CHAPTER XXXIX
All our lives we all chase wraiths in the moonshine! Be the wraiths the outcome of proximity in the garden under the silvery moon rays, which so often snap the trap about our unwary feet by rounding off the physical angles of our momentary heart's desires, or lending point to the stub ends of their undeveloped mentality; or the wraiths of the midnight soul, otherwise disarranged nervous or digested system, which float invitingly, distractingly, tantalisingly in front of our clogged-by-sleep vision at night; turning out, however, in the early light heralding the early cup of tea, to be nothing more soul distracting than the good old brass knob adorning the end of the bedstead.
But Jack Wetherbourne's wraiths, which he was chasing in the moonlight, were good honest humans with the requisite number of legs and arms wrapped in good, white raiment; one of which humans with the other in his arms sat astride a camel, who made up by her muscular development whatever she might lack in goodness of heart and honesty of purpose; she too being wrapped in the silvery drapery which the moon throws pell-mell around pyramid and mud hut, humble fellah, descendant maybe of some long dead Pharaoh, and the jocular, jubilant millionaire, who with luck can trace a grandfather.
But chase he ever so eagerly, Jack Wetherbourne could barely keep his quarry in sight as on and on sped the racing camel with that curious slithering gait which denotes great speed, whilst the wind caught at Jill's veil, blowing it this way and that until she impatiently tore it from before her face, and struggling against the arm which held her like a vice, managed to screw herself round to look behind, whereupon the Arab jerked her suddenly back, looking down into her white face with eyes ablaze with jealousy.
"Hast thou no circumspection, O! wife of mine?" he cried, the wind carrying the words from his lips almost before they were uttered. "Mine, all mine thou art, and yet thou strivest to look upon the countenance of that madman who would have outraged my honour by looking upon thy face!"
"Oh, but Hahmed! you don't understand—that was Jack Wetherbourne, my neighbour and brother and friend, and do for pity's sake make the camel go slower, I am being bumped to bits!"
Which of all foolish utterances was the most foolish she could have uttered, fanning the man's jealousy to a pitch where it burned right through the barrier of self-restraint, making him desire to stop her foolish words with kisses, and long to strangle her as she lay in his arms, and cast her on to the sands for the vultures to pick at.
"Thy friend and brother! How could any man unborn of thy parents be anything but the would-be lover and husband of thy beautiful self! Verily, woman, could I beat thee for such words until thy shoulders ran blood. I know of him and his foolish futile searchings for thee, yet it is I who hold thee, and in very truth can call thee wife; nor will I stay this my camel so that thou mayest have speech with him; this pale faced yearling, who dared to look upon thy shadow; but by the grace of Allah, I will so bewilder him who blundereth after thee astride the product of the bazaar, that his sightless skull shall stare blindly at the moon to-morrow night, whilst I shall feast my eyes upon the whiteness of thy satin skin."
And Jill lay still, knowing that she was up against something with which she could not cope, noticing not at all that the camel began a wide circle to the left, therefore being excessively surprised when an hour before the dawn, upon the very outskirts of Cairo itself, the man caused his camel to kneel, and placing the girl like a bundle of hay upon the ground, turned towards Mecca; and the time of prayer being passed, came to her suddenly and held her to him, raining kisses upon the fairness of her face, shining pale and shadowed in the light of the coming day.
CHAPTER XL
You have only to stare long enough at it to get the image of some distinct object imprinted upon your retina, then you need but stare again at some space of indistinct colouring and you will see the impression of your distinct object reprinted a hundred times upside down.
Who has not tried the experiment in their youth with the aid of the ceiling and red-lettered advertisement of chocolate or soap, and later in years upbraided the reflected blobs of sun which usually choose a critical moment in which to obscure your vision when you have turned your back upon the sunset.
Jack Wetherbourne distinctly saw the fleeing camel in front of him, when he at last got his own to its feet, and being eager to keep his quarry well within his vision, continued to stare and strain his eyes, whilst he raced for hour after hour over mile after mile of sand, until in the end he saw the fleeing camel ahead of him when in reality it was well on its way back to Cairo; and continued, with eyes staring out of a white, dust-covered face, to pursue the phantom until the first ray of the sun hitting him fiercely, caused him to cover his eyes a while, and after, to look about him with refreshed sight, which showed him in the midst of the desert, alone, with a cloud of sand rising before the wind some miles behind him—an infant sandstorm, but strong enough to hide the distant peaks of the pyramids from him, and to send his terrified, idiotic camel fleeing straight ahead through hours of increasing heat, without a drop of water upon its foolish back or in its master's pocket flask, until with a sudden silly chuckle the man jerked the reins and tumbled headlong from the saddle, laughing stupidly with sudden sunstroke.
CHAPTER XLI
The midday sun of the same day blazed down upon a picture which for ghastliness surpassed even the horrors painted by the madman Werth, which, if your mind is steeped in morbidness, you can see for a franc, or for nothing, I really forget which, when next you visit Brussels.
Upon a hillock of sand, the summit of which continually trickled to the base in fine golden streams, a little mound built with the aid of a pair of pumps, sat Jack Wetherbourne, laughing sickeningly, just as he had sat since the moment he had waved a delirious adieu to the quickly disappearing camel. His dress coat, trousers, white waistcoat, shirt, undergarments, socks and shoes, lay upon the sand arranged by the disordered mind in the fantastic design of a scarecrow.
As I have said, the man himself, naked save for a vest twisted round his waist, sat upon the mound gesticulating violently, whilst keeping up a one-sided, unanswered conversation with the figure on the sand. His bronzed face, burnt almost black even in the few hours of sun beating down upon his unshaded head, turned restlessly to the right and left; his long fingers plucked without ceasing at the great blisters which the heat drew up upon his body, bursting them, so that the fluid mingled with the sand blown upon him by the light wind, and upon which flies, thousands of them, settled, to buzz away when he rose to run this way and that in an effort to stay the awful irritation.
Two o'clock by the clocks in Cairo, the hour when workers and idlers, rich and poor, seek the coolest spot in their vicinity in which to lay them down and sleep a while—the hour when Mary Bingham drove up to Shepherds, having raced here, there, and everywhere during the morning in a vain endeavour to awaken a little interest in the minds of those who listened, and shrugged, and looked at each other significantly, at the tale of a man who had got lost in Cairo for a night and a morning—a tale told agitatedly by a charming woman who could give no reason for her agitation.
Also she had tried, desperately hard, with the aid of the hotel porter, to make head or tail out of the narrative as recounted by the hirer of camels—a woebegone tale in which the undercurrent was a dismal foreboding as to the fate of the priceless quadruped; the fate of an Englishman seemingly being of small account when compared to that of the snarling, unpleasant brute who represented the native's entire fortune—at least so he said. "Yes, the nobleman had hired the camel as he so often did, and being acquainted with the ways of the animal had gone alone as he always did. No! upon the beard of his grandfather he had no idea in which direction he had gone, though verily upon the outskirts of Cairo there had been a festival in which La Belle, the well-known dancer, was to dance—who knows———" And the Hon. Mary had flung out of the place in disgust, knowing with a woman's intuition, sharpened love, in comparison with which a kukri is blunt, that no such place hid the man she had been searching for so desperately ever since she had suddenly wakened and sprung out of her bed the night before, for no reason whatever, and, having rung up Shepherds and ascertained the fact that Sir John Wetherbourne was not in the hotel, had paced her room until she could with reason arouse her maid, and, having bathed and breakfasted, had started out on the seemingly mad pursuit of someone who had failed to return to his habitat during the night—and in Cairo too!
Is it surprising that men winked secretly at one another, and that their wives, sharers of their joys and sorrows, scandal and gossip inclusive, jingled their bracelets and pursed their lips, and did all those things which jealous women—not necessarily love jealous—are feign to do when the object responsible for the conception of the green-eyed monster within their being is bent on making a fool of herself?
"Come now, dearie," mumbled Lady Sarah Gruntham, who insisted on keeping Lancashire meal hours to the consternation of the hotel staff, native and otherwise, as she mopped her heated brow with her handkerchief and with the other hand patted the dark head leaning wearily upon the row of scarab buttons adorning her tussore front, from which she had forgotten to remove her finger napkin when the girl had entered. "Come now—come now. Don't 'ee take on an' fret so. The lad'll coom back to ye, never ye fear now. Well I remember when yon Tim of mine was down t' mine in t' big explosion—I took on just as ye are takin' on, love, but down in me heart, lass, I never really feared me, because I knew that me love for me lad was that great, lass, that I'd pull him out of danger—and sure and I did, lass, black as a sweep and with a broken arm, but alive, and a champion tea of shrimps and cress we had, jest as ye'll have with yer lad when he comes back, lass!"
Which motherly comfort served to lighten the heavy heart, but brought not the faintest shadow of a smile to the steadfast eyes. For even the vision of watercress, shrimps and tea on the verandah at Shepherds will not force a light to the windows of the soul when they are blinded with anxiety.
So Mary Bingham, in her cool white dress, lay back in the long chair, with a glass of iced lemonade on a table by her side in a room darkened so as to induce slumber, whilst out in the desert with choked cries of "Good dog! At it! Good dog!" a man began scratching the sand as a ratting terrier does the earth, until he had excavated a hole big enough in which to curl himself, where he lay until desert things that creep and crawl drove him out again, shrieking for water.
CHAPTER XLII
And the full force of the storm crashed about Jill's defenceless head at the midday hour also of the same day, when she ought to have been searching the coolness of her midday sleeping chamber, and forgetfulness of the last few hours in sleep.
Not quite defenceless was she, however, as she sat back in the chair, her eyes ablaze and her veil torn to shreds at her feet, ripping the moral atmosphere with words which seemed to have been dipped in some corrosive verbal fluid. She was angry, hurt, and deathly tired, and was doing her best to pass some of her mental suffering anyway on to the man who leant with folded arms against the cedar wall.
The inevitable crisis had come!
The independence of Western womanhood had clashed with the Eastern ideas on the privacy and seclusion of the gentler sex. Jill simply could not understand that there was any cause for the terrible jealousy which had suddenly blazed up in the Arab when she had innocently repeated her request to be allowed to see her old friend; Hahmed was as incapable of understanding the request, having failed in his sojourn in the West to fully realise the everyday kind of jolly, good, frank camaraderie which can exist between certain types of English man and woman.
Half a word of tenderness, half a gesture of love, and she would have been sobbing or laughing happily in his arms, but like a prairie fire before the wind, the terrible Eastern rage was blazing through the man, too fierce, too terrific to allow him to analyse the situation, or remember that the upbringing of his girl-wife had been totally different to that of the women of his country.
Jill suddenly sat forward, clasping one slim ankle across her knee in a slim hand, a position she knew perfectly well would rouse Hahmed to a frenzy, and spoke slowly and mockingly in English instead of the pretty lisping Arabic which always entranced him.
"You may lecture, and remonstrate, and admonish, which all comes to the same thing, until night falls, but you will never make me see eye to eye with you in this. It is simply absurd to threaten that you will shut me in my apartments until I learn reason. If you lock me in, or place guards about me, I will jump from the roof and gain my freedom by breaking my neck. Why Jack Wetherbourne—oh———"
Hahmed had leant forward, and gripping her by the shoulders had very suddenly, and not over gently, jerked her to her feet, holding her by the strength of his hands alone, as she desperately tried to liberate herself.
"Let me go, Hahmed! let me go! You are hurting me dreadfully. You must not hurt me—you must not bruise me. Oh! you don't understand!"
She struggled furiously and unavailingly, resorting at last to cruelty to gain her end.
"Let me go, Hahmed! Take your hands away—I—I hate to feel them upon me!"
He let her go, pushing her away from him ever so slightly, so that she stumbled against the chair, cracking her ankle-bone, that tenderest bit of anatomical scaffolding, against a projecting piece of ornamental wood.
It was a case of injury added to insult, and she crouched back furious in her physical hurt as she tore the silken covering from her arms, where already showed faint bruises above the little tattoo mark showing itself so black against the white skin, and upon which she put her finger.
"Oh! who would have thought when you tattooed that, Jack——!"
But she stood her ground and shrugged her naked shoulders irritatingly when Hahmed crossed the dividing space in a bound with his hand upon the hilt of his dagger.
"Bi—smi—llah! what sayest thou? This mark upon the fairness of thy arm which I have thought a blemish, and therefore have not questioned thee thereon—sayest thou it is a dakkh, what thou callest a tattoo mark? And if so what has it to do with the man whose name is unceasingly upon thy lips?"
Jill stood like a statue of disdain.
"What is the matter now, Hahmed? Please understand that I will not tolerate such continual fault-finding any longer! That is a tattoo mark of a pail of water—you may not know that we have a rhyme in England which begins like this:
"Jack and Jill went up a hill
To fetch a pail of water!"
Oh! shades of ancient Egypt, did you ever hear or see anything so pathetically absurd as Jill as she solemnly repeated the old doggerel.
"That makes no difference—a pail of water or the outline of a flower—did this man—this—this Jack make the mark upon thee?"
Jill hesitated for a second and then answered with a glint in her eye.
"Yes! he did—and he did Mary too—put the dinkiest little heart on her arm—we were under the cherry tree in the vegetable———!"
"Go!" suddenly thundered the Arab.
And Jill, gathering her raiment about her for departure, turned to look straight into the man's eyes, whilst her heart, in spite of the little scornful smile which twisted the corner of her mouth, leapt with the love which had blossomed a hundredfold under the torrent of jealousy, wrath, and mastery which he had poured forth upon her during the last hour.
"Behold! art thou weak," she said sweetly in his own tongue, "having not the strength to kill that which offends thee. 'Thou shalt not know this man, or any other man,'" she mocked, quoting his words, "and yet canst thou not break me to thy will! Of a truth, I have no further use for thee in thy weakness!"
But Hahmed's control had only been slightly cracked, so that he merely pointed to the curtain which divided Jill's quarters from the rest of the house.
"Go!" he said simply, "go to thy apartment, wherein thou shalt stay until thou seest good to come to me in obedience and love. Thou shalt not go forth except to the gardens; neither shall thy friends visit thee, neither shalt thou climb to the roof; and thou shalt obey me—many, aye, many a woman were dead for far less than this thy disobedience—but thou—thou art too beautiful to kill, except with love—go!"
And Jill went, with beautiful head held high, heart throbbing from love, and blood pounding in her ears from downright rage.
"I will not obey you! I shall do exactly as I wish!" she proclaimed, with the curtain in her hand. In which she was mistaken, for the simple fact that love held her fast.
And the curtain swinging to hide her from the Arab, as she stood for one moment holding out her arms toward him; and for the same reason she did not see him pick up her torn, scented veil, to thrust it between his inner silken vest and his sorely perturbed heart.
CHAPTER XLIII
Night with her blessed wind had come at last, which means coolness for a space beneath the stars, and oblivion for a while in sleep for those who have untroubled heart and good digestion. There was just one black patch in all that silvery stretch of sand, upon which the moon shone, a patch that came neither from rock or tree or cloud, and which moved occasionally in fitful jerks, until it raised itself and collapsed again, and spread itself in a still stranger shape as from underneath garments which had the form of arms and legs and disjointed feet which fell apart, there crawled a man.
A man, though the face was cracked in great seams from brow to chin, whilst the black tongue protruded from the split mouth drawn back from the even teeth until the great bloated face seemed to laugh in derision at the moon's softness.
The body, covered in a mass of sores coated with sand, raised itself to the knees, whilst the hands tried painfully to scoop up the silver moonbeams and raise them to the mouth. There was no sound in all that deathly plain, which Allah knows is accustomed to such scenes, and when the body had fallen forward once more upon the sand, so that the open mouth was filled with grit, neither was there movement, until upon the pale light of dawn a silent shape, and yet another, and still another one, sailed serenely across the sky, and with a faint rustle of folding wings settled down around the heap; to soar noiselessly skyward when it suddenly twitched convulsively; to settle again with faint rustling when all once more was still.
"Verily, O! brother, I am led towards that spot upon which the birds of death have come together."
So said the Egyptian who was partner in the small caravan proceeding leisurely towards Cairo, as he shaded his eyes and pointed first up to the ever lightening sky, across which from all parts floated small black dots, and then to a distant place upon the sand, where the black spots seemed to mingle until they formed a blot of shade.
"Nay! Raise not thy voice in dissent, O! my brother, for behold we have made good time, and water faileth us not."
And well was it that they turned aside, and shouted as they approached so that only one beak had time to tear a strip of flesh from beneath the naked shoulder, ere the flock of vultures rose, hovered a second, and were gone. The two men drew near, and having dismounted, turned the poor thing over, and feeling the faint beating of the heart, with no more ado than if they were setting down to food, undid one of the goatskins from the nearest camel, and soaking the flowing bernous until it dripped with the precious water, wrapped the body in its folds; and collecting the gold watch, money and card-case strewn upon the sands, slipped everything back into a waistcoat pocket with the exception of a three day old programme announcing a cotillion at Shepherd's Hotel, a sketch of which hideous building was elaborately and mendaciously reproduced on the cover, so that to the mind of uneducated Yussuf, unversed in the English tongue, there was but one thing to do, and that to go straight to the well-known caravanserai with his burden, and deliver it safely into the proprietor's hands.
So Yussuf, euphoniously termed a benighted heathen by some enlightened Christians, seated himself upon the fastest camel in the caravan, receiving into his arms the thing that was still a man by their good efforts, from the hands of the other heathen, who, with hands raised to heaven, called down the blessing of Allah upon men and beast as the latter departed at her swiftest for the great city, leaving him to follow in more leisurely manner.
So that consternation and excitement were great among those who sat upon the verandah after dinner, partaking of coffee and cigarettes before undertaking the more strenuous task of entertaining themselves, when in the glare of the electric light a great camel suddenly appeared out of the night, and totally disregarding the upraised voice of the enormous hotel porter, subsided in the gutter, thereby causing a block in the street; whilst a man clumsily dismounted and staggered up the shallow steps, tenderly holding some covered burden the while in his arms that were breaking with fatigue, and who, speaking with authority, demanded speech of the proprietor, who, furious at being disturbed, came forth as furiously to annihilate the disturber, but instead, at the first word from the Arab, who clutched a dirty piece of paper in a hand almost paralysed with cramp, lifted a corner of the cloth from about that which lay so inertly under the all-hiding cloak, and choked, and stuttered, and then recovering himself, blandly led the Arab to the lift which whirled them to the first floor, leaving the occupants on the verandah all a-twitter, whilst the coffee grew cold and the cigarettes went out.
CHAPTER XLIV
Days and nights passed, and still more days and nights, in which the man, bound from head to foot in soft wrappings soaked in unguents, tossed and raved, screaming for water, tearing at the bed-linen which to his distorted mind was alive with every conceivable insect, beating blindly at the faces of the two women who, refusing any help, watched over and tended Jack Wetherbourne through his days of distress.
"Aye, lass! Now don't 'ee lose 'eart," whispered Sarah Ann Gruntham to the girl who, having held consultation with the doctor, was sobbing her heart out on the elder woman's motherly bosom which covered a heart of purest gold. "Don't 'ee listen to such fash, lass, for what's he likely to know outside of Lady Jones's wimble-wambles and me Lor' Fitznoodles' rheumatism. Why 'e couldn't even tell that I 'ad 'ad a touch of my old complaint, and me with an 'andle to me name. Come, lass, oop with ye bonnie head, for I'll tell 'ee the great news—I sees a bead o' perspiration on Sir John's brow—an' so I'm off to take me 'air out of crackers. Though Tim does find it more home-like, 'e says, when I 'ave 'em h'in—oh, dearie! dearie! I often wish I was plain Mrs. Gruntham again with no aitches to mind. I'll be with you in ten minutes, and then, lass, ye'll just run away and have a bath—I managed the aitch that time—and come back as fresh as a daisy, if there were such a innocent thing in this land of sphinxes and minxes—and ye'll see ten beads then, which sounds as tho' I be a Roman instead of a strict Baptist. I'll run along, love, and don't let 'im see tears in them bonny eyes of yours when he comes to know ye, lass."
And the dearest old soul in the world waddled away to take her hair out of the crackers which had made a steel halo round her silvery hair for many a night, and waddled hack again to see Mary with a great glow in her eyes, and her hand clasping the skeleton fingers of Jack Wetherbourne, who had known her at last, and was gazing blissfully at his beloved.
His lips moved, though so weak was he that no sound came from them, so that Mary had to bend to catch the whisper until her ear just touched the lips still distorted from the effects of the desert sun.
She sat up, blushing from chin to brow, and smilingly shook her head.
"I will marry you, Jack dear, as soon as we find Jill!"
Wetherbourne made a feeble and unsuccessful attempt to frown, and then turned his eyes as Mary turned her head on the opening of the door between the bedroom and the sitting-room.
In the doorway stood the bewildering picture of an Eastern woman.
Wrapped round in the voluminous cloak of the East, with the face and head veils hiding all but her eyes, she stood quite still as Lady Sarah bustled across the room towards her, and Mary held up a warning hand.
A twitching of the man's fingers drew Mary's attention, and once more she leant down to him.
"We're engaged," came the faint whisper, "it's Jill!"
CHAPTER XLV
Decked out in Mary's trappings Jill lay on the couch, her pale face shining like an evening flower, whilst she passed the brush over and over again through the burnished strands of her wonderful hair.
Mary had sat spellbound, almost open-mouthed, at the Arabian Nights tale Jill had poured into her astounded ears.
"Hahmed!" she had exclaimed when Jill had told her of her marriage; and be it confessed that Jill had tautened to meet the coming attack, and relaxed when Mary, clasping her capable hands, had suddenly and whole-heartedly beamed upon her. "Why, I've heard the most wonderful things about him since I have been out here, in fact I've been almost wearied to death listening to the accounts of his Haroun al Raschid methods and qualities. His wedding put Cairo in an uproar—I saw the pro——— But Jill, darling, is it possible it was you inside the palanquin on the wonderful camel?"
Jill nodded as she busied herself in plaiting her hair into great ropes.
"And you've run away—escaped, you say?"
Jill nodded again.
"Yes!" she said, with three big tortoiseshell combs between her teeth. "We had a frightful flare-up—all the fault of my tearing temper. You see I've been absolutely spoilt these last months, and I simply behaved anyhow the first time I got scolded. But I didn't deserve it all the same!" she added as an afterthought, as she wound the plaits round her head. "And," she went on, "I should never have got away if Mustapha had been with us."
"Who's Mustapha?"
"My own special bodyguard! But as he wasn't there I managed to thoroughly examine the high wall round the grounds, and found just one spot to give me a foothold. I scrambled up in the heat of the day when everyone was asleep, and had a terrible time with my garments."
She pointed as she spoke to a scented heap of silk and satin thrown on a chair.
"I had to partly disrobe whilst sitting on the top of the wall, and was terrified in case some pedlar might chance along. I tied my face and head veil round my waist, but the habarah, that big black cloak—by the way it belongs to one of my women, and I borrowed it with the excuse that I wanted it copied, mine you see are rather ornamental, as, of course, I never walk in the streets—well, I threw that on to the ground, tucked up my sebleh, that dressing-gown sort of thing, and scrambled down the other side, as I did not want to jump, ripping the knees of my shintiyan—the wide trouser kind of things we wear———"
Mary's face was a study.
"Thanks to my borrowed cloak I was able to walk through the streets in comfort—drawing my burko, face veil, dear, across my face so that only one eye should be seen,[1] and a blue one at that. When I got to Cairo I hired a car—speaking in Arabic to the astounded and fluttering Englishman—drove to the Savoy, where I guessed you'd be—found you'd moved here—came here—and being mistaken for what I am by marriage, namely, a high-born lady of the land, was conducted straightway to you in spite of the invalid—et voilà!"
Mary got up, and crossing to Jill sat down beside her on the couch.
"And what now, Jill? Hahmed will come and fetch you."
"Not Hahmed," said Jill, with a shadow in her eyes as she remembered his parting words after what she had tersely called the flare-up. "Besides, he trusts me really!" she added as an afterthought, and continued with a note of feverish excitement in her voice: "So I I'm going to stay with you, Mary, if you'll let me, until something or another happens to help me make up my mind. I want to do a lot of sight-seeing, and wear white skirts and a silk jersey and blouse. I'll find a maid somewhere, I expect."
"Oh!" broke in practical Mary, "don't worry about that—servants are such a nuisance. Do you remember Higgins? Well! she came out with me, and gave me notice the second week—'couldn't abide the 'eathen ways'—and wanted to get back to her home in Vauxhall. But the proprietor found me a native woman, a perfect treasure, whose one complaint is that she hasn't enough work to do!"
Silence fell for a time whilst Mary studied the face of her friend, suddenly leaning forward to stroke the pale cheek and pat the little hand.
"You don't look well, Jillikins! Are you sure you are happy?"
"Perfectly," said Jill, turning her face to the cushions and bursting into uncontrollable weeping.
[1]A custom.
CHAPTER XLVI
With short steps the native woman shuffled quickly along the outside of the wall surrounding the house of Hahmed the Arab, stopping in front of the great gates, which were closed at sunset, to peer between the wrought bronze work, standing her ground unconcernedly when a Nubian of gigantic proportions suddenly appeared on the other side.
Terrifying he looked as he towered in the dusk, his huge eyes rolling, and his hand on the hilt of a scimitar, which looked as though it had been tempered more for use than for ornament.
"What wouldst thou?" he demanded in dog Arabic of the woman whose eyes flashed disdainfully over the veil which hid her pock-marked face.
"Speech with they master, who has bidden me to his presence, and move quickly, thou black dog of ill repute; tarry not in saying that his servant from the big house in the city has news for his most august ears."
The son of ill repute stared inquisitively for a moment, and then moved off slowly with the inimitable gait of these ebon specimens of mankind, increasing his pace almost to a run once out of the female's range of vision.
Like a shadow she followed the different people, who, passing her from one to another, led her through rooms and halls into an open court, at the far end of which sat the man she sought, watching two jaguars being led up and down before him.
"Peace unto thee, O! my daughter, and fear not to approach," Hahmed said gently as the woman made deep obeisance, and shrank from the animals who snarled at her viciously. "And thou, my son, take these products of the bazaar hence, for surely hast thou been fooled by him who brought them from distant climes. Verily, the sire may have been a jaguar, but his mate, judging from the shape of the offspring, must most surely have been a jackal. Bring not such trash to me, if thou wouldst not incur my wrath!"
The snarling products of the bazaar were hurriedly jerked out of the court as Hahmed turned to the woman.
"Is all well, O! faithful one?"
"All is well, O! Most High," answered the Honourable Mary's perfect treasure of a maid. "Behold the gracious flower, upon whom it is my joy and honour to wait, changeth her mood one hundred times in the passing hour. She laughs at noon, and her pillow is wet with salt tears at night; her feet, like lotus-buds, carry her hither and thither in the day, the dimness of her room sees her face downwards upon her couch.
"As unto a sweet rose she clings to her friend, the great lady, who forsooth is as pleasing as a well-cooked dish of the flesh of kid mingled with tamarind and rice; but the rose mixeth not with other flowers, and about her heart rests thy most honourable picture."
For some long time Hahmed stared unseeingly in front and then he spoke.
"Thou hast worked well, my daughter, even from the moment when thou didst take the place of the great lady's white servant, to report to me upon the doings of the white man who strove to find my wife.
"Ask what reward thou will'st, it shall be granted unto thee!"
And the man, knowing the cupidity of his race, was somewhat astounded when, casting herself at his feet, the woman craved to be taken into his household so that, as she put it, "I may dwell in content in thy shadow, and the shadow of the snow-white dove when she wings her way back to happiness." Just for a moment the Arab looked into the eyes of the woman, as, greatly daring, she lifted her right hand.
"For so it is written, O! my lord! the blessing of Allah is upon thee, and thy heart shall be at rest."
CHAPTER XLVII
The day following the native woman's surreptitious visit to the great Arab saw Jill and Mary and Jack, followed discreetly by the same native woman, set sail at an early, gay and blithesome hour for Denderah, where are to be seen the ruins of the Temple of Hathor, the Venus of Ancient Egypt.
Upon arriving, after much dallying on the way, Jill insisted upon walking along the narrow tracks through the stretches of corn and sweet-smelling flowering bean, among which, to the general horror, cattle ranging from cows to goats were allowed to roam at will.
A temple of love calls up visions of marble halls, marble fretwork, basins with splashing waters and marble doves, pillars crowned with intertwined marble hearts and lovers' knots tied with marble ribbons; therefore Jill stood transfixed as she entered the great hall of columns, with the goddess's somewhat forbidding head carved on each side of each pillar.
She walked across slowly to peer into the inner court, shrouded in deep shadows, shuddered and moved back towards the other two, whose mentality, psychology or temperament responded not in the least to light and shade.
Together they traversed the place, Jill running her hand over the hieroglyphics which cover the pillars to their beautiful capitals, until she stopped before a representation of Hathor the wanton, standing naked and verily unashamed before the image of a man, whose name I know not, but whose beauty and nudity are as great as hers.
Turning sharply she glanced hurriedly at Jack and Mary, and slipping a hand through the arm of each, almost pulled them across the floor to a stairway made in the wall and leading to the roof.
For, taken up in their own love story, those two had noticed nothing, not even the uncountable figures of stone in the bas-reliefs which, appearing to turn and whisper to each other, seem in the shadows to take a delight in portraying by pantomimic gestures a love wholly allied to voluptuousness and license.
But Jill had seen, and her ultra fastidiousness had dyed face and neck crimson, and caused her to try and spare her companions similar uncomfortable moments.
For a moment she stood on the roof watching the clouds of twittering birds as they flew in the direction of the Libyan Hills, and then she slipped quietly down the stairway, leaving her friends, supremely oblivious of her presence or absence, weaving their love-tale on the roof of the ruined temple of love.
With nerves a-jangle and heart disturbed Jill longed for shadows and solitude, so that she shrank back, hesitated, and then advanced slowly towards the veiled figure of a woman standing watching her from the shadows of the very heart of the ruins, the holy of holies, the hall of past mysteries and solemn rites.
"What wouldst thou?" Jill asked her in Arabic, which was as wellnigh perfect as any European can make it, and although she could hardly make out one whole sentence of what she took for a dialect spoken by the woman, she grasped enough to understand that the Egyptian, draped in the peasant's cloak, was anxious to read her fortune in the sand she carried in the black handkerchief, and which sand she said she had gathered on the steps of the temple's high altar at the full moon.
Jill sat down on a fallen block of masonry, looking very fragile, very sweet, very fair, with her white throat gleaming above the white silk blouse and jersey, soft blue hat pulled over her sunny head to shade her face, death-white save for the shadows which seemed to make a mask about her eyes, as she drew hieroglyphics on her own account in the sand with the tip of her small white shoe.
She had heard of the extraordinary powers possessed by some of the Egyptian people; Hahmed had told her of their gift of reading the future in the sand; among her own household she had come across authentic cases where the most unlikely things predicted had come to pass.
And the cloud about her was so thick, and weighed so heavily upon her! Of her own free-will she had flung her happiness away, and with her happiness had gone her content and light-heartedness. She laughed with others, and cried softly by herself at night; she shared the amusements with others, and sat up at night, bewildered and afraid, to steal to the mirror and look upon a pinched face with tightened nostrils, and to wipe away the dampness gathered under the golden curls.
Had her marriage been a mistake or not? If not, why had she fled before the first little sign of storm? If it had been, why was she utterly miserable now that liberty was hers?
Her friends would surely be taking their departure soon. Should she go too, or should she go back in all humbleness to the man she loved? Did he want her, having shown no sign or desire for her return? Did he—did he not? A decision must be made, and soon, but what was it to be? Round and round, like a flock of startled pigeons, went her thoughts, one breaking away to whirr into the back of her mind, another to drift into the shadows, and another, and yet another, whilst the rest flew on, round and round!
And then she shrank back, gripping the stone with two cold little hands as great drops gathered and trickled down her face, her breath coming in silent gasps.
Stricken with terror she threw out her arms passionately.
"Speak, woman, speak! Spread the sand, and read to me what thou seest therein. Thy finger shall point the way, and that way will I follow wherever it may lead."
CHAPTER XLVIII
Whereupon the woman of the shadows, turning towards that which had once been an altar, and raising her arms straight above her head with hands out-turned at an acute angle, thrice repeated words that were absolutely unintelligible to Jill.
And then kneeling, she spread the sand upon the ground, dividing it into circles and squares, drawing curious signs with the tip of her hand, which as Jill noticed was passing white and slender for that of a peasant woman, and spoke—in modern tongue.
"Behold, O! woman, who emerged from a grey cloud to enter into the radiance of the sun, thou art beloved by the gods who rule the earth through the countless and eternal ages. Thou dost pause upon the threshold of the temple of love, fearing these shadows which will pass away when thou shalt stand within the great radiance of the goddess. Yea! and fearful art thou of the sand out of which shall spring a tree of many branches, and in the shade of which thou shalt encompass thy life's span. Behold," and the finger drew a line upon the sand, "the grey cloud encloses thee yet once again, and the goddess weeps without! Yet will she rejoice! Before many moons have come and gone, the great god Amen shall tear aside that which blindeth thee, and placing a man son upon thy breast shall lead thee into the innermost temple.
"Six times shall Amen strike thee in love, so that thou bearest sons, and once shall he strike thee upon both breasts so that a woman child shall spring from thy loins.
"Love is thy portion, thy meat, and thy drink, bringing unto thee those who travailing in love shall come for thy wisdom, and those labouring in grief for thy succour.
"And thou shalt not die before thy time, and thou shalt pass to the gods with thy hand in thy master's, for he shall not leave thee through all thy life, nay not even at the last. And thy name shall ring throughout the land of Egypt, and be engraven upon the walls of time.
"Behold Hathor, behold I say!" and three times the unintelligible words rang through the place as Jill sank back staring open-eyed.
The small white hand had pulled the veil aside from about the face, and head, and body of the fortune-teller, so that for a moment she seemed to stand outlined against the pillar, with flashing eyes, scarlet mouth, and brow encircled with a golden band, from which sprang something round with wings set in precious stones; the glory of her gleaming body shone white as ivory in the gloom, her perfect arms stretched straight downwards with hands turned sharply in so that the finger-tips rested on the rounded thighs.
And then Jill rubbed her eyes and stared, and stared again; for the spot was empty, save for a square of sand with strange signs drawn upon it; neither was there sound of retreating footsteps or swish of drapery.
Jill stumbled to her feet, swaying as she caught at a pillar for support, and then with a violent effort of will walked to a great shaft of sunlight which struck the ground in front of the ruins of the high altar from an opening in the roof.
"Am I mad?" she whispered. "Did I dream that woman—and yet the sand is there!"
A pitiful little smile flickered across the ashen face as she stood motionless and alone in the ruins.
"The temple of love," she cried softly, flinging out her arms, "the temple of love and I am alone. Hahmed beloved, where are you? I feel so—I—I wish you were here to take me in your arms. Hahmed—I want comforting—I do—I'm lonely—I—I'm—oh, oh! God—God have mercy on me—I—we———"
For a moment the transfigured girl stood upright, her face one blaze of wonder in the light of the sun, her eyes wide open and filled with a great surprise and a greater awe.
And then she slowly sank to her knees and bowed her beautiful head to the sand, whilst the echoes took up her words and carried them to the far corners of the vast ruins.
"I am not worthy, my beloved, for this great honour—I am not worthy in that I am not with thee at this moment when thy child stirs within me. I am covered in shame in that I doubted. I am bowed down with shame and yet lifted up to the heavens with joy."
For long minutes thus knelt she alone with her happiness, and then she raised herself whilst a great sob shook her from head to foot.
"Hahmed," she cried as she flung her arms out wide, "Hahmed, wherever thou art I am calling thee. Hahmed, Hahmed!" and fell face downward unconscious upon the sand covered floor.
Noiselessly an Arab stepped from behind a pillar, crossing to the still figure on the ground, and gently he picked her up in his arms, covering her in the folds of his great white cloak.
"Little bird! little bird!" he whispered in the beautiful Arabian tongue, "why willst thou beat thy tender wings against the bars of happiness around thy dwelling? And thou wert frightened—frightened by yon peasant woman. What said she, my dove, to strike thee senseless to the ground?
"Thou art pale, O! my heart's delight, and weigh but as a handful of down upon my arm, and yet must thou learn thy lesson, to the end; and even will I forsake thee, leaving thee guided by the star of happiness to find thy way alone to thy dwelling in the desert. Yea! there will I await thee, O! my beloved—beloved!"
And Hahmed passed swiftly through the hall of shadows, and down the fields of waving corn and sweet scented bean to the banks of the Nile, and there he placed his sweet burden in the arms of the faithful native woman, who tenderly wiped the sand from the golden curls and raised her right hand in fealty to her master as he turned away, neither did she falter in her tale to Mary and Jack when, goaded by anxiety and in spite of the heat, they ran down towards the boat.
"Sunstroke!" said Mary, who had a certificate for first-aid, and speaking with the certain flat determination which even her best friends found most trying at times. "You simply cannot go about in Egypt without a green-lined umbrella. Yes! it's a slight, quite slight attack of sunstroke," she continued, without noticing the radiance of Jill's eyes, "and I will apply this damp handkerchief to your medulla oblongata."
CHAPTER XLIX
Jill sat on the edge of her bed in an hotel at Suez.
That she was absolutely alone in Egypt, and ought not to have been alone, never entered her head once, as she gazed through the open window towards the sea.
Her eyes shone like stars, her mouth was a beautiful sign of content, her hands were clasped peacefully on her knee, and she simply radiated happiness.
Mary and Jack, Lady Bingham, Diana Lytham and Sir Timothy and Lady
Sarah, had started that morning for England in the great liner which
Jill had watched unconcernedly until it disappeared up the canal.
And so for the first time for many weary weeks she was alone, though it must be confessed that the liberty had only been gained by a deliberate perversion of the truth.
Fussed by kind-hearted, though, somewhat scandalised Lady Gruntham, driven to the point of madness by the never-ending stream of wisdom, advice, and plans which from morning till night flowed unceasingly from the store of Mary's book-gleaned knowledge, Jill had cleared up the situation all round by suddenly announcing the imaginative fact that Hahmed was coming to Cairo to fetch her home. Whereupon Mary Bingham had arranged everything to her own entire satisfaction in the twinkling of an eye, told Jack Wetherbourne that she and her mother were leaving for England if he'd like to come too, had worked her maid to death with packing, distributing quite a fair supply of backsheesh, and had bundled her bewildered mother and contented fiancé down to Suez, where Jill had seen them off to the accompaniment of a last final flood of advice which was mercifully lost in the scream of the siren, the rasp of machinery, and the manifold sounds which add hilariously, especially in foreign climes, to the pandemonium that reigns to within a second of the cry which invites some of us to descend to terra firma on the occasion of the sailing of a passenger boat.
Jill suddenly came out of a reverie which had painted her cheeks a most exquisite pink, and caused her teeth to show in the faintest smile.
Then she frowned and shook back her mane of hair, as was her habit when perplexed, and spoke softly to the night wind which was blowing straight in at the window from the other side of the canal.
"The oasis is calling me, night wind, calling, calling, and yet I do not know. You who come from the oasis, tell me, is my beloved there, or shall I find my dwelling empty, and my happiness but as a turned-down cup?"
Who can explain what it is that leads the spirit astraying from its material covering?
Are love and longing its sole companions upon the road of shadows? Surely no! for is not revenge, or jealousy, or the near approach of that which is called death as potent to span the stretches of the world; and will not a vision of stark terror blot out the sun at the commonplace hour of noon, and may not the body, squatting on the market pavement, find it a place of rest, even as unto a seat in paradise through the spirit's communion?
The soul's wireless, mental telepathy, the sympathetic chord, and so on, and so on, good honest words to describe that which no one understands, and which caused the girl sitting on a prosaic bed in a prosaic hotel to smile suddenly as she sat so very still.
For her soul had wandered until she stood with her feet in the sand, looking in at a wide-open door through which a beam of violet-orange light struck across the night.
Two men sat motionless within, until one slowly turned his head and looked through the door straight into her eyes.
For one long moment, with unutterable longing he gazed, and then the vision faded just as Jill, saying softly, "Beloved! I come," stretched out her arms, and with a sudden shiver awoke to her surroundings.
PART III
THE FRUIT
CHAPTER L
"Doubtless my beloved sleeps!" thought Hahmed the Arab, as he looked at the watch on his wrist to find it pointing to midnight, and clapped his hands for fresh coffee, then lit another cigarette whilst his guest who, like himself, sat cross-legged on cushions on the floor, inhaled contentedly from a shibuk[1] in a house of rest on the outer edge of a distant oasis.
Weary to death was he of the uninterrupted flow of words which unceasingly streamed from the mouth of the cross-bred man, who was gleefully rubbing the hands of his soul over what he imagined to be the clinching of a remarkable bargain with the Camel King, whereas if he had but known it, his host had merely put a little difficulty in the way so as to lengthen the deal, and thereby kill a few moments of the dreary hours of the dreary time he had passed since had left the woman he loved alone to learn the last words of her lesson.
Turning he called sharply to the servile proprietor of the house, which for the first time was honoured by the presence of its redoubtable landlord.
Salaaming until his tarboosh reached the level of his knees, the inwardly shaking Achmed stood before his two guests.
"Hast thou naught wherewith to entertain thy guests, O! Achmed, or must they perchance pass the hours in counting the flies which flit about the none too clean lamps? Thinkest thou that this house is solely a roof to shade thy head from the sun, or perchance is it a dwelling of comfort for those who pass East and West?"
By this time the oriental's head was bobbing like a mandarin's, whilst in a spasm of terror his mouth opened and shut unceasingly.
"Find thy tongue, O! fool, before I turn thee from the door. Hast thou aught of entertainment, and hast thou other than this mud thou callest coffee? Speak I say!"
With a gulp which served to clench Hahmed's fingers, the wretched Achmed vowed he had music of a kind and dancers of sorts, and that at that moment his first wife was preparing a brew surpassed only by that drunk in the Gardens of Delight by the chosen of Allah, who had passed to their well-earned rest.
"Choose, O! my guest! doubtless they will both be as forlorn as this coffee, for which I crave thy forgiveness—our business is at an end, and some hours stretch unendingly before us."
Ali 'Assan, dying to satisfy his cross-bred inquisitiveness which, with the curiosity of Egypt entire, had been aroused by the strange rumours of some catastrophe happened in his host's household, had not the slightest desire for bed, rather would he have sat up for an entire week of nights, if only be could have got an inkling of the truth; so he plumped for music and dancing whilst his host sat motionless, the light of the hanging lamps throwing strange shadows on the stern, relentless face.
Hahmed the Arab, it is true, sat upon the cushions in the dingy room; you would have certainly touched a human body if you had laid a hand upon his arm, but by an effort of will which left him sitting absolutely motionless with half-closed eyes, he, in spite of the heat, the irritation of his guest's presence, and all that went to make the evening intolerable, had sent his spirit, or soul, or what you will, adrift, searching for his beloved; so unutterable was his longing, so wracked was his heart with love, so utter was his detachment, that neither piping of reed, twanging of stringed instrument or patter of feet could bring him back to his surroundings.
And then under some unexplainable impulse Hahmed turned his head slowly, looking across the shoulder of his guest to the door behind, and his eyes glowed like fires in the darkness of night as in the doorway he saw framed the face of her for whom body and soul craved. The face was pale even unto death, but the red mouth smiled softly, and the golden curls clustered and twisted as they had ever done; the blue eyes were wells of love, in which the Arab's soul sank as he called though his lips moved not, neither was there sound of words in the room.
"Come to me, beloved, beloved! Come to me!"
And the vision faded, and Hahmed's spirit returned to its dwelling as a faint sigh from Ali 'Assan made him remember his duty towards his guest.
The Arab does not indulge in nerves, though Allah only knows how long it will be before he resorts to bromide if he continues to fraternise with the European, but Hahmed, unknown to himself, was suffering from the almost unendurable strain of the past endless empty days.
He was consumed with thirst for his beloved, agonising with hunger for his heart's desire, forcing himself to do business in out-of-the-way places in his land so as to keep his thoughts from the exquisite face of his own woman.
True, he could have stayed in Cairo, and waited for further news of her; true, he could have seized her and carried her forcibly back to his own lands, but the pride of centuries raged within him, and until she came back of her own free will he would neither move hand nor foot to compel her.
Anyway, let us put the following episode down to the months of strain culminating in an intense irritation wrought by the babble of Ali 'Assan's meaningless chatter, and the vileness perhaps of the coffee.
He lifted his eyes and looked at the picture before him.
The room was low, and the lighting bad, the air suffocating, whilst a few particles of sand blown in by the hot wind heralded an approaching storm.
Standing before him with a piece of tawdry gauze about her quite unprepossessing form stood the over aged dancer with a set simper upon her silly vacant face.
"Allah!" ejaculated Hahmed, as he lit a cigarette, whilst Achmed, peeping through the door, suddenly smote his forehead.
Now dancing women were no more to the great man than a troupe of performing collies, but his artistic sense demanded the best, and when it was not forth-coming he felt the same annoyance as you or I would feel if arrayed in purple and fine linen we adorned a box at the opera with our presence, covered with as many diamonds upon it as possible, to find a street singer deputising for a Melba or Caruso.
"Thou dog," he said pleasantly to the cringing man, who tremblingly explained that indeed he had one better—yea, even fair to look upon. "Behold, if thou offerest yet another insult to this mine guest I will have thee and thy woman whipped into the desert and left to die."
Whereupon Achmed fled precipitately in the wake of her who had annoyed, and snatching a whip beat her smartly on her plump but ill-formed shoulders, the while he urged the prima ballerina of the establishment to anoint herself and depart right quickly to the pacifying of the great Hahmed, which order, alas, put a totally wrong idea into her Tunisian-Arabian pate.
[1]Long native pipe.
CHAPTER LI
La Belle, a rank cross-breed of Tunisian and French with a dash of
Arabian, was the one good part of a bad debt which had overwhelmed
Achmed when he had inadvertently over-reached himself.
Her body was passable, lithe, sinewy, with a faint hint of rib and a wonderful bust; her brain was good, intuitive in its non-educated state, and subtle from inheritance; her ambition was superb, it knew no limits, it saw no obstacle.
Born in a kennel in Tunis, she had figuratively and literally fought her way to the upper reaches of the gutter, sleeping in filth, eating it, listening to it, living it; dancing for a meal, selling her strangely seductive body for a piastre or so, settling her quarrels with a knife she carried in her coarse, crisp, henna-dyed hair, with one goal before her slanting orange eyes, that of dancer in chief, prima ballerina, or what you will, in some house of good repute; the explanation of which phrase would overtax my oriental knowledge I fear.
Dance she could, if dancing is the correct term for the subtle portraying of every conceivable vice by every conceivable gesture and posture; and she had felt herself content on the day she had for a good round sum sold herself to take up a dancing position of some importance in the house of him who, unknown to her, had got himself entangled in more than one human money-spider's web.
If her dancing was correct or not, men had begun to foregather in the house, where—if her temper allowed—she would dance o' nights fully clothed or fully unclothed; also her reputation was beginning to be used as a lure to the uninitiated freshly arrived in Cairo, therefore her usually fiendish temper was as hell unloosed when, as part payment of a debt, she found herself willy-nilly strapped to a camel and carted by slow stages to the house of rest whose proprietor was Achmed, and landlord Hahmed, the Camel King.
"Dance I will not, thou descendant of pigs," she stormed at Achmed, who, reducing his fez to a pulp, raved at her as she crouched in a corner with something a-glitter in her hand. "Send in thy wife who ambles like a camel in foal, and whose ankles are thick enough to serve as prop to a falling house."
"Thou fool," hissed the man with sweat pouring down his face, and who through the working of his oriental mind already felt the swish of the whip about his shoulders, and the agony of the desert fly's bite on his flagellated anatomy. "It is Hahmed—the great Hahmed, who orders thee to his presence. It is thy chance, thou fool—it is———"
And his dull eyes brightened, and his sensual month widened in a grin as the girl sprang to her feet and sped to a mirror on the opposite side of the room.
"Dullard," she cried, as she pulled her clothing furiously from her, and stood with nothing but a plain coloured shawl of gauze covered in tinsel twined about her slim waist, "why hast thou wasted precious moments? Why has thou imperilled my chance by infuriating the great man? Out of my way, thou snail."
And as she fled precipitately from the room she caught the man by the throat and flung him against the wall with the ease of muscle trained to the last point.
"Ow!" exclaimed Ali 'Assan at the apparition in the doorway with the flaming henna head and taut brown body, with long, thin, brown arms stretched down stiff as ramrods to the sides, and "Ow!" he said again, as she suddenly moved and again stood still with the gleaming orange eyes fixed on his host, who looked at her for an instant, and looked away again to the far corner, as he indifferently lit a cigarette.
And then La Belle danced for all she was worth, and for all she knew, whilst the guest watched in sensual enjoyment, and the host took not the slightest notice.
Nearer she came, and nearer still, until the pungent odour of the insufferable Eastern perfume of which the body is musk, suddenly struck the nostrils of the man for whom she danced, bringing a slight frown to his face, and causing him to thoughtlessly raise his right hand, which, as perhaps the reader may not know, is an oriental sign of appreciation.
A flash of triumph swept across the face of the woman, who was absolutely on the wrong tack, as she sidled so near that her bare limbs almost touched the flowing cloak which swept round the man. His mind was full of his exquisite, delicate, tantalising, fastidious wife, his body ached for her, his soul fainted for even a touch of her little hand, so that once again he raised his right hand as though to sweep away some pestilential insect from his path, just one little careless gesture which proved a woman's undoing.
Back bent La Belle, and still farther back until her evil face was on a level with that of the man she was trying to subjugate, and when for an instant his eyes rested on hers, which peered at him from the strange angle of her upside down position, she whispered one little word.
And then a great fury suddenly blazed in Hahmed's eyes, a sudden storm of hate swept across the stern face, as his hand steel strong closed fiercely about the long thin neck.
"Thou daughter of gutter dogs," he whispered, so low that the words were hardly caught by Ali 'Assan, who with fingers twining uncontrollably in his white garment, sat petrified by the suddenly arisen storm. "Thou essence of evil, go back to the devil who spawned thee."
There was a choked gurgling cry as the hand closed tighter, a little click like the closing of a safe door, and the body of the dead woman, was hurled into the middle of the room, whilst Hahmed lit a cigarette and clapped his hands for the presence of Achmed, who, his legs refusing to support his shaking body, crawled in on his hands and knees.
"Carry that carrion out, O! thou trafficker in evil, and throw it to the jackals."
"Master, O! master! May the light of Allah shine upon thee in thy wisdom, may the houris of paradise make thy couch one of delight when thou art gathered to thy forefathers! In all ignorance I sent yon ignoble female to dance before my honoured guest—a great price I paid for her in the market."
"Thou liest," gently replied his master.
Whereupon Achmed gathered good handfuls of dust from the floor and massaged it into his oily hair, whilst Hahmed, rising to his great height, prayed forgiveness from his guest, who was even then thinking what a waste of good material the dead woman represented.
"Let this serve thee as a lesson, thou perverter of Allah's truth," spake Hahmed, in a voice as caressing as that of a woman, "and teach thee to acquire property which does honour to thy house. Camels, a male and female, shall be sent in payment for that for which thou hast not paid one piastre.
"Breed with them so that the milk refreshes the traveller, and the hair spins soft covering for their bed, and fail me not again, for behold when I strike it is as the lightning which blasts the tree."
And the two men stalked silently from the scene of the tragedy, leaving Achmed rubbing his hands in glee, with intervals of removing particles of dust from his eyes and mouth, whilst his virago of a first wife ambled in to ascertain the proceeds of the evening, an account of which caused her to raise dirty hands to heaven and praise Allah, before she ambled out again, contemptuously kicking the dead body en passant, which action nearly upset the equilibrium of her cumbersome body, as she hastened to summon the help necessary to lift and carry to the jackals the body of La Belle who had missed her chance.