They were mad in derision.

They did not know that Kaid was as innocent as themselves of having pardoned the tent-maker's son.

Their moment had passed; they could not overtake it; the match had spluttered and gone out at the fuel laid for the fire of fanaticism.
The morning of David's departure came.

While yet it was dark he had risen, and had made his last preparations.

When he came into the open air and mounted, it was not yet sunrise, and in that spectral early light, which is all Egypt's own, Cairo looked like some dream-city in a forgotten world.