Nahoum had not miscalculated.
"I have but one master, Excellency," Ebn Ezra answered quietly at last, "and I have served him straightly.

Hast thou done likewise ?" "What is straight to thee might well be crooked to me, effendi." "Thou art crooked as the finger of a paralytic." "Yet I have worked in peace with Claridge Pasha for these years past, even until yesterday, when thou didst leave him to his fate." "His ship will sail when thine is crumbling on the sands, and all thou art is like a forsaken cockatrice's nest." "Is it this thou hast come to say to the Effendina ?" "What I have come to say to the Effendina is for the world to know after it hath reached his ears.

I know thee, Nahoum Pasha.

Thou art a traitor.
Claridge Pasha would abolish slavery, and thou dost receive great sums of gold from the slave-dealers to prevent it." "Is it this thou wilt tell Kaid ?" Nahoum asked with a sneer.

"And hast thou proofs ?" "Even this day they have come to my hands from the south." "Yet I think the proofs thou hast will not avail; and I think that thou wilt not show them to Kaid.