“I must take thee away,” he said calmly. “But it must be secretly.” He looked around, perplexed. “We came secretly. My maid is outside the garden—in a carriage. Oh, come, let us go, let us escape. They will kill you—!” Terror came into her face again. “Thee, not me, is in danger—name, goodness, future, all.... Which way did thee come?”
“Here—through many rooms—” She made a gesture to curtains beyond. “But we first entered through doors with sphinxes on either side, with a room where was a statue of Mehemet Ali.”
It was the room through which David had come with Kaid. He took her hand. “Come quickly. I know the way. It is here,” he said, pointing to the panel-door by which he had entered.
Holding her hand still, as though she were a child, he led her quickly from the room, and shut the panel behind them. As they passed through, a hand drew aside the curtains on the other side of the room which they were leaving.
Presently the face of Nahoum Pasha followed the hand. A swift glance to the floor, then he ran forward, stooped down, and laid a hand on his brother’s breast. The slight wound on the forehead answered his rapid scrutiny. He realised the situation as plainly as if it had been written down for him—he knew his brother well.
Noiselessly he moved forward and touched the spring of the door through which the two had gone. It yielded, and he passed through, closed the door again and stealthily listened, then stole a look into the farther chamber. It was empty. He heard the outer doors close. For a moment he listened, then went forward and passed through into the hall. Softly turning the handle of the big wooden doors which faced him, he opened them an inch or so, and listened. He could hear swiftly retreating footsteps. Presently he heard the faint noise of a gate shutting. He nodded his head, and was about to close the doors and turn away, when his quick ear detected footsteps again in the garden. Some one—the man, of course—was returning.
“May fire burn his eyes for ever! He would talk with Kald, then go again among them all, and so pass out unsuspected and safe. For who but I—who but I could say he did it? And I—what is my proof? Only the words which I speak.”
A scornful, fateful smile passed over his face. “‘Hast thou never killed a man?’ said Kaid. ‘Never,’ said he—‘by the goodness of God, never!’ The voice of Him of Galilee, the hand of Cain, the craft of Jael. But God is with the patient.”
He went hastily and noiselessly-his footfall was light for so heavy a man-through the large room to the farther side from that by which David and Kaid had first entered. Drawing behind a clump of palms near a door opening to a passage leading to Mizraim’s quarters, he waited. He saw David enter quickly, yet without any air of secrecy, and pass into the little room where Kaid had left him.
For a long time there was silence.