Part 37 (2/2)
”I understood enough,” said she ”This lingua franca is none so different froain she asked--”Why did you deny hi down at her
”Do you ask why?”
”Indeed,” she said bitterly, ”there is scarce the need perhaps And yet can it be that your lust of vengeance is so insatiable that sooner than willingly forgo an ounce of it you will lose your head?”
His face becaain ”Of course,” he sneered, ”it would be so that you'd interpret me”
”Nay If I have asked it is because I doubt”
”Do you realize what it can mean to becolance fell from his, yet her voice was composed when she answered hi the prey of Oliver-Reis or Sakr-el-Bahr, or whatever they may call you?”
”If you say that it is all one to you there's an end to o to him If I resisted hieance upon you It was because the thought of it fills me with horror”
”Then it should fill you with horror of yourself no less,” said she
His answer startled her
”Perhaps it does,” he said, scarcely above a lance and looked as if she would have spoken But he went on, suddenly passionate, without giving her time to interrupt him ”O God! It needed this to showI have done Asad has no such ht punish you But heO God!” he groaned, and for a moment put his face to his hands
She rose slowly, a strange agitation stirring in her, her bosoht condition he failed to observe it And then like a ray of hope to illuiven hi a devout Muslim, would never dare to violate
”There is a way,” he cried ”There is the way suggested by Fenzileh at the pros of her malice” An instant he hesitated, his eyes averted Then he e ”You must marry me”
It was almost as if he had struck her She recoiled Instantly suspicion awoke in her; swiftly it drew to a conviction that he had but sought to trick her by a pretended penitence
”Marry you!” she echoed
”Ay,” he insisted And he set himself to explain to her how if she were his wife she ood Musli outrage to the Prophet's holy law, and that, whoever ht be so disposed, Asad was not of those, since Asad was perfervidly devout ”Thus only,” he ended, ”can I place you beyond his reach”
But she was still scornfully reluctant
”It is too desperate a remedy even for so desperate an ill,” said she, and thus drove him into a frenzy of impatience with her
”You rily ”You ht to Asad's hareem--and not even as his wife, but as his slave Oh, you must trust me for your own sake! You hed in the intensity of her scorn ”Trust you! How can I trust one who is a renegade and worse?”
He controlled hiht conquer her consent
”You are very un h which I have gone and what yourself contributed to it Knowing no falsely I was accused and what other bitter wrongs I suffered, consider that I was one to whom the man and the woman I most loved in all this world had proven false I had lost faith in ade, and a corsair, it was because there was no other gate by which I could escape the unutterable toil of the oar to which I had been chained” He looked at her sadly ”Can you find no excuse for me in all that?”