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Page 48
He had no idea of the real use of the book with the buff cover and pale
pink leaves, but he knew that you had only to make certain black marks
on one of the pink leaves and take it to the big house in the Sharia
Clot Bey with its fierce man standing in front of the door and money
would be given in exchange.
On account of his cunning, his stolidity, his mighty muscle and
ferocious appearance Qatim had been made bank-messenger in chief to the
House of Zulannah, and had often stood at his mistress's side when she
had taken the cheque-book from the drawer and made strange black marks
on one of the pink leaves. True, he had rolled his eyes and shown his
teeth fiercely many a time at the interpreter who had had to be called
to explain that, although he had handed a pink leaf through the bars,
there was no money forthcoming; but as his mistress had not struck him
for returning empty-handed he had resigned himself at last to the
strangeness of the proceedings. The book meant money, that was all he
knew; so he slipped it into his loin-cloth as had been his rather
distressing habit when handed a bundle of notes by the bank-clerk who,
with his co-workers, had never tired of gazing at the gigantic creature
in white shorts, crimson tunic, huge turban and rattling scimitar.
He gave no thought to the dead body on the filthy straw; that he knew
he could carry under his arm and drop into the Nile when the bazaar
slept; but he pulled hard at his curly hair as a plan germinated in the
sluggish convolutions of his brain.
It was a very vague and a very childlike plan, but too much could not
be expected from one who had been conceived, born and bred on the
animal plane.
After an hour's pondering it, however, took a fairly definite outline.
When the sun had warmed the cool wind of night he would hide the body
under the straw and visit his eunuch twin, who had really been the
cause of the disaster. His silence would have to be bought. Of course
it would have been better to have broken his neck at once, but it was
too late now, so there was no use in worrying! Then he would go
terrorise the servants, giving them to understand that he had been left
in charge in his mistress's absence; he would remain in charge until he
had acquired enough money to buy the coal-black little Venus who worked
in the Shoemakers Bazaar; after that he would creep away with her and
return to his own village further down the Nile.
And because, perhaps, of the childishness of the plan it succeeded up
to a certain point.
He found his eunuch brother, who was the only one besides his master
and himself to know that the dancer had been Zulannah, in the grip of
such terror and physical pain as to be almost imbecile, though a look
of cunning had shone for a moment in his bloodshot eyes when Qatim had
inadvertently let drop a hint as to the accumulated riches in his hovel.
Anyway, they came to an understanding which ensured the eunuch's
silence at the price of so much good money, paid in instalments.
Qatim had no intention of holding to his side of the agreement, nor his
brother to his--as is the way of such breed of Oriental.
Then, just as he was, clad only in loin-cloth and with whip in hand,
the gigantic brute strode to the House of Zulannah. Ensued a turbulent
hour, at the end of which he remained acknowledged master of the house
and inmates until the return of the mistress, whilst those who had
mocked him went in search of cool leaves to place upon the bruised
portion of their backs and those two whose heads he had cracked
together for having resisted him lay quite still.
Returned to the hovel as the sun was sinking, and in high fettle, he
donned red tunic, huge turban and rattling scimitar and strutted with
all the negro's delight in fine feathers in front of the mirror which
rested against the crumbling plaster walls.
And then he suddenly stopped and stared into the glass.
The filthy straw in the corner of the room had moved. His face went
grey; great beads of sweat showed upon his chest, his knees shook, then
he fell on his face and covered his head with a corner of the
green-yellow Kidderminster carpet, when a voice feebly craved for water
and a small blood-stained hand weakly pulled at the straw.
Zulannah was not dead.
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