"I couldn't do that. Your husband would—"
She held up a hand again, and he said no more, only shaking his head. He seemed to have forgotten that she was not to be contradicted.
"The woman is mine," said the Emir's wife, "and my husband will not hurt a hair of her head while she obeys me. He has sworn that on the Cross. He will keep his oath—and you have my word as well that she shall come to no harm. You need have no scruples, then!"
She looked impatiently up at the scarlet mask bending over her, not to be satisfied until it bowed in submission to her authority there. But Sallie could read in the steadfast grey eyes behind it a dumb determination that the slave girl should run no such risk, and she did not think it needful at that moment to say anything about the other difficulties to be overcome. She had promised that she would do all she possibly could to help the man in the mask, and believed she could help him best in the meantime by keeping her own troubles to herself.
She did not even know as yet what Captain Dove's immediate intentions toward her were, or whether she herself would ever see the Olive Branch again. But—she would know before very long, and it would be time enough then to explain her own plight.
"Feel my pulse now, before you go," the pseudo-doctor's patient commanded, and he did so, drawing out his watch, while she continued to plan for his flight.
"I'll send for you again before midnight," she said rapidly, for his guards had begun to show signs of unrest as his visit grew more prolonged, "and you must bring your—your—" She tapped her chest, very tenderly, with her free hand.
"Stethoscope?" he suggested, and she nodded quickly.
"You'll come in your cloak—it will be cold then. My women will draw a screen about us. As soon as you are safely behind it, slip off your shoes and gaiters while they are changing your cloak and hood. There will not be a moment to spare. And now—you must go."
He released her wrist and stood upright again.