“Well, my loving alarmist,” replied Sir Charleroy, coolly, “that’s not very bad news. If the Sheik leaves us, we’ll be free; if he takes us, there will be a change and for that I could almost cry ‘Blessed be Allah!’ I am sickened, crushed, dry-rotted by this hum-drum life; this slavery; dancing abject attendance on a gluttonous master, whose sole object seems to be eating or dallying about the marquees of his harem.” “Oh, Sir Charleroy, the change has dreadful things for us!” “Why?” “I heard that the runner bringing the mandate from Mecca brings also command that all prisoners, such as we, must be made to embrace Islamism, enlist to die, if need be, in this so-called holy war, or be sent to the slave mart.” “This is a carnival for the furies! Why, Ichabod, the latter is burial alive; the former death with a dishonored conscience!” “Sir Charleroy, I prefer the slavery.” “Well, I prefer neither. Is the mandate final?” “Yes; I’ve an order to commence packing at sunrise; by noon we will be enlisted or in chains.” “Who gave thee these state secrets, so in detail? Perhaps ’tis only camp-fire gossip recounted for lack of novel ghost stories.” “Ah, ’tis too true. I’d swear my life on it!” “Rash, credulous; but which now, comrade, I can not tell.” “Master, I had this from one that loves me as I love thee; the young Nourahmal, light of the harem, favorite of the Sheik.” “Well, now it seems to me that this light of the harem is thy favorite rather than the Sheik’s.” “She adores me.” “Doubtless! Where a woman unfolds her mind there she brings all else an offering easily possessed. She seals her change of allegiance by scattering the secrets of the dethroned to the enthroned lover. ‘Nourahmal’? Is she as charming in form as in name?” “Hold, now! If thou lov’st me thou will’st not continue thus to wound. I love that girl, but not the way thou meanest!” “So? Is there an elopement pending?” “Unworthy gibe! Say no more like it, but answer this: Is it not possible for a man and woman to be knitted together in soul, as I and thou have been, without the shadow of a remembrance that they are animals of different sexes?” “Possible? Really I do not know. It may be possible, but so very rare that I have failed to hear of any such relationship.” “Then thou shalt hear of it now in Nourahmal and me.” “I’ll take both to Paris! Another wonder of the world! But explain further.” “My Nourahmal is a captive; hates the man to whom she must submit as we hate him, and loves me with the new love that you have revealed to me, because I’ve shown her that I love her that way; so different from any thing she ever knew before.” “Well, there are many women yoked to men for whom they feel no great affection, yet they glorify womanhood by their unfaltering loyalty. Loyalty is woman’s glory; the hope of society. If the women be traitors, then, alas!”