“Aggie?”
“Arthur—Arthur, for God’s sake!” she shrilled, as with something between a snarl and a roar, he impulsively whipped out the light.
“H-Help! Oh Arth——”
Thus did they celebrate the “Royal engagement.”
XIII
Behind the heavy moucharabi in the little dark shop of Haboubet of Egypt all was song, fête and preparation. Additional work, had brought additional hands, and be-tarbouched boys in burnooses, and baskets of blossoms, lay strewn all over the floor.
“Sweet is the musk-rose of the Land of Punt!
Sweet are the dates from Khorassân ...
But bring me (O wandering Djinns) the English rose, the English apple!
O sweet is the land of the Princess Elsie,
Sweet indeed is England——”
Bachir’s voice soared, in improvisation, to a long-drawn, strident, wail.
“Pass me the scissors, O Bachir ben Ahmed, for the love of Allah,” a young man with large lucent eyes, and an untroubled face, like a flower, exclaimed, extending a slender, keef-stained hand.
“Sidi took them,” the superintendent of the Duchess of Varna replied, turning towards an olive-skinned Armenian youth, who, seated on an empty hamper, was reading to a small, rapt group, the Kairoulla Intelligence aloud.