u constantly interrupt me?" the little girl put in. "Listen
first and raise objections after wards. The second messenger--now open
your ears wide--it is I, I myself;--but if you stand still again, you
will really betray me. The long and short of it is, that as surely as I
mean to save Paula, I mean to go forth to meet Amru, and if you
refuse to go with me I will set out alone and try whether Gibbus the
hunchback...."

Rustem had needed some time to collect his senses after this stupendous
surprise, but now he exclaimed: "You--you--to Berenice, and over the
mountains...."

"Yes, over the mountains," she repeated, "and if need be, through the
clouds."

"But such a thing was never heard of, never heard of on this earth!" the
Persian remonstrated. "A girl, a little lady like you--a messenger, and
all alone with a clumsy fellow like me. No, no, no!"

"And again no, and a hundred times over no!" cried the child merrily.
"The little lady will stop at home and you will take a boy with you--a
boy called Marius, not Mary."

"A boy! But I thought.--It is enough to puzzle one...."

"A boy who is a girl and a boy in one," laughed Mary. "But if you
must have it in plain words: I shall dress up as a boy to go with you;
to-morrow when we set out you will see, you will take me for my own
brother."

"Your own brother! With a little face like yours! Then the most
impossible things will become possible," cried Rustem laughing, and
he looked down good humoredly at the little girl. But suddenly the
preposterousness of her scheme rose again before his mind, and he
exclaimed half-frantically: "But then my master!--It will not do--It
will never do!"

"It is for his sake that you will do us this service," said Mary
confidently. "He is Paula's friend and protector; and when he hears what
you have done for her he will praise you, while if you leave us in the
lurch I am quite sure..."

"Well?"

"That he will say: 'I thought Rustem was a shrewder man and had a better
heart.'"

"You really think he will say that?"

"As surely as our house stands before us!--Well, we have no time for any
more discussion, so it is settled: we start together. Let me find you in
the garden early to-morrow morning. You must tell your Mandane that you
are called away by important business."

"And Dame Joanna?" asked the Persian, and his voice was grave and
anxious as he went on: "The thing I like least, child, is that you
should not ask her, and take her