"I no longer doubted. I took the hand she held out to me and—
"'But what are you doing here in Mecca?' I asked.
"'I live in Mecca,' she replied quietly. 'I have lived here for twenty years.'
"I looked round that bare and sordid little room with horror. What strange fate had cast her up there? I asked her, and she told me her story. Guess what it was!"
Ralston shook his head.
"I can't imagine."
Hatch turned to Shere Ali.
"Can you?" he asked, and even as he asked he saw that a change had come over the young Prince's mood. He was no longer oppressed with envy and discontent. He was leaning forward with parted lips and a look in his eyes which Hatch had not seen that evening—a look as if hope had somehow dared to lift its head within him. And there was more than a look of hope; there was savagery too.
"No. I want to hear," replied Shere Ali. "Go on, please! How did the
Englishwoman come to Mecca?"
"She was a governess in the family of an officer at Cawnpore when the
Mutiny broke out, more than forty years ago," said Hatch.