Page:Marion Crawford - Khaled.djvu/122

 Zehowah looked at Khaled in silence, but presently she smiled and laid her hand upon his.

'This woman loves you with her whole soul,' she said. 'You think that she has slain Abdul Kerim by secret arts, in the hope that she may marry you.'

'And your father also.'

Then they were both silent, and Zehowah covered her face, since she could not prevent tears from falling when she thought of her father, whom she had loved.

'If this be so,' she said after a long time, 'let the woman die immediately.'

'It is necessary to be just,' Khaled answered. 'I will put no one to death without witnesses, not even a captive woman, who is certainly an unbeliever at heart. Has any one seen her do these deeds, or does any one know by what means a man may be slain in his sleep, or at a feast, so that ho mark is left upon his body? At Dereyiyah your father was alone with her in the inner part of the tent, and she was singing to him that he might sleep. For I have made inquiry. And when Abdul Kerim died he was also alone with her. I cannot understand these things. But you are a woman and subtle. It may be that you can see what is too dark for me.'

'It may be. Therefore give her back to me, and I will lay a trap for her, so that she will betray herself if she has really done evil. And when we have convicted her by her own words she shall die.'