Rustem had needed some time to collect his senses after this stupendous surprise, but now he exclaimed:  “You—­you—­to Berenice, and over the mountains. . . .”

“Yes, over the mountains,” she repeated, “and if need be, through the clouds.”

“But such a thing was never heard of, never heard of on this earth!” the Persian remonstrated.  “A girl, a little lady like you—­a messenger, and all alone with a clumsy fellow like me.  No, no, no!”

“And again no, and a hundred times over no!” cried the child merrily.  “The little lady will stop at home and you will take a boy with you—­a boy called Marius, not Mary.”

“A boy!  But I thought.—­It is enough to puzzle one....”

“A boy who is a girl and a boy in one,” laughed Mary.  “But if you must have it in plain words:  I shall dress up as a boy to go with you; to-morrow when we set out you will see, you will take me for my own brother.”

“Your own brother!  With a little face like yours!  Then the most impossible things will become possible,” cried Rustem laughing, and he looked down good humoredly at the little girl.  But suddenly the preposterousness of her scheme rose again before his mind, and he exclaimed half-frantically:  “But then my master!—­It will not do—­It will never do!”

“It is for his sake that you will do us this service,” said Mary confidently.  “He is Paula’s friend and protector; and when he hears what you have done for her he will praise you, while if you leave us in the lurch I am quite sure. . . "

“Well?”

“That he will say:  ’I thought Rustem was a shrewder man and had a better heart.’”

“You really think he will say that?”

“As surely as our house stands before us!—­Well, we have no time for any more discussion, so it is settled:  we start together.  Let me find you in the garden early to-morrow morning.  You must tell your Mandane that you are called away by important business.”

“And Dame Joanna?” asked the Persian, and his voice was grave and anxious as he went on:  “The thing I like least, child, is that you should not ask her, and take her into your confidence.”

“But she will hear all about it, only not immediately,” replied Mary.  “And the day after to-morrow, when she knows what I have gone off for and that you are with me, she will praise us and bless us; yes, she will, as surely as I hope that the Almighty will succor us in our journey!”

At these words, which evidently came from the very depths of her heart, the Masdakite’s resistance altogether gave way—­just in time, for their walk was at an end, and they both felt as though the long distance had been covered by quite a few steps.  They had passed close to several groups of noisy and quarrelsome citizens, and many a funeral train had borne the plague-stricken dead to the grave by torchlight under their very eyes, but they had heeded none of these things.