g-pots now came to them
over the walls of the mosque. Because of it, Abdalla's command to the
crowd to leave had been easier of acceptance. Their hunger had made
them dangerous. Danger was in the air. The tax-gatherers had lately gone
their rounds, and the agents of the Mouffetish had wielded the kourbash
without mercy and to some purpose. It was perhaps lucky that the
incident had occurred within smell of the evening feasts and near the
sounding of the sunset-gun.

III

A half-hour later, as Abdalla thrust his fingers into the dish and
handed Dicky a succulent cucumber filled with fried meat, the latter
said to him: "It is the wish of the Effendina, my friend. It comes as
the will of God; for even as Noor-ala-Noor journeyed to the bosom of God
by your will, and by your prayers, being descended from Mahomet as you
are, even then Ismail, who knew naught of your sorrow, said to me, 'In
all Egypt there is one man, and one only, for whom my soul calls to go
into the desert with Gordon,' and I answered him and said: 'Inshallah,
Effendina, it is Abdalla, the Egyptian.' And he laid his hand upon
his head--I have seen him do that for no man since I came into his
presence--and said: 'My soul calls for him. Find him and bid him to
come. Here is my ring.'"

Dicky took from his pocket a signet-ring, which bore a passage from the
Koran, and laid it beside Abdalla's drinking-bowl.

"What is Ismail to me--or the far tribes of the Soudan! Here are my
people," was the reply. Abdalla motioned to the next room, where the
blind men ate their evening meal, and out to the dimly lighted streets
where thousands of narghilehs and cigarettes made little smoky clouds
that floated around white turbans and dark faces. "When they need me,
I will speak; when they cry to me, I will unsheathe the sword of Ebn
Mahmoud, who fought with Mahomet Ali and saved the land from the Turk."

Renshaw watched the game with an eagerness unnoticeable in his manner.
He saw how difficult was the task before Dicky. He saw an Oriental
conscious of his power, whose heart was bitter, and whose soul, in its
solitude, revolted and longed for action. It was not moved by a pure
patriotism, but what it was moved by served. That dangerous temper,
which would have let Dicky, whom he called friend, and himself go down
under the naboots of the funeral multitude, with a "Malaish" on his
tongue, was now in leash, ready to spring forth in the inspired hour;
and the justificati