Nahoum smiled. There was no malice in the smile, only, as it might seem, a frank humour. "Ah, your Excellency used independent judgment. Thou art a judge of men. But does it make any difference that the man is a thief and a murderer--a murderer?" David's eyes darkened, as they were wont to do when he was moved or shocked. "Shall one only deal, then, with those who have neither stolen nor slain --is that the rule of the just in Egypt?" Nahoum raised his eyes to the ceiling as though in amiable inquiry, and began to finger a string of beads as a nun might tell her paternosters. "If that were the rule," he answered, after a moment, "how should any man be served in Egypt? Hereabouts is a man's life held cheap, else I had not been thy guest to-night; and Kaid's Palace itself would be empty, if every man in it must be honest. But it is the custom of the place for political errors to be punished by a hidden hand; we do not call it murder." "What is murder, friend?" "It is such a crime as that of Mahommed yonder, who killed--" David interposed. "I do not wish to know his crime. That is no affair between thee and me." Nahoum fingered his beads meditatively. "It was an affair of the housetops in his town of Manfaloot. I have only mentioned it because I know what view the English take of killing, and how set thou art to have thy household above reproach, as is meet in a Christian home. So, I took it, would be thy mind--which Heaven fill with light for Egypt's sake!-- that thou wouldst have none about thee who were not above reproach, neither liars, nor thieves, nor murderers." "But thee would serve with me, friend," rejoined David quietly. "Thee has men's lives against thy account." "Else had mine been against their account." "Was it not so with Mahommed? If so, according to the custom of the land, then Mahommed is as immune as thou art." "Saadat, like thee I am a Christian, yet am I also Oriental, and what is crime with one race is none with another. At the Palace two days past thou saidst thou hadst never killed a man; and I know that thy religion condemns killing even in war. Yet in Egypt thou wilt kill, or thou shalt thyself be killed, and thy aims will come to naught. When, as thou wouldst say, thou hast sinned, hast taken a man's life, then thou wilt understand. Thou wilt keep this fellow Mahommed, then?" "I understand, and I will keep him." "Surely thy heart is large and thy mind great. It moveth above small things. Thou dost not seek riches here?" "I have enough; my wants are few." "There is no precedent for one in office to withhold his hand from profit and backsheesh." "Shall we not try to make a precedent?" "Truthfulness will be desolate--like a bird blown to sea, beating 'gainst its doom." "Truth will find an island in the sea." "If Egypt is that sea, Saadat, there is no island." David came over close to Nahoum, and looked him in the eyes.