“Mea,” she said, “tell him what you will. He has seen; but he is a true man, and I think will keep our secrets if he promises, especially as he knows that if he does not, then I will do my best to kill him.”
Rupert laughed, for he was not frightened at Bakhita’s threats. Meanwhile the lady called Mea was searching his face with those wondrous eyes of hers. Then she spoke in a low, rich voice and in English, not Arabic.
“Will you promise to be true to me, Gentleman?” she asked, in a curious idiom and speaking with a strong accent.
“If you mean not to tell your secrets, certainly!” he answered, smiling.
“My secrets, they are very little ones, only babies so high,” and she held her hand near to the floor. “You see, Bey, I live far out in the desert, and my people and I, we still old Egyptians though we cannot read their writings, and only remember a little—a very little, about the gods and what they mean. Now, dressed like my mothers when they pray, I come here to-night with Bakhita, my aunt, your friend, to make offering to that god with the sun upon his head, because I in much danger and wish to ask him to bring me safe back to my own place.”
“Where, then, do you come from, lady?”
“I? I come from school—Mission School at Luxor. I tired of living in the stupid dark, so I go there two year ago to learn all about the white people, and the English talk, and—” she added with triumph, “you hear, I learned him.”
“Yes,” he said, “you learned him very well. And what else did you learn?”
“Much. Reading, writing, ’rithmetic, gography, history of U.S.A., British Empire, and old Egypt, especially old Egypt, because I one of him, though they no know that who think me common girl, no one know that but you, Bey, who catch me in act of worship. I learn religion too, and think it very good, much the same as mine, only different.”
“Are you a Christian, then, lady?” asked Rupert again.