'Nothing shall be repaired, save the gates of the mosque of Ebn Mahmoud,
the mosque of my father's father,' so said my father. Also said he, 'And
one shall stand at the gates and watch, though the walls crumble away,
till the day when the land shall again be our land, and the chains of the
stranger be forged in every doorway.' . . . But no, ye shall not lift
up your voices in anger. This is the abode of peace, and the mosque is
my mosque, and the dead my dead."

"The dead is our dead, effendi--may God give thee everlasting years!"
called a blind man from the crowd. Up in the tower Dicky had listened
intently, and as the speech proceeded his features contracted; once he
gripped the arm of Renshaw.

"It's coming on to blow," he said, in the pause made by the blind man's
interruption. "There'll be shipwreck somewhere."

"Ye know the way by which I came," continued Abdalla loudly. "Nothing is
hid from you. I came near to the person of the Prince, whom God make
wise while yet the stars of his life give light! In the palace of Abdin
none was preferred before me. I was much in the sun, and mine eyes were
dazzled. Yet in season I spake the truth, and for you I laboured. But
not as one hath a life to give and seeks to give it. For the dazzle that
was in mine eyes hid from me the fulness of your trials. But an end
there was to these things. She came to the palace a slave-Noor-ala-Noor.
. . . Nay, nay, be silent still, my brothers. Her soul was the soul
of one born free. On her lips was wisdom. In her heart was truth like a
flaming sword. To the Prince she spoke not as a slave to a slave, but in
high level terms. He would have married her, but her life lay in the
hollow of her hand, and the hand was a hand to open and shut according as
the soul willed. She was ready to close it so that none save Allah might