After lessons on this particular morning, Azim Bey despatched one of the slave-women to bring some coffee. The negress was longer than usual on her errand, and he waxed impatient, but she reappeared at last, hurrying in with three tiny jewelled cups on a silver tray. One cup was for herself, for it was her duty to taste the beverages supplied to the Bey, the remaining two for him and for Cecil. As the woman set the tray down on the little octagonal table, Azim Bey gave it a slight twist so as to bring the cup which had been nearest to her hand opposite to himself. Her hand was already outstretched to take it, and she paused in surprise and hesitated.
“Taste the coffee, O Salimeh,” said the boy, authoritatively.
Rather doubtfully, Salimeh stretched her hand across the tray, took the cup which was in front of her young master, and drank off the contents.
“O, my lord, they are for thee and for mademoiselle,” remonstrated the woman, with a note of anxiety in her voice which attracted Cecil’s attention. “How shall I drink my lord’s coffee?”
“Drink it,” said Azim Bey, shortly, fixing his eyes upon her.
As though fascinated by his gaze, she slowly stretched out her hand and took up another cup, raised it half-way to her lips, and paused.
“Drink it,” he repeated, gazing at her, while her dark face grew pale and ghastly-looking with terror, until in a sudden frenzy she dashed the cup to the ground.
“O, my lord, pardon thy servant,” she sobbed, flinging herself on her knees and grovelling before him. “God has made my lord very wise. There is death in the cup.”
“Drink the other,” said Azim Bey, unmoved.
His voice had been so calm throughout that it was only now that Cecil realised that she had barely escaped taking a prominent part in a tremendous tragedy. She interposed hastily.
“Bey, you cannot mean to make her drink it if it is poisoned? It will kill her.”
“She would have killed you and me, mademoiselle. Get up and drink it, thou granddaughter of a dog!” he added to the wretched woman, who was weeping and howling at his feet.
“But it is not for you to punish her,” remonstrated Cecil. “She may have been terrified into doing it. It ought to be inquired into.”
“It shall be,” said Azim Bey, grimly, and he summoned Masûd from the door. With the poisoned cup held to her lips, Salimeh confessed that she had been bribed to leave the tray of coffee on the ledge of a window which looked into the harem enclosure, and to turn her back for a moment. She had held in her hand the cup she intended for herself, so as to make things safe, but she could only guess what had been done to the other two. It took longer to find out who had been the other party to the dreadful transaction, but after a lengthy cross-examination she confessed that it was Zubeydeh Kalfa, the Um-ul-Pasha’s head-slave. When this conclusion was reached, Azim Bey turned a meaning glance on Cecil.