"I must go back to my master; and you see, common right and justice. . . ."
"You do not choose to leave your sweetheart; not even if the kind creature who watched over you day and night should die for it—die the most cruel and horrible death! You were ready enough to call that other, as you supposed, a cur—that other whom no one nursed till he was well again; but as for yourself. . . ."
"Have patience then! Hear me, little Mistress!" Rustem broke in again, and pulled away his hand. "I am quite willing to wait and Mandane must just submit. But one man is not good for all tasks. To ride, or guide a train of merchandise, to keep the cameldrivers in order, to pitch a camp—-all that I can do; but to parley with grand folks, to go straight up to such a man as the great chief Amru with prayers and supplications—all that, you see, sweetheart—even if it were to save my own father, that would be. . . ."
"But who asks you to do all that?" said the child. "You may stand as mute as a fish: it will be your companion's business to do the talking."
"There is to be another one then? But, great Masdak! I hope that will be enough at any rate!"
"Why will you constantly interrupt me?" the little girl put in. "Listen first and raise objections after wards. The second messenger—now open your ears wide—it is I, I myself;—but if you stand still again, you will really betray me. The long and short of it is, that as surely as I mean to save Paula, I mean to go forth to meet Amru, and if you refuse to go with me I will set out alone and try whether Gibbus the hunchback. . . ."
Rustem had needed some time to collect his senses after this stupendous surprise, but now he exclaimed: "You—you—to Berenice, and over the mountains. . . ."
"Yes, over the mountains," she repeated, "and if need be, through the clouds."
"But such a thing was never heard of, never heard of on this earth!" the Persian remonstrated. "A girl, a little lady like you—a messenger, and all alone with a clumsy fellow like me. No, no, no!"
"And again no, and a hundred times over no!" cried the child merrily. "The little lady will stop at home and you will take a boy with you—a boy called Marius, not Mary."