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