"Your messenger is in the anteroom," said Dicky with a sudden thought.
"Who is it, son of the high hills?"
"The lady at Assiout—she who is such a friend to Gordon as I am to thee,
Highness."
"She whose voice and hand are against slavery?"
"Even so. It is good that she return to England there to remain. Send her."
"Why is she here?" The Khedive looked suspiciously at Dicky, for it seemed that a plot had been laid.
Thereupon, Dicky told the Khedive the whole story, and not in years had
Ismail's face shown such abandon of humour.
"By the will of God, but it shall be!" he said. "She shall marry
Kingsley Bey, and he shall go free."
"But not till she has seen him and mourned over him in his cell, with the mud floor and the balass of water."
The Khedive laughed outright and swore in French. "And the cakes of dourha! I will give her as a parting gift the twenty slaves, and she shall bring her great work to a close in the arms of a slaver. It is worth a fortune."