burden with the barges and the great
khiassas laden with cotton and sugar-cane.

"God make your words merciful!" said the Mudir. "What would you have me
do?"

"The Khedive, our master, has given me your life," said Dicky. "I will
make your end easy. The woman has done much to save her soul. She buries
her face in the dust because she hath no salvation. It is written in the
Koran that a man may save the soul of his wife. You have your choice:
will you come to Cairo to Sadik Pasha, and be crucified like a bandit of
your own province, or will you die with the woman in the Birket-el-Kurun
to-morrow at sunrise, and walk with her into the Presence and save her
soul, and pay the price of the English life?"

"Malaish!" answered the Mudir. "Water," he added quickly. He had no
power to move, for fear had paralysed him. Dicky brought him a goolah of
water.

The next morning, at sunrise, a strange procession drew near to the
Birket-el-Kurun. Twenty ghaffirs went ahead with their naboots; then
came the kavasses, then the Mudir mounted, with Dicky riding beside, his
hand upon the holster where his pistol was. The face of the Mudir was
like a wrinkled skin of lard, his eyes had the look of one drunk with
hashish. Behind them came the woman, and now upon her face there was
only a look of peace. The distracted gaze had gone from her eyes, and
she listened without a tremor to the voices of the wailers behind.

Twenty yards from the lake, Dicky called a halt--Dicky, not the Mudir.
The soldiers came forward and put heavy chains and a ball upon the
woman's ankles. The woman carried the ball in her arms to the very verge
of the lake, by the deep pool called "The Pool of the Slaughtered One."

Dicky turned to the Mudir. "Are you ready?" he said.

"Inshallah!" said the Mudir.

The soldiers made a line, but the crowd overlapped the line. The
fellaheen and Bedouins looked to see the Mudir summon the Ulema to
condemn the woman to shame and darkness everlasting. But suddenly Abbas
Bey turned and took the woman's right hand in his left.

Her eyes opened in an ecstasy. "O lord and master, I go to heaven with
thee!" she said, and threw herself forward.

Without a sound the heavy body of the Mudir lurched forward with her,
and they sank into the water together. A cry of horror and wonder burst
from the crowd.

Dicky turned to them, and raised both hands.

"In the name of our master the Khedive!" he cried.

Above the spot where the two