k of surprise. On the instant he
saw the trap--for the Saadat and for himself.

"He would not do it--not for money, pasha."

"He would not be doing it for money. The time is not ripe for it, it is
too dangerous. There is a time for all things. If he will but wait!"

"I wouldn't like to be the man that'd name the thing to him. As you say,
he's got his prejudices. They're stronger than in most men."

"It need not be named to him. Thou canst accept the money for him,
and when thou art in the Soudan, and he is going to do it, thou canst
prevent it."

"Tell him that I've taken the money and that he's used it, and he
oughtn't to go back on the bargain I made for him? So that he'll be
bound by what I did?"

"It is the best way, effendi."

"He'd be annoyed," said Lacey with a patient sigh.

"He has a great soul; but sometimes he forgets that expediency is the
true policy."

"Yet he's done a lot of things without it. He's never failed in what he
set out to do. What he's done has been kicked over, but he's done it all
right, somehow, at last."

"He will not be able to do this, effendi, except with my help--and
thine."

"He's had quite a lot of things almost finished, too," said Lacey
reflectively, "and then a hand reached out in the dark and cut the
wires--cut them when he was sleeping, and he didn't know; cut them when
he was waking, and he wouldn't understand; cut them under his own eyes,
and he wouldn't see; because the hand that cut them was the hand of the
perfect friend."

He got slowly to his feet, as a cloud of colour drew over the face of
Nahoum and his eyes darkened with astonishment and anger. Lacey put his
hands in his pockets and waited till Nahoum also rose. Then he gathered
the other's eyes to his, and said with drawling scorn:

"So, you thought I didn't understand! You thought I'd got a brain like
a peanut, and wouldn't drop onto your game or the trap you've set. You'd
advance money--got from the slave-dealers to prevent the slave-trade
being stopped! If Claridge Pasha took it and used it, he could never
stop the slave-trade. If I took it and used it for him on the same
terms, he couldn't stop the slave-trade, though he might know no more
about the bargain than a babe unborn. And if he didn't stand by the
bargain I made, and did prohibit slave-dealing, nothing'd stop the
tribes till they marched into Cairo. He's been safe so far, because they
believed in him, and because he'd rather die a million