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Page 74
So she sat on the pile of cushions, smoking the cheapest cigarette of
the bazaar, whilst her cunning brain wove plots around the astounding
news Qatim had just imparted.
They were perfectly free from interruption. The door was barred and
the small aperture which served as window was too highly placed in the
wall to allow of eyes to peep; but it was superstition that really kept
them safe and proved far more potent as a barrier against their
neighbours' curiosity than any spike-crowned wall.
Qatim had given out that the woman was bewitched, and that death,
instantaneous and horrible, would be the fate awaiting anyone but
himself who should speak to her or look upon her unveiled face before
the setting of the sun--some of us Christians refuse to walk under
ladders--and, although it entailed much fetching and carrying and
marketing on his part, still, it ensured them solitude.
"And you saw him?"
She spoke with a sibilant intaking of breath, caused by the twist to
her mouth.
"Yes; with a beautiful white woman--another. They have come from
Assouan by the boat."
"Not the girl who rode in the desert with------"
She touched the purple angry marks on her cheek.
"Nay, woman; I have told thee, _she_ walks in the blackness of the
ruins, with the man who caused thee thy hurt. She drives with him," he
spat, "she should take thy place in the bazaar, O Zulannah of the
thousand lovers."
The woman paid no heed to the jibe.
"Who told thee?"
"Behold, the night-watchman of the big hotel upon the edge of the water
sent me word."
"Why?"
"That is no business of thine. Tell me what scheme thou hast in thy
head. Dost desire the death of the three?"
Zulannah shook her head and turning it so that the wounds and
distortion were hidden, leant against the wall.
"Not yet!" she said, loosening with filthy hand the uncombed masses of
jet-black hair, which still retained something of the perfume of better
days. "Not _yet_! Let me think awhile."
And she paid no heed to the man, who sat staring at her, breathing
heavily.
The right side of her face, untouched and perfect, showed in all its
beauty against the dirty whiteness of the wall; her hair served as a
mantle to the perfect figure in the soiled satin wrap; her crippled
limbs showed not at all in the foul room lit by a wick floating in a
saucer of oil.
The light went out suddenly.
Oh, Zulannah! surely your cap of misery was full to the brim!
CHAPTER XXV
"_He that has patience may compass anything_."
RABELAIS.
Ben Kelham sat near the balustrade on the verandah of Shepheard's Hotel
just after breakfast, pretending to read the morning paper, whilst
trying to make up his mind.
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