“You have spoken of the past, Rajah Murad,” she said at last, in a low musical voice.
“Yes,” he said, smiling; “that happy past.”
“I was very weak and foolish then, Rajah,” she said. “I was but a girl, and I fear I loved admiration. It was that which made me act so foolishly and ill. But when I tell you my sorrow for my acts—when I tell you how bitterly I repent it all—you will forgive me, and will take me back.”
“For your people to seize and shoot me like a dog?” he said, quietly.
“Oh, no, no!” she cried, “they would not do you harm. You will have taken me back, and for this they shall not do you ill.”
“Speak again like that,” he cried with his eyes lighting up. “That makes you look more beautiful than you were before.”
She started and shuddered, but she went on:
“I ask your forgiveness for the wrong I, in my foolish, girlish wilfulness, did you; and now that you have punished me so severely as you have, you will pardon me, Rajah—the weak, helpless woman who prays you to send her back.”
“I punish you!” he cried, with an affectation of surprise. “I would not punish you. To keep you with me it was necessary that you should look like these my people, and I was sorry to give orders that it should be done. I half feared the result; but I do not repent it now that I have seen how it makes you more beautiful than ever.”
“But you will take me back to my father?” she pleaded. “I will forgive everything. I will not breathe a word about this outrage. No one shall know that it was Rajah Murad who took me from my home. Only send me back safely, and I will bless you.”