Taker Pacha is dead, murdered! The magnificence of the new caimacan
is at an end after a rule of scarcely twenty days. The intelligence
reaches Gheezeh, where the Mamelukes are encamped, and where the
sarechsme Mohammed Ali is sojourning. He smiles as he hears it.
"I told you to wait. But now I say, let us hasten to Cairo! Let
messengers be sent to my troops, instructing them to march out to
meet us, and the Armenians will, I think, also join us. The time has
come. Let us hasten to Cairo, ye Mameluke beys!"
The camp resounds with shouts of delight, and the Mameluke beys
mount their steeds, and place themselves at the head of their
followers to begin the march.
Mohammed Ali also mounts his horse, but, before he turns, glances
around, and sees the Bedouin sheik Arnhyn, who is about to mount his
dromedary, and calls him to his side.
"Well, Arnhyn, your dromedary is here, but I miss your daughter in
the palanquin!"
"She is at home in the tent awaiting my return, sarechsme!"
"In her father's tent, still?" said Mohammed, smiling. "She has not
yet followed to his tent him who has kissed her, and made her his
wife?"
"No, sarechsme, she is still in her father's tent, and there, she
says, she will remain. Many fine young men have wooed her, for she
has been made rich by the spoils her father gathered on the plain of
Damanhour. Yes, Arnhyn will give his daughter a rich dowry, and
there are wooers enough.
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