Black Powder War Page 0,61

there is always something of a noise made about our movements. Temeraire has often found it a burdensome stricture. Then is it a new sort of arrangement?"

"Of course," Mrs. Maden said. "I never heard of such a thing before, and I hope I never do again when it is over with. Not a word of warning, either; they appeared one morning as soon as the call to prayer was over; and we were left quaking in our houses all the day."

"One grows accustomed," Maden said, with a philosophical shrug. "It has been a little slow the last two weeks, but the stores are opening again, dragons or no."

"Yes, and none too soon," Mrs. Maden said. "How we are to arrange everything, in less than a month - Nadire," she called to the maid, "give me the wine, please," with only the barest pause, scarcely noticeable.

The little maid came in and handed over the decanter, which stood in easy reach on the sideboard, and whisked herself out again; while the bottle went around, Maden said quietly, while he poured for Laurence, "My daughter is to be married soon." He spoke in a queerly gentle tone, almost apologetic.

An uncomfortable, waiting silence fell, which Laurence did not understand; Mrs. Maden looked down at her plate, biting her lip. Tharkay broke it, lifting his glass, and said to Sara, "I drink to your health and happiness." She raised her dark eyes at last and looked across the table at him. Only for a moment, and then he broke from her gaze, raising the glass between them; but that was long enough.

"My congratulations," Laurence said, to help fill the silence, lifting his glass to her in turn.

"Thank you," she said. There was a little high color in her face, but she inclined her head politely, and her voice did not waver. The silence yet lingered; Sara herself broke it, straightening with a little jerk of her shoulders, and addressed Laurence across the table, a little firmly, "Captain, may I ask you, what has happened to the boys?"

Laurence would have liked to oblige her courage, but was puzzled how to understand the question, until she added, "Were they not from your crew, the boys who looked in on the harem?"

"Oh; I am afraid I must own it," Laurence said, mortified that the story should have somehow traveled so far, and hoping he was not compounding the situation by speaking of such a thing; he would not have thought the harem any fit subject for a young Turkish lady, any more than questions about a demi-mondaine or an opera singer from an English debutante. "They have been well-disciplined for their behavior, I assure you, and there will be no repetition of the event."

"But they were not put to death, then?" she said. "I am glad to hear it; I will be able to reassure the women of the harem; it was all they were talking of, and they indeed hoped the boys would not suffer too greatly."

"Do they go out into society so often, then?" Laurence had always imagined the harem very much in the nature of a prison, and no communication with the outer world permitted.

"Oh, I am kira, business agent, for one of the kadin," Sara said. "Although they do leave the harem on excursions, it is only with a great deal of trouble; no one is allowed to see them, so they must be shut up in coaches, and take many guards, and they must have the Sultan's permission. But being a woman, I can come in to them and go out again freely myself."

"Then I hope I may beg you also to pass on to them my apologies for the intrusion, and those of the young men," Laurence said.

"They would indeed have been better satisfied with a more successful one, of longer duration," she said, with a ghost of amusement, and smiled at Laurence's tinge of embarrassment. "Oh, I do not mean any indiscretion; only they suffer from a great deal of boredom, being permitted little but indolence, and the Sultan is more interested in his reforms than in his favorites."

The meal being done, she rose with her mother and they left the table; she did not look round, but went out of the room tall and straight-shouldered, and Tharkay went to look silently out of the windows, into the garden behind the house.

Maden sighed, soundlessly, and poured more of the strong red wine into Laurence's glass. Sweets were carried in, a platter