y that it is more than life and death;
that it is all he values in the world. Once admitted, say these words:
'Donovan Pasha knows all, and asks an audience at midnight in this
palace. Until that hour Donovan Pasha desires peace. For is it not the
law, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? Is not a market a place
to buy and sell?'"

Four times did Dicky make the Arab repeat the words after him, till they
ran like water from his tongue, and dismissed him upon the secret errand
with a handful of silver.

Immediately the Arab had gone, Dicky's face flushed with excitement,
in the reaction from his lately assumed composure. For five minutes he
walked up and down, using language scarcely printable, reviling Sowerby,
and setting his teeth in anger. But he suddenly composed himself,
and, sitting down, stared straight before him for a long time without
stirring a muscle. There was urgent need of action, but there was
more urgent need of his making no mistake, of his doing the one thing
necessary, for Sowerby could only be saved in one way, not many.

It was useless to ask the Khedive's intervention--Ismail dared not
go against Selamlik in this. Whatever was done must be done between
Selamlik Pasha, the tigerish libertine, and Richard Donovan, the little
man who, at the tail end of Ismail's reign, was helping him hold things
together against the black day of reckoning, "prepared for the devil
and all his angels," as Dicky had said to Ismail on this very momentous
morning, when warning him of the perils in his path. Now Dicky had been
at war with Selamlik ever since, one day long ago on the Nile, he and
Fielding had thwarted his purposes; and Dicky had earned the Pasha's
changeless hatred by calling him "Trousers"--for this name had gone
up and down throughout Egypt as a doubtful story travels, drawing easy
credit everywhere. Those were the days when Dicky was irresponsible. Of
all in Egypt who hated him most, Selamlik Pasha was the chief. But most
people hated Selamlik, so the world was not confounded by the great
man's rage, nor did they dislike Dicky simply because the Pasha chose
to do so. Through years Selamlik had built up his power, until even the
Khedive feared him, and would have been glad to tie a stone round his
neck and drop him into the Nile. But Ismail could no longer do this sort
of thing without some show of reason--Europe was hanging on his actions,
waiting for the apt moment to depose him.

All this Dic