the door
opened, and he stepped inside. The lean, dark figure of Mizraim bowed
low; the long, slow fingers touched the forehead, the breast, and the
lips.

"May God preserve thy head from harm, excellency, and the night give
thee sleep," said Mizraim. He looked inquiringly at Nahoum.

"May thy head know neither heat nor cold, and thy joys increase,"
responded Nahoum mechanically, and sat down.

To an European it would have seemed a shameless mockery to have wished
joy to this lean, hateful dweller in the between-worlds; to Nahoum
it was part of a life which was all ritual and intrigue, gabbling
superstition and innate fatalism, decorated falsehood and a brave
philosophy.

"I have work for thee at last, Mizraim," said Nahoum.

"At last?"

"Thou hast but played before. To-night I must see the sweat of thy
brow."

Mizraim's cold fingers again threw themselves against his breast,
forehead, and lips, and he said:

"As a woman swims in a fountain, so shall I bathe in sweat for thee, who
hath given with one hand and hath never taken with the other."

"I did thee service once, Mizraim--eh?"

"I was as a bird buffeted by the wind; upon thy masts my feet found
rest. Behold, I build my nest in thy sails, excellency."

"There are no birds in last year's nest, Mizraim, thou dove," said
Nahoum, with a cynical smile. "When I build, I build. Where I swear by
the stone of the corner, there am I from dark to dark and from dawn to
dawn, pasha." Suddenly he swept his hand low to the ground and a ghastly
sort of smile crossed over his face. "Speak--I am thy servant. Shall I
not hear? I will put my hand in the entrails of Egypt, and wrench them
forth for thee."

He made a gesture so cruelly, so darkly, suggestive that Nahoum turned
his head away. There flashed before his mind the scene of death in
which his own father had lain, butchered like a beast in the shambles, a
victim to the rage of Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Mehemet Ali.

"Then listen, and learn why I have need of thee to-night."

First, Nahoum told the story of David's coming, and Kaid's treatment of
himself, the foreshadowing of his own doom. Then of David and the girl,
and the dead body he had seen; of the escape of the girl, of David's
return with Kaid--all exactly as it had happened, save that he did; not
mention the name of the dead man.

It did not astonish Mizraim that Nahoum had kept all this secret. That
crime should be followed by secrecy and further cr