“Why …”
At once Hector understood, and he felt again that terrible sensation of faintness when, amidst the shouts of the servants that crowded the outer gate, three people entered the courtyard, and he saw, to his unspeakable joy and amazement, that it was Jane, accompanied by her father and by a gigantic figure of a man whom the old nurse, with a shrill scream, greeted as:
“Musa Al-Mutasim! By the red pig's bristles! Musa Al-Mutasim!”
Hector did not hear the last words. He heard nothing, saw nothing except Jane; and, forgetting the crowd that watched curiously from the gate, forgetting the princess, the nurse, the Arab, and Mr. Ezra Warburton, he rushed up to her and took her in his arms.
“My dear—oh, my dear …”
He stammered. English to the core he was, for all his strain of Tamerlani blood which bound his destiny with that of Asia, and English, too, was his love, lean, wiry, strong, a little hard. But, as he held her to him, close, the love he bore her swept over him with an overwhelming force and sweetness, and he did not have to use Cambuscan's Mirror to tell him that his love was returned.
She kissed him full on the lips.
Then she laughed.
“Hector,” she said, “I am surprised at you. This isn't the correct way to propose to a girl—nor exactly the correct place!”
“I don't care,” laughed Hector, “I'm never going
