necessary to bribe, Foorgat Bey had evidently brought her to see the
function, there where all women were forbidden. He could little imagine
Foorgat doing this from mere courtesy; he could not imagine any woman,
save one wholly sophisticated, or one entirely innocent, trusting herself
with him--and in such a place. The girl's face, though not that of one
in her teens, had seemed to him a very flower of innocence.

But, as he stood telling his beads, abstractedly listening to the scandal
talked by Achmet and Higli, he was not thinking of his brother, but of
the two who had just left the chamber. He was speculating as to which
room they were likely to enter. They had not gone by the door convenient
to passage to Kaid's own apartments. He would give much to hear the
conversation between Kaid and the stranger; he was all too conscious of
its purport. As he stood thinking, Kaid returned. After looking round
the room for a moment, the Prince came slowly over to Nahoum, and,
stretching out a hand, stroked his beard.

"Oh, brother of all the wise, may thy sun never pass its noon!" said
Kaid, in a low, friendly voice.

Despite his will, a shudder passed through Nahoum Pasha's frame.
How often in Egypt this gesture and such words were the prelude to
assassination, from which there was no escape save by death itself. Into
Nahoum's mind there flashed the words of an Arab teacher, "There is no
refuge from God but God Himself," and he found himself blindly wondering,
even as he felt Kaid's hand upon his beard and listened to the honeyed
words, what manner of death was now preparing for him, and what death of
his own contriving should intervene. Escape, he knew, there was none, if
his death was determined on; for spies were everywhere, and slaves in the
pay of Kaid were everywhere, and such as were not could be bought or