"But no, I cannot think of that now," she thought, and after a while she turned the light bedclothes aside, and putting out the lamp, got into bed by the side of the child, who was smelling sweet with the soft odours of sleep. She lay a long time motionless, with her eyes open, and still the horror of what she had done weighed on her like a nightmare. Then she covered her eyes with her hands, and the image of another filled her with emotions that were at once sweet and bitter. With a woman’s sense of injustice she was blaming the absent one for the position of shame in which she found herself. "Why did he choose this man instead of me?" she thought, and then, at last, in the fiercest fire of jealousy and hatred, weeping bitter tears in the darkness, she reconciled her tormented conscience to everything she had done, everything she intended to do, by saying to herself with quivering lips— "_He killed my father!_" At that moment she was startled by a voice outside that broke sharp and harsh upon the silence of the night— "There is no god but God! There is no god but God!" It was Black Zogal, the half-witted Nubian, crying the confession of faith at the door of Ishmael’s house. The Lady, the White Lady, the Rani, the Princess, was Helena Graves. *CHAPTER V* While Ishmael’s followers had been squatting on the sands to celebrate his betrothal the Sirdar had been having a dinner-party in the Palace, composed of the chief officers of his military government and the cream of the British society at Khartoum. Towards ten o’clock the large after-dinner group of ladies in low-cut corsage, showing white arms and shoulders, and officers in full-dress uniform, had come out on the terrace with its open arches and its handsome steps sweeping down to the silent garden. Below were the broad lawns, the mimosa trees filling the night air with perfume, the trembling sycamores and the tall dates, sleeping under the great deep heaven with its stars. Behind was the lamp-lit palace, from which native servants in gold-embroidered crimson were carrying silver trays laden with decanters and glasses and small cups and saucers. It was almost the spot on which "the martyr of the Soudan" fell under the lances of the dervishes, yet one of the Sirdar’s servants, Abdullahi, with three cross-cuts on his cheeks, his tribal mark as a son of the bloodthirsty Baggara, and with the pleasantest of smiles on his walnut-coloured face, was drawing corks, pouring out whisky and soda-water, and striking matches to light the men’s cigarettes. The company was full of the gaiety and animation which comes after a pleasant dinner, with a little of the excitement which follows when people have partaken of wine. The eyes of the ladies sparkled and the faces of the men smiled, and both talked freely and laughed a good deal.