"Oh, I don't know—I can't think—but I beg you, I entreat you not to let Omar go into Cairo."
Her agitated voice caused another moment of silence, and then Ishmael said in a soft, indulgent tone—
"I understand you, O my Rani. This may be the task of greatest danger, but it is the place of highest honour too, and you would fain see no man except your husband assigned to it. But Omar is of me and I am of him, and there can be no pride nor jealousy between us."
And then, taking Gordon by the right hand, while with his left he was holding Helena, he said—
"Omar, my friend, my brother!"
"El Hamdullillah!" cried the Sheikhs again, and then one by one they rose to go.
Helena rose too, and with her face aflame and her breath coming in gusts she hurried back to her room. The Arab woman followed her in a moment, and with a mocking smile in her glinting eyes, she said—
"How happy you must be, O lady, that some one else than your husband is to go into that place of danger!"
But Helena could bear no more.
"Go out of the room this moment! I cannot endure you! I hate you! Go, woman, go!" she cried.