daughter when she lied to him about the sunset breakfast.

With a placid smile and lips that murmured, "Praise be to God," the
malignant camel-driver watched the shrieking women of the village
throwing dust on their heads and lamenting loudly for the thirteen young
men of Beni Souef who were going forth never to return--or so it seemed
to them; for of all the herd of human kine driven into the desert before
whips and swords, but a moiety ever returned, and that moiety so battered
that their mothers did not know them. Therefore, at Beni Souef that
morning women wept, and men looked sullenly upon the ground--all but
Wassef the camel-driver.

It troubled the mind of Wassef that Mahommed Selim made no outcry at his
fate. He was still more puzzled when the Mamour whispered to him that
Mahommed Selim had told the kavass and his own father that since it was
the will of God, then the will of God was his will, and he would go.
Wassef replied that the Mamour did well not to accept the backsheesh of
Mahommed Selim's father, for the Mouffetish at the palace of Ismail would
have heard of it, and there would have been an end to the Mamour. It was
quite a different matter when it was backsheesh for sending Mahommed
Selim to the Soudan.

With a shameless delight Wassef went to the door of his own home, and,
calling to Soada, told her that Mahommed Selim was among the conscripts.
He also told her that the young man was willing to go, and that the
Mamour would take no backsheesh from his father. He looked to see her
burst into tears and wailing, but she only stood and looked at him like
one stricken blind. Wassef laughed, and turned on his heel; and went
out: for what should he know of the look in a woman's face--he to whom
most women were alike, he who had taken dancing-girls with his camels