Bardissi is wounded; his right hand bleeds, and blood is streaming down his cheeks. Bardissi is wounded, yet he lives, and is saved. On they press, and now they are no longer followed.
The soldiers have still much to do in Cairo. Let Bardissi flee with his richly-laden dromedaries; let him depart from Cairo with his Mamelukes; but let him return no more.
He draws rein now that the city is behind him; he looks back, and a tear trickles down his cheek and mingles with his blood.
For whom was this tear?
He looks back toward Cairo, and murmurs: "O Mohammed, that you have betrayed me; this is bitter!"
He then turns his horse and they proceed in their flight.—Yes, there is still much work to be done in Cairo. It is not only Bardissi who has to be fought and driven out; there is Ismail, the chief of all the Mamelukes, and all the other beys. All this lordly game is to be chased and driven to bay to-day, and then there are rich spoils to be gathered. Bardissi has hardly quitted his house when the soldiers rush into it, and begin to plunder and destroy after a fashion that can hardly be surpassed by the Mamelukes themselves. The soldiers intend to pay themselves for that which Bardissi owes them.
And they do pay themselves. Bardissi possesses not only this but other houses in Cairo, and the soldiers plunder them all, leaving nothing behind but the bare walls.
They then fall upon Ismail Bey; but he, too, succeeds in cutting his way through the enemy. With him escape almost all the Mameluke beys with their followers. They flee far out of Cairo, into the open country.
At Gheezeh, on the verge of the desert, the Mamelukes lay encamped on the following day, and there the beys were assembled around their hero, Bardissi, in a sad consultation.
True, they are safe, yet they feel that their rule in Cairo is at an end, to be restored no more.