Qatim had given out that the woman was bewitched, and that death, instantaneous and horrible, would be the fate awaiting anyone but himself who should speak to her or look upon her unveiled face before the setting of the sun—some of us Christians refuse to walk under ladders—and, although it entailed much fetching and carrying and marketing on his part, still, it ensured them solitude.
"And you saw him?"
She spoke with a sibilant intaking of breath, caused by the twist to her mouth.
"Yes; with a beautiful white woman—another. They have come from
Assouan by the boat."
"Not the girl who rode in the desert with———"
She touched the purple angry marks on her cheek.
"Nay, woman; I have told thee, she walks in the blackness of the ruins, with the man who caused thee thy hurt. She drives with him," he spat, "she should take thy place in the bazaar, O Zulannah of the thousand lovers."
The woman paid no heed to the jibe.
"Who told thee?"
"Behold, the night-watchman of the big hotel upon the edge of the water sent me word."