatever might be thought of his crusading
+enterprises.  The party must not fall into the trap of playing the game
+of the Opposition.  Then, with some supercilious praise of the "worthy
+sentiments" of Jasper Kimber's speech and a curt depreciation of its
+reasoning, he declared that: "No Government can be ruled by clamour.  The
+path to be trodden by this Government will be lighted by principles of
+progress and civilisation, humanity and peace, the urbane power of
+reason, and the persuasive influence of just consideration for the rights
+of others, rather than the thunder and the threat of the cannon and the
+sword!"
+
+He sat down amid the cheers of a large portion of his party, for the end
+of his speech had been full of effective if meretricious appeal.  But the
+debate that followed showed that the speech had been a failure.  He had
+not uttered one warm or human word concerning Claridge Pasha, and it was
+felt and said, that no pledge had been given to insure the relief of the
+man who had caught the imagination of England.
+
+The debate was fierce and prolonged.  Eglington would not agree to any
+modification of his speech, to any temporising.  Arrogant and insistent,
+he had his way, and, on a division, the Government was saved by a mere
+handful of votes--votes to save the party, not to indorse Eglington's
+speech or policy.
+
+Exasperated and with jaw set, but with a defiant smile, Eglington drove
+straight home after the House rose.  He found Hylda in the library with
+an evening paper in her hands.  She had read and reread his speech, and
+had steeled herself for "the inevitable hour," to this talk which would
+decide for ever their fate and future.
+
+Eglington entered the room smiling.  He remembered the incident of the
+night before, when she came to his study and then hurriedly retreated.
+He had been defiant and proudly disdainful at the House and on the way
+home; but in his heart of hearts he was conscious of having failed to
+have his own way; and, like such men, he wanted assurance that he could
+not err, and he wanted sympathy.  Almost any one could have given it to
+him, and he had a temptation to seek that society which was his the
+evening before; but he remembered that she was occupied where he could
+not reach her, and here was Hylda, from whom he had been estranged,
+but who must surely have seen by now that at Hamley she had been
+unreasonable, and that she must trust his judgment.  So absorbed was he
+with self and the failure of his speech, that, for a moment, he forgot
+the subject of it, and what that subject meant to them both.
+
+"What do you think of my speech, Hylda?" he asked, as he threw himself
+into a chair.  "I see you have been reading it.  Is it a full report?"
+
+She handed the paper over.  "Quite full," she answered evenly.
+
+He glanced down the columns.  "Sentimentalists!" he said as his eye
+caught an interjection.  "Cant!" he added.  Then he looked at Hylda, and
+remembered once again on whom and what his speech had been made.  He saw
+that her face was very pale.
+
+"What do you think of my speech?" he repeated stubbornly.
+
+"If you think an answer necessary, I regard it as wicked and
+unpatriotic," she answered firmly.
+
+"Yes, I suppose you would," he rejoined bitingly.  She got to her feet
+slowly, a flush passing over her face.  "If you think I would, did you
+not think that a great many other people would think so too, and for the
+same reason?" she asked, still evenly, but very slowly.  "Not for the
+same reason," he rejoined in a low, savage voice.
+
+"You do not treat me well," she said, with a voice that betrayed no hurt,
+no indignation.  It seemed to state a fact deliberately; that was all.
+
+"No, please," she added quickly, as she saw him rise to his feet with
+anger trembling at his lips.  "Do not say what is on your tongue to say.
+Let us speak quietly to-night.  It is better; and I am tired of strife,
+spoken and unspoken.  I have got beyond that.  But I want to speak of
+what you did to-day in Parliament."
+
+"Well, you have said it was wicked and unpatriotic," he rejoined, sitting
+down again and lighting a cigar, in an attempt to be composed.
+
+"What you said was that; but I am concerned with what you did.  Did your
+speech mean that you would not press the Egyptian Government to relieve
+Claridge Pasha at once?"
+
+"Is that the conclusion you draw from my words?" he asked.
+
+"Yes; but I wish to know beyond doubt if that is what you mean the
+country to believe?"
+
+"It is what I mean you to believe, my dear."
+
+She shrank from the last two words, but still went on quietly, though her
+eyes burned and she shivered.  "If you mean that you will do nothing, it
+will ruin you and your Government," she answered.  "Kimber was right,
+and--"
+
+"Kimber was inspired from here," he interjected sharply.
+
+She put her hand upon herself.  "Do you think I would intrigue against
+you?  Do you think I would stoop to intrigue?" she asked, a hand
+clasping and unclasping a bracelet on her wrist, her eyes averted, for
+very shame that he should think the thought he had uttered.
+
+"It came from this house--the influence," he rejoined.
+
+"I cannot say.  It is possible," she answered; "but you cannot think that
+I connive with my maid against you.  I think Kimber has reasons of his
+own for acting as he did to-day.  He speaks for many besides himself; and
+he spoke patriotically this afternoon.  He did his duty."
+
+"And I did not?  Do you think I act alone?"
+
+"You did not do your duty, and I think that you are not alone
+responsible.  That is why I hope the Government will be influenced by
+public feeling."  She came a step nearer to him.  "I ask you to relieve
+Claridge Pasha at any cost.  He is your father's son.  If you do not,
+when all the truth is known, you will find no shelter from the storm
+that will break over you."
+
+"You will tell--the truth?"
+
+"I do not know yet what I shall do," she answered.  "It will depend on
+you; but it is your duty to tell the truth, not mine.  That does not
+concern me; but to save Claridge Pasha does concern me."
+
+"So I have known."
+
+Her heart panted for a moment with a wild indignation; but she quieted
+herself, and answered almost calmly: "If you refuse to do that which is
+honourable--and human, then I shall try to do it for you while yet I bear
+your name.  If you will not care for your family honour, then I shall try
+to do so.  If you will not do your duty, then I will try to do it for
+you."  She looked him determinedly in the eyes.  "Through you I have lost
+nearly all I cared to keep in the world.  I should like to feel that in
+this one thing you acted honourably."
+
+He sprang to his feet, bursting with anger, in spite of the inward
+admonition that much that he prized was in danger, that any breach with
+Hylda would be disastrous.  But self-will and his native arrogance
+overruled the monitor within, and he said: "Don't preach to me, don't
+play the martyr.  You will do this and you will do that!  You will save
+my honour and the family name!  You will relieve Claridge Pasha, you will
+do what Governments choose not to do; you will do what your husband
+chooses not to do--Well, I say that you will do what your husband
+chooses to do, or take the consequences."
+
+"I think I will take the consequences," she answered.  "I will save
+Claridge Pasha, if it is possible.  It is no boast.  I will do it, if it
+can be done at all, if it is God's will that it should be done; and in
+doing it I shall be conscious that you and I will do nothing together
+again--never!  But that will not stop me; it will make me do it, the last
+right thing, before the end."
+
+She was so quiet, so curiously quiet.  Her words had a strange solemnity,
+a tragic apathy.  What did it mean?  He had gone too far, as he had done
+before.  He had blundered viciously, as he had blundered before.
+
+She spoke again before he could collect his thoughts and make reply.
+
+"I did not ask for too much, I think, and I could have forgiven and
+forgotten all the hurts you have given me, if it were not for one thing.
+You have been unjust, hard, selfish, and suspicious.  Suspicious--of me!
+No one else in all the world ever thought of me what you have thought.
+I have done all I could.  I have honourably kept the faith.  But you have
+spoiled it all.  I have no memory that I care to keep.  It is stained.
+My eyes can never bear to look upon the past again, the past with you--
+never."
+
+She turned to leave the room.  He caught her arm.  "You will wait till
+you hear what I have to say," he cried in anger.  Her last words had
+stung him so, her manner was so pitilessly scornful.  It was as though
+she looked down on him from a height.  His old arrogance fought for
+mastery over his apprehension.  What did she know?  What did she mean?
+In any case he must face it out, be strong--and merciful and affectionate
+afterwards.
+
+"Wait, Hylda," he said.  "We must talk this out."
+
+She freed her arm.  "There is nothing to talk out," she answered.
+"So far as our relations are concerned, all reason for talk is gone."
+She drew the fatal letter from the sash at her waist.  "You will think so
+too when you read this letter again."  She laid it on the table beside
+him, and, as he opened and glanced at it, she left the room.
+
+He stood with the letter in his hand, dumfounded.  "Good God!" he said,
+and sank into a chair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+FAITH JOURNEYS TO LONDON
+
+Faith withdrew her eyes from Hylda's face, and they wandered helplessly
+over the room.  They saw, yet did not see; and even in her trouble there
+was some subconscious sense softly commenting on the exquisite refinement
+and gentle beauty which seemed to fill the room; but the only definite
+objects which the eyes registered at the moment were the flowers filling
+every corner.  Hylda had been lightly adjusting a clump of roses when she
+entered; and she had vaguely noticed how pale was the face that bent over
+the flowers, how pale and yet how composed--as she had seen a Quaker
+face, after some sorrow had passed over it, and left it like a quiet
+sea in the sun, when wreck and ruin were done.  It was only a swift
+impression, for she could think of but one thing, David and his safety.
+She had come to Hylda, she said, because of Lord Eglington's position,
+and she could not believe that the Government would see David's work
+undone and David killed by the slave-dealers of Africa.
+
+Hylda's reply had given her no hope that Eglington would keep the promise
+he had made that evening long ago when her father had come upon them by
+the old mill, and because of which promise she had forgiven Eglington so
+much that was hard to forgive.  Hylda had spoken with sorrowful decision,
+and then this pause had come, in which Faith tried to gain composure and
+strength.  There was something strangely still in the two women.  From
+the far past, through Quaker ancestors, there had come to Hylda now this
+grey mist of endurance and self-control and austere reserve.  Yet behind
+it all, beneath it all, a wild heart was beating.
+
+Presently, as they looked into each other's eyes, and Faith dimly
+apprehended something of Hylda's distress and its cause, Hylda leaned
+over and spasmodically pressed her hand.
+
+"It is so, Faith," she said.  "They will do nothing.  International
+influences are too strong."  She paused.  "The Under-Secretary for
+Foreign Affairs will do nothing; but yet we must hope.  Claridge Pasha
+has saved himself in the past; and he may do so now, even though
+it is all ten times worse.  Then, there is another way.  Nahoum Pasha can
+save him, if he can be saved.  And I am going to Egypt--to Nahoum."
+
+Faith's face blanched.  Something of the stark truth swept into her
+brain.  She herself had suffered--her own life had been maimed, it had
+had its secret bitterness.  Her love for her sister's son was that of a
+mother, sister, friend combined, and he was all she had in life.  That he
+lived, that she might cherish the thought of him living, was the one
+thing she had; and David must be saved, if that might be; but this girl
+--was she not a girl, ten years younger than herself?--to go to Egypt
+to do--what?  She herself lived out of the world, but she knew the world!
+To go to Egypt, and--"Thee will not go to Egypt.  What can thee do?" she
+pleaded, something very like a sob in her voice.  "Thee is but a woman,
+and David would not be saved at such a price, and I would not have him
+saved so.  Thee will not go.  Say thee will not.  He is all God has left
+to me in life; but thee to go--ah, no!  It is a bitter world--and what
+could thee do?"
+
+Hylda looked at her reflectively.  Should she tell Faith all, and take
+her to Egypt?  No, she could not take her without telling her all, and
+that was impossible now.  There might come a time when this wise and
+tender soul might be taken into the innermost chambers, when all the
+truth might be known; but the secret of David's parentage was Eglington's
+concern most of all, and she would not speak now; and what was between
+Nahoum and David was David's concern; and she had kept his secret all
+these years.  No, Faith might not know now, and might not come with her.
+On this mission she must go alone.
+
+Hylda rose to her feet, still keeping hold of Faith's hand.  "Go back to
+Hamley and wait there," she said, in a colourless voice.  "You can do
+nothing; it may be I can do much.  Whatever can be done I can do, since
+England will not act.  Pray for his safety.  It is all you can do.  It is
+given to some to work, to others to pray.  I must work now."
+
+She led Faith towards the door; she could not endure more; she must hold
+herself firm for the journey and the struggle before her.  If she broke
+down now she could not go forward; and Faith's presence roused in her an
+emotion almost beyond control.
+
+At the door she took both of Faith's hands in hers, and kissed her cheek.
+"It is your place to stay; you will see that it is best.  Good-bye," she
+added hurriedly, and her eyes were so blurred that she could scarcely see
+the graceful, demure figure pass into the sunlit street.
+
+That afternoon Lord Windlehurst entered the Duchess of Snowdon's presence
+hurried and excited.  She started on seeing his face.
+
+"What has happened?" she asked breathlessly.  "She is gone," he
+answered.  "Our girl has gone to Egypt."
+
+The Duchess almost staggered to her feet.  "Windlehurst--gone!" she
+gasped.
+
+"I called to see her.  Her ladyship had gone into the country, the
+footman said.  I saw the butler, a faithful soul, who would die--or clean
+the area steps--for her.  He was discreet; but he knew what you and I are
+to her.  It was he got the tickets--for Marseilles and Egypt."
+
+The Duchess began to cry silently.  Big tears ran down a face from which
+the glow of feeling had long fled, but her eyes were sad enough.
+
+"Gone--gone!  It is the end!" was all she could say.  Lord Windlehurst
+frowned, though his eyes were moist.  "We must act at once.  You must go
+to Egypt, Betty.  You must catch her at Marseilles.  Her boat does not
+sail for three days.  She thought it went sooner, as it was advertised to
+do.  It is delayed--I've found that out.  You can start to-night, and--
+and save the situation.  You will do it, Betty?"
+
+"I will do anything you say, as I have always done."  She dried her eyes.
+
+"She is a good girl.  We must do all we can.  I'll arrange everything for
+you myself.  I've written this paragraph to go into the papers to-morrow
+morning: 'The Duchess of Snowdon, accompanied by Lady Eglington, left
+London last night for the Mediterranean via Calais, to be gone for two
+months or more.'  That is simple and natural.  I'll see Eglington.  He
+must make no fuss.  He thinks she has gone to Hamley, so the butler says.
+There, it's all clear.  Your work is cut out, Betty, and I know you will
+do it as no one else can."
+
+"Oh, Windlehurst," she answered, with a hand clutching at his arm, "if we
+fail, it will kill me."
+
+"If she fails, it will kill her," he answered, "and she is very young.
+What is in her mind, who can tell?  But she thinks she can help Claridge
+somehow.  We must save her, Betty."
+
+"I used to think you had no real feeling, Windlehurst.  You didn't show
+it," she said in a low voice.  "Ah, that was because you had too much,"
+he answered.  "I had to wait till you had less."  He took out his watch.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WEAVERS
+
+By Gilbert Parker
+
+
+BOOK VI.
+
+
+XL.       HYLDA SEEKS NAHOUM
+XLI.      IN THE LAND OF SHINAR
+XLII.     THE LOOM OF DESTINY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+HYLDA SEEKS NAHOUM
+
+It was as though she had gone to sleep the night before, and waked
+again upon this scene unchanged, brilliant, full of colour, a chaos of
+decoration--confluences of noisy, garish streams of life, eddies of petty
+labour.  Craftsmen crowded one upon the other in dark bazaars; merchants
+chattered and haggled on their benches; hawkers clattered and cried their
+wares.  It was a people that lived upon the streets, for all the houses
+seemed empty and forsaken.  The sais ran before the Pasha's carriage, the
+donkey-boys shrieked for their right of way, a train of camels calmly
+forced its passage through the swirling crowds, supercilious and heavy-
+laden.
+
+It seemed but yesterday since she had watched with amused eyes the
+sherbet-sellers clanking their brass saucers, the carriers streaming the
+water from the bulging goatskins into the earthen bottles, crying, "Allah
+be praised, here is coolness for thy throat for ever!" the idle singer
+chanting to the soft kanoon, the chess-players in the shade of a high
+wall, lost to the world, the dancing-girls with unveiled, shameless
+faces, posturing for evil eyes.  Nothing had changed these past six
+years.  Yet everything had changed.
+
+She saw it all as in a dream, for her mind had no time for reverie or
+retrospect; it was set on one thing only.
+
+Yet behind the one idea possessing her there was a subconscious self
+taking note of all these sights and sounds, and bringing moisture to her
+eyes.  Passing the house which David had occupied on that night when he
+and she and Nahoum and Mizraim had met, the mist of feeling almost
+blinded her; for there at the gate sat the bowab who had admitted her
+then, and with apathetic eyes had watched her go, in the hour when it
+seemed that she and David Claridge had bidden farewell for ever, two
+driftwood spars that touched and parted in the everlasting sea.  Here
+again in the Palace square were Kaid's Nubians in their glittering armour
+as of silver and gold, drawn up as she had seen them drawn then, to be
+reviewed by their overlord.
+
+She swept swiftly through the streets and bazaars on her mission to
+Nahoum.  "Lady Eglington" had asked for an interview, and Nahoum had
+granted it without delay.  He did not associate her with the girl for
+whom David Claridge had killed Foorgat Pey, and he sent his own carriage
+to bring her to the Palace.  No time had been lost, for it was less than
+twenty-four hours since she had arrived in Cairo, and very soon she would
+know the worst or the best.  She had put her past away for the moment,
+and the Duchess of Snowdon had found at Marseilles a silent, determined,
+yet gentle-tongued woman, who refused to look back, or to discuss
+anything vital to herself and Eglington, until what she had come to Egypt
+to do was accomplished.  Nor would she speak of the future, until the
+present had been fully declared and she knew the fate of David Claridge.
+In Cairo there were only varying rumours: that he was still holding out;
+that he was lost; that he had broken through; that he was a prisoner--all
+without foundation upon which she could rely.
+
+As she neared the Palace entrance, a female fortune-teller ran forward,
+thrusting towards her a gazelle's skin, filled with the instruments of
+her mystic craft, and crying out: "I divine-I reveal!  What is present I
+manifest!  What is absent I declare!  What is future I show!  Beautiful
+one, hear me.  It is all written.  To thee is greatness, and thy heart's
+desire.  Hear all!  See!  Wait for the revealing.  Thou comest from afar,
+but thy fortune is near.  Hear and see.  I divine--I reveal.  Beautiful
+one, what is future I show."
+
+Hylda's eyes looked at the poor creature eagerly, pathetically.  If it
+could only be, if she could but see one step ahead!  If the veil could
+but be lifted!  She dropped some silver into the folds of the gazelle-
+skin and waved the Gipsy away.  "There is darkness, it is all dark,
+beautiful one," cried the woman after her, "but it shall be light.  I
+show--I reveal!"
+
+Inside these Palace walls there was a revealer of more merit, as she so
+well and bitterly knew.  He could raise the veil--a dark and dangerous
+necromancer, with a flinty heart and a hand that had waited long to
+strike.  Had it struck its last blow?
+
+Outside Nahoum's door she had a moment of utter weakness, when her knees
+smote together, and her throat became parched; but before the door had
+swung wide and her eyes swept the cool and shadowed room, she was as
+composed as on that night long ago when she had faced the man who knew.
+
+Nahoum was standing in a waiting and respectful attitude as she entered.
+He advanced towards her and bowed low, but stopped dumfounded, as he saw
+who she was.  Presently he recovered himself; but he offered no further
+greeting than to place a chair for her where her face was in the shadow
+and his in the light--time of crisis as it was, she noticed this and
+marvelled at him.  His face was as she had seen it those years ago.  It
+showed no change whatever.  The eyes looked at her calmly, openly, with
+no ulterior thought behind, as it might seem.  The high, smooth forehead,
+the full but firm lips, the brown, well-groomed beard, were all
+indicative of a nature benevolent and refined.  Where did the duplicity
+lie?  Her mind answered its own question on the instant; it lay in the
+brain and the tongue.  Both were masterly weapons, an armament so
+complete that it controlled the face and eyes and outward man into a
+fair semblance of honesty.  The tongue--she remembered its insinuating
+and adroit power, and how it had deceived the man she had come to try and
+save.  She must not be misled by it.  She felt it was to be a struggle
+between them, and she must be alert and persuasive, and match him word
+for word, move for move.
+
+"I am happy to welcome you here, madame," he said in English.  "It is
+years since we met; yet time has passed you by."
+
+She flushed ever so slightly--compliment from Nahoum Pasha!  Yet she must
+not resent anything to-day; she must get what she came for, if it was
+possible.  What had Lacey said?  "A few thousand men by parcel-post, and
+some red seals-British officers."
+
+"We meet under different circumstances," she replied meaningly.  "You
+were asking a great favour then."
+
+"Ah, but of you, madame?"
+
+"I think you appealed to me when you were doubtful of the result."
+
+"Well, madame, it may be so--but, yes, you are right; I thought you were
+Claridge Pasha's kinswoman, I remember."
+
+"Excellency, you said you thought I was Claridge Pasha's kinswoman."
+
+"And you are not?" he asked reflectively.
+
+He did not understand the slight change that passed over her face.  His
+kinswoman--Claridge Pasha's kinswoman!
+
+"I was not his kinswoman," she answered calmly.  "You came to ask a
+favour then of Claridge Pasha; your life-work to do under him.  I
+remember your words: 'I can aid thee in thy great task.  Thou wouldst
+remake our Egypt, and my heart is with you.  I would rescue, not destroy.
+.  .  .  I would labour, but my master has taken away from me the anvil,
+the fire, and the hammer, and I sit without the door like an armless
+beggar.'  Those were your words, and Claridge Pasha listened and
+believed, and saved your life and gave you work; and now again you
+have power greater than all others in Egypt."
+
+"Madame, I congratulate you on a useful memory.  May it serve you as the
+hill-fountain the garden in the city!  Those indeed were my words.  I
+hear myself from your lips, and yet recognise myself, if that be not
+vanity.  But, madame, why have you sought me?  What is it you wish to
+know--to hear?"
+
+He looked at her innocently, as though he did not know her errand; as
+though beyond, in the desert, there was no tragedy approaching--or come.
+
+"Excellency, you are aware that I have come to ask for news of Claridge
+Pasha."  She leaned forward slightly, but, apart from her tightly
+interlaced fingers, it would not have been possible to know that she was
+under any strain.
+
+"You come to me instead of to the Effendina.  May I ask why, madame?
+Your husband's position--I did not know you were Lord Eglington's wife--
+would entitle you to the highest consideration."
+
+"I knew that Nahoum Pasha would have the whole knowledge, while the
+Effendina would have part only.  Excellency, will you not tell me what
+news You have?  Is Claridge Pasha alive?"
+
+"Madame, I do not know.  He is in the desert.  He was surrounded.  For
+over a month there has been no word-none.  He is in danger.  His way by
+the river was blocked.  He stayed too long.  He might have escaped, but
+he would insist on saving the loyal natives, on remaining with them,
+since he could not bring them across the desert; and the river and the
+desert are silent.  Nothing comes out of that furnace yonder.  Nothing
+comes."
+
+He bent his eyes upon her complacently.  Her own dropped.  She could not
+bear that he should see the misery in them.
+
+"You have come to try and save him, madame.  What did you expect to do?
+Your Government did not strengthen my hands; your husband did nothing--
+nothing that could make it possible for me to act.  There are many
+nations here, alas!  Your husband does not take so great an interest in
+the fate of Claridge Pasha as yourself, madame."
+
+She ignored the insult.  She had determined to endure everything, if she
+might but induce this man to do the thing that could be done--if it was
+not too late.  Before she could frame a reply, he said urbanely:
+
+"But that is not to be expected.  There was that between Claridge Pasha
+and yourself which would induce you to do all you might do for him, to be
+anxious for his welfare.  Gratitude is a rare thing--as rare as the
+flower of the century--aloe; but you have it, madame."
+
+There was no chance to misunderstand him.  Foorgat Bey--he knew the
+truth, and had known it all these years.
+
+"Excellency," she said, "if through me, Claridge Pasha--"
+
+"One moment, madame," he interrupted, and, opening a drawer, took out a
+letter.  "I think that what you would say may be found here, with much
+else that you will care to know.  It is the last news of Claridge Pasha--
+a letter from him.  I understand all you would say to me; but he who has
+most at stake has said it, and, if he failed, do you think, madame, that
+you could succeed?"
+
+He handed her the letter with a respectful salutation.
+
+"In the hour he left, madame, he came to know that the name of Foorgat
+Bey was not blotted from the book of Time, nor from Fate's reckoning."
+
+After all these years!  Her instinct had been true, then, that night so
+long ago.  The hand that took the letter trembled slightly in spite of
+her will, but it was not the disclosure Nahoum had made which caused her
+agitation.  This letter she held was in David Claridge's hand, the first
+she had ever seen, and, maybe, the last that he had ever written, or that
+any one would ever see, a document of tears.  But no, there were no tears
+in this letter!  As Hylda read it the trembling passed from her fingers,
+and a great thrilling pride possessed her.  If tragedy had come, then it
+had fallen like a fire from heaven, not like a pestilence rising from the
+earth.  Here indeed was that which justified all she had done, what she
+was doing now, what she meant to do when she had read the last word of it
+and the firm, clear signature beneath.
+
+     "Excellency [the letter began in English], I came into the desert
+     and into the perils I find here, with your last words in my ear,
+     'There is the matter of Foorgat Bey.'  The time you chose to speak
+     was chosen well for your purpose, but ill for me.  I could not turn
+     back, I must go on.  Had I returned, of what avail?  What could I do
+     but say what I say here, that my hand killed Foorgat Bey; that I had
+     not meant to kill him, though at the moment I struck I took no heed
+     whether he lived or died.  Since you know of my sorrowful deed, you
+     also know why Foorgat Bey was struck down.  When, as I left the bank
+     of the Nile, your words blinded my eyes, my mind said in its misery:
+     'Now, I see!'  The curtains fell away from between you and me, and I
+     saw all that you had done for vengeance and revenge.  You knew all
+     on that night when you sought your life of me and the way back to
+     Kaid's forgiveness.  I see all as though you spoke it in my ear.
+     You had reason to hurt me, but you had no reason for hurting Egypt,
+     as you have done.  I did not value my life, as you know well, for it
+     has been flung into the midst of dangers for Egypt's sake, how
+     often!  It was not cowardice which made me hide from you and all the
+     world the killing of Foorgat Bey.  I desired to face the penalty,
+     for did not my act deny all that I had held fast from my youth up?
+     But there was another concerned--a girl, but a child in years, as
+     innocent and true a being as God has ever set among the dangers of
+     this life, and, by her very innocence and unsuspecting nature, so
+     much more in peril before such unscrupulous wiles as were used by
+     Foorgat Bey.
+
+     "I have known you many years, Nahoum, and dark and cruel as your
+     acts have been against the work I gave my life to do, yet I think
+     that there was ever in you, too, the root of goodness.  Men would
+     call your acts treacherous if they knew what you had done; and so
+     indeed they were; but yet I have seen you do things to others--not
+     to me--which could rise only from the fountain of pure waters.  Was
+     it partly because I killed Foorgat and partly because I came to
+     place and influence and power, that you used me so, and all that I
+     did?  Or was it the East at war with the West, the immemorial feud
+     and foray?
+
+     "This last I will believe; for then it will seem to be something
+     beyond yourself--centuries of predisposition, the long stain of the
+     indelible--that drove you to those acts of matricide.  Ay, it is
+     that!  For, Armenian as you are, this land is your native land, and
+     in pulling down what I have built up--with you, Nahoum, with you--
+     you have plunged the knife into the bosom of your mother.  Did it
+     never seem to you that the work which you did with me was a good
+     work--the reduction of the corvee, the decrease of conscription, the
+     lessening of taxes of the fellah, the bridges built, the canals dug,
+     the seed distributed, the plague stayed, the better dwellings for
+     the poor in the Delta, the destruction of brigandage, the slow
+     blotting-out of exaction and tyranny under the kourbash, the quiet
+     growth of law and justice, the new industries started--did not all
+     these seem good to you, as you served the land with me, your great
+     genius for finance, ay, and your own purse, helping on the things
+     that were dear to me, for Egypt's sake?  Giving with one hand
+     freely, did your soul not misgive you when you took away with the
+     other?
+
+     "When you tore down my work, you were tearing down your own; for,
+     more than the material help I thought you gave in planning and
+     shaping reforms, ay, far more than all, was the feeling in me which
+     helped me over many a dark place, that I had you with me, that I was
+     not alone.  I trusted you, Nahoum.  A life for a life you might have
+     had for the asking; but a long torture and a daily weaving of the
+     web of treachery--that has taken more than my life; it has taken
+     your own, for you have killed the best part of yourself, that which
+     you did with me; and here in an ever-narrowing circle of death I say
+     to you that you will die with me.  Power you have, but it will
+     wither in your grasp.  Kaid will turn against you; for with my
+     failure will come a dark reaction in his mind, which feels the cloud
+     of doom drawing over it.  Without me, with my work falling about his
+     ears, he will, as he did so short a time ago, turn to Sharif and
+     Higli and the rest; and the only comfort you will have will be that
+     you destroyed the life of him who killed your brother.  Did you love
+     your brother?  Nay, not more than did I, for I sent his soul into
+     the void, and I would gladly have gone after it to ask God for the
+     pardon of all his sins--and mine.  Think: I hid the truth, but why?
+     Because a woman would suffer an unmerited scandal and shame.
+     Nothing could recall Foorgat Bey; but for that silence I gave my
+     life, for the land which was his land.  Do you betray it, then?
+
+     "And now, Nahoum, the gulf in which you sought to plunge me when you
+     had ruined all I did is here before me.  The long deception has
+     nearly done its work.  I know from Ebn Ezra Bey what passed between
+     you.  They are out against me--the slave-dealers--from Senaar to
+     where I am.  The dominion of Egypt is over here.  Yet I could
+     restore it with a thousand men and a handful of European officers,
+     had I but a show of authority from Cairo, which they think has
+     deserted me.
+
+     "I am shut up here with a handful of men who can fight and thousands
+     who cannot fight, and food grows scarcer, and my garrison is worn
+     and famished; but each day I hearten them with the hope that you
+     will send me a thousand men from Cairo.  One steamer pounding here
+     from the north with men who bring commands from the Effendina, and
+     those thousands out yonder beyond my mines and moats and guns will
+     begin to melt away.  Nahoum, think not that you shall triumph over
+     David Claridge.  If it be God's will that I shall die here, my work
+     undone, then, smiling, I shall go with step that does not falter, to
+     live once more; and another day the work that I began will rise
+     again in spite of you or any man.
+
+     "Nahoum, the killing of Foorgat Bey has been like a cloud upon all
+     my past.  You know me, and you know I do not lie.  Yet I do not
+     grieve that I hid the thing--it was not mine only; and if ever you
+     knew a good woman, and in dark moments have turned to her, glad that
+     she was yours, think what you would have done for her, how you would
+     have sheltered her against aught that might injure her, against
+     those things women are not made to bear.  Then think that I hid the
+     deed for one who was a stranger to me, whose life must ever lay far
+     from mine, and see clearly that I did it for a woman's sake, and not
+     for this woman's sake; for I had never seen her till the moment I
+     struck Foorgat Bey into silence and the tomb.  Will you not
+     understand, Nahoum?
+
+     "Yonder, I see the tribes that harry me.  The great guns firing make
+     the day a burden, the nights are ever fretted by the dangers of
+     surprise, and there is scarce time to bury the dead whom sickness
+     and the sword destroy.  From the midst of it all my eyes turn to you
+     in Cairo, whose forgiveness I ask for the one injury I did you;
+     while I pray that you will seek pardon for all that you have done to
+     me and to those who will pass with me, if our circle is broken.
+     Friend, Achmet the Ropemaker is here fighting for Egypt.  Art thou
+     less, then, than Achmet?  So, God be with thee.
+
+                                        "DAVID CLARIDGE."
+
+
+Without a pause Hylda had read the letter from the first word to the
+last.  She was too proud to let this conspirator and traitor see what
+David's words could do to her.  When she read the lines concerning
+herself, she became cold from head to foot, but she knew that Nahoum
+never took his eyes from her face, and she gave no outward sign of what
+was passing within.  When she had finished it, she folded it up calmly,
+her eyes dwelt for a moment on the address upon the envelope, and then
+she handed it back to Nahoum without a word.  She looked him in the eyes
+and spoke.  "He saved your life, he gave you all you had lost.  It was
+not his fault that Prince Kaid chose him for his chief counsellor.  You
+would be lying where your brother lies, were it not for Claridge Pasha."
+
+"It may be; but the luck was with me; and I have my way."
+
+She drew herself together to say what was hard to say.  "Excellency, the
+man who was killed deserved to die.  Only by lies, only by subterfuge,
+only because I was curious to see the inside of the Palace, and because I
+had known him in London, did I, without a thought of indiscretion, give
+myself to his care to come here.  I was so young; I did not know life, or
+men--or Egyptians."  The last word was uttered with low scorn.
+
+He glanced up quickly, and for the first time she saw a gleam of malice
+in his eyes.  She could not feel sorry she had said it, yet she must
+remove the impression if possible.
+
+"What Claridge Pasha did, any man would have done, Excellency.  He
+struck, and death was an accident.  Foorgat's temple struck the corner of
+a pedestal.
+
+"His death was instant.  He would have killed Claridge Pasha if it had
+been possible--he tried to do so.  But, Excellency, if you have a
+daughter, if you ever had a child, what would you have done if any man
+had--"
+
+"In the East daughters are more discreet; they tempt men less," he
+answered quietly, and fingered the string of beads he carried.
+
+"Yet you would have done as Claridge Pasha did.  That it was your brother
+was an accident, and--"
+
+"It was an accident that the penalty must fall on Claridge Pasha, and on
+you, madame.  I did not choose the objects of penalty.  Destiny chose
+them, as Destiny chose Claridge Pasha as the man who should supplant me,
+who should attempt to do these mad things for Egypt against the judgment
+of the world--against the judgment of your husband.  Shall I have better
+judgment than the chancellories of Europe and England--and Lord
+Eglington?"
+
+"Excellency, you know what moves other nations; but it is for Egypt to
+act for herself.  You ask me why I did not go to the Effendina.  I come
+to you because I know that you could circumvent the Effendina, even
+if he sent ten thousand men.  It is the way in Egypt."
+
+"Madame, you have insight--will you not look farther still, and see that,
+however good Claridge Pasha's work might be some day in the far future,
+it is not good to-day.  It is too soon.  At the beginning of the
+twentieth century, perhaps.  Men pay the penalty of their mistakes.
+A man's life"--he watched her closely with his wide, benevolent eyes--"is
+neither here nor there, nor a few thousands, in the destiny of a nation.
+A man who ventures into a lion's den must not be surprised if he goes as
+Harrik went--ah, perhaps you do not know how Harrik went!  A man who
+tears at the foundations of a house must not be surprised if the timbers
+fall on him and on his workmen.  It is Destiny that Claridge Pasha should
+be the slayer of my brother, and a danger to Egypt, and one whose life is
+so dear to you, madame.  You would have it otherwise, and so would I, but
+we must take things as they are--and you see that letter.  It is seven
+weeks since then, and it may be that the circle has been broken.  Yet it
+may not be so.  The circle may be smaller, but not broken."
+
+She felt how he was tempting her from word to word with a merciless
+ingenuity; yet she kept to her purpose; and however hopeless it seemed,
+she would struggle on.
+
+"Excellency," she said in a low, pleading tone, "has he not suffered
+enough?  Has he not paid the price of that life which you would not bring
+back if you could?  No, in those places of your mind where no one can see
+lies the thought that you would not bring back Foorgat Bey.  It is not an
+eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth that has moved you; it has not
+been love of Foorgat Bey; it has been the hatred of the East for the
+West.  And yet you are a Christian!  Has Claridge Pasha not suffered
+enough, Excellency?  Have you not had your fill of revenge?  Have you
+not done enough to hurt a man whose only crime was that he killed a man
+to save a woman, and had not meant to kill?"
+
+"Yet he says in his letter that the thought of killing would not have
+stopped him."
+
+"Does one think at such a moment?  Did he think? There was no time.  It
+was the work of an instant.  Ah, Fate was not kind, Excellency!  If it
+had been, I should have been permitted to kill Foorgat Bey with my own
+hands."
+
+"I should have found it hard to exact the penalty from you, madame."
+
+The words were uttered in so neutral a way that they were enigmatical,
+and she could not take offence or be sure of his meaning.
+
+"Think, Excellency.  Have you ever known one so selfless, so good,
+so true?  For humanity's sake, would you not keep alive such a man?
+If there were a feud as old as Adam between your race and his, would you
+not before this life of sacrifice lay down the sword and the bitter
+challenge?  He gave you his hand in faith and trust, because your God was
+his God, your prophet and lord his prophet and lord.  Such faith should
+melt your heart.  Can you not see that he tried to make compensation for
+Foorgat's death, by giving you your life and setting you where you are
+now, with power to save or kill him?"
+
+"You call him great; yet I am here in safety, and he is--where he is.
+Have you not heard of the strife of minds and wills?  He represented the
+West, I the East.  He was a Christian, so was I; the ground of our battle
+was a fair one, and--and I have won."
+
+"The ground of battle fair!" she protested bitterly.  "He did not know
+that there was strife between you.  He did not fight you.  I think that
+he always loved you, Excellency.  He would have given his life for you,
+if it had been in danger.  Is there in that letter one word that any man
+could wish unwritten when the world was all ended for all men?  But no,
+there was no strife between you--there was only hatred on your part.  He
+was so much greater than you that you should feel no rivalry, no strife.
+The sword he carries cuts as wide as Time.  You are of a petty day in a
+petty land.  Your mouth will soon be filled with dust, and you will be
+forgotten.  He will live in the history of the world.  Excellency,
+I plead for him because I owe him so much: he killed a man and brought
+upon himself a lifelong misery for me.  It is all I can do, plead to you
+who know the truth about him--yes, you know the truth--to make an effort
+to save him.  It may be too late; but yet God may be waiting for you to
+lift your hand.  You said the circle may be smaller, but it may be
+unbroken still.  Will you not do a great thing once, and win a woman's
+gratitude, and the thanks of the world, by trying to save one who makes
+us think better of humanity?  Will you not have the name of Nahoum Pasha
+linked with his--with his who thought you were his friend?  Will you not
+save him?"
+
+He got slowly to his feet, a strange look in his eyes.  "Your words are
+useless.  I will not save him for your sake; I will not save him for the
+world's sake; I will not save him--"
+
+A cry of pain and grief broke from her, and she buried her face in her
+hands.
+
+"--I will not save him for any other sake than his own."
+
+He paused.  Slowly, as dazed as though she had received a blow, Hylda
+raised her face and her hands dropped in her lap.
+
+"For any other sake than his own!"  Her eyes gazed at him in a
+bewildered, piteous way.  What did he mean?  His voice seemed to come
+from afar off.
+
+"Did you think that you could save him?  That I would listen to you, if I
+did not listen to him?  No, no, madame.  Not even did he conquer me; but
+something greater than himself within himself, it conquered me."
+
+She got to her feet gasping, her hands stretched out.  "Oh, is it true--
+is it true?" she cried.
+
+"The West has conquered," he answered.
+
+"You will help him--you will try to save him?"  "When, a month ago, I
+read the letter you have read, I tried to save him.  I sent secretly four
+thousand men who were at Wady Halfa to relieve him--if it could be done;
+five hundred to push forward on the quickest of the armed steamers, the
+rest to follow as fast as possible.  I did my best.  That was a month
+ago, and I am waiting--waiting and hoping, madame."
+
+Suddenly she broke down.  Tears streamed from her eyes.  She sank into
+the chair, and sobs shook her from head to foot.
+
+"Be patient, be composed, madame," Nahoum said gently.  "I have tried you
+greatly--forgive me.  Nay, do not weep.  I have hope.  We may hear from
+him at any moment now," he added softly, and there was a new look in his
+wide blue eyes as they were bent on her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+IN THE LAND OF SHINAR
+
+     "Then I said to the angel that talked with me, Whither do these bear
+     the Ephah?
+
+     "And he said unto me, To build it an house in the land of Shinar;
+     and it shall be established, and set there upon her own base."
+
+
+David raised his head from the paper he was studying.  He looked at Lacey
+sharply.  "And how many rounds of ammunition?" he asked.
+
+"Ten thousand, Saadat."
+
+"How many shells?" he continued, making notes upon the paper before him.
+
+"Three hundred, Saadat."
+
+"How many hundredweight of dourha?"  "Eighty--about."
+
+"And how many mouths to feed?"  "Five thousand."
+
+"How many fighters go with the mouths?"
+"Nine hundred and eighty-of a kind."
+
+"And of the best?'
+
+"Well, say, five hundred."
+
+"Thee said six hundred three days ago, Lacey."
+
+"Sixty were killed or wounded on Sunday, and forty I reckon in the
+others, Saadat."
+
+The dark eyes flashed, the lips set.  "The fire was sickening--they fell
+back?"
+
+"Well, Saadat, they reflected--at the wrong time."
+
+"They ran?"
+
+"Not back--they were slow in getting on."
+
+"But they fought it out?"
+
+"They had to--root hog, or die.  You see, Saadat, in that five hundred
+I'm only counting the invincibles, the up-and-at-'ems, the blind-goers
+that 'd open the lid of Hell and jump in after the enemy."
+
+The pale face lighted.  "So many!  I would not have put the estimate half
+so high.  Not bad for a dark race fighting for they know not what!"
+
+"They know that all right; they are fighting for you, Saadat."
+
+David seemed not to hear.  "Five hundred--so many, and the enemy so near,
+the temptation so great."
+
+"The deserters are all gone to Ali Wad Hei, Saadat.  For a month there
+have been only the deserted."
+
+A hardness crept into the dark eyes.  "Only the deserted!"  He looked out
+to where the Nile lost itself in the northern distance.  "I asked Nahoum
+for one thousand men, I asked England for the word which would send them.
+I asked for a thousand, but even two hundred would turn the scale--the
+sign that the Inglesi had behind him Cairo and London.  Twenty weeks, and
+nothing comes!"
+
+He got to his feet slowly and walked up and down the room for a moment,
+glancing out occasionally towards the clump of palms which marked the
+disappearance of the Nile into the desert beyond his vision.  At
+intervals a cannon-shot crashed upon the rarefied air, as scores of
+thousands had done for months past, torturing to ear and sense and nerve.
+The confused and dulled roar of voices came from the distance also; and,
+looking out to the landward side, David saw a series of movements of the
+besieging forces, under the Arab leader, Ali Wad Hei.  Here a loosely
+formed body of lancers and light cavalry cantered away towards the south,
+converging upon the Nile; there a troop of heavy cavalry in glistening
+mail moved nearer to the northern defences; and between, battalions of
+infantry took up new positions, while batteries of guns moved nearer to
+the river, curving upon the palace north and south.  Suddenly David's
+eyes flashed fire.  He turned to Lacey eagerly.  Lacey was watching with
+eyes screwed up shrewdly, his forehead shining with sweat.
+
+"Saadat," he said suddenly, "this isn't the usual set of quadrilles.
+It's the real thing.  They're watching the river--waiting."
+
+"But south!" was David's laconic response.  At the same moment he struck
+a gong.  An orderly entered.  Giving swift instructions, he turned to
+Lacey again.  "Not Cairo--Darfur," he added.
+
+"Ebn Ezra Bey coming!  Ali Wad Hei's got word from up the Nile, I guess."
+
+David nodded, and his face clouded.  "We should have had word also," he
+said sharply.
+
+There was a knock at the door, and Mahommed Hassan entered, supporting an
+Arab, down whose haggard face blood trickled from a wound in the head,
+while an arm hung limp at his side.
+
+"Behold, Saadat--from Ebn Ezra Bey," Mahommed said.  The man drooped
+beside him.
+
+David caught a tin cup from a shelf, poured some liquor into it, and held
+it to the lips of the fainting man.  "Drink," he said.  The Arab drank
+greedily, and, when he had finished, gave a long sigh of satisfaction.
+"Let him sit," David added.
+
+When the man was seated on a sheepskin, the huge Mahommed squatting
+behind like a sentinel, David questioned him.  "What is thy name--thy
+news?" he asked in Arabic.
+
+"I am called Feroog.  I come from Ebn Ezra Bey, to whom be peace!" he
+answered.  "Thy messenger, Saadat, behold he died of hunger and thirst,
+and his work became mine.  Ebn Ezra Bey came by the river.  .  .  ."
+"He is near?" asked David impatiently.
+
+"He is twenty miles away."
+
+"Thou camest by the desert?"
+
+"By the desert, Saadat, as Ebn Ezra effendi comes."
+
+"By the desert!  But thou saidst he came by the river."
+
+"Saadat, yonder, forty miles from where we are, the river makes a great
+curve.  There the effendi landed in the night with four hundred men to
+march hither.  But he commanded that the boats should come on slowly and
+receive the attack in the river, while he came in from the desert."
+
+David's eye flashed.  "A great device.  They will be here by midnight,
+then, perhaps?"
+
+"At midnight, Saadat, by the blessing of God."
+
+"How wert thou wounded?"
+
+"I came upon two of the enemy.  They were mounted.  I fought them.  Upon
+the horse of one I came here."
+
+"The other?"
+
+"God is merciful, Saadat.  He is in the bosom of God."
+
+"How many men come by the river?"
+
+"But fifty, Saadat," was the answer, "but they have sworn by the stone in
+the Kaabah not to surrender."
+
+"And those who come with the effendi, with Ebn Ezra Bey, are they as
+those who will not surrender?"
+
+"Half of them are so.  They were with thee, as was I, Saadat, when the
+great sickness fell upon us, and were healed by thee, and afterwards
+fought with thee."  David nodded abstractedly, and motioned to Mahommed
+to take the man away; then he said to Lacey: "How long do you think we
+can hold out?"
+
+"We shall have more men, but also more rifles to fire, and more mouths to
+fill, if Ebn Ezra gets in, Saadat."
+
+David raised his head.  "But with more rifles to fire away your ten
+thousand rounds"--he tapped the paper on the table--"and eat the eighty
+hundredweight of dourha, how long can we last?"
+
+"If they are to fight, and with full stomachs, and to stake everything on
+that one fight, then we can last two days.  No more, I reckon."
+
+"I make it one day," answered David.  "In three days we shall have no
+food, and unless help comes from Cairo, we must die or surrender.  It is
+not well to starve on the chance of help coming, and then die fighting
+with weak arms and broken spirit.  Therefore, we must fight to morrow,
+if Ebn Ezra gets in to-night.  I think we shall fight well," he added.
+"You think so?"
+
+"You are a born fighter, Saadat."
+
+A shadow fell on David's face, and his lips tightened.  "I was not born a
+fighter, Lacey.  The day we met first no man had ever died by my hand or
+by my will."
+
+"There are three who must die at sunset--an hour from now-by thy will,
+Saadat."
+
+A startled look came into David's face.  "Who?" he asked.
+
+"The Three Pashas, Saadat.  They have been recaptured."
+
+"Recaptured!" rejoined David mechanically.
+
+"Achmet Pasha got them from under the very noses of the sheikhs before
+sunrise this morning."
+
+"Achmet--Achmet Pasha!"  A light came into David's face again.
+
+"You will keep faith with Achmet, Saadat.  He risked his life to get
+them.  They betrayed you, and betrayed three hundred good men to death.
+If they do not die, those who fight for you will say that it doesn't
+matter whether men fight for you or betray you, they get the same stuff
+off the same plate.  If we are going to fight to-morrow, it ought to be
+with a clean bill of health."
+
+"They served me well so long--ate at my table, fought with me.  But--but
+traitors must die, even as Harrik died."  A stern look came into his
+face.  He looked round the great room slowly.  "We have done our best,"
+he said.  "I need not have failed, if there had been no treachery. . . ."
+
+"If it hadn't been for Nahoum!"
+
+David raised his head.  Supreme purpose came into his bearing.  A grave
+smile played at his lips, as he gave that quick toss of the head which
+had been a characteristic of both Eglington and himself.  His eyes shone-
+a steady, indomitable light.  "I will not give in.  I still have hope.
+We are few and they are many, but the end of a battle has never been
+sure.  We may not fail even now.  Help may come from Cairo even to-
+morrow."
+
+"Say, somehow you've always pulled through before, Saadat.
+When I've been most frightened I've perked up and stiffened my backbone,
+remembering your luck.  I've seen a blue funk evaporate by thinking of
+how things always come your way just when the worst seems at the worst."
+
+David smiled as he caught up a small cane and prepared to go.  Looking
+out of a window, he stroked his thin, clean-shaven face with a lean
+finger.  Presently a movement in the desert arrested his attention.  He
+put a field-glass to his eyes, and scanned the field of operations
+closely once more.
+
+"Good-good!" he burst out cheerfully.  "Achmet has done the one thing
+possible.  The way to the north will be still open.  He has flung his men
+between the Nile and the enemy, and now the batteries are at work."
+Opening the door, they passed out.  "He has anticipated my orders," he
+added.  "Come, Lacey, it will be an anxious night.  The moon is full, and
+Ebn Ezra Bey has his work cut out--sharp work for all of us, and .  .  ."
+
+Lacey could not hear the rest of his words in the roar of the artillery.
+David's steamers in the river were pouring shot into the desert where the
+enemy lay, and Achmet's "friendlies" and the Egyptians were making good
+their new position.  As David and Lacey, fearlessly exposing themselves
+to rifle fire, and taking the shortest and most dangerous route to where
+Achmet fought, rode swiftly from the palace, Ebn Ezra's three steamers
+appeared up the river, and came slowly down to where David's gunboats
+lay.  Their appearance was greeted by desperate discharges of artillery
+from the forces under Ali Wad Hei, who had received word of their coming
+two hours before, and had accordingly redisposed his attacking forces.
+But for Achmet's sharp initiative, the boldness of the attempt to cut off
+the way north and south would have succeeded, and the circle of fire and
+sword would have been complete.  Achmet's new position had not been
+occupied before, for men were too few, and the position he had just left
+was now exposed to attack.
+
+Never since the siege began had the foe shown such initiative and
+audacity.  They had relied on the pressure of famine and decimation by
+sickness, the steady effects of sorties, with consequent fatalities and
+desertions, to bring the Liberator of the Slaves to his knees.  Ebn Ezra
+Bey had sought to keep quiet the sheikhs far south, but he had been shut
+up in Darffur for months, and had been in as bad a plight as David.  He
+had, however, broken through at last.  His ruse in leaving the steamers
+in the night and marching across the desert was as courageous as it was
+perilous, for, if discovered before he reached the beleaguered place,
+nothing could save his little force from destruction.  There was one way
+in from the desert to the walled town, and it was through that space
+which Achmet and his men had occupied, and on which Ali Wad Hei might
+now, at any moment, throw his troops.
+
+David's heart sank as he saw the danger.  From the palace he had sent an
+orderly with a command to an officer to move forward and secure the
+position, but still the gap was open, and the men he had ordered to
+advance remained where they were.  Every minute had its crisis.
+
+As Lacey and himself left the town the misery of the place smote him in
+the eyes.  Filth, refuse, debris filled the streets.  Sick and dying men
+called to him from dark doorways, children and women begged for bread,
+carcasses lay unburied, vultures hovering above them--his tireless
+efforts had not been sufficient to cope with the daily horrors of the
+siege.  But there was no sign of hostility to him.  Voices called
+blessings on him from dark doorways, lips blanching in death commended
+him to Allah, and now and then a shrill call told of a fighter who had
+been laid low, but who had a spirit still unbeaten.  Old men and women
+stood over their cooking-pots waiting for the moment of sunset; for it
+was Ramadan, and the faithful fasted during the day--as though every day
+was not a fast.
+
+Sunset was almost come, as David left the city and galloped away
+to send forces to stop the gap of danger before it was filled by the foe.
+Sunset--the Three Pashas were to die at sunset!  They were with Achmet,
+and in a few moments they would be dead.  As David and Lacey rode hard,
+they suddenly saw a movement of men on foot at a distant point of the
+field, and then a small mounted troop, fifty at most, detach themselves
+from the larger force and, in close formation, gallop fiercely down on
+the position which Achmet had left.  David felt a shiver of anxiety and
+apprehension as he saw this sharp, sweeping advance.  Even fifty men,
+well intrenched, could hold the position until the main body of Ali Wad
+Hei's infantry came on.
+
+They rode hard, but harder still rode Ali Wad Hei's troop of daring
+Arabs.  Nearer and nearer they came.  Suddenly from the trenches, which
+they had thought deserted, David saw jets of smoke rise, and a half-dozen
+of the advancing troop fell from their saddles, their riderless horses
+galloping on.
+
+David's heart leaped: Achmet had, then, left men behind, hidden from
+view; and these were now defending the position.  Again came the jets of
+smoke, and again more Arabs dropped from their saddles.  But the others
+still came on.  A thousand feet away others fell.  Twenty-two of the
+fifty had already gone.  The rest fired their rifles as they galloped.
+But now, to David's relief, his own forces, which should have moved half
+an hour before, were coming swiftly down to cut off the approach of Ali
+Wad Hei's infantry, and he turned his horse upon the position where a
+handful of men were still emptying the saddles of the impetuous enemy.
+But now all that were left of the fifty were upon the trenches.  Then
+came the flash of swords, puffs of smoke, the thrust of lances, and
+figures falling from the screaming, rearing horses.
+
+Lacey's pistol was in his hand, David's sword was gripped tight, as they
+rushed upon the melee.  Lacey's pistol snapped, and an Arab fell; again,
+and another swayed in his saddle.  David's sword swept down, and a
+turbaned head was gashed by a mortal stroke.  As he swung towards another
+horseman, who had struck down a defender of the trenches, an Arab raised
+himself in his saddle and flung a lance with a cry of terrible malice;
+but, even as he did so, a bullet from Lacey's pistol pierced his
+shoulder.  The shot had been too late to stop the lance, but sufficient
+to divert its course.  It caught David in the flesh of the body under the
+arm--a slight wound only.  A few inches to the right, however, and his
+day would have been done.
+
+The remaining Arabs turned and fled.  The fight was over.  As David,
+dismounting, stood with dripping sword in his hand, in imagination, he
+heard the voice of Kaid say to him, as it said that night when he killed
+Foorgat Bey: "Hast thou never killed a man?"
+
+For an instant it blinded him, then he was conscious that, on the ground
+at his feet, lay one of the Three Pashas who were to die at sunset.  It
+was sunset now, and the man was dead.  Another of the Three sat upon the
+ground winding his thigh with the folds of a dead Arab's turban, blood
+streaming from his gashed face.  The last of the trio stood before David,
+stoical and attentive.  For a moment David looked at the Three, the dead
+man and the two living men, and then suddenly turned to where the
+opposing forces were advancing.  His own men were now between the
+position and Ali Wad Hei's shouting fanatics.  They would be able to
+reach and defend the post in time.  He turned and gave orders.  There
+were only twenty men besides the two pashas, whom his commands also
+comprised.  Two small guns were in place.  He had them trained on that
+portion of the advancing infantry of Ali Wad Hei not yet covered by his
+own forces.  Years of work and responsibility had made him master of many
+things, and long ago he had learned the work of an artilleryman.  In a
+moment a shot, well directed, made a gap in the ranks of the advancing
+foe.  An instant afterwards a shot from the other gun fired by the
+unwounded pasha, who, in his youth, had been an officer of artillery,
+added to the confusion in the swerving ranks, and the force hesitated;
+and now from Ebn Ezra Bey's river steamers, which had just arrived, there
+came a flank fire.  The force wavered.  From David's gun another shot
+made havoc.  They turned and fell back quickly.  The situation was saved.
+
+As if by magic the attack of the enemy all over the field ceased.  By
+sunset they had meant to finish this enterprise, which was to put the
+besieged wholly in their hands, and then to feast after the day's
+fasting.  Sunset had come, and they had been foiled; but hunger demanded
+the feast.  The order to cease firing and retreat sounded, and three
+thousand men hurried back to the cooking-pot, the sack of dourha, and the
+prayer mat.  Malaish, if the infidel Inglesi was not conquered to-day,
+he should be beaten and captured and should die to-morrow!  And yet there
+were those among them who had a well-grounded apprehension that the
+"Inglesi" would win in the end.
+
+By the trenches, where five men had died so bravely, and a traitorous
+pasha had paid the full penalty of a crime and won a soldier's death,
+David spoke to his living comrades.  As he prepared to return to the
+city, he said to the unwounded pasha: "Thou wert to die at sunset; it was
+thy sentence."
+
+And the pasha answered: "Saadat, as for death--I am ready to die, but
+have I not fought for thee?"  David turned to the wounded pasha.
+
+"Why did Achmet Pasha spare thee?"
+
+"He did not spare us, Saadat.  Those who fought with us but now were to
+shoot us at sunset, and remain here till other troops came.  Before
+sunset we saw the danger, since no help came.  Therefore we fought to
+save this place for thee."
+
+David looked them in the eyes.  "Ye were traitors," he said, "and for an
+example it was meet that ye should die.  But this that ye have done shall
+be told to all who fight to-morrow, and men will know why it is I pardon
+treachery.  Ye shall fight again, if need be, betwixt this hour and
+morning, and ye shall die, if need be.  Ye are willing?"
+
+Both men touched their foreheads, their lips, and their breasts.
+"Whether it be death or it be life, Inshallah, we are true to thee,
+Saadat!" one said, and the other repeated the words after him.  As they
+salaamed David left them, and rode forward to the advancing forces.
+
+Upon the roof of the palace Mahommed Hassan watched and waited, his eyes
+scanning sharply the desert to the south, his ears strained to catch that
+stir of life which his accustomed ears had so often detected in the
+desert, when no footsteps, marching, or noises could be heard.  Below,
+now in the palace, now in the defences, his master, the Saadat, planned
+for the last day's effort on the morrow, gave directions to the officers,
+sent commands to Achmet Pasha, arranged for the disposition of his
+forces, with as strange a band of adherents and subordinates as ever men
+had--adventurers, to whom adventure in their own land had brought no
+profit; members of that legion of the non-reputable, to whom Cairo
+offered no home; Levantines, who had fled from that underground world
+where every coin of reputation is falsely minted, refugees from the storm
+of the world's disapproval.  There were Greeks with Austrian names;
+Armenians, speaking Italian as their native tongue; Italians of
+astonishing military skill, whose services were no longer required by
+their offended country; French Pizarros with a romantic outlook, even in
+misery, intent to find new El Dorados; Englishmen, who had cheated at
+cards and had left the Horse Guards for ever behind; Egyptian intriguers,
+who had been banished for being less successful than greater intriguers;
+but also a band of good gallant men of every nation.
+
+Upon all these, during the siege, Mahommed Hassan had been a self-
+appointed spy, and had indirectly added to that knowledge which made
+David's decisive actions to circumvent intrigue and its consequences seem
+almost supernatural.  In his way Mahommed was a great man.  He knew that
+David would endure no spying, and it was creditable to his subtlety and
+skill that he was able to warn his master, without being himself
+suspected of getting information by dark means.  On the palace roof
+Mahommed was happy to-night.  Tomorrow would be a great day, and, since
+the Saadat was to control its destiny, what other end could there be but
+happiness?  Had not the Saadat always ridden over all that had been in
+his way?  Had not he, Mahommed, ever had plenty to eat and drink, and
+money to send to Manfaloot to his father there, and to bribe when bribing
+was needed?  Truly, life was a boon!  With a neboot of dom-wood across
+his knees he sat in the still, moonlit night, peering into that distance
+whence Ebn Ezra Bey and his men must come, the moon above tranquil and
+pleasant and alluring, and the desert beneath, covered as it was with the
+outrages and terrors of war, breathing softly its ancient music, that
+delicate vibrant humming of the latent activities.  In his uncivilised
+soul Mahommed Hassan felt this murmur, and even as he sat waiting to know
+whether a little army would steal out of the south like phantoms into
+this circle the Saadat had drawn round him, he kept humming to himself--
+had he not been, was he not now, an Apollo to numberless houris who had
+looked down at him from behind mooshrabieh screens, or waited for him in
+the palm-grove or the cane-field?  The words of his song were not uttered
+aloud, but yet he sang them silently--
+
+    "Every night long and all night my spirit is moaning and crying
+     O dear gazelle, that has taken away my peace!
+     Ah! if my beloved come not, my eyes will be blinded with weeping
+     Moon of my joy, come to me, hark to the call of my soul!"
+
+Over and over he kept chanting the song.  Suddenly, however, he leaned
+farther forward and strained his ears.  Yes, at last, away to the south-
+east, there was life stirring, men moving--moving quickly.  He got to his
+feet slowly, still listening, stood for a moment motionless, then, with a
+cry of satisfaction, dimly saw a moving mass in the white moonlight far
+over by the river.  Ebn Ezra Bey and his men were coming.  He started
+below, and met David on the way up.  He waited till David had mounted the
+roof, then he pointed.  "Now, Saadat!" he said.
+
+"They have stolen in?"  David peered into the misty whiteness.
+
+They are almost in, Saadat.  Nothing can stop them now."
+
+"It is well done.  Go and ask Ebn Ezra effendi to come hither," he said.
+
+Suddenly a shot was fired, then a hoarse shout came over the desert, then
+there was silence again.
+
+"They are in, Saadat," said Mahommed Hassan.
+
+                    .......................
+
+Day broke over a hazy plain.  On both sides of the Nile the river mist
+spread wide, and the army of Ali Wad Hei and the defending forces were
+alike veiled from each other and from the desert world beyond.  Down the
+river for scores of miles the mist was heavy, and those who moved within
+it and on the waters of the Nile could not see fifty feet ahead.  Yet
+through this heavy veil there broke gently a little fleet of phantom
+vessels, the noise of the paddle-wheels and their propellers muffled as
+they moved slowly on.  Never had vessels taken such risks on the Nile
+before, never had pilots trusted so to instinct, for there were sand-
+banks and ugly drifts of rock here and there.  A safe journey for phantom
+ships; but these armed vessels, filled by men with white, eager faces and
+others with dark Egyptian features, were no phantoms.  They bristled with
+weapons, and armed men crowded every corner of space.  For full two hours
+from the first streak of light they had travelled swiftly, taking chances
+not to be taken save in some desperate moment.  The moment was desperate
+enough, if not for them.  They were going to the relief of besieged men,
+with a message from Nahoum Pasha to Claridge Pasha, and with succour.
+They had looked for a struggle up this river as they neared the
+beleaguered city; but, as they came nearer and nearer, not a gun fired at
+them from the forts on the banks out of the mists.  If they were heard
+they still were safe from the guns, for they could not be seen, and those
+on shore could not know whether they were friend or foe.  Like ghostly
+vessels they passed on, until at last they could hear the stir and murmur
+of life along the banks of the stream.
+
+Boom!  boom!  boom!  Through the mist the guns of the city were pouring
+shot and shell out into Ali Wad Hei's camp, and Ali Wad Hei laughed
+contemptuously.  Surely now the Inglesi was altogether mad, and to-day,
+this day after prayers at noon, he should be shot like a mad dog, for
+yesterday's defeat had turned some of his own adherent sheikhs into angry
+critics.  He would not wait for starvation to compel the infidel to
+surrender.  He would win freedom to deal in human flesh and blood, and
+make slave-markets where he willed, and win glory for the Lord Mahomet,
+by putting this place to the sword; and, when it was over, he would have
+the Inglesi's head carried on a pole through the city for the faithful to
+mock at, a target for the filth of the streets.  So, by the will of
+Allah, it should be done!
+
+Boom!  boom!  boom!  The Inglesi was certainly mad, for never had there
+been so much firing in any long day in all the siege as in this brief
+hour this morning.  It was the act of a fool, to fire his shot and shell
+into the mist without aim, without a clear target.  Ali Wad Hei scorned
+to make any reply with his guns, but sat in desultory counsel with his
+sheikhs, planning what should be done when the mists had cleared away.
+But yesterday evening the Arab chief had offered to give the Inglesi life
+if he would surrender and become a Muslim, and swear by the Lord Mahomet;
+but late in the night he had received a reply which left only one choice,
+and that was to disembowel the infidel, and carry his head aloft on a
+spear.  The letter he had received ran thus in Arabic:
+
+     "To Ali Wad Hei and All with Him:
+
+     "We are here to live or to die as God wills, and not as ye will.  I
+     have set my feet on the rock, and not by threats of any man shall I
+     be moved.  But I say that for all the blood that ye have shed here
+     there will be punishment, and for the slaves which ye have slain or
+     sold there will be high price paid.  Ye have threatened the city and
+     me--take us if ye can.  Ye are seven to one.  Why falter all these
+     months?  If ye will not come to us, we shall come to you, rebellious
+     ones, who have drawn the sword against your lawful ruler, the
+     Effendina.
+                                   "CLARIDGE PASHA"
+
+It was a rhetorical document couched in the phraseology they best
+understood; and if it begat derision, it also begat anger; and the
+challenge David had delivered would be met when the mists had lifted from
+the river and the plain.  But when the first thinning of the mists began,
+when the sun began to dissipate the rolling haze, Ali Wad Hei and his
+rebel sheikhs were suddenly startled by rifle-fire at close quarters, by
+confused noises, and the jar and roar of battle.  Now the reason for the
+firing of the great guns was plain.  The noise was meant to cover the
+advance of David's men.  The little garrison, which had done no more than
+issue in sorties, was now throwing its full force on the enemy in a last
+desperate endeavour.  It was either success or absolute destruction.
+David was staking all, with the last of his food, the last of his
+ammunition, the last of his hopes.  All round the field the movement was
+forward, till the circle had widened to the enemy's lines; while at the
+old defences were only handfuls of men.  With scarce a cry David's men
+fell on the unprepared foe; and he himself, on a grey Arab, a mark for
+any lance or spear and rifle, rode upon that point where Ali Wad Hei's
+tent was set.
+
+But after the first onset, in which hundreds were killed, there began the
+real noise of battle--fierce shouting, the shrill cries of wounded and
+maddened horses as they struck with their feet, and bit as fiercely at
+the fighting foe as did their masters.  The mist cleared slowly, and,
+when it had wholly lifted, the fight was spread over every part of the
+field of siege.  Ali Wad Hei's men had gathered themselves together after
+the first deadly onslaught, and were fighting fiercely, shouting the
+Muslim battle-cry, "Allah hu achbar!"  Able to bring up reinforcements,
+the great losses at first sustained were soon made up, and the sheer
+weight of numbers gave them courage and advantage.  By rushes with lance
+and sword and rifle they were able, at last, to drive David's men back
+upon their old defences with loss.  Then charge upon charge ensued, and
+each charge, if it cost them much, cost the besieged more, by reason of
+their fewer numbers.  At one point, however, the besieged became again
+the attacking party.  This was where Achmet Pasha had command.  His men
+on one side of the circle, as Ebn Ezra Bey's men on the other, fought
+with a valour as desperate as the desert ever saw.  But David, galloping
+here and there to order, to encourage, to prevent retreat at one point,
+or to urge attack at another, saw that the doom of his gallant force was
+certain; for the enemy were still four to one, in spite of the carnage of
+the first attack.  Bullets hissed past him.  One carried away a button,
+one caught the tip of his ear, one pierced the fez he wore; but he felt
+nothing of this, saw nothing.  He was buried in the storm of battle
+preparing for the end, for the final grim defence, when his men would
+retreat upon the one last strong fort, and there await their fate.  From
+this absorption he was roused by Lacey, who came galloping towards him.
+
+"They've come, Saadat, they've come at last!  We're saved--oh, my God,
+you bet we're all right now!  See!  See, Saadat!"
+
+David saw.  Five steamers carrying the Egyptian flag were bearing around
+the point where the river curved below the town, and converging upon
+David's small fleet.  Presently the steamers opened fire, to encourage
+the besieged, who replied with frenzied shouts of joy, and soon there
+poured upon the sands hundreds of men in the uniform of the Effendina.
+These came forward at the double, and, with a courage which nothing could
+withstand, the whole circle spread out again upon the discomfited tribes
+of Ali Wad Hei.  Dismay, confusion, possessed the Arabs.  Their river-
+watchers had failed them, God had hidden His face from them; and when Ali
+Wad Hei and three of his emirs turned and rode into the desert, their
+forces broke and ran also, pursued by the relentless men who had suffered
+the tortures of siege so long.  The chase was short, however, for they
+were desert folk, and they returned to loot the camp which had menaced
+them so long.
+
+Only the new-comers, Nahoum's men, carried the hunt far; and they brought
+back with them a body which their leader commanded to be brought to a
+great room of the palace.  Towards sunset David and Ebn Ezra Bey and
+Lacey came together to this room.  The folds of loose linen were lifted
+from the face, and all three looked at it long in silence.  At last Lacey
+spoke:
+
+"He got what he wanted; the luck was with him.  It's better than
+Leperland."
+
+"In the bosom of Allah there is peace," said Ebn Ezra.  "It is well with
+Achmet."
+
+With misty eyes David stooped and took the dead man's hand in his for a
+moment.  Then he rose to his feet and turned away.
+
+"And Nahoum also--and Nahoum," he said presently.  "Read this," he added,
+and put a letter from Nahoum into Ebn Ezra's hand.
+
+Lacey reverently covered Achmet's face.  "Say, he got what he wanted," he
+said again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+THE LOOM OF DESTINY
+
+It was many a day since the Duchess of Snowdon had seen a sunrise, and
+the one on which she now gazed from the deck of the dahabieh Nefert,
+filled her with a strange new sense of discovery and revelation.  Her
+perceptions were arrested and a little confused, and yet the undercurrent
+of feeling was one of delight and rejuvenation.  Why did this sunrise
+bring back, all at once, the day when her one lost child was born, and
+she looked out of the windows of Snowdon Hall, as she lay still and
+nerveless, and thought how wonderful and sweet and green was the world
+she saw and the sky that walled it round?  Sunrise over the Greek Temple
+of Philae and the splendid ruins of a farther time towering beside it!
+In her sight were the wide, islanded Nile, where Cleopatra loitered with
+Antony, the foaming, crashing cataracts above, the great quarries from
+which ancient temples had been hewed, unfinished obelisks and vast blocks
+of stone left where bygone workmen had forsaken them, when the invader
+came and another dynasty disappeared into that partial oblivion from
+which the Egyptian still emerges triumphant over all his conquerors,
+unchanged in form and feature.  Something of its meaning got into her
+mind.
+
+"I wonder what Windlehurst would think of it.  He always had an eye for
+things like that," she murmured; and then caught her breath, as she
+added: "He always liked beauty."  She looked at her wrinkled, childish
+hands.  "But sunsets never grow old," she continued, with no apparent
+relevance.  "La, la, we were young once!"
+
+Her eyes were lost again in the pinkish glow spreading over the grey-
+brown sand of the desert, over the palm-covered island near.  "And now
+it's others' turn, or ought to be," she murmured.
+
+She looked to where, not far away, Hylda stood leaning over the railing
+of the dahabieh, her eyes fixed in reverie on the farthest horizon line
+of the unpeopled, untravelled plain of sand.
+
+"No, poor thing, it's not her turn," she added, as Hylda, with a long
+sigh, turned and went below.  Tears gathered in her pale blue eyes.  "Not
+yet--with Eglington alive.  And perhaps it would be best if the other
+never came back.  I could have made the world better worth living in if
+I had had the chance--and I wouldn't have been a duchess!  La!  La!"
+
+She relapsed into reverie, an uncommon experience for her; and her mind
+floated indefinitely from one thing to another, while she was half
+conscious of the smell of coffee permeating the air, and of the low
+resonant notes of the Nubian boys, as, with locked shoulders, they
+scrubbed the decks of a dahabieh near by with hempshod feet.
+
+Presently, however, she was conscious of another sound--the soft clip of
+oars, joined to the guttural, explosive song of native rowers; and,
+leaning over the rail, she saw a boat draw alongside the Nefert.  From it
+came the figure of Nahoum Pasha, who stepped briskly on deck, in his
+handsome face a light which flashed an instant meaning to her.
+
+"I know--I know!  Claridge Pasha--you have heard?" she said excitedly,
+as he came to her.
+
+He smiled and nodded.  "A messenger has arrived.  Within a few hours he
+should be here."
+
+"Then it was all false that he was wounded--ah, that horrible story of
+his death!"
+
+"Bismillah, it was not all false!  The night before the great battle he
+was slightly wounded in the side.  He neglected it, and fever came on;
+but he survived.  His first messengers to us were killed, and that is why
+the news of the relief came so late.  But all is well at last.  I have
+come to say so to Lady Eglington--even before I went to the Effendina."
+He made a gesture towards a huge and gaily-caparisoned dahabieh not far
+away.  "Kaid was right about coming here.  His health is better.  He
+never doubted Claridge Pasha's return; it was une idee fixe.  He believes
+a magic hand protects the Saadat, and that, adhering to him, he himself
+will carry high the flower of good fortune and live for ever.  Kismet!  I
+will not wait to see Lady Eglington.  I beg to offer to her my
+congratulations on the triumph of her countryman."
+
+His words had no ulterior note; but there was a shadow in his eyes which
+in one not an Oriental would have seemed sympathy.
+
+"Pasha, Pasha!" the Duchess called after him, as he turned to leave;
+"tell me, is there any news from England--from the Government?"
+
+"From Lord Eglington?  No," Nahoum answered meaningly.  "I wrote to him.
+Did the English Government desire to send a message to Claridge Pasha,
+if the relief was accomplished?  That is what I asked.  But there is no
+word.  Malaish, Egypt will welcome him!"
+
+She followed his eyes.  Two score of dahabiehs lay along the banks of the
+Nile, and on the shore were encampments of soldiers, while flags were
+flying everywhere.  Egypt had followed the lead of the Effendina.
+Claridge Pasha's star was in its zenith.
+
+As Nahoum's boat was rowed away, Hylda came on deck again, and the
+Duchess hastened to her.  Hylda caught the look in her face.  "What has
+happened?  Is there news?  Who has been here?" she asked.
+
+The Duchess took her hands.  "Nahoum has gone to tell Prince Kaid.  He
+came to you with the good news first," she said with a flutter.
+
+She felt Hylda's hands turn cold.  A kind of mist filled the dark eyes,
+and the slim, beautiful figure swayed slightly.  An instant only, and
+then the lips smiled, and Hylda said in a quavering voice: "They will be
+so glad in England."
+
+"Yes, yes, my darling, that is what Nahoum said."  She gave Nahoum's
+message to her.  "Now they'll make him a peer, I suppose, after having
+deserted him.  So English!"
+
+She did not understand why Hylda's hands trembled so, why so strange a
+look came into her face, but, in an instant, the rare and appealing eyes
+shone again with a light of agitated joy, and suddenly Hylda leaned over
+and kissed her cheek.
+
+"Smell the coffee," she said with assumed gaiety.  "Doesn't fair-and-
+sixty want her breakfast?  Sunrise is a splendid tonic."  She laughed
+feverishly.
+
+"My darling, I hadn't seen the sun rise in thirty years, not since the
+night I first met Windlehurst at a Foreign Office ball."
+
+"You have always been great friends?"  Hylda stole a look at her.
+
+"That's the queer part of it; I was so stupid, and he so clever.  But
+Windlehurst has a way of letting himself down to your level.  He always
+called me Betty after my boy died, just as if I was his equal.  La, la,
+but I was proud when he first called me that--the Prime Minister of
+England.  I'm going to watch the sun rise again to-morrow, my darling.  I
+didn't know it was so beautiful, and gave one such an appetite."  She
+broke a piece of bread, and, not waiting to butter it, almost stuffed it
+into her mouth.
+
+Hylda leaned over and pressed her arm.  "What a good mother Betty it is!"
+she said tenderly.
+
+Presently they were startled by the shrill screaming of a steamer
+whistle, followed by the churning of the paddles, as she drove past and
+drew to the bank near them.
+
+"It is a steamer from Cairo, with letters, no doubt," said Hylda; and the
+Duchess nodded assent, and covertly noted her look, for she knew that no
+letters had arrived from Eglington since Hylda had left England.
+
+A half-hour later, as the Duchess sat on deck, a great straw hat tied
+under her chin with pale-blue ribbons, like a child of twelve, she was
+startled by seeing the figure of a farmer-looking person with a shock of
+grey-red hair, a red face, and with great blue eyes, appear before her in
+the charge of Hylda's dragoman.
+
+"This has come to speak with my lady," the dragoman said, "but my lady is
+riding into the desert there."  He pointed to the sands.
+
+The Duchess motioned the dragoman away, and scanned the face of the new-
+comer shrewdly.  Where had she seen this strange-looking English peasant,
+with the rolling walk of a sailor?
+
+"What is your name, and where do you come from?" she asked, not without
+anxiety, for there was something ominous and suggestive in the old man's
+face.
+
+"I come from Hamley, in England, and my name is Soolsby, your grace.  I
+come to see my Lady Eglington."
+
+Now she remembered him.  She had seen him in Hamley more than once.
+
+"You have come far; have you important news for her ladyship?  Is there
+anything wrong?" she asked with apparent composure, but with heavy
+premonition.
+
+"Ay, news that counts, I bring," answered Soolsby, "or I hadn't come this
+long way.  'Tis a long way at sixty-five."
+
+"Well, yes, at our age it is a long way," rejoined the Duchess in a
+friendly voice, suddenly waving away the intervening air of class, for
+she was half a peasant at heart.
+
+"Ay, and we both come for the same end, I suppose," Soolsby added; "and a
+costly business it is.  But what matters, so be that you help her
+ladyship and I help Our Man."
+
+"And who is 'Our Man'?" was the rejoinder.  "Him that's coming safe here
+from the South--David Claridge," he answered.  "Ay, 'twas the first thing
+I heard when I landed here, me that be come all these thousand miles to
+see him, if so be he was alive."  Just then he caught sight of Kate
+Heaver climbing the stair to the deck where they were.  His face flushed;
+he hurried forward and gripped her by the arm, as her feet touched the
+upper deck.  "Kate-ay, 'tis Kate!" he cried.  Then he let go her arm and
+caught a hand in both of his and fondled it.  "Ay, ay, 'tis Kate!"  "What
+is it brings you, Soolsby?" Kate asked anxiously.
+
+"'Tis not Jasper, and 'tis not the drink-ay, I've been sober since, ever
+since, Kate, lass," he answered stoutly.  "Quick, quick, tell me what it
+is!" she said, frowning.  "You've not come here for naught, Soolsby."
+
+Still holding her hand, he leaned over and whispered in her ear.  For an
+instant she stood as though transfixed, and then, with a curious muffled
+cry, broke away from him and turned to go below.
+
+"Keep your mouth shut, lass, till proper time," he called after her, as
+she descended the steps hastily again.  Then he came slowly back to the
+Duchess.
+
+He looked her in the face--he was so little like a peasant, so much more
+like a sailor here with his feet on the deck of a floating thing.  "Your
+grace is a good friend to her ladyship," he said at last deliberately,
+"and 'tis well that you tell her ladyship.  As good a friend to her
+you've been, I doubt not, as that I've been to him that's coming from
+beyond and away."
+
+"Go on, man, go on.  I want to know what startled Heaver yonder, what you
+have come to say."
+
+"I beg pardon, your grace.  One doesn't keep good news waiting, and 'tis
+not good news for her ladyship I bring, even if it be for Claridge Pasha,
+for there was no love lost 'twixt him and second-best lordship that's
+gone."
+
+"Speak, man, speak it out, and no more riddles," she interrupted sharply.
+
+"Then, he that was my Lord Eglington is gone foreign--he is dead," he
+said slowly.
+
+The Duchess fell back in her chair.  For an instant the desert, the
+temples, the palms, the Nile waters faded, and she was in some middle
+world, in which Soolsby's voice seemed coming muffled and deep across a
+dark flood; then she recovered herself, and gave a little cry, not unlike
+that which Kate gave a few moments before, partly of pain, partly of
+relief.
+
+"Ay, he's dead and buried, too, and in the Quaker churchyard.  Miss
+Claridge would have it so.  And none in Hamley said nay, not one."
+
+The Duchess murmured to herself.  Eglington was dead--Eglington was dead
+--Eglington was dead!  And David Claridge was coming out of the desert,
+was coming to-day-now!
+
+"How did it happen?" she asked, faintly, at last.
+
+"Things went wrong wi' him--bad wrong in Parliament and everywhere, and
+he didn't take it well.  He stood the world off like-ay, he had no temper
+for black days.  He shut himself up at Hamley in his chemical place, like
+his father, like his father before him.  When the week-end came, there he
+was all day and night among his bottles and jars and wires.  He was after
+summat big in experiment for explosives, so the papers said, and so he
+said himself before he died, to Miss Claridge--ay, 'twas her he deceived
+and treated cruel, that come to him when he was shattered by his
+experimenting.  No patience, he had at last--and reckless in his chemical
+place, and didn't realise what his hands was doing.  'Twas so he told
+her, that forgave him all his deceit, and held him in her arms when he
+died.  Not many words he had to speak; but he did say that he had never
+done any good to any one--ay, I was standing near behind his bed and
+heard all, for I was thinking of her alone with him, and so I would be
+with her, and she would have it so.  Ay, and he said that he had misused
+cruel her that had loved him, her ladyship, that's here.  He said he
+had misused her because he had never loved her truly, only pride and
+vainglory being in his heart.  Then he spoke summat to her that was there
+to forgive him and help him over the stile 'twixt this field and it
+that's Beyond and Away, which made her cry out in pain and say that he
+must fix his thoughts on other things.  And she prayed out loud for him,
+for he would have no parson there.  She prayed and prayed as never priest
+or parson prayed, and at last he got quiet and still, and, when she
+stopped praying, he did not speak or open his eyes for a longish while.
+But when the old clock on the stable was striking twelve, he opened his
+eyes wide, and when it had stopped, he said: 'It is always twelve by the
+clock that stops at noon.  I've done no good.  I've earned my end.' He
+looked as though he was waiting for the clock to go on striking, half
+raising himself up in bed, with Miss Faith's arm under his head.  He
+whispered to her then--he couldn't speak by this time.  'It's twelve
+o'clock,' he said.  Then there came some words I've heard the priest say
+at Mass, 'Vanitas, Vanitatum,'--that was what he said.  And her he'd lied
+to, there with him, laying his head down on the pillow, as if he was her
+child going to sleep.  So, too, she had him buried by her father, in the
+Quaker burying-ground--ay, she is a saint on earth, I warrant."
+
+For a moment after he had stopped the Duchess did not speak, but kept
+untying and tying the blue ribbons under her chin, her faded eyes still
+fastened on him, burning with the flame of an emotion which made them
+dark and young again.
+
+"So, it's all over," she said, as though to herself.  "They were all
+alike, from old Broadbrim, the grandfather, down to this one, and back to
+William the Conqueror."
+
+"Like as peas in a pod," exclaimed Soolsby--"all but one, all but one,
+and never satisfied with what was in their own garden, but peeking,
+peeking beyond the hedge, and climbing and getting a fall.  That's what
+they've always been evermore."
+
+His words aroused the Duchess, and the air became a little colder about
+her-after all, the division between the classes and the masses must be
+kept, and the Eglingtons were no upstarts.  "You will say nothing about
+this till I give you leave to speak," she commanded.  "I must tell her
+ladyship."
+
+Soolsby drew himself up a little, nettled at her tone.  "It is your
+grace's place to tell her ladyship," he responded; "but I've taken ten
+years' savings to come to Egypt, and not to do any one harm, but good,
+if so be I might."
+
+The Duchess relented at once.  She got to her feet as quickly as she
+could, and held out her hand to him.  "You are a good man, and a friend
+worth having, I know, and I shall like you to be my friend, Mr. Soolsby,"
+she said impulsively.
+
+He took her hand and shook it awkwardly, his lips working.  "Your grace,
+I understand.  I've got naught to live for except my friends.  Money's
+naught, naught's naught, if there isn't a friend to feel a crunch at his
+heart when summat bad happens to you.  I'd take my affydavy that there's
+no better friend in the world than your grace."
+
+She smiled at him.  "And so we are friends, aren't we?  And I am to tell
+her ladyship, and you are to say 'naught.'
+
+"But to the Egyptian, to him, your grace, it is my place to speak--to
+Claridge Pasha, when he comes."  The Duchess looked at him quizzically.
+"How does Lord Eglington's death concern Claridge Pasha?" she asked
+rather anxiously.  Had there been gossip about Hylda?  Had the public got
+a hint of the true story of her flight, in spite of all Windlehurst had
+done?  Was Hylda's name smirched, now, when all would be set right?  Had
+everything come too late, as it were?
+
+"There's two ways that his lordship's death concerns Claridge Pasha,"
+answered Soolsby shrewdly, for though he guessed the truth concerning
+Hylda and David, his was not a leaking tongue.  "There's two ways it
+touches him.  There'll be a new man in the Foreign Office--Lord Eglington
+was always against Claridge Pasha; and there's matters of land betwixt
+the two estates--matters of land that's got to be settled now," he
+continued, with determined and successful evasion.
+
+The Duchess was deceived.  "But you will not tell Claridge Pasha until I
+have told her ladyship and I give you leave?  Promise that," she urged.
+
+"I will not tell him until then," he answered.  "Look, look, your grace,"
+he added, suddenly pointing towards the southern horizon, "there he
+comes!  Ay, 'tis Our Man, I doubt not--Our Man evermore!"
+
+Miles away there appeared on the horizon a dozen camels being ridden
+towards Assouan.
+
+"Our Man evermore," repeated the Duchess, with a trembling smile.  "Yes,
+it is surely he.  See, the soldiers are moving.  They're going to ride
+out to meet him."  She made a gesture towards the far shore where Kaid's
+men were saddling their horses, and to Nahoum's and Kaid's dahabiehs,
+where there was a great stir.
+
+"There's one from Hamley will meet them first," Soolsby said, and pointed
+to where Hylda, in the desert, was riding towards the camels coming out
+of the south.
+
+The Duchess threw up her hands.  "Dear me, dear me," she said in
+distress, "if she only knew!"
+
+"There's thousands of women that'd ride out mad to meet him," said
+Soolsby carefully; "women that likes to see an Englishman that's done his
+duty--ay, women and men, that'd ride hard to welcome him back from the
+grave.  Her ladyship's as good a patriot as any," he added, watching the
+Duchess out of the corners of his eyes, his face turned to the desert.
+
+The Duchess looked at him quizzically, and was satisfied with her
+scrutiny.  "You're a man of sense," she replied brusquely, and gathered
+up her skirts.  "Find me a horse or a donkey, and I'll go too," she added
+whimsically.  "Patriotism is such a nice sentiment."
+
+For David and Lacey the morning had broken upon a new earth.  Whatever of
+toil and tribulation the future held in store, this day marked a step
+forward in the work to which David had set his life.  A way had been
+cloven through the bloody palisades of barbarism, and though the dark
+races might seek to hold back the forces which drain the fens, and build
+the bridges, and make the desert blossom as the rose, which give liberty
+and preserve life, the good end was sure and near, whatever of rebellion
+and disorder and treachery intervened.  This was the larger, graver
+issue; but they felt a spring in the blood, and their hearts were
+leaping, because of the thought that soon they would clasp hands again
+with all from which they had been exiled.
+
+"Say, Saadat, think of it: a bed with four feet, and linen sheets, and
+sleeping till any time in the morning, and, If you please, sir,
+breakfast's on the table.' Say, it's great, and we're in it!"
+
+David smiled.  "Thee did very well, friend, without such luxuries.  Thee
+is not skin and bone."
+
+Lacey mopped his forehead.  "Well, I've put on a layer or two since the
+relief.  It's being scared that takes the flesh off me.  I never was
+intended for the 'stricken field.'  Poetry and the hearth-stone was my
+real vocation--and a bit of silver mining to blow off steam with," he
+added with a chuckle.
+
+David laughed and tapped his arm.  "That is an old story now, thy
+cowardice.  Thee should be more original.
+
+"It's worth not being original, Saadat, to hear you thee and thou me as
+you used to do.  It's like old times--the oldest, first times.  You've
+changed a lot, Saadat."
+
+"Not in anything that matters, I hope."
+
+"Not in anything that matters to any one that matters.  To me it's the
+same as it ever was, only more so.  It isn't that, for you are you.  But
+you've had disappointment, trouble, hard nuts to crack, and all you could
+do to escape the rocks being rolled down the Egyptian hill onto you; and
+it's left its mark."
+
+"Am I grown so different?"
+
+Lacey's face shone under the look that was turned towards him.  "Say,
+Saadat, you're the same old red sandstone; but I missed the thee and
+thou.  I sort of hankered after it; it gets me where I'm at home with
+myself."
+
+David laughed drily.  "Well, perhaps I've missed something in you.  Thee
+never says now--not since thee went south a year ago, 'Well, give my love
+to the girls.'  Something has left its mark, friend," he added teasingly;
+for his spirits were boyish to-day; he was living in the present.  There
+had gone from his eyes and from the lines of his figure the melancholy
+which Hylda had remarked when he was in England.
+
+"Well, now, I never noticed," rejoined Lacey.  "That's got me.  Looks as
+if I wasn't as friendly as I used to be, doesn't it?  But I am--I am,
+Saadat."
+
+"I thought that the widow in Cairo, perhaps--" Lacey chuckled.  "Say,
+perhaps it was--cute as she can be, maybe, wouldn't like it, might be
+prejudiced."
+
+Suddenly David turned sharply to Lacey.  "Thee spoke of silver mining
+just now.  I owe thee something like two hundred thousand pounds, I
+think--Egypt and I."
+
+Lacey winked whimsically at himself under the rim of his helmet.  "Are
+you drawing back from those concessions, Saadat?" he asked with apparent
+ruefulness.
+
+"Drawing back?  No!  But does thee think they are worth--"
+
+Lacey assumed an injured air.  "If a man that's made as much money as me
+can't be trusted to look after a business proposition--"
+
+"Oh, well, then!"
+
+"Say, Saadat, I don't want you to think I've taken a mean advantage of
+you; and if--"
+
+David hastened to put the matter right.  "No, no; thee must be the
+judge!"  He smiled sceptically.  "In any case, thee has done a good deed
+in a great way, and it will do thee no harm in the end.  In one way the
+investment will pay a long interest, as long as the history of Egypt
+runs.  Ah, see, the houses of Assouan, the palms, the river, the masts of
+the dahabiehs!"
+
+Lacey quickened his camel's steps, and stretched out a hand to the
+inviting distance.  "'My, it's great," he said, and his eyes were
+blinking with tears.  Presently he pointed.  "There's a woman riding to
+meet us, Saa dat.  Golly, can't she ride!  She means to be in it--to
+salute the returning brave."
+
+He did not glance at David.  If he had done so, he would have seen that
+David's face had taken on a strange look, just such a look as it wore
+that night in the monastery when he saw Hylda in a vision and heard her
+say: "Speak, speak to me!"
+
+There had shot into David's mind the conviction that the woman riding
+towards them was Hylda.  Hylda, the first to welcome him back, Hylda--
+Lady Eglington!  Suddenly his face appeared to tighten and grow thin.
+It was all joy and torture at once.  He had fought this fight out with
+himself--had he not done so?  Had he not closed his heart to all but duty
+and Egypt?  Yet there she was riding out of the old life, out of Hamley,
+and England, and all that had happened in Cairo, to meet him.  Nearer and
+nearer she came.  He could not see the face, but yet he knew.  He
+quickened his camel and drew ahead of Lacey.  Lacey did not understand,
+he did not recognise Hylda as yet; but he knew by instinct the Saadat's
+wishes, and he motioned the others to ride more slowly, while he and they
+watched horsemen coming out from Assouan towards them.
+
+David urged his camel on.  Presently he could distinguish the features of
+the woman riding towards him.  It was Hylda.  His presentiment, his
+instinct had been right.  His heart beat tumultuously, his hand trembled,
+he grew suddenly weak; but he summoned up his will, and ruled himself to
+something like composure.  This, then, was his home-coming from the far
+miseries and trials and battle-fields--to see her face before all others,
+to hear her voice first.  What miracle had brought this thing to pass,
+this beautiful, bitter, forbidden thing?  Forbidden!  Whatever the cause
+of her coming, she must not see what he felt for her.  He must deal
+fairly by her and by Eglington; he must be true to that real self which
+had emerged from the fiery trial in the monastery.  Bronzed as he was,
+his face showed no paleness; but, as he drew near her, it grew pinched
+and wan from the effort at self-control.  He set his lips and rode on,
+until he could see her eyes looking into his--eyes full of that which he
+had never seen in any eyes in all the world.
+
+What had been her feelings during that ride in the desert?  She had not
+meant to go out to meet him.  After she heard that he was coming, her
+desire was to get away from all the rest of the world, and be alone with
+her thoughts.  He was coming, he was safe, and her work was done.  What
+she had set out to do was accomplished--to bring him back, if it was
+God's will, out of the jaws of death, for England's sake, for the world's
+sake, for his sake, for her own sake.  For her own sake?  Yes, yes, in
+spite of all, for her own sake.  Whatever lay before, now, for this one
+hour, for this moment of meeting he should be hers.  But meet him, where?
+Before all the world, with a smile of conventional welcome on her lips,
+with the same hand-clasp that any friend and lover of humanity would give
+him?
+
+The desert air blew on her face, keen, sweet, vibrant, thrilling.  What
+he had heard that night at the monastery, the humming life of the land of
+white fire--the desert, the million looms of all the weavers of the world
+weaving, this she heard in the sunlight, with the sand rising like surf
+behind her horse's heels.  The misery and the tyranny and the unrequited
+love were all behind her, the disillusion and the loss and the undeserved
+insult to her womanhood--all, all were sunk away into the unredeemable
+past.  Here, in Egypt, where she had first felt the stir of life's
+passion and pain and penalty, here, now, she lost herself in a beautiful,
+buoyant dream.  She was riding out to meet the one man of all men, hero,
+crusader, rescuer--ah, that dreadful night in the Palace, and Foorgat's
+face!  But he was coming, who had made her live, to whom she had called,
+to whom her soul had spoken in its grief and misery.  Had she ever done
+aught to shame the best that was in herself--and had she not been sorely
+tempted?  Had she not striven to love Eglington even when the worst was
+come, not alone at her own soul's command, but because she knew that this
+man would have it so?  Broken by her own sorrow, she had left England,
+Eglington--all, to keep her pledge to help him in his hour of need, to
+try and save him to the world, if that might be.  So she had come to
+Nahoum, who was binding him down on the bed of torture and of death.  And
+yet, alas!  not herself had conquered Nahoum, but David, as Nahoum had
+said.  She herself had not done this one thing which would have
+compensated for all that she had suffered.  This had not been permitted;
+but it remained that she had come here to do it, and perhaps he would
+understand when he saw her.
+
+Yes, she knew he would understand!  She flung up her head to the sun and
+the pulse-stirring air, and, as she did so, she saw his cavalcade
+approaching.  She was sure it was he, even when he was far off, by the
+same sure instinct that convinced him.  For an instant she hesitated.
+She would turn back, and meet him with the crowd.  Then she looked
+around.  The desert was deserted by all save herself and himself and
+those who were with him.  No.  Her mind was made up.  She would ride
+forward.  She would be the first to welcome him back to life and the
+world.  He and she would meet alone in the desert.  For one minute they
+would be alone, they two, with the world afar, they two, to meet, to
+greet--and to part.  Out of all that Fate had to give of sorrow and loss,
+this one delectable moment, no matter what came after.
+
+"David!" she cried with beating heart, and rode on, harder and harder.
+
+Now she saw him ride ahead of the others.  Ah, he knew that it was she,
+though he could not see her face!  Nearer and nearer.  Now they looked
+into each other's eyes.
+
+She saw him stop his camel and make it kneel for the dismounting.  She
+stopped her horse also, and slid to the ground, and stood waiting, one
+hand upon the horse's neck.  He hastened forward, then stood still, a few
+feet away, his eyes on hers, his helmet off, his brown hair, brown as
+when she first saw it--peril and hardship had not thinned or greyed it.
+For a moment they stood so, for a moment of revealing and understanding,
+but speechless; and then, suddenly, and with a smile infinitely touching,
+she said, as he had heard her say in the monastery--the very words:
+
+"Speak--speak to me!"
+
+He took her hand in his.  "There is no need--I have said all," he
+answered, happiness and trouble at once in his eyes.  Then his face
+grew calmer.  "Thee has made it worth while living on," he added.
+
+She was gaining control of herself also.  "I said that I would come
+when I was needed," she answered less, tremblingly.
+
+"Thee came alone?" he asked gently.
+
+"From Assouan, yes," she said in a voice still unsteady.  "I was riding
+out to be by myself, and then I saw you coming, and I rode on.  I thought
+I should like to be the first to say: 'Well done,' and 'God bless you!'"
+
+He drew in a long breath, then looked at her keenly.  "Lord Eglington is
+in Egypt also?" he asked.
+
+Her face did not change.  She looked him in the eyes.
+
+"No, Eglington would not come to help you.  I came to Nahoum, as I said
+I would."
+
+"Thee has a good memory," he rejoined simply.  "I am a good friend," she
+answered, then suddenly her face flushed up, her breast panted, her eyes
+shone with a brightness almost intolerable to him, and he said in a low,
+shaking voice:
+
+"It is all fighting, all fighting.  We have done our best; and thee has
+made all possible."
+
+"David!" she said in a voice scarce above a whisper.
+
+"Thee and me have far to go," he said in a voice not louder than her own,
+"but our ways may not be the same."
+
+She understood, and a newer life leaped up in her.  She knew that he
+loved her--that was sufficient; the rest would be easier now.  Sacrifice,
+all, would be easier.  To part, yes, and for evermore; but to know that
+she had been truly loved--who could rob her of that?
+
+"See," she said lightly, "your people are waiting--and there, why, there
+is my cousin Lacey.  Tom, oh, Cousin Tom!" she called eagerly.
+
+Lacey rode down on them.  "I swan, but I'm glad," he said, as he dropped
+from his horse.  "Cousin Hylda, I'm blest if I don't feel as if I could
+sing like Aunt Melissa."
+
+"You may kiss me, Cousin Tom," she said, as she took his hands in hers.
+
+He flushed, was embarrassed, then snatched a kiss from her cheek.  "Say,
+I'm in it, ain't I?  And you were in it first, eh, Cousin Hylda?  The
+rest are nowhere--there they come from Assouan, Kaid, Nahoum, and the
+Nubians.  Look at 'em glisten!"
+
+A hundred of Kaid's Nubians in their glittering armour made three sides
+of a quickly moving square, in the centre of which, and a little ahead,
+rode Kaid and Nahoum, while behind the square-in parade and gala dress-
+trooped hundreds of soldiers and Egyptians and natives.
+
+Swiftly the two cavalcades approached each other, the desert ringing with
+the cries of the Bedouins, the Nubians, and the fellaheen.  They met on
+an upland of sand, from which the wide valley of the Nile and its wild
+cataracts could be seen.  As men meet who parted yesterday, Kaid, Nahoum,
+and David met, but Kaid's first quiet words to David had behind them a
+world of meaning:
+
+"I also have come back, Saadat, to whom be the bread that never moulds
+and the water that never stales!" he said, with a look in his face which
+had not been there for many a day.  Superstition had set its mark on him
+--on Claridge Pasha's safety depended his own, that was his belief; and
+the look of this thin, bronzed face, with its living fire, gave him vital
+assurance of length of days.
+
+And David answered: "May thy life be the nursling of Time, Effendina.
+I bring the tribute of the rebel lions once more to thy hand.  What was
+thine, and was lost, is thine once more.  Peace and salaam!"  Between
+Nahoum and David there were no words at first at all.  They shook hands
+like Englishmen, looking into each other's eyes, and with pride of what
+Nahoum, once, in his duplicity, had called "perfect friendship."
+
+Lacey thought of this now as he looked on; and not without a sense of
+irony, he said under his breath, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a
+Christian!"
+
+But in Hylda's look, as it met Nahoum's, there was no doubt--what woman
+doubts the convert whom she thinks she has helped to make?  Meanwhile,
+the Nubians smote their mailed breasts with their swords in honour of
+David and Kaid.
+
+Under the gleaming moon, the exquisite temple of Philae perched on its
+high rock above the river, the fires on the shore, the masts of the
+dahabiehs twinkling with lights, and the barbarous songs floating across
+the water, gave the feeling of past centuries to the scene.  From the
+splendid boat which Kaid had placed at his disposal David looked out upon
+it all, with emotions not yet wholly mastered by the true estimate of
+what this day had brought to him.  With a mind unsettled he listened to
+the natives in the forepart of the boat and on the shore, beating the
+darabukkeh and playing the kemengeh.  Yet it was moving in a mist and on
+a flood of greater happiness than he had ever known.
+
+He did not know as yet that Eglington was gone for ever.  He did not know
+that the winds of time had already swept away all traces of the house of
+ambition which Eglington had sought to build; and that his nimble tongue
+and untrustworthy mind would never more delude and charm, and wanton with
+truth.  He did not know, but within the past hour Hylda knew; and now out
+of the night Soolsby came to tell him.
+
+He was roused from his reverie by Soolsby's voice saying: "Hast nowt to
+say to me, Egyptian?"
+
+It startled him, sounded ghostly in the moonlight; for why should he hear
+Soolsby's voice on the confines of Egypt?  But Soolsby came nearer, and
+stood where the moonlight fell upon him, hat in hand, a rustic modern
+figure in this Oriental world.
+
+David sprang to his feet and grasped the old man by the shoulders.
+"Soolsby, Soolsby," he said, with a strange plaintive-note in his voice,
+yet gladly, too.  "Soolsby, thee is come here to welcome me!  But has
+she not come--Miss Claridge, Soolsby?"
+
+He longed for that true heart which had never failed him, the simple soul
+whose life had been filled by thought and care of him, and whose every
+act had for its background the love of sister for brother--for that was
+their relation in every usual meaning--who, too frail and broken to come
+to him now, waited for him by the old hearthstone.  And so Soolsby, in
+his own way, made him understand; for who knew them both better than this
+old man, who had shared in David's destiny since the fatal day when Lord
+Eglington had married Mercy Claridge in secret, had set in motion a long
+line of tragic happenings?
+
+"Ay, she would have come, she would have come," Soolsby answered, "but
+she was not fit for the journey, and there was little time, my lord."
+
+"Why did thee come, Soolsby?  Only to welcome me back?"
+
+"I come to bring you back to England, to your duty there, my lord."
+
+The first time Soolsby had used the words "my lord," David had scarcely
+noticed it, but its repetition struck him strangely.
+
+"Here, sometimes they call me Pasha and Saadat, but I am not 'my lord,'"
+he said.
+
+"Ay, but you are my lord, Egyptian, as sure as I've kept my word to you
+that I'd drink no more, ay, on my sacred honour.  So you are my lord; you
+are Lord Eglington, my lord."
+
+David stood rigid and almost unblinking as Soolsby told his tale,
+beginning with the story of Eglington's death, and going back all the
+years to the day of Mercy Claridge's marriage.
+
+"And him that never was Lord Eglington, your own father's son, is dead
+and gone, my lord; and you are come into your rights at last."  This was
+the end of the tale.
+
+For a long time David stood looking into the sparkling night before him,
+speechless and unmoving, his hands clasped behind him, his head bent
+forward, as though in a dream.
+
+How, all in an instant, had life changed for him!  How had Soolsby's tale
+of Eglington's death filled him with a pity deeper than he had ever felt-
+the futile, bitter, unaccomplished life, the audacious, brilliant genius
+quenched, a genius got from the same source as his own resistless energy
+and imagination, from the same wild spring.  Gone--all gone, with only
+pity to cover him, unloved, unloving, unbemoaned, save by the Quaker girl
+whose true spirit he had hurt, save by the wife whom he had cruelly
+wronged and tortured; and pity was the thing that moved them both,
+unfathomable and almost maternal, in that sense of motherhood which,
+in spite of love or passion, is behind both, behind all, in every true
+woman's life.
+
+At last David spoke.
+
+"Who knows of all this--of who I am, Soolsby?"
+
+"Lady Eglington and myself, my lord."
+
+"Only she and you?"
+
+"Only us two, Egyptian."
+
+"Then let it be so--for ever."
+
+Soolsby was startled, dumfounded.
+
+"But you will take your title and estates, my lord; you will take the
+place which is your own."
+
+"And prove my grandfather wrong?  Had he not enough sorrow?  And change
+my life, all to please thee, Soolsby?"
+
+He took the old man's shoulders in his hands again.  "Thee has done thy
+duty as few in this world, Soolsby, and given friendship such as few
+give.  But thee must be content.  I am David Claridge, and so shall
+remain ever."
+
+"Then, since he has no male kin, the title dies, and all that's his will
+go to her ladyship," Soolsby rejoined sourly.
+
+"Does thee grudge her ladyship what was his?"
+
+"I grudge her what is yours, my lord--"
+
+Suddenly Soolsby paused, as though a new thought had come to him, and he
+nodded to himself in satisfaction.  "Well, since you will have it so, it
+will be so, Egyptian; but it is a queer fuddle, all of it; and where's
+the way out, tell me that, my lord?"
+
+David spoke impatiently.  "Call me 'my lord' no more.  .  .  .  But I
+will go back to England to her that's waiting at the Red Mansion, and you
+will remember, Soolsby--"
+
+Slowly the great flotilla of dahabiehs floated with the strong current
+down towards Cairo, the great sails swelling to the breeze that blew from
+the Libyan Hills.  Along the bank of the Nile thousands of Arabs and
+fellaheen crowded to welcome "the Saadat," bringing gifts of dates and
+eggs and fowls and dourha and sweetmeats, and linen cloth; and even in
+the darkness and in the trouble that was on her, and the harrowing regret
+that she had not been with Eglington in his last hour--she little knew
+what Eglington had said to Faith in that last hour--Hylda's heart was
+soothed by the long, loud tribute paid to David.
+
+As she sat in the evening light, David and Lacey came, and were received
+by the Duchess of Snowdon, who could only say to David, as she held his
+hand, "Windlehurst sent his regards to you, his loving regards.  He was
+sure you would come home--come home.  He wished he were in power for your
+sake."
+
+So, for a few moments she talked vaguely, and said at last: "But Lady
+Eglington, she will be glad to see you, such old friends as you are,
+though not so old as Windlehurst and me--thirty years, over thirty la,
+la!"
+
+They turned to go to Hylda, and came face to face with Kate Heaver.
+
+Kate looked at David as one would look who saw a lost friend return from
+the dead.  His eyes lighted, he held out his hand to her.
+
+"It is good to see thee here," he said gently.  "And 'tis the cross-roads
+once again, sir," she rejoined.
+
+"Thee means thee will marry Jasper?"
+
+"Ay, I will marry Jasper now," she answered.  "It has been a long
+waiting."
+
+"It could not be till now," she responded.
+
+David looked at her reflectively, and said: "By devious ways the human
+heart comes home.  One can only stand in the door and wait.  He has been
+patient."
+
+"I have been patient, too," she answered.
+
+As the Duchess disappeared with David, a swift change came over Lacey.
+He spun round on one toe, and, like a boy of ten, careered around the
+deck to the tune of a negro song.
+
+"Say, things are all right in there with them two, and it's my turn now,"
+he said.  "Cute as she can be, and knows the game!  Twice a widow, and
+knows the game!  Waiting, she is down in Cairo, where the orange blossom
+blows.  I'm in it; we're all in it--every one of us.  Cousin Hylda's free
+now, and I've got no past worth speaking of; and, anyhow, she'll
+understand, down there in Cairo.  Cute as she can be--"
+
+Suddenly he swung himself down to the deck below.  "The desert's the
+place for me to-night," he said.  Stepping ashore, he turned to where the
+Duchess stood on the deck, gazing out into the night.  "Well, give my
+love to the girls," he called, waving a hand upwards, as it were to the
+wide world, and disappeared into the alluring whiteness.
+
+"I've got to get a key-thought," he muttered to himself, as he walked
+swiftly on, till only faint sounds came to him from the riverside.  In
+the letter he had written to Hylda, which was the turning-point of all
+for her, he had spoken of these "key-thoughts."  With all the
+childishness he showed at times, he had wisely felt his way into spheres
+where life had depth and meaning.  The desert had justified him to
+himself and before the spirits of departed peoples, who wandered over the
+sands, until at last they became sand also, and were blown hither and
+thither, to make beds for thousands of desert wayfarers, or paths for
+camels' feet, or a blinding storm to overwhelm the traveller and the
+caravan; Life giving and taking, and absorbing and destroying, and
+destroying and absorbing, till the circle of human existence wheel
+to the full, and the task of Time be accomplished.
+
+On the gorse-grown common above Hamley, David and Faith, and David's
+mother Mercy, had felt the same soul of things stirring--in the green
+things of green England, in the arid wastes of the Libyan desert, on the
+bosom of the Nile, where Mahommed Hassan now lay in a nugger singing a
+song of passion, Nature, with burning voice, murmuring down the unquiet
+world its message of the Final Peace through the innumerable years.
+
+
+
+
+GLOSSARY
+
+Aiwa----Yes.
+Allah hu Achbar----God is most Great.
+Al'mah----Female professional singers, signifying "a learned female."
+Ardab----A measure equivalent to five English bushels.
+
+Backsheesh----Tip, douceur.
+Balass----Earthen vessel for carrying water.
+Bdsha----Pasha.
+Bersim----Clover.
+Bismillah----In the name of God.
+Bowdb----A doorkeeper.
+
+Dahabieh----A Nile houseboat with large lateen sails.
+Darabukkeh----A drum made of a skin stretched over an earthenware funnel.
+Dourha----Maize.
+
+Effendina----Most noble.
+El Azhar----The Arab University at Cairo.
+
+Fedddn----A measure of land representing about an acre.
+Fellah----The Egyptian peasant.
+
+Ghiassa----Small boat.
+
+Hakim----Doctor.
+Hasheesh----Leaves of hemp.
+
+Inshallah----God willing.
+
+Kdnoon----A musical instrument like a dulcimer.
+Kavass----An orderly.
+Kemengeh----A cocoanut fiddle.
+Khamsin----A hot wind of Egypt and the Soudan.
+
+Kourbash----A whip, often made of rhinoceros hide.
+
+La ilaha illa-llah----There is no deity but God.
+
+Malaish----No matter.
+Malboos----Demented.
+Mastaba----A bench.
+Medjidie----A Turkish Order.
+Mooshrabieh----Lattice window.
+Moufettish----High Steward.
+Mudir----The Governor of a
+Mudirieh, or province.
+Muezzin----The sheikh of the mosque who calls to prayer.
+
+Narghileh----A Persian pipe.
+Nebool----A quarter-staff.
+
+Ramadan----The Mahommedan season of fasting.
+
+Saadat-el-bdsha----Excellency Pasha.
+Sdis----Groom.
+Sakkia----The Persian water-wheel.
+Salaam----Eastern salutation.
+Sheikh-el-beled----Head of a village.
+
+Tarboosh----A Turkish turban.
+
+Ulema----Learned men.
+
+Wakf----Mahommedan Court dealing with succession, etc.
+Welee----A holy man or saint.
+
+Yashmak----A veil for the lower part of the face.
+Yelek----A long vest or smock.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS FOR THE ENTIRE "WEAVERS":
+
+A cloak of words to cover up the real thought behind
+Antipathy of the man in the wrong to the man in the right
+Antipathy of the lesser to the greater nature
+Begin to see how near good is to evil
+But the years go on, and friends have an end
+Cherish any alleviating lie
+Does any human being know what he can bear of temptation
+Friendship means a giving and a getting
+He's a barber-shop philosopher
+Heaven where wives without number awaited him
+Honesty was a thing he greatly desired--in others
+How little we can know to-day what we shall feel tomorrow
+How many conquests have been made in the name of God
+Monotonously intelligent
+No virtue in not falling, when you're not tempted
+Of course I've hated, or I wouldn't be worth a button
+One does the work and another gets paid
+Only the supremely wise or the deeply ignorant who never alter
+Passion to forget themselves
+Political virtue goes unrewarded
+She knew what to say and what to leave unsaid
+Smiling was part of his equipment
+Sometimes the longest way round is the shortest way home
+Soul tortured through different degrees of misunderstanding
+The vague pain of suffered indifference
+There is no habit so powerful as the habit of care of others
+There's no credit in not doing what you don't want to do
+To-morrow is no man's gift
+Tricks played by Fact to discredit the imagination
+Triumph of Oriental duplicity over Western civilisation
+We want every land to do as we do; and we want to make 'em do it
+We must live our dark hours alone
+When God permits, shall man despair?
+Woman's deepest right and joy and pain in one--to comfort
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WEAVERS BY PARKER, ENTIRE ***
+
+********* This file should be named gp94w10.txt or gp94w10.zip *********
+
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+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
+
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