"Wert thou ever a mother?" she asked Azrael in her turn.
"Never," stammered the odalisk, and involuntarily her bosom heaved beneath a sigh.
It was plain from the face of Mariska how much she pitied this poor woman. Azrael perceived the look, and it wounded her that she should be pitied.
"Dost thou not know that both of you must die?" she asked with a darkened countenance.
"And art thou not terrified at the thought? They will strangle thy child with a silken cord, and hang it dead upon thy breast, and then they will strangle thee likewise, and put you both in the grave, in the cold earth."
"We shall see each other in a better world," said Mariska with fervent devotion.
Mariska, with holy confidence, raised her little one in her arms, and, lifting her eyes, said: "God will take us unto Himself."
"He is the Father of those who suffer, and in the other world He rewards those who suffer grief here below."
Mariska, as one inspired, placed her hand upon her heart and said: "It is written here!"
Azrael regarded the woman abashed. Truly, many mysterious words are written in the heart, why cannot everyone read them? She also had listened to such mystic voices, but they were words shouted in a desert, in her savage breast there was no manner of love which could interpret their meaning.
Mariska again put down her child on the edge of the cushion.
"Place not thy child there," cried Azrael impatiently; "it might easily fall, place it between us!"
Mariska accepted the offer, and placed the little one between herself and Azrael.
When the first ray of dawn penetrated the large window Mariska awoke, and, folding her hands together above the head of the little child, again began to pray.
"Dost thou never pray?" said Mariska, turning towards her.
"Why should women pray? Their destiny is not in their own hands. Their fate depends upon their masters; if their masters are happy, they are happy also; if their masters perish, they perish with them. This is their earthly lot--and that is all. Allah never gave them a soul--what have they to do with the life beyond this? In Paradise the Houris take their places and the Houris remain young for ever. The breath of a woman vanishes with the autumn mist like the fumes of a dead animal, and Allah has no thought for them."