“Under every downhanging head dwells a thousand mischiefs.”—Arabic Proverb. Namlah had been superseded.
No suspicion whatever attached to her, but, whether her curses had been too potent or the blow of the water-jar too much for him, the man who had partaken of much good red wine the night of Helen’s attempted escape had died.
That, in connexion with certain gossip concerning Namlah’s friendship and enthusiastic praise of the white woman, decided Zarah. She sent her packing, without warning, and in her stead put a villainously ugly, surly negress incapable of speech, much less of a kind thought or deed, who proceeded to follow the prisoner at a distance wherever she went, thereby rendering speech with blind Yussuf impossible.
Knowing that Helen must pass the great rock on her way down to the river to bathe, as was her custom just after sunrise, Yussuf sat himself down in its shadow the morning after Namlah’s dismissal, with intent to tell the prisoner the reason for the change in the body-woman and to warn her to be on her guard. He lifted his head at the sound of her footsteps, then frowned, though no one else could possibly have discerned the other almost noiseless tread made by bare feet, one of which pressed the ground more heavily than the other.
Judging correctly the distance between the two women, he put his finger to his lips and whispered “A’ti balak” as he salaamed.
Be careful!
[162]
The change in her body-woman, combined with Yussuf’s warning, caused Helen’s anxiety to increase, until her days became a burden of suspense and her nights a nightmare of troubled dreams in which she saw her lover lying dead or wounded in the desert or a prisoner in the hands of some lawless tribe.
She would not allow herself to think of her position nor of her future, but she made a vow in the depths of her valiant heart that, no matter what was in store for her, no matter how the Arabian might cajole or threaten, she would not show a sign of the anxiety which consumed her, nor write a word of the letter which she knew would bring her lover, if he lived, hot-foot, to her.
Then Zarah, who had not given up hopes of getting the letter from the girl and who waited for the return of Al-Asad from his quest, showed herself suddenly friendly, and Helen gladly responded to her invitations, to visit the kennels and the stables and the rest of the erstwhile monastery.
True, she had been forbidden to wander amongst the rocks or to climb to the beginning of the cleft or to ride either horse or camel; true, also, that the surly negress followed her wherever she went, so that, in spite of the extra liberty, she felt herself more closely guarded and more carefully watched than ever. Still, the days passed more quickly and her friends amongst the dogs and their grooms became almost too numerous to be counted.
Upon her first visit to the kennels, unaccompanied by Zarah, the head groom, who worshipped the dogs, reluctantly offered her the whip without which his mistress would not enter the door when upon her visits of inspection.
“What for?” asked Helen, as she looked over his shoulder to where the famous greyhounds and the dogs of Billi stood watching her.
“Out of fear, Excellency; they may be dangerous.”
“Fear of what?”
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The head groom did not reply, but spread his fingers in a gesture against the evil memory of the woman the dogs hated, and rushed to save Helen from them when, barking and leaping, they threw themselves upon her in instant friendliness in response to her call.
In the days following she visited the kennels upon every possible occasion, until even Rādi, the bitch, fawned at her feet in love and the grooms ran to greet her at the kennel door.
Through the order forbidding her to ride, the grooms of the horse and camel stables became smitten of a grievous jealousy as they listened to the tales of the white woman’s graciousness recounted to them by the head groom of the kennels.
“Dogs! Yea! perchance she has knowledge of the dog, but ride! pah! O brother, what knows she of the Nejdee? What would she avail against the vagaries of the desert horse?”
“Wilt thou make a bet, O my brother?”
Which is a perfectly absurd question to ask an Arab, who will gamble with his last coffee bean if he has nothing of more value in hand.
The bet spread, dividing the camp into two factions which were ready to fight over it upon the slightest provocation. The grooms of the stables were backed by their friends; the grooms of the kennels had an equal following; they all showed a catholic and reckless taste in stakes, which ranged from marriageable daughters, through money, jewellery and weapons, down to emaciated poultry.
News of the bet came to Zarah’s ears the day upon which Al-Asad returned with the report that Ralph Trenchard was safe, had started for the Sanctuary accompanied by one Abdul, and had been sighted near the scene of the battle, which meant that he was but a day’s journey behind.
She cursed in her heart that interest in Helen should[164] have been aroused at such an inauspicious moment, then instantly, little knowing that the girl’s horsemanship equalled, even surpassed, her own, conceived a diabolically cunning plan by which she could bring about her death before Ralph Trenchard’s arrival, and without, withal, arousing suspicion amongst the men.
Helen wanted to ride, the men wanted her to ride; well, ride she should, and to her death.
Lulah, the black mare, had been pronounced untamable. Descendant of the mare who had brought the Sheikh to safety, likewise descendant of the mare who had been the cause of Yussuf’s blindness, she was as black of temper as she was of coat.
Three people out of the whole camp had been able to ride her the entire length of the plateau.
Zarah, Bowlegs, and the Patriarch.
Not one of the others who had taken the risk even of trying to mount her had escaped injury. Each one had been thrown, considering himself lucky if he escaped with slight concussion; there had been broken bones a-plenty and one broken neck.
That made the beginning and end of the plan.
If Helen succeeded in getting across the saddle she would of necessity be thrown; she must be. She might break her neck, in which case all the trouble would be over; or she might be stunned, in which case she would look like dead, which would serve as well.
Brigands do not worry themselves overmuch about such details as heartbeats; scruples do not exist in a jealous woman’s heart.
Neither was there time to lose.
She sent for the head groom of the stables.
“Lulah the Black, mistress?” The man raised a face of consternation as Zarah finished speaking. “Mistress, she is not fit; she is as wild as a bird on the wing; she is possessed of the devil. One of thy slaves even now lies sick of the meeting of her teeth in his shoulder.”
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Zarah put an end to his protestations by the simple method of smiting him across the mouth.
“And I will saddle her with my own hands upon the day of sport to-morrow, O my son, and thou shalt hold her near me until I give the signal. Likewise shalt thou and others make a pretence of mounting her, a pretence only. And see that thou makest no mistake, lest thou beareth the burden of my litter for a space.”
The morrow came, bringing a horseman who carried the news of the disappearance of the white man and his servant in the locust storm.
In her rage against Fate Zarah decided to countermand the sports; then, fearful of angering her men and aching to find an object upon which to vent her fury and the agony of as big a love as she was capable, once more changed her mind and decided to carry out the programme.
“Beaten—but to-day beater.”—Arabic Proverb.
“The shadow of the great locust storm has fallen upon Zarah the Beautiful!” whispered Bowlegs to Yussuf’s Eyes as they watched the sports with all the enthusiasm and delight of the Arab’s heart, which upon occasion can be so childlike. The dumb youth nodded his head and smiled and tapped a description of Zarah’s face upon his blind friend’s arm, whereupon Yussuf laughed loudly and long and rubbed his slender hands together at the thought of the Arabian girl’s discontent.
She reclined in her litter this late afternoon, swung upon the shoulders of four prisoners, her face as black as thunder; she flung herself irritably from side to side, and used her whip smartly upon the backs of the men—who had stood in the sun for an hour or so—when, by shifting the litter, they tried to alleviate the pain of the wounds it made in their shoulders.
[166]
It was her favourite form of punishment for trivial offences, and she kept Al-Asad, the muscular half-caste, close at hand, so that he should be in readiness to take the place of the first one of the four who should collapse under the combined torture of the heat and the weight of the jewel-encrusted ivory litter. She had no reason to use the whip upon his back. His mighty muscle made nothing of the weight; his negroid blood withstood the heat of the sun; his abnormal love caused him to find joy in the task, blinding him to the smiles, rendering him deaf to the titter which the humiliation of his task invariably drew from his friends, who loved the mighty man and grieved over his insensate passion.
She was surrounded by slaves who cast terrified glances at her wrathful countenance as they performed their various tasks. At her head two Abyssinian maidens, nude save for the scarlet sashes which girt them about the middle, stood upon low pedestals like glistening black statues of Venus, fanning her with fans of snow-white ostrich feathers; boys, slim, dark-eyed, with slender hands and feet, offered her cool drinks, sweetmeats and fruits upon trays of beaten silver; girls, slim, dark-eyed, with slender hands and feet, threw perfumed water into the air.
Helen sat some way off upon a pile of cushions in the shade of a rock, making a sharp contrast in her dilapidated but well-built Shantung breeches and knee-length coat with the Arabian’s almost barbaric splendour; and many a glance was cast at her from the serried ranks of men, who looked with interest upon the beautiful white prisoner, about whom Namlah had, most unwisely, ecstatically and so unceasingly talked.
That morning had come the invitation to witness the sports, to which she had responded with alacrity, to find herself, of a sudden, the object of interest to many hundreds of men, and a prey to uneasiness at the sight of Zarah’s mocking smile and the memory of Yussuf’s whispered warning.
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Her hair shone like gold against the dark rock background. She laughed at the men’s encounters in the “Jerzed,” and clapped her hands at their marvellous dexterity with spear and rifle and revolver; but she kept her eyes away from the spot where the four bare-headed men underwent torture in the terrific heat of the sun.
She had begged Zarah to spare them; she had entreated with clasped hands, and with pitying eyes had lain her handkerchief upon the nearest wounded shoulder, which is a foolish thing for a beautiful girl to do when she is the prisoner of a beautiful woman famed for her cruelty throughout a land which is not exactly noted for the gentleness of its methods. She had retired to the pile of cushions and had sat down with eyes averted from the terrible picture of the beautiful, insolent woman who had imperiously bidden her to mind her own business, and had brought her whip down sharply upon the backs of the two front, undersized, under-nourished Armenians.
She sat quite by herself, so that she could not ask the meaning of the mighty shout which went up when Zarah raised her right hand, sparkling with jewels in the sun. The men in the back rows pushed towards the front, and those in front pushed their ambitious brethren back with oaths, so that a pitched battle seemed imminent, in which some part of the grievances, not only of the seats but also of the stables and the kennels, might be settled.
Peace fell with a great suddenness when Zarah sat forward and beckoned Al-Asad. She looked at the warring factions for a long moment, during which they sat as though carved out of the mountainside; then she smiled slowly and nodded her head and raised her right hand twice, upon which the men awoke once more, as from a trance, and yelled.
Helen rose to her feet and clapped her hands, heedless of the eyes which flashed from her to Lulah, the black, superb Nejdee mare, as she was led forward, seemingly with as much wickedness in her as a lamb. The men[168] nudged each other and took on fresh bets with the neighbouring enemy as they remarked upon the stirrups swinging from the wisp of a native saddle. “Stirrups!” ejaculated a groom of the stables to one of the kennels. “And thou say’st that the white woman rides?”
“The Inglizi ride not without stirrups!”
“Then they ride not at all!”
“With or without stirrups, O brother, thou knowest that that black she-devil Lulah is not to be ridden; yet will I make thee a bet of this, my silver-handled knife, against the silver ring of no value upon thy finger that yon white woman rides the Satan-possessed mare.”
The two men placed the stakes at their feet just as, with a short run, one of the stable grooms flung himself into the saddle, and fell off the other side as the mare reared, jerking the head groom, who held the halter, off his feet.
Then ran men from all sides, eager, from sheer love of horses and of sport, to try and dominate the beautiful creature that lashed out on every side, squealing with what they thought to be anger, and what Helen knew to be pain. And slowly, inch by inch, the litter tipped to one side as one of the undersized, under-nourished Armenians succumbed to the agony of his hurt, until Zarah, white with rage and cursing volubly, stepped hurriedly out as the other three dumped the litter just as their companion fell. She did not wait, so great was her rage, to upbraid them; instead, longing to hurt, to kill, in her wrath, she walked straight up to ............