Suddenly he stood up and swung her up in his arms like a Bedouin chieftain carrying his bride to his tent. She laughed delightedly. She felt as light as a child. He strode across the room to the bed and laid her down.
He wrestled his black silk gown over his head and threw it off. Quickly he pulled off the locket Blossoming Reed had given him and dropped it on the gown. He stood over her, looking down at her, and letting her look her fill at him.
"The blond Turk," she said in Greek with a small smile, and moved her hips from side to side.
Slowly she reached up to her head and pulled free the net of pearls woven into her hair. Long locks, black as raven's wings, spread out around her head on the pillow.
"I must look like Medusa," she said.
"Who?"
"A woman with snakes for hair. Men who saw her were turned to stone."
He remembered now: In a bazaar at El Kahira he had listened to the story of the she-monster.
"The sight of you would bring a stone to life," he said.
"Ah, but part of you is already hard as stone. How long are you going to stand there? I want you." The yearning in her voice made something vibrate inside him, as if she had plucked a taut string in his very soul. He was seized by a violent urge to throw himself upon her and take her at once. And she would welcome it, too, he knew.