l would be set right? Had
everything come too late, as it were?

"There's two ways that his lordship's death concerns Claridge Pasha,"
answered Soolsby shrewdly, for though he guessed the truth concerning
Hylda and David, his was not a leaking tongue. "There's two ways it
touches him. There'll be a new man in the Foreign Office--Lord Eglington
was always against Claridge Pasha; and there's matters of land betwixt
the two estates--matters of land that's got to be settled now," he
continued, with determined and successful evasion.

The Duchess was deceived. "But you will not tell Claridge Pasha until I
have told her ladyship and I give you leave? Promise that," she urged.

"I will not tell him until then," he answered. "Look, look, your grace,"
he added, suddenly pointing towards the southern horizon, "there he
comes! Ay, 'tis Our Man, I doubt not--Our Man evermore!"

Miles away there appeared on the horizon a dozen camels being ridden
towards Assouan.

"Our Man evermore," repeated the Duchess, with a trembling smile. "Yes,
it is surely he. See, the soldiers are moving. They're going to ride out
to meet him." She made a gesture towards the far shore where Kaid's men
were saddling their horses, and to Nahoum's and Kaid's dahabiehs, where
there was a great stir.

"There's one from Hamley will meet them first," Soolsby said, and
pointed to where Hylda, in the desert, was riding towards the camels
coming out of the south.

The Duchess threw up her hands. "Dear me, dear me," she said in
distress, "if she only knew!"

"There's thousands of women that'd ride out mad to meet him," said
Soolsby carefully; "women that likes to see an Englishman that's done
his duty--ay, women and men, that'd ride hard to welcome him back from
the grave. Her ladyship's as good a patriot as any," he added, watching
the Duchess out of the corners of his eyes, his face turned to the
desert.

The Duchess looked at him quizzically, and was satisfied with her
scrutiny. "You're a man of sense," she replied brusquely, and gathered
up her skirts. "Find me a horse or a donkey, and I'll go too," she added
whimsically. "Patriotism is such a nice sentiment."

For David and Lacey the morning had broken upon a new earth. Whatever
of toil and tribulation the future held in store, this day marked a
step forward in the work to which David had set his life. A way had been
cloven through the bloody palisades of barbarism, and though the dark
races might se