The strain was terrible. The two old friends, one visibly moved and making no effort to conceal his emotion, the other fighting hard with the dark spirits of pride and wrath!
The Sirdar's mind went back to the days when they were young men themselves, at Sandhurst together, and approaching the Consul-General, he put one hand on his shoulder and said—
"Nuneham—John Nuneham—John—Jack—give the boy another chance. Let him go."
Then with a cry of agony and with an oath, never heard from his lips before, the Consul-General rose from his seat and said—
"No, no, no! You come here asking me to put my honour into the hands of my enemies—to leave myself at the mercy of any scoundrel who cares to say that the measure I mete out to others is not that which I keep for my own. You come, too, excusing my son's offences against military law, but saying nothing of the other crimes in which you have this very night caught him red-handed."
After that he smote the desk with his clenched fist and cried—
"No, no, I tell you no! My son is a traitor. He has joined himself to his father's and his country's enemies to destroy his father and to destroy England in Egypt, and if the punishment of a traitor is death, then death it must be to him as to any other, that the same justice may be dealt out to all."
Then to the Commandant who was still standing by the door he said—
"Go, sir! Let your prisoner be handed over to the military authorities without one moment's further delay."
It was like the breaking away of an avalanche, and after it thsre came the same awful stillness. No one spoke. The Commandant bowed and left the room.