Nahoum waved a hand after Mahommed and said:
"Whence came thy servant sadat?"
"He was my guide to Cairo. I picked him from the street."
Nahoum smiled. There was no malice in the smile, only, as it might seem,
a frank humour. "Ah, your Excellency used independent judgment. Thou art
a judge of men. But does it make any difference that the man is a thief
and a murderer--a murderer?"
David's eyes darkened, as they were wont to do when he was moved or
shocked.
"Shall one only deal, then, with those who have neither stolen nor
slain--is that the rule of the just in Egypt?"
Nahoum raised his eyes to the ceiling as though in amiable inquiry, and
began to finger a string of beads as a nun might tell her paternosters.
"If that were the rule," he answered, after a moment, "how should any man
be served in Egypt? Hereabouts is a man's life held cheap, else I had not
been thy guest to-night; and Kaid's Palace itself would be empty, if
every man in it must be honest. But it is the custom of the place for
political errors to be punished by a hidden hand; we do not call it
murder.
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