Had the
slightest spark of friendship animated the bosom of Karamaneh, most
certainly she would have overlooked the presence of the keys--of the
keys which represented my one hope of escape from the clutches of the
fiendish Chinaman.
There is a silence more eloquent than words. For half a minute or
more, Karamaneh stood watching me--forcing herself to watch me--and I
looked up at her with a concentrated gaze in which rage and reproach
must have been strangely mingled.
What eyes she had!--of that blackly lustrous sort nearly always
associated with unusually dark complexions; but Karamaneh's complexion
was peachlike, or rather of an exquisite and delicate fairness which
reminded me of the petal of a rose. By some I have been accused of
romancing about this girl's beauty, but only by those who had not met
her; for indeed she was astonishingly lovely.
At last her eyes fell, the long lashes drooped upon her cheeks. She
turned and walked slowly to the chair wherein Fu-Manchu had sat.
Placing the keys upon the table amid the scientific litter, she rested
one dimpled elbow upon the yellow page of the book, and with her chin
in her palm, again directed upon me that enigmatical gaze.
I dared not think of the past, of the past in which this beautiful,
treacherous girl had played a part; yet, watching her, I could not
believe, even now, that she was false! My state was truly a pitiable
one; I could have cried out in sheer anguish.
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