It seemed to be a supernatural voice, the voice of an accusing angel, calling them back to their present position. Ishmael – Helena – the betrothal!

      Their hands separated and they rose to their feet. One moment they stood with bowed heads, at opposite sides of the table, listening to the voice outside, and then, without a word more, they went their different ways – he to his room, she to hers.

      Into the empty guest-room, a moment afterwards, came the rumbling and rolling sound of the voices of the people, repeating the Fatihah after Ishmael —

      "Praise be to God, the Lord of all creatures… Direct us in the right way, O Lord … not the way of those who go astray."

      CHAPTER XIV

      That day the Sirdar had held his secret meeting of the Ulema, the Sheikhs and Notables of Khartoum. Into a room on the ground floor of the Palace, down a dark, arched corridor, in which British soldiers stood on guard, they had been introduced one by one – a group of six or eight unkempt creatures of varying ages, and of different degrees of intelligence, nearly all wearing the farageeyah.

      They sat awkwardly on the chairs which had been ranged for them about a mahogany table, and while they waited they talked in whispers. There was a tense, electrical atmosphere among them, as of internal dissension, the rumbling of a sort of subterranean thunder.

      But this subsided instantly, when the voice of the sergeant outside, and the clash of saluting arms, announced the coming of the Sirdar. The Governor-General, who was in uniform and booted and spurred as if returning from a ride, was accompanied by his Inspector-General, his Financial Secretary, the Governor of the town, and various minor officers.

      He was received by the Sheikhs, all standing, with sweeping salaams from floor to forehead, a circle of smiles and looks of complete accord.

      The Sirdar, with his ruddy and cheerful face, took his seat at the head of the table and began by asking, as if casually, who was the stranger that had arrived that day in Khartoum.

      "A Bedouin," said the Cadi. "One whom Ishmael Ameer loves and who loves him."

      "Yet a Bedouin, you say?" asked the Sirdar, in an incredulous tone, and with a certain elevation of the eyebrows.

      "A Bedouin, O Excellency," repeated the Cadi, whereupon the others, without a word of further explanation, bent their turbaned heads in assent.

      Then the Sirdar explained the reason for which he had called them together.

      "I am given to understand," he said, "that the idea is abroad that the Government has been trying to introduce changes into the immutable law of Islam, which forms an integral part of your Moslem religion, and is therefore rightly regarded with a high degree of veneration by all followers of the Prophet. If anybody is telling you this, or if any one is saying that there is any prejudice against you because you are Mohammedans, he is a wicked and mischievous person, and I beg of you to tell me who he is."

      Saying this, the Sirdar looked sharply round the table, but met nothing but blank and expressionless faces. Then turning to the Cadi, who as Chief Judge of the Mohammedan law-courts had been constituted spokesman, he asked pointedly what Ishmael Ameer was saying.

      "Nothing, O Excellency," said the Cadi; "nothing that is contrary to the Sharia – the religious law of Islam."

      "Is he telling the people to resist the Government?"

      The grave company about the table silently shook their heads.

      "Do you know if he has anything to do with a conspiracy to resist the payment of taxes?"

      The grave company knew nothing.

      "Then what is he doing, and why has he come to Khartoum? Pasha, have you no explanation to make to me?" asked the Sirdar, singling out a vivacious old gentleman, with a short, white, carefully oiled beard – a person of doubtful repute who had once been a slave-dealer and was now living patriarchally, under the protection of the Government, with his many wives and concubines.

      The old black sinner cast his little glittering eyes around the room and then said —

      "If you ask me, O Master, I say, Ishmael Ameer is putting down polygamy and divorce and ought himself to be put down."

      At that there was some clamour among the Ulema, and the Sirdar thought he saw a rift through which he might discover the truth, but the Pasha was soon silenced, and in a moment there was the same unanimity as before.

      "Then what is he?" asked the Sirdar, whereupon a venerable old Sheikh, after the usual Arabic compliments and apologies, said that, having seen the new teacher with his own eyes and talked with him, he had now not the slightest doubt that Ishmael was a man sent from God, and therefore that all who resisted him, all who tried to put him down, would perish miserably. At these words the electrical atmosphere which had been held in subjection seemed to burst into flame. In a moment six tongues were talking together. One Sheikh, with wild eyes, told of Ishmael's intercourse with angels. Another knew a man who had seen him riding with the Prophet in the desert. A third had spoken to somebody who had seen angels, in the form of doves, descending upon him from the skies, and a fourth was ready to swear that one day, while Ishmael was preaching in the mosque, people heard a voice from heaven crying, "Hear him! He is My messenger!"

      "What was he preaching about?" said the Sirdar.

      "The last days, the coming of the Deliverer," said the Sheikh with the wild eyes, in an awesome whisper.

      "What Deliverer?"

      "Seyidna Isa – our Lord Jesus – the White Christ that is to come."

      "Is this to be soon?"

      "Soon, O Excellency, very soon."

      After this outburst there was a moment of tense and breathless silence, during which the Sirdar sat with his serious eyes fixed on the table, and his officers, standing behind, glanced at each other and smiled.

      Immediately afterwards the Sirdar put an end to the interview.

      "Tell your people," he said, "that the Government has no wish to interfere with your religious beliefs and feelings, whatever they may be; but tell them also, that it intends to have its orders obeyed, and that any suspicion of conspiracy, still more of rebellion, will be instantly put down."

      The group of unkempt creatures went off with sweeping salaams, and then the Sirdar dismissed his officers also, saying —

      "Bear in mind that you are the recognised agents of a just and merciful Government, and whatever your personal opinions may be of these Arabs and their superstitions, please understand that you are to give no anti-Islamic colour to your British feelings. At the same time remember that we have worked for the redemption of the Soudan from a state of savagery, and we cannot allow it to be turned back to barbarism in the name of religion."

      Both the Ulema and the other British officials being gone, the Sirdar was alone with his Inspector-General.

      "Well?" he said.

      "Well?" repeated the Inspector-General, biting the ends of his close-cropped moustache. "What more did you expect, sir? Naturally the man's own people were not going to give him away. They nearly did so, though. You heard what old Zewar Pasha said?"

      "Tut! I take no account of that," said the Sirdar. "The brothers of Christ Himself would have put Him down, too – locked Him up in an asylum, I dare say."

      "That's