“_But hate and friendship both find their end._”
Outside the Lebrassa & Cooper factory, all was quiet and peaceful in
the early morning sun. Inside, the business of the day had started,
and Cooper was issuing orders to the colored assistants before
ascending to his office on the floor above.
When he left the store to go up the steps leading to the balcony, Yoni
came out from behind the building. She followed him to the office and
leant against the door, watching him sullenly.
Presently, as she showed no inclination either to speak or go away, he
looked up from his books.
“Well?” he asked sharply.
“I have seen her. She has a face like a star set in the black cloud of
her hair. Hands so small, fit for nothing save to hold the heart of a
man. And a voice that ripples sweet as flowing water.”
“What of it?” Cooper asked impatiently.
“Then you talk of vengeance!”
“Why not?”
Contemptuously she laughed.
“Why not indeed! I’ve seen the Sultan with her. He’s her slave and
servant. He! The Lord of Doomana!”
“He treats her as the white men treat their women,” Cooper explained.
“She was afraid last night. I know, for I was close by and saw them.
He saw it too, and comforted her with soft words. I don’t know what
was said, for they spoke in her language. And he drew her arm through
his, and it might have been the earth’s greatest treasure for the care
he used.”
Uneasily Cooper glanced at her, wishing his partner would come and
deal with this incubus of a woman.
“As soon as my wife is able to travel we’re going up-country,” he said
in a soothing manner. “She, as my wife’s friend, goes with us. One day
she will stray from the camp and not return. Down here my wife’s story
will pacify the white men--that her friend was lost in the forest and
devoured by some wild beast. But you and I and the Sultan, Yoni, will
know what really happened.”
“That she is to be taken to Kallu, to be sacrificed on the altar her
father fouled?”
“Exactly.”
“But if our Sultan is going to kill her, why does he act as if he were
her lover?”
“He wishes her to believe him her friend, so that she’ll have no idea
what his motive really is.”
“It’s a pastime he finds pleasure in, and would have more of. I
followed them last night. My night was spent in the garden
watching--the garden I’ve been free to wander in these many years, but
am now forbidden to enter. Why?”
As Cooper ignored the question, Yoni answered it herself.
“Because a Star has risen in the Heart of Darkness. I know. Have I not
spent my life at his feet? Are there no hands good enough to serve
that girl but he must wait upon her himself? Last night it was a tray
set with dainty morsels. This morning when she came from that room,
who went to meet her with the haste of a supplicant lover, to take her
to a lounge set in the sweetest corner of the balcony, to place
cushions at her head, to tempt her again with dainties, running to and
fro, a woman’s slave? Who? The Sultan!”
Cooper’s temper was rising, but he was anxious to keep the peace.
“The hunt needs great skill,” he answered in a dogged manner. “The
game is shy and frightened--a nervous girl feeling insecure in her new
surroundings. Our Sultan is lulling her into a sense of safety before
he makes the next move.”
“It is a task men love--to soothe the fears of such as she. With
little hands so small and white, and eyes like twin flowers of blue
set in a roseleaf, other thoughts than vengeance enter the heart of
man.”
Cooper’s supply of patience suddenly ran out.
“Confound you!” he cried. “The truest word your brother spoke was when
he called you a fool.”
After that, silence reigned in the office.
Presently, the sound of some one coming up the steps made him heave a
sigh of relief.
With eyes that had a glint of fear in their somber depths, Yoni turned
and looked at the man coming along the balcony. But she might not have
been there for all the notice Lebrassa took of her.
“What’s this woman doing here?” he asked sharply, in the vernacular.
“I won’t have the natives loafing round my premises.”
With a quick movement, full of grace and abandon, Yoni bowed deeply
before him.
“I came to give my lord greeting,” she said.
Without taking the least notice of her Lebrassa moved away.
“Has my lord no greeting for his slave?” she asked with a note of
abject pleading.
Lebrassa turned his back on her, and, picking up a budget of letters,
began to open and read them.
Cooper glanced quickly from one to the other.
“I don’t think you should be so offhand with her,” he said presently
in English, and with an air of diffidence.
“Since when has it been my habit to propitiate?”
“She knows too much. What’s more, she’s madly jealous of that girl.”
A look of savage arrogance came to Lebrassa’s face.
“I presume you mean your wife’s friend,” he said. “In future you will
refer to her as Miss Graham, and in no other manner.”
With that Lebrassa left the office.
He went to his private apartments, Yoni following him.
“My lord is angry,” she said with a cringing air.
“I have no use for those who disobey me.”
In an anxious manner, she touched his arm.
“I hoped--” she began.
With a savage gesture, he shook her hand off.
“Don’t touch me, woman,” he cried angrily.
Alarmed and anxious, Yoni watched him.
“Is it for nothing I’ve been your faithful servant these long years?”
she ventured. “I, Yoni, Keeper of the Stars, priestess of Doomana, who
gave all for the sake of love.”
“Don’t talk to me of love.”
“Essel, my cousin, who spoke first of love? My lord was a good pleader
in the dead days.”
In loathing he looked at her, as if the mention of the blood tie
between them was more than he could bear.
Watching him in a threatening manner, Yoni drew away.
“And if I go to the white men and say, ‘Come, I will show you the
Hyena, the Sultan of Kallu--the man you have looked for these many
years’--what then?”
“Do as you please, only keep out of my sight.”
“My lord has no fear?”
“Fear! Of what?”
“It is he who won my heart, only to crush it. Essel, my cousin, see, I
am at your feet.”
With a lithe movement Yoni was prostrate before him.
With hatred and aversion, he turned his back on her.
“Go back to the darkness that bred you. I’ve done with such as you,”
he cried savagely.
There was a moan, like that of an animal in deadly pain. Yoni crept
out on to the balcony and crouched there shivering in the sunshine.