Chapter Thirty Five.
Betrayed!
That night, as I lay without undressing in the little tent the outlaws of the Desert had assigned to me, I was kept awake for a long time by the sound of voices and the clang of arms. While half the camp slept, the remainder were apparently cleaning their rifles, and sharpening their jambiyahs, preparatory, I presumed, to some wild foray. For a long time I lay wondering whether Halima would find her undeclared lover in the camp, or whether he was lying in the sand, sleeping until the blast of Israfîl’s golden trumpet. Under my pillow reposed the time-worn case containing the Crescent of Glorious Wonders, but my letter of introduction had, alas! been filched from me by Labakan. Was it not possible, I thought, that this evil-faced scoundrel was in the camp. If so, what more probable than that, finding he had not killed me as he intended, he would denounce me to Hadj Absalam as the Roumi who had escaped them after being condemned to death? Such reflections were not calculated to induce sleep; nevertheless, weakened as I was by my wound, the journey had greatly fatigued me, and at last I grew drowsy and unconscious, and became haunted by strange dreams.
I must have been asleep for some hours when a light pressure upon my shoulder awakened me.
“Utter not a word,” whispered a soft female voice in my ear. “Danger besetteth thee, but thou, O stranger, art with friends solicitous of thy welfare.”
Turning, I glanced upward, and the streak of moonlight that entered revealed a woman enshrouded so completely by her garments that I could not tell whether she were old or young.
“Who art thou?” I whispered, now wide awake and on the alert at her warning of danger. About her there clung an odour of attar of rose.
“I am but a messenger. Rise and follow me in silence,” she answered.
“Whither dost thou desire to conduct me?” I inquired, rather dubiously, for I had a vague, apprehensive feeling now that I was among these murderous outlaws.