e left alone. Ebn Ezra drew away towards the
palm-tree, and stood at this distance watching anxiously, for he knew
what dark passions seize upon the Oriental--and Achmet had many things
for which to take vengeance.

David stood for a moment, pondering, his eyes upon the deserter. "God
greet thee as thou goest, and His goodness befriend thee," he said
evenly. There was silence, and no movement. "Rise and speak," he added
sternly. "Dost thou not hear? Rise, Achmet Pasha!"

Achmet Pasha! The head of the desolate wretch lifted, the eyes glared at
David for an instant, as though to see whether he was being mocked, and
then the spare figure stretched itself, and the outcast stood up. The
old lank straightness was gone, the shoulders were bent, the head was
thrust forward, as though the long habit of looking into dark places had
bowed it out of all manhood.

"May grass spring under thy footstep, Saadat," he said, in a thick
voice, and salaamed awkwardly--he had been so long absent from life's
formularies.

"What dost thou here, pasha?" asked David formally. "Thy sentence had no
limit."

"I could not die there," said the hollow voice, and the head sank
farther forward. "Year after year I lived there, but I could not die
among them. I was no leper; I am no leper. My penalty was my penalty,
and I paid it to the full, piastre by piastre of my body and my mind. It
was not one death, it was death every hour, every day I stayed. I had no
mind. I could not think. Mummy-cloths were round my brain; but the fire
burned underneath and would not die. There was the desert, but my limbs
were like rushes. I had no will, and I could not flee. I was chained to
the evil place. If I stayed it was death, if I went it was death."

"Thou art armed now," said David suggestively. Achmet laid a hand
fiercely upon a dagger under his robe. "I hid it. I was afraid. I could
not die--my hand was like a withered leaf; it could not strike; my heart
poured out like water. Once I struck a leper, that he might strike and
kill me; but he lay upon the ground and wept, for all his anger, which
had been great, died in him at last. There was none other given to anger
there. The leper has neither anger, nor mirth, nor violence, nor peace.
It is all the black silent shame--and I was no leper."

"Why didst thou come? What is there but death for thee here, or anywhere
thou goest! Kaid's arm will find thee; a thousand hands wait to strike
thee."

"I could not di