"I know, it matters not how--at last a letter found me, and the way of
escape--that thou goest again to the Soudan. There will be fighting
there--"
"Not by my will," interrupted David.
"Then by the will of Sheitan the accursed; but there will be fighting--am
I not an Arab, do I not know? Thou hast not conquered yet. Bid me go
where thou wilt, do what thou wilt, so that I may be among the fighters,
and in the battle forget what I have seen. Since I am unclean, and am
denied the bosom of Allah, shall I not go as a warrior to Hell, where men
will fear me? Speak, Saadat, canst thou deny me this?"
Nothing of repentance, so far as he knew, moved the dark soul; but, like
some evil spirit, he would choose the way to his own doom, the place and
the manner of it: a sullen, cruel, evil being, unyielding in his evil,
unmoved by remorse--so far as he knew. Yet he would die fighting, and for
Egypt "and for thee, if it must be so. To strike, to strike, to strike,
and earn death!" What Achmet did not see, David saw, the glimmer of light
breaking through the cloud of shame and evil and doom.
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