The girl started slightly; but she did not move while he looked at her, her white face, her deep, heavy-lidded eyes with their long, black fringes, and the slender white throat left uncovered by her dress. Presently she spoke again, more timidly: “Thou’rt a captive—brought home from war by my lord?”
“I am a captive. I am the slave of thy lord. May Allah pity me!” And this last was drawn from him not by the thought of his captivity, but by the sight of her surpassing loveliness.
Ahalya’s expression softened and grew wistful. “I am a captive too,” she said. “I was born in Iran.”
“The land of roses! I have been in Iran. We passed through it on our long march from Yemen. And we rested in Teheran, where our people have made treaties with the Shah.”
He hoped to see her eyes brighten when he spoke of her country. But she only gazed dreamily beyond him and answered: “I do not remember it—Teheran. I was a baby when my mother brought me into this land. She was in the house of the King of Dhár, and from there I was married to the King of Mandu.—But thou must go, Asra! Thou’lt be—killed if they find thee here.”
“Nay, lady!” Fidá suddenly fell upon one knee. “Let me stay but another moment. Thou—thou hast made captivity so fair to me!”
“Hush, Asra! Go quickly. Indeed, indeed, I would not have thee harmed.”
She drew back from him, and he, coming suddenly to his senses, rose and turned away. Yet before he reached the doorway he had twice looked back at her, and each time found her facing him, her great eyes shining, a half smile trembling round her lips.
Fidá reached the corridor on fire. It was as if he had been drinking Soma. His blood raced in his veins. His heart pounded. His hands were cold. Yet he was not too much distraught to hear the sound of some one approaching in the corridor; and, with a quick sense of self-protection, he slipped into the nearest doorway, and concealed himself behind the hangings of Ragunáth’s antechamber.
The newcomer had come down the passage; and Fidá, peering cautiously out, perceived, with a start, that it was Ragunáth who was approaching—Ragunáth, the mild, the temperate, who had left the Soma sacrifice and come hither alone, to seek—quiet? To Fidá’s surprise and momentary relief, he passed his own doorway, and went on toward the little courtyard. And now the slave, suddenly forgetting himself in his interest in the movements of the man he hated, stepped full into the passage and watched. In the courtyard Ahalya was still seated beside the fountain; but at sight of Ragunáth she rose hastily.