"I know! I know! But God will bring them to a happy end." "Therefore," said Helena, whose nervousness was gathering feverish strength, "the messenger who goes into Cairo in advance must be one who can make them forget the dangers of death itself." Ishmael reflected for a moment and then, in a burst of eagerness, he said— "The counsel is good. _I will go myself!_" Helena’s flushed face looked triumphant. "The man of all men," she said. "What messenger from Ishmael could be so sure as Ishmael himself?" "Yes, please God, I will go myself," said Ishmael in a louder voice, and he began to laugh—it was the first laugh that had broken from his lips since Helena came to Khartoum. Then he paused and said— "But the people?" "Anybody can follow with them," said Helena. "Their loyalty is certain; they need no persuading." "I’ll go," said Ishmael, "for above all there must be no bloodshed." Then old Mahmud, who alone of the persons present in the guest-room seemed to be untouched by the excitement of the moment, turned to Helena and said— "But is Ishmael the only one for this enterprise, my daughter?" "He knows every one, and every one knows him," said Helena. "But he who knows everybody, everybody knows," the old man answered; "not the soldiers merely, but their masters also." At that Helena’s nervousness gathered itself up into a trill of unnatural laughter, and she said, "Nonsense! He can be disguised! The kufiah (headdress) of a Bedouin, covering his head and nearly all his face—what more is wanted?" "So you are not afraid for him, my daughter?" "Afraid? I will make the kufiah myself and with my own hands I will put it on." "Brave heart of woman!" cried Ishmael. "Stronger than the soul of man! It is _my_ duty and I will do it!" With that he turned to Abdel Kader, who had looked on with his staring eyes, and said— "Go back to Cairo by the first train, and say, ’It is well—God willing he will come.’" And then, in the fever of his new purpose, he went off to the mosque. There he first called upon the people to repeat the Shehadah, the Moslem creed, and after that he administered an oath to them—never, by the grace of God and His Prophet, to reveal what he was going to say except to true believers, and only to them on their taking a like oath of secrecy and fidelity. The people repeated in chorus the words he spoke in a loud voice, and concluded—each man with his right hand on the Koran, and his left upraised to heaven—with a solemn Amen! Then Ishmael told them everything—how the time had come for their deliverance from bondage and corruption to the glorious liberty of the children of God—how, as the people of the Prophet had returned from Medina to Mecca, so they were to go up from Khartoum to Cairo—how he was to go before them, and they, under another leader, were to follow him, and God would give them a great reward.