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"I can't ride with you to-day. I am going to meet Saint Hubert. His courier only came an hour ago. It is two years since I have seen him." Diana slipped off the couch and went to the open doorway. A detachment of men were already waiting for him, and, close by the tent, Shaitan of the ugly temper was biting and fidgeting in the hands of the grooms.
That which had been Shaitan was visible below; and it was not pleasant to look at. "Lenox'll be cut up about that," he muttered as they lifted him cautiously on to the reeking strip of blanket. It was a dreary journey up that corkscrew footpath, inch-deep in running water, that led to the ordinary levels of life.
A cry of alarm went up from some who had watched him. But above that cry rang his sharp command: "Cease rowing!" The tomtom fell instantly silent, but the slaves took yet another stroke. "Cease rowing!" he commanded again. "Asad!" he called. "Bid them pause, or I'll blow you all straight into the arms of Shaitan." And he lowered the lantern until it rested on the very rim of the powder keg.
The longer he lived, the longer he served about this woebegone spot in mid Arizona, the more he realized the influence for evil that handmaid of Shaitan seemed to exert over his vain, shallow, yet beautiful and beloved wife. Against it he had wrought and pleaded in vain. Elise had been with them since her babyhood, was his wife's almost indignant reply.
"Forgive me," she murmured, her voice muffled in the rough, grey hair. "It is stupid of me, but he is riding that brute Shaitan to-day. I am always nervous. Please go. I will come in a minute." He went without a word. "I am always nervous." The tales he had heard of Diana Mayo as he passed through Biskra did not include nerves. His face was set as he ran hurriedly across the camp.
Eight feet below him, on a merciful ledge of earth wide enough to check the fatal rebound into space, Eldred Lenox lay face downward, his left arm crumpled under him; the other flung outward as if in a last desperate effort to ward off the inevitable. Shaitan was nowhere to be seen. The sheer drop beyond told his fate.
The Consul read it, and found it to be a really strong recommendation to the Marabout to do his utmost for the servants of the Dey's brother, the King of France, now in the hands of the children of Shaitan. 'Well purchased, said M. Dessault; 'though that snuff-box came from the hands of the Elector of Bavaria!
I told them that Shaitan, as they call him, is always in it when there's meddling between an espoused pair which is as true as though the Holy Father at Rome had said it and as long as they were civil, Shaitan would rest; but if they durst molest you, there was no saying where he would be, if once you had to let him out! To think of the virtue of that ugly face and bit of a coil of wire!
Back the man almost fell; 'Shaitan, Shaitan! was the cry, as the inhabitants tumbled pell-mell out of the hovel, and Victorine and Punch remained masters of the situation. She heard Lanty haranguing in broken Arabic and lingua Franca, and presently he came in, shaking with suppressed laughter. 'If ever we get home, said he, 'we'll make a pilgrimage to Tarascon! Blessings on good St.
"The Shaitan bacheh, for a son of the devil he still is, although he wears the turban and bows to Allah, will prove a treasury of amusement to your sublime highness," replied Mustapha: "but what are the words of the sage? `If thou hast gold in thy hazneh, keep it locked, and add thereto; thus shalt thou become rich." "They are the words of wisdom," replied the pacha.
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