n the action: "As the
Viceroy's servant there is another way!"

"I will salaam to-morrow, Kaid," answered David.

"It is the only custom of the place I will require of thee, effendi.
Come."

A few moments later they were standing among the consuls and officials
in the salon.

"Where is Nahoum?" asked Kaid, looking round on the agitated throng.

No one answered. Smiling, Kaid whispered in David's ear.

CHAPTER VII. THE COMPACT

One by one the lights went out in the Palace. The excited guests were
now knocking at the doors of Cairene notables, bent upon gossip of the
night's events, or were scouring the bazaars for ears into which to
pour the tale of how David was exalted and Nahoum was brought low; how,
before them all, Kaid had commanded Nahoum to appear at the Palace in
the morning at eleven, and the Inglesi, as they had named David, at ten.
But they declared to all who crowded upon their words that the Inglesi
left the Palace with a face frozen white, as though it was he that had
met debacle, while Nahoum had been as urbane and cynical as though he
had come to the fulness of his power.

Some, on hearing this, said: "Beware Nahoum!" But those who had been at
the Palace said: "Beware the Inglesi!" This still Quaker, with the white
shining face and pontifical hat, with his address of "thee" and "thou,"
and his forms of speech almost Oriental in their imagery and simplicity,
himself an archaism, had impressed them with a sense of power. He had
prompted old Diaz Pasha to speak of him as a reincarnation, so separate
and withdrawn he seemed at the end of the evening, yet with an uncanny
mastery in his dark brown eyes. One of the Ulema, or holy men, present
had said in reply to Diaz: "It is the look of one who hath walked with
Death and bought and sold with Sheitan the accursed." To Nahoum Pasha,
Dim had said, as the former left the Palace, a cigarette between his
fingers: "Sleep not nor slumber, Nahoum. The world was never lost by
one earthquake." And Nahoum had replied with a smooth friendliness: "The
world is not reaped in one harvest."

"The day is at hand--the East against the West," murmured old Diaz, as
he passed on.

"The day is far spent," answered Nahoum, in a voice unheard by Diaz;
and, with a word to his coachman, who drove off quickly, he disappeared
in the shrubbery.

A few minutes later he was tapping at the door of Mizraim, the Chief
Eunuch. Three times he tapped in the same way. Presently