“before the clouds appeared the rain came upon me.”—arabic proverb.
two months had passed in which zarah had absolutely failed to break her prisoners’ indomitable spirit; two months in which her passion for the white man and her hate for the white girl had grown deeper and fiercer.
with the density of some women, she clung with an extraordinary and ridiculous tenacity to the belief that, if she only threatened or cajoled enough and held her rival up plainly enough to ridicule or contempt, she would ultimately win ralph trenchard’s love.
also did fear urge her to force or cajole him into becoming her husband.
she knew her own men were blown like cotton threads before every passing gust of their facile emotions, and that their suddenly aroused hatred of ralph trenchard had given place to genuine admiration; by that she had come to realize she had no real hold over them and that, where they had obeyed her father, the sheikh, through genuine love, they merely obeyed her because it pleased them so to do.
she was just their nominal head. she pleased their sense of beauty, and they almost worshipped her for her courage in raids, but they were too well fed, too sure of an unfailing supply of the necessities of life, too secure against intrusion and interference to wish to relieve her of the reins of government with its attendant burdens.
if they had formed one of the itinerant groups of bedouins which have to literally fight for their existence[248] as they flee across the desert, she knew they would not have tolerated her for a day.
true, they made no effort to run counter to her orders and to ameliorate the white man’s position. they considered the rough hut he lived in on the far side of the plateau, and the rough food sent him, quite good enough for any infidel; but they greeted him with friendly shouts when he arrived to teach them his tricks of cunning, and did their best to beat him at his own game.
if it had not been for his overwhelming anxiety for the future and for helen, whom he knew, by hearsay, to be a very slave to the tyrannical arabian, ralph trenchard would not have complained of his life or his treatment. true, he hated the half-caste, who did his best to humiliate him in the eyes of the men and, in a moment of forgetfulness in the early days, had forcibly rebelled against his constant espionage and irritating presence. he had been instantly cured of the spirit of rebellion by the sight which, with a mocking laugh, the nubian had pointed out to him, of helen, kneeling by the river surrounded by jeering women, as she washed the arabian’s linen.
“and worse will happen, thou infidel, if thou dar’st disobey my mistress’s commands. mohammed the prophet of allah decreed in his understanding that unto the faithful should be four wives given, neither did he in his wisdom say aught against an infidel wife being of the four. nay! in thine eyes i see the lust to kill. the life of the white woman pays forfeit for my life; thy life if the white woman essays to shorten the days of zarah the beautiful.”
for fear of something worse than death befalling the beautiful, splendid girl he loved, he dared do nothing. for every word, for every act of rebellion on his part, some task even more menial than those she daily performed would be forced upon her; for any attempt he might make upon the nubian’s life, to assuage his own outraged feelings, her life would be taken.
and there seemed no possible way out.
[249]
not only did the nubian dog his footsteps, but yussuf, upon whom he had counted in his heart of hearts, had failed him, and without his help nothing could be done, no communication with helen effected, no plans for escape made.
he saw yussuf every day seated amongst the men gathered to learn the arts of wrestling and jiu-jitsu, and of all the little crowd he seemed to be the only one who still cherished his hatred for the infidel. he spat with vigour when the white man passed, and at other times shouted various abusive or ribald remarks, whilst urging his brethren to down the unbeliever in the tests of strength and cunning, for the glory of allah the one and only god.
his days were most humiliatingly mapped out for him by the nubian.
there seemed to be no satisfying the men’s craving to master the rudiments of wrestling.
from two hours after sunrise until the first moment of the great noonday heat they milled and boxed, with intervals of single-stick and jiu-jitsu, in which they invariably forgot instructions, lost their self-control and temper, and almost broke each other’s legs, arms, heads or backs.
the afternoons were passed in the heavy, unrefreshing sleep induced by great heat; from the moment the sun slipped down behind the topmost mountain peaks, throwing deep shadows across the plateau, they were at it again until the hour of the one big meal of the day, which takes place about two hours after sunset.
the best part of the night they passed in gambling, story telling, singing, or tearing over the desert on horseback, ralph trenchard accompanying them, invariably shadowed by the nubian.
to his intense relief, zarah left him entirely alone for the first month. fully aware that he was surrounded by spies, he gave no sign of the rage which swept him each[250] time he caught sight of helen following the arabian, fanning her or holding an umbrella over her; or descending the steps to the river with a great earthenware vessel on her shoulder, which she would fill for the tyrant’s bath and carry up the steep steps to her dwelling.
zarah had passed the month in trying to break helen’s splendid spirit, ignorant of the strength which real love gives to those who, either through physical weakness or untoward circumstances, are at the mercy of those moral cowards who take advantage of their distress or defencelessness. cowards who, amongst the educated and the ignorant, the clergy, the laity, in the highest profession or in trade, place themselves morally on the level of the man who kicks his dog or hits his opponent when he is down.
she made no impression on the english girl.
strong in her love, certain that her prayers for help would be answered, she endured all things.
she waited on the arabian hand and foot, climbed the ladder to the golden cage, wherein zarah lay during the siesta, with coffee, sherbet, or whatever she desired, and descended and climbed again with ever the sweetest smile in her steady, blue eyes. she brushed and combed the red curls until her arms ached; carried and fetched and read aloud and looked after the birds; fanned the woman, fetched water from the river for her bath, washed the silken garments, and waited upon her at meals, without a murmur on her lips or a shadow in her eyes.
she spoke to no one, but through the gossiping of the women learned that the body of the surly negress had not been discovered, and that zarah, owing to a certain spirit of insubordination that had lately swept through the camp, had not dared to punish the grooms of the kennels for their gross carelessness.
she was continually surrounded by the women, who, ignorant of the lies told them, jeered at and laughed at her and did everything in their power to make her tasks[251] even yet more distasteful. when away from zarah her every movement was spied upon and reported.
she slept in a hut in which tools had been stored during the alterations to the building, rough and infinitely uncomfortable, but a very haven of refuge at the end of the day when she returned, to fling herself on her knees and pray for strength and patience.
if only she had known it, spies watched her at her prayers, noting the look of peace which followed quickly upon them, and the content with which she stretched herself upon the bed composed of rugs flung upon the sand; watched her asleep and at her toilette, and ran to make report on all things, especially upon the delight she seemed to take in combing her masses of beautiful hair and in her bath in the river long before the dawn.
and when a rough hand shook helen out of her sleep and ordered her to zarah’s presence, it seemed that god had turned a deaf ear to her prayers and that fear must, after all, dominate her splendid courage.
it was long after midnight when, with a heavily beating heart, she entered the luxurious room.
two abyssinian women, nude save for a short petticoat which stopped above the knees, stood behind the divan upon which zarah lay smoking a naghileh. she lay and looked at helen without a word, hating her for the ethereal look, which heightened her beauty and had come to her in her days of toil and privation.
“i am told,” she said after a while in arabic, “that the hut you sleep in is not clean, that your habits are not the cleanly habits of the mohammedan, that your hair has not escaped contamination from the disorder in your hut; therefore——”
when helen interrupted her quickly, she looked back at the tittering black women and laughed.
“how can you say such a thing! i am perfectly clean, my clothes are in holes through being washed on the stones, my hair....” to her own undoing and[252] yet, if she had but known it, as an answer to her prayers for help, she undid the great golden plaits and shook the rippling mass out over her shoulders, holding long strands at arm’s length until even the negresses exclaimed at the glory of its sheen. “my hair is combed and brushed every day and washed once a week; it is perfectly clean!”
zarah laughed as she puffed at her hubble-bubble, inhaling the fumes of the tobacco of oman, which is calculated to absolutely stun the uninitiated in its gunpowder strength.
“anyway, i do not like these tales of uncleanliness to be spread amongst my women, helen r-r-aynor-r,” she said curtly at last. “i therefore have decided to keep you beneath my eyes. you will sleep in my room, on a mat, you will bathe under the supervision of this slave here, who will now cut your hair off so that you are clean.”
“i’ll kill her if she touches me!” helen cried sharply, and, gathering the glory of her hair round about her, ran to a table upon which lay an ornamented but most workmanlike dagger. she loved her glorious, naturally curling hair, looking upon it, with her beautiful teeth, as the greatest asset with which nature had endowed her. her lover loved it, and had often told her that she had ensnared his heart in its golden mesh. forgetting her impossible position as prisoner and the utter futility of any effort at resistance, determined to fight for the glorious mantle which covered her to her knees, she picked up the dagger as the two gigantic women approached her.
“i’ll kill the first one of you who touches me!”
zarah laughed and raised her hand.
“go and find al-asad and bid him bind the white man and bring him here. stop!”
helen had thrown out her hands in surrender.
even her hair would she willingly sacrifice in her great love, everything she would sacrifice except her honour, and that she knew was safe in a place abounding[253] with deep precipices and paths where the foothold was precarious.
save for her tightly locked hands, she made no sign when the beautiful mass lay about her feet; in fact, with an almost superhuman effort of courage, she refrained from touching her shorn head, and leant down instead and picked up a handful of hair, which looked like a great skein of golden silk.
“it’s a pity to waste it, zarah,” she said gently. “why not stuff a pillow with it?”
the arabian bit hard on the amber mouthpiece of the naghileh. with her short hair curling round her face, helen looked like an exquisite girl of fifteen, defenceless, helpless, and calculated to inspire pity in the heart of almost any man.
“call namlah!” she lashed the abyssinian across the thigh when she had to repeat the order. “art deaf or bereft of the use of thy limbs, thou fool!” she screamed, seizing the dagger from her belt and throwing it after the rapidly retreating negress, missing her shoulder by an inch as she emulated the speed of the ostrich through the doorway.
namlah, upon whom helen had counted in her heart of hearts, had failed her, and without her help nothing could be done, no communication with ralph effected, no plans for escape made.
of all the crowd of women who jeered and laughed at her she seemed to be the one who cherished the greatest hatred for her. she spat with vigour when the white girl passed, and at other times shouted various abusive and ribald remarks, urging the women to see that the unbeliever performed her menial tasks thoroughly, so as to enhance the glory of allah the one and only god.
she ran in and prostrated herself before her dread mistress, then pulled the masses of hair roughly from under helen’s feet and tossed it this way and that as though it were the hair of goat or camel.
[254]
“a kerchief for thy head, o great mistress, could i weave, or a plaited girdle set with pearls, though ’twere wellnigh sacrilege for the middle of the believer to be bound by the hair of the infidel. behold the infidel looks even like the skull of one dead, with her face like unbaked bread and her head like unto the wing of the ostrich plucked of its feathers.”
with instructions to make what she could of the silky burden which filled both her arms, she spat or, rather, for fear of her mistress’s humour, made the sound of vigorous spitting in helen’s direction, and vanished through the doorway.
helen lay on the floor that night, her beautiful shorn head resting on her arm, and poured out her heart in gratitude that zarah had not seen fit to shave it completely.
“what is in the cauldron is taken out with the kitchen spoon.”—arabic proverb.
“a thousand raps at the door but no salute or invitation from within.”—arabic proverb.
during the night, in the passing of a second, for no apparent reason and with all the arab’s lamentable instability, zarah grew suddenly tired of baiting her prisoner, and, with the extraordinary density of the woman in love, decided to make one last endeavour to break down ralph trenchard’s resistance.
she could not understand, and she would never be able to get it into a mind narrowed by self-love, that one might as well try to stem the niagara falls with straw or hold a must elephant on a daisy-chain as to influence the invincible love of soul-mates.
she decided she would offer ralph trenchard helen’s liberty. she would offer to give up her mountain home, her freedom, her power. she would offer herself as his[255] servant, his slave, to cook for him, to wait upon him, anything to keep him by her side, no matter if he returned her love or not, as long as he lived near her; and if that failed, as a last resource would use the despicable lever of the lowest type of coward.
to gain her end she would threaten to commit suicide. so the night following the cutting of helen’s hair, which was also the night preceding a tournament, in which the men were to show how much they had learned of the art of pugilism, she attired herself in great splendour and summoned ralph trenchard to her presence. helen, surrounded by women who gossiped, knelt at the river edge rubbing silken garments on a stone, with namlah mocking and jeering beside her when the abyssinian, sent to fetch ralph trenchard, shouted her errand as she passed. helen shrank back when namlah suddenly sprang at her and wrenched the silken garment from her hand.
“thou fool!” namlah shrilled as she knelt. “this wise, and this and this. the soap? or hast thou eaten it in thy imbecility?” she leant across helen and snatched at the soap, which slid into the water, then rung the garment as though it were the neck of an offending hen as she whispered: “give me a message for the white man. zarah offers him thy freedom for his love.” down came the garment on the stone as though she essayed to soften the tough carcass of some female methuselah of the poultry world as she screamed at the top of her voice: “wilt thou never learn? did allah in his wisdom not teach thee even how to wash a garment? take it and try, lest i smite thee with it!” she flung the silken remnant at helen, who, eyes alight, caught it in both hands and crashed it on the rocks until one half followed the soap into the water, whereupon namlah leant across her and gripped her wrists.
“fool! this wise, and this and this!”
the women crowded round to watch namlah swinging helen’s arms like flails.
[256]
“tell him,” whispered helen as she beat her best, “that—— nay, namlah, thou tearest out my arms. behold, i can do no more.” she fell forward with the woman underneath, and in the confusion whispered her message. “tell him i prefer death to my freedom at such a price,” and shrank back, for the benefit of the onlookers, when namlah, flinging all that was left of the washing item in her face, ran off, with much cursing, up the path to where yussuf waited in the shadows.
and hope sprang up in ralph trenchard’s heart as he climbed the steps in answer to zarah’s summons, followed by the nubian at some distance.
suddenly, and with a most amazing clumsiness, yussuf walked out from behind the great boulder straight into his arms.
“sorry!” said trenchard shortly, as he tried to free himself from the grasp of the infuriated arab. “you came out so——”
“hast no thoughts for others?” shouted yussuf at the top of his voice. “thine ear,” he whispered, whilst he shook ralph trenchard violently. “zarah will offer thee thy white woman’s freedom for thy love. the white woman prefers death to freedom without thee. she loves thee. nay,” he suddenly yelled, “wouldst push a blind man to his death?” the two seemed locked in anger as al-asad raced up the path. “a message,” he whispered. “shake me in anger. give me a message for thy woman—give me a message.”
the nubian was close upon them.
trenchard grasped the blind man and shook him.
“tell her to stand fast and to fear nothing,” he whispered, then shouted angrily. “how can i hear thy noiseless feet on the——” he reeled as yussuf hurled him backwards and continued to climb the steps, whilst the blind man filled the night air with curses.
zarah was quite alone.
[257]
the nubian, under orders, sat down upon the steps to await developments.
he was well content to wait.
he had gauged the white man’s strength of resistance and had no fear that he would become entangled in the beautiful arabian’s wiles. he smiled as he crept, as noiselessly as a great cat, to the platform before the door and stretched himself flat upon it, the blackest spot in the black shadows, to listen to the woman he loved pleading for the love of one who loved another.
lost to all sense of shame as are those women who have not learned the meaning of self-control and self-sacrifice, zarah pleaded with ralph trenchard for his continued presence by her side. pleaded for his company and his comradeship so that she might enjoy the shadow of his great good looks and actual presence whilst keeping the substance of his love from her rival.
she had made the greatest mistake in her toilette.
none too over-dressed at the best of times, she had a startlingly undressed appearance as she stood like a beautiful exotic flower beside the englishman.
she had not—how could she in the name of decency?—discarded a single garment, but had donned the most transparent outfit in her wardrobe.
her feet were bare and jewelled, as were her arms, her hands, her waist. the trousers, worn by most arabian women, were voluminous in their transparent folds, her body shone through a jewelled vest which fitted her like her skin.
trenchard looked at her from head to foot, and with the perverseness of the human mind immediately thought of the picture helen had made as she stood beside her grandfather in the desperate battle; and he backed a pace before the arabian’s semi-nudity, whilst the nubian buried his face in his arm to stifle his cry of longing.
“i love thee,” zarah was saying softly, looking up at[258] the man she loved with love-filled eyes. “i love thee, r-ralph tr-r-enchar-r-d. i have loved thee ever since i lay against thy heart so many, many moons ago. i will give up my home, my people, i will name al-asad as ruler in my stead, i will follow thee upon the path of thy choice, to the country that should please thee. i will wait upon thee, serve thee, devote myself to thee, if thou wilt give up the other woman. i love thee.”
“i have already told you, zarah, that i do not love you, could never love you.” ralph trenchard, loathing the scene, spoke curtly, and stepped back quickly as zarah flung herself at his feet. “do get up,” he added in english, as he tried to loosen her grasp upon his knees. “if only you knew how we english loathe scenes like this, and what we think of hysterical, unbalanced people!”
she sat back on her heels, lifting her hands in supplication.
“i offer you helen r-raynor-r’s freedom if you will stay with me. i do not want to keep her. let her go back to her own country. she is young; she will forget; she does not know what love is. besides, i fear my slave. he is handsome; he, too, is young; he wishes to take a wife. i will send helena safely away from him if you will stay with me.”
trenchard showed no sign of the horror of the fate in store for helen; he spoke quite calmly, slowly, almost indifferently.
“you will not gain anything if you hurt helen. if she dies i die; if you try to harm her she will find a means of killing herself, and i shall kill myself. not because of my love for her—our kind of love is higher than suicide, it endures—but only so that you shall find no pleasure in her death.”
he pulled her hands apart and stepped back as she sprang to her feet. she failed to understand that, living or dead, she was no more to the man than one of the birds[259] in its cage, and played what she mistakenly believed to be her trump card.
“then i will kill myself, r-r-alph tr-renchar-r-d.” she choked with rage, the r’s in the english words rolling like little drums. “and you will never forget that upon your head will lie the death of a woman, never be able to wipe out the picture of my broken body lying amongst the rocks.” she ran close up to him, shaking with the unseemly rage of the uncontrolled woman. “i go to my death.” she pointed through the doorway, striking a most dramatic attitude, whilst watching for a sign of interest in her proceedings in the man’s indifferent face. “to my death!” she screamed as she saw none, and fled through the doorway, missing the astounded nubian by an inch.
she stopped upon the edge of the very steep incline and listened for the sound of footsteps hastening to her rescue. at the absence of all sound she looked over her shoulder, to see ralph trenchard, with his back to her, lighting a cigarette. she tore back into the room with the last shred of her restraint gone and swung him round by the arm.
“oh, you didn’t do it?” he looked her straight in the eyes. “we have women like you in england, never very young or very pretty, who, verging upon the sere and yellow, and with nothing to fill their days or occupy their minds, try to coerce the people they love by threats of suicide. they never get what they want, either. the slightest chain frets love, real love, you know. you can’t inspire love just because you keep the person you love, but who doesn’t love you, in the same house with you. you can’t hold love by cooking or serving. love, real love, will thrive on a crust offered by the one loved, but will sicken at the sight of a basket of sweetmeats offered by anyone else.” he had no intention of giving her the slightest cause to hope by offering her any sympathy in her tantrums. he added coldly, cruelly, as he turned[260] from her: “it’s rather a pity these silly, hysterical women don’t carry out their threat of suicide; the world would be no loser by their death.”
he backed before her as she burst into a torrent of reproach which ended in a storm of abuse.
“ ... go!” she screamed at the highest pitch of the arabian voice, which is none too sweet in wrath. “to-morrow at the tournament i will decide what is best to be done with this white woman who is not fit to mingle with my women and children. yea, even, owing to her dislike of water have we cut her hair so that——”
she screamed and struck at ralph trenchard as he caught her by the wrist and pulled her roughly to him.
“what did you say? you’ve cut off helen’s hair? all that wonderful golden mass! you have dared to do that? speak, can’t you!”
he flung her on the divan as she laughed and clapped her hands at the sight of his horror-stricken face, and laughed again at the plan for revenge which flashed into her mind.
“so i have prevailed in making you feel, r-ralph tr-r-enchar-r-d,” she shouted after him as he left the room and ran down the steps, followed by the amazed nubian.
she ran to the door and laughed until the mountains echoed and re-echoed to the sound, then turned and flung herself on the floor, where she gave way to the violent hysterics of the uncontrolled, jealous woman.
