"Thou hast said it! Gordon--Gordon--if he would but come again!--But it shall be so, by the beard of God's prophet, it shall. Thou hast said the thing that has lain in my heart. Have I had honour in the Soudan since his feet were withdrawn? Where is honour and tribute and gold since his hand ruled--alone without an army? It is so--Inshallah! but it is so. He shall come again, and the people's eyes will turn to Khartoum and Darfdr and Kordofan, and the greedy nations will wait. Ah, my friend, but the true inspiration is thine! I will send for Gordon to night--even to-night. Thou shalt go--no, no, not so. Who can tell--I might look for thy return in vain! But who--who, to carry my word to Gordon?" "Your messenger is in the anteroom," said Dicky with a sudden thought. "Who is it, son of the high hills?" "The lady at Assiout--she who is such a friend to Gordon as I am to thee, Highness." "She whose voice and hand are against slavery?" "Even so. It is good that she return to England there to remain. Send her." "Why is she here?" The Khedive looked suspiciously at Dicky, for it seemed that a plot had been laid. Thereupon, Dicky told the Khedive the whole story, and not in years had Ismail's face shown such abandon of humour. "By the will of God, but it shall be!" he said. "She shall marry Kingsley Bey, and he shall go free." "But not till she has seen him and mourned over him in his cell, with the mud floor and the balass of water." The Khedive laughed outright and swore in French. "And the cakes of dourha! I will give her as a parting gift the twenty slaves, and she shall bring her great work to a close in the arms of a slaver. It is worth a fortune." "It is worth exactly ten thousand pounds to your Highness--ten thousand pounds neither more nor less." Ismail questioned. "Kingsley Bey would make last tribute of thus much to your Highness." Ismail would not have declined ten thousand centimes. "Malaish!" he said, and called for coffee, while they planned what should be said to his Ambassadress from Assiout. She came trembling, yet determined, and she left with her eyes full of joyful tears. She was to carry the news of his freedom and the freedom of his slaves to Kingsley Bey, and she--she, was to bear to Gordon, the foe of slavery, the world's benefactor, the message that he was to come and save the Soudan. Her vision was enlarged, and never went from any prince a more grateful supplicant and envoy. Donovan Pasha went with her to the room with the mud floor where Kingsley Bey was confined. "I owe it all to you," she said as they hastened across the sun-swept square. "Ah, but you have atoned! You have done it all at once, after these long years."