erything I did when I was
Attorney General. You know better. There is some excuse for his mother.
She was an uneducated Brazilian, knowing nothing of English society, and
driven mad by injustice.

BRASSBOUND. Your defence--

SIR HOWARD (interrupting him determinedly). I do not defend myself. I
call on you to obey the law.

BRASSBOUND. I intend to do so. The law of the Atlas Mountains is
administered by the Sheikh Sidi el Assif. He will be here within an
hour. He is a judge like yourself. You can talk law to him. He will give
you both the law and the prophets.

SIR HOWARD. Does he know what the power of England is?

BRASSBOUND. He knows that the Mahdi killed my master Gordon, and that
the Mahdi died in his bed and went to paradise.

SIR HOWARD. Then he knows also that England's vengeance was on the
Mahdi's track.

BRASSBOUND. Ay, on the track of the railway from the Cape to Cairo. Who
are you, that a nation should go to war for you? If you are missing,
what will your newspapers say? A foolhardy tourist. What will your
learned friends at the bar say? That it was time for you to make room
for younger and better men. YOU a national hero! You had better find
a goldfield in the Atlas Mountains. Then all the governments of Europe
will rush to your rescue. Until then, take care of yourself; for you are
going to see at last the hypocrisy in the sanctimonious speech of the
judge who is sentencing you, instead of the despair in the white face of
the wretch you are recommending to the mercy of your God.

SIR HOWARD (deeply and personally offended by this slight to his
profession, and for the first time throwing away his assumed dignity
and rising to approach Brassbound with his fists clenched; so that Lady
Cicely lifts one eye from her work to assure herself that the table is
between them). I have no more to say to you, sir. I am not afraid
of you, nor of any bandit with whom you may be in league. As to your
property, it is ready for you as soon as you come to your senses and
claim it as your father's heir. Commit a crime, and you will become
an outlaw, and not only lose the property, but shut the doors of
civilization against yourself for ever.

BRASSBOUND. I will not sell my mother's revenge for ten properties.

LADY CICELY (placidly). Besides, really, Howard, as the property now
costs 150 pounds a year to keep up instead of bringing in anything, I am
afraid it would not be of much use to him. (Brassbound stands amaze