This relieved the riot in her brain, and to ease her heart still further she made herself believe that what she had done had not been to revenge herself but to avenge Gordon, whom Ishmael’s evil influence had destroyed. "Serve him right," she thought. "Let him go to Damietta! What better does he deserve?" At that moment Ayesha, Ishmael’s little daughter, came running with bare feet into the house, and seeing Helena she leapt into her arms and kissed her. The kiss of the child seemed like a blow—it made her dizzy. At the next moment, while Ayesha was mumbling affectionate play-words which Helena did not hear, and Zenoba, the Arab nurse, stood beating her impatient foot upon the floor, there came from outside the murmur of a crowd. It was the crowd of Ishmael’s followers, bringing him home from the mosque. They were calling upon God and His Prophet to bless him, touching his white caftan as if it were divine and virtue were coming out of him. He dismissed them with words of rebuke—gentler and more indulgent than before, perhaps—and, entering the house, he called for food. A few minutes afterwards Ishmael and Helena and old Mahmud were sitting in the guest-room together, drinking new milk and eating soft bread. "But where is your boy, O Rani?" asked Ishmael, who missed the great fan of ostrich feathers. Helena made a halting excuse. Mosie had been troublesome—she had sent him back to where he came from—Cairo. "Cairo?" asked the Arab woman, with a glance of suspicion. Helena looked confused, but Ishmael saw nothing. He was more than usually excited, enthusiastic, and full of great hopes. After a while he talked of the Bedouin who was coming. "Our brother is not, in fact, a Bedouin," he said. "Not a Bedouin?" "Neither is he a Moslem. He is a Christian and indeed an Englishman." "An Englishman?" "All yes, but he is one who loves the Moslems, and has gone through shame and degradation rather than do them a wrong." Helena was afraid to ask further questions. She could only listen, terrified by a vague apprehension. "Truly, O lady, he who loveth all the children of God, him God loveth," said Ishmael. "This brave man was a soldier, and if he has suffered rather than do an evil act will God forget him? No!" Helena shuddered. The idea that was taking shape in her mind seemed incredible. Ishmael was speaking in the softest tones, yet his voice seemed like the subterranean sounds that precede great shocks of earthquake. "He is coming. Be good to him, my Rani. If we could take his heart out and weigh it we should find it gold." Helena was struck with a sort of stupor. "Am I dreaming?" she asked herself. "What am I thinking about?" It was one of those mysterious moments on the eve of the great events of life, when murmurs come from we know not where.