“Thou art mad. But the mad are in the hands of God, and—”
Suddenly Harrik stopped. There came to his ears two distant sounds—the faint click of horses’ hoofs and that dull rumble they had heard as they talked, a sound he loved, the roar of his lions.
He clapped his hands twice, the curtains parted opposite, and a slave slid silently forward.
“Quick! The horses! What are they? Bring me word,” he said.
The slave vanished. For a moment there was silence. The eyes of the two men met. In the minds of both was the same thing.
“Kaid! The Nubians!” Harrik said, at last. David made no response.
The slave returned, and his voice murmured softly, as though the matter were of no concern: “The Nubians—from the Palace.” In an instant he was gone again.
“Kaid had not faith in thee,” Harrik said grimly. “But see, infidel though thou art, thou trustest me, and thou shalt go thy way. Take them with thee, yonder jackals of the desert. I will not go with them. I did not choose to live; others chose for me; but I will die after my own choice. Thou hast heard a voice, even as I. It is too late to flee to the desert. Fate tricks me. ‘The lions are loosed on thee’—so the voice said to me in the night. Hark! dost thou not hear them—the lions, Harrik’s lions, got out of the uttermost desert?”
David could hear the distant roar, for the menagerie was even part of the palace itself.
“Go in peace,” continued Harrik soberly and with dignity, “and when Egypt is given to the infidel and Muslims are their slaves, remember that Harrik would have saved it for his Lord Mahomet, the Prophet of God.”