“O, my lord, they are for thee and for mademoiselle,” remonstrated the woman, with a note of anxiety in her voice which attracted Cecil’s attention. “How shall I drink my lord’s coffee?”
“Drink it,” said Azim Bey, shortly, fixing his eyes upon her.
As though fascinated by his gaze, she slowly stretched out her hand and took up another cup, raised it half-way to her lips, and paused.
“Drink it,” he repeated, gazing at her, while her dark face grew pale and ghastly-looking with terror, until in a sudden frenzy she dashed the cup to the ground.
“O, my lord, pardon thy servant,” she sobbed, flinging herself on her knees and grovelling before him. “God has made my lord very wise. There is death in the cup.”
“Drink the other,” said Azim Bey, unmoved.
His voice had been so calm throughout that it was only now that Cecil realised that she had barely escaped taking a prominent part in a tremendous tragedy. She interposed hastily.
“Bey, you cannot mean to make her drink it if it is poisoned? It will kill her.”
“She would have killed you and me, mademoiselle. Get up and drink it, thou granddaughter of a dog!” he added to the wretched woman, who was weeping and howling at his feet.
“But it is not for you to punish her,” remonstrated Cecil. “She may have been terrified into doing it. It ought to be inquired into.”