A silk scarf was slipped over my head by some one who, silently, must
have been following me, and drawn tight enough to prevent any loud
outcry but not so as to endanger my breathing. I fought like a madman. I
knew, and the knowledge appalled me, that I was fighting for life. Arms
like bands of steel grasped me; I was lifted, bound and carried--I knew
not where....
Placed in some kind of softly padded saddle, or, as I have since
learned, into a _shibrîyeh_ or covered litter on a camel's back, I felt
the animal rise to its ungainly height and move off swiftly. As suddenly
as revolt had flamed up, resignation returned. I was contented. My bonds
were unnecessary; my rebellion was ended. I yearned, wildly, for the end
of the desert journey! Some one was calling me and all my soul replied.
For hours, as it seemed, the camel raced ceaselessly on. Absolute
silence reigned about me. Then, in the distance I heard voices, and the
gait of the camel changed. Finally the animal stood still. Came a word
of guttural command, and the camel dropped to its knees. Pillowed among
a pile of scented cushions, I experienced no discomfort from this
usually painful operation.
I was lifted out of my perfumed couch and set upon my feet. Having been
allowed to stand for a while until the effects of remaining so long in a
constrained position had worn off, I was led forward into some extensive
building. Marble pavements were beneath my feet, fountains played, and
the air was heavy with burning ambergris.
I was placed with my back to a pillar and bound there, but not harshly.
The bandage about my head was removed. I stared around me.
A magnificent Eastern apartment met my gaze--a great hall open on one
side to the desert. Out upon the sands I could see a group of men who
had evidently been my captors and my guards. The one who had unfastened
the silk scarf I could not see, but I heard him moving away behind the
pillar to which I was bound.
Stretched upon a luxurious couch before me was a woman.
If I were to seek to describe her I should inevitably fail, for her
loveliness surpassed everything which I had ever beheld--of which I had
ever dreamed. I found myself looking into her eyes, and in their depths
I found all that I had missed in life, and lost all that I had found.
She smiled, rose, and taking a jewelled dagger from a little table
beside her, approached me. My heart beat until I felt almost suffocated
as she came near. And when she bent and cut the silken lashing which
bound me, I knew such rapture as I had hitherto counted an invention of
Arabian poets. I was raised above the joys of common humanity and tasted
the joy of the gods. She placed the dagger in my hand.
"My life is thine," she said. "Take it."
And clutching at the silken raiment draping her beautiful bosom, she
invited me to plunge the blade into her heart!
The knife dropped, clattering upon the marble pavement. For one instant
I hesitated, watching her, devouring her with my eyes; then I swept her
to me and pressed upon her sweet lips the thousand and first kiss....
(NOTE.--The manuscript of Saville Grainger finishes here.)