"I can do something. I've done a little in my day; but my day, like Ismail's, is declining. They are his subjects, and he needs money, and he puts a price on their heads--that's about the size of it. Question How much will you have to pay? How much have you in Cairo at the bank?" "Only about ten thousand pounds." "He'd take your draft on England, but he'll have that ten thousand pounds, if he can get it." "That doesn't matter, but as for my arrest--" "A trick, on some trumped-up charge. If he can hold you long enough to get some of your cash, that's all he wants. He knows he's got no jurisdiction over you--not a day's hold. He knows you'd give a good deal to save your men." "Poor devils! But to be beaten by this Egyptian bulldozer--not if I know it, Dicky" "Still, it may be expensive." "Ah!" Kingsley Bey sighed, and his face was clouded, but Dicky knew he was not thinking of Ismail or the blackmail. His eyes were on the house by the shore, now disappearing, as they rounded a point of land. "Ah" said Donovan Pasha, but he did not sigh. III "Ah!" said a lady, in a dirty pink house at Assiout, with an accent which betrayed a discovery and a resolution, "I will do it. I may be of use some way or another. The Khedive won't dare--but still the times are desperate. As Donovan Pasha said, it isn't easy holding down the safety- valve all the time, and when it flies off, there will be dark days for all of us. . . . An old friend--bad as he is! Yes, I will go." Within forty-eight hours of Donovan Pasha's and Kingsley Bey's arrival in Cairo the lady appeared there, and made inquiries of her friends. No one knew anything. She went to the Consulate, and was told that Kingsley Bey was still in prison, that the Consulate had not yet taken action. She went to Donovan Pasha, and he appeared far more mysterious and troubled than he really was. Kingsley Bey was as cheerful as might be expected, he said, but the matter was grave. He was charged with the destruction of the desert-city, and maintaining an army of slaves in the Khedive's dominions--a menace to the country. "But it was with the Khedive's connivance," she said. "Who can prove that? It's a difficult matter for England to handle, as you can see." This was very wily of Dicky Donovan, for he was endeavouring to create alarm and sympathy in the woman's mind by exaggerating the charge. He knew that in a few days at most Kingsley Bey would be free. He had himself given Ismail a fright, and had even gone so far as to suggest inside knowledge of the plans of Europe concerning Egypt. But if he could deepen the roots of this comedy for Kingsley's benefit--and for the lady's--it was his duty so to do.