"I
entreat you to grant my request. Let each of you go after the tax he
has laid by, and then come with me, all of you, to the tschorbadji.
I will attend to the rest."
"Masa, what are you about to do? " asked the men, regarding her in
astonishment. "It does not become a woman to meddle with such
affairs."
"It becomes a daughter to save her father's life. This is my only
purpose, and may Allah assist me in accomplishing it!" cried she,
with enthusiasm. "I pray you, go after the money, and wait at the
rocky stairway. I am only going to my house, and shall return
directly."
She flew across the square to her father's house. Two female
servants, who had been standing in the hall, anxiously awaiting the
return of their mistress, cried out with joy, and hastened forward
to kiss her bands.
She rushed past them up the stairway, and into her room, looking the
door behind her, that none might follow. She then took hastily from
a trunk, inherited from her mother, a casket, adorned with mother-
of-pearl and precious, stones. She opened it and looked at its
contents.
"Yes, there are the ear-rings; and there are the tiara and the
necklace."
Her mother had given her, on her death-bed, these, the bridal
ornaments she had brought with her from her father's house, and the
sheik had often remarked that these jewels were worth at least a
hundred sequins.
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