“It may be fire; on the morrow it will be ashes.”—Arabic Proverb.
From dawn till dusk the day of festival had been passed in brief, light-hearted excursions into the desert, sports, and those infantile amusements so dear to the complex Oriental mind, during all of which Zarah had walked amongst her men with Ralph Trenchard at her side.
Anticipating the great feast which would be spread for them an hour after sunset, the men refrained from eating more than a handful of dates, whilst drinking innumerable cups of black coffee, so that they moved about restlessly during the day, walking lightly and talking excitedly, with eyes which shone like polished stones.
They chased each other like goats over the rocks, wrestled friendly-wise like boys, inspected the cooking-pots and worried, almost to death, the patient, downtrodden womenfolk, whose only share of the entertainment would be the scraps left over from the feast.
So mercurial became the atmosphere towards sunset that the men roared with laughter when, laden with a bowl of spicy stew, of which the chief ingredients were kangaroo-rat and rice, the fourth wife of Bowlegs slipped on the steps and immersed herself in the succulent mess. They picked her up and, in all fun, threw her into the river, and stripped and dived in after her, fighting each other for the privilege of saving her, before she disappeared into the cavern through which the river raced. They fought each other light-heartedly. They looked upon Zarah the Beautiful more in the light of a trust from the dead Sheikh whom they had loved than their real leader. Superstition and animal magnetism bound them to her more than anything else, and they saw no harm in her marrying the white prisoner for a space, so long as there should be nothing permanent in the union.
Everything had been arranged for a happy ending to the day.
After the feast Zarah and her white lover would appear, followed by one of the many bands of the Ghowazy-Barameke, which are formed from a certain tribe of hereditary prostitutes who wander through city, town and village and from oasis to oasis.
Following that diversion, the Patriarch would arise, clothed in new raiment, to acquaint the white man of the honour which the community intended to confer upon him, incidentally allowing him to understand that, if he liked, he could choose death in preference to tying a tiger-cat to his hearthrug.
Not that they thought he would for one moment.
They knew of the long hours the two had spent together far into the night; of the rides à deux they had taken in the desert at sunrise, sunset, and in the light o’ the moon; had seen him clasping the girl to his heart after the passing of the poisonous pestilence only seven days ago, and, quite naturally, had put their own construction upon it all.