Slowly she pushed back the veil from her head to reveal the diamonds glittering in her dark hair.

For a moment Lord Castleford found it impossible to move.

Then he rose to his feet, exclaiming as he did so,

“What the devil do you think you are doing here?”

He spoke so violently that his voice seemed to echo round the cabin and in his astonishment he spoke in English.

“I am sorry! It was the only way I could escape,” Yamina replied to him in the same language.

Lord Castleford walked towards her as she still stood in the trunk, the brilliant silks and satins with which Mihri had covered her encircling her legs with waves of colour.

“I know you! I have seen you before!” Lord Castleford exclaimed. “You are Yamina – the woman I rescued in the Bazaar!”

“I am flattered that your Lordship should remember me!”

“But you have come from the Sultan’s Palace!”

Then, as if for the first time he realised how she was dressed, he looked her up and down observing the veil, which still covered her shoulders and the gauze chemise open to the waist.

“I had to – hide in the – Palace,” Yamina stammered in a low voice.

She knew as she spoke that he was not only astonished at her appearance but also very angry.

There was a frown between his eyes and there was a note in his voice that she had not heard when they had met before.

“Then the sooner you return there, the better!” Lord Castleford said harshly. “You must be well aware that you cannot stay here on this ship with me.”

“I realise it will be – difficult,” Yamina replied, “but I really had no – alternative.”

“What were you doing in the Palace,” he enquired, “and dressed like that?”

“As I have already explained,” Yamina replied, “I was hiding – there.”

“From what and, from whom?” Lord Castleford enquired. “You did not appear to be hiding from anyone when I first met you.”

There was a moment’s silence.

Then raising her chin a little, her eyes on his, Yamina said,

“I am a Russian!”

“Good God!”

The words seemed to be jerked from his lips.

Lord Castleford turned to walk across the cabin and stand at the desk Jenkins had arranged for him in front of a porthole, as if somehow it gave him support.

Yamina did not move. She just stood looking at him and after a moment he said,

“A Russian! And now you tell me you have escaped from the Sultan! What the hell am I expected to do about that?”

He paused and, as she did not speak, he continued,

“I imagine, if I ask the Captain to do so, he will stop the ship and we can set you down on Turkish soil.”

“If you do,” Yamina said, “doubtless the people will treat me in the same way as they treated the Russian we saw in the Bazaar.”