“Nay! thou wine-bibber,” she shrilled. “What if thy mistress did place the safekeeping of the white woman in thy useless hands? Nay! thou shalt not push me to the side of this accursed path so that thy legs, which may Allah strike with numbness, may carry thee with speed to the post thou didst forget in thy drunkenness. Keep thou behind me, lest I break the jar upon thy empty head and waste the precious water upon thy unclean body, which is fit carrion for the birds of prey. What sayest thou? Thou wouldst but look upon the white woman? So that thou mayst see her with thine own eyes? Verily shalt thou, if thou canst see for the wine with which thou hast filled thy vile and accursed body.”
Yussuf lifted Helen bodily into his arms.
“‘If thou seest a wall inclining, run from under it.’” He quoted the proverb as he carried her swiftly up the mountainside by a steep short cut, as sure-footed as a goat, as certain of his path as if he had eyes. “It is not the hour, but let her Excellency remember that Yussuf is her servant in all things.” He put her gently on her feet upon a ledge from which she could climb to the platform. “Remember, too, that when the hour does strike, then will Yussuf strike also. ‘Patience brings victory to the blind and to the prisoner.’”
A few moments later Helen stood just inside the doorway, listening to the violent altercation upon the steps.
There came the crash of a breaking jar, torrents of execration and imprecation, then silence, and, in spite of her disappointment, she smiled as she watched Namlah, slowly and with much dignity, climbing the steps, with a dripping wet individual in the rear.
“Seest thou the white woman with thine own eyes? Yea! Then sit thou there, thou dog!” cried Namlah at the top of her voice. “Nay, upon the second step. Wouldst force thy company upon thy betters? And may Allah strike thee with cold for having forgotten thy duty to thy mistress, so that thou diest of palsy before the dawn.”
There was a twinkle of laughter in the depths of the brown eyes as she combed the prisoner’s golden hair.
Is not intrigue as the breath of life to the Oriental?