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Page 77
Also was there something savage in the way the women visitors had
fingered and touched everything, and had visited every corner of the
building. They were fat or thin, plain or passably good-looking; they
were all hideously poor, and in their heads they had the echo of the
gibes their menfolk had cast at them, when, returning with empty
pockets, they had boasted of great conquests.
Which boasting the sillies had believed, thinking, as all women think,
that their own particular male has been specially favoured of the gods
and is therefore an Adonis in the eyes of every other woman.
There was an indefinite air of trouble in that quarter of the bazaar
which increased with the heat of the day. Household matters were
neglected, whilst the women foregathered to talk; words were few, but
gestures were quick and expressive; the servants, wondering at the
absence of the Ethiopian, grumbled as they worked; they had been paid
no wages in their mistress's absence, and were on the verge of mutiny.
Brave words! When they knew that they would fall flat upon their faces
at the first swish of her satin robes.
They waited all the day, and no definite word came of the woman's
return. They waited until the stars twinkled and they still waited
with the terrible patience of the East. Why they waited they could not
have told you. They dared not set upon her if she passed in her
litter; she wielded too great a power through her beauty and wealth for
that; but as the hours passed, they moved softly to and fro, as moves
the wretched beast in his cage at feeding-time, whilst a look of
cunning allied to cruelty shone in the soft brown eyes.
It only required a spark to start the conflagration.
CHAPTER XXVI
"_And the dogs shall eat Jezebel . . . and
there shall be none to bury her_."
II KINGS.
The station was bathed blood-red in the after-glow of the wonderful
sunset, which, being a daily occurrence, is hardly ever noticed by the
winter visitors in Cairo; a star or two twinkled in the pale grey hem
of the coat of many colours which Day was offering to Night, as the
evening breeze lifted the edges of the veils and blew refreshingly
around a woman who descended awkwardly from a native cart and limped
her way across the station yard. The porter trundling Ben Kelham's
luggage caught her by the shoulder and likening her to the cross-eyed
offspring of a clumsy she-camel, flung her to one side. Rage incarnate
glared from her eyes, bitter vituperation flowed from behind the
yashmak, until, noticing that a swashbuckling member of the native
police was making his menacing way towards her, she quieted down and
limped to where she saw, standing, the station porter of Shepheard's
Hotel.
Strange is that power which has led so many a criminal to the gallows
by dragging him irresistibly back to the scene of the crime.
It was some such force which had held Zulannah throughout the day. She
had nothing further to gain by looking upon the man who had
unconsciously been the cause of her ruin; she had done her best to
retaliate by blighting the love she had herself tried to gain; but she
had been mastered by a morbid desire to look just once more upon Ben
Kelham, hoping to be able to trace in his face some sign of his mental
hurt.
The suffering of innocent people and animals had always given her
intense pleasure. How much greater, therefore, her satisfaction if she
could bring, and gloat over, bodily or mental pain to someone who had
made her suffer?
She hung about until she saw Ben Kelham arrive, and stood quite close
to him, chuckling inwardly at the tale told by the grim set of his
mouth.
Zulannah was dirty; her hands were ill-kempt; her fine muslin veils
filthy and torn; but there still hung about her the faint odour of the
perfume she had always used in the hey-day of her success. The passing
of a barrow piled high with luggage disturbed her veils, and as the
rush of some excited natives disturbed the air Ben Kelham swung around.
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