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 th