“No; my burrow is in a huddle of huts behind the mountain, in a place that is called Fedah.”
“With whom do you live?”
“My grandmother, Hatatcha.”
“Ah!”
“You have heard of her?”
“No; I was thinking only of an Egyptian Princess Hatatcha who set fashionable London crazy in my father’s time.”
Kāra leaned forward eagerly, and then cast a half fearful glance around, at the mountains, the desert, and the Nile.
“Tell me about her!” he said, sinking his voice to a whisper.
“About the Princess?” asked Winston, surprised. “Really, I know little of her history. She came in a flash of wonderful oriental magnificence, I have heard, and soon had the nobility of England suing for her favors. Lord Roane especially divorced his wife that he might marry the beautiful Egyptian; and then she refused to wed with him. There were scandals in plenty before Hatatcha disappeared from London, which she did as mysteriously as she had come, and without a day’s warning. I remember that certain infatuated admirers spent fortunes in search of her, overrunning all Egypt, but without avail. No one has ever heard of her since.”
Kāra drew a deep breath, sighing softly.