“But you will be grateful, anyway, my little blossom.  I promise you that you will learn to be very grateful—­”

“It is easier to die than to learn to love a hated one,” she reminded him softly, leaning towards him.  “I can die very willingly, monsieur....  And you would not want a wife before whom there was always an object of terror—­”

Through the dusk her great eyes sought his.

“Be generous—­and harm him not,” she breathed.  “I beg of you, I implore—­”

“And if I am—­lenient—­you will always be grateful?”

Mutely she nodded, her eyes trying pitifully to read that shadowy mask of mockery he turned towards her.

“And how grateful could you be, little dove?”

Pitifully she smiled.

“Could you,” he murmured, “could you learn to kiss?”

He leaned nearer and involuntarily she shrank back.  Faintly, “At this moment—­I beg of you, monsieur—­”

“Oh, if it is to be an affair of moments!  We shall never find the right one.  But you were so full of promises—­”

“I will do anything,” said Aimee, convulsively, “if you will promise me—­”

“Come, then a kiss.  A peck from my little dove.”

She looked at him out of wretched eyes.

“And you promise to free him, not to hurt him—­”

“I promise not to hurt a hair of his head.  Come, that is generous, isn’t it?  As to freeing him—­h’m—­that is for later.  Perhaps, if you are very good.  A kiss then... and later....”

He bent over her.  She shut her eyes and heard the taunt of his laugh.  She kissed him, and he laughed again.

“What is it the Afghan poets say?  ’Kissed lips lose no sweetness, but renew their freshness with the moon.’  Certainly if you have ever been kissed, little bud, you have lost no dew....  Delicious....  I shall hurry back.”

He cast a hard look down at her as she sat there, her arms drooping at her sides.  He looked about the room as if consideringly, then nodded at an unseen door at the right.

“Fatima is there if you want lights or assistance....  And Alsamit, Yussuf’s brother, is at the other door beyond.  Do not stir, little bird.  I shall be back very soon.”

“And he—­you promised—­”

“I shall not hurt a hair of his head.”

But he was smiling evilly in the darkness as he drew shut the door and returned to the bound figure by the guarding black.

For a moment he stood silent, considering, while Yussuf looked up with glistening-eyed intentness like an eager dog ready for the word of attack.

Then in hasty Turkish the general gave his directions and the black nodded and strode to a portiere, jerking it down, which he wrapped about Ryder’s helpless form.

Then he hoisted his burden over his huge shoulder and bore it on after the general.

Across the great room they went and down the long stairs up which that day a most complacent Hamdi Bey had escorted his just-glimpsed bride.