I ran after till he was come to the edge of the
desert; but he sent me back, saying that I must wait for thee; and this
word I was to say, that Prince Kaid had turned his face darkly from him,
and that the finger of Sharif--"
"That fanatical old quack--Harrik's friend!"
"--that the finger of Sharif was on his pulse; but the end of all was in
the hands of God."
"Oh yes, exactly, the finger of Sharif on his pulse! The old story-the
return to the mother's milk, throwing back to all the Pharaohs. Well,
what then?" he added cheerfully, his smile breaking out again. "Where has
he gone, our Saadat?"
"To Ebn Ezra Bey at the Coptic Monastery by the Etl Tree, where your
prophet Christ slept when a child."
Lacey hummed to himself meditatively. "A sort of last powwow--Rome before
the fall. Everything wrong, eh? Kaid turned fanatic, Nahoum on the tiles
watching for the Saadat to fall, things trembling for want of hard cash.
That's it, isn't it, Mahommed?"
Mahommed nodded, but his look was now alert, and less sombre. He had
caught at something vital and confident in Lacey's tone.
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