The keeper, on watch for her, made haste to bar the door behind the carriers of the sedan, who, on their part, made greater haste to take boat and fly the city. From his sitting-room he brought a lamp, and opening the chair found the passenger in a corner to appearance dead. The head was hanging low; through the dishevelled hair the slightest margin of forehead shone marble white; a scarce perceptible rise and fall of the girlish bosom testified of the life still there. A woman at mercy, though dumb, is always eloquent.
"Here she is at last!" the keeper thought, while making a profane survey of the victim.... "Well, if beauty was his object—beauty without love—he may be satisfied. That's as the man is. I would rather have the bezants she has cost him. The market's full of just such beauty in health and strength—beauty matured and alive, not wilted like this! ... But every fish to its net, every man to his fate, as the infidels on the other shore say. To the cistern she must go, and I must put her there. Oh, how lucky! Her wits are out—prayers, tears, resistance would be uncomfortable. May the Saints keep her!" Closing the door of the sedan, he hurried out into the court, and thence down the cistern stairs to the lower platform, where he drew the boat in, and fixed it stationary by laying the oars across the gunwale from a step. The going and return were quick.
"The blood of doves, or the tears of women—I am not yet decided which is hardest on a soul.... Come along!... There is a palace at the further end of the road."...
He lifted her from the chair. In the dead faint she was more an inconvenient burden than a heavy one.
At the curbing he sat her down while he returned for the lamp. The steps within were slippery, and he dared take no risks. To get her into the boat was trying: yet he was gentle as possible—that, however, was from regard for the patron he was serving. He laid her head against a seat, and arranged her garments respectfully.
"O sweet Mother of Blacherne!" he then said, looking at the face for the first time fully exposed. "That pin on the shoulder—Heavens, how the stone flashes! It invites me." Unfastening the trinket, he secured it under his jacket, then ran on: "She is so white! I must hurry—or drop her overboard. If she dies"—his countenance showed concern, but brightened immediately. "Oh, of course she jumped overboard to escape!"
There was no further delay. With the lamp at the bow, he pushed off, and rowed vigorously. Through the pillared space he went, with many quick turns. It were vain saying exactly which direction he took, or how long he was going; after a time, the more considerable on account of the obstructions to be avoided, he reached the raft heretofore described as in the form of a cross and anchored securely between four of the immense columns by which the roof of the cistern was upheld. Still Lael slept the merciful sleep.
Next the keeper carried the unresisting body to a door of what in the feeble light seemed a low, one-storied house—possibly hut were a better word—thence into an interior where the blackness may be likened to a blindfold many times multiplied. Yet he went to a couch, and laid her upon it.
"There—my part is done!" he muttered, with a long-drawn breath.... "Now to illuminate the Palace! If she were to awake in this pitch-black"—something like a laugh interrupted the speech—"it would strangle her—oil from the press is not thicker."
He brought in the light—in such essential midnight it was indispensable, and must needs be always thought of—and amongst the things which began to sparkle was a circlet of furbished metal suspended from the centre of the ceiling. It proved to be a chandelier, provided with a number of lamps ready for lighting; and when they were all lit, the revelation which ensued while a lesson in extravagance was not less a tribute to the good taste of the reckless genius by which it was conceived.