"A nice jack-pot that," said Renshaw, as he scanned the upturned faces
through the opening in the wall. "A pretty one-eyed lot."

"Shows how they love their country. Their eyes were put out by their
mothers when they were babes, to avoid conscription. . . . Listen,
Yankee: Egypt is talking. Now, we'll see!"

Dicky's lips were pressed tight together, and he stroked his faint
moustache with a thumb-nail meditatively. His eyes were not on the
speaker, but on the distant sky, the Mokattam Hills and the forts
Napoleon had built there. He was listening intently to Abdalla's high,
clear voice, which rang through the courts of the ruined mosque.

"In the name of God the Compassionate, the Merciful, children of Egypt,
listen. Me ye have known years without number, and ye know that I am of
you, as ye are of me. Our feet are in the same shoes, we gather from the
same date-palm, of the same goolah we drink. My father's father--now in
the bosom of God, praise be to God!--builded this mosque; and my father,
whose soul abides in peace with God, he cherished it till evil days came
upon this land. 'Be your gifts to this mosque neither of silver nor
copper, but of tears and prayers,' said my father, Ebn Abdalla, ere he
unrolled his green turban and wound himself in it for his winding-sheet.
'Though it be till the Karadh-gatherers return, yet shall ye replace nor
stone nor piece of wood, save in the gates thereof, till good days come
once more, and the infidel and the Turk be driven from the land.' Thus
spake my father. . . ."

There came a stir and a murmuring among the crowd, and cries of "Allahu
Akbar!" "Peace, peace!" urged the figure in white. "Nay, make no
noise. This is the house of the dead, of one who hath seen God. . . .