half-shut, stormy eyes fell upon the tent of the chief of the dervishes,
and he scarcely checked a sneer, for the ceremony to be performed
appealed to nothing in him save a barbaric instinct, and this barbaric
instinct had been veneered by French civilisation and pierced by the
criticism of one honest man. His look fell upon the long pathway
whereon, for three hundred yards, matting had been spread. It was a
field of the cloth of blood; for on this cloth dervishes returned from
Mecca, mad with fanaticism and hashish, would lie packed like herrings,
while the Sheikh of the Dosah rode his horse over their bodies, a
pavement of human flesh and bone.

As the Khedive looked, his lip curled a little, for he recalled what
Dicky Donovan had said about it; how he had pleaded against it,
describing loathsome wounds and pilgrims done to death. Dicky had ended
his brief homily by saying: "And isn't that a pretty dish to set before a
king!" to Ismail's amusement; for he was no good Mussulman, no Mussulman
at all, in fact, save in occasional violent prejudices got of inheritance
and association.

To-day, however, Ismail was in a bad humour with Dicky and with the
world. He had that very morning flogged a soldier senseless with his own
hand; he had handed over his favourite Circassian slave to a ruffian Bey,
who would drown her or sell her within a month; and he had dishonoured
his own note of hand for fifty thousand pounds to a great merchant who
had served him not wisely but too well. He was not taking his troubles
quietly, and woe be to the man or woman who crossed him this day!
Tiberius was an hungered for a victim to his temper. His entourage knew
it well, and many a man trembled that day for his place, or his head, or
his home. Even Sadik the Mouffetish--Sadik, who had four hundred women
slaves dressed in purple and fine linen--Sadik, whose kitchen alone cost