Ayesha and Schems-ed-dah were most welcoming. They had grown somewhat matronly, but otherwise time seemed to have left them untouched. As ever they were gorgeously dressed, bejeweled and painted up with carmine, henna and kohl. Fluttering and twittering about their ex-slave, they plied him with questions. He had been to the wars? Wounded? How many men had he killed? What was his rank? A kaid rahal of cavalry. . . . Ach! chut, chut! A great man! On the bodyguard! . . . Ay-ee! Was it true the Sultan’s favorite Circassians ate off pure gold? Was he married yet?
When he told them the recent plague in Morocco had killed both his wife and son their liquid eyes brimmed over. No whit less sympathetic were the three new beauties; they wept in concert, though ten minutes earlier Ortho had been an utter stranger to them. Their hearts were very tender. A black eunuch entered bearing the elaborate tea utensils. As he turned to go, MacBride called “aji,” pointing to the ground before him.
The slave threw up his hands in protest. “Oh, no, lord, please.”
“Kneel down,” the sailor commanded. “I’ll make you spring your ribs laughing, Saïd, my bonny. Give me your hand, Mohar.”
“Lord, have mercy!”
“Mercy be damned! Your hand, quick!”
The piteous great creature extended a trembling hand, was grasped by the wrist and twisted onto his back.
“Now, my pearls, my rosebuds,” said MacBride.
The five little birds of paradise tucked their robes about them and surrounded the prostrate slave, tittering and wriggling their forefingers at him. Even before he was touched he screamed, but when the tickling began in earnest he went mad, doubling, screwing, clawing the air with his toes, shrieking like a soul in torment—which indeed he was.
With the pearls and rosebuds it was evidently a favorite pastime; they tickled with diabolical cunning that could only come of experience, shaking with laughter and making sibilant noises the while—“Pish—piss-sh!” Finally when the miserable victim was rolling up the whites of his eyes, mouthing foam and seemed on the point of throwing a fit, MacBride released him and he escaped.