"This is not to say that I think you are wrong in your view of this new Mahdi, but merely that I don’t want to know anything about him. His protests against the spirit of the world may be good and beneficial, but peace and quiet are better. His predictions about the millennium may be right too, and if he likes to live on that dinner of herbs, let him. Can’t you leave such people to boil their own pot without your providing them with sticks? I’m a woman, of course, and my Moslem sisters may be suffering this, that, or the other injustice, but when it comes to letting these things get in between your happiness and mine, what the dickens and the deuce and the divil do I care—which is proof of what Mosie says to the cook about the sweetness of my tongue. "As for your ’Arab nobleman’ taking me by storm, no thank you! I dare say he has red finger-nails, and if one touched the tip of his nose it would be as soft as Mosie’s. I hate him anyway, and if you are ever again tempted to fight him, take my advice and fall! But look here, Mr. Charlie Gordon Lord! If you’re so very keen for a fight come here and fight _me_—I’m game for you! "Soberly, my dear-dear, don’t think I’m not proud of you that you are the only man in all Egypt, aye, or the world, who dares stand up to your father. When God made you he made you without fear—I know that. He made you with a heart that would die rather than do a wrong—I know that too. I don’t believe you are taking advantage of your position as a son, either, and when people blame your parents for bringing you up as an Arab I know it all comes from deeper down than that. I suppose it is the Plymouth rock in you, the soul and blood of the men of the _Mayflower_. You cannot help it, and you would fight your own father for what you believed to be the right. "But, oh dear, that’s just what makes me tremble. Your father and you on opposite sides is a thing too terrible to think about. English gentlemen? Yes, I’m not saying anything to the contrary, but British bulldogs too, and as if that were not enough _you’ve_ got the American eagle in you as well. You’ll destroy each other—that will be the end of it. And if you ask me what reason I have for saying so, I answer—simply a woman’s, I _know_! I _know_! * * * * * "Father just back—dreadfully excited and exhausted—had to get him off to bed. Something fresh brewing—cannot tell what. "I gather that your friend the Grand Cadi was at the Agency to-night—but I’ll hear more in the morning. "It’s very late, and the city seems to be tossing in its sleep—a kind of somnambulant moan coming up from it. They say the Nile is beginning to rise, and by the light of the moon (it has just risen) I can faintly see a streak of red water down the middle of the river. Ugh! It’s like blood, and makes me shiver, so I must go to bed. * * * * *