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Page 79
She ran with a twisting, shuffling lope horrible to see; she looked
like some wounded animal as, bent double, she paused again for breath,
just for one moment, with face to the wall. She ran on; she stumbled
and regained her footing; she fell on her crippled knees; then onto her
face in the dust, where she remained, breathing like a far-spent horse,
with bloodstained foam flecking the corners of her mouth. A great
shivering shook her as she listened to the shouting, yelling mob
questing this way and that for the lost quarry. She did not pray; poor
Zulannah! she knew nothing of a God of Love or Pity to pray to; she lay
still, burying her fingers in the sand, clinging desperately to what
remained to her of life.
They swept round the corner, those men and women, screaming vengeance
on her who lived in luxury whilst they starved; who hung herself with
jewels and neglected to pay the trifling debts of the bazaar; who lived
in a house built on the site of their demolished homes. They rushed
past and over her lying begrimed and foul, one with the dust of the
ill-lighted street They drove her face into the dust; they marked her
beautiful body with the shape of their feet; but they did not kill her.
She wanted to live.
The pack passed on to the bazaar, carrying with it the definite news of
the return of the woman Zulannah; and if you had looked close you would
have seen the cunning in the eyes of the man who had carried the hens;
if you had listened to his whispered words you would have shivered at
the ferocity of his counsel.
In the passing of ten minutes you would, if you had walked that way,
have walked through empty streets in the vicinity of the courtesan's
house, and there would have been nothing or nobody to whisper to you of
the men, women, children, and dogs standing packed in the rooms and
passages and courtyards, waiting for a given signal.
The moon looked down on a peaceful scene as Zulannah, wrapped in filthy
garments, crept stealthily from shadow to shadow.
Had she been more observant, she would have wondered at the intense
stillness of the bazaar, which, no matter at what hour of the night, is
full of little sounds; the song of a woman, or her laugh, or her cry;
the crack of a whip; the baying of dogs.
If she had looked back she would have seen the stealthy opening of
doors, the craning of a furtive head as quickly withdrawn.
She paid no heed.
She was so near, so very near the place in the wall hidden in the
shadow of the _talik_ palms and in which was the secret door which
opened on the pressing of a certain brick in the third row from the
top. And once in the house, with a veil across her face, a whip or
dagger in her hand, she would show them who was master, cripple or no
cripple, fool that she had been to have submitted to the black Qatim,
but thrice fool he, who knew nothing of that other bank in which
one-half her fortune and one-half her jewels were kept in safe custody
against such a rainy day as this.
She cursed herself for the blundering, feeble way she had set about
revenge; she cursed the moon; the agony of her limbs; the stretch which
lay between one shadow and another; but she laughed, though no sound
issued from the gaping mouth, as she stood in the last patch of shadow
which was separated by some few yards of silvery path from the black
blot upon the wall which covered the secret door.
They had hunted and harried her, and walked upon her body lying in the
dust, but they had lost her and had gone back to their hovels to eat
and sleep, and maybe once more cast up the reckoning of the money she
owed them, the which--she swore the most horrible oath--she would never
pay.
She gathered up her dust-ridden garments and stole swiftly across the
moonlit space; she had just touched the edge of the shadow, she was
almost home, when, with a mighty shout, they were upon her. Out of the
houses, out of the courtyards, down the streets they swarmed, children
and women falling, to be jerked to their feet by the men who ran
silently, urged on by the fanatic who for years had hugged the idea of
some such moment of most horrible revenge.
And then to the sinister sound of the rushing feet there was added the
baying of many pariah dogs which, from every conceivable corner and
from miles away, raced like a pack of wolves upon the Steppes, to join
the hunt.
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