The conversation was made up of trifles until one of the ladies—it was the wife of the Governor of the city, clad in the lightest of lace-chiffon gowns and wearing yellow satin slippers—inquired the meaning of the sounds of rejoicing, the blowing of pipes and the beating of tom-toms, which had come through the wide-open windows of the Palace from the direction of the native quarter. To this question the Inspector-General of the Soudan—an English Pasha, whose gold-laced tunic was half covered with medals—replied that the new prophet who had lately arrived in Khartoum had that day taken to himself a wife. "How _interesting_!" cried the ladies in chorus, with a note of laughter that was intended to belie the word, and then the lady in the yellow slippers turned to the Inspector-General and said— [Illustration: "How interesting!" cried the ladies in chorus] "Of course he has as many as the Mahdi already—but who is the new one, I wonder?" "No, he has only one wife at present—runs ’em tandem, I hear—and the new bride is the beautiful person in Parsee costume who arrived here about the same time as himself." "The Mohammedan Rani, you mean? My husband tells me she is perfectly lovely. But they say she will never let a European get a glimpse of her face—puts down her Parsee veil, I suppose—so goodness knows how _he_ knows, you know." "Perhaps your husband is a privileged person, my dear," said one of the other ladies, whereupon there was a trill of laughter and the little feet in satin slippers were beaten upon the floor. "But a Rani! Think of that! Who can she be, I wonder?" said another of the ladies, and then the mistress of the Palace, Lady Mannering, hinted that she believed the Sirdar knew something about her. "Oh, tell us! tell us!" cried a dozen female voices at once; but the Sirdar, a shrewd and kindly autocrat who had been smoking a cigarette in silence, merely answered— "Time will tell you, perhaps." Then turning to the Inspector-General he said— "She has _married_ the man, you say?" "That’s so, your Excellency." "There must be some mistake about that, surely." The company broke up late, and the ladies went on in light wraps and the men bare-headed through the soft, reverberant air of the southern night. But the Sirdar had asked certain of his officers to remain for a few moments, and among them were the Inspector-General, the Financial Secretary, and the Governor of the town. To the latter came his Zabit, a police officer, whose duty it was to report to his chief early and late, and as soon as the men had seated themselves the Sirdar said— "Any further news about this man, Ishmael Ameer?" "None, your Excellency," said the Governor. "You’ve discovered nothing about his object in coming here?" "Nothing at all." "He is not sowing dissension between Moslems and Christians?" "No! On the contrary, he professes to be opposed to all that, sir."