“_Upon every misfortune another misfortune._”—ARABIC PROVERB.
A straight, clear path stretched from her to the man she loved.
The end of the room near the door was empty, the men having pressed
forward towards the dais so as to watch the white man’s face when the
proposition, which would amount to an order, backed by a threat, should
be made to him. They stood on each side, close together, leaving a path
the width of the dais, their eyes over-bright and their fingers straying
towards the dagger—which the Arab ever carries—in their cummerbunds.
Zarah sat leaning slightly forward, her face white under the tension of
the moment, her jewelled fingers playing with the crystal knobs of the
ivory chair. She sat in a sea of flaming orange, jewel-encrusted satin,
the fans blowing the ospreys of her head-dress, as they swung the silver
lamps above her head.
Ralph Trenchard, sensing that something out of the ordinary was afoot,
sat right forward, alert, watchful, his eyes following the movements
of the men as they walked restlessly to and fro, or stood talking with
overmuch gesture.
He turned once and looked at Zarah, who sat divided from him by the
glistening folds of her train. He looked at her steadily, trying to find
the answer to the riddle of the hour, and caught his breath when she
stretched out her hand and laid it on his and whispered, “I love you.” He
sat staring at her, stunned by the sudden realization of his blindness
and his crass stupidity, then looked down at the Nubian, who, arms
folded, stood looking up at him, a world of hate and mockery in his face.
The hate in the man’s eyes, the love in the woman’s voice, the sense of
pending danger, the unaccountable expectation in his heart.
Love, hate? Turmoil, peace? Life, death?
Which?
He lifted his head and looked straight across to the doorway. It showed
black, with a background of purple, strewn with stars, and he sighed,
unaccountably disappointed, and watched the benign Patriarch move slowly
forward until he stood in front of the dais.
As he moved Helen moved forward and hid behind the velvet curtain hanging
to one side of the door, and made another quick movement when the man she
loved unknowingly looked straight at her, then stood quite still when
Yussuf, without turning, raised his hand.
The Patriarch had begun to speak.
He bowed himself to the ground before Zarah, then stood upright,
reminding Ralph Trenchard of a picture of Elijah he had loved to look
at in the family Bible on account of the ravens with loaves of bread
in their beaks, little recking in his baby understanding that the word
raven stood for a certain village, or tribe of people, in the holy one’s
environs.
The Patriarch’s fine voice and sonorous words rang through the building,
causing the men to press closer still, and the Nubian to look up at
Zarah. She looked down at him with a mocking smile, and then at the
venerable old man, and lastly at Ralph Trenchard, who sat in amazement,
looking from one to the other.
Happily Helen’s sharp cry was drowned in the Patriarch’s sonorous words
as he offered the Arabian girl’s hand in marriage, with her wealth in
cash, jewels, horses, camel and cattle, to the Englishman; happily
everyone was too enthralled at the sight of the Englishman’s amazed face
to look back to the doorway where she stood, her eyes flashing in a great
anger, her heart beating heavily with fear.
Ralph Trenchard held up his hand.
The baying of the dogs from the kennels could be heard in the
silence that fell, whilst the men tugged at each other’s sleeves and
surreptitiously made bets upon his answer to the proposition.
He repeated the Patriarch’s proposal word for word, then turned to Zarah,
speaking slowly, so that all should understand.
“Have I understood correctly? Yon old man, who, he says, stands to you in
place of a father, proposes that I—I, an Englishman, a foreigner, should
marry you, an Arabian and a Mohammedan. That I should live here with you
and help you rule these fine men of yours, who could learn nothing from
me. That I should give up my country, for which I fought, my people whom
I love, to become one of a nation whose blood is not my blood, nor ways
my ways. Is that so?”
Zarah’s hands lay still on the crystal knobs of her ivory chair as she
answered, a dull crimson slowly flushing her face:
“Verily,” she replied, holding up her hand to ensure silence. “It is
as you say. It is our custom in Arabia, though of a truth it is not
customary for the maid to be present at the bargaining.”
She laughed suddenly, sweetly, and held out her hands, whilst her words
beat like hammers upon Helen’s brain. “For me, he who stands to me as
father offers you my hand in marriage, with my wealth, my people, my
horses, all I possess, asking naught of you in return. I have the blood
of Europe in my veins, I have learned the customs and the speech of the
white races, even of my mother’s race. I am not ill-favoured, nor too
much wanting in wit. I——” Her voice changed as the song of the summer
breeze might change to the warning of the coming storm. “I wait for your
answer before my men, who desire naught but my happiness and, with mine,
their own.”
At the veiled threat in the last words Ralph Trenchard turned and looked
at the men, his dominant jaw out-thrust, his mouth a line of steel.
So this was the meaning of the feasting, the watchfulness, the tension,
the solicitude.
The horror of it all.
Love in the place of friendliness, the love of a despotic woman who had
never in her life been denied or thwarted; a veiled threat as lining to
the mantle of hospitality which had been thrown about him; a life-long
captivity, or even death, for his freedom if he stood true to his love
for Helen.
Captivity!
He shuddered involuntarily at the thought of some of the prisoners he had
seen working under the lash of the overseer’s whip.
Death!
He smiled.
A few steps across the no man’s land stretching between the now and the
hereafter and he would see Helen waiting for him, her lovely, fair face
alight with the love of all eternity.
A great silence fell as he rose, followed by a sound like the wind as the
men whispered amongst themselves.
“A fitting mate for the tiger-cat, a fitting sire for the whelps, if it
were not for his blood.”
“Yea, verily,” answered Bowlegs. “’Tis a rare beauty in a man and the
stature of a giant.”
“He and the Lion would be well matched in a fight.”
Bowlegs would have spat in derision if he had dared.
“A mouse in the Lion’s maw, brother. I lay thee my shirt of silk to thy
sandals that the Lion would break him in——”
The whispering stopped when Ralph Trenchard raised his hand, whilst the
Patriarch, by force of habit, searched for the counters in the folds of
his new raiment.
“The honour you do me is very great, very great. I cannot find words
to thank you. But——” Ralph Trenchard looked down at Zarah, who rose
slowly, a lovely glittering thing full of apprehension and a rising
anger. She looked him straight in the eyes without a word, and at the
relentlessness which shone in hers he subconsciously wondered what kind
of death by torture she would mete out to him in return for his loyalty
to Helen.
“But——?”
The word dropped from her lips like the first thunder drop heralding
the coming storm, and Helen, a great light blazing in her eyes, stepped
forward and stopped as Yussuf held her back by a movement of his hand.
“But,” continued Ralph Trenchard slowly, very slowly, so that every word
could be clearly heard throughout the hall, “the honour, the great honour
I must refuse, because——”
“Because——?”
Under the impulse of a great excitement the men moved forward in a body,
then stopped.
There was not a sound to break the terrible silence, not a movement
except for the jewels which flashed as they rose and fell above the
Arabian girl’s heart and the fans which swung the silver lamps and
stirred the black and orange osprey of her head-dress.
She stood like a statue of terrible wrath, outraged in her pride before
her men. Like a cobra about to strike she waited motionless to pay back
that insult a hundredfold.
“Because——?” she repeated.
“Because,” Ralph Trenchard said slowly, clearly, “because I love the
memory of the white woman who died amongst you, too much to give a
thought of love elsewhere.”
Helen’s ringing, joyous cry was lost in the men’s shouting and the sharp
sound of their daggers as they whipped them from the sheath, and her
scream of rage was lost in their shouts of laughter when Zarah, lifting
her hand, smote the white man across the mouth.
Then she ran, oblivious of the roar of amazement, up the clear path which
stretched between her and her lover.
“Ra!” she cried as she ran, with arms outstretched. “Ra! I’m here! I’m
coming to you, Ra! Come to me!”
She ran to him as he leapt from the dais; she was in his arms and he had
folded her close and kissed her before Zarah had time to give an order to
the men, who stood motionless with astonishment.
A moment of utter silence, then the storm broke.
“Separate them!”
The order, given to the Nubian, cracked like a whip as Zarah, white with
passion, sank slowly into the ivory chair.
“Seize the white man!”
She flung her order to a young Arab whilst the Nubian struggled to wrench
Ralph Trenchard’s arms from about Helen.
“Drive them in!”
The young Arab turned the dagger he held in each hand and drove the blunt
handle hard down on to the ribs just above Ralph Trenchard’s waist, and
jerked him roughly back when his arms slackened under the shock and
agonizing pain.
There was a moment’s breathless silence.
Helen stood perfectly still, her elbows held from behind by Al-Asad, her
face, radiant with love, turned towards Ralph Trenchard, who sickened at
the sight of the Nubian’s glistening skin so near the girl he adored. He
knew that they were in a desperate plight, the tightest corner any two
could have got into, but he was not giving the Arabian the satisfaction
of seeing a sign of his dismay in his face, and he worshipped Helen for
her outward calm, though his whole being revolted at the Nubian’s close
proximity to her.
He knew he had only to make a certain movement to fling off the man who
held his elbows from behind, but before he made it he wanted to find a
way to make the half-caste loosen his hold of Helen.
And the way came to him as he looked at Al-Asad, who stood staring down
at Helen’s golden hair with an indescribable look on his face.
“You, Al-Asad,” he said slowly, pronouncing each word so that it sounded
clearly in the hall, “you nigger, let go of the white woman. In our
country we do not allow the black——”
He rid himself with a lightning movement from the hands which held him
and sprang and caught the Nubian, who, hurling Helen back against the
dais, leapt at the man who had so direly insulted him.
There came one tremendous yell as the men rushed to form a ring, then
a very babel of voices as they laid their last _qamis_ and their last
_piastre_ upon the outcome of the struggle between the two men who stood
locked in a mighty grip.
“My shirt of silk to thy sandals,” yelled Bowlegs, “that the foreigner is
crushed like a mouse in the Lion’s maw.”
“Taken, O thou little one with legs like the full moon,” yelled his
neighbour, who had learnt a thing or two in the fine art of wrestling
when he had fought so magnificently for the whites. “The white man will
use our brother as a cloth with which to wipe the marks of thy misshapen
feet from the ground. Bulk counts not against knowledge.”
Bowlegs spat as he glanced at Ralph Trenchard, who, trained to a hair,
stood well over six feet, yet looked like a stripling beside the gigantic
Nubian, who overtopped him by inches.
The men’s attention was diverted for one moment when Helen ran up the
steps of the dais, and they held their breath in sheer delight when the
Arabian rose from her chair to confront her.
The two girls were about the same height, both of an amazing beauty, and
they both loved the same man, who was likely to have his neck broken
within the next few minutes.
What more could they desire as an evening’s entertainment?
“Will you take a bet, Zarah?”
The lamps seemed likely to spill their oil as they swung to the men’s
shouting.
“Take it! Take it!” they yelled. “Take it, Zarah the Beautiful. Let it
not be said that an infidel could show thee a path.”
“The stakes?”
“Ralph Trenchard’s life against my locket, which hangs around your neck!”
“They are both mine!”
“The locket is _mine_, his life is _God’s_, in your keeping for a little
while.”
“You, Helen R-r-aynor, you sign his death warrant? He cannot win against
my slave!”
“Will you take the bet?”
The Arabian unfastened the chain and, laughing, flung the locket at
Helen’s feet as the two men moved.
The Nubian put forth all the strength of his mighty muscle. Ralph
Trenchard, one of the finest exponents of jiu-jitsu to be found anywhere,
took advantage of the movement to slip his hand an inch or two, and to
move his foot an inch or so. For a second he stood quite still, then, as
the Nubian moved, with a movement too quick and too fine to be described,
lifted the gigantic man and flung him so that he struck his head against
the dais and lay still at his mistress’s feet.
In the uproar which followed Helen was down the steps like a bird, and,
laughing happily in her complete misunderstanding of the Oriental mind,
was in her lover’s arms.
“His life!” she cried, looking over her shoulder towards Zarah. “His
life! I’ve won! I’ve won!” then flung her arms round him and held him
close at sight of the fury in the Arabian’s face, whilst the men pressed
upon them, their hands outstretched, waiting for the order which they
knew must come.
“Separate them!”
Helen’s hair came down about her like a mantle as hands, only too
willing, dragged her away from the man she loved, and Ralph’s silk shirt
ripped to the waist as he fought desperately for her until overpowered by
numbers.
Zarah stood half-way down the steps, looking like some great bird with
her train spread out behind her, the ospreys blowing this way and that
above her death white face with its half-shut tawny eyes and crimson
mouth. She stood looking from the one to the other evilly as she planned
a torture for the two which might, in some little way, ease the torture
of her own heart.
She had given her word to spare the white man’s life, and as it had
been given before some hundred witnesses, her word she had to keep, but
she would make of that life such a hell that the white girl would wish,
before she had finished with both of them, that death had overtaken her
and her lover in the battle.
In the intense excitement of the moment no notice was taken of Yussuf as
he crept quietly through the doorway from behind the curtain where he had
been sitting, nor of the clamour from the kennels, which a few moments
later rent the peace of the night.
“Bring them here, both of them, to my feet. Hold them apart! Thou dog!
Who told thee to strike the white man?” Zarah pointed at a pock-marked
youth who had pushed Ralph Trenchard forward by the shoulder in an
exuberance engendered by the uproar so dear to the Arab’s heart. “’Tis
well for thee that it is a day of festival, else would ten strokes of the
whip have been paid thee for thy presumption.”
The youth shrank back behind a pillar, whilst Zarah looked from one to
another of the men, dominating them all by her unconquerable will and her
magnetic beauty.
She had but to smile and to speak to them as her beloved children and the
prisoners would be free to go where they pleased; to say one word for the
hall to be emptied; to raise her hand for the prisoners to die on the
spot.
She was supreme in her command, superb in her beauty, but as she looked
at the English girl she knew she was beaten.
She could see the love in Ralph Trenchard’s eyes as he looked across at
Helen, who stood smiling, dishevelled, with her golden hair in a cloud
around her over-thin, death-white face; and she knew that in his love
for Helen, the love she herself craved for and had failed to inspire, he
would fight to the death to save her from harm.
Death!
Even as the word flashed into her mind, the youth whom Al-Asad had
whirled like a club and shaken like a sack of _durra_ for mimicking his
mistress sprang forward.
In the Arab’s supreme callousness towards his brother’s feelings he used
the Nubian’s limp body as the first step as he ran up the steps of the
dais and knelt at Zarah’s feet.
“Her death, mistress!” he shouted, his eyes blazing at the thought of the
white girl’s insult towards his womenfolk. “Behold, she mocks thee and
the women who tend and serve her. She mocks them this wise.”
He sprang back, landing, with the Arab’s supreme callousness towards his
brother’s feelings, full upon the Nubian’s back, so that, the last ounce
of breath being expelled forcibly from his lungs, he lay limper than
ever. Followed a mimicry of Helen’s supposed mimicry of Namlah the busy
and the surly negress, until the men shouted with laughter and yelled
with appreciation, whilst Zarah looked down without a smile and Helen
looked on in amazement.
She understood at last, and tried in her indignation to free herself, and
failing, shouted her denial of the untruth.
“It is a lie! It is a lie! I could not, would not——”
As the youth spat in her direction, and the men, their pride once more
ablaze at the thought of the insult offered their own women, cursed and
yelled, Ralph Trenchard, with an effort beyond all telling, broke from
his captors and sprang straight at the youth who had spat.
“You swine! You filthy swine!” he cried, and with a fist like a flail
caught the spitter full on the point, smashing his jaw, whereupon the men
yelled “_Wah! Wah!_” and at a sign from their mistress, shouting with
joy, flung themselves upon Ralph Trenchard and held him fast.
“Pass not the sentence of death upon him this night, mistress,” suddenly
cried Bowlegs, waddling forward. “He has grievously insulted thee, as
has the white woman, but let him live for a space and under the eyes
of Al-Asad teach us his cunning tricks, for, behold! if ’twere but a
question of muscle even could I pinch his life out ’twixt thumb and
finger. After we have learned the tricks, then——”
A shout of appreciation followed hot upon his words of wisdom. Helen in
despair fought to free herself so as to protect her lover, whereupon
Zarah looked slowly in her direction.
“And the woman?”
“Kill her! Sink her in the sands of death! Give her to the dogs! Drive
her out into the Empty Desert!”
Zarah shook her head at the suggestions shouted by men who are taught in
their religion that woman is devoid of soul, and therefore to be looked
upon either as a plaything or a drudge, or the potential bearer of sons,
and, in any case, far below the level of the horse at her very best.
“Death is but a closing of the eyes in sleep.” Zarah translated the line
she had learned at school. “And I would keep her wide-eyed in life,
working as work the women she has mocked.” She caught the horror in Ralph
Trenchard’s eyes as he looked from her to Helen, who stood mute, her
heart aglow at the thought of her lover’s safety for the moment. Lost to
all thought of self, she but half understood Zarah’s words, and looked
questioningly from the men to her and back.
“Yea! Ralph Tr-r-enchar-r-d!” said Zarah slowly, pouring the balm of
revenge into her smarting wounds. “To work as my servant, to wait upon
me, to serve me, even as thou shalt work under the ruling of that fool,
who would even now be dead if it were not for the thickness of his
skull.” She held up her hand as the men shouted. “Has the white man
aught to say, the man who changes his coat to the wind? The white woman
at dawn, the Arabian at noon, the white woman at dusk, and Allah knows
which in the watches of the night!”
“You liar! You despicable coward! There isn’t a word of truth in what you
say, you _liar_!”
Helen’s words, forcible, if somewhat lacking in diplomacy considering her
position, rang through the room, and Yussuf, standing hidden just outside
the door, raised the electric torch he held as a sign to “His Eyes”
standing outside the kennels deserted by the grooms, who, against orders,
had crept to the feast _en bloc_, instead of in shifts. Yussuf, who knew
his brethren backward and looked upon them as children, had planned the
death of the Arabian and the escape of the whites as a _grand finale_ to
the day’s festivities.
For the last half-hour the dogs, headed by Rādi the bitch, had been
driven to the point of madness by “His Eyes,” who had drawn one of
Zarah’s sandals across the bars of the kennels, inciting them to a very
lust to kill.
Yussuf had planned everything, but had forgotten to take into
consideration the extraordinary trait in the character of the white races
which urges them to give their life for their brother at the slightest
provocation. He raised his hand to flash the signal, then dropped it to
listen to Ralph Trenchard speaking.
“There is a proverb in England,” he was saying slowly, so that everyone
should understand, “which says, ‘One man can take a horse to the water,
but ten cannot make him drink.’ You will never make the girl, who will
one day be my wife, wait upon you as a servant, neither will you make me
work under your half-caste lover.”
Which words were also lacking in diplomacy, taking everything into
consideration.
A great silence fell. The men thought that Zarah had been rather badly
cornered; she waited out of sheer dramatic instinct. Then she laughed,
laughed until the hall was full of the sweet sound, as she turned and
sank into her chair.
She had the prisoners in the hollow of her hand, and not one whit of
their punishment would she spare them.
She put her exquisite, golden-sandalled foot upon the ivory footstool,
and looked at Helen.
“Loosen the white woman!”
She spoke curtly, and the men holding Helen sprang back.
“I would remove my sandals, Helen R-r-aynor-r! Come and loosen them!”
Helen smiled and shook her head. Torture would not force her to save her
life by humiliating the white races.
“You will not? Remember you are a prisoner, my prisoner, and that the
power of life and death and punishment is in my hands!” Zarah leant right
forward and looked into the steady blue eyes, whilst the men, knowing
their mistress’s cunning, pressed forward. “You will not, you say?”
“No! I will not!”
Zarah sat up, her hand pointing at Ralph Trenchard, her eyes half closed
in the strength of her terrible cruelty.
“I will make you, and I will make him in like manner if he refuses to
obey.” She paused for a moment, and then spoke sharply. “Take the white
man out, and whip him till he drops. Stop!”
She had won.
Yet as she leant back slowly she felt no triumph as she watched Helen
swing round to the man who fought to get free.
Helen laughed, laughed good humouredly, splendidly, with all the pluck of
her race, as she spoke to the man she was fighting for.
“Why should I not unfasten the very pretty sandal, Ra? Why should you be
made to suffer, if my very capable fingers can undo the gold laces of
my lady’s footwear? Don’t get angry, Ra, it’s a great waste of energy;
besides, you know I always do exactly as I please.”
Yussuf listened to the men’s exclamations and laughter, to the sound of
Helen’s feet mounting the steps, then flashed his torch three times.
* * * * *
“_The world is a mirror; show thyself in it, and it will
reflect thy image._”—ARABIC PROVERB.
Helen looked over her shoulder at her lover and smiled without a trace of
bitterness, then turned and looked straight into the Arabian’s eyes.
For a long moment the two girls looked at each other, until, unable to
bear the contempt in the steady blue eyes, the Arabian lowered hers, and
pointed to her sandal, then lifted her head sharply as Helen knelt.
Pushing Helen to one side, Zarah sprang to her feet and walked quickly
to the top of the steps and stood staring at the doorway, through which
could be seen the star-strewn sky and through which could be heard the
baying of dogs in full cry.
Her face was white as death, her eyes wide in fear; her hands pressed
down upon her heart as she backed away from the savage sound, until she
stood upon her train, which swept around her like a shell.
The men stood facing the doorway, whispering to each other. They had
hunted too often with the dogs; they knew every sound of their voices
too well not to know that they were hard on the scent of whatever they
were so strangely hunting at this hour of the night, when they were never
allowed to be at large.
Bowlegs, who loved the dogs almost as much as he loved his horses, under
a strange excitement which had fallen upon him as well as on the other
men, spoke to Helen, whom he knew to be so beloved of the dogs.
“They cross the plateau in a pack, hot on the trail, ah! they have lost.
Canst hear Rādi the bitch, the finest in the kennels? They near the
water’s edge! Hearken to the echo thrown by the rock above the cavern!
They have found. Ah! hunt they the devil? Or is’t a pack of _djinns_
hunting the dead from the quicksands? Tell——”
A man came running from the doorway, his eyes full of fear, his dagger in
his hand. He ran up to the foot of the dais and stood half turned towards
the door, to which he pointed frantically, and shouted up to Helen.
“They come, they come, the greyhounds and the dogs of Billi. They mount
the steps; their eyes shine in the dark; they are mad with rage; death
hunts with them——” He turned and looked at Zarah, who stood like a pillar
of stone, wrapped in her train.
She did not seem to count in this moment of great danger.
Helen, knowing the dogs’ inexplicable hatred of their mistress, turned
and looked at her, the contempt in her eyes deepening to scorn as she saw
the frozen look of fear in the Arabian’s eyes.
“The dogs have got out,” she said sharply. “Look! your men are running
before them. Look! Wake up and do something. Order the doors to be shut
or they’ll be in. Quick, Zarah!”
The Arabian took no notice. Lost in one of the visions which swept down
upon her at times, she was looking into the future.
She stood stark with terror, her eyes wide and glassy, her crimson lips
drawn back from her teeth, which chattered like gourds rattled by the
wind. She shook from head to foot, and put out her hand and tried to
speak as the dogs suddenly gave tongue.
She clutched at her throat and pointed to the door, and Helen, who did
not understand, turned away from the picture of abject fear and held
out her arms to her lover, who stood a prisoner in the hands of men who
showed great signs of uneasiness as they looked at their mistress and
then at the door.
Then Helen stamped her foot and shouted, so that the men who stood near
the door turned towards her, then impeded each other in their haste as
they tried to obey her.
“Shut the door!” she cried. “Keep them out! Quick! they’re almost at the
top! Shut it! You’re too——”
Her words were lost in a piercing scream from Zarah as she ran back and
back until she reached the wall. She flung her arms out and fought,
fought the imaginary dogs which in her strange vision she saw leaping
upon her. She fought desperately, a wonderful picture against the
glittering Byzantine wall, fought nothing but her imagination or the
shadows thrown by Fate. Then she screamed and screamed and, covering
herself in her train, crouched down, as the whole pack of greyhounds and
the hunting dogs of Billi tore through the doorway.
“Ra!” cried Helen. “Ra! come to me! They’re after her. She’ll be torn to
pieces before our eyes, Ra!”
The men holding Ralph Trenchard backed before the onslaught of the great
dogs; he seized the opportunity and leaped for the steps, gaining the top
just in time.
“My God!” he cried, as he watched the beautiful creatures tear across the
floor. “If they leap to the top, sweetheart, we’re done; they’re too mad
to recognize us.” He put his arm round her and kissed her on the mouth.
“Darling! we shall win through, never you fear; keep a brave heart,
beloved, and remember that I love you.”
Helen whispered as she put her hand in his: “And remember that I love you
and that Yussuf is our friend.”
They had no time for more, the dogs were on them. Ralph Trenchard caught
the splendid bitch and flung her back as she reached the top of the
steps. He caught her again and yet again as she returned to the charge,
meeting her teeth in the younger dogs who tried to outdo her or to pass
her on the steps, whilst the dogs of Billi leapt and leapt and leapt
again to reach the top of the dais, where crouched the woman they hated
so deeply in their canine hearts.
Yussuf’s “Eyes” had over-reached himself in letting out the entire pack.
They were jammed too close together to get up the steps or for any single
one to be able to get the necessary run which might have allowed the
strongest to leap to the top. They baulked each other; they fought each
other; they rushed the dais in a wedge and fell back and fought each
other where they fell, until the place seemed a mass of maddened dogs.
The scent of the woman they hated was strong in their fine noses; she was
there just above their heads, just out of reach of their mighty, snapping
jaws. They rushed the steps when the bitch fell back, exhausted, and
fought the man who held them at the top. He knelt upon the top step and
caught them by the neck and threw them headlong back and down amongst
those who rushed behind; whilst those far back in the middle of the hall
flung themselves upon those in front, which turned and fought them, then
turned again and strove to reach the steps.
Helen knelt beside her lover ready to help, and the men stood far back
against the wall making bets upon the outcome of it all, watching the
stupendous picture, full of admiration for the white people, who had
tackled the situation without hesitation, whilst the grooms flung
themselves into the seething mass of dogs and fought to dominate them.
And the dogs far back in the hall, who fought to get forward, flung
themselves on the men against the wall and on the grooms, then, losing
the woman’s scent in the male garments, sat back and howled and barked
and fought each other, until the place was like a corner of hell let
loose.
Rādi the bitch, in one last effort of revenge, made a sudden rush and
making a spring-board of the Nubian’s body, with a wonderful leap, which
brought shouts of approval from the men, landed on the top of the dais at
Helen’s side.
With the Arabian’s scent strong in her pointed nose, she rushed to where
she crouched and turned and ripped Helen’s coat as the girl flung
herself sideways and caught her by the neck, calling to her, hanging on
to her with both hands. The bitch recognized the voice she had learned to
obey in love, and turned suddenly and thrust her muzzle into Helen’s neck
and hands, just as the head groom shouted from the body of the hall.
“Whistle, Excellency,” he shouted. “The madness is past. They obey.
Whistle to them, then with thy hand upon the bitch’s neck, I beseech thee
to lead the way to the kennels.”
“Yea! Excellency!” yelled the different men from the kennels and the
stables, as they stood holding on to a struggling dog with each hand.
“They will follow thy whistle, loving thee.”
Helen laughed as she led Rādi to the top step, looking like “Diana of the
Uplands” in a strange setting as the splendid greyhound strained to get
down to her companions.
She gave a long, low whistle, upon which every dog fought as frenziedly
to get to her in love as they had fought to get to the Arabian in hate.
“Hold them!” she cried. “I will whistle them back to the kennels.”
Which words were heard and taken up by a child standing outside in the
shadows, and passed on to the women, who, with a hate in their hearts
even greater than that of the dogs for the Arabian, had crept from their
quarters and half-way up the steps to the Hall of Judgment.
The hate of these docile creatures for the white girl, planted and
fostered by the men who had been so led astray by Al-Asad, was most
truly to be feared a hundred times more than the instinctive hate of the
dogs for the Arabian. They had done their best to please this foreigner,
cooking for her, mending her clothes, fetching and carrying for her and
waiting upon her; when their men had come back raving of her beauty and
her horsemanship, the meek, downtrodden souls, who had lost their looks
and their figures through hard work and overmuch child-bearing, had said
no word, but when they had heard the tales of the beautiful white girl’s
mimicry of their efforts to please her, then they had vowed to themselves
to be revenged upon her and at the first opportunity.
The news of the dogs’ escape had reached them. The opportunity had
arrived, and perhaps a double opportunity for revenge, for why should the
dogs not pull both the women down so that they should be quit of their
dreaded mistress and the foreigner.
When the child passed on Helen’s words they crept swiftly down the steps
and up to the kennels, and hid themselves amongst the rocks to wait just
a little longer.
“No! don’t come with me, beloved,” Helen said, as she stood on the top of
the dais steps pressed close to her lover’s side, with the dogs leaping
and barking at her feet. “A love such as ours must come right in the end,
and I don’t believe she meant what she said.”
In which she was mistaken, as she was to learn.
“Then, until we meet again, dear heart! I don’t like you doing this,
somehow.”
“She wouldn’t let us be together, Ra! It’s wiser not to make her _really_
angry!”
He held her close, and kissed her, and watched her run down the steps
into the middle of the dogs, which nearly knocked her down in their
exuberance; and watched her laughing, calling, whistling, as she ran down
the hall, followed by them all, whilst the men, who were but children
in their wrath and very good-tempered children when left alone, shouted
their admiration.
She turned at the door, beautiful, radiant, and held out her arms.
“Ra!” she called. “Ra! beloved!” and disappeared into the night, the
rocks echoing the barking of the dogs.
The men rushed to the door and out on to the broad ledge to watch the
wonderful picture.
Down the steps and over the plateau and up the other side to the kennels
she fled like Diana, preceded by the dogs and followed by the kennel
grooms, who called the blessings of Allah upon her as they ran.
Her voice calling to the dogs came faintly on the soft night breeze; they
heard her whistle; there fell a silence. Then were heard the shrill cries
of many hate-filled women.
The clamour grew louder and louder and ended in prolonged, insufferable
peals of laughter.
Silence.
Sick with horror, Ralph Trenchard took a step down and stopped.
Al-Asad sat on the bottom step, looking up.
His handsome face was drawn in pain, his lips pulled back from his
splendid teeth. He sat crouched, still, looking up out of eyes filled
with hate.
Ralph Trenchard swung round to the woman. She stood against the wall, a
slender, silent figure, love and hate shining from her half-closed eyes.
He did not hesitate, he leapt clear of the dais to save the girl he loved
from what the insufferable peals of laughter, which echoed in his ears,
portended.
He had got half-way down the hall, when, upon a sign from the Arabian
woman, hands caught him and held him, whilst a golden sound of laughter
came from Zarah as she stood, a thing of love and hate, against the
glittering Byzantine wall.
* * * * *
“Fear not, my children,” whispered Yussuf to “His Eyes” and Namlah the
Busy some time later as they talked over the failure of their plans
within the last few hours. “Even as the pounding of many grains of wheat
goes to the making of bread, so is life learnt in many lessons. Dawn
breaketh. To revenge the loss of thy son, my daughter, thy speech, my
son, and mine eyes, we will bring about the downfall of the accursed
woman. The proverb says ‘Three persons if they unite against a town will
ruin it.’”