“It may be fire; on the morrow it will be ashes.”—Arabic Proverb. From dawn till dusk the day of festival had been passed in brief, light-hearted excursions into the desert, sports, and those infantile amusements so dear to the complex Oriental mind, during all of which Zarah had walked amongst her men with Ralph Trenchard at her side.
Anticipating the great feast which would be spread for them an hour after sunset, the men refrained from eating more than a handful of dates, whilst drinking innumerable cups of black coffee, so that they moved about restlessly during the day, walking lightly and talking excitedly, with eyes which shone like polished stones.
They chased each other like goats over the rocks, wrestled friendly-wise like boys, inspected the cooking-pots and worried, almost to death, the patient, downtrodden womenfolk, whose only share of the entertainment would be the scraps left over from the feast.
So mercurial became the atmosphere towards sunset that the men roared with laughter when, laden with a bowl of spicy stew, of which the chief ingredients were kangaroo-rat and rice, the fourth wife of Bowlegs slipped on the steps and immersed herself in the succulent mess. They picked her up and, in all fun, threw her into the river, and stripped and dived in after her, fighting each other for the privilege of saving her, before she disappeared into the cavern through which the river raced. They fought each other light-heartedly. They looked upon Zarah the Beautiful more in the light of a trust from the dead Sheikh whom they had loved than their real leader. Superstition and animal magnetism bound them[218] to her more than anything else, and they saw no harm in her marrying the white prisoner for a space, so long as there should be nothing permanent in the union.
Everything had been arranged for a happy ending to the day.
After the feast Zarah and her white lover would appear, followed by one of the many bands of the Ghowazy-Barameke, which are formed from a certain tribe of hereditary prostitutes who wander through city, town and village and from oasis to oasis.
Following that diversion, the Patriarch would arise, clothed in new raiment, to acquaint the white man of the honour which the community intended to confer upon him, incidentally allowing him to understand that, if he liked, he could choose death in preference to tying a tiger-cat to his hearthrug.
Not that they thought he would for one moment.
They knew of the long hours the two had spent together far into the night; of the rides à deux they had taken in the desert at sunrise, sunset, and in the light o’ the moon; had seen him clasping the girl to his heart after the passing of the poisonous pestilence only seven days ago, and, quite naturally, had put their own construction upon it all.
Who wouldn’t?
And knowing as much about the Western mind as their mistress, were just as completely at sea as she.
Having seen nothing of Helen since the night when Al-Asad had whipped them into fury with the tales of her ingratitude and mocking, and with other and more interesting things than her death upon their minds, they had ceased to think about her; in fact, if it had not been for the hatred of their womenfolk, which had been roused by the Nubian’s tales of her mocking of them, some of them would have quite willingly sent her back to Hutah. They were too well-fed, too secure, for hate or love to endure. They worried about nothing, yet a certain restlessness and[219] incertitude caused them to press about Ralph Trenchard when he walked, most friendly-wise, amongst them this day of festival; to lightly finger his clothes, to brush against him and to look at him in the strange, unseeing manner of the Oriental, lost in contemplation.
So mercurial became the atmosphere after the feasting in the great Hall, where the men filled the vacuum caused by abstinence with highly spiced viands and wines forbidden by the Prophet, that it required but a spark to set their minds ablaze.
Replete, they lay upon the floor chiding and tormenting the elder and more ugly of the women, who ran amongst them with braziers and coffee or with bowls of water for the washing of hands, whilst the younger ones sped hither-thither in the task of clearing away the débris of the feast before the advent of the mistress they so sorely dreaded.
Al-Asad sat cross-legged upon the floor near the steps leading up to the dais. Nude, save for the loin-cloth, he looked a giant amongst the men who, barefooted or sandalled, with black or striped kerchief round the head, lounged in the long shirt, open to the waist and bound about the middle by the leather thong, universally worn by the Arab. The Patriarch, wrapped in a cloak which added much to his dignity, sat upon a pile of cushions near the first of the columns. Blind Yussuf sat upon the floor against the wall, with “His Eyes” beside him.
Following upon the blind man’s whisper of Helen’s name one whole long week ago, the subsequent and strange behaviour of “His Eyes” had given Ralph Trenchard cause to think.
The dumb youth would touch him upon the arm to attract his attention, then touch his face and point insistently at the rock wall behind which Helen lived, and, illiterate, as are most Arabs, would shake his head when offered pencil and paper.
He had tried vainly by sign to acquaint the white man[220] of the white woman’s presence in the camp, a piece of self-constituted diplomacy which would have much displeased Yussuf.
The mercurial atmosphere had affected Ralph Trenchard.
True, he had not subsisted upon a handful of dates and unlimited cups of strong coffee throughout the day, but Yussuf’s whispered word, the youth’s strange pantomime, a certain watchfulness he noticed amongst the men, and an extraordinary solicitude for his comfort and welfare on the part of Zarah, had wellnigh brought him to the limit of endurance during the past week. The novelty had worn off, the salt had lost its savour, and he had determined, poor, unsuspecting soul, as he waited to make his way to the great Hall to witness the dancing, to start for Hutah within the next ten days.
In one word, everyone was on tenter-hooks this festive eve, and as ready to fly at each other’s throat as any two wild beasts of the desert. The rock-pigeons, sparrows, hoopoes and other birds which abounded in this watered sanctuary in a desert waste rose in clouds at the ringing shouts of laughter and ribald jokes with which the men greeted Zarah’s herald, the camp jester, in the misshapen form of a dwarf holding a veritable tangle of black and white monkeys. Following him came four handsome youths carrying gigantic circular fans of peacock feathers, and after them fifteen little maids—who ought to have been abed—with bowls of perfumed water, which they sprinkled on the floor.
Then the men sprang to their feet and shouted, until Helen, alone, desperate from the solitude of the last terrible week, ran to her door, only to be pushed back, and none too gently, by the surly negress, who longed inordinately to be with her sisters as they devoured the remains of the great feast.
Zarah entered alone, her immense jewel-encrusted train sweeping like a flood over Yussuf’s feet as he crept[221] stealthily along the wall and slipped through the door into the night.
For an instant she stopped so that the men should fully take in the beautiful picture she made against the flaring orange lining of her train.
Her limbs showed snow-white through the transparent voluminous trousers, her body, bare save for the glittering breast-plates and jewelled bands which held it, shone like ivory, whilst she seemed to tower, even amongst her men, owing to the mass of black and orange osprey which sprang from the centre of her jewelled head-dress.
Fifteen little boys—who too ought to have been abed—spread wide her train as she walked slowly over the wonderful mosaic floor, with all the grace of her Andalusian mother, between the rows of shouting men. She stayed for one moment as she drew level with the Nubian standing like a giant, and, under the impulse of her innate cruelty, looked at him sweetly from half-closed eyes.
He raised his hands to his forehead, so that a mark made by pearly teeth showed upon his arm, and looked at her from head to foot and smiled as the crimson swept her face. Then he gathered the full burden of her train into his arms and followed her up the seven steps and spread it wide as she sat down in the ivory chair, then knelt and kissed her knees and her golden-sandalled feet.
She leant back and watched the thirty children climb on to the stone stools, upon which had sat the thirty Holy Fathers centuries ago, and looked down at the hawklike, eager men who watched her, and up to the star-strewn, vaulted ceiling, from which hung silver lamps which drew lustre from her jewels and her eyes and the precious stones glittering in the columns.
Against the golden background of the Byzantine wall, with the great fans moving slowly above her head, she was barbaric in her beauty, and not for one moment did she or the men doubt that the white man had fallen a victim to her enchantment.
[222]
She rose when Ralph Trenchard stood in the doorway looking across the hall in bewilderment, and, holding out her hands, descended the steps, her great glittering train spread out behind her like an enormous fan. She walked slowly, whilst the men whisp............