and beautifully dressed, and strings of gold
sequins, and glittering jewelled stars were twisted amid the swathes of
my hair. Then came my robing in garments, so rich, so wonderful, that
they almost took my breath away. When the very last touch had been
given to this wonderful toilette, one of the attendants gave me a
_cachou_ from a box to sweeten my breath.

"Then, for a time, I was left alone, a strange and awful fear of some
coming evil stealing over me. For I could not forget the looks of fear
and of terror of the slave-women, at the sight of the crosses on my
arms and breast.

"Wondering what type of place I was in, I got up and looked out of the
casement. A marble court lay just below the window, and, in the centre
of the court was a most beautiful marble basin, quite twenty feet
across, from the heart of which there rose a fountain, with a graceful
_jet d' eau_, flinging its spray high in the air. Two flights of
balustraded steps led down into the basin, a few white doves fluttered
about the steps. Flower borders and beds were artistically dotted
about the court; and cool-looking, shady bowers clung to the high walls
like swallow-nests to the house-eaves.

"But the beauty of all I saw could not drive from me the strange sense
of dread of some coming disaster. Suddenly, a huge Sudanese eunuch
appeared, and signed for me to follow him; and a minute later I was
ushered into a room where the chief eunuch, and that hideous little tub
of a Vizier, who had bought me, were.

"The fat, greasy face was distorted with rage, the eyes were blood-shot
and fierce, and his voice was almost a scream, as he cried out to me:

"'What is this they tell me of you, you Lebanon beast? Are you one of
those dogs, the Christians?'

"'I am!' I replied.

"The fat little beast on the dais spat at me, the foul expectoration
falling short of my robe by barely a foot.

"'Your body, the body I bought,' he yelled, 'is damned by the cursed
sign of the cross, they tell me.'

"I gave him no reply, and he yelled, 'I will see for myself.' Then to
the two eunuchs, he yelled: 'Strip her!'

"The men did his bidding, and nude, and shamed, I stood before that
foul tyrant.

"'Bring her closer!' he yelled, and the big Soudanese lifted me bodily,
and dropped me upon my feet on a mat not a yard from the Vizier.

"He glared at the tatooed cross upon my breast, then with a fearful
curse, he spat full into my breast, the vileness running d