“Shall we risk entering, doctor?” he asked; “or shall we wait for the alarm?”
“I doubt if we could hear an alarm where we are,” was the answer. “Let us go in.”
David’s self-possession seemed suddenly to desert him.
“I iss no Moslem,” said he, beginning to tremble; “but I respect de harem. Id iss to die if one iss caught. Davit vill stay here ant vait for you.”
The doctor locked his fingers fast in the Jew’s collar.
“You’ll come with us,” he declared. “Open the door, David!”
Perhaps David did not intend to obey so readily. He had scarcely touched his quivering forefinger to the dull metal of the spring when a sharp click was heard and the door moved and swung outward.
A gleam of light saluted them, half dazzling their eyes, and the group remained motionless, staring wonderingly at the scene the open panel disclosed. Perhaps the Colonel had expected to see in the khan’s harem a mass of silken draperies, luxurious couches and priceless rugs, while scowling black eunuchs guarded with their naked swords a group of henna-dyed, be-painted and bespangled girls. Instead, he looked upon a scene that somehow reminded him of home. The furnishings were of an oriental character, it is true, but they were simple and in good taste, and an undefinable air of refinement pervaded the room.
Beside a table on which stood a bronze lamp sat a middle-aged lady with a beautiful face and sweet gray eyes. She was robed in a conventional European gown and seemed to be engaged, when so suddenly interrupted, in reading a well worn copy of the New York Herald. At her feet, upon a low stool, sat Janet, listlessly sewing upon some trifle that rested in her lap. On the other side of the table, his dark eyes fixed upon his work, sat the man we as yet know only as Merad, the Persian physician, busily engaged in writing.
At the abrupt opening of the panel, the existence of which was evidently unknown to them, the startled group turned wondering eyes upon the intruders, who seemed fully as astonished as themselves.