“The Khanum Effendi want kill us,” said Um Yusuf, angry and alarmed. “You got pistol, mademoiselle? knife? dagger?” “Only a penknife,” said Cecil, wearily. “What does it signify, Um Yusuf? I don’t believe they mean to kill us, and if they did, a penknife wouldn’t prevent them.” But Um Yusuf was not to be silenced. She instituted a methodical search for arms, and was successful in discovering two table-knives which had been brought from Baghdad for Cecil’s use. The shape and size of these made them difficult to carry about the person, but she concealed them with great care among the cushions of the divan, and felt happier. At night her fears revived, and she dragged her bed into her mistress’s room, and insisted on closing the window and barricading the door with every movable thing she could find, and this state of siege she maintained with unflagging perseverance. The two agas took no notice, and seemed to feel little interest in anything their prisoners did. If their intentions were evil, they feared Um Yusuf’s precautions too much to put them into execution, and thus days and weeks slipped by without alarm. To Cecil the time was one of rest, so much needed as to be almost welcome. She made little or no attempt to occupy herself with books or work, but sat on the house-top gazing at the mountains and the sky, and seldom speaking. Um Yusuf became very uneasy about her, fearing this quiet acquiescence in her grief almost more than the feverish excitement of the days before the departure of Azim Bey and the rest. It seemed to her that her mistress needed rousing and taking out of herself, and she honestly did her best to effect this, according to her lights. She encouraged her to sketch, tried in vain to induce her to study, and even gave herself the trouble of fashioning a draught-board and set of men, with the aid of one of the precious table-knives, so that she might invite her to play. “Why you not write your memoirs, mademoiselle?” she said more than once. “The Khanum Effendi’s governess, in Tahir Pasha’s house, she always write when she was alone, say she get great deal of money some day. She put in all that everybody say, and all the things she not like.” “My experiences are not interesting enough,” Cecil would say, patiently, for she knew that Um Yusuf teased her from the best possible motives. “I couldn’t write about the things I have really felt, and who cares nowadays for descriptions of ruins and deserts? When I am dead, Fitz and Eily and the rest can publish my letters for their grandchildren’s benefit, if they like, but I won’t do it.”