your brother? Nay, not more than did I, for I sent his soul into
the void, and I would gladly have gone after it to ask God for the
pardon of all his sins--and mine. Think: I hid the truth, but why?
Because a woman would suffer an unmerited scandal and shame.
Nothing could recall Foorgat Bey; but for that silence I gave my
life, for the land which was his land. Do you betray it, then?

"And now, Nahoum, the gulf in which you sought to plunge me when you
had ruined all I did is here before me. The long deception has
nearly done its work. I know from Ebn Ezra Bey what passed between
you. They are out against me--the slave-dealers--from Senaar to
where I am. The dominion of Egypt is over here. Yet I could
restore it with a thousand men and a handful of European officers,
had I but a show of authority from Cairo, which they think has
deserted me.

"I am shut up here with a handful of men who can fight and thousands
who cannot fight, and food grows scarcer, and my garrison is worn
and famished; but each day I hearten them with the hope that you
will send me a thousand men from Cairo. One steamer pounding here
from the north with men who bring commands from the Effendina, and
those thousands out yonder beyond my mines and moats and guns will
begin to melt away. Nahoum, think not that you shall triumph over
David Claridge. If it be God's will that I shall die here, my work
undone, then, smiling, I shall go with step that does not falter, to
live once more; and another day the work that I began will rise
again in spite of you or any man.

"Nahoum, the killing of Foorgat Bey has been like a cloud upon all
my past. You know me, and you know I do not lie. Yet I do not