CHAPTER IX
The story which was thus repeated from mouth to mouth in Riad reached the palace at the last, and the guards told it to each other as they sat together under the shadow of the great wall, the cooks related it among themselves in the kitchen, and the black slaves gossiped about it in the corners of the courtyard, and the women slaves stood and listened while they talked and carried the tale into the harem. But the people of the palace were more slow to believe than the people of the city, for they shared in a measure in Khaled's right of possession, and desired no change of master, so that for a long time neither Zehowah nor Khaled heard anything of what was commonly reported. Yet at last the old woman who had been Zehowah's nurse told her the substance of the story, with many protestations of unbelief, and of anger against those who had invented the lie.
'It is right that my lady and mistress should know these things,' she said, 'and when our lord the Sultan has been informed of them, he will doubtless cause his soldiers to go forth with sticks and purify the hides of the chief evil-speakers in the bazar. There is one especially, a merchant whose shop is opposite the door of the little mosque, who is continually bold in falsehood, being the same who sold me this garment for linen; but it afterwards turned out to be cotton and the gold threads are brass and have turned black. I pray Allah to be just as well as merciful.'
At first Zehowah laughed, but soon afterwards her face became grave, and she bent her brows, for though the story was but a lie she saw how easily it would find credence. She therefore sent the old woman away with a gift and she herself went to Khaled, and sat down beside him and took his hand.
'You have secret enemies,' she said, 'who are plotting against your life, and who have already begun to attack you by filling the air of the city with falsehoods which fly from house to house like flies in summer entering at the window and going out by the door. You must sift this matter, for it is worthy of attention.'
'And what are these lies of which you speak?'
'It is said openly in the city that you are a Shiyah and a Persian, having been a robber before you came here, and that you are plotting to deliver over Nejed to the Persians. Look to this, Khaled, for they say that you are no Bedouin since no one knows your descent nor the name of your father.'
'Do you believe this of me, Zehowah?' Khaled asked.
'Do I believe that the sun is black and the night as white as the sun? But it is true that I do not know your father's name.'