“I know thee—proceed.”
“Behold, she whom God has smitten, man smote first. I am her foster-brother—from the same breast we drew the food of life. Thou wouldst do justice, O Effendina; but canst thou do double justice—ay, a thousandfold? Then”—his voice raised almost shrilly—“then do it upon Achmet Pasha. She—Zaida—told me where I should find the bridge-opener.”
“Zaida once more!” Kaid murmured.
“She had learned all in Achmet’s harem—hearing speech between Achmet and the man whom thou didst deliver to my hands yesterday.”
“Zaida-in Achmet’s harem?” Kaid turned upon her.
Swiftly she told her dreadful tale, how, after Achmet had murdered all of her except her body, she rose up to kill herself; but fainting, fell upon a burning brazier, and her hand thrust accidentally in the live coals felt no pain. “And behold, O my lord, I knew I was a leper; and I remembered my sister and lived on.” So she ended, in a voice numbed and tuneless.
Kaid trembled with rage, and he cried in a loud voice: “Bring Achmet forth.”
As the slave sped upon the errand, David laid a hand on Kaid’s arm, and whispered to him earnestly. Kaid’s savage frown cleared away, and his rage calmed down; but an inflexible look came into his face, a look which petrified the ruined Achmet as he salaamed before him.
“Know thy punishment, son of a dog with a dog’s heart, and prepare for a daily death,” said Kaid. “This woman thou didst so foully wrong, even when thou didst wrong her, she was a leper.”
A low cry broke from Achmet, for now when death came he must go unclean to the after-world, forbidden Allah’s presence. Broken and abject he listened.