Dicky asked the ghaflir standing by what the youth had done.

"It is no youth, but a woman," he answered--"the latest wife of the
Mudir. In a man's clothes--"

He paused, for the head sheikh of El Medineh, with two Ulema, entered
the throng. The crowd fell back. Presently the Sheikh-el-beled mounted
the mastaba by the house, the holy men beside him, and pointing to the
Arab youth, spoke loudly:

"This sister of scorpions and crocodiles has earned a thousand deaths.
She was a daughter of a pasha, and was lifted high. She was made the
wife of Abbas Bey, our Mudir. Like a wanton beast she cut off her hair,
clothed herself as a man, journeyed to Mecca, and desecrated the tomb
of Mahomet, who hath written that no woman, save her husband of his
goodness bring her, shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

He paused, and pointed to the rough pictures on the walls. "This
morning, dressed as a man, she went in secret to the sacred purple
pillar for barren women in the Mosque of Amrar, by the Bahr-el-Yusef,
and was found there with her tongue to it. What shall be done to this
accursed tree in the garden of Mahomet?"

"Cut it down!" shouted the crowd; and the Ulema standing beside the
Sheikh-el-beled said: "Cut down for ever the accursed tree."

"To-morrow, at sunrise, she shall die as a blasphemer, this daughter of
Sheitan the Evil One," continued the holy men.

"What saith the Mudir?" cried a tax-gatherer. "The Mudir himself shall
see her die at sunrise," answered the chief of the Ulema.

Shouts of hideous joy went up. At that moment the woman's eyes met
Dicky's, and they suddenly lighted. Dicky picked his way through the
crowd, and stood before the Sheikh-el-beled. With an Arab salute, he
said:

"I am, as you know, my brother, a friend of our master the Khedive, and
I carry his ring on my finger." The Sheikh-el-beled salaamed as Dicky
held up his hand, and a murmur ran through the crowd. "What you have
done to the woman is well done, and according to your law she should
die. But will ye not let her tell her story, so it may be written down,
that when perchance evil voices carry the tale to the Khedive he shall
have her own words for her condemnation?"

The Ulema looked at the Sheikh-el-beled, and he made answer: "It is well
said; let the woman speak, and her words be written down."

"Is it meet that all should hear?" asked Dicky, for he saw the look in
the woman's eyes. "Will she not speak more freely if we be few?"

"