After each prayer she stood listening, as though waiting for an immediate response—some miraculous intervention in her behalf. Often seized by utter despair, she sank her fingers deep into her thick brown locks, and cried:
"No help, no help, O God! O God!"
At every sound of a footstep without, or of any commotion in the court below, her pale face grew paler, and she trembled with fear and revulsion. She was expecting Kostakes. For a week now the girl had been shut up in this manner. Kostakes had left her in the care of his harem, with stern commands that she be kindly treated and all her wants supplied. Ayesha and Souleima had derived much pleasure from attending upon Panayota, as though she were indeed a member of the harem and their lord's favorite; for thus they caused Ferende, whom they cordially hated, much unhappiness. It seemed to Panayota that she had been in captivity an age. For the first three or four days she had hoped for a rescue by Lindbohm and Curtis and their band of insurgents. Time and again the wild scenes which she had witnessed passed through her mind as she stood with hands clasped and eyes half closed in the middle of the floor. She saw again the impetuous Swede chasing Ampates out of town because the scoundrel had wished to give her up; she saw Curtis standing before her with his smoking rifle, while the fallen Turk, his features still twitching in the death agony, lay at her feet.
But as the days passed and no help came, her keen hope faded into the blackness of despair.
"They cannot find me," she moaned; "perhaps they're dead. Perhaps they think I have yielded to the Turk, and they despise me. Do they not know that I would die first?" Whenever she thought of death, her mind involuntarily sought for some method by which she could accomplish it, if worst came to worst. To hold her breath, to plunge her head against the side of the wall, to strangle herself with a strip torn from her bed clothing,—all these ideas suggested themselves. And as often as she thought of self-destruction, there rose to memory a slender white shaft that had frequently been pointed out to her in childhood. For there had once been a suicide in her native village, and the body had been buried in a lonely place on a hill, far away from the holy comradeship, the blessed crosses and the benediction of God's acre. This isolated tomb had made a great impression on her childish mind. She and the other children had always crossed themselves when they saw it, and they never mentioned the dead man's name. It seemed a terrible thing not to be buried in consecrated ground.
CHAPTER XXVII
A PROMISE OF HELP
"I wonder if that Greek will come to her senses and supplant me?" mused Ferende. "If she keeps on at her present rate Kostakes will soon get over his infatuation. Lord! But she's growing ugly, with that sallow complexion and those big black marks under her eyes. She never saw the day she was half as beautiful as I am."
Going to Panayota's room, she took down the key that was hanging outside the door and went in. Locking the door on the inside she stood for a moment looking at the girl, who sat on the side of the bed, her face buried in her hands. Panayota glanced up when Ferende first entered and then took no further notice of her visitor. She knew that this was the favorite, although Ferende, consulting her dignity, had had little to say to her.
"Panayota," very sweetly, "I am your friend. I, too, am a Greek, and was brought up in the Greek religion, but the Turks killed my father and mother and took me away when I was very young. I cannot help being what I am, but if I were in your place, I would let them kill me before they should turn me into a Turk. And you a priest's daughter, too!"