COMPETITORS
The open space before the gates of the sôk-el-Abeed was thronged with a
motley, jostling, noisy crowd that at every moment was being swelled by
the human streams pouring to mingle in it from the debauching labyrinth
of narrow, unpaved streets.
There were brown-skinned Berbers in black goat-hair cloaks that were
made in one piece with a cowl and decorated by a lozenge of red or
orange colour on the back, their shaven heads encased in skull-caps or
simply bound in a cord of plaited camel-hair; there were black Saharowi
who went almost naked, and stately Arabs who seemed overmuffled in
their flowing robes of white with the cowls overshadowing their
swarthy, finely featured faces; there were dignified and
prosperous-looking Moors in brightly coloured selhams astride of sleek
mules that were richly caparisoned; and there were Tagareenes, the
banished Moors of Andalusia, most of whom followed the trade of
slave-dealers; there were native Jews in sombre black djellabas, and
Christian-Jews—so-called because bred in Christian countries, whose
garments they still wore; there were Levantine Turks, splendid of dress
and arrogant of demeanour, and there were humble Cololies, Kabyles and
Biscaries. Here a water-seller, laden with his goatskin vessel, tinkled
his little bell; there an orange-hawker, balancing a basket of the
golden fruit upon his ragged turban, bawled his wares. There were men
on foot and men on mules, men on donkeys and men on slim Arab horses,
an ever-shifting medley of colours, all jostling, laughing, cursing in
the ardent African sunshine under the blue sky where pigeons circled.
In the shadow of the yellow tapia wall squatted a line of whining
beggars and cripples soliciting alms; near the gates a little space had
been cleared and an audience had gathered in a ring about a Meddah—a
beggar-troubadour—who, to the accompaniment of gimbri and gaitah from
two acolytes, chanted a doleful ballad in a thin, nasal voice.
Those of the crowd who were patrons of the market held steadily amain,
and, leaving their mounts outside, passed through the gates through
which there was no admittance for mere idlers and mean folk. Within the
vast quadrangular space of bare, dry ground, enclosed by dust-coloured
walls, there was more space. The sale of slaves had not yet begun and
was not due to begin for another hour, and meanwhile a little trading
was being done by those merchants who had obtained the coveted right to
set up their booths against the walls; they were vendors of wool, of
fruit, of spices, and one or two traded in jewels and trinkets for the
adornment of the Faithful.
A well was sunk in the middle of the ground, a considerable octagon
with a low parapet in three steps. Upon the nethermost of these sat an
aged, bearded Jew in a black djellaba, his head swathed in a coloured
kerchief. Upon his knees reposed a broad, shallow black box, divided
into compartments, each filled with lesser gems and rare stones, which
he was offering for sale; about him stood a little group of young Moors
and one or two Turkish officers, with several of whom the old Israelite
was haggling at once.
The whole of the northern wall was occupied by a long penthouse, its
contents completely masked by curtains of camel-hair; from behind it
proceeded a subdued murmur of human voices. These were the pens in
which were confined the slaves to be offered for sale that day. Before
the curtains, on guard, stood some dozen corsairs with attendant negro
slaves.
Beyond and above the wall glistened the white dome of a zowia, flanked
by a spear-like minaret and the tall heads of a few date palms whose
long leaves hung motionless in the hot air.
Suddenly in the crowd beyond the gates there was a commotion. From one
of the streets six colossal Nubians advanced with shouts of—
“Oak! Oak! Warda! Way! Make way!”
They were armed with great staves, grasped in their two hands, and with
these they broke a path through that motley press, hurling men to right
and left and earning a shower of curses in return.
“Balâk! Make way! Way for the Lord Asad-ed-Din, the exalted of Allah!
Way!”
The crowd, pressing back, went down upon its knees and grovelled as
Asad-ed-Din on a milk-white mule rode forward, escorted by Tsamanni his
wazeer and a cloud of black-robed janissaries with flashing scimitars.
The curses that had greeted the violence of his negroes were suddenly
silenced; instead, blessings as fervent filled the air.
“May Allah increase thy might! May Allah lengthen thy days! The
blessings of our Lord Mahomet upon thee! Allah send thee more
victories!” were the benedictions that showered upon him on every hand.
He returned them as became a man who was supremely pious and devout.
“The peace of Allah upon the Faithful of the Prophet’s House,” he would
murmur in response from time to time, until at last he had reached the
gates. There he bade Tsamanni fling a purse to the crouching
beggars—for is it not written in the Most Perspicuous Book that of alms
ye shall bestow what ye can spare, for such as are saved from their own
greed shall prosper, and whatever ye give in alms, as seeking the face
of Allah shall be doubled unto you?
Submissive to the laws as the meanest of his subjects, Asad dismounted
and passed on foot into the sôk. He came to a halt by the well, and,
facing the curtained penthouse, he blessed the kneeling crowd and
commanded all to rise.
He beckoned Sakr-el-Bahr’s officer Ali—who was in charge of the slaves
of the corsair’s latest raid and announced his will to inspect the
captives. At a sign from Ali, the negroes flung aside the camel-hair
curtains and let the fierce sunlight beat in upon those pent-up
wretches; they were not only the captives taken by Sakr-el-Bahr, but
some others who were the result of one or two lesser raids by Biskaine.
Asad beheld a huddle of men and women—though the proportion of women
was very small—of all ages, races, and conditions; there were pale
fair-haired men from France or the North, olive-skinned Italians and
swarthy Spaniards, negroes and half-castes; there were old men, young
men and mere children, some handsomely dressed, some almost naked,
others hung with rags. In the hopeless dejection of their countenances
alone was there any uniformity. But it was not a dejection that could
awaken pity in the pious heart of Asad. They were unbelievers who would
never look upon the face of God’s Prophet, accursed and unworthy of any
tenderness from man. For a moment his glance was held by a lovely
black-haired Spanish girl, who sat with her locked hands held fast
between her knees, in an attitude of intense despair and suffering—the
glory of her eyes increased and magnified by the dark brown stains of
sleeplessness surrounding them. Leaning on Tsamanni’s arm, he stood
considering her for a little while; then his glance travelled on.
Suddenly he tightened his grasp of Tsamanni’s arm and a quick interest
leapt into his sallow face.
On the uppermost tier of the pen that he was facing sat a very glory of
womanhood, such a woman as he had heard tell existed but the like of
which he had never yet beheld. She was tall and graceful as a
cypress-tree; her skin was white as milk, her eyes two darkest
sapphires, her head of a coppery golden that seemed to glow like metal
as the sunlight caught it. She was dressed in a close gown of white,
the bodice cut low and revealing the immaculate loveliness of her neck.
Asad-ed-Din turned to Ali. “What pearl is this that hath been cast upon
this dung-heap?” he asked.
“She is the woman our lord Sakr-el-Bahr carried off from England.”
Slowly the Basha’s eyes returned to consider her, and insensible though
she had deemed herself by now, he saw her cheeks slowly reddening under
the cold insult of his steady, insistent glance. The glow heightened
her beauty, effacing the weariness which the face had worn.
“Bring her forth,” said the Basha shortly.
She was seized by two of the negroes, and to avoid being roughly
handled by them she came at once, bracing herself to bear with dignity
whatever might await her. A golden-haired young man beside her, his
face haggard and stubbled with a beard of some growth, looked up in
alarm as she was taken from his side. Then, with a groan, he made as if
to clutch her, but a rod fell upon his raised arms and beat them down.
Asad was thoughtful. It was Fenzileh who had bidden him come look at
the infidel maid whom Sakr-el-Bahr had risked so much to snatch from
England, suggesting that in her he would behold some proof of the bad
faith which she was forever urging against the corsair leader. He
beheld the woman, but he discovered about her no such signs as Fenzileh
had suggested he must find, nor indeed did he look for any. Out of
curiosity had he obeyed her prompting. But that and all else were
forgotten now in the contemplation of this noble ensample of Northern
womanhood, statuesque almost in her terrible restraint.
He put forth a hand to touch her arm, and she drew it back as if his
fingers were of fire.
He sighed. “How inscrutable are the ways of Allah, that He should
suffer so luscious a fruit to hang from the foul tree of infidelity!”
Tsamanni watching him craftily, a master-sycophant profoundly learned
in the art of playing upon his master’s moods, made answer:
“Even so perchance that a Faithful of the Prophet’s House may pluck it.
Verily all things are possible to the One!”
“Yet is it not set down in the Book to be Read that the daughters of
the infidel are not for True-Believers?” And again he sighed.
But Tsamanni knowing full well how the Basha would like to be answered,
trimmed his reply to that desire.
“Allah is great, and what hath befallen once may well befall again, my
lord.”
Asad’s kindling eyes flashed a glance at his wazeer.
“Thou meanest Fenzileh. But then, by the mercy of Allah, I was rendered
the instrument of her enlightenment.”
“It may well be written that thou shalt be the same again, my lord,”
murmured the insidious Tsamanni. There was more stirring in his mind
than the mere desire to play the courtier now. ’Twixt Fenzileh and
himself there had long been a feud begotten of the jealousy which each
inspired in the other where Asad was concerned. Were Fenzileh removed
the wazeer’s influence must grow and spread to his own profit. It was a
thing of which he had often dreamed, but a dream he feared that was
never like to be realized, for Asad was ageing, and the fires that had
burned so fiercely in his earlier years seemed now to have consumed in
him all thought of women. Yet here was one as by a miracle, of a beauty
so amazing and so diverse from any that ever yet had feasted the
Basha’s sight, that plainly she had acted as a charm upon his senses.
“She is white as the snows upon the Atlas, luscious as the dates of
Tafilalt,” he murmured fondly, his gleaming eyes considering her what
time she stood immovable before him. Suddenly he looked about him, and
wheeled upon Tsamanni, his manner swiftly becoming charged with anger.
“Her face has been bared to a thousand eyes and more,” he cried.
“Even that has been so before,” replied Tsamanni.
And then quite suddenly at their elbow a voice that was naturally soft
and musical of accent but now rendered harsh, cut in to ask:
“What woman may this be?”
Startled, both the Basha and his wazeer swung round. Fenzileh,
becomingly veiled and hooded, stood before them, escorted by Marzak. A
little behind them were the eunuchs and the litter in which,
unperceived by Asad, she had been borne thither. Beside the litter
stood her wazeer Ayoub-el-Samin.
Asad scowled down upon her, for he had not yet recovered from the
resentment she and Marzak had provoked in him. Moreover, that in
private she should be lacking in the respect which was his due was evil
enough, though he had tolerated it. But that she should make so bold as
to thrust in and question him in this peremptory fashion before all the
world was more than his dignity could suffer. Never yet had she dared
so much nor would she have dared it now but that her sudden anxiety had
effaced all caution from her mind. She had seen the look with which
Asad had been considering that lovely slave, and not only jealousy but
positive fear awoke in her. Her hold upon Asad was growing tenuous. To
snap it utterly no more was necessary than that he who of late years
had scarce bestowed a thought or glance upon a woman should be taken
with the fancy to bring some new recruit to his hareem.
Hence her desperate, reckless courage to stand thus before him now, for
although her face was veiled there was hardy arrogance in every line of
her figure. Of his scowl she took no slightest heed.
“If this be the slave fetched by Sakr-el-Bahr from England, then rumour
has lied to me,” she said. “I vow it was scarce worth so long a voyage
and the endangering so many valuable Muslim lives to fetch this
yellow-faced, long-shanked daughter of perdition into Barbary.”
Asad’s surprise beat down his anger. He was not subtle.
“Yellow-faced? Long-shanked?” quoth he. Then reading Fenzileh at last,
he displayed a slow, crooked smile. “Already have I observed thee to
grow hard of hearing, and now thy sight is failing too, it seems.
Assuredly thou art growing old.” And he looked her over with such an
eye of displeasure that she recoiled.
He stepped close up to her. “Too long already hast thou queened it in
my hareem with thine infidel, Frankish ways,” he muttered, so that none
but those immediately about overheard his angry words. “Thou art become
a very scandal in the eyes of the Faithful,” he added very grimly. “It
were well, perhaps, that we amended that.”
Abruptly then he turned away, and by a gesture he ordered Ali to return
the slave to her place among the others. Leaning on the arm of Tsamanni
he took some steps towards the entrance, then halted, and turned again
to Fenzileh:
“To thy litter,” he bade her peremptorily, rebuking her thus before
all, “and get thee to the house as becomes a seemly Muslim woman. Nor
ever again let thyself be seen roving the public places afoot.”
She obeyed him instantly, without a murmur; and he himself lingered at
the gates with Tsamanni until her litter had passed out, escorted by
Ayoub and Marzak walking each on one side of it and neither daring to
meet the angry eye of the Basha.
Asad looked sourly after that litter, a sneer on his heavy lips.
“As her beauty wanes so her presumption waxes,” he growled. “She is
growing old, Tsamanni—old and lean and shrewish, and no fit mate for a
Member of the Prophet’s House. It were perhaps a pleasing thing in the
sight of Allah that we replaced her.” And then, referring obviously to
that other one, his eye turning towards the penthouse the curtains of
which were drawn again, he changed his tone.
“Didst thou mark, O Tsamanni, with what a grace she moved?—lithely and
nobly as a young gazelle. Verily, so much beauty was never created by
the All-Wise to be cast into the Pit.”
“May it not have been sent to comfort some True-Believer?” wondered the
subtle wazeer. “To Allah all things are possible.”
“Why else, indeed?” said Asad. “It was written; and even as none may
obtain what is not written, so none may avoid what is. I am resolved.
Stay thou here, Tsamanni. Remain for the outcry and purchase her. She
shall be taught the True Faith. She shall be saved from the furnace.”
The command had come, the thing that Tsamanni had so ardently desired.
He licked his lips. “And the price, my lord?” he asked, in a small
voice.
“Price?” quoth Asad. “Have I not bid thee purchase her? Bring her to
me, though her price be a thousand philips.”
“A thousand philips!” echoed Tsamanni amazed. “Allah is great!”
But already Asad had left his side and passed out under the arched
gateay, where the grovelling anew at the sight of him.
It was a fine thing for Asad to bid him remain for the sale. But the
dalal would part with no slave until the money was forthcoming, and
Tsamanni had no considerable sum upon his person. Therefore in the wake
of his master he set out forthwith to the Kasbah. It wanted still an
hour before the sale would be held and he had time and to spare in
which to go and return.
It happened, however, that Tsamanni was malicious, and that the hatred
of Fenzileh which so long he had consumed in silence and dissembled
under fawning smiles and profound salaams included also her servants.
There was none in all the world of whom he entertained a greater
contempt than her sleek and greasy eunuch Ayoub-el-Samin of the
majestic, rolling gait and fat, supercilious lips.
It was written, too, that in the courtyard of the Kasbah he should
stumble upon Ayoub, who indeed had by his mistress’s commands been set
to watch for the wazeer. The fat fellow rolled forward, his hands
supporting his paunch, his little eyes agleam.
“Allah increase thy health, Tsamanni,” was his courteous greeting.
“Thou bearest news?”
“News? What news?” quoth Tsamanni. “In truth none that will gladden thy
mistress.”
“Merciful Allah! What now? Doth it concern that Frankish slave-girl?”
Tsamanni smiled, a thing that angered Ayoub, who felt that the ground
he trod was becoming insecure; it followed that if his mistress fell
from influence he fell with her, and became as the dust upon Tsamanni’s
slippers.
“By the Koran thou tremblest, Ayoub!” Tsamanni mocked him. “Thy soft
fat is all a-quivering; and well it may, for thy days are numbered, O
father of nothing.”
“Dost deride me, dog?” came the other’s voice, shrill now with anger.
“Callest me dog? Thou?” Deliberately Tsamanni spat upon his shadow. “Go
tell thy mistress that I am bidden by my lord to buy the Frankish girl.
Tell her that my lord will take her to wife, even as he took Fenzileh,
that he may lead her into the True Belief and cheat Shaitan of so fair
a jewel. Add that I am bidden to buy her though she cost my lord a
thousand philips. Bear her that message, O father of wind, and may
Allah increase thy paunch!” And he was gone, lithe, active, and
mocking.
“May thy sons perish and thy daughters become harlots,” roared the
eunuch, maddened at once by this evil news and the insult with which it
was accompanied.
But Tsamanni only laughed, as he answered him over his shoulder—
“May thy sons be sultans all, Ayoub!”
Quivering still with a rage that entirely obliterated his alarm at what
he had learnt, Ayoub rolled into the presence of his mistress with that
evil message.
She listened to him in a dumb white fury. Then she fell to reviling her
lord and the slave-girl in a breath, and called upon Allah to break
their bones and blacken their faces and rot their flesh with all the
fervour of one born and bred in the True Faith. When she recovered from
that burst of fury it was to sit brooding awhile. At length she sprang
up and bade Ayoub see that none lurked to listen about the doorways.
“We must act, Ayoub, and act swiftly, or I am destroyed and with me
will be destroyed Marzak, who alone could not stand against his
father’s face. Sakr-el-Bahr will trample us into the dust.” She checked
on a sudden thought. “By Allah it may have been a part of his design to
have brought hither that white-faced wench. But we must thwart him and
we must thwart Asad, or thou art ruined too, Ayoub.”
“Thwart him?” quoth her wazeer, gaping at the swift energy of mind and
body with which this woman was endowed, the like of which he had never
seen in any woman yet. “Thwart him?” he repeated.
“First, Ayoub, to place this Frankish girl beyond his reach.”
“That is well thought—but how?”
“How? Can thy wit suggest no way? Hast thou wits at all in that fat
head of thine? Thou shalt outbid Tsamanni, or, better still, set
someone else to do it for thee, and so buy the girl for me. Then we’ll
contrive that she shall vanish quietly and quickly before Asad can
discover a trace of her.”
His face blanched, and the wattles about his jaws were shaking. “And...
and the cost? Hast thou counted the cost, O Fenzileh? What will happen
when Asad gains knowledge of this thing?”
“He shall gain no knowledge of it,” she answered him. “Or if he does,
the girl being gone beyond recall, he shall submit him to what was
written. Trust me to know how to bring him to it.”
“Lady, lady!” he cried, and wrung his bunches of fat fingers. “I dare
not engage in this!”
“Engage in what? If I bid thee go buy this girl, and give thee the
money thou’lt require, what else concerns thee, dog? What else is to be
done, a man shall do. Come now, thou shalt have the money, all I have,
which is a matter of some fifteen hundred philips, and what is not laid
out upon this purchase thou shalt retain for thyself.”
He considered an instant, and conceived that she was right. None could
blame him for executing the commands she gave him. And there would be
profit in it, clearly—ay, and it would be sweet to outbid that dog
Tsamanni and send him empty-handed home to face the wrath of his
frustrated master. He spread his hands and salaamed in token of
complete acquiescence.