The tall, black-coated, smooth-faced creature, silent and watchful and lean, stepped through the doorway with the footfall of a cat. He slid forward, salaamed to the floor-Dicky wondered how a body could open and shut so like the blade of a knife—and, catching Dicky’s hand, kissed it.
“May thy days be watered with the dew of heaven, saadat el basha,” said the Chief Eunuch.
“Mine eyes have not seen since thy last withdrawal,” answered Dicky blandly, in the high-flown Oriental way.
“Thou hast sent for me. I am thy slave.”
“I have sent for thee, Mizraim. And thou shalt prove thyself, once for all, whether thy hand moves as thy tongue speaks.”
“To serve thee I will lay down my life—I will blow it from me as the wind bloweth the cotton flower. Have I not spoken thus since the Feast of Beiram, now two years gone?”
Dicky lowered his voice. “Both Mustapha Bey, that son of the he-wolf Selamlik Pasha, still follow the carriage of the Khedive’s favourite, and hang about the walls, and seek to corrupt thee with gold, Mahommed Mizraim?”
“Saadat el basha, but for thy word to wait, the Khedive had been told long since.”
“It is the sport to strike when the sword cuts with the longest arm, O son of Egypt!”
The face of Mizraim was ugly with the unnatural cruelty of an unnatural man. “Is the time at hand, saadat el basha?”