The eyes of my guards, on hearing this, brightened, and they cried: “Thy will, O Mighty Ruler, is our command,” and those holding me pushed me forward so roughly that my ragged jibbeh was torn from the neck to the waist, displaying my chest.
The Sultan, with a parting injunction to my captors to place my head upon the gate and to announce throughout the city that a spy of the Khalifa had been captured and executed, was about to ride away when suddenly I noticed that he again fixed his gaze full upon me and sat for a few seconds perplexed and thoughtful.
“Bring hither thy prisoner. Let him approach me closely,” he shouted to the Janissaries, who were at that moment hurrying me away.
Amazed at the Sultan’s sudden change of manner, the Aga of the Eunuchs and his menials dragged me back before their ruler, who, with his startled eyes fixed upon my uncovered breast, asked in a tone of awe,—
“Speak, slave! How earnest thou by that mystic mark of the serpents?”
His anger had instantly cooled. He had detected the strange red scar, and for him it evidently had some serious significance, for he had grown pale under his manly bronze, and the bejewelled hand that held the reins trembled slightly.
“Of its origin I have no knowledge,” I answered, glancing quickly round and noticing the effect produced by the monarch’s sudden change of manner.
“Whence comest thou?” he asked, with eagerness unusual to an autocrat.
“From Omdurman. I am of the Ansar of the Khalifa.”
“And thy parentage?”