Excerpt
"It shall be the whole, not the part," answered David determinedly. "The truth is known. It can serve no end to withhold the writing to the army. Remember what I have said to thee. The disloyalty of the army must not be known. Canst thou not act after the will of Allah, the all-powerful, the all-just, the all-merciful?"
There was an instant's pause, and then suddenly Harrik placed the paper in his palm and wrote swiftly and at some length to Kaid. Laying it down, he took another and wrote but a few words—to Achmet and Diaz. This message said in brief, "Do not strike. It is the will of Allah. The army shall keep faithful until the day of the Mahdi be come. I spoke before the time. I go to the bosom of my Lord Mahomet."
He threw the papers on the floor before David, who picked them up, read them, and put them into his pocket.
"It is well," he said. "Egypt shall have peace. And thou, Eminence?"
"Who shall escape Fate? What I have written I have written."
David rose and salaamed. Harrik rose also. "Thou wouldst go, having accomplished thy will?" Harrik asked, a thought flashing to his mind again, in keeping with his earlier purpose. Why should this man be left to trouble Egypt?
David touched his breast. "I must bear thy words to the Palace and theCitadel."
"Are there not slaves for messengers?" Involuntarily Harrik turned his eyes to the velvet curtains. No fear possessed David, but he felt the keenness of the struggle, and prepared for the last critical moment of fanaticism.
"It were a foolish thing to attempt my death," he said calmly. "I have been thy friend to urge thee to do that which saves thee from public shame, and Egypt from peril. I came alone, because I had no fear that thou wouldst go to thy death shaming hospitality."
"Thou wast sure I would give myself to death?"
"Even as that I breathe. Thou wert mistaken; a madness possessed thee; but thou, I knew, wouldst choose the way of honour. I too have had dreams—and of Egypt. If it were for her good, I would die for her."
"Thou art mad. But the mad are in the hands of God, and—"
Suddenly Harrik stopped. There came to his ears two distant sounds—the faint click of horses' hoofs and that dull rumble they had heard as they talked, a sound he loved, the roar of his lions.
He clapped his hands twice, the curtains parted opposite, and a slave slid silently forward.
"Quick! The horses! What are they? Bring me word," he said.
The slave vanished. For a moment there was silence. The eyes of the two men met. In the minds of both was the same thing.
"Kaid! The Nubians!" Harrik said, at last. David made no response.
The slave returned, and his voice murmured softly, as though the matter were of no concern: "The Nubians—from the Palace." In an instant he was gone again.
"Kaid had not faith in thee," Harrik said grimly. "But see, infidel though thou art, thou trustest me, and thou shalt go thy way. Take them with thee, yonder jackals of the desert. I will not go with them. I did not choose to live; others chose for me; but I will die after my own choice. Thou hast heard a voice, even as I. It is too late to flee to the desert. Fate tricks me. 'The lions are loosed on thee'—so the voice said to me in the night. Hark! dost thou not hear them—the lions, Harrik's lions, got out of the uttermost desert?"
David could hear the distant roar, for the menagerie was even part of the palace itself....