“It is nearly four o’clock,” he said. “My valet will be bringing me tea. I think we had better be prepared with the story we intend to tell him!”

Yamina looked away and then said,

“You may perhaps think it cowardly of me, but I suggest you do not mention the fact that I am a Russian. Why not say that I was abducted unwillingly to the Sultan’s harem and that some friends inside the Palace contrived my escape?”

Lord Castleford did not speak and after a moment she added quickly,

“It is not that I am ashamed of my nationality, make no mistake about that! I am proud of being Russian – very proud! At the same time it would be hard for anyone travelling together with a number of wounded men not to resent an enemy in their midst.”

“I daresay you are right,” Lord Castleford conceded. “I will tell Jenkins the story you have suggested, but while I tell him I think it best that you should not be present.”

“I will go into the bathroom,” Yamina said, “and I will not come out until you call for me.”

She rose as she spoke and going to the trunk she pulled out one or two of the garments that Mihri had laid on top of her.

She found a caftan of hembra, which was of velvet brocade woven with silver thread.

She took it with her into the bathroom and closed the door. As she did so, Lord Castleford heard a key turn in the lock of the cabin door and he pulled back the bolt.

Jenkins came in carrying a tray on which there was a pot of tea, a china cup and a plate of sweet biscuits, which Lord Castleford recognised as having come from the Embassy.

The valet set the tray down on a table and, when he had done so, Lord Castleford said,

“Shut the door, Jenkins, I wish to speak to you.”

He obeyed and then as he waited Lord Castleford said, choosing his words with difficulty,

“I have had a surprise, Jenkins.”

“Indeed, my Lord?”

“Yes! In the trunk that I brought from the Sultan’s Palace there was not the present I had expected but a young girl, who had found it the only method of escape from the harem!”

“A young girl, my Lord?”

Even Jenkins, usually so phlegmatic, was amazed.

“She had been taken there against her will by the Sultan’s agents,” Lord Castleford explained. “This was the only way she could escape and, as you can well understand, it is a considerable embarrassment to me!”

“Yes, indeed, my Lord. What does your Lordship intend to do about it?”

“There is nothing I can do, Jenkins, except take this young woman to Athens and then somehow smuggle her out of the Residency.”

Lord Castleford paused and then said slowly and impressively,