“She knew not, till thou wert gone,” continued Kaid. “She is innocent before the law. But thou—beast of the slime—hear thy sentence. There is in the far desert a place where lepers live. There, once a year, one caravan comes, and, at the outskirts of the place unclean, leaves food and needful things for another year, and returns again to Egypt after many days. From that place there is no escape—the desert is as the sea, and upon that sea there is no ghiassa to sail to a farther shore. It is the leper land. Thither thou shalt go to wait upon this woman thou hast savagely wronged, and upon her kind, till thou diest. It shall be so.”
“Mercy! Mercy!” Achmet cried, horror-stricken, and turned to David. “Thou art merciful. Speak for me, Saadat.”
“When didst thou have mercy?” asked David. “Thy crimes are against humanity.”
Kaid made a motion, and, with dragging feet, Achmet passed from the haunts of familiar faces.
For a moment Kaid stood and looked at Zaida, rigid and stricken in that awful isolation which is the leper’s doom. Her eyes were closed, but her head was high. “Wilt thou not die?” Kaid asked her gently.
She shook her head slowly, and her hands folded on her breast. “My sister is there,” she said at last. There was an instant’s stillness, then Kaid added with a voice of grief: “Peace be upon thee, Zaida. Life is but a spark. If death comes not to-day, it will tomorrow, for thee—for me. Inshallah, peace be upon thee!”
She opened her eyes and looked at him. Seeing what was in his face, they lighted with a great light for a moment.
“And upon thee peace, O my lord, for ever and for ever!” she said softly, and, turning, left the court-yard, followed at a distance by Mahommed Hassan.
Kaid remained motionless looking after her.
David broke in on his abstraction. “The army at sunrise—thou wilt speak to it, Effendina?”