My lord and his companions were brought before me, and in presence of all the people I mocked them; I spat in their faces, and oh! fools, fools, fools, they believed me! I lifted my veil, and showed them my eyes, and they believed also what they seemed to see in my eyes, forgetting that I am a woman who can play a part at need.
Yes, they forgot that there were others to deceive as well, all the Abati people, who, if they thought I tricked them, would have torn the foreigners limb from limb.

That was my bitterest morsel, that I should have succeeded in making even my own lord believe that of all the wicked women that ever trod this world, I was the most vile.

Yet I did so, and he cannot deny it, for often we have talked of this thing till he will hear of it no more.
Well, they went with all that I could give them, though I knew well that my lord cared nothing, for what I could give, nor the doctor, Child of Adam, either, who cared only for his son that God had restored to him.
Only Black Windows cared, not because he loves wealth, but because he worships all that is old and ugly, for of such things he fashions up his god.
They went, for their going was reported to me, and I, I entered into hell because I knew that my lord thought me false, and that he would never learn the truth, namely, that what I did I did to save his life, until at length he came to his own country, if ever he came there, and opened the chests of treasure, if ever he opened them, which perhaps he would not care to do.

And all that while he would believe me the wife of Joshua, and--oh! I cannot write of it.

And I, I should be dead; I, I could not tell him the truth until he joined me in that land of death, if there men and women can talk together any more.
For this and no other was the road that I had planned to walk.