"There you are, then—there’s the stuff of your dream, dear. But don’t you see that whatever a man’s opinions and sympathies may be, his affections are a different matter altogether—that love is above everything else in a man’s life—yes, everything—and that even if this Ishmael Ameer were to divide me from my father or from your father—which God forbid!—he could not possibly separate me from you?" She looked up into his eyes and said—there was a smile on her lips now—"Could nothing separate you and me?" "Nothing in this world," he answered. Her trembling lips fluttered up to his, and again there was a moment of silence. The sun had gone down, the stars had begun to appear, and, under the mellow gold of mingled night and day, the city below, lying in the midst of the desert, looked like a great jewel on the soft bosom of the world. "You must go now, dear," she whispered. "And you will promise me never to think these ugly thoughts again?" "’Love is above everything’—I shall only think of that. Good-bye!" "Good-bye!" he said, and he embraced her passionately. At the next moment he was gone. Shadows from the wing of night had gathered over the city by this time, and there came up from the heart of it a surge of indistinguishable voices, some faint and far away, some near and loud, the voices of the muezzins calling from a thousand minarets to evening prayers—and then came another voice from the glistening crest of the great mosque on the ramparts, clear as a clarion and winging its way through the upper air over the darkening mass below— "God is Most Great! God is Most Great!" [Illustration: Music fragment] *CHAPTER XII* At half-past six Gordon was at the railway-station. He found his soldier servant half-way down the platform, on which blue-shirted porters bustled to and fro, holding open the door of a compartment labelled "Reserved." He found Hafiz also, and with him were two pale-faced Egyptians, in the dress of Sheikhs, who touched their foreheads as Gordon approached. "These are the men you asked for," said Hafiz. Gordon shook hands with the Egyptians, and then standing between them, with one firm hand on the shoulder of each and the light of an electric arc lamp in their faces, he said— "You know what you’ve got to do, brothers?" "We know," the men answered. "The future of Egypt, perhaps of the East, may depend upon what you tell me—you will tell me the truth?" "We will tell you the truth, Colonel." "If the man we are going to see should be condemned on your report and on my denunciation you may suffer at the hands of his followers. Protect you as I please, you may be discovered, followed, tracked down—you have no fear of the consequences?" "We have no fear, sir." "You are prepared to follow me into any danger?" "Into any danger." "To death if need be?" "To death if need be, brother." "Step in, then," said Gordon.