If
there was anything he could do for me, he would do it, without hope of
reward, even if it meant death. Then Bakta gave me another letter. I
couldn't resist answering, and so it's gone on, until I seem to know
this man, Honore Sabine, better than any one in the world; though we've
only spoken together once."
"How did you manage it?" Victoria asked the question mechanically, for
she felt that Saidee expected it of her.
"Bakta managed, and Noura helped. He came dressed like an Arab woman,
and pretended to be old and lame, so that he could crouch down and use a
stick as he walked, to disguise his height. Bakta waited--and we had no
more than ten minutes to say everything. Ten hours wouldn't have been
enough!--but we were in danger every instant, and he was afraid of what
might happen to me, if we were spied upon. He begged me to go with him
then, but I dared not. I couldn't decide. Now he writes to me, and he's
making a cypher, so that if the letters should be intercepted, no one
could read them. Then he hopes to arrange a way of escape if--if I say
I'll do what he asks."
"Which, of course, you won't," broke in Victoria. "You couldn't, even
though it were only for his sake alone, if you really love him. You'd be
too unhappy afterwards, knowing that you'd ruined his career in the
army."
"I'm more to him than a thousand careers!" Saidee flung herself away
from the girl's arm. "I see now," she went on angrily, "what you were
leading up to, when you pretended to sympathize.
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