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The blue of the skies is in your eyes, and the gold of the sun in your hair. You have a beauty that is too bright to be endured it burns a man's heart like a flame.... It was never meant to shine in a common field. It must be guarded, revered, adored a princess upon a height " "You have an Oriental imagination," said Arlee Beecher, and prayed God her voice did not tremble.
She brushed some powder on her face; she bit her bloodless lips, and stared into the glass, to see a wan and big-eyed girl staring back affrighted. Then the door opened, and desperately calling on her courage, Arlee heard the Captain speaking her name and saw his smiling face advancing through the shadows. "A thousand greetings, Mademoiselle. Ah, I am glad to see you."
But when they did draw close to a dahabiyeh upon whose deck she saw some white-clad loungers, the Nubian gave a low order to the old woman who rose and gripped Arlee on the wrist and led her to the stateroom, sitting in silence opposite her like a squat gargoyle, till the Nubian's voice permitted them to emerge.
If you if you care for me at all," stammered Arlee, "you would not treat me so!" "And how, then, would I treat you?" he inquired slowly. "You would you would take me to my own people and give me back my independence, my dignity. Then there would be honor in your your courtship. "Would you come back to me?" The lie choked her.
He felt now that, warned by Falconer's approach from above, they had snatched her from her room and hidden her away. He wondered if he deceived the Captain about the motives for his presence. He wondered what in the world could be done now if all effort was to resolve itself into the futility of an official search-party. He wondered where in all that baffling prison Arlee was hidden.
For the Captain unless delayed by extreme illness, or held back by a caution which Billy judged was foreign to his nature, would not wait long before he joined Arlee.
"I'm going to buy a crocodile," he imparted, with a wide, boyish grin. "I'm going to buy a crocodile of a one-eyed man." Stolidly Falconer eyed his departing back. Stolidly, definitely, comprehensively, he pronounced judgment. "Mad," said he. "Mad as the March Hare." That stealthy touch brought Arlee half upright, shot with ghastly alarms.
Billy continued staring at the unwinking old goddess ahead of him. "You take it all so for granted," laughed Arlee softly, "As if it were part of any day's work! I go about like a girl in a dream or a girl with a dream ... a dream of fear, of old palaces and painted women and darkened windows. It comes over me at night sometimes.
Girls used to come down here at night and make a prayer to her and cast an offering into the waters." "And then they had their prayer?" "Infallibly." "I'd like a guardian like that," said Arlee, with a sudden mischievous wistfulness that played the dickens with Billy's forces of reserve. "Do you think she'd grant my prayer?"
No, that is not safe.... If only that girl were sure " "Mariayah?" cried Arlee. "No, the other the little one with the wart over her eye. Have you seen her? Well, watch for her, then. She has an itching palm she may help. But only in little things, of course, for she is afraid. And I have no money left and she is afraid to take a jewel." "I have almost no money," said Arlee blankly.
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