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At last, and very slowly, and with a growing feeling of resentment in the place where her heart by rights should have been, Zulannah sped down the court upon her toes and fell at the edge of the piled cushions, causing the dogs to growl softly at her daring. "Thou art a beautiful dancer, woman," said Hugh Carden Ali, making no movement to lift the veil.
Under the orders of the Ethiopian eunuch, giant twin of Qatim, in the service of Zulannah the courtesan, the harem was kept swept and garnished, adorned with flowers, aglow at nights with a myriad soft lights hanging from the ceiling in jewelled lamps, to which were flung the fountain's perfumed drops, to fall and break on marble floor and silken cushion, inlaid table and bright-hued birds in jewelled cage.
She did not pray; poor Zulannah! she knew nothing of a God of Love or Pity to pray to; she lay still, burying her fingers in the sand, clinging desperately to what remained to her of life.
And the wrath in the voice was such as to hurl the woman pell-mell over the cliff of discretion down into the depths of her own undoing. "She, the white woman, walks in the bazaar, yea, even at noon and at sunset. Perchance one evening, lured by the tale of the riches of the house of Zulannah, might not her feet stray within the portals at the setting of the sun.
He loves intrigue! So that, twenty-four hours later, Zulannah laughed shrilly when Qatim the Ethiopian repeated all he had learned of the white man and the white maid he presumably loved. "Love!" she scoffed. "He has not met me!"
And she kissed him upon the forehead, whilst the tears stood in her eyes, and turned towards the house, without noticing a man and a woman sitting in the shadows at the far side of the grounds. For the woman who watched was Zulannah the harlot, who had gained an easy admission under the secrecy of her veils and the potency of backschish.
"It's one o'clock, fair lady; you must unmask." And he uttered a cry of astonishment. Zulannah had lifted her veil. And the moments sped as she wove the golden web of beauty and desire and love, into which, however, the clumsy fly refused to be enticed.
The moon looked down on a peaceful scene as Zulannah, wrapped in filthy garments, crept stealthily from shadow to shadow. Had she been more observant, she would have wondered at the intense stillness of the bazaar, which, no matter at what hour of the night, is full of little sounds; the song of a woman, or her laugh, or her cry; the crack of a whip; the baying of dogs.
The basket of hens crashed, to the ground and, bursting, liberated the birds, as, with a yell of "Zulannah!" the man leapt straight at the woman, who dived under a porter's arm and disappeared through the exit. There was a sudden mad rush to the exit by the inhabitants of the bazaar, who, jamming together in a shouting, yelling pack, gave the woman a few moments' grace. "Stand on one side, sir.
And, tell me" he lowered his voice as he winked his eye "has she returned from Alexandria?" Qatim was caught in a quandary, and he cursed the vanity which had urged him to don his most resplendent garments upon his errand to the great hotel, to which he had come after a violent argument with Zulannah.
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