It was night. All was quiet. The courts, so full of colour and animation during the day, were hushed in silence, for the huge palace seemed asleep. Above, bright points of light shone, but there was no moon, and the Court of the Eunuchs was in darkness, save where over the gate of the harem a great swinging lamp of brass shed a yellow uncertain light upon the tall statuesque guards. Without questioning the man, I quickly washed his sword, cleaned it with cloths, and re-polished it with my stone. Then, with muttered thanks, he replaced it in its scabbard, and, stalking towards the harem, passed through the heavy iron doors and disappeared.
A bloody drama had been enacted! Another secret tragedy had occurred within those grim, massive walls that concealed the gorgeous Courts of Love!
Even as I gazed wonderingly at the great arched doorway through which so many hundreds of women had passed never to return alive, its iron portals again opened, and there appeared four black eunuchs, gaily attired in bright blue and gold, bearing upon a board some long object covered with a black cloth, from beneath which bright silks and filmy gauzes showed. Silently they marched onward close to where I stood, and as they passed, I saw a woman’s bare white arm hanging underneath the sable pall. It swung limp and helpless as the men strode through the court with their burden, and when they had gone, there remained on the still night air a subtle breath of attar of rose.
The pretty head of one of the Pearls of the Harem had been struck off by order of Hámed e’ Rufäy—the iron will of the great Sultan, Ruler of the Ahír and Defender of the Faith, had been obeyed!
Chapter Twenty Five.
The Eunuch’s Scimitar.
What dire events had led to the summary execution of the beauty who had just been carried out a corpse? Probably she had held brief sway over His Majesty, ruling the land from her soft silken divan, until one of her jealous sisters had, by intrigue, succeeded in displacing her in her fickle lord’s affections, and immediately the new favourite’s influence was sufficiently strong, she had used it to cause the death of her discarded but troublesome rival.
Sitting in my little den, with the shutter half closed, I was trying to picture to myself the scenes of brilliant festivity, of fierce hatred, and merciless revenge that were ever occurring within those zealously-guarded Courts of Love, when suddenly I heard Arabic spoken softly quite close to the entrance to my workshop. Without stirring, I listened with bated breath.