'I cannot now,' Roger said gently. ' But what then? '
She stifled a sob and.went on, ' Being carried off by you again re-aroused my passions. I could not stop thinking of that night in ben-Jussif's house. I wanted you to take me again, to possess me utterly. But I would not show it. I am by nature proud. The very thought that I should wish to give myself to a man who wanted me as nothing more than a concubine degraded me in my own eyes. After what had passed between us I would have died of humiliation had I been weak enough to give you the least sign of encouragement. But there came the morning of your return. You were placed under arrest by that Colonel Duroc. Before you left the house you said to me that, whatever your punishment, you would do the same again for an hour in my company. I knew then that it could not be only as a plaything that you thought of me. It came as a revelation that you must really love me. I felt a dizziness, and my heart melted within me.'
' Had I but known, nothing would have induced me to leave Egypt.'
Zanthe raised her head and said in surprise, '1 did not know you had. Have you been far? '
He nodded. ' Yes. General Bonaparte sent me on a mission. It necessitated a long voyage. It was soon after landing, on the night of my return, that Djezzar's men captured me.'
Again she lowered her head and began to sob. ' And then . . . and then I saw you there in the courtyard. You were in different clothes, you hair disordered and in a terrible state. I did not recognize you until you spoke. Oh, Allah be praised that you cried out to Djezzar when you did. Had you not, you would have been impaled before my very eyes. My heart came up into my mouth. I nearly fainted . . .'
' But, brave girl that you are, you didn't. You kept your head and saved me.'
'1 know; but at what a price.'
'1 pray you, forget that. It is all over now. At least . . Roger added, with sudden uneasiness, '1 hope so.'
'Yes; yes. You have nothing more to fear. That is, provided it is not discovered that you have not been made a eunuch.'
' Am I then supposed to have been? '
' Of course; otherwise I could not have kept you in my private apartments. The horrid business is supposed to have taken a week. By then that string they tied about you would have done its work, had not my faithful Gezubb come up here and cut it off. A further week would be needed for your recovery; so it is expected that tomorrow you will come down and take up the duties I shall give you.' Again her tears began to flow as she added,' It is I who should be your slave, not you mine. And to begin with, I shall have to treat you harshly. For that I implore you not to hate me. I . . .'
Putting his hand gently over her mouth he checked her lamentations and said, ' Hush! I could never hate you. Use me as you will. Allot me the meanest tasks. The worse you treat me, the less likely it is that anyone will suspect the truth. A smile from your lovely eyes when no one is looking is ail the compensation I ask.'
Her tears had ceased and suddenly she gave a low laugh. '1 can come to you secretly at night, like this, and only old Gezubb will know of it. Then you can ask of me smiles, kisses, caresses and every pleasure imaginable. Tell me, my beloved one, are you now well again and all your poor wounds fully healed? '
He laughed in reply. '1 have never felt better, as I will show you if you wish.'
'If I wish! ' she echoed. 'How can you know the restraint I have put upon myself this past fortnight? For me to have come to you while you were still in pain could only have proved a terrible frustration for us both. At least for both had I found you willing to forgive me. My most awful fear was that you might not, and had you cast me aside I think I would have killed myself. But in more sanguine moments I imagined myself again lying in your arms. Night after night my heart has beat near to bursting-point at the thought of it. Allah alone knows the strength of my passion for you; and now . . . now that I can feel your hands upon me I have become a furnace of desire.'
Next moment their mouths met in a long, fierce kiss. Breathless, they drew apart and she stood up. With a swift movement she threw off her robe. Beneath it she had on only a voluminous pair of almost transparent Turkish trousers. Undoing her girdle she slid them down, stepped out of them and kicked off her sandals. While they had been talking the moon had risen and a beam of moonlight coming through the arrow-slit silvered her magnificent body as she stood beside him, naked. The light flickered in tiny blue sparks in the valley between her breasts and Roger exclaimed:
' Why, you are wearing the little diamond I procured for you.'
' Of course,' she laughed. ' It is my most treasured possession and I shall always wear it.'
He threw back the coverlet of the divan and pulled his shirt off over his head. As he did so she moved round to the foot of the divan, fell to her knees, took both his feet in her hands and began to kiss them.
Striving to pull them away, he cried, ' No, no, beloved, you must not do that. Come here this instant and let me take you in my arms.'
' Nay,' her low laugh came again. ' This is my rightful place. Did you not know that, when the Sultan sends for one of his women, they greet him by kissing his feet then, humbly conscious of the honour he does them, steal gently up upon him until they can kiss his chest? And you are my Sultan.'
'1 am also your slave/ he laughed back. ' Enough of that.' Then, sitting up, he stretched out his hands and drew her swiftly to him.
Later, lying side by side and still embraced, they talked in whispers. As he had supposed, her husband, like many Turks, had cared only for young boys. He had married her solely for the prestige that an alliance with the Imperial House would bring him and had had two other wives, but never slept with either of them. Instead he made his wives flog the boys with rods and birches and it was the performance of this cruel task that had made her hate him.
She had made up the story of her flight from Cairo. The truth was that, after the news of her husband's death had arrived, the guard of Janissaries left at the palace had deserted. Fearing that the palace would be attacked by the mob, she had decided to seek safety with the Viceroy and had urged the other two wives to accompany her. But they had been too frightened to face the streets without a proper guard. So she had set off on her own, accompanied only by her maid and one faithful manservant; on their way they had had the misfortune to be seized by the Sergeant.
She then told Roger that her mother had been a Mademoiselle Aimee Dubucq de Rivery, born in Martinique. In 1780 she had been sent to finish her education in France with the Dames de la Visitation in their Conent at Nantes. After some years there she was on her way home when the ship in which she was travelling nearly sank in a violent storm. The passengers were rescued by a Spanish trader which took them round into the Mediterranean. There the Spanish ship had been captured by Corsairs and everyone in her taken as prisoners to Algiers. When the Bey— Baba Mohammed ben Osman—had heard that among the prisoners there was a beautiful, golden-haired, blue-eyed French girl of noble birth, he had sent for her and at once decided that he would win high favour by sending her as an offering to his overlord, the Sultan.
On hearing this, Roger exclaimed, ' But this is amazing! I know your mother's story. She is a cousin of the Vicomtesse de Beauharnis, who is now Madame Bonaparte, and who was also born in Martinique. She is a friend of mine and told me once how, while still in her teens, she, your mother and a third young girl all went to an Irish sybil to have their fortunes told. It was predicted that both Madame Bonaparte and your mother would become the wives of great Sovereigns and that their children would become Kings and Queens.'
' In my mother's case,' Zanthe replied, ' the first part of the prediction came true. In the Sultan's harem there are always several hundred odalisques, each one picked for her looks; yet my mother was so lovely that they named her Naksh, which means '' the beautiful one ", and my father made her his favourite Kadine.'
' Since you must take after her, I don't wonder. She must also be a woman of great character to have survived the jealousy and intrigues of so many rivals.'
&n
bsp; 'She is; but she had the help of two powerful allies: Son Altesse Noire, a most intelligent Nubian who is Chief of the Black Eunuchs, and the Circassian Kadine, the widow of my father's predecessor Mustapha III. It is her son, my cousin Selim, who is the present Sultan and, as his mother, she wields great power. She is known as the Sultan Valideh—the head of all the veiled women of Islam. These two put my mother forward as a good influence to help sweep away many barbarous old customs and open the way for Turkey to receive the new scientific knowledge from the West. They hoped, too, that she might gain France's support for Turkey against our hereditary enemies, the Russians. It is owing to her that we now have many French officers in the Turkish Army.'
'What of the latter part of the prophecy?' Roger asked. ' Have you a brother who is likely to succeed the present Sultan? ' '1 have one brother, Mahmoud, but he is not the heir apparent. The Sultanate passes not from father to son, but to the eldest male member of the Osmali family. Mustapha, my father's eldest son by a Turkish Kadine, is the next in line. Only should he die will my brother ever come to the throne.'1
'1 wonder,' Roger mused, ' if the prophecy will come true for Madame Bonaparte. In Paris, a few years ago, when the General was almost unknown, another sybil named La Normande made a very similar prediction about her future. I think, though, that the General has a long way to go yet before he can make himself a King. Tell me, now, how is the siege going? '
'There was most furious fighting up to a few days ago,' Zanthe replied. ' But the garrison is holding its own; largely, I believe, owing to the help given by the English. It is said that the Admiral Sir Smith often comes ashore and says how the fighting should be conducted. He has, too, several able Lieutenants. There is a Colonel Phelippeaux who has mounted many cannon on our walls and a Captain Miller who commands the British gun teams that have been sent into the city to help in its defence. Even so, the French are making progress in the north-east quarter. I expect you heard that terrible rumbling a few days after you were put in this room. That was a part of the great tower tumbling down in ruins after the French exploded a mine under it, and since then they have held a small section of the outer wall."
For a few moments they fell silent, then instinctively they began to kiss and made love again. When their passion was temporarily spent Roger remarked:
' From the way in which Djezzar addressed you as '' my beautiful one" when he granted your request to spare my life, I imagined that, as you had become a widow, he had taken you as one of his wives.'
She shook her head. ' That he has lustful thoughts about me is
1 Historical note:
Aim6e Dubucq de Rivery's son, known as ' The Reformerbecame the Sultan Mahmoud II and reigned from 1808 to 1839.
true. His eyes devour me whenever he sees me, even at a distance. He sent his Chief Eunuch to me shortly after I arrived here, offering to divorce one of his wives and take me in her place. He is a most horrible man, so naturally I declined his offer.'
'Have you no fear that he may attempt to take you against your will? ' Roger asked anxiously.
She kissed him. ' You need have no fear of that, dear love. As I am the daughter of a Sultan he had to provide me with my own suite of apartments, and custom forbids him to enter them. Before the war it would have been a different matter. Then he was virtually an independent ruler and all Syria bowed the knee to him. Married or single, I would not have risked a visit to his city of Acre. But now he is dependent on the Turkish forces and the goodwill of the Porte to maintain himself against the French. It is the right of my cousin, the present Sultan, to give me again in marriage to whom he will, and he certainly would not give me to a Pasha who in the past has flouted his authority. For Djezzar to force me into marriage without my cousin's consent, or molest me, would mean risking his whole future. Being an ambitious man, you may be sure he will not do that.'
With her head on Roger's chest they dozed for a while, then she roused and began gently to caress him. For a few minutes he pretended to be asleep then, with a laugh of delight, crushed her to him. For a third time their mutual passion carried them to Paradise. Then with long, happy sighs, they lay still.
Soon afterwards the first flush of dawn showed through the arrow-slit window. With great reluctance Zanthe sat up and said that she must leave him, but before doing so she gave him most careful instructions to guide his behaviour during the coming day. After another score of lingering kisses and endearments they tore themselves apart.
A few hours later the old negress, Gezubb, roused him from a heavy sleep. With her she brought the garments and sandals of a eunuch. Having washed himself and put on the clothes, he accompanied her downstairs. Zanthe had told him that no one in the seraglio understood French and that he should pretend that he knew no Turkish or Arabic. He could not then be called on to answer awkward questions and, when he did have to appear to have picked up a few words of Turkish, he must try, as far as possible, to imitate the high, piping voices of the eunuchs.
The enormously fat Chief Eunuch was a lazy, normally good-tempered man. He showed no hostility to Roger and, by signs, set him to clear out the bird cages in the aviary. It was not a particularly unpleasant task and occupied him for most of the morning. But when he had finished, two other eunuchs cornered him, and, with cries of ' Christian dogset about him with their heavy, leather belts.
He knew that if he seriously injured either of them it would be certain to cause trouble and put Zanthe in a difficult situation; so he defended himself as best he could without striking out. Grimly he put up with quite a beating but, before it was over, by good luck, Zanthe came into the room.
Immediately they caught sight of her they stopped, but with her tawny eyes blazing she walked purposefully towards them. Seizing each of them by an ear, she smashed their faces one against the other with all her strength and, from his night's experience, Roger knew that her splendid limbs were as strong as those of many a man. As she continued to bash their heads together they set up a shrill yelling, which brought all the others running into the room.
Letting her victims go, Zanthe pointed at Roger then cried to the assembled group in tones of fury, 'The Roumi is not for you. He is here as my slave and plaything. Should any of you dare to lay a finger on him I'll have you bastinadoed.' Then, turning on Roger, she slapped him twice hard across the face.
That evening, as a further demonstration of her apparent feelings towards him, she made him turn somersaults in front of her divan. Each time his legs were in the air she jabbed a bamboo pole into his side, causing him to fall in a flurry of arms and legs on to the hard floor.
When she came to his room again at midnight she implored his pardon; but he assured her that none of his falls had hurt, and that such treatment was just what was needed to convince the eunuchs that tormenting him and making him a laughing stock for her women gave her pleasure.
Again they spent the greater part of the night giving free rein to their passionate delight in one another, or lying embraced in a blissful doze. Before she left him they devised other ways in which, without causing him any serious pain, she could appear to chastise and humiliate him.
For more than a month matters continued in much the same way, except that during the daytime Zanthe gradually relaxed her severity towards him. The unspoken excuse provided by her to the eunuchs for so doing was that no one else in the seraglio understood French, whereas Roger could read the books in that language which she had brought from Cairo in her baggage. In the morning he continued to clean out the cages in the aviary and later in the day spent hours reading aloud to her.
Night after night, after they had revelled together, she gave him such news of the siege as reached her. During April the French succeeded in bringing their trenches right up to the walls and exploding a number of mines under them. However, in the middle of that month their efforts against the city had been greatly reduced, owing to the approach of relieving forces. A body of troops, said to be commanded by General Junot, had been detached and
had inflicted a heavy defeat on a Turkish force near Nazareth. Then, a week later, Bonaparte was reported to have left his headquarters and to have gained a victory over the larger part of the Army of the Pasha of Damascus.
After that the French attacks had been resumed in full force and they had been greatly strengthened by the success of some ships from Alexandria in landing six heavy siege cannon near the foot of Mount Carmel. On the 25th two more towers had been brought down and most desperate fighting had followed. But the Mamelukes, Janissaries and British marines were holding, with desperate valour, the breaches that had been made in the crumbling walls.
Each day the sounds of the fighting grew nearer and, on May 1st, Djezzar's great fortress palace was attacked. Through the thunder of cannon and the rattle of musketry, the battle-cries and screams of the wounded could be clearly heard. The French broke into the palace garden, but were driven out by Djezzar's renowned Albanian guards. On the two succeeding days there was a lull, but on the 'th another tower was blown up by a mine and the French launched a most determined assault through this new breach they had made in the defences. There was fighting in the streets which went on for three days; but Sir Sidney Smith landed his sailors, armed with pikes and cutlasses. The British tars turned the tide of battle and, once again, the French were driven back.
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