“Besides, some one must pay old Sĕra the two hundred and fifty piastres due her,” he muttered, somewhat confused. “It was the contract, and she will not let the girl come unless she has the money.”
“Send Ebbek to me.”
The dragoman obeyed. He did not like Kāra’s manner. He might, in truth, be in danger if he persisted in protesting. No one was so deep as he in his master’s confidence. But what did he know? Merely enough to cause him to fear.
Ebbek performed the mission properly. He not only paid Sĕra her due, but gave her five gold pieces into the bargain, by his master’s instructions; and he brought the girl, closely veiled, to Cairo and delivered her to Kāra’s housekeeper.
The rooms of the harem had been swept and prepared. They were very luxurious, even for Cairo, and Nephthys was awed by the splendor of the apartments to be devoted to her use. Her dark, serious eyes, glorious as those attributed to the houris of Paradise, wandered about the rooms as she sank upon a divan, too dazed to think or speak.
Neither faculty was a strong point with Nephthys, however. Meekly she had obeyed the summons from the master who had purchased her. She did not try to consider what that summons might mean to her. What use? It was her fate. Perhaps at times she had dimly expected such a change. Kāra had once mentioned to her mother the possibility of his sending for her; but she had not dwelt upon the matter at all.
In the same listless manner that she had carried water from the Nile and worked at the loom she followed old Ebbek to Cairo, leaving her mother to gloat over her store of gold.
The journey across the river was a new experience to her—the journey by railway was wonderful; but she showed no interest. The great eyes calmly saw all, but the brain was not active enough to wonder. She had heard of such things and knew that they existed. Now she saw them—saw marvelous Cairo, with its thousand domes and minarets, its shifting kaleidoscope of street scenes, its brilliant costumes and weird clamor—and the medley of it all dulled her senses.
In a way she was really amused; but the amusement was only sensual. This costume was more gorgeous than the braided jacket of Tadros the dragoman, she observed; that house was better than the one old Hatatcha had lived in. But beyond this vague comparison, the sights were all outside her personal participation in them. The part she herself was playing on the world’s great stage, the uncertainty of her immediate future, the reason why this tall, gray-bearded Arab was escorting her to Cairo, were all things she failed to consider.
So it was that on her entry into Kāra’s splendid harem the girl could not at first understand that the luxury surrounding her was prepared for her especial use. Had she comprehended this fact, she would still have been unable to imagine why.