Chapter Twelve.
Mysteries of Eblis.
My mute conductress halted, listened intently, then placed her finger significantly on her lips. As she turned her half-veiled face towards me I saw in the flickering lamplight that her tattooed forehead was brown and wizened, that her dark, gleaming eyes were deeply sunken, and that her hand holding the lamp was thin, brown and bony.
The sounds that alarmed us ceased, and, after waiting a few moments, scarce daring to breathe, she descended several more stairs to a turn in the flight, and I found myself before a small, black door, which she quickly opened and closed again after we had passed through. Raising her finger to command silence, she moved along a narrow passage and then there commenced a toilsome ascent over great, roughly-hewn steps that I well remembered descending when, in the clutches of my captors, I had been roughly dragged from the apartment of my enchantress. With a nimbleness that showed a familiarity with their unevenness, she mounted, while I stumbled on behind, nearly coming to grief once or twice, and being compelled to save myself with my hands. In my eagerness to meet the woman who had entranced me, upward I toiled, until my breath came and went in short, quick gasps, and I was forced to rest a moment, while she also halted, smiling and turning the lamp towards me. The intricacies of these secret passages were puzzling and fatiguing, and I was anxious to pass into the well-remembered room wherein the Sultan’s daughter had, during so many weary moons, awaited me.
At last we stood before a door secured by a large iron bar, so heavy that old Ayesha could not draw it from its socket, but quickly I removed the barrier. The slave who had acted as my guide opened the door, drew aside the heavy curtain, and then stepping forward I found myself once again before the bright-eyed girl who desired my aid.
The place was dimly illumined by great hanging lamps of gold, which shed a soft and dubious light through cut crystals of green and crimson, and the air was sweetly scented by the odours of musk and cinnamon rising from the perfuming-pans. Azala, pale and beautiful, in her gorgeous harem dress, with arms, ankles and neck laden with jewels, was reclining with languorous grace upon her divan of light blue satin fringed with gold, that was placed in the alcove at the end of the apartment, her wealth of dark hair straying in profusion over the great, tasselled cushion of yellow silk. Her feet, tiny and well-formed, were bare, her pearl-embroidered slippers having been kicked aside, her pipe stood near, and upon a coffee-stool of ebony and gold stood a large silver dish of rare fruit, while kneeling beside her was a black female slave cooling her slowly with a fan of peacock’s feathers. Unnoticed by her, I stood for a few seconds, bewitched by her loveliness as she lay there in graceful abandon, her body saturated with perfumes, her soul filled with prayers.
“Welcome, O Zafar! Allah favoureth us!” she cried excitedly, springing to her feet the instant she recognised me, and, rushing across, grasping both my hands. “Thou hast brought happiness with thee.”
“At last, Azala,” I said, clasping her soft hands tenderly, and gazing into those brilliant black eyes that seemed to delight in the anxious curiosity which they aroused in my features. “Of a verity Allah is all-powerful and all-merciful. Our destinies are written in the Book, and therefore what is there left but to submit? For many moons have I striven to seek thee, to redeem the pledge I made unto thee, and now at last is our meeting accomplished.”
Noticing that I looked askance at the presence of Ayesha and the young negress, she waved her hand to them to retire. Then, when the curtains had fallen behind them, she led me slowly to her divan, saying in serious tones, “Come hither, O Zafar, I would have long and serious speech with thee.”