the natives in the forepart of the boat and on the shore, beating the
darabukkeh and playing the kemengeh. Yet it was moving in a mist and on
a flood of greater happiness than he had ever known.

He did not know as yet that Eglington was gone for ever. He did not know
that the winds of time had already swept away all traces of the house of
ambition which Eglington had sought to build; and that his nimble tongue
and untrustworthy mind would never more delude and charm, and wanton
with truth. He did not know, but within the past hour Hylda knew; and
now out of the night Soolsby came to tell him.

He was roused from his reverie by Soolsby's voice saying: "Hast nowt to
say to me, Egyptian?"

It startled him, sounded ghostly in the moonlight; for why should he
hear Soolsby's voice on the confines of Egypt? But Soolsby came nearer,
and stood where the moonlight fell upon him, hat in hand, a rustic
modern figure in this Oriental world.

David sprang to his feet and grasped the old man by the shoulders.
"Soolsby, Soolsby," he said, with a strange plaintive-note in his voice,
yet gladly, too. "Soolsby, thee is come here to welcome me! But has she
not come--Miss Claridge, Soolsby?"

He longed for that true heart which had never failed him, the simple
soul whose life had been filled by thought and care of him, and whose
every act had for its background the love of sister for brother--for
that was their relation in every usual meaning--who, too frail and
broken to come to him now, waited for him by the old hearthstone. And
so Soolsby, in his own way, made him understand; for who knew them both
better than this old man, who had shared in David's destiny since the
fatal day when Lord Eglington had married Mercy Claridge in secret, had
set in motion a long line of tragic happenings?

"Ay, she would have come, she would have come," Soolsby answered, "but
she was not fit for the journey, and there was little time, my lord."

"Why did thee come, Soolsby? Only to welcome me back?"

"I come to bring you back to England, to your duty there, my lord."

The first time Soolsby had used the words "my lord," David had scarcely
noticed it, but its repetition struck him strangely.

"Here, sometimes they call me Pasha and Saadat, but I am not 'my lord,'"
he said.

"Ay, but you are my lord, Egyptian, as sure as I've kept my word to you
that I'd drink no more, ay, on my sacred honour. So you are my lord; you
are Lord Eglington, my lord."