Um Yusuf would yield for the moment with a sigh, and proceed to relate stories from her family history, with the view of diverting Cecil’s mind from her own sorrows, and showing her that there were people worse off than herself. The stories were all about massacres, and fearful torments endured at the hands of Moslems and Druses, of a character to make the listener’s hair stand on end with horror on ordinary occasions, but Cecil could not be roused into taking more than a languid interest in the events described. Sometimes she did not even hear them. It never struck Um Yusuf that this season of absolute rest was exactly what her mistress needed, coming, as it did, when body and mind, stunned by a fearful shock, were almost failing under the effort to carry on the everyday routine of work. There was an atmosphere of calm which almost amounted to happiness spread over these days, and Cecil lived through them idly, her mind dwelling in the past, with no thought of the future. The sense of abiding loss was always with her, but she lived over again the five years during which she had known Charlie, and felt almost as though his presence were near her still. No thought of picturing the infinite sadness of a return to daily life without him had yet presented itself to trouble her, just as she had not energy enough to speculate on the duration of her imprisonment, nor to form any plans as to her future. It was a time merely of waiting, uncoloured either by hope or despair. CHAPTER XXV. “THE VOICE OF ENGLAND IN THE EAST.” Leaving Cecil and Um Yusuf in their captivity at Sardiyeh, the harem procession made its way down the winding mountain-paths, a curious assemblage of closely swathed white figures mounted on mules and donkeys, and headed by the waving curtains of Jamileh Khanum’s litter. On either side rode the black agas, armed with whips with which to drive off any inquisitive wayfarer; and before and behind came the guard of soldiers whom the Pasha had left under the charge of his master of the horse for the purpose of protecting his wife. At the end of the train of women and agas rode Azim Bey and his attendants, obliged to follow even the negresses who acted as cooks and scullerymaids, a humiliation which sorely tasked the boy’s proud spirit. But this was not the worst. He felt convinced, from the meaning looks and whispered words which passed among the women, that the Khanum Effendi was considered to have gained not only a moral but a material victory in that she had succeeded in getting rid of Cecil. That some evil was intended against him, to which his governess’s presence was considered a bar, he was sure, and he felt more lonely and helpless than he had ever done in his life. And indeed Jamileh Khanum was jubilant as she reclined on her gold-embroidered cushions. She had accomplished the task in which she had so often failed, and separated Cecil from her pupil with comparatively little difficulty.