She put out both her hands and spoke sharply. “Enough, my brother,” she said. “Thou hast thy way to great honour. Thou shalt yet have a thousand feddans of well-watered land and slaves to wait upon thee. Get thee to the house of Haleel. There shall the blow fall on the head of Achmet, the blow which was mine to strike, but that Allah stayed my hand that I might do thee and thy Pasha good, and to give the soul-slayer and the body-slayer into the hands of Kaid, upon whom be everlasting peace!” Her voice dropped low. “Thou saidst but now that I had beauty. Is there yet any beauty in my face?” She lowered her yashmak and looked at him with burning eyes.
“Thou art altogether beautiful,” he answered, “but there is a strangeness to thy beauty like none I have seen; as if upon the face of an angel there fell a mist—nay, I have not words to make it plain to thee.”
With a great sigh, and yet with the tenseness gone from her eyes, she slowly drew the veil up again till only her eyes were visible. “It is well,” she answered. “Now, I have heard that to-morrow night Prince Kaid will sit in the small court-yard of the blue tiles by the harem to feast with his friends, ere the army goes into the desert at the next sunrise. Achmet is bidden to the feast.”
“It is so, O beloved!”
“There will be dancers and singers to make the feast worthy?”
“At such a time it will be so.”
“Then this thou shalt do. See to it that I shall be among the singers, and when all have danced and sung, that I shall sing, and be brought before Kaid.”
“Inshallah! It shall be so. Thou dost desire to see Kaid—in truth, thou hast memory, beloved.”
She made a gesture of despair. “Go upon thy business. Dost thou not desire the blood of Achmet and the bridge-opener?”
Mahommed laughed, and joyfully beat his breast, with whispered exclamations, and made ready to go. “And thou?” he asked.