“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 this land and go to thine. Ah! If thou couldst but know how dull and colourless is my life, how rapidly my doom approaches—how horrible it all is!”
“What is this strange destiny that the Fates have in store for thee?” I asked, mystified.
“Have I not already told thee that thy curiosity cannot be satisfied?”
“Yes. But I love thee,” I protested. “Surely I may know the character of any danger that threateneth?”
She shook her head, and, taking my hand, noticed upon my finger a plain gold signet ring that had belonged to my father. Slowly she drew it off and placed it upon her middle finger, saying, “I take this in remembrance of to-night.”
“But is there nothing I can do to avert this mysterious evil which thou apprehendest?” I asked.
She did not reply. With her face turned towards the painted ceiling, her dark, serious eyes gazed away into space. Her bare breast, with its profusion of pearls and diamonds, heaved and fell as she breathed, and the sweet odour of rose and geranium that pervaded her filled my nostrils with intoxicating fragrance.
“Why canst thou not escape from here?” I continued. “If danger threateneth, fly from it. I will assist thee. And is not Allah merciful? He giveth life and death.”
“Hákk,” she replied. “Yet to leave this place unobserved would be impossible. I have been able by a ruse to gain thine admittance here, but any attempt to leave would only result in my death.”
“Are not thy servants amenable to bribery?” I suggested.
“Alas! as they are my slaves, so are they my gaolers. They are charged with my safe custody, and if I eluded their vigilance, they would pay the penalty of their negligence with their lives. Ah! thou knowest not the more terrible of the tortures practised by my people. Thou knowest not the Ennitra. Soon I shall return again to the Ahaggar, and then the Great Desert and the Atlas will separate us. For me escape is impossible. Thou wilt go to thine own land ere many moons, and—and forget me!”
“Never!” I exclaimed, vehemently.
“Thou wilt marry one of thine own women who have no prejudices, and who may go unveiled, like those