An hour later I contrived to have secret speech with her. At first she did not recognise me, but when I told her who I was, then she at once expressed her eagerness to return to her own people.
“Thou shalt return to our camp only on one condition, namely, that thou wilt induce that man known as Allah to accompany thee,” I answered. “He is thy friend.”
“But the Kel-Alkoum are his well-beloved,” she said, using the same expression he so often used.
“He must forsake them,” I observed, explaining to her the baneful effect the report had exercised upon our men of the Azjar.
But she shook her head. “No, he will not leave the Kel-Alkoum. He is already their ruler,” she said. “The power of Abreha is now fast waning.”
“Take me to him,” I commanded.
“But his house is a holy place. None dare enter on penalty of being cast out for ever.”
“I will risk it,” I answered. “Guide thither my footsteps.”
Reluctantly she led me through a number of narrow crooked streets, until she paused before a small mud-built hut, and pointed to it.
Without ceremony I pushed open its closed door, and, entering, discerned the great King, half-dressed, standing before a scrap of broken mirror combing his beard. His face and neck were brown, so were his hands, but his breast and arms were white! The sympathetic countenance and tapering fingers were ingeniously stained to match the colour of the men of the desert, but the remainder of his body showed him to be a European.