The effect upon Abdalla could only be judged by his eyes, which burned like fire as they fixed upon Dicky's face. The suspense was painful, for he did not speak for a long time. Renshaw could have shrieked with excitement. Dicky lighted a cigarette and tossed a comfit at a pariah dog. At last Abdalla rose. Dicky rose with him.
"Thou, too, hast a great soul, or mine eyes are liars," Abdalla said. "Thou lovest Egypt also. This Gordon—I am not his friend. I will not go with him. But if thou goest also with Gordon, then I will go with thee. If thou dost mean well by Egypt, and thy words are true, thou also wilt go. As thou speakest, let it be."
A mist came before Dicky's eyes—the world seemed falling into space, his soul was in a crucible. The struggle was like that of a man with death, for this must change the course of his life, to what end God only knew. All that he had been to Egypt, all that Egypt had been to him, came to him. But he knew that he must not pause. Now was his moment, and now only. Before the mist had cleared from his eyes he gave his hand into Abdalla's.
"In God's name, so be it. I also will go with Gordon, and thou with me," he said.
HE WOULD NOT BE DENIED
"He was achin' for it—turrible achin' for it—an' he would not be denied!" said Sergeant William Connor, of the Berkshire Regiment, in the sergeants' mess at Suakim, two nights before the attack on McNeill's zeriba at Tofrik.
"Serve 'im right. Janders was too bloomin' suddint," skirled Henry
Withers of the Sick Horse Depot from the bottom of the table.
"Too momentary, I believe you," said Corporal Billy Bagshot.
At the Sick Horse Depot Connor had, without good cause, made some disparaging remarks upon the charger ridden by Subadar Goordit Singh at the fight at Dihilbat Hill, which towers over the village of Hashin. Subadar Goordit Singh heard the remarks, and, loving his welted, gibbet- headed charger as William Connor loved any woman who came his way, he spat upon the ground the sergeant's foot covered, and made an evil- smiling remark. Thereupon Connor laid siege to the white-toothed, wild- bearded Sikh with words which suddenly came to renown, and left not a shred of glory to the garment of vanity the hillman wore.
He insinuated that the Sikh's horse was wounded at Hashin from behind by backing too far on the Guards' Brigade on one side and on the Royal Mounted Infantry on the other. This was ungenerous and it was not true, for William Connor knew well the reputation of the Sikhs; but William's blood was up, and the smile of the Subadar was hateful in his eyes. The truth was that the Berkshire Regiment had had its chance at Dihilbat Hill and the Sikhs had not. But William Connor refused to make a distinction between two squadrons of Bengal Cavalry which had been driven back upon the Guards' square and the Sikhs who fretted on their bits, as it were.