“I have work for thee at last, Mizraim,” said Nahoum.
“At last?”
“Thou hast but played before. To-night I must see the sweat of thy brow.”
Mizraim’s cold fingers again threw themselves against his breast, forehead, and lips, and he said:
“As a woman swims in a fountain, so shall I bathe in sweat for thee, who hath given with one hand and hath never taken with the other.”
“I did thee service once, Mizraim—eh?”
“I was as a bird buffeted by the wind; upon thy masts my feet found rest. Behold, I build my nest in thy sails, excellency.”
“There are no birds in last year’s nest, Mizraim, thou dove,” said Nahoum, with a cynical smile. “When I build, I build. Where I swear by the stone of the corner, there am I from dark to dark and from dawn to dawn, pasha.” Suddenly he swept his hand low to the ground and a ghastly sort of smile crossed over his face. “Speak—I am thy servant. Shall I not hear? I will put my hand in the entrails of Egypt, and wrench them forth for thee.”
He made a gesture so cruelly, so darkly, suggestive that Nahoum turned his head away. There flashed before his mind the scene of death in which his own father had lain, butchered like a beast in the shambles, a victim to the rage of Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Mehemet Ali.
“Then listen, and learn why I have need of thee to-night.”