"Thy tongue does that office well," was the reply. Once more Kaid laid
a gentle hand upon Nahoum's beard. Then, with a gesture towards the
consuls and Europeans, he said to them in French: "If I might but beg
your presence for yet a little time!" Then he turned and walked away.
He left by a door leading to his own apartments.

When he had gone, Nahoum swung slowly round and faced the agitated
groups.

"He who sleeps with one eye open sees the sun rise first," he said, with
a sarcastic laugh. "He who goes blindfold never sees it set."

Then, with a complacent look upon them all, he slowly left the room by
the door out of which David and Kaid had first passed.

Outside the room his face did not change. His manner had not been
bravado. It was as natural to him as David's manner was to himself.
Each had trained himself in his own way to the mastery of his will, and
the will in each was stronger than any passion of emotion in them. So
far at least it had been so. In David it was the outcome of his faith,
in Nahoum it was the outcome of his philosophy, a simple, fearless
fatalism.

David had been left by Kaid in a small room, little more than an alcove,
next to a larger room richly furnished. Both rooms belonged to a
spacious suite which lay between the harem and the major portion of the
Palace. It had its own entrance and exits from the Palace, opening on
the square at the front, at the back opening on its own garden, which
also had its own exits to the public road. The quarters of the Chief
Eunuch separated the suite from the harem, and Mizraim, the present Chief