Then she rose to her feet crossing herself as she did so, to stand looking down for the last time at the father she had loved and who had loved her.

They had been so close during the last years of his life and, while they had been hidden away in this small Turkish house, Yamina thought, they had been closer than at any other time.

Sometimes there had been no need for talk, for they had known what the other was thinking.

Often, as their minds explored subjects they were both interested in, they would forget where they were and be carried away into the past, to the Byzantine Empire, to the mysteries of China or the days of the Pharaohs.

‘Who will talk to me about such things now?’ Yamina wondered wistfully.

Then, realising that time was passing, she took one last look at her father’s face until, blinded with tears, she turned away to descend to the kitchen.

Hamid held her veil in his hands and without speaking he covered her face with it and then put over her shoulders the black ferejeh.

“Will you wait, Mistress?” he asked.

Yamina nodded, unable to speak.

Hamid went up the stairs and she heard him moving about on the floor above and knew that he was pouring the petroleum oil he had bought in the Bazaar over the floor so that it encircled the bed.

He came downstairs again and now he poured from the can he carried in his hands the same oil over the kitchen floor, the furniture and the walls.

Finally, still without speaking, he opened the door and Yamina went outside.

The sedan chair sent from the harem was waiting.

It looked not unlike those that were used in Britain to carry old ladies at Brighton or in St. Petersburg by those who could not afford a drozhki.

The deaf mutes averted their eyes as Hamid helped Yamina into it and the red curtains were pulled tightly so it was impossible for any passer-by to see whom the chair contained.

The mutes would have picked up the shafts, but Hamid made a gesture signifying ‘wait’ and went back into the house.

Peeping through the curtains, Yamina knew what he was about to do and held her breath.

After a few seconds she saw the first leaping flame of the fire Hamid had kindled, crimson and gold, through the glass of the downstairs windows.

A second later he came from the house, closing the door behind him.

He walked to the chair and gave a sign for the mutes to lift it off the ground and start shuffling down the hill.

At that moment the oil with which Hamid had covered the floor ignited and tongues of flame came through the sides of the windows and beneath the door.

The deaf mutes turned their heads as if in surprise before, at Hamid’s command, they moved away.