An embarrassing silence fell upon the three as they again rode forward. Dirrag was plainly suspicious of Janet’s secret conference with the rebel, and Bessie’s sweet face was masked with a grieved and despondent expression that was new to it.
But Janet was too preoccupied to notice her friend’s distress, nor did she deign to explain, even with a word, her strange interview with Kasam.
CHAPTER XIV
THE VEILED WOMAN.
“What does it mean?” demanded Maie, stamping her small foot in passion. “Tell me at once, my father—what does it mean?”
The vizier sat doubled up in his chair a picture of abject humiliation and despair. His chin lay inert against his chest; the white beard streamed to his waist, where long and bony fingers clutched it and dragged at the meshes nervously; his eyes refused to meet the glowing orbs his incensed daughter turned upon him like searchlights baring the soul.
“Will you speak?” she asked, scornfully. “Will you speak, most sublime and magnificent Vizier—if only to proclaim yourself an ass?”
“Have peace—have peace!” muttered Agahr, moving uneasily. “How was I to know that Merad the Persian would return?”
“Oh trusting and childlike servant—thou one innocent in all the world of guile!”
“Ahmed tells no one of his plans,” the vizier went on, heedless of her jibes; “nor can I be expected to probe the secret thoughts of the Khan. When Merad departed there was no hint of his mission or that he expected soon to return. My spy waits in Ahmed’s private chamber; my spy serves his every meal; my spy listens to the secret conferences he holds with sirdars and officers of the household. If the Khan sneezes, I know it; if he stirs abroad my eyes follow his every step. But his thoughts, being known only to himself and to Allah, baffle my efforts, and the jargon he speaks to the foreign physician is a language none else can understand.”
Maie clutched at her silken scarf and rent its folds in twain, twisting and tearing the tender fabric until its threads lay scattered in all directions.