"Oh! what are you going to do to me!" she said. "Let me go! let me go! I can no more be of use to you. Give me back my life and let me go— et me go and hide away from them all—from all … the world…."
Her words died away and ceased upon a suppressed hysterical sob. For, in silence, Fo-Hi stood watching her, unmoved.
"Oh!" she moaned, and sank cowering upon a diwan— "why do you watch me so!"
"Because," came the metallic voice, softly—"you are beautiful with a beauty given but rarely to the daughters of men. The Sublime Order has acquired many pretty women—for they are potent weapons—but none so fair as you. Miska, I would make life sweet for you."
"Ah! you do not mean that!" she whispered fearfully.
"Have I not clothed you in the raiment of a princess!" continued Fo-Hi. "To-night, at my urgent request, you wear the charming national costume in which I delight to see you. But is there a woman of Paris, of London, of New York, who has such robes, such jewels, such apartments as you possess? Perhaps the peculiar duties which I have required you to perform, the hideous disguises, which you have sometimes been called upon to adopt, have disgusted you."
Her heart beating wildly, for she did not know this mood but divined it to portend some unique horror, Miska crouched, head averted.
"To-night the hour has come to break the whip. To-night the master in me dies. My cloak of wise authority has fallen from me and I offer myself in bondage to you, my slave!"
"This is some trap you set for me!" she whispered.
But Fo-Hi, paying no heed to her words, continued in the same rapt voice: