The pen dropped, as if it had been red-hot, from the old man's trembling fingers. Still he struggled.
"If my son is a guilty man, let the law deal with him as it would deal with any other," he said, but his voice shook—it could scarcely sustain itself.
The Sirdar saw that, deep under the frozen surface. the heart of the old man was breaking up; he knew that the shot that killed Gordon would kill the Consul-General also; and he felt that he was now pleading for the life of the father as well as of the son.
"It's not as if the boy were a prodigal, a wastrel," he said. "He is a gentleman, every inch of him, and if he has gone wrong, if he has acted improperly, it has only been from the highest impulses. He has sincerity and he has courage, and they are the noblest virtues of the soul."
The old man's head was down, but he was conscious that the Cadi's cruel eyes were upon him.
"He's a soldier, too. In some respects the finest young soldier in the army, whoever the next may be. He saw his first fighting with me, I remember. It was at Omdurman. He had taken the Khalifa's flag. The Dervish who carried it had treacherously stabbed his comrade, and when he came up with fire and tears in his eyes and said, 'I killed him like a dog, sir,' 'My God,' I said to myself, 'here is a soldier born.'"
The old man was silent, but he was still conscious that the Cadi's cruel eyes were upon him, watching him, interrogating him, saying, "What will you do now, I wonder?"
"God has never given me a son," continued the Sirdar, "but from that day to this I have always felt as if that boy belonged also to myself."
The old man was breaking up rapidly; but still he would not yield.
"His mother loved him, too. Perhaps he was the only human thing that came between her and her God. She is dead, and they say the dead see all. Who knows, Nuneham?—she may be waiting now to find out what you are going to do."