The Weavers: Chapter 14

Chapter 14

BEYOND THE PALE

Mahommed Hassan had vowed a vow in the river, and he kept it in so far as
was seemly. His soul hungered for the face of the bridge-opener, and the
hunger grew. He was scarce passed from the shivering Nile into a dry
yelek, had hardly taken a juicy piece from the cooking-pot at the house
of the village sheikh, before he began to cultivate friends who could
help him, including the sheikh himself; for what money Mahommed lacked
was supplied by Lacey, who had a reasoned confidence in him, and by the
fiercely indignant Kaid himself, to whom Lacey and Mahommed went
secretly, hiding their purpose from David. So, there were a score of
villages where every sheikh, eager for gold, listened for the whisper of
the doorways, and every slave and villager listened at the sheikh's door.
But neither to sheikh nor to villager was it given to find the man.

But one evening there came a knocking at the door of the house which
Mahommed still kept in the lowest Muslim quarter of the town, a woman who
hid her face and was of more graceful figure than was familiar in those
dark purlieus. The door was at once opened, and Mahommed, with a cry,
drew her inside.

"Zaida--the peace of God be upon thee," he said, and gazed lovingly yet
sadly upon her, for she had greatly changed.

"And upon thee peace, Mahommed," she answered, and sat upon the floor,
her head upon her breast.

"Thou hast trouble at," he said, and put some cakes of dourha and a
meated cucumber beside her. She touched the food with her fingers, but
did not eat. "Is thy grief, then, for thy prince who gave himself to the
lions?" he asked.

"Inshallah! Harrik is in the bosom of Allah. He is with Fatima in the
fields of heaven--was I as Fatima to him? Nay, the dead have done with
hurting."

"Since that night thou hast been lost, even since Harrik went. I searched
for thee, but thou wert hid. Surely, thou knewest mine eyes were aching
and my heart was cast down--did not thou and I feed at the same breast?"

"I was dead, and am come forth from the grave; but I shall go again into
the dark where all shall forget, even I myself; but there is that which I
would do, which thou must do for me, even as I shall do good to thee,
that which is the desire of my heart."

"Speak, light of the morning and blessing of thy mother's soul," he said,
and crowded into his mouth a roll of meat and cucumber. "Against thy
feddan shall be set my date-tree; it hath been so ever."

"Listen then, and by the stone of the Kaabah, keep the faith which has
been throe and mine since my mother, dying, gave me to thy mother, whose
milk gave me health and, in my youth, beauty--and, in my youth, beauty!"
Suddenly she buried her face in her veil, and her body shook with sobs
which had no voice. Presently she continued: "Listen, and by Abraham and
Christ and all the Prophets, and by Mahomet the true revealer, give me
thine aid. When Harrik gave his life to the lions, I fled to her whom I
had loved in the house of Kaid--Laka the Syrian, afterwards the wife of
Achmet Pasha. By Harrik's death I was free--no more a slave. Once Laka
had been the joy of Achmet's heart, but, because she had no child, she
was despised and forgotten. Was it not meet I should fly to her whose
sorrow would hide my loneliness? And so it was--I was hidden in the harem
of Achmet. But miserable tongues--may God wither them!--told Achmet of my
presence. And though I was free, and not a bondswoman, he broke upon my
sleep. . . ."

Mahommed's eyes blazed, his dark skin blackened like a coal, and he
muttered maledictions between his teeth. ". . . In the morning there was
a horror upon me, for which there is no name. But I laughed also when I
took a dagger and stole from the harem to find him in the quarters beyond
the women's gate. I found him, but I held my hand, for one was with him
who spake with a tone of anger and of death, and I listened. Then,
indeed, I rejoiced for thee, for I have found thee a road to honour and
fortune. The man was a bridge-opener--" "Ah!--O, light of a thousand
eyes, fruit of the tree of Eden!" cried Mahommed, and fell on his knees
at her feet, and would have kissed them, but that, with a cry, she said:
"Nay, nay, touch me not. But listen. . . . Ay, it was Achmet who sought
to drown thy Pasha in the Nile. Thou shalt find the man in the little
street called Singat in the Moosky, at the house of Haleel the
date-seller."

Mahommed rocked backwards and forwards in his delight. "Oh, now art thou
like a lamp of Paradise, even as a star which leadeth an army of stars,
beloved," he said. He rubbed his hands together. "Thy witness and his
shall send Achmet to a hell of scorpions, and I shall slay the
bridge-opener with my own hand--hath not the Effendina secretly said so
to me, knowing that my Pasha, the Inglesi, upon whom be peace for ever
and forever, would forgive him. Ah, thou blossom of the tree of trees--"

She rose hastily, and when he would have kissed her hand she drew back to
the wall. "Touch me not--nay, then, Mahommed, touch me not--"

"Why should I not pay thee honour, thou princess among women? Hast thou
not the brain of a man, and thy beauty, like thy heart, is it not--"

She put out both her hands and spoke sharply. "Enough, my brother," she
said. "Thou hast thy way to great honour. Thou shalt yet have a thousand
feddans of well-watered land and slaves to wait upon thee. Get thee to
the house of Haleel. There shall the blow fall on the head of Achmet, the
blow which was mine to strike, but that Allah stayed my hand that I might
do thee and thy Pasha good, and to give the soul-slayer and the
body-slayer into the hands of Kaid, upon whom be everlasting peace!" Her
voice dropped low. "Thou saidst but now that I had beauty. Is there yet
any beauty in my face?" She lowered her yashmak and looked at him with
burning eyes.

"Thou art altogether beautiful," he answered, "but there is a strangeness
to thy beauty like none I have seen; as if upon the face of an angel
there fell a mist--nay, I have not words to make it plain to thee."

With a great sigh, and yet with the tenseness gone from her eyes, she
slowly drew the veil up again till only her eyes were visible. "It is
well," she answered. "Now, I have heard that to-morrow night Prince Kaid
will sit in the small court-yard of the blue tiles by the harem to feast
with his friends, ere the army goes into the desert at the next sunrise.
Achmet is bidden to the feast."

"It is so, O beloved!"

"There will be dancers and singers to make the feast worthy?"

"At such a time it will be so."

"Then this thou shalt do. See to it that I shall be among the singers,
and when all have danced and sung, that I shall sing, and be brought
before Kaid."

"Inshallah! It shall be so. Thou dost desire to see Kaid--in truth, thou
hast memory, beloved."

She made a gesture of despair. "Go upon thy business. Dost thou not
desire the blood of Achmet and the bridge-opener?"

Mahommed laughed, and joyfully beat his breast, with whispered
exclamations, and made ready to go. "And thou?" he asked.

"Am I not welcome here?" she replied wearily. "O, my sister, thou art the
master of my life and all that I have," he exclaimed, and a moment
afterwards he was speeding towards Kaid's Palace.

For the first time since the day of his banishment Achmet the Ropemaker
was invited to Kaid's Palace. Coming, he was received with careless
consideration by the Prince. Behind his long, harsh face and sullen eyes
a devil was raging, because of all his plans that had gone awry, and
because the man he had sought to kill still served the Effendina, putting
a blight upon Egypt. To-morrow he, Achmet, must go into the desert with
the army, and this hated Inglesi would remain behind to have his will
with Kaid. The one drop of comfort in his cup was the fact that the
displeasure of the Effendina against himself was removed, and that he
had, therefore, his foot once more inside the Palace. When he came back
from the war he would win his way to power again. Meanwhile, he cursed
the man who had eluded the death he had prepared for him. With his own
eyes had he not seen, from the hill top, the train plunge to destruction,
and had he not once more got off his horse and knelt upon his sheepskin
and given thanks to Allah--a devout Arab obeying the sunset call to
prayer, as David had observed from the train?

One by one, two by two, group by group, the unveiled dancers came and
went; the singers sang behind the screen provided for them, so that none
might see their faces, after the custom. At last, however, Kaid and his
guests grew listless, and smoked and talked idly. Yet there was in the
eyes of Kaid a watchfulness unseen by any save a fellah who squatted in a
corner eating sweetmeats, and a hidden singer waiting until she should be
called before the Prince Pasha. The singer's glances continually flashed
between Kaid and Achmet. At last, with gleaming eyes, she saw six Nubian
slaves steal silently behind Achmet. One, also, of great strength, came
suddenly and stood before him. In his hands was a leathern thong.

Achmet saw, felt the presence of the slaves behind him, and shrank back
numbed and appalled. A mist came before his eyes; the voice he heard
summoning him to stand up seemed to come from infinite distances. The
hand of doom had fallen like a thunderbolt. The leathern thong in the
hands of the slave was the token of instant death. There was no chance of
escape. The Nubians had him at their mercy. As his brain struggled to
regain its understanding, he saw, as in a dream, David enter the
court-yard and come towards Kaid.

Suddenly David stopped in amazement, seeing Achmet. Inquiringly he looked
at Kaid, who spoke earnestly to him in a low tone. Whereupon David turned
his head away, but after a moment fixed his eyes on Achmet.

Kaid motioned all his startled guests to come nearer. Then in strong,
unmerciful voice he laid Achmet's crime before them, and told the story
of the bridge-opener, who had that day expiated his crime in the desert
by the hands of Mahommed--but not with torture, as Mahommed had hoped
might be.

"What shall be his punishment--so foul, so wolfish?" Kaid asked of them
all. A dozen voices answered, some one terrible thing, some another.

"Mercy!" moaned Achmet aghast. "Mercy, Saadat!" he cried to David.

David looked at him calmly. There was little mercy in his eyes as he
answered: "Thy crimes sent to their death in the Nile those who never
injured thee. Dost thou quarrel with justice? Compose thy soul, and I
pray only the Effendina to give thee that seemly death thou didst deny
thy victims." He bowed respectfully to Kaid.

Kaid frowned. "The ways of Egypt are the ways of Egypt, and not of the
land once thine," he answered shortly. Then, under the spell of that
influence which he had never yet been able to resist, he added to the
slaves: "Take him aside. I will think upon it. But he shall die at
sunrise ere the army goes. Shall not justice be the gift of Kaid for an
example and a warning? Take him away a little. I will decide."

As Achmet and the slaves disappeared into a dark corner of the
court-yard, Kaid rose to his feet, and, upon the hint, his guests,
murmuring praises of his justice and his mercy and his wisdom, slowly
melted from the court-yard; but once outside they hastened to proclaim in
the four quarters of Cairo how yet again the English Pasha had picked
from the Tree of Life an apple of fortune.

The court-yard was now empty, save for the servants of the Prince, David
and Mahommed, and two officers in whom David had advised Kaid to put
trust. Presently one of these officers said: "There is another singer,
and the last. Is it the Effendina's pleasure?"

Kaid made a gesture of assent, sat down, and took the stem of a narghileh
between his lips. For a moment there was silence, and then, out upon the
sweet, perfumed night, over which the stars hung brilliant and soft and
near, a voice at first quietly, then fully, and palpitating with feeling,
poured forth an Eastern love song:

     "Take thou thy flight, O soul! Thou hast no more
     The gladness of the morning! Ah, the perfumed roses
     My love laid on my bosom as I slept!
     How did he wake me with his lips upon mine eyes,
     How did the singers carol--the singers of my soul
     That nest among the thoughts of my beloved! . . .
     All silent now, the choruses are gone,
     The windows of my soul are closed; no more
     Mine eyes look gladly out to see my lover come.
     There is no more to do, no more to say:
     Take flight, my soul, my love returns no more!"

At the first note Kaid started, and his eyes fastened upon the screen
behind which sat the singer. Then, as the voice, in sweet anguish, filled
the court-yard, entrancing them all, rose higher and higher, fell and
died away, he got to his feet, and called out hoarsely: "Come--come
forth!"

Slowly a graceful, veiled figure came from behind the great screen. He
took a step forward.

"Zaida! Zaida!" he said gently, amazedly.

She salaamed low. "Forgive me, O my lord!" she said, in a whispering
voice, drawing her veil about her head. "It was my soul's desire to look
upon thy face once more."

"Whither didst thou go at Harrik's death? I sent to find thee, and give
thee safety; but thou wert gone, none knew where."

"O my lord, what was I but a mote in thy sun, that thou shouldst seek
me?"

Kaid's eyes fell, and he murmured to himself a moment, then he said
slowly: "Thou didst save Egypt, thou and my friend"--he gestured towards
David"--and my life also, and all else that is worth. Therefore bounty,
and safety, and all thy desires were thy due. Kaid is no ingrate--no, by
the hand of Moses that smote at Sinai!"

She made a pathetic motion of her hands. "By Harrik's death I am free, a
slave no longer. O my lord, where I go bounty and famine are the same."

Kaid took a step forward. "Let me see thy face," he said, something
strange in her tone moving him with awe.

She lowered her veil and looked him in the eyes. Her wan beauty smote
him, conquered him, the exquisite pain in her face filled Kaid's eyes
with foreboding, and pierced his heart.

"O cursed day that saw thee leave these walls! I did it for thy
good--thou wert so young; thy life was all before thee! But now--come,
Zaida, here in Kaid's Palace thou shalt have a home, and be at peace, for
I see that thou hast suffered. Surely it shall be said that Kaid honours
thee." He reached out to take her hand.

She had listened like one in a dream, but, as he was about to touch her,
she suddenly drew back, veiled her face, save for the eyes, and said in a
voice of agony: "Unclean, unclean! My lord, I am a leper!"

An awed and awful silence fell upon them all. Kaid drew back as though
smitten by a blow.

Presently, upon the silence, her voice sharp with agony said: "I am a
leper, and I go to that desert place which my lord has set apart for
lepers, where, dead to the world, I shall watch the dreadful years come
and go. Behold, I would die, but that I have a sister there these many
years, and her sick soul lives in loneliness. O my lord, forgive me! Here
was I happy; here of old I did sing to thee, and I came to sing to thee
once more a death-song. Also, I came to see thee do justice, ere I went
from thy face for ever."

Kaid's head was lowered on his breast. He shuddered. "Thou art so
beautiful--thy voice, all! Thou wouldst see justice--speak! Justice shall
be made plain before thee."

Twice she essayed to speak, and could not; but from his sweetmeats and
the shadows Mahommed crept forward, kissed the ground before Kaid, and
said: "Effendina, thou knowest me as the servant of thy high servant,
Claridge Pasha."

"I know thee--proceed."

"Behold, she whom God has smitten, man smote first. I am her
foster-brother--from the same breast we drew the food of life. Thou
wouldst do justice, O Effendina; but canst thou do double justice--ay, a
thousandfold? Then"--his voice raised almost shrilly--"then do it upon
Achmet Pasha. She--Zaida--told me where I should find the bridge-opener."

"Zaida once more!" Kaid murmured.

"She had learned all in Achmet's harem--hearing speech between Achmet and
the man whom thou didst deliver to my hands yesterday."

"Zaida-in Achmet's harem?" Kaid turned upon her.

Swiftly she told her dreadful tale, how, after Achmet had murdered all of
her except her body, she rose up to kill herself; but fainting, fell upon
a burning brazier, and her hand thrust accidentally in the live coals
felt no pain. "And behold, O my lord, I knew I was a leper; and I
remembered my sister and lived on." So she ended, in a voice numbed and
tuneless.

Kaid trembled with rage, and he cried in a loud voice: "Bring Achmet
forth."

As the slave sped upon the errand, David laid a hand on Kaid's arm, and
whispered to him earnestly. Kaid's savage frown cleared away, and his
rage calmed down; but an inflexible look came into his face, a look which
petrified the ruined Achmet as he salaamed before him.

"Know thy punishment, son of a dog with a dog's heart, and prepare for a
daily death," said Kaid. "This woman thou didst so foully wrong, even
when thou didst wrong her, she was a leper."

A low cry broke from Achmet, for now when death came he must go unclean
to the after-world, forbidden Allah's presence. Broken and abject he
listened.

"She knew not, till thou wert gone," continued Kaid. "She is innocent
before the law. But thou--beast of the slime--hear thy sentence. There is
in the far desert a place where lepers live. There, once a year, one
caravan comes, and, at the outskirts of the place unclean, leaves food
and needful things for another year, and returns again to Egypt after
many days. From that place there is no escape--the desert is as the sea,
and upon that sea there is no ghiassa to sail to a farther shore. It is
the leper land. Thither thou shalt go to wait upon this woman thou hast
savagely wronged, and upon her kind, till thou diest. It shall be so."

"Mercy! Mercy!" Achmet cried, horror-stricken, and turned to David. "Thou
art merciful. Speak for me, Saadat."

"When didst thou have mercy?" asked David. "Thy crimes are against
humanity."

Kaid made a motion, and, with dragging feet, Achmet passed from the
haunts of familiar faces.

For a moment Kaid stood and looked at Zaida, rigid and stricken in that
awful isolation which is the leper's doom. Her eyes were closed, but her
head was high. "Wilt thou not die?" Kaid asked her gently.

She shook her head slowly, and her hands folded on her breast. "My sister
is there," she said at last. There was an instant's stillness, then Kaid
added with a voice of grief: "Peace be upon thee, Zaida. Life is but a
spark. If death comes not to-day, it will tomorrow, for thee--for me.
Inshallah, peace be upon thee!"

She opened her eyes and looked at him. Seeing what was in his face, they
lighted with a great light for a moment.

"And upon thee peace, O my lord, for ever and for ever!" she said softly,
and, turning, left the court-yard, followed at a distance by Mahommed
Hassan.

Kaid remained motionless looking after her.

David broke in on his abstraction. "The army at sunrise--thou wilt speak
to it, Effendina?"

Kaid roused himself. "What shall I say?" he asked anxiously.

"Tell them they shall be clothed and fed, and to every man or his family
three hundred piastres at the end."

"Who will do this?" asked Kaid incredulously. "Thou, Effendina--Egypt and
thou and I."

"So be it," answered Kaid.

As they left the court-yard, he said suddenly to an officer behind him:

"The caravan to the Place of Lepers--add to the stores fifty camel-loads
this year, and each year hereafter. Have heed to it. Ere it starts, come
to me. I would see all with mine own eyes."

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