"What is it?" asked the sufferer, much disturbed. How pale she was at that moment!
"Nothing, nothing, my darling! Some one has sent for me, but I don't mean to go."
But Lady Apafi had perceived the points of the Turkish lances through the rifts of the window-curtains, and she cried despairingly—
"Michael, they want to carry you off!" Then she clasped her husband convulsively to her heart. "I won't let you go, Michael! I won't lose you again. You shall not be dragged off into captivity. Rather let them kill me."
"Calm yourself, dear child," said Apafi soothingly. "I really don't know what they want me for. I have certainly done nothing to offend these good people. I suppose it is an attempt to levy black-mail. I'll satisfy them."
"Alas! I have an evil foreboding. My heart fails me. Some calamity threatens you," stammered the sick woman; then, bursting into a violent fit of sobbing, she threw herself on her husband's bosom. "Michael, I shall never see you again."
Meanwhile, the Aga outside began to feel bored, so he fell to hammering at the door, and cried—
"Apafi! hi! Apafi! come out! I may not enter your wife's chamber, for that would be an abomination to a servant of Allah; but if you don't come out at once I'll burn your house down."
"I'd better go, perhaps," said Apafi, trying to soothe his wife with kisses. "My refusal would only make matters worse for us. They are sure to let me go. I shall be back in the twinkling of an eye."
"I shall never see you again," gasped Anna. She was near to swooning.