United States or Mali ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Ali Higg was pleased to condescend. He took the bowl in both hands, muttered a blessing, and drank deep, swallowing about half the stuff before he noticed its strange flavor. Then he flung the priceless bowl away from him, smashing it to atoms, and picked up his rifle to take an aim at Ayisha. "By Allah, the bint* has poisoned me!"
For a moment I caught sight of Ayisha peering timidly between the end man and the wall to see, I suppose, whether the Lion was dead yet but the minute I caught her eye she disappeared. Grim stooped down over Ali Higg, who was sprawling on his stomach on a Persian rug. "Has my hakim relieved Your Honor's pain?" he asked. The Lion managed to sit upright.
"All right," I said, "I'll do anything you say." But I did not have the perfect voice-control I would have liked, and Jael Higg grinned. That naturally settled it. "Narayan Singh needn't come if he'd rather stay with you," I added, and the Sikh raised his eyebrows. "Do you dare to make love to Ayisha, sahib?" he grinned. I began to see the general drift of the plan of campaign, and wondered.
"You told me," she said at last, "that you have poison in that box that would reach down to hell and slay the ifrits. Give me some of it." "Ya sit Ayisha. I need it all for the ifrits," I answered. "I will make no trouble for you," she said; and for a moment I suspected she meant to kill herself. "You are young and beautiful," I told her. "The world holds plenty of good for you yet."
At that Narayan Singh broke silence, and although he denied it afterward I know that his only motive was to get a little preliminary vengeance on Ayisha for the names she had called him. He maintains that he was "casting a stone, as it were, into a pond to see which way the ripples went." "Few women will refuse to follow a Pathan when honored by his admiration," he boomed.
If he asks where her four men are, tell him I'll bring them later. Be sure and make me out a great sheikh, and say I heard he is sick, so sent my hakim in advance to give him relief; then do your best for him, if he'll let you after Ayisha has done her worst," he added in a whisper. "Don't forget you're a darwaish. The more you jaw religion the better the old rascal will like you. See you soon.
Narayan Singh, growling in my ear incessantly, scented intrigue, and his Sikh blood tingled at the thought; he began to look more tolerantly on Ayisha as a mere instrument whom Grim would find some chance of using. "For the cleverest woman whom the devil ever sent to ruin men is after all but a lie that engulfs the liar. I know that man Jimgrim. She will dig a pit, but he will not fall into it.
The crowd gave way before us, and Ayisha thrust herself this and that way among them, breaking up groups, striking me over the wrist with the stick she had for flogging the camel because I tried to regain the rifle. By the time the rusty, creaking, groaning rattletrap of a train drew up there was not an element of cohesion left in the crowd.
Instead of trying to open it they were dragging it along the ground, and they were as pleased with themselves as two small dogs caught burying a boot. "She has given us money!" "Who has?" "The lady Ayisha. We are to bring her this, and she will take poison from it and put it in the other woman's food! So Jimgrim will be rid of her, and all will be well!"
Let us try this plan and see what comes of it." So we started off again to a running comment of contemptuous disapproval from the lady Ayisha, who seemed to think that no plan could be a good one unless it entailed murder.
Word Of The Day