“What Emin?” asked Max, excitedly.
Shula was now in his glory, for he, above everything, loved to tell a story, and one story was always entrancing to him.
He sipped his sherbet and caused a cloud of tobacco smoke to eddy and curl up to the ceiling before he commenced his story.
“It was in the year 1811, as you would call it, that Mohammed Ali determined to destroy the Mamelukes——”
“Yes,” interrupted Max, “I know, but what has that to do with the Mahdi?”
Shula looked at Max with astonishment.
It was as much as to say: “How dare you interrupt me in the midst of a story?” He puffed away at his chibouk, closed his eyes, paused for a minute or so, and then continued:
“The Mamelukes attended the banquet to which Mohammed Ali invited them, the portcullis fell behind the last of their splendid army, and they were trapped like rats.”
“I know, but one escaped the slaughter.”
“One, didst thou say? Yes. Emin spurred his stanch Arabian over a pile of dead and dying. He sprang on the battlements, his horse was killed, but with a shout of Allah il Allah, he leaped into the darkness and escaped to the mosque.”