XIV. BEYOND THE PALE

Mahommed Hassan had vowed a vow in the river, and he kept it in so far
as was seemly. His soul hungered for the face of the bridge-opener, and
the hunger grew. He was scarce passed from the shivering Nile into a dry
yelek, had hardly taken a juicy piece from the cooking-pot at the house
of the village sheikh, before he began to cultivate friends who could
help him, including the sheikh himself; for what money Mahommed lacked
was supplied by Lacey, who had a reasoned confidence in him, and by
the fiercely indignant Kaid himself, to whom Lacey and Mahommed went
secretly, hiding their purpose from David. So, there were a score of
villages where every sheikh, eager for gold, listened for the whisper
of the doorways, and every slave and villager listened at the sheikh's
door. But neither to sheikh nor to villager was it given to find the
man.

But one evening there came a knocking at the door of the house which
Mahommed still kept in the lowest Muslim quarter of the town, a woman
who hid her face and was of more graceful figure than was familiar in
those dark purlieus. The door was at once opened, and Mahommed, with a
cry, drew her inside.

"Zaida--the peace of God be upon thee," he said, and gazed lovingly yet
sadly upon her, for she had greatly changed.

"And upon thee peace, Mahommed," she answered, and sat upon the floor,
her head upon her breast.

"Thou hast trouble at," he said, and put some cakes of dourha and a
meated cucumber beside her. She touched the food with her fingers, but
did not eat. "Is thy grief, then, for thy prince who gave himself to the
lions?" he asked.

"Inshallah! Harrik is in the bosom of Allah. He is with Fatima in the
fields of heaven--was I as Fatima to him? Nay, the dead have done with
hurting."

"Since that night thou hast been lost, even since Harrik went. I
searched for thee, but thou wert hid. Surely, thou knewest mine eyes
were aching and my heart was cast down--did not thou and I feed at the
same breast?"

"I was dead, and am come forth from the grave; but I shall go again into
the dark where all shall forget, even I myself; but there is that which
I would do, which thou must do for me, even as I shall do good to thee,
that which is the desire of my heart."

"Speak, light of the morning and blessing of thy mother's soul," he
said, and crowded into his mouth a roll of meat and cucumber. "Against
thy feddan shall be set my date-tree; it hath been so ever.