ks like the work of an enemy, effendi." Nahoum shook his head
gravely. "A fortune destroyed in an hour, as it were. But we shall get
the dog. We shall find him. There is no hole deep enough to hide him
from us."

"Well, I wouldn't go looking in holes for him, pasha.

"He isn't any cave-dweller, that incendiary; he's an artist--no palace
is too unlikely for him. No, I wouldn't go poking in mud-huts to find
him."

"Thou dost not think that Higli Pasha--" Nahoum seemed startled out
of equanimity by the thought. Lacey eyed him meditatively, and said
reflectively: "Say, you're an artist, pasha. You are a guesser of the
first rank. But I'd guess again. Higli Pasha would have done it, if it
had ever occurred to him; and he'd had the pluck. But it didn't, and he
hadn't. What I can't understand is that the artist that did it should
have done it before Claridge Pasha left for the Soudan. Here we were
just about to start; and if we'd got away south, the job would have done
more harm, and the Saadat would have been out of the way. No, I can't
understand why the firebug didn't let us get clean away; for if the
Saadat stays here, he'll be where he can stop the underground mining."

Nahoum's self-control did not desert him, though he fully realised that
this man suspected him. On the surface Lacey was right. It would have
seemed better to let David go, and destroy his work afterwards, but he
had been moved by other considerations, and his design was deep. His
own emissaries were in the Soudan, announcing David's determination to
abolish slavery, secretly stirring up feeling against him, preparing for
the final blow to be delivered, when he went again among the southern
tribes. He had waited and waited, and now the time was come. Had he,
Nahoum, not agreed with David that the time had come for the slave-trade
to go? Had he not encouraged him to take this bold step, in the sure
belief that it would overwhelm him, and bring him an ignominious death,
embittered by total failure of all he had tried to do?

For years he had secretly loosened the foundations of David's work,
and the triumph of Oriental duplicity over Western civilisation and
integrity was sweet in his mouth. And now there was reason to believe
that, at last, Kaid was turning against the Inglesi. Everything would
come at once. If all that he had planned was successful, even this man
before him should aid in his master's destruction.

"If it was all done by an enemy," he