might be murdered by some stray brigade, under some
general of Ismail's, working without orders, without orders, of
course--oh, very much of course! Why shouldn't I play the boy to-day,
little Dicky Donovan? I am a Mahommedan come Christian again. I am a
navvy again come gentleman. I am an Arab come Englishman once more.

"I am an outcast come home. I am a dead man come to life."

Dicky leaned over and laid a hand on his knee. "You are a credit to
Cumberland," he said. "No other man could have done it. I won't ask any
more questions. Anything you want of me, I am with you, to do, or say,
or be."

"Good. I want you to go to Assiout to-morrow."

"Will you see Ismail first? It might be safer--good policy."

"I will see My Lady first.... Trust me. I know what I'm doing. You will
laugh as I do." Laughter broke from his lips. It was as though his heart
was ten years old. Dicky's eyes moistened. He had never seen anything
like it--such happiness, such boyish confidence. And what had not
this man experienced! How had he drunk misfortune to the dregs! What
unbelievable optimism had been his! How had he been at once hard and
kind, tyrannical and human, defiant and peaceful, daring yet submissive,
fierce yet just! And now, here, with so much done, with a great fortune
and great power, a very boy, he was planning to win the heart of, and
marry, his avowed foe, the woman who had condemned him without stint.

II

On her wide veranda, a stone's-throw from the banks of the Nile, My Lady
sat pen in hand and paper-pad upon her knee. She had written
steadily for an hour, and now she raised her head to look out on the
swift-flowing, muddy water, where broad khiassas floated down the
stream, laden with bersim; where feluccas covered the river, bearing
natives and donkeys; where faithful Moslems performed their ablutions,
and other faithful Moslems, their sandals laid aside, said their
prayers with their faces towards Mecca, oblivious of all around; where
blue-robed women filled their goolahs with water, and bore them away,
steady and stately; where a gang of conscripts, chained ankle to ankle,
followed by a crowd of weeping and wailing women, were being driven to
the anchorage of the stern-wheeled transport-steamer. All these sights
she had seen how many hundred times! To her it was all slavery. The
laden khiassas represented the fruits of enforced labour; the ablutions
and prayers were but signs of submission to the tyranny of a