But unfortunately the odalisks were not very obedient, and the sultan was not very persuasive, for after some exchange of words, with the old Cypriote as an interpreter, all the women fell like so many furies on Du Pluvier, who was lost to sight amid their raised and threatening arms.
I never saw the end of this entertaining sight, for the vessel rounded a promontory which completely hid the palace from our sight.
Half an hour afterwards the captain said to me:
"I would like to know the meaning of that thick smoke that is going up from the upper part of Khios, in the direction of the villa you lived in."
Noémi's threat to burn the palace if I abandoned her flashed through my mind.
Had these furious maidens carried her project to its execution? What had become of Du Pluvier? Had he perished in the flames entwined in the arms of his slaves? I could not answer the question, and we very soon were out of sight of the island, and in a terrible state of anxiety as to the fate of poor Du Pluvier.
[THE PRINCESSE DE FERSEN]
CHAPTER XII
THE ALEXINA
Such were the impressions left upon me by a year's sojourn in the island of Khios, such the motives of my abrupt departure for France on board the Russian frigate Alexina.