I heard one day that Selim, brought before the native court of Cairo, had been sentenced to death.

He had murdered the daughter of some fellaheen, a little girl nine years old, in order to rob her of her ear-rings, and had thrown her into a cistern.

The rings, stained with blood, had been found under a big stone in the Valley of the Kings.

They were the crude jewels which the Nubian nomads hammer out of shillings or two-franc pieces, I was told that Selim would certainly be hanged, because the little girl's mother refused the tendered blood-money.

Now, the Khedive does not enjoy the prerogative of mercy, and the murderer, according to Moslem law, can redeem his life only if the parents of the victim consent to receive from him a sum of money as compensation.