“Khanum,” he cried, springing to his feet, “I replied to your offered favours with frankness and with courtesy,—your threats I despise.”
“Despise!” she cried, no longer mistress of her rage; “and this to me!” As she spoke she clapped her hands loudly together; one of the eunuchs appeared. “The man and the cord,” she said. The slave retired.
“Lady,” said Hassan, drawing his sword, “methinks you are scarcely prudent to trust yourself so completely in the power of one whom you threaten with the cord and the dungeon: before your slaves appear I could sever your head from your body. But I have said it—I pity and despise you.”
Her eye quailed beneath his stern glance; but at that moment the four black slaves, armed with swords, and one of them bearing a strong cord, entered the room.
“Seize and bind this villain,” she cried, “who has threatened and insulted me.”
“Lady,” said Hassan in a low, determined tone, “you are mad. I could shout so loudly from this open window that neighbours and passengers would know what was passing in your harem. I must, if you force me to it, shed in your presence the blood of your slaves; but I would fain spare you. Think again, and let me depart in peace.”
Her only reply, as she arose and stamped her foot on the ground, was, “Seize him and bind him, ye cowardly slaves.”
“Must it be so?” said Hassan, grasping his dagger in his left hand and his sword in his right, while his eyes shone with that fierce fire which always animated them in the fight. “Come on, ye wretched slaves, and try your destiny!”
As he spoke these words, and, drawing up his towering form to its full height, placed himself in a posture of defence, the Khanum cast upon him a look in which love, admiration, and hate were strangely blended; but still she stamped her angry foot and ordered the slaves to do her bidding.
The negroes rolled their great eyes from their mistress to the powerful and well-armed youth before them, as if the job was not much to their liking; but their fear of the terrible and relentless Khanum prevailing, the boldest and strongest of the party advanced, whispering to his companion with the rope, “I will engage his sword in front, while you approach on one side and throw the cord over him”; and in this order they came forward, the two other slaves, with drawn swords, following close behind their leader.