"If the gracious child will complete the circle of magic," she began, when Mihr-un-nissa's laugh rang out disdainfully.
"What! to see what thou thinkest? Not so! What I shall see, what I shall do, is of my own gift. Stand back woman!--touch me not!"
Drop ink, drop deep,
Cover in sleep
My night of nights and bring the day of days.
She chanted the words lingeringly and for an instant there was silence while those two women, the fat, worldly duenna, and the passion-distraught denier of her sex, listened and looked with long-drawn tense breathings. It was deadly earnest to them also. Would she see? Could she see? Such things were, they knew, beyond the magic frauds of fortune-tellers.
And then suddenly the sweet round voice rose eagerly.
"I see! Holy prophet! I see--It is the Prince; but Lord! how fat he hath grown and how old--I think he is the King----"
Fâtima under her breath muttered "An old King's better than a young Prince."
Mihr-un-nissa flashed round on her. "'An egg to-day's better than a hen to-morrow,' so there! saw-sayer!" Then she looked again. "Sher Afkân this time. He hath a scar upon his face that suits him well, and a drawn sword."
"'The soldier gains his bread, by the risking of his head,'" murmured the irrepressible Fâtima.