“Whose limousine was that which you entered and then left so abruptly?” he asked. “My own.” “What was the Yezidee Togrul Kahn doing in it?” “Did you see anybody in my car?” she asked, veiling her eyes a little with their tawny lashes. “I saw a man with a thick beard dyed red with henna, and the bony face and slant eyes of Togrul the Yezidee.” “May my soul be ransom for yours, my lord, but you lie!” she said softly. Her lips parted in a smile; but her half-veiled eyes were brilliant as two topazes. “Is that your answer?” She lifted one hand and with her forefinger made signs from right to left and then downward as though writing in Turkish and in Chinese characters. “It is written,” she said in a low voice, “that we belong to God and we return to him. Look out what you are about, my lord!” He drew his pistol from his overcoat and, holding it, rested his hand on his knee. “Now,” he said hoarsely, “while we await the coming of Togrul Kahn, you shall remain exactly where you are, and you shall tell me exactly who you are in order that I may decide whether to arrest you as an alien enemy inciting my countrymen to murder, or to let you go as a foreigner who is able to prove her honesty and innocence.” The girl laughed: “Be careful,” she said. “My danger lies in your youth and mine—somewhere between your lips and mine lies my only danger from you, my lord.” A dull flush mounted to his temples and burned there. “I am the golden comrade to Heavenly-Azure,” she said, still smiling. “I am the Third Immaum in the necklace Keuke wears where Yulun hangs as a rose-pearl, and Sansa as a pearl on fire. “Look upon me, my lord!” There was a golden light in his eyes which seemed to stiffen the muscles and confuse his vision. He heard her voice again as though very far away: “It is written that we shall love, my lord—thou and I—this night—this night. Listen attentively. I am thy slave. My lips shall touch thy feet. Look upon me, my lord!” There was a dazzling blindness in his eyes and in his brain. He swayed a little still striving to fix her with his failing gaze. His pistol hand slipped sideways from his knee, fell limply, and the weapon dropped to the thick carpet. He could still see the glimmering golden shape of her, still hear her distant voice: “It is written that we belong to God.... Tokhta!...” Over his knees was settling a snow-white sheet; on it, in his lap, lay a naked knife. There was not a sound in the room save the rushing and splashing of the scarlet fish in its crystal bowl. Bending nearer, the girl fixed her yellow eyes on the man who looked back at her with dying gaze, sitting upright and knee deep in his shroud. Then, noiselessly she uncoiled her supple golden body, extending her right arm toward the knife.