"You do not speak," he continued. "Must I say more--must I tell you how I loved you with all my soul! You made me love you, and were not content until I did. You led me on; you smiled at me, and lured me to your side. Your eyes told me you delighted in the passion you had roused, and you seemed to triumph in making me your slave. Then I asked you to be my wife, and I was cast aside, thrown off to make room for another, and I awoke from my dream to find that I had only been a plaything of your mocking hour. I was only a Malay--a black as your people call me in their contempt--and your father and all your people laughed at my pretensions to an English lady's hand. You all told me by your looks and treatment that I was presuming on the kindness I had received; but do you think that, though I bent to it then, as if you and yours were right, that I, an Eastern Prince, would bear this treatment at your hands? No; I planted my revenge at once, like some tiny seed, and since have watched it grow hour by hour till it was time to cut it down ripe and ready to my hand." "Do you hear my words, sir?" said Helen, contemptuously. "I order you to take me back." "The slave orders her master to take her back," said Murad, quietly. "You English think you have power over all." "How dare you call me slave!" she cried. "I call you what you are," he said, calmly; "my wife if you will; if not, one of my lowest slaves. I was your slave once, and would have been to the end. Now you are mine." Helen shivered, but she mastered her fear, and exclaimed: "Have you reckoned what your punishment will be for this? Do you suppose my people will let this pass?" "I have weighed all," he said, coolly. "But let me talk, for I have much to say yet; I find relief in speaking of it all. Did you think that I was going to submit without resentment to the insult you had put upon me? Oh, no! You did not know what we Malays could do. We take a blow, and perhaps bear it then. It may be wise; but we never forgive the hand that gives that blow. We hide our suffering for a time, but at last we turn and strike. Do you understand me now? The time came at last, and I have turned and struck." Helen remained silent, listening to his words, which sounded like a sentence of death; but she still fought hard not to show her terror, and kept up her defiant, half-contemptuous gaze as he went on: "I hid all my sufferings, and patiently bore with all your cruelty, seeing without a word how you lavished your smiles upon this one and that, and all without making a sign; but all the time I was waiting, and telling myself that some day you should pay me for all this suffering; and when the good time came I said to my people: `Take her and carry her to the house in the jungle; let her people think she is dead,' and it was done."