"Extraordinary! How is it possible not to find out who the father of your child is? Why, I would get the wretch from the bottom of the sea! But Shiha knows who came to you then. Would you like me to threaten him so that he should tell? ... Well, why are you silent? Do you want me to?"
"Do what you like, but don't torment, don't torment me so! Better make an end of it." Maki moaned, pale and trembling as though she were on the rack.
Rita drew back, and she trembled, too.
"Make an end of it? Do you think I know everything and merely tease you, play cat and mouse with you? Well, perhaps I do know.... What's the matter, why are you so frightened? Perhaps you know, too? A-ah, I've caught you! Speak, tell me, who is it? He?"
"Yes, he, Saakera," Maki answered, with apparent calm, looking straight into her eyes. "Well, kill me, I don't care..."
Rita brought the knife out of her bosom and flung it far away. She buried her face in her hands and sat for a few minutes without moving; then she drew her hands away from her face and put them on Maki's shoulders.
"There, it's a good thing you told me or very likely I would have killed you, really. Do you remember Ankhi's doll?"
When Rita and Ankhi were little they had once a fight over a clay doll, a hideous thing that they both loved passionately. Rita took it from her sister, who pulled it out of her hands, and broke it into bits against the wall. Then Rita fell upon Ankhi like a fury and bit her throat; the nurses had difficulty in dragging her off. And in the night she stole away into the garden and ate some poison berries, 'spiders' eggs'; she very nearly died.
"The devil entered into me then, and now, too. We have all taken after father—we are possessed.... Yes, it is a good thing you told me. All is well now—it's over! But I do wonder at myself: I thought I would kill you if you told me; and now I don't feel anything. Silly girls had a fight over a doll, but perhaps it was not worth while, after all. You know what a number of wives Saakera has. Sheep are in the stalls, fish in the hatchery and we in his palace. You and I are no better than the others. You gave me your betrothed, I gave you my husband, so we are quits and that's an end of it. We'll be friends as before, better than before. When the baby is born—it must be a boy, we don't want a girl—we'll look after it together.... What's the matter, why are you silent again? Don't you believe me?"
"I do, but I am afraid...."