CHAPTER XIV
Great stars flashed in a desert sky, a sky deep and soft, like purple velvet. They looked down on a sea of sand over which the wind roamed; and always and ever in its train there followed a sighing hiss, sometimes loud, sometimes soft, but always there, a constant, stealthy menace in the night.
In the dark depths, one great curling billow of sand showed, the coarse grass that fringed its crest looking like spray lashing through the night. Beneath, a little yellow fire glowed. In the glimmer a few ragged tents stood, patched and squalid dwellings. Among them mangy camels lay and groaned and gurgled and snored, with their long necks stretched along the sand, looking like prehistoric beasts.
Here and there half-naked men and boys slept and gaunt dogs prowled—slinking, furtive shadows through the encampment, nosing about for scraps of the evening meal.
There had been no meal for the owner of the caravan that night. A hunger that could not be assuaged with food, and a thirst that no drink could quench, raged within him. Now a burning lust kept sleep at bay and sent him prowling like some wild beast into the desert, hoping that there relief might be found.
But for him none was to be had there.
The blue of the sky was like the eyes of the girl he had lost. Her skin had rivalled the stars in its purity. The very fire that burnt outside of his squalid home mocked him. It was golden as her hair.
But for the Sultan that girl would be his. Now! This night. His, to hold within his arms—that milk-white maid!
He flung his arms out to the night, then strained them across his chest.
But for the Sultan all that maddening beauty would lie within his grip. His to crush and caress. His!
The thought was torture.
"Curse him! Curse him! Curse him!" he cried aloud to the mocking night.
Then he stretched grimy paws towards a voiceless heaven.
"Allah, give him into my hands, the Sultan Casim Ammeh, who has robbed me of the flower of my desire. That milk-white maid—a houri of thy sending. Guide my step to those who are his enemies. To those who would break him, as he has broken me. Surely a man so mighty has others as mighty who hate him. There are always kings ready to make war on other kings. Allah, most high, let me find them. Allah, most merciful, grant my prayer. Like the wind in the desert I will roam—to the east, the west, the north, the south—until I find them.—His enemies. Then I will deliver him unto their hands."
The mad prayer of a wandering feather merchant against his Sultan; the prayer of a man whom, in his wealth and power and arrogance, Casim Ammeh had not considered.
But one which was to bear fruit.