“Beaten—but to-day beater.”—Arabic Proverb.
“Beaten—but to-day beater.”—Arabic Proverb.
“The shadow of the great locust storm has fallen upon Zarah the Beautiful!” whispered Bowlegs to Yussuf’s Eyes as they watched the sports with all the enthusiasm and delight of the Arab’s heart, which upon occasion can be so childlike. The dumb youth nodded his head and smiled and tapped a description of Zarah’s face upon his blind friend’s arm, whereupon Yussuf laughed loudly and long and rubbed his slender hands together at the thought of the Arabian girl’s discontent.
She reclined in her litter this late afternoon, swung upon the shoulders of four prisoners, her face as black as thunder; she flung herself irritably from side to side, and used her whip smartly upon the backs of the men—who had stood in the sun for an hour or so—when, by shifting the litter, they tried to alleviate the pain of the wounds it made in their shoulders.
It was her favourite form of punishment for trivial offences, and she kept Al-Asad, the muscular half-caste, close at hand, so that he should be in readiness to take the place of the first one of the four who should collapse under the combined torture of the heat and the weight of the jewel-encrusted ivory litter. She had no reason to use the whip upon his back. His mighty muscle made nothing of the weight; his negroid blood withstood the heat of the sun; his abnormal love caused him to find joy in the task, blinding him to the smiles, rendering him deaf to the titter which the humiliation of his task invariably drew from his friends, who loved the mighty man and grieved over his insensate passion.
She was surrounded by slaves who cast terrified glances at her wrathful countenance as they performed their various tasks. At her head two Abyssinian maidens, nude save for the scarlet sashes which girt them about the middle, stood upon low pedestals like glistening black statues of Venus, fanning her with fans of snow-white ostrich feathers; boys, slim, dark-eyed, with slender hands and feet, offered her cool drinks, sweetmeats and fruits upon trays of beaten silver; girls, slim, dark-eyed, with slender hands and feet, threw perfumed water into the air.
Helen sat some way off upon a pile of cushions in the shade of a rock, making a sharp contrast in her dilapidated but well-built Shantung breeches and knee-length coat with the Arabian’s almost barbaric splendour; and many a glance was cast at her from the serried ranks of men, who looked with interest upon the beautiful white prisoner, about whom Namlah had, most unwisely, ecstatically and so unceasingly talked.
That morning had come the invitation to witness the sports, to which she had responded with alacrity, to find herself, of a sudden, the object of interest to many hundreds of men, and a prey to uneasiness at the sight of Zarah’s mocking smile and the memory of Yussuf’s whispered warning.
Her hair shone like gold against the dark rock background. She laughed at the men’s encounters in the “Jerzed,” and clapped her hands at their marvellous dexterity with spear and rifle and revolver; but she kept her eyes away from the spot where the four bare-headed men underwent torture in the terrific heat of the sun.
She had begged Zarah to spare them; she had entreated with clasped hands, and with pitying eyes had lain her handkerchief upon the nearest wounded shoulder, which is a foolish thing for a beautiful girl to do when she is the prisoner of a beautiful woman famed for her cruelty throughout a land which is not exactly noted for the gentleness of its methods. She had retired to the pile of cushions and had sat down with eyes averted from the terrible picture of the beautiful, insolent woman who had imperiously bidden her to mind her own business, and had brought her whip down sharply upon the backs of the two front, undersized, under-nourished Armenians.
She sat quite by herself, so that she could not ask the meaning of the mighty shout which went up when Zarah raised her right hand, sparkling with jewels in the sun. The men in the back rows pushed towards the front, and those in front pushed their ambitious brethren back with oaths, so that a pitched battle seemed imminent, in which some part of the grievances, not only of the seats but also of the stables and the kennels, might be settled.
Peace fell with a great suddenness when Zarah sat forward and beckoned Al-Asad. She looked at the warring factions for a long moment, during which they sat as though carved out of the mountainside; then she smiled slowly and nodded her head and raised her right hand twice, upon which the men awoke once more, as from a trance, and yelled.
Helen rose to her feet and clapped her hands, heedless of the eyes which flashed from her to Lulah, the black, superb Nejdee mare, as she was led forward, seemingly with as much wickedness in her as a lamb. The mennudged each other and took on fresh bets with the neighbouring enemy as they remarked upon the stirrups swinging from the wisp of a native saddle. “Stirrups!” ejaculated a groom of the stables to one of the kennels. “And thou say’st that the white womanrides?”
“TheIngliziride not without stirrups!”
“Then they ride not at all!”
“With or without stirrups, O brother, thou knowest that that black she-devil Lulah is not to be ridden; yet will I make thee a bet of this, my silver-handled knife, against the silver ring of no value upon thy finger that yon white woman rides the Satan-possessed mare.”
The two men placed the stakes at their feet just as, with a short run, one of the stable grooms flung himself into the saddle, and fell off the other side as the mare reared, jerking the head groom, who held the halter, off his feet.
Then ran men from all sides, eager, from sheer love of horses and of sport, to try and dominate the beautiful creature that lashed out on every side, squealing with what they thought to be anger, and what Helen knew to be pain. And slowly, inch by inch, the litter tipped to one side as one of the undersized, under-nourished Armenians succumbed to the agony of his hurt, until Zarah, white with rage and cursing volubly, stepped hurriedly out as the other three dumped the litter just as their companion fell. She did not wait, so great was her rage, to upbraid them; instead, longing to hurt, to kill, in her wrath, she walked straight up to Helen, who stood watching the mare pawing the ground.
“You say you can r-r-ride anyzing, Helena, my dear-r-r school fr-rien’,” she said sweetly, standing slender and straight, at the English girl’s side, whilst the men broke ranks and rushed across the plateau so as to overhear the conversation.
“So I can, Zarah. But you know there’s something wrong with that mare. It’s not all nerves.”
“She has never-r-r been r-r-ridden befor-r-e, Miss Veter-r-inar-r-y, that’s all zat is ze matter wiz her-r-r. Why do you not have a tr-r-y?”
“Why not indeed? I had a bucking waler at home once, which was miles worse than that mare. Tell the men to stand clear, and tell the one holding her to turn her head from me. I don’t want her broadside on.”
Final and terrific betting took place as the men heard their mistress issue the last orders and rushed back to their places; then complete silence fell as Helen walked towards the mare, then bent to adjust a strap on her riding-boot. She looked back suddenly at Zarah and caught the expression of her face, and bent and adjusted yet again the strap upon her boot.
She could not interpret the Arabian’s mocking smile, but she understood, in a lightning flash of intuition, that she was to uphold her country’s reputation for riding in the eyes of the finest horsemen in the world, and, great horsewoman that she was, became suddenly lost to everything outside a fierce determination to do her country credit.
“My last goat to thy new shoes,” a groom of the kennels whispered feverishly to his neighbour at the sight of Helen’s laughing face as she backed a yard or so; he nearly broke the neighbour’s arm in the terrific grip he gave it when Helen ran, caught the mane, vaulted into the saddle, and throwing her left leg over the beautiful black head, slipped to the ground on the off-side just before the beast reared with a scream.
“Wah! wah!” yelled the men. “Wah! wah!” and rose to their feet and fought each other in their great excitement.
“Allah gives us the victory!” yelled a groom of the stables. “If she cannot even sit a horse, how can she ride? Hasten, O my brother, with a cushion upon which this white woman may rest safely upon the earth!”
“‘Advice given in the midst of a crowd is loathsome,’”quoted brother, his hand upon his knife, which he forgot to draw as he watched Helen. She stood talking to the mare; she beckoned a child with a tray of dates, and took a handful and held them out. The mare stretched her beautiful head and sniffed at them, then nibbled them, showing the red depths of her nostrils; then, when Helen gave a pull at the saddle, lashed out and flung herself sideways.
“I thought so,” said Helen.
For quite ten minutes she stood talking to the mare, until the men began to fidget and grumble and Zarah to laugh; then she spoke sharply to the groom who held the rope halter.
“Hold on tight, I am going to take the saddle off.”
Zarah made a quick step forward as Helen patted the satiny flank, working her hands towards the heavy buckle. There came a yell from everyone as she seized it and hung on to it until it was undone, just as the groom hung on to the rope halter, despite the slashing hoofs and the mare’s violent efforts to be rid of these people who so tormented her.
Helen whipped the light saddle off the mare’s blood-stained back and held it up, turning it first to Zarah, who laughed, and then to the men, who literally howled execrations.
“You brutes!” she cried. “You cowardly brutes! Look! The point of a nail, which pricked the mare each time the saddle was touched. Come here.” The head groom ran forward, salaaming, protesting that he knew nothing about it all, speaking the truth, for a wonder. “You say you did not saddle the mare. Then why don’t you look after the men under you? Take it!” She flung the wisp of a saddle full in the man’s face, so that the buckle cut his cheek, upon which the place resounded with shouts of joy and peals of laughter, which stopped when she raised her hand.
“I ride her bare-back,” she cried, and smiled at themen when, with the Arab’s proverbial inconstancy, they yelled encouragement.
She stood patting the mare, stroking the quivering back, lightly touching the superficial wound until the animal became accustomed to pressure on the spot; then she took the halter and trotted the beautiful beast down the full length of the plateau, whilst the men sighed with joy at the sight.
“A babe can lead a horse,” scoffed the equivalent of a British stable-lad; “let us wait until she essays to scramble to the back, even as a monkey scrambles up a pole.”
But Helen had no intention of emulating the monkey; she intended riding that mare if she died in the attempt. She took the beautiful creature round the full circle, caused by the men sitting in a ring, at a trot, then at a gentle canter, then caught the mane and vaulted across the bare back.
“Now, God,” cried Helen, “help menow!”
Which was her somewhat unusual prayer in time of stress.
The spectators held their breath as the mare bucked madly in an effort to dislodge the girl; then they yelled again and again as she reared and bucked and flung her heels up until Helen leant against the satiny back.
It was a magnificent exhibition of horsemanship, but the men scattered like chaff before the wind when Lulah the Black suddenly made a dash through them straight for the river edge; and they shouted bets one to the other upon the white woman’s chance of life and death as she almost shot over the mare’s head when she stopped suddenly on the very brink, with slender forelegs wide spread; then wheeled and raced back to the arena, where she bucked to the far end, then wheeled and broke into a furious gallop, which strenuous exercise lasted for some considerable time, until it changed to a canter, then subsided to a trot, when the men, carried out of themselves with enthusiasm, rushed and surrounded the pair.
Zarah, with a face like a night of storm, had just beckoned Al-Asad to order him to quell the humiliating tumult, when the sentry from the cleft in the rocks came running down the narrow path.
“It is a solitary rider, O mistress,” he panted as he fell at Zarah’s feet, “upon a far-spent camel. He hangs over upon his own knees, he guided not the beast, which even now flounders deep in the sands of death. But the space of three of thy servant’s hands to the west, O Great One, and the camel stood safely upon the hidden path. I cannot see the face of the rider, but his raiment is that of the white race, and I ran to tell thee, O mistress, as thou didst command me.”
Zarah gave an order to Al-Asad and beckoned the head groom of the stables, who stood at a distance nursing his wounded cheek.
“The stallion, Abyad, on the instant,” she said sharply.
The man ran at uttermost speed to the stables, whilst Zarah, taking no notice of Helen, walked swiftly to the beginning of the narrow path leading up to the cleft, as Al-Asad strode through the men, hurling them roughly to each side, until he reached the mare.
“Behold, O white woman,” he said curtly, “thou art to return to thy nest near the skies and to remain within until thy mistress sends for thee. The black woman with the gait of a lame hen will keep guard over thee, and if thou dost attempt to walk out, even upon the narrow way outside the door, then——”
The men whispered amongst themselves as Helen slipped from the mare’s back and walked slowly to the steep steps, being far too wise either to notice the peremptoriness of the Nubian’s manner or to attempt to disobey Zarah’s orders.
She climbed up and up to her nest near the sky, where the surly negress awaited her, whilst the men followed the Nubian as he ran to overtake his mistress, who droveher stallion as fast as he could scramble up the steep mountain path.
It was a wonderful sight to witness, and one that, in spite of her brutality and cruelty, endeared her to her men.
She rode her favorite Nejdee, a white stallion of purest breed, standing fifteen hands, which is a height never exceeded in this perfect horse. She rode him without saddle or stirrup, and barely lifted the halter-rope which, with the Nejdee, always takes the place of bit, guiding him by knees and voice, urging him on, as she rode to save the man she loved.
The stallion slithered and scrambled like a goat down the other side of the spot where the spear, thrown at the Arabian girl’s father, stuck fast in a cleft between two rocks, whilst the men fought each other for the best point of vantage from which they could watch either the sinking of the camel and its rider, who looked as one dead, or his rescue by the indomitable woman who ruled them.
And all were too intent upon the sport of the moment to notice a faint movement amongst the rocks to the east, where the shadows were heaviest.
“Itisa white man, and the camel’s belly sinketh in the sand,” whispered Namlah to Yussuf. “She, our mistress, and may the hyenas pick her bones, rides out to save him.”
“May he be saved,” whispered back the blind man, “and may she make her bed to-night in the depths of the sands in his stead. Linger thou, O Namlah, until we know the will of Allah, the one and only God, concerning this white man; then must thou flee, lest thy absence from amongst the women be noticed.”
As Namlah said, the camel lay upon the quicksands, screaming with fear, struggling and fighting, biting at the sands which were slowly sucking it down, whilst Ralph Trenchard sat with his head on his knees, which, holding the peak of the saddle in a deadly cramp, hadprevented him from falling in the last stretch of the waterless journey through hours of burning sun.
The stallion stood near the spear, shivering in the fear of the death he knew to surround him. He had crossed the path more times than his mistress could remember, and he knew that he would have to cross in the end, driven by the agony of the golden spurs in his sides, just as he always crossed in the end, no matter how strenuously he resisted. But he stood and shivered and rolled his gentle eyes until a sharp jab brought him to his hind feet, then another, which sent him dancing, curvetting down the path. His long silvery mane and tail blew out in the evening breeze like silken streamers, his dainty, polished hoofs flashed in the red light of the setting sun, and he pricked his small ears at the screams of the camel, as he went down the path and turned, spurred by the beautiful, relentless woman until they faced the rocks.
Zarah’s eyes were wonderful to behold as she leant far over and touched Ralph Trenchard on the shoulder. They were tender and sweet and fearless, until into them shot an agonizing look of terror as she clutched the stallion’s silvery mane and leant farther over still and caught the man’s hair in her fingers and pulled back his head and looked down into the terrible face with the closed eyes.
Then she grasped his collar with her right hand and pulled on the rope-halter with her left, as she dug the spurs into the stallion’s sides so that he reared and backed until, for fear of falling over onto the camel, she had perforce to let go her hold on the man who sat stiffly, with his head on his knees, as the camel sank inch by inch to its death.
She sat back, with an agony of horror stamped on her face, which was beautiful under the power of her love, and sent a ringing cry over to the men gathered to watch the fight.
“Bil-’ajal, Asad,” she called. “Bil-’ajal! bil-’ajal!”
Al-Asad leapt from the rock to the hidden path andraced to his mistress’s bidding, swiftly, surely, heedless of the death which awaited him on the first false step, eager to help the woman he loved, even in the task of rescuing the man to whom she had given her heart.
“Give me space, O mistress!” he cried, as he stood with one foot upon the path and the other upon the back of the camel’s saddle and gripped Ralph Trenchard round the waist. “Nearer, O mistress, and place the stallion’s silver hair within my hand.” The shouts of the men rang out over the desert as they watched the desperate fight, as the Nubian put out all his mighty strength and pulled just as Zarah drove in the golden spurs until the stallion reared. “Thy dagger, O mistress,” he cried, as he let go his hold upon the mane and sprang back upon the path. “The white man’s knees break under the strain.” He seized the razor-edged, jewelled dagger and stood once more with his foot on the back of the camel’s saddle and bent and felt in the sands, which pulled at his hands and arms as he sawed at the girth.
He sawed through the girth on both sides and cut the ropes, and holding the jewelled dagger between his teeth, bent and took hold of the saddle as the sands rose to the level where the animal’s mangy tail began. He had a few minutes in which to perform the mighty deed, and Namlah gripped Yussuf’s hand and the men made the wildest, maddest bets upon the outcome of the struggle.
He placed both hands under the back of the saddle and tipped it forward; it was free; then gripped the back pommel and the front pommel and looked up at the woman he loved.
“Back, O mistress! Back, lest I break the stallion’s legs!”
The muscles of his back and chest and arms rippled, then tautened, then stood out in great knots.
He lifted the saddle a few inches and let it fall back and shifted his slender hands; lifted it higher and higher until it rested for a second upon his bent knees; then, tothe sound of the men’s mighty shouting, made one superhuman effort and, just as the sands touched his feet, with a great swing of the shoulders flung the saddle and the senseless rider to safety upon the narrow path.
“A greater liar than Moseylama.”—Arabic Proverb.
“A greater liar than Moseylama.”—Arabic Proverb.
Three weeks passed, in which the Arabian nursed Ralph Trenchard until the fever, brought on by exhaustion, thirst and terrific heat, had left him, and left him very sane and not unduly weak, and very full of gratitude to the beautiful girl whom he seemed to have seen at his bedside day and night, and who seemed to have changed her dress a hundred times, if she had changed it once.
The nerve-racking jangle of her bracelets and anklets and the overwhelming strength of her perfume drove him wellnigh crazy at times, but, remembering what he would learn from her upon his complete recovery, he stuffed the ends of the silk sheets into his ears and held his nostrils forcibly between thumb and finger under cover of the same luxurious bed-spread.
Truly once or twice he grievously feared for his reason.
He wakened one night to see a remarkably handsome and muscular man, clad in naught but a loin-cloth, sitting motionless in the middle of the floor with what looked like a woman’s sandal pressed to his heart; and right strange and idiotic did he look, too, when he placed the sandal upon the floor and proceeded to press his forehead upon it. Then, two or three, or maybe more, nights following—for he had completely lost all sense of time—he wakened to see nothing less than a lion rolling blithely upon its back not two yards from him, which, having rolled awhile, proceeded to gambol playfully about the room, then slouched to the doorway, through which it disappeared for good. When he turned slowly upon hisbed to see what else might be in store for him, he saw the face of the beautiful girl looking down upon him from a spot ’twixt floor and ceiling as though suspended in mid-air.
He laughed when, the delirium passed, these strange occurrences were explained to him by Zarah, who, just because he felt too uncertain for the moment about past events to question her about Helen, allowed herself to be deluded into the belief that he had forgotten the tale Al-Asad had told when he visited the Bedouin camp disguised as a holy man. Then this evening he sent the youth who waited upon him to ask her to come to him.
She came quickly, Zarah the beautiful, the tender, the pitiful, Zarah the most perfect hypocrite and liar, and sat at his feet upon the floor, appropriately clothed in black and silver, with the lower part of her lovely face semi-hidden by a yashmak, over which her beautiful eyes gazed into his with an expression which would have deceived even the astutest old Holy Father.
“Where is Helen Raynor?”
He asked the question abruptly, taking her unawares.
She had intended telling him—if he should remember the Nubian’s story—that Helen had returned to Hutah under escort and had perished in the locust storm, but the abrupt question took her off her guard.
“She is dead and buried in the quicksands,” she lied instantly, uncontrollably, infinitely unwisely, without giving a thought to the far-reaching effects of the lie.
“Dead! My God! When? How?”
Seeing the terrible mistake she had made, seeing no way out of it, she backed the lie, planning in a flash to give a slight foundation to the disastrous mistake by getting rid of the girl that very night. She laid her henna-tipped, jewelled hand upon Ralph Trenchard’s and told him the sad story of Helen Raynor’s death, and mopped her melting, dry eyes with the corner of the silken sheet as she answered his horrified questions.
“ ... yes! I made a gr-r-reat effort to save her-r, my dear-r schoolmate,” she said, “but, alas!kismet, Allah had decr-r-r-eed other-r-wise....” Her arms showed like creamy-yellow ivory as she raised them dutifully above her downcast head in a gesture that showed off her alluring figure to perfection. “ ... Nay! dear-r Helena said no wor-rd, she justdied. Wher-r-re? Oh! in a bed. Yes! here in the mountain dwelling. By the mercy of Mohammed the Pr-r-ophet did she die, so zat her face should be a beautiful memor-r-y to her fr-r-ien’s, even if I, Zarah ...” She struck her breast with a beautiful gesture of resignation, but not hard enough to mark it, even in her intense grief. “ ... Yea! even if I, Zarah, shall have to car-r-y the dr-r-readful picture of it, all br-r-oken, before my eyes until ze day when death shall claim me also.” When Ralph Trenchard shivered in absolute horror, she shivered also, perhaps out of sympathy for him, perhaps to impress the thought of the English girl’s face upon him—who knows? Then she got up and trailed across the floor to a table laden with drinks of divers sweetness and coolness.
He looked at the exquisite picture she made, and, longing to hear more about the girl he loved, stretched out his hand; and she looked at him with the love of all women in her glorious eyes, and walked back to him swiftly and with all the grace of her Spanish mother, carrying a tray with glasses of frothing sherbet, which he did not want or touch.
“Thou art indeed a man,” she said softly in Arabic, as she placed the tray on a stool, ensconced herself cross-legged upon the divan, and leant towards him as she lit her cigarette, so that he was almost suffocated with the pungency of her perfume. “Yea! verily amongst my subjects, who are of a truth somewhat misshapen about the legs from overmuch bestriding of the Nejdee, thou art indeed a man!”
She sat and looked at him with all her love in hereyes, whilst he sat and wished that in some way he could express his gratitude for all she had done for Helen. But when, after much searching in those portions of her raiment which looked as though they might be large enough to conceal a minute pocket, she showed him Helen’s wrist-watch upon her palm, then he moved close to her and crushed her hand in both of his until he almost broke her fingers, as she told him how Helen had given it to her in memory of old times.
“ ... I give it to you,” she said at last.
It was a sacrifice.
Smothered in jewels as she was, yet, with the delight some Orientals have in the purloined object, she coveted that looted watch more than all her rubies, emeralds, pearls and diamonds put together in a heap.
He sat for a long time with the tragic, lying, little token in his hand, then turned and looked into the doe-like eyes, which looked fearlessly back into his.
“And this is all? You have nothing else, no little thing, a handkerchief, a hair-pin, anything, no matter how trivial, that belonged to your old school friend?”
Zarah shook her beautiful head and sighed as she lied once more with the ease of long-established custom, and the certainty of being able before long to give some foundation to the lie.
“Nozing! No little zing! We bur-r-ried her-r, as I have told you, in her-r cloze. She was not beautiful to look upon.Aï, aï, she was not pr-r-etty in ze gr-r-eat sleep, so we bur-r-ied her-r-r deep, deep in ze comfor-r-ting sands, which tell no tales.”
She rose once more as she spoke and trailed across the marble floor to the door.
Perchance she wished to study astronomy or, perchance, to draw a comparison between the beauty of those who live in luxury and the disfigurement of those who die in battle. Whatever her intent, she certainly made a strikingpicture as she leaned against the lintel, wrapped in a sheath of black and silver.
Ralph Trenchard stared at her, his eyes wandering from the red curls to the small feet in silver sandals.
She knew his eyes to be upon her, and turned slowly sideways and sighed as she raised her bare arms above her head so that their creamy whiteness shone against the purple background of the sky; she sighed again and pressed her hands upon the spot where by rights her heart should have been, whilst her melting eyes showed fine specimens of the tears of the crocodile as she inwardly asked herself if, in the whole world, there was to be found anything quite so slow as an Englishman.
And he sat and gazed and gazed at the exquisite figure, in which he saw the golden head and the broad shoulders, the slender waist and the polished riding-boots, of the girl to whom he had given the gold watch he held in his hand.
He sat quite still for a long time, stunned with horror, then, quite unconscious of what he did, caused the beautiful Arabian to totally lose her bearings, so that fear, jealousy and love linked hands in her heart and drove her down the road of tragedy which had been marked out for her through the ages.
Saying nothing, he smiled at her and held out his hand, so that, completely on the wrong tack, she ran to him, the silver embroidery glittering in response to her fast-beating heart; then he kissed her hand in gratitude, which was just about the most idiotic thing he could have done, and, considering all things, spoke words of equal idiocy into her willing ear.
“You will come and talk to me to-morrow, will you not?” By talk he meant talk of Helen, but how on earth was the Arabian to know that? “You will? Thank you so much, so very much!” He stopped; then, in his craving to regain his strength so as to get away from the horror of the place where Helen lay dead, hidden fromhim for ever in the ghastly sands, misled the Arabian entirely. “Can I walk about the camp? Can I have a horse or a camel or something to ride in the desert so as to get really strong?”
“Ride with me?”
She barely whispered the words.
“Rather! If you have the time to spare. It would be awfully kind of you. Then we could talk about the school you were at and everything.”
By which he meant Helen’s schooldays and Helen’s illness and Helen’s death; but how was the Arabian, blinded by love and vanity, to know that, especially as out of sheer gratitude he held her hand in both of his whilst he talked.
He took her to the steps and watched her descend, then turned and flung himself upon the divan with the watch against his lips, whilst Zarah the Cruel, wide awake to the danger of his walking amongst her men whilst Helen remained in the camp, climbed the narrow path to the building where dwelt the girl he thought to be dead.
“May her envier stumble over her hair.”—Arabic Proverb.
“May her envier stumble over her hair.”—Arabic Proverb.
She had told Ralph Trenchard that the girl was dead, when not only was she alive, but a person of some consequence in the camp through the thrice cursed episode of the black mare.
Knowing nothing about constancy and honour and about as much about the question of nationality in marriage, she was firmly convinced that in time the white man, forgetting Helen, would succumb to her beauty and marry her.
But before that thrice blessed day, even before he left his dwelling to walk with her in the camp as he had just suggested, the girl must disappear so that the unluckylie should have a slight foundation of truth, as have so many falsehoods in the East when sifted to the bottom.
Once the girl was dead she would rely upon her own power over her own people to prevent the real facts of the case from reaching his ears.
The first thing was to find a way of ridding herself of the girl who stood as an obstacle in that path of peace and love which ended in the white man’s heart, but, above all, a way which would cause no comment amongst the men. The way was shown her, startlingly clear and simple, within the hour.
She cursed herself, the lie, fate and the black mare as she climbed the steep steps to Helen’s prison.
If only she had not saved the girl in the first place, if only, in the second, she had not so foolishly allowed Helen to win the men’s hearts by her magnificent horsemanship, if only she had not lied. If it had not been for that thrice cursed episode with Lulah, the mare, she would not have hesitated an hour ridding herself of the girl, either by sending her back to civilization under escort or by some more drastic method.
Up till then the white girl had meant nothing more than a prisoner to the men, and the disappearance of a prisoner, even one of the white race, would have been no subject of comment amongst them. As it was she could do nothing.
The Nubian reported that the men constantly talked about Helen; exercised their best horses in the hope that she would one day ride out in the desert with them, either to hunt ostrich with cheetahs or to lead them to the attack on some caravan or company of Bedouins. They had taken to standing at the foot of the steep steps to gamble upon the chance of seeing her come out upon the platform, whilst gossip ran high as to the relationship between her and the white man whom the half-caste had saved from the sands of death.
So that she cursed herself over and over again for the lie she had told Ralph.
She lied by nature and by habit; in fact, she found it easier and a good deal more enjoyable to lie than to tell the truth, but she had lied without giving herself time to look at the result of this particular lie from every point of view.
The surly negress, with the gait of a lame hen, rose from her squatting position as her dire mistress passed up the steps, and retired still farther into the shadows, where she occupied herself in the pleasant and stimulating, if not too elegant, task of chewingKaatas a relaxation from the dull work of spying upon the gentle white girl.
Zarah stood for a moment and looked through the doorway at Helen. She sat upon a pile of cushions, reading by the light of a silver lamp hanging from the ceiling.
Certain that the negress had replaced Namlah for the purpose of carrying reports about her, she had made up her mind that nothing but reports of normal behaviour should be carried.
She woefully missed the peace and austerity of the other dwelling, also the view of the desert through the cleft, and of the plateau with the rushing, sparkling river; but she made no sign, neither did she complain about the heat, which was so much greater, nor about the clutter of Persian rugs, cushions and tables, which only served to intensify it. She had been told that her old dwelling-place had been required for certain prisoners, and that on their account she had been forbidden to walk outside. Not a word of which she believed.
Certain that eyes continually watched her, she forced herself to read; constantly on the lookout for danger, she smiled upon and spoke gently to the surly negress, who would not open her lips or respond in any way to her friendly advances. She was putting up a plucky fight against loneliness and anxiety. But it was not likely thatZarah should understand the moral strength which sustained the English girl in the long, weary days of silence and confinement. It would have suited the Arabian better to have seen her crying her eyes out, or pacing the floor in agitation; anything, in fact, rather than sitting quietly reading; so that she made a quick gesture of impatience, upon which Helen looked up, shut her book with a snap, and sprang to her feet.
“Zarah!” she cried. “It’s ages since I’ve seen you. You haven’t been near me since I was moved from my old place. Have you got rid of the bad prisoners? I am so tired of being cooped up in here!”
Zarah sat down on a pile of cushions and lit a cigarette, as an answer to her difficulties flashed across her mind at Helen’s words.
“You want to walk? You do not like being a pr-r-isoner-r your-r-self. You ar-r-e no pr-r-isoner. You must not go acr-r-oss ze plateau, but ozerwise ze place is all your-r-s.”
As one could not move out of the place without crossing the plateau, the all-ness seemed to be limited to the building and a small space behind, surrounded by towering rocks at which even the goats looked askance.
Helen knew it, and suddenly changed the subject. She wanted to get leave to wander about the place as she used to do; she wanted to find the secret path and to speak to Namlah; she wanted desperately to escape, but she knew Zarah’s astuteness and had a faint conception of her intense hatred for herself; so went warily in her demand for a little more liberty and changed the subject.
“I wonder what this building was used for?” she said, slowly passing her finger over a roughly carved stone panel, tracing the outline of a fish, some kind of a waterfowl and a cross, carved in the centre of a disc in the fifth century by the Holy Fathers. “The age almost makes me creep, and I often wonder if the dead fathers come back at night to walk about their old home.”
Zarah sprang to her feet in a positive whirlwind of gestures against spirits.
“You br-ring ze bad luck upon your-r-self and ze place, Helena. Nozing comes her-re or-r leaves her-r-e without my per-r-mission.”
Helen seized the opportunity and crossed quickly to where Zarah stood, marvelling at her beauty.
“Zarah,” she said sweetly, “whenare you going to find the time to take me to Hutah. I do so want to get back. Do you know what I’ve been thinking?” Zarah shook her head as she looked at Helen, raging inwardly at the English girl’s beauty, especially the golden hair, which, for coolness sake, hung in two great plaits to her knees. “You come with me and stay with me on a return visit, and together we will try and find out what has become of Ralph Trenchard, because I am sure he is alive. I should know if he wasn’t, I am sure I should.”
Zarah turned abruptly away, swinging her cloak about her so that her mouth was hidden. She wanted to laugh, and she wanted to strike the English girl for the possessive way in which she always spoke of the sick man, whom she, Zarah, had nursed so assiduously for days and nights; also could she willingly have killed her on the spot for the almost irreparable mistake she had caused her to make by lying about her death.
Helen saw nothing of the girl’s fury; she had bent to pick up a box of chocolates, whilst the surly negress watched her through the doorway and inelegantly wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Have a sweet, Zarah,” Helen said gently, offering the box, “and then be really nice and take me for a walk. I shall die if I don’t get a scramble amongst the rocks.”
“Wher-r-e do you want to go?” Zarah asked, as she zealously filled her mouth with the sweetmeats the surly negress coveted.
“I do so want to see the spear which was flung at your father, and then”—Helen laughed so that her request should not be taken too seriously—“then couldn’t wewalk across the wonderful hidden path to the desert, then walk back? I’ll pin your train up if you’ve got a safety pin. Youarebeautiful, Zarah; I can’t think why you haven’t been married years ago.”
Zarah whirled round on her like a tiger-cat. In her violent jealousy she thought the other sneered at her; in her littleness of mind she failed to catch the ring of honest admiration in the girl’s voice.
“Mar-r-ried!” she shrilled. “I am going to be mar-r-ried soon, and you won’t be her-r-e to see the cer-r-emony. Oh, do go away!” She pushed Helen roughly on one side when she put out her hand in congratulation. “We Ar-r-rabians do not expand over-r ze idea of mar-r-riage as you English do.” She walked to the door as she added insolently, “We have no old maids, and I am younger zan you,” then clapped her hands and called the surly negress shrilly, angrily.
“Methinks a whip upon the soles would hasten thy feet,” she cried furiously, as the woman ran forward and flung herself face downwards. “Thou three-footed jackal, get up!” She struck the woman in the face when she opened her mouth, from which no coherent sound came, owing to her tongue having been split in her youth for misdemeanour, and struck again, until Helen caught her by the shoulder and flung her on one side, whereupon the negress fell on her knees, bowed her head to the ground and kissed the Arabian’s feet.
“You stop that, Zarah!”
The words sounded like the crack of a whip as the two beautiful girls faced each other over the crouching woman.
“She’s dumb, and I never knew it! It’s awful!”
“You fool!” replied the Arabian. “Her husband beats her after every meal, and sometimes between. Get up!” She kicked the woman, who leapt to her feet and stood shivering with bent head.
“The white woman has a desire for exercise after her long confinement owing to the unruliness of the prisoners.Dost hear, thou fool? She wishes to walk across the path of peril even to the far side. It is dangerous, and I have tried to prevail against her. One step too far, as thou knowest, and she passes into the keeping of Allah, the one and only God. Watch thou and pray to Allah for her safe return.”
The negress watched them walk slowly along the narrow path until they were out of sight; then, with all the cunning of her race in her rolling eyes, and all a child’s glee at its naughtiness, crept back to the room, and, sidling along the wall, grabbed a handful of French chocolates. If she had waited one instant longer she might have seen a hidden figure crawl away between the rocks as silently as a snake.
Blind Yussuf went quickly amongst the rocks, as at home and as sure of his footing in his blindness as any goat. He crept through incredibly small places, swinging himself hand over hand at a height where no person with vision would have dared to have even moved, arrived at the cleft, thanks to the short cut, ahead of the girls, dropped like a cat from rock to rock, then, slipping like a shadow between the boulders, sat down in the shadow near the thrown spear.
He listened to the girls’ voices as they made their way down the steep incline. “‘A mouth that prays, a hand that kills.’” He drew a finger down the scars upon his face as he quoted the proverb and sat like an image of Fate as the girls stopped quite close to him at the beginning of the path.
“It is quite hard, you see,” said Zarah, as she bent and drove her fingers through a few inches of the wet sand. “It is not quite three of your yards wide.”
“But how wonderful!” Helen bent and dug her fingers in, then moved them along sideways until her whole hand disappeared into soft, wet, warm sand which pulled it gently. “How dreadful!” Then she laughed. She had found her way to the secret path and learned its secret. “I tell you what! You lead the way out, Zarah,then we’ll turn and I’ll tread in our footsteps and lead you back.”
Zarah laughed also, suddenly, shrilly.
The way showed clear. The end was in sight! Upon the return journey she had but to push Helen gently and all the difficulties arising out of the accursed lie would be over.
She made a step and put her sandalled foot upon the path, then turned her head and stood quite still, her face convulsed with fury.
Like some great guardian spirit Blind Yussuf stood just behind Helen.
“It is not wise, O mistress,” he said gently, “to venture upon the perilous path this night of strong wind. It bloweth from the west unto the east, so that the wayfarer is like to be blown into the sands of death. It is not wise, O mistress, and thanks be to Allah that I heard voices as I passed and followed with great swiftness. Nay, verily it is not wise.”
He spoke gently, his great cloak hanging motionless in the still night, and salaamed to the ground when the Arabian, without a word, beckoned to the bewildered Helen and swiftly retraced her steps.
Back in her prison, Helen walked out to the space behind the dwelling to think over matters as the moon rose over the edge of the mountains. She looked up when a stone rattled down the side to her feet.
Upon a ledge to which a goat would have hardly dared to climb sat Yussuf. He put his fingers to his lips as he looked down at the girl he could not see but whom he had recognized by her footstep. “A ti balak,” he whispered, then rose and swung himself from rock to rock by the way he had come, whilst Helen stood looking up until he disappeared, frozen with fear for his safety; then, more determined than ever, through his warning, to try and find a means of escape, turned and entered her dwelling, just as Zarah entered hers and summoned Al-Asad.