CHAPTER XII

"_. . . Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,

And one by one back in the Closet lays_."

OMAR KHAYYAM.

Hugh Carden Ali, with the dogs of Billi crushed in beside him, raced

back to his palace in Cairo and with the shaggy pair at his heels

passed to his side of the great house. His body-servant, as nimble as

a monkey, as devoted as a dog, and almost dumb by reason of a tongue

split in his youth for misdemeanour, fell on his knees at his feet.

He worshipped his young master, who had one time rescued him from a

savage, baiting crowd in the bazaar and taking him into his service had

made him his own particular servant; he equally loathed his master's

austere bedroom and adjoining dressing-room, with simple furniture

which had lately come from _Bilid el-Ingliz_, a dark, cold country

across the sea, where it rains without ceasing. And he helped strip

his master of the hateful, tight, hot European clothes and trotted

joyfully after him to the swimming-bath, and watched him dive in and

swim the length and climb out the other end, and disappear between

curtains into the luxurious rooms of the East.

Having robed him, agog with curiosity and at a discreet distance, he

followed the resplendent figure in his satin raiment, snow-white turban

glistening with jewels and hooded falcon on wrist, and cursed the dogs

under his breath when they turned and growled softly. But his

curiosity was turned to a great amazement when his master passed into

the court of the empty, luxuriant, perfumed harem, where once had loved

and quarrelled, idled and fought, so many beautiful women.

Under the orders of the Ethiopian eunuch, giant twin of Qatim, in the

service of Zulannah the courtesan, the harem was kept swept and

garnished, adorned with flowers, aglow at nights with a myriad soft

lights hanging from the ceiling in jewelled lamps, to which were flung

the fountain's perfumed drops, to fall and break on marble floor and

silken cushion, inlaid table and bright-hued birds in jewelled cage.

There does exist a different kind of harem--dirty, gaudy,

ill-kempt--somewhat like the inmates--over the whole of which 'tis wise

to draw a veil.

The eunuch's bankings-account--which was kept in a certain secret nook

of the harem court--had become sadly depleted on account of his

master's eccentric views as regarded women, but he still lived in hope,

and, delighting in intrigue, as every native does, had welcomed the

advent of his ebony brother primed with gossip and suggestion.

Therefore, upon the beating of the gong which had not been struck for

many weary moons, he hastened to the court and salaamed to the ground

before his master, who sat upon a pile of cushions, guarded by the two

shaggy dogs of Billi, with the amber mouthpiece of the jewel-encrusted

_nargileh_ between his lips and the falcon upon a padded perch beside

him.

"Bring me a woman--to dance," he curtly ordered, and the slave sped to

do his bidding, with visions of a big increase in the banking-account

hidden in a secret place.

And when the dancer drifted in like a flower-petal upon a breeze, Hugh

Carden Ali looked up slowly, letting escape a wisp of smoke from

between his lips.

The dancer wore one single garment of transparent black, hung from the

shoulders by diamond bands and through which her perfectly nude body

shone like an ivory pillar; her slender feet with crimsoned toes and

heels were bare; the tiny hands ablaze with jewels; a huge bunch of

orange-tinted diamond-sprinkled osprey was fastened in her jet-black

hair; across her face there hung a short, almost transparent veil, one

corner of which she held between her teeth, leaving to view the

wonderful eyes, a heaven or hell of invitation--as you will.

She danced as had danced her Biblical sister to the pleasing of a king

for the attainment of her desire; and she danced humming a little tune

behind the veil until the movement of her beautiful body and the

knowledge of a man's eyes upon her went to her head like wine, so that

in the end, by force of habit maybe, she danced to conquer where she

had only intended to interest.

As already mentioned, she had the morals of a jackal.

She drifted down the court towards Hugh Carden Ali and, standing before

him, bowed her beautiful head to the level of her dimpled knees,

laughed gently, and was gone like a bird to a far corner of the court.

She seemed to swing in the air like a lime flower caught on the end of

a spider's thread, as she came slowly down once more; to be blown

hither and thither like a leaf before the gale as she ran here, sprang

there, to the rhythm of the little tune she hummed behind the wisp of

veil; to undulate, like a field of ripe wheat beneath the summer sun as

she stood quite near the man who watched her with a fraction of the

interest he would have shown in the purchase of a dog or falcon in the

open mart.

Her henna'd toes pressed firmly on the centre of a Persian rug of such

antiquity as to render the pattern indecipherable; she moved her body

from the slender waist downward not at all; the muscles of her arms and

shoulders rippled, and her head moved, slightly but unceasingly from

side to side.

How often one hears of the European's boredom whilst watching the

Nautch Dance in which the Indian Nautch girl, fully clothed, indeed in

high tight bodice and ankle-length, voluminous skirt, will drive her

native audience clean crazy with the tapping of her feet and slight,

undulating movements of the slender body and rod-like arms. It is

indeed the dullest thing on earth to watch if you are unable to follow

and _interpret_ every little movement. But if you can--well! the

unexpurgated version of the Arabian Nights will be as milk-and-water

compared to the heady brew offered for your consumption. And the old

Harrovian sitting cross-legged, upon a heap of cushions, with the smoke

of the _nargileh_, drifting from between his lips, smiled as he picked

up the thread of the same old story which had been spun for him when,

an arrogant youth of twelve summers, he had ruled his house with no

gentle hand.

Otherwise he showed little interest and felt no desire to lift the

tantalising veil; neither did he turn his head, else might he have seen

the ebony face of the Ethiopian eunuch peering from between a mass of

flowers, from which point of vantage he watched the scene with intent

to report thereon to his black twin-brother.

At last, and very slowly, and with a growing feeling of resentment in

the place where her heart by rights should have been, Zulannah sped

down the court upon her toes and fell at the edge of the piled

cushions, causing the dogs to growl softly at her daring.

"Thou art a beautiful dancer, woman," said Hugh Carden Ali, making no

movement to lift the veil. "Behold, I have passed a pleasant hour and

would reward thee. What thou wilt. Money--jewels?--speak."

From behind the wisp of veil which fluttered in the dancer's quick

breathing came the barely whispered answer.

"I hear thee not, woman; raise thy voice and be not afraid. I will

give thee what thou desirest."

"One hour!"

The man bent forward to catch the words, and when their full import

struck him, leapt to his feet and catching the woman's wrist jerked her

upright, ripping the veil from before her face.

"_Zulannah_!" he cried, and sprang back, having heard of the lady's

deft handling of her dagger when in the tantrums. Then he caught both

wrists and held her pinioned, looking with loathing into the exquisite,

furious face, whilst the great dogs, fangs bared, ruffs upstanding,

sniffed suspiciously at the knees and waist, even rising on their

hind-legs to snuff the slender neck of this woman who had angered their

master.

For a second he held her with arms stretched to breaking-point and

henna'd toes barely touching the ground, then threw her across the

cushions, whilst the dogs growled softly as they prowled, belly to

ground, about the prostrate figure and the ebony-hued eunuch tore at

his woolly hirsute covering amongst the flowers.

But courtesans have tears as well as other kinds of women, and they use

them every whit as effectively, perhaps a bit better, on account of the

stoutness of their hearts.

So that when the man ordered the woman to sit up, she sat up, wiped

real tears from the innocent-looking eyes, re-arranged her garments,

and prepared for battle.

Tough might describe the rose-hued, satin-textured epidermis of the

scarlet enchantress.

"Thou hast a great daring, woman."

The courtesan knew not the meaning of the word hesitation, and was off

with the still-born desire and on with her original business between

the tossing and falling of a drop from the perfumed fountain and ready

with an explanation even before the man spoke.

"Thou hast misheard my words, lord. Knowing by hearsay of thy hatred

of women, I entered thy house as dancer before thee, to gain as my

reward one hour of speech with thee."

"Speech? Wherefore?

"Because I would help thee, and in helping thee help myself." Clasping

her slender jewelled hands, across her bosom, she looked up to the

gilded ceiling, and sighing softly, whispered:

"I love!"

"_Thou_!"

"Yea, lord. I love--and--thou lovest--and--nay, hear me, it is for thy

advancement--and mine--and he, the man for whom my soul has turned to

water, for whom I yearn--yea, if it be but for one single hour of his

love--a memory of rose-time in the ash-pit of my years--he------" She

stopped.

'Tis wise to approach a wounded tiger warily, especially if you are not

certain as to the extent of the hurt or the power of the weapon of

defence in your hand.

"Sit--and speak quickly, for I would have thee gone."

The man spoke curtly as he sank upon a pile of cushions and pointed to

one on the far side of the Persian rug, upon which the most courted

woman in Egypt knelt, with her eyes full of gentleness and her heart

pounding in a torment of rage and fear.

"Yea, I understand."

Hugh Carden Ali spoke wearily, being stricken with love. For ten solid

minutes the woman had talked round her subject. Intuitive, she scented

danger; usually fearless, her whole being was sick with apprehension;

desperate, she dug her nails into her flesh and essayed to reach her

goal by a roundabout way.

Then she stopped, sighed, and cast down her eyes; then raised them

beseechingly when the man spoke.

"Fearing to use force against the--the woman who thou sayest is loved

by the man thou lovest--and may the prophet bear witness that thy tale

is as full of turnings and twistings as the paths in the bazaar in

which thou spinn'st thy web--thou would'st tear her from him by craft.

Explain thy seemingly futile words, and hasten thy lying tongue, for

behold the hour of dawn approacheth."

And the wrath in the voice was such as to hurl the woman pell-mell over

the cliff of discretion down into the depths of her own undoing.

"She, the white woman, walks in the bazaar, yea, even at noon and at

sunset. Perchance one evening, lured by the tale of the riches of the

house of Zulannah, might not her feet stray within the portals at the

setting of the sun. And behold, the key of the great door is within

these hands, and--and------"

The man's hands lay quietly on his knees as he leant forward, and the

shadow thrown by the flowering plants hid the twin pools of murder in

the depths of his eyes.

"And------?" he whispered.

"And------" she whispered back, "would the white man, thinkest thou,

take to wife her who had passed a night in the house of the courtesan?

Would he not, without waiting for explanation, throw her into the filth

of the bazaar, leaving her for the first comer to pick up, and turn

himself to------"

She leapt to her feet, screaming, as his fingers closed round her wrist

in a grip of steel; mad with fury, she tore her raiment and hair,

raving obscenities in the vilest language of the lowest reaches of the

bazaar, oblivious of the dogs which reared and fell and reared

unceasingly behind her.

"The white woman who trapeses the bazaar unveiled," she screamed. "The

white virgin who flung herself into thy arms, in the market-place, thou

trafficker in foreign harlots, the------"

Hugh Carden Ali, the son of his father to the inner-most part of his

being in the horrible scene, had made one little sign, and the dogs

were upon her.

With a sickening scrunch one caught the side of her head in the steel

jaws which stretched from the nape of the neck to the corner of the

mouth; with a sharp snap the other drove its fangs into the muscle

behind the dimpled knee.

They pulled her down and stood stock-still, as these dogs are trained

to do; then with crimson saliva dripping from the jaws, crimson lights

shining in the eyes, let go their hold and stood looking alternately

from master to quarry, with slowly wagging tails.

There was no sign of anger in the man as he sat tranquilly upon the

cushions, the amber mouthpiece of the _nargileh_ between his lips; no

sound of wrath in the gentle voice which bid the Ethiopian eunuch to

remain prostrated upon the floor, until the arrival of the other

slaves, who could be heard pelting through the house from every

direction in answer to the summons of the gong.

"Idrabuh," he said quietly to four of the terror-stricken domestic

staff, pointing to the eunuch. "Upon the soles of the feet so that he

walketh not for many a day--if ever." And as the wretch was dragged

screaming from the room, he beckoned to four others, and pointed to the

body of the woman. "Carry that out and throw it in the street, in such

wise that it is not known from whence it came. Touch not the jewels,

lest thou sharest thy brother's fate."

With falcon upon wrist and blood-stained dogs at his heels, he passed

out of the ill-fated court to his own apartment, and, having bathed and

dressed himself, to his body-servant's grief, in hot, European

riding-kit, with boots from Peter Yapp, tucked the cleansed dogs of

Billi in beside him, and raced his car to the Obelisk which is all that

remains upright of the Biblical City of On.

* * * * * *

The Ethiopian slave Qatim gathered up the broken body of the woman from

the filth of the gutter and carried her to his hovel and flung her upon

the filthy straw under which he hid the jewels he stripped from her.