The odalisk now drew a small fine steel file from her girdle, and, seizing the Princess's hand, began to file the chain from off it.
After the first few rubs the sharp file bit deeply into the silver circlet, but suddenly it stopped, and, press it as hard as she would, it would bite the chain no more.
"What is this? it won't go on. What is the chain made of? Even if it were of steel, another steel would file it."
Azrael hastily filed right round the whole of the link which Hassan's smith had thought good to form of silver only on the outside, thinking that the fraud would never be discovered, and behold, the hard impervious substance which resisted the file was nothing but—glass.
"Ah!" said Azrael, "all the better for us, the work will be quicker;" and seizing an iron candlestick, she broke in pieces with a single blow the whole of the glass chain which was only covered by a light varnish of silver, only the two locked golden manacles remained in their hands.
"We shall be ready all the sooner," she whispered to Mariska, "now we must make haste and get you off."
But Mariska still stood before her like one who knows not what is befalling her.
"Hast thou thought how we are to escape?" she inquired of Azrael. "The guards of Hassan Pasha stand at every door, and all the doors have been locked by his own hand. In front of the gates of the fortress the sentinels have been doubled. I heard what commands he gave."
"I have nought to do with doors or guards; we are going to escape through the window."
Mariska looked at Azrael incredulously; she fancied she had gone mad. She could see nothing in the room by which they could descend from the window, and below stood the thickly planted sharp stakes.