BEYOND THE PALE

Mahommed Hassan had vowed a vow in the river, and he kept it in so far as
was seemly. His soul hungered for the face of the bridge-opener, and the
hunger grew. He was scarce passed from the shivering Nile into a dry
yelek, had hardly taken a juicy piece from the cooking-pot at the house
of the village sheikh, before he began to cultivate friends who could
help him, including the sheikh himself; for what money Mahommed lacked
was supplied by Lacey, who had a reasoned confidence in him, and by the
fiercely indignant Kaid himself, to whom Lacey and Mahommed went
secretly, hiding their purpose from David. So, there were a score of
villages where every sheikh, eager for gold, listened for the whisper of
the doorways, and every slave and villager listened at the sheikh's door.
But neither to sheikh nor to villager was it given to find the man.

But one evening there came a knocking at the door of the house which
Mahommed still kept in the lowest Muslim quarter of the town, a woman who
hid her face and was of more graceful figure than was familiar in those
dark purlieus. The door was at once opened, and Mahommed, with a cry,
drew her inside.

"Zaida--the peace of God be upon thee," he said, and gazed lovingly yet
sadly upon her, for she had greatly changed.

"And upon thee peace, Mahommed," she answered, and sat upon the floor,
her head upon her breast.

"Thou hast trouble at," he said, and put some cakes of dourha and a
meated cucumber beside her. She touched the food with her fingers, but
did not eat. "Is thy grief, then, for thy prince who gave himself to the