about his cage by that neck in which Harrik had laid his face so often.

The hot flush of conflict and the long anger of the years were on him.
Since he must die, since Destiny had befooled him, left him the victim of
the avengers, he would end it here. Here, against the thing of savage
hate which had drunk of the veins and crushed the bones of his fair wife,
he would strike one blow deep and strong and shed the blood of sacrifice
before his own was shed.

He thrust the torch into the ground, and, with the dagger grasped
tightly, carefully opened the cage and stepped inside. The door clicked
behind him. The lion was silent now, and in a far corner prepared to
spring, crouching low.

"Fatima!" Harrik cried, and sprang forward as the wild beast rose at
him. He struck deep, drew forth the dagger--and was still.




CHAPTER XIII

ACHMET THE ROPEMAKER STRIKES

War! War! The chains of the conscripts clanked in the river villages;
the wailing of the women affrighted the pigeons in a thousand dovecotes
on the Nile; the dust of despair was heaped upon the heads of the old,
who knew that their young would no more return, and that the fields of
dourha would go ungathered, the water-channels go unattended, and the
onion-fields be bare. War! War! War! The strong, the broad-shouldered