“May God visit it upon my own head if it be not true!” concluded the stranger, and Cecil heard Um Yusuf apostrophising a string of obscure Syrian saints, while the two other women murmured, “God forbid!” and “God is great!” in awestruck tones.
“How wilt thou tell thy lady, O Um Yusuf?” asked old Ayesha, just as Um Yusuf looked up, met her mistress’s eye, and dropped in her consternation the cup she was holding. A feeling for which she could not account impelled Cecil to descend the steps leading into the court and enter the group, the members of which started guiltily when they found her among them, the visitor alone taking refuge in an assumed carelessness.
“Is anything wrong? What is the matter?” Cecil asked.
“Oh, nothing, mademoiselle,” replied Um Yusuf, hastily. “You want me?”
“I am sure there is something wrong,” said Cecil. “Latifeh Kalfa has brought bad news. What is it that you are to tell me, Um Yusuf?”
“You come with me, mademoiselle,” said Um Yusuf, trying to draw her mistress aside. “That daughter of Shaitan know nothing--she make it all up.”
“God forbid!” said Latifeh Kalfa, piously.
“O my soul, come with me!” entreated Um Yusuf.
“I insist upon hearing what she has told you,” said Cecil, standing her ground, although the affectionate epithet from the lips of the sedate Syrian woman thrilled her with alarm.
“She say, mademoiselle,” said Um Yusuf, unwillingly, “that those two Armenians from Hillah were with Pasha’s caravan in the mountains, and Kurds carry them off.”
“Is this true?” demanded Cecil of Latifeh Kalfa.
“I heard it from my husband, who was with the rearguard, O my lady,” replied the woman; “and more than that, I can testify that though I had often seen them before, yet they disappeared altogether from that time.”
“But was it Kurds, not Yezidis?” asked Cecil.
“Kurds, O my lady,” purred the woman. She had a soft, smooth voice, and a way of fastening her eyes sleepily on the person she addressed. Cecil, standing for a moment overwhelmed, felt an unreasoning hatred spring up in her heart against her. It was only for the first instant that the disaster crushed her, however, and she sought immediate relief in action.
“I want you to come out with me, Um Yusuf,” she said.