"Why art thou here? For what hast thou come? Do the spirit voices give
thee that counsel?" he snarled.

"I am come to ask Prince Harrik to repair the wrong he has done. When
the Prince Pasha came to know of thy treason--"

Harrik started. "Kaid believes thy tale of treason?" he burst out.

"Prince Kaid knows the truth," answered David quietly. "He might have
surrounded this palace with his Nubians, and had thee shot against the
palace walls. That would have meant a scandal in Egypt and in Europe.
I besought him otherwise. It may be the scandal must come, but in
another way, and--"

"That I, Harrik, must die?" Harrik's voice seemed far away. In his own
ears it sounded strange and unusual. All at once the world seemed to be
a vast vacuum in which his brain strove for air, and all his senses were
numbed and overpowered. Distempered and vague, his soul seemed spinning
in an aching chaos. It was being overpowered by vast elements, and life
and being were atrophied in a deadly smother. The awful forces behind
visible being hung him in the middle space between consciousness and
dissolution. He heard David's voice, at first dimly, then
understandingly.

"There is no other way. Thou art a traitor. Thou wouldst have been a
fratricide. Thou wouldst have put back the clock in Egypt by a hundred
years, even to the days of the Mamelukes--a race of slaves and murderers.
God ordained that thy guilt should be known in time. Prince, thou art
guilty. It is now but a question how thou shalt pay the debt of