“Nay, the scribe spoke very freely to us all. But who cares for a woman’s tongue?”
“It don’t seem to strike you that it was a queer dodge to play tricks of that sort on your Princess, sheikh. Was it just at the beginning of her reign?”
The sheikh looked straight at Mr Hicks with blank, expressionless eyes. His burst of confidence was clearly at an end. “This is the door of the house of Sitt Zeynab, and here is the scribe of the Great Princess,” he said. “Peace be upon thee, O lady!”
“And upon thee be peace!” replied the veiled woman, in Arabic. “Are the Princess’s letters with thee?”
The sheikh took a leather bag from the front of his saddle, where it had excited the unavailing curiosity of his guests throughout the journey, and presented it respectfully.
“The Princess perceived that one of thy men was being carried in a litter, and she desired to know what had happened, and whether he was badly hurt. But who are these?” There was a wild alarm in her voice, as she caught sight of the travel-stained Norfolk suits of Mr Hicks and Mansfield, whose uniform of abba and kaffiyeh had rendered them until this moment indistinguishable from the Arabs, and she staggered back against the door-post.
“O lady, these men are the servants of the Prince of the Jews, whom we have brought hither from Es Sham to see what is the will of the Princess concerning him. He professes much goodwill towards our tribe, desiring to enter into a treaty with the great lady, and we have perceived that he is a lucky person.”
“Where is he? Let me see him.” The bearers of the litter had deposited their burden upon the ground, and she bent forward to look at it. A convulsive shiver ran through her frame, and she sprang back as though she had seen a snake. “That man?” she ejaculated, and Mr Hicks and Mansfield both observed that her grey eyes, the only feature visible between the folds of her veil, were dilated by anger or horror until the black alone was visible. “O son of misfortune, why hast thou brought him here? He is the Princess’s deadliest enemy, the man that has most injured her in all the world.”
“It may be that he desires to make atonement, O lady,” suggested the sheikh deprecatingly.
“To make atonement—he? Nay, rather to do more mischief,” and she bestowed a dainty but vicious kick upon Cyril’s unconscious form. “Take him and his companions to the vaults, O sheikh, and keep them there safely until they shall return to their own country.”