'"Because, whether given as hostages in peace, or taken as spoil in war, the Feringhee women will become the gholaums—the slaves of the Afghan chiefs."
'My blood ran cold and hot alternately as she spoke, and something like an imprecation escaped me. She laid a hand upon my arm, and drawing nearer, said in her most winning voice: "But what is all this to you? If you have no wife, no sister, then what can the fate or fortune of the rest matter?"
'The name of Mabel rose to my lips, but died there, for a new light broke upon me with a knowledge of what my preoccupation of mind, during all October and the subsequent weeks, had prevented me seeing; that, influenced by pity, gratitude, and the singular respect with which I, as a gentleman, treated her—a respect to which she was all unaccustomed—the wife of Zemaun Khan actually loved me; and the knowledge of this filled me with only confusion and dismay, for if he discovered the fact our lives were forfeited, and already some of his household might be suspiciously cognisant of it.
'"What is all this to you, I repeat?" she asked, her clasp on my arm tightening.
'"More than I can tell you," said I, covering my face with my hands, and striving to think.
'"Be comforted; in losing your friends, you have not lost all who may love you—you have still me!" she added in a low voice, as she laid her head in a nestling way on my shoulder.
'This was coming to the point with a vengeance, and adding incalculably to the perils that surrounded me; and how was I to temporise with this hot-blooded and impulsive little oriental, whose sudden love might quite as rapidly change to bitter hate?
'"My God—could I but escape!" I exclaimed.
'"You can; but on one condition."
'"Oh, name it!"