CHAPTER XV.

"_When he is best he is little worse than a man;

and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast_."

SHAKESPEARE.

Even as the frail little old lady sat quietly looking out at the coming

of the dawn, Qatim the Ethiopian sat looking with pride round his

transformed hovel in the back reaches of the bazaar. Having gathered

Zulannah from the gutter where she had been thrown after the dogs had

pulled her down, he carried her to his hovel and, believing her to be

dead, flung her body on the heap of filthy straw which served him as

couch, and then stole back--in fact, six times he made the journey--to

the courtesan's great house. He did not argue with himself, he had no

theories and most certainly no moral standards: the woman was dead;

there were certain things, beautiful, gaudy, glittering things in her

house which his heart had always coveted, which had made his fingers to

itch and his mouth to water; brute instinct told him to seize the bones

before the other dogs fell upon them; and he obeyed the brutish impulse.

Hundreds of soft silken gowns; cushions of every hue; the great crimson

cover from off the divan--all of these he made into a huge bundle which

he carried to his den. The gold and jewelled toilet accessories, the

silver basin and ewer, just because they glittered, he tied in a pair

of emerald green satin curtains; various strange knives and things with

prongs, with which on certain occasions the courtesan had conveyed food

to her mouth--she used her fingers in private--with a jewel-encrusted

_nargileh_ of marvellous workmanship, he rolled up in a bright yellow

and green Kidderminster carpet.

On his fifth journey he carried a small Milner safe upon his back,

letting it drop gently upon the hovel floor without the slightest

acceleration in his breathing. For five minutes he played with the

knob, like a huge monkey, then grinned, rubbed his chest and bull-neck

with straw, and padded off again down the circuitous streets at a

gentle trot.

He looked at the sky and at the closed doors and windows of the packed

houses, and grinned again. He could not tell the hour by a clock, but

he knew to a second when the first of the seething mass of humans

asleep on the beds and floors and stairs of the packed houses would

yawn, rub the sleep from their eyes and stumble, shivering, into the

street. He had still his greatest treasure to bring, and had no wish

to be caught with it on his back; not because of the criminality of his

proceedings--that never once entered his thick skull--but because he

was scared of having the mirror reft from him. He was almost devoid of

brain, but had a certain animal instinct which served him in good stead

and which, in this instance, urged him to keep his part in the history

of the past evening to himself. He picked up the full-length mirror as

though it had been a small picture, and stood for an instant grinning

cheerfully, looking round the room in which his mistress had so often

kicked and threatened him.

Then he gave a little click at the back of his throat, placed the

mirror on the floor and stole across the Persian carpet of an unknown

antiquity and value to a painted deal writing desk which had once

reposed in a shop window in Westbourne Grove; and which, on account of

its little drawers and little cupboards with painted doors, had given

intense joy to the woman whose wealth in hard cash in the bank and

jewels in the safe was almost incredible. He lifted the slanting lid,

moved a bundle of papers fastened by an elastic band, and pulled out a

drawer out of which be took a cheque-book.

He had no idea of the real use of the book with the buff cover and pale

pink leaves, but he knew that you had only to make certain black marks

on one of the pink leaves and take it to the big house in the Sharia

Clot Bey with its fierce man standing in front of the door and money

would be given in exchange.

On account of his cunning, his stolidity, his mighty muscle and

ferocious appearance Qatim had been made bank-messenger in chief to the

House of Zulannah, and had often stood at his mistress's side when she

had taken the cheque-book from the drawer and made strange black marks

on one of the pink leaves. True, he had rolled his eyes and shown his

teeth fiercely many a time at the interpreter who had had to be called

to explain that, although he had handed a pink leaf through the bars,

there was no money forthcoming; but as his mistress had not struck him

for returning empty-handed he had resigned himself at last to the

strangeness of the proceedings. The book meant money, that was all he

knew; so he slipped it into his loin-cloth as had been his rather

distressing habit when handed a bundle of notes by the bank-clerk who,

with his co-workers, had never tired of gazing at the gigantic creature

in white shorts, crimson tunic, huge turban and rattling scimitar.

He gave no thought to the dead body on the filthy straw; that he knew

he could carry under his arm and drop into the Nile when the bazaar

slept; but he pulled hard at his curly hair as a plan germinated in the

sluggish convolutions of his brain.

It was a very vague and a very childlike plan, but too much could not

be expected from one who had been conceived, born and bred on the

animal plane.

After an hour's pondering it, however, took a fairly definite outline.

When the sun had warmed the cool wind of night he would hide the body

under the straw and visit his eunuch twin, who had really been the

cause of the disaster. His silence would have to be bought. Of course

it would have been better to have broken his neck at once, but it was

too late now, so there was no use in worrying! Then he would go

terrorise the servants, giving them to understand that he had been left

in charge in his mistress's absence; he would remain in charge until he

had acquired enough money to buy the coal-black little Venus who worked

in the Shoemakers Bazaar; after that he would creep away with her and

return to his own village further down the Nile.

And because, perhaps, of the childishness of the plan it succeeded up

to a certain point.

He found his eunuch brother, who was the only one besides his master

and himself to know that the dancer had been Zulannah, in the grip of

such terror and physical pain as to be almost imbecile, though a look

of cunning had shone for a moment in his bloodshot eyes when Qatim had

inadvertently let drop a hint as to the accumulated riches in his hovel.

Anyway, they came to an understanding which ensured the eunuch's

silence at the price of so much good money, paid in instalments.

Qatim had no intention of holding to his side of the agreement, nor his

brother to his--as is the way of such breed of Oriental.

Then, just as he was, clad only in loin-cloth and with whip in hand,

the gigantic brute strode to the House of Zulannah. Ensued a turbulent

hour, at the end of which he remained acknowledged master of the house

and inmates until the return of the mistress, whilst those who had

mocked him went in search of cool leaves to place upon the bruised

portion of their backs and those two whose heads he had cracked

together for having resisted him lay quite still.

Returned to the hovel as the sun was sinking, and in high fettle, he

donned red tunic, huge turban and rattling scimitar and strutted with

all the negro's delight in fine feathers in front of the mirror which

rested against the crumbling plaster walls.

And then he suddenly stopped and stared into the glass.

The filthy straw in the corner of the room had moved. His face went

grey; great beads of sweat showed upon his chest, his knees shook, then

he fell on his face and covered his head with a corner of the

green-yellow Kidderminster carpet, when a voice feebly craved for water

and a small blood-stained hand weakly pulled at the straw.

Zulannah was not dead.

He lay terror-stricken for some long time, then slowly got to his

knees, tore off the fine feathers and flung the scimitar into a far

corner; then, naked save for the loin-cloth, sat down with his back to

the straw and pulled at his curly oiled hair, a sure sign in him of

deep thought.

Then he grinned and, rising, walked across the floor, and, sitting down

again, pulled the woman from under the straw.

No! Zulannah was not dead, nor even fatally hurt, but she was horrible

to look upon when the Ethiopian had washed her clean by means of a

handful of straw dipped in a broken pitcher of water.

The dog's great fangs had driven behind the ear, severing the mastoid

nerve so that the mouth was pulled right up the left side of the face;

it had also injured the muscle controlling the eyelid, causing it to

droop and giving a diabolical leer to the once beautiful doe-like eye;

it had also injured the muscle of the neck so that the head was

slightly twisted; but, worst of all, the other dog had driven its

terrible fangs into the muscle above the knees, injuring it so that she

would never walk straight again.

And Qatim sat back on his haunches, and laughed, clapping his enormous

hands.

She was not dead, and her hands were not injured, but she was too

hideous to show herself unveiled and too twisted to be recognised in

the street.

So all that was left to him to do was to cure her injuries--which he

did, and quickly, under the advice of an old herbalist in the Silk

Market,--and then sit down for the rest of his life whilst she drew

strange little marks on those pale pink leaves.