"I am, as you know, my brother, a friend of our master the Khedive, and I carry his ring on my finger." The Sheikh-el-beled salaamed as Dicky held up his hand, and a murmur ran through the crowd. "What you have done to the woman is well done, and according to your law she should die. But will ye not let her tell her story, so it may be written down, that when perchance evil voices carry the tale to the Khedive he shall have her own words for her condemnation?"
The Ulema looked at the Sheikh-el-beled, and he made answer: "It is well said; let the woman speak, and her words be written down."
"Is it meet that all should hear?" asked Dicky, for he saw the look in the woman's eyes. "Will she not speak more freely if we be few?"
"Let her be taken into the house," said the Sheikhel-beled. Turning to the holy men, he added: "Ye and the Inglesi shall hear."
When they were within the house, the woman was brought in and stood before them.
"Speak," said the Sheikh-el-beled to her roughly. She kept her eyes fixed on Dicky as she spoke: "For the thing I have done I shall answer. I had no joy in the harem. I gave no child to my lord, though often I put my tongue to the sacred pillar of porphyry in the Mosque of Amrar. My lord's love went from me. I was placed beneath another in the harem. . . . Was it well? Did I not love my lord? was the sin mine that no child was born to him? It is written that a woman's prayers are of no avail, that her lord must save her at the last, if she hath a soul to be saved. . . . Was the love of my lord mine?" She paused, caught a corner of her robe and covered her face.
"Speak on, O woman of many sorrows," said Dicky. She partly uncovered her face, and spoke again: "In the long night, when he came not and I was lonely and I cried aloud, and only the jackals beyond my window answered, I thought and thought. My brain was wild, and at last I said: 'Behold, I will go to Mecca as the men go, and when the fire rises from the Prophet's tomb, bringing blessing and life to all, it may be that I shall have peace, and win heaven as men win it. For behold! what is my body but a man's body, for it beareth no child. And what is my soul but a man's soul, that dares to do this thing!' . . ."
"Thou art a blasphemer," broke in the chief of the Ulema.
She gave no heed, but with her eyes on Dicky continued:
"So I stole forth in the night with an old slave, who was my father's slave, and together we went to Cairo. . . . Behold, I have done all that Dervishes do: I have cut myself with knives, I have walked the desert alone, I have lain beneath the feet of the Sheikh's horse when he makes his ride over the bodies of the faithful, I have done all that a woman may do and all that a man may do, for the love I bore my lord. Now judge me as ye will, for I may do no more."