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Still, the ten thousand pounds went to David and Hope where they smilingly laboured through the time of high Nile and low Nile, and khamsin and sirocco, and cholera, and, worse than all, the banishments to the hot Siberia of Fazougli.

But Mahommed Ramadan Saggara babbles yet of the time when, for one day, David threw away his shovel hat; and Abdul Huseyn, the jeweller, tells how, on the same day, the Sitt–that is, Hope–bought of him a ring of turquoises and put it on her finger with a curious smile.

That day David and Hope, the one in a pith helmet, the other with a turquoise ring on her left hand, went to dine with Shelek Pasha, the Armenian Governor of the province, a man of varied talents, not least of which was deceit of an artistic kind. For, being an Armenian, he said he was a true Christian, and David believed him, though Hope did not; and being an Oriental, he said he told the truth; and again David believed him, though Hope did not. He had a red beard, an eye that glinted red also, and fat, smooth fingers which kept playing with a string of beads as though it were a rosary.

As hard as he worked to destroy the Quaker in David, she worked against him; and she did not fear the end, for she believed in David Hyam of Framley. It was Shelek Pasha’s influence, persistently and adroitly used for two years, which made friend David at last put aside for this one day his Quaker hat. And the Pasha rejoiced; for, knowing human nature after a fashion, he understood that when you throw the outer sign away–the sign to you since your birth, like the fingers of your hand–the inner grace begins decadence and in due time disappears.

Shelek Pasha had awaited this with Oriental patience, for he was sure that if David gave way in one thing he would give way in all–and with a rush, some day. Now, at last, he had got David and Hope to dine with him; he had his meshes of deceit around them.

When they came to dinner Shelek Pasha saw the turquoise ring upon the finger of friend Hope, and this startled him and pleased him. Here, he knew, was his greatest enemy where David was concerned, and yet this pretty Saint Elizabeth was wearing a fine turquoise ring with a poke bonnet, in a very worldly fashion. He almost rubbed his eyes, it was so hard to believe; for time and again he had offered antichi in bracelets, rings and scarabs, and fine cottons from Beni-Mazar; and had been promptly and firmly told that the Friends wore no jewelry nor gay attire. Shelek Pasha, being a Christian–after the Armenian fashion–then desired to learn of this strange religion, that his own nature might be bettered, for, alas! snares for the soul are many in the Orient. For this Hope had quietly but firmly referred him to David.

Then he had tried another tack: he had thrown in his interest with her first school in his mudirieh; he got her Arab teachers from Cairo who could speak English; he opened the large schoolhouse himself with great ceremony, and with many kavasses in blue and gold. He said to himself that you never could tell what would happen in this world, and it was well to wait, and to watch the approach of that good angel Opportunity.

With all his devices, however, he could not quite understand Hope, and he walked warily, lest through his lack of understanding he should, by some mischance, come suddenly upon a reef, and his plans go shipwreck. Yet all the time he laughed in his sleeve, for he foresaw the day when all this money the Two Strange People were spending in his mudirieh should become his own. If he could not get their goods and estates peaceably, riots were so easy to arrange; he had arranged them before. Then, when the Two Strange People had been struck with panic, the Syrian donkey-market, and the five hundred feddans of American cotton, and the new schools would be his for a song–or a curse.