I still had a few spectators of my misery, but their zest at the sight had somehow departed. No one now flung either taunts or pebbles. I began to solace myself with the idea of an hour’s quiet before nightfall in which to think; bitter comfort undisturbed my own thoughts, when a group of chattering slave girls neared my prison. They gathered round it with unseemly jests and laughter. Their tinkling anklets were of gold, and of gold also were the bracelets on their bare brown arms. They belonged, I saw, to some great house, but the thought of them and their concerns did not affect me.

Lestrade, now, in such a case, even such an evil case as mine, would have held discourse with them. He would have saluted, I doubt not, with flattering words, such as through their hampering veils seemed comely.

But I am of sterner stuff. Their chatter irked me, and their light-heartedness was an insult and a cruelty. I would not be a show and a delight to such as these. So I held my head down, and drew my cloak about me, and alike to their questioning and their jibes, maintained a sullen silence. Seeing which, she who seemed the leader in their merriment drew nearer.

“I will have speech of the monster,” she cried, somewhat in this wise: “Behold neither sweet words from fair lips, nor jibes, nor hard stones move him. Yet, by the Veiled One I swear it, this I warrant shall quicken his sense—the moody one;” and she drew from her hair a long gold pin. “At least, will I see if his blood be red like that of other mortals.”

At these words the other slaves fell back, and some would have stayed her, but with a light laugh she flung aside alike their restraining hands and words, and came close, close to the bars of the cage. Now, I am not a man to fear the prick of a weapon wielded by a woman, nor, for that matter, in fair fight with any man; but I was mad that my quiet be broken, and over and above that, her boldness vexed me, for I was one who never could bear the forwardness of maids.

So, as the pin-point touched my flesh, I seized the bodkin ’twixt thumb and finger, and in my grasp it broke, or came apart, I know not which, and I saw that it was hollow.

At the instant the slave’s veil slipped aside a little. I saw her finger seek her lip to caution me to silence. The next moment her shrill scream rang through the air.

“The brute! He has my golden pin,” she cried, and wrung her hands, and thus bewailing her loss, passed, after a little, with her companions out of sight.

Then, as soon as I could, being unobserved, I looked closer on the bodkin, and, as I held it this way and that, to catch the meaning of some characters graven faintly on the surface, a small round pellet slipped from out the hollow pin, and rolled along the floor of my cage. It lay upon the very edge, but I had caught the Queen’s name in the short sentence before me, so stooped not to pick it up, until I read:

“Within, find help when all fails;”