"Yes," answered Mr. Rawlinson, giving at the same time a signal to the servant to usher Fatma in.
Accordingly, after a while there entered a tall, young Sudânese woman with countenance entirely unveiled, complexion very dark, and eyes beautiful but wild, and a trifle ominous. Entering, she at once prostrated herself, and when Mr. Rawlinson ordered her to rise, she raised herself but remained on her knees.
"Sidi," she said, "May Allah bless thee, thy posterity, thy home, and thy flocks!"
"What do you want?" asked the engineer.
"Mercy, help, and succor in misfortune, oh, sir! I am imprisoned in
Port Said and destruction hangs over me and my children."
"You say that you are imprisoned, and yet you could come here, and in the night-time at that."
"I have been escorted by the police who day and night watch my house, and I know that they have an order to cut off our heads soon!"
"Speak like a rational woman," answered Mr. Rawlinson, shrugging his shoulders. "You are not in the Sudân, but in Egypt where no one is executed without a trial. So you may be certain that not a hair will fall from your head or the heads of your children."
But she began to implore him to intercede for her yet once more with the Government, to procure permission for her to go to Smain.
"Englishmen as great as you are, sir," she said, "can do everything. The Government in Cairo thinks that Smain is a traitor, but that is false. There visited me yesterday Arabian merchants, who arrived from Suâkin, and before that they bought gums and ivory in the Sudân, and they informed me that Smain is lying sick at El-Fasher and is calling for me and the children to bless them—"