t not to
please you. You don't yet understand. You are my slave, my thing, my
property, and I will not suffer you to be damaged save at my own good
pleasure. Therefore, eat, or my Nubians shall whip you to quicken
appetite."

For a moment she stood defiant before him, white and resolute. Then
quite suddenly, as if her will was being bent and crumpled under the
insistent pressure of his own, she drooped and sank down again to the
divan. Slowly, reluctantly she drew the dish nearer. Watching her, he
laughed quite silently.

She paused, appearing to seek for something. Failing to find it she
looked up at him again, between scorn and intercession.

"Am I to tear the meat with my fingers?" she demanded.

His eyes gleamed with understanding, or at least with suspicion. But he
answered her quite calmly--"It is against the Prophet's law to defile
meat or bread by the contact of a knife. You must use the hands that God
has given you."

"Do you mock me with the Prophet and his laws? What are the Prophet's
laws to me? If eat I must, at least I will not eat like a heathen dog,
but in Christian fashion."

To indulge her, as it seemed, he slowly drew the richly hilted dagger
from his girdle. "Let that serve you, then," he said; and carelessly he
tossed it down beside her.

With a quick indrawn breath she pounced upon it. "At last," she said,
"you give me something for which I can be grateful to you." And on the
words she laid the point of it against her breast.

Like lightning he had dropped to one knee, and his hand had closed about
her wrist with such a grip that all her arm felt limp and powerless. He
was smiling into her eyes, his swarthy face close to her own.

"Did you indeed suppose I trusted you? Did you really think me deceived
by your sudden pretence of yielding? When will you learn that I am not a
fool? I did it but to test your spirit."

"Then now you know its temper," she replied. "You know my intention."

"Forewarned, forearmed," said he.

She looked at him, with something that would have been mockery but for
the contempt that coloured it too deeply. "Is it so difficult a thing,"
she asked, "to snap the thread of life? Are there no ways of dying save
by the knife? You boast yourself my master; that I am your slave; that,
having bought me in the market-place, I belong to you body and soul. How
idle is that boast. My body you may bind and confine; but my soul.... Be
very sure that you shall be cheated of yo