With these words Olaj Beg stepped into the adjoining room, and leading in the Princess, placed her hand in the hand of Hassan; then he raised his eyes to Heaven.
“Allah is my witness,” said he, “that I have delivered her and her child into thy hands!”
In the first moment Hassan Pasha was amazed at the woman’s loveliness, and thought with regret that it was necessary for his own safety that she must die.
Olaj Beg, however, had yet another piece of good advice to impart, and, with that object, drew nigh to him to whisper in his ear; but, as if his courage failed him at the last moment, he delivered his sentiments in the Arabic tongue.
“Thou wouldst guard this woman best if thou tookest her child from her and locked it up separately. The mother certainly would not escape without the child.”
The Princess Ghyka did not understand these words, but she saw how the old fox indicated her little one with a glance and with what a greedy look Hassan regarded it; and she pressed the child all the closer to her bosom as she saw him come a step closer. The unhappy woman trembled when she saw Hassan smile upon the child like a hungry wolf would smile if he encountered it on his path. She guessed from their play of feature the terrible idea which the two men were discussing in a foreign tongue, and in her despair cast her eyes upon Azrael, as if hoping that she would find a response to her agony in a woman’s heart.
The odalisque pretended she had not observed the look, as if those present were not worthy of the slightest attention from her; when, however, Hassan gratefully embraced the Beg for this fresh piece of advice, Azrael intervened with a peculiar smile.
“Thou dost act like one who, bending beneath the weight of a burden too heavy for him, would pass it on to his neighbour.”
Hassan looked at his favourite damsel inquiringly, while Olaj Beg, who was unaccustomed to hear women talk at all when men were holding counsel together, looked back with offended surprise over his shoulder.
Azrael reclined lazily back upon her cushions, and swung one leg over her knee as she conversed with the two men.
“Worthy Hassan,” said she, “thou wouldst make two troubles out of one, if thou didst separate thy captives; while thou keepest thine eye on one of them, they will steal away the other behind thy back.”
Hassan cast a troubled look upon Olaj Beg, who stroked his long white beard and smiled.
“If thou dost permit thy damsels to ask questions, thou must needs answer them,” said he.
At these words Azrael leaped from her place and boldly approached the two men, her flaming black eyes measured the Beg from head to foot, and when she spoke it was with a determined, startling voice.
“Listen to me, Hassan—yes, I say, thou shouldst listen to me before all thy friends just because I am a woman. A man can only give advice, but a woman loves, and before a man thinks of danger a woman already sees it coming from afar, and while a man may grow into a crafty old fox, a woman is born crafty. Hassan knows very well that of all those who wear a mask of friendship for him, there is but one on whom he can absolutely rely, whose love all the treasures in India can as little destroy as they can lull her hatred asleep, who watches over him while he sleeps, and if she sleeps is dreaming of his destiny—that person am I.”
Hassan confirmed the words of the damsel by throwing his arm round her shoulders and drawing her towards him.
“If this woman requires a sleepless, uncorruptible guardian,” continued Azrael, “I will be that guardian. Make for us a long chain, and let one end of it be fastened to my arm and the other to her girdle. Thus the slave will be chained to the jailer, and, sleeping or waking, will be unable to escape from me. I shall be a good janitor. I will not let her, or her child, out of my hands.”
The damsel accompanied these words with such an infernal smile that Olaj Beg involuntarily edged away from her; while Hassan was enchanted by this noble specimen of loyalty. But Mariska’s face was bright and resigned again, for she understood from the words of the odalisque, threatening as they were, that she and her child were not to be separated, and to all else she was indifferent.
Olaj Beg drew the folds of his caftan over his lean, dry bosom, and after peering at the two women, remarked to Hassan:
“ ’Tis well thou canst trust a woman to look after a woman.”
With that he backed out of the room, blessing all four corners of it as he went, and in the gateway distributed with great condescension to every one of the servants who had done anything for him some money ingeniously twisted up in pieces of paper (which, by the way, were found to contain a halfpenny each when at last unfolded), and sitting in his mat-covered carriage, gave strict orders to the coachman not to look back till he saw the citadel of Buda.
But Hassan the same hour sent for his goldsmith, and bade him prepare immediately a silver chain, four yards long,
