reply. The Khedive
could not long stave off the evil day when he must "pay the debt of the
lobster," and Sadik give account of his stewardship. Meanwhile, his mind
turned to the resourceful little Englishman with the face of a girl and
the tongue of an honest man.

But the day Dicky had set for his return had come and gone, and Dicky
himself had not appeared. With a grim sort of satisfaction, harmonious
with his irritation, Ismail went forth with his retinue to the Dosah,
the gruesome celebration of the Prophet's birthday, following on the
return of the pilgrimage from Mecca. At noon he entered his splendid
tent at one side of a square made of splendid tents, and looked out
listlessly, yet sourly, upon the vast crowds assembled--upon the lines
of banners, the red and green pennons embroidered with phrases from the
Koran. His half-shut, stormy eyes fell upon the tent of the chief of
the dervishes, and he scarcely checked a sneer, for the ceremony to be
performed appealed to nothing in him save a barbaric instinct, and this
barbaric instinct had been veneered by French civilisation and pierced
by the criticism of one honest man. His look fell upon the long pathway
whereon, for three hundred yards, matting had been spread. It was a
field of the cloth of blood; for on this cloth dervishes returned from
Mecca, mad with fanaticism and hashish, would lie packed like herrings,
while the Sheikh of the Dosah rode his horse over their bodies, a
pavement of human flesh and bone.

As the Khedive looked, his lip curled a little, for he recalled
what Dicky Donovan had said about it; how he had pleaded against it,
describing loathsome wounds and pilgrims done to death. Dicky had ended
his brief homily by saying: "And isn't that a pretty dish to set
before a king!" to Ismail's amusement; for he was no good Mussulman, no
Mussulman at all, in fact, save in occasional violent prejudices got of
inheritance and association.

To-day, however, Ismail was in a bad humour with Dicky and with the
world. He had that very morning flogged a soldier senseless with his
own hand; he had handed over his favourite Circassian slave to a
ruffian Bey, who would drown her or sell her within a month; and he had
dishonoured his own note of hand for fifty thousand pounds to a great
merchant who had served him not wisely but too well. He was not taking
his troubles quietly, and woe be to the man or woman who crossed him
this day! Tiberius was an hungered for