words with difficulty: first she must have recourse to her secret
specific. When she had done so, she expressed her readiness to see
Obada. Her son's swarthy foe was anxious to appear a mild and
magnanimous man in her eyes, so it was with flattering servility and many
smirking grins that he communicated to her the necessity for her quitting
the house in which she had passed the longest and happiest half of her
life, and no later than next day.

To his announcement that her private fortune would remain untouched, and
that she would be at liberty to reside in Memphis or to go to her own
house in Alexandria, she indifferently replied that "she should see."

She then enquired whether the Arabs had yet succeeded in capturing her
son.

"Not actually," replied the Vekeel. "But we know where he is hiding,
and by to-morrow or the next day we shall lay hands on the unhappy young
man."

But, as he spoke, the widow detected a malicious gleam in his eyes to
which, so far, he had tried to give a sympathetic expression, and she
went on with a slight shake of the bead: "Then it is a case of life and
death?"

"Compose yourself, noble lady," was the reply. "Of death alone."

Neforis looked up to heaven and for some minutes did not speak; then she
asked:

"And who has accused him of robbery?" "The head of his own Church....."