Enveloped, she stammered through the silken meshes some barely intelligible sentences. The folds tightened chokingly—and the words died in a gasp.
"Mercy!... Forgive!..."
"Surely, my proud Sultana," said the thickish voice with the catarrhal snuffle in it. "What will men not pardon to beauty such as yours!"
She moaned and strove to tear away the smooth bands that were suffocating her. He whipped a velvet ribbon from the toilet-table, brought down her hands, and bound them behind her back. That little shell-shaped ear was purplish by this time. At the point of losing consciousness, she felt him softly groping for the treasure hidden in her bosom—she heard the crackling of the roll of notes withdrawn.
"Do not...!" she tried to say, but no sound came from her but a groaning; and through the roaring of her blood she heard him answer back:
"Do not rob you! would you plead, my peerless Adelaide? Far from it. I merely take from you what is my own! For—there was the taste of opium in my mouth when I awakened in Love's embraces. And conviction, stronger than proof, convinces me that I have been sold. Else why this store of honey in the breast of the Queen of the garden, while the black bee was sent roaming to gather store elsewhere? Eh, eh! I think I could manage to guess at the reason why I was to have been detained by those jewelers on suspicion of theft! My Sultana would have vanished, leaving no address behind her.... Istenem! but the emerald star would have served your purpose well!"
There was a silence. Rings of fire, stars of emerald whirled before Adelaide's blinded vision.
"Do not be afraid, my Queen, I am not going to murder you!" chuckled the thick voice in the little swollen blackening ear. "Only to spoil your beauty a little—nothing more terrible. Your eyes will be less clear, your skin less dazzlingly unblemished, after this experience. You will never again look in your mirror without remembering me!"
Rocking and swaying, ready to fall, she was only kept upright by the arm of Straz about her body. She felt him free that arm, shifting her weight against his great chest, and as she lay blind and helpless there, his snigger vibrated through her horribly. Then—the smooth, slippery folds of the silk scarf tightened murderously, stopping all breath, shutting out consciousness. Whelmed in an abyss of Nothingness, she felt and knew no more....
"Madame is a little unwell," said Straz, who regained the ante-chamber by the way of a dressing-room communicating with Madame's bedroom. "She will call on Messrs. Müller and Stettig to-morrow, and settle their account. Meanwhile"—for the representative of the firm was beginning to expostulate—"she returns the emerald-pointed star with her regrets." He added smilingly as the relieved employé gratefully pocketed the trinket: "Ladies are not business-like in these little matters of money. But Heaven, who inspired in man the desire to see them well-dressed, has conferred on him the privilege of paying their bills."