“All!” gasped my companion, dismayed. “It is Zulaimena! Yesterday she ruled the harem, but this morning it was whispered into our lord’s ear that she had tried to poison him, and he condemned her and myself to be given alive to the alligators,” and she shuddered at thought of the fate which awaited her if detected.
Conversing only in whispers, we waited till the palace was hushed in sleep. Then, when she had attired herself in one of my old serving-dresses and bound her hair tightly, we crept cautiously out into the moonlit court. Over the horse-shoe arch of the harem-gate the single light burned yellow and faint, while on either side the guards crouched, their dead fingers still grasping their ponderous scimitars. All was still, therefore quietly and swiftly we passed into the Court of the Treasury, and thence into that of the Eunuchs. Here we were instantly challenged by two guards with drawn swords, clansmen of those who lay dead at the harem-gate.
“Whence goest thou?” they both enquired with one voice, suddenly awakened from gazing mutely at the stars, their blades flashing in the moonbeams.
“Our master, the Grand Vizier, has had an apoplexy, and is dying!” I cried, uttering the first excuse that rose to my lips. “Let not his life be upon thine heads, for we go forth to seek the court physician Ibrahim.”
“Speed on the wings of haste!” they cried. “May the One Merciful have compassion upon him!”
Thus we passed onward, relating the same story at each gate, and being accorded the same free passage, until at last we came to an enormous steel-bound door which gave exit into the city; the gate which was closed and barred by its ponderous bolts at the maghrib hour, and opened not until dawn save for the dark faced Sultan himself.
Here I gave exactly the same account of our intentions to the captain of the guard. He chanced to be a friend of my master’s, and was greatly concerned when I vividly described his critical condition.
“Let the slaves pass!” I heard him cry a moment later, and, with a loud creaking, the iron-studded door which had resisted centuries of siege and battle, slowly swung back upon its creaking hinges. At that instant, however, a prying guard raised his lantern and held it close to my companion’s face.
“By the Prophet’s beard, a woman!” he cried aloud, starting back, an instant later. “We are tricked!”
“Seize them!” commanded the captain, and in a moment three guards threw themselves upon us. Swift as thought I drew my keen jambiyah, my trusty knife which I had ever carried in my sash throughout my captivity, and plunged it into the heart of the first man who laid hands upon me, while a second later the man who gripped Zohra, received a cut full across his broad negro features which for ever spoilt his beauty. Then, with a wild shout to my companion to follow, I dashed forward and ran for my life.