turned from him, the black, flaring eyes fixed on vacancy. The curtain
dropped behind David, and through the dim rooms and corridors he passed,
the slaves gliding beside him, before him, and behind him, until they
reached the great doors. As they swung open and the cool night breeze
blew in his face, a great suspiration of relief passed from him. What he
had set out to do would be accomplished in all. Harrik would
keep his word. It was the only way.

As he emerged from the doorway some one fell at his feet, caught his
sleeve and kissed it. It was Mahommed Hassan. Behind Mahommed was a
little group of officers and a hundred stalwart Nubians. David motioned
them towards the great gates, and, without speaking, passed swiftly down
the pathway and emerged upon the road without. A moment later he was
riding towards the Citadel with Harrik's message to Achmet. In the red-
curtained room Harrik sat alone, listening until he heard the far clatter
of hoofs, and knew that the Nubians were gone. Then the other distant
sound which had captured his ear came to him again. In his fancy it grew
louder and louder. With it came the voice that called him in the night,
the voice of a woman--of the wife he had given to the lions for a crime
against him which she did not commit, which had haunted him all the
years. He had seen her thrown to the king of them all, killed in one
swift instant, and dragged about the den by her warm white neck--this
slave wife from Albania, his adored Fatima. And when, afterwards, he
came to know the truth, and of her innocence, from the chief eunuch who
with his last breath cleared her name, a terrible anger and despair had
come upon him. Time and intrigue and conspiracy had distracted his mind,
and the Jehad became the fixed aim and end of his life. Now this was
gone. Destiny had tripped him up. Kaid and the infidel Inglesi had won.

As the one great passion went out like smoke, the woman he loved, whom