CHAPTER XV
“A rose fell to the lot of a monkey.”—Arabic Proverb.
Zarah and Al-Asad sat in consultation.
Two beautiful beings in whom cunning stood for brain and nether millstones for hearts—where others were concerned.
To enhance her beauty in the eyes of the white man, who looked upon her but indifferently, the Arabian had worn a transparent yashmak, dyed her finger tips, plastered her person with as many jewels as she could fasten on to her garments, and walked like a cat on hot bricks or a mannequin or a Spaniard. In the presence of the Nubian, who loved her with all the might of his half-savage soul, she sat cross-legged on a pile of cushions, smoking endless cigarettes, wound in a wrapping of silk, which she kept in its place by tucking the ends in, and with her bare feet thrust into heelless slippers. She was far more beautiful in her simplicity than in her most extravagant apparel, if she had only known it, and a furnace would have but mildly described the tumult of love which she aroused in her magnificent slave.
An hour had passed since she had hastily summoned him on her return from her meeting with her blind enemy at the beginning of the secret path—an hour in which they had talked and suggested and yet had failed to find a way out of the difficulty which had arisen out of her lie.
“Thinkest thou, O Al-Asad, that the blind one knew?”
“I know not, mistress,” he said slowly. “Perchance ’tis Fate who guides his feet continually across thy path, or maybe the wind of chance. Yet can we do nothing.”
He touched an amulet of good luck at his neck; the Arabian made a circle in the air with her fingers.