David intently studied the figure, which seemed unconscious of their presence. The shoulders were stooping and relaxed as though from great fatigue, but David could see that the figure was that of a tall man. The head was averted, but a rough beard covered the face, and, in the light of the fire, one hand that clutched it showed long and skinny and yellow and cruel. The hand fascinated David's eyes. Where had he seen it? It flashed upon him—a hand clutching a robe, in a frenzy of fear, in the court-yard of the blue tiles, in Kaid's Palace—Achmet the Ropemaker! He drew back a step.
"Achmet," he said in a low voice. The figure stirred, the hand dropped from the beard and clutched the knee; but the head was not raised, and the body remained crouching and listless.
"He escaped?" David said, turning to Ebn Ezra Bey.
"I know not by what means—a camel-driver bribed, perhaps, and a camel left behind for him. After the caravan had travelled a day's journey he joined it. None knew what to do. He was not a leper, and he was armed."
"Leave him with me," said David.
Ebn Ezra hesitated. "He is armed; he was thy foe—"
"I am armed also," David answered enigmatically, and indicated by a gesture that he wished to be left alone. Ebn Ezra drew away towards the palm-tree, and stood at this distance watching anxiously, for he knew what dark passions seize upon the Oriental—and Achmet had many things for which to take vengeance.
David stood for a moment, pondering, his eyes upon the deserter. "God greet thee as thou goest, and His goodness befriend thee," he said evenly. There was silence, and no movement. "Rise and speak," he added sternly. "Dost thou not hear? Rise, Achmet Pasha!"
Achmet Pasha! The head of the desolate wretch lifted, the eyes glared at David for an instant, as though to see whether he was being mocked, and then the spare figure stretched itself, and the outcast stood up. The old lank straightness was gone, the shoulders were bent, the head was thrust forward, as though the long habit of looking into dark places had bowed it out of all manhood.
"May grass spring under thy footstep, Saadat," he said, in a thick voice, and salaamed awkwardly—he had been so long absent from life's formularies.