He cursed the man and all his ancestry and all his posterity, sleeping and waking, until the day when he, Mahommed, would pinch his flesh with red hot irons.

But now he had other and nearer things to occupy him, for in the fierce struggle towards the shore Lacey found himself failing, and falling down the stream.

Presently both Mahommed and David were beside him, Lacey angrily protesting to David that he must save himself.
"Say, think of Egypt and all the rest.

You've got to save yourself--let me splash along!" he spluttered, breathing hard, his shoulders low in the water, his mouth almost submerged.
But David and Mahommed fought along beside him, each determined that it must be all or none; and presently the terror-stricken fisherman who had roused the village, still shrieking deliriously, came upon them in a flat-bottomed boat manned by four stalwart fellaheen, and the tragedy of the bridge was over.

But not the tragedy of Achmet the Ropemaker..