"Your Highness will. Your Highness could not permit it--the time is far
past. Suppose Kingsley Bey gave you his whole fortune, would it save one
palace or pay one tithe of your responsibilities? Would it lengthen the
chain of safety?"

"I am safe."

"No, Highness. In peril--here with your own people, in Europe with the
nations. Money will not save you."

"What then?"

"Prestige. Power--the Soudan. Establish yourself in the Soudan with a
real army. Let your name be carried to the Abyssinian mountains as the
voice of the eagle."

"Who will carry it?" He laughed disdainfully, with a bitter, hopeless
kind of pride. "Who will carry it?"

"Gordon-again."

The Khedive started from his chair, and his sullen eye lighted to
laughter. He paced excitedly to and fro for a minute, and then broke
out:

"Thou hast said it! Gordon--Gordon--if he would but come again!--But it
shall be so, by the beard of God's prophet, it shall. Thou hast said the
thing that has lain in my heart. Have I had honour in the Soudan since
his feet were withdrawn? Where is honour and tribute and gold since his
hand ruled--alone without an army? It is so--Inshallah! but it is so.