"You shall not be kept in prison!" she exclaimed. "It's monstrous—horrible! I was afraid it would be like this. That's why I had to wait and make plenty of money. Dearest, I'm rich. Everything's for you. You taught me to dance, and it's by dancing I've earned such a lot—almost a fortune. So you see, it's yours. I've got enough to bribe Cassim to let you go, if he likes money, and isn't kind to you. Because, if he isn't kind, it must be a sign he doesn't love you, really."
Saidee laughed, a very bitter laugh. "He does like money. And he doesn't like me at all—any more."
"Then—" Victoria's face brightened—"then he will take the ten thousand dollars I've brought, and he'll let you go away with me."
"Ten thousand dollars!" Saidee laughed again. "Do you know who Cassim—as you call him—is?"
The girl looked puzzled. "Who he is?"
"I see you don't know. The secret's been kept from you, somehow, by his friend who brought you here. You'll tell me how you came; but first I'll answer your question. The Cassim ben Halim you knew, has been dead for eight years."
"They told me so in Algiers. But—do you mean—have you married again?"
"I said the Cassim ben Halim you knew, is dead. The Cassim I knew, and know now, is alive—and one of the most important men in Africa, though we live like this, buried among the desert dunes, out of the world—or what you'd think the world."
"My world is where you are," Victoria said.
"Dear little Babe! Mine is a terrible world. You must get out of it as soon as you can, or you'll never get out at all."