The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [5702]
"Very well. I want to tell you," replied Miska, "why I stay with Fo-Hi."
"Who is Fo-Hi?"
"I do not know!"
"What!" said Stuart. "I am afraid I don't understand you."
"If I speak in French will you be able to follow what I say?"
"Certainly. Are you more at ease with French?"
"Yes," replied Miska, beginning to speak in the latter language. "My mother was French, you see, and although I can speak in English fairly well I cannot yet _think_ in English. Do you understand?
"Perfectly. So perhaps you will now explain to whom you refer when you speak of Fo-Hi."
Miska glanced apprehensively around her, bending further forward over the table.
"Let me tell you from the beginning," she said in a low voice, "and then you will understand. It must not take me long. You see me as I am to-day because of a dreadful misfortune that befell me when I was fifteen years old."
"My father was _Wali_ of Aleppo, and my mother, his third wife, was a Frenchwoman, a member of a theatrical company which had come to Cairo, where he had first seen her. She must have loved him, for she gave up the world, embraced Islam and entered his _harem_ in the great house on the outskirts of Aleppo. Perhaps it was because he, too, was half French, that they were mutually attracted. My father's mother was a Frenchwoman also, you understand.
"Until I was fifteen years of age, I never left the _harem,_ but my mother taught me French and also a little English; and she prevailed upon my father not to give me in marriage so early as is usual in the East. She taught me to understand the ways of European women, and we used to have Paris journals and many books come to us regularly. Then an awful pestilence visited Aleppo. People were dying in the mosques and in the streets, and my father decided to send my mother and myself and some others of the _harem_ to his brother's house in Damaskus.
"Perhaps you will think that such things do not happen in these days, and particularly to members of the household of a chief magistrate, but I can only tell you what is true. On the second night of our journey a band of Arabs swept down upon the caravan, overpowered the guards, killing them all, and carried of everything of value which we had. Me, also, they carried off--me and one other, a little Syrian girl, my cousin. Oh!" she shuddered violently--"even now I can sometimes hear the shrieks of my mother ... and I can hear, also, the way they suddenly ceased, those cries ..."
Stuart looked up with a start to find a Swiss waiter placing tea upon the table. He felt like rubbing his eyes. He had been dragged rudely back from the Syrian desert to the prosaic realities of a London hotel.
"Perhaps," continued Miska, "you will think that we were ill-treated, but it was not so. No one molested us. We were given every comfort which desert life can provide, servant to wait upon us and plenty of good food. After several weeks' journeying we came to a large city, having many minarets and domes glimmering in the moonlight; for we entered at night. Indeed, we always travelled at night. At the time I had no idea of the name of this city but I learned afterwards that it was Mecca.
"As we proceeded through the streets, the Assyrian girl and I peeped out through the little windows of the _shibriyeh_--which is a kind of tent on the back of a camel--in which we travelled, hoping to see some familiar face or someone to whom we could appeal. But there seemed to be scarcely anyone visible in the streets, although lights shone out from many windows, and the few men we saw seemed to be anxious to avoid us. In fact, several ran down side turnings as the camels approached.
"We stopped before the gate of a large house which was presently opened, and the camels entered the courtyard. We descended, and I saw that a number of small apartments surrounded the courtyard in the manner of a _caravanserai._ Then, suddenly, I saw something else, and I knew why we had been