“You heard naught beyond that?”
“I heard talk that our General, who is Yusef’s father, was wroth, and said there must be as thick a rope for your neck, and the Viceroy said you would be shortly for sale and he could buy you and hang you then.”
“So it seems it is time for me to go.”
“So it is, if you know how.”
“It is that I would ask you.” She leant forward, and said in a low voice, as though mentioning that which could not be spoken aloud: “For a thousand ducats of gold.”
The man was silent. It was an immense sum to be handled by such as he. Greed and fear strove in his eyes. But he shook his head. It could not be done.
“It is gold I could not collect, nor you pay, being both dead.”
“I have better hope.”
He quoted an old proverb of many lands. “Live in hope and die in a ditch.”
“
