“And her story is a series of strange events. It is as follows: Azrael suspected her of having abetted the escape of my father and Ichabod, therefore determined to kill her. She gained a temporary respite through having saved her master’s life from an assassin plotting to supplant him; though she periled her own in so doing.
“As Azrael awaited her recovery from the wounds she had suffered in his behalf, he devised another scheme which he hoped would compass his favorite’s destruction and his own elevation. He was ambitious to be Sherif of Mecca. To attain that honor he saw he must needs do something to enhance his popularity greatly with his Mohammedan followers, and so conceived the plan of getting into his power, Harrimai of the Jews and Adolphus of the Christians. His purpose was to rack those two leaders into apostasy and the betrayal of their followers. Had he succeeded, the event would have been crushing to Jews and Christians east of Jordan. He promised Nourahmal her freedom and restoration to her Georgian home if she aided him in his design; though he did not disclose his purpose to her beyond that of securing the presence of Von Gombard and Harrimai in his camp. She felt that there was some malign, hidden purpose in her master’s breast, but deemed it expedient, at the outset, to seem to co-operate in his plan.”
“But how was the sheik using his strategy against Nourahmal?”
“As a fiend! He, having no conception of a friendship between a man and a woman that was pure and free from intrigue, suspected the relations between his favorite and Ichabod. He thought the two only needed the opportunity to precipitate into perfidy. He laid his plan darkly, and, leaving a trusty follower to carry it out, hastened forward to Mecca.”
“But surely, Nourahmal was not what he thought her!”
“No; though training her as a plastic child, he judged she was what he had tried to make her; at her worst she was. But let me continue. The assault on my parents and Ichabod, on the road between Gerash and Bozrah, was the opening of the drama. The plan then was to seize Rizpah, and under pretense of negotiating for her ransom, inveigle Harrimai into the hands of Azrael’s followers. Nourahmal was to aid in this by affecting tears, pleading for pity and suggesting the sending for the girl’s father.”
“What besetments perilous we pass through, all unknown to us! Harrimai and your parents, to their death, never suspected the devices worked against them!”
“Nor dreamed that a harem favorite, a mere girl, and an utter stranger to them, was their good angel!”
“Good angel! How?”
“She witnessed the assault from behind a sequestering wall, in company with a follower of the sheik, commissioned to kill her instantly if she faltered in the part appointed her. This infernal guard was also charged to insinuate into her mind the feasibility of elopement with Ichabod. If she could be compromised, Azrael knew he could justify her death to those who remembered her heroic defense of himself. That was to follow as soon as she had done her part in inveigling Harrimai to Azrael’s camp.”