“Tyrannical, cheating, of ill omen.”—Arabic Proverb. The overpowering heat of the day had given place to the lesser heat of early evening as the sun sank behind the western edge of the mountain ring. The interior of the ring looked like the inside of some rough-edged, painted flower-pot, with grey, purple, blue-black foundation and sides of green and richest reds and browns, melting to saffron, topaz, amethyst and rose, crowned by great peaks which seemed to flicker in the terrific heat radiated by the sun-scorched rock. Little golden, pink and crimson clouds, faintly stirred by the blessed evening breeze, sailed serenely across a sky of deepest blue which stretched, a gorgeous canopy, above the heads of the men seated on the ground or up the gentle incline rising from the plateau.
Those opposite the steps down which Zarah would have to pass sat with knees to chin, placidly chewing kaat or smoking red or black sebel and longer pipes with big, open bowl.
Those to the north and south of the steps sat sidewise, also contentedly chewing or smoking, with eyes fixed upon the steep path.
There was no laughing, no gambling, no betting upon the outcome of the different sporting items in the tournament for which they had foregathered. They were strangely quiet, with a certain expectancy in their eyes and a vast amount of meaning in their expressive gestures as they commented upon and argued about the tales the Nubian had spread anent their mistress’s strange behaviour of the night before.
“Bism ’allah! upon the very edge, with one eye upon the running water into which the Lion thought she desired to[262] throw herself, and one eye upon the white man, who, by the wool! is a man of strong heart, even if he be an infidel.”
Bowlegs laughed as he stretched his circular limbs and pressed himself against his neighbour so as to make room for Yussuf as he came towards them, led by “His Eyes,” down the path made for him through the serried ranks.
“Welcome, brother, thou true believer in the shaven crown,” cried the handsome youth who had been swung like a club, and who had not followed the precepts of the Prophet to the extent of shaving his head. “Hast heard that the white woman, who holdeth the heart of the man who loveth her and who is loved of the beautiful Zarah, and may Allah guide their footsteps in the crookedness of their paths——” As he spoke he pushed his way between Bowlegs and Yussuf, and as he looked up into the mutilated face, touched the blind man gently. “Hast heard that the tiger-cat, in her rage, has caused the head of the white woman to be shaven so that, if she were lost in the Robaa-el-Khali, the ostrich might even wish to brood upon it as her egg?”
The men shouted in ribald mirth as they bandied jokes, mostly unprintable in their Oriental flavour.
“Yea, and shaven after the setting of the sun,” said the Patriarch bitterly, whilst every man in earshot touched his favourite lucky amulet or made the finger gesture against ill-luck. “Behold, will Zarah’s mocking of Fate surely bring catastrophe upon the camp, for what but misfortune can follow the shaving of a crown after the setting of the sun?”
The fine sons of one of the most superstition-ridden races in the world performed divers tricks to placate the fury of the false god of ill-luck they had raised up in their minds, then continued in their merriment.
“Who has seen the shaven head?”
“No eyes have seen the head, O brother, but mine own eyes have seen Namlah the Busy, seated like a bee in the heart of a golden flower, weaving a kerchief from the infidel’s wondrous hair.”
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Bowlegs shouted with laughter.
“Yea! verily! a kerchief to replace the gentle Zarah’s garments, torn asunder ’twixt her teeth and fingers in her wrath at the white man’s coldness.”
“Or to wipe the tiger-cat’s face, which, wet with tears and hot with anger, was like an over-ripe fruit of the doom tree, fallen upon the sand!”
“Or to remove the dust from her chamber, wrecked like unto a house swept by the hurricane, with feathers of many fowl, liberated from the burst cushions, clinging to the silken curtains and her hair.”
Prodded by Fate, the handsome youth turned and laid his hand on Yussuf’s arm whilst the men crowded closer yet to listen to their conversation.
“O brother,” he said laughingly, “thou who hast suffered, thou who even now dost pass sleepless nights of pain, wilt thou not in thy goodness, to quieten the agony of the tiger-cat’s gentle heart, give unto her a few drops of the sweet water prescribed thee by yon old herbalist for sleep?”
Yussuf smiled as best he could for the distortion of his mouth, as he searched in his cummerbund and pulled out a flask, filled with the strong narcotic he took to still the throbbing of his torn nerves when the wind blew from the north.
“’Tis overpowerful, little brother. A drop too little and she wakes from her sleep like a tigress bereft of her cubs; a drop too much and she wakes not at all.”
“Twenty drops and what....”
The voice from behind was stilled suddenly as the men rose quickly and stood staring up to the platform outside Zarah’s dwelling.
Zarah stood looking down.
She stood almost upon the spot from where some years ago she had hurled her spear at the fighting dogs, and, killing the one intended for a gift to her father’s guest, had followed the decree of Fate, who had tangled her life’s thread with those of her white prisoners.
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“Zarah is a very queen of loveliness!”
“Yea! with hair like the setting sun!”
The hawk-eyed men with the superb sight of those who live in the clear atmosphere of great spaces criticized in detail the Arabian’s garments, which at such a distance would have shown as a white blur to the eyes of the westerner, accustomed as he is to an horizon bounded by walls and a sky ever limited by chimney-pots or partially obliterated by smoke or fog.
“The white man tarries! Would that the Lion were here to tell once again of the calmness of his face in the storm of yester-night.”
“Perchance does his heart fail at the thought of the maiden’s shaven crown.”
“Likewise does she tarry, fearful perchance of beholding her lover’s eyes empty of love light.”
“‘She gave her the vinegar to drink on the wings of flies.’” Yussuf touched his sad face as he quoted the proverb. “Verily were the words of wisdom written to describe the refinement of the tortures our thrice gentle mistress meteth out to her prisoners.”
There was not a movement, not a whisper from the men when Zarah turned and lifted her hand, but there came a great cry from hundreds of throats as Helen appeared in the doorway, followed by the two gigantic Abyssinian women.
“Hast seen the shaven crown, brother?”
The handsome youth turned to Yussuf, who stood with his sightless face raised to the skies.
“Nay, blind one,” he replied quietly, all the merriment gone from his face. “I have seen the white woman. She stands behind the dread Zarah, her golden hair, even the length of thy longest finger, twining about her head like a crown of flowers upon a young acacia tree. She is like an orchard of choice fruit in her beauty. Yea! like an orchard of pomegranates and peaches, and as the gentle incline of the rocks where the evening sun kisseth the oranges and apricots and luscious fig. If it were not that[265] she is of a race of infidels, likewise cursed with a spirit of mockery and a lack of gratitude, I would e’en woo her in the shadows of the night and make of her my woman.” He moved forward, drawn by Helen’s radiant beauty, as she descended the steps fanning Zarah with a circular, painted fan of dried palm leaves.
The men stood as though spellbound at the sight of the two beautiful girls.
They forgot the tournament, their wrath, their merriment; they stood speechless, staring, then moved forward in a body as Zarah reached the bottom step and made a way for her up to where an ebony chair, inlaid with gold, stood upon a carpet of many colours.
The expression of Zarah’s sullen face was almost as black as the shadows spreading half-way up the mountains; her heavy brows were bent above her strange eyes; her crimson mouth set in a line which boded no good to those who might thwart her.
A chance word, an indiscreet gesture, would be spark enough to start the conflagration, and Fate, close to Helen Raynor, stood ready to fire the Arabian’s raging jealousy as Ralph Trenchard, followed by the Nubian, walked slowly from the men’s quarters towards them.
There was not a sound and scarcely a movement in the vast throng of men as they stood looking from one to the other of the three who, even in the desert, made the seemingly inevitable love triangle. And so enthralled were they, and so oblivious were the three who composed the triangle to their surroundings, that no notice was taken of the downtrodden, docile women who, headed by Namlah, and imbued with the spirit of insubordination which was sweeping the camp, also with a fierce desire to see the white woman’s shaven head, crept in ones and twos from behind the rock buttress which hid their quarters from the greater part of the plateau.
They stole along the river edge, behind their men, who were too engrossed in the picture before them even to bet, let alone to notice the doings of their womenkind.
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They crept up behind the gigantic Abyssinian women who stood behind Zarah’s chair, and turned and looked at them as a couple of Yemen buffaloes might turn to inspect an ant heap.
The radiance of the blazing sky seemed to fill the mountain ring for a moment as Ralph Trenchard passed down the path made for him by the men, and stood suddenly clear of them, and exactly opposite Helen as she fanned the Arabian.
The mountains echoed Helen’s name as he called to her, holding out his arms, and her cry of joy as she flung the circular fan with pointed edges sideways, so that by mischance it caught in the Arabian’s hair, and ran to her lover.
The rocks echoed Zarah’s screams of wrath and pain and her sharp order to the Abyssinians, and the downtrodden women’s screams of hate, as they swept round the chair headed by Namlah, and cut Helen off.
Zarah shrieked in agony as the fan pulled her head down to one side, scratching her face and her shoulder, and beat the arms of the chair and the Abyssinians’ glistening bodies as they tried their best to relieve her whilst she fought like a wild cat, with her eyes fixed on the fight which was taking place in front of her.
The women were trying to prevent Helen from reaching her lover, and the men were endeavouring, and none too gently, to push the women on one side, so that the white man they had come to admire and like might meet the woman of his heart. They did it for the sport of the thing, and to assert their authority over their women; also, in their heart of hearts was there a certain amount of admiration for Helen’s beauty and courage.
The women who had come to titter and jeer at Helen’s bald head were consumed with wrath at their disappointment and fought their men tooth and nail, taking advantage of the scrum to pay off many an old score and avenge many a lash of the whip or tongue. The men, amused at first, then astounded, then really angry at this sudden exhibition of women’s rights, slapped their[267] own particular womenfolk with the flat of their hand, then smote them smartly with t............