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I don't mean your Congo Quashi or Borria Bungalee from the back-country blocks of New South Wales our Roman bore no resemblance to them; but say your Morocco kaid, your desert chieftain from Tunis or Algiers. Though for long generations he has lost his old-time civilized attainments, he retains in full his manners, his native dignity, his wild Saharan grace.
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.
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.
The Arab court-house seemed to him an excellent place for a lesson in the language; and the case the Kaid was deciding was to his taste.
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.
"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.
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.
"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.
"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.
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.
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