Dick Merriwell's Pranks Part 30

"Behold her!" said Bilmah.

The girl glanced up shyly over her outspread fan, giving the Turk a sidelong glance from her fine, black eyes, in the depths of which there was a strange light that fascinated him.

Hafsa Pasha bowed very low, his hand on his heart.

"So this is the one whose charms I heard extolled ere I crossed the threshold of this house?" he said. "You are English, they tell me. It is most astonishing to find an English girl here."

"I suppose it is," she answered, in a very low voice that was full of strange music and gave him a decided thrill.

He sat on the floor at her feet, rolling a cigarette.

"Tell me how it happens that you are here," he urged.

"I cannot," she answered, in apparent great confusion. "It is a tale of misfortune. Speak of something else."

"Are you aware what you are doing?"

"Fully."

"Do you know that once you have entered the harem of any man who may purchase you there can be no backing out-no escape?"

"I have thought of it all."

"And you will not be the only wife of the husband who secures you."

"I know."

"Still, I cannot understand you. It is utterly unlike one of your blood to do such a thing. There must be a reason for it."

"Of course there is. Perhaps I have a brother or a friend who is in deep distress and needs money at once. Perhaps I have arranged with the trader that a certain portion of the price paid for me shall be sent at once to this person. Does that not offer an explanation?"

Hafsa Pasha lighted his cigarette and eyed her attentively.

"I have been told that the price Bilmah demands is exorbitant. Still, under certain circ.u.mstances you might be worth it to me."

"What are the circ.u.mstances?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"If I purchase you you will be mine to do as I command."

"Of course."

"Possibly I have somewhere another English-speaking maiden who rebels against my authority and refuses to bow unto me."

"Another?" laughed the girl behind her fan. "You must be fond of the English."

"Were I to purchase you, I should expect you to become without delay the companion of this other girl. I should expect you to exert your influence upon her to lead her to submit to her lot."

"I see nothing very hard in that."

"But she might tell you a woeful tale of an imaginary wrong. She might seek to arouse your sympathy. She might claim that she had been captured and imprisoned against her will."

"I am growing interested. If you can afford to pay the price demanded for me, you must be a very rich man."

"I am far from poor."

"You are kind to your wives?"

"I am gentleness itself."

"They have every comfort and luxury in the home you provide for them?"

"No woman can ask for more."

"Then this girl should soon learn to be contented and happy. She has some peculiar ideas in her head just now, but she will get over them. If you purchase me, I shall do everything in my power for her."

"You Western women are remarkable. No woman of the East would talk to me like this. I almost fear you. I seem to feel that you possess a strange power that our women know nothing of."

Again she laughed.

"You'll get used to me in time," she said. "That is, you will if you are not bluffing."

"Bluffing? Perhaps I know what you mean, and still--"

"I mean about paying the price Bilmah demands. I have seen men who pretended they were ready and willing to spend money when they had no thought of doing so."

"You shall see what I mean to do. Of course I have a right to make the best bargain possible with old Bilmah."

"No; you must pay the price he demands. Whatever you induce him to take off you keep from the one to whom he is to send the money."

"Do you trust him to forward it?"

"That is fixed. The one who got me in here will see that Bilmah does not cheat."

"Very well. Although as yet I have seen scarcely more of your face than your eyes and forehead, yet I am going to pay the price. Be ready to leave this place directly. I shall have a carriage at the door in less than ten minutes."

Then Hafsa Pasha arose and sought the old trader.

CHAPTER XVI-THE SWORD IS STAINED

Nadia Budthorne had wept until the fount of tears seemed dry. She had beaten with her hands against the heavy door of her prison room until her knuckles streamed blood. She had shouted and screamed until she sank exhausted to the floor.

How much time had pa.s.sed she knew not. When a tray of food was slipped into the room she had no knowledge of the occurrence. She first saw it on the floor near the door, but not a morsel did she touch.