“There is the Mudir,” said the Sheikh-el-beled: “he hath said that the woman should die, if she were found.”
“True; but if the Mudir should die, where would be his testimony?” asked Dicky, and his eyes half closed, as though in idle contemplation of a pleasing theme. “Now,” he added, still more negligently, “I shall see our master the Khedive before the moon is full. Were it not well that I should be satisfied for my friends?”
Dicky smiled, and looked into the eyes of the Mussulmans with an incorruptible innocence; he ostentatiously waved the cigarette smoke away with the hand on which was the ring the Khedive had given him.
“Thy tongue is as the light of a star,” said the bright-eyed Sheikh-el-beled; “wisdom dwelleth with thee.” The woman took no notice of what they said. Her face showed no sign of what she thought; her eyes were unwaveringly fixed on the distance.
“She shall choose her own death,” said the Sheikhel-beled; “and I will bear word to the Mudir.”
“I dine with the Mudir to-night; I will carry the word,” said Dicky; “and the death that the woman shall die will be the death he will choose.”
The woman’s eyes came like lightning from the distance, and fastened upon his face. Then he said, with the back of his hand to his mouth to hide a yawn:
“The manner of her death will please the Mudir. It must please him.”
“What death does this vulture among women choose to die?” said the Sheikh-el-beled.
Her answer could scarcely be heard in the roar and the riot surrounding the hut.