“May my soul be ransom for yours, my lord, but you lie!” she said softly. Her lips parted in a smile; but her half-veiled eyes were brilliant as two topazes.
“Is that your answer?”
She lifted one hand and with her forefinger made signs from right to left and then downward as though writing in Turkish and in Chinese characters.
“It is written,” she said in a low voice, “that we belong to God and we return to him. Look out what you are about, my lord!”
He drew his pistol from his overcoat and, holding it, rested his hand on his knee.
“Now,” he said hoarsely, “while we await the coming of Togrul Kahn, you shall remain exactly where you are, and you shall tell me exactly who you are in order that I may decide whether to arrest you as an alien enemy inciting my countrymen to murder, or to let you go as a foreigner who is able to prove her honesty and innocence.”
The girl laughed:
“Be careful,” she said. “My danger lies in your youth and mine—somewhere between your lips and mine lies my only danger from you, my lord.”
A dull flush mounted to his temples and burned there.
“I am the golden comrade to Heavenly-Azure,” she said, still smiling. “I am the Third Immaum in the necklace Keuke wears where Yulun hangs as a rose-pearl, and Sansa as a pearl on fire.