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“And what will happen to the girl in the meantime?” demanded Hector.

“Nothing, saheb. See—Musa Al-Mutasim is not as I am”—he smiled, shamelessly, at the princess who, being perversely feminine and as perversely Oriental, liked him better with every word he spoke—“no! he is not as I am, full-blooded, a dallier with the words of love, a drawer of the sword of passion. Passion? By my beard! Gold is his passion—for he is a hoarder of coin, a swollen money bag, a cursed borrower of half-rupees! He only holds the girl for ransom!”

“But …”

“But”—continued the governor—“when he sees that there is no gold for him, but a dagger across his throat, he will pipe a different tune. Trust me, saheb, and do not worry. I know that obese son of a thousand devils!”

He walked away, snapping his fingers, well pleased with himself; and it was a proof of the man's eloquence, in a way of the man's greatness, that, for a moment, Hector was persuaded that the scheme was perfectly feasible, that, with the exception of certain unavoidable inconveniences, Jane Warburton was really safe, and it took the old nurse to see the flaw in the argument.

“Fool!” she shouted after Abderrahman Yahiah Khan's retreating back. “A blind fool, filling the lap of the morning wind with seventy times seventy bundles of empty vaporings! For”—she turned to Hector—“consider! Will Musa Al-Mutasim spare the girl when he sees that he is lost?”