They summoned the remainder of the crew. A daylong search of the little island, however, was without result. The natives knew nothing of the whereabouts of Morley and Thorway, and were queerly reticent even in avowing their ignorance. There was no place where the two men could have hidden themselves, granting that they had any reason for a procedure so peculiar. Svensen and his men gave it up. If they had been imaginative, it might have seemed to them that the archaeologists had vanished bodily into the past.
THE KISS OF ZORAIDA
With one backward look at the bowery suburbs of Damascus, and the street that was peopled only by the long, faint shadows of a crescent moon, Selim dropped from the high wall among the leafing almonds and flowering lilacs of Abdur Ali’s garden. The night was almost sultry; and the air was steeped with a distilled languor of voluptuous perfume. Even if he had been in some other garden, in another city, Selim could not have breathed that perfume without thinking of Zoraida, the young wife of Abdur Ali. Evening after evening, for the past fortnight, during her lord and master’s absence, she had met him among the lilacs; till he had grown to associate the very odor of her hair and the savor of her lips with their fragrance.
The garden was silent, except for a silver-lisping fountain; and no leaf or petal stirred in the balmy stillness. Abdur Ali had gone to Aleppo on urgent business and was not expected back for several more days; so the slightly tepid thrill of anticipation which Selim felt was untinged by any thought of danger. The whole affair, even from the beginning, had been as safe as that sort of thing could possibly be: Zoraida was Abdur Ali’s only wife, so there were no jealous women who might tattle to their common lord; and the servants and eunuchs of the household, like Zoraida herself, hated the severe and elderly jewel-merchant. It had been unnecessary even to bribe them into complaisance. Everything and everyone had helped to facilitate the amour. In fact, it was all too easy; and Selim was beginning to weary a little of this heavy-scented happiness and the over-sweet affection of Zoraida. Perhaps he would not come again after tonight, or tomorrow night…. There were other women, no less fair than the jeweler’s wife, whom he had not kissed so often… or had not kissed at all.
He stepped forward among the flower-burdened bushes. Was there a figure standing in the shadow, near the fountain? The figure was dim, and darkly muffled, but it must be Zoraida. She had never failed to meet him there, she was ever the first at their rendezvous. Sometimes she had taken him into the luxurious harem; and sometimes, on warm evenings like this, they had spent their long hours of passion beneath the stars, amid the lilacs and almonds.
As Selim approached, he wondered why she did not rush to meet him, as was her wont. Perhaps she had not yet seen him. He called softly: “Zoraida!”
The waiting figure emerged from the shadow. It was not Zoraida, but Abdur Ali. The faint moon-rays glinted on the dull iron barrel and bright silver frettings of a heavy pistol which the old merchant held in his hand.
“You wish to see Zoraida?” The tone was harsh, metallically bitter.
Selim, to say the least, was taken aback. It was all too plain that his affair with Zoraida had been discovered, and that Abdur Ali had returned from Aleppo before the appointed time to catch him in a trap. The predicament was more than disagreeable, for a young man who had thought to spend the evening with a much-enamored mistress. And Abdur Ali’s direct query was disconcerting. Selim was unable to think of an apt or judicious answer.
“Come, thou shalt see her.” Selim felt the jealous fury, but not the savage irony, that underlay the words. He was full of unpleasant premonitions, most of which concerned himself rather than Zoraida. He knew that he could not look for mercy from this austere and terrible old man; and the probabilities before him were such as to preclude more than a passing thought of what might have befallen, or would befall, Zoraida. Selim was something of an egoist; and he would hardly have claimed (except for the ear of Zoraida) that he was deeply in love. His self-solicitude, under the circumstances, was perhaps to be expected, even if not wholly to be admired.
Abdur Ali had covered Selim with the pistol. The young man realized uncomfortably that he himself was unarmed, except for his yataghan. Even as he was remembering this, two more figures came forward from amid the lilac-shadows. They were the eunuchs, Cassim and Mustafa, who guarded Abdur Ali’s harem, and whom the lovers had believed friendly to their intrigue. Each of the giant blacks was armed with a drawn scimitar. Mustafa stationed himself at Selim’s right hand and Cassim at his left. He could see the whites of their eyes as they watched him with impassable vigilance.
“Now,” said Abdur Ali, “you are about to enjoy the singular privilege of being admitted to my harem. This privilege, I believe, you have arrogated to yourself on certain former occasions, and without my knowledge. Tonight I shall grant it myself; though I doubt if there are many who would follow my example. Come: Zoraida is waiting for you, and you must not disappoint her, nor delay any longer. You are later than usual at the rendezvous, as I happen to know.”
With the blacks beside him, with Abdur Ali and the levelled pistol in his rear, Selim traversed the dim garden and entered the courtyard of the jewel-merchant’s house. It was like a journey in some evil dream; and nothing appeared wholly real to the young man. Even when he stood in the harem interior, by the soft light of Saracenic lamps of wrought brass, and saw the familiar divans with their deep-hued cushions and coverings, the rare Turkoman and Persian rugs, the taborets of Indian ebony freaked with precious metals and mother-of-pearl, he could not dispel his feeling of strange dubiety.
In his terror and bewilderment, amid the rich furnishings and somber splendor of the room, he did not see Zoraida for a moment. Abdur Ali perceived his confusion and pointed to one of the couches.
“Hast thou no greeting for Zoraida?” The low tone was indescribably sardonic and ferocious.
Zoraida, wearing the scanty harem costume of bright silks in which she was wont to receive her lover, was lying on the sullen crimson fabrics of the divan. She was very still, and seemed to be asleep. Her face was whiter than usual, though she had always been a little pale; and the soft, child-like features, with their hint of luxurious roundness, wore a vaguely troubled expression, with a touch of bitterness about the mouth. Selim approached her; but she did not stir.
“Speak to her,” snarled the old man. His eyes burned like two spots of slowly eating fire in the brown and crumpled parchment of his face.
Selim was unable to utter a word. He had begun to surmise the truth; and the situation overwhelmed him with a horrible despair.
“What? Thou hast no greeting for one who loved thee so dearly and so unwisely?” The words were like the dripping of some corrosive acid.
“What hast thou done to her?” said Selim after awhile. He could not look at Zoraida any longer; nor could he lift his eyes to meet those of Abdur Ali.
“What have I done? I have dealt with her very gently, all things considered. As thou seest, I have not marred in any wise the perfection of her beauty—there is no wound, and not even the mark of a blow, on her white body. I did not play the butcher and slay her with the sword, as others would have done. Was I not more than generous…to leave her thus…for thee? Her lips and bosom are still warm—though doubtless you will not find them so responsive as usual.”
Selim was not a coward, as men go; yet he gave an involuntary shudder.
“But… thou hast not told me.”