Page:Harold Lamb--The House of the Falcon.djvu/62

 but a white woman I will not touch. With my own ears I heard the cannon of the French warships battering the gates of Constantinople. The Protector of the Faithful is but a shadow and the cloak of Islam is rent asunder. I know, I know."

"All this," said Monsey impatiently, "is idle talk. Abbas, there is a place where the hand of the Englishman does not reach. You know, for you lay hid there many months."

"Above?" Abbas pointed upward and to the north.

"Aye—beyond the Hills. Once the Cossack posts were set there, like the links of a strong chain. Now, the chain is broken. The tribesman grazes his cattle over the ashes of camp fires. The priests of Islam chant their prayers unheard, save by true believers. You have seen that, Abbas!"

"It is true."

Monsey tapped his chin reflectively with lean fingers.

"No American consul is within a thousand miles. Do you think I am a child, wet with mother's milk, to want to make the American girl a slave to sell at a price? Not when I love her, as I do. Allah, and all his saints!—she is beautiful. I have been thinking."

The Alaman was silent, pondering. Monsey, who had been the link by which he sold the choicest of his women to be "servants" of the Russian officers on the border during a former régime, never spoke idly. The dissolute gentleman—once an officer himself—had profited much by Abbas. But the shrewd merchant was cautious lest the whims of his companion should involve him in needless trouble.

"Once beyond the Kashmir frontier, we would be safe, Abbas," muttered the white man, "Fraser-Carnie—a disciplined numskull—would not dare send any of