The Eye of Istar Part 4

THE BLACK EUNUCH.

Azala, with blanched face and clasped hands uplifted in supplication, sank upon her knees before the gigantic Chief of the Black Eunuchs, whom she addressed as Khazneh, beseeching him with arguments, persuasive, forcible and pa.s.sionate, to spare my life.

"All blame be upon my head!" she cried, in earnest appeal. "He fell wounded at the fight of Sabo-n-Gari, and I tended him and brought him hither. Spare him! Let not the keen arrow of sorrow enter the soul of the daughter of thy Master, the Sultan."

"Thy servant hath already received his orders," the high and potent official replied with imperturbable coolness, resting his hand on the bejewelled hilt of his great scimitar, looking down at her upturned and agitated countenance.

"From whom?"

"From my Imperial Master, thine august father."

"May the curse of Eblis rest upon our betrayer!" she cried, with a quick setting of her mouth. "The stranger hath done no harm, but by me, it seemeth, he hath been brought unto his doom."

"He is thy lover. Thou wert suspected two days ago," the eunuch answered gruffly, standing statuesque and immovable while my captors held me, apparently reluctant to move, because they desired to overhear the argument between the beautiful Azala and their master.

"I deny thine accusation," she replied, rising to her feet quite calmly.

"Thou, Khazneh, who art powerful here in the harem, shall learn a lesson in politeness thou wilt not easily forget. Lies and insults may fall from thy lips, but they neither injure nor distress the daughter of thy Master, 'Othman."

"Silence, woman!" he cried fiercely, shaking his fat fist in the face of the trembling, indignant girl, and showing his white teeth. "Thinkest thou that thou canst save a man whom thou bringest unto thine apartment in secrecy, dressed in woman's garments?"

"If thou darest remove him hence I will appeal in person unto my father."

"Already his Majesty hath full knowledge of this affair," the great negro eunuch answered, treating her threat with calm indifference. "By his order a watch hath been placed upon thee. We saw the accursed son of offal caress and kiss thee."

"May Allah cut out thy heart! Am I a slave, that spies should be set to report upon my doings?" she asked, her eyes flashing with indignation.

Then, turning to the negroes who held me in iron grip, she said, "I, Azala Fathma, Princess of Sokoto, order ye to release him."

"And I, Khazneh, Aga of the Eunuchs, order ye to remove him hence. He is a Dervish from Omdurman, a traitor, and an enemy of thy Sultan. Away with him!" cried the black-faced man with big, blood-shot eyes. His gaze was ever on Azala, unless it were fixed on me with a sullen gleam of hate.

But she rushed across to the heavy silken curtain that hid the secret door, and, standing boldly before it, uplifted her long, white arm, and pointing to the towering eunuch, cried,--

"Zafar-Ben-A'Ziz, whom I have long known by report, is not an enemy, but a firm friend of his Majesty, whose despicable slave thou art.

Therefore I forbid thee to lay hands upon him. Even though thou findest him here in the place forbidden; nevertheless, I, as Princess of Sokoto, claim for him the protection of the Sultan."

In silence, unable to extricate myself, I stood while my fate was thus discussed. A spasm wrenched my soul--one of those agonies which leave their trace, mental or physical, forever.

"Knowest thou not the punishment meted out to those who dare to pa.s.s the Janissaries and tread the sacred courts of the harem?" asked the Aga, impatiently.

"The punishment is death," she answered. Her thin nostrils palpitated.

She crushed her finger-nails against the jewels on her bosom. "But if Zafar, my friend, suffereth the penalty, I warn thee that thine head shall be struck off and thy body be given to the dogs as offal before the going down of the sun."

"Be it so," laughed the hulking brute, insolently, his fingers playing with the long, keen _jambiyah_ in his belt. Then, turning to my captors, he said, "Come, away with him quickly."

Next second the hangings were raised, disclosing an open door, through which I was unceremoniously hurried, and as I was dragged out into the dark, inter-mural pa.s.sage, I heard the Aga of the Eunuchs exclaim tauntingly,--

"Seek his Majesty if thou wilt, but I may tell thee that he set out for Katsena at sunrise, and ere his return thy lover's bones will lie bleaching in the sun."

"Farewell, Azala," I shouted. "Be thou of good cheer. Remember that in my heart the tree of affection hath struck root. I am thy friend always--always--even though our enemies may thus part us."

"We will never part," she cried, rushing across to me; but the Aga, catching her roughly by the arm, dragged her away by sheer brute force.

"Whither he goeth there also will I go," she gasped, struggling to elude his grasp, overturning one of the little mother-of-pearl coffee stools in her frantic efforts to reach and embrace me.

"Tarry no longer," cried Khazneh, in anger, addressing my captors. "Let the Sultan's will be obeyed."

"Farewell, Azala! Farewell," I cried, paralysed with fury as I saw her bow her head upon her arms and weep.

But she answered not, for, as I was dragged fiercely from her sight, I saw her struggling with the chief eunuch, endeavouring to follow us.

With brutal disregard of her s.e.x, the big, gaudily-attired brute had seized her by the throat. Her dress was torn, her hair dishevelled, and her jewels lay scattered and trodden under foot. Suddenly a scream sounded, dull and m.u.f.fled, and, just as I was dragged away into the dark pa.s.sage, I witnessed the woman who had entranced me hurled backward. I saw her reel, stagger, and fall senseless upon her divan.

The grinning negroes who held me laughed aloud, and hurried me along the short, close pa.s.sage, and down flight after flight of broken, time-worn steps, while Khazneh, closing the small, heavy door, barred and bolted it securely. Then he followed us, biting his finger-nails in deep thought. Whither they were conducting me I knew not, neither did I care. Azala and I had, by the treachery of some unknown slave, been torn asunder, perhaps never again to meet. Only death would, I knew, expiate the crime of being found in disguise in the Sultan's harem, and towards the bourne whence none return was I being conveyed.

My antic.i.p.ations of immediate death were not, however, realised. Deep down into the foundations of the ancient palace the eunuchs conducted me, along a labyrinth of gloomy pa.s.sages that showed the great extent of the Fada, until we came to a long, subterranean corridor where, on entering, I saw, behind iron bars, the lean, emaciated figure of a man, haggard, unkempt, with the gleam of madness in his eyes. Shaking the bars wildly with the strength of a wild beast, he cried as we pa.s.sed,--

"Strangers! Have compa.s.sion. Have pity. In the name of Allah, who both heareth and knoweth, remove these fetters which for fourteen long years have held me captive."

"_Na'al abuk_!" (Curse thy father) growled Khazneh, lifting his trailing scimitar in its scabbard and striking the wretched prisoner a heavy blow as he pa.s.sed. But the man tearing at the bars shrieked and howled in his madness,--

"May the venom of vipers consume thy vitals, and may the kisses of thy women poison thee, thou black-faced son of offal! I recognise thee, thou fiend. Thou art the Aga of the Eunuchs; the incarnation of Eblis himself. May thy body be cast upon a dungheap and thy soul be delivered unto the tortures of Al-Hawiyat!"

Leaving the wretched man hurling his horrible imprecations, we pa.s.sed onward along the dark corridor of filthy dens, each protected with strong bars of iron, several being occupied by men, lean, wild-haired and half-clad, who looked more like animals than human beings crouching on their heaps of dirty, mouldy straw. No sunlight ever penetrated there, and the only air or light admitted entered between the crevices of the ma.s.sive paving stones of the court above. The walls of this Dantean dungeon were black with damp and age, the floor was encrusted with all kinds of filth, and the air was hot, foetid, and so overpowering that Khazneh himself was compelled to take the corner of his silken robe and hold it to his nostrils.

At length, however, on arrival at the further end of the pa.s.sage, a small door with an iron grating swung open and I was thrust in and there left, the door being immediately closed and secured. In the almost impenetrable darkness I could distinguish nothing, but when I heard the footsteps of my captors receding, my heart sank within me. Noises sounded weirdly in the cavernous blackness; the groans, curses and prayers of my fellow-prisoners. Who were these emaciated, half-starved wretches? What, I wondered, had been their crimes?

CHAPTER SIX.

RAGE AND REMORSE.

With my feet upon the heap of dirty, evil-smelling straw, I stood hesitating how to act. Of the size or character of my cell I knew nothing; therefore, after reviewing the situation as calmly as I could, I started to feel the walls and ascertain their exact proportions. The place, I found, was small, horribly small. Its height was only just sufficient to allow me to stand upright, while it was not long enough to allow me to lie down except in a crouching, uncomfortable position, its breadth being just two paces.

When, after making myself acquainted with these details, I stood reflecting upon my position, I heard a slight movement in the straw at my feet, and as I bent to ascertain the cause my hand came into contact with the chill, smooth body of a large snake which I had evidently disturbed.

Its contact thrilled me. I drew my hand away in horror, springing back towards the wall, expecting each moment to feel my leg bitten.

Straining my eyes into the darkness I did my utmost to discover the whereabouts of the reptile, believing that if it had its bead-like eyes fixed upon me I could detect their brightness. But though I heard a slow rustling among the straw, my enemy seemed in no mood for attack, and I waited motionless, not daring to stir. To be doomed to live and sleep in company of a snake was certainly one of the most hideous tortures to which a man could be subjected, and was a refinement of cruelty equal to any of the revolting barbarities I had witnessed while serving under the standards of the Mahdi and the Khalifa. But the hours dragged on, and although my fellow occupant of the cell remained silent, apparently content, the dungeon itself was weirdly horrible. The cries of my fellow captives, some of whom were perfectly sane and others palpably mad from torture and long confinement, resounded through the place with startling suddenness, and I could hear those whose minds were unhinged gnashing their teeth and beating their bars in vain, frantic effort to obtain release.

With these horrors about me, the whole of my past seamed to flit through my mind--a panorama of wild free life and exciting adventure. My sudden unconsciousness after my fall at the well of Sabo-n-Gari, my strange awakening, and the vision of incomparable beauty that had risen before my wondering, fevered eyes, all recurred to me in hazy indistinctness, like some weird, half-remembered dream. But the pale, anxious face of Azala, who had fought so hard to save me falling into the merciless clutches of my pitiless captors, came before me--vivid, distinct, entrancing. Her every feature was engraven indelibly upon my memory, and her voice seemed to repeat in soft, musical Arabic those strange, mysterious words that had thrilled and entranced me.

She trusted me, she had said. Would she, I wondered, be successful in releasing me from this horribly maddening captivity? That she would use every endeavour of which she was capable I was confident; nevertheless, I knew well the enormity of my crime, and feared that even her earnest words would not soften the flint heart of the relentless Sultan 'Othman, whose every whim was law within his own extensive kingdom.

Well I knew the manner of living of this dreaded ruler of the Western Soudan. He formed the etiquette of his brilliant court upon that of the Khalifa's, keeping himself strictly invisible to the vulgar gaze. He seldom exposed himself to perish of the evil eye. It was he who compelled the women throughout his empire to lead the life of the Eastern harem, and forbade that any (married or single) should show themselves unveiled, making his own family set the example. People approaching the Sultan in audience covered their heads with dust: he never spoke directly to a.s.semblies nor to the people, but always dealt with them through the medium of a herald. Upon the occasions of his going out, his _cortege_ was preceded by musicians, drums, and trumpets, and he rode in solitary state, with his suite at a respectable distance behind. Servants marched surrounding his horse, and holding by turns to his saddle; they were called foot companions, and their head-man was the "master of the road." Only one drum was allowed to precede them, and musicians kept silent when in sight of a town in which the Sultan was residing.

She had spoken of strange marvels, of hidden mysteries that require elucidation, of perils, and of her own misery. Why had unhappiness consumed her? Why, indeed, had she concealed so much from me? For hours I pondered over the veiled words she had uttered, seeking in them some explanation, but finding none.

Then I remembered the hideous blemish upon her fair breast--that mystic mark exactly identical with mine. What, I wondered, could these entwined asps denote? The words of my dead mother rang in my ears: "Seek not to discover its significance until thou meetest with its exact counterpart. Then strive night and day to learn the truth, for, if thou canst elucidate the mystery, thine ears will listen unto strange things, and thine eyes behold wondrous marvels."

Upon the breast of Azala, the Princess, I had discovered that which I had sought throughout my eventful life, yet even in that moment evil fortune had befallen me, and now, instead of being free to strive towards solving the enigma, I was held captive in that dismal, evil-smelling dungeon, under sentence of death.

Days dragged by--dull, dismal, dispiriting. Suffering the anguish of separation and lost happiness, my whole life seemed wounded. In the dark, damp cell, surrounded by a thousand horrors, oppressed by a thousand vague regrets and bitter thoughts, I awaited the end. Indeed, as the long hours slowly pa.s.sed, it surprised me that my captors did not drag me forth to die. Once a day three negro guards, heavily armed, appeared and cast to us a little _dodowa_, or kind of cake made of vegetables, with as little ceremony as if they were giving food to dogs, while a slave filled our earthen vessel with water; but we had no exercise, and were compelled to remain behind our bars like animals entrapped.