They had not gone by the door convenient to passage to Kaid's own apartments.

He would give much to hear the conversation between Kaid and the stranger; he was all too conscious of its purport.

As he stood thinking, Kaid returned.

After looking round the room for a moment, the Prince came slowly over to Nahoum, and, stretching out a hand, stroked his beard.
"Oh, brother of all the wise, may thy sun never pass its noon!" said Kaid, in a low, friendly voice.
Despite his will, a shudder passed through Nahoum Pasha's frame.
How often in Egypt this gesture and such words were the prelude to assassination, from which there was no escape save by death itself.

Into Nahoum's mind there flashed the words of an Arab teacher, "There is no refuge from God but God Himself," and he found himself blindly wondering, even as he felt Kaid's hand upon his beard and listened to the honeyed words, what manner of death was now preparing for him, and what death of his own contriving should intervene.