It barked angrily, at which sound the little woman shook her head.
“Verily, ’tis a dog!” she whispered. “When the blind one shall have carried her Excellency safely by the steep and dangerous path, which is midway between here and where Zarah the Merciless sleeps, then will he bark thrice, and in all the kennels there is not one who can say if it be a dog which barks or Yussuf. Methinks, he is over long upon the road.” She clasped her hands together upon her faithful heart. “Has mischance befallen them? Does your Excellency think that mischance causeth him to tarry thus?”
Mischance did not cause Yussuf to tarry. Seated in the shadows beneath the window through which Namlah had spied upon the Arabian and Al-Asad, he waited calmly for the moment of his revenge.
There was utter silence and stillness inside the building. No sound of voice or movement gave Yussuf any indication as to what had taken place in the last hour, neither in his blindness had he any means by which to find out if the Arabian slept or if she lay awake upon the divan watching the stars through the doorway.
He sat as immovable as the Fate to which, as an Arab, he was resigned, and he made no movement when Zarah’s mocking laugh suddenly broke the silence.
Helen sat on the floor with her back against the wall, the light from the lamp shining on the golden curls which were to be shaven on the morrow.
A shaven crown!
The Hindoo widow! The vision of bald pate seen in the Mirror ’twixt the curtains of the hair-dresser’s cubicle! The asvogel sitting disconsolately on its perch in the Zoological Gardens.