'What
misery you prepare for yourself, and for all who know you!' exclaimed
Eva. 'But that has happened which makes me insensible to further grief.'

'Yes; but listen to what I say, and all will go right. I do not care in
the least for my own disappointment. That now is nothing. It is you,
it is of you only that I think, whom I wish to save. Do not chide me:
pardon me, pardon me, as you have done a thousand times; pardon and pity
me. I am so young and really so inexperienced; after all, I am only
a child; besides, I have not a friend in the world except you. I am a
villain, a fool; all villains are. I know it. But I cannot help it. I
did not make myself. The question now is, How are we to get out of this
scrape? How are we to save your life?'

'Do you really mean, Fakredeen, that my life is in peril?'

'Yes, I do,' said the Emir, crying like a child.

'You do not know the power of truth, Fakredeen. You have no confidence
in it. Let me see the Queen.'

'Impossible!' he said, starting up, and looking very much alarmed.

'Why?'

'Because, in the first place, she is mad. Keferinis, that is, her
minister, one of my creatures, and the only person who can manage
her, told me this moment that it was a perfect Kamsin, and that, if he
approached her again, it would be at his own risk; and, in the second
place, bad as things are, they would necessarily be much worse if she
saw you, because (and it is of no use concealing it any longer) she
thinks you already dead.'

'Dead! Already dead!'

'Yes.'

'And where is your friend and companion?' said Eva. 'Does he know of
these horrors?'

'No one knows of them except myself. The Queen sent for me last night to
speak to me of the subject generally. It was utterly vain to attempt to
disabuse her; it would only have compromised all of us. She would only
have supposed the truth to be an invention for the moment. I found your
fate sealed. In my desperation, the only thing that occurred to me was
to sympathise with her indignation and approve of all her projects. She
apprised me that you should not live four-and-twenty hours. I rather
stimulated her vengeance, told her in secresy that your house had nearly
effected my ruin, and that there was no sacrifice I would not make,
and no danger that I would not encounter, to wreak on your race my
long-cherished revenge. I assured her that I had been watching my
opportunity for years. Well, you see how it is, Eva; she consigned to me
the