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Page 22
And out there alone in the desert at the hour of prayer, he slipped
from her and, turning towards Mecca, raised his hands to heaven.
"O God of the West! O Allah of the East! Give me one single hour of
love!"
And the mare, Pi-Kay, wonderful in her beauty, raced from him far out
into the desert, leaving him alone with his God; then stood quite
still, with fine small ears pricked, waiting for the call she knew
would come. And when it came ringing clear over the golden sand, she
raced back to him and pushed against him, until he sprang upon her and
turned her towards the East.
"_By the war-horses_," he cried, quoting from Al-Koran, "_which run
swiftly to battle, with a panting noise; and by those who strike fire
by dashing their hoofs against the stones; and by those who make a
sudden invasion on the enemy early in the morning and therein raise the
dust, and therein pass through the midst of the adverse troops_ . . . .
by the Message of the Great Book and by my love will I wrest one hour
from life."
And urging the mare with the whip of love to the uttermost of her
wonderful speed, he thundered back across the path of sand, which was
to be trodden by his feet alone, in spite of the plots which Zulannah
the courtesan was even then weaving about him--to her own advancement.
CHAPTER VII
"_. . . . and she painted her face, and tired her
head, and looked out at a window_."
II KINGS.
The house of the "Scarlet Enchantress," with its balconies, turrets and
outer and inner courts, stood quite by itself at one corner of the
Square, in a big, neglected garden. It had been built by means of
untold gold and the destruction of scores of miserable, picturesque
hovels, which, poor as they might be, had however meant home to many of
the needy in the Arabian quarters of Cairo. It would be useless to
look for that building covered in white plaster now; it was, later,
looted and burned to the ground.
A beautiful wanton of fourteen summers, ambitious, relentless, with the
eyes of an innocent child, the morals of a jackal and a fair supply of
brain-cunning rather than intellect, Zulannah sat this night of stars
in a corner of her balcony overlooking the Square, smoking endless
cigarettes.
Courtesan of the highest rank, she had plied her ruthless trade for
three successful years, accumulating incredible wealth in jewels and
hard cash. Her ambition knew no bounds; her greed no limit; her
jealousy of other women had become a by-word in the north.
Physically she was perfect; otherwise, she had not one saving grace,
and her enemies were legion. She had driven hard bargains, demanding
the very rings off men's fingers in exchange for kisses; shutting the
door with callous finality in the face of those she had beggared; she
had disowned her mother, who, stricken with ophthalmia, begged in the
streets; she had no mercy for man, woman or beast, yet all had gone
well until love had come to her.
Love comes to harlots and to queens as well as to us ordinary women,
and they suffer every whit as much as we do, perhaps more keenly on
account of the hopeless positions they fill.
It had come to Zulannah, uncontrollably, that night when, unveiled,
garbed in silks and satins and hung with jewels, she brazenly graced
the stage-box at a gala performance.
She looked down, and Ben Kelham, in the end seat of the first row of
stalls, looked up and looked and looked, seeing nothing, being blinded
with love of Damaris.
Zulannah drove back in her Rolls-Royce to the edge of the Arabian
quarter, where, owing to the narrowness of the lanes called by courtesy
streets, she alighted to finish what remained of the journey in a
litter swung from the shoulders of four Nubian slaves, and, arrived at
the great house, summoned her special bodyguard, Qatim the Ethiopian;
and for acquiring information down to the smallest detail about some
special individual there is, surely, no detective agency on earth to
compare to one ordinary, native servant.
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