LITMIR.BIZ

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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 pass 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 passage, 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 sex, 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 muffled, and, just as I was dragged away into the dark passage, 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 passage, 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 anticipations 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 passages 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 passed, —

      “Strangers! Have compassion. 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 passed. 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 passed 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 massive 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 passage, 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

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