“Truthfulness will be desolate—like a bird blown to sea, beating ‘gainst its doom.”
“Truth will find an island in the sea.”
“If Egypt is that sea, Saadat, there is no island.”
David came over close to Nahoum, and looked him in the eyes.
“Surely I can speak to thee, friend, as to one understanding. Thou art a Christian—of the ancient fold. Out of the East came the light. Thy Church has preserved the faith. It is still like a lamp in the mist and the cloud in the East. Thou saidst but now that thy heart was with my purpose. Shall the truth that I would practise here not find an island in this sea—and shall it not be the soul of Nahoum Pasha?”
“Have I not given my word? Nay, then, I swear it by the tomb of my brother, whom Death met in the highway, and because he loved the sun, and the talk of men, and the ways of women, rashly smote him out of the garden of life into the void. Even by his tomb I swear it.”
“Hast thou, then, such malice against Death? These things cannot happen save by the will of God.”
“And by the hand of man. But I have no cause for revenge. Foorgat died in his sleep like a child. Yet if it had been the hand of man, Prince Kaid or any other, I would not have held my hand until I had a life for his.”
“Thou art a Christian, yet thou wouldst meet one wrong by another?”
“I am an Oriental.” Then, with a sudden change of manner, he added: “But thou hast a Christianity the like of which I have never seen. I will learn of thee, Saadat, and thou shalt learn of me also many things which I know. They will help thee to understand Egypt and the place where thou wilt be set—if so be my life is saved, and by thy hand.”