ose old nobles, riding to
battle on their fiery Arab steeds, waging their private wars,
brooking no affront, no command, working no other man's will.

"They knew both power and beauty," he declared, "like the Medici of
Florence. There are no leaders like that in the modern world. To-day
beauty is beggared, and power is lusterless.... And taste? Taste is
a hundred-headed Hydra, roaring with a hundred tongues!"

"While in the old days in Cairo it only roared with the tongues of
Mamelukes?" Arlee suggested, a glint of mischief in her smile.

He nodded. "It should be the concern of nobles--not of the rabble.
That is why I should hate your America--where the rabble prevail."

"It's not nice of you to call me a rabble," said Arlee, busy with
her plate of chicken. "But I want to hear more about your old
Mamelukes. Is the story true about the Sultan's being so afraid of
them that he had them taken by surprise and killed?"

"He did well to fear them," said Kerissen. "And he, too, was a
strong man who had the power to clear his own path. Those nobles
were in the path of Mohammed Ali. They were too strong for him, he
knew it--and they knew it and were not afraid. On one day they were
all assembled at the Citadel, at the ceremony which Mohammed Ali was
giving in honor of his son, Toussoum. It was the first of March, in
1811, and my ancestor, the father of my father's father, rode out
from this palace, through the gate by the court, which is the old
gate, in his most splendid attire to greet his sovereign's son. The
emerald upon his turban was as large as a man's eye, and his sword
hilt was studded with turquoise and pearls and the hilt was a blazon
of gold. His robes were of silk, gold threaded, and his horse was
trapped with gold and silver and a diamond hung between her eyes....
The Mamelukes were feted and courted, and then, as they were leaving
the Citadel--you have been up there?" he broke off to question, and
Arlee nodded, her eyes wide and intent like a listening child's,
"and you recall that deep, crooked way between the high walls,
between the fortified doors? Imagine to yourself that deep way
filled with men on horseback, quitting the Citadel, having taken
leave of their Sultan--they were a picture of such pride and pomp as
Egypt has never seen again. And then the treachery--the great gates
closed before them and behind them, the terrible fire upon them from
all sides, the bullets of the hidden Albanians pouring down