"It is all I have got in thy service, Highness," he answered boldly. "All else I have given to the poor; also to spies--and to the army." "To spies--and to the army?" asked Kaid slowly, incredulously. "Wilt thou come with me to the window, Effendina?" Kaid, wondering, went to the great windows which looked on to the Palace square. There, drawn up, were a thousand mounted men as black as ebony, wearing shining white metal helmets and fine chain-armour and swords and lances like medieval crusaders. The horses, too, were black, and the mass made a barbaric display belonging more to another period in the world's history. This regiment of Nubians Kaid had recruited from the far south, and had maintained at his own expense. When they saw him at the window now, their swords clashed on their thighs and across their breasts, and they raised a great shout of greeting. "Well?" asked Kaid, with a ring to the voice. "They are loyal, Effendina, every man. But the army otherwise is honeycombed with treason. Effendina, my money has been busy in the army paying and bribing officers, and my spies were costly. There has been sedition-- conspiracy; but until I could get the full proofs I waited; I could but bribe and wait. Were it not for the money I had spent, there might have been another Prince of Egypt." Kald's face darkened. He was startled, too. He had been taken unawares. "My brother Harrik--!" "And I should have lost my place, lost all for which I cared. I had no love for money; it was but a means. I spent it for the State--for the Effendina, and to keep my place. I lost my place, however, in another way." "Proofs! Proofs!" Kaid's voice was hoarse with feeling. "I have no proofs against Prince Harrik, no word upon paper. But there are proofs that the army is seditious, that, at any moment, it may revolt." "Thou hast kept this secret?" questioned Kaid darkly and suspiciously. "The time had not come. Read, Effendina," he added, handing some papers over. "But it is the whole army!" said Kaid aghast, as he read. He was convinced. "There is only one guilty," returned Nahoum. Their eyes met. Oriental fatalism met inveterate Oriental distrust and then instinctively Kaid's eyes turned to David. In the eyes of the Inglesi was a different thing. The test of the new relationship had come. Ferocity was in his heart, a vitriolic note was in his voice as he said to David, "If this be true-- the army rotten, the officers disloyal, treachery under every tunic-- bismillah, speak!" "Shall it not be one thing at a time, Effendina?" asked David. He made a gesture towards Nahoum. Kaid motioned to a door. "Wait yonder," he said darkly to Nahoum. As the door opened, and Nahoum disappeared leisurely and composedly, David caught a glimpse of a guard of armed Nubians in leopard-skins filed against the white wall of the other room. "What is thy intention towards Nahoum, Effendina?" David asked presently.