Page:Harold Lamb--The House of the Falcon.djvu/126

 shaggy, miniature pony, with a coolie running ahead. Endless flocks of sheep scampered away from them. "Where," she remarked, emboldened by the fresh sunlight, the intoxicating air, and the recovery of Aravang, "is the house that is to be mine, Iskander? You said we were coming to it."

The Arab pointed up into the mountains they were ascending.

"There. In Yakka Arik. But the house belongs to your master, to one who is a master of many men."

Bewildered and disturbed, the girl could only say: "My—master?"

"Yess. If we are in time, and he is still alive. Then you may become a favored slave, or perhaps a wife. You are fair of face."

Stung, Edith sat up rigidly.

"I—a slave?"

Iskander shrugged.

"Or whatever your master wills. How should I know his mind?"

"And if"—Edith pondered former words of her captor—"we should find that this man is dead?"

"Then you would be less," the Arab indicated the flying dust of sand under the carriage wheels, "than that." Whereupon he turned his back deliberately, and Edith sank back upon the straw, biting her lips. A hand touched her sleeve and Aravang was upright on his elbow, his scarred face close to hers.

"Dono-van Khan," he whispered.

It had not occurred to Edith that Aravang understood their words. But there was an unmistakable gleam of intelligence in the native's dark eyes. "Whom are you taking me to?" She barely breathed the question.