“Princess!” he called. Then louder, “Princess!”
When the echo of his own voice died, it was as if the ghoul who made the echoes had taken shape. A beard--red eye-rims--and a hook nose came out of the dark, and Ismail bared yellow teeth.
“Come!” he said. “Come, little hakim!”
Chapter XV
Private preserves? New Notions?
Measure me a quart of honesty,
And I will trade it for a pound weight of my thoughts.
Then you and I shall go and dream together
A brand-new dream of things that never happened,
Nor ever can be. Come, trade with me!
What Yasmini had been doing in the minutes while King stared from the ledge in the dawn was unguessable. Perhaps she had been praying to her old gods. At least she had given Ismail strict orders, for he said nothing, but seized King's hand and led him through the dark as a rat leads a blind one--swiftly, surely, unhesitating. King had no means whatever of guessing their direction. They did not pass the two lights again with the curtain and the steps all glowing red.
They came instead to other steps, narrow and steep, that led upward in a semicircle to a rough hole in a rock wall. At the top there was a little yellow light, so dim and small that its rays scarcely sufficed to show the opening.
“Go up!” said Ismail, giving King a shove and disappearing at once. One side-step into blackness and he might have been a mile away.
So King went up, stooping to feel each next footing with a cautious hand. He was beginning to be sleepy, and to suspect that Yasmini had taken him to view the dawn with just that end in view. Nothing can make tired eyes so long for sleep as a glimpse of waking day--Sleepy eyes are easiest to trick.