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“See, Mahommed Selim,” Soada cried, “he would go with thee.”

“He shall come to me one day, by the mercy of God,” answered Mahommed Selim.

Then he went out into the market-place and gave himself up to the fat sergeant. As they reached the outskirts of the village a sorry camel came with a sprawling gallop after them, and swaying and rolling above it was Yusef, the drunken ghaffir, his naboot of dom-wood across his knees.

“What dost thou come for, friend of the mercy of God?” asked Mahommed Selim.

“To be thy messenger, praise be to God!” answered Yusef, swinging his water-bottle clear for a drink.

V

In Egypt, the longest way round is not the shortest way home, and that was why Mahommed Selim’s court-martial took just three minutes and a half; and the bimbashi who judged him found even that too long, for he yawned in the deserter’s face as he condemned him to death.

Mahommed Selim showed no feeling when the sentence was pronounced. His face had an apathetic look. It seemed as if it were all one to him. But when they had turned him round to march to the shed where he was to be kept, till hung like a pig at sunrise, his eyes glanced about restlessly. For even as the sentence had been pronounced a new idea had come into his mind. Over the heads of the Gippy soldiers, with their pipestem legs, his look flashed eagerly, then a little painfully–then suddenly stayed, for it rested on the green turban of Yusef, the drunken ghaffir. Yusef’s eyes were almost shut; his face had the grey look of fresh-killed veal, for he had come from an awful debauch of hashish.

“Allah! Allah!” cried Mahommed Selim, for that was the sound which always waked the torpid brain of Yusef since Wassef the camel-driver’s skull had crackled under his naboot.

Yusef’s wide shoulders straightened back, his tongue licked his lips, his eyes stared before him, his throat was dry. He licked his lips again. “Allah!” he cried and ran forward.

The soldiers thrust Yusef back. Mahommed Selim turned and whispered to the sergeant.

“Backsheesh!” he said; “my grey Arab for a word with Yusef the ghaffir.”

“Malaish!” said the sergeant; and the soldiers cleared a way for Yusef.

The palms of the men from Beni Souef met once, twice, thrice; they touched their lips, their breasts, their foreheads, with their hands, three times. Then Mahommed Selim fell upon the breast of Yusef and embraced him. Doing so he whispered in his ear:

“In the name of Allah, tell Soada I died fighting the Dervishes!”

“So be it, in God’s name!” said Yusef. “A safe journey to you, brother of giants.”

Next morning at sunrise, between two dom-palms, stood Mahommed Selim; but scarce a handful of the soldiers sent to see him die laughed when the rope was thrown over his head. For his story had gone abroad, and it was said that he was mad–none but a madman would throw away his life for a fellah woman. And was it not written that a madman was one beloved of Allah, who had taken his spirit up into heaven, leaving only the disordered body behind?

If, at the last moment, Mahommed Selim had but cried out: “I am mad; with my eyes I have seen God!” no man would have touched the rope that hanged him up that day.

But, according to the sacred custom, he only asked for a bowl of water, drank it, said “Allah!” and bowed his head three times towards Mecca–and bowed his head no more.

Before another quarter was added to the moon, Yusef, the drunken ghaffir, at the door of Soada’s hut in Beni Souef, told old Fatima the most wonderful tale, how Mahommed Selim had died on his sheepskin, having killed ten Dervishes with his own hand; and that a whole regiment had attended his funeral.

This is to the credit of Yusef’s account, that the last half of his statement was no lie.