“I do not see that explanation can mend anything. The men you sent me to free: that was a-well, call it a manoeuvre, to achieve what, I cannot tell. Is it not so? The men are not free. Is it not so?”
“I am afraid they are not free,” he answered, smiling in spite of himself.
“Your coming here was a manoeuvre also—for what purpose I do not know. Yet it was a manoeuvre, and I am—or was to be—the victim of the plot.” She smiled scornfully. “I trust you may yet be the victim of your own conduct.”
“In more ways than one, maybe. Don’t you think, now that the tables are turned, that you might have mercy on ‘a prisoner and a captive’?”
She looked at him inquiringly, then glanced towards the shore where Dicky stood talking with Foulik Pasha. Her eyes came back slowly and again asked a question. All at once intelligence flashed into them.
“You wished to see Kingsley Bey a prisoner; you have your wish,” he said smiling.
“Whose prisoner?” she asked, still coldly. “The Khedive’s.”
A flash of triumph crossed her face. Her heart beat hard. Had it come at last, the edict to put down slavery? Had the Khedive determined to put an end to the work of Kingsley Bey in his desert-city-and to Kingsley Bey himself?... Her heart stopped beating now. She glanced towards Dicky Donovan, and her pulses ran more evenly again. Would the Khedive have taken such a step unless under pressure? And who in Egypt could have, would have, persuaded him, save Dicky Donovan? Yet Dicky was here with his friend Kingsley Bey. The mystery troubled her, and the trouble got into her eyes.
“You are going to Cairo?” she said, glancing towards the boat.
“It would seem so.”