to some things became more active and more fervid.

Looking into the distance, she saw two or three hundred men at work on a
canal, draining the property of Selamlik Pasha, whose tyrannies,
robberies, and intrigues were familiar to all Egypt, whose palaces were
almost as many as those of the notorious Mouffetish. These men she saw
now working in the dread corvee had been forced from their homes by a
counterfeit Khedivial order. They had been compelled to bring their own
tools, and to feed and clothe and house themselves, without pay or
reward, having left behind them their own fields untilled, their own
dourha unreaped, their date-palms, which the tax-gatherer confiscated.
Many and many a time--unless she was prevented, and this at first had
been often--she had sent food and blankets to these poor creatures who,
their day's work done, prayed to God as became good Mahommedans, and,
without covering, stretched themselves out on the bare ground to sleep.

It suggested that other slavery, which did not hide itself under the
forms of conscription and corvee. It was on this slavery her mind had
been concentrated, and against it she had turned her energies and her
life. As she now sat, pen in hand, the thought of how little she had
done, how futile had been all her crusade, came to her. Yet there was,
too, a look of triumph in her eyes. Until three days ago she had seen
little result from her labours. Then had come a promise of better
things. From the Englishman, against whom she had inveighed, had been
sent an olive branch, a token--of conversion? Had he not sent six slaves
for her to free, and had she not freed them? That was a step. She
pictured to herself this harsh expatriated adventurer, this desert ruler,
this slave-holder--had he been a slave-dealer she could herself have
gladly been his executioner--surrounded by his black serfs, receiving her
letter. In her mind's eye she saw his face flush as he read her burning