‘And that makes his heart more heavy,’ said Eva.
‘He dwells too much in walls,’ said the great Sheikh. ‘He should have ridden into the desert, instead of you, my child. He should have brought the ransom himself; ‘and the great Sheikh sent two curling streams out of his nostrils.
‘Whoever be the bearer, he is the payer,’ said Eva. ‘It is he who is the prisoner, not this son of Franguestan, who, you think, is your captive.’
‘Your father wishes to scrape my piastres,’ said the great Sheikh, in a stern voice, and looking his granddaughter full in the face.
‘If he wanted to scrape piastres from the desert,’ said Eva, in a sweet but mournful voice, ‘would Besso have given you the convoy of the Hadj without condition or abatement?’
The great Sheikh drew a long breath from his chibouque. After a momentary pause, he said, ‘In a family there should ever be unity and concord; above all things, words should not be dark. How much will the Queen of the English give for her brother?
‘He is not the brother of the Queen of the English,’ said Eva.
‘Not when he is my spoil, in my tent,’ said Amalek, with a cunning smile; ‘but put him on a round hat in a walled city, and then he is the brother of the Queen of the English.’
‘Whatever his rank, he is the charge of Besso, my father and your son,’ said Eva; ‘and Besso has pledged his heart, his life, and his honour, that this young prince shall not be hurt. For him he feels, for him he speaks, for him he thinks. Is it to be told in the bazaars of Franguestan that his first office of devotion was to send this youth into the desert to be spoiled by the father of his wife?’
‘Why did my daughters marry men who live in cities?’ exclaimed the old Sheikh.