as much taller than the women of
his nation as he was taller than any other captain in the Moslem army;
prompted by curiosity, he went close up to her to measure her height by
his own, and passed his hand through the air from his swarthy throat to
touch the crown of her head; and the depth of loathing with which she
shrank from him did not escape his notice. The blood mounted to his
head; he desired the interpreter to inform her that she was to hope for
no mercy, and inwardly devoted her to a cruel death.

Pale, but prepared to meet the worst, Paula returned to the squalid room
she occupied with her faithful Betta.

Her arrival at the prison had been terrible. The guards had seemed
disposed to place her in a room filled with a number of male and female
criminals, whence the rattle of their chains and a frantic uproar of
coarse voices met her ear; however, the interpreter and the captain of
the town-watch had taken charge of her, prompted by Martina's promise
of a handsome reward if they could go to her next morning with a report
that Paula had been decently accommodated.

The warder's mother-in-law, too, had taken her under her protection.
This woman was the inn-keeper's wife from the riverside inn of Nesptah,
and she at once recognized Paula as the handsome damsel who had
refreshed herself there after the evening on the river with Orion, and
whom she had supposed to be his betrothed. She happened to be visiting
her daughter, the keeper's wife, and induced her to do what she could to
be agreeable to Paula. So she and Betta were lodged in a separate cell,
and her gold coin proved acceptable to the man, who did his utmost to
mitigate her lot. Indeed, Pulcheria had even been allowed to visit her
and to bring her the last roses that the drought had left in the garden.

Susannah had carried out her purpose of sending her food and fruit;
but they remained in the outer room, and the messenger was desired to
explain that no more were to be sent, for that she was supplied with all
she needed.

Confident in her sense of innocence, she had looked forward calmly
to her fate building her hopes on the much lauded justice of the Arab
judges. But it was not they, it would seem, who were to decide it,
but that black monster Orion's foe; crushed by the sense of impotence
against the arbitrary despotism of the ruthless villain, whose victim
she must be, she sat sunk in gloomy apathy, and hardly heard the old
nurse's words of encourag