He heard her moving about behind the mosquito netting, before she asked,

“Will you shut your eyes?”

“Why?” Lord Castleford enquired.

“Because,” she replied, “it is very difficult to put on a caftan sitting on a bed. It would be far easier for me if I stood up.”

There was a pause and then he asked,

“Are you telling me that you are sleeping naked?”

“Does that shock you?” Yamina enquired. “As a matter of fact it was unavoidable simply because my friend, Mihri, has sent me with nothing but expensive and elaborate garments all embroidered with pearls and precious stones.”

She gave a little laugh.

“I tried when I first got into bed sleeping in the thinnest and lightest of them, but I felt exactly like the Princess in the Fairytale who could feel a pea under twelve mattresses! Only in my case it was not a pea but a large number of pearls which were extremely painful!”

“I am not complaining,” Lord Castleford said. “I was only interested!”

“Your eyes are shut?”

“I can see nothing!” he replied.

He heard a rustle as Yamina stepped out of bed. Then involuntarily, without thought, he opened his eyes.

In the moonlight he saw something so exquisite, so perfect, so unbelievably lovely, that he felt he was looking at one of the Greek Goddesses come to earth to bemuse a mortal man.

Then, as Yamina slipped her arms into the caftan which she held high above her head, it slithered down over her body.

Throwing back her long hair she walked across the cabin towards him.

As she did so, Lord Castleford realised that she was wearing a garment of gauze embroidered with pearls and tiny diamonds so that she seemed, as it caught the moonlight, to be arrayed in stars.

She came to his side, looked out through the porthole and gave an exclamation of delight.

The cone-shaped mountain rose high in front of them, the lower slopes of it covered with groves of Spanish chestnut trees and forests of oaks and pines.

There were glimpses too of the white buildings of the Mediaeval Monasteries of the Orthodox Church. Everything was bathed in a silver light that gave the scene a mystery and a beauty that was indescribable.

“It is lovely! More lovely than I believed anything could be!” Yamina exclaimed.

She stood looking and it was difficult to speak.

In front of them the sea glimmered against the rocky slopes and the grey precipices, while the top of Monte Santo seemed to be haloed with the light of the Gods.

“I shall always remember this!” she breathed.

As she spoke, she realised that Lord Castleford was not looking at the mountain but at her.

She raised her eyes enquiringly and then she was held spellbound by the expression in his.