"Is that you, Hafiz? ... Well, look here, I want to know if you can arrange to go with me to Alexandria for a day or two ... You can? Good! I wish you to help me to deal with that new preacher, prophet, Mahdi, what’s his name now? ... That’s it, Ishmael Ameer. He has been setting Moslem against Christian, and we’ve got to lay the gentleman by the heels before he gets the poor, credulous people into further trouble.... What do you say? ... Not that kind of man, you think? ... No? ... You surprise me.... Do you really mean to say ... Certainly, that’s only fair ... Yes, I ought to know all about him.... Your uncle? ... Chancellor of the University? ... I know, El Azhar.... When could I see him? ... What day do we go to Alexandria? To-morrow if possible.... To-night the only convenient time, you think? Well, I promised to dine at the Citadel, but I suppose I must write to Helena.... Oh, needs must when the devil drives, old fellow.... To-night, then? ... You’ll come down for me immediately? Good! By-bye!" With that he rang off and sat down to write a letter. *CHAPTER VI* Gordon Lord loved the Egyptians. Nursed on the knee of an Egyptian woman, speaking Arabic as his mother tongue, lisping the songs of Arabia before he knew a word of English, Egypt was under his very skin, and the spirit of the Nile and of the desert was in his blood. Only once a day in his childhood was there a break in his Arab life. That was in the evening about sunset, when Fatimah took him into his father’s library, and the great man with the stern face, who assumed towards him a singularly cold manner, put him through a catechism which was always the same: "Tutor been here to-day, boy?" "Yes, sir." "Done your lessons?" "Yes, sir." "English—French—everything?" "Yes, sir." "Say good-night to your mother and go to bed." Then for a few moments more he was taken into his mother’s boudoir, the cool room with the blinds down to keep out the sun, where the lady with the beautiful pale face embraced and kissed him, and made him kneel by her side while they said the Lord’s Prayer together in a rustling whisper like a breeze in the garden. But, after that, off to bed with Hafiz—who in his Arab caftan and fez had been looking furtively in at the half-open door—up two steps at a time, shouting and singing in Arabic, while Fatimah, in fear of the Consul-General, cried, "Hush! Be good, now, my sweet eyes!" In his boyhood, too, he had been half a Mohammedan, going every afternoon to fetch Hafiz home from the kuttab, the school of the mosque, and romping round the sacred place like a little king in stockinged feet, until the Sheikh in charge, who pretended as long as possible not to see him, came with a long cane to whip him out, always saying he should never come there again—until to-morrow.