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"Silence, and praise Allah who sends good prices." "One thousand and one hundred," said Ayoub the irrepressible And now Tsamanni not only found himself outbidden, but he had reached the outrageous limit appointed by Asad. He lacked authority to go further, dared not do so without first consulting the Basha. Yet if he left the sok for that purpose Ayoub would meanwhile secure the girl.
Nor ever again let thyself be seen roving the public places afoot." She obeyed him instantly, without a murmur; and he himself lingered at the gates with Tsamanni until her litter had passed out, escorted by Ayoub and Marzak walking each on one side of it and neither daring to meet the angry eye of the Basha. Asad looked sourly after that litter, a sneer on his heavy lips.
"One thousand and five hundred," screamed Ayoub, thus reaching not only the limit imposed by his mistress, but the very limit of the resources at her immediate disposal. Gone, too, with that bid was all hope of profit to himself. But Sakr-el-Bahr, impassive as Fate, and without so much as deigning to bestow a look upon the quivering eunuch, said again "Another hundred, O dalal."
After a few days at Khartoum we took leave of our good friend, Ismail Ayoub Pacha, and started for Cairo by steamer. I had left my two boys, Saat and Bellaal, with Ismail Pacha, to be instructed either as musicians or soldiers, the latter profession being their great ambition.
While this work was in progress the covering parties were in daily collision with the enemy, and occasional sharp skirmishes occurred. On the 8th August Ayoub opened fire on the citadel from Picquet hill, an elevation north-westward of the city, and a few days later he brought guns into action from the villages of Deh Khoja and Deh Khati on the east and south.
But in the hurry of their flight the Afghans had found time to illustrate their barbarity by murdering their prisoner Lieutenant Maclaine, whose body was found near Ayoub's tent with the throat cut. To this deed Ayoub does not seem to have been privy.
He turned to the crestfallen Ayoub, so crestfallen that in the contemplation of him Tsamanni was fast gathering consolation for his own discomfiture, vicariously tasting the sweets of vengeance. "What say you now, O perspicuous wazeer?" "I say," choked Ayoub, "that since by the favour of Shaitan he hath so much wealth he must prevail."
"We must act, Ayoub, and act swiftly, or I am destroyed and with me will be destroyed Marzak, who alone could not stand against his father's face. Sakr-el-Bahr will trample us into the dust." She checked on a sudden thought. "By Allah it may have been a part of his design to have brought hither that white-faced wench. But we must thwart him and we must thwart Asad, or thou art ruined too, Ayoub."
Beautiful things they were which he had to show; broideries that dazzled the eye, and rugs of many hues, yet soft and bright as an otter's pelt. As Sir Andrew looked at them, remembering long dead days, his face softened. "I will buy that rug," he said, "for of a truth it might be one on which I lay sick many a year ago in the house of Ayoub at Damascus. Nay, I haggle not at the price.
"Go back," he said, "and tell that dog you name a sultan, that low as he is, the humble-born son of Ayoub, I, Al-je-bal, do him an honour that he does not observe. My queen is dead, and two days from now, when my month of mourning is expired, I shall take to wife his niece, the princess of Baalbec, who sits here beside me, my bride-elect."
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