“If there is,” she replied in her excited but distinct voice, “here is a tale to entertain him:
“The Hassanis are a sect of assassins which has spread out of Asia all over the world, and they are determined upon the annihilation of everything and everybody in it except themselves!
“In Germany is a branch of the sect. The hun is the lineal descendant of the ancient Yezidee; the gods of the hun are the old demons under other names; the desire and object of the hun is the same desire—to rule the minds and bodies and souls of men and use them to their own purposes!”
She lifted her pistol a little, came a pace forward:
“Anarchist, Yezidee, Hassani, Boche, Bolshevik—all are the same—all are secretly swarming in the hidden places for the same purpose!”
The girl’s blue eyes were aflame, now, and the pistol was lifting slowly in her hand to a deadly level.
“Sanang!” she cried in a terrible voice.
“Sanang!” she cried again in her terrifying young voice—“Toad! Tortoise egg! Spittle of Erlik! May the Thirty Thousand Calamities overtake you! Sheik-el-Djebel!—cowardly Khan whom I laughed at from the temple when it rained yellow snakes on the marble steps when all the gongs in Yian sounded in your frightened ears!”
She waited.
“What! You won’t step out? Tokhta!” she exclaimed in a ringing tone, and made a swift motion with her left hand. Apparently out of her empty open palm, like a missile hurled, a thin, blinding beam of light struck the curtains, making them suddenly transparent.