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He might not be a slave-driver now, but he had been one–and the world of difference it made to her! He had made his great fortune out of the work of the men employed as slaves, and–she turned away to the window with a dejected air. For the first time the real weight of the problem pressed upon her heavily.

“Perhaps you would like to see him,” said Dicky. “It might show that you were magnanimous.”

“Magnanimous! It will look like that–in a mud-cell, with mud floor, and a piece of matting.”

“And a balass of water and dourha-cakes,” said Dicky in a childlike way, and not daring to meet her eyes.

He stroked his moustache with his thumb-nail in a way he had when perplexed. Kingsley Bey was not in a mud-cell, with a mat and a balass of water, but in a very decent apartment indeed, and Dicky was trying to work the new situation out in his mind. The only thing to do was to have Kingsley removed to a mud-cell, and not let him know the author of his temporary misfortune and this new indignity. She was ready to visit him now–he could see that. He made difficulties, however, which would prevent their going at once, and he arranged with her to go to Kingsley in the late afternoon.

Her mind was in confusion, but one thing shone clear through the confusion, and it was the iniquity of the Khedive. It gave her a foothold. She was deeply grateful for it. She could not have moved without it. So shameful was the Khedive in her eyes that the prisoner seemed Criminal made Martyr.

She went back to her hotel flaming with indignation against Ismail. It was very comforting to her to have this resource. The six slaves whom she had freed–the first-fruits of her labours: that they should be murdered! The others who had done no harm, who had been slaves by Ismail’s consent, that they should be now in danger of their lives through the same tyrant! That Kingsley Bey, who had been a slave-master with Ismail’s own approval and to his advantage, should now–she glowed with pained anger…. She would not wait till she had seen Kingsley Bey, or Donovan Pasha again; she herself would go to Ismail at once.

So, she went to Ismail, and she was admitted, after long waiting in an anteroom. She would not have been admitted at all, if it had not been for Dicky, who, arriving just before her on the same mission, had seen her coming, and guessed her intention. He had then gone in to the Khedive with a new turn to his purposes, a new argument and a new suggestion, which widened the scope of the comedy now being played. He had had a struggle with Ismail, and his own place and influence had been in something like real danger, but he had not minded that. He had suggested that he might be of service to Egypt in London and Paris. That was very like a threat, but it was veiled by a look of genial innocence which Ismail admired greatly. He knew that Donovan Pasha could hasten the crisis coming on him. He did not believe that Donovan Pasha would, but that did not alter the astuteness and value of the move; and, besides, it was well to run no foolish risks and take no chances. Also, he believed in Donovan Pasha’s honesty. He despised him in a worldly kind of way, because he might have been rich and splendid, and he was poor and unassuming. He wanted Kingsley Bey’s fortune, or a great slice of it, but he wanted it without a struggle with Dicky Donovan, and with the British Consulate–for that would come, too, directly. It gave him no security to know that the French would be with him–he knew which country would win in the end. He was preying on Kingsley Bey’s humanity, and he hoped to make it well worth while. And all he thought and planned was well understood by Dicky.