"Yes, he has seen me, and I have seen him. But we have not spoken, except in letters. For a whole year I heard nothing. Yet I never lost faith. I seemed to feel Manöel thinking of me, calling me, far away across the desert. I knew that we should meet in life or death. At last, one Friday two years ago—Friday, you know, is the women's day for visiting the graves of loved ones—I saw Manöel. He was dressed like a beggar. His face was stained dark brown, and nearly hidden by the hood of a ragged burnous. But I recognized the eyes. They looked into mine. I realized that he must have been waiting for me to pass with Aunt Mabrouka. He knew of course that whenever possible we went on Friday to the cemetery. I almost fainted with joy; but Allah gave me presence of mind, and strength to hide my feelings. You have noticed how sharp Aunt Mabrouka is. It's the great ambition of her life to see the daughter of the Agha married to her son. Never for one moment has she trusted me since she spied out the truth about Manöel. That Friday, though, I thwarted her. Oh, it was good to know that Manöel was near! I hardly dared to hope for more than just seeing him; but he remembered that my old nurse had a grandson in my father's goum, a fine rider, who first taught him—Manöel—to sit on a horse. Through my nurse and Ali ben Sliman I got letters from Manöel. He told me he had begun to sing in opera, and that if I would wait for him two—or at most three—years, he would have enough money saved to give me a life in Europe worthy of a prince's daughter, such as I am. He would organize some plan to steal me from home, if there were no chance of winning my father's consent, and he was sure it could be done with great bribes for many people, and relays of Maharis and horses to get us through the dune-country. I sent word that I would wait for him three years, all the years of my life! But that was before I knew my father meant me to marry Tahar.
"Not long after Manöel came to stay in Djazerta, disguised as a wandering beggar of Touggourt, my father told me what was in his mind. I feel sure Aunt Mabrouka suspected from my happier looks that I was hearing from Manöel, for she persuaded my father that I was ill. She shut me up and gave me medicine; and I was so afraid Manöel might be discovered and murdered, that I sent him word to go away at once, not even to write me again. He obeyed for my sake, not knowing what might happen to me if he refused, but by word of mouth came the message that he would always be working for our happiness. Well I guessed what he meant! Yet when my father told me about Tahar, all my faith in Manöel could not keep me brave. My father is splendid, but he will stop at nothing with those who go against him. At first he said I must be married when I was sixteen, but I reminded him that seventeen was my mother's age when he took her; and I begged him, "for luck," to let me wait. I dared not warn Manöel, lest they should have laid a trap, expecting me to write him about my marriage. I waited for months, and then it was too late, for Ali ben Sliman was away. I dared trust no one else; and so it is not yet a year ago that I sent a letter to an old address Manöel had left with Ali. I told him all that had happened, and I said, if I were to be saved it must be before my seventeenth birthday, the end of September. After that I should be dead—or else Tahar's wife. Since then, not hearing, I have sent two more letters to the same address, for I have no other. But no answer has come. Now Ali has died of fever, and I can never write to Manöel again unless—unless——"
"Unless what?" breathed Sanda.
"Unless you can manage to help me. Would you, if you could?"
"Yes," answered the other girl, without hesitating. "I'm a guest in the Agha's house, and I've eaten his salt, so it's hateful to work against him. But, some day, surely he'll be thankful to a friend who saves you from Si Tahar. I'll do anything I can. Yet I'm only a girl like yourself. What is there I can do? Have you thought?"
"If I have thought!" echoed Ourïeda. "I have thought of nothing else, for weeks and weeks, long before you came. I begged my father to find me a companion of my own age, not an Arab girl, but a European, to teach me things and make me clever like my mother. He believed I was pining with ennui; and because he had put real happiness out of my life, he was willing to console me as well as he could in some easy way. In spite of Aunt Mabrouka, who may have guessed what was in my mind, he trusts you completely, because you are your father's daughter."
"Ah, that's the dreadful part! To betray such a trust!" exclaimed Sanda.
"But after all, I am going to ask so little of you, not a hard thing at all," Ourïeda pleaded, frightened at the effect of her own words. "It is a thing only a trusted guest, a woman of the Roumia, could possibly do, yet it's very simple. And when the time comes to do it, you need only shut your eyes."
"Tell me what you mean," said Sanda anxiously.
"Every letter you write—not to your father, because he might ask questions, but to a friend—leave the envelope open, and turn your back, or go out of the room. Then don't look into the letter again, or notice if it seems thicker than before, but fasten it up tightly and seal the envelope with wax. Will you do that?"