Again a few steps in silence, and then—
"The insurrection would have been suppressed of course, but think of the bloodshed, the carnage! On the other hand——"
She saw what was coming, and with difficulty she walked steadily.
"On the other hand, if I go into Cairo, as I have promised to do—as I am expected to do—there can be no such result. The moment I arrive I shall be arrested, and the moment I am arrested I shall be identified and handed over to the military authorities to be tried for my offences as a soldier. There will be no religious significance in my punishment, therefore there will be no fanatical frenzy provoked by it, and consequently there can be no bloodshed. Don't you see that, Helena?"
She could not answer; she felt sick and faint. After a moment he went on in the same eager, enthusiastic voice—
"But that's not all. There is something better than that."
"Better—do you say better?"
"Something that comes closer to us at all events. Do you believe in omens, Helena? That some mystic sense tells us things of which we have no proof, no evidence?"
She bent her head without raising her eyes from the sand.
"Well, I have a sense of some treachery going on in Cairo that Ishmael knows nothing about, and I believe it was just this treachery which led to the idea of his going there at all."