“everyman—and his own care!”—arabic proverb.
zarah stretched her arms above her head, yawned, listened for a moment to the barking of the dogs, then, struck with a premonition of impending disaster, awoke to her surroundings, struggled to a sitting position, and stared up at the unlit lamps and round the room in amazement.
save for the faint light of the coming dawn, the place was in darkness and strangely still.
who had blown out the lights? where was helen? what was the meaning of the dogs’ unrest at this hour, when they usually slept? why was she weighed down with such an oppressive drowsiness?
she roused herself, swaying to her feet, stood for a moment bemused, then staggered forward and crashed into a great brass bowl filled with many fruits. it fell with a clatter, arousing her from the strange lethargy which seemed to cause the room to spin about her and to dull her active brain.
she stood watching the oranges and pomegranates, figs, apricots and peaches roll this way and that across the marble floor, then called for helen.
helen!
she shouted the name savagely, under the whip of her premonition, shouted it until the vaulted roof rang with her cries, shouted it until the echoes gave back the call.
helen! helen! helen! a mocking voice seemed to shout back from the shadows.
in a flash enlightenment came to her, and with it the blindest rage that ever entered woman’s heart.
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there could be but one reason for the dark desertion of the room and for the unanswered call. in some way the girl she hated, the man she desired, had communicated with each other, had outwitted her. how? when? where? oh, of what avail to lose time in asking useless questions when, even at that moment, they might be on their way to freedom and love? she stood in the centre of the faintly lighted room, then laughed until the ugly sound beat against the walls. she laughed with sheer rage at the thought of how she, zarah the cruel, the most beautiful woman in asia, the woman who had never been thwarted or foiled, had at last been circumvented by helen. helen raynor, the fool english girl, the slow-witted, the dense, the hopelessly dull, as she had described her when holding her up to ridicule to her women slaves.
her slaves!
in a moment her trend of thought changed, and with it, replacing even her rage, came a violent desire to revenge herself on everyone who had connived at or participated in the prisoners’ escape.
yussuf! namlah!
she seized the metal rod and smote the huge brass gong as the two names leapt to her mind. her men were gathered together on the plateau, with yussuf and the dumb boy whom he loved in their midst. she would summon the two who had been thorns in her flesh since the death of the sheikh and wring a confession from them.
left by her father in her care!
in the name of allah what mattered a promise more or less when it had to do with those who had put humiliation after humiliation upon her? she would see to it that they and the white people were rendered dumb and blind in death by the time she had wiped out all the insults they had heaped her with.
her women!
they slept peacefully in their quarters with namlah in their midst. she would summon them all and wring a[292] confession from her. she had treated the body-woman, who had shown such strong affection for the white girl, with a strange leniency, merely replacing her, upon the spies’ report, by the surly negress who had so unaccountably disappeared upon the night when the dogs had rushed the hall. she should learn what awaited a slave and a prisoner who dared plot against the master.
she smote the gong to awaken the entire camp and to summon her attendants, smote it without ceasing.
lost to all sense of reasoning through her overpowering rage, she flung herself upon the divan and sat looking out to the desert through the cleft in the mountains, planning her revenge upon them all.
the red desert, the empty desert, the forcing-ground of hate, revenge, despair, the burial place of love and hope and life.
the great waste places of the arabian peninsula, swept by the tribes of ad, tasim and jadis, devastated by the hordes which inundated it in the early days when the holy fathers, in penance, built the very building in which the desert-born girl sat; ruled by african kings, allied to the roman and byzantine empires, coveted, conquered, beaten, yet as ready to-day to rise in revolt against oppression and to hurl itself against the enemy as it was ready to fling itself victoriously against the mighty roman generals.
immense tracts of sand across which, pursuing or pursued, passed those countless legions, leaving, save for the footprints of solomon’s mighty yeminite queen and mohammed, the greatest prophet the world has known since the advent of the gentle nazarene, but little mark upon the path of time; desolate plains under which those who, through the centuries, have laid its fair cities waste, sleep in death amongst the ruins and treasures and secrets of cities, kingdoms and dynasties of which the names alone remain; silent, mysterious oceans of sand above which, wheeling, calling, sailing on outstretched[293] wing at dawn, at noon, at dusk, drift the vultures from north to south, from east to west, as they have drifted and called since the day every grain of the sands was numbered.
revengeful, relentless, restless, the great desert knows no peace nor rest nor shade. it sweeps flat that which it piled high but yesterday, and upon its surface, stretching like an eastern carpet, blows its sands to the height of hills, to sweep them flat again. it kills with thirst, it slays with hunger and exhaustion; it leaves but little trace of those who dare to pass its desolate boundaries. bones of fugitives, of the hapless, the luckless, bones of birds and beasts, covered feet deep with sand at dawn, uncovered by the dread shelook to dance to the blowing of its scorching breath at noon, mark out a path across its desolation under the star-strewn, peaceful sky. high-born and low-caste, criminal and holy man, friend and enemy, there is nothing to tell who they were in life nor in what manner death came to them. vultures follow jackal and hyena; settle for a while and rise again to drift from north to south, from east to west; the wind of chance wafts the tattered, blood-stained kerchief across the desert to the feet of the holy man who has watched it, the only thing to move, dancing this way and that across the plain towards him; he ties it as a pennant to his staff and continues, with a prayer for the soul of the dead, upon his pilgrimage; the bedouin, starving upon a handful of stringy sihanee dates and a cup of brackish water, searches amongst the bones and offers the desert victim’s purse and amulets and weapons in exchange or sale to those he may encounter upon his journey to the nearest oasis.
a fitting place indeed in which to hide all trace of the arabian’s vengeance upon the white people. let them fly for their lives, they would but leave their bodies to the vultures and the wind and the starving bedouin, when her men had done with them.
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her men!
since the sinking of the last moon her spies had brought reports of discontent amongst them. they had become restless and rebellious under the inactivity she imposed upon them during her fleeting but violent obsession for the white man.
within the hour she would once more lead them across the sands under the light of the dying night and the coming dawn. with her they should hunt the fugitives down, and with spear or rifle wipe out the cause of their unrest and anger.
born of the desert, bred in its scorching heat, zarah made one with it in her relentless cruelty. in it she had found her joy and, what counted more to her than all, her greatest triumphs with her men. through it love, the love which is passion, the only love of which she was capable, had come to her; in it, in years to come, death would find her.
death!
she laughed aloud as she listened to the sound of her people calling to each other as they hastened from their quarters to obey her summons.
death would come, as it must come to all, but not until she had repaired the mistake she had made in endeavouring to place the white man at the head of her small but turbulent kingdom; not until she had ruled for many years; not until she had wiped the memory of the white people who had tricked her from the minds of her subjects, whom she would link closer still by her union with one of themselves.
with all the instability and inconstancy of the arab blood in her veins her passion for the white man passed, burned out in the fire of the wrath that consumed her.
let the white people die. let the slight ripple they had made upon the sea of her exuberant, triumphant life be wiped out, so that peace might once more reign in the sanctuary.
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death!
with her plan of revenge in her mind she looked across at her throwing spears hanging upon the wall, then laughed as she caught sight of herself in one of the many long mirrors her intense vanity had caused her to place about the room.
as she crossed the floor she made the gesture with her fingers, used by the superstitious all the world over, against the thought of death which filled her mind, then took her favourite spear from the wall. damascus steel, inlaid with gold, with razor edges to the slender, needle-pointed blade. she smiled as the thought of the day, those years ago, when with it she had transfixed the greyhound accepted as a gift by her father’s guest.
“death!” she cried, as she stood, a magnificent figure of youth, with the spear raised and poised for throwing. “nay, revenge upon those who try to humiliate me. i will gather my men together and will promise gold, horses, women, what they will, to those who overtake and bring back to me, alive or dead, the prisoners who have escaped. love! i in love with any man, be he white or black or of mixed blood! nay, by the beard of the prophet i love naught but power. let them flee into the desert, even until the sun is risen, so that helen r-raynor-r’s countenance be blistered and as roundly swelled as yon knob of wood, the which, to see if my hand hath not lost its cunning, i will pierce with the spear.”
she ran back a space, caught her foot in a rug, staggered, and, in an effort to recover her balance, involuntarily flung the spear.
she stood for a moment petrified with horror, then screamed and screamed until the place rang.
thrown off her balance, she had flung the spear straight at the mirror. as she stood it transfixed her reflection through the heart.
hundreds of torches flared below, where her men stood looking up, watching the women as, with exclamations[296] of fear, they ran to answer the dreaded summons of the gong.
“by the beard,” said bowlegs to yussuf’s eyes, “something is amiss.”
a shout went up as zarah appeared, wrapped in her great riding cloak, spear in hand. “she leads us to battle, little brother who cannot speak.” bowlegs turned, laughing as he spoke, and stared in amazement. the dumb youth was not there, but in his place towered the gigantic nubian.
“verily to battle or the hunt, brother,” said al-asad. “battle methinks, for of a truth the woman i love seems in no patient mood. ha! canst hear? she calleth for namlah! ha! she smites the abyssinian across the mouth. the tiger-cat! yet do i love her the more for her cruelty. her small hand is like a flower petal blown against the rock when, in her childlike wrath, she smites me. i could pinch the breath from her throat, which is like unto the jewelled column in yon hall, ’twixt thumb and finger, yet love i to anger her so that her little hand shall smite me. ha! harken! she calleth for the blind one, for yussuf. look, brother! is she not as the wind from the south in her wrath?”
zarah faced her terrified women slaves, amongst whom namlah was not to be found.
“search for the white woman, you black dogs!” she smote the abyssinian across the face as she spoke. “find her and bring her to me. namlah will you find with her. search, all of you, and hasten, lest i drive you down to the sands of death.” the women turned and fled down the steps, touching their amulets, praying to allah, whispering the one to the other.
“whither, my heart’s delight? whither in such haste, with thy beautiful countenance distraught with fear?”
bowlegs’ second wife tore herself from his detaining grasp and ran as fast as her weight would allow her, and literally for her life. “we run in search of the white[297] woman, who is not to be found, and namlah, who——” the rest of her words were lost as she disappeared in the throng of her panting sisters.
“oh! ho!” said bowlegs. “now find we the kernel in the nut. the beautiful zarah calleth for yussuf.” he turned and scanned the band of laughing, interested men. “behold are the blind and the dumb ones not to be seen. let me hide in thy shadow, o lion, lest thy mate-to-be scratches out mine eyes as she passes.”
al-asad took no notice. he stood watching the beautiful arabian as she ran down the steps. the men made a passage for her, and closed in behind and around her as she passed between them, wrapped in her riding cloak.
“yussuf!” she said sharply. “where is he? thou who standeth above thy fellows, seeth thou him?” she laid her hand on al-asad’s arm as she spoke and looked up into his eyes, which were alight with love. “is he here?”
the wind blew her cloak against him. starving for love, he caught it and held it crushed in his hand, and stood looking down at her, his eyes full of worship, whilst the men, intuitive as are all orientals, watched the little scene, pressing close upon each other.
“her veritable mate,” whispered one. “seeth thou that his right hand holds her cloak?”
“yea! i bear no malice towards the white man, but ’twere well to send him with the white woman back to the country where the white race is bred,” answered the patriarch.
“seest thou yussuf?”
“yussuf guards the white man, o zarah!” said al-asad slowly.
“bring him and the white man. hasten, thou——” she pointed with her spear at a youngster, who, terrified, turned and ran towards the men’s quarters.
“my amulet for a death in battle, against thine for many sons amongst thy children,” whispered the[298] patriarch, “that the lad finds neither the blind one, nor the dumb one, nor the white man?”
the gamblers slipped their amulets from about their necks.
“thinkest thou that they have escaped, o father?”
“nay, that i know not, but the bitch that so hateth our woman ruler turned from her meat and howled thrice at the moon! naught but death can follow the sign! from fear of disaster amongst the dogs, she has been separated from her companions and placed by herself for the night in the small kennel amongst the rocks.”
“a?, a?!” whispered his companion, spreading his fingers against disaster. “behold! the lad returneth with a face like troubled waters.”
the lad flung himself at zarah’s feet, speechless from terror.
“speak! where are they?”
zarah kicked him as he lay, and turned and half raised her spear in the direction from which had come a murmuring.
“the dwelling of the white man is empty, o mistress! neither is the blind one nor the dumb one to be found for the searching.”
“make a way for yon black dog!”
zarah’s voice, high pitched in fury, rose above the men’s. they pushed each other back as the gigantic negress came running lightly, and smote her playfully upon her broad shoulders as she passed amongst them, up to where her mistress and the nubian stood. almost as tall as al-asad, she made a superb picture as she stood, thoroughbred and perfect in form, beside the two half-castes. arrogant in her breeding, aware of the rebellion seething in the camp, she eyed them insolently as she revenged herself for the blows her mistress had rained upon her since she had been bought in the slave market.
“thy prisoners have escaped, o zarah!” she said slowly, contemptuously. “the white man has fled with the white[299] woman. black stallion with black mare, white stallion with white mare, and allah’s curse upon the foal of different colouring.”
she turned her back upon the arabian, and walked away with the insolent gait of the thoroughbred negro.
speechless with rage, zarah raised her spear, then, in a flash, realized that she no longer had the power to move her men to the madness of hate or to the lust of battle. they stood between her and the negress, but she kept her spear raised as she made a mighty effort to regain her hold over them. she stepped back and shouted the battle-cry with which she had been wont to gather the men for a foray into the desert or about her in battle. the words were echoed a thousand times from the mountains, but not from one throat of the men about her; she called aloud her promise of horses, gold or women as a reward for the capture of the prisoners; she drove a way between the men until she stood upon the outer edge of the throng, then once more she shouted the battle-cry, until the women, who had been watching, ran and hid amongst the rocks and some of the younger men felt stealthily for their knives.
“is there not one among you who dare face the white man?”
a voice from the centre of the throng quoted an arab proverb, a voice with a mocking note in its clear tones:
“‘it is written upon the cucumber leaf,’ o zarah, ‘that from a house from which thou eatest thou shalt not pray for its destruction.’”
the patriarch, with bowlegs at his side, pushed his way to the front. “the white man, my daughter, we will not for master,” he said, “but for his patience and his strength, yea! and his love for his own woman, we love him as a brother. behold has he lived and eaten like a dog in yon hut and worked amongst us, to teach us his tricks of skill, with no word of complaint upon his lips. nay! let him be, with his own woman. their ways are[300] not our ways, and their lives are in the keeping of allah the one and only god. likewise let the friend of thy father with his dumb friend be gone upon their own business. they irk the sanctuary with their infirmities, as does the busy namlah with her wailings for her lost son.”
but zarah had long since passed the stage of sane reasoning. she was white with fury as she faced these men, who would not move hand or foot to help her in her need and looked at her with laughter in the depths of their mocking eyes.
“thou!”
her voice trembled with rage as she looked across to al-asad, who stood surrounded by men.
he shook his head.
“thou art my woman!” he said simply, “and if i cannot have thee, thinkest thou that i would strive to bring back one thou lovest and who has escaped?”
“thou fool! bring him back dead, slung across thy shoulders——”
“nay! i love him as a brother, let him go!”
“then will i bring him back myself!”
the men looked at each other as she laughed shrilly and turned and ran across the plateau towards the stables, and gripped the nubian as he made a movement to follow her.
“let her be,” said the patriarch. “she but makes mock of thee. what can a woman armed with a spear do against those who are fully armed? she will hide amongst the rocks until hunger drives her forth, then will we wed her to thee, o brother, or carry her to the sands of death, for we tire of her moods and would find her a master.”
but zarah was in no vein for trickery.
desperation had swept her completely off her course towards the whirlpool of impulsiveness, into which the hot-headed flounder, to struggle, sink and drown.
a moment’s thought, a whole-hearted surrender to her subjects’ wishes, a joke at her own expense, a laugh, and[301] she might even then have won back her hold upon the men who, as all arabs, were swayed by the emotions of the moment and as easily placated as they were easily roused.
her love had passed; the mockery in her men’s eyes, the insolence in the black slave’s words, signalled her defeat; the future, bereft of power, loomed cold and barren, yet, in the smart of the wound dealt her colossal vanity, she gave no thought to aught but swift, sure revenge upon those who had been the chief cause of her downfall.
the grooms of the stables standing half-way down the slight incline, devoured by curiosity, fled at sight of her, and rushed to their quarters at the back of the buildings.
she paid no attention.
time pressed, and she required but a halter-rope with which to guide lulah, the fastest mare in all arabia, across the desert. there was no necessity for questioning; the fresh tracks of the camels or horses ridden by the fugitives would show plainly on the sand in the light of the coming day. in the agony of her humiliation she gave no thought to weapons; all she wanted was to find the white man with his woman, to get within spear range, and then to leave the rest to allah the merciful and compassionate.
terrified at the gleam of the white cloak, lulah backed across the loose box, then lashed out until it seemed she must break the partition with her dainty, unshod hoofs. her beautiful, soft eyes rolled as she backed into the corner, and she jerked her head, lifting zarah from the ground, when the arabian caught her by the halter-rope; she stood quite still for a moment, snuffing at the cloak, then suddenly rushed for the open door and bolted, slipping, sliding, with the girl running at her side, down the passage between the stalls, through the outer door, and out on to the broad ledge upon which the stables had been built.
she reared when zarah vaulted to her back, then, exhilarated by the dawn and under the pressure of the[302] girl’s knees, danced sideways towards the edge, whilst the men, who watched the splendid picture, held al-asad forcibly, and yussuf’s eyes peeping from behind the rock which hid them, tapped an answer to the blind man’s question.
the black mare reared until struck between the ears, when she crashed to her feet, slipped them over the edge, tried to regain her foothold, then, under her own impetus and the pressure of the girl’s knees, who was too savagely impatient to pull the beautiful beast back to the made track, slithered like a goat down the path from the stables to where it joined the upward track which led to the cleft.
zarah took her up the steep incline at a terrific rush, and pulled her at the top until she reared again. for one instant they stood sharply outlined against the night sky in which the morning breeze blew out the stars one by one, then vanished, as the battle-cry, mocking, challenging, rang through the air down to the men standing close together upon the plateau.
“his eyes,” who watched, turned and tapped a message upon his blind friend’s arm.
“to the kennels?” answered yussuf. “yea, verily will we hasten whilst our brothers and sisters gossip of the flight. zarah the merciful will have no time in which to spy the swiftest dromedary in arabia hidden behind the rocks.” he raised his right hand as he spoke. “by the honour of the arab, when i have finished with her who plucked the light from my eyes, behold will her laughter be ‘as the laughter of the nut when cracked between two stones’!”
he laughed savagely as he quoted the proverb, staring down at the boy he could not see, then took his hand and, without faltering, passed quickly along a path he had made for himself between the rocks up to the kennels, deserted for the moment by the grooms, who had rushed to talk over the doings of the past hour with the distracted grooms of the stables.
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“allah keep her tongue still!” whispered yussuf as “his eyes” opened the door of the isolated kennel amongst the rocks and softly whistled the bitch. whimpering with delight, the beautiful creature flung herself upon the men whom she had so often followed across the desert. she loved them. they had petted her when in disgrace, and had fed her with bones between the regulation and none too satisfying meals. yussuf’s hour of revenge had struck. vengeance for the loss of his eyes, for the mutilation of his once handsome face, for the humiliations which had deftly been heaped upon him throughout the years by the woman who had failed to recognize the intensity of his hate for her.
for just such a moment had he longed and prayed, for just such a moment had he fostered the hate of the bitch, who, only on account of her unblemished pedigree and for the gentleness of her ways to all but the arabian, had not been destroyed long since. for years she had followed the scent of one of the arabian’s discarded sandals which “his eyes” had trailed upon a string across the desert, mile upon mile, to be rewarded at the end by some dainty fastened to a staff, thrust into the sand, for which she had been taught to leap and fight.
she knew the way down the narrow path to the spear stuck fast between the two rocks, and had never forgotten the severe lessons which had taught her to keep silent until well out in the desert; she whimpered softly and thrust her muzzle into yussuf’s hand as he passed quickly to the rock which marked the beginning of the path leading up to the cleft.
“they gamble, thou sayest, ‘mine eyes,’ seated upon the ground, with the lion, a prisoner, in their midst. then bending low will we make our way to the cleft, praying to allah to bind their eyes to the dice until we can be no longer seen. how light is it? as light as the feathers upon a pigeon’s breast? then must we hasten!”
bent double, they crept up the steep path to the cleft,[304] through which yussuf passed, just as the first sunbeam shot from behind the edge of the world, and a great shout rang out from the plateau.
al-asad, chafing against the restraint put upon him and longing for the woman he loved, turned to look up at the cleft through which she must pass upon her return.
outlined against the sky he saw the disappearing figure of the blind man, whom he knew hated the woman he loved with a bitterness beyond description; upon the near side he saw, waiting to pass, yussuf’s eyes, holding the bitch who hated the arabian with a hatred which equalled that of the blind man.
the men leapt to their feet at al-asad’s cry and flung themselves upon him, then fell back when, making a bugle of his slender hands, he sent the battle-cry ringing over the mountain tops out to the desert.
at the sight of the bitch he had divined the revenge yussuf the blind had planned; he sent the battle-cry to reach the woman he loved, so that she should know that help was coming.
again and again he called, until the birds rose twittering and screaming in flocks and flew towards the sunrise, whilst yussuf whistled to the bitch trotting at the dromedary’s heels, as the great beast, under the urging of the dumb youth, passed across the hidden path at a desperate, dangerous speed.
the women rushed from their quarters at the sound of the battle-cry, which invariably heralded the death of one or more of their menfolk, and beat their breasts as they watched the men, headed by the nubian, running towards the stables.
“a?! a?! a?!”
the lamentation rose to high heaven as they watched the nubian take his stallion at a terrific pace down the short cut to the path. they screamed when the magnificent beast fell and rolled to the bottom, where he scrambled to his feet and limped forward a foot or so, whilst[305] al-asad, without hesitating, sped to meet the men as they tore like the whirlwind down the made track. he caught the rope-halter of one who outdistanced the rest, and, putting out all his almost superhuman strength, stopped the horse dead in its tracks and hurled it back on its haunches. clinging to the mane with his left hand, he lifted the rider with his right, flung him to the ground, bent and snatched the spear from his hand, and ran at the stallion’s side up to the end of the path, where he vaulted across its back and disappeared through the cleft with a challenging cry.
afraid of the arab who lay stunned across their path, the foremost horses stopped dead in their headlong career, bringing the others up against them in a struggling mass, so that much time was lost as the men tried to straighten out the confusion made by the horses jamming on the narrow path as each struggled to free itself from its neighbour, whilst they slipped and reared and fell.
the rim of the sun had just shown above the horizon; the nubian was a speck in the far distance; of yussuf and “his eyes” and the arabian there was no sign in the shadows which still shrouded the vast ocean of sand, when, headed by the patriarch, with much shouting and firing of rifles, the whole band, riding at full speed, swept across the desert.
