Abruptly then he turned away, and by a gesture he ordered Ali to return the slave to her place among the others. Leaning on the arm of Tsamanni he took some steps towards the entrance, then halted, and turned again to Fenzileh:
“To thy litter,” he bade her peremptorily, rebuking her thus before all, “and get thee to the house as becomes a seemly Muslim woman. Nor ever again let thyself be seen roving the public places afoot.”
She obeyed him instantly, without a murmur; and he himself lingered at the gates with Tsamanni until her litter had passed out, escorted by Ayoub and Marzak walking each on one side of it and neither daring to meet the angry eye of the Basha.
Asad looked sourly after that litter, a sneer on his heavy lips.
“As her beauty wanes so her presumption waxes,” he growled. “She is growing old, Tsamanni — old and lean and shrewish, and no fit mate for a Member of the Prophet’s House. It were perhaps a pleasing thing in the sight of Allah that we replaced her.” And then, referring obviously to that other one, his eye turning towards the penthouse the curtains of which were drawn again, he changed his tone.
“Didst thou mark, O Tsamanni, with what a grace she moved? — lithely and nobly as a young gazelle. Verily, so much beauty was never created by the All-Wise to be cast into the Pit.”
“May it not have been sent to comfort some True-Believer?” wondered the subtle wazeer. “To Allah all things are possible.”
“Why else, indeed?” said Asad. “It was written; and even as none may obtain what is not written, so none may avoid what is. I am resolved. Stay thou here, Tsamanni. Remain for the outcry and purchase her. She shall be taught the True Faith. She shall be saved from the furnace.” The command had come, the thing that Tsamanni had so ardently desired.
He licked his lips. “And the price, my lord?” he asked, in a small voice.
“Price?” quoth Asad. “Have I not bid thee purchase her? Bring her to me, though her price be a thousand philips.”
“A thousand philips!” echoed Tsamanni amazed. “Allah is great!”
But already Asad had left his side and passed out under the arched gateay, where the grovelling anew at the sight of him.
It was a fine thing for Asad to bid him remain for the sale. But the dalal would part with no slave until the money was forthcoming, and Tsamanni had no considerable sum upon his person. Therefore in the wake of his master he set out forthwith to the Kasbah. It wanted still an hour before the sale would be held and he had time and to spare in which to go and return.
It happened, however, that Tsamanni was malicious, and that the hatred of Fenzileh which so long he had consumed in silence and dissembled under fawning smiles and profound salaams included also her servants. There was none in all the world of whom he entertained a greater contempt than her sleek and greasy eunuch Ayoub-el-Samin of the majestic, rolling gait and fat, supercilious lips.
It was written, too, that in the courtyard of the Kasbah he should stumble upon Ayoub, who indeed had by his mistress’s commands been set to watch for the wazeer. The fat fellow rolled forward, his hands supporting his paunch, his little eyes agleam.
“Allah increase thy health, Tsamanni,” was his courteous greeting. “Thou bearest news?”
“News? What news?” quoth Tsamanni. “In truth none that will gladden thy mistress.”
“Merciful Allah! What now? Doth it concern that Frankish slave-girl?”
Tsamanni smiled, a thing that angered Ayoub, who felt that the ground he trod was becoming insecure; it followed that if his mistress fell from influence he fell with her, and became as the dust upon Tsamanni’s slippers.
“By the Koran thou tremblest, Ayoub!” Tsamanni mocked him. “Thy soft fat is all a-quivering; and well it may, for thy days are numbered, O father of nothing.”
“Dost deride me, dog?” came the other’s voice, shrill now with anger.
“Callest me dog? Thou?” Deliberately Tsamanni spat upon his shadow. “Go tell thy mistress that I am bidden by my lord to buy the Frankish girl. Tell her that my lord will take her to wife, even as he took Fenzileh, that he may lead her into the True Belief and cheat Shaitan of so fair a jewel. Add that I am bidden to buy her though she cost my lord a thousand philips. Bear her that message, O father of wind, and may Allah increase thy paunch!” And he was gone, lithe, active, and mocking.
“May thy sons perish and thy daughters become harlots,” roared the eunuch, maddened at once by this evil news and the insult with which it was accompanied.
But Tsamanni only laughed, as he answered him over his shoulder —
“May thy sons be sultans all, Ayoub!”
Quivering still with a rage that entirely obliterated his alarm at what he had learnt, Ayoub rolled into the presence of his mistress with that evil message.
She listened to him in a dumb white fury. Then she fell to reviling her lord and the slave-girl in a breath, and called upon Allah to break their bones and blacken their faces and rot their flesh with all the fervour of one born and bred in the True Faith. When she recovered from that burst of fury it was to sit brooding awhile. At length she sprang up and bade Ayoub see that none lurked to listen about the doorways.
“We must act, Ayoub, and act swiftly, or I am destroyed and with me will be destroyed Marzak, who alone could not stand against his father’s face. Sakr-el-Bahr will trample us into the dust.” She checked on a sudden thought. “By Allah it may have been a part of his design to have brought hither that white-faced wench. But we must thwart him and we must thwart Asad, or thou art ruined too, Ayoub.”
“Thwart him?” quoth her wazeer, gaping at the swift energy of mind and body with which this woman was endowed, the like of which he had never seen in any woman yet. “Thwart him?” he repeated.
“First, Ayoub, to place this Frankish girl beyond his reach.”
“That is well thought — but how?”
“How? Can thy wit suggest no way? Hast thou wits at all in that fat head of thine? Thou shalt outbid Tsamanni, or, better still, set someone else to do it for thee, and so buy the girl for me. Then we’ll contrive that she shall vanish quietly and quickly before Asad can discover a trace of her.”
His face blanched, and the wattles about his jaws were shaking. “And... and the cost? Hast thou counted the cost, O Fenzileh? What will happen when Asad gains knowledge of this thing?”
“He shall gain no knowledge of it,” she answered him. “Or if he does, the girl being gone beyond recall, he shall submit him to what was written. Trust me to know how to bring him to it.”
“Lady, lady!” he cried, and wrung his bunches of fat fingers. “I dare not engage in this!”
“Engage in what? If I bid thee go buy this girl, and give thee the money thou’lt require, what else concerns thee, dog? What else is to be done, a man shall do. Come now, thou shalt have the money, all I have, which is a matter of some fifteen hundred philips, and what is not laid out upon this purchase thou shalt retain for thyself.”
He considered an instant, and conceived that she was right. None could blame him for executing the commands she gave him. And there would be profit in it, clearly — ay, and it would be sweet to outbid that dog Tsamanni and send him empty-handed home to face the wrath of his frustrated master. He spread his hands and salaamed in token of complete acquiescence.
CHAPTER X. THE SLAVE-MARKET
At the sôk-el-Abeed it was the hour of the outcry, announced by a blast of trumpets and the thudding of tom-toms. The traders that until then had been licensed to ply within the enclosure now put up the shutters of their little booths. The Hebrew pedlar of gems closed his box and effaced himself, leaving the steps about the well clear for the most prominent patrons of the market. These hastened to assemble there, surrounding it and facing outwards, whilst the rest of the crowd was ranged against the southern and western walls of the enclosure.
Came negro water-carriers in white turbans with aspersers made of palmetto leaves to sprinkle the ground and lay the dust against the t
ramp of slaves and buyers. The trumpets ceased for an instant, then wound a fresh imperious blast and fell permanently silent. The crowd about the gates fell back to right and left, and very slowly and stately three tall dalals, dressed from head to foot in white and with immaculate turbans wound about their heads, advanced into the open space. They came to a halt at the western end of the long wall, the chief dalal standing slightly in advance of the other two.
The chattering of voices sank upon their advent, it became a hissing whisper, then a faint drone like that of bees, and then utter silence. In the solemn and grave demeanour of the dalals there was something almost sacerdotal, so that when that silence fell upon the crowd the affair took on the aspect of a sacrament.
The chief dalal stood forward a moment as if in an abstraction with downcast eyes; then with hands outstretched to catch a blessing he raised his voice and began to pray in a monotonous chant:
“In the name of Allah the Pitying the Pitiful Who created man from clots of blood! All that is in the Heavens and in the Earth praiseth Allah, Who is the Mighty, the Wise! His the kingdom of the Heavens and of the Earth. He maketh alive and killeth, and He hath power over all things. He is the first and the last, the seen and the unseen, and He knoweth all things.”
“Ameen,” intoned the crowd.
“The praise to Him who sent us Mahomet His Prophet to give the world the True Belief, and curses upon Shaitan the stoned who wages war upon Allah and His children.”
“Ameen.”
“The blessings of Allah and our Lord Mahomet upon this market and upon all who may buy and sell herein, and may Allah increase their wealth and grant them length of days in which to praise Him.”
“Ameen,” replied the crowd, as with a stir and rustle the close ranks relaxed from the tense attitude of prayer, and each man sought elbow-room.
The dalal beat his hands together, whereupon the curtains were drawn aside and the huddled slaves displayed — some three hundred in all, occupying three several pens.
In the front rank of the middle pen — the one containing Rosamund and Lionel — stood a couple of stalwart young Nubians, sleek and muscular, who looked on with completest indifference, no whit appalled by the fate which had haled them thither. They caught the eye of the dalal, and although the usual course was for a buyer to indicate a slave he was prepared to purchase, yet to the end that good beginning should be promptly made, the dalal himself pointed out that stalwart pair to the corsairs who stood on guard. In compliance the two negroes were brought forth.
“Here is a noble twain,” the dalal announced, “strong of muscle and long of limb, as all may see, whom it were a shameful thing to separate. Who needs such a pair for strong labour let him say what he will give.” He set out on a slow circuit of the well, the corsairs urging the two slaves to follow him that all buyers might see and inspect them.
In the foremost ranks of the crowd near the gate stood Ali, sent thither by Othmani to purchase a score of stout fellows required to make up the contingent of the galeasse of Sakr-el-Bahr. He had been strictly enjoined to buy naught but the stoutest stuff the market could afford — with one exception. Aboard that galeasse they wanted no weaklings who would trouble the boatswain with their swoonings. Ali announced his business forthwith.
“I need such tall fellows for the oars of Sakr-el-Bahr,” said he with loud importance, thus drawing upon himself the eyes of the assembly, and sunning himself in the admiring looks bestowed upon one of the officers of Oliver-Reis, one of the rovers who were the pride of Islam and a sword-edge to the infidel.
“They were born to toil nobly at the oar, O Ali-Reis,” replied the dalal in all solemnity. “What wilt thou give for them?”
“Two hundred philips for the twain.”
The dalal paced solemnly on, the slaves following in his wake.
“Two hundred philips am I offered for a pair of the lustiest slaves that by the favour of Allah were ever brought into this market. Who will say fifty philips more?”
A portly Moor in a flowing blue selham rose from his seat on the step of the well as the dalal came abreast of him, and the slaves scenting here a buyer, and preferring any service to that of the galleys with which they were threatened, came each in turn to kiss his hands and fawn upon him, for all the world like dogs.
Calm and dignified he ran his hands over them feeling their muscles, and then forced back their lips and examined their teeth and mouths.
“Two hundred and twenty for the twain,” he said, and the dalal passed on with his wares, announcing the increased price he had been offered.
Thus he completed the circuit and came to stand once more before Ali.
“Two hundred and twenty is now the price, O Ali! By the Koran, they are worth three hundred at the least. Wilt say three hundred?”
“Two hundred and thirty,” was the answer.
Back to the Moor went the dalal. “Two hundred and thirty I am now offered, O Hamet. Thou wilt give another twenty?”
“Not I, by Allah!” said Hamet, and resumed his seat. “Let him have them.”
“Another ten philips?” pleaded the dalal.
“Not another asper.”
“They are thine, then, O Ali, for two hundred and thirty. Give thanks to Allah for so good a bargain.”
The Nubians were surrendered to Ali’s followers, whilst the dalal’s two assistants advanced to settle accounts with the corsair.
“Wait wait,” said he, “is not the name of Sakr-el-Bahr good warranty?”
“The inviolable law is that the purchase money be paid ere a slave leaves the market, O valiant Ali.”
“It shall be observed,” was the impatient answer, “and I will so pay before they leave. But I want others yet, and we will make one account an it please thee. That fellow yonder now. I have orders to buy him for my captain.” And he indicated Lionel, who stood at Rosamund’s side, the very incarnation of woefulness and debility.
Contemptuous surprise flickered an instant in the eyes of the dalal. But this he made haste to dissemble.
“Bring forth that yellow-haired infidel,” he commanded.
The corsairs laid hands on Lionel. He made a vain attempt to struggle, but it was observed that the woman leaned over to him and said something quickly, whereupon his struggles ceased and he suffered himself to be dragged limply forth into the full view of all the market.
“Dost want him for the oar, Ali?” cried Ayoub-el-Samin across the quadrangle, a jest this that evoked a general laugh.
“What else?” quoth Ali. “He should be cheap at least.”
“Cheap?” quoth the dalal in an affectation of surprise. “Nay, now. ’Tis a comely fellow and a young one. What wilt thou give, now? a hundred philips?”
“A hundred philips!” cried Ali derisively. “A hundred philips for that skinful of bones! Ma’sh’-Allah! Five philips is my price, O dalal.”
Again laughter crackled through the mob. But the dalal stiffened with increasing dignity. Some of that laughter seemed to touch himself, and he was not a person to be made the butt of mirth.
“’Tis a jest, my master,” said he, with a forgiving yet contemptuous wave. “Behold how sound he is.” He signed to one of the corsairs, and Lionel’s doublet was slit from neck to girdle and wrenched away from his body, leaving him naked to the waist, and displaying better proportions than might have been expected. In a passion at that indignity Lionel writhed in the grip of his guards, until one of the corsairs struck him a light blow with a whip in earnest of what to expect if he continued to be troublesome. “Consider him now,” said the dalal, pointing to that white torso. “And behold how sound he is. See how excellent are his teeth.” He seized Lionel’s head and forced the jaws apart.
“Ay,” said Ali, “but consider me those lean shanks and that woman’s arm.”
“’Tis a fault the oar will mend,” the dalal insisted.
“You filthy blackamoors!” burst from Lionel in a sob of rage.
“He is muttering curses in
his infidel tongue,” said Ali. “His temper is none too good, you see. I have said five philips. I’ll say no more.”
With a shrug the dalal began his circuit of the well, the corsairs thrusting Lionel after him. Here one rose to handle him, there another, but none seemed disposed to purchase.
“Five philips is the foolish price offered me for this fine young Frank,” cried the dalal. “Will no True-Believer pay ten for such a slave? Wilt not thou, O Ayoub? Thou, Hamet — ten philips?”
But one after another those to whom he was offered shook their heads. The haggardness of Lionel’s face was too unprepossessing. They had seen slaves with that look before, and experience told them that no good was ever to be done with such fellows. Moreover, though shapely, his muscles were too slight, his flesh looked too soft and tender. Of what use a slave who must be hardened and nourished into strength, and who might very well die in the process? Even at five philips he would be dear. So the disgusted dalal came back to Ali.
“He is thine, then, for five philips — Allah pardon thy avarice.”
Ali grinned, and his men seized upon Lionel and bore him off into the background to join the two negroes previously purchased.
And then, before Ali could bid for another of the slaves he desired to acquire, a tall, elderly Jew, dressed in black doublet and hose like a Castilian gentleman, with a ruffle at his neck, a plumed bonnet on his grey locks, and a serviceable dagger hanging from his girdle of hammered gold, had claimed the attention of the dalal.
In the pen that held the captives of the lesser raids conducted by Biskaine sat an Andalusian girl of perhaps some twenty years, of a beauty entirely Spanish.
Her face was of the warm pallor of ivory, her massed hair of an ebony black, her eyebrows were finely pencilled, and her eyes of deepest and softest brown. She was dressed in the becoming garb of the Castilian peasant, the folded kerchief of red and yellow above her bodice leaving bare the glories of her neck. She was very pale, and her eyes were wild in their look, but this detracted nothing from her beauty.
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 293