Hassan cast a troubled look upon Olaj Beg, who stroked his long white beard and smiled.
"If thou dost permit thy damsels to ask questions, thou must needs answer them," said he.
At these words Azrael leaped from her place and boldly approached the two men, her flaming black eyes measured the Beg from head to foot, and when she spoke it was with a determined, startling voice.
"Listen to me, Hassan—yes, I say, thou shouldst listen to me before all thy friends just because I am a woman. A man can only give advice, but a woman loves, and before a man thinks of danger a woman already sees it coming from afar, and while a man may grow into a crafty old fox, a woman is born crafty. Hassan knows very well that of all those who wear a mask of friendship for him, there is but one on whom he can absolutely rely, whose love all the treasures in India can as little destroy as they can lull her hatred asleep, who watches over him while he sleeps, and if she sleeps is dreaming of his destiny—that person am I."
Hassan confirmed the words of the damsel by throwing his arm round her shoulders and drawing her towards him.
"If this woman requires a sleepless, uncorruptible guardian," continued Azrael, "I will be that guardian. Make for us a long chain, and let one end of it be fastened to my arm and the other to her girdle. Thus the slave will be chained to the jailer, and, sleeping or waking, will be unable to escape from me. I shall be a good janitor. I will not let her, or her child, out of my hands."
The damsel accompanied these words with such an infernal smile that Olaj Beg involuntarily edged away from her; while Hassan was enchanted by this noble specimen of loyalty. But Mariska's face was bright and resigned again, for she understood from the words of the odalisk, threatening as they were, that she and her child were not to be separated, and to all else she was indifferent.
Olaj Beg drew the folds of his caftan over his lean, dry bosom, and after peering at the two women, remarked to Hassan:
"'Tis well thou canst trust a woman to look after a woman."
With that he backed out of the room, blessing all four corners of it as he went, and in the gateway distributed with great condescension to every one of the servants who had done anything for him some money ingeniously twisted up in pieces of paper (which, by the way, were found to contain a half-penny each when at last unfolded), and sitting in his mat-covered carriage, gave strict orders to the coachman not to look back till he saw the citadel of Buda.