Before sunset
we saw the danger, since no help came. Therefore we fought to save this
place for thee."
David looked them in the eyes. "Ye were traitors," he said, "and for an
example it was meet that ye should die. But this that ye have done shall
be told to all who fight to-morrow, and men will know why it is I pardon
treachery. Ye shall fight again, if need be, betwixt this hour and
morning, and ye shall die, if need be. Ye are willing?"
Both men touched their foreheads, their lips, and their breasts. "Whether
it be death or it be life, Inshallah, we are true to thee, Saadat!" one
said, and the other repeated the words after him. As they salaamed David
left them, and rode forward to the advancing forces.
Upon the roof of the palace Mahommed Hassan watched and waited, his eyes
scanning sharply the desert to the south, his ears strained to catch that
stir of life which his accustomed ears had so often detected in the
desert, when no footsteps, marching, or noises could be heard. Below, now
in the palace, now in the defences, his master, the Saadat, planned for
the last day's effort on the morrow, gave directions to the officers,
sent commands to Achmet Pasha, arranged for the disposition of his
forces, with as strange a band of adherents and subordinates as ever men
had--adventurers, to whom adventure in their own land had brought no
profit; members of that legion of the non-reputable, to whom Cairo
offered no home; Levantines, who had fled from that underground world
where every coin of reputation is falsely minted, refugees from the storm
of the world's disapproval.
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