"Do you mean to
tell me that you were taken as a _slave_ to Cairo?"
Miska smiled--and her smile was the taunting smile of the East, which
is at once a caress and an invitation.
"You think, no doubt, that there are no slaves in Cairo!" she said.
"So do most people, and so did I--once. I learned better. There are
palaces in Cairo, I assure you, in which there are many slaves. I
myself lived in such a palace for four years, and I was not the only
slave there. What do British residents and French residents know of
the inner domestic life of their Oriental neighbours? Are they ever
admitted to the _harem?_ And the slaves--are they ever admitted
outside the walls of the palace? Sometimes, yes, but never alone!
"By slow stages, following the ancient caravan routes, and accompanied
by an extensive retinue of servants in charge of Chunda Lal, we came
to Cairo; and one night, approaching the city from the north-east and
entering by the Bab en-Nasr, I was taken to the old palace which was
to be my prison for four years. How I passed those four years has no
bearing upon the matters which I have to tell you, but I lived the
useless, luxurious life of some Arabian princess, my lightest wish
anticipated and gratified; nothing was denied me, except freedom.
"Then, one day--it was actually my nineteenth birthday--Chunda Lal
presented himself and told me that I was to have an interview with
Fo-Hi. Hearing these words, I nearly swooned, for a hundred times
during the years of my strange luxurious captivity I had awakened
trembling in the night, thinking that the figure of the awful veiled
Chinaman had entered the room.
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