“I’ve also managed to find a special place for your Lordship’s luggage on this deck. I don’t know, however, what you wish me to do with the painted trunk you brought with you when you came aboard.”

Lord Castleford looked round and saw that the trunk had been placed against one of the walls so that he had not noticed it when he entered the cabin.

“Shall I have it put with the other luggage, my Lord?” Jenkins enquired.

“I had better see what it contains first,” Lord Castleford said after a moment’s pause. “The Eunuch who gave me the key said that it was something perishable.”

He felt in his pockets and found the gold key that Sahin had given him.

“Unlock it, Jenkins. I will inspect it later.”

“Very good, my Lord.”

Lord Castleford saw that there was a newspaper lying on the table in the middle of the room. He picked it up, opened it and, finding something to interest him in the centre pages, sat down in an armchair to read it.

While he had been with the Captain, the ship had started to move down the Bosporus. It was now leaving behind the domes and spires, the white-walled Mosques, kiosks and Palaces and steaming out into the open waters of the Sea of Marmora.

Lord Castleford was, however, not interested. He had seen it all before and instead he concentrated on his newspaper which, although many days old, gave him news of Europe that had not yet reached the British Embassy.

Jenkins left the cabin closing the door behind him and there was only the throb of the ship’s engines and the cry of the gulls outside the portholes of the cabin.

Quite suddenly Lord Castleford was alerted to something that arrested his attention. He had no idea what it was – he only knew with some perception that he could not explain that his eyes were turned to the painted trunk on the other side of the cabin.

Jenkins had undone the two gold locks and pulled back the lid. From where he was sitting Lord Castleford could see a splash of crimson silk and what looked like the glitter of gems.

Then, as his eyes rested on it, incredibly and astonishingly the silk began to move!

At first it rushed through his mind that what he had been given was an animal or bird of some sort, but then the silk moved upwards and a moment later was pushed back to reveal a woman’s face!

Lord Castleford could only stare, thinking that what he was seeing was a figment of his imagination.

Then slowly, because she was cramped, Yamina rose to her feet.

She stood there in her rose-pink entari, the gauze chemise soft against the whiteness of her skin and the precious stones of her girdle and stomacher clasp flashing in the light coming through the portholes.