cabinets with doors of mother-of-pearl, the Eastern rugs of beautifully-blended shades, the rich embroideries, and the profusion of flowers, all combined to render it the acme of comfort and luxury, and graced by such a bewitching vision of Eastern beauty, the scene seemed more like a glimpse of fairyland than a reality.
“Thou hast not forgotten me, then?” she said, raising herself slowly, and placing under her handsome head a cushion of pale primrose silk.
“No,” I replied. “How can I ever forget thee?”
Her white breast rose and fell in a deep-drawn sigh.
“Already Allah, the Most Merciful, hath directed thy footsteps and vouchsafed me the felicity of conversing with thee. Thou hast kept thy promise unto me, O Cecil, for when the homards would follow us, thou didst not betray our whereabouts. Therefore I trust thee.”
“I assure thee that any confidence thou placest in me shall never be abused,” I replied. “Yet,” I added, “thou dost not place in me that perfect trust that I have.”
“Why?” she asked, in quick surprise.
“Still hidden from my gaze is that countenance I am longing to look upon.”
“Wouldst thou have me cast aside my religion? I am a woman; remember what is written,” she exclaimed, half reproachfully.
“The adoration of the Christian is none the less passionate than the love of the True Believer,” I said. “A woman is not defiled by the gaze of the man she loveth. But,” I added thoughtfully, “perhaps, after all, thou hast no thought of me, and my fond belief that in thy breast burneth the fire of love is only a vain delusion.”
“Thou – thou thinkest I can care nothing for thee – a Roumi? Why?” she cried, starting up.
“Because of thy refusal to unveil.”
She hesitated; her brows were momentarily contracted. Her hand trembled.
“Then, though I cast aside the creed of my forefathers and the commands of the Prophet, I give thee definite answer. See!” With a sudden movement she withdrew a golden pin, and, tearing away her white silken veil, her countenance was revealed.
I stood amazed, fascinated, half fearing that the wondrous vision of beauty was only a chimera of my distorted imagination that would quickly fade.
Yet it was a reality. The face turned upward to mine with a merry, mischievous smile was that of Zoraida, the woman who had now so plainly demonstrated her love.
“Well,” she asked, with a merry, rippling laugh, “art thou satisfied? Do I please thee?”
“Thou art, indeed, the fairest daughter of Al-Islâm,” I said, slowly entwining my arm about her neck and bending to kiss her. She was fair as the sun at dawn, with hair black as the midnight shades, with Paradise in her eye, her bosom an enchantment, and a form waving like the tamarisk when the soft wind blows from the hills of Afiou.
Her lips met mine in a long, hot, passionate caress; but at last she pushed me from her with firmness, saying —
“No, I must not – I must not love thee! Allah, Lord of the Three Worlds, Pardoner of Transgressions, knoweth that thou art always in my thoughts – yet we can never be more than friends.”
“Why?” I asked, in dismay. “May we not marry some day?”
“Thou art a Roumi, while I – I am a dweller in the mansion of grief.”
“But all things are possible,” I said. “If thou art afraid of thy people, trust in me. Meet me clandestinely, attired in European garments, and we will leave by the steamer for Marseilles, where we can marry.”
I uttered these passionate words scarce knowing what thoughts I expressed. As soon as they had left my mouth I was filled with regret.
“No. Ask me not,” she replied, firmly. “Already, by bringing thee hither, by unveiling before thee, and by suffering thee to kiss me, I have invoked the Wrath. The curse is already upon me, and – and, alas! I shall pay the penalty soon enough,” she added, with a touch of gloomy sadness.
“What dost thou mean?” I asked, gazing into her beautiful, entrancing face.
“It meaneth that I, Zoraida Fathma, am consumed by that sorrow and despair that is precursory of death; that Eblis hath set his fatal seal upon me – that I am doomed!”
Her lustrous eyes, with their arched and darkened brows, looked into mine with an expression of intensity and desperation, and she glanced furtively, as if in fear, into the distant corner of the room, where the light from the great lamp of beaten brass did not penetrate.
“Thine enigmas are puzzling,” I said. “What evil canst thou fear?”
A shudder ran through her slim frame. Then she clutched my hand and tightly held it.
“I cannot – I – It is forbidden that I should love thee, O Cecil,” she said, sighing and setting her teeth firmly.
“Why?”
“Because a greater and more insurmountable obstacle than our difference of race and creed preventeth it.”
“But tell me what it is?” I demanded.
“Isbir showhyyah,” (“Have patience a little”), she replied. “Though I may love thee, my Amîn, thou canst never be my husband. I am as much a captive as any of my slaves, and, alas! far, far more unhappy than they.”
Why did she have slaves? I wondered. Slavery in Algeria had, I knew, been abolished since the overthrow of the Dey, although in the far south, beyond the Areg, the tribes still held many in bondage.
“Unhappy?” I cried. “What is the cause of thy misery? Art thou thyself a slave, or – or art thou wedded?”
She started, staring at me with a strange expression.
“I – I love thee!” she stammered. “Is not that sufficient? If I wish at present to conceal certain facts, why dost thou desire me to tell lies to thee? To my woman Messoudia thou didst take oath to seek no further information beyond what I give thee.”
“True, O Zoraida,” I said. “Forgive me. Yet the mystery that surroundeth thyself is so puzzling.”
“I know,” she said, with a tantalising laugh. “But when a woman loves, it is imprudent of her to compromise herself;” and she beat an impatient tattoo with her fingers, with their henna-stained nails, upon a derbouka lying within her reach.
I did not reply. I was engrossed in thought. All that she had said made it plainer to me that she was the wife of Hadj Absalam.
She watched me in silence. Then, with a sudden impetuousness, she sprang from her divan, and, standing up, flung her arms about my neck, kissing me passionately. The silk of her serroual rustled, her bangles jingled, and in her quick movement she lost her remaining slipper, and stood barefooted, a veritable Queen of the Harem, a houri of Paradise.
“Hark!” she whispered, starting in alarm as we stood locked in each other’s arms, while I rained kisses upon her fair face. “Hark!” she cried. “Listen! What was that?”
I held my breath, but could detect nothing.
“My foolish fancy, I suppose,” she added, a few moments later, after she had strained her ears to again catch the sounds that had alarmed her. “Think! If we were betrayed! It would mean torture and death!” she said hoarsely, and, disengaging herself from my arms, she walked quickly over to the opposite wall, and, drawing aside a heavy curtain, reassured herself that a door it concealed was securely bolted.
Returning, she flung herself upon her divan among her cushions and motioned me to a seat beside her. Then, taking from the little mother-of-pearl stool a box of embossed gold filled with cigarettes, she offered me one, and, lighting one herself, reclined with her head thrown back gazing up to me.
“We are more than friends, Ce-cil,” she said presently, thoughtfully watching the smoke that curled upward from her rosy lips. “I only wish it were possible that I could leave