“You hate Selamlik Pasha?”
“As the lion the jackal.”
Dicky would have laughed in scorn if he might have dared—this being to class himself with lions! But the time was not fit for laughter. “And the son of Selamlik Pasha, the vile Mustapha Bey?” he asked.
“I would grind him like corn between the stones! Hath he not sent messages by the women of the bazaar to the harem of my royal master, to whom God give glory in heaven? Hath he not sought to enter the harem as a weasel crawls under a wall? Hath he not sought to steal what I hoard by a mighty hand and the eye of an eagle for Ismail the Great? Shall I love him more than the dog that tears the throat of a gazelle?” The gesture of cruelty he made was disgusting to the eyes of Dicky Donovan, but he had in his mind the peril to Sowerby, and he nodded his head in careless approval, as it were.
“Then, Mizraim, thou son of secrecy and keeper of the door, take heed to what I say, and for thine honour and my need do as I will. Thou shalt to-night admit Mustapha Bey to the harem—at the hour of nine o’clock!”
“Saadat el basha!” The eunuch’s face was sickly in its terrified wonder.
“Even so. At nine.”
“But, saadat—”
“Bring him secretly, even to the door of the favourite’s room; then, have him seized and carried to a safe place till I send for him.”
“Ah, saadat el basha—” The lean face of the creature smiled, and the smile was not nice to see.