True, he had not subsisted upon a handful of dates and unlimited cups of strong coffee throughout the day, but Yussuf’s whispered word, the youth’s strange pantomime, a certain watchfulness he noticed amongst the men, and an extraordinary solicitude for his comfort and welfare on the part of Zarah, had wellnigh brought him to the limit of endurance during the past week. The novelty had worn off, the salt had lost its savour, and he had determined, poor, unsuspecting soul, as he waited to make his way to the great Hall to witness the dancing, to start for Hutah within the next ten days.
In one word, everyone was on tenter-hooks this festive eve, and as ready to fly at each other’s throat as any two wild beasts of the desert. The rock-pigeons, sparrows, hoopoes and other birds which abounded in this watered sanctuary in a desert waste rose in clouds at the ringing shouts of laughter and ribald jokes with which the men greeted Zarah’s herald, the camp jester, in the misshapen form of a dwarf holding a veritable tangle of black and white monkeys. Following him came four handsome youths carrying gigantic circular fans of peacock feathers, and after them fifteen little maids—who ought to have been abed—with bowls of perfumed water, which they sprinkled on the floor.
Then the men sprang to their feet and shouted, until Helen, alone, desperate from the solitude of the last terrible week, ran to her door, only to be pushed back, and none too gently, by the surly negress, who longed inordinately to be with her sisters as they devoured the remains of the great feast.
Zarah entered alone, her immense jewel-encrusted train sweeping like a flood over Yussuf’s feet as he crept stealthily along the wall and slipped through the door into the night.
For an instant she stopped so that the men should fully take in the beautiful picture she made against the flaring orange lining of her train.
Her limbs showed snow-white through the transparent voluminous trousers, her body, bare save for the glittering breast-plates and jewelled bands which held it, shone like ivory, whilst she seemed to tower, even amongst her men, owing to the mass of black and orange osprey which sprang from the centre of her jewelled head-dress.
Fifteen little boys—who too ought to have been abed—spread wide her train as she walked slowly over the wonderful mosaic floor, with all the grace of her Andalusian mother, between the rows of shouting men. She stayed for one moment as she drew level with the Nubian standing like a giant, and, under the impulse of her innate cruelty, looked at him sweetly from half-closed eyes.
He raised his hands to his forehead, so that a mark made by pearly teeth showed upon his arm, and looked at her from head to foot and smiled as the crimson swept her face. Then he gathered the full burden of her train into his arms and followed her up the seven steps and spread it wide as she sat down in the ivory chair, then knelt and kissed her knees and her golden-sandalled feet.
She leant back and watched the thirty children climb on to the stone stools, upon which had sat the thirty Holy Fathers centuries ago, and looked down at the hawklike, eager men who watched her, and up to the star-strewn, vaulted ceiling, from which hung silver lamps which drew lustre from her jewels and her eyes and the precious stones glittering in the columns.
Against the golden background of the Byzantine wall, with the great fans moving slowly above her head, she was barbaric in her beauty, and not for one moment did she or the men doubt that the white man had fallen a victim to her enchantment.