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Updated: May 28, 2025
Had her crusade been altogether fruitless, she asked herself. Ismail's freed Circassian was in her household, being educated like an English girl, lifted out of her former degradation, made to understand "a higher life"; and yesterday she had sent away six liberated slaves, with a gold-piece each, as a gift from a free woman to free men.
But it explained enough for King's present purpose, and he wasted no time on riders to the problem. With or without Ismail's aid, with or without his enmity, he must control his eighty men and give the slip to the mullah, and he went at once about the best way to do both. "We will go now," he said quietly. "That sentry in yonder shadow has his back turned. He has over-eaten.
The room was on the first floor, and the window opened on to a small square courtyard. A movement of Ahmed Ismail's brought him swiftly round. He saw the money-lender on his knees with his forehead to the ground, grovelling before his Prince's feet. "The time has come, oh, my Lord," he cried in a low, eager voice, and again, "the time has come."
At first, the seizure of conscripts, with all that it involved, had excited her greatly. It had required all her common- sense to prevent her, then and there, protesting, pleading, with the kavass, who did the duty of Ismail's Sirdar. She had confined herself, however, to asking for permission to give the men cigarettes and slippers, dates and bread, and bags of lentils for soup.
Dicky had ended his brief homily by saying: "And isn't that a pretty dish to set before a king!" to Ismail's amusement; for he was no good Mussulman, no Mussulman at all, in fact, save in occasional violent prejudices got of inheritance and association. To-day, however, Ismail was in a bad humour with Dicky and with the world.
Twice had Dicky saved this Chief Eunuch's life from Ismail's anger, and once had he saved his fortune not even from compassion, but out of his inherent love of justice. As Dicky had said: "Let him die for what he has done, not for something he has not done. Send him to the devil with a true bill of crime."
Before he had been gone a minute the Pass was silent as death again, and though Athelstan listened with trained ears, the only sound be could detect was of a jackal cracking a bone fifty or sixty yards away. He repacked the loads, putting everything back carefully into the big leather envelopes and locking the empty hand-bag, after throwing in a few stones for Ismail's benefit.
Uncle Mano suggested that I relax the next day, which I did, watching T.V., looking at photo albums and generally chatting with them about my sabbatical so far and about my plans in Chennai. Early the following morning Uncle Mano and I set off for New College where Dr Sultan Ismail's Earthworm Institute is located and where I would spend the next fortnight studying earthworms and vermiculture.
But he did not stop there, and, learning after some time that Pacho Bey had sought refuge with the Nazir of Drama, who had taken him into favour, he resolved to strike a last blow, more sure and more terrible than the others. Again Ismail's lucky star saved him from the plots of his enemy.
That Kingsley Bey, who had been a slave-master with Ismail's own approval and to his advantage, should now she glowed with pained anger.... She would not wait till she had seen Kingsley Bey, or Donovan Pasha again; she herself would go to Ismail at once. So, she went to Ismail, and she was admitted, after long waiting in an anteroom.
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